“Mickey!” he shouted. This wasn’t me, so it must have been the kid crab-walking backward to get out from under my foot. It seemed impolite to stomp him in front of company, so I backed off and let Mickey get to his feet. He wasn’t a midget after all, just a Chinese kid of maybe sixteen. The jacket indicated that he belonged to some sort of gang.
Fong found a place to unload the groceries and came back from the kitchen. But it wasn’t the same Fong I’d met yesterday. The woolly blue suit and knitted tie were gone. In their place was a pair of beautifully faded Levis, a matching jacket and a bright yellow T-shirt.
Even his hair was different. The missionary cut had been replaced by something spiky and random, as if he’d combed his hair with a Turkish towel. He was still too clean-cut to look scruffy, but he looked like a Bible student’s version of hip, and you had to give him credit for trying. The only sign of his calling was a small silver cross dangling on a chain outside his T-shirt.
Fong opened his mouth to say something, but the kid beat him to it: “He broke in, Gabe,” Mickey said. “He was after Fsui-tang. I had to jump him. He—”
“It’s okay, Mickey,” Fong said soothingly. “This is Mr. Goodey. He’s a friend of mine. In fact, this is his apartment. Why don’t you go in and sit with Fsui-tang for a while? Mr. Goodey and I want to have a talk.”
Mickey slunk toward the bedroom, giving me unclean looks, and closed the door firmly behind him. He knew who belonged in my apartment.
Fong walked into the kitchen—my kitchen—and put the percolator over a gas burner. “You’ll have some coffee?” he called over his shoulder.
“Yeah,” I said, sitting down on my couch and picking up a Chinese magazine from the old coffee table some nut had made by encrusting a door with seashells, buttons, bits of glass, and other rubbish.
Fong came out of the kitchen with two cups of coffee. “It’s quite a surprise to see you back so soon, Mr. Goodey.”
“I can imagine,” I said. “You’re a bit of a surprise yourself.” He laughed shyly and looked down at his clothes.
“Oh,” he said, “these are my work clothes.”
“I thought you were a theology student, not a cowboy,” I said, but he didn’t look like a cowboy, either, despite the high-heeled, tooled leather boots he was wearing.
“I am, Mr. Goodey,” he said. “I am. But the biggest part of my ministry is here in the streets of North Beach.” He hunched himself a little closer to me and took a tight grip on his coffee cup. I was in for a lecture. So I took a deep swig of coffee and leaned back.
“You see, Mr. Goodey,” he started, “I—”
“Call me Joe,” I said. “It’s a lot less syllables.”
“All right, Joe,” he said. “And you call me Gabe.” I promised with my eyes, and he went on. “You see, for the first time the Chinese population of San Francisco is faced with a serious problem—what you might call a generation gap. Chinese families have traditionally been very close, very patriarchal. And the children have, quite happily, I think, remained subordinate to their parents until they were old enough to start their own families. Chinese juvenile delinquents were almost unheard of.”
What he said made sense. In fifteen years on the force I’d seen very few Chinese lads in trouble, and I’d never arrested one myself. “But,” I said, to get him started again.
“But recently,” he said, “the youth of Chinatown seem to have changed. They seem to have lost respect for their parents and the old ways. They’re breaking away from the family, going out on their own, and getting into all kinds of trouble: crime, drugs, exploitation by adults.”
“Just like white kids, eh?” I said.
He grinned shyly. “Yes, just like white kids. But my mission, Mr.—Joe, is to see if I can help the ones who will let me.”
“Like little Lotus Bud there in my bed?” I asked.
“Yes. Fsui-tang. That’s all I know about her—her name. But it’s obvious that somebody’s been using her very badly. Mickey brought her to me last night. I met him down on Grant Avenue last week, but he told me what to do with myself in no uncertain terms. I didn’t want to push it too hard, so I left him alone. But last night the bell rang, and there he was—with Fsui-tang. He brought her in only after I promised that there’d be no police, no doctor, no anybody. I’d appreciate it, Joe, if you’d promise not to tell anybody that you saw her here.”
“That’s easy,” I said. “I’m rarely asked if I’ve seen a teenaged Chinese dope fiend. What’s wrong with her, anyway? I mean, besides the bad habit of sticking needles in her arm?”
“Nothing, so far as I can tell,” Fong said. “I’m no doctor, but I think she’s just exhausted. She’s been asleep most of the time since Mickey brought her here. We’ll have to see after she wakes up.”
“How do you know he’s not her pimp?” I asked, “and has just brought her around here for a nice rest?”
“I don’t,” he said, but I could see that the idea hurt him. “Even if that’s so, it’s what I’m here for—to help girls like her and boys like Mickey.”
“Good luck,” I said. “But if you turn your back, don’t be surprised to find a knife in it.”
Fong didn’t say anything, just looked sad at my cynicism. “And,” I said, “there’s another small problem. As you may have noticed, I seem to be back. My plans for the next six months have changed somewhat. But, in spite of this, I do remember signing Lum Kee’s subletting contract, which I am positive is watertight, not to say hermetically sealed. Nonetheless—”
“Oh, I wouldn’t think of holding you to that, Joe,” Fong said with a big smile. “It wouldn’t be a Christian thing to do.” I could have argued with that statement, but I was too relieved not to find myself homeless.
“However,” Fong went on, “you can understand that I need a place to stay too.” He looked hopeful. “Do you think it’s possible, Joe, that we could share the apartment while I’m at the Bible College?”
“You mean you, me and these underaged bandits you drag off the street?” I asked.
“Sometimes, maybe,” he said. “But I don’t plan to turn this into a boarding house for delinquents as a regular thing. When Fsui-tang is stronger, I’ll have to find someplace for her to live.”
“Where? And how soon?”
“I haven’t any idea,” he said. He gave me that hopeful smile again. “But in the meantime, do you think you could use the smaller bedroom? I noticed that there’s an old single bed in there. Mickey and Lee could help me set it up, and—”
“Lee? Who the hell is Lee?”
“A friend of Mickey’s from Grant Avenue,” Fong said. “He helps Mickey take care of Fsui-tang.”
“Yeah,” I said. “The small room will be fine for me. I expect to be pretty busy for a while and might not be using it all that much anyway.”
“That’s great,” he said with relief. “If it’s okay with you, we’ll split the rent fifty-fifty. I was a bit worried about paying the whole $225 myself anyway.”
“Two twenty-five,” I said. “Do you mean that old bastard is trying to charge you two hundred and twenty-five bucks a month for this joint? His own nephew?”
“That’s what he said. Why?”
“Because the rent of this apartment is $130 a month. That’s why. No more. That makes your share $65, plus gas and electricity. And phone. You just give me the $65, and I’ll take care of your revered uncle.”
“That’ll be just fine with me,” said Fong. “It really was deplorable of Uncle Lum to raise the rent on me.”
“Deplorable is not the word I would have used. But you just leave Shylock to me. I’ll sort him out.”
Time was passing, and I wasn’t any closer to starting to find out who had punctured Tina D’Oro. I didn’t think I’d find out in this nest of tiny Chinese delinquents, so I told Fong I’d see him around and left the apartment. There was somebody named Irma—Miss Irma Springler—who, I thought, might be interesting to have a talk with.
I c
ame down the front steps, intending to walk over to Broadway and Columbus. I pointed my nose in that direction, but as I was passing Lum Kee’s shop, I heard a loud hissing noise. I knew it wasn’t me, so I looked in through the doorway. There was the old crook himself lurking in the shadows and sounding like a leaking gas main.
“Sssssss, Mr. Goodey,” he said, making a beckoning motion. “One moment, please. Come in, come in.”
He hadn’t called me Mr. Goodey since he’d decided I wasn’t needed anymore, and I’d decided I still liked the apartment. “What do you want, you old bandit?” I asked, walking into the shop. Lum Kee was standing behind the counter, wringing his hands like the mother in East Lynne. He was obviously suffering great mental pain, I was pleased to see.
“Mr. Goodey, Mr. Goodey,” he moaned, “I’m so glad to see you back. You must help me. That nephew of mine.”
“What about him?” I asked, prolonging the torture.
“He’s trying to ruin me,” the old fraud crooned, “filling my lovely apartment with the dregs of Grant Avenue. Drug addicts, prostitutes, gangsters. You must help me get him out. I’ll do anything you say. I’ll even reduce your rent if only you’ll help me.”
“How much will you cut my rent if I give Fong the bum’s rush?” I wanted to find out just how anxious Lum was.
His bright little eyes clouded over with cunning. I could almost hear the figures brushing past one another as they tumbled through his head.
“If it will help,” I said, “I’ll wait while you go get your abacus.” He didn’t even hear me. The magic subject of money had wafted him to a different, higher plane. But he was coming back again, and he fixed me with an eager look.
“Ten dollars a month,” he said as if he were offering me the Kohinoor diamond, gift wrapped. “I’ll cut your rent to $120 a month if you persuade my nephew to move somewhere else. That’s a very good deal, Mr. Goodey. An apartment like that—those marvelous views—is worth at least—”
“Two twenty-five?” I asked. “Do you think that would be a fair rent to charge, say, someone from out of town, someone from across the sea who didn’t know what a rotten little fleabag like that was worth? Let’s say a not-so-distant relative who’d come to San Francisco to become a man of God.”
Lum Kee’s mouth went hard. He knew I had tumbled his little con. He didn’t say anything, just crossed his flabby old arms across his ink-stained black vest and stared at me.
“Honestly, Lum Kee,” I said, “I could understand you trying to cheat me, not only an infidel dog but a copper. But to try to do your own sister Pansy’s youngest boy, that really shocks me.”
“One fifteen,” he said, cutting through my bullshit in the only language he trusted, “and I’ll paint the whole apartment for you. That’s my bottom offer.”
“Don’t tempt me to tell you what to do with your bottom offer, Lum Kee,” I said. “The kid stays, and you get the same old $130 a month. If he wants to raise turkeys up there, it’s okay by me. I’ll take that extra ninety-five bucks you charged him out of next month’s rent, and if you think you can get any place waving that phony contract around, go ahead and try it.”
I left him leaning against his counter, making a mouth like a broken piggy bank, and started walking downhill toward Broadway. I didn’t expect Lum to accept defeat gracefully, but he’d be quiet for a while, thinking up a counterattack. God knows what he’d come up with next. Maybe a typhoid epidemic.
8
It was getting well on toward evening as I reached Broadway and turned toward the hub of North Beach. At that hour the whores and other starlets were having breakfast; the pimps, who’d been up and hustling for at least three hours, were having lunch; and the honest citizens, who’d just closed their shops, were having dinner. Ranked in doorways in side streets, the Tokay Brigade was augmenting its liquid diet with more liquid.
At The Jungle, a retired hubcap thief in an oversized doorman’s coat was shooing black kids away from the display pictures out front. Tina’s name was still on the marquee in eighteen-inch letters with the word tonight! There was a lot of sentiment on North Beach. A lot of heart.
“Business as usual, eh?” I asked the doorman.
“Huh?” he said, aiming a last sharp-toed kick at one of the dodging kids.
“Is Fat Phil around?”
The doorman, a man of few words, jerked a dirty thumb toward the interior of The Jungle and went back to examining his life for the exact moment he’d gone wrong.
I started to push open the door but then paused.
“Too bad about Tina,” I said.
“Huh?” he said.
“If you can perfect that routine,” I told him, “you’ll be up on the stage inside instead of bruising your insteps out here.” I went in and closed the double door behind me before he could get off his famous rejoinder. He could wear out that act if he didn’t watch it.
The inside of The Jungle looked like a bad interior for Tarzan Goes on the Bottle. But then I suppose darkness and seven or eight watered drinks would lend a certain amount of verisimilitude to the tired plastic foliage and stuffed animals. Up over the bar was the tiny jungle clearing where Tina had done most of her shaking. But she’d swung on her last vine.
In front of the bar, taking up two stools and part of a third was Fat Phil Franks, front man for The Jungle and Tina’s former manager. It had made big headlines in San Francisco late last year when Tina and Phil had split the managerial blanket. It doesn’t take much to make headlines in San Francisco. But she’d stayed on at The Jungle. Phil had lost his fifteen percent, and now he’d lost his headliner.
I walked up to the back of his neck—a flabby tree trunk with a five-dollar haircut—and said: “It’s kind of you, Phil, to keep Tina’s name up in lights. She’d have been all choked up at that kind of sentiment.”
Instead of waiting for him to turn around—that could have taken all evening at the rate he moved his three hundred and seventy-five pounds—I moved up to the bar to his right where he could swivel his neck at me without doing any serious damage to his system. I allowed him three or four bar stools for overflow and took a seat.
“Oh, hi,” he said. “Yeah, I thought it was the least I could do for poor Tina. I’m leaving her up there until after the funeral—as a mark of respect.”
“When’s that?”
“Tomorrow afternoon,” he said.
“You going?”
“If I can,” he said sadly. “But you know how hard it is for me to get around. I’d really like to. I wasn’t even able to go up to her place when they found her.” With his weight and overworked heart, Phil hadn’t been above the ground floor of any building since he’d topped three hundred pounds. “But I’m sending a blanket of three thousand gardenias to the funeral. From me and The Jungle.”
“Touching,” I said. “But tell me something. How can you leave Tina’s name on the marquee and not give the suckers any Tina? Don’t they get irate when they’re getting some second stringer instead?”
Fat Phil parted his face in a smile that would have been terrifying on a man half his size. “Movies,” he said. “The best of Tina D’Oro in sixteen-millimeter living color. Wide screen.”
“You’re a genius, Phil,” I said. “How long do you think you can get away with that?”
“Long enough,” he said, taking a long slurp of something vile and sickly from a tall glass, “for me to get my replacement for Tina ready to go on stage. God forbid I should speak ill of the dead, Joe,” he said, “but this girl is going to make Tina look like a cub scout.”
“That’s wonderful,” I said. “You’re going to be the fattest millionaire in the world. But I didn’t come here to watch you turn Tina’s death into your next fortune. I’m trying to locate someone called Irma Springler. A friend of Tina’s. Do you know where I can find her?”
“You working on this case?” he asked, his dark-chocolate eyes growing wise. “I would have thought that after zapping Kolchik’s cousin you’d be lo
w man on the sewers squad.”
“You’ll think a lot of things before you’re done, Phil,” I said. I leaned over toward him and got confidential. “Don’t tell a soul, but I’m up for promotion. The mayor never did like his cousin. He thanked me personally for perforating the old geezer. If I’d been just a little better shot, I’d be a captain right this minute.”
“Sure,” Phil said. “Right after I win the Kentucky Derby. On foot. What were we talking about?”
“Irma Springler.”
“I’ve seen her around,” Phil said. “What do you want to talk to her about?”
“Things, Phil,” I said. “Just things. I’m enjoying this chat an awful lot, but unless you can be just a bit more helpful, I’m going to have to go outside and talk with a lamppost. Do you know one that might know where Irma Springler lives?”
“Well,” he said, “she lives over on Union—the 400 block—but I don’t think she’s home now.”
“Let me take the risk. I can handle it. But the 400 block of Union is quite long, Phil. Do you think you could narrow it down a little?”
“It’s either 416 or 461,” he said. “But you’re wasting your time going over there.”
“I can afford it,” I said. “Don’t get up. I’ll see myself out.” I left him working hard over that tall glass. Just before I opened the door, I stopped and leaned toward his massive back. “By the way, Phil,” I said, “you don’t have any idea who killed Tina, do you?”
If he answered, I didn’t hear it.
Phil was right. Number 461 turned out to be a Victorian shambles with a slight lean toward Russian Hill, and a postbox name plate said “I. Springler, 4B.” He was right on another count. After I puffed up four steep flights and leaned on the bell of 4B, nobody answered. I clouted the door a couple of times in case I. Springler was a little deaf. But all that got me was a sour look from her neighbor in 4C, a stringy old lady with the long lower lip and sparse beard of a nanny goat, who leaned out of her door and gave me a high, hard one out of her good eye.
The Triple Shot Box (Goodey's Last Stand, Not Sleeping Just Dead & Fighting Back): Three Gritty Crime Novels Page 5