Willie nodded, tucked the money pouch inside his denim jacket, and we left the table.
The fog was in now. It crept up the slanting sidestreets, obscuring the facades of the Edwardian row houses and softening the lights on the parking structures of the Medical Center. As we walked up Irving, a streetcar’s bell clanged in the mist ahead of us, and then the car came into sight, its wheels wailed on the tracks as it rounded the curve at the top of Arguello. Willie’s porchlight beckoned us.
I noticed a piece of paper fluttering on the door. “The note you left for your runners is still there. Aren’t you afraid somebody will realize you’re not home and break in?”
“Nope. All the note says is ‘Oasis.’ I have to do business there pretty often, so one word does it.”
“Why do you do business in a bar, anyway?”
“Well, Jesus, you’ve seen the kind of people I have to deal with. You never know what kind of scum they might be. Until I know a person, I don’t just want him calling me or coming to my house. Like I told you before, I got my reputation with the neighbors to consider.” He pocketed the note and ushered me inside.
Ahead was a hallway with winered carpeting and waist-high wainscoting. A small table lamp provided the only light, and the red-flocked wallpaper above the paneling was oppressive. Willie dropped the leather money pouch on the table. “You want a drink?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Suit yourself.” He started toward the rear of the hall, then paused. “That’s funny.”
“What is?”
“This door to the garage. I always leave it closed.”
“Maybe the wind blew it open.”
“No, this is a tight latch.” He came back down the hall, then went into the room to my left.
The light he turned on came from a brass chandelier. It revealed more red-flocked wallpaper and dark wainscoting. The room was full of lumpy overstuffed furniture whose cushions had been tossed on the floor. Drawers from two end tables had been pulled out and emptied. Even the box of wood next to the fireplace had been dumped.
Willie whirled and went to the archway at the rear of the room. He flicked on a light above a dining room table. The built-in cabinets there had also been ransacked.
“You’re right,” he said angrily. “I should be more careful about leaving notes.”
I held up a hand for him to be quiet. The only sounds I heard were traffic on the street and the faint murmur of a TV, probably in the house next door. “Let’s check upstairs.”
“There’s nothing up there but my bedroom. I closed off the other rooms after my wife took all the furniture.”
“Let’s check anyway.”
I led him up there cautiously, braced for an attack if the intruder was still in the house. All was quiet. There were four bedrooms, three completely empty. The other had been tossed like the rooms below. I checked the bathroom, but found only a dripping faucet and crumpled towels on the floor.
“How do you suppose he got in?” I said.
“The garage, since the door from there was open. He’s probably cleaned me out of my entire stock.” Willie started for the stairs.
“I doubt it. From the looks of this, he was after something specific.”
“What, though?”
“You would know better than I.”
I followed him to the stairs leading to the garage. A light shone somewhere below, toward the rear, where Willie had his office.
“You think he’s still down there?” Willie said softly.
“No. We’ve been making too much noise; it would have scared him off by now.” Still, I started down slowly, listening. Willie stayed close behind me.
The piles of cardboard cartons cast elongated shadows on the cement walls. I reached the bottom of the stairs and skirted a stack of old furniture, moving toward the office. A sudden rustling sound came from the front. I stopped, and Willie bumped into me.
“It’s the parrot,” he said.
“Oh, good Lord.” Realizing how silly our sneaking around was, I stepped into the open and went toward the desk. It, too, had been broken into, drawers standing open and chair overturned. The rest of the garage was a shambles.
Clothing had been pulled from racks and dumped on the floor. Cartons had been removed from the shelves and emptied. Toward the front one of the pedestal sinks lay on its side, smashed – and beyond it was a dark form.
Willie came up beside me. I put a hand on his arm.
“What is it?” he said.
I took a deep breath, conscious of the smell for the first time. It was acrid, the way it always is when a gun has been fired in an enclosed space. Acrid, yet sweet, the way it always is when blood has been shed…
Letting go of Willie, I moved forward.
Beyond the smashed sink, Jerry Levin lay on his side. He lay quiet, without breath. His yarmulke had fallen off, revealing a bald spot almost the size of the cap. There was a bullet hole in the back of his head.
7.
While the Homicide men and Police Lab personnel took over the garage below, Willie and I sat in his living room amid the disordered furniture. A uniformed cop stood at the door, not exactly guarding us, but giving us little freedom to move or to talk. Not that his presence mattered anyway; Willie sat slumped in a cushionless corner of the couch, arms folded across his chest, silent and withdrawn.
After a few minutes he motioned for me to move over next to him. “I’ve been trying to figure out if everything’s okay down there – my business, you know,” he said in a low voice. “So far as I know, it is. It’ll be pretty obvious to the cops what all that stuff is, but they won’t be able to prove it.”
“They’ll interrogate you, try to find a connection between your business and Levin.”
“I can stand up to it. I have before, without falling apart.”
There were voices in the hall near the door to the garage, and the cop went back there. In a few seconds he reappeared, Hank Zahn close behind him. I’d made Willie phone Hank after he’d called the police. In addition to being the fence’s lawyer, Hank was mine, and I felt more comfortable having him there.
Hanks’ eyes, behind his thick horn-rimmed glasses, were filled with concern, but a flicker of amusement cross his face. “Well, you’re a hangdog pair if I ever saw one.” He came over and sat down on the coffee table in front of us, his lanky form blocking the cop’s view. “What happened?”
Briefly I explained about Levin, our planned meeting with him, and our discovery when we’d returned here. Hank looked around the room, then said to Willie, “You have any idea what he might have been looking for?”
“It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? Those Torahs.”
Hank nodded, but I said, “Sometimes the obvious can fool you.” They both watched me as I got up and went over to one of the end-table drawers that had been dumped on the floor. “Hank, how big is a Torah?”
Hank, who had been bar mitzvahed at thirteen, held up his hands about a yard apart. “Like this.”
The drawer was a small one, around a foot square. “Levin would know a Torah couldn’t fit in here. Or in the bedside table drawers that were ransacked upstairs. Or even in that woodbox.”
“So what else could he have been looking for?” Hank said.
“Or who else could have been looking? It doesn’t have to have been Levin, you know. His killer might—”
Again there were voices in the hall. I turned to the door and stifled a groan when I saw who was standing there.
The Homicide inspector’s name was Leo McFate. I knew him slightly because I’d been seeing a lieutenant on that detail when McFate had been transferred from General Works. Earlier tonight I had been afraid my old boyfriend, Greg Marcus, would be the one to be called to the scene – a confrontation that would have been sticky at best. McFate’s appearance, however, was ultimately worse.
Between Greg and me there would have been the professional clash between a cop and a private operator, as well as the more basic one
between former lovers. With McFate, it would be less a conflict than a complete failure to relate. We just didn’t talk, act or think on the same plane.
Most women would have been delighted at the sight of McFate. He had a tall, muscular body; thick dark brown hair with that distinguished touch of gray at the temples; a luxuriant, well-trimmed mustache; a movie star’s cleft chin. He dressed impeccably in designer suits – tonight a three-piece blue pinstripe – and he did all the status things, like going to the symphony and opera and openings at the art museums. Most women would have taken one look at him and seen a real prize.
During our brief acquaintance, however, I’d taken more than one look at Leo McFate. What I saw was a man who worked too hard at getting his name in the gossip columns, a man who did the status things because they were considered “in,” not because he enjoyed them. McFate was rumored to be a ladies’ man, and his name had been linked with some of the city’s most eligible women. But when he talked with the less eligible women – like me – his eyes took on a cool politeness that masked the fact that he wasn’t really listening. I’d long sensed that, underneath, McFate harbored a deep-seated dislike of women in general and, in fact, was a little afraid of them.
Now he surveyed the room with a faint look of distaste, then nodded to Hank and me. “Counselor. Ms. McCone.” His glance flicked to Willie, then back to me. “I presume this is Mr. Whelan, the owner of the house?”
“You got it,” Willie muttered. I was somewhat surprised at his surly reaction, but chalked it up to an instant and well-placed dislike of the inspector.
McFate frowned. “Which one of you found the body?”
I said, “I did, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Willie… Mr. Whelan and I were together at the time. But I was the first to see it.”
“And what time was that?”
“Eight-ten.”
“You’re certain of that?”
“Yes, I looked at my watch.”
“Most women wouldn’t have the presence of mind to look at their watches at a time like that.”
“I’m not ‘most women,’” I said stiffly. “I’m a trained investigator and I try to follow proper procedure. The time was eight-ten.”
McFate ran a finger over his handsome mustache. “Very well, Ms. McCone, suppose you tell me how you and Mr. Whelan happened to find the deceased.”
I told him, from the beginning, leaving nothing out except the dubious nature of Willie’s business. When I finished, McFate was silent for a moment. “You’re certain that Rabbi Halpert said he had never heard of Mr. Levin?”
“Yes. He knew of the Torah Recovery Committee, but said he had no connection with them or with Jerry Levin. And after seeing how this house was ransacked, I’m not sure Levin was from the committee at all. He – or someone – was looking for something besides the Torahs—”
McFate held up a hand. “Ms. McCone, let’s not jump to conclusions.”
“I’m not. You can plainly see—”
“Ms. McCone, please…” He turned to Willie. “Mr. Whelan, I understand you told the patrolmen that you’re a ‘merchandiser’ and that the garage is your ‘store.’”
“That’s right.”
“Isn’t it true that what you really are is a fence?”
“A what?”
“A fence. A purveyor of stolen goods.”
“Purveyor?” Willie looked elaborately blank. ‘What’s… Oh, you mean is that stuff down there stolen?”
“Yes, that’s what I mean.”
“Hell, no. I bought it all legal. I got receipts, fair and square.”
“Yes, Mr. Whelan, I’m sure you do.”
“You want to see them?” Willie started to get up.
I glanced at Hank; he was trying not to smile. And much as I disapproved of Willie’s line of work, I was fighting back amusement too. It was the opening round between McFate, the stuffy champion of all that was right and proper, and Willie, society’s outcast. And I found myself rooting for the underdog.
“That won’t be necessary,” McFate said.
“No, listen, let me show you.”
“Mr. Whelan, all good fences protect themselves with receipts. That doesn’t alter the fact that—”
“Now wait a minute!” Willie stood up. Although he was not as muscular, in height he was a match for McFate. “You’re saying I’m a fence, and you’re also telling me you’re not going to give me a chance to prove otherwise?”
“Mr. Whelan—”
“Is that what you’re saying?”
“Calm down, please.”
Willie turned to Hank. “Isn’t that slander or something?”
“Technically.”
“Well, make him stop it. You’re my lawyer; are you going to stand for that? Tell him we’ll sue him.”
The corners of Hank’s mouth twitched. “McFate, you’re baiting my client. I’ll have to ask you to stop.”
“Mr. Zahn, you’re an officer of the court. You can’t condone—”
“I’m not condoning anything. I’m merely protecting my client’s rights.”
“Yeah, I got rights the same as anybody else.”
McFate gave an exasperated sigh. Willie stood there, quivering with manufactured indignation. I made the mistake of looking at Hank, and then involuntarily started to laugh. I tried to force it down, but that only made it well up faster. I swallowed, and what came out was a snort.
Willie turned and stared at me. Hank rolled his eyes at the ceiling. McFate’s mouth turned down in disgust.
I clapped my hand over my mouth and snorted again.
“For God’s sake, Sharon,” Hank said.
“Oh, Lord, I’m sorry, I can’t –”I doubled over laughing, arms clutched around my midsection.
“You all right?” Willie asked.
I snorted again.
“Sharon, stop it.” Hank’s voice was stern.
“I’m trying.”
“Good.”
I remained doubled over, breathing deeply to get myself under control. When I looked up, McFate’s imperturbable expression was once more in place. “Would you like a glass of water, Ms. McCone?” he asked coldly.
“No, I’m all right now.”
“Then perhaps you’d like to be excused. You can give us a formal statement tomorrow.”
“But—”
“That will be all for now.”
“But what about—”
“Sharon,” Hank said, “I think the inspector is done questioning you.” He jerked his head toward the door.
I got up, feeling a little weak. “Okay, I’ll see you back at the office.”
“Yes. I want to talk to you.”
“Wait a minute,” Willie said to me. “Can you do me a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Will you stop by Alida’s place and explain why I can’t call her? She lives over on Ninth Avenue, seventeen-twenty-seven, bottom apartment.”
“I’ll be glad to.” As I turned to leave the room, I bumped into McFate and stepped on his polished black shoe. He moved back, glowering at me, and extended one hand toward the door. I fled.
8.
Alida Edwards’s building was five blocks from Golden Gate Park, where the avenues began to slope upward into the middle-class neighborhood known as Sunset Heights. Diagonally across the street from it was a white structure that looked like a community center; a sign announced it was the headquarters of the Sunset Heights Association of Responsible People. Briefly I wondered who these people were and what they were responsible for that warranted a clubhouse. Of one thing I was certain: Had I lived in this neighborhood, I would not have been asked to join.
I pressed Alida’s bell, received an answering buzz, and crossed a tiled lobby to the door to the downstairs apartment. The blond-haired woman looked out, raising her eyebrows when she saw me.
“Willie asked me to come by,” I said. “He won’t be able to call you as he promised, and he wanted me to explain
.”
The lines around her mouth tightened. “Got some hot deal going, huh?”
“Not exactly.”
“What then?”
“I don’t think you want me to go into it in the lobby, where your neighbors can hear.”
Ungraciously she flung the door open and stalked off down a long hallway.
I closed the door behind me and followed her into a large room that was sparsely furnished with an open, rumpled hide-a-bed and a Danish modern dining table. Its walls were hung with Indian weavings, and earth-toned pottery sat on some shelves near the tiny kitchen. A large window overlooked a floodlit backyard landscaped with fig trees and fuchsias.
I was about to tell her how attractive I found her place when a woman’s voice called to her from the next room. It sounded familiar, so I followed Alida in there. The room was outfitted with a worktable and cabinets, and in its center stood Selena Gonzalez. She was admiring an intricate gold band that coiled around her arm.
“Alida, I will take this one,” she said. “The snake bracelet with eyes of agate.” Then she saw me and grinned. “So, we meet again.”
“You know each other?” Alida asked.
“We met earlier today at the flea market,” I said.
“Of course. In addition to being a fellow vendor, Selena’s my next-door neighbor – and one of my best customers.” Abruptly Alida had shifted into amiability. I wondered if all her mood swings were this sudden.
While Selena paid for the bracelet, I went over to a display cabinet that contained jewelry on black velvet pads. Made of gold and polished bits of stone, most of the pieces incorporated animal shapes. I didn’t particularly like them, but one medallion of a lion with gleaming blue eyes wasn’t too bad.
We went back into the larger room, and Alida began straightening the covers on the bed. Selena and I sat crosslegged on the floor, the Mexican woman still admiring the bracelet. Alida quickly gave up on the rumpled bed and flopped in its center, hugging a pillow.
“So what’s Willie’s excuse tonight?” she said.
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