by Seth Harwood
“We were agents in Czech Republic,” Vlade says. “Undercover. They set us up in business there to watch, report to KGB, and then, when the countries break up, we stay. We leave our duties and make business and now are friends. Now that we have money, we want the good times.”
Jack looks over at Vlade. “Did you speak Chinese to those guys at the body shop?”
Vlade nods. “Yes. I speak some Chinese, some German, Russian, Czech of course. The English.”
“That’s good. No Spanish?” Vlade shakes his head. “Then those aren’t going to help us now.” Jack stops walking, looks around for Castroneves. “What was that back there downtown?” he asks Vlade. “You guys went apeshit.”
“No,” Vlade says. “We cause mess, yes. But it will go all right, as I tell you. That man in the car, he see us in club and start shooting. He shoot at us from his car. We know that he is Russian. How does he find us?” Vlade shrugs. “So we have to shoot back. When his papers come through, they see he is nonperson, already dead in our country. Your police won’t know what to do.”
Jack starts to say something, but Vlade cuts him off. “We don’t have time to guess, Jack. We know. We act.”
“But now there’s a block of downtown with cars and blood all over the place. How’s that shit not going to come after us?”
“Yes,” Vlade says, shaking his head. “This is not good.” He spits on the ground. “Now we have to finish and move on. Our time is more important now.”
“Damn right.” Jack starts to take out his cell phone to make the point again about Sergeant Hopkins calling him at any time, but he sees Castroneves up ahead in the crowd, toward the end of the pier. Jack points toward him with his chin and they start to move.
When Castroneves notices them, he raises his right hand above his shoulder and gives a slight wave. He’s with another guy, someone Jack doesn’t recognize from The Mirage, probably his new Juan José. They both have nice suits on, Castroneves’ a light blue. He starts to move across the pier to the far side, coming slightly toward Jack and Vlade, but moving away from them as well. Then he turns toward a row of shops with a small coffee shop set into the rest of the restaurants. Jack and Vlade start to head for the same shop. Castroneves stops at its glass window, sets a large white shopping bag on the ground.
Jack and Vlade have to move through the crowd to get there, and it takes them a little while. Mothers with strollers, a large woman wearing a wide-collar T-shirt that reveals too much pale skin, another woman who looks just like her and must be related. Inside the coffee shop, several boys stand around in a circle, watching one of them play a handheld video game of some kind while their parents stand in the line.
“We are glad to see you,” Vlade says, looking at the shopping bag.
“Yes,” Castroneves says, scanning the crowd behind them. “You came alone?”
Jack nods. “The product?”
“Right here.” Castroneves looks at Vlade. “It is the amount we decided at the club. To be truthful, I was lucky to get it out before the police.”
Jack laughs. “You can thank your boy for that interruption, as it turns out.”
Castroneves spits on the ground, wipes his mouth. He says something to his friend in Spanish. This new guy is wearing a dark suit and a silky black shirt, tucked in. He’s got big silver cuff links at the end of his sleeves, his hair slicked back. Castroneves points his chin at Jack, says, “What is this, now?”
“Your friend. The owner of The Mirage. He’s the one who called the police.”
“Motherfucker.” Castroneves spits again onto the ground. This time he doesn’t wipe his face. He says something else in Spanish to his guy. The guy makes a fist and wraps his other hand around it. He regards Jack like he’s ready to hurt someone. “How do you know this? This about Vitelli?” Castroneves asks.
“Vitelli?” Jack says. “How’s he in this?”
“He is my friend who owns the club Mirage.”
“Fuck,” Jack says, feeling like a few of the pieces just slammed together. “So that bastard knew the whole time.”
Castroneves looks disgusted. “How do you know this?”
“I have a friend on the force,” Jack says. “I heard it from the inside this morning.”
Castroneves tightens his lips into a pucker, then makes a noise from the back of his mouth. He looks like he might spit again, but doesn’t. “How do I know you are telling me the truth? That you did not tell the cops?”
“Come on,” Jack says. He gives Castroneves a few slaps on the shoulder. “Who’s here now with you, with a trunk of money and a crazy fucking Czech KGB assassin buying your blow?”
The Colombian nods. He laughs. “In truth,” he says, “I know you are trustworthy, Jack. Even when you lie, you tell the truth.”
Vlade steps forward, takes Castroneves’ arm. “The other, the one at the club who killed our friends. He is no more.” He cuts across the air in front of him with his hand, holding it parallel to the ground. “We have taken care of.”
This makes Castroneves smile. “Yes?” he says. Vlade nods. “That is good. That is very good.” He takes out a cigarette and lights it with a windproof butane lighter. “Today holds some good news, then, to go with the bad. And the rest of this, Vitelli? This is the bad. He will pay.” Castroneves spits a stream onto the ground.
“So, gentlemen.” Jack points to the bags. “What do we have here?”
Vlade places the briefcase down next to him. Inside the store, one of the boys’ mothers starts yelling at the boys.
The Colombian and his friend start to move down the boardwalk, toward other stores, but not before the friend bends to lift the briefcase. Vlade lifts the white shopping bag and he and Jack follow. Jack sees the bag is topped with light blue tissue paper that matches Castroneves’ suit. “That’s nice paper,” he says.
Castroneves laughs. “My wife,” he says. “She likes me in the colors. What can I do?”
He says something to his guy in Spanish that makes them both laugh.
“You like this?” he says, handing his lighter to Jack. It has a motorcycle on it and lights that flash when you open the top. “You need these here. With this wind.” He gestures around him, and out to the water. “Keep it.”
In the distance, Jack sees a vintage cigarette boat out on the water among the sailboats, a hundred yards beyond the piers. It’s the kind that has cabins below the decks, room for sleeping and who knows what else. Jack points to the boats on the water. “Is one of those yours?”
Castroneves nods. “We are not here for long. You know?” He frowns. “Here it is cold. Soon we leave.” He lifts the briefcase as if testing its weight. “Gentlemen,” he says. “If it is all here, you will not hear from me again.”
“And us,” Jack says. “It’s all here?”
Castroneves laughs. “Have a look.” He gestures around them at all the people.
But Vlade moves the tissue paper and looks into the bag. He reaches in and feels around, then slips a knife into the bag and brings his finger out with white on its tip. He rubs the powder along his gums. Then he looks at Jack, smiling. “We are good,” he says.
“Alex,” Jack says, reaching out to shake the Colombian’s hand. “If we’re lucky, you and I won’t ever see each other again.”
At the top of the parking structure, in the SUV with the Czechs, Jack feels his cell phone vibrate. At first it gives him a start, but when he checks and sees it’s Maxine, a wave of relief passes through him. He excuses himself to go outside, but before he can, Al gives him the thumbs-up. He’s rubbing the white powder onto his gums and smiling, grinning like a kid on Christmas morning.
“Hold on,” Jack says. “I’ll be right back.”
Outside the Escalade, Jack walks over to the Mustang and flips open his phone. His eyes go right to the holes along the driver’s side.
Maxine’s talking before he can even say hello. “Jack. You’re still an asshole, but I have something to tell you. Something you can shove i
nto your theory hole.”
Jack feels along the door of the car, touching the holes. He pulls his hand away. “It’s good to hear your voice again,” he says.
“Anyway.”
“No. I mean it. I’ve been trying to call. You were right. I’m sorry.”
“I got your message,” Maxine says. “But shut the fuck up and let me be mad for a little while.”
“Okay,” Jack says. “You’re due.” He switches the phone to his other ear, his left, but realizes that he still can’t hear as well on that side, the side that was closer to Vlade’s gun. He switches back. “What?”
“The other club. The Mirage. Tony’s the fucking owner. I just went down to The Coast to get my last check and when I started talking to one of the girls, she told me he was there. I said, ‘Why?’ She said because he owns it. That one, and one other in SoMa. He’s the one who called the cops.”
“I know,” Jack says. He looks away from the parking lot, sees the fog starting to roll in over the northern part of the city, across the Golden Gate.
“You know?”
“Yeah. The Colombian just told me. I guess he’s friends with Tony, or he was. He’s pretty pissed off about it now.”
“Yeah. Have a friend drop the cops on you and I’d be.” Maxine laughs. “What’s he planning to do?”
Jack looks out at the harbor, at the boats, and sees that the cigarette boat is already gone. “My guess is Tony will hear from him.” Maxine laughs or coughs, Jack can’t quite tell which. “So when will I see you?”
“You’ll see me. Don’t worry.”
“No, but—”
“Bye, Jack.” She hangs up.
Jack flips his phone closed hard, mad that he didn’t apologize more or get her to come around. But she’s melting; soon she’ll be all right.
Jack looks at the Czechs’ car, the SUV, and walks over slowly. Inside, the Czechs are enjoying themselves, snorting little bumps of the product.
“Jack, my man,” Vlade says through the open window. “Come back to the hotel and we’ll give you your cut.”
Jack takes a step toward the SUV but doesn’t go farther, even when Vlade swings the door open.
“You come back with us and we show you a good time in this city, Jack. Even better than before. And we also give you your money. Come!” The others are nodding to the car’s music, oblivious to Jack.
“The party’s right here,” Jack says.
“Ah, but our clothes and your money are back at the hotel.”
Jack’s phone starts to vibrate. “Hold on,” he says. On the screen he sees it’s the call he’s been dreading. Jack steps away from the SUV, opens the door of the Mustang, and sits down.
“Hello, Sergeant Hopkins,” Jack says, pulling both legs into the car and closing the door.
“Jack, you know what I’m going to say first, don’t you?”
Jack closes his eyes, kneads the bridge of his nose with his thumb and first finger. “What’s that, Mills?”
“What the fuck, Jack? That’s what I’m saying to you. It looks like you and your buddies started fucking World War fucking Three out there in SoMa today.”
Jack starts to respond, but Hopkins keeps talking. “Do you know that I’m calling you from my home today? My fucking home? I tell them to call me if anything looks like you, and I get this called to me, explained in full detail at my fucking house. I’m in my backyard right now, hearing about how your fucking pals just shot up downtown!”
Jack reaches for the glove compartment, hoping to find his cigarettes. “I can see you’re pretty mad, there, Sergeant.”
“You’re fucking right, mad. You try having a barbecue at home on a Saturday and see what kind of shit comes after you. You ever work a Saturday morning in your life, Palms? Matter of fact, how about if you took off a few years instead, you and your friends, in the cooler?”
Jack finds the pack and flips a cigarette into his lips. “Shit, Mills. You know that guy was your shooter from The Mirage. Why not just consider it a case solved?”
“Because there’s a four-car crash on a downtown street and five witnesses saw shots fired and some guy beat this poor bastard’s head against the hood of his car.”
Knowing he can’t argue with that, Jack lights the cigarette with Castroneves’ lighter. He looks it over and then pitches the lighter out the window into the garage. “So what are we talking about, Mills? What can we say here?”
“I don’t know, Jack. Right now I’m listening, is what I’m doing. I send your ass out—no, I let you out there to tell me about some Europeans, and since last night I got bodies all over town. Three shot up at a club and two dead in broad daylight today downtown. Now, tell me how I feel about that!”
Jack starts to fumble for an answer, but Hopkins goes on. “No, wait. Don’t answer yet, because it gets better: I’ve got you at the scene of each one! But tell me that the guys you’re with aren’t the terrorists I been looking for.”
“They’re not.”
Jack hears silence on the other end of the phone, and then a quiet clicking that’s probably Hopkins chewing his gum. “You better tell me a good story, Jack.”
“Okay, Sergeant. Here’s what I think: I think the ones you turned up dead today are the mob you want. They came at us, tried to shoot at us from a moving car on Van fucking Ness, and then my boys went after them. And you’re right, that was fucked up, but I still think you’ve got this one wrong. Someone had to tell them where we were, right? There’s some crazy KGB tie-in to all this shit.”
“I’m listening.”
It takes Jack about a full second to put together the fact that he and the Czechs were coming from The Coast when they got shot at and the name Tony Vitelli. “I think these were the guys who killed Ralph, but I don’t think they’re alone in it. I think someone sent them on that hit, someone who wants to take over the drug action in this town.”
“I’m hearing you, Jack.”
“My guess is I can lead you to more of these mob boys if you give me some time.”
Hopkins is quiet. Then, softly, he says, “Make me an offer.”
“How about this: You give me a day, the rest of tonight and tomorrow, and I’ll give you the major drug player in this town right now. I’m not talking about a couple of out-of-towners and a washed-up actor; I’m talking about the guy who knocked off Ralph because he wanted his action and wants control of these streets. I think whoever that is, he’ll bring us to your Europeans.”
Hopkins laughs. “Now, Jackie. Now you’re starting to talk my language. You understand me. I’m talking about you save your ass by helping me out. One ass washes the other, right? Do you want to see yourself in court, maybe even going to jail? That’d play pretty nasty in the papers, don’t you think?”
“Yes, Mills. Fuck you, Mills.”
“But you get what I’m saying.”
“I’ll call you,” Jack says, “when I have something.” He flips the phone closed and takes a drag from his cigarette. It’s burned halfway down in the time he’s been talking to the cop. Maybe he’s going back to smoking, but he’ll worry about that when his life returns to regular. Right now, he’s conning police officers to keep himself out of jail, making deals that involve putting his own ass out on the line by going after mobsters and drug dealers, and he’s past the point of no return. For now, he leans back in the Mustang’s large, comfortable American seating, reclines a little, and takes a long drag, looking out at the water.
The sun has started setting, and already the pier is darker than when he and Vlade met with Alex. Soon the streetlights will come on above the tourists, enabling them to stay out on the pier for another few hours, until the wind makes it too cold. But for now, they’re all right: maybe having another cotton candy or buying their kids an ice cream, waiting for later when they can have a beer back at the hotel, put the kids to bed, and get in some love time and really enjoy their vacations.
Beyond the pier, out on the Bay, a ferryboat makes its way under the b
ridge, headed toward Oakland, where bright lights have come on at the port, isolated strings of bulbs that make the big freight cranes look like overgrown, industrial monsters. They’ll stay busy until well into the night, unloading the large metal shipping containers off the boats and putting them onto trains and trucks. Behind the port, Oakland’s downtown glows red in the lights of the buildings, and farther off the hills stand dark under the sky.
On Jack’s side of the water, off to his right, the San Francisco downtown stands monumental above him, the buildings too close and too large, looming over the piers and the parking garage, to where he can’t see their tops from the inside of the Mustang.
It takes some convincing, but Jack finally gets the Czechs to understand that he won’t be going right back to their hotel to start the party. Vlade’s eager to give him his fifteen grand and the others just want to get back. Jack explains that there are other problems, like trying to find Ralph’s killer, and dealing with Tony Vitelli and what happened to Michal. He’ll tell them anything but what he’s just discussed with Hopkins. But Al shakes his head. He’s in the backseat of the Escalade and Jack’s standing outside, hands on the windowsill.
“We have iced those murderers,” Al says.
Jack shakes his head. He doesn’t want to get into his deal or the fact that Hopkins wants European terrorists, but whether it’s his gut or his head, he knows there’s more to what’s going on, more to this than just a couple of ex-KGB going after each other. That might be part of it, but he still needs to know what happened to Ralph, wants to know who put him at the bottom of his Jacuzzi.
Vlade motions for Jack to come around to his side of the car. “You are going after Tony Vitelli?” he asks.
“No. I want to talk with Junius Ponds. That’s the man I need to see.”
Vlade sits back into the car. “Then you won’t need us?”
“No,” Jack says, taking his hands off the car. Might as well let them have some fun for a while and collect his money later. They’ll be around.
Niki gets out of the Escalade and walks Jack away from the car with his arm around Jack’s shoulders. “You go to find who killed Ralph?” he asks.