Joe Gores - Cons, Scams, and Grifts

“Get in!” he yelled.

He was away so fast the open passenger-side door slammed shut behind Milagrita on its own. Only where Geneva merged into Ocean Avenue did he look over at her. She had opened her jacket and removed her cap and shaken out her long black hair. Red letters on her black T-shirt said SUPPORT MENTAL HEALTH OR I’LL KILL YOU. Her eyes were very big, but her voice was strong.

“You had us meet way out here because you do not trust me.”

“I don’t trust nobody.”

“Then indeed I am sorry for you.”

“You gonna get in trouble being out this late?”

“I am almost nineteen,” she said proudly. “The phone number I gave you is an apartment I share with another girl. Esteban does not like it, but...” She shrugged. “Mi madre trusts me so he can do little about it.”

Almost nineteen. When he had nailed her in that Geneva Avenue motel room, he had thought she was sixteen, a juvie. It hadn’t bothered him: before Esteban’s attack, he had started to look at fourteen-, even thirteen-year-olds. Now he had been without a woman for so long he didn’t know what he’d like.

There was little traffic as they drove west on Ocean Avenue through a neighborhood of small businesses.

“Uh, I’m sorry what I did to you, Milagrita.”

It was the first time he could remember apologizing to anyone except in a sort of half-assed way to a giant iguana in Baja’s desert north of Cabo during the great Gypsy Cadillac hunt.

“It was wrong,” she agreed gravely, “but it is finished.”

“Not for your brother. He still has guys watching me.”

“Verdad,” she said seriously. “It is why I had to talk to you. When you came into the pizzeria today I meant what I said. He will try to kill you if he knows you have seen me.”

“I didn’t even know who you were!” Morales blurted out.

“I have always told Esteban that. After a time he saw you had no interest in any woman, so he was satisfied and would have given up. But one of Esteban’s amigos , Jorge, says I have been dishonored and that you must really pay for what you did.”

“Uh... do you... how do you feel about this Jorge guy?”

She was silent for a moment, her dark sleek head lowered.

“I hate him. Someday, because you have had me and he has not, he will try to take me the way you did, and make me keep silent about it afterward. But he feels you have challenged his machismo , so he wants you dead first. That is what I wanted to tell you. Esteban would give up, but Jorge, never.”

“Yeah, well, I ain’t so easy to kill.”

Big words for a cobarde , he thought. A man who hides behind closed blinds, and now hides behind a girl’s skirts. A girl he couldn’t protect from this Jorge even if he wanted to.

He asked, “Can you drive a car?”

“Cómo no?” The touch of pride was back in her voice.

“This one?”

She checked for auto trans, nodded. “ De vero . But why?”

“I’m working. I might need you as a driver.”

“What sort of work does one do at two in the morning?”

“I’m a repoman.”

They crossed 19th Avenue into Merced Manor. A long block north, beyond broad Sloat Boulevard, was Stern Grove where the free summer concerts were held. Morales had never been to one. He wondered if Milagrita had.

“What kind of car are you looking for?” she asked.

“Don’t know,” he grunted.

She giggled. Her teeth were small and very white in her brown face. When she laughed her whole face laughed. She was a pretty young woman about to plunge into beauty.

“What sort of repoman does not know what he has to repo?”

Morales handed her Giselle’s folded skip list from behind the visor. The Corvette and the Ferrari were lined out.

“It’ll be one of these other five cars. We start by finding Gellert Drive, just before Sunset, and go from there.”

They went by the broad flat-topped grassy mound of a Water Department reservoir built after the ’06 quake. The fog was in, out here near the ocean the night was cold and damp. They had not passed another car in either direction since crossing 19th.

“There! Ahead to the right!” Her voice was excited.

On this side of Ocean, Gellert was just a block long and the numbers were wrong. They recrossed Ocean and followed Gellert to the address, 492, that Trin had gotten from Carlos Feliu. It was a well-kept two-story salmon-colored house with green and white trim. A Jeepster was parked in the driveway.

“Maybe it is hidden in the garage,” Milagrita said.

By jumping up repeatedly, Morales could see through the glass along the top of the overhead door. Empty. Walking back toward his still-running car, he thought it would be a good trick on him if Milagrita drove off and left him. She didn’t.

“Nothing,” he said when he was back behind the wheel.

“So we have failed.”

We? Had that been real disappointment in her voice? He told her the story of the dealership raid and the salesman whom Trin thought had taken off with the demo he was driving.

“Es claro. He has no right to the car,” she agreed.

They drove a grid of two-block streets within walking distance of the residence address checking out every long shot they saw. It was nearly three-thirty and Milagrita was yawning by the time all the possibilities were exhausted.

“There’s a little pocket of streets over beyond Sunset where he might have hidden it,” Morales said doggedly.

He hadn’t realized how much he wanted to look good in front of Milagrita.

“Let’s go,” she said gamely.

One block beyond Sunset, Ocean hit a circular court called Country Club Drive. They cruised slowly. As they passed a remarkably ugly green and yellow San Francisco row house in the 400 block, Milagrita suddenly exclaimed aloud.

“Wait! Stop! Back up! There is one from your list!”

It was a black moisture-covered 1995 Acura NSX, obviously parked there for hours. Jesus, was he so tired he had missed it?

“It is truly worth sixty-two thousand dollars?”

“If it’s the one we want. They ain’t makin’ ’em anymore.”

He left the Accord running as he got out his flashlight and opened his door. They were scant yards from Skyline Boulevard; beyond that sprawled the San Francisco Zoo. Fog-laden ocean wind carried the wild mingled smells of the animals to them.

“Is this really it?” Milagrita demanded. She was like a ferret after a rabbit. He almost started to laugh at her.

“I think so. Lemme check the VIN.”

Yeah! Right number. He started working his filed-down skeleton keys on the door. The third one fit. In her excitement, Milagrita started yipping and jumping up and down. Then she started pounding Trin on the chest. Finally, she embraced him.

He opened the Acura’s door, started to get in. Lights went on in the second floor of the green and yellow house. A window went up over the inset garage. A voice yelled.

“Hey, you out there, I’m calling the police.”

Morales stepped back out, shouted at him, “This your car?”

“No, but—”

“Then shut the hell up and go back to bed.” To Milagrita he said, “Let’s get out of here — he’s gonna call the cops, so I’ll drive this one and you follow me to our office in the Accord. It’s Daniel Kearny Associates at 340 Eleventh Street.”

It was after 4:00 A.M. when they got to DKA. He wanted to send her home in a cab, but she wanted to see the whole process: notifying the police of the repo, removing and cataloging the personal property, making out the condition report, finally writing a field report that also noted time and mileage and expenses. Trin included $25 for a driver, which he solemnly offered and which she solemnly accepted.