Desert Kill Switch

by Mark S. Bacon

“I got a problem, Lyle,” he said. Galluzzo moved quickly for a large, overweight man. He took a deep breath. “Dario, you know, he’s going to give me a coronary. I don’t know what to do.”

  Business was light that morning. Galluzzo waved to his clerk behind the counter and led Lyle to the back of the deli. Lyle took a seat facing the front of the shop at one of the restaurant’s Formica tables while Galluzzo went into a back room.

  A moment later, Dario, dressed for work as Lyle had last seen him, walked over to the table, his father right behind him.

  They sat opposite Lyle. Dario looked at Lyle like a wayward high school student looks at the vice principal. He made quick eye contact, then looked down.

  “So tell him what you did,” Galluzzo said.

  His son remained mute.

  “I’ll tell you what he did. He stole a car. A Nostalgia City car.”

  “But Shaun brought it back,” Dario mumbled.

  “You don’t know this,” Galluzzo said.

  Dario continued to look down. His father and Lyle waited. When he didn’t speak, Galluzzo tapped the tabletop. “Dario used to work at the NC garage,” he said. “That’s how he knew.” Galluzzo leaned over and gripped his son’s shoulder firmly.

  “Shaun said we could make some money,” Dario said, still looking down at his hands. “So many people, they visit here and they love these old cars. Shaun said with the car show going on here, he could sell one and we split the money. He had papers and everything.”

  Theft of means of transportation, Lyle thought. Class three felony. “How did you get the car?”

  Dario started to speak, haltingly, so his father speeded up the tale. “He used to work in the garage so he knew where they kept the keys. He went to the NC garage storage lot that morning and just drove the car out, then handed the keys to Shaun.”

  “I gave Shaun the car just outside the park,” Dario said. “There was one guy with him and some others in a car. They were going to buy it. Shaun said they wanted a test drive. I walked back here.”

  “And that’s the last we saw of this Shaun,” Galluzzo said, looking over his shoulder to be sure no one had entered the shop. “Dario was worried--”

  “I thought maybe he took all the money,” Dario said. “He never called me.”

  “But a week later,” Galluzzo said, “Dario sees the car going down the street right here in front of the deli.” He pointed over his shoulder out the front window. “It parked right out there.”

  “Are you sure it was the same car?” Lyle asked. “Some of these old vehicles are hard to identify.”

  “It was the same,” Dario said, looking up at Lyle for the first time. “It had blue interior and I remember the mag wheels. A blue Firebird.”

  Holy crap. Lyle flashed back to the desert scene. The car. The body. “Tell me,” he said deliberately, “what does Shaun look like?”

  Dario and his father described a young man in his late twenties with a light complexion and dark hair.

  “Where does he live?”

  “Some place in Polk,” Galluzzo said. “Dario doesn’t know for sure. Shaun lives by himself.”

  “Have you called him?”

  Dario looked away again.

  “He called many times,” Galluzzo said. “Shaun doesn’t call back.”

  Dario was more than just reticent. Lyle remembered his altercation over the Facebook sign. When Lyle was young, kids like Dario were called slow. There was probably a more modern term, but Lyle didn’t know what it was. Regardless, Lyle could see that Dario’s friend would have had no trouble manipulating him.

  “Sal,” Lyle began.

  “I know,” Sal said, “I should have called the sheriff. But I said, ‘we’ll ask Lyle Deming, he was a detective. He can tell us what to do.’”

  “You’re right, Sal. You need to talk to the sheriff. You should call Undersheriff Rey Martinez. Explain the situation to him.”

  “Dario?” Sal said, looking at his son.

  His son glanced at his father for a moment then lowered his head.

  “Sal, if I had the time, I would work on this,” Lyle said. “I’d go to the station with you and talk to Rey. But I’ve got a deadline. I need to be back in Nevada. Someone’s depending on me.”

  Chapter 49

  “Lyle, did I catch you at a bad time?” Kate said. “Do we have a bad connection? You sound funny.”

  “Just driving myself crazy.”

  “Wear a seatbelt.”

  “A friend here had a problem. He wanted help. I’m just about to walk over to the NC garage now to get my quickie degree in antique car collecting.”

  “You’re already an expert,” Kate said sitting at the desk in her hotel room. “I figured it out this morning. I did online research last night and got up early to make some calls. You’re going to be a self-employed classic car specialist working for a French industrialist and collector, monsieur Gaston Moreau. He’s well known in classic car circles, has a huge collection.”

  “They might know him. Do you think they’d call to check up on me?”

  “They might, but they won’t get anywhere. Moreau’s office is in Lyon, nine hours later than Pacific Time. The person who answers the phone speaks only French. And if you can understand her, she’ll tell you--‘Mon Dieu, c'est l'août. Tout le monde en vacances.’”

  “I took Spanish.”

  “It means, ‘it’s August, by God, everyone’s on vacation.’ Moreau is gone.”

  “Good work.”

  “But you’ll have to call Busick Pony Cars to make an appointment. I called this morning and explained you knew about the Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 and wanted to see it. I didn’t talk to Rick. I was afraid he’d recognize my voice, but he’ll be expecting your call. Your name is Larry Daniels. You have to ask them to email you a summary of the provenance, that’s the history of the car. I set up an email account for you.”

  As Kate hung up the phone, someone knocked at her door.

  “Bruce,” she said, “what’re you doing here?”

  “I had to see you.” Bruce looked like he might have been at work. He wore slacks and his usual health club polo, but his hair was awry and he’d been sweating.

  “Get in here,” she said. She looked down the hallway before she closed the door.

  Bruce put his arms around her. She pushed him away. “No, this is dangerous.”

  “What’s dangerous?”

  “Did you check to see if you were followed?”

  “Nobody followed me.”

  Kate took two steps back. “How did you find me?”

  “I called some of your friends to see who picked you up the other day. The numbers were on your phone.” Bruce pulled out Kate’s phone and held it out to her.

  She snatched the phone out of his hand. “So did the police follow you, or do you think they’re just getting the GPS location now from my phone?” She put the phone on airplane mode, turned it off, and then, to be sure, she wrestled the back off and pulled out the battery.

  “What did you do to your hair?” Bruce reached out to touch her.

  Kate turned and walked to the back of the room. Her window looked out over the hotel’s rear parking lot. She peered around the curtain. Nothing suspicious out back. Dammit to hell. Doesn’t he know? “Where did you park?”

  “Out front. Don’t be worried. I haven’t seen the cops since they talked to me Tuesday or Wednesday.”

  Kate pulled her suitcase out of the closet and started throwing in her clothes.

  “What are you doing, Kate? Can’t you sit down and talk?”

  Kate ignored him and dashed into the bathroom to throw her cosmetics into another case. She looked at herself in the mirror. She hadn’t bothered to do her disguise make up this morning, and after showering, her hair looked lighter. Still, it wasn’t blonde and that might give her some cover.

  She walked into the room holding her case.

  “Where’s Lyle?”

  “Bruce, listen to me. We need to leave. Go
down to your car and I’ll meet you. I just have to grab a few more things. Go ahead. I’ll be there directly.”

  Bruce gave her a pleading look then turned and walked out. Why was he doing this? Anger and complete disbelief fought a duel in Kate’s head. He used her phone, alerting her friends.

  Who else did he call? She pushed these thoughts away and focused on getting out of there. She finished packing, tossing her shoes on top of her clothes--wrinkles and dirt be damned. She gave a quick look around the room then grabbed her cases and left.

  Struggling with all her possessions, she walked out the rear door of the hotel and straight to her car. The wheelchair still sat in the trunk. She put her cases in the back seat and started the engine. Backing out of her space, her gaze moved around the lot looking for a rear exit. The only two ways out connected to the front parking lot. Kate chose the drive to the right, next to a fence. From the shadow of the hotel she could see a direct route to the street. She pulled up at a stop sign by the corner of the building, then eased ahead.

  Looking to the left, she saw Bruce standing next to his car. He started to wave then yelled, “Kate.”

  At the same time, Detective Tom Polhouse appeared at the end of another aisle. He walked toward Kate then started to jog.

  Kate accelerated and reached the edge of the street. Looking down the aisle, she saw Polhouse pull out a gun. She couldn’t hear what he yelled, but she clearly heard the crack of gunshots.

  Chapter 50

  Wandering down Main Street, Lyle passed a record store. Linda Ronstadt’s voice, singing, “You’re No Good,” drifted through a door and out onto the pavement. Lyle hardly heard it. “Shit, the blue Firebird,” he said out loud then caught himself.

  Just what I need. No wonder they hadn’t heard from Shaun. Had he pulled a disappearing act or was his body rotting in the desert? He’d love to help Sal, but what could he do? He didn’t have time. He’d deal with this later. Now he had to get back to Kate. Had to delay the car sale. Oh shit.

  Lyle realized he’d walked off in the wrong direction to get to the NC garage. He stopped in a retro burger joint to buy a soda so he could wash down a little yellow pill, then he headed across Main and down a side street.

  Gayle Leblanc called Lyle, Lyle honey, so often he had started to think his name was something you could smear on biscuits. Today, he welcomed it.

  “Lyle honey,” she said, “Mitch Kohler’s expecting you. His office is about a half mile that way. It’s the enclosed area on the left.” Leblanc pointed down the hangar-sized garage facility.

  “Gayle, there’s one other thing I’m curious about, GPS and kill switches.”

  “Like those things the car dealers use when you don’t make your payments?”

  “Exactly. Know anything about ’em?”

  “Sure honey. We install the GPS units in all our cars.”

  “Of course. If you have time, I’ll talk to you when I’m done with Mr. Kohler.”

  “You know where I’ll be.”

  Lyle thanked Gayle and headed down the long building. Steel partitions topped with frosted glass separated Kohler’s office from the garage. It gave him privacy, but didn’t filter out much of the noise or the smell of grease and solvents that laced the air. Kohler got up from his metal desk when Lyle walked in and shook hands. He was in his fifties. His hair was different colors of gray, like aluminum and tarnished aluminum.

  “Gayle tells me you want to become an expert in classic cars.”

  Lyle smiled, happy to focus on one specific task now. “Just expert enough to sound like I know what I’m doing when I examine a $2-million-dollar car.”

  Kohler leaned against a corner of his desk. He wore jeans with shirt and tie. He looked as if he did much of his work at his desk and computer, but his hands showed he was also used to turning a socket wrench. “I won’t ask why you need to do this. I’ve heard of you. Lots of people at the park have after the nasty stretch we went through. Gayle says it’s important, so how much time have you got?”

  “The rest of the day, if you have time.”

  “If you’re a fast learner, it’ll only take me a couple of hours to tell you everything I know.”

  Kohler’s keen eyes behind aviator glasses told Lyle it would probably take years. “I’m all yours.”

  Kohler offered Lyle a metal-frame chair with a big cushion on it. “What types of cars are you going to be looking at?”

  “Just one.” Lyle fished out a piece of paper from his pocket so he would get the name correct. “A 1939 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 Sport Berlinetta/Touring.”

  “It’ll be a whole lot easier just to study up on the one old Alfa. Have you seen the provenance, the restoration records? I’m not familiar with this car, but I’m assuming if it’s worth two million, it will have been meticulously restored--unless it’s a pristine barn find.”

  “A what?”

  “Barn find. It means an old classic car that’s been stored somewhere for decades--like in a barn--and is discovered by someone who knows what he’s looking at.”

  “I don’t have any documentation yet, but I’m supposed to call the sellers this afternoon and have them send me something.”

  “Ask for as much as you can get. A lot will depend on how many owners the car’s had, but you need to find out about the restoration.

  “Let’s take a look.” Kohler started pecking at his computer. “Only thirteen of these made and ten still around. Fastback, streamlined. The body was made by Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera. That’s a coach builder in Milan. One sold recently for, let’s see, one point five million. Prices are going up all the time. Classic cars are the new investment choice for the wealthy. When you check this car out, you’ll need to spend as much time on the paperwork as you do the car itself, maybe more.”

  “What do I look for?”

  Kohler tapped the keys and pulled up the provenance on a classic car. “Obviously you look at the chassis and engine numbers.”

  Lyle squinted at the screen. “Obviously.”

  “You look for the chain of ownership, copies of old titles and registrations, major service records, reports done on the car by marque historians,” Kohler said. He moved the cursor around the screen. “Now here’s an example of a restoration report.”

  During the next hour, Lyle’s head filled with details and jargon he hoped he could remember. He filled up half of the pages in the little notebook he brought with him.

  “When do you look at this car?

  “Tomorrow, I think. I’d better call.”

  “There’s an empty office next door.”

  As Lyle pulled out his phone to call Busick Pony Cars, the whirr and clatter of an air wrench reverberated through the building. Lyle grimaced then thought the sound might add credibility to his call.

  He got through to Stark who sounded reluctant. “My collector is eager to get my report on your car,” Lyle said.

  “Who’s that, Moreau?”

  “Yes. He’s suggested a pretty wide latitude on the price,” Lyle said.

  Scarcely pausing, Stark agreed to show Lyle the car. Lyle imagined he could hear cash register sounds coming through the phone. They set up an appointment to see the car at twelve thirty the next day and Stark said he’d email the information Lyle wanted.

  “Here’s the Alfa Register,” Kohler said, pointing to his computer when Lyle walked back to his office. “I found one sport model like yours.”

  Lyle leaned over to look at the photos of the nearly eighty-year-old car. The hood appeared unnaturally long, with a body so streamlined it almost came to a point at the end. The small rear window sat above an oddly shaped trunk lid.

  “I found a couple of Alfa experts you can mention,” Kohler said. “Since you don’t have much time, I suggest you say you’re going to consult one of these people. It will add to your credibility. An Alfa expert might be familiar with this specific car.”

  “So he’d know if it was a phony?”

  “Is that what you suspec
t?”

  “I’m not even sure I know what a counterfeit car would be.”

  “It’s all about the story that you’re told. A million-dollar car is going to be in beautiful shape. The question is, how much of the original, historic vehicle survives. No car of this age is going to be one hundred percent original. You want to know what kind of parts were used in the restoration and how accurate the documentation is.”

  Lyle remembered Kate had said the guys working with Rick--or partnering with him--spoke with heavy Eastern European accents. He mentioned it to Kohler.

  “That’s funny. I heard rumors that Chechens were producing counterfeit Mercedes, but I haven’t heard anything about Alfas. Your 2500 Sport is not a good candidate for a clone, with only ten cars out there.”

  “What’s one thing I should be careful not to do tomorrow?”

  “Don’t look impressed. Be skeptical. After you read the provenance say, ‘is this all?’”

  Chapter 51

  Kate had heard gunshots many times before, but never with the gun pointed at her. She spun her wheel hard to the right, shoved the gas pedal to the floor, and stared in the rearview mirror expecting to see Polhouse run into the street firing at her. She traveled several blocks without knowing where she was or how she got there. Stopped at a traffic signal, she looked up at the street sign. It said Boulder Highway. She turned north.

  She moved along in heavy traffic not knowing where to go or what to do. She cursed Bruce, she cursed Tom Polhouse, she cursed Al Busick. She wasn’t exactly shaking, she just felt her whole body vibrating. She had to think. Where would she be safe? Or should she just give herself up. No, she wouldn’t do that. Spotting a Starbucks, she turned in. She parked behind the building so her car wouldn’t be visible from the street. She needed to sit quietly and think, and it was far too hot to do that in a parked car. As she got out, she walked along the driver’s side of her rental Ford looking for bullet holes. She didn’t remember hearing anything hit the car, but then she could hardly remember anything since Polhouse had fired the first shot. No bullet holes. That cop had bad aim.