The Dangerous Hour (v5) (epub)

by Marcia Muller

  “Anything from Craig?” I asked.

  “Nothing. But you’ve gotta hear this. What happened was, Alison came in this morning, and . . . Well, you know those wharf rats have been getting awfully bold, even though I’ve set out traps—”

  “I don’t want to know!” I left his office.

  After I’d glanced through the papers in my in-box, I called Adah at SFPD. Still nothing from Aguilar, and she said she hadn’t been able to reach him at his home or office numbers. “You should’ve brought him in yourself, looks like.”

  She was right. I should have.

  “I’ll give him another hour,” Adah added, “then issue a be-on-lookout order.”

  “Let me check something and get back to you.” I broke the connection and dialed Patrick Neilan’s number.

  “Hey,” he said, “I just got off my security-job shift and was about to call you. Aguilar’s back in town, but it looks like he’s leaving again. I ran into him on my way into the building; he was loading a bunch of suitcases into his car.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Maybe ten minutes.”

  “Thanks. Why don’t you come by the pier after you’ve slept.”

  “I’ve already slept. It was an easy shift.”

  “Then come ahead. And by the way, I think you’ll be able to quit that job, once the agency’s status is resolved.”

  “I can’t tell you how much I’d like that.”

  I called Adah back, explained the situation. “Sounds like Aguilar’s on the run.”

  “Then I’d better put out that BOLO. Talk to you when I know more. And please, hold off on going to the press. Any more news about Julia?”

  “As of seven this morning it looks as if she’ll make it.”

  Calls to Marguerite Hayley and Glenn Solomon confirmed that the case against Julia and the BSIS investigation had been put on hold, pending future developments. I’d just called the hospital and learned that Julia’s condition was unchanged, when Hy arrived, followed by Patrick. I introduced them and brought them up to date.

  “My informant in the Mission has come up with two leads that may be worth pursuing,” I finished. “Patrick, are you familiar with the Remedy Lounge?”

  “I know where it is, yes.”

  “Well, both Ripinsky and I are known there, so why don’t you check it out, see if Dominguez has been frequenting the place. And you,” I added to Hy, “can run a surveillance on the Nineteenth Street address, if you’d like.”

  “Sure. Where’ll you be?”

  “Right here, catching up on paperwork and waiting for you guys to report in.”

  The hours dragged by. Neither Hy nor Patrick called or returned. There was nothing from Craig, and when I tried his cell phone, it was out of range. None of my other operatives had anything to report. Julia’s condition remained the same. I immersed myself in paperwork, asked Ted to bring me a sandwich when he went out for lunch, and fended off yet another offer of an explanation about Alison and the wharf rat.

  The sandwich was something chopped and pressed that pretended to be chicken, loaded with sprouts and tomatoes because, as Ted claimed, I looked “peaked” and needed my veggies. I ate the sourdough roll, picked at the rest.

  Patrick returned shortly after two. He’d sat at the bar at the Remedy, nursing a couple of beers for hours, but saw no one remotely resembling Dominguez. When Brian, the owner, came on shift, Patrick noticed him casting covert glances, so he decided to leave and come back that evening. But as he paid up, Brian handed him an envelope and said, “The guy you’re looking for asked me to make sure McCone gets this.”

  Now, that was interesting. How had Brian known Patrick was working for me? I’d only hired him the previous afternoon.

  The envelope was a standard type that can be found in any supermarket or drugstore; my name was written on it in a childish scrawl. I stared at it, holding it by the edges. Not likely there’d be any identifiable fingerprints, since it had passed through both Brian’s and Patrick’s hands, but—

  “I handled it so I wouldn’t smudge anything,” Patrick said.

  Good man. I slid my finger under the flap, carefully took out and unfolded a single sheet of paper. Taped to it was a newspaper clipping that looked to be from one of the Macy’s ads that make up the bulk of the Sunday Chronicle.

  Wusthoff knives. Set of five.

  Knives.

  I laid the paper on the desk, turned it around so Patrick could see it. He frowned. “What does it mean?”

  I explained about the duel in Tijuana, and Dominguez’s taped dare: “Knives at midnight.”

  “What else did Brian say?” I asked.

  “He didn’t know Dominguez’s full name, only heard him called R. D. He’s been coming in there off and on for a month, hangs with a group of four or five guys Brian would just as soon not have as customers, but tolerates on account of business being so bad. Dominguez talks a lot, but Brian doesn’t listen, because he doesn’t want to know what he’s into.”

  “Who are the guys he hangs with, and what’re they into?”

  “Brian doesn’t know their names, but he says they’re small-time dealers, petty thieves. One’s a pimp; another’s done time for armed robbery.”

  The Remedy had gone downhill; in the old days Brian would have kicked such characters out onto the sidewalk.

  “Dominguez is playing games,” I said. “He’s been following me, watching my moves. He may even have planted those leads with the Cowboy. He knows you from your building, and he described you to Brian, but I don’t understand how he found out you’re working for me.”

  “If he’s been watching you, he’s probably watching the pier. He could’ve seen me come here yesterday.”

  “Yes, but it doesn’t naturally follow that you’re anything more than a witness. Unless he’s had someone spying on us . . . Oh, my God . . .” I picked up the phone, buzzed Ted. “What’s Alison James’s address?”

  “If you’re looking to rehire her, I wouldn’t try. That rat was one big mother—”

  “This is important.”

  “I’m checking.” He was silent for a moment. Then, “I’ll be damned. No wonder the address Claude Cardenas phoned in sounded familiar. They’re one and the same.”

  No wonder Alison was so nervous around me.

  “Thanks,” I said to Ted, and replaced the receiver. From my file cabinet I took a Ziploc bag, deposited the note and envelope inside, and handed it to Patrick. “Will you take this over to Richman Labs for fingerprinting, please? We have an account with them, and Ted’ll give you the address.”

  He nodded and left the office.

  I dialed Hy’s cellular number.

  Alison’s apartment was on Nineteenth Street in the Mission, over a store that sold soap, bath oils, sponges, candles, and sex toys. In the window, a pair of handcuffs hung from a wire basket full of colorful towels, and a pyramid of boxes containing anatomically correct blow-up items—including one labeled “Edna the Party Sheep”—was positioned below it. Hy met me on the sidewalk, indicated a door to the right of the shop, and went back to his Mustang. I climbed a narrow stairway that smelled of mildew and other things I didn’t care to contemplate.

  When Alison opened the door, she paled, then backed up, raising her hand to her left cheek in an attempt to cover a nasty bruise that hadn’t been there the day before.

  I shut the door behind me. “R. D. do that to you?”

  Tears filled her eyes, and she turned away, moved along a narrow hallway.

  I followed her into a tiny, sparsely furnished room. “He’s gone, isn’t he?” I asked.

  She nodded, her back to me.

  “You want to tell me about it?”

  “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  “No, you don’t. But you might prefer speaking with me to speaking with the police.”

  “The police!” She turned, throwing up her hands in a panic.

  “Think about it, Alison. You took a job at my agency un
der false pretenses. You stole and copied the key to the mail room, as well as Julia Rafael’s key to the storage unit at her apartment building. Did you remove the packages from the mail room and place them in Julia’s storage space, or was it Dominguez?”

  Silence.

  “Do you really want a face-to-face with my friends at the police department? Or with the FBI? Tampering with mail is a federal offense, you know.”

  She bit her lip, shook her head.

  “Then answer my questions. How long has R. D. been staying here?”

  “. . . About a month.”

  “Did you know from the first you were giving shelter to a man who’s broken parole?”

  Her eyes widened. “He said he’d done his time and been released.”

  “But only on parole.”

  “Oh, God, I knew he lied about a lot of things, but . . . Okay, I can’t afford any trouble. I had an alcohol problem, and my ex-husband got custody of our kid. I’m trying to straighten out my life so I can get her back. What d’you want to know?”

  “All of it, from the beginning.”

  “I met R. D. at this mail-drop place on outer Mission where I work part-time. He has a box there. We went out for coffee a couple of times, then some drinks.” She saw my frown and added, “Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. But it’s not so easy to get your life together, not when you’re lonely and nobody gives a shit about you. Anyway, we shared our troubles. He said he’d gotten kicked out of this friend’s apartment and needed a place to stay. So I took him home with me.”

  “And?”

  “We did some coke, sat up all night, talked. He told me about you. Said you’d had him falsely imprisoned, and now that he was out, he’d heard you still had it in for him. He’d seen an ad for an assistant office manager at your agency and asked, since I have office skills, if there was any way I could get on with you. So I sent in a kind of puffed-up résumé. I guess Ted was getting desperate, because he didn’t check it very carefully, just said come in on a trial basis. And I did all the things you said, except R. D. was the one who put the packages in Julia Rafael’s storage locker. Then, after everything was set up, I told Ted I didn’t think it was working out, and he agreed.”

  “But then Dominguez wanted you back there.”

  “He said the scheme wasn’t working. You’d caught onto him, and he needed to find out how close you were getting.”

  “And you told R. D. everything you overheard there yesterday. Probably snooped through our files, too.”

  She hung her head. “Yeah. You must hate me.”

  Hate you? No. Think you’re pathetic? Yes.

  I asked, “What happened between you and Dominguez today?”

  “There was this rat in the supply room at the pier. . . . Anyway, I couldn’t deal with it, so I quit and came home. R. D. was furious, said he needed me there. When I refused to go back, he smacked me. I ran into the bathroom and locked the door. He stayed out here a long time, talking to himself and laughing. He sounded crazy, and I was really scared. There’s no window in the bathroom, so I was trapped. After a while I heard him come to the door. I thought he’d break it down and kill me. Instead, all he said was that he’d left an envelope for you on the table, that you’d be around and I should give it to you. Then he left.”

  More game playing.

  “Where’s the envelope?” I asked.

  She motioned toward a table by the front window.

  The envelope was the same kind as the one Patrick had brought me. I handled it with care, took out the message. A single word:

  AT

  Knives at . . .

  “Alison, you say you work at a mail drop where R. D. has a box?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s go there, take a look at what’s in it.”

  “I can’t do that! Opening mail that’s addressed to somebody else is a crime. I could get fired.”

  “I’m not saying we’ll open it. You sort the mail, put it in the boxes, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Is it a crime to notice what the return addresses are?”

  “. . . I guess not.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  Alison came up to the counter in the dingy storefront on outer Mission Street and extended an envelope to me. “That’s all there is.”

  My name was printed on it in the same childish scrawl as Dominguez’s other communications. Again I handled it carefully, took out the folded sheet of paper. Again, a single word:

  MIDNIGHT

  Knives . . . at . . . midnight.

  Not this time, Dominguez.

  The dangerous hour isn’t always late at night. During the day, in unfamiliar territory, you’re exposed and vulnerable. Particularly when you’re tracking a man who’s intent on destroying you. When you don’t know if you’re the predator or the prey. . . .

  I was parked on Regis Avenue on the backside of Bernal Heights, close to the site of the Farmers’ Market on Alemany Boulevard, and the intricate maze where the 280 and 101 freeways intertwine, then split off again. Following up on a lead Craig had provided me: one of Dominguez’s prison buddies, Sly Rawson, lived in the shabby blue frame cottage down the block. Hy and Patrick were elsewhere, pursuing other leads Mick had turned up on R. D.’s friends in the city. Charlotte had discovered nothing on the financial angle, and Derek had found only that there was no record of Dan Jeffers’s death.

  No activity here. A quiet afternoon in a quiet neighborhood, or so it would seem, but I knew better. Numbers 313 and 444 were infamous crack joints. The boarded-up house at the corner had been the scene of a drug bust gone wrong, where two cops were killed and the residents had subsequently been taken out by police firepower. Apparently the house’s history didn’t intimidate the squatters; I’d been watching them enter and leave through a side door for the better part of an hour. An old woman came along the sidewalk pulling a shopping cart full of recyclables; she entered a fenced yard that at first I thought was her own; then I realized she’d gone into the shrubbery to relieve herself. After a few minutes she shuffled on.

  I looked at my watch. After six. Still nothing happening at the blue house, but this was a neighborhood where most people only emerged after dark. Craig had little information on Dominguez’s friend; he’d completed parole six months ago, was no longer required to report his job status or whereabouts, but a former cellmate claimed he still lived at this address.

  My cellular rang. Adah.

  “They’ve located Aguilar’s car,” she said. “It was abandoned at a rest stop off Two-eighty, the one with the statue of Father Serra that looks like he’s holding a football for the kicker. No suitcases. Somebody must’ve met him there.”

  “Try this somebody: Tracy Escobar, his girlfriend and an employee at the job-training center.” I explained her history.

  “I’ll get on it.”

  I returned to watching the blue house. Thought long and hard about Reynaldo Dominguez. Began to reconstruct the chain of events since he came to town.

  He’d moved in with Aguilar. It hadn’t been a harmonious living arrangement. Then he’d found out that Aguilar had hired the agency to investigate the thefts at the job-training center, and blackmailed him into taking part in his scheme to bring me down. Somehow Scott Wagner found out about the scheme, and Dominguez killed him. Probably caught up with Dan Jeffers and killed him, too. Just because there wasn’t a death record for the former Deadhead didn’t mean Dominguez hadn’t disposed of him; the wilderness areas of this country are full of unidentified bones.

  Julia was arrested. I began investigating. Dominguez was already watching me, saw me paying visits to Aguilar’s building. So he stole the case file from my car to find out what I knew. He probably saw me with Johnny Duarte, too, so he paid Duarte a visit and found out what he’d told me. Then Duarte went off the cliff at Devil’s Slide.

  I could understand the twisted rationale behind killing Wagner and Jeffers, but why kill Duarte? He’d told me nothing about Domin
guez. As I’d speculated before, Dominguez might have wanted in on the drug operation, but there were easier ways to accomplish that than by throwing someone off Devil’s Slide. Duarte’s murder didn’t seem logical to me, but then, guys like Dominguez don’t need a good reason to kill. He’d enjoyed staging the knife duel in which he carved up Troy Winslip. He’d probably enjoyed doing Johnny as well.

  Since then he’d been busy, trying to find out all he could about my activities, and taunting me with those notes. He knew I’d identified him and was closing in, but did he realize how quickly? And if he realized, what would he do next? Not run away; he was having too much crazy fun. Most likely he’d go after another one of my people, or force a confrontation with me, depending on how long he wanted to continue the game.

  Neither possibility was a good one, but I favored a face-to-face between Dominguez and me over anyone else getting hurt or killed. Somehow I had to bring him out into the open. Until then, no one—my employees, friends, or associates—was safe.

  The thought chilled me. What could I do? Ask for police protection for everyone I knew or cared about? Yeah, sure. Well, there was one thing, and I could accomplish it right here in the car.

  I picked up the cell and called Ted. Explained the situation and asked him to caution the staff. Then I started from the top of my automatic-dial address book, leaving warnings with people and answering machines.

  Dusk now, and still no activity at the blue house. I’d moved the car twice when residents who emerged into the shadows gave me suspicious glances. Nothing from Hy or Patrick. Nothing more from Craig. Mick had called from S.F. General to say Julia had been moved from the intensive care unit to a semiprivate room and was asking for me. I explained I was on a surveillance, gave him a message to pass along.