painting stolen cars.
But it was just a friendly visit. The police came in and conversed with Oliphant while the red car turned white. They received an envelope and a handshake and went on along their way.
Two of the thieves were rolling up the tarp and washing off the spray-paint nozzles by the time the cops left. The other two were shining powerful lamps on the newly painted cars. I watched them clean and dry while Tilly and Gator went into the glassed-in office and smoked.
The thieves were through with their work by three. Three of them drove off in the stolen automobiles but one walked away.
He went over to Pico and turned east. I followed him for two blocks, taking one-and-a-half steps for every one of his. When I was right behind him he turned his head to the side.
“Don’t turn around,” I said. “Unless you want I should shoot you.”
I pressed the muzzle of my .38 in between his shoulder blades and took out his wallet.
“You robbin’ me?”
The short, white car thief sounded surprised. I guess he figured that a man committing a crime was immune from being held up. Like a first-class passenger thinking that his plane can’t crash.
“Oliphant sent me,” I said.
“What for?”
We had stopped walking by then. We were standing there at the corner, two men on a short line to nowhere.
“He wants his money or your blood,” I said, reading the name on his license, “Mr. Tremont.”
“Then what you take my wallet for?”
“To see if you had one of his thousand dollar bills.”
“He had thousand dollar bills in there?”
“Don’t try and play me, man,” I said. “Just gimme the money and I bust your leg. That’ll make us all even.”
“I swear I didn’t do it,” the thief cried.
“Step over here, out of the light,” I said.
Alan Tremont did as he was told. We walked into the entryway of a bank building. He tried to turn around but I cuffed him on the ear, saying, “Eyes front.”
He started trembling then.
“Please, man. I didn’t do it. I swear I didn’t do it.”
“Then why Oliphant put me on you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.”
“Gimme somethin’ then,” I said. “Gimme somethin’ or I blow out the back’a your head.”
“I wasn’t even there, man,” Alan Tremont said. “I wasn’t even in town. We had a line on a car down in San Diego. Me and Pete did.”
“I’m goin’ to see Pete right after I kill you.” I wanted to put my intentions in plain language. Simple terms are often the most frightening.
“I can’t prove it, man. If you think it was me and Pete what, I mean…Listen, I got thirty-six hundred dollars I been savin’ up…I could give it to you.”
I paused for a moment, letting him think I was considering the offer.
“I could get it for you tonight,” Alan said.
“Who do I hang it on then?” I asked.
“You could just say that I got away from you.”
“Better to have the man who did it. You say it wasn’t you, right?”
“No. But I don’t know who did it. All I know is that it wasn’t me and it wasn’t Pete neither. We weren’t in town.”
“Then who?”
“It could’a been anybody. No one was workin’ that night and we all knew it. That was Tuesday and Tuesdays Oliphant spends with Thana Jamieson. Nobody works if Oliphant ain’t there.”
“Who do you think though, Alan? ’Cause you see, boy, I got to kill somebody. I’d like your money but I got to kill somebody or else I got to take Eggersly out. ’Cause if I don’t get you he bound to come after me.”
“Maybe it was the one they said. Maybe it was the, the colored guy.” He almost said “nigger” but held back due to the cast of my own words.
“He’s out.”
“Then Tilly’s your man,” Alan said. “Tilly hates Oliphant. He’s always talkin’ behind his back. He’s been fuckin’ Ollie’s wife for over a year. He does it on Tuesdays, when Ollie’s with Thana. Tilly stoled it if anybody did.”
“Okay. Okay. You know the Farmer’s Market up on Fairfax and Third Street?”
