While I was looking up at the building, I hadn’t paid much attention to a homeless woman walking toward me. When I looked over at her, I gasped. For a second, I thought she was Ethel. This woman also had a scarf on her head. But unlike Ethel’s it was flowered. And she wasn’t black. She was white.
“Hey sister,” I said.
“Got any change.”
I dug around and found a twenty. “You ever want to change your situation? Live in an apartment?”
I was always recruiting for Swanson Place. Feeling people out, trying to get the perfect mix of residents.
She frowned. “Why?”
“I know of a place. You could work downstairs in the building. There’s a bunch of shops.”
“I don’t want to work.” She cackled.
“You might like it.”
“Doubt that.”
She turned to go.
“Hey, what’s the word on the streets? I hear some people are vanishing, gone missing.”
She rotated her pointy jaw toward me. “That’s true.”
“Are you worried?”
She thought about it a second and then shook her head. “Nah. They only want the blacks.”
When I got to the address in the Rambles, my eyes were blurred from lack of sleep, but then I did a double take. 12 Eddy Street. Fuck me!
I looked up at the building as I dialed James. But as soon as he answered, I hung up. If I was wrong, Sasha would die. They’d warned me about bringing the police into this in a way I’d never forget. I couldn’t take the chance. I dialed Baumann instead.
He sounded sleepy.
“I think I know where she is. She had some scribblings on her calendar that said 12 Eddy. I just found out the mayor owns a building at 12 Eddy and her story concerns the mayor. She’s got to be here somewhere.” I spoke fast, my words tumbling over one another.
“How sure are you?”
I swallowed. “Not sure enough to call the police.”
Quickly, I filled Baumann in on the toe.
He was quiet when I finished.
“I’ll meet you at the Black Panther in thirty minutes,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
As I made my way to the Black Panther, a buzzing near my ear made me jump. It was the drone. It had dropped down by me, startling me so much I yelped. I’d totally forgotten about it.
It hovered a few feet above me as if trying to tell me something. It started to go away and then came back. What did it want me to do? Then I remembered: The battery. I gave a thumbs up and that must have been the right thing to do because it zoomed away and was soon out of sight.
The Black Panther, a dark, dive bar with sticky floors and chairs, was mostly empty. Only a few diehards slumped at the bar.
I ordered a tap beer while I waited, figuring I better keep my wits about me.
Baumann came in wearing a trench coat with his jeans and cowboy boots.
I eyed the boots. They were made of snake skin and dyed black cherry. “Those are kick ass.”
“Ready?”
It was misting as we walked and I pulled my jacket collar up and tucked my chin into my scarf. Finally, the building appeared in the low-hanging fog.
We stood under the awning and looked at all the doorbell buttons. There were eight apartments.
“Start ringing doorbells?”
Baumann said, “Might as well.”
I pressed the first button and nothing happened. I did it three more times and then raised an eyebrow. “Okay. On to number two.”
This time the door buzzed and clicked open.
Baumann held the door, looking at me over his glasses. I took a deep breath and stepped inside. I gestured at the first apartment on the left. There were two apartments on each floor. “I’ll start here.”
The man who opened the door of number one was bleary eyed. I felt bad. He’d been sleeping.
“Excuse me? I’m sorry to wake you.”
“No hablo inglés.”
Baumann was by my side in a second speaking to the man in Spanish. When they got done talking, the man stood there yawning while Baumann translated.
“He works nights. Says he doesn’t know who owns the building and he has never seen a girl who looks like Sasha here. All the other residents are single guys like him from Mexico who work in restaurants. Most work two restaurant jobs so they’re basically here to sleep for a few hours when they’re not working. It’s a really quiet building. He said he’d have heard something if a girl had been here.”
“Can you ask him what time most of them get home?”
Baumann spoke quickly in Spanish. The man answered and Baumann turned to me.
“He said he’s usually the earliest one home after the restaurant closes at one.”
According to her calendar, Sasha was supposed to meet King here at midnight. The building might have been empty.
“Can we trust him?” I said it, but I already knew the answer.
Baumann didn’t hesitate. “Yeah.”
I looked at my watch. It was four in the morning. Fourteen hours left to find Sasha.
“Then I’m not sure it’s worth knocking on all these doors,” I said. “I don’t want to wake people up for nothing. Sounds like most of them have to get up in a few hours.”
“Check the basement. I’ll check the roof,” he said.
The basement was a small space, mostly taken up by the stairs. There were five bicycles chained to a pole, including a bright red one that looked new. A door was at one end. I turned the handle and found a janitor’s closet.
Baumann was coming down the stairs when I got to the lobby.
“Door to the roof is locked from this side. Probably illegal and a fire hazard. If these guys went to the roof to get away from fire, they’d be in trouble.” He sounded angry.
“I guess I’m not surprised the mayor is an absentee slumlord.” I was angry, too, and not only about that. This whole exercise was a waste of everybody’s time.
A dead end. I’d wasted precious hours that should’ve been spent finding Sasha.
“What next, boss?” Baumann said.
“Ha.” But I thought about it. “I have an address for King. It’s in your town. You mind swinging by there on your way home to see if anything seems suspicious.”
“Sounds good.” He started to walk away and then turned back.
“Hey, it was a good lead. We needed to check it out.”
I shrugged. He smiled and headed toward the Powell Street BART station.
Baumann was cool about it, but I could tell he’d wished he’d stayed home in his nice warm bed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Feeling dejected, I started out toward Russian Hill. I would hit the last address on my walk home. I stepped onto Mason Street, the unofficial border to the Forgotten Island part of the Tenderloin. But I would’ve known the difference. It was as if this neighborhood had a darkness that surrounded it. I remembered the creepy feeling I had the other day around there.
The streetlights were broken and the entire area felt remote and forlorn, even though I knew less than a block away Market Street was bustling.
Glancing at my sheet of paper, I read the address: 240 Turk Street. I squinted in the near darkness to see if I could spot a building with an address. Most of the buildings didn’t have addresses, which was another bizarre aspect of the Forgotten Island.
Nearly all the buildings were abandoned with boarded-up windows and doors.
The building closest to me had half of an address 23 ... So, I knew I was close. I found another numbered building and that’s when I looked up.
The address matched. It was the abandoned building that had given me the creeps the other day. But now as the fog cleared, it didn’t look abandoned. The twelve-foot-high chain link fence was shiny. Getting closer, I examined the lock on the gate. New. I glanced up at the windows. If someone were inside with some type of light I would never know. The windows were black with curtains or shades or something else.
The rumble of a vehicle nearby sent me scrambling. I raced across the street and ducked into a deep dark doorway of an old liquor store with the sign hanging from one bolt. Tucked in there I knew I was invisible. I pressed myself against the wall as the vehicle’s headlights turned onto the street, briefly flashing my way. The far reaches of the beam glanced against my boot, which I pulled back even further into the shadows.
The vehicle rolled into sight. It was a black SUV. My heart thudded. The driver got out to unlock the gate, but it was on the other side of my vantage point, so I couldn’t see him or her, only a dark figure. I stretched my neck out, but couldn’t get a glimpse of the license plate from my hiding spot unless I stepped out into the street. I shrunk back into the doorway: another car was coming down the road.
A black sedan with dark tinted windows stopped right in front of me and waited for the SUV to enter the fenced parking lot. The SUV pulled into the parking lot, followed by the sedan. A passenger—someone all in black—jumped out and locked the gate behind the two vehicles. A huge garage door creaked open and the vehicles disappeared inside. Before the door closed, I glimpsed a metal staircase across a vast open and empty space.
Once again, I eyed the fence. If it weren’t for the barbed wire dangling down on my side, I would scale that baby in a second and go snoop around.
Meanwhile, I’d wait to see if the vehicles came out any time soon. I glanced at my phone. Past five in the morning. Which also meant thirteen hours until James was going to his superiors, putting Sasha’s neck on the line. Damn it.
Sasha’s disappearance was connected to the mayor and a black SUV and this building was connected to both. I was right where I needed to be.
It is during those times when all seems to be lost that the true warrior digs deep down inside and finds his true strength and purpose. He will unerringly know when he is doing what is right and true and just.
By dawn, I was crunched in the corner of the doorway, numb and cold and stiff, barely able to keep my eyes open. That’s when I heard a screech and opened my eyes in time to see both vehicles pulling out of the gate. This time I could see the driver. He looked military. His hair was shorn and he wore all black clothing and sunglasses even though the sky was only now beginning to lighten. He was nondescript. Indistinguishable in any way. Completely average.
If I saw him again, I wouldn’t recognize him. Instead, I stared at the back window of the sedan as it rolled past. Was the mayor inside?
My phone buzzed right then and I looked down at the text that appeared. Baumann.
“King place quiet. Will wait til 7.”
“Thx,” I texted back.
I felt helpless. Sitting back, watching and spying was not helping us find Sasha. Unless she was in the building. Something they wanted to hide was in that building. The fence and padlocked gate made that apparent. Besides the garage door, there were no other obvious ways to enter the building. All the doors were boarded up.
Feeling desperate, I did something probably foolish. I stepped out into the street after the sedan had passed, standing in the middle of the road. The vehicles were three blocks away, but I saw the brake lights flash once before I stepped back into the shadows.
Come on. Come back. I would throw myself in the passenger door. I would pretend to be hit by the car. I would try all the doors on the car. Anything to see if the mayor and his smug face was sitting in the back seat. I waited but the car didn’t stop. The rumble of the vehicles grew distant and then disappeared.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Even though I’d intended to head home and sleep a few hours, it now seemed like a waste. I didn’t have time for that. Instead, I headed to Darling’s salon. I found her in the back. She looked a little more presentable than the last time I’d seen her. Her hair was back on her head in silky black curls and her Cleopatra eyes were made up to perfection.
Django ignored me. He probably thought I’d abandoned him and that he was now Darling’s dog. Hell, maybe he was. When I first walked in, he’d looked up with interest and then put his head back down on his paws and closed his eyes. I couldn’t blame him. I was terrible at relationships. Even the dog knew.
Darling was on the couch sipping coffee and watching the morning news.
“Where’s Precious?” I asked, narrowing my eyes suspiciously.
“She’s sleeping in at my place. She’ll be here, soon.”
I told her what I’d learned about the mayor’s business holdings in the Tenderloin, hoping she might be able to shed some insight.
She looked off in the distance, thinking. This was the old Darling I knew. The strong, smart woman who’d grown a multi-million-dollar business from nothing.
“Sasha wrote a story that was going to ruin the mayor, so he must be behind her disappearance—is that what you’re saying?”
“That’s what I think.”
“Have you gone to his house?”
“I haven’t,” I admitted. “But only because I know he lives there with his wife and kids and I think it’s unlikely he’d let any of his other activities near them. But it probably wouldn’t hurt to have someone go there and put a tail on him.”
Mentally, I kicked myself for not thinking of this earlier.
I hid my shame by pulling my mug of coffee to my face and taking a long sip. When I put the mug down Darling was staring at me with wide eyes.
“I spent last night awake lying in bed thinking of everything Sasha said to me the past two weeks. I was trying to remember every word. I don’t know, but I think maybe all the people disappearing lately in the Tenderloin, I think she was also looking into that.”
“Go on.” I sat up straighter.
“When I was concerned about the missing people she said, ‘Nonna, don’t worry I’m working on a story that makes sure these people never hurt anyone again.’”
Missing black homeless or poor. All from the Tenderloin. A fake Antifa group. Kraig King. The mayor and his re-election campaign. Sasha’s story to ruin the mayor.
What was the connection? Was the mayor behind the disappearances? I had a hard time believing even a scumbag like him would stoop that low. Unless it was some Good Samaritan program where he was taking them off the streets and transplanting them somewhere like Swanson Place. My idea.
But if that were the case, he would be blabbing it all over the city. Every TV station would feature Evans and his bushy gray eyebrows. If I knew anything about the mayor, it was that he was the quintessential politician. Every move was calculated and geared to boost and bolster his public image. From the make-up he wore at the gym (in case there was a photo op) to the finely tailored blazers he wore to stroll the beach, the mayor was all about the promotion machine.
Thinking of Sasha’s pinky toe back on my dining room table, I had a hard time believing he would either participate in, or condone, violence of that caliber. One time, he’d been asked to give a statement about a severed hand found floating in the Bay. When a reporter had shown him a picture of it, he’d visibly cowered and turned green, looking as if he were trying not to vomit. He found the world’s dark underbelly, which included the Tenderloin, distasteful.
The pinky toe.
Of course, I’d avoided telling Darling that detail. I couldn’t, because deep down inside I knew I had caused it. By going to the police I’d effectively maimed her precious grandbaby. She had been so against me going to the cops in the first place. I’d made a colossal mistake.
The only way I could possibly make up for it would be to bring Sasha home safely. Darling was watching me after I finished speaking. I’d become lost in my own thoughts. She was looking at me as if I held the secret keys to the kingdom. It was too much.
But I had made her a promise. I shook off my fears and doubts and thought about what we knew again. At the core of it all was someone’s desire to stop Sasha from running a story in the newspaper. But what was the story?
“This is all an effort to kill Sasha’s story. But what they don’
t seem to know is that the editor doesn’t even have the story. I don’t want to tell her kidnappers that we don’t even have the story because then any leverage we have is gone. Baumann says Sasha never filed it. It’s probably somewhere on her laptop, which is missing.” I stood and looked around the office. “Darling, did she ever mention places she worked, maybe a coffee shop where she took her laptop to write or something like that?”
Darling scrunched up her face thinking. “She sometimes brought her laptop here if she was writing on deadline,” Darling pointed to a small desk. “And one time she brought it here to help me with some computer stuff. I’d forgotten to save and then spilled some water on my computer. Lost the whole darn file.”
“That’s the worst.”
“Yes, but my grandbaby is so smart. She showed me how to use her Dropbox to make sure everything I did was saved.”
I froze. Sasha used Dropbox. I tried not to get too excited.
“Do you guys share a Dropbox account?”
“Yes,” Darling said. “Why?” And then she leaped to her feet as she realized. “Oh, Lordy! It might have her story!”
Within seconds, Darling had logged in to her computer and then the Dropbox account.
The fourth file down was Sasha’s. It was labeled “Sunday Story.”
That was it.
I closed my eyes and said a little prayer to a God I wasn’t even sure I believed in. Then we clicked on the file, opened it, and read, sitting side-by-side. Darling read out loud in a low murmur.
At the end, we both sat back stunned.
“Oh, sweet Jesus. Sasha got herself mixed up in some evil, dark shit.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Gia and the Forgotten Island (Gia Santella Crime Thriller Book 2) Page 11