The Immortal Game

by Mark Coggins

  I showered and dressed, then got on the phone again to talk with Stockwell down at police headquarters. “You didn’t waste any time getting hold of Bishop, did you?” I asked when he came on the line.

  “No we didn’t, and you’re lucky that he corroborated everything in your statement or we would have hauled your ass down here pronto. Now what do you want?”

  “I called to compare notes.”

  “I only compare notes with people I’m working with on an investigation. Yesterday was your last day on this case, so you don’t have anything to compare. Get it?”

  “Of course, Lieutenant. I understand. But have you figured out who shot Teller?”

  Stockwell let out an exasperated growl. “Terri McCulloch shot him. We issued a warrant for her arrest at 8:00 AM this morning.”

  “Still gnawed by doubts, huh?”

  “Go ahead, ride me. We have an eyewitness who puts McCulloch at the apartment house late last night. The landlady saw her go into the building at 12:25, and she saw her leave around 1:00. That timing fits with the information you gave us. In addition, we discovered that McCulloch has a .22 caliber handgun registered in her name, and we found a cloth in her apartment with traces of gun oil, which suggests that a weapon had been kept there recently. Q.E.D. Case closed.”

  “I bet you found a lot more of interest in the apartment than an oil-soaked rag,” I said.

  Stockwell didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he grunted. “Yeah, that was quite the collection. I guess you kind of made yourself more at home there than you told us. The landlady said someone recently busted the fire escape door, Riordan. If you really want us to tag you for it, I’d prefer a typewritten confession in triplicate.”

  “Sure, and people in hell want ice water. What about the chess game? Did you find Bishop’s software in the apartment?”

  “No, we didn’t find any kind of computer media. Now look, I’ve spent more time talking to you than I do with my wife most nights. Think we could wrap this up?”

  “Wait. What if I told you that Terri McCulloch came to my apartment last night?”

  “Are you telling me she came to your apartment?”

  “Yes. She was here.”

  “And?”

  “And she said that she didn’t shoot Teller and she didn’t know who had.”

  “Oh, could she supply any information on the Kennedy assassination then?”

  “Never mind, Lieutenant. It’s just a gag.”

  “Call me when it gets funny,” he said and hung up.

  I pulled my lower lip out and let it snap back against my teeth. The business about the videotape was interesting. I wondered how Bishop would feel if he knew I still had the tape I had taken from Terri’s apartment rattling around in the trunk of my car. That reminded me about another item I had taken from the apartment. I went to the bedroom and fished Teller’s envelope from the pile of clothes I had dumped on the floor last night. I tore off the top of the envelope and shook out the paper inside.

  It was not a ticket or coupon as I had thought, but a numbered claim check from a computer repair shop in the city. It was dated a week prior. I went back to the phone and called the shop.

  “Good afternoon,” answered a male voice. “PC Doctor.”

  “This is Roland Teller. I brought in, ah, some equipment last week and I wondered if it was ready.” I read off the number from the claim check.

  “Just a minute, sir.” He was gone for less than a minute. “Yes, Mr. Teller, your laptop is ready. We replaced the bad memory, so you’re hitting on the full 64 meg now.”

  “Groovy,” I said. “What are your hours today?”

  “We close at eight tonight.”

  I told the man I’d see him well before then and hung up. It was too early in the day for whiskey, so I settled for a Bloody Mary. I take mine without tomato juice and I substitute bourbon for the vodka. I paced around the living room with the drink, succeeding only in clearing a path through the layer of dust on the hardwood floor. I quit my trailblazing when the bourbon was gone and got in my car and drove off to meet the good PC Doctor.

  I’D RATHER BE A HAMMER

  POST STREET ENDS AT MARKET IN A crazy three-way intersection with Montgomery, causing cars to well up like water in a dammed stream. I was fourth in line at the light when I spotted Todd Nagel in my rear-view mirror. He was two cars back in a yellow VW van, decked out in his backward baseball cap and mirrored sunglasses. As a professional tail, he was about as inconspicuous as a pimp at an Amish wedding.

  When the light turned green I let the cars in front of me go through the intersection, blocked traffic until the signal turned a tasteful burnt amber, then gunned the motor and barreled across Market onto New Montgomery. Horns blared and a truck driver yelled an unscholarly observation about my genealogy, but as the Galaxie sailed past the line of taxis waiting at the Palace Hotel, I turned round and saw Nagel nicely snared at the intersection. The computer repair shop was just one block east on Second, but instead I took a quick right on Mission, cruised west to Third and then doubled back to Market. Nagel was nowhere to be seen by the time I came back through the Montgomery intersection, so I kept going to Second and buried my car behind a dumpster in a connecting alley.

  The PC Doctor was housed in a small storefront with a bright orange sign that featured a dopey picture of a guy dressed up in a lab coat and stethoscope with a round mirror strapped to his forehead. He was putting a tongue depressor into the floppy drive of a personal computer that had an ice bag on top of the monitor and an unhappy expression on the screen.

  A woman in a long, dirty coat made of fake fur stood by the entrance, hawking copies of the Street Sheet-a gritty little journal produced for homeless people. I told her to keep the paper for the next sucker, but dropped a dollar into her cup before going inside.

  I passed the claim check over to the earnest-looking kid behind the counter who went to the back of the shop and returned with a laptop computer, placing it just out of reach in front of me. “Excuse me,” he said. “I don’t believe you are the same person who dropped the computer off. Did the owner ask you to collect it?”

  I gave the kid an easy smile. “Sure,” I said. “I work for Mr. Teller. Didn’t he call you? He said he was going to call and let you know I was coming by.”

  “Well, yes, he called. But he didn’t say anything about sending someone else.”

  “I have the claim check, right? It’s not like I stole it out of his pocket. But if you’re not comfortable, I’ll ask Mr. Teller to come by himself. I don’t think he’ll be too happy, though. He was counting on using that laptop.” Just like he was counting on staying alive, I thought.

  Another customer came into the store. The kid looked at him, then back at me, then made up his mind. “That’s okay. If you will just sign the repair invoice so we have a record.”

  I told the kid I’d be happy to sign and forked over the 225 bucks he wanted for the repair. I left Todd Nagel’s name on the invoice, tucked the computer under my arm, and went back to my car to see what I could make of it.

  I unfolded the hinged screen and punched the power button. The operating system booted up-Windows XP, as I was informed in large letters-and eventually the desktop came into view. There were graphic icons for a variety of applications-electronic mail, word processing, spreadsheets, overhead presentations, and Internet browsing-and a corresponding set of data files. After a few minutes of nosing around, it became clear that I didn’t really know what I was looking for. There were a number of game programs on the computer, but none of them seemed to be chess-related. Even if I did manage to locate the chess program, I wouldn’t recognize the source code for it if it did a line dance across the screen. I powered off the computer with the idea of calling Chris Duckworth for a little expert advice. But before that, I decided Mr. Nagel’s continued attentions required me to brush up on some of my home repair/do-it-yourselfer skills.

  I called several hardware stores and a couple of lumberya
rds before I found what I wanted at a construction-equipment rental place in South San Francisco: a gun used for driving nails into masonry and concrete. I put the gun and several of the explosive cartridges used to fire it into a burlap bag along with some three-inch masonry nails and dumped it in my trunk. Stopping briefly at my apartment to pick up the Glock automatic, I drove on to North Beach and parked in a choice spot on Chestnut Street, across from the entrance to The Power Station. I rounded up a thirty-two-ounce beer in a giant go cup and a fistful of peanuts from a sports bar on Bay, and then went back to the car and settled in with both guns-nail and bullet-loaded and sitting on the front seat next to me.

  It was pushing six o’clock and the sky was overcast and growing dark. Across the way, a tiny spot shone on the plaque with the club’s name, and yellow light glowed from the high, industrial-looking windows of the first two stories. When I cracked the window so I could light a cigarette, I heard the elaborate clanging of a cable car bell as the conductor showed off for the tourists waiting at the nearby turnaround.

  An hour went by with little activity. A cab pulled up to drop off a Power Station patron-a fat guy with dark curly hair wearing chinos and a turtleneck-and two middle-aged women came out of the club arm-in-arm, tittering as they walked up the street. At about seven I saw what I was waiting for. A white van cruised the block towards Mason. There were no parking spaces along Chestnut, so the driver turned left at the corner and drove slowly out of view. I holstered the Glock and gingerly returned the nail gun to the burlap bag, carrying it with me as I double-timed it to the corner. The van was parked about thirty yards up on the right, and I arrived just in time to see Chuck Hastrup step out, slam the door, and check to see if it was locked. He haltingly whistled the old Marty Robbins tune El Paso as he ambled my way. I ducked behind a parked car and then snuck back to The Power Station, situating myself in the narrow alley between the old brewery and the adjoining apartment house.

  I picked up Hastrup’s whistling again, and gradually it grew louder. He appeared at the mouth of the alley just as he was struggling through the part of the tune where the cowboy meets Felina at the cantina. I had always found it a little too convenient that the girl’s name rhymed with cantina, but at least it was better than Dagmar at the fern bar. I said:

  “Howdy, partner.”

  Hastrup turned. I landed a horrific punch that spread his nose like jelly on toast. His head snapped back and blood flowed from both nostrils. Stepping in close, I grabbed two handfuls of his wool blazer and brought my knee up on an express ride to his groin. He gave a strangled cry, lurched forward, toppled to the ground.

  “Now tell me you’re happy to see me,” I said.

  Hastrup responded with a moan and heaved a good quart of his dinner onto the sidewalk.

  “You silver-tongued devil, you. But I’d go easy on the menudo. Looks like it doesn’t agree.”

  I retrieved the nail gun from the burlap bag, then grabbed Hastrup by the collar and dragged him into the alley. “Stand up,” I said sharply, pulling him by the hair. He rose on wobbly legs and I shoved him against the brewery wall. I held the gun close to his face, the tip of the masonry nail an inch or so from his ear. His eyes got wide and pleading.

  “Think of this as a sort of heavy duty stapler,” I said. “And hold still or I won’t be responsible for what gets stapled.” I crammed the gun under his armpit, pulling the fabric from his coat and shirt so that it lay sandwiched between nail and concrete. Squeezed the trigger. The gun jolted with a flat report like a slamming door. A puff of dust blew out and the nail was buried the full three inches. Hastrup whimpered. A dark stain spread from his crotch like the Nazi blitzkrieg shown on the map of Europe. I reloaded and fired three more times, nailing him fast to the wall.

  I stepped back and glared at Hastrup. His nose had swelled to a full-scale copy of Edison’s first light bulb, the lower half of his face was streaked with blood, and his shirt was fouled with vomit. He looked like death on a cracker. “Chuck,” I said. “I really can’t begin to repay all the kindness you’ve shown me. But this is a first attempt. If you want to dissuade me from further efforts, I suggest that you answer all the questions I’m about to ask. Comprende?”

  Hastrup looked up at me with unconcealed malice. He gathered saliva in his mouth and spat. The spittle dropped to the ground in front of me. “Fuck you,” he croaked.

  “I guess we were due for some spit. We’ve had just about everything else out of you.” I walloped him twice in the stomach. His breath blew out and he lost his footing, leaving him thrashing on the wall like an insect pinned in a killing jar. I waited for him to collect himself, then pulled the Glock and pressed the barrel to the temple of his hanging head. “This one doesn’t shoot nails, Chuck. Now why is Nagel still following me around? The cops have issued a warrant for Terri’s arrest. At this point, I’m the least of her worries.”

  Hastrup temporized, then sputtered, “I don’t know anyone named Nagel.”

  “Todd Nagel-a rangy-looking guy with baseball cap, mirrored sunglasses, and VW van. You don’t know him or recognize that description?”

  “No.”

  “Then how did you know I would be at the jazz club?”

  Hastrup lifted his head. “Dale and I followed you there from your apartment.”

  “Dale’s the black guy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about Terri’s friend, Jodie? What’s her angle? Are you sure she didn’t tell you I was at the club?”

  “Like I said: Dale and I tailed you there. I don’t know anything about a Nagel or a Jodie. They must be imaginary friends of yours. Or maybe Jodie’s the name of your inflatable doll.”

  I grabbed him around the throat and shoved his head against the wall. “You’re the one who makes his living guarding perverts at club canker here. You know Jodie. She’s a member or employee or something.”

  “Okay, okay,” said Hastrup. He reached his hands towards his throat but thought better of it when I dug the gun into his temple with a twisting motion. “I know her-barely. Just to say hello. As far as I know, she isn’t involved in... in this at all.”

  “You’re about as credible as Nixon’s press secretary, you know that? Let’s see how you do on this one. Where’s Terri McCulloch?”

  Hastrup shook his head, awkwardly. “Forget it. I’m not giving her up.”

  I tightened my fingers on his throat, but I knew I didn’t have the steel to really put the screws to him. “How would you like one of those nails driven through your foot?” I bluffed. “You know I’m just looking for an excuse to tear you apart.”

  “Go ahead, you bastard. Think no one would hear me yell? You’re lucky someone hasn’t come by already.”

  “They’d only offer to lend a hand.” I leaned into him, bringing our faces less than an inch apart. “Tell me where she is. She’s going to get caught eventually. She’s not worth getting maimed for.”

  “Big talk, Riordan. You don’t have the stomach. You’re nothing but a pathetic little man in a pathetic little business.”

  I released my grip on his throat and took a fist full of his thinning hair. I slammed his head against the brick wall. Again. “Tell me where she is,” I screamed. I stepped back, trembling. Somehow the idea of bluffing was getting lost.

  Hastrup’s head lolled and saliva dribbled from his mouth. “Fuck you,” he mumbled. “I’m not giving her up... I love her.”

  I forced several deep breaths into my lungs. I needed to get out of there before I lost it entirely. “That’s just great,” I said after a moment. “A romantic thug. Have you two got your wedding pattern picked out? Something in a lovely black iron, no doubt.”

  I put the Glock back under my arm and gathered up the nail gun and the burlap bag. Hastrup watched me suspiciously, not believing I was finished. I patted him on the cheek, said, “That’s right. I’m leaving you to your fate, pally. You’re already in more kinds of trouble than I can think up. It’s not for nothing she’s got that bug ta
ttoo.”

  I started to walk away, then turned back. “And Hastrup, don’t ever come near me again. I’ll give no more thought to emptying a clip into you than I would to pissing on a urinal cake.”

  I went up the alley and across the street to my car. If I thought I was going to have the last word, I was wrong. Hastrup started yelling obscenities at me as soon as I put the key in the lock. I piled in the Galaxie, slammed the door shut, and slipped in a Miles Davis tape. With the volume cranked up, all I heard was Miles’s cool trumpet as I oozed down the street.

  DEAD MAN’S MAIL

  CHRIS DUCKWORTH LIVED IN A MODEST, CASTRO district Victorian in which someone had managed to find eight apartments. If Duckworth’s was any example, the someone would have done better to divide the number by two. Duckworth lived on the top floor in a cramped garret directly under the roof.

  I had called from a pay phone in North Beach to see if he would be willing to help me with Teller’s computer. As it turned out, he was more than willing: he was positively eager.

  “I can’t wait to see what we find on that bastard’s laptop,” he said as he let me in.

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” I said. “I couldn’t find much. And you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”

  “Yeah, right. I’ll just dance the tarantella on his grave instead. You want a drink? I’ve got beer, wine, and a bottle of rotgut whiskey some misguided soul gave me for Christmas.”

  “A tall glass of the rotgut, please. No ice.”