by Ian Bull
“If she can get off work. I don’t know yet,” Sam says.
"Either way, I want you both of you to call me on my office phone, today. I have to at least hear her voice," Hal says while filling out a form in pen. He fills in every box, signs it, dates it and hands it to Sam. "Show your potential employers this letter when you get there."
Sam takes it and puts it in his breast pocket. “Thank you, Hal. You’re a friend.”
“Good luck with the job. But if I don’t hear from you in two days, I’m having both of you arrested,” Hal says. “And I’ll find out whether to be proud or ashamed of you as I enter my retirement.”
Sam flashes a “thumbs up,” as he dashes out of the office. “Go Giants.”
“Go Giants,” Hal says back to him as he sits back down.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
K ath walks into the lobby of the Taj Mahal Residence Hotel carrying a canvas tote bag. The three retired Merchant Mariners in their pea coats look up and stare at her like she’s an alien.
“Hey, boys. Is it Fleet Week?” Kath asks.
“We’re Merchant Mariners, not Navy. And we’re retired,” the Irish one says.
“Which means it’s always Fleet Week for us,” the Filipino one says, and winks.
Kath laughs and walks over to the counter where Mr. Pavel sits, enveloped in his perpetual cloud of blue cigarette smoke. Kath coughs and waves her hand.
“Can I help you?” Pavel asks as he lights another cigarette.
“I’m here to tell Sam Webb that I love him,” Kath says, and pulls out a small gift-wrapped box from her canvas tote bag. “Can you give this to him?”
“He’s never here,” Pavel says, and exhales smoke in her face.
Kath fights the urge to cough. “I’ll wait. I’m being brave. This is new for me.”
Pavel stares at her with dull eyes and sighs, as if she were a boring TV show that he can’t be bothered to turn off. Kath gets the message and sits on a broken chair near the three Merchant Mariners. She nods at them and smiles, and they do the same in return.
The payphone on the wall rings and Pavel scoffs and walks from behind the counter and answers it. "Hello? No, he's not! Why does everyone want to talk to Sam Webb?"
Kath keeps looking straight ahead, but she focuses her hearing on Pavel's conversation.
“Yes, I can take a message, hang on a sec,” Pavel says, and grabs a pad and a pen from the counter and returns to the phone. “Go ahead…It’s all set, we meet in Truckee on Monday, the same spot. I did everything you asked. Love, Rose…Yes, I have it!”
Kath stares at the three Merchant Mariners and the shiny white wall behind them. Her chair rises in the air and the whole room seems to tilt, like the men might spill out of their chairs and out the window, with her following close behind. She jams her hands in her pockets, so no one can see her clenching her fists. She grits her teeth until her chair touches the floor again and the room returns to level.
Pavel slams down the phone. “I should charge your friend extra rent for being his secretary,” he says, but the chair is empty. Kath is already gone.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
T he early afternoon sun pours through the windows of the Hall of Justice Building, filling up the entire floor of metal desks with golden light. Detective Alden Stone breathes deep and stretches like a cat, feeling good. Then he spots something that makes him feel even better. His buddy from the Parole Department, Hal Weinstein, is weaving through the desks, wearing his Giants hat and jacket.
“You good to go, Stone? I want to get to Candlestick before the close parking runs out.”
“The wind is up. It’s going to be cold out there,” Stone says, meeting him halfway.
“No home runs today. But I got us seats in the sun.”
“Are you officers going out to do field work?” a woman detective asks as they walk past.
“You could call it that,” Stone says.
They hit the down button on the elevator and smile at each other.
“How’s business?” Hal asks.
"Wonderful. I conquered the Tandy 1000. I've got six hundred files entered in the database. Life is good. How about you?" Stone asks.
“I’m so close to retirement that I’m refusing all electronics. The job still gets done.”
“Whatever works, right?”
“Whatever works,” Hal confirms.
The elevator doors open and Hiram Valosek steps off. His mouth turns up in a gigantic grin just as Stone's face descends into a frown.
“I have a breakthrough!” Hiram cries.
“Not now,” Stone says.
“But you promised,” Hiram says, sounding like a disappointed child.
Stone closes his eyes and sighs. “Can it wait? It’s Willie McCovey Day.”
“I don’t know who that is,” Hiram says, blocking the elevator doors.
As the doors close, both Stone and Weinstein think the same thing –they’ll be late for the game. They’ll have to park in the faraway lot, maybe miss the first inning, but if they’re lucky they’ll still get bobblehead dolls.
Hiram digs into his leather bag. “But we found this,” he says, and pulls out a plastic baggie. Inside is a woman’s leather glove.
“That’s the other glove!” Stone yells and grabs for it.
Hiram pulls it back before he can take it. “Will you talk to me now?”
“Where did you get that?” Stone asks.
“The Buena Vista motel on Lombard Street. It’s another room with a destroyed Magic Massage unit, but this time they left something behind.”
Stone turns on his heel and waves for Valosek to follow him. Hal falls into place behind them both. “What are we talking about here?” Hal asks.
“A burglary team. A man and a woman. They’ve done two big jobs in the last three months. Professionals. No prints. One was a safe job. They got a lot of money both times.” Stone reaches his desk and starts leafing through his files trying to find the right folder.
“What are you doing? Use the computer,” Hiram says, with a condescending enough tone to make Stone and the other cops in the room freeze. Hiram senses that all eyes are on him. “What I mean is that I entered all the files for you. Just plug in the information.”
“Show me,” Stone says and points at Hiram to sit down in front of the Tandy 1000. He and Hal trade looks as Hiram turns the computer on.
“After entering all your data for you, I also added my own data cells on your computer, and then plugged in my information on the criminals. The motel managers say the man is six feet tall, with black hair, and about two hundred pounds. They always pay in cash, and use the same three aliases every time,” Hiram mutters to himself as he taps away at his keyboard. “I’m now accessing your data and compiling a list of anyone arrested for burglary in the last five years…you said that one of the jobs was breaking into a safe, so I’m entering that as well...and now I’m entering in all his aliases…and then I ask the computer to cross reference all the data and give me some names.”
He hits return, and four names appear in green on the black screen.
“Dennis Sitze, Robert Newton, Glenn Morgan, and Sam Webb.”
“Sam Webb? I just wrote a pass for him to go to Sacramento,” Hal says.
“He’s one of four people who could be on a crime spree damaging Magic Massage units in motels across San Francisco,” Hiram says, sounding more like a 70s TV show cop than a real cop.
Stone looks at his friend from Parole, sees the crushed look on his face, and feels bad for him. Parole officers are a different breed. Detectives get excited when they’re getting close to a bust. Parole officers feel regret when a criminal turns out to be one of their own.
“Magic Massage? You mean those boxes that make the mattress shake?” Hal asks.
“It’s a therapeutic massage treatment,” Hiram says, sounding offended.
Hal Weinstein leans over the desk and points his finger hard at Hiram, and the Magic Massage sales director f
eels Hal’s deep inner power hit him. Hiram rolls back in the chair, stunned.
“You will now bear witness,” Hal says. “Tell me everything you know.”
“A man and woman check into a motel every night. They pay in cash ahead of time. He uses the name DeMartini, Smith, or Randazzo. They always get a room with Magic Massage close to the ice machine. They destroy a Magic Massage unit every night and leave behind a fifty-dollar bill. Some of them have burn marks, like the money was in a fire.”
Stone leans in, adding to the story. “On the safe job, they used a torch and burned a lot of the money. And on the South San Francisco job she left a brown calfskin glove,” Stone says. He digs through the larger drawer and pulls out the right-hand glove that Kath left behind. He puts it on the table. Hiram lays his glove down next to it. It’s a perfect match.
“It’s not Sam. He’s straight now,” Hal says.
“How do you know?” Hiram asks.
“My gut.”
“Your gut doesn’t matter. The data tells us that it could be Sam Webb,” Hiram says.
“Any chance your boy is getting hot?” Stone asks.
“He’s staying at the Taj Mahal. Maybe we should head over there.”
“The Taj Mahal! I met this man! He destroyed a unit in Room 222 on April second of this year!” Hiram says, then lowers his voice when he feels everyone’s eyes on him again. “Sorry, I’m good with dates and numbers.”
“That’s Sam’s room. And he was released from prison on April first of this year,” Hal says, with growing defeat in his voice.
“Let’s get over there and arrest him,” Hiram says.
“He’s not there. He’s leaving town,” Hal says.
“Where’s he going?” Stone asks.
“He said Sacramento. But he could be going anywhere,” Weinstein says, with true disgust and disappointment now.
Hiram leans back, crosses his arms and smiles. “We’ll catch him. We just call every motel with Magic Massage within a five-hundred-mile radius of San Francisco. If anyone fitting their description checks into a motel and asks for a room with Magic Massage near the ice machine, I’ll get a call.”
Stone looks at the smug computer programmer and feels a wave of fear wash up his spine. Hiram, or someone like him, will take his job someday.
“We can start with Paul Barnes,” Hal says. “If Sam has slipped, he may be involved.”
“Really?” Stone asks. “We’ve been trying to nail that guy with something for years.”
"I suggest we go with my plan," Hiram says, with a warning in his voice. You'll get faster results."
“Get out of my chair,” Stone says with enough venom in his voice that Hiram jumps up. “We’re not doing that yet. We’re going to work the streets first, no matter what your computer list says.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
I t's five a.m. Sam sits behind the wheel of the Volkswagen parked across the street from the Flood Building. He watches the delivery men drive up to the loading dock and greet the guards in the same way they have done every weekday for the last month. He looks at the clipboard on his lap with the box chart that he's made, and he checks off boxes. The people coming and going is confusing at first, until you recognize the patterns in the chaos and you can predict what will happen next. At ten a.m., the Marlin Spike will open, and he'll have coffee and a tuna melt and check his boxes yet again as the postmen and garbage collectors arrive.
There’s a tap on the passenger window. It’s Kath. Sam lifts the lock and Kath opens the door and slides in.
“I didn’t know if you were going to show,” Sam says. “But I’m glad you did. We do the job tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Kath asks.
“Right here, at three in the morning. You said to name the day, and I’m naming the day. That’s the answer you wanted, right?”
“It is. Thank you.”
“We start a new life tomorrow. We give Paul his cut and then we can leave town and be free of him forever. I have it all figured out.”
Kath stares ahead through the windshield. Sam wants her to look at him, but despite his willing it with all his might, she doesn’t. “I was wrong to doubt you,” Kath says.
“I’ll be at the Bay View Motel in Fisherman’s Wharf. They have Magic Massage.”
“I think we should spend the night apart tonight,” Kath says.
“Are you going to spend the night at home?” Sam asks.
“Down in San Mateo with a friend. I don’t like to be at home the night before a job.”
“Like a bride and groom spending the night apart before the wedding.”
Kath laughs, then snorts, trying to swallow it. “That’s funny.”
“We’ve put as much planning into this as a wedding. More.”
“But it’s not a wedding. It’s a robbery. Let’s just get through that first, okay?” Kath says, and stares into his blue eyes. Her eyes soften, and her lip curls up in a tiny smile that tells him that she still loves him, no matter what he’s about to do to her.
“Will you do a favor for me?” Sam asks.
“It depends,” Kath answers.
“I need us to call my parole officer today. If he hears your voice, I can leave town without any hassle.”
“You can leave town?”
“We can leave town. It’s a week pass. Then we’ll call him in a couple of days and tell him that I got a job in Sacramento and then I can apply for a total transfer. We’ll never come back here again.”
“We can call tomorrow after the job.”
“I need to call him today,” he says.
“I’m not talking to him until we’re safe and out of town.”
“You don’t trust me,” Sam says.
“I’ll see you here tomorrow at three,” she says, and gets out of the microbus.
Sam watches her walk away in her long coat, willing her to look back at him. That would be proof to him that his plan will work. So many pieces must fall into place, like tumblers inside a lock that must all match up, which then opens a window so that he can escape from the burning house and bust through to freedom. She gets to the corner and glances at him and smiles. It’s not proof of anything really, but it makes him feel lucky enough that his crazy plan will work and maybe not hurt her too much.
He’s taking a chance not calling Hal, though. He just hopes Hal will continue to assume the best about him and grant him one day of grace before calling the cops. Hal will be disappointed in him if he ever finds out the truth. Sam pushes the thought from his mind. He’s too far gone to turn back now.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
F our hours later, Kath walks into the Mission Bay Health Club. It’s 9 a.m. on a Tuesday, and the place is packed, which makes Kath hate Paul that much more. Paul is successful, despite being a sociopath. Maybe because he’s a sociopath. He was also right about Sam, which is the most infuriating fact of all.
Kath ignores the young woman dressed in white behind the counter asking for her membership card and walks past the weights and treadmills and Nautilus exercise machines and finds Paul in a back corner with Inge. The big Swedish gal is holding a heavy punching bag, so Paul can punch it without it swinging. They both wear thin boxing gloves, red velour tracksuits and orange terry cloth headbands. Inge growls when Kath walks up.
“Now is not a good time,” Paul says, punching the bag hard.
“You were right about Sam. He’s going to screw us both. Tomorrow.”
Paul steps away from the bag. “Inge, I must talk to her, but to protect you we have to be alone. Understand?”
The towering, monosyllabic, lethal, beautiful, and devoted Swede steps away from the bag and looks down at Paul with hurt eyes. She loves him, Kath realizes, and Kath envies her love. Paul is a pig, but Inge doesn’t care. And between Sam and Paul, the shorter guy is the better choice of man, it turns out.
Inge leaves. Paul gestures for Kath to approach. Paul’s body smells of sour sweat and his breath is like a poop sandwich, but Kath obeys
and moves close.
“Rose showed up,” Paul says.
“Yes.”
“Give me all the details.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
S am lies on his motel room bed, trying to enjoy Johnny Carson’s monologue, but he’s too distracted. There’s a knock on the door.
Sam leaps off the bed and goes to the door. “Who is it?”
"It's me," Kath says. Sam swings the door open, and she steps inside.
“I thought you were spending the night somewhere else,” he says.
“I was in church praying instead,” she says. She takes off her long coat and throws it on the bed. Sam moves close and tries to kiss her, but she pushes him away.
“I want to go over the plan,” she says.
“You’re tense. We should try to get some sleep.”
“I want to go over the plan!” she shouts, and he pulls out his clipboard with his grids and timetables and checked boxes. Kath takes it and sits down at the little writing table tucked into the corner, and grabs a Bay View Motel pen and a pad of paper out of the drawer.
There will be no Magic Massage tonight, Sam thinks to himself. He turns off the TV and lies down on the bed, hoping for some sleep.
Three hours later, Sam walks alone on a dark beach with huge waves crashing to his left. There is a thick fog and the sound of distant foghorns coming from across the water. A woman’s figure appears in the fog, in a long green dress, with red hair. Sam walks faster, but she seems to stay the same distance away. He runs faster, yelling her name.
“Rose? Rose!”
An insistent beeping starts. Men appear out of the water with rifles and guns and dash up on the beach shooting at him. A battleship appears out of the dark waves, about to run aground.
Sam waves his arms hoping the ship will see him. A soldier aims a pistol at Sam’s face, and Sam knocks it away with his fist. Someone catches his hand in mid-air.