Spook

by Bill Pronzini

  “Mr. Personality,” Tamara said.

  “Man with problems. But he seemed forthright enough.”

  “Uh-huh. Working with that dude would be a laugh a minute.”

  “Like working with me, you mean?”

  “You can be pretty funny, specially when you’re not half trying.”

  “Thanks. I think.”

  “Funny as Drew Carey, sometimes.”

  Whoever Drew Carey was.

  We had a total of nine applicants, and as a matter of course we ran a background check on each one. The check on Jake Runyon filled in some of the gaps in his personal record. He had problems, all right. A long, sad history of them.

  He’d been married twice, the first time at age nineteen to a woman named Andrea Fleming. The following year she’d borne him a son, Joshua. Fourteen months after that, he’d left her for his second wife, Colleen McPhail — a bitter separation and divorce that culminated in Andrea getting full custody of the child and moving to San Francisco, where she’d taken back her maiden name and legally changed the child’s surname to Fleming. Evidently her bitterness hadn’t been tempered by time; one of Runyon’s friends on the Seattle PD told me she’d poisoned Joshua against his father and the boy had grown up hating him, refusing to have anything to do with him. Andrea Fleming had never remarried; had nursed her bitterness with alcohol and died two years ago of liver failure. Runyon’s second marriage, meanwhile, had apparently been rock-solid; he worshipped Colleen, the cop friend said. No children from that union, just the two of them together for two decades. And now Colleen Runyon was gone, too, of ovarian cancer, and Jake Runyon was alone except for his estranged son whom he still hadn’t seen after five weeks in the city.

  Tamara said, “Moved down here looking to patch things up, probably, and he’s not getting anywhere.”

  “Can’t be easy finding an antidote to a lifetime of poison.”

  “Yeah. But the man did it to himself. Left his wife and baby for another woman. I’d be full of poison, too, if a man treated me that way.”

  “For twenty years? I don’t think so. You’re not the type who lives in the past, uses booze to nurse an obsessive hatred.”

  “Might be if I loved somebody enough in the first place.”

  “As much as Runyon seems to have loved his second wife, you mean?”

  “Sure, take his side. Men always stick up for each other.”

  “I’m not taking anybody’s side,” I said. “We don’t know enough about any of these people to make judgments. All I’m saying is that there are no easy explanations for what people feel or do. Life can be a complicated mess sometimes.”

  “Ain’t it the truth. What Runyon said about twenty years being the blink of an eye — you agree with it?”

  “Absolutely. Life itself isn’t much more than three or four.”

  By the end of the week I had the field narrowed down to two. Jake Runyon was one; the second was Deron Stewart, another ex-cop with similar credentials. Stewart was local, had worked eight years for the San Francisco office of a big national agency. The economic crunch brought about by the sudden collapse of the dot-com industry had cost him his job, but he’d been given an unqualified recommendation and he owned a solid if undistinguished record.

  Tamara and I sat down late Friday afternoon to make our final decision. I said, “Two names on my list. There’s not much difference in background or experience, so as I see it the choice comes down to personalities.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “How many names on your list?”

  “Just one.”

  “Really? Who?”

  “You first.”

  “Okay. Close call, but my vote goes to Deron Stewart.”

  She gave me a bent smile. “How come you be picking him?”

  “He has a nice, easy way of dealing with people,” I said. “Quick, too. And he’s upbeat.”

  “Those the only reasons?”

  “Only ones I can think of at the moment.”

  “Fact that he’s African American didn’t have anything to do with it?”

  “Well...”

  “You figure I’d be more comfortable working with a brother, maybe?”

  “Come on, Tamara, don’t bring race into this.”

  “Me? You the one playing that card, boss man. We been working together four years now, the last two full-time, and you don’t know me any better’n that? You think I’m still the hard-ass college kid I was back when?”

  She’d been a hard-ass, all right — the type of young urban black who distrusts and dislikes whitey, sees racism lurking in every act and spoken word, and adopts a hostile attitude. The first day she’d walked into this office, to interview for the part-time job of computerizing my old-fashioned operation, she’d worn outlandish clothing, brandished her attitude like a sword, and all but accused me of having ulterior sexual motives toward her. We’d clashed, hard. But there’d been a connection nonetheless, one which allowed us to get past all the crap and give each other a second chance. And she had matured into a person with perspective, tolerance, compassion, a far more adult fashion sense, and a remarkable flair, passion, and professionalism for the detective business. Four years ago it would’ve been inconceivable to me that I’d one day offer her a full partnership — as inconceivable as making a firm decision to semi-retire at the age of sixty-one.

  I said, “Anything but.”

  “Then don’t be patronizing me,” she said. There was an edge to her voice, but no real heat. She was making a point, not starting an argument.

  “I’m not patronizing you. I was only—”

  “You really think Deron Stewart’s the best man?”

  “Well... don’t you?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “He’s a hound, that’s why not.”

  “Hound?”

  “Pussy hound. Didn’t you see the way he looked at me, how long he held onto my hand after we interviewed him? Sniff, sniff, sniff, with his big old tongue hanging out.”

  “Was he that obvious?”

  “Was to me. Man’s sly, but not so sly a smart woman can’t see what he is. He’d be hitting on me inside a week. Be hitting on any other woman he figured might be available, too, black or white, every chance he had.”

  “You mean while on the job?”

  “On the job, off the job, in his sleep. Trust me, he’s a hound. I can’t work with a hound no matter what color he is.”

  I like to think I’m a good judge of character, that I can pick up on obvious flaws on a first meeting. Not where Deron Stewart was concerned, evidently. Because he was a black man? Because I’d wanted to believe Tamara would be happier, more comfortable with someone of the same race — patronizing her, as she’d claimed, with reverse racism? Or just because I was getting old and missing signals, more ready for the pasture than I wanted to admit?

  She said, “What’s the other name on your list?”

  “Jake Runyon.”

  “Right. Only name on mine.”

  “I thought you didn’t much care for Runyon’s past or personality.”

  “Didn’t much care for you either in the beginning,” Tamara said. “Man’s a pro, that’s the main thing. I can work with him.”

  “So are you a pro,” I said. “Someday you’ll be a better one than I ever was.”

  “Not better, but just as good.” No false modesty in Ms. Corbin.

  “So it’s Runyon then?”

  “Best man for the job. Only one in the bunch worth your time and mine.”

  I made the call to tell Jake Runyon that he was hired. All he said was, “Good. When do I start?”

  2

  The phone rang at ten till five, just as I was getting ready to close up shop for the weekend. Tamara was already gone, and I’d been finishing a report on a claims investigation for Western States Indemnity and trying to decide if I should fight the Friday night crowds downtown for a couple of hours of Christmas shopping, or wait until
tomorrow and fight the Saturday morning crowds. Tonight might be better, I was thinking, get it over with. It was Kerry’s night to pick up Emily and they wouldn’t be home until seven o’clock at the latest.

  The caller identified himself as Steve Taradash, adding that he was the owner of a company called Visuals, Inc. He’d gotten the agency name out of the phone book, he said, and wanted to know if I was available to “do a small job” for him. He sounded uncertain, possibly a little embarrassed at asking for the services of a detective agency.

  “What sort of job, Mr. Taradash?”

  “Well, it’s kind of difficult to explain over the phone. Could you come here? We’re not far from where you are.” He gave the address.

  “This evening, you mean?”

  “If you could manage it. I’ll be here until seven or so.”

  “I’ll need some idea of what kind of job you want done first.”

  “Find out who somebody is. Was.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean. An identity check?”

  “Well, there was an article about it in Wednesday’s Chronicle. It mentioned us — Visuals, Inc. Maybe you saw it?”

  As a general rule I neither read the newspapers nor watch TV news. Investigative work is depressing enough, and I can count on Kerry or Tamara or various clients to keep me abreast of current events. I didn’t tell Taradash this; I said only, “I’m afraid not.”

  “Oh. Well.” He made a throat-clearing sound. “The thing is,” he said, “I’ve been stewing about this ever since Tuesday morning. Whether to call somebody or not. I kept hoping the cops... police would ID him, turn up some information on his background, but they don’t have a clue. He’s still a John Doe.”

  “Who is?”

  “Spook.”

  “Did you say Spook?”

  “That’s what everybody called him.” The throat-clearing sound again. “Look, I’m not very good at this kind of thing, especially on the phone. I’ve never hired a detective before. Could you come over? Even if there’s nothing you can do, I’ll pay you for your time...”

  Five o’clock. Friday evening crowds, Friday evening traffic snarls downtown. Two hours before Kerry and Emily would be home. Visuals, Inc. was more or less on my way to Diamond Heights. And I wouldn’t be officially semiretired until after the first of the year.

  “Give me half an hour, Mr. Taradash,” I said. “I’ll let you have the same, free of charge.”

  Visuals, Inc. occupied half of a converted warehouse on Mariposa, off lower Potrero. The area was semi-industrial, home to all sorts of small businesses, the Municipal Railway bus yards, and the local PBS station, among other things. It was close to downtown, close to the interchange of Highways 101 and 80, close to the Mission District, Pac Bell Park, S.F. General Hospital.

  The centralized location may or may not have much to do with the fact that a fairly high concentration of the city’s 8,000-plus homeless population congregates there. The area has a soup kitchen and at least one city-operated shelter, but many of the displaced live on the streets or sleep in squalid little encampments under the freeways and in neighborhood parks such as Franklin Square. Sidewalks, alleys, doorways are littered with shopping carts, refuse, human waste. Conditions aren’t as bad as in some other parts of the city, but walking here can be a depressing experience. And I had to hoof it three blocks in a chilly December dusk because street parking is always at a premium, even after five o’clock on a Friday evening. I doled out change to three panhandlers along the way, turned down a fourth because he was drunk on cheap wine and overly aggressive. Life in the city in the new millennium.

  The windowless entrance to Visuals, Inc. was locked tight. Plated on the door was a discreet sign with the company’s name and nothing else; a bell button was set into the wall next to it, above which another, card-size sign said RING FOR ADMITTANCE. I rang, waited a good two minutes before a voice said, “Yes, who is it?” When I identified myself, chains and bolts rattled and the door opened and I was looking at a guy in his mid-thirties with a severe case of male-pattern baldness and a tic under his right eye that made it seem as if he were winking.

  “Steve Taradash,” he said. He grabbed my hand, worked it like a slot-machine handle for about three seconds before he let go. “Come in, thanks for coming, I really appreciate it, we’ll talk in my office.” All run together like that. Nervous guy.

  He led me on a fast walk through an areaway into a cavernous space lighted by both spots and fluorescents. Two-thirds of the space contained film-related equipment: cameras, dollies, boom microphones, a variety of wheeled backdrops and a gaggle of furniture and props. The other third was walled off and had two sets of metal doors, above one of which was mounted a presently unlit red light. Sound stage, I thought. Two men were working among the equipment; they paid no attention to us as we passed along the side wall.

  At the far end was another closed off section, this one cut up into windowed offices. Two were dark and curtained; the third and largest showed lamplight. That was where we went — Taradash’s office. Big, cluttered, evidently soundproofed, and outfitted with a computer, a film projector, another large machine I couldn’t identify. The three solid walls were coated with posters, photographs, film stills, and various award certificates, some framed, some fastened to corkboards with pushpins.

  Taradash said, “Sit anywhere you can find space,” and flopped into a leather desk chair. Two of the other three chairs in there were piled high with miscellaneous stuff. I moved a couple of large cans of film off the third to make room for my hind end.

  “What sort of film work do you do, Mr. Taradash?”

  He took a cigarette from a pack on the desk blotter. If he’d started to light it, I would have protested; but he didn’t. He rolled it between his thumb and forefinger, looking at it with an expression of loathing. “What we are for the most part is an industry supplier,” he said. “Rent out equipment to small outfits that can’t afford to buy or transport their own — documentary filmmakers, production companies that make indy flicks or commercials. We provide other services, too — sets and a sound stage for indoor shots, film processing, transportation.”

  “Sounds interesting.”

  “It can be. Profitable, too — finally. We’ve been in business seven years, this last one was our best so far and the projection for next year looks even better. You’d be amazed at how much film is shot in the Bay Area, not just the city but within a radius of a couple hundred miles. As much as in L.A., no kidding.”

  “I believe it,” I said.

  “Up to my ass in work even this time of year.” He blew his breath out, scowled at the cigarette, set it down on the blotter. “Trying to quit,” he said. “Bad time to do it, probably, holidays and my workload combined, but I can’t take the wheezing and morning cough anymore.”

  “I know how it is. I used to be a heavy smoker myself.”

  “You have a hard time quitting?”

  “Not really. Cancer scare.”

  The tic jumped under his eye. “Scares me, too. That, and emphysema. My old man died of emphysema. How’d you do it? Quit, I mean.”

  “Just gave it up. Cold turkey.”

  “I can’t do that,” Taradash said ruefully. “I tried, a dozen times at least. Patches, inhalers, that gum that releases a chemical makes you sick when you smoke... all the damn tricks and none of ’em worked. I’m trying something new this time.”

  No wonder he was nervous. “New product?”

  “No. I’ll show you.” He produced a penknife from a desk drawer, used the blade to slice the paper lengthwise on the weed in front of him. Then he lopped off the filter, cut the paper and tobacco into little wedges until he had a shredded mess in front of him. He seemed to enjoy doing it; his expression was one of almost unholy glee when he was done. He swept the mess into an ashtray, emptied the tray into his wastebasket. “I do that every time the craving gets too strong — twenty or thirty times a day. Wastes money, but what the hell, I waste it when I’m s
moking the goddamn things, right? So far it seems to be doing the job.”

  “How long now?”

  “Five days and counting.” He grinned suddenly; it transformed his features, made him look boyish. “Each time I pretend I’m slice-and-dicing one of the tobacco company execs or their frigging lawyers. Very satisfying.”

  I said I guessed it must be. “About your reason for wanting to hire my agency, Mr. Taradash...”

  “Spook, right.” He shifted through papers, found a clipping and slid it over my way. “The newspaper article I mentioned on the phone, that’ll give you some of the background.”

  The clipping was headed DEATH AND ANONYMITY ON THE STREETS. I smiled a little, wryly, when I saw the byline: Joseph DeFalco. My old pal Joe, one of the last of the old-school yellow journalism hacks. Typically, this story of his was a mixture of straight news reportage, sob feature, and soapbox rhetoric, loaded with bathos and flamboyant metaphor DeFalco’s “personal style” which in fact was loosely patterned on those of Mike Royko and Jimmy Breslin.

  Distilled, the facts amounted to these: On Tuesday morning a homeless man in his mid-thirties, known only by the name Spook, had been found shot to death by an employee of Visuals, Inc. in one of their back-alley doorways. He carried no identification, no one seemed to know his real name, and a check of his fingerprints had turned up no match in any state or federal database. Officially he was a John Doe, the latest of more than a hundred and forty John and Jane Does to pass through the medical examiner’s office this year.

  There was no apparent motive for the shooting. Everyone seemed to agree that he’d been a harmless street person, mentally ill like many of the city’s homeless — known as Spook because he had ghosts living inside his head with whom he held regular conversations — but gentle, friendly, nonaggressive. Steve Taradash and his dozen employees had befriended Spook, given him small amounts of money, food, nonalcoholic drinks. One of the employees, a woman named Meg Lawton, described him as “a really sweet man who’d bring us presents sometimes, flowers and little things of no value. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body. I just don’t understand why anyone would want to kill him.”