by D. F. Bailey
“I wish I could change it….” Wally was still talking, but Finch missed most of what he’d said.
“Sorry. I need a minute.”
“I understand.” Wally threw back the last of his scotch, his slow, steady drinking pace now breaking out in a sprint. He draped his raincoat across his arm and stood up. He checked his watch. “Five-fifty. I’ve got to get back to the office to handle some of this. But you take the rest of the night off. Tell Cecily the news about your job. I’ll cover the tab.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Besides, Olivia’s staying late.” He rolled two hot wings in a paper napkin, then he wrapped the bundle in a second napkin and shoved them into his pocket.
“Can you be in at seven tomorrow morning?”
“You bet.” Finch drank the last of his second beer and stood up. He felt steady now. Good that he’d kept it to two only.
“And something to keep in mind going forward.” He lifted his briefcase in his free hand.
“What’s that?”
“It might not feel like it yet, but this is a marathon we’re running. We need to profile everyone on the TruForce board of directors. With stuff like this, murder-for-hire, there’s always a criminal conspiracy hidden away. We need to know everyone involved — who knew what — and when they knew it.” He studied Finch for a moment as if he were trying to assess his stamina. “So prepare yourself. You never know where this could lead.”
※
After Wally opened the door and stepped into the rain, Finch made his way to the washroom. The news about Jojo had hit him hard, and he decided to call Biscombe to see what he’d learned from the police. After he relieved himself, he went to the cashier and asked if he could use the phone.
“The phone?” The cashier’s tone sounded a note of surprise. “You’re in luck, my friend. There’s two pay phones on the wall next to the men’s room.”
He pointed to the corridor that Finch had traversed on his way to the toilets. In his preoccupation with Jojo, he’d missed them.
“And somehow that makes me lucky?” Finch felt as if he’d missed the punchline to a joke.
“Yeah. AT&T is yanking them out tomorrow. Nobody uses them anymore. In fact, you might win the prize for making the last call.”
Finch smiled at that. The prize. His hand swept through his pockets for loose change. He pulled out two dimes. “Can you break a one for me and give me four quarters?” He drew a dollar bill from his wallet and pointed it at the payphone.
“See what I mean? They’re way more trouble than they’re worth.” The cashier seemed to be in a good mood. Why not? The bar was hopping and everyone working the floor was raking in close to twenty percent in tips. He laughed and swapped the paper for coins.
Finch inserted a quarter into the phone and punched in Biscombe’s number. One of the few he’d memorized. His friend answered on the third ring.
“Hey, Bisk. Just checking in.” He could hear the sound of a TV in the background. “Where are you?”
“Home. Having a beer. Just watching the game highlights. Looks like the Boston Red Sox are headed to the World Series.”
“Wow. That’s something. Maybe they’ll finally break The Curse of the Bambino.”
“No, they broke that in oh-four against the Cards. You haven’t been paying close enough attention.” The background noise of the TV fell off. Biscombe must have turned the volume down. “Maybe you were somewhere else back then.”
“I guess.” Finch let this pass. Biscombe knew Will was posted to Abu Ghraib in 2004. Besides, the sports talk was nothing more than a diversion. He could tell by the sound of his voice that Biscombe was in a funk. They both loved baseball, but Will knew he couldn’t waste any time on it. Not tonight.
“So listen. You went down to the cop shop today, right?”
“That I did.”
“And you talked to Staimer again?”
A pause.
“Bisk, don’t get me to drag this out of you word by word. One of the reporters at the Post says Jojo was found in a park. What happened man?”
He sighed. “It’s bleak.”
“I know. It’s like the weather. But hell, you still have to go outside.” A weak analogy, but Will didn’t bother to elaborate. “Tell me what you know.”
“All right. The forensics aren’t wrapped up yet, but it sounds like he cut her throat.”
It confirmed Wally’s silent gesture. His fingers cutting across the thick flesh of his neck. “And where exactly did they find her?”
“Two tourists from Paris found her under some shrubs at El Polin Spring in the Presidio. It’s a little hilltop in the park. You drive up, loop through the turn-around. Done deal. All under five minutes. You seen it? Five or six blocks from her foster home.”
Finch hadn’t heard of El Polin Spring, but he knew the Presidio. Once an old military post — now a national park with over fifteen hundred acres — it stretched from the Golden Gate Bridge to Presidio Heights. Hundreds of nooks and crannies dotted the forest trails where a body could be dropped off and made to disappear for a few days.
“Did he say if she’d been killed in the park or somewhere else?”
“They don’t know yet.”
“What else?”
“Nothing else.”
Finch stared through the length of the lounge. Novela was still buzzing, the Thursday night party mood amping up with every fresh drink. “All right. Thanks, Bisk.”
“Now I’ve got a question for you, my friend.”
“For me? Shoot.”
“How many people were in the apartment on Monday night?”
“You mean when Esposito went through the window?”
“Right. Besides you, how many?”
“Four. Jojo, Esposito, Henman. And Madden, according to Jojo, but I didn’t see him.”
“So now there’s just you and Madden left.”
Will considered this a moment. “You think that I’m —”
“I don’t know, but Madden’s still out there. The cops have put out a BOLO, but until he’s in custody….” His voice trailed off.
Be On the Look Out. Sometimes they worked, sometimes not. As he absorbed the implications, a dull feeling sank through Finch’s chest. He never considered that he might be targeted. And there was Cecily. Could she be vulnerable, too?
After a moment Biscombe’s voice came back through the line. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Finch nodded to himself. “Yeah. I hear you.”
“Stay alert. This guy’s a pro. And he plays for keeps.”
※ — FOURTEEN — ※
FINCH INSERTED ANOTHER quarter in the payphone and dialed Cecily’s office number. He glanced at his watch. Ten after six. Not much chance that she’d still be at her desk, but worth checking. After four rings, a programmed message cut in announcing the library administrative office hours and he hung up. Next, he called the phone in their apartment. He heard his voice come over the line and waited for the message to end.
“Hey Cecily, it’s me. I’m on time for once, and I’ll hop on a BART train in the next ten minutes. How ‘bout we meet at Kiraku and I’ll buy you that sushi dinner I’ve been promising. Say, seven o’clock, okay? Love you.”
He hung up, pleased that he’d said something to get her out of the apartment without ringing any alarm bells. Biscombe’s warning had sent a shiver through him. An element of paranoia. He now felt an urgency about protecting Cecily. Then he considered the state of his anxiety and concluded that he’d become somewhat irrational. Which is what fear always did.
He steered his way through the after-work crowd at Novela, stepped along Jessie Street to Second, turned right onto Market and down into the Montgomery Street station. When he’d started the Master of Journalism program at Berkeley, the Bay Area Rapid Transit became his go-to form of transportation. He didn’t own a car, and he’d sold his Honda Nighthawk motorcycle before he’d shipped off to Afghanistan and then Iraq. The BART lines had becom
e the arteries and veins of his transit through the city. Part of his own body.
Although the rush hour was winding down, all the seats in his car were occupied. He clung to a handrail and studied the people surrounding him. As the train lurched forward, he braced himself against a closed door. Two tall, lean teenagers, their arms burdened with bags of groceries, stumbled next to him. The crush of the human zoo.
As he scanned the faces surrounding him, he recalled Felix Madden’s photograph. Why had Blomquist faxed Madden’s picture to Seamus Henman? It remained one of the unsolved problems in the story. Finch put together a likely scenario. Henman had asked Blomquist for some muscle to back up the blackmail sting against Gio Esposito. Just in case. Blomquist recommended his man, Madden. He’d show up at the apartment after Jojo was cuffed to the bed.
How do I recognize him? Seamus would have asked.
Simple. I’ll fax his picture to you.
Finch imagined Blomquist saying these exact words. Dressed in his pinstripe suit sitting in his home office on Nob Hill. No idea that the fax would provide a direct link from Henman back to him. That was the sort of sloppiness that emerged from a series of mounting successes. An ego that ignored the laws of gravity. A condition that Finch’s father had called “too smart by half.”
At the far end of the car stood a man with a fixed expression on his face, a glare that showed a measure of determination. Could it be Madden? No. His eyebrows lay flat under his forehead, and his face was oval, not square. He continued to stare past Finch as if he saw someone coming toward him. Finch turned, but no one was moving. Everyone stood locked in place as the car pulled into Embarcadero station. The doors slid open and discharged hundreds of passengers onto the concourse. A new rank of strangers immediately replaced them. The doors shunted together and the familiar motion began again as the train burrowed down and under San Francisco Bay and onward toward Oakland and Berkeley.
From the Downtown Berkeley station, he walked along the south side of the university campus on Bancroft Way, turned right on Telegraph Avenue and down five or six blocks to Blake Street. Just past the corner stood Kiraku, a tiny — but almost perfect — Japanese tapas restaurant. He stepped under the sidewalk awning and through the door. The restaurant hummed with laughter and gossip from the college crowd that had turned Kiraku into one of the centers of off-campus life. He scanned the open room and made his way over to the bar where Yuki stood next to the till.
“Hi, Will. Haven’t seen you in a week or two.”
She embraced him and he kissed her cheek.
“I know. Been way too busy. Listen, have you seen Cecily?” He checked his watch. Five past seven. “I was supposed to meet her here around seven.”
“No.” A blank look crossed her face — then a flashing smile as she waved a new waiter towards her. “Goro, six bottles of Asahi to table six, okay?
“Sorry, Will. You can sit at the bar and wait for her if you want. Should be a table free in about ten minutes, okay?”
He considered this and decided to wait. He pointed to the far end of the bar. “Can I use the phone?”
“Local call?”
He nodded.
“Of course!” She offered another flash of her brilliant smile and turned to talk to Goro again.
“Thanks.” He settled on a stool and pulled the telephone toward him. It was a punch-button style phone, and as he tapped in his home number, he thought about getting a new cellphone. He’d need one when he started full-time shifts at the Post. Maybe the paper offered a discount plan for reporters. He waited for four rings and their answering machine cut in. He briefly debated whether to leave another message.
“Cecily? Me again. I’m at Kiraku. Yuki’s got a table for us. Should be free by the time you get here. Say, seven-twenty. Okay. See you soon.”
He recognized the pleading sound in his voice. As if by merely saying these words aloud, Cecily would magically appear.
With a cellphone pressed to her ear, Yuki slipped behind the bar and set a white porcelain teacup in front of him, waved at him with her free hand, then eased back toward the cash register talking in Japanese as she moved back and forth.
He lifted the cup to his lips and inhaled the aroma. Jasmine. He took a sip and turned in his seat so that he faced the front door. Then he rechecked his watch and decided he would hold up until seven-thirty. As he waited, the events of the past few days swept through him. Everything had changed since he’d left Cafe Zoetrope last Monday night. It seemed like a year ago that he’d been talking about the final game of the baseball season with Biscombe, Jerry, and Phil. Their beer league. The semi-final game was scheduled for Sunday afternoon. Everyone was pumped.
He’d enjoyed the distraction and fun that the game offered. The post-game drinking. The laughs. The machismo he acquired from hitting a three-run homer in the previous game. But after their meal, during his stroll from the cafe to the Montgomery Street BART station, Gio Esposito had fallen from the sky and hit the sidewalk. That marked the instant his life crossed a particular junction of time and space. Now he wondered what the hell had become of his fiancée. It all tied together. A single, linear path from one moment to the next. From a moment of dread (Esposito’s death) to this moment of anxiety (Cecily’s absence). Esposito and Cecily had never met, never heard of one another. But now here they were, chained to Finch’s karmic wheel.
Seven-thirty came and went with no sign of Cecily. Will finished his tea, left a dollar bill on the bar and made his way through the crowded doorway. He glanced left, then turned right along Telegraph Avenue toward his home.
※
As Finch marched up Dwight Way, he noticed that the sky was clear. For the first time in days, the steady rainfall had come to a halt. An on-shore breeze was blowing the three-day storm east over the Berkeley Hills toward the Central Valley and up into the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Autumn had finally arrived and the evening air felt crisp and fresh on his skin.
He crossed to the south side of the street. Given his anxious mood, he thought it better to avoid the drifters who passed through Peoples Park. In the sixties, the block-long green space had been taken over by hippies. They’d fought, and won, a political battle to claim the park as a public space. The hippies were long gone now, and the park had become a camp for what Finch called the helpless homeless. Usually, he maintained an abiding sympathy for them, and when he had a few spare coins, he would pass them on to those who held out an empty hat or tin can. But not tonight. The fact that Felix Madden remained on the loose did not reassure him.
As he passed the park, he could make out a lone man in the shadows, a figure standing apart from the cluster of tents on the far side of the sidewalk. He tried to think past his paranoia. Put it away and confront his fears. He knew it was the only way to stay sane.
He waited for a string of cars to drive past him, then crossed the road and stopped to face the stranger. Finch stood about ten feet away from him. The man appeared to be over six feet — Will’s height, maybe an inch shorter. Because the lamplight cast his shadow in front of him, Finch couldn’t make out any facial features. His thick chest, partially covered by a red-checked lumber jacket reminded Finch of a heavy-weight boxer. Slow, lumbering — but powerful.
Finch took a step forward onto the worn grass and said, “Hey friend, how’re you doin’?”
The man shifted his weight to his right leg. A gust of wind flapped the front of his jacket against his belly.
“Nice to get a break from this rain, huh?”
No reply.
Finch considered the options. He could move on or press harder. He decided to press. “Are you Felix Madden?”
The man began to button his jacket from the bottom up.
“I said, are you Felix Madden?”
Another button. And another.
“Never heard of him,” the stranger whispered in a whiskey voice.
“No?” Finch glanced away. At that moment he felt absurd. Here he stood on a park sidewalk interrogatin
g a complete stranger. A man he imagined might be a person he’d never met — but someone he’d come to dread. He pulled his jacket collar against his neck and wondered how he could clear this madness from his mind. He fished another dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to the drifter.
“All right, take this pal.” Finch waved a hand in the air to suggest he couldn’t quite believe his own mistake. “Sorry for the confusion.”
A hint of surprise crossed the man’s face. As he shoved the bill into his pant pocket, his expression turned to one of gratitude. “You keep dry now.”
“You, too.”
“And thank you.”
Finch crossed Dwight again, and when he reached Benvenue Avenue, he traversed to the near corner. He stepped into the lobby of his apartment building, the Riviera Apartments. At one time the name of the building made him smile. Berkeley was closer to Tokyo than the French Riviera. On the day he’d signed the apartment lease he’d made a joke about it with the landlord.
A blast of wind kicked at the door. The rattling made him want to check the stairwells and corridors. He walked past the elevator bay and pushed open the door to the staircase. As he climbed up to the second floor, he could hear a loose downspout clattering against the exterior siding. He paced along the length of the hallway, up the far staircase to the third floor, then up the last flight of stairs to the fourth.
Will and Cecily rented a corner apartment on the top floor overlooking the parking lot. Not much of view, but it was quiet, and they liked the privacy. As Finch approached his door, he checked over his shoulder. Nothing. His mood brightened a little as he talked himself into dismissing his fears. He unlocked the door and moved inside.
“Cecily?”
Silence.
He clicked on the hall light and sniffed the air. In the kitchen, the scent of stale coffee hung in the air. In the morning he’d been in such a rush to get to the office that he’d left his coffee mug next to the kettle without taking a second sip.
“Cecily, you here?”