“For what period of time? We bring in an enormous number of cars.”
“The past ninety days.”
“No problem,” said Suhaka, going out of his way to be accommodating. “Our shipment lists are all computerized, and I can have them for you in ten minutes. They should tally. Tokyo almost never makes mistakes. Would you care for a cup of coffee while you wait?”
“Yes,” said a weary Giordino. “I could use one.”
Suhaka ushered him into a small empty office, the pretty secretary brought the coffee, and while he was sipping it, she returned with a neat stack of inventory sheets.
Giordino found what Pitt had sent him to find in less than half an hour. He sat back then and dozed, killing time to make it appear he was simply a drone in the great bureaucracy doing his job.
Precisely at five o’clock Suhaka entered the room. “The staff is going home, but I’ll be working late. Is there anything I can help you with?”
“No,” Giordino replied, closing the files. “I’d like to get home too. I’ve put in my seven hours. Now I’m on my time. Thank you for being so helpful. Your import unit figures will be programmed into that great government computer in the sky. For what purpose? Only some little clerk in a basement office knows for sure.” He picked up the file from the Commerce Department and was halfway through the door when he turned as if something had occurred to him, in perfect Peter Falk-Columbo fashion. “There is one thing.”
“Yes?”
“A small inconsistency hardly worth mentioning.”
“Yes?”
“I happened to run across six cars that are shown on your incoming inventory list as having been off-loaded in Baltimore from two different ships, but they’re not accounted for on the export list from your Tokyo headquarters.”
Suhaka genuinely looked to be at a loss. “It was never called to my attention. May I compare it against your figures?”
Giordino spread out the accounting sheets he’d borrowed from his friend at the Department of Commerce and placed them next to the ones given him by Suhaka’s secretary. He underlined the cars itemized on his list but missing on the one from Tokyo. All six were SP-500 sport sedans.
“Speaking officially, we’re not concerned with the discrepancy,” said Giordino indifferently. “As long as you accounted for them upon entry into the country, your company is clean with the government. I’m sure it’s only an error in your Tokyo accounting department that’s since been cleared up.”
“An unforgivable oversight on my part,” Suhaka said, as though he’d dropped the crown jewels down a sewer. “I put too much faith in the home office. Someone on my staff should have caught it.”
“Just out of curiosity, what dealers received those particular cars?”
“One moment.” Suhaka led Giordino to his office, where he sat down at his desk and poked at the keys on his desk computer. Then he sat back and waited. As the data flashed across the screen, his smile abruptly vanished and a paleness showed in his face.
“All six cars were hauled to different dealers. It would take several hours to track each down. If you’d care to check with me tomorrow, I’ll be glad to give you their names.”
Giordino turned up his palms in a lukewarm gesture. “Forget it. We both have more pressing business to worry about. Me, I’ve got to fight the rush hour traffic, get cleaned up, and take my wife out to dinner. It’s our anniversary.”
“Congratulations,” said Suhaka, relief obvious in his eyes.
“Thank you. And thanks also for your cooperation.”
Suhaka’s grand smile was back. “Always glad to help. Goodbye.”
Giordino walked four blocks to a gas station and dialed a pay phone. A male voice answered with a simple hello.
“This is your friendly Mercedes salesman. I have a model I think you’d be interested in.”
“You’re out of your district, sir. You should be selling closer to the waterfront or, better yet, out in the Pacific Ocean.”
“Big deal,” grunted Giordino. “If you can’t afford a good German car, try a Murmoto. I have a lead on six SP-Five Hundred sport sedans that are specially discounted.”
“One moment.”
A voice came over the line that Giordino immediately recognized as Donald Kern’s. “Despite the fact you’ve stepped out of your territory, I’m always in the market to save money. Tell me where I can see your special discounts.”
“You have to get that information out of the Murmoto distributorship in Alexandria. Their computer records show six cars that came into the country but didn’t leave the factory. I suggest you hurry before word gets out and someone else beats you to them. Half the cars were off-loaded at the customs dock in Baltimore on August fourth. The other three came in on September tenth.”
Kern quickly translated Giordino’s meaning. “Hold on,” he ordered. He turned to his deputy, who was listening on the speaker. “Get on it. Gain access to Murmoto’s computer system and dig out their shipping records for the whereabouts of those six cars before they get wise and erase the data.” He returned to Giordino. “Nice work. All is forgiven. By the way, how did you happen to stumble onto the bargains?”
“The idea came from Stutz. Have you heard from him?”
“Yes, he called half an hour ago,” replied Kern. “He discovered the source of the problem.”
“I sort of thought if anyone could troubleshoot a riddle, he could,” said Giordino, referring to Pitt’s canny talent for discovering an unknown. “It takes a devious mind to know one.
26
IT WAS DARK when Yaeger dropped Pitt off at the old hangar on the far corner of Washington’s International Airport. The structure was built in 1936 and once covered the planes of an old air carrier long since purchased by American Airlines. Except for the headlights of Yaeger’s Taurus, the only other illumination came from the glow of the city across the Potomac River and a solitary road lamp fifty meters to the north.
“For someone who hasn’t been home for four months, you sure travel light.” Yaeger laughed.
“My luggage lies with the fishes,” Pitt mumbled through halfclosed eyes.
“I’d love to see your car collection again, but I have to get home.”
“It’s bed for me. Thanks for the lift. And thank you for this afternoon. A fine job as always.”
“Love doing it. Finding the key to your brain twisters beats solving the mysteries of the universe any day.” Yaeger waved, rolled up his window against the cold night air, and drove off into the darkness.
Pitt took a spare transmitter from his pants pocket that he kept in his NUMA office and punched in a series of codes that shut down the hangar’s security system and turned on the interior lights.
He unlocked the old, badly weathered side door and entered. The polished concrete floor of the hangar looked like a transportation museum. An old Ford trimotor airplane was parked in one corner next to a turn-of-the-century railroad Pullman car. Over fifty automobiles covered the remaining 10,000 square meters. European exotica such as a Hispano-Suiza, a Mercedes-Benz 540K, and a beautiful blue Talbot-Lago were sitting across from magnificent American classics like a Cord L-29, a Pierce-Arrow, and a stunning turquoise-green Stutz town car. The only piece that seemed oddly out of place was an old cast-iron bathtub with an outboard motor attached to the backrest.
He tiredly walked up a circular iron stairway to his apartment overlooking the collection. What had once been an office, he had redecorated into a comfortable one-bedroom apartment with a large combination living room-study whose shelves were filled with books and glass-encased models of ships Pitt had discovered and surveyed.