Wolf in the Shadows - Marcia Muller [4]
The young black man with a high pillbox haircut recognized Hy immediately. “Yeah, he rented from us,” he said. “It was a slow morning, and I remember him because he was carrying a bunch of expired credit cards. Had a hell of a time finding one that wasn’t. He joked about it, said he couldn’t be bothered with cutting them up and signing the new ones.” He shrugged skeptically.
“In his case, it’s the truth. Do you recall how long he planned to keep the car, or if he returned it?”
“No.”
“Can you find out?”
He hesitated, frowning. “I’m not sure I can get that kind of information, or if I should be giving it out.”
I flipped from Hy’s picture to my identification. “It’s a missing-person case. His plane’s tied down at North Field, and they need to free the space.”
“Well, if it’s airport business … The cars’re tracked individually by vehicle number, so I should be able to pull it up.” He turned to his computer and typed, peered at the screen, typed some more. After a couple of minutes he said, “He kept the car for four days. Was returned on Saturday to SFO.”
“What kind of car was it?”
“Ninety-two Toyota Cressida. Blue.” The clerk smiled. “He asked me what the hell Cressida meant. I didn’t know. Then he goes, ‘How can I risk my life on the freeways in something called that—especially when I don’t even know what it means?’ ”
I smiled, too. Hy’s interest in—and knowledge of—cars stopped around the year his ancient Morgan had been manufactured. “And that’s all the information you can access?”
“Yeah. Anything else you’ll have to check with our people at SFO.”
“You know the name of the supervisor down there?”
“Dave Fry. He’s at the car-return area, not the counter in the terminal.”
“Thanks for your trouble.”
“Don’t mention it. Good luck finding the guy.”
* * *
Before I left the terminal I went to the snack bar and asked for the waitress who was seeing a North Field lineman named Jerry. The woman behind the counter pointed out a petite blonde named Katie who was juggling four plates with skill worthy of a magician, and said she’d send her to me when she was free. While I waited I nursed a cup of coffee.
The sight of my I.D. turned Katie’s blue eyes a shade wary. Yes, she said, Jerry had come in for breakfast last Wednesday morning. “What’s he done?” she asked.
“Nothing that I’m interested in. Did he mention giving somebody a ride over here from General Aviation?”
She frowned. “I don’t … Wait—the guy with the Citabria?”
“That’s the one.”
“Yeah, he did mention it. The guy’s not really a friend of his, but they talk when he flies in here. Jerry wants one of those Citabrias real bad, and the guy … What’s his name?”
“Hy Ripinsky.”
“Right, how could I forget that one? Well, Hy told Jerry he’d let him know if he heard about a used one for sale cheap.” She shivered. “I sort of hope he doesn’t. Those planes scare me to death.”
“Did Jerry say why Hy needed the ride or where he was going?”
“Just that he’d only landed to drop off his girlfriend and refuel, but then he’d made a phone call and found out that the plans had gotten switched around on him. He was pissed because if he’d made the call a few minutes earlier, he could’ve caught a ride into the city with his girlfriend instead of having to rent a car. What’s going on, anyway? Is this Hy in some kind of trouble?”
“Some kind.” I gave her a conspiratorial smile. “I’m the girlfriend.”
For a moment Katie looked dismayed; then she laughed. “I know how that goes,” she said. “If I was a detective, I’d’ve gotten the goods on Jerry months ago.”
I thanked her and left the terminal, trying to sort out what had happened last Wednesday morning. Hy was sorry he hadn’t been able to ride into the city with me; that meant he’d felt no need to conceal whatever he planned to do there. Maybe that would make tracing his movements