Baca

“Private. My name’s Ronny Baca.”

One of the car wash guys said, “Baca? Man, you don’t look Latino, ese.”

“Parents were from Bolognia. Its west of Spain.”

One of them got it, but one of the others said, “I heard of it, yeah. It was on the Discovery channel a couple weeks back.”

I showed the salesman my license, “I’m trying to get an angle on her and this seemed like a good place to start.”

“Well, if you find her let me know. She totaled that car, and it was the best one on the lot.”

“That’s sure what I’d tell the insurance company if I were you.”

“We told them that because it was the best car. Low miles, had the big engine, ran like a bat out of hell.”

“Any idea when she stole it?”

“It must have been around one, one-thirty. Half the people go to lunch between one and two and the others cover for them. Same from twelve to one.”

“You fellows see anything?” I asked the washers.

“Just soap and water, man. It’s our life, you know?”

There are always jokers around. I asked Miguel, “Which lunch shift do you take?”

“Twelve to one.”

“And you didn’t notice her on the lot?”

“Nope. I was talking to a husband and wife about one-fifteen over by the pickups, but I never saw anybody around the Birds here.”

“And nobody here noticed it was missing until after it was wrecked, is that right?”

“Yeah, the cops called us around two-thirty or so about it.”

I looked at the lot and spied several security cameras. “Could I look at your security tapes for that day?”

“Sure. The cops already looked, so they’re still out. We use one for each twenty-four hours. Come on, you can use the meeting room. The TV and player are set up.”

**

He gave me directions on how to use the remote to fast forward, reverse and freeze any part of the tape, and then he left me alone in the room. It took me a minute to locate the Firebirds, then I fast-forwarded the tapes until I saw people near them. The camera took images about every two seconds so the people and passing cars seemed to jerk across the screen in little jumps.

Several times, there were people by the Firebirds but none of them got in and drove one away. I almost missed the car when it moved and had to rewind the tape and look again.

No one was near it, but I saw a small hand reach up from between the cars and open the passenger door. A shadowy figure moved across the console and into the driver’s seat. I got one flash of a long braided ponytail and a glimpse of a young, pretty face, then the engine started and the Firebird drove off the lot and into traffic.

I backed up the tape again until I was a good five minutes before the theft. I watched every angle and never saw her. I did it again, this time rewinding even further, but there was no image of her anywhere. Wherever she had crawled from, it had started out of camera range.

I went out of the room and saw Miguel, “Thanks,” I said.

“You do any good?”

“No, I never even saw her, just her hand, then the car was gone.”

“Yeah, she was a sneaky one. Let me know if you catch her. We have a reward for it.”

I shook his hand, “I’ll keep that in mind.” As I went out of the building, I saw the car wash guys over by my pickup. They were laughing and carrying on like it was a fiesta.