"Franky Cordoni Was One of the Cleverest Automobile Thieves in the City, and He Knew It"

"Outsmarted."
By Robert E. Larkin (?-?).
First appearance: Detective Fiction Weekly, February 15, 1936.
Short short short story (4 pages).
Online HERE.

"A Weak Battery, a Weak Heart, a Weak Head—and a Car, a Car-Thief, and a Patrolman"

Franky was smart all right; nobody could catch him:

. . . Anyone could steal a car from in front of a busy office building. It took a clever thief to steal from under the very noses of the people who let their cars stand in front of their homes.  . . .

Resources:
- FictionMags HERE credits Larkin with 9 stories, all in Detective Fiction Weekly (DFW) in the late '30s, with "Outsmarted" being the first.
- For more about DFW, see Walker Martin's Mystery*File article HERE and another from Mystery*File by Terry Sanford HERE.

The bottom line: I would have probably stolen cars—it would have given me the same adrenaline rush as racing.
— Valentino Rossi