by Tom Pitts
She waved him on, shushing him, and turned up the stairs.
Paul walked right past the Nissan, eyes straight ahead, lost in the daydream of hope, desire, and impatience.
“Now’s the time. There she goes. Get out there before she gets inside. Go.” Quinn reached across Steven and pulled his door handle.
“I don’t think I should do this. I don’t think I can do it.”
Quinn said, his voice straight and low, “It’s too late for all that. You have to.”
Steven took a deep breath and got out of the car. The air felt cold because he’d just woken up. He stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets and pulled the coat tight around him. Her back was to the street and she stood still in front of the door. Steven didn’t think she’d pushed the doorbell yet. He quickened his pace. Her hair was straight and uneven, hanging down her back. Red, but not a natural red. As he got closer, he could see the long brown roots at her skull before they shifted in color.
He reached the stoop and she still hadn’t moved. “Excuse me.”
She was motionless, lost in thought.
“Excuse me,” he said again.
She turned. From where she stood, on the porch six steps above him, she looked statuesque. She was pale and the crimson hair increased her pallor. Bruise-colored purple bags hung underneath her eyes. She clasped a small silver box with both hands. She didn’t say anything.
“Are you Teresa?”
The right side of her mouth twitched.
Steven started up the steps slowly.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” She stepped back and held her palms up as though it would stop him. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Teresa? My name is Steven.”
“I don’t give a shit. How’d you know my name?” She looked past him and up the block, half-expecting reinforcements to be bounding up behind him.
“No, no, no, no. Hang on, let me explain. I’m not…I don’t…look, sorry to creep up on you like this, but I was asked to speak to you.” He reached the top of the stairs and was now close to her. She took another half-step back. Her face was pocked with blemishes and a curious red rash ringed her mouth. The two-tone hair was parted in the middle of her forehead and hung greasy and flat. She was tiny, frail-looking. He could see her eyes now, a strange combination of hazel and emerald encased in bloodshot white. They began to sparkle and shift.
“Hi.” He tried to start over, but it sounded false and empty. He was nervous now. Not because he was accosting the girl, but because he was near her. He flustered. “I need to speak with you.”
“Fuck off, weirdo. I don’t know where you think you know me from. If this is Paul’s—”
“I’m a friend of your dad’s. He’s been looking for you.”
He waited for her eyes to light up. They didn’t. Mistrust clouded them.
“Who are you?”
The front door opened.
“Teresa. Where the fuck you been?” An older guy, a little shorter than Steven, stood in the threshold to the house. The man was more stained and greasy than Teresa and he curled his lips as though he’d just tasted something bad. He looked up and down at Steven. “Who’s your friend?”
Teresa shot Steven a look, a tight-faced scowl that told him to play along. Her desperation overcame any threat she felt from him. Her desire to score diluted any interest in why Steven was there. While the man looked Steven up and down, Teresa’s lips quivered and fumbled with the answer to the question.
But before she could admit she didn’t know who this stranger was, Steven held out his hand and said, “I’m Steven, a friend of Teresa’s.”
The guy didn’t shake it. He looked down at the sidewalk like he expected there to be more visitors and said, “C’mon, c’mon, let’s go. Get inside.”
From the car, Quinn watched with excitement. A flash of pride shot through him. “That’s my boy. Get in there.” He removed the gun from the glove compartment and cradled it on his lap.
Chapter Nine
“I thought we were going to meet up somewhere we could eat.” Peters was behind the wheel with Panzer beside him and Carl in the back as they plodded through the late afternoon traffic toward the Mission. “I really could have gone for a burrito or somethin’.”
“I thought so, too,” Panzer said. “I guess he doesn’t want to meet inside. You want me to call him and see if he’ll compromise and meet at a taco truck or something?”
Carl cleared his throat. “It’s fine. If he doesn’t want to be seen talking with us, then we respect that. Peters, you can wait an hour before you eat. I’ll buy you a damn burrito.”
“They got the best in the city on Twenty-fourth Street,” Panzer said.
“Oh, I know. They ain’t got ’em like that in Calistoga. Town fulla Mexicans and you can’t get a decent burrito.”
“Let’s just try to stay focused on the job ’til we finish talking to this fella,” Carl said.
“The job?” Panzer said. “Peters here told me you guys aren’t even on the payroll for all this. It’s personal time. Sounds a bit like a fishing expedition to me.”
“We’re on the job,” Carl said. “We’re just not getting expenses down here. We’re collecting evidence in an ongoing homicide investigation.”
“All right, all right.” Panzer’s tone receded. “I was just teasing,” he lied. “But you may have to expense one of those burritos for me, too. I haven’t eaten since lunch. Take a right here and go up about two more blocks, straight across Harrison and into the parking lot of the Best Buy.”
Peters followed Panzer’s directions and pulled into the lot. Best Buy was closing and the lot was emptying out. Panzer told him to drive through toward the alley in the back. “There he is.”
An anonymous man with his head shrouded in a hoodie stood between two parked cars. They pulled up beside him. Carl opened his door and slid across the seat to make room.
The man climbed into the backseat and said, “Hey.”
“Hey,” Panzer said.
Peters chimed in, too. “Hey.”
Carl stretched out his hand. “I’m Carl Bradley. I’m glad you could make time to meet with us. I really appreciate it.”
The hooded man shook Carl’s hand, but didn’t offer his name. He looked Carl over. “Nice boots,” he said.
Carl looked down at his well-worn cowboy boots, wondering if the stranger was teasing. “Thank you.”
“I really don’t have a lot of time, so if we could make this quick.”
“Sure,” Carl said. “I understand you have occasion to cross paths with Maurice Tremblay?”
“I do.”
“Well, we’d like to speak with him. He’s a witness of sorts in a murder investigation up in Calistoga and we didn’t finish up with his statement. We need to clear up a few things.”
The man looked toward Panzer. Panzer faced forward and didn’t turn around. “Bill, you didn’t tell me they were looking to pull Tremblay in.”
“We just want to talk with him,” Carl said. “We’re having a little trouble locating him.”
“That’s by design,” the man said. “He doesn’t want to be found.”
Peters shifted in his seat and asked, “He’s not involved in law enforcement anymore, right?”
The man laughed. “Not by a long shot.”
“Well, what can you tell us?” Carl was getting impatient.
“Maurice was a half-ass bad guy, even when he was with the force. He rolled over drugs, information, whatever he determined was of value, to a few of the locals. Guys who could make use of that kind of thing. When they gave him the boot in oh-four, the tables turned. He started selling information the other way.”
“He’s an informant?”
“I guess you could say that. More like an informal informant. I don’t know who else in the department is in touch with him. I only know what he tells me.”
“Sounds convenient for him.”
“It is. But the intel he gives has always been solid. You unde
rstand why I’m a bit reluctant to give him up.”
“But you do know how to reach him.”
“It depends. Usually he reaches out. He always uses a burner, so his number is always changing. After he calls, I can reach him on the number—if there is a number—for only a day or two.”
“You ever talk to him in person?”
“Sure, but only when he wants.”
“Is he still living in San Francisco?”
“I don’t think so. From what I gather, he’s somewhere on the Peninsula. I know he’s moved a few times in the last couple years. He’s a slippery guy. He took what he learned from being a cop—a cop under scrutiny—and he applies it to his life now.”
Peters asked, “What’s he into?”
“Same as ever. Big money shit. Drugs mostly, but he knows a lot about what goes on. Big time bookies, union scale extortions. He’s been tied to some heavyweights. Not officially, just word on the street stuff.”
“Like who?” It was the first time Panzer spoke since saying hey.
“Miguel Diaz, Rollie Berg, most notably Richard Allen.”
“I’ve heard of Diaz, don’t know Berg,” Panzer said. “Who’s Richard Allen?”
“Maybe you know him as Ricardo Alvarez. He’s a Mexican cartel guy, supposedly gone legit. The American face to the Mexican crime wave. He’s a big shot in this town. Friendly with the local politicians, connected at City Hall. Nice on paper, but nasty in real life.”
“And what’s our Maurice do for Mr. Allen?” Carl asked.
“My guess is anything Mr. Allen wants.”
From up front, Peters mumbled, “So much for the French Mafia.”
“What the fuck is he talking about?”
“Nothing,” Carl said, “he’s just hungry. Listen, I need to talk to this man. How can I reach him?”
“You can’t. But if he calls me, I’ll call Panzer. Maybe we can set something up—maybe. But I’m telling you, I’m not looking to give up my source, or, more importantly, end up in the morgue.”
“You scared of this guy?”
“Most definitely.”
There was a moment of silence in the car before the man repeated that he had Panzer’s number and Panzer had his. “By the way, my name is Pino.” Then, without saying goodbye or goodnight, he opened the door, got out, and walked away.
***
Maurice Tremblay was on Page Street. He stood at the metal gate that barred him from Joe-Joe’s apartment. He pressed the buzzer once. Then again. On the third try he kept his finger on the button. He heard the shrill buzz inside the apartment.
The inside door finally swung open.
“What?” Joe-Joe was standing behind the gate in shorts and a white T-shirt. There was a red puss-colored stain where the shirt stretched across his stomach.
Tremblay didn’t greet him, he only said, “Let me in.”
“Jesus, man, I didn’t know it was you. Why didn’t you call? I fuckin’ wish you was here yesterday.”
“Let me in.” More terse this time.
Joe-Joe pressed a button inside his door and the front gate buzzed open. Tremblay pushed it open and pointed into Joe-Joe’s apartment. “Inside.”
Once they were inside Joe-Joe’s kitchen, Tremblay sat down at the table. “You know why I’m here?”
“I can fuckin’ well guess.” Joe-Joe pulled out the seat opposite. “You’re lookin’ for Quinn. You’re a day late and a dollar short.”
“He was here?”
“Fuck yeah he was here. How do you think I got this?” Joe-Joe pointed to the ugly stain on his shirt. “Fuckin’ piece of shit stuck a fork in me. Like, four times.”
“What did he want?”
“The girl.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“I told him the truth. What was I supposed to do? He had a fork in my ribs. I told him that the girl’s been hanging out around Powell Street with all them other druggie kids, you know.”
Tremblay took a deep breath and let it out slowly through his nose. It made a hollow whistling sound. He rubbed his chin for a moment. “You mind if I do a rail?”
“Sure, man. Can I have some?”
“No.”
Tremblay took out his baggie of blow and poured a little pile onto the Formica table. He plucked a business card from a cup full of cards in the middle of the table. He looked at it. Free cheesesteak with every ten purchases. The card had been stamped three times. He spread the coke out and chopped it with the edge of the card, combed it into two lines. He curled the card over onto itself and formed a short tube, bent over and sucked a line deep into each nostril. He pinched his nose with his fingers and waited.
Joe-Joe waited, too. Halfway hoping he’d change his mind about sharing.
After a minute, Tremblay said, “You think he’s gonna be back?”
“I fuckin’ hope not. If he does, you’ll be the first to know. You got a number or something?”
“Yeah,” Tremblay recited the number, his voice still tight from the lines. Joe-Joe scrawled it down on the backside of a Chinese take-out menu. Tremblay took out his phone and tapped in Joe-Joe’s number as Joe-Joe read it off. He put his phone back in his pocket and pointed to Joe-Joe’s belly. “Let’s see the damage.”
Joe-Joe carefully lifted his shirt. There were four sets of four-pointed puncture wounds close together on the bulb of his stomach.
“Shit, that looks infected. You should see somebody about that.”
“No shit. A bit of numbing agent would help, too. If you know what I mean?”
Again Tremblay said, “No.” He got up from the table. “If Quinn comes back, you call me. Before you even open the door, you call.” Then he turned and walked out of the apartment alone.
***
The first thing Steven noticed was the man’s bare legs. He was wearing olive green army fatigues ripped off at the knee. Below, his calves were bone-white with pocked sores in various stages of infection. The house was dark and it was tough for Steven to get a good look at the eruptions on the man’s legs as they clamored behind him.
Teresa kept spinning her head back to Steven and sneering at him with her index finger pressed to her lips. He wasn’t sure what she’d feared he’d say, but he intended on not saying anything at all.
The hallway was filled with debris. Dark green garbage bags piled on top of defeated cardboard boxes that left only a narrow margin for the three to get by. There were low-hanging chandeliers above their heads, but they held no bulbs. The only sign of any electricity was a far-off tinny guitar, someone playing badly through a small practice amp.
They reached the kitchen and passed right through. The smell of rotting food mixed with ammonia stung Steven’s nostrils. The man led them into a back porch that had been glassed-in for years. The glass was covered with paper and foil, but it was the lightest spot they’d reached.
“Sit down,” the man said, pointing to a huge wooden spool, the kind used to wrap industrial cable. It had been turned sideways and was covered with magazines, empty cartons of strawberry milk, and a large, round ashtray. And, Steven noted, an expensive digital scale.
The man sat down on an upturned plastic milk crate. Steven and Teresa did the same.
The man took a moment to light a cigarette, then said, “So, what’s up?”
“I need some shit,” Teresa said.
“That’s all? You ain’t been here for almost two days. I hope you brought some money back.”
“Is Simone still here?”
He ignored the question. “Who’s your friend?”
Steven gave his head a quarter-turn toward the direction they’d come, as if to remind their host he’d already introduced himself when he entered. “Steven,” he said.
“I’m Raja.” The man reached forward and pulled the ashtray toward him with one finger. “You a friend of Teresa’s or a friend of Teresa’s?”
“Just a friend.”
The man, Raja, seemed to consider this. He studied Steven.
He locked eyes with him while he took a long drag on his cigarette. “So, friend, what do you need?”
Teresa answered for him. “I got this hard drive. An external hard drive.” The phrase sounded alien on her tongue. “It’s supposed to be a good one.” She set the metal rectangle on the table.
Raja broke his stare and looked down at the drive. “Lemme see.” He examined it, flipped it over in his hands, looked closely at the plugs on the back, the specifications on the side. “What’d you want for it?”
“A hundred.”
“You’re dreaming.”
“How about fifty?”
“Okay, but not in cash.”
“No, not in cash.”
Raja flipped the box over again in his hand before setting it down on the table. “I’ll go a half-gram of dope and a half-gram of speed.”
Teresa whimpered a little.
“Take it or leave it.”
She glanced over at Steven. He wasn’t sure if she was embarrassed by the transaction or using him to manipulate Raja. Then she said, “Well? You got anything to throw in?”
It took him a second to figure out what she meant before he silently shook his head.
“Take it,” she said to Raja.
The dealer rubbed his hands together and said, “All right. I was just getting ready to get well myself.” He reached over to his left and flipped open a blue metal toolbox. Inside, on the top drawer that extended when the box was opened, were an assortment of baggies and a few sealed ten-packs of needles. The gulley of the box was stuffed with used syringes piled high and entangled like dangerous wooden matches.
Raja pulled a burned spoon and a ball of cotton from the top level and set it on the table. “You got your own shit?”
Steven looked to Teresa to answer before he realized that Raja was speaking to him. Steven shook his head, but Raja didn’t notice because he was busy slicing off a wedge of black tar from a lump he’d unwrapped. He dropped it onto the scale. Steven looked at Teresa who barely moved an index finger, a signal to not worry.