Роберт Беллем - Pulp Frictions

‘Let’s amble up the street, Mike,’ Andy said. ‘Thank you very much, ma’m.’

We got into the car, and Mrs Dailey watched us go, striking a pretty pose in the doorway of her house. I looked back and saw her wave at one of her neighbours, and then she went inside.

‘Where to?’ I asked Andy.

‘There’s a service station at the end of that gravel road, on the intersection. If the car came up that road, maybe he stopped at the station for petrol. We’ve got nothing to lose.’

We had nothing to gain, either. They’d serviced a hundred big black cars every day. They didn’t remember anything that looked out of line. We thanked them, and stopped at the nearest diner for some coffee. The coffee was hot, but the case sure as hell wasn’t.

It griped us. It really griped us.

Someone had a black car stashed away in his garage. The car had a damaged front end, and it may still have had blood stains on it. If he’d been a drunken driver, he’d sure as hell sobered up fast enough — and long enough to realise he had to keep that car out of sight. We mulled it over, and we squatted on it, and we were going over all the angles again when the phone rang.

I picked it up. ‘Jonas here.’

‘Mike, this is Charlie on the desk. I was going to turn this over to Complaint, but I thought you might like to sit in on it.’

‘Tie in with the Benson kill?’

‘Maybe.’

‘I’ll be right down.’ I hung up quickly. ‘Come on, Andy.’

We went downstairs to the desk, and Charlie introduced us to a Mr George Sullivan and his daughter Grace, a young kid of about sixteen. We took them into an empty office, leaving Charlie at the desk.

‘What is it, Mr Sullivan?’ I asked.

‘I want better protection,’ he said.

‘Of what, sir?’

‘My child. Grace here. All the kids at the high school, in fact.’

‘What happened, sir?’

‘You tell him, Grace.’

The kid was a pretty blonde, fresh and clean-looking in a sweater and skirt. She wet her lips and said, ‘Daddy, can’t...’

‘Go on, Grace, it’s for your own good.’

‘What is it, Miss?’ Andy asked gently.

‘Well...’

‘Go on, Grace. Just the way you told it to me. Go on.’

‘Well, it was last week. I...’

‘Where was this, Miss?’

‘Outside the high school. I cut my last period, a study hour. I wanted to do some shopping downtown, and anyway a study hour is nowhere. You know, they’re not so strict if you cut one.’

‘Yes, Miss.’

‘I got out early, about a half-hour before most of the kids start home. I was crossing the street when this car came around the corner. I got onto the sidewalk, and the car slowed down and started following me.’

‘What kind of a car, Miss?’

‘A big, black one.’

‘Did you notice the year and make?’

‘No. I’m not so good at cars.’

‘All right, what happened?’

‘Well, the man driving kept following me, and I started walking faster, and he kept the car even with me all the time. He leaned over towards the window near the kerb and said, “Come on, sweetheart, let’s go for a ride.” ’ She paused. ‘Daddy, do I have to...’

‘Tell them all of it, Grace.’

She swallowed hard, and then stared down at her saddle shoes.

‘I didn’t answer him. I kept walking, and he pulled up about ten feet ahead of me, and sat waiting there. When I came up alongside the car, he opened the door and got out. He... he... made a grab for me and... and I screamed.’

‘What happened then?’

‘He got scared. He jumped into the car and pulled away from the kerb. He was going very fast. I stopped screaming after he’d gone because... because I didn’t want to attract any attention.’

‘When was this, Miss?’

‘Last week.’

‘What day?’

‘It was Wednesday,’ Mr Sullivan put in. ‘She came home looking like hell, and I asked her what was wrong, and she said nothing. I didn’t get the story out of her until today.’

‘You should have reported this earlier, Miss,’ Andy said.

‘I... I was too embarrassed.’

‘Did you notice the licence plate on the car?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you get the number?’

‘No. It was a funny plate.’

‘How do you mean funny?’

‘It was a New York plate, but it had a lot of lettering on it.’

‘A lot of lettering? Was it a suburban plate? Was the car a station wagon?’

‘No, it wasn’t.’

‘A delivery track?’

‘No, it was a regular car. A new one.’

‘A new car,’ I repeated.

‘Are you going to do something about this?’ Mr Sullivan asked.

‘We’re going to try, sir. Did you get a good look at the man, Miss?’

‘Yes. He was old. And fat. He wore a brown suit.’

‘How old would you say, Miss?’

‘At least forty.’

Mr Sullivan smiled, and then the smile dropped from his face. ‘There should be a cop around there. There definitely should be.’

‘Would you be able to identify the man if we showed him to you?’

‘Yes, but... do I have to? I mean, I don’t want any trouble. I don’t want the other kids to find out.’

‘No one will find out, Miss.’

‘This wouldn’t have happened if there was a cop around,’ Mr Sullivan said.

‘There was a cop,’ I told him. ‘He’s dead.’

When they left, we got some coffee and mulled it over a bit more.

‘A new car,’ Andy said.

‘With a funny plate. What the hell did she mean by a funny plate?’

‘On a new car.’

I stood up suddenly. ‘I’ll be dipped!’ I said.

‘What?’

‘A new car, Andy. A funny plate. A New York plate with lettering on it. For Christ’s sake, it was a dealer’s plate!’

Andy snapped his fingers. ‘Sure. That explains how the bastard kept the car hidden so well. It’s probably on some goddamned garage floor, hidden behind the other cars in the showroom.’

‘Let’s go, Andy,’ I said.

It wasn’t difficult. It’s tough to get a dealer’s franchise, and there aren’t very many dealers in any specific neighbourhood. We tried two, and we hit the jackpot on the third try.

We spotted the car in one corner of the big garage. We walked over to it, and there was a mechanic in grease-stained overalls working on the right headlight.

‘Police,’ I told him. ‘What’s wrong there?’

He continued working, apparently used to periodic checks from the Automobile Squad. ‘Sealbeam is broken. Just replacing it.’

‘What happened to the grille?’

‘Oh, a small accident. Damn shame, too. A new car.’

Andy walked round to the back and saw the paint scratches on the trunk. He nodded when he came around to me again.

‘Back’s all scratched, too,’ he said to the mechanic.

‘Yeah, this goddamn car’s been a jinx ever since we got it in.’

‘How so?’

‘Got a headache with this one. The day we took it out for a test, the fool driver ran it into a ditch. Sliced hell out of both rear tyres, and we had to replace them. All this in the first week we had this pig.’

‘Did you replace with Allstate?’ I asked.

The mechanic looked up in surprise. ‘Why, yeah. Say, how did you know?’

‘Where’s your boss?’ Andy asked.

‘In the front office.’ The mechanic got up. ‘Hey, what’s this all about?’

‘Nothing that concerns you, Mac. Fix your car.’

We went to the front office, a small cubicle that held two desks and two leather customer chairs. A stout man was sitting at one desk, a telephone to his ear. I estimated his age at about forty-two, forty-three.

He looked up and smiled when we came in, nodded at us, and then continued talking.