by Tom Pitts
Tremblay took a step back, still breathing hard.
Alvarez continued, “If you would like to ask Mr. Tremblay a few more questions, to satisfy your curiosity, I’d be more than happy to let you use our dining room for a quick interview. Seems like it’s going to be a slow lunch, we can lock the doors for a few minutes and let you conduct your business. But, beyond that, I think it’d be wise if you would go through proper legal channels if you feel the need to continue.”
There was silent assent between the three.
“All right then, would anyone like a drink?”
Peters and Carl said no, but Tremblay said, “Maker’s.”
***
Quinn walked to Joe-Joe’s. He stopped in the Lower Haight for a quick slice and headed over to Page Street. He almost rang the buzzer, but decided to ring a neighbor instead. The gate buzzed open and he slipped inside the foyer. Without knocking, he punched through a small pane of glass in Joe-Joe’s front door and reached through to unlock the knob.
“Hello?” came a voice from down the hall.
Quinn let himself in, dropped his tool bag beside the front door, and walked straight to the bedroom. He flung open the door and saw Joe-Joe lying on his back, shirtless with his stomach bandaged. Quinn could tell by the sloppy job that Joe-Joe did it himself.
“Shit, man. It stinks in here. Can’t you open a window?”
Joe-Joe grunted as he sat up. “Too afraid that somebody might break in. Fuck, Quinn, you couldn’t knock?”
“Didn’t think you’d make it to the door. Thought I’d let you rest.”
“What’d you want, Quinn? I’m in fucking pain here and I don’t need any more of your bullshit.”
“I know you’re in pain. I gave it to you, remember?” Quinn smiled at Joe-Joe as though he were expecting a laugh. “I need your car.”
Joe-Joe shook his head. “No way. I’m not giving you my car. I need that thing. You’re not dragging me into whatever shit you got going on.”
Quinn stepped toward the bed. “But you’re already in, Joe-Joe. You got in deep by trying to fuck that little girl. Everybody knows what you did, you scumbag. You owe a lifetime of favors trying to balance the karma for that one.”
“I didn’t do shit,” Joe-Joe whined. His tone let Quinn know he’d sung this song many times before. “She was the one coming round here; she had a taste for the blow. Nothing ever happened, that’s all bullshit. Alvarez just wanted to make me look bad. Besides, she wasn’t that young.”
Quinn reached out and poked two fingers into Joe-Joe’s bandaged wound. “How’s that coming along? Healing nicely?”
Joe-Joe winced. “Stop, fuck, that hurts.”
Quinn pressed harder. “You seen our friend, Maurice, around? He come by for a visit?”
“I ain’t seen nobody, I ain’t talked to nobody. I’m just lying here. Stop, stop.”
The doorbell rang.
“That’s probably your neighbor wondering about the glass. You get up and tell ’em you forgot your keys, all right?”
The bell rang again.
Quinn slapped Joe-Joe. “Get up, fat boy.”
With exaggerated difficulty and a moan, Joe-Joe got up and ambled toward the front door while the bell sounded a third time. Quinn stuck close behind him.
Joe-Joe looked out the door and didn’t see his neighbor. He saw two young people standing on his stoop. Teresa and a young man right behind her.
Behind Joe-Joe, Quinn whispered, “Perfect.”
Chapter Sixteen
Quinn pulled back along the wall toward the bedroom.
“Invite them in,” he said as he slipped through the bedroom door.
Joe-Joe opened the door and said through the gate, “Well, look who it is. What’re you doing here?” He tried to keep his tone sing-song, but he furrowed his eyebrows, shifting them from side to side. Trying to send a message.
“What’s wrong with your eyes?” Teresa said.
Joe-Joe knew Quinn heard what she said. He was fucked now. He stopped the eye motions and said, “The sun. It’s fuckin’ bright out here. You two wanna come in for a minute?”
“Yeah, buzz us, Joe-Joe.”
Joe-Joe hesitated. He knew it would be the end of Teresa, probably her friend too. Maybe he could beg for his own life, though. He buzzed the gate.
As Teresa and her friend came through the front door, Teresa patted Joe-Joe’s stomach with her palm. “Ouch, buddy. That doesn’t look too good. What happened?”
“Who’s your friend?”
“This is Steven. He’s from up north. He’s a good guy.”
“Hi,” Steven said. Joe-Joe’s eyes locked on him for a moment and Steven looked right into the face of the man he’d watched Quinn assault and humiliate. If he’d known where Teresa was taking him, he never would have come along.
Without saying hello back, without acknowledging that he’d met him before, Joe-Joe said, “Is he like a boyfriend or what?”
“He’s my friend, Joe-Joe. Now c’mon, I got something I need to ask you about.”
“If you’re lookin’ for what I think you are, I ain’t got nothin’ here.”
“No, it’s something else,” Teresa said. “I need you to make a phone call for me.”
Inside the bedroom, Quinn listened as the three walked to the kitchen. As they passed the open bedroom door, Quinn inhaled deeply. He could almost smell her. His plan was coming together effortlessly. He listened to their footsteps creaking in the kitchen.
Teresa was saying, “I need you to call my dad.”
Quinn imagined the look on Joe-Joe’s face.
Joe-Joe said, “Why? Why now?”
“’Cause it’s time. He’s got some gnarly fucker out looking for me and I’m afraid he’s gonna do something awful. I wanna talk some sense into him.”
“You know who?”
“I didn’t see him, but Steven did. Tell him Steven.”
Steven spoke up, but didn’t look up. “He said his name was Quinn.”
Joe-Joe was silent, processing what he heard and what to say next. He took his phone from his front pocket and said, “Okay.” He dialed, but instead of dialing Alvarez, he dialed Tremblay. “Guess who came to visit,” he said. “Yes and yes.” And he hung up.
To Teresa he said, “He’ll call me back in ten minutes. Siddown, relax.”
Teresa didn’t sit. She stood looking at Joe-Joe, studying his face. “You fucker. Let’s go, Steven.”
Steven didn’t understand the look or the comment, but he was ready to follow Teresa as she stepped toward the hall.
Joe-Joe blocked the entrance to the kitchen with his considerable size. “Ten minutes,” he said. “Just wait and see what he has to say.” He spread his arms to touch both sides of the solid wall on either side of the entrance.
“Fuck you, Joe-Joe. That wasn’t my father. Who’d you call?”
An arm reached from behind Joe-Joe’s head, wrapped itself around his neck, and pulled him back.
From behind, Quinn punched him in the ribs and kidneys. His left forearm around his neck and his right punching and punching. “Yeah, Joe-Joe. Who the fuck you call?”
Joe-Joe tried to push Quinn backward and pin him against the hallway’s wall, but Quinn was hitting him too hard. Joe-Joe began to fold.
“Let’s go!” Teresa said. The two of them pushed past the tangled mess of Quinn and Joe-Joe. For one quick second Steven and Quinn’s eyes met. Steven saw something he hadn’t seen on the whole trip down. He saw his fate. Quinn’s eyes were shining with bloodlust, pure hatred. Evil. Steven saw his own death. Teresa yanked on the sleeve of his jacket and said again, “Let’s go!”
They tripped and stumbled to the front door while Joe-Joe and Quinn wrestled back near the kitchen. Quinn was choking Joe-Joe and the big man was throwing all his weight behind him to slow Quinn down.
By the time Teresa and Steven had made it through the front door, Quinn said, “Damn,” and changed his hold. He brought his left arm around Joe-Joe
’s face, got a grip, and twisted. Joe-Joe fell backward onto Quinn, who kept pulling to his left as hard as he could. Then he heard the crack. He kept pulling. There was another crack. Joe-Joe shook on top of him. Quinn could smell the shit in Joe-Joe’s pants. He pushed the fat man off him.
He stood up and caught his breath for a moment, then squatted down and went through the dead man’s pockets. He found the key fob for a Honda Accord and a wad of bills. He stood again, straddling the man. “Joe-Joe,” he said, “you were a perverted piece of shit and a degenerate gambler and no one ever liked you.” Then he kicked him in the face. He walked to the front door, wiped the knob—just in case—picked up his tool bag, and, with the scent of Teresa still in his nose, he was gone. Back on the hunt.
***
Peters and Carl ran through most of the questions they asked Tremblay the first time, at the winery. His answers hadn’t changed. Carl wanted to ask about his relationship to the man calling himself Richard Allen but had no basis to lay the foundation. He knew it meant something, he just wasn’t sure what. With Alvarez standing right beside the table, it was a tough subject to broach anyway.
Tremblay had calmed down after he got a few drinks in him. He recited his answers as though they’d been rehearsed, didn’t miss a beat. He told Carl and Peters when and where he’d first met Oulilette, mentioning his ex-wife’s love of wine. He promised that he knew nothing of Oulilette’s business dealings and hinted that they were on the wrong trail. That there was a killer loose out there and they were focused on the wrong man.
Like any guilty party tries to do.
Carl felt as though they’d hit a brick wall with Tremblay, any real information would have to be uncovered on their own. Tremblay was calm and unfettered; he’d been through plenty of interviews, on both sides of the table. They were getting close to wrapping it up when Carl’s cell phone rang.
He looked at the screen and saw it was Panzer.
“You’ll have to excuse me for a moment. I got to take this.”
Alvarez said, “Would you like to use my office?”
“No. Thank you,” Carl said, and he walked to the front door with the cell still ringing in his hand. He stepped into the daylight and pressed the phone to his ear. “Bradley.”
“Carl? It’s Bill. I got a few questions about that case you’re poking around in.”
“Sure. What’d you need?”
“Well, seems we got us a witness on the Treat Street killings. Young man by the name of Paul Testa. Seems he was waiting for a friend of his to score some drugs at the house that got lit up. He was sitting up the street and thinks he saw the killer go in.”
Carl said, “Okay.”
“The killings today, the stabbings, we’ve got at least two residents who were looking out their windows and saw a white male leaving the scene. Almost identical in description.”
Again Carl said, “Okay.”
“You perked up when I mentioned the M.O. in today’s homicides. What was it? What’s got you twisted?”
“The knife in the heart. Oulilette, the fella back home, he got it in the heart too. That’s a lot of killing in a short span of time. A lot of knife work.”
“That’s not all,” Panzer said. “The guy they found on the sidewalk in the Marina, the first day you got in? Witnesses describe a similar man leaving that scene, too.”
“What’s the description?”
Inside the restaurant, Peters and Tremblay were at a bit of a standoff. Tremblay had less respect for Peters than he did for Carl, and his attitude turned sour once again. Peters was trying to get Tremblay to give more information on where he could be reached in the future when Tremblay’s phone rang.
Tremblay eyed the screen. Local number. He answered without saying hello.
The voice on the line said, “Guess who came to visit?”
It was Joe-Joe.
“I don’t have time for games,” Tremblay said. “Is it the girl or that prick?”
Joe-Joe said, “Yes and yes.”
“I’m on my way.” Tremblay drained his glass of Maker’s and said, “Interview’s over. I got an emergency I got to take care of.”
Alvarez said, “Maurice?” But Tremblay made no eye contact. He got up from the table and walked straight out the front door.
Peters, frustrated, asked Alvarez, “Maybe you know how to get a hold of this guy?”
Carl was pacing the sidewalk as he listened to Panzer recite the physical description of the suspected killer. He stuck a finger in his left ear to help blot out the traffic noise on Geary Street. No doubt, thought Carl, it sounds like the same guy who used the bad credit card in Calistoga. White male, mid-forties to early fifties, six feet, medium build, handsome. Movie star good looks, the waitress had told them.
“Get this,” Panzer was saying. “Witness down on Turk today says he was whistling. Strolling away like he didn’t have a care in the world. I’m thinking we might have a serial on our hands, some kind of psycho.”
Carl turned toward Todos Santos and saw Tremblay rushing out the front door, moving as close to a run as a man in that shape could get.
“Dang it,” he said into the phone, and started to follow. “Bill, I’m going to have to call you back.”
He watched Tremblay heading for his Ford Focus, so Carl cut across the street to Peters’ Acura. He stopped for a moment, clutching at his pockets, before realizing he still had the keys. No time to get Peters, he’d call him on the way and find out what happened inside, why Tremblay bolted.
In his rearview, he saw Tremblay waiting for a hole in traffic. Carl put the car in drive and pulled out. He had to make a U-turn on Geary where one was not allowed. He hoped no bored traffic cop was watching, waiting to stop him and slow him down. He yanked the car through the intersection, ignoring the honks and protests of other drivers, just in time to see Tremblay speed down Geary toward downtown.
Tremblay was moving fast, but not fast enough to attract attention. He was heading somewhere in a hurry, but not fleeing. He wasn’t checking his rearview, looking over his shoulder, or making any evasive moves. Probably had no idea he was being followed. Carl gripped the wheel and focused on the bumper ahead of him. Tremblay hooked a right on red at Divisadero. Carl did the same.
Inside the restaurant, Peters smiled uncomfortably at Alvarez. Alvarez smiled back, cool and relaxed.
“Where’d your boy run off to?”
“He’s not my boy,” Alvarez said “He said he had a personal matter to attend to so I assume that’s what he’s doing. Would you like a bite while you wait for your partner?”
“He’s not my partner,” Peters said, adding, “And, no thanks. I’ll just sit tight.”
“I’ve already had the cook fix you up something. You may as well eat it while it’s hot. I’m sure your friend will be back in a moment.”
A waiter appeared and placed a small dish of mango salsa and a large bowl of fresh guacamole beside a plate of warm tortilla chips. He told Peters his lunch would be out in a few more minutes.
Peters took a chip and scooped out a dollop of guacamole. It was delicious.
Chapter Seventeen
Carl followed Tremblay on Divisadero until he saw the car go left on Page Street. He waited at the light, craning his neck, watching Tremblay’s vehicle slow. He saw its brake lights and, when the blue Ford came to a stop, he made the same left and approached with caution. Carl watched Tremblay climb out of his driver’s seat and run to the front gate of a Victorian that’d been converted into a small apartment building. The gate was swinging when Tremblay went in and he left it that way. Carl double-parked in front and hurried to the gate. He peered through an open door into the dark corridor. He couldn’t see Tremblay or anything else. He’d forgotten his sidearm in the trunk of Peters’ car so he went in without it. Slowly.
He saw the hulking shadow of Tremblay in front of him now, hands on his hips, motionless, with his head down. Carl stepped over the threshold and into the hallway of the apartment.
>
“Tremblay,” he said.
No response.
He tried, “Maurice.”
Tremblay grunted.
He stepped closer and now saw that Tremblay was standing over a body. A fat, shirtless man lay prone in the hall, his head twisted so far to the left that it was almost face down.
“Is he dead?” asked Carl.
Tremblay turned, as though he was hearing Carl for the first time. “What the fuck are you doing here?” Whatever amiability the Maker’s Mark had poured into him was now gone. His words were clipped and snarling. “You fuckin’ following me? You got some sort of cause? Some reason to suspect me of something?” He pointed down at the body before him. “There’s your fuckin’ killer at work…again. You want to stick your fat nose in? Here ya go, ready-made mystery. Solve this one, old man. Let me know how it works out for you.”
“Who was he?”
“Fucking scumbag, that’s who.”
“I mean, who was he to you?”
“A nobody. His name is Joseph Prado. I’m sure you’re gonna learn all about him.”
“Why’d you take off from the restaurant? You flew down here. Somebody warn you this was gonna happen?”
Tremblay looked up and straight at Carl. “What’re we, partners now? Do your own fuckin’ police work.”
“You wanna call this in?”
Tremblay sneered. “You’re the fuckin’ cop.”
“I’m retired.”
“That right? So’m I. Guess that makes two of us that have no business being here. You should clear out before you’re a suspect too.”
“Suspect? I’m a witness,” Carl said. “I’m your alibi. I know you didn’t do this.”
“Nobody’s going to think I did this, believe me.”
They both stood for a moment, breathing and collecting their thoughts. Carl tried another approach. “Look, Maurice, it seems as though we’re lookin’ for the same fella. I just got word that this same fella may be involved in another homicide.”