To Catch a Spy by Stuart M. Kaminsky Read Free Book Online Page A

Wilshire.”
    I nodded. I knew Madman Dumar’s Autos. He ran ads on KFWB radio. Dumar talked fast and loud and promised that every car he sold was sure to please at a price you couldn’t afford to pass up. “I’m crazy,” Dumar said ten or fifteen times a day on 950 on my radio dial. “Come down and see how crazy I can be.” Dumar wasn’t crazy enough to be open after ten on New Year’s Day.
    “Phone booth at the north end of the lot,” Grant repeated for my benefit. “Eleven-fifteen. He’ll be there.”
    Grant hung up the phone.
    “What time is it?” I asked.
    Grant looked at the watch on my wrist.
    “It doesn’t work,” I said. “It was my father’s. Tells its own time.” Grant lifted an eyebrow.
    “It’s twenty minutes to eleven,” he said. “I’ll call you in the morning to be sure it went all right. If something goes wrong, call me at the number I gave you, but only if something goes wrong. Good luck. And be careful.”
    “I will,” I said. “What did he say when you told him I had a gun?”
    Grant hesitated, and then he said, “He hoped it was a big one and that you knew how to use it.”
    We shook hands. Grant stood watching as I walked back through Wally’s and out the door. It took me nearly half an hour to get to Madman Dumar’s. When I got there, I parked right next to the phone booth and got out. There wasn’t much traffic, but there were some cars going in both directions.
    Madman Dumar’s lot was filled with cars that had signs with prices on their windshields. The prices were in bright red on big white cards. There was a billboard above the lot with a caricature of the Madman himself, his hair wild, wearing big, round glasses, and with a car in the palm of each upheld hand.
    There was a chance the guy I was meeting was already there, in the lot, watching me from between the cars. There was a chance he’d just drive up and make the exchange as fast as he could without even getting out of his car. There was a bigger chance that the phone would ring and he’d tell me where to go next. I figured the guy would probably drive by a few times just to be sure I was alone, and then he’d go to a phone he had picked out.
    The phone rang. I picked it up.
    “You have the package?” he asked. He had a high voice with maybe a hint of an accent.
    “You know I do.”
    “Hold it up now so I can see it,” he said.
    I did nothing.
    “Yes,” he said. “I see it.”
    He was not very good at this game, but it was his game.
    “You know where Elysian Park is?” he asked.
    “I know.”
    “Go to the entrance on North Broadway,” he said.
    “The park closes at eight.”
    “About one hundred yards to your left, facing the front, is a service entrance,” he said. “The gate will be unlocked. Drive in and close it behind you. You know how to get to the Memorial Grove?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Go there now. Park. Walk toward the trees.”
    He hung up. I got back in the Crosley and started to drive. Elysian Park, on the north side of the city, covers about six hundred acres of land along the Los Angeles River. It has seven miles of paved roads with hairpin curves through arroyo-gashed hills, matted tangles of wild roses, creepers, blue gum eucalyptus, drooping pepper trees, and gnarled live oaks. There are ten miles of foot trails through canyons and up steep hills. The Memorial Grove is a neatly arranged grove of trees with bronze tablets laid out in memory of World War I dead.
    I hadn’t been to the park in five or six years, maybe more. My ex-wife and I had taken our lunch to the picnic grounds and walked down a path along the river. I thought about Anne for a few seconds. The city was full of memories of her. I turned on the radio. Music, sound. I didn’t care. I hummed “Anything Goes.” The band on the radio was playing “Stardust.” The two didn’t go together.
    North Broadway wasn’t busy, and I had no trouble finding the service entrance gate. I left the motor running, got out,