Stray Cat Blues

by Robert Bucchianeri

  He closed his eyes, clasped his hands, and brought the tips of his fingers against his nose. “There was nothing I wouldn’t do...do you understand? Right or wrong was meaningless. If I lost her, I wouldn’t have anything anyway. I was crazy. I still am.”

  I just let him talk. I’d come here ready to blow the man’s life up if necessary to get at the truth, only to find out his life was already in shambles.

  “I’ve loved her since the first time I saw her. We were first-year students at Berkeley, both taking an astronomy class. The feeling never wavered, not once in fifteen years. That’s the truth. I know what they say about relationships and marriage, the work it takes to keep things going, the ups and downs. That didn’t happen to us. We couldn’t have kids. I couldn’t. She was okay with that. She said I was all she needed. That’s all I ever cared about—making her happy, taking care of her.” His voice wavered, and he took a breath to calm himself. “We were always just...right for each other. I don’t know how unusual it is, but I thank God every day for her.” He paused again, winced. “At least when I’m not cursing Him for her illness.”

  “What does she have?”

  “Cancer. Pancreatic. By the time she was diagnosed, it was Exocrine Stage Four, with the worst prognosis.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “There was an experimental treatment that showed some success with mice. But she didn’t qualify for it because of her staging. The drugs cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. We had no money. I’d lost most of it when the market crashed in 2008. I couldn’t accept that. If there was any possibility of her living, for even just a few more months, I wasn’t going to let her go.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I found Johnnie Damon.”

  “How?”

  “Online. A forum. For OxyContin users.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “No. I’d already decided that I might be able to make a lot of money fast by selling the stuff. I didn’t have the kind of patients generally who needed painkillers, but I knew there was an epidemic. I started doing research. I knew some doctors who were enmeshed in the problem, trying to help the profession deal with the fallout and the political ramifications.” Wainright stared straight ahead, tapping his nose with his fingertips, his voice flat. “One of them told me about this forum as a way of describing how tough the problem was. He mentioned that there are secret forums for all kinds of things where people encourage other people in the most destructive behaviors, including drug abuse and suicide.”

  And I thought Internet porn was a problem.

  Wainright continued. “This site was a way for sellers to meet buyers and vice versa. It took some time for me to get accepted as legit. But I was relentless, and the administrators eventually let me play.

  “At first, I was clueless, fumbling around, not knowing how to approach people. Who to trust. After a few days of bumbling, I ran into Johnnie online and we clicked. Wasn’t long before I agreed to meet her in person.”

  “Where?”

  “A bar in Berkeley.”

  “What happened?”

  He stopped tapping his fingers and looked at me. “She was looking for Oxy. Lots of it. She told me her story. I told her mine. I don’t think there was any pretense between us. I don’t know...she wasn’t what I expected, not that I have any experience with drug dealers.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She was smart. Very smart. She was just a kid, really. In her early twenties. Trying to deal with the bad hand life had dealt her. Losing her parents. Trying to take care of her kid sister.”

  “Doesn’t explain why she turned to selling drugs...or hustling men.”

  He gave me a surprised look. “She didn’t try to hustle me. I got the feeling that she’d tried to find other ways to make money but couldn’t. She’d had to drop out of high school. The cost of living around here is ridiculous. She was fearful of losing her sister.”

  Wainright gripped his knees and said, “Anyway, we kind of trusted each other. She was always straight with me. Telling me exactly how much I would make from each delivery and then getting me the money on time.”

  “Didn’t you have to be careful?”

  “Sure. And I was. But maybe not as careful as I should have been. Like I said, I was crazy, and the danger to me was less important than getting Katherine the help she needed.”

  “Did she?”

  He shook his head sadly. “She got through the first round of treatments. But they didn’t work. No remission. Not even a short one.”

  “But she’s still alive.”

  He nodded, then looked up into my eyes. “For a little while longer. She’s strong. God, is she tough. The doctors are amazed. But it’s only a matter of time, and there’s not much left.”

  I nodded, stayed quiet.

  “So you never had an affair with Johnnie? It was strictly business?”

  “No. An affair? Never,” he snapped.

  “When was the last time you saw her? The last time you sold her stuff?”

  “About three weeks ago. I’d raised enough money for the first round of treatments but thought I’d need more for the next rounds. Since then, we’ve found out they didn’t work. But when she didn’t respond to my messages, I went to her apartment. I don’t know what I was doing. I talked to her landlord.” He turned to me. “I’m sorry about her disappearance. I hope she’s okay. I liked her.”

  “Did she ever mention anything to you about her business or personal problems? Anyone who was threatening her or who she was afraid of? Anything like that?”

  “No. Nothing. We were cordial. She asked about my wife. I asked about her sister, but she never went into any detail about her personal problems.”

  He rose, grabbed the shovel, and stood with his back to me. “So, what now?” he said.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  He tapped the tip of the shovel against the soil several times, making a shushing sound. “Are you going to turn me in?”

  “If what you told me is the whole truth, then no. I only want to help Frankie find her sister. What you did was wrong. But that’s between you, your wife, and your maker. I won’t judge it. I might have done the same thing in your place.”

  “My wife doesn’t know anything about this. She would never have let me put myself at risk.”

  “She sounds like a good woman. I could tell...just looking at her.”

  “She...” Tears filled his eyes, and he turned away.

  “Okay,” I mumbled, and feeling more than a little shame tinged with sorrow, left him there alone.

  Twenty-Eight

  Marsh had finally surfaced.

  But he didn’t want to talk about where he’d been, or how he and Tom were doing, or any other thing that bordered on the personal.

  Just Marsh being Marsh.

  When I told him about the home invasion, he got really excited.

  Caballo Negro had dinner with his grandmother every Friday night without fail and usually spent the night in a spare bedroom.

  Marsh had paid a follow-up visit to Vince, who, although initially reticent to cooperate, had soon found himself eager to provide salient details about his scary ass boss’s life.

  I guess a scary ass in the hand is worth two in the bush.

  By the time we got there, it was just after 9 p.m., and the streets were deserted, windswept, dark as ink. The moon was a pale sickle in the murky sky.

  The house was an old Victorian on Mason Street, a stone’s throw from the famous Painted Ladies on Alamo Square—a tight ladder of Victorians, back-dropped by skyscrapers that tourists flocked to ogle.

  Caballo had purchased the house for his grandmother a year ago for just under two-million dollars. He was doing quite well for a lad of twenty-seven, putting the lie to the aphorism that crime doesn’t pay.

  Caballo seemed to be mimicking the Hollywood cliché about gang leaders with a soft spot for family and, especially, the dear old Grandmother who raised him. They
were probably having homemade apple pie for dessert. It was almost heart-warming.

  But cornering Caballo at his other haunts—his high-rise condo downtown or Funky Jack’s—presented loads more problems, as he employed Fort Knox level security systems and armed guards.

  Here, other than a couple of his bored foot soldiers posted outside, there appeared to be little interference.

  Of course, we guessed there might be more of his friends inside and that he would never be far from a weapon, no matter how safe he felt in the warmth of his grandmother’s embrace.

  From another of Marsh’s cars, a black BMW not sold in the U.S., we watched the men at the front of the house for a while, recognizing one of them from our visit to Funky Jack’s. After studying their lack of movement for about ten minutes, we formulated an impromptu plan, and Marsh gathered appropriate supplies from a satchel he’d tossed into the back seat.

  I jumped a wooden fence into the small backyard and made my way toward the front of the house via a weathered brick pathway through a nice vegetable garden, from which I plucked a ripe red strawberry. Marsh headed up Mason, passing the house from the opposite side of the street.

  Frank, the plump Mexican who’d made the mistake of attacking Marsh with a knife, was smoking a cigarette and leaning against one of the concrete pillars holding up the front porch of Grandmother Caballo’s handsome house. The other guard, also puffing away, stood back near the elegantly trimmed front door.

  When the street was clear of pedestrians, Marsh came out of the shadows up the street and walked into the reflection of the streetlight in front of the house, strolling like any other passerby. Frank glanced at him briefly but didn’t pay him any mind as he approached the steps leading to the porch.

  Suddenly, Marsh pivoted, leaped the stairs, and landed within a couple of feet of Frank, who stumbled back, reaching too late inside his trench coat. Marsh’s hand beat his to the gun. Frank’s eyes became saucers as his mouth flew open to shout. But before he could manage that, Marsh shoved a tennis ball in it and kneed him in the groin.

  Frank collapsed to his knees. Marsh slammed the side of his fist beneath the man’s ear, and he toppled over unconscious.

  The other guard would have reacted decisively if he hadn’t simultaneously been upended into a rhododendron. After I’d opened a side gate and managed to nestle myself quietly behind the rhodie, I waited until Marsh engaged Frank. The man was standing near enough to the edge of the porch that I was able to grab his ankles and yank them and his legs out from under him. He hit the concrete porch face first with a bone-crunching thud. I dragged him off the landing and into said flowering plant. He was already groggy so, with a shuddering of leaves, I made him less alert, and then quickly bound his hands behind him. I gagged him with one of Marsh’s tennis balls and used masking tape to prevent him from spitting it out. I left him hidden beneath the big plant.

  Marsh completed the same procedure with Frank and dumped him into the thick shrubbery on the other side of the porch.

  The whole procedure took less than a minute and, we hoped, was quiet enough not to alert the occupants.

  The Victorian had a nice, newly repaired brick chimney jutting out of the spanking new roof, and we thought about surprising everybody by slithering down it Santa style, but it wasn’t anywhere near Christmas, so we decided on the direct approach.

  That might be even more surprising.

  I put on a yellow overcoat with stripes and a cool red cap that had SFPD printed on it. I’d wanted an ax, but Marsh had nixed the idea.

  The front door had lights on either side and a peeper smack dab in the center. I used the lovely brass knocker and tapped it firmly three times. Marsh moved out of eyeshot.

  I heard some steps nearing the door and then sensed someone watching me through the peephole.

  “Who is it?” a gruff voice asked.

  “Fire Department,” I said, in my best no-nonsense manner.

  “What do you want?”

  I thought that was a little impertinent. “Open up, please. There’s a gas leak in the system, and we have to check out your main.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He would soon.

  “Sir, please open up. It won’t take long, but there are fire and explosion dangers to the house and yourselves.”

  Several locks were fiddled with and a chain unfastened before the door opened and I was confronted by a man of large proportions with an obviously bad temperament. He appeared weaponless, but I had no doubt that armaments were hidden nearby.

  He scowled at me and said, “This isn’t a good time. Couldn’t you come back in the morning?”

  “The danger is now, sir. How many people are in the house?”

  “Me and my boss and his grandmother.”

  “That’s all?”

  He nodded.

  “What’s going on, Del?” The voice was resonant, commanding, with a slight Hispanic accent.

  A moment later, the owner of the voice strolled into the picture.

  Caballo was bald, wiry, riddled with tattoos, and had an unpleasant face despite its attractive individual features: high cheekbones, strong aquiline nose, full lips. On somebody else, these would have made the man almost pretty, but there was something in his dark blue eyes that drew you to them instead.

  I guess you couldn’t afford to be too cute if you had a mob that you had to keep in fear and in thrall.

  “You’re with the fire department?” he asked, squinting at me.

  I lowered my head and stepped inside. Marsh was right behind me.

  “Where’s your furnace?” I asked authoritatively.

  “Wait a sec...I know you...” Caballo was still giving me the eagle eye.

  Del stepped behind the door. I looked at Marsh, who was already on the move.

  Caballo reached behind his back. I stepped inside his legs, grabbed his elbow, and whispered, “We just want to talk. No threat.”

  “You’re the fuckers who beat up my men at Funky’s. This is not cool, man. Is my grandmama’s home,” he spat through clenched teeth.

  “Just a few questions and then we’ll leave you alone.”

  “Ernie, is something wrong?”

  An old woman using a cane appeared in the hallway. She was probably in her eighties, almost as bald as Caballo, with rheumy eyes and an alarmed expression on her face as she studied the scene in front of her.

  Caballo relaxed, and I stepped away.

  “No, Abuelita. Just a little misunderstanding. Go back in the kitchen, and I’ll be in to make your dessert in a few minutes.”

  The old woman’s teeth chattered, and there were spasms in her face muscles. “Del,” Caballo barked, “could you help her back and wait for me there.”

  Del, an abashed look on his face, as I assume Marsh had prevented him from retrieving his weapon, stepped from behind the open front door and escorted Granny away.

  Caballo motioned with his head towards a large living area to the side. As he turned, I noticed the knife in its sheath at his back.

  “That’s my business,” Caballo said with his hands gripping his knees.

  He was sitting on the edge of an upholstered chair in the center of the room. Marsh and I sat on identical love seats opposite each other, framing the leader of the Blue Notes. The living room was decorated in a distinctly Edwardian style with lots of excessive and unnecessary flourishes, including the pictures on the walls and the area rug depicting scenes from fox hunts.

  Grandmama looked more Mexican than British, but it’s everyone’s right to construct their own narratives.

  “We’re just looking for the girl. She’s been missing for weeks now and her baby sister is all alone. We’re not trying to implicate you in anything, just trying to locate her. It’s our understanding that she came to see you about a week before she disappeared because she was unhappy about a deal, a problem she had with some of your men.”

  Caballo shrugged his shoulders, shooting us a who-gives-a-horse’s-ass
look.

  Marsh stood up and did a backbend, a forward bend, and then jumped into a handstand.

  Caballo looked at him as if a llama had suddenly appeared in the room.

  “Marsh,” I said, with a hint of warning in my voice.

  “We do need to know what she told you,” Marsh said from his upside down position.

  Caballo stared at Marsh, who started walking in a circle. A headstand circle.

  “What the hell is he doing, man?” Caballo asked me.

  “I don’t think he had time to work on his practice today. He hates to miss a day. Then again,” I added.

  Suddenly, Marsh somersaulted, landing on his feet in front of Caballo, who showed the reflexes of a cat, leaping up onto his chair, reaching behind for the knife. But he was too slow. Marsh slashed at his wrist; the knife clattered to the floor.

  Marsh started doing toe dips, up and down. Up and down. His eyes fixed on Caballo.

  Who looked to me for help.

  I shrugged. “Marsh doesn’t have my patience. He wants to get home. He likes to meditate at night before sleep.”

  “Where the fuck are you guys from?” Caballo said. He was still standing on his chair. I could see he was trying to figure out his next move, but Marsh had thrown him off his game.

  I could empathize.

  “I told you that I never discuss my business with outsiders. Not phony firemen. Not cops. Not nobody. Now I’m going back to the kitchen to eat some of my Abuelita’s flan. You guys can stay here and stand on your fucking heads all night, but I’d like you to get the hell out of my fucking house.”

  He stepped off the chair and endeavored to circumvent Marsh, but instead found himself seated stiff as a board with a pronounced wince on his face. Marsh was behind him, applying force to the young tough’s shoulders.

  Caballo closed his eyes and tried to bite back the pain, but it was only a matter of time as Marsh tightened his grip on the scapular muscles.

  Unfortunately, for him and others unlucky enough to raise Marsh’s ire, my friend has a surgeon’s knowledge of human anatomy and physiology but had forsworn the Hippocratic oath.