Angel

by Nicholas Guild

  “You’re sure?”

  “Take my word for it—where are you going?”

  He was standing by then, and he smiled down at her. “To the gent’s.”

  The restaurant was a long room built over a pier, with plate-glass windows down either side so that the diners had a view of the bay, or at least of the fishing boats that were anchored just outside. The bar and the men’s room were both in the front and in so narrow a space there was no way the two men were going to miss each other, no matter how hard they tried.

  The man looked annoyed. He slipped outside as Kinkaid approached and, although he wasn’t stupid enough to risk eye contact, there wasn’t any doubt he was the one, yellow shirt and all.

  “Did you see him?” Lisa asked when he came back.

  “Yes. And you were right. He was at the airport.”

  By then, of course, Kinkaid remembered the first time he had seen him, leaning against the fender of a dark blue car after Marshal Cheffins’ funeral. He had been across the street—Pratt had pointed him out.

  But he said nothing of this. He merely sat down and went back to his bluefish.

  “What should we do about it?”

  “Do?”

  Lisa, who was the positive type, looked impatient, as if he were being willfully stupid.

  “He might be dangerous,” she announced. “He might have a gun.”

  “Yes, he might. He might be a policeman or a private detective. He might also be nobody at all.”

  “You know that isn’t true. You saw the way he ducked out.”

  Kinkaid shrugged, as if he couldn’t see how it mattered. “What would you suggest I do about it? The police wouldn’t be very impressed. Anyway, maybe he’s after you—that at least I could understand.”

  “Don’t be silly. Maybe you should think about protecting yourself.”

  “Now who’s being silly?” Kinkaid managed a wan smile. “A gun? Is that what you have in mind? We haven’t all had your advantages, my dear. I’m not the firearms type. I’d probably end up shooting my foot off.”

  Lisa extended the first two fingers of her right hand, aiming straight at his head, and made a little popping sound with her mouth. Then she laughed, just to show that she hadn’t lost her sense of humor.

  “I should get my dad to teach you how,” she said. “He’s really good. He’d turn you into Dead-Eye Dick.”

  “I don’t think I’d care to take the chance. An Italian ex-Marine—he’d probably decide the family honor demanded my life.”

  “He’d like you.”

  “Thanks, but I’d rather not risk it until after the wedding.”

  . . . . .

  The next morning was a Saturday. The original plan had been to take a boat ride around San Francisco Bay, but a thick fog had come in the night before, so there didn’t seem to be much point. Instead they took a cab out to Golden Gate Park and went to the aquarium. The place was cavelike and the octopus was hiding. There was a big tank full of eels and in another tank was an alligator gar the size of a submarine. Lisa said she would probably never go swimming again.

  They tried to have lunch at the Japanese Tea Garden but discovered that all they served was tea, so they settled for pizza at a stand. Directly across from the aquarium was a museum full of paintings by people neither of them had ever heard of—lots of 19th Century American local color and perfectly terrifying Spanish religious art, with here and there the odd student of a student of Poussin. They loved it. They spent all afternoon there.

  They had dinner on Union Street, and when they got back to the hotel there was a message waiting. No name, just a telephone number with a 513 area code.

  “Pratt must be back in Dayton,” Kinkaid said, putting the note in his jacket pocket. “I guess they’re about two hours ahead out there. It’ll keep.”

  The next morning, before he went out for his run, he called from one of the lobby phones.

  “Blanche Wyman was murdered,” Pratt told him, with no preamble. “The French police think our little girlfriend is in the clear, but who knows. The point is they have her fingerprints in their files.”

  He paused, no doubt waiting for some reaction, but not for long.

  “She’s alive, Jim. She’s loose in the world. I got them to have the FBI fax over the prints they took from the girl buried in your loony bin, and they don’t match. She pulled a switch, just like you thought. How does it feel to be right?”

  “Just at the moment, not so hot. What do we do now?”

  “I’ve given everything to the feds. As soon as they get over the shock they’ll issue a warrant for interstate flight. I’ve already talked to their behavioral science people and they’re very interested. A lot of dead case files are going to come back to life.”

  You could hear it in Pratt’s voice, a stifled joy. He was the hunter come within sight of his prey. He was a cop, a homicide detective, and this was the biggest case of his life. He couldn’t help himself.

  “She’s in San Francisco, Warren.”

  “Is that what you’re doing out there, looking for her?”

  “I thought so until a few days ago. Remember what they say—a man chases a woman until she catches him.”

  “What are you getting at, Jim?”

  “I think I’ve been set up. I think I’m here because she wants me to be here. Remember the guy who was outside after Cheffins’ funeral”

  “What guy?”

  “The guy you thought was probably a crook come to pay his respects. He was leaning up against his car.”

  “What about him?”

  “He was at the airport when we arrived. I saw him again yesterday.”

  “I’ll be on the next flight out.”

  31

  Rizza didn’t want to involve the girlfriend, so he decided the best time to do it was first thing in the morning. Five mornings in a row, the watchers had reported, Kinkaid comes out of his hotel in a tee shirt and pair of blue nylon shorts and goes loping off down Post Street and over to Market toward the Embarcadero. Then it’s a long run along the waterfront, way the hell and gone past the Presidio and back, a good ten miles round trip. The guy had to be nuts.

  Okay, maybe he was good for Number Six. Anybody with half a brain spends Sunday morning sleeping it off while the wife and kids go to Mass, but Kinkaid didn’t seem to be much of a one for nightlife. And Sunday was good for Rizza because the docks were pretty much deserted. A couple of the warehouses along Pier 17 were owned by friends who knew how to mind their own business, so he could invite the track star in for a chat.

  Anyway, that was the plan. It was reason enough for Rizza to be sitting in a car at 6:15 in the fucking morning. He was going to be pissed as hell if Kinkaid didn’t show up.

  He sat on the front seat, on the passenger’s side. Ralph Getz was in back and Terry Szorza—known as Terry the Ton or Two-Gun Terry, depending on which way you wanted to slam him—was driving. They were contract players, not family, but they were good at what they did and reliable. They had been partners for years.

  “Ralph, gimme the thermos,” Terry said. He was wedged in so tight behind the steering wheel he could barely turn to look over his shoulder. “I can’t believe you forgot the doughnuts, fer Chrissake.” He unscrewed the cap and filled it nearly to overflowing, and then he remembered his manners. “You want some coffee, Frank?”

  Rizza dismissed the idea with an annoyed wave of his hand—as if anybody could stand to drink Terry Szorza’s coffee, mixed with about half a pint of heavy cream and enough sugar to make it taste like molasses.

  “I don’t ask much, just a little consideration, like you remember to bring the fuckin’ doughnuts. And what d’ you do? You forget, you fuckin’ kike.”

  “I’m not a kike,” Getz answered from the back seat, exactly as if he were responding to the most routine enquiry.

  “Yeah, but your mother was.”

  Getz merely shrugged, the gesture suggesting that mothers didn’t count.

  “Jesus, we
don’t get this buttoned up by eight, eight-thirty I’m gonna die. I’m gonna fuckin’ starve to death.”

  He drained off the cup in what seemed like one gulp and then refilled it. When that was gone he screwed the cap back on the thermos and threw it into the back, where Getz deftly caught it. Then, with considerable effort, he reached down to scratch the inside of his left calf, revealing the lower part of a black nylon holster. Apparently the straps were chafing him.

  “Stupid goddam place to carry a gun, you ask me,” Rizza said, still irritated about the coffee—he would have liked some if this fat slob hadn’t turned it into maple syrup.

  Getz leaned forward, resting his arms on the front seat, and laughed. “He’s just showing off, Frank. Everybody’s gotta know about the leg piece, and everybody does. We got busted down in Millbrae last year. The cops yank Terry out of the car and tell him to assume the position, first thing they frisk his leg. Fucking Millbrae they know about it.”

  “So what’s the fucking point?”

  This time Terry laughed. “Girls love it,” he said. “They start playin’ footsie and touch that with their little toes, they just about come on the bar stool.”

  Terry Szorza was old enough his hair was turning white, and big as a bus while he was at it. A goddam fat, wheezing slob in a wrinkled suit, and he had the idea he was hell with the women. What broad was gonna touch him, on the leg or anyplace else, she wasn’t paid to? Goddam creep—a good set of hands if you wanted somebody worked over, not the type to get carried away and crush the merchandise before you had what you wanted, but a creep just the same.

  The car phone rang and Rizza picked it up. He had a man on the hotel’s front desk, some fag who liked to play the horses. This guy was way overdue on his tab, which was inching up to twenty-seven grand, and he was really, really afraid of pain. So he did what he was told. If Kinkaid bought theater tickets, Rizza knew the seat numbers before they were delivered. Rizza got lists of his phone calls. He got everything. So it wasn’t any problem to find out when Kinkaid began his morning run.

  “He’s on his way,” Rizza announced, putting down the phone. “That means he’ll be going by the Pier in less than ten minutes.”

  “Guy sounds like he’s more dependable than the commuter trains,” Terry said with a laugh as he eased the car into gear.

  In two minutes they were in front of Pier 17. Rizza got out and, taking a large brass key from his pocket, unlocked one of the warehouse doors. He left it standing open and went inside, where he wouldn’t be seen.

  He knew Kinkaid was coming up fast when he saw Ralph Getz open the back door of the car and step nimbly out onto the sidewalk.

  Like all beautiful things, it was very simple. Getz is just there on the sidewalk, an innocent pedestrian. When Kinkaid comes even with the warehouse door, Getz appears about to move out of his way and then steps right in front of him. The two men collide—Rizza can already hear Kinkaid beginning to offer an apology when Getz kicks his legs out from under him. Kinkaid goes down. Before he knows where he is, Szorza is out of the car, takes half a dozen steps and dropkicks him right in the pit of the stomach. Kinkaid, suddenly all legs and arms, can’t even remember how to breathe. Then Getz and Szorza pick him up by his hands and feet and carry him into the warehouse. It’s all over in about ten seconds.

  The warehouse was vast, with a cement floor and a ceiling that had to be forty feet up. There were crates stacked around everywhere, dividing the space into a series of eccentric little rooms. They tossed Kinkaid behind a wall of boxes with “Pacific Rim Garden Supply Company” stenciled on them. Then Szorza rolled him over and kicked him again, after which he turned expectantly to Rizza.

  “You want us to soften him up a little?”

  Rizza considered the matter for a few seconds and then nodded. “Just be careful of his head.”

  They were very careful. Kinkaid wouldn’t have any broken bones, but it would probably be a week or two before he was any use to that girlfriend of his. Rizza was very happy he had hired Getz and Szorza for this job. It was a pleasure to watch a couple of artists at work.

  “Okay, that’s enough. Now go outside and wait in the car.”

  Like true professionals, the two men showed neither surprise nor curiosity. It was not their party—they were there merely to provide the entertainment. Rizza watched them leave. Until they had closed the warehouse door behind them, he did not turn to look at the limp, groaning figure on the floor

  “And now, counselor. Welcome to San Francisco.”

  . . . . .

  Kinkaid could hardly hear him for the buzzing in his head. It hurt to breathe and it was impossible to think. He felt was if they had dropped him into a stone pulverizer filled with broken glass.

  Finally he started to cough. It was agony, but he couldn’t help himself. Something came loose in his chest and he spit it up—it was a clot of blood about the size of his thumb. After that he felt as if he might live through the next ten minutes, which was an improvement of sorts.

  After several attempts, he managed to struggle into a sitting position. The man perched on a packing case ten or twelve feet away from him was wearing a wine-red shirt today, but Kinkaid didn’t have any trouble recognizing him. He took a small, flat automatic pistol out of his jacket pocket and held it up for Kinkaid to see.

  “If you were planning to kill me, I’m afraid your friends may have beaten you to it.”

  The man shook his head and smiled mirthlessly, as if acknowledging a joke he didn’t think in very good taste. Then he put the gun back in his pocket.

  “I’m not gonna kill you if I don’t have to, Counselor. I just want you to know that we’re serious people here and you ain’t goin’ nowhere before we decide to let you.”

  Kinkaid found himself wondering why a certain type of person always called him ‘Counselor’ when they wanted to needle him. In this case it was a mistake, however, because he was supposed to be scared—that was surely the point of the exercise, after all—and now he was annoyed. He was still scared, just not as much.

  “I probably could have figured that out for myself,” he said. “You want to tell me what this is about?”

  “No, you tell me, Counselor. What do you think it’s about?”

  “The name is ‘Kinkaid’, as if you didn’t know.”

  For some reason this struck the man as very funny, and he laughed in merry appreciation.

  “Okay, Mr. Kinkaid. Have it your way. I like a guy who doesn’t rattle easy.”

  “You were outside after Bills Cheffins’ funeral. Did you kill him?”

  “Everything considered, that’s not a very smart question, Mr. Kinkaid. But no, I didn’t kill him.”

  “You mean not personally, or not at all?”

  “I mean you better let it lie. I saw you there too, and I’m not askin’ you if you killed him.”

  “Since I live in New Gilead, I have an excuse. I’d known Marshal Cheffins all my life, so it isn’t unreasonable that I should go to his funeral.” Kinkaid put a hand inside his tee shirt to check for damage. It seemed to him that there should be several large, gaping holes under his rib cage, but surprisingly there were not. “What were you doing there?”

  It was a trick he had picked up in his high-school debating society—put your antagonist on the defensive. Force him endlessly to explain himself and he never gets a chance to attack your position. It this case the tactic had a real, practical application because it was obvious that, regardless of what he said, this thug planned to kill him as soon as he had what he wanted, whatever that was, so Kinkaid wanted to keep him off his agenda.

  And, within limits, it was working.

  “How do you know I’m not from out there?” he asked, looking worried—which was a little silly, considering he was the one with the gun.

  “Because to you it’s out there. I’ll bet that was the first time you’d ever been east of the Mississippi. You’re a native son, aren’t you. I could tell that much when I saw you in the
bar night before last. You looked so at home.

  “By the way, have you got a name you’re not ashamed of?”

  “No, I ain’t ashamed of it. If you gotta know, I’m Frank Rizza. Around here everybody’s heard of me.”

  “So what does that make you, a gangster?”

  “Yeah. I’m a gangster.”

  He said it with almost touching pride. He was a gangster and he was famous, and it obviously hadn’t occurred to him that, since all the famous gangsters ended up in prison, those two were conflicting career choices.

  In a way it was a hopeful development. Frank Rizza appeared to be only moderately stupid, which meant that it might be possible to reach some arrangement.

  “So what can I do for you, Frank?”

  The question took Rizza by surprise, which was the whole idea. For a moment he looked merely puzzled and then he seemed to pull himself into focus.

  “What you can do for me is tell me everything you know about Alicia Preston.”

  . . . . .

  Figuring out who “Alicia Preston” was didn’t require an act of divine revelation. All he had to do was listen to Rizza’s description.

  “She’s something. Blond hair, almost white. The god damnedest woman I’ve ever seen. Like an angel.”

  The muscles of his chest and belly were stiffening with pain, so that he felt like one continuous bruise from groin to collar bone, but Kinkaid hardly noticed. He had the odd sense of being two entirely separate people, in different times and places. He was who he was, sitting on a cold concrete floor in San Francisco, and he was twenty years old, on the porch swing in his father’s house, drinking lemonade with the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. “Like an angel.”

  Then other memories intervened, and bridged the gap.

  “What makes you think I would know anything about her?” he asked, once more the lawyer and prisoner.

  “That’s none of your fucking business, Counselor.”

  Kinkaid shrugged, which turned out to be a difficult maneuver when your ribs hurt that much. He didn’t really need to know and, anyway, he could guess.