Night Is the Hunter

by Steven Gore

  “But you didn’t think so at the time.”

  “No. Not at the time. It walked like a setup and talked like a setup, but we couldn’t prove that’s what it was or discover whether Dominguez had anything to do with it. And neither could the D.A. That’s why McMullin limited the testimony about it. To keep the jury from speculating too much.”

  “What about the shooting itself? Dominguez have any experience firing a handgun?”

  “What difference would it have made?” Ordloff smirked. “Was I supposed to argue to the jury that Dominguez was too unlucky a guy to have gotten off a lucky shot?”

  Donnally shook his head. “That’s not telling me anything.”

  “You’ve been to police seminars.” Ordloff nodded toward the distant conference center as though law enforcement also used it. “You know as well as I do how those Sureños train their people. They’re practically paramilitary. They have their own camps, just like terrorists.”

  He formed his hand into that shape of a gun. “When they decide to take somebody out, they take that somebody out. That’s who they are and what they do.”

  Then he tilted his finger upward and pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER 11

  Donnally noticed the tail as he drove from his house far out in the avenues, a few blocks from Ocean Beach, that he’d bought when he was with the department and now shared with Janie. He was on his way to Fort Miley Veterans Medical Center to pick her up at the end of her shift. The trailing Chevy Impala focused his mind that had been divided all day as he sat in front of a computer at the court of appeals reading through the briefs in the Dominguez file. He hadn’t anticipated that the consequence of his conversation with Ordloff was that he’d spend the next twenty-four hours feeling the Alzheimer’s barrel pressed against his temple.

  The car followed him as he made the three turns to get onto the commercial Clement Street and heading west toward the sunset. Donnally couldn’t make out the face of the single occupant, but the front license plate was missing its frame, suggesting it might be a rental.

  The problem for an ex-cop who laid his head in the town where he’d spent his career was that the past was never past. Chance sightings of the officers who’d sent them away remind crooks of wasted years, of dead time spent caged inside steel bars, pacing concrete. Animosities grind, sharpening thoughts of revenge, and then prison sentences end and the crooks return to the wide open streets with a narrowed sense of relevance. For them, there are cops and there are cons and nothing in between.

  Donnally slowed, letting the driver catch up so he could get a glimpse through the windshield. Maybe the face would draw out a memory. But the more the gap narrowed, the more the descending sun’s refection masked the glass. The driver seemed to catch on to what Donnally was doing and backed off again.

  Veterans Drive into Fort Miley came up on his right, the broad entrance onto the grounds now seeming like an opening into a trap. There was no reason to let the guy—if it was a guy, for revenge knows no gender—start guessing at the connection between him and the hospital if he didn’t know it already. Instead of turning into the property, Donnally cut left into a street of bungalows.

  Donnally pulled to the curb midway down the block. He hoped the man following him would either park along the street behind him so he could catch a look at his face, no longer masked by the sun, or at least get the plate and call it into Ramon Navarro.

  But the driver did neither. He pulled into the shadow extending across the pavement from the row houses lining the west side.

  That the man had failed to disguise his surveillance, his incompetence at the craft, puzzled and annoyed Donnally rather than making him worried or fearful. He thought about walking up on him, but dismissed the idea for he’d likely spin a U-turn and flee before Donnally could close in.

  Better to try to lead him into a trap.

  Donnally scanned the street ahead to make sure he hadn’t fallen into one himself, then popped his hood. He put a perplexed expression on his face as he climbed out of his truck, suggesting he’d noticed a troubling noise. A double, maybe even a triple, pretense. Donnally was pretending he wasn’t under surveillance and the surveiller was pretending he wasn’t surveilling, and neither’s act was convincing the other.

  As Donnally probed the engine compartment, jiggling wires and tugging at hoses, he called Janie, asking her to catch a cab home. He then drove to an auto supply shop and killed enough time inside for the sun to finish setting and for the distant clouds over the Pacific to smother the remaining daylight.

  Donnally headed back toward Fort Miley through the gray evening, then wound his way between the wooded Lincoln and Sutro Heights parks to the coast. He pulled into a parallel parking space along the curving road north of the Cliff House, a two-story, modern museum-like restaurant overlooking the ocean.

  The Chevy slowed, but there were no more spaces on Donnally’s side and the hill across the road descended to the edge of the traffic lane. The car passed him. Donnally got enough of a glimpse of the turned-away head to confirm it was a man, but nothing more. He pulled into a spot in front of a low wall thirty yards south of the restaurant, facing the water. Its lights died, but the driver didn’t get out.

  Donnally walked into the street-level bar overlooking the downstairs dining room. He positioned himself by a window facing the street to make sure he could be observed, then ordered a beer. He drank half of it in the next five minutes, then made a show of getting the waitress’s attention, pointing at the glass, and at the hallway toward the restroom to indicate that he’d be back and not to clear the table.

  The route he chose kept him in view of the front of the building until just before he reached the turn toward the men’s room. He broke off and cut down the steps to the dining room, then through swinging doors and past the kitchen to a back exit.

  Rather than trying to sneak his way along the lighted parking area, Donnally lowered himself over the concrete retaining wall and climbed along the breakwater rocks. He reached a spot just below where the man had parked and peeked over the wall. He spotted a thirty-year-old Hispanic. Tall, thin, and pacing like a caged panther next to his car, his eyes fixed on the restaurant entrance. His oversized gangster-style sweatshirt hung loose on his body. The hood was lying back, revealing a narrow face and short hair under an Oakland Raiders knit cap.

  Donnally watched him finger-flick his cigarette, shooting it down to the blacktop, the tobacco ember fragmenting and exploding upward, then walk around his car and open the trunk. The inside light glowed against an unfamiliar face. It revealed two prison tattoos, a heart pierced by a sword on one side of his neck and a spider web on the other. He ducked down for a moment, straightened up, looked around, then closed the lid and slipped something into his back pocket.

  As Donnally reached for the semiautomatic in his shoulder holster, he recognized that a 911 call wouldn’t help. The man knew where he lived and next time he’d lie in wait, not follow him. And if the man made a move and Donnally caught him and got him locked up, he could still reach out from jail to his crime partners on the street. Even worse, Donnally couldn’t take a chance that, unable to get to him, the man would go after Janie as his proxy.

  Whatever was going to happen between them had to happen now and be over with.

  Donnally lowered himself and waited for a wave to crash onto the rocks behind him to cover the sound of ripping Velcro, then pulled back on the retention strap and drew his gun.

  From the shadow cast by a lamppost, Donnally watched him light another cigarette, then walk to the wall and stare out at Seal Rock. Only then did Donnally notice the squawking and yelping seals and sea lions behind him and feel the chill wind against his neck.

  The gangster looked again toward the restaurant entrance, then leaned back against the wall.

  Donnally remained in his crouch until another wave crashed, then stood and pressed the barrel against the man’s back.

  The man’s body stiffened.

&nbs
p; “Stay cool,” Donnally told him, locking his left hand on top of the man’s shoulder to keep him from turning. “Move a fraction and I’ll pull the trigger. I’ve got nothing to lose. You set it up this way by coming to where I lay my head.”

  The gangster dropped his cigarette and raised his hands head high.

  “It ain’t about that.”

  “Turn around, place your hands on the top of the wall, and spread your legs.”

  He complied.

  Donnally spotted letters N O R T E Ñ O tattooed across his fingers on his splayed hands, just below his knuckles.

  Donnally climbed over and patted him down.

  A Mercedes roadster pulled into a space fifteen feet away. Two women got out. They paused by their doors after they spotted Donnally. He pulled out his retirement badge, flashed it toward them, then nodded toward the Norteño and uttered the word, “Fugitive.”

  The women squinted toward the tattooed man, then nodded at Donnally and walked toward the restaurant.

  Donnally continued searching and removed a wallet and a pint bottle of brandy from the gangster’s back pockets.

  No gun. No weapon at all.

  Donnally set them both on the top of the wall.

  “If ‘it ain’t about that,’ whatever ‘that’ is,” Donnally said, “what’s it about?”

  “It’s about why you bothered my grandmother.”

  Donnally reached over and flipped open the wallet. The driver’s license bore the name Edgar Rojo Jr.

  He knew only two things about Junior. At age nine he’d watched his father bleed out on the night he was murdered, and ten years later he beat a victim so badly that the man lost body parts.

  Junior now seemed to him to be less like a panther, and more like a pit bull.

  “Why’d you follow me?”

  Junior shrugged. “I don’t know. I went by your house and saw you driving away. I slid in behind, then didn’t know what to do when I caught up with you.”

  Donnally had interpreted Junior’s pacing as anticipation, like a lion getting ready to pounce. He now wondered whether it was indecision or anxiety.

  “Turn around and sit back against the wall.”

  He slipped the gun into his jacket pocket so it wouldn’t draw any more attention from restaurant patrons, but he kept it aimed at Junior.

  Junior’s eyes flicked back and forth as he turned around, looking for the gun. They fixed on Donnally’s hidden hand and then he reached back and lowered himself to the wall.

  Donnally tossed him his wallet. “You’re still not telling me anything.”

  “I need you to leave my grandmother alone. You hear what I’m saying? She ain’t part of nothing. She’s suffered enough losing my father. No reason for you to bring it all back up again.”

  “You’re a step ahead of me. I don’t know whether I’ll bring it all up again. I haven’t discovered anything to prove it wasn’t Israel Dominguez who killed your father or that the evidence didn’t support the sentence he got.”

  Junior stared at Donnally as though they’d started the conversation a question too late.

  “What’s it to you, anyway?”

  “It’s coming up on his execution and somebody wanted to make sure the court got it right.”

  “That’s them. Not you.”

  Donnally shook his head. “I’ve got no stake in this.”

  Junior flashed a grim smile. “Yeah, you do. You were ready to shoot me over it.”

  “And you were ready to do what?”

  “If it was ten years ago”—Junior gestured with his thumb toward the ocean—“I’d have torn you into bite-sized chunks and fed you to the sharks.”

  “And now?”

  Junior looked away, then back. “I don’t know.”

  In Junior’s manner and words, Donnally sensed doubts about things much older than what he intended to do to Donnally.

  “Were you sure Dominguez killed your father?”

  “I never heard nothing saying it wasn’t him. But it was a war and in a war it don’t make no difference who gets taken prisoner. You see what I’m saying?”

  “You mean it didn’t make a difference to you whether they got the right guy? The one who really pulled the trigger?”

  “Course it did. But I was a kid. All I knew was what the police said and what my father’s crime partners told me.”

  The approaching flash of strobing patrol car overheads drew their attention toward the restaurant. The unit rolled to a stop behind Junior’s Chevy, against the traffic. The passenger officer looked back and forth between Donnally and Junior as he and the driver got out. He pointed toward the Cliff House.

  “We got an officer needs assistance call from a woman in the restaurant, but I don’t see an officer.”

  “There must have been some misunderstanding,” Donnally said, then displayed his empty hands.

  “Who are you?”

  “Retired SFPD.” Donnally pointed down with his forefinger. “I’m going reach into my back pocket and show you my retirement badge and ID.”

  The officer rested his hand on his gun and nodded. “But slowly.”

  Donnally eased his badge case out of his back pocket and flipped it open as the officer approached.

  The officer took it from his hand.

  “Donnally . . . Harlan Donnally.” He glanced at his partner standing by his door, still using his car as cover. “This is the detective who got shot out there on Mission Street years ago.” He looked back at Donnally. “That’s you, right?”

  Donnally nodded.

  “They still teach what you did in the academy firearms training class. Got a little reenactment video and everything showing you in the cross fire.” The officer emitted a breathy whistle. “Scary as hell.”

  Donnally didn’t respond.

  The officer focused on Junior but continued speaking to Donnally.

  “Who’s the gangbanger?”

  Junior answered. “My name’s Edgar Rojo and I ain’t no gangbanger no more.”

  “Then why you wearing the tattooed advertisements all over your face? Looks to me like you’re banging hard-core.”

  Donnally felt a flush of annoyance at the cop’s descent into crook slang. By accommodating himself to the lawlessness it implied, it legitimized the criminal way of life. It made it seem that the criminal world was the entire world, not just the badlands, and that the police weren’t representatives of law, but only of power. Using the language of the gangsters made the police department into just another gang.

  The officer didn’t wait for a response. He walked Junior to the back of the patrol car and spread-eagled him over the trunk. He then told his partner to run a warrant check and read Junior’s name and date of birth off his driver’s license. The partner eased back into his seat and reached over toward the computer monitor attached to the dashboard and ran the check.

  A few seconds later, he climbed out again, “He’s clear, but on parole for mayhem.”

  “How long you been out?” the nearer officer asked Junior.

  “Almost three years. My parole ends in a couple of months.”

  The officer smirked. “We’ll see. Punks like you aren’t off the leash for long.”

  Donnally caught the motion of Junior’s clenching fists.

  “Stay cool,” Donnally said, pointing at him, then he looked back and forth between the officers. “I got things under control. Thanks for stopping.”

  Both officers stared at Junior for a long moment, then got back into the patrol car, cut across the oncoming traffic, and accelerated away.

  Junior shook his head as the car hit the first curve. “Fuck them assholes.”

  “Don’t go down that road. You brought it on yourself by following me.”

  “Not the attitude, man. They brought that all on their own.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Donnally watched Junior fiddling with his spoon as they waited for the waitress to bring coffees to their table in Dudley’s Place on Clement Street, a mi
le east of the Cliff House. Junior had tensed like a cat sneaking through a dog pound as they drove through the residential Sunset district toward the café. No dope dealers on the corners or hookers working the sidewalks or dice games in the shadows. The streets were quiet and clean and lined with the houses costing more than Junior would make in his lifetime.

  As they walked toward Dudley’s, Junior had stared up at the FISHEYE SUSHI BAR sign next door as though the words were written in Japanese and the neighborhood was the capital of a foreign and alien culture.

  Junior looked over as a waitress walked by with what Donnally guessed from the menu to be a Carol Doda burger, named for the famous North Beach stripper. It was open-faced with two patties for breasts and olives and pickle rounds for nipples.

  “It’s just a hamburger,” Junior said. “What’s wrong with these people? Why they pretending it’s more than it is? It’s like making a burrito into a dick. Who needs that shit?”

  Donnally was surprised by the anger and resentment in Junior’s voice. It was as though he felt himself under assault and he was on the near edge of imagining himself opening fire on the waitress for carrying it, and the cook for making it, and the patrons for ordering it. But there was also resignation, suggesting that even in his fantasy he’d wait for the police to arrive and force them to kill him.

  “These people haven’t done anything to you.”

  “I told you. It’s a war.” Without raising his hand, Junior pointed his thumb toward the counter. “Look around. All white people.” He rotated it in the direction of the kitchen behind him. “I’ll bet you they keep all the Mexicans back there, soaked in sweat and dishwater.”

  Donnally surveyed the tables. “You mean except the one with the tattoos and gang clothes that everybody keeps glancing at.”

  Junior didn’t smile. “Yeah, except him.”

  The waitress walked up with their coffees. She positioned herself as she set them down so that she wouldn’t have to look at Junior.