How To Steal a Car by Pete Hautman Page A

Turns out his brother is his fraternal twin, not identical, so the DNA evidence is back in play. And that photo of him in the bar with the baseball game? The game was taped. It turns out he was at the bar the night after the rape. Elwin Dandridge has been a real disappointment to me. But I think I can get him a deal for three to five, because the DEA needs his testimony in a drug-trafficking case. I might even swing a suspended sentence with probation, if he agrees to go into treatment.”
    “For drugs? Or raping girls?” I asked.
    “I assume both. The judge is likely to—”
    My mother stood up suddenly. She picked up her plate and glass of wine and said, “I’m going to eat in the den.”
    We watched her go, surprised. What my mom had just done was, in her version of reality, the height of rudeness.
    I thought it was cool. A good hard poke to the ox’s ribs.
    Deke Moffet was very regular about taking his meal breaks from Wing’s Wild Wok, only this time instead of pizza he was eating a burger from McDonald’s. He didn’t say anything right away when I sat down. I waited.
    He said, “Don’t worry, I haven’t told anybody about the Hummer.”
    “Good.”
    “Marsh might have, though—he never shuts up. I wouldn’t worry about it. Nobody really listens to him.”
    I nodded.
    Deke said, “That what you wanted to hear?”
    “Yeah, but…can I ask you something?”
    He took another bite out of his burger and nodded.
    “When you stole all those cars, how did you do it? Break in and hot-wire them? Or what?”
    “Or what,” Deke said. He paused to swallow. “I wouldn’t know how to hot-wire a lawn mower. Besides, the kind ofcars we were stealing, you can’t just cross a couple wires. We weren’t looking for stuff to chop. We were after the highbuck stuff—Beamers and Benzes. Cars like that got all this antitheft stuff built in. You pretty much gotta have a key.” He gave me an appraising look. “Why?”
    “I was just curious. How did you get the keys?”
    “I got my ways.” Deke hunched close over the table and lowered his voice. “I can get a key for just about any car, anywhere.” He sat back and grinned.
    “Then what?”
    “Then what what?”
    “You sold the cars to somebody?”
    Deke took another huge bite of his burger. I waited. One thing my dad told me once is that most people can’t shut up once you get them talking about their work.
    He swallowed. “I sure didn’t drive ’em into no pond.”
    “How much did you get?”
    “Depended on the car. This guy I know—my client, I guess you could say—he swaps out the VINs, replates ’em, and ships ’em out of state.”
    “What is ‘swap out the VINs’?”
    “Vehicle identification numbers. He gets a new title with a new VIN number.”
    “How did you get caught?”
    “We got pulled over for speeding.” He rolled his eyes. “That moron Marsh. We weren’t even in a hurry.”
Being arrested for auto theft is no doubt very traumatic, as you can go to jail for it. It is not nearly as bad as rape or murder, however.
    I said earlier that the only times my mom drank too much were at Book Club and weddings. I left out this one other time: when Becca Ekman, my mom’s old roommate from college, came into town from New York a couple times a year and took her out for lunch. Martinis were Becca’s thing.
    They always went to The Oceanaire in the Hyatt, where they ripped a new one for every guy they’d ever met—which in Becca’s case, I gathered, was a lot of guys. I think my mom’s job was mostly to listen. She had told me a few Becca stories, I think in hopes that I would avoid following in her best friend’s footsteps.
    As far as I know, Becca had never stolen a car, but if she had I would not have been surprised.
    Becca always stayed at the Hyatt when she came to town, so getting back to her room after multiple martinis was not a problem. But Mom always had to take a cab home and then get a ride downtown with my dad the next morning