a member of the New California Smart Set, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s your car. It’s registered in the name of the society.”
“Then I guess it is mine. Look, I don’t know who took the damned car. I told that cop everything I saw. I think. Actually I don’t remember too much about last night. I got kind of stinkeroonie. If you know what I mean.”
“Yes.”
Another silence.
Then, “So why don’t you just get the police report?”
“I intend to, Mr. Roberts. But I’d still like to talk with you. You might have seen something, maybe something useful.”
“Wait a minute. You’re not a cop, are you?”
“I’m an insurance adjuster.”
“Then do your job. Get out of my face. I’m hung over, pal, my head feels like a hot air balloon. Bug off.”
Lindsey heard the phone slam down.
Roberts was probably right. It was unlikely he had seen anything useful, or if he had, it would be in the police report, and Lindsey should have that in another twenty-four hours. But Lindsey hadn’t been kidding about some little detail. People sometimes saw more than they realized. The first report of an incident was usually the most complete and accurate; the human memory started losing track of information within minutes of the event. But there was an odd, opposite effect, as well. People spotted details and tucked them away in some obscure memory bank. And they re-emerged to astonish everyone, anywhere from days to decades later.
Lindsey wanted to question Roberts, as well as all the other members of the society, for another reason. Most car thefts were stranger crimes. The criminal and victim didn’t know each other. The car thief might be anyone from a thrill-seeking delinquent hitting a target of opportunity with nothing more in mind than a joy ride, to an operative of a thoroughly professional ring, stealing cars to order for chop shops or for customers who wouldn’t mind buying merchandise of dubious origin for the sake of a bargain price.
But not all such thefts were committed by strangers. Not all. And the theft of the Duesenberg might be an inside job. Some member of the Smart Set who coveted the club’s collective property for his personal use. Or who thought he might be able to sell the Dusie for a sweet price.
Or maybe the theft had been engineered for the specific purpose of collecting on the insurance claim. What would happen to the $425,000 if and when International Surety paid off? Would the club use it to buy another classic car? Or would it go into the general fund? Or would an officer of the club find a way to convert the payment for his personal use?
Lindsey jotted a note to pursue that line. Was there a member of the club in financial hot water? The New California Smart Set had all the earmarks of a cozy bunch of millionaires, but there might be a scattering of ordinary citizens in the club as well.
For instance: was Dr. Bernstein independently wealthy, or did she have to work for a living? The van Arndts had said that she was on the faculty at the University of California. If she was sitting on a nice fat trust fund, she might be teaching just because she liked it. But if that was not the case, if she had to live on a professor’s salary, well, Lindsey knew that academics nowadays earned a living wage, but they were hardly up there with movie stars or professional athletes. Dr. Bernstein might be happy to get her mitts on almost half a million simoleons. Who wouldn’t?
And Lindsey didn’t know what Joe Roberts did for a living. And as for the van Arndts, they might reek of dollars, but there was many an old fortune that had shrunk with the years. They might be keeping up a facade of wealth and leisure and behind it be teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.
Wait a minute! Van Arndt had said that the club was forced to take in members it didn’t really want, because the Kleiner Mansion was a public facility. Ollie had spoken of moving the society to a clubhouse of its own, so it could become the kind of snooty, exclusive outfit he apparently preferred. They could buy a very nice clubhouse for just under half a million smackers!
What to do? Wait for the police report? That wasn’t the way Hobart Lindsey conducted himself!
Joseph Roberts’ voice on the phone from Dr. Bernstein’s house had sounded husky and his pronunciation had been slurred, but it sounded a lot like the voice on the message tape at one of the Joseph Roberts’ homes. Lindsey found a map of Oakland, searched for Roberts’ street in the index, and found it near the Oakland Estuary. He made up his mind.
He dialed home. Joanie Schorr assured him that Mother was all right and that she was willing to stay for the rest of the day. She handed the receiver to Mother and Lindsey assured her that he had not deserted her.
She sounded calm.
He drove to Oakland—twice in two days, now!—and found the Embarcadero. Roberts’ address was in a block of modernistic condos opposite a railroad track and an industrial slum. But the condos themselves looked expensive, and with the estuary on the other side, it seemed a safe bet that the occupants wiped the sight of the factories and warehouses from their minds when they got home at night.
He parked and found Roberts’ apartment, and settled in to wait for the man to come home. Of course Roberts might be staying at Dr. Bernstein’s house for the rest of the day, but Lindsey didn’t want to tackle him there. Better to beard the lion in his den.
Roberts had a reserved parking spot with his name on a little wooden marker. It was one of a long row. It reminded Lindsey of a simple cross marking a grave in a national cemetery. Mother loved to page through copies of Life and Look magazines from the 1940s and ’50s and ’60s, and Lindsey had seen enough photos of Arlington and other burying grounds of the nation’s war dead to have the images burned into his mind.
The bright gray afternoon was deepening into the charcoal sky of dusk and Lindsey had turned on the Hyundai’s engine and heater to fight off the chill that crept palpably out of the estuary.
A silver-gray Porsche pulled into Roberts’ parking space. From the driver’s seat of the Hyundai, Lindsey could see the driver clutching the wheel. Roberts was returning alone. Dr. Bernstein must have dropped him off at his car. Roberts must have parked it in a guarded structure. No way that Porsche would have survived unscathed overnight in downtown Oakland!
Lindsey jotted down the Porsche’s license: JAZZ BBZ.
Roberts climbed out of the car, armed its alarm system, and headed for his apartment. Something else for Lindsey to check on—had the Duesenberg been equipped with an alarm? Had the thief known enough to disable it? Was there more evidence here of contributory negligence, or of an inside job?
He watched Roberts walk with his head down and his shoulders up, hands shoved in the pockets of an expensively cut overcoat. It was cold!
Lindsey followed Roberts to his front door and tapped him on the shoulder as he extended his key.
Roberts turned. He had a round face and thick, longish hair. At least, where it protruded from beneath his gray felt cap. His eyes looked red and he had clearly not shaved that day.
“Joseph Roberts?”
The man grunted.
“I’m
