Joe Gores - Cons, Scams, and Grifts

But Ken kept right on checking the neighborhood for info on what cars Roxborough drove. Early Saturday morning, he got to Discount Liquors on the old Bayshore just as the owner was unlocking his black steel thief-guard shutters.

“Hnood hnmornin,” said Ken to the guy’s back.

The big black man whirled around. “Kenny!” he exclaimed in a big booming bass voice, his ebony features aglow with delight.

In pre — Pac Bell Park days, Ken and Clarence Withers had parked cars for the Giants’ home games in a cheapo dirt lot across the street from Candlestick’s regular lot. They’d had some times together for sure, before Clarence got married and got religion during a single disastrous weekend.

“Hyna nrepomnan neow,” said Ken.

“A repoman?” Clarence went into a bout of high hee-heehee laughter. “Ain’t after my slick, is you, man?”

“Hncritn Gnroxbro.”

“Christian Roxborough? He buys his booze here.”

They went into the store and Clarence got down behind the counter with an X-Acto knife to open cases of Early Times. He handed the bottles up for Ken to shelve while they talked.

“Hngew hngow nhwha he’n hndrivin?” Ken asked.

“An old Mustang ragtop in beautiful condition. Maybe a sixty-five, sixty-six, in there.” He stopped, frowning, and shook his tight-curled head. “Ain’t seen it lately, though. Come to think of it, ain’t seen him lately. That cause of you?”

Ken nodded.

“I heard the man just got a job selling cars, starting last week. Mercedes? Lincolns? Maybe it was Cadillacs.”

Cadillacs. After Ken promised to come over to Clarence’s home for dinner the next day, he called the office. Even on a Saturday, Giselle had the info within a few minutes.

“Jack Olwen Cadillac on Van Ness Avenue,” she told Ken on the phone. Which was great. DKA had picked up a lot of delinquent Caddies for Jack Olwen over the years.

For half an hour Ken cruised the streets around the Jack Olwen Cadillac dealership on the sadly depleted Van Ness Avenue Auto Row. No ’66 Mustang. Then he boldly drove into the Olwen service entrance on Washington below Franklin.

Along both sides of the broad open grease-stained concrete floor were work bays, each holding a Cadillac in some stage of undress, like backstage at the ballet. Blue-coveralled mechanics swarmed around the cars like stage-door johnnies around the scantily clad dancers. The place echoed hollowly with the clank of tools and thunk-thunk of compressed air hoses. No Mustang.

So he went down to the ornate Olwen showroom with its lofty fake-marble pillars. Sleek Escalantes, Fleetwoods, Allantes, Eldorados, DeVille DTSs, Broughams, and an Escalade 2000 SUV rested in stately splendor on the gleaming display floor. Each sported its stunning price tag and its new-car smell, like an expensive call girl negotiating her splendid fee while poufing Chanel No. 22 talc in all the old familiar places.

Ken was immune to their charms. No Roxborough, no ’66 Mustang. He went down a narrow aisle between glassed-in cubicles to find sales manager Paddy McBain behind his paper-littered desk. Paddy was a thick-bodied man with most of his hair and the crinkly blue eyes and humorous mouth of the professional Irishman who always leads the parade on St. Paddy’s Day.

“BeJaysus and it’s Ken. And how’s the bhoyo?” He stood, reached across the desk to shake hands.

“Hngfyn,” said Ken.

It was the first of only four words he spoke. McBain was never able to understand one single damned thing he said, ever, so Ken always wrote out what he wanted. McBain scanned his note.

“Yeah, Chris Roxborough, started last Thursday. He’s got a customer out in a demo right now, hell of a salesman. But Chris isn’t driving any sixty-six Mustang ragtop — he drives a van. He coaches Little League, you know.”

“Hgneys, Hny hknoh,” said Ken wearily.

McBain didn’t understand that, either.

Ken left almost convinced Roxborough was as squeaky-clean as everyone seemed to believe. But crossing the showroom he was intercepted by a lean, handsome, impeccably dressed African-American with bright eyes and a pencil-thin mustache. The man jabbed an angry forefinger at Ken’s chest.

“If I see you around my neighborhood again, dickhead, I’m calling the cops. If you said anything to Paddy just now that makes trouble for me here, I’m calling my attorney. If you have a sister, you sorry piece of shit, go on home and fuck her.”

Wrong, all wrong for a guy with his sort of surface charm. He was hiding that Mustang, and he was sore because he was afraid Ken was going to find out where he was hiding it.

Well, Ken was. Make book on it.

Dan Kearny, behind his desk, got out a cigarette, looked at it, and stuck it back into his pack. “I really gotta get serious about quitting.” He lifted his coffee cup, then looked up at Giselle from under raised brows. “Coffee’s still okay, right?”

“Decaf,” she grinned.

He chuckled. “Okay, shoot. I presume Larry’s on Yana’s case full-time, and that he thinks she’s innocent. Right?”

“Absolutely, until convinced otherwise.” She was rummaging in her purse. “Here’s a number you might reach him, evenings.”

“His latest doxy?”

“She’s a really nice girl, actually. Midori Tagawa.”

“Little Japanese number lives in the back apartment?”

When she nodded, he crumpled up the paper and threw it in the wastebasket. Midori reminded him of Kathy Onoda, their much-missed office manager who had died of a CVA at age twenty-nine; let ’em have their loving in peace. He shook his head.

“Nice girl like that and she gets mixed up with Ballard, for Chrissake. Okay, where do we stand with Wiley’s classics?”

“O’B got the Panoz and Morales knocked off the Acura. And Ken says Roxborough has been driving the sixty-six Mustang.”

“So why isn’t it in the barn?”

“He’s gotta see it first. He’ll get it.”

“When? Stan wants to auction those cars off.”

“Whoa, Dan’l! What about my little red Alfa Quadrifoglio Spider? Give me a chance to get it together. They still haven’t brought in the Aston Martin and the Jag convertible.”

“Okay, okay. So put O’B and Morales back on their regular cases and divvy up Larry’s files between ’em.” He picked up his cigarettes, laid them down again. “And tell you what. On the Gypsy case, line Bart up with a new set of wheels, and send him up Poteet’s backtrail. Maybe have him start with that Bunco guy, what’s his name...”

Giselle made a face. “Dirty Harry.”

“Yeah. Him. Maybe he knows what Poteet was doing when he was living up here. If he doesn’t, send Bart down to L.A. to snoop around. I’ll give Staley a toot and ask for information on both Ristik and Poteet.”

How’s that for delaying an auction?

Lulu was still aghast at the idea of using the gadje to look for one of their own even if she was marime .

“What’s he want all that stuff for?” she demanded crossly.

“Kearny thinks Ramon might know things about his sister that we don’t,” said Rudolph.

“You know more about Yana than anybody.”

“Not since the kris declared her marime. ”

Staley sighed. “Looking back, maybe that wasn’t such a hot idea, that marime. ” He waved a hand. “Okay, let ’em find Ramon. He don’t matter. But Ephrem — why they wanna spend all that money nosin’ around him? He’s dead, he can’t tell ’em nothing about Yana.”

“ ’Cept that she killed him, and he’s already told us that,” said Lulu snidely.

“Okay, you guys, as King, I say we hold off giving Kearny the Marine World stuff on Ephrem.”