by Seth Harwood
On the way out of the bedroom, he drops his tissues in the garbage can, noticing a few porno DVDs on the bottom shelf of the TV stand next to it. There’s a clump of what looks like Ralph’s hair in the garbage, something that might be weird or could also be just Ralph dealing with his normal life, cleaning out a brush.
The phone rings. Jack starts, actually jumps and does a half turn toward the bedside table. “Shit,” he says. The ring comes again: loud and long in the empty house, shocking Jack into realizing that he should definitely get the hell out before someone finds him here with a dead man and his dead dog.
By the third ring Jack’s down the stairs, headed around the couch in the living room for the door. Then the machine picks up and there’s a pause. Jack freezes. He hears Ralph’s voice on the outgoing message, something with soft music playing in the background and low talking, something about how he’s indisposed and will get back to you. Then a beep and a thickly accented voice comes on, says, “Ralphie. The meeting is this afternoon. At the Wharf, near the Bay. I will meet you there at three-thirty, but not if I do not hear from your call. Remember. Today is the day for you.” The machine clicks off.
Jack stops for a second to look back around, making sure he hasn’t left anything of his. He scans the living room again for anything that looks out of place, anything he’d notice and remember. Then he goes to the kitchen and rips off the top page of the notepad, the one with his name at the bottom. On the kitchen divider, he sees the phone and its caller-ID box with a phone number blinking on its screen. He writes it down on the paper in his hand. Just in case.
In his car, a few blocks away, Jack sits in the restored driver’s seat with the motor running. “Shit,” he says, running his hand across the top of his head. “Shit. Shit.”
He gets out and paces on the hard, black asphalt of the street, then crouches, leaning against the car, and closes his eyes. In his head he sees the spray of Ralph’s blood against the wall, the mess in the tub. He thinks of Ralph tripping out in the same Jacuzzi, holding a slice of pizza above the bubbles, and then Ralph’s body lying facedown on the bottom of the tub today, lying in his own blood. Jack rubs his eyelids with the pads of his fingers.
He’s not sure what to do next.
Getting out and away from all this seems like the next logical step, but if Ralph’s killers decide to track Jack to his house in Sausalito…Well, Jack’s not sure what he would do if that happened. Maybe they saw his name on the pad and know he was working with Ralph, don’t want this deal with the Czechs to go down. Either way, he’s involved now, somebody knows his name, and Ralph’s dead, facedown, waiting for the cops to show.
The cops.
Sergeant Hopkins is already after Jack about last night, for whatever reason, and now Ralph’s dead, he’ll want to find him even more. If he knows anything, he’ll know Jack was with Ralph. If not, they’ll find something when they turn Ralph’s house into a crime scene, some way to connect Jack, and Hopkins will want to talk then.
He might as well head off the process, go in for a chat first thing.
He paces again, trying to get the image of the dead dog out of his head. Then Jack gets back into his car, drives for a few blocks, focusing on the road, the sound of the car’s engine. What he really needs is a cigarette, some smoke to calm his nerves and slow this all down. He thinks about stopping at a gas station, smells his fingers from this morning’s smoke, doesn’t like the smell.
In his movie, the best friend got killed, but not until the end, just before the final showdown with the big drug dealer from Miami. That was all squibs then too, fake blood, the best friend just a character played by an actor. Here Ralph wasn’t anybody’s best friend. Now he’s dead before Jack even knows why or what’s happening. Or who did it. There’s the Colombian on Ralph’s machine, the Czechs, two pieces of the puzzle that don’t fit together yet, that need Jack to do the fitting.
He turns back out onto the main drag in El Cerrito, the street with the most stores and parking lots, and turns back toward the highway entrance.
He still sees the pictures: what he saw in Ralph’s house, the pad with his name at the bottom. He imagines someone taking a pencil and crossing it out. Three blocks later, he stops, goes into a pharmacy, and buys a pack of Parliaments. He lights up in the car and starts to feel better, less nauseated. His heart finally slows.
As he drives toward the highway, he realizes he’s going to head back toward 1–80 and the Bay Bridge. The police might have more information he can use than anyone else does, at this point. And the sooner he comes clean about being at Ralph’s, the better. He hopes.
By twelve-thirty, Jack’s at the police station downtown, a big, formidable-looking gray concrete building on Bryant with friezes of Blind Justice carved into the front. They call it the Hall of Justice officially, despite the fact that the Super Friends had a building by the same name in the cartoons Jack used to watch as a kid.
After a few long halls and some gum-chewing receptionists, Jack finds himself in an eighth-floor office sitting across the desk from a big, blunt-nosed cop and his nameplate: Sergeant Mills Hopkins. Behind the desk, a wall of mug shots and bulletins represents the latest of the cases and crimes Sergeant Hopkins has to deal with.
Jack starts off asking about the Wonder Twins, but Hopkins doesn’t crack even the beginning of a smile. So Jack starts in on the facts: what he saw at Ralph’s. He may still wind up a suspect, but at least if he’s cooperative they won’t hold him, he hopes.
Hopkins sits at his big wooden desk, writing on a yellow legal pad as Jack gives him the details. When Jack stops talking, he looks up.
“So you say Ralph Anderino was dead when you got to his house. He called you; you show up; you find him dead. That’s what you’re saying.” He’s nodding as he asks, still writing his notes.
“And his dog too,” Jack says. “You don’t want to forget that the person who killed Ralph also shot his dog. I think that’s a very important detail.”
“Right.” He makes another note. The phone on Hopkins’ desk springs to life, ringing loudly as only an old civil-service phone can. It’s one of the early push-button models, big and heavy, with a little domed light in one corner. Hopkins looks at the phone, turns his attention back to his pad.
“Let me ask you one question,” Jack says.
Hopkins looks up from his writing and nods at Jack. The phone rings.
“Why’d you call this morning? What’d you want to ask?”
“We heard you were cruising downtown last night. I wanted to make sure the ladies were safe.”
“That’s nice,” Jack says. He leans closer to the sergeant, putting his face over the desk. “You know Victoria’s call was bullshit that night. But you let the papers run their wife-beater story.” The sergeant sits up straight, his back getting stiff. “Why’d those cameramen show up five minutes before you did, Mills? They just cruising? Nobody tipped them off?”
Hopkins puts the pad and pencil down and folds his hands on the desk. “So what you’re saying, Jack, if I hear you correct, is I had to gain from telling the press that an S.F. celebrity, albeit a small, washed-up one, was about to go down for an assault on his woman?”
“Level with me. That way we get the past behind us, where it belongs.”
“Okay,” Hopkins says, leaning forward. He looks serious; the space between his eyes turns into a crease. “I show up. You’re junked out. She’s throwing shit, carrying on. Yeah, it doesn’t look like you been hitting her, but somebody’s got to explain those bruises on her arms, right? And I thought, drug bust or hits his wife, what’s the difference? Both play good in the papers.” He smiles, but then Jack stands up, and he stops. “Maybe that’s my mistake. But who knew? We get you in and book you for possession. All I know, they went to press with the wife-beater story before you even hit your cell.” Hopkins stands up, pushes his finger into the desk. “But you know what?”
“What?”
“Whatever came out that night
didn’t just happen in a minute. Whatever you had going on there had been building.”
Jack shakes his head, partly to control himself, partly because he doesn’t need this much This Is Your Life at this point in his day. Getting into it with an officer won’t put anything in his bank account or help him get out of the precinct while the day’s still young either.
“So tell me how the papers get there?”
The sergeant frowns. “Drug bust? Home disturbance? I care? Things went wrong in your house and that is neither my problem nor the press’s. You get what I’m saying?” He sits back down behind the desk, not lightly; his chair creaks like it’s about to fall to pieces.
“Fine. You got my statement about Ralph’s body and the state of his house. If you want to arrest me, go ahead.” Jack holds out his hands for the cuffs. “If not, I have places to go.”
“Sit down. I was just about to ask you about last night.”
Jack keeps his hands up, his wrists tilted toward Hopkins. “Ask.”
The sergeant opens one of his desk drawers, takes out a file. “If we say I owe you one about the papers, that I was wrong there, will you sit down and listen to me for a minute?”
“I might.”
Hopkins points at the chair. “Okay. I owe you. Now will you sit down?”
Jack sits down. “What?”
Hopkins puts the folder on his desk, spreads out a couple of group photos, black-and-white surveillance shots of the Czechs in some European city: Paris, maybe, or Prague. “We heard you and Ralph were around town with some high rollers, spenders in from out of town. You know these tools?”
Jack shakes his head. “Not that I remember. They someone I should be aware of?”
Hopkins leans back, spreads his hands in front of him. “Our guys upstairs are hearing tips on some Eastern Europeans coming in, ‘warlords’ or ‘terrorists’ are the words they’re hearing, and it’s got them all in a bunch. I say it’s bullshit, but orders from on high”—he points at the ceiling—“dictate that we all have to follow up on this one like it’s the Gospel. War on Terror and all.”
“So?”
“So we follow all leads. What I’m saying: If you see these guys, you know what they’re up to, drop me a dime.” Hopkins takes a card out of his billfold and flips it onto the desk. “My cell phone’s on the back.”
Jack looks down at the card, at the pictures of Vlade and the others. “These guys aren’t terrorists.”
“You know this?” Hopkins sits forward with a loud creak.
Jack shakes his head. “I’m saying your info, from wherever it comes, could be wrong.”
They both look at the pictures.
“This one.” Hopkins taps Vlade. “And this one.” He taps the quiet guy, Michal’s pal. “We hear they’ve done a few violent acts on the other side of the world. Things no one we know would be proud of. Someone got worried about who they work for. Get me?”
Jack picks up Hopkins’ card, reads it over. “That makes them terrorists?”
Hopkins lets out a long breath and looks to the side, then back at Jack. “Not my decision, Jack. Or my word. But you saying you’re qualified to make that call?”
Jack stands up. “That all you wanted?”
“Just if you see these guys doing anything, if something starts to happen you’re not sure of?”
“You want me to watch them.”
“I’m just saying if you see them. If. And anything starts to look big, then you give me a call. Okay?”
Jack reads the card again, slips it into the pocket of his sweatsuit jacket. “Okay,” he says. “I see anything that screams War on Terror, I’ll give you a call.”
Outside, Jack takes the cigarettes out of his glove compartment and taps the pack against his palm before he even realizes what he’s doing. “Shit,” he says, then he puts them away. He looks around, up at the bright blue sky ahead of him, out away from the city, and starts the engine. On his way to the Hotel Regis, Jack practices thinking about his breath, doing the kind of deep breathing he’d be doing if he were smoking—deep inhales and exhales—only doing it without the cigarettes.
Though the drive from the police station to the Hotel Regis is less than a mile, it takes more than twenty minutes with the lights. Getting to Market Street is the easy part. Below that, it’s all wide avenues and four-lane traffic, but then around Market the cable cars and pedestrians, the streets coming in at all angles, bring everything to a crawl. North of Market, the streets thin down to just one or two lanes, many still running one way. Here the foot traffic’s at its worst; the density of shops and what tourists consider “fine shopping” is higher here than anywhere else in the city. At each corner, Jack waits for large crowds toting big paper shopping bags to pass in front of his car.
When he finally pulls up at the hotel, the same valet from the day before smiles at him. Jack hands the kid a fiver for holding his door but still doesn’t give up the keys. This time he tells the kid he won’t be long.
In the elevator, going up to the penthouse, Jack checks himself out in the reflective doors: he’s not exactly dressed for the top floor, wearing his blue sweat suit, but some guys can pull this off he figures. As long as he acts the part. He could use a shave, he sees, and last night’s left some luggage under his eyes, but his hair’s tight and the sweat suit’s new enough to look all right.
If he got this far, Jack considers, watching the floors hit forty-nine, then fifty, he must be doing something right. Then the doors open and the two handsome bodyguards, Michal and his pal, stand in front of Jack with their right hands tucked into their jackets, the silver handle of a revolver in each one’s grip. He takes a step back, looks at the elevator attendant, a young kid from the lobby whose job is just to bring Jack up. The kid looks out into the penthouse and doesn’t take his eyes off the floor-to-ceiling windows, the downtown-from-downtown view.
“Come in, Jack,” Vlade says, standing between the two guards. He waves to Jack, nods.
“Thanks,” Jack tells the kid, and steps out into the suite. As the doors close behind him, Jack says, “It’s okay, guys. Just me, Jack Palms. Remember all the fun we had together last night?”
The two guards don’t speak, or move their hands to pull or release their weapons.
“What is going on, man?” Vlade says, stepping forward. He nods at the two guards just as they draw their weapons and aim them at Jack. Staring down the barrel of two guns, Jack hears Sergeant Hopkins’ words, terrorist and warlord, and wonders if he shouldn’t have just gone home to Sausalito. This is not turning out to be a good day.
“Whoa,” Jack says, holding up his hands. As an actor, the number one thing he knows is to go with the scene, follow it through regardless. “What is going on? I come up here to see how you guys are doing, and you have Mike and the mechanic here pull their guns on me? What is that?”
“Oh, yes,” Al says, suddenly appearing at the bar—though he could’ve been standing there already. “You want to check on us, see how we’re doing. Well, how are you doing, Mr. Palimas?”
“Palms,” Jack says, losing it a little. He puts his hands down, points at Al. “First of all, it’s Palms. That’s my name. You guys were getting it wrong all last night, and now I need to tell you it’s pronounced Palms. Like the trees.”
“Whatever the fuck!” Al yells.
“Whoa!” Jack yells back. “Don’t lose your temper with me, Versace.”
Al looks confused at this, glances down at his clothes: a white terry-cloth robe, strictly hotel issue. Vlade frowns, as if he’s thinking it over, then says something softly to Al in Czech. Al turns back to the bar, shaking his head, and starts to pour himself a drink.
Vlade regards Jack with interest. “No need to get angry, my friend.” He looks at Michal and then the other guard.
Jack reraises his hands. “Guys,” he says. “Can we put the guns down and talk this through?” The two black holes of the barrels stare at him.
Vlade doesn’t budge when the
two look at him for direction. He angles his chin up toward Jack. “What happened to Ralph?”
“I don’t know. I seriously don’t.” Jack watches the others to see how they react.
“He is dead.” Vlade folds his arms. Al turns back toward Jack, a highball glass of something brown, scotch probably, in his hand. “Someone has killed him this morning and when the boys go to pick him up”—Vlade nods at Mike and the other guy— “they find police crawling on his house like they are red ants. The biting kind.”
“They told you he was dead?”
“You think they talk to the cops here? Crazy. They come back. We see on the TV.” Vlade points to the flat-screen model by the couches. “The fucking TV show Ralph’s body on the bed with wheels, going out with the sheet over him! Fucking ‘gang-related,’ they say.”
Al nods in time to Vlade’s statements, punctuating his anger. “Fuck!” he adds.
Vlade gives him a quick look.
“It’s true,” Jack admits, holding his hands high. “I saw it myself when I went over this morning.” Jack shakes his head. “I guess I was there before your boys, but I was not the one who did this. Tell your guys to put their guns down. I’m the one who’s trying to help you.”
Michal says, “You saw him? Ralph?”
Jack nods. “Fucking bathroom. Someone popped him in the back of the head and left him in a bloody tub. Even shot his dog.”
Al frowns and tilts his head as if accepting this. “Probably barking,” he says.
“Yeah, but you don’t kill a fucking guy’s dog!” And now Jack is upset and stomping on the expensive rug. “It’s a fucking dog!”
“Freeze where you are,” the two guards say to Jack together.
“I am not the one who killed him!” Jack says, and he walks right up to the guards, between them and directly to Vlade. He stands right in front of him and says, “I can respect that you guys are concerned. But I am not the one who did Ralph. In fact, I think the guy who did it might be after me next. So let’s drop the guns and find him together.” He takes a good look at Al to make sure he hasn’t moved, looks first at Michal and then at the other guard, meeting their eyes, not looking down at their guns. “And this is fucked up, pulling these guns on me after all the shit we did last night.”