BOHEMIAN HEART
By James Dalessandro
Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press
Copyright 2012 James Dalessandro
Cover Design By: David Dodd
Cover image courtesy of: Brocken Inaglory
The image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license
LICENSE NOTES
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Meet the Author
James Dalessandro was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and attended the Ohio University and UCLA Film School. In 1973, he founded the Santa Cruz Poetry Festival with Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Ken Kesey, the nation's largest literary event during its four year run. Ferlinghetti called it "a new birth of American poetry" and called him "one of the new breed of young, populist writers who has something to say, quite clearly, about life on the wild side."
He has published four books: Canary in a Coal Mine (1973, poetry, Sanguine Books); Bohemian Heart (1993, noir thriller, St. Martin's Press), Citizen Jane (1998, true crime, Putnam Penguin); and the best-selling 1906 (2004, historical thriller, Chronicle Books).
In September, 2009, Hallmark Channel broadcast "Citizen Jane" – their only true crime movie – for which he was screenwriter and producer. He is screenwriter of the upcoming Pixar/Warner Brothers live action film "1906". He was also the writer of the nationally syndicated radio program, "The House of Blues Radio Hour" with Dan Aykroyd.
He is the award winning writer/director/producer of the documentary film "The Damnedest, Finest Ruins" (KQED-PBS, 2011). He has written for The Examiner newspapers and published feature articles in San Francisco Magazine and Playboy.
"Telegraph Hill" a television series based on Bohemian Heart is in development with James and Oscar winner Bobby Moresco (Crash, Million Dollar Baby) as writers/executive producers, for Entertainment One Television.
He teaches screenwriting at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, where he lives with his wife, Katie and best pal Giaccomo Poochini.
DISCOVER CROSSROAD PRESS
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Chapter 1
San Francisco had been a month without fog. From the picture window of my house just below Coit Tower, I could see across Cow Hollow, the Marina, the Presidio, all the way to the Golden Gate. No fog, not even a dirty rumor.
I lived in the third-oldest Victorian on Telegraph Hill, built by my great-grandfather, bequeathed to me by my parents. In my forty years of bridge watching, I couldn't remember an entire April without the afternoon fog.
Pulling on my leather jacket and gloves, I grabbed my motorcycle helmet, slipped a 9mm Walther and a spare clip into a special pocket sewn inside my jacket, bounded down a hidden stairway from my bedroom loft on the fourth floor, emerging in the office at ground level. As I exited to the street, I flipped over the sign saying BE BACK, I HOPE beneath the gold-stenciled CITY LIGHTS DETECTIVE AGENCY.
Standing on the pegs of my antediluvian Norton Commando 750 as I descended Lombard Street, I double-checked the bridge. No fog. A bad omen.
I charged up Lombard on the other side of Columbus until it became one way, "the world's crookedest Street," zigged through a dozen camera-wielding tourists, turned left, crossed Union Street and passed Grace Cathedral on Nob Hill. Then I leaned back in the saddle as I dropped down one of the steepest descents in the city, Jones Street into the Tenderloin.
The Tenderloin may be the only neighborhood in the world named for police corruption. During the time my great-grandfather and grandfather walked this beat, after the Great Earthquake, the thirty square blocks between City Hall and Union Square were the center cut, the sweet meat for bribes and grafts for the old SFPD. The Tenderloin.
I made Turk Street in three minutes flat, parked the Norton in a lot where I knew the attendant, Enrique, a Guatemalan refugee. I tipped him to keep an eye on it. The bike wasn't so great, but neither was the neighborhood; they'd steal your gold teeth if you yawned too long.
On one corner stood a fine specimen of Tenderloin manhood: curly blond hair, pork chop sideburns, one-piece dirty white jumpsuit with two-foot elephant bell-bottoms, huge red flame patterns up the inside of each thigh pointing toward a knockwurst stuffed in the bikini briefs outlined underneath. He trolled disco-like for passing females and looked genuinely surprised when they sped up or crossed the street.
A taxi stopped in front of the Turk Street a.k.a. Jerk Street Showcase, and a gray-suited businessman rushed inside to catch the patriotic double bill, Fox Hole Boys and Rear Admiral. Between screenings, some mother's son would bump and grind his way through a live display of the family heirlooms as the distinguished audience cheered, drawers to their knees, choking each other's chickens.
Even sin ain't what it used to be.
I reached the corner of Mason and Eddy streets where my newest client, Sergei Kostonoviev, senior attaché to the Russian consulate, had last seen his burgundy limousine. Five feet away was a sign that said NO PARKING—TOW AWAY ZONE.
I'm in the stupidity business. If it wasn't for stupidity, guys like me would be out of work; stupidity and bad luck, the latter usually the excuse for the former.
Directly across the street was an all-night coffee shop named the Tide-E Diner, which it wasn't. I jay-walked and entered. A tinkling bell announced my arrival.
Immediately the heavy, repressive air engulfed me, the ether of bad food and sadder stories. A chef who might have cooked the Last Supper chain-smoked over a pile of plastic eggs, refried flounder, frozen potatoes in 40-weight.
I scanned the place quickly. Three whores of indeterminate age and origin, dressed in last year's Christmas wrappings. One female mumbler, serious enough in muted discourse to be lecturing Napoleon. One flaxen-haired man with the shape and texture of a crouton left floating in onion soup too long, the crust a cheap blue suit.
In the corner a dozen feet away was a Samoan drag queen big enough to have played linebacker in the NFL. He was missing a left eye, which was now held shut by a Band-Aid. The drag queen tilted faded black-leather pumps, opening up his/her legs, hiked a rainbow-colored muumuu, and offered me a glimpse of stretch-marked brown thigh. He/she smiled an invitation. I smiled a polite decline.
They all stared as I headed to the counter.
The waitress wore the kind of stiff white uniform most often found on emergency room nurses, a dime-store wedding ring to keep the hustlers away, and a name tag that said VIVIAN. I should have guessed.
"Excuse me, ma'am, but were you working yesterday afternoon about four o'clock?" I asked.
"Every afternoon for the last sixteen years." She looked me up and down. "Cop?"
"Private investigator." When she didn't bite, I pulled out my ID and handed it over. The rest of the room was now either very interested or very nervous.
" 'Francis Fagen, private investigator,' " she read aloud. "What can I do for you, Francis?"
"Frankie. Did you happen to notice a burgundy limousine parked outside yesterday afternoon at about four?"
That brought a smile to Vivian's face. "Yeah, I seen it." She turned to the three whores and said, "This guy's a private detective; he wants to know if we seen that burgundy limousine."
> They practically tripped over their tongues getting the story out.
"You talking about Uncle Boris, that guy from the Russian embassy?" Russian consulate, but I wasn't about to stop them when they were on a roll.
"Dude's here every day, girls damn near bust an ankle gettin' to that sucker. No wonder them people over there ain't got no food, the money that dude spends on pussy."
While they treated themselves to a forced laughing fit, a tow truck pulled up directly across the street and hooked a 1976 Buick Le Sabre.
"Did you see the limousine get towed yesterday?" I asked Vivian.
"I sure did. He parked it outside there about ten to four. Him and his chauffeur talked to two girls, then they got out and went to the Argonaut Hotel a couple doors up. I know, 'cause I said to a customer, you think that fool would know by now that this street is a towing zone from four to six. That's the first one they grabbed."
"You didn't happen to notice the name of the towing company, did you?"
"Sure did," said Vivian, proud of her amateur detective work. "Truck said San Andreas Towing right on the side."
I thanked her and laid a ten-dollar bill on the table. She took it, squinting as she stared at me.
"Were you that cop they called Peekaboo Frankie Fagen?"
"Different Frankie Fagen," I lied, "little shorter, better-looking." Vivian smiled and knew better. I nodded at the still cackling streetwalkers and left.
I pulled out a cell phone and called my cousin Jimmy, the owner of a car dealership on Van Ness, and made arrangements to borrow a customized van for a few hours. Then I called Henry Borowski, one of the three detectives who worked for me. I asked him to pick up the van and meet me at my garage.
I was there and waiting only five minutes when he arrived. I told him Kostonoviev's limo had disappeared the previous afternoon, and that the towing company denied they had ever seen it. A check of police files over the past six months revealed eighteen complaints against the company for stripped or missing vehicles.
"What vas Ruski bastard do-hink on Eddy Street ven consulate is vay hover in Pacific Heights?" He said Heights like he was coughing up a fur ball.
"Doing research on Western culture." We both laughed.
I checked my list: flashlight, blanket, water, camera, plastic pot to piss in if necessary—the life of a private detective is very exotic, very exciting—portable phone, half a Genoa salami sandwich from Molinari's deli and a copy of Henry Miller's Time of the Assassins.
I decided not to change my Walther for the nickel-plated .45, but just for good measure I strapped my backup .380 to my left ankle. Henry climbed behind the wheel as we headed back to Eddy Street.
Henry is my bulldog, the kind of detective every agency needs: tough, unshakable. At twenty, a member of the Hungarian weight lifting team, he supported his Czech neighbors during the 1968 Prague Spring Revolt. The Russians decided to make an example of him and hung him from a makeshift gallows in a Budapest square.
But Henry's neck was so strong he wouldn't die. He hung from the noose for five minutes before the unnerved Russian commandant cut him down. For rehabilitation, they made him a police officer. After sixteen years on the Prague police force, he defected to the U.S. He had worked for me since I got my P.I. license.
Henry turned his head as we made the left onto Eddy Street, and I could see the cruel necklace the rope had left around his throat above the collar he always kept buttoned. He parked the van in the tow-away zone, pulled his camera out of his pocket, and said, "I vait at home till you call if need me."
As he climbed out, he added, "Russian Hattaché's is all KGB stooge. You find l-himo you find himportant papers meh-hebe you ghet Congress Medal Honor." Only death would end the Cold War for Henry.
As Henry found a discreet place from which to photograph the van and the tow truck when it arrived, I quickly climbed in back and crawled under the fold-down seat. Switching on my flashlight, I stuck screwdrivers in the seat's hinges and between the two back doors so they couldn't be opened from the outside. At 5:47 I heard the tow truck pull up. The door slammed, and the driver started to snake out the cable and hook up the van. The front tilted up, and we lurched forward.
I've sailed a lot on San Francisco Bay, often in rough seas, but nothing compared with being slammed from side to side as the van took a half dozen curves on one wheel. At 5:56, after ascending a steep ramp, we screeched to a halt and the driver dropped the van, which landed with brain-damaging impact. I had no idea where I was—or what I was doing. That, I figured, was the epitome of what being a private detective is all about.
In fiction, a balding potbellied P.I. walks into a room wearing a suit from the George Raft/JC Penney collection and women with the bodies of Daisy Mae instantly start taking their clothes off. Or a Holmes-like character looks at the stain on a suspect's shirt and instantly knows thirteen crucial facts the cops missed in two months of hard work.
Me, I was fit, forty, and handsome as vacation pay. All that had gotten me recently was a come-on from a Samoan drag queen and The Case of the Missing Limo.
To me, being a private detective is somewhere between a garbage collector, a spear catcher, and a Peeping Tom. If the boredom doesn't kill you, one of the bad guys might.
I lifted the back seat above my head and eased my way out. The heavy, muted blast of a cargo vessel came from outside the wall to my right. When the main towing garage filled during afternoon rush hour, they took the overflow to some of the Embarcadero warehouses that stand on pilings over the Bay. At least I knew where I was.
I slid the van door open, jumped out, and stood for a minute, looking and listening. There was nothing but long rows of cars on the floor I was on, so I dashed down the steps to the first floor.
Up front was the check-in area where an endless stream of the world's most disgruntled people came to pay the seventy-eight-dollar towing fees, receive their sixty-dollar traffic ticket, and get less respect than your average serial killer. In the back was another cavernous area, nearly a city block long, where two or three hundred more vehicles were parked. At the end there were two enormous steel doors.
I ducked around the end of a row of cars, narrowly missing being seen by an employee who'd come to fetch one that someone had claimed up front. As soon as he disappeared, I sprinted toward the steel doors. I'd done this kind of thing a thousand times, and as stupid as this escapade seemed, my heart still pounded.
The doors were held fast by double padlocks. I snuck back down the aisle, up the stairs, and back into the van. Once safely under the seat, I called Henry on the cellular to let him know I was inside.
My whole scheme was based on the attractiveness of the bait: a gaudy, tricked-out van with both CB and car phone antenna.
Exactly two hours after entering the garage, it was show time.
I heard the tow truck skid to a stop in front of the van, the driver climb out, lower the winch cable, and hook up the van. I was going for another ride.
This one was extremely short. After hurtling down the steep ramp, we banked a hard right, then squealed to a halt. The driver got out and I could hear him and another man talking. There was the sound of large metal doors being opened. The van was dropped. Someone put a slim-jim through the driver's side door and popped the locks, and the two of them pushed the van inside. The doors banged shut behind us.
People who make a living ripping people off think it's some God-given right and when you confront them, you're the asshole.
I checked the screwdrivers I'd used to secure the underside of the back seat and the rear doors. Then I reached into my coat and pulled out my Walther, flipping the safety off with my thumb.
"Hot shit, Jackie, leather captains seats. Ernie'll give us three hundred for the set."
"Alpine CD; buck and a half.Speakers—how many speakers . . . eight. 'Nother buck and a half."
I got sick listening to the cacophony of capital gains, whirring tools, and a Headbanger Greatest Hits cranked up to top volume. It
killed me to let them dismantle my cousin's van, but I wanted to get them for more than just intent.
The whole job took them less than thirty minutes. I wiped the sweat from my hands and fingered the trigger of the Walther.
"Whatta ya wanna do?" one asked the other. "You wanna go for the engine and tranny?"
"We ain't got rid of the last six, what the fuck we gonna do with another one? Let's just roll the fucker."
Roll the fucker. Did that mean what I thought it did?
I heard a second set of doors being opened in front of us and felt the van start to roll as one of them let off the emergency brake and started to push. When the second one opened the passenger door to help, the van picked up speed.
In that one frozen moment of supreme clarity common to the rudely awakened, I realized what was happening, just as the van fell through a hole in the dock and plummeted toward the San Francisco Bay a dozen feet below.
I had no time to even brace myself as the nose smacked into the water, followed by the rear end. It felt like the van had landed on pavement.
My head bounced off the underside of the wooden seat. I bit my lip and crashed back down.
I was in big trouble.
I jerked the screwdriver out from under the seat and scrambled out just as the van tipped forward in the cold, dark Bay.
Bracing one foot in front of me, I tried to steady myself as the tilt of the van increased and I fought to slide open the side door. It wouldn't budge.
I could see the lights of Richmond and Oakland off to the right, Alcatraz and Marin County to the left. One muffled boat horn sounded.
With the front end being pulled down by the weight of the engine and transmission, the van was sinking by the second. I knew the front doors wouldn't open against the water pressure outside, and with the engine off, the power windows wouldn't work.
I leapt over the back seat and tried to reach the screwdriver securing the back door at the bottom. It was inches from my grasp. As I tore at the back seat, I lost my grip and fell to the front, cracking my back across the engine cover, landing against the dash near the steering wheel. I knew my weight would start the front sinking even faster.
Bohemian Heart Page 1