The morning …
It was already well after two; I knew I ought to get some sleep. Four nights now since I’d really rested, four days since I’d eaten well or on a regular schedule. No sense in wearing myself down.
But I was too keyed up to sleep. Instead I wandered through the suite, checking out the monitors that allowed me to see the hall outside, the elevator, the lobby door, the garage entrance. Checked for listening devices, although I knew I couldn’t locate them; they were there, but too cleverly concealed for me—RKI’s installers were that good. The amenities were impressive: Kitchenette with microwave and fully stocked fridge and freezer; fully stocked bar in the living room; TV, VCR, and CD player; enormous Jacuzzi and shower; phones with panic button everywhere, including the bathroom and the walk-in closet. With the exception of room-service menus, the suite had everything you’d find in a good hotel—more, in fact—and I suspected that if I called downstairs and said I wanted a pizza or a gourmet dinner, they’d deliver it within the hour.
Even so, I sensed a wrongness trapped within these walls—desperation, maybe. I wondered how many people had hidden here because stepping onto the street was a sure death sentence. I wondered how many had been held against their will in this luxurious prison. And how many others had, like me, been waiting out an adversary who thought he was clever but just wasn’t clever enough?
The thought of that adversary made me more restless. Where was he? What was he doing now? And where was Suits? What was his game plan? My briefcase lay on the coffee table, stuffed with the information on Suits’s turnarounds and associates. I’d been over and over it, but now I took the piles of slick fax paper out and began rereading, searching for something I’d overlooked that would give me the answer to my questions. It was after three-thirty when I concluded they held no answer and went to bed.
Before I put out the light, I whispered good night to whoever had pulled surveillance duty that shift. Gage Renshaw had been generous, but that wouldn’t prevent him from eavesdropping on my activities, if for no reason other than curiosity. It didn’t bother me, though; we might not be playing on the same side, but I was no longer afraid of Renshaw.
Twenty-one
“This job’s an absolute no-brainer. Check with me at noon, I’ll have it for you.”
Charlotte Keim was a young, attractive brunette who looked far too innocent to be working for an outfit like RKI. The scantiness of the data I’d provided didn’t faze her in the slightest; if anything, she seemed bored.
I left Keim in her cubicle with her computer, went downstairs and reclaimed my .38 from the security desk, then stepped out into a beautiful autumn morning. The weather had invigorated the pedestrians who hurried by; tables were already being set out on the sidewalks in front of the cafés that served workers from nearby decorators’ showrooms, antique shops, and offices. I glanced around, saw no suspicious-looking people, no evidence of anyone watching me. Only somewhat reassured, I walked over to a Bank of America branch on Montgomery Street and deposited into my business account the check from Suits that I’d been holding since September.
By now I’d more than earned it. Then I flagged a cab for the Park ’n’ Fly lot near the airport.
Once I’d retrieved the MG I headed back toward the city, calling my office on the way. Mick’s voice was subdued, somewhat wary.
“Everything okay there?” I asked.
“Sort of. I got GGL to messenger over a photo of Gordon.”
“But?”
“I don’t know, Shar. A guy called asking for you. When I said you were out of town, he hung up. Somebody else called a little later, same question. He said ‘No message’ and hung up. It sounded like the same person disguising his voice.”
My pursuer—or Suits? No way to tell. “Well, don’t worry about it,” I told Mick, then made arrangements to meet him and pick up the photo in the parking lot of the Safeway down the hill on Mission Street. Half an hour later I was on my way back to RKI, checking for a tail the whole time.
* * *
“Your guy believes in credit,” Keim said. “Look at this.” She pointed over my shoulder at the TRW report on the desk in front of me. “Every card ever issued, I swear. And he uses all of them.” She ran her index finger down the column showing the account numbers; under each was the notation “lastpay” and a recent date.
Pulling a credit check is illegal for private investigators in California, but very profitable. RKI had somehow devised a way around the law that wouldn’t trigger an inquiry from the state board that licenses us. I didn’t know how they did it; I didn’t want to know. If I yielded to temptation and tried it, a red flag would go up for sure, and in thirty seconds max a representative of the Department of Consumer Affairs would be at my door. That’s the kind of luck I have.
“Of course, that’s only a start,” Keim said, crumpling the report and pitching it at her wastebasket. She pulled a sheaf of printout from a folder and spread it on the desk. “This gives you the real skinny on your guy, straight from the credit-card companies. He’s been buying big-time the last few days. See here—American Express, what looks to me like an entire wardrobe from Eddie Bauer. And then there’s Shell Oil, Modesto, on Saturday. Chevron in Benbow on Sunday. Shell again same day, Lombard Street.”
Lombard Street was motel row. “Any charges for lodging?”
“Only one: Red Lion Hotel, Modesto, Friday night. From the size of the tab, I’d say he ate there. And he also ate at a place in Cloverdale on Saturday and in Petaluma on Sunday.”
Petaluma, Cloverdale, Benbow: all on Highway 101 north of the city.
Keim added, “He even charged his groceries, for God’s sake. At Petrini’s in Stonestown on Sunday. Same day, he used Visa at a big sporting-goods outlet in the same shopping center.”
Sporting goods? What the hell was he doing—taking up golf while I sweated over him going underground so he could kill someone? “Does it show what he bought there?”
“No, but if you need to know, I can have the tags pulled.”
“Would you, please?”
“Sure, but it’ll have to wait till after the lunch hour.”
“Go ahead, then, and I’ll check with you later. What about his bank account? Any activity there?”
“Daily withdrawals up to the limit on his ATM cards. Your guy likes to spend.”
“He can afford to. Anything else?”
Keim shook her head, glanced at her watch. “I’ve got a lunch date in ten minutes. You want to check with me around three, I’ll have your information.”
I thanked her and went downstairs, my ethical boundaries pushed several feet farther toward the wrong side.
* * *
I sat in my MG in the parking garage and opened my state road atlas. Traced Highway 101 north to Petaluma, through Sonoma County to Cloverdale, then through Mendocino County and over the line into Humboldt. Benbow, where Suits had bought gas the day before, was only a short distance south of Garberville. I picked up the receiver of the car phone and called Suits’s condominium.
Josh answered, sounding surprised to hear from me so soon after yesterday’s abrupt dismissal.
I asked, “The guy who owned the dope farm in Garberville—what’s his name?”
“Gerry Butler.”
“Does he still live up there?”
“Yeah, but it’s not a dope farm any more. Gerry got out when the CAMP search-and-destroy missions got serious. Now he’s a gentleman farmer and lives off the profits Suits made for him.” He laughed hollowly.
“Do you have his phone number?”
“T.J. must, somewhere here.” He rummaged, read it off. “Why d’you want to talk to Ger?”
“Just a routine question.” I ended the call before Josh could ask more.
When I identified myself to Gerry Butler, he recognized my name and didn’t seem surprised to hear from me. “Suits told me when he came up here on Saturday that you worked for him for a while.”
“So he did visit
you.”
“Uh-huh. Dropped in out of nowhere, like he used to back when. Spent the night and took off before I got up the next morning.”
“What did he want?”
“Just to touch base, I guess. We sat around, got stoned, reminisced about the old days. Talked about Anna and Josh. Noah. The way we were.” Butler laughed. “Jesus, that sounds like a song on the easy-listening station.”
“How did he seem?”
“Very intense at first. If I didn’t know Suits, I’d’ve thought he was on something. After we’d smoked a few numbers, he relaxed, and around the time I sent him off to bed, he was downright out of it. Not that I blame him; he thinks it’s his fault Anna died, and in a way he’s right. You make enough enemies, shit like that happens.”
“Did he say anything about knowing who set the explosion?”
“No.”
“Or about getting revenge?”
“Well, sure. But I thought that was just the dope talking. I tried to tell him that getting revenge wouldn’t bring Anna back and that he had to let go.”
“Did you get through to him?”
“Hard to say. He must’ve felt better in the morning, though, because he left a note thanking me for clearing up loose ends for him.”
“What loose ends?”
“Damned if I know.” Butler hesitated. “D’you think you and Suits’ll get back together now that Anna’s gone?”
“What?”
Butler sounded taken aback at my sharp tone. “Well, before Anna, you were the love of his life. I just thought—”
“I was never the love of his life,” I told him. “Even Suits doesn’t believe that any more.”
* * *
When I got to Miranda’s pierside diner the lunch trade had thinned. I sat down at the counter and ordered a burger and coffee from a waitress, caught Carmen’s eye as he slapped the patty on the grill. “Hey,” he said, “where’ve you been keeping yourself?”
“Here and there. You have a minute?”
“Once I get these last few orders out. Hang around awhile, coffee’s on the house.”
I accepted his dubious gift, ate my burger, and was eyeing a piece of chocolate cream pie when Carmen motioned for me to join him in a booth he’d just cleared—saving me from a severe dietary error. As I sat down, he asked, “You seen T.J.?”
“No. Have you?”
“Not since Friday afternoon. He came in around four-thirty, had his usual order of sliders.”
“Did he say what he’s been doing, where he’s been staying?”
“Nope. Was awful quiet, for T.J.” Carmen’s face grew solemn. “’Course, that’s natural, considering what happened to his wife. I tried to offer my condolences, but he just brushed them off, said he didn’t want to talk about her.”
“So what did the two of you talk about?”
Carmen looked away. “Oh,” he said in an overly casual tone, “the weather. He asked me if I thought the rains might start soon.”
“What else?”
“I told him that nobody can predict the weather any more, what with these crazy patterns—”
“No, I meant, what else did you talk about?”
“Well, he asked if his pilot’d been in. He hadn’t.”
“And?”
Carmen studied the window beside the booth, pulled a paper napkin from its dispenser, and carefully removed a ketchup smear from a corner of the pane.
“Hey,” I said, “I’m on T.J.’s side—remember?”
“Yeah, I remember.” He hesitated. “Okay. The reason he came in was to ask where is a good place to buy a gun without a waiting period.”
Not good at all. “What did you tell him?”
“I sent him to Howie Tso.”
“My God, Carmen!” Howie Tso was the biggest dealer of illegal firearms in northern California; both state and federal authorities had been trying to get something on him for years, but up to now Tso and his legion of runners had been too clever for them.
“Ah, Howie’s all right,” Carmen said. “At least he don’t overcharge his customers.”
“How come you know him?”
“We go way back to when he was just a kid hanging around the piers.”
Probably waiting to take delivery on a shipment of Uzis, I thought. There was no way I’d ever find out if Suits had actually contacted Tso, because even if the dealer would speak with me—which was extremely doubtful—he wouldn’t ever reveal the details of a transaction. Unless …
“Carmen,” I said, “can you set up a meeting with Tso for me?”
“You want to ask him about what T.J. bought? He won’t tell you nothing.”
“Still, I’d like to ask.”
“Well, I can try. Call me later on, I’ll let you know what Howie says.”
The waitress shouted from the back room; there was a problem with the Coors delivery. Carmen stood up.
“Wait,” I said, “one last question. The old-timer T.J. said he’d been talking to the night he got drunk and ended up in the Bay—do you know who he is?”
“Some old guy who’s living in his van up and down the waterfront. Knows all the places to park overnight and moves around a lot so the cops don’t hassle him. Kind of an interesting guy, I’m told. Used to be captain of a Matson liner, dines out on his stories.”
“You know his name?”
“Uh-uh.”
“The van—have you seen it?”
“It’s white, newish.” He shrugged. “But what with all these makes and models they’re coming out with now, I couldn’t tell you what kind it is.”
* * *
I drove up and down the waterfront from the Ferry Building to Islais Creek, but didn’t spot a newish white van driven by anyone who could be described as an old-timer. Near the Mission Rock Terminal, in a weedy lot across from a burned-out pier, sat several old cars that looked as if people were living in them. I pulled the MG over there, bumping across the rusted tracks of the defunct Belt Railway. A woman slept on the front seat of an old sedan crowded with boxed and bagged possessions, and two little kids played in the dirt nearby. The place reminded me of the hobo jungles that had sprung up during the Great Depression—had sprung up again in this era that nobody wanted to call another depression.
I looked around, spotted a trio of men fishing off the wreckage of a pier beyond the chain-link fence and the warning signs. One segment of the fence had been knocked down and flattened; I went over there and stepped across it. The men glanced at me, then returned their attention to their lines.
As I picked my way through the broken concrete and rubble, though, the men’s posture altered subtly. They looked at me again, not with hostility—it wasn’t time for that yet—but with wariness. Then they exchanged glances, and one of them stood, handing his pole to the man next to him. When I reached the edge of the broken planking, he faced me, arms loose at his sides, blocking access. He was big—around six-three—and a long scar cut a jagged path across the deep brown of his left cheek. His eyes met mine, cold and unyielding.
“Lady,” he said, “you can get hurt out here.”
“I won’t go any farther.” I motioned at the water. “You catching anything?”
He hesitated, glanced at his seated companions, who were silently watching. “Just a few bluegills. Enough for supper.”
I jerked my head at the weedy lot behind me. “You staying over there?”
“Why, you gonna roust us?” One of the other men snickered at the question; their spokesman glared at him.
“I’ve got no problem with where you stay.”
“So what you want?”
“I’m looking for somebody—an old man who lives along the waterfront in a newish white van. Used to be captain of a Matson liner—”
“What you want with Cap?”
“I’ve heard he tells good stories.”
“Oh, shit, man.” Spokesman looked at his companions, laughed. “Don’t tell me this is another take-a-homeless-to-dinner week! Y
ou rich bitches sure’re crazy for Cap and his stories.” The others joined in the laughter.
It was the first time in my life that I’d been mistaken for a society matron. I blinked, astonished, then said lamely, “Well, they tell me he’s got some good ones.”
Spokesman looked at the others. “We don’t want to deprive Cap of his free dinner, now, do we?” he asked. “What you do,” he told me, “is look for him up at Aquatic Park.”
I hadn’t thought to search the touristy northern end of the waterfront. “What’s he doing up there?”
“Cap, he’s got this schedule. Knows where and when they won’t hassle him for sleeping in his wheels. Mondays, that’s where he’s at.”
I thanked him and started back toward the pushed-down fence. Spokesman didn’t reply, just reached out for his fishing pole. When I got to the vacant lot, the kids were still playing in the dirt and the woman was still sleeping in the sedan. I glanced back at the men on the pier; they sat with their heads bowed over their lines, and beyond them the burned pilings loomed above the water, their shadows shivering and rippling on its slick surface.
* * *
I called Charlotte Keim while waiting for the drawbridge at China Basin to close, thinking that I’d really gotten the hang of this car-phone business. McCone was hurtling into the twenty-first century faster than the speed of light. Pretty soon I’d—
The car behind me honked. I saw that the one in front was already halfway across the bridge. I popped the clutch, stalled the MG, and Keim’s voice repeated, “Hello? Who is this?”
Well, hell.
After I got things under control, Keim told me she had the information I’d requested. Suits’s purchases at the sporting-goods outlet consisted of a sleeping bag, air mattress, tarp, cook set, and Coleman stove and lantern.
“Sounds like your guy’s gone camping,” she commented.
It would have sounded that way to me, too, if I hadn’t known Suits was looking to make an illegal gun buy.
* * *
I took North Point across town to Aquatic Park, bypassing the congestion near Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf, and turned downhill at Ghirardelli Square. At the foot of Polk Street stood the nautical-style Maritime Museum building, a former bathhouse and restaurant constructed in the mid-thirties as a WPA project. It’s been a long time since bathers flocked to the protected cove behind it; about the only ones you see nowadays are members of the Dolphin swim club—hardy but, to my way of thinking, somewhat demented souls who daily brave the icy waters. The streamlined Moderne building now houses both the museum and the San Francisco Senior Center, and the park has been incorporated into the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
Till the Butchers Cut Him Down (v5) (epub) Page 25