Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 137, No. 1. Whole No. 833, January 2011
- Автор: Коуди Лиза, Faherty Terence
- Год: 2011
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines/Crosstown Publications
- ISBN: ISSN 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 137, No. 1. Whole No. 833, January 2011». Краткое содержание книги:
“Stolen when, Mr. Swiver? Last night? Shoot. It’s probably parts by now.”
“Parts?”
“Yes sir.” George pulled a pouch of Bull Durham out of the top of his overalls and started to roll one. He held the paper in his right hand and shook tobacco out of the bag with his left. “Car thief takes a car. What’s in it for him? It’s hot. He can’t sell it. He got no title. But he take it apart, he can sell the tires, the wheels, the generator. He can sell the gears, the radio, the lights. Nobody asks for a title for the parts. Thief can sell ’em all cheap, and he still makes a few hundred bucks. Might make more than a grand. What kind of bucket is it? Cadillac might bring two thousand in parts.” He pulled the strings on the bag shut with his teeth, dropped it in his overalls, finished the roll, and then wet the whole cigarette down in his mouth.
“It’s a ’forty-nine Mercury.” I lit him.
George’s sleepy expression changed. “’Forty-nine Merc? Oh, that different. See, that’s a brand-new car. That’s in demand. Yeah, Ford got them a hit there. You see, you want to buy one, you can’t just get your pick and drive it off the lot. No sir. You gots to wait. You place an order, wait maybe six weeks for Dee-troit. So now, your car thief, he has a product he can move. He don’t have to spend time cuttin’ it up into pieces. He can find one buyer. Yes sir, you might still have a chance here.”
“George, what if I wanted a new Mercury and didn’t want to wait? How could I get a hot one?”
“Don’t know, Mr. S. I don’t work with no hot boilers. Chances are the thief might have already had a buyer. Mighta been fillin’ an order, like. But I’ll tell you what I’d do. How’s your Spanish? You should talk to some Mexicans. Yeah, I think they like that kind of merchandise.”
I gave George fifty cents. He held the door of my ’38 Pontiac open for me. Maybe it was time to shop for a new car.
3
First, though, I paid a visit to the scene of the crime, the Sorrento Motor Inn. It was a two-level modern building, tucked under the morning fog, just south of Chestnut. A couple of quiet gulls sat on the roof. There were about two dozen rooms opening to the outside around a courtyard that was the parking lot. It was now ten-fifteen, and most of the spaces were empty. I parked by the office and went in.
There was a kid in his twenties, black-rimmed glasses and a cowlick, wearing a sweater vest over a shirt and tie, at the desk. I showed him my card and told him I was a private dick on a case. He said his name was Matt Fisher. He said he was willing to help.
“What time did you come on, Matt?”
“Seven, sir. Seven A.M.”
“I have a client whose car was stolen here last night. Do you know anything about that?”
“Just after I came in, sir. Maybe seven-ten. A guy in big baggy pants with suspenders, wearing just his undershirt, sunglasses, and a big hat came to the office. He said he was Mr. Valdes from Two-oh-nine. Said his car had been stolen. I said I’d call the police and he could report it. I started to dial, and then he put his hand down on the cradle, broke the connection. He says maybe he was mistaken, don’t call the police yet. ‘Maybe my wife forget where she park it,’ he says. Then he went out.”
“Can I look at the register?”
“Sure.” He spun it partway around and slid it over to me. There was a Mr. and Mrs. P. Valdes checked into room 209. They listed a purple Mercury with the same plate number Mrs. Maldau had given me. “Did they have a reservation?” I asked.
“No.” He shrugged. “It ain’t that kinda place, sir. Most of our business just stops in if they see the vacancy sign on. Anyhow, about eight o’clock, Mr. Valdes comes back in, said everything was fine. He turned in his key and paid cash for the room, which was six bucks. The lady stayed outside with her back to the window.”
“Short Mexican broad? Dark hair? Kind of stocky?”
He looked surprised. “Mrs. Valdes? No, she was tall, at least as tall as him. She was blond. From the back, it looked like she had a good figure.”
I asked Matt if I could see room 209, and he said sure; he doubted it had been cleaned yet. I said better still, and he gave me the key.
There was a concrete outdoor staircase with a black iron railing. I took the steps two at a time, and the seagulls on the roof took off. Room 209 was in a corner. When I opened the door, the room seemed hazy, as if the fog had settled in. I flicked the light switch and a small lamp on a bed table came on. Then I took a breath and realized the haze wasn’t fog, it was reefer smoke.
The light on the bed table wasn’t strong enough to attract a baby moth, so I pulled open the curtain. One ashtray held light gray ash, the stubs of a couple of homemade smokes, and five or six Old Gold butts. In the wastebasket was an empty bottle of Paul Masson Ruby Cabernet. Two sticky glasses sat on the table, one with peachy lip prints. A soggy towel lay crumbled on the floor of the bathroom. I lifted the spread and blanket from the bed. The sheets were soiled with the lees of a good time.
I could scoop up the dregs of the reefer and I could get prints from the glasses but what for? I was looking for a bent car. So I turned out the lights and stepped out onto the landing, pulling the door to 209 shut behind me.
There was a view from the second level across the courtyard and down to the street. To the south, on Lombard, I could just make out some red, white, and green pennants strung on a line parallel to the street flapping in the breeze. Black lettering on a yellow sign read, “Used Autos... Lopez Motors... Autos Usados.”
4
I was considering a prewar Packard four-door the size of a PT boat when a sharp-dressed man in his forties, maybe five or ten years older than me, with slick black hair and a waxed moustache stepped out of the trailer that served as an office. “That’s a posh machine you’re looking at there, sir. All the luxury options, and only thirty-one thousand miles on it. You could save a lot on that. I just got it in. Picked it up at an estate sale.”
“Buenos días. Señor Lopez?”
The sun was over my shoulder and now he shaded his eyes with his hand and took a closer look at me. I gave him a friendly but dumb grin. I’d tipped the front of my hat brim up, and I hoped that I looked like a rube.
“Sí, Jorge Lopez. Do I know you, señor?”
“No, I don’t think so, Señor Lopez, unless you’ve bought grapes in Santa Rosa. Ha, ha, ha.” I clasped his right hand with both of mine and started working it up and down like a pump handle. “My name’s Kennedy, Francis Kennedy. I’ve just moved to San Francisco. Cómo va el negocio?”
“Bueno, señor. Habla usted español?”
“Ha, ha, ha. Solo un poco, señor, un poco. I was in Spain.” I hung on to his arm a little longer.
“Ah, España. See, I know you don’t talk Spanish like a Mexican. How can I help you? You want to take this Packard for a test drive? It gives a great ride.”
“This? Oh, no. Actually, this is too big for me. I was thinking about a coupé.”
Jorge Lopez was happy to oblige, and I let him walk me over to a ’41 DeSoto two-door. “Ah, Mr. Lopez, what I’m really looking for is a post-war design. I like the way they’re building the new bodies now.”
Lopez agreed that I was a man of taste and style. He liked them, too. But he said, “Unfortunately, not many folks have traded in their post-war cars yet. I could show you a ’forty-eight Chevy Aero, but truly, that is just a pre-war car built after the war.”
“Really, what I’m looking for,” I said, and my left eye picked up a little tic, “is a ’forty-nine Mercury.” There was a distinct pause.