Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 35, No. 10, October 1990

He shrugged. “Just said to tell you that he had some buzz you might be interested in.” I nodded. “Follow us.” They kicked down on the starters and I climbed into my car wondering what the president of the Berserkers wanted with a private cop.

Our destination was a ramshackle house on Camp Street. A large window had been removed from its frame and heavy planks ran from the sill down to the patchy grass in the back yard. My guides rode up the planks and through the window. I took the more conventional approach through the back door.

Soto was a big man, rawboned and mean-looking. He sat with his feet up on a metal desk smoking a cheroot and reading a tabloid bearing the headline “Confederate Flag Spotted on Belly of UFO!” He threw the paper aside as I came in.

“Stubblefield. It’s been awhile.”

“Awhile,” I said. Soto stubbed out the cigar.

“I hear you’re a private detective now.” I nodded. “You know the cops are turning up the heat on us?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Oh yeah. Got us under the microscope. The other clubs, too.” He lit another cheroot. The room was beginning to smell like a dump fire. “Seems that someone on a chopper tried to croak some guy last week, guy that yaps on the radio.” He blew out some smoke and eyed me carefully. “I hear you’ve been hired to cover the guy.”

“Now where did you hear that?”

Soto waved his hand dismissively. “All this heat’s bad for us. We’re businessmen, if you know what I mean.” I knew. The Berserkers, like some of the other clubs, had found it profitable to traffic in drugs. “Hard to conduct business when everybody’s looking over your shoulder.”

“What’s this got to do with me?”

“Papers say that the shooter’s looking to clip this radio dude because he thinks he’s a commie stooge or something.”

“So?”

“So it happens that I know this guy, name of Cadillac Jack. Biker, but not rolled tight. He hangs around, has a nice hog, tries hard to participate, but he’s off the wall. I can’t afford to have somebody that loose in the business.”

“How off the wall?”

“Oh, man, bad temper. Flies off real easy. And he’s a gun nut, all the time rapping about guns and carrying pieces to impress. Just what I need, some bozo with a bad temper and a weapons Jones. But here’s what you’ll like. He’s a real patriot, stays true to the red, white, and blue, rides a Harley because it’s an American bike and screw the Japs. And he’s big on nuking the pinkos and the Russians.”

“Where can I find him?”

“He doesn’t come around here any more,” said Soto with a thin smile. “I had a couple of brothers — discourage him from dropping in. But he’s called Cadillac Jack because he works in a Cadillac dealership. Mechanic.” He shook his head. “I got him all riled up last time I saw him.”

“How did you do that?”

“Told him that starting next year, Cadillacs were all going to be made in Japan.”

I left Soto grinning through the industrial smog of cigar smoke and found a phone book. There were only three Cadillac dealers on the Cape. I scored at the second one, Sergeant Cadillac Motors.

“We had a mechanic here named John Rugg, but he failed to show up for work about a month ago and he hasn’t been back since. We checked at his rooming house, but the landlady said he left without so much as a goodbye. Too bad. He was a little odd, but a crackerjack mechanic.”

“Odd?”

“He was rather touchy, couldn’t take a joke. He never became friendly with the other men. They kidded him because he always tuned in those talk shows. God knows why. They drive me crazy.”

“Did he ride a motorcycle?”

Sergeant thought for a minute. “Not that I recall.” He shook his head. “A strange one, he was. When he left, he said something should be done, that it was a crime.”

“What was?”

“Cadillacs, being made in Japan.”

It was four thirty when I got back to the office. Olivera was waiting in an unmarked car. He motioned for me to get in. “Your boy is really hazing them today.” Chandler’s voice was on the car radio. “He’s been flogging the right-wingers. Hell, I guess that’s me. I think we should have flattened Russia in 1945, saved everyone a whole lot of grief.”

“What’s up, lieutenant?”

“You tell me, Stubblefield. You were probably just on the way up to your office where you were going to call me up, like any good citizen, and tell me what’s on Soto’s mind. Right?”

“Soto.”

“We’re a small department, but we aren’t feeble, yet. Talk to me, Charles.” I told him about Rugg and what I’d learned from Sergeant.

“Makes sense. He gives us Rugg, takes the heat off him and his greasebag gang.”

“Rugg sounds right.”

“I agree. His name is depressingly familiar. Among other things, he had a fling a couple of years ago with a local white supremacist group. He didn’t stay, though I don’t know why. He fit right in with those maggots.”

“You get to know the nicest people in your line of work,” I said. He gave me a weary look.

“People like Soto and Rugg lead me to believe that cowboys do, in fact, have congress with sheep.”