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For Christmas last year, Jalil Shamsud-Din gave Harlan Zeek a 1973 Monte Carlo. Shamsud-Din didn't intend to give away his beloved Chevy, but Zeek--the roguish owner of Gainer's Towing--took it anyway. A year later, despite the intervention of the city's towing coordinator, Shamsud-Din is still waiting for the car's return. Shamsud-Din has no beef with Zeek for towing the car. When it broke down last Dec. 23 at East 60th Avenue and Burnside Street, he didn't have the money to move it himself and left it there. Police ordered it towed. When Shamsud-Din attempted to reclaim the car in early January, however, he says a Gainer employee told him the car had already been sold. Under state law, towing companies must make an effort to contact registered owners and wait 30 days before selling an unclaimed car. Since Zeek apparently failed to abide by either provision, city towing czar Marian Gaylord got involved. Gaylord says Zeek couldn't provide any documentation of having sent Shamsud-Din or anyone else a notice that the car was to be sold. As it turned out, one of Zeek's own employees had bought the car. Shamsud-Din says that in May, after repeated calls and Gaylord's intervention, Zeek finally agreed to get the car back. It wasn't until July that Shamsud-Din saw his car, complete with a shattered window and a sputtering engine. At Gaylord's behest, Zeek agreed to fix and return the car. Two months later Shamsud-Din was told the head gasket needed to be replaced. Last month, when Shamsud-Din finally tried to drive the Monte Carlo home, he found the car could not be put in park. Gaylord says by this time most towing companies would simply have agreed on a cash value for the car and settled with the owner--but this saga drags on. "I've never had a case this difficult to get resolved and keep resolved," she says. "Every time we turned over a stone, a few more scorpions slipped out." Zeek, who sold his towing company last January, blames the whole mess on the Department of Motor Vehicles, saying the agency gave him incorrect information when he attempted to identify the car's owner. Since then, he says, he's made good-faith efforts to return Shamsud-Din's car. In the meantime, Shamsud-Din is riding the bus. He's still in regular contact with Zeek, but he is now talking to a lawyer. "This whole thing for me is ridiculous," he says.
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