The Classic Car Killer. Richard A. Lupoff
reached Officer Gutiérrez. “Yeah,” Gutiérrez said, “we work crazy shifts. I’m in here all morning doing paper work. You want to talk about that Dusie, this is a good time.”
Lindsey drove into Oakland and left the Hyundai in a lot under the freeway. He found a receptionist who actually knew who Officer Gutiérrez was and phoned through to him. Gutiérrez came out and told the receptionist that Lindsey was okay, he could have a visitor’s badge. They wound up at Gutiérrez’s desk in the middle of a noisy bullpen.
“So you’re the insurance man on that car, hey?” Gutiérrez still had the business card that Lindsey had handed him Saturday night at the Kleiner Mansion. Outstanding performance for an Oakland harness bull.
Lindsey asked Gutiérrez, “You assigned to auto theft full time?”
“For the past two years.”
“What do you think of this case, Officer Gutiérrez?”
“You can call me Oscar, Mr. Lindsey. All right if I call you, ah, Hobart?”
“Bart.”
“You know, auto theft is a very high-volume operation. We get thousands of these every year. Most of them solve themselves. Car’s abandoned, or gets stopped for some routine matter. Thieves don’t respect the law, you know.”
“No! They don’t really?”
“Don’t wise off, Bart. Somebody steals a car, he doesn’t hesitate to hit eighty or a hundred on the freeway. Or on the street. You’d think they’d be twice as cautious, driving a stolen vehicle. Not to call attention to themself, you get the idea? But instead they act twice as dumb.”
Lindsey nodded. “I guess so.”
“You have your doubts.”
“Just—this is such a peculiar case. I mean—a Duesenberg, for heaven’s sake! They haven’t built those things in thirty years. They’re scarce as hens’ teeth. How could anybody hope to get away with it? You can’t drive a Duesenberg anywhere without gathering a crowd.”
“Fifty, actually. And you’d be surprised how many hens’ teeth are still out there.”
“What are you talking about? Fifty what?”
“They haven’t built Duesenbergs for fifty years. Actually a little more. Company almost weathered the Depression, didn’t quite make it. They were built from 1920 to 1937. Outfit down in southern California started building seven-eighth scale replicas in the late seventies but they’re not true Dusies. Nice cars, though. I wouldn’t mind owning one. My old Eagle wagon is getting tired.”
“And that business about how many hens’ teeth there are?”
“Oh—you seem to think the Duesenberg is a scarce car. Of course it is, compared to Chevies or VW bugs. But they turn up at collectors’ meets and concourses all the time. Must be over a thousand Dusies left. They managed to round up thirty or forty Tuckers for that movie they made here in Oakland. Now that’s a scarce car. And there are scarcer, believe me!”
“You’re quite an authority.”
“It’s a kind of hobby of mine. I have a little reference library at home, and I go to Concourses once in a while.”
Lindsey studied a blank sheet in his notebook, then looked at Gutiérrez again. “What would be a really scarce car? What would be a really top price?”
Gutiérrez grinned wolfishly, his teeth brilliant against his black moustache and dark complexion. “Scarcity alone doesn’t make a car valuable. It’s supply and demand. Not too much demand for Willys Aeros or DeSotos. Everybody hated the Edsel but a few collectors are starting to get interested.”
Lindsey nodded. Would the man just get on with it?
“There are unique items—one of a kind experimental vehicles, custom models. And cars with association value. The Beatles’ Rolls. Hitler’s Mercedes.”
“I get the point.”
“Now the Bugatti Royale, that was a magnificent vehicle. Engine, coachwork—only six in the world. Every one is a real beauty, no two alike.”
“What are they worth?”
Gutiérrez smiled again. “Very little turnover in these vehicles. When they do sell—oh, ten mil would be a good price.”
“Ten—million?”
“Yep.”
“I guess that makes my Duesenberg small potatoes.”
“Not really. We’re paying attention, believe me.”
Lindsey nodded. “Good. You have the report ready, then?”
Gutiérrez opened a manila folder, pulled a sheet of colored flimsy and handed it to Lindsey. Lindsey studied it. It was the standard auto theft report: all that made it remarkable was the auto involved. “You think you can get it back?”
Gutiérrez shrugged. “We get most of ’em back. I don’t see how an SJ can slip between the cracks. I mean, we’re not talking about a ten-year-old Toyota.”
“Any idea where the car is now? I don’t suppose you made any progress over the weekend.”
“No, we haven’t. We know all the classic car collectors in the state. We get good cooperation from the car museums. The Behring people out at Blackhawk and the Harrah’s collection in Reno. And the parts and service garages that specialize in classics. Did you know there’s still a Packard dealer over in Alameda? You ought to drop in on ’em some time. Like falling through a time warp.”
“I have enough of that.” He wasn’t going to start talking about Mother, not with this cop. “I just want this Duesenberg back. International Surety stands to take a real shellacking if we don’t get it.”
Gutiérrez looked Lindsey in the eye. “What’s your company’s policy on buy-backs?”
“Same as anybody else in the industry. We don’t like to do it. It’s too much like blackmail and it just encourages more of the same. Like any other kind of blackmail.”
“You don’t do it, then.”
“Oh, we do it. I said we went along with the industry practice. If we could buy back the Dusie for, say, ten per cent of the insured value, we’d be fools not too. But then we’d still want to see the thief caught. And we’d want our money back, too, if there was any way we could get it. If we couldn’t, we’d still be saving most of the settlement.”
Gutiérrez stood up and headed for a hotplate. “You want some java, Bart?”
“Sure.” Lindsey was starting to think that America ran on caffeine. If the shakes didn’t get you, kidney failure would.
Gutiérrez brought back two cups.
Lindsey said, “Oscar, do you think they’ll try and sell it back?”
Gutiérrez shrugged.
“You haven’t heard from them, have you?”
“They’d more likely contact you than us, Bart.”
Was that a hint? Was this some kind of racket, a tie-in between Gutiérrez and the car-theft ring? There hadn’t been any bulge in auto-theft claims lately, Lindsey would have known about it if there had. He jotted a note in his organizer. He’d want to think about this later.
“No, I’d have known if they’d contacted the company. Not a peep.”
“Well, it’s only thirty-six hours. You might hear yet.” Gutiérrez took his coffee black. As he sipped, a wavering column of steam softened his face.
Lindsey wondered how Gutiérrez kept his moustache from getting coffee-logged. “In the meanwhile, I’d hoped for some police action.”
Gutiérrez