by Tom Pitts
“Shit, Sofia, you eat pretty good. Think you can whip us up a couple of sandwiches?”
She nodded and started to get up, but Quinn motioned for her to stay seated. “I’ll bring you what you need. You can make ’em right there. Don’t want you reaching for the butcher knife when all you need is a butter knife.”
He pushed the bread toward her, along with the cold cuts. In the refrigerator he found mayonnaise, pickles, and a few other condiments he thought might work and set them on the table. As Sofia began to busy herself, he said, “Where is that butcher knife? Just so we don’t have any misunderstandings.”
Chapter Twenty
Peters felt the van, or whatever it was, pull off the city street into a driveway or parking lot. He heard Alvarez’s voice say, “Bag him.” Then a struggle. Whoever the other hostage was, he was putting up a feeble resistance, pleading, saying, “Don’t put a bag on my head, I’m claustrophobic.” Peters heard a third man laugh, then a hearty slap. The side door slid open and Peters felt the cool rush of San Francisco air—if they were still in San Francisco. He guessed they were, but he couldn’t know for sure.
He was led inside a building. Smells of clean carpet, flowery air freshener, and something else. Doors and hallways. Lots of poking and shoving, no words. They were on hard floor now. Tile or cement. The other smell, the one he couldn’t identify, was stronger. He was pushed into a hard plastic chair and told to wait. Footsteps and the sound of shutting doors. He wondered if they’d left him alone. Then a voice, one he hadn’t heard yet that afternoon, said, low and menacing, “I’m right fucking here, in front of you. I’ve got a gun pointing right at your forehead. You try to get up—try anything—I’m going to shoot you in the head. I’m going to love shooting you in the head. You’re a cop and nothing would make me more happy and proud.”
In the next room, Alvarez said, “Take off the sack.”
Manuel yanked the rice sack from the man’s head.
Alvarez said, “Counselor.”
The pleading began. “Mr. Allen, I had no idea. Mr. McFetridge implied that if anyone were to know about his case, it would jeopardize its success. I was never given the impression that I was somehow colluding against you. I never would have continued if I thought it was going to be a problem.” His voice squeaked with fear and sped up as he talked. “I assure you, I proceeded in good faith. I never had any intention of my work with Mr. McFetridge conflicting with your interests.”
“Is that what you call this? A potential conflict of interest?” Alvarez stood in front of the man, arms folded, eyes unblinking. “What you say makes no sense to me.”
“I assure you, sir—”
Manuel punched the attorney hard in the temple.
Alvarez continued, “I don’t want to hear you say that again. Don’t say ‘I assure you’ when you are lying to me. I know the evidence was bullshit, I know you bribed the court, so don’t act like you’re a good lawyer doing his best to see justice done. That is all bullshit. What I want to know is: how much? When did he pay you, how did he pay you, and how much did he pay you?”
The man was absolutely white now.
Alvarez continued, “The judge was Tanaka. We all know he can be bought, that wormy little fuck. That’s how we sunk Quinn the first time. The DA held out the tape and the alibi and the judge turned his head. A hole in one, he should have never gotten out. You had Tanaka review tainted evidence? You know what that means?”
The man didn’t move, didn’t speak. He didn’t dare.
“It means that you’ve now put a judge’s life on the line. You think I can let this shit go? I pay a man to do a job, and some—” Alvarez’s lip curled up in disgust, “—little shit outbids me? Gets the judge to undo what I paid him to do? I don’t know what kind of business you think we’re in, Counselor, but this kind of thing cannot happen. It cannot.”
The room was silent. The young lawyer seemed to be weighing the seriousness of his captors. Quietly calculating odds.
Alvarez took a single step toward the attorney and said in a near whisper, “Start talking.”
The young man took a deep breath. “You have to understand, I am bound by attorney-client privilege. What Mr. McFetridge entrusted me to do—”
Manuel hit him with a solid punch square in the solar plexus. A huge blast of hot air expelled from the man as he doubled over. A sick, wheezing inhalation followed while he tried sucking air back into his lungs.
“What I understand is: you broke the law. You did it at the behest of Quinn McFetridge. You did it, as far as I am concerned, on my dime. You have now endangered the lives of others, most pointedly, I must say, your own. If you do not start telling me what I want, no, what I need to know, we are first going to torture you and then we are going to kill you. Do you understand?”
He was still doubled over, still trying to suck air back in.
“You have a girlfriend, yes?”
The man couldn’t answer. The single blow from Manuel had completely incapacitated him.
Alvarez turned to a third man seated behind them. This third man sat before a small table with a laptop and a cell phone sitting in front of him. Compared to Manuel, this man was small and thin. He wore wire rimmed glasses pinched on his narrow nose.
“Gutiérrez? What’s the girl’s name?”
Quietly, without lifting his head, Gutiérrez said, “Sally.”
“Sally? Really? How absolutely boring. Sally, ugh.” He asked the lawyer, who still had his head down between his knees, “Is that her name? Sally?”
He found the strength to sit up. He didn’t recognize the third man, but he did recognize his laptop and cell phone sitting in front of him. His chin moved a little. Yes, that was her name.
“She’s got a young daughter too, yes? A seven-year-old I’m told?”
Another small nod.
“She’s not yours, I know, but you have to have some feelings for the child—even though you are a lawyer.” Alvarez paused to snicker at his own joke. “We’ll kill them both. Maybe we’ll keep you alive long enough to learn that we keep our promises, maybe not.”
The young attorney threw up all over his expensive-looking shoes.
***
Teresa said, “I have to go to the bathroom.”
She sat at the table beside the shaky Sofia, who was overcoming her fear just enough to be able to wipe mayonnaise on bread.
“You can wait a minute,” Quinn said.
“No, I really have to go. Right now.”
Quinn looked at Teresa. This was the boldest she’d acted all afternoon. He measured the determination in her eyes. This was the drugs talking. Quinn picked up the .45 and asked Sofia where the shitter was and then, gun in hand, took two steps back toward the hallway. He peeked into the bathroom. One small window above the tub that looked like it’d never been opened. Quinn weighed the risk. She wasn’t looking to escape, he thought, only to get high.
“All right,” he said. “But leave the door open in there.”
She crinkled her eyebrows as if this request were too much.
“I know what you’re going in there for. No need to be shy. Just leave the door open and we won’t have any problems.”
Teresa sneered. Like a teenager being sent to her room, she marched directly toward the bathroom.
Quinn waited several minutes until he heard the water in the bathroom running and then told Sofia to get up.
She looked terrified. “What about your sandwich?”
Quinn switched the .45 to his left hand and picked up the large knife he’d set on the kitchen counter. “You can finish it in a couple of minutes. I need to ask you something and I don’t want the girl to hear. Step into the bedroom, please.” He pointed to an adjoining room with the tip of the butcher knife. “Get in there. This won’t take but a minute.”
She shifted in her chair and started to get up, but then sat back down.
“C’mon,” he said. “We haven’t hurt you so far. Everything’s gonna be okay.”
He could see it in her eyes as she rose from the table. She thought she was about to be raped. Trembling, she backed into the room, her eyes jumping from the knife to Quinn’s white smile.
“It’s okay. Step in there with me. I’m not going to hurt you. Don’t worry. Look, I’m setting the gun down.” He set the pistol on the Formica counter top that stretched nearest to the bedroom door. “See? You’re gonna be fine.”
Sofia got up from the table and circled wide toward the room. She didn’t want to turn her back on Quinn. As soon as Sofia stepped backward over the threshold, Quinn lunged forward with the knife. She was ready for him. Her hands flew up, deflecting the thrust of the knife. The blade sliced her palm but missed its target: her heart.
He stepped back with the knife. She began to cry out. With one sweeping motion, Quinn leaned in and drew the blade across her throat, slashing it deep. Her cries now became something else, something animal. Pathetic. She fell to her knees and Quinn, with an underhand swing, took aim again at her chest. This time he struck her right where he needed. She fell backward, knife still wedged in her ribcage. Her heart had stopped; she was dead.
Quinn stood above her, breathing hard from the intensity. He’d almost blown it. The kill was nearly fumbled. Too much noise, too much struggle.
When he turned, Teresa was standing in the kitchen doorway, staring into the bedroom, gaping at Sofia’s body on the floor. It was a mess. Throat slashed, limbs askew, the black-handled butcher knife still sticking straight up.
“What…what…what did you do?”
Quinn stepped into the doorjamb, obscuring Teresa’s view, reached over to the counter and picked up his gun. “Sit down,” he said. “She was never gonna make it anyway. Besides, you got some phone calls to make. I didn’t want her thinkin’ we were running up her bill.” Quinn nodded at Teresa’s left sleeve rolled up above her elbow. “You finish your business in there?”
Teresa sat down on the same chair she sat in before going to the bathroom. She looked shattered, shocked. The reality of the situation was breaking through her newly applied medication. She looked like she was about to be sick.
“Get a hold of yourself, girl. Don’t go all rubbery on me. We still got some chores to do.”
“What about…” She cupped her forehead with her hands. “What about her husband?”
Quinn laughed. “There is no husband. You kidding? She was just trying to make me think twice about killing her. You think a woman who has a husband buys shit like this?” He pointed his gun at the groceries spread across the table. “No steak? No beer? She’s alone in the world. Or at least she was.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Alvarez and his two henchmen waited for the man to finish his dry-heaves. When he was done, Manuel yanked him by his hair back into an upright position.
Alvarez said, “While you were wallowing in self-pity, we found out a couple of things. Gutiérrez, tell him.”
Gutiérrez said, “The girl goes to Montessori on Pacific. Expensive. Mr. Wallace here has several bank accounts. He cashes his checks at Wells Fargo. He’s got two savings accounts with Bank of America, but his real treasure is out of the country. In an Austrian account. Can’t tell how much is in that one, but there’s only one reason people have those accounts.”
“Austrian? Smart,” Alvarez said. “People put too much faith in those Swiss accounts. You want to keep a secret from the government, you got to use an Austrian account, eh, Mr. Wallace? How much is in there?”
The man looked at Alvarez like he didn’t understand the question. Manuel took a step toward him and he said, “A little over half a million.”
“Five hundred thousand dollars? After Judge Tanaka’s cut? Not bad. Where do you think some piece of shit sitting in a prison cell got that kind of money?”
The man’s voice was raspy, sullen. “I don’t know.”
“How did he get it to you?”
“A transfer, I got the account numbers from a guy he sent by the office.”
“Ooh, how very cloak and dagger. Just like in the movies, eh? Who was this guy?”
“Seth Friedlander. He’s a reporter for the Chronicle.”
“A reporter?” Alvarez’s words choked in his mouth. He was not prepared for such a surprise. “Why would a reporter be running errands for a murderer?”
Wallace said, “I don’t know. Quinn had a deal with him. Some kind of big story he promised. Seth told me his career was going to be made. He’d break the story, write the book, be famous. He wanted to be the next Bob Woodward, I guess. I dunno. I thought he was full of shit because he wouldn’t tell me what the story was. The guy seemed coked up a lot or something. He started coming to the office, stinking like alcohol, asking when I was getting Quinn out.”
Alvarez turned to Gutiérrez and said something in Spanish.
Gutiérrez said, “We got emails. Plenty of them. Last one was in January. Gimme a second to read through these.”
Alvarez said to Manuel, “Mierda, where the fuck is Tremblay? Call him and tell him we got someone else to grab now.”
***
Tremblay was sitting in his car on 30th Avenue in the Richmond District with a new bottle of Maker’s Mark between his legs and his baggie of cocaine in his hand. He scooped a key-load into each nostril, inhaling deeply. He pinched his nose and leaned back against the headrest. His phone began ringing. One of Alvarez’s numbers. He let it ring.
He worried he’d said too much to the old cop. Was his plan going to work? He tried going over exactly what he’d said, but his mind was cluttered. He wasn’t sure if he told him too much—or not enough. How much was too much? He took a pull off the Maker’s. He wasn’t sure if he even had a plan. He only knew that he hated Richard Alvarez, hated Quinn. He’d be happy when they were both dead.
The phone stopped ringing. It lay quiet for a moment and started ringing again.
***
“What do you mean you don’t know the number?”
Quinn sat across from Teresa at the dead woman’s kitchen table. He was eating the rest of the sandwich she’d made him. He took big, voracious bites.
Teresa had her head in her hands and elbows on the table. “I mean I don’t know it. I forgot it. I don’t call him, not ever.”
“You better reach in that pocket fulla drugs you got and find one that makes you remember, kid. I need to make that call. That’s why we’re here.”
“What am I supposed to tell him?” Her voice was cracking now, breaking with emotion. She began to hyperventilate.
“Don’t worry, I’ll tell you what to say. Calm down and catch your breath. Jesus.”
Quinn leaned back in his chair and looked at the girl. Fucked up, on drugs. What a mess. She looked so small, so pale. Alvarez sure did a shitty job raising her. He reached in his pocket for his cigarettes and offered Teresa one. “Relax and think. Go to the phone and just start dialing. It’ll come to you.”
She took the cigarette. Her hand was shaking badly. She looked like she had palsy.
Quinn said, “Tell you what. Why don’t you go back into that bathroom, calm yourself down a little with whatever you got in your bag of tricks, then we’ll talk about making this phone call.”
She nodded.
He smiled his most reassuring smile and said, “Go on, now. Time’s a wastin’.” It was true. He didn’t want Sofia’s body to get too cold.
***
Peters sat listening. At first there was almost no sound. Then he could make out the faintest conversation. He was sure he heard Alvarez’s voice. Then everything went quiet again. This gave him an opportunity to focus on his other senses. With the bag still on his head, he could only do one thing: try to figure out what that strange smell was. It reminded him of something. Trying to separate the scent of his own breath, the strong façade of flowered air freshener, he was left with that chemical. What chemical? It was almost a burning scent. He felt it in his nose. The memory finally floated up: high school. Biology class.
The smell was formaldehyde. Embalming fluids. He was sitting in some kind of makeshift morgue. Or a funeral home.
His stomach sank. The possibilities rushed to him. The ease of body disposal. The probability there were already bodies all around him. The man owned restaurants. Panzer didn’t say anything about funeral homes. His sinking stomach told him he’d most likely never leave this room.
A squeak of footsteps sounded on the floor and the rice sack was pulled from his head. The shock of florescent light hit his eyes. He blinked and squinted and took in his surroundings.
The man who had taken his hood said nothing. He walked away into an adjoining room and shut the door behind him.
After a minute, the door opened again and Alvarez walked out.
“Officer Peters. Still with us, are you?”
“Where am I? Where’s Carl?”
“You’re deep in the bowels of McGovern’s funeral parlor. So deep that the only way out is to get shit out. As for your partner, who knows? I was just going to call him and ask. Maybe you’d like to speak to him? You two have a spot picked out to meet up in case either of you get lost?”
The man who’d first left the room walked back in and whispered something in Alvarez’s ear. Alvarez said something back in Spanish. The man disappeared back out of the room. Alvarez kept his eyes locked on Peters. There was a gunshot. The flat slap sound of a 9mm. It echoed high and quick throughout the space. The corners of Alvarez’s mouth curled upward.
A minute later, the other man, and the bodyguard Peters had seen at Alvarez’s home, and later at the restaurant, came in carrying a body. The big bodyguard supported the body underneath by wedging his forearms into the armpits and the smaller man struggled with the feet. They laid the dead man out on the floor, flat on his back, right beside Peters. It was for him. They were showing what they could do.