LITMIR.BIZ

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class of stolen goods. Cars all had engine numbers, they all had to be registered with the state, they were bulky and highly visible and had to be used in public to be used at all. It was easy to steal a car, but it was very hard to keep it and not get caught.

      So why such an uproar over a claim that would probably amount to $10,000 or less?

      “You get that amount, did you, Lindsey? Didn’t misplace a decimal?”

      “Uh—would you repeat that, Mr. Harden? You’re going a little fast for me.”

      Harden exhaled angrily into the receiver. “The amount is $425,000, Lindsey. That’s four, two, five, comma, zero, zero, zero, dollars, Lindsey. Did you get that?”

      Lindsey gulped. “Four hundred twenty five thousand?”

      Harden growled. “That’s right. I know you’re dumb but you’re not deaf, anyway.”

      “But—what kind of car could that be? Even a Rolls—”

      “It was a 1928 fucking SJ Duesenberg Convertible Phaeton, Lindsey. Stolen from in front of something called the Kleiner Mansion in Oakland. You familiar with the Kleiner Mansion?”

      “I’m not sure. It sounds familiar.” He thought for a moment, searching for an errant memory. “Got it! They used it on the cover of the Oakland phone book a few years ago. I must have seen it at the office.”

      “Yeah. Well, you hightail it out there, cowboy, and see what the fuck is going on.”

      “It’s my weekend, Mr. Harden.”

      “It’s $425,000, Lindsey. You’re a professional. We don’t pay you to be a clockwatcher.”

      Harden didn’t have to go on with the implied threat. Lindsey knew what it was, he’d heard it often enough.

      “I—I’ll get right out there, Mr. Harden.”

      Harden was still on the line, grumbling loudly.

      “I’m sorry, Mr. Harden. I didn’t get the name of the owner.”

      “Yeah, well you ought to pay more attention. I told you, this is another one of those fruit-and-nut cases you seem to specialize in, Lindsey. The car is owned by something called the New California Smart Set, whatever the hell that means. Probably a nancy social club. They were having some kind of shindig at this Kleiner Mansion. They only roll the Dusie a couple of times a year, for super-special occasions. And now it’s gone!”

      “Okay, Mr. Harden. I’m on my way.” He started to lower the receiver, then stopped. “Uh—Mr. Harden. Who phoned in the report? Not the whole club, did they?”

      “I thought you’d never ask, Lindsey. You might have a future with this corporation after all. Claim came in from the president of the outfit. Guy named Oliver van Arndt. He’s waiting at the mansion.”

      Harden hung up without another word. That was in character for him. He’d never been exactly Mr. Charm, and Lindsey knew that Harden was both feared and disliked throughout International Surety. But he seemed to take special pleasure in harassing Hobart Lindsey, especially since the incident of the million-dollar comic books.

      Actually, they were only a quarter-million dollars’ worth of comics. They’d been burgled from a shop in Berkeley, and Lindsey had recovered them for the company, saving International Surety a bundle. Harden had tried to call Lindsey off the case near its end, but Lindsey had persisted, putting his job on the line.

      Some job!

      And then he’d persisted further, and with the help of Berkeley Police Officer Marvia Plum had not only regained all the stolen goods, but solved three bizarrely interconnected murders.

      That was now in the past. Lindsey had enjoyed his proverbial fifteen minutes of fame. He’d enjoyed a brief, intense relationship with Marvia, and that alone had been a miracle in his drab life.

      Lindsey was a pudgy, unathletic, undistinguished office worker who lived in a lower-middle-class section of a medium sized bedroom community a few miles east of San Francisco Bay. His life was a study in dullness. Until suddenly he was engaged in car-chases and shoot-outs, hopping on and off airliners, and—most remarkable of all—bedding an amazing woman. Him, drab whitebread Hobart Lindsey, sleeping with a spectacular-figured black policewoman.

      But it had ended. He’d won the praise of his employer’s national office and the seething jealousy of his immediate superior, Harden at Regional. He’d gone back to his routine life of processing claims by day, keeping an eye on his mentally unstable mother by night.

      He blinked. A recorded voice on the telephone was telling him to hang up and try again. How long had he been sitting there, holding the dead instrument in his hand, reliving the one brief time in his thirty-six years that he’d really been alive.

      * * * *

      Lindsey got Mother off to bed, then jumped in his Hyundai and headed for the freeway. He liked to avoid Oakland. It was as bad, in its own way, as Berkeley or San Francisco, or those ridiculous communities up in Marin County. There must be something about living too close to all that water that brought out the aberrant in people. Mankind had climbed out of the primal swamp in order to live on land a long time ago, and on land was where he belonged!

      He found Lake Merritt easily enough and drove around it until the Kleiner Mansion loomed up, easily recognizable from its depiction on the old telephone directory. It looked like something out of a Charles Addams cartoon. He expected to see Mortitia and Gomez cavorting on the lawn. The Alameda County Courthouse rose nearby, and East Fourteenth Street, the main arterial that ran all the way from mostly black west Oakland through the city’s struggling downtown and out to suburban San Leandro, carried light traffic past the lake.

      Coule be he was getting another chance. A stolen car, a routine claim—or maybe not. A sixty-year-old Duesenberg worth nearly half a million dollars was far from routine. Was it time for Lamont Cranston to put on his slouch hat and cloak and turn into the Shadow? Was it time for Bruce Wayne to draw down his cowl and his cape while Alfred the butler warmed up the Batmobile for a midnight prowl?

      A white Oakland police cruiser stood in front of the Kleiner Mansion, its roof lights flashing.

      Lindsey parked his Hyundai beside the cruiser and scampered up the front steps of the mansion, patting his pockets to make sure that he had his notebook and pencil with him.

      The Kleiner Mansion had a broad Victorian veranda. A uniformed Oakland police officer was talking with a man and two women, asking them questions and jotting down their responses.

      When Lindsey approached, the cop turned. “Who are you?”

      Lindsey introduced himself, handed each of the others his business card.

      The cop studied the card, then Lindsey, then the card once more. Lindsey was wearing a heavy sweater over a cotton shirt and slacks. He hadn’t changed before leaving Walnut Creek. Maybe he should have, he thought, but it was too late to do anything about that now.

      “Okay, Mr. Lindsey. Your company carries the policy on the Duesenberg?”

      Lindsey nodded. The cop had a tan, Hispanic face with high cheekbones, dark liquid eyes, heavy black eyebrows and a thick handlebar moustache. His speech was unaccented.

      “You can get a copy of the police report sometime Monday, but I don’t suppose you want to wait that long to get involved, do you?”

      Lindsey shook his head.

      “Okay. This is Ms. Smith. She’s the resident manager of the Kleiner Mansion. And Mr. and Mrs. van Arndt, of the New California Smart Set. I’m headed out of here. And you might as well have one of mine.” He handed Lindsey a business card. It read, Oscar Gutiérrez, Oakland Police Department, and it had a phone number on it.

      Lindsey slid the card into his pocket organizer and looked up to see the police cruiser pull out of the Kleiner Mansion driveway. Gutiérrez was gone.

      “Mr. van Arndt,

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