32 Cadillacs

Chapter twenty-nine

Ken Warren sat upon the edge of the couch and looked at his wristwatch. Not quite six in the morning. He yawned and started to stand up and fell back in a sitting position with a grunt of surprise. He had to put his hands on his knees and push to get himself upright, his knees popping like dry kindling. Goddam couch. Old and not very good quality in the first place.

In the shower, hot enough to turn him lobster red, then cold enough to chatter his teeth, he knew that he would have to get his bed back. Which meant getting Maybelle an apartment.

Yesterday he’d returned her Connie to the dealership, only to be faced by an edgy Giselle when he’d got to the office.

“Ah... fast work on that Continental, Ken.” He’d shrugged, but she wouldn’t go away. “You... ah... have any trouble?”

He faked amazement. “Nthixty-one an’ phat an’ hmblak?”

She put her hands on her hips and tried to stare him down.

“All of those,” she said, “and a hooker besides. But also a human being who deserves some decency and a few breaks.”

Ken had patted her shoulder and walked around her and gone up to type reports. When he had looked up an hour later, Giselle was leaning in the doorway with her arms folded, waiting.

“You know she was sleeping in that car?” Warren nodded, kept hitting the keys. “Now where’s she going to sleep?”

Unwillingly, still typing, he said, “Nthees ngoht frenz.”

Softly, “Thanks, Ken.” When he looked up, she’d been gone.

None of that helped with this morning’s aching back. He’d give Maybelle this apartment and move into a furnished room in a minute — but she’d never stand for it. No, she had to have legit work that paid enough better than piecework at a dry-cleaning plant to let her get a place of her own.

As he turned off the icy stinging water and rubbed down vigorously with the napless towel, he started to laugh. She was big, strong, eager, and the job was there. He’d make it happen.

Meanwhile, he’d repo’d all the easy ones the DKA gang had left for him. Today he wanted the tough ones.

Today Giselle wanted Angelo Grimaldi.

She would uncover his scam, then take his big black limo away from him. To hell with Larry Ballard and his Gyppo broad. Today she was Boadicea, war queen of the Britons, slashing Roman legionnaires to bloody ribbons with flashing blades fixed to the wheels of her chariot.

Since she was going to the St. Mark, she wore pale yellow silk under her lightweight full-length back leather coat, and wrapped a very expensive almost Gypsy-bright silk scarf about her throat. Her attaché case of repo tools looked full of dynamite legal papers. She would never be spotted as a hard-nosed repoman.

Ah, repo woman. Repoperson?

Boadicea, armored. Angelo Grimaldi, dogmeat.

Except she couldn’t even get from DKA to the top of Nob Hill. Her radio told her why: the presidential motorcade was arriving from the airport. Finally, she parked in a supermarket lot on Larkin and rode the California cable in.

At the St. Mark she went through the fancy revolving doors into the venerable thick-carpeted lobby and almost asked the tall blonde at the check-in counter, who looked simpática, if Angelo Grimaldi was in his room; but showing interest would tip her hand too soon. Instead, attaché case in hand, she went to the elevators. Check the garage first, she might just get lucky.

Rudolph Marino, wearing yet another $1,200 suit, strolled from the coffee shop just in time to miss the descending car the tall beautiful sexy blonde was getting on. A knockout! But no time for blondes now, not even blondes that stunning. So he tipped sometime lover Marla at the check-in desk a wink — she might still be useful — and waited for the next down-car.

Just before his continental breakfast, he had attached the receiver to the detonator embedded in the C-4 plastique under the rear seat of his limo, thus aiming it. The transmitter was in his pocket. Today an unsuccessful terrorist attack on the President would make Rudolph Marino $75,000 richer.

My God, there was the long black Gyppo limo conned out of the bank by Angelo Grimaldi! Giselle had intended to scope out Grimaldi’s scam before seeking the limo, but this was better. With the car in the barn, maybe she could turn him. He’d make a dynamite informant, even better than Dan’s Ephrem Poteet, light-years better than Larry’s Ms. Gyppo Slut.

The garage was full of men in business suits coming and going, standing around in little groups talking. Giselle got out the key she had cut for it, and, looking every inch the ambitious young attorney, strode boldly over to the Gyppo limo and started to insert the key into the door lock.

That’s when half a dozen suits seized her from behind, twisting the key out of her hand and slamming her face-down against the car’s fender, her arms up behind her back.

Rudolph Marino stepped from behind his pillar to check that nobody was near his limo before he detonated the C-4 under the rear seat, and saw the Secret Service agents roughing up his beautiful sexy elevator blonde. Devalesa! She had to be Giselle Marc, the repo queen! He changed his plan instantly.

“You have the right to remain silent...”

Giselle felt cold steel bite into her wrists. “No! Wait! You don’t understand—”

“You have the right to an attorney...”

“It’s all a mistake—”

“If you cannot afford an attorney...”

“All I was trying to do—”

“Stop this disgrace!”

The voice was such a whipcrack of authority that the chunky man in the Brooks Brothers suit stopped reading Giselle her rights from the soiled card in his hand. Even Giselle, despite her awkward position against the car, twisted to see who it was.

The most beautiful man in the world.

Dusky skin... raven ringlets... long curved eyelashes... a strong nose, beautifully shaped lips, strong, cruel chin... meltingly handsome, romantic, dashing... Obviously... Angelo Grimaldi! Whoever the hell Angelo Grimaldi really was.

“Who the hell are you, buddy?” A short weasel of an agent had his chin thrust out.

“The lady’s husband.” Somehow, Marino was at Giselle’s side, his arms around her. “Are you all right, my darling? Have they hurt you?”

She almost managed tears. “They frightened me, sweetheart, and they put these cold... things on my wrists and—”

He whirled on them, eyes blazing.

“Remove those handcuffs immediately! My wife makes a simple mistake, and...”

Weasel had planted himself in front of Marino, hand out. He said, “I.D.” Marino didn’t move. Weasel smiled. Not a nice smile. “No? I like that.” He gestured. “Take him, too.”

“Better not,” said Grimaldi.

Giselle, half-forgotten, had managed to straighten up and twist around. She was close to openmouthed at the unbelievable chutzpa of this Gypsy calling himself Grimaldi.

Who was saying, “I am Ali Akbar Zuhrain, underambassador from Kuwait, here in San Francisco to confer with your President.” A pause. “At his invitation.”

The man who had been reading Giselle her rights furtively but feverishly began thumbing through an appointment schedule.

“Ah... Ali Akbar Zuhrain, uh, yes, he... is the, uh, underambassador. And he had a meeting scheduled for, ah, three P.M. in the presidential suite...”

Grimaldi snatched Giselle’s repo key out of the hands of the man who had taken it. He jabbed it at the door of the presidential limo. It wouldn’t even enter the lock.

“See? Comprehend? It does not fit.” He turned to gesture across the garage. “But if you will look over there...” All heads swiveled. “You will see an identical vehicle.” He handed the key back to the man. “I insist you try this key in the door of that limo.”

Looking dazed, the man walked away. Giselle hoped to God she had cut the key right to fit Grimaldi’s Fleetwood.

“That limo was delivered to me yesterday, it is almost an exact replica of this one. My wife is not yet familiar with it, so she went to the wrong vehicle — and you bêtes assaulted her.”

Weasel was beginning, “I still want to see some I.D.,” when the key turned in the lock and Grimaldi’s limo door opened. There was a release of pent-up breaths, and sheepish voices rose in apology. Giselle felt the steel fall away from her wrists.

Pietro Uvaldi was on his way out, wearing Gianni Versace’s latest overdraped sports fashions. He opened the door to stare at the chest of a very big, scary-rough sort of man with short-chopped brown hair and a quizzical face and a hard, taut, animal body. The man was just pointing a finger at Pietro’s doorbell.

Oh my God, ring my bell indeed! Somehow Pietro managed to find his normal speaking voice.

“May... I help you?”

The delicious hulking brute said, “Gha Merthades.”

“My Mercedes?”

“Ah hthnorry, buddy, it’th goin’!”

“Freddi!” he cried, realizing what the man was.

At the same time he almost danced to the coat closet. Didn’t they ever learn? He came around with the shotgun, only to be slapped, very hard, across the face. At the same time the gun was wrenched away as if his fingers were made of Play-Doh.

“F... Freddi!” he shrieked.

“Gha gnkees,” snarled the beast, hand extended.

Keys. Surely that’s what he meant. Keys. God God God! Don’t enrage the animal further. In a moment Freddi would arrive from the back of the apartment to pulverize him...

The beast took the keys from his shaking fingers, turned to go — and Freddi made his charge, roaring, arms out and head back to deliver a head-slam such as had disabled poor Larry Ballard.

Timing is everything. At the exquisitely perfect moment of impact, the big man raised the shotgun beside his cheek just as he moved his head slightly to one side. Freddi slammed headfirst into the wooden gunbutt with a crack! like bighorn sheep slamming bosses of horn in ritual battle. Freddi’s feet went up and he lay down four feet off the floor. From whence he crashed down on his back like a dropped side of beef.

“You killed him!” Pietro shrieked. The big man, turning away, shook his head. Pietro momentarily abandoned his lover to run after him, hugging him from behind, trying to kiss his hand, crying, “Don’t go! I love masterful men!”

The masterful man said, “Fnuk ohnff!” and was gone.

Only then did Pietro drop on his knees to minister to the unconscious Freddi. But even as he did, his thoughts were all with that delicious scary brute who had simply dismantled Freddi.

Even as he was whispering to his fallen defender, “My poor, poor darling...”