Harbor Nocturne

by Wambaugh, Joseph

  Hector got to the office door, tapped three times, and opened it. When he entered, Kim stepped from behind the door and, grabbing him by the back of the neck, threw him across the room, where he banged his right hip into the corner of the desk and yelped in pain. Then Kim strode forward and, with a leg sweep, kicked Hector’s pins out from under him. He hit the Oriental rug hard on his back, his head bouncing off the floor.

  Hector yelled, “What the fuck?”

  “You shut up your mouth or I kill you!” Kim said.

  “Okay, I won’t say nothing!” Hector promised, cringing. “I won’t even think nothing!”

  The Korean was about fifty years old and only a little over six feet tall, but he was very wide, large-boned, and heavily muscled. Kim had hands like goalie mitts and the lantern jaw of André the Giant, and while Hector was on his back looking up, he felt that he was looking at the Giant’s buckethead cousin. The Korean’s eyes were lifeless, and his big yellow teeth were bared, as if he wanted to take a bite out of the small man cowering at his feet.

  “Mr. Kim,” Hector said, averting his eyes. “Can I jist ask why I’m being treated like this?”

  The Korean sat on the edge of the desk and stared down at Hector Cozzo, who didn’t dare get up. All Hector could hear over the buzzing in his ears was Kim breathing. It sounded rheumy, like the wheezing of Hector’s asthmatic younger brother, which he’d listened to for years.

  “You promise me the container will get stolen and brought to me,” Kim said.

  “No, Mr. Kim!” Hector said. “I’m sorry to disagree, but you got it wrong. I said I would try to make that happen for you. I only promised I would talk to a cruiser I know with the Harbor City Crips. I said that if you were sure of the exact location and the number on the can, his posse might be able to go in with guns and a stolen truck and do the job. That’s what I promised, because it’s been done before. But the stupid nigger got busted, and there was a parole hold on him and the plan fell apart!”

  “You know how much money I lose?” Kim said.

  Hector spotted a relaxing of Kim’s neck muscles and felt he might be able to cross this hazardous stream without disturbing the dead-eyed croc eyeing him on the bank.

  “Mr. Kim,” he said, “please let me remind you I was jist suggesting a stopgap service when your deal fell apart. I mean, I didn’t ask you no questions, but I know it musta cost you plenty to bribe somebody, maybe a security guard at the container yard? But it was really the trucker that screwed you big-time when he went south with the retainer money you musta paid him. Am I right? If your trucker had picked up the container as planned, none of this woulda happened.”

  Kim held up a hand to silence Hector’s babbling. He said, “You say you will help me get the container.”

  Kim’s lip was still curled in menace, causing Hector to hang on to his cringe and reply, “Not exactly, Mr. Kim. Because I’m an old San Pedro guy, I jist said I might be able to help you, but I never asked you for no front money, did I? How could anybody have predicted that the”—he almost said “stupid bucketheads” but stopped himself in time—“that the migrants in there would light a stove or a heater or whatever the fuck they lit after the escape door got blocked? Was that my fault, too?”

  Hector could literally see the Korean mulling it over, his jaws clenching and unclenching, his brows knitting, relaxing, then knitting again as the thug reconsidered.

  Finally Kim said, “Stand up on your feet.”

  Hector got up painfully, saying, “My hip feels broke.”

  Kim said, “I lose money. Mr. Markov, he lose money. Now you will lose money, too. You will pay me a fine of twenty thousand dollars. You pay to me five thousand a month. You don’t pay, the interest adds on. You understand me, Hector?”

  “Mr. Kim, you don’t see tits on me, do you?” Hector whined. “Why do you treat me like a bitch for trying to help you?”

  “I am make it very easy on you, Hector,” Kim said. “You do not got no idea how much we lose on this deal.”

  Until then Hector had thought that Kim was acting as an independent contractor without Markov on Asian smuggling operations. “I did my best for you,” he said. “And for Mr. Markov.”

  “Next time you try more hard,” Kim said. “Now go. If Mr. Markov is very mad and wish to fire you, I will still want my twenty thousand dollars. You understand?”

  Before he opened the door, Hector said, “Mr. Kim, jist to avoid more trouble here, do you have any idea what happened to Daisy?”

  Kim’s eyes narrowed again, and he stood up from the edge of the desk abruptly. In a guttural voice he said, “Why do you talk about Daisy?”

  Hector said, “I was told by a girl at Shanghai Massage that Daisy’s sister was one of the dead girls and that Daisy was threatening to go to the cops. The second I walked in I was gonna tell you that, but you didn’t give me a chance.”

  Kim said, “I know nothing about the sister and nothing about Daisy. Where is Daisy at?”

  “Nobody knows,” Hector said. “She ran away.”

  “Let her go,” Kim said. “We do not need her. We got other employees who do better work. Tell those girls they better forget Daisy. You understand me?”

  “I understand.” Kim had moved so close to Hector he could see long scratches along the Korean’s jawline on one side of his face.

  “I want you to know something I learn from a Filipino,” Kim said. “He learn it from the drug smugglers. Seven-Up keeps the fizzy longer than Coke or Pepsi.”

  “I don’t get it,” Hector said.

  “For shooting up the nose when you sit in a chair with hands tied behind you. The pain feels like your head blows up. I always keep plenty of Seven-Up, Hector. You remember that.”

  Hector opened the door and shuffled back out through the crowded barroom, grimacing from the pain in his hip and from Kim’s terrifying talk of torture. He noticed that the two men were not at the table by the door. That was when he remembered that he was going to tell Kim he thought he’d seen the Armenian who’d fronted him off, but he wasn’t going back in that office now. Not for anything.

  When he got to his car he was relieved to see that nobody was even close to either bumper, even though the street was jammed with parked cars and the night traffic was as relentless as usual.

  He was about to use his keyless entry when he spotted it. Scratched across the hood of his beautiful red Mercedes SL, in eight-inch letters, was “AP.”

  Hector stood beside his car and yelled, “Motherfuckers!”

  He heard brakes screech, and a male voice beside him said, “Is everything okay?” He looked around and saw that a black-and-white police car had stopped in the traffic lane with its light bar turned on.

  “No, things ain’t okay!” he yelled to the passenger cop. “Look at my car!”

  Hollywood Nate Weiss got out, shined his light on the scarred hood, and said, “AP stands for Armenian Power.”

  “No shit!” Hector barked. “Some Armo cocksucker keyed my new Benz!”

  “Probably a local vandal,” Nate offered.

  He was joined by Britney Small, who also shined her light on the scarred hood and said, “That’s a shame. A beautiful car like that.”

  “Aw, fuck!” Hector said. “I may as well make a police report for the insurance company as long as you’re here. My name’s Hector Cozzo. Here’s my address.”

  He took out his driver’s license, but Nate said, “Sir, we’re very shorthanded and our superiors want us out here on patrol. That’s the kind of report you need to make at the front desk of Hollywood Station. It’s at One three five eight North Wilcox.”

  Hector said, “You mean my car gets keyed by some Armo son of a bitch and I can’t even make a police report at my convenience?”

  “You can, sir,” Britney said. “Whenever it’s convenient, drop by Hollywood Station and—”

  Hector sneered, “This is the kind of police service us taxpayers get, huh? Well, forget about it. I’m calling my counci
lman.” He turned to Nate and said, “So thanks a lot, Officer . . .” He looked at Hollywood Nate’s nameplate and said, “I shoulda known.” Then he got into his car, started it up, and drove away.

  After they got back in their shop, Britney said, “What’d he mean when he said, ‘I shoulda known’?”

  Hollywood Nate Weiss said, “He means that he shoulda known that I’m a Jew.”

  Britney was incensed. “What a rude dirtbag!” she said. After she was driving for a few minutes she asked, “Are you?”

  “Am I what?” Nate said.

  “Jewish.”

  “I used to be,” Nate said, “a long time ago.”

  “What’re you now?”

  Hollywood Nate thought it over and said, “A fair to middling copper and a failed actor.”

  Britney Small shook her head slowly and drove for a while before saying, “Nate, even it that were true, which it certainly isn’t, it would still be better than the other way around. Can you see that?”

  Hollywood Nate looked at his earnest young partner in surprise. Then he smiled ironically. “Britney, I think you’re absolutely right. Which means you’ve just succeeded in wrecking a lot of the enjoyment I get from self-pity. I owe you another soda for that. No, make it a burger with the works. You’re a little too lean from spending too much time in the weight room.”

  NINE

  Late the next morning Dinko Babich was doing something he thought he’d never do in his lifetime. Lita Medina had him strolling with her along Pacific Avenue in San Pedro, exploring various low-end stores and examining goods sold on the street by vendors as she chattered in Spanish to practically everyone she encountered, especially young Hispanic mothers with babies riding on their hips. And the most astonishing thing was, he was actually enjoying himself!

  Lita was wearing faded jeans, a tank top, and tennis shoes, and Dinko thought she looked sensational. And so did just about everyone else on the avenue, as he could tell by the appreciative glances she received.

  At one point he said to her, “You really rock those jeans.”

  She said, “‘Rock’?”

  “Never mind,” he said. “Everyone around here thinks I’m one lucky gringo.”

  She shrugged and said, “You think I talk funny? I think you talk funny.”

  “I’d buy us a taquito or something,” he told her, “but I’m still stuffed from breakfast.”

  “Your mamá,” Lita said, “she make for us the most food I ever see on a morning table. I cannot eat nothing until tomorrow maybe.”

  “She’s trying to make a Croatian outta you,” Dinko said. “But I like you just the way you are.”

  Lita smiled at the compliment and said, “And you? How can you stay so . . . how you say . . . ?”

  “Tall and handsome?”

  She laughed and said, “No. I mean, jes, you are tall and handsome, but . . .”

  “Y-y-yes,” he said.

  “Y-y-yes,” she said, laughing again. “But what is the word for not fat?”

  “Skinny,” he said, “Flaco. That’s me. But super handsome.”

  She gave him a light poke for his banter and said, “I am very happy today. I am never so happy since I come to this country. You are very lucky man, Dinko. This San Pedro is place of magic, I think.”

  Dinko Babich looked around and wished he could see his Pedro world through the eyes of this girl. And suddenly it occurred to him that he, too, was very happy today. He hadn’t been so happy since he was a kid going out fishing with his father and other Croatian men and their sons. Back when his life was full of possibilities and Pedro was the only world he wanted.

  “Dinko, look!” she said, grabbing his hand and rushing him toward a man selling knockoffs of famous clothing brands from a display on the sidewalk. The man wore a black beret and a Zapata mustache and had a large green parrot on his shoulder. He was feeding the parrot nuts to make it talk to customers.

  When Lita stood in front of the parrot, her eyes shining with excitement, the man said to the parrot, “¿Qué piensas, mi hijo?”

  And the parrot looked at Lita and said, “Muy hermosa.”

  Lita clapped her hands like a child and Dinko gave the parrot man a few dollars, saying, “That bird’s got good taste.”

  A few minutes later they were strolling again, not talking, just looking at the street and the sky and feeling the breeze from the Pacific blowing through their hair. She took his hand once more and they walked, with Dinko Babich imagining she could hear his heart thrumming a powerful pulse into his throat.

  This girl! he thought. What was happening to him? The tiny world in which he lived was shape-shifting. Nothing seemed the same when he looked around now. Was he truly seeing everything through her eyes? Was that good or bad for him? She was so . . . alive.

  She held his hand firmly and he raised her hand up and looked at it. “You have beautiful hands,” he said. “Muy hermosa.”

  Lita smiled self-consciously and pointed to a flower vendor, saying, “I wish to buy flowers for your mamá.”

  He watched her carefully checking how much she had in the pocket of her jeans, and he realized that whatever she had there and in her purse back at the house was all she had. She peeled ten dollars from a small fold of bills and said, “What you think, Dinko?” She pointed to a yellow rose. “She likes the yellow rosas?”

  Her pronunciation of “yellow” came out as “jellow.”

  “Jell-O is something we eat for dessert,” Dinko said, “particularly when we’re counting calories.”

  “¿Cómo?”

  “I’ll explain it later. You pronounce the color ‘yellow.’ Y-y-yellow.”

  “Y-y-yellow,” she said. “You think I ever learn?”

  “I’ll teach you with the greatest of pleasure,” he said, “no matter how long it takes.”

  She stopped smiling and studied him for a moment, then shifted her gaze back to the flowers, pointed, and said, “Lila.”

  “We call it ‘lilac,’” Dinko said. “It figures. Your mother’s maiden name means ‘flowers’ in English.”

  “I do not understand,” she said.

  “Lita Medina Flores,” he said. “You’re a child of the flowers.”

  “My funny boy,” she said, squeezing his hand.

  She paid for a small bouquet of lilacs and Dinko pulled a sprig from the bunch and held it up beside her face. “Yes, that’s your flower,” he said. “No doubt about it. Shall we go home and give my mom your lila?”

  Brigita Babich was leaning against the kitchen counter and talking on a wall phone that had been there for thirty years. When she heard them come in the front door, she finished her conversation with one of the women from church who was planning a huge wedding at Croatian Hall.

  Brigita entered the living room and found Lita standing shyly next to Dinko with a bouquet of lilacs, which she held out, saying, “Señora, I thank you with my heart for the kindness I have receive from you here.”

  “For me?” Brigita said. “You bought lilacs for me?”

  “She did,” Dinko said.

  “Oh, sweetheart!” Brigita said, taking the lilacs and wrapping a sturdy arm around the willowy girl.

  Dinko looked solemn when he pulled the cell phone from his pocket and said, “Lita, take this into the bedroom and call your apartment. Find out if Daisy has returned.”

  Her mouth turned down at the corners with this sudden intrusion from her other world and she said, “Yes, I must call. Is time for me to go back.”

  After Lita was in the bedroom and out of earshot, Dinko looked his mother in the eye and told her, “If that girl Daisy is still missing with only the clothes on her back, I’m not gonna let Lita go back there today.”

  Brigita Babich said, “Son, she’s not a stray puppy you can find and just keep. She has her own life to live.”

  “That’s a dangerous life.”

  “Then take her to the police.”

  “There’s nothing that can be proved at this point. A
Korean roommate left suddenly in a car with a Korean they work for. That’s according to Lita. But what if the guy denies it and Daisy doesn’t come back? What is that guy gonna do if Lita drags him into a very suspicious missing persons case with her suggestion that he knows what happened to Daisy?”

  They stopped talking when Lita rejoined them in the kitchen, holding Dinko’s cell phone in her hand.

  She said gravely, “Violet says that Daisy is not there. She is not phoning nobody. Violet says she made a phone call to Mr. Kim but he says he don’t know nothing about Daisy. He says he is not seeing Daisy for a week. Mr. Kim is saying a lie!”

  “Lita,” Dinko said, “this is very important. Did Violet let Mr. Kim know that you saw Daisy with somebody in a black car outside their apartment?”

  “She says no, she does not tell him that.”

  “Do you believe her?”

  Lita thought it over and said, “Violet is not such a good girl like Daisy. I think maybe she tells him if he pays her money for telling.”

  “Does Violet know that you left that place with my son?” Brigita asked with urgency.

  “No,” Lita said. “I never tell nothing about Dinko. I tell to Violet that I go to my old job because I no longer wish to work at Club Samara.”

  Both Dinko and Brigita Babich could clearly see the fear on the girl’s face, and it was Dinko’s mother who spoke first. She said, “Please stay with us for a few days, sweetie. We’ll need a little more time to figure this thing out.”

  Hector was still in bed at 2:00 p.m. He had drunk nearly half a bottle of vodka the night before, and he’d swallowed a couple of zannies with it. For the past two hours he’d been lying there thinking of how to escape the trouble he was in. There had to be a way to avoid the twenty-grand obligation to Kim, but no matter how he figured it, the only answer was to go over Kim’s head to Markov.

  Then again, the way things were falling apart, he wasn’t even sure if Markov was the main man in the human-trafficking operation. Christ, maybe there was somebody making them both dance? Kim had flat-out claimed that Markov had lost money in that calamity too, so how eager would Markov be to answer a plea for intercession from Hector Cozzo?