Grim-faced. Herb parked under an arc light and cut the engine.
Rose shook her head in exasperation as Herb flipped on the dome light and examined the car’s interior. Yes, it looked the same. Still, one smudge on the ceiling seemed unfamiliar...
He got out. The license plates were his all right, and the dent in the left front fender, where someone had banged it in a parking lot, was still there...but was that the exact spot? He recalled it as being a little higher. Then he found two marks that had not been on the car before he brought it to the garage—a long scratch on the trunk and a big dent in the rear bumper.
His mind made up, he slipped back behind the wheel, kicked the engine into life, and pulled the car into traffic.
“Satisfied?” Rose asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “It’s not our car. The trunk’s scratched and the rear bumper is smashed. We’re going back.”
“Good grief! You can’t tell me you remember every scratch. And even if they weren’t on the car before we left, it they could have happened while it was there. Anyway, why would anyone go through all the trouble of making one car look like another car?”
“That,” Herb told her, “is what I intend to find out.”
* * * *
A few moments later he eased the car to the curb in a no-parking zone across the street from the garage, a boxlike, four-story concrete structure.
“If I pull in at the IN ramp,” he explained, “they’ll take the car upstairs. But I won’t give them this car until they give us our car, so we’ll park this one here. If the police tow it away, I couldn’t care less. Come on,” he urged her.
He opened the door, but Rose settled back, arms folded over her chest.
“Even for a million dollars,” she said. “I wouldn’t go in there to see you make a fool of yourself. I knew you shouldn’t have had those highballs and the after-dinner drink. Liquor always did go straight to your brain, but you were never this addled before.”
“All right, wait here. In fact that’s better. If a policeman asks you to move, tell him where I am and why.”
“I’ll do no such thing. He’d just lock you up with the other drunks.”
He left Rose fuming, crossed the street, and walked into a waiting room in which about a dozen people were lounging. Behind the cashier’s cage, a heavyset, dark-haired young woman with thick, horn-rimmed glasses watched his approach with disinterest.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I have a complaint.”
“What about?”
“I picked up a car here a few minutes ago, but they gave me the wrong one.”
The cashier blinked. Several bystanders turned to stare.
“The wrong one?” the cashier asked. “I don’t get it. If the hiker brought the wrong car, why’d you drive it away?”
“Because it looked like my ear. It even had my license plates, and my things in the glove compartment. But it isn’t my car.”
“That’s the nuttiest thing I ever—”
“This is not a joke.” Conversation in the room fell away. “I’m a responsible citizen, the cashier of a prominent neighborhood bank. Here...” He handed her his business card.
“Where is the car we gave you?” she asked.
“Across the street. My wife’s in it waiting for me.”
As they talked, several people walked into the waiting room and got in line behind Herb.
“I’ve heard of a lot of strange things happening in garages like this,” he went on, “tires switched, even engines. But this is the first time I’ve ever heard of a whole car being switched.”
Eyes narrowing behind her thick glasses, the young woman studied him for a moment. Was it his imagination, or did she suddenly seem apprehensive about something?
She came to a decision and said. “All right, mister. There’s nothing I can do, but I’ll call Mr. Bland.”
“Who’s he?”
“The owner. He runs several businesses in this part of town, and he’ll probably be in his office now.”
She turned her back to him, picked up a phone, and dialed. He couldn’t hear what she said. Behind him, the people in the line were stirring impatiently.
The cashier looked up and said, “Mr. Bland asked if you could discuss this at his office. It’s in a restaurant he owns near here, and—”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Herb replied stubbornly. It had occurred to him that his one big advantage was the crowd in the waiting room. The more people who heard him voice his bizarre complaint, the sooner something would be done.
The cashier exchanged more words with Bland and then announced, “Sir, he’ll be here in five minutes. So please step aside, so I can take care of these other people.”
* * * *
Herb settled on a bench. Five minutes, the cashier had said—but ten, fifteen, twenty minutes passed, and still no Mr. Bland. Meanwhile, when not taking care of her customers, the bespectacled girl in the cashier’s cage seemed unusually busy on her phone Finally, nearly half an hour after the girl’s call, a big late-model car stopped in the IN ramp and a tall, well-built man in his forties stepped out. He wore a navy-blue blazer and flared, maroon trousers, and his black hair was elegantly coiffured.
He walked into the waiting room and glanced at the cashier, who nodded at Herb.
“I’m Phil Bland,” the man greeted Herb smoothly. “You sure we can’t handle this in my office? We’d be a lot more comfortable.”
“No,” Herb said. “I’d rather talk here.”
“Sure.” Bland smiled and offered his hand. “Mind telling me who you are?”
Taken aback by Bland’s cordial approach, Herb shook his hand and stammered an introduction.
“Okay, Herb,” Bland went on. “I try to run a legitimate operation, but I’ll admit, sometimes things happen upstairs that I don t know about. What’s the trouble?”
Herb repeated his story. Again, the waiting room fell silent.
“I see,” Bland drawled. “It looked like your car, but it wasn’t. I’m not doubting your word, but how could you be so sure?”
“I’ve told you,” Herb said. “It didn’t handle right. The response, the ride, the brakes, a lot of other things...”
“You determined this in just a few blocks?”
“Yes. But the most important things were the scratch on the trunk and the dent in the fender.”
“Dents and scratches?” Bland gazed around the room with a tolerant, we’re-in-this-together look. “Usually people file those claims with our insurance company. But this story about switching a whole car is so good that in your case I’ll make an exception. How much you want for those dents?”
“Damn it,” Herb replied angrily, “I’m not trying to cheat you. I came back because the car I drove away is not the car I left.”
Bland’s expression turned somber. “You’re not kidding, are you? Okay, I’ll try to be reasonable, but just exactly what do you want us to do? Assuming that what you say happened really happened?”
A good question. Herb suddenly realized that he didn’t know exactly what Bland or anyone else at the garage could do at this hour, and that his coming back so soon might have been an impetuous mistake—but he’d gone this far, so he persisted.
“At the very least,” he said, “I want someone to explain to my satisfaction what’s going on. Either that, or I’m going up into your garage to look for my real car.”
“For your own protection,” Bland replied, “I can’t let you do that. This is the busiest time of night. The hikers know what they’re doing on those ramps, but an outsider wandering around would be almost sure to get hit by a car.”
“All right, if you won’t let me go up, maybe you’ll let the police go.”
“Sure,” Bland said. “But first, just where is this wrong car you say we gave you?”
“As I told your cashier, its across the street. My wife’s in it, and—”
“I’d like to look it over.”
Herb and Bland went outside. A few c
urious people from the waiting room trailed after them.
The no-parking zone across the street, where Herb had left the car and his wife, was now empty.
Unbelieving. Herb stared at the spot. “I don’t understand,” he said slowly.
“Your wife drive?”
“Yes. But usually no farther than to the commuter station. She’d never drive in this traffic.”
“She could drive, though. She have ignition keys?”
“In her purse. But—”
“If her key worked in the car then it had to he your car, didn’t it? How long would it take her to drive from here to your home?”
“Twenty, twenty-five minutes.”
“And how long ago was it that you left her sitting in the car?”
Herb glanced at his watch. “Nearly forty minutes.”
“It ever occur to you she’d get tired of waiting? Maybe in a few minutes you should call home to see if she got there safely.”
Bland took Herb’s arm and led him back to the waiting room. Vaguely, Herb noted that there seemed to be a lot more people lounging around now than there had been earlier.
“Folks.” Bland announced, “it seems the mystery car is gone. Herb’s wife started it with her own ignition key and drove it away.”
“No,” Herb said, trying to collect his thoughts. “She wouldn’t have done that. Not tonight.”
“There was something special about tonight?”
“It’s our wedding anniversary.”
“What’d you do?”
“Had dinner.”
And then—“Any drinks with dinner?”
“Two highballs, but—”
“You always have two highballs before dinner?”
“Certainly not. We went to a show and—well, we stopped in a bar for an after-dinner drink. Just one though.”
“I see. Ordinarily, you never drink. But tonight—”
In the cashier’s cage, the phone rang. The bespectacled young woman picked it up, listened a moment, and said. “It s for Mr. Crain. A woman. She says she’s his wife.”
As the girl shoved the receiver into Herb’s hands, all eyes were on him.
“Herb?” Without a doubt, it was Rose’s voice. “I’m home,” she went on. “I want you to come home too.”
“Rose? But why didn’t you just take a cab?”
“Come home as soon as you can. I don’t want to talk about it any more.” She hung up.
Stunned. Herb gazed at the receiver. Could he have been wrong all along? Could those few drinks have so altered his judgment? He’d been so positive it was the wrong car before, but now...
Bland asked, “What’d she say, Herb?”
“She drove home. She wants me to go home too.”
“Sure. The 34th anniversary, the big dinner, the highballs, the show, the after-dinner drink...” He winked broadly at the people in the waiting room. “One, you said. But maybe there were more than one.”
“Now, look—” Herb began angrily.
“All right, all right.” Bland exuded good-natured tolerance. “We’ll call a cab for you. We’ll even pay your fare. Then, in the morning, you take another look at that car. If you think it was damaged in here, we’ll make an adjustment. Fair enough?”
Suddenly Herb knew what he had to do. Bland himself had provided the answer. He took a deep breath, straightened his bow tie, and tugged at his sleeves, gathering himself for the effort he would have to make.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Maybe I did have more to drink than I should. I won’t be any more trouble, and thanks for the offer, but there’s a cabstand down the block. I’ll grab one there. All I can say is—I really did think it was the wrong car.”
As Herb walked out of the waiting room, a car stopped in the IN ramp. A couple stepped out, their backs to Herb. The car’s door hung open and the motor was running.
Quickly, Herb slipped behind the wheel of the waiting car closed the door, and stomped hard on the accelerator. The car shot forward.
Behind him, an outcry arose from the waiting room and some men spilled out after him but Herb ignored them. His heart pounding at an alarming rate, he steered the speeding vehicle up the ramp toward the second level.
There, a blind corner was marked with a confusing array of arrows and directions. Herb had no time in which to try to comprehend them. His choice was simple—either turn right or left—and he decided to turn left.
That was a mistake. He completed the turn to find himself going the wrong way down a long aisle of angle-parked cars, with another speeding car headed straight for him.
He braked hard. So did the hiker driving the other car. They stopped short of a head-on collision by inches, but in the process Herb’s vehicle swerved and banged broadside into some of the parked cars.
As the hiker gazed in astonishment. Herb got out. Still dizzy from the impact, he looked around.
Yes, there it was, tucked in a corner about thirty yards from him—his car, the real one with its front end bashed in and the windshield a jagged, battered mess.
Beyond it, moving away from a wall telephone, were two men in business suits, dragging Rose between them.
Herb called out. They turned.
Rose was gagged, and there was a bruise on her forehead.
He edged around the hiker’s car, shouted, and ran toward them, but one of the men pulled a pistol from his belt and aimed. Herb stopped and opened his mouth to shout again, but the gun discharged and all went black...
* * * *
A woman asked, “How do you feel?”
He opened his eyes. He was lying on a hospital bed.
Gazing down at him from behind her thick horn-rimmed glasses was the cashier from the parking garage. “Terrible,” he told her.
“The bullet creased your skull, but the medics say you’ll be okay. Your wife’s all right too. You’ll see her soon, but first, I’d better introduce myself.” She showed him a badge.
“I’m detective second-class Sue Marino,” she went on. “And on the department’s behalf, I want to thank you for being alert enough to notice that the car wasn’t yours, and then to drive back to complain. If you hadn’t, Bland’s gang might have gotten away with it.”
“Away?” Herb asked. “With what?”
“The murder of the hiker who took your car upstairs when you left it earlier in the evening. That hiker and I were both undercover police agents. His name was Gowan and he’d infiltrated Bland’s gang. The garage was a transfer point for big narcotics shipments. The stuff would be hidden in cars driven by couriers. All the hikers were in on it. Before the blowup last night, the department was primed to mop up the whole operation when the next big shipment came in.”
“And last night?”
“A new gang member recognized Gowan. Two executioners were waiting when he drove your car upstairs. He spotted them and tried to drive away. They blew his head off with shotguns. Your car’s windows were shattered, the inside was splattered with blood, and the front was bashed in when it hit a wall—hardly a condition in which they could return the car to its owner.”
“Why didn’t they just tell me my car had been stolen?”
“That would have brought police into the garage. The gang needed time to clean up the mess upstairs and dispose of your car and Gowan’s body, so they used their underworld contacts to order the theft of a car just like yours. In this city, that didn’t take long. They hoped that in the dark, you wouldn’t notice the difference. They planned to follow you and steal the car later, so you’d never know what happened. You’d merely report a car theft from your residence, rather than from a public garage where a police undercover agent had disappeared.”
“So when I came back with the car, they decided to kill me and Rose too.”
“Yes. At all costs, they wanted to keep you from going to the police last night. They abducted your wife and then tried to lure you away with her phone call. But I was already worried about Gowan. Ordinarily, I’d see him often from my cas
hier’s cage, but he’d dropped out of sight for hours. So when you showed up with your kinky story and Bland agreed to come to the garage to see you, I was pretty sure it had something to do with Gowan’s disappearance. Ordinarily, Bland ignored all customer complaints.”
“The phone calls you made while I was waiting for Bland—they were to the police?”
“That’s right. We packed the waiting room with plainclothesmen. But we still didn’t know what had happened to Gowan or how to play the situation, so we couldn’t have been happier when you jumped into the car and drove up the ramp. That broke it wide open. Our men went in after you, rescued your wife, and rounded up the whole gang. Enough of them are talking to insure convictions.”
She paused. “Just one thing. After your wife phoned, why didn’t you take a cab home as she suggested? She told us they were holding a gun at her head during the call, and all she could do was say a few words. She had no way to warn you it was a trap.”
“Frankly,” Herb said, “that’s why I was afraid something had happened to her.” He smiled. “If she’d really driven home alone, she would have said a lot more than just a few words. But what finally made me decide to steal a car and drive upstairs was something Bland said. He knew it was our 34th anniversary, but I hadn’t told him. Obviously, he or someone working for him had just learned that from Rose, which meant he was involved up to his neck in whatever was going on in that garage.”
IT’S ALWAYS TOO LATE, by Gil Brewer
Originally published in Detective Fiction, April 1951.
It didn’t matter how Millie got me thinking this way. It took her seven years. I was worried and sick about it all. Breakfast was sour on my stomach. But that didn’t matter, either.
“You’ll be cashier in that hick bank the rest of your life,” Millie said. She walked to the door with me. “I’ll go right on putting too much starch in your shirts, the way Lanihan likes.”
The Cutthroats and Criminals Megapack Page 13