[Chauncey Means 01.0] A Hard Place

by Sean Lynch

  On the northeast corner, directly across from the vacant auto parts store, sat the Burger King. The fast-food restaurant was an ideal place for pimps and their enforcers to nurse a burger or soda and monitor business from a safe but controlling distance. The big windows afforded a perfect view for a pimp to comfortably oversee his bitches. Once a sex act and price was agreed upon, the B-girl would send the John across the parking lot to the Burger King to pay the pimp. Often this involved the John buying a burger or an order of French fries with the cash secreted inside the wrapper for a discreet hand-to-hand transfer. Once money changed hands, the pimp would send a text message to his bitch, usually on a pre-paid untraceable phone, to alert her that payment had been received. The B-girl would then simply get into the car when the John pulled out of the lot. The burger joint even provided the B-girls with access to a restroom and food, conveniently located in their workspace, to minimize production down-time. If by some remote chance the pimp was challenged by the police, all he was carrying was a phone and some cash. Just another fast-food enthusiast enjoying a high-cholesterol meal.

  The pimp’s muscle usually lurked nearby. It was his job to carry the hardware; often a high-capacity semi-automatic pistol, like a Taurus or a Glock, or maybe a sawed-off 12 gauge, but AR-15’s and AK-47’s weren’t unheard of. The enforcer’s duty was to collect money, hold the drugs, which was how the girls typically got paid, run interference in case other pimps or enforcers decided to move in, and keep the girls in line. A smart pimp needed protection, but wouldn’t want to be caught holding a firearm himself. A convicted felon in possession of a firearm was a hard fall; at least as hard as the comically ineffective California penal system was concerned.

  Of course there were still numerous pimps who did it the old fashioned way. Pimps with a string of only one or two bitches could plant a B-girl on any corner of the forty-five block Track and operate out of their car. That posed greater peril, since loitering in a car draws the attention of beat cops, and it was harder to monitor the girls from inside a vehicle. The biggest risk to a pimp’s income stream was his girls, necessarily addicted, holding out on him. Being mobile also meant you had to keep your weapon, drugs, and money in the car, which further meant you were always one traffic stop away from a vehicle search, impound, and arrest.

  In the Track’s pimp hierarchy, the small time operators worked a couple of B-girls out of their car and held their own dope, cash, and gun. The bigger pussy-traders had a few more girls, and a place to stay out of the weather, like a covered bus stop or one of the numerous liquor stores. The street kings however, might run a string of twenty or more B-girls. And the top-dog in this category might even do it while sipping a gin-laced fruit smoothie from a warm booth in a fast-food restaurant, with a pistol-packing attack dog watching his back. This pimp daddy might even have as many as three or four gunmen in his crew lurking about to ride herd on his bitches, sling dope, and collect the cash.

  But whether they were small-timers with a single B-girl working a corner, or a pimp-lord with two-dozen girls who ruled a two-block radius surrounding a Burger King, all pimps shared one thing in common; brutality.

  Pimping by its nature is predatory, and operating the world’s oldest trade in a place like the Track in Oakland required the pimps to be particularly savage. A pimp’s survival depended on his ability to deal out merciless violence to anyone threatening his business. That could mean engaging in gunplay with another pimp, his muscle, or even a cop, anytime, anywhere. It might mean pouring acid in the face of one of his bitches as a lesson to the others if she got out of line. It could also mean putting a few rounds from a semi-automatic pistol into the neck and face of a fifteen-year-old B-girl, if she gave him a reason and the mood struck.

  “Hey handsome, you lookin’ for a shot of leg?” came a sweet voice. I looked out my driver’s door window to find a girl standing there. She was a mix of Hispanic and Caucasian, and could have been anywhere between sixteen and twenty-six; with street creatures, it’s sometimes hard to tell. She was either sixteen and on the stroll for many months, or twenty-six and just into the life. She was wearing short-shorts over decent legs and ankle-length boots with some kind of synthetic fur at the tops. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail, and she wore an honest-to-god Pat Benatar sparkly headband. In another life she could have been pretty.

  Overall, she wasn’t in too bad a shape for a B-girl on the Track. She was reasonably clean, still had all her teeth, and her complexion was thus far unravaged by drug abuse. In six more months, if she survived, she’d look like she’d spent a year in the concentration camp at Dachau.

  “No thanks,” I started to say, but she didn’t hear me. She had already turned and began to walk away, giving a hand signal to an African-American B-girl a few steps away. The black girl immediately began sending a text message on her device. With my military cut hair and clean-shaven jaw I look too much like a cop, and she decided not to take the chance. Six or seven other B-girls got the signal and suddenly began to walk in directions away from me.

  Not that cops didn’t frequent the Track as customers; plenty did. I’d known more than one colleague who’d lost his badge for scrounging on the Track after end-of-watch. I’d even known a cop who picked up hookers there and raped them at gunpoint in his car. He was a fat, useless coward, and worked the beat adjacent to mine when I was a patrol jock. He was never made for the hooker rapes, but was drummed out of the department after getting caught sexually assaulting a burglary victim. She didn’t want to press charges, which isn’t uncommon. Last I heard he was head of security at an upscale department store in San Francisco.

  A minute later a tall, husky African-American dude with a mane of hair extensions under a white baseball cap exited the Burger King and began to give me the stink-eye from across the street. He must have gotten the alert. He was wearing baggy trousers under an oversized Oakland Raiders warm-up. A pimp possibly; muscle, certainly. He could have hidden a rocket-propelled grenade launcher under that ensemble without leaving a bulge. I put my truck into gear and back onto International Boulevard.

  Driving east again on International Boulevard and what was left of the Track, I ruminated over what I would tell my friend Greg about the death of a fifteen-year-old girl named Marisol Hernandez. For the price of a lunch I discovered some basic facts about her homicide from Sergeant Matt Nguyen, but nothing substantial I could sink my teeth into. I’d have to wait until I got his investigative notes for details. But by driving to the scene of her death I learned some useful things.

  One of the rules I always followed when investigating a homicide, or any crime for that matter, was to always visit the crime scene myself. It didn’t matter how cold the case was, or how many others worked the scene before me. There’s no substitute for one’s own sense of sight, sound, hearing, taste and perspective. The best way to get a feel for a crime scene is to experience it firsthand. Some of the detectives I had worked with were satisfied to let their partners survey the crime scene, and merely read the report and look at the photos prepared by the crime scene technicians later. Not me. It was a practice I picked up not from police training, but from reading Dashiell Hammett as a kid, long before I’d ever pinned on a badge.

  What I learned by visiting the vicinity of Marisol Hernandez’s death was that 42nd Avenue and International Boulevard wasn’t just another corner on the forty-five block long prostitution corridor known as the Track. It was the Trump Tower of Oakland street hustling. This undoubtedly meant that the spot was heavily competed for, hard won, and would be vigorously defended.

  In addition, what I witnessed from my car in only a few minutes convinced me that from a pimp’s perspective, 42nd and International was a tactically ideal site. The number and quality of the B-girls strolling there, their effective communication, and the rapid response from an enforcer indicated an efficient and organized operation.

  The fact that Marisol was working 42nd Avenue and International Boulevard meant she was in a top-tier sta
ble. She had value. She couldn’t work that corner freelance; she’d be pushed out for encroaching, or more likely, assimilated by the pimp who owned that spot and added to his herd. But for Marisol to be peddling her ass at 42nd and International, it meant she was owned by somebody heavy.

  A B-girl is a commodity, and life on the Track for a whore is totally controlled. Every choice belongs to somebody else. A whore’s whole world is governed by her addictions, a John’s desires, and most importantly, by her pimp. Marisol’s life, and quite possibly her death, was controlled by whoever owned the kingdom of 42nd Avenue and International Boulevard.

  One of the first things you learn as a cop is that there is no such thing as coincidence. No businessman, even a pimp, likes to shit where they eat. It’s bad for business. If Marisol was gunned down at 42nd Avenue and International Boulevard, instead of driven away, murdered, and dumped somewhere else, it’s because somebody wanted it that way.

  Or couldn’t avoid it.

  I traded Oakland for San Leandro and picked up the freeway. Minutes later I was headed towards Castro Valley and home. After my stroll down memory lane on the Track I felt like I needed a shower.

  And a drink.

  Chapter 5

  Greg Vole resided in the Avenues, in San Francisco’s Richmond District, less than two blocks from China Beach. It was the kind of neighborhood which had only two classes of people; upper and everybody else. Consequently, I didn’t feel too out-of-place arriving in my battered truck. Half a dozen similar vehicles were already parked along the length of the street, their occupants busy sculpting lawns.

  Greg’s house was an oversized Spanish-style mansion that could safely be called stately. The only other time I’d ever heard the term ‘stately’ used was in the old Batman TV show reruns, when the narrator described Bruce Wayne’s crib.

  In the almost fifteen years I’d known Greg I had been to his home only a handful of times. Because he lived in San Francisco and I lived in the East Bay, our paths usually crossed in courtrooms somewhere in between. Nonetheless, I always enjoyed the drive to Greg’s house.

  I took the San Mateo Bridge to the Junipero Serra Highway, even though the 101 or 280 freeways would have been faster. From the Junipero Serra I connected to the Great Highway near Lake Merced. The view of the Pacific Ocean from the Great Highway is worth the extra gas. From there it was only a short hop to Greg’s neighborhood.

  It was late morning when I rang the bell. Greg’s wife Amanda answered the door. I wasn’t expecting to see her since it was a weekday.

  “Hello Chauncey,” she said, giving me a hug. “Thank you for coming over today.”

  Amanda always called me by my name even though her husband, and just about everybody else who knew me, called me Chance. She was a tall, handsome, woman a few years older than me who wore glasses and a genial expression which probably disarmed a lot of her legal opponents before she massacred them. I wouldn’t want to cross her.

  “It’s always good to see you Amanda,” I told her truthfully, as Greg appeared from somewhere. The house’s interior was as big a church, and our voices seemed louder as a result. Greg and I shook hands.

  “Can I get you something, Chance?” he asked. “We have fresh coffee.”

  “A cup of tea would be nice. This San Fran fog puts a chill in your bones.”

  “I forgot,” Greg said as they steered me towards the kitchen. “You don’t drink coffee, do you?” Greg turned to Amanda. “Chance is the only cop I ever met who doesn’t drink coffee.”

  Amanda smiled. “You don’t like coffee?”

  “Love it,” I said truthfully. “I quit drinking coffee when I quit smoking. Couldn’t disconnect the two habits.”

  Amanda’s eyebrows lifted. “I never would have figured you for a smoker, Chauncey. You look so fit.”

  “Former smoker. It’s been more than fifteen years since I lit up.”

  “To quit coffee and cigarettes at the same time,” she clicked her teeth, “is no easy trick. You must have an iron will.”

  “Nothing so noble,” I corrected her. “I’m simply stubborn as a government mule.” She laughed a genuine laugh, and I was reminded how nicely matched Greg and Amanda were.

  “I like stubborn,” Amada told me. “That means you don’t give up easily. You may need some of that tenaciousness to find out who murdered Reyna’s granddaughter.” She motioned for me to follow her inside.

  I shot Greg a ‘what-the-fuck?’ glare behind Amanda’s back. His put up his hands in a ‘take-it-easy’ gesture he made sure she didn’t detect.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Greg said, walking behind his wife and sending me a warning signal with his eyes, “but Amanda wanted to be here when you met Reyna.”

  That explained Amanda’s being home on a workday. It also explained the cautionary glower I was receiving from Greg. And the sinking feeling I was beginning to get in my gut.

  I’d called Greg yesterday and given him an update on what little I’d learned about the death of Marisol Hernandez. I told him I’d have more in a few days when Matt Nguyen produced his case notes. That was when Greg ambushed me and revealed he wanted me to talk to Mrs. Sandoval in person.

  I reminded him that he was supposed to pass along what information I had obtained. I further reminded him that he’d told me he didn’t expect too much. The reminders didn’t work. Greg wouldn’t be one of the best trial lawyers in California if he wasn’t persuasive as hell. So I tried to convince him to put it off, and give me a little more time to generate information, but he was insistent. Greg convinced me to meet with his housekeeper today. That’s when his real motive became clear, and I became irritated at myself for not sensing it earlier. It was Amanda calling the shots, not Greg.

  It was Amanda who had pressured Greg for the face-to-face meet. Just like it was her idea to bring me into the matter in the first place. It was obvious Greg wanted the whole ‘housekeeper’s-granddaughter-murdered’ thing handled with the least impact on his disrupted home life. He wanted his household back in order and his routine returned to normality. Greg didn’t want an investigation; he wanted a report. He merely wanted to placate his wife. But that seemingly wasn’t going to happen. Apparently Amanda had other ideas.

  “We appreciate your willingness to take this case,” Amanda said as we entered a kitchen that looked like it belonged on the cover of a gourmet magazine. “I can’t begin to tell you how heartbroken Reyna is, and how disheartening this tragedy has become for our entire family. I’m not sure if Greg told you, but Reyna has been with us for over twenty years. We took her on not long after Anna was born.” Anna was the Vole’s eldest daughter and now in law school herself.

  “Greg told me Mrs. Sandoval is like one of the family,” I said. “And he made it clear how much trauma this event is creating for everyone.”

  “You can’t imagine,” Amanda said, then paused. “Of course you can,” she corrected herself. “You were a homicide detective. This is probably something you’re used to.”

  “Nobody ever gets accustomed to having a loved one murdered,” I said.

  “No, I don’t suppose they do,” Amanda agreed. She opened a cabinet and withdrew an ornate ceramic mug that probably cost more than my shoes. “This is particularly tragic because of what Reyna went through with her own daughter to raise Marisol and her sister.”

  “Tell me about that,” I said.

  “From what I know, Reyna’s daughter got mixed up with the wrong guy during her teenaged years. Some kind of gangster, I think. Reyna did all she could, but it was to no avail. Carmela got into drugs, dropped out of school, became pregnant with Marisol, and ran off to shack up with her baby’s father. As you can imagine, that didn’t work out too well. The father was in and out of jail, and it wasn’t long after Marisol was born that Carmela became pregnant with Belicia. I’m not sure, but I believe when she got pregnant the second time Marisol’s father was still in prison.”

  “I’m guessing when daddy got out the family reunion
wasn’t pleasant.”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t.” Amanda offered me a selection of teas from a box in another cupboard. I chose a green. She went on.

  “Anyway, Reyna began parenting her granddaughters. Carmela had been arrested herself a couple of times by then. She was forging prescriptions and writing bad checks to support her habit. I only know this because I handled the filings to help get Reyna legal custody of her two granddaughters.”

  “That was good of you,” I said.

  “Reyna is worth it,” Amanda said. She poured boiling water from a machine I assumed was some sort of elaborate coffee-maker. It looked like it belonged on the bridge of the starship Enterprise and was next to a stove the size of a pool table. “You’ll see for yourself. She’s a remarkable woman. As I already said, like one of the family. Two of my daughters have known her as their nanny all their lives. I wouldn’t trust my children to anyone else.”

  “I’m sure you wouldn’t. Where is she now?”

  “She’s in the guest house. Reyna’s been living here part-time since her husband died.”

  “Her husband is dead?”

  “Yes,” Amanda said. “He was a steamfitter at the refinery in Richmond. He passed away from mesothelioma a few years ago. Ever since the girls got older and could take care of themselves, Reyna has been staying half the week with us here in the guest house, and the other half at her home in San Leandro.”

  “So Mrs. Sandoval has essentially raised her two granddaughters as her own daughters, is that right?”

  “That’s right. Belicia is thirteen or fourteen, I think. Marisol had just turned fifteen.”

  “Sounds like she’s endured her share of tragedy,” I commented.

  “She has. And she is a very private person. When you’re ready, I’ll have her come in and you can meet her.” I accepted the steaming mug.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to hold off for a while,” I said. “I want to get some more background information.” I sipped some tea and checked on Greg. He’d been silent all the while, struggling to suppress his discomfort.