Not Exactly a Brahmin

by Susan Dunlap

  “Charm, love, sex?”

  “Lois wasn’t easily charmed.”

  Nina seemed certain, but that didn’t mean Lois hadn’t been having an affair with Cap; it just showed that Nina couldn’t see any logic to it. But sensible, frugal Nina was not Lois.

  Jeffrey’s breath was still shallow, his face red. Nina’s calm hadn’t affected him at all.

  “Sam Nguyen?” I demanded.

  “Sam?”

  “You worked as a mechanic when you arrived in Berkeley. You knew Sam then, right?”

  “Yes. Everyone in the business knew Sam.”

  “What is Sam’s racket, Jeffrey?”

  “He’s a good mechanic, the best.”

  “He’s doing more than tuning engines. What is it, Jeffrey? Why are the drug dealers so interested in Sam Nguyen?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know.” He looked panicked. “Sam made over cars, that’s all.”

  Nina jumped up, rushed over to him, and put her arm around his shoulder. Jeffrey sighed. “It is all,” she said.

  Maybe it was all, I thought as I drove back to the station. I recalled Sam Nguyen standing in the repair shop and telling me “secret cargo space—no problem.” He might deny any knowledge of what would go into those compartments, but we could probably haul him in on conspiracy the next time we busted one of his customers like Leon Evans. And once his business was common knowledge, once every police force kept an eye on his vehicles, the Leon Evanses of the world would keep away—or worse—lots worse.

  But where did Sam Nguyen fit in with Shareholders Five?

  CHAPTER 23

  THE LAST TIME I had seen Carol Grogan, she had been dressed in a T-shirt and sweat pants, sitting amongst an avalanche of plastic trucks and blocks in her living room. But this afternoon, for a trip to the police station, she wore a tan wraparound skirt, plaid blouse with roll-up sleeves, stockings, and stacked heels—her library clothes. She had made a passing effort at makeup, but it wasn’t the right effect for her unusual features. Rather than accenting their charm, it brought out their peculiarity. Her expression was anything but attractive as she sat down in the interview booth.

  “Dustin and Jason get out of day care in an hour,” she announced angrily.

  “The more quickly you answer my questions, the earlier you can leave. Day-care centers don’t turn children out on the street if their parents are a few minutes late.”

  “They charge extra. That’s all I need right now.”

  “You gave Lois five thousand dollars. She was to pay you two thousand every year. Did she pay off on schedule?”

  “It wasn’t illegal.”

  “I’m not saying it was. I’d just be surprised if Lois kept her end of the deal.”

  “You and everyone else by now. Oh, the first year she was right there on time. The second year it was just a little late. But by the third year, it was six months late and a thousand dollars short. And this year, zip.”

  “Is that why you had her to dinner, to demand your money?”

  “It’s what I had in mind. But it didn’t take long for her to convince me that I had no power to demand from. When I threatened to go to Ralph, she laughed. She said Ralph knew. He understood her part.”

  “Did you believe her?”

  “Oh yeah. Lois had a way with men, particularly with Ralph Palmerston. After all, if he hadn’t been so fascinated with her in the beginning, he could have hired someone to check into her background. It wouldn’t have taken much to discover that there was nothing behind her fancy address and her Mercedes. But Ralph didn’t do that. Even then, he didn’t want to know. There was no reason he should want to know now.”

  That made sense. I asked, “Are you going to sell your house?”

  She clutched the strap of the big imitation leather purse on her lap. Her mouth twitched. She seemed on the verge of tears. “If I can work it out with the holder of the second mortgage, I will. You know you can lose everything by not paying your second.”

  “But it’s more than just selling a house, isn’t it?”

  She looked down at the purse.

  I said gently, “You won’t be able to get another house, will you?”

  She didn’t respond.

  “And for all this you have Cap Danziger to blame.” When she hesitated, I said, “And when you and your kids are jammed into a tiny apartment, Cap will marry Lois and live off the Palmieri Winery.”

  Her eyes closed. She seemed to be considering the premise.

  “They’ve been having an affair, haven’t they, Carol?”

  Now she looked up. “If they were lovers, they wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Your idea was for you to be the one to marry money, wasn’t it?” I prompted.

  Momentarily she looked surprised. “If Cap had listened to me, we wouldn’t have had any problems. If I’d been married to Ralph Palmerston, I wouldn’t have told him all my secrets when I heard he was going blind. Christ, if Lois didn’t have any decency, at least she could have used some sense. I never thought she’d be so bubble-headed. Cool, calm Lois. How could she do such a stupid thing?”

  It wasn’t what I would have expected of Lois either. But Lois hadn’t said she had brought up the subject. She’d said Ralph asked her about her childhood, her boyfriends, her lovers, and her debts. Her debts were an odd inclusion in the otherwise emotional subjects. Why would Ralph have asked not if she had debts, but whom she owed, unless he already knew she owed money? Had someone told Ralph about Shareholders Five? Had that been the initial reason he hired Herman Ott—to find out if his wife was involved with the five?

  Certainly none of the Shareholders would have told Ralph. Only someone who wanted to get even with one of them would. Someone like Sam Nguyen.

  By the time Carol Grogan left, it was well after five o’clock. I had no address for Sam Nguyen. It was Saturday, and Trent Cadillac was closed by now. The only place I knew that Sam might be was the Bien Hoa restaurant.

  I signed out and headed for my car three blocks away. At dusk, with stores emptying out and afternoon parties ending, the sidewalks were filled with clowns, ballerinas, hobos, and robots.

  I crossed the street and hurried down the block past the child-care center with its alluring white curb. Inside the gate, an angel holding her mother’s hand walked toward the street. Two small, painted faces looked out the window hopefully. Costumed party-goers straggled across crosswalks, as if protected from harm by their sheets and spangles.

  I could picture Sam Nguyen telling Ralph Palmerston about Shareholders Five. In my mind, I could see the short, dark-haired mechanic in his white overalls, leaning toward the tall, gray-haired Palmerston. I could see Palmerston’s blue eyes with the same shocked expression they had had in death. And I could imagine Palmerston finding a detective to check out Sam Nguyen’s bizarre story.

  I unlocked my car door, climbed in, and started the engine.

  But how would Sam have known about Shareholders Five? He and Cap Danziger had been friends. Had Cap told him? Had he laughed about his great scheme? But then why would Sam expose him?

  I pulled into traffic.

  Then it came to me—friendship and good intentions were a rare commodity in Lois Palmerston’s associates. And just as Ralph Palmerston had not been doing “something nice” for the Shareholders, it made sense that Cap and Sam were not friends now. Maybe they had never really been friends, although, according to Jake Trent, Sam Nguyen had intervened to save Cap’s job on more than one occasion. I’d have to ponder that later. But what I could be sure of was that if Sam and Cap weren’t friends, Cap would not have revealed the Shareholders Five scheme to Sam. Damn! How did he find out, if not from Cap?

  I slammed on the brakes, barely missing a devil’s pitchfork.

  Finding Sam Nguyen at the Bien Hoa and forcing him to tell me was a long shot. But it was my only shot.

  It took me half an hour to make my way into Oakland’s Chinatown, an area of hole-in-the-wall cafés and larger, plastic-fron
ted restaurants. Ten years ago it had been almost totally Chinese, but now the Chinese restaurants were interspersed with Thai, Cambodian, and Vietnamese. Refugee agencies worked out of storefronts. In the daytime it was crowded with old women in loose batik garments, children in bright polyester jumping the gap from their ancestral lives to American ways. But after dusk, urban Oakland was like the inner city anywhere.

  The Bien Hoa Vietnamese Restaurant was one storefront wide. There had to be more than fifty customers crowded together inside. The steam from the kitchen filled the room and opaqued the windows.

  I made my way between tables to the formica counter at the back where the cash register sat. Before the small, young woman behind it could speak, I showed her my shield.

  Warily, she said, “Yes?”

  I would have to approach my need for Sam Nguyen’s address obliquely. “Sam Nguyen, the mechanic, eats lunch here, doesn’t he?”

  “Sam Nguyen.” She smiled, then looked even more nervous.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Sam Nguyen told me he eats lunch here.”

  She nodded.

  “Every day?”

  “Every day he works.”

  Good—every workday. “Does he come at the same time every day?”

  “Oh yes. Always he arrives here at twenty minutes after one o’clock. We have his masseuse waiting. We are preparing his special dishes. We have his special dishes ready when he is relaxed—after his masseuse. We are waiting for him. He would not disappoint.”

  I smiled. This restaurant sounded like Sam’s second home. If anyone knew where his real home was, they would be here. “This week, has Sam Nguyen been here at twenty after one every workday?”

  “Oh yes, every day.”

  “Thank you.” I made a show of turning toward the door, stopped suddenly, and turned back. “There’s one more thing I need to ask him. Can you give me his address?”

  She shrank back. “I do not know that.”

  “Where does he live? Near here?”

  She shook her head. “I see him only at lunch. He drives here in a big car, I do not know from where.”

  Obviously my approach had not been oblique enough. Behind me the restaurant had grown quiet. I considered pressing harder, but I knew I’d get nothing out of this close immigrant community. By now someone had probably moved silently out the back door and was running to warn Sam. Even if I could get his address, he would be gone.

  But maybe I could find his other friends. “Who does Sam eat with?”

  She brightened. “Sometimes he brings a man, with light hair, in a light suit. A tall man. From where he works.”

  Cap Danziger. “Recently?”

  “Not so much. More times two, three years ago.”

  That fit my theory that they were no longer really friends. “Anyone else?”

  “A woman. She comes with the man two times.”

  Carol Grogan? “What did she look like?”

  “Light hair, tall, thin—like a model.”

  “Was her hair caught in combs at the sides of her head?”

  “Yes, yes.” She nodded enthusiastically.

  Lois Palmerston! “You said they came two times—when?”

  “One time was last month. One was before.”

  “Thanks.” I turned and walked back to my car smiling. So Sam Nguyen didn’t need to know about Shareholders Five. He only needed to see Cap Danziger with the young wife of a rich customer and put two and two together. To Cap and Lois the lunches—meals in a crowded, hardly romantic Vietnamese restaurant—would have been innocent affairs, or at least occasions when they thought they were disguising any mutual attraction. But Sam Nguyen would not have been fooled. Then he would have told Ralph Palmerston his wife was having a fling. And Ralph would have hired Herman Ott not to look into Shareholders Five, but to find out if his wife was unfaithful. That was exactly the sleazy type of case Ott would be chosen for. And in checking out Lois and Cap, Herman Ott would have come upon Shareholders Five.

  It all fit. It explained why Cap Danziger would kill Ralph Palmerston.

  But Cap had an alibi for the time of the sabotage to the car. It was Sam Nguyen who had had the opportunity to puncture the brake lines. And Sam Nguyen had no motive. He’d already told him his wife could be having an affair; there was no point in killing him.

  CHAPTER 24

  IT WAS JUST AFTER eight when I got to Pereira’s apartment. Connie opened the door. Her blond hair curled around her face. A gold tiara sat atop her head. And her ball dress, a scooped-necked white bouffant with pink roses on the hip flounces, hung down to the floor. When she stepped back, the hoop skirt swayed and I could see her plastic shoes—her glass slippers.

  “You really look like Cinderella, Connie,” I said as I dragged my own costume over my head.

  “And you,” she said, looking at my green monk’s robe, “are an interesting Fairy Godmother. Here’s your pumpkin and your magic wand.”

  “It’s going to take more than a magic wand to get all of your dress into my car.”

  We made our way out, Pereira navigating her hoop skirt, me carrying the pumpkin and wand. When she finally squeezed the hoop and the dress into the car and was propped against the seat, clutching both sides of the hoop so I could reach the gear stick, she said, “What about Howard’s costume? Did you discover what it is?”

  “I have an idea.”

  “Well?”

  “It seems like Howard has been spending an awful lot of time with Leon Evans in the last few days, doesn’t it? He had Evans at the station yesterday morning. He was at Evans’s apartment for a couple hours in the afternoon. He’s complained about him to all of us. And by now we all know who Leon Evans is and what he looks like, right?”

  Connie grinned. “So you think he’s coming as Leon Evans?”

  “It fits. I was sure his disguise would be connected to something important to him. Evans symbolizes his promotion.”

  Connie’s grin grew wider. “I can hardly wait to see Howard in skintight red silk pants.”

  “Hi! Wow!” What appeared to be a mound of leaves opened Howard’s door. At closer inspection, the leaves were pasted to a sheet that hung over an egg-shaped frame. Halfway down the front there was a sign saying COMPOST HEAP. It had to be Howard’s roommate Ellis, a horticulture student at Cal. He was looking at Pereira.

  Ellis stood back, his dark eyes staring out holes between leaves as Pereira maneuvered the hoop skirt in through the door. Between Ellis’s ovoid pile and Connie’s skirt, they filled the entire entryway. Clutching my pumpkin, I followed them in.

  Across the room I spotted Howard, red curls snapping out beneath his uniform hat. He wasn’t Leon Evans. He wasn’t even close. He wasn’t in costume at all. He was just in his old patrol officer uniform. I couldn’t believe it—after our bet and all his goading, he’d copped out—literally—on the whole thing. Furious, I started toward him.

  He turned, facing me. He wasn’t even Howard! He was just a tall guy with a red wig and a mask dressed in the khaki uniform. I tried to place the body—one of the guys at work? One of Howard’s other roommates? But I couldn’t tell.

  The house was a huge brown-shingled affair, with six bedrooms upstairs and a balcony that led to them overlooking the living room. It was suitable only for six single guys and as many roommates as they chose to have, or one very large and wealthy family. Now the living room was packed. There had to be a hundred people here. Music bounced off the walls. In the middle of the room, cleared for a dance floor, ghosts were shaking their sheets, a cigarette girl leaned on a magician, and Howard danced with Howard.

  “Drink?” the front end of a horse asked.

  “Sure,” Pereira answered.

  “Gangway, gangway,” the half-horse called, leading us across the floor.

  As I passed by the pair of dancing Howards, I realized that the Howard with its back to me was a woman, a black woman, who had been with the last training class for two months before deciding to get a master’s de
gree instead.

  She’d said it was bad enough to be a six-foot woman without being a cop, too.

  “Mind if I stash this here?” I asked, plopping my pumpkin on the food table. To Pereira, I said, “Why didn’t you get me a plastic pumpkin, one of the ones with the little tin handles?”

  “Verisimilitude. It’s important.”

  “Maybe you overdid it on that. Tell me about verisimilitude two hours from now when you’re still driving that dress around the dance floor.”

  “I’d better be on the dance floor. In this, I can’t sit without taking up four chairs.”

  The food ran mostly to cold cuts, chips, and dips—healthy stuff for me. I made myself a ham-and-cheese sandwich with the hottest mustard on the table and even a slice of lettuce for good measure and chomped down.

  A gorilla asked Pereira to dance.

  “Hey, Smith, you trying out for the monastery?” It was Clayton Jackson in his promised Oakland Raiders shirt. “You’ve met my wife, Yvonne, and my kids?”

  “Hi, Yvonne.” I looked at the four Raiders-shirted Jackson children. They ranged from eight to fifteen years old. “I didn’t think kids would enjoy a party like this.”

  Yvonne laughed. “Maybe not. We know what they’d like to be doing, especially this one.” She patted the oldest boy on the shoulder. He grimaced. “They’re here where we can keep an eye on them.”

  The kids spotted the refreshment table and crowded around the pretzels and chips.

  Across the room I saw yet another Howard. “How many of these Howard impersonators are there?” I asked Clay.

  “Enough to make a basketball team from what I’ve seen.”

  “Did Howard—the real Howard—know about them?”

  “Not before now. Way I heard it one of his roommates kept him upstairs till they all got here.”

  “I wonder if he caught on right away,” Yvonne said.

  “Honey, you can’t miss them—all that red hair, and that tall,” Clay said. “Hey, man, you stocking up for the winter there,” he said to his oldest son. “Leave a mouthful for the rest of the people.”