SOUTH OF MARKET
It was afternoon by the time the San Francisco PD finished with whoever hadn’t been hospitalised.
The rain hadn’t let up yet, so I was still dripping wet. I was also barefoot and my new work suit was hanging off me in stinking tatters. I was already late for work and didn’t have time to drive home to get changed, so once I’d made it back to my car in the Sansome Street parking station I drove straight to my gym near Union Square. My profession — and the stress that went with it — required easy proximity to a heavy set of weights, an equally heavy punching bag and serious martial arts training.
My job meant I had to be ready for literally anything … but I didn’t feel that way just at this particular moment.
Stanley Wauhope’s dying face shimmered in front of my eyes. I shoved it aside. I’d cried my heart out over him, kneeling there in the drenching rain. He shouldn’t have died that way. No one should. Now I had to just deal with it.
I dragged my bag of tricks out of the boot of the car and went into the gym. I spent the next twenty minutes under a blast of hot water, trying to work out how to get through the rest of this God-awful day. There was no choice. I was scheduled to move into my new offices today and my business partner would be waiting impatiently until I showed up.
I’d already dropped my new suit of rags in the garbage bin, so, wrapped in a towel, I surveyed the contents of my bag of tricks. My business partner, Des Carmichael, had given it to me as a present when I graduated from the NTA training program. It was part joke, part serious.
Des was an ex-cop so he knew what to pick. The bag held high-quality, professional break-and-enter tools, serious binoculars, a flashlight and three kinds of high-end listening devices. As well there were two wigs, make-up and several sets of disguises. I was hoping the disguises were the joke part.
Damn! Did I want to go to my new offices dressed in grey overalls with ‘Acme Cleaning Services’ across the pocket or looking like an S&M hooker?
Bloody hell!
All that was left was the black trench coat. Des did love his noir detective movies.
Klaasen and Melnick had publicly rubbed my professional nose in the dirt this morning — it didn’t help having to look like I was running a second job too … But then I was just moving into my new offices today — there were no other appointments. So no one was going to see me … right?
I went for the black trench coat over fresh underwear.
I should’ve known better.
As I drove south I glared out at the pouring rain. Okay, it was autumn … but I’d only been here a year and a half and was still getting used to San Francisco’s changeable weather.
But hey, I’d grown up in Australia. Mostly in a little coastal village just south of Sydney, tucked in between the high cliffs of the Illawarra Escarpment and the rolling Pacific Ocean. What did I know about the northern hemisphere?
Christmas was supposed to be beach weather, wasn’t it?
An icy drip hit the back of my neck. Damn it! Now the roof was leaking. I hunched my neck into my shoulders, trying to prevent the icy droplet from slipping down my nicely warmed back. The car was a green 1973 Buick Riviera. It’d seemed like a good deal at the time but lately I’d spent every spare minute doing spot repairs to just keep it going.
Another icy drip hit my neck and followed its friend down my back. Hell, I didn’t have time to fix this and all I needed was another bill to pay …
Setting up my new office was the least of my problems. That wasn’t what made me want to ditch Moving In Day. It was what came next that really worried me. The only thing I’d have sitting in my brand-new in-tray was a pile of bills. No case, no clients — not even the prospect of one … just bills. Big ones. And no money to pay them.
Stuff that. I gripped the steering wheel too tightly then forced myself to relax. One thing at a time. I’d think of something … I always did.
Some people have talents; others are lucky. My thing was pulling the white rabbit out of the hat — or, considering my present situation, the black hole that was my bank balance.
I grimaced. Sure, just keep telling myself that. I wasn’t sure I believed it any more. I could feel self-pity slipping over my shoulders like a straitjacket …
Stanley Wauhope’s face flickered into my mind. I shook it away.
I had to focus. Des was depending on me.
I drove south down Stockton Street, towards Market Street and the wrong side of the ritzy San Francisco tracks. My new office was a world away from the gleaming skyscrapers of the Financial District, where Klaasen and Melnick both had their flashy headquarters and teams of well-groomed assistants.
I crossed over Market into 4th.
My place was south of Market Street, known locally as SoMa. And not in the fashionably distressed, reclaimed artsy part, or the communication technology enclave either — more the unfashionably homeless and crime-ridden pocket. But it was the best I could afford close to Union Square. That’s where the branch of the National Time Administration that held the time portal lived.
I drove a few blocks down 4th, then took a right into Prendergast Street … and my new neighbourhood slum. Once past the line outside the St Francis homeless shelter on the corner, I searched for a parking space in front of the derelict buildings that stood opposite my new place of business — the Zebulon Hotel.
The Zebulon sounded like one of those weird names that the ancient Sumerians gave to stars … that, or some 1950s miracle fabric. You know, the kind of drip-dry material that feels like it was manufactured on Mars. But, according to the real-estate agent, it was named after the guy who built the hotel.
How much would your parents have to hate kids to give you a first name like that?
It’d once been a luxury hotel, now it was just this side of being condemned. Like the aged buildings directly opposite it, the Zebulon was a relic from another century, and not the last one either. It looked like it should’ve had ladies in whalebone corsets and long flounced skirts strolling through, their arms politely supported by gentlemen in embroidered vests, top hats and too much facial hair.
The hotel and its aged neighbours were all owned by the same company — Crumple Holdings. Not a good name, I thought, for a real-estate firm that operated on the San Andreas earthquake fault. The story was that they wanted to knock the whole lot down and build condos; SoMa was taking off as a residential quarter for the Financial District and they wanted to cash in. But the heritage listing slapped on the grand old derelicts in the 1970s still stood firm. Crumple Holdings refused to resuscitate structures they wanted to tear down … so the buildings were left to rot while the whole thing took decades to crawl through the courts.
The Zebulon Hotel had been a thing of beauty once. It was long rather than wide and four storeys high in that elaborate Italianate style that the Victorians’d had a crush on. The first thing you noticed were the long columns of bay windows that graced the upper three floors. The bay windows in the middle had the regular three straight sides, but the ones at each corner were rounded, emerging from the building like mini castle turrets. The facade was a weathered ivory and the windows and the ornately carved moulding supporting the flat roof were picked out in faded shades of aubergine, blue and tan.
Now the Zebulon was shabby rental space, which held a weird assortment of offices and a bar and grill on the ground floor.
I’d fallen in love with the place after wending my decreasingly enthusiastic way through every soulless rental space I could dredge up for the right price and within ten minutes’ drive of Union Square. I’d told the real-estate agent if I could rent one of the corner offices on the top floor I’d take it.
God knows it wasn’t the allure of the amenities. The thing didn’t even have an elevator!
Well, I was dealing in the past after all … Why not make my dire financial straits a strength? At least it made me stand out from my competitors in their shiny glass-and-steel towers. Let the clients think I was eccentri
c rather than desperate, which the other soulless little boxes would’ve made all too clear.
I grabbed my bag off the passenger seat, stuck a newspaper over my head and raced through the rain to the hotel entrance.
Goodbody’s moving van was parked in front. A couple of men in street-sharp tracksuits stood under the shelter of the hotel awning and surveyed the van with acquisitive interest. As I moved towards them, they shuffled off down the street. I checked the van; it was locked tight.
With any luck that meant all our stuff had already been moved inside. The last thing I wanted to do now was carry heavy boxes up too many flights of stairs.
Once past the heavy glass-and-bronze double front doors, the high-ceilinged foyer gave way to the faded bones of a posh hotel lobby. The inside of the Zebulon, like the outside, was all tarnished splendour and flaking paint. The lobby had an ornately moulded once-white ceiling, as much wood panelling on the walls and elaborate architraves as a fine nineteenth-century hotel required, and a line of bronze-and-glass wall scones in the shape of graceful nymphs offering the room their lamps. Above their heads, where once must’ve hung a chandelier, a cluster of naked light bulbs now dangled. The nymphs didn’t appear that perturbed.
To the left of the scuffed wooden staircase was a reception desk and a lounge filled with worn-out leather chairs slumped on top of a threadbare carpet. That was where the building’s elusive doorman was rumoured to hide out — but in all my trips here I’d never managed to catch sight of the shy creature.
To the right of the stairs was a wall of metal post boxes.
Judging from the decorative ironwork, the metal post boxes were obviously part of some long past but loving recommissioning of the old hotel to office space. Unfortunately for its present tenants, the Zebulon’s fortunes had plunged dramatically since then.
The bright new sign for our detective agency stood out amongst all the other more faded mailbox labels. The name, Rewind Investigations, sat next to our logo — a gold watch with an infinity symbol across the face, inside a magenta oval. The wristwatch fitted with my company name — Rewind Investigations — and timepieces were often used as a disguise for the transponders we needed to time travel. Magenta is the colour of my namesake — Kannon the Bodhisattva of Compassion, ‘she who hears all cries for help’. Magenta — the colour of compassion.
Not everyone’d agree that my namesake was a fitting choice …
Okay, I can be tough — but I’ve had a tough life. My childhood wasn’t close to the rosy fairy-tale one — not even in the same galaxy. So I’d grown up with a chip the size of the Himalayas on my shoulder and an attitude to match. But I’d been lucky enough to cross paths with some pretty special individuals — people who really did give a damn about me. So I’d decided to get past the crap and live life as though it had a point to it.
Now I’m still working on the rough edges … I have my moments — but in general I’m at least civilised.
From the stack of letters poking out of our slot, my business partner, Des Carmichael, hadn’t cleared the mailbox yet. It was all addressed to Lindthorpe Enterprises — the previous tenant, I was guessing.
I flicked through. And stopped …
One letter was addressed in dark red ink. I grimaced. There was a skull and cross bones drawn next to the address. The tip of the pen had been pressed into the paper so hard it’d created little triangular rips. Through the rips I could see the letter inside was also written in red ink.
Hmm … Looked like the previous tenants hadn’t left only friends behind.
Four burly guys wearing green uniforms clattered down the staircase, Goodbody’s laughing leprechaun on their breast pockets.
I shoved the letters back into the mailbox and grabbed the man holding a clipboard as he surged past. ‘I’m Kannon Dupree, I —’
‘All finished, ma’am.’ He flashed the signed invoice at me. ‘Mr Carmichael is upstairs.’ He nodded his head once and then they were gone.
Our suite was on the top floor, in the left-hand corner looking up from the street. The rest of our floor was vacant; awaiting renovations, according to the real-estate agent. He’d assured us ours had already been done. Well, the walls and ceiling had been painted anyway. Our offices, like the rest of the building, still had most of the original features. I loved it. So unless the roof fell in I had nothing to complain about.
‘Rewind Investigations’, with our gold and magenta logo underneath, was freshly painted on the frosted glass panel that took up the top half of the old wooden front door. It was ajar.
Des was in full argument bark.
‘Look, don’t try and tell me …!’ He paused. ‘Yes, I did that already!’ Another pause.
I pushed the door and moved into semi-darkness. Why were none of the lights on?
I flipped a switch — nothing happened. The only light was coming from the corridor and outside — and the storm made it seem like early evening.
Des looked up and nodded at me. He was sitting at the secretary’s desk in the little foyer, surrounded by a spreading pool of water leaking out of a sodden mound of dripping wet boxes.
He was barking into the old-fashioned black phone that came with the office, ‘No, I can’t wait … No, the electricity was supposed to have been put on yesterday.’
Oh, great.
I searched the sodden boxes and ripped open the one that held the towels meant for our tiny office bathroom. I laid them over the pools on the floor then stuck my head in each of the two offices leading off the reception area. Des was on the left; I was on the right. We’d flipped for the corner office and I’d won. All our furniture, filing cabinets and computers were in place, and next to my circular bay windows stood our sole pot plant: a bright green sapling.
It was an Illawarra Flame Tree. It was grown from the seed of my favourite tree in the back yard of my old home, just south of Sydney. This time of year they were in full bloom — red freckles covering the green, forested face of the Illawarra Escarpment.
The little tree looked forlorn, as though wondering where all the sunshine had gone …
‘Look, sweetheart,’ snapped Des into the receiver. ‘Don’t tell me the electricity will be on tomorrow … because I can hear you’re lying. What’s going on?’
I leant against the doorjamb and watched Des do his thing.
He was a weather-beaten decade past middle age. He’d been an Australian cop for more years than I’d been alive, and a lot of that time he’d spent out of doors. Des was also a human lie detector. He’d been a detective in the New South Wales police force and worked up a natural talent into a respected career. Des could spot a lie before you even opened your mouth.
Most of the time.
I’d known Des most of my life — grown up with him. I’d been one of his police cases … He’d stuck around and a professional interest had turned into a different kind of bond. Des Carmichael was the closest thing to a father I’d ever had.
Over the years I’d learnt to slip a lie past him when needed. But it wasn’t easy.
‘See that it is then!’ Des dropped the heavy, old-style receiver back in its solid black cradle.
‘Well, Des, nice to see you still have that bad cop attitude nicely honed.’
‘I usually don’t have to use it when you’re around,’ grunted Des.
‘Well, I can’t wait until tomorrow for the electricity; everything’s gotta be sorted today. Our advertisements say the office opens tomorrow.’ I paused, remembering. ‘Where’s Mariel? At least we can send her out to buy some hurricane lamps.’
Des gave me another grimace. ‘She’s not coming.’
‘What? You’re joking!’
‘She didn’t turn up, so I rang her. Said she’d found a job with better pay and in a safer part of SoMa.’
‘Great!’ I muttered. Could this day get any worse? I began looking for our supply of emergency candles.
While I worked, Des finally noticed my black trench coat. ‘So where have you been, Ka
nnon? You told me you’d go to that waste-of-time criminology conference and then be back to help —’
‘Don’t start with me, Des,’ I snapped. I found the candles and their holders, set them up on the desk in front of him and then scrounged around for the matches.
Des gave me his beady-eyed disapproval stare. It always reminded me of a kookaburra waiting for a recalcitrant blue tongue lizard to make a run for it.
I ignored it. I was too tired to go through the whole Portsmouth Square debacle in the pitch dark. And surely to God there had to be a way to make some coffee? My cells were screaming out for caffeine!
Des narrowed his eyes even further. ‘What happened, Kannon?’
‘Don’t ask, Des … believe me, you don’t want to know.’
He shook his head. ‘The things you’ll do to get out of moving furniture!’
‘Yeah … that’s right,’ I agreed, distracted. If someone didn’t hand me a bucket of caffeine soon, I couldn’t be held legally responsible for my actions.
6
JOB HUNTING
I’d just finished lighting the candles when a dark shadow loomed in the open door, cutting off the hall light.
‘This Rewind Investigations?’
I couldn’t see his expression but the man’s cultured voice echoed with a nasty mixture of disbelief and contempt.
I moved far enough forwards to search his face. He had dark hair and eyes, was medium height, and slim with a rich man’s tan. Big money. While I evaluated his navy double-breasted suit, silvered silk tie and expensive briefcase, he was busy judging my still damp hair and make-up-bare face.
I answered his unspoken question. ‘Yes, I’m Kannon Dupree.’
That made matters worse. Big Money ran his eyes down my trench coat — it’d gaped open to show too much black lacy bra. ‘Really?’
I adjusted the coat. ‘It’s moving day, the electricity isn’t on yet and we’re not open for business until tomorrow.’ I smiled, showing all of my teeth. ‘Can I help you?’
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