The Best American Mystery Stories 2008

Jas. R. Petrin Car Trouble

From Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine

“This time,” Skig said, “tell you what. Try not to make it stand up at the back, some kind of antenna sticking outta my head.”

“It’s just the way your hair goes, dear. Nothing I can do. You should be glad to have hair on the top of your head. Some men your age are ready for a comb-over.”

“When I’m ready for it, shoot me.”

Every month they exchanged this banter. Leo Skorzeny sitting on a straight-back chair in Eva Kohl’s kitchen, a sheet around him, snippets of his stiff, iron-gray hair on the floor. Eva, retired from hairdressing maybe ten, twelve years now, click-clicking away with her scissors.

“Tell me about that new car you’re buying,” Skig said. He shifted his weight, trying to ease the pain in his gut.

She laughed. Took a playful snip at the empty air.

“Not buying — leasing. The way they explained it to me, Mr. Skorzeny, it’s cheaper.”

“Smaller payments.”

“That’s right.”

“That don’t mean it’s cheaper. The long run.”

“For me it is. It really is. The salesman told me I’m perfect for a lease. I put on hardly any mileage — mostly just shopping.”

“You bargain down the suggested retail?”

“The what?” She stopped snipping, puzzled.

“The price.”

“No. I thought I explained. I’m not buying, I’m leasing.”

Skig closed his eyes, held them shut a second, opened them.

“You got a good trade?”

The snipping started again. “My old car still runs well. They’re giving me two thousand dollars for it.”

“Your old car’s like new. Why not keep driving it?”

“It isn’t all that good. And I feel like a change. Anyway, I’ve made up my mind. I’m signing the papers this afternoon.” She ran the trimmer over his neck, cold steel humming against his skin, then handed him a fan-shaped hand mirror. She held a second mirror behind his head, left, then right. “How’s that?”

“Perfect,” Leo said, “as always. That’s why I come to you.”

“Don’t kid. You come here because I’m cheap. And I’m only just down the street from you.”

Before he left, Skig got the name of her dealership.

He trudged heavily back along the sidewalk, one hand under his billowing sports coat to brace the pain there low in his gut. He would get his car out of the garage, head down to the quack’s office, and collect the bad news sure to be waiting for him. All those tests last week. The quacks liked to tell him how lucky he was, that he should be dead by now. Yeah, right. How lucky could you get?

Skig lived in an old made-over filling station, bought years ago as an investment. He’d converted the office area to a few livable rooms after Jeanette died — couldn’t stay in the house and didn’t know why. Or maybe he did. Sensing her presence there was still too much for him, and at other times it was just too empty.

He crossed the large graveled lot, his front yard, fumbled a key out, and heaved open the repair bay door, all blistering paint: no power assist on this baby, built before the friggin’ flood. He backed the Crown Vic into the lot, got out, and hauled the big door down, locked it, then eased back in behind the wheel. He rolled off along Railway Avenue at a sedate five clicks under the limit, windows open to blow the stink off. The Crown Vic still reeked after running off the jetty into the harbor one time, but Skig had no interest in replacing it. Why bother if you were one church service shy of a planting, the way he saw it.

The clock on the dash said 2:15. Time enough for that one small matter before he had to be at his appointment.

He found the lot on Robie, not a first-rate dealership, but not too scuzzy a place. The showroom supported a colossal roof-mounted sign that said HAPPY DAN DUCHEk’s AUTO WORLD, with two sculpted Ds each the size of a grand piano. Another, smaller, sign said We’rE NOT HAPPY UNTIL YOU ARE! “Right,” Skig muttered as he turned in. He rolled slowly between two rows of gleaming new cars. Bigger than it looked from the street. There was even a detailing shop at the back for well-heeled car enthusiasts, Happy Dan covering all the angles. Skig saw movement in the next row over. An extremely pretty young woman, dressed for the office, talking heatedly with her hands to a young man in sagging-butt pants who stared back at her with lifeless eyes.

“Don’t argue with that one, dear,” Skig cautioned her under his breath, looking for a place to park. Something familiar about the guy.

He found Happy Dan in the manager’s office. Shiny hair. Smile on him like it was wired there. Dan had just unwrapped a tuna sub on his desk and was holding out a coffee mug to the extremely pretty young woman Skig had seen a moment ago. She must have nipped inside while he was parking, now in the process of pouring Dan a fill of seriously black joe from a steaming Pyrex pot. Dan didn’t look too happy with her. The guy with the sagging pants was nowhere in sight.

As he stepped into the room, Happy Dan met Skig’s gaze, his open face brightening in cheery lines. “Good afternoon, sir. Welcome. Time for a new car?” He showed even white teeth.

“Name’s Leo Skorzeny,” Skig said flatly. “You heard of me?”

Happy Dan raked his memory. Concentrated. Then something clicked and his smile wilted. He set his mug down. “Yes, I’ve heard of you.”

“We need to talk.”

Leo then stared at the extremely pretty young woman until she took the hint and stalked out of the room, carafe in hand, trailing an aroma of burnt coffee.

Happy Dan edged around a filing cabinet and took up a defensive position behind his desk.

“We were trading stories about vacation resorts,” Happy Dan said, with a nervous stab at affability. Silk tie. Gel in his hair like it was spooned on. “You see, I just got back from Aruba, and—”

“What I really come to see you about was the hose job you’re planning to do on a nice old lady, Mrs. Eva Kohl, supposed to come in here later today an’ sign some papers.”

“Mr. Skorzeny, we don’t—”

“Sit down,” Skig said.

Happy Dan looked uncertain for a second, then sat. Skig lowered himself into the visitors’ chair. Jeez, his gut hurt.

“The lady’s a friend of mine. I want her treated right.”

“Mr. Skorzeny, I assure you—”

Skig’s shoulders moved, his big hands on the heavy desk, trapping Happy Dan against the wall. Dan’s jaw sagged. Disbelief on his face.

Skig said, “There’s not a car salesman alive wouldn’t hose a woman like that, unless he’s a saint, and you got no halo floatin’ over your head.” He watched Happy Dan turn purple. “Here’s what you do. You come down fifteen hundred on the MSRP — cash-back covers that — an’ you give her three, not two, for the trade, which is more what it’s worth. That’s forty-five hunnerd, good for ninety bucks off the monthly payment, an’ you still do okay. An’ don’t suck it all up with some BS prepping fees, like you polished the mirrors or something, or I’ll be back here for more negotiating. You getting all this?”

Sweat droplets gleamed along the hairline of Dan’s spiffy do. He managed a bob of his head. Skig held him there a few more seconds, scrutinizing the Aruban tan for signs of perfidy. Satisfied that there were none, he yanked the desk back and heaved himself to his feet.

“An’ make sure she gets the free gap insurance the leasing company likes you to forget about,” Skig said, not looking back, moving on out the door.

The clinic’s parking lot was jammed as usual, the waiting room packed with distressed humanity. But there had been a cancellation, and Skig’s name came up quickly. Shown to a room the size of a large closet, he waited until the quack breezed in. Not his usual quack. A specialist. Like most specialists, this guy had the charm of a forensic pathologist.

“Just tell me,” Skig said, “am I still gonna die?”

The quack hunched over a child-sized table, briskly flipping through some arcane-looking charts. “We’re all going to die, Mr. Skorzeny.”

A pathologist and a philosopher. Skig crossed his brawny arms above his thick belly, waiting to hear the bad news.

Finally the quack glanced up. Jeez, he was young. How much could a kid this age know about diseases of the colon? Plenty, judging by the framed degrees, diplomas, and certificates tacked to the wall. But Skig wasn’t impressed. Paper was paper.

“The tests were inconclusive,” the quack said.

“What!”

“The tests were inconclusive. We’ll have to run them again.”

“Somebody screwed up, you mean.”

“There’s no need for acrimony.”

“There’s a need for something. You think it’s happy days goin’ through all that?”

“You’re overwrought.”

“No, I’m underwrought. When I get overwrought, you’ll know it.”

The quack was unintimidated. That impressed Skig. With cool detachment, the young man insisted Skig leave another sample for the lab. The Styrofoam container looked just like the kind the Greek at the corner sold his chili burgers in.

When Skig got home, there was company waiting. An unmarked car with two watchful dicks in it, parked in the front yard where the gas pumps used to be. In his younger years he might have cruised on by, circled the block, gave some thought as to how he would handle things. Now he just rolled in and stopped right beside them. What were they after? Someone to shoot? Pick me, Skig thought.

They got out of their car slowly and purposefully, an air of menace hovering about them. Something they learned at the academy: how to get out of your vehicle with an air of menace. Skig got out too. As he straightened, the pain darted inside him like the tip of a cork puller he’d ingested by accident somehow, and he steadied himself.

The dicks were focused, professionally intense. The older one moved in. He was going to fat, wore an old loose-fitting suit, and showed salt-and-pepper hair around his ears. The one who’d been driving was younger, tall and lanky, and dressed like he was going to a job interview.

“You guys collecting for underprivileged cops?” Leo said. “I gave at the office,” thinking of the container he had left with the quack. He brushed past the dicks, jangling his keys, and unlocked the repair bay door. When he heaved it up he thought his stomach would bust open and dump some major organ right there on the ground. He swayed.

“Mr. Skorzeny?” the fat one said.

“You know it.”

“Are you all right?”

“Top shelf. Right up there with the chips and cheesies.”

The dick studied him, taking his measure.

“We’ve got a few questions. Think we could go inside?”

“No.”

The dick held his gaze. Then he shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He took a pen and notebook out of his pocket, flipped pages, glanced up again. “You know a man named Dwight Keevis?”

“No.”

“Owns a car dealership. Also goes by the name of Dan Duchek. Happy Dan.”

“Oh, that Dwight Keevis.”

“Then you do know him.”

“No.”

The dick pinched the bridge of his nose. “All right. Let’s go about this another way. An employee says you dropped by to see Mr. Keevis earlier today, unannounced. You didn’t come to buy a car, and you weren’t very friendly. We’d like to know what you talked about.”

“You asked if I knew the guy. I don’t.” Skig looked the two dicks over again. A mulish-looking couple of plugs. Stubborn as dirt. Better give them something. The truth was best. “I did stop by about a car. I been told I should trade up.”

Behind the fat dick, the lanky one stooped over the window of the Vic. He made a sour face. “That might be a plan. This one stinks.”

“Funny,” Skig said, “it smelt good till you showed up.”

The lanky dick’s face tightened, and the older one reined him in with his eyes. Then the older one turned back to Skig.

“The employee claims you threatened Mr. Keevis when you left his office today.”

“Is that what this is about? I said an unkind word to somebody?” Skig remembered the extremely pretty young woman, the acid look on her puss as she trip-trapped out of the room.

“Well,” the dick said, “whether you did or you didn’t, Mr. Keevis now happens to be dead. Died of gunshot wounds at the QE Emergency—” He glanced at his watch. “—going on two hours ago.”

“You don’t tell me.”

“I do tell you. And after what the employee said, and seeing as you’re not exactly a stranger to us—”

“Got a sheet on you like the Yellow Pages,” the lanky dick put in with venom.

“—we thought,” the older dick continued, determined to finish, “that it might be a good idea to come by and hear what you had to say about it.”

“An’ you did. An’ I answered you,” Skig said. “So take off.”

“You won’t get far with that attitude.”

“I only need to get through that door to my bottle of scotch. You want to arrest me because some rip-off artist stopped a long overdue slug, go ahead. But my doctor may have something to say about that. And my lawyer will cut you off at the knees.”

Skig got back in the Vic, dropped it in gear, and let the fast idle roll the smelly old car inside.

In the gloom of the kitchen, he rinsed a glass in the sink, rattled some ice into it, and topped it up with Teacher’s. He pushed the news about Happy Dan around in his head. Not all that surprising. Probably tried to screw the wrong sap, that’s all. The sap got wise, dug his howitzer out of a shoebox, and returned to the lot, bent on revising the terms of their understanding. The fat monthly payment and, oh yeah, a little something else.

Skig glanced at the clock. Solly Sweetmore was late. If he didn’t show, Skig would have to go to him, give him a slap or two to get his attention.

He sat down in his ratty recliner — collapsed into it, was more like it. Switched on the TV, jabbed the mute button, took a quick slug from his glass. The liquor did what it was supposed to do, burned for a moment, then mellowed him, but it didn’t help his gut. He shook out two of the big fat brown capsules the quack had slipped him — samples, he’d said, take one before eating — and washed them down with a swallow of booze.

Then he closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, there were shadows in the room, the afternoon sun dying fast behind the fly-specked window over the sink. The light from the silent television winked and gamboled on the walls.

A TV news lady was doing a location shot. The background looked vaguely familiar. Skig frowned as two giant double Ds reared up on the screen — Dan Duchek’s rip-off center. It was an earlier tape, sunlight beating down in the background where a bagged stiff was being rolled out on a gurney. He poked the mute button. The TV lady, brushing a sweep of lustrous hair out of her eyes, said, “...all police would reveal was that the owner of this downtown dealership was shot dead in his office by an unidentified assailant.” Skig wondered if Dan still wore his grin. “CTV has learned that at least one person has been taken into custody...” The canned shot changed. And to Skig the monologue faded as a jerky camera lens zoomed in on a gray-haired woman being bundled into a police patrol car. The woman looked dazed. It was Eva Kohl.

“Ah jeez,” Skig said.

* * * *

He made a call to his lawyer Saul Getz, then rolled down to the cop shop in the Vic. Saul was there waiting for him. A thin man with patient eyes, he was thoughtfully stroking his trim, white goatee.

“You talk to her?” Skig asked.

“Yeah, I talked to her. They didn’t arrest her. That woman wouldn’t shoot a pop-gun at a plastic monkey to win a coconut.”

“You got that right. You pry her loose?”

“Oh sure. She’s an unhappy lady, though. Forensics impounded her car. Seems Happy Dan was about to drive it into the shop when the shooter stepped in and popped him. Two hits, one miss. Quite a mess.” He smiled. “She’s feisty. She says if the police take people’s cars away, then they ought to provide loaners. I sent her home in a cab.”

Skig said, “They recover the gun?”

“No. But they think it belonged to the victim. He kept a Smith in the desk, according to an employee, and the cops can’t find it anywhere.”

That helpful employee again. “Anything else?”

“One slug was recovered in pretty good shape. Went into the headrest. When they find the gun they’ll do their ballistics thing, and that’ll be it.”

“They think.”

“They’re pretty sure. One of the techs took a quick look. He said it ought to be a slam dunk, far as the gun is concerned.”

“Meantime, Eva doesn’t get her car back.”

“Oh, it gets worse. When I showed up and started speaking for her, the detectives figured out the connection pretty quick. I mean, from me to you, then Eva. They brightened a little. The younger one grinned and said maybe theo’c bring her back in for more questioning.”

“They’re outta their minds.”

“They seem a little miffed at you, Leo. Did you yank their chains or something?”

He told them how he had been at the lot for a few minutes and how the fat cop and the thin cop had stopped by and braced him later.

“Buying a new car, Skig? Hey, that’s a plan.”

“Don’t start. I was there at the lot just before the guy got it, an’ because I’m me, they made a little too much of it.” Skig eyeballed a policeman stepping by them in the hall. “I ran them off.”

Saul stroked his goatee, thinking. “No, there’s more to it. They got that witness. That employee. We don’t know what she saw, or what she says she saw. She could be fingering you and your friend.” He puffed his cheeks out, gave his head a shake. “Did you rub her the wrong way too?” When Skig didn’t answer, he added, “Why would she finger a nice old doll like that?”

“I dunno,” Leo said, “but I’m gonna find out.”

He had just caught a glimpse of the extremely pretty young woman being ushered out of an interview room down the hall.

The sun had gone down fast. Wisps of pink-bellied clouds lingered way out low over the Arm.

Skig sat in the Crown Vic with the blower on and the windows all the way down. The car smelled especially rank today. The sludge at the bottom of the harbor wasn’t violets, that was a fact. But minutes later the night breeze was buffeting through the car again, as he trailed the extremely pretty young woman’s taillights down Gottingen Street. She drove fast. She tailgated. She yapped into her cell nonstop.

She drove out to Clayton Park, sped north on Dunbrack, then turned in at a block of apartments that sprawled above the slope to the basin. Shot down the ramp into the underground parking with the phone still glued to her head. Skig found a slot outside in the visitors’ lot, angled so that he could watch for an apartment light to go on. He knew he had about a fifty percent chance, and his number came up. Tenth floor, northwest corner.

“Bang,” Skig said.

He kept waiting. Imagined the cell phone burning. Minutes later, headlights lit the Vic from behind, a car coming up fast, flashing by him into the visitors’ lot, subwoofer pumping out some irritating hip-hop crap. Nice car. A yellow Audi.

“Boom,” Skig said.

Skig knew the vehicle. He’d seen it around. A car like that, you might as well have a neon sign over your head jabbing blinking arrows at you. And seeing it here now, Skig suddenly realized who the kid at the car lot had been, the one with the eyes.

The name he went by was Caesar DeLuca. His real tag? Probably not. He was Filipino. Smart with the ladies. Though what young women saw in guys who looked like extras from Night of the Living Dead, Skig had never been able to figure out. And DeLuca was mean. He liked to hurt people. It wasn’t just an unavoidable part of doing business with him, he enjoyed it. Beyond that, Skig didn’t know much about the guy and didn’t want to. He couldn’t care less what turned DeLuca’s crank, but that would change fast if the guy had his rat’s nose buried in this business somehow.

DeLuca swaggered from his car to the building, gold chains, body ink, and attitude. Skig considered the setup so far.

A car dealer shot dead. In his proximity, four people: a gentle unassuming older lady, the extremely pretty young woman, and rat boy here, Caesar DeLuca. And himself. Which of these was most likely to have had something to do with it? Since the cops apparently didn’t know about DeLuca, Skig was number one on the list. But he had an alibi with the quack. The cops had probably discovered that. Which left the girl — and the older lady, of course, according to Fatty and Skinny. They had sherlocked it out.

Of course, they hadn’t seen DeLuca nosing around the car lot earlier, but on the other hand they didn’t seem too interested in finding out about him either. Had they asked Skig if he’d seen anybody else there? No. Had the girl volunteered the information? Skig didn’t think so.

Upstairs, the window darkened. Somebody had pulled the drapes. After about half an hour, DeLuca sauntered out of the building and squealed away in his thumping pimp mobile. Skig eased out of the old Vic, locked the door, and followed a tenant and his fuzzy white dog in through the front entrance.

The apartment door on the tenth floor had a spray of dried flowers on it and a ceramic plaque that said RUSSELL. The girl pulled open her door and stared at him.

“Name’s Leo Skorzeny, Ms. Russell,” Skig said. “Remember me?”

Her face paled in alarm, she started to close the door, and he put his foot in the way.

“Tired of talking about what happened to your boss today?”

That stopped her. She hesitated, found that hissy look somewhere inside herself, then stood back and let him in. She waggled her fingers at a chair and flounced down on the sofa, one leg tucked up, lips clamped together tight. Skig didn’t like the idea of fighting his way back out of the overstuffed bucket she had consigned him to, so he dragged a kitchen chair out of the ell and sat down gingerly on it. Jeez.

She shot a meaningful look at a table clock, something modern in plastic and glass. “You’ve got five minutes.” She had a harsh voice. He hadn’t been expecting that.

“I’ll take it. I can use all the time I can get, according to my proctologist.”

“Are you trying to be crude?”

“I’m trying to be accurate. You were pretty accurate yourself when you put those holes in your boss.”

She brought one foot down hard on the rug, shoving forward at him. “Don’t you dare imply I had anything to do with that!”

“I’m not implying it. I’m saying it. You shot him, all right, you or your boyfriend did. An’ when you couldn’t frame me, you had to settle for the old lady.”

She jumped to her feet. “Get out!”

“I could do that. An’ I could head back down to Gottingen Street and lay it all out for the dicks.”

She stood there breathing, dainty nostrils flaring, considering her options. Then she plumped down on the sofa again and gnawed at her lip. He knew he was on the right track then.

“Fine,” she said. “Let’s hear your delusional idea.”

“I got two, three of ‘em,” Skig said, ignoring the dramatics. “I been thinking down there in the car. First one is, you were cozy with Happy Dan, shining his cars for him, only somethin’ went wrong. He took off to Aruba without you, had a good time in the sun, an’ when he got back you tore a strip off of him.”

She gave a short, barking laugh.

“That’s insane. You don’t know anything. What makes you think I wasn’t with him?”

“Where’s your tan?”

It stopped her. But just for a moment.

“Dwight was married. He flew down there with his wife. He couldn’t have taken me along if he’d wanted to.”

“Oh, there’s ways. But we’ll put that on hold. Here’s delusion number two, coming at it from the other side. The guy was hitting on you, you finally lost it with him, an’ you pegged him.”

“Oh puh-lease!” She made her eyes go round. “Why would I do that? I could have walked away if what you’re saying is true. Do you think I’m out of my mind?”

Skig looked at her. She was struggling. A pretty bundle of raw nerves curled up there on the couch.

“No,” he said, “I don’t think that. I think your boyfriend’s got a loose connection someplace. What’s his part? He came to your rescue?”

“My boyfriend? Now what are you talking about?”

“The little weasel I just saw scuttling out of here.”

She rolled her eyes again. “I don’t even have a boyfriend. Nobody left here.”

“He was in this building.”

“It’s a big place.”

“Yeah,” Skig said. He wasn’t ready to mention he’d seen the two of them arguing earlier under the big double Ds at Happy’s place. “Where can I find him?”

She studied Skig a moment. Worked on that lip again. She really didn’t want to get going on DeLuca, that was obvious, and suddenly a miracle occurred. Her face turned all sweetness and light. Just like that.

“Look, we can be friends, you know.”

“Sure.”

“You don’t think I’m cute?”

“Puppies are cute. So are Kewpie dolls. You’re in there somewhere, I guess.”

She threw her drink at him, the glass tumbling past his ear, splatting against the heavy drapes, then falling to the rug, miraculously unbroken. The drapes hadn’t fared so well, a broad stain running down them. A few drops darkened Leo’s sleeve.

He got up painfully. “Nice to have met you, Ms. Russell.”

Two things he’d gotten out of this. Number one, she was scared of the cops. Number two, she was protecting rat boy.

Skig opened his eyes next morning and wondered where the hell he was. Found he was stretched flat out in his recliner. Last night after taking three of the big fat free samples, he had tumbled into Never-Never Land as if someone had batted him with a jack handle. He yanked the chair lever, sat up, and explored his side with his stubby fingers.

Not too bad this morning. The pain was still there, but it was biding its time. Sometimes it did that. Went away to a seminar on how to really rip a guy’s innards apart, then came back and practiced on him. The respite would be short.

He showered, ran his razor over his face, and went out the door without bothering to eat. He stopped at a drive-through for a coffee, double milk, no sugar, which he drank in the Vic at the edge of the lot. There was a contest on. Win a TV. Coffee cups had the good news hidden on them. A kid rooting through the trash can by the doors for a winning cup glanced up as Skig held his out the window. He edged over suspiciously and took it from him. “Jeez, mister. Don’t you want to win a plasma TV?” Skig started up the Vic. “I already got a TV. I could prob’ly use the plasma, though.”

Skig drove to the recycling depot out past Lakeside. A big Loadmaster trash truck was grunting up to the dock, spewing diesel fumes, and a bunch of cars stood around, engines idling while people hauled out bags filled with beer cans, newspapers — bags filled with bags, for crying out loud — to get their four or five bucks. Save the ozone layer. He found Solly Sweetmore in his upstairs office under the corrugated sheet-metal roof.

Skig was overweight. He needed to drop forty pounds. But Solly had such a colossal gut on him he had to straighten his arms to reach his desk. His face, tracked with broken blood vessels, showed alarm when he saw who his visitor was. He set down the can of Coke he was nursing.

“You were supposed to drop by yesterday,” Skig said, wincing. The pain was back. The steep stairs killed him.

“I know, Leo, I know.” The trashman leaned away from his desk, moving his hands around. “I just got busy. This place is a nuthouse. You can see—”

“Fine with me, Solly,” Skig said, “you want to pay another day’s juice. Go for it. Only next time tell me, okay? That’s what the phone is for.”

“About that, Skig, listen—”

“No, you listen. This is how things get outta hand. You keep taking more time, more time, you run outta time pretty fast. Then I got to lean on you. I don’t like that, Solly.”

“I know. I should’ve phoned you, Skig, but listen—”

A gaunt man in a knit cap interrupted, thrusting his small balding head in the door. “That compactor crapped out again, boss, the old green one, so maybe—”

Solly surged up and screamed at him. “Will you get outta my face?” He threw his pop at the man, the half filled can smashing into the doorframe, cola fizzing and splattering over a calendar and running down the cheap paneling in streams. The head withdrew.

“Lots of people throwing drinks these days,” Skig said, shaking his head. “People need to relax.” He tapped the book in his breast pocket. “Six-five, Solly, plus another half a point for today. Pay me now an’ that’s an end to it.”

“But I got other bills.”

“Not like mine you don’t.”

Solly threw his head back and let out an anguished moan. Then he jerked open a cashbox. Counted the six-five out right there on the desk.

“An’ the half a point, don’t forget,” Skig said. Then he held up his hand. “Or maybe this’ll work.” He leaned in. “You know a guy named Caesar DeLuca? Drives a car like a birthday cake?” Warily, Solly nodded. Skig said, “Tell me about him.”

Solly looked even more stressed out, if that was possible.

“What’s to tell? I see him on Argyle there, Hollis Street, sometimes down at the casino. He’s trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

When Skig drove away fifteen minutes later, he had his money, and more information on Ceasar DeLuca than he needed. The kid was also in the car business. He and Happy Dan had that in common. He did custom work, prime merchandise only, a certain kind of car, a special customer. He got an order, shopped around till he filled it. Then — this part Solly was shaky on — he delivered the wheels out in Sackville, a guy with a long-haul business there. It got loaded on a semi, other stuff packed around it, and a day later it was in New York or Montreal, on its way to the special client.

Skig had said to Solly, “Rat boy. Where does he live?”

“I dunno. Nobody knows. He keeps that to himself.”

“This merchandise. Always a special order?”

“Prob’ly not. He wouldn’t walk away from something.”

Skig thought a minute. “Get a message to him. There’s an old Vette, one a them Sting Rays, been parking on the street all night behind the Armories. You don’t know why. But you seen it there, an’ you want a spotting fee.”

Solly had shaken his fleshy face. “Jeez, I dunno, Leo.”

“Just do it.” Skig shifted his weight. “Do it an’ we’ll call it square on the point.”

“Fine. But I don’t like it,” Solly said. “I’m telling you that guy is a crazy man.”

Back home, Skig dialed Saul Getz. “They pick her up? Eva Kohl?”

“No, of course not. What case have they got? But they’re thinking about it.”

“Why?”

“Something about her being a suicide risk.”

“They’re full of it.”

“I’m with you. She doesn’t look the type. A little bewildered maybe, but who wouldn’t be?”

“Whatever happened to a free country?”

“Things are relative, Leo.”

“Things are crap. Listen, do what you can for her. They pull her in, I want you there with her.”

“Leo, this is costing you. It’s adding up fast.”

“Just do it. An’ don’t bring me into it. She thinks she owes me, that’s bad for a friendship. It changes things.”

“Yeah, well, she is starting to wonder.”

“Just be there for her. Say you’re court appointed or something. Make somethin’ up, you’re a lawyer, for cryin’ out loud.”

“Fine, but I’ve got to bill you.”

“So cheer up.” Skig winced. The pain was back. “One more thing. I need to borrow your Vette.”

There was dead silence. Then Saul started breathing again.

“You what?”

“I know it’s your toy, you only drive it to church on Sunday, but tonight I want you to park it behind the Armories, take a cab home, an’ forget about it.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Anything happens to it, I’ll pay the shot. You know I’m good for it.”

There was a short pause. Then Saul said, “You’re up to something.”

“Go see Mrs. Kohl.”

* * * *

Skig spent the rest of the day at the clinic. The lousy tests all over again. When he got home that evening he felt as if he was a sample of something himself. He ate beans, cold out of the can, and washed them down with scotch, both food items totally forbidden to him. To hell with it. Then he set his alarm clock — the blender plugged into the timed outlet on the stove — and fell into his recliner. He dreamed Fatty and Skinny, dressed like surgeons, were stooping over him, making a large incision in his belly and smiling about it.

The alarm was howling in the kitchen, the empty blender dancing around on the metal stovetop like it was going to explode. Midnight.

He limped out the door.

He parked one street over from the Armories where through the gap of a vacant lot he could eyeball Saul’s money-pit Vette — a ’65 fastback, Nassau Blue. Tilted the Vic’s power seat back until only his eyes showed above the dash.

He dozed a few times, and then something woke him. The clock read 1:15. A tow truck was backing toward Saul’s ride. It stopped and rat boy got out, gold chains flashing under the sodium streetlamp. He held something down low at his side that looked for a second like a long-barreled handgun. It was a cordless drill with a foot-long bit in it. Rat boy put the bit to the fiberglass fender and sank a hole into the Vette’s engine compartment. An old trick. Drain the battery. That way the alarm wouldn’t sound unless there was a backup.

There wasn’t. Something to mention to Saul. The guy hooked up the Vette and dragged it away. Elapsed time, three minutes. Skig readjusted his seat and took off after him.

Rat boy would have places to store his cars, places where he could keep them out of sight for a while. Rented garages here and there, probably. After a ten minute drive out to Spryfield, the tow truck halted before an old swayback shed. The kid was good with the boom and the winch, and the Vette was tucked out of sight in no time.

The rat dropped off the truck — another darkened house a few blocks south — hopped in the Audi, and beat it out of town along Purcell’s Cove Road, stereo thumping all the way, a good night’s work behind him. Skig gave him room, not wanting to spook him. Maybe too much room. He came over a hill near Herring Cove, overshot the place, and had to double back. Good thing he’d been watching the drives on either side, and caught a flash of brake lights and yellow paint.

The rat appeared to be doing all right for himself. It was a modern chalet in bleached cedar, overlooking the ocean. In need of some TLC but pretty fine all the same. Skig took the Vic back up the hill to a market gardener’s he’d spotted, parked in the darkened lot by the greenhouse, got out, and walked back. A short stroll, no more than two hundred yards or so, but on a steep incline. His gut wasn’t happy about it.

Partway up the drive to the house, Skig stopped. There were two cars here. The Audi and, in front of it, the car he had followed from the cop-shop the previous night. He grunted. It was the car of the extremely pretty young woman.

“No boyfriend, huh?” Skig said.

He heard voices.

The house stood on a brutally unaccommodating chunk of granite, cantilevered over the cliff face to provide a picture-perfect view of the sea. A wide deck embraced it. In the quiet gaps when the surf wasn’t pounding, voices drifted from the seaward side.

Skig climbed three broad steps to the deck. Against the house were some sturdy-looking loungers, a plastic cooler filled with ice and beer. Skig helped himself to a beer and sat down on a bench. He pressed the cold can to his side. From here he could make out the voices better.

“...I brought the beer like you told me, but I didn’t think you’d be here this soon,” the girl’s voice said.

“I told you two, two thirty.”

“Yes, but you’re never early.”

“What’s the late-breaking news, it couldn’t wait till tomorrow?”

A wave heaved in. “A man came to see me.”

“What man?”

“The man I told the cops about — you know who I mean.”

“The guy who threatened your boss?”

“Yes.”

“So what did he want?”

“He accused me of killing Dwight.”

Another pause in the conversation. The guy deliberating. Down below the house a big wave thundered in. Skig could smell the salt.

“Lemme guess. He thinks he can blackmail you.”

“No. That’s the funny thing. He just made these crazy accusations, then left. I thought about it all day and finally decided I’d better tell you about it.”

“This happened yesterday?”

“Yeah. In the evening. Just after you left.” She hesitated. “I think...” Her voice trailed off.

“You think what?”

“I think he knows something about you. I mean, he asked me where he could find you, and — Stop that! You’re hurting me!”

“You waited all this time to tell me?”

“Let go of me!”

There was a scuffle, a muffled slap.

Skig swished his beer around, took another swallow. Then he got up. He walked around to the front of the house and saw him there, rat boy, staring down at the girl. She was crouched on the deck against the railing, one hand to the side of her face.

The guy must have seen her eyes move. He spun around in surprise.

“Name’s Leo Skorzeny,” Skig said. “You heard of me?”

“Where the hell’d you come from?”

“You heard of me?”

“Yeah, I hearda you. Some kinda shy. You heard of me?”

“Yeah. Some kinda rat.” Skig looked at the girl. There was a red welt blossoming along one side of her face. Her nose was bleeding. His eyes moved back to the rat, and he shook his head. “What’s the matter with you?”

The dead eyes narrowed, and Skig followed their quick shift to a pile of split wood near the door. A weapon on this guy’s mind. A hatchet, maybe.

“Don’t even think it,” Skig said, “’less you want to wear the thing. Walk around with it stickin’ outta you, some kinda new body piercing.”

“You talk tough.”

“It’s the mileage,” Skig said. “Want to hear what I got?” He finished the beer and set the can down carefully on the railing. “One part of Happy’s business, he had that detailing place out back of the lot. The way I figure it, somebody goes through the records there, they can find out who owns what in town. All the good stuff. The best rides. Cars you don’t see on the street too much. Practically a catalogue to a guy like you.”

“So what.”

“You come onto Ms. Russell here so you can get your nose in those records.” The girl was getting to her feet. Dawning realization on her face, eyes jumping from Skig to rat boy. “Pretty soon, Happy Dan’s customers lose a car or two. Maybe a string of them. Happy Dan is scratching his head. Then one day he finds you goin’ through his records, your rat’s nose twitching, an’ he calls you on it. Or no, more likely the girl’s doin’ it. He threatens to call the cops. You can’t have that.”

The dead eyes didn’t waver.

“There’s some shouting. Some more threats. He has to step out to start processing the old lady’s trade, an’ the girl calls you up, panicking. You panic too. She tells you where the gun is, or she told you about it before. You’re back in a minute, an’ you use it to make those big holes in the guy.”

The rat edged closer to the woodpile. A car started out back of the house. Skig looked for the girl again, but she was gone. He shrugged.

“What you gonna do? I think the girl figures it out. She remembers me sorting out her boss, an’ she’s thinking — some nutty idea in her head — that she can put the jacket on me. It’s a long shot, but it’s all you got. An’ it turns out I got an alibi. Then there’s the gun. You screwed that up too. Not likely I’d pop somebody with their own gun. Not my style. An’ bein’ a thief it’s really tough for you to give up a perfectly good Smith. I bet you still got it. The gun ties you to it.”

By this time DeLuca had sidled halfway across the deck, and now he dived for the open door. Skig moved to block him. He saw what DeLuca was reaching for — not the woodpile but something else, his hand thrusting into the room and coming out with the gun. It must have been on the kitchen counter.

Skig brought the heel of his fist down on the rat’s arm so hard he heard something pop and rat boy screamed. The gun clattered over the boards. The rat’s bony knee came up, and a huge pain shot through Skig’s belly. Skig reeled backward, left hand clenched in the rat’s shirt, pulling the rat with him as the knee came up again. A wave of nausea. Skig was going down. He grabbed handfuls of the rat’s baggy pants with both fists and heaved, putting his shoulders into it. The jolt hammered all the way up his spine when his butt struck the deck, and he sat there a moment, dazed, chunky legs splayed out, hand pressed to his side. There was one good thing though. Rat boy was gone. A flying header over the railing, sixty feet down to rocks and pounding surf.

Boom.

After a bit, Skig got up and put the gun back on the kitchen counter, careful how he touched it.

“You gonna be all right?” Skig asked Mrs. Kohl.

“I’ll be just fine, Mr. Skorzeny. Go ahead to your doctor’s appointment.”

“He can wait. I’m more worried about you. Somethin’ happens, who’s gonna cut my hair?”

Skig helped her settle into her glider rocker. She smiled up at him.

“That Mr. Getz is an awfully nice man. He’s helped me a lot. I was relieved when he told me the police figured out who killed Mr. Duchek. He was a nice man too.” Then she frowned. “Mr. Getz isn’t very happy with you, though. Something about a car?”

“Could be.”

“Cars are an awful lot of trouble.”

“They are for some people.”

“I’m going out again tomorrow to see if I can lease one.”

Skig was silent a moment, then said, “You want some company this time?”

A bright laugh. “You’re afraid I’ll get cheated. Men have an easier time of it at car lots than women do, is that it?”

“Lemme think about that one,” Skig said.