Convertible Hearse

by William Campbell Gault

  Randy Roman looked at me over his cards, and I said, “I’m sorry, Randy. I had a fight with my girl.”

  “I bleed for you,” Scooter said. “Let’s see the color of your money.”

  Nice friendly guys. I looked at Joe Darbo, who worked for May wood Bell Ford. “What kind of an operator is this Loony Leo, Joe?”

  “A crook,” Joe said. “Didn’t used to be in Pasadena, but he sure as hell is cutting it close these days. I don’t know where he’s getting some of the stuff he’s selling, but he’s under the market on a lot of it.”

  “Deal, deal, deal,” Randy said. “Less yak and more action.”

  It was a good place to get rid of my sulks, with people I understood, men who never thought of being anything but exactly what they were. They had been brought up in a sport where the other boys soon find out exactly what you are.

  I played my cards closely and milked two good hands dry and wound up only a few dollars ahead, though it had been table stakes.

  Then Scooter put out the big delicatessen spread for which he was famous, and we talked of other things. And Joe Darbo asked me around a mouthful of corned beef what my interest was in Loony Leo.

  I told him about the car and the price and the allowance for Jan’s Chev, and he shook his head.

  “If you can get the engine number,” he said. “I can check it for you. Or isn’t she talking to you?”

  “She isn’t talking to me. Do you mean, you think the car is hot?”

  Joe shrugged, and reached for a pickle. “Who knows? But we could find out who the previous owner is, and maybe get a line on the car’s history. You know, that additional forty-five hundred she’s paying includes three years of interest and insurance, and it makes the car a bargain, if it’s as clean as you say.”

  “A bargain …? What kind of interest does Leo charge?”

  “Two and a half percent on the first hundred and two percent on the rest is legal in this state, Brock.” He chewed the pickle. “Two percent a month, that is.”

  “I’m in the wrong business,” I said. “I’ll try to get the engine number for you, Joe.”

  In the morning, at my office, the phone-answering service informed me that no one had called over the week end. The mail consisted of one payment, two bills, two ads and a throwaway weekly newspaper. I filed the bills, put the check in my wallet and went over to the drug store for breakfast.

  My office is in Beverly Hills, and so is Jan’s shop. I went over there after my second cup of coffee.

  The car was in front and Jan was not in sight. The drapes of her show window were closed against the morning sun. I went over to open the hood.

  I had my feet in the air and my nose about three feet from the engine number, when somebody tapped me on the back.

  I came back to full stance and faced a uniformed officer. A Beverly Hills prowl car was now parked in front of the Cad and the other officer was getting out.

  “We’ve been watching you,” the one in front of me said. “Is this your car?”

  I shook my head as I jotted down the engine number in my notebood, “My girl’s car. I’m going to check the engine number for her.”

  “And who is your girl? What’s her name?”

  I nodded toward the shop. “Jan Bonnet. You’ll find her in there, I’m sure.”

  The other officer had come up now. He was older and fatter. He looked at me doubtfully. “Aren’t you the private eye’s got the office a couple blocks over?”

  “That’s right. Brock Callahan.”

  “What were you trying to do, short the ignition switch?”

  “No, I was trying to steal the spark plugs, but you boys came along too soon. Look, run in and tell Miss Bonnet I’m out here and we’ll get this all straightened out in a jiffy.”

  The younger man looked at the older and the older one shrugged. “He’s too big to feed for long; we’d have to shoot him or the taxpayers would scream. Run in and get the lady.”

  The older one leaned against the fender of the Cadillac and looked bleakly off into space while the younger one disappeared through the doorway of the shop.

  Cars slowed as they went past us and the drivers and passengers bent their necks. Then the door opened again, and Jan came out and the younger officer pointed at me.

  Jan looked and frowned and said clearly, “I never saw him before in my life.”

  She went back into her shop and slammed the door.

  THREE

  THE OLDER MAN said, “Okay, big boy, let’s run down to the station and talk it all over.”

  “Cut it out,” I said. “We had a fight last night. You can phone Loony Leo and ask him if I wasn’t with her yesterday.”

  The officer stared. “Loony Leo …? You mean that TV used-car racketeer? Are you stealing cars for him, now?”

  “I can get along without the comedy, if you can. She and I went there yesterday morning to buy her a car. This one was so cheap, that I got suspicious. So I was going to get the engine number and a friend of mine in the car business was going to check it. Now that’s the story and I’ve got a half dozen people who will back it up. She and I even took it to my garage man yesterday morning to have it examined. You could call him.”

  “So, all right. So we’ll call anybody you want us to. But what have you got against doing it at the Beverly Hills Station? It’s cheaper there.”

  “Nothing,” I said wearily. “Or you could phone Lieutenant Remington or Sergeant Gnup down there. They’d vouch for me.”

  “We’ll go down and see them,” the officer said. “One of them should be in.”

  One of them was. Lieutenant Remington. There are days when he is a reasonable man and this was one of them. In his office, he listened patiently and carefully to my story.

  When I’d finished, he said, “Let’s have the number.”

  I opened my notebook and slid it across his desk to him. He copied it on a pad of paper and dialed his phone.

  He said, “Could I speak with George Ratner, please?” A pause. Then, “George? I’ve a number here I want you to check for previous ownership. It was sold this morning by Loony Leo over there on Crenshaw. It’s a gray Cadillac convertible with black top.”

  A longer pause, while Remington fiddled with a pencil, yawned and looked past me, out the window. “Nice day for golf, huh?”

  “Fine,” I agreed.

  Then Remington was listening, and his pencil was moving. He said, “Thank you, George. See you Wednesday, on the first tee.”

  He looked at what he’d written and passed it over to me. I read, Walter Samuels, 703 Belwood Road.

  “There you are,” he said. “You can thank me any time.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Aren’t you interested in it?”

  “Why? Belwood Road is between Brentwood and Bel Air; so that puts Mr. Samuels outside my jurisdiction. And Loony Leo operates on Crenshaw, which is way outside my bailiwick. I’ve got enough to handle right here in Beverly Hills.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Thanks again. Keep your head down and hit through the ball, and you’ll be all right, Lieutenant.”

  He shook his head seriously. “It’s that damned fast back-swing of mine. Throws me out of the arc.”

  In the corridor, Sergeant Gnup was at the bubbler. He looked up to say, “You again? What are you in for this time?”

  I gave him my patronizing smile and went past without dignifying him with an answer.

  Brentwood and Bel Air are just realtor’s designations; both of them are Los Angeles. Seven hundred three Belwood Road was a rambling redwood house, topped with white rock, overlooking the lower hills of the Santa Monica Range.

  A maid took my name at the door and told me to wait. Which I did.

  In about a minute, a stocky man in a dark gray suit came to the door alone. “You’re a detective, are you?”

  “A private investigator, sir. I’m checking on a gray Cadillac with black top you formerly owned. Did it have full power equipment, seat and windows and steering
and brakes?”

  “That’s correct. Why? Are you checking the accident for someone?”

  I shook my head. “Air conditioning, too, sir?”

  “Of course not. In this climate? May I ask why you are so interested, Mr….” He looked at my card. “… Callahan?”

  “I wanted to be sure a car that a client of mine bought had a clear title, sir, that’s all. I suppose the air conditioning was installed after you sold it.”

  He stared at me. “Sold it …? For a hundred dollars, I sold it. It was completely demolished, Mr. Callahan. That car is not running anywhere today.”

  I stared back at him. “Demolished …?”

  “My chauffeur hit a concrete bridge abutment at a hundred and three miles an hour with it, sir. It couldn’t even be towed. They swept it up and hauled the pieces away on a truck. My chauffeur was killed.”

  “And you sold the pieces for a hundred dollars?”

  “As scrap, yes. And perhaps they could use a few of the tires and the cushions and things like that. I’ve no idea how much can be salvaged from a wreck like that. Your client didn’t buy that car.”

  “No,” I admitted, “she probably bought that title. That went with the scrap, of course, the pink slip?”

  He nodded.

  “And who bought this wreck?” I asked.

  He frowned. “I’ve forgotten. It was the man who hauled it away. In tracing back, didn’t you get to him first?”

  “No, sir. I’d be obliged to you if you could remember his name, or place of business.”

  He chewed his lip and then shook his head. “All I remember is that he came to the house and said he was the wrecker who had hauled the car away, and he’d give me a hundred for the scrap value.”

  “Then, you didn’t make out the pink slip to him?”

  “I simply signed it. He said he’d fill in the rest.”

  “Do you remember what he looked like?”

  He chewed some more lip. “The police would have a record of who hauled the car, wouldn’t they? An accident report had to made out, you know. Oh, wait, this man was tall and fairly thin, and the index finger on his right hand was missing.”

  It sounded like the service manager. “Horse-faced?” I asked.

  “I … suppose he could be called that. Yes, that could describe him. He seemed honest enough to me. Had that — that garage look, too.”

  “I think I know the man,” I said. “You may be called on to identify him, sir.”

  “I’m not sure I could do that honestly, but I will coöperate to the best of my ability of course.”

  I got the date of the accident and the place and thanked him. As I drove down through the dry, gray hills back to Sunset, I thought of Jan and her admiration for the energetic and incorruptible Loony Leo. This should change her tune.

  At the West Los Angeles Station, they checked the accident for me but there was no record of the garage that had hauled the car away. I told them what I had learned, and they went to work.

  The old engine number on that Cad of Jan’s had undoubtedly been ground off. Then a specialist with a set of dies corresponding to the Cadillac dies in Detroit had hammered in the new numbers of the wrecked Cad, to which they had a clear title.

  But heat or chemicals can raise the old number, because of the change in molecular structure of the iron under the impacted die mark. With luck, we would find out who really owned Jan’s car. It seemed logical to assume it was stolen.

  From downtown, detectives were going out to pick up Loony Leo and his service manager. From the West Side Station, I phoned Jan and told her what I’d discovered.

  Silence, on her end, and then a quiet, “You had to put your big nose into my business, didn’t you?” The line went dead.

  I called her back twice, because there was more I wanted to tell her. But first the line was busy and then there was no answer. And I realized I should have warned her, before I’d told her the rest.

  I was glad no officer had been in the room when I phoned her.

  Sergeant Pascal came in to tell me, “We’ll keep in touch with you, Callahan.” His bloodhound’s face was almost human. “Nice work, for a private man.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” I said humbly, and went out to my own ‘54 Ford Victoria with the recapped tires, burned-out muffler and clean, unmortgaged title. I felt kind of noble as I headed her back toward the office.

  I’d had a small breakfast and I was again hungry. Behind the lunch counter in the drug store, my most consistent fan said, “Hoo, hoo, hoo — those poor clobbered Eagles. That’s one jinx we got licked now, huh, Rock?”

  “Right,” I said. “How’s the beef stew?”

  “For drug store beef stew, it’s all right. There’s a rye roll left.”

  I ate that with the beef stew and drank two glasses of milk, while I read about my buddies and their triumph of yesterday.

  My fan asked, “Wish you were back with them, huh?”

  “At times. That was one place where money didn’t talk. A poor man can be something on a football field, looked up to.”

  “I don’t look up to rich people,” he said scornfully. “I see too many of them.”

  “You’ve got the wrong attitude,” I said. “Do you want to be a counterman all your life?”

  “Not me. I’m taking one of those hotel management courses by mail. This place won’t see me much longer.”

  Six months ago he had taken an electronics course, so he could be a TV repairman. And two years ago he had gone to night school to study dramatics and public speaking. He was a very educated counterman.

  I gave him my warmest smile and said, “Thanks for saving the rye roll,” and went over to the bank to deposit this morning’s payment.

  From there to the office, and there had been a call in my absence, from Sergeant Pascal.

  I called him back, and he told me, “Those men from downtown didn’t get there in time. This Dunbar’s flown the coop.”

  “Dunbar …?”

  “That’s right, Leo Dunbar, Loony Leo. Have you forgotten him?”

  “I never knew his last name,” I answered. “How about the service manager?”

  “We got him. And this Samuels is on his way over to identify him if he can. What bothers me is who tipped off Leo?”

  “It would bother me, too, Sergeant. You weren’t suggesting I did?”

  “I’m asking.”

  “I didn’t and you know it. Maybe Leo’s got a stooge in your station.”

  “Not a chance. Okay, Callahan. Keep me informed of anything you learn.”

  “I’ll do that, Sergeant,” I promised.

  Jan, no doubt … Jan had phoned Leo Dunbar as soon as she’d learned about her car. And I’d phoned Jan. I did again.

  She didn’t answer. I tried her house and had no success there, either. Sergeant Pascal had probably phoned her with the same lack of success and that’s why he had phoned me. The logical person to suspect would be Jan, who would naturally phone Leo to complain about her stolen car and make sure Leo didn’t sell her former car. And as Pascal knew I was a friend of Jan’s, he would have to assume I had phoned her.

  I walked over to her shop and a sign in the door told me she would be back at three-forty-five. It was now three-thirty. The police must have picked up her car or there would be an officer staked out here right now waiting for it.

  In less than ten minutes, she came walking down from the direction of Wilshire and I walked up that way to meet her.

  She glared at me as I came close, and her chin went up.

  I said, “You called Leo, didn’t you? And tipped him off. And now he’s not to be found.”

  “I didn’t phone him to tip him off, Mr. Callahan. I phoned him to warn him I expected my Chevrolet back in half an hour.”

  “So, all right. Just don’t tell the police I told you about your car. You’ve given me enough police trouble already today.”

  “That’s too bad,” she said. “Perhaps you should be in a business w
here the police aren’t always giving you trouble.”

  I smiled at her. “Like your friend, Loony Leo Dunbar? Let’s be friends, Jan.”

  “Go to hell,” she said.

  We were even with her shop door now and she put the key into the lock. I said, “It was that restaurant that did it, wasn’t it? You saw all those fancy people and were suddenly ashamed of me. Well, you’re a pretentious and misguided snob and I’m sorry I’ve given you as much time as I have.”

  Her mouth opened and she stared at me, speechless. That’s the way I left her, speechless, for a change.

  Back at my office, I dusted the desk and all three chairs, the filing cabinet and the bookcase. Then I drank a couple glasses of water and tried to check through my few delinquent accounts.

  But I couldn’t put my mind to it. I was thinking about Loony Leo and wondering why he would disappear. He had sold a stolen car, but nobody had proved that he knew it was stolen. He had too much of an investment over there on Crenshaw; he wouldn’t be likely to stay in hiding. He had the money to hire good lawyers.”

  In a way, I felt sorry for him. A reputable dealer in a conservative town, and then he’d lost his customers to the television pirates. Leo hadn’t folded his tent and stolen away. He’d pitched a new tent in the camping ground of the enemy and played their game.

  I made the late afternoon papers; Pascal had given me credit for an assist. I was referred to as “that former Ram star” and mention was made of my big bonus payment from a client for another case. Leo Dunbar was still missing and presumed to be in hiding. There was a picture of his wife, a young, blonde and shapely lady who had formerly been a bit player at Universal.

  This I discovered, as I read on, was his second wife. His first had been the socially prominent Dorothy Hartland, very top drawer in Pasadena. She was now living in Beverly Hills where there was less smog. Leo and his second wife had lived in Bel Air, where the second wife still resided.

  And where did Leo currently reside? That was something the police were trying to determine.

  The office was neat now and there didn’t seem to be much of a demand for my services today. I was getting ready to go home when I had a caller.