Death in North Beach

by Ronald Tierney

  ‘His studio,’ Gratelli said. ‘A small place in back of his house where he apparently went to write or escape the family.’

  ‘And he’d want to do that because?’ Carly continued.

  ‘The Warfields are not the Nelsons.’

  ‘You have any thoughts on any of those folks on your list?’ Gratelli asked.

  ‘No one admits to having a motive, but so far everyone seems to agree that he had enemies.’

  ‘We’ll keep in touch,’ Carly said, getting up. Lang followed her lead. ‘So you keep in touch.’

  Gratelli nodded, but didn’t move.

  Lang turned back. ‘Do your friends Rose and Stern know we’re all one big happy family?’

  Gratelli’s look suggested that Lang already knew the answer.

  ‘They know.’

  ‘But?’ Lang asked.

  ‘Yeah, but what am I gonna do?’

  Nine

  Lang ran into Brinkman on the first floor.

  ‘We can walk faster,’ Lang told Brinkman as he stood in front of the elevator doors.

  ‘But I’d have to move my legs,’ Brinkman said.

  ‘Yes. There are disadvantages.’ They stepped in the elevator and it slowly began to clunk upward. ‘Incidentally, your fly is open.’

  Brinkman looked down, zipped up, looked at Lang.

  ‘Why in the hell are you looking down there? Jesus.’ He zipped up angrily.

  ‘If you think for one minute that I’m interested in an ill-tempered, sloppily dressed old male carcass, you are mistaken.’

  ‘Ah . . .’ Brinkman said, shaking his finger at Lang, ‘your lips speak but your eyes say different.’

  After a brief eternity, the doors opened in front of Lang’s office. Lang stopped to respond to the strange look on Thanh’s face. Brinkman went on.

  ‘There are a couple of guys in your office,’ Thanh said to Lang in the reception area. He made a grim face. The hard, tough look was especially strange because Thanh was a kind of androgynous creature this mid-morning. Dark hair swept back in what used to be called a page boy, a loose-fitting, expensive tee shirt that dipped unusually low from the neck, and a gold bracelet, also loose-fitting, on his left wrist. However, what make-up, if any, Thanh had applied, was invisible. Lang doubted anyone could be sure whether this mysterious being was male or female.

  ‘Stop over when you’re done,’ Carly said to Lang. She took a long look at Thanh. Her eyes smiled even if her lips didn’t.’

  ‘Rose and Stern?’

  Thanh shook his head, spoke in a whisper. ‘Not cops. Not accountants either. The big guy, a gun under his left arm.’

  ‘A gun?’ Lang asked softly.

  ‘Or his lunch. But it’s something.’

  Lang nodded, took a deep breath, walked into his office.

  The big guy allegedly carrying a weapon was looking out of the window. He turned to face the room. He could have been Stern’s brother, a big white guy who, like Stern, wore a suit he grew out of five years ago. The other guy, seated on Lang’s tacky sofa, was at least six foot, but he was all bone, almost lost in his suit. Eyes recessed in their dark sockets, he had a feral, hungry look.

  It was the big guy who spoke first. He came away from the window, took a few steps and stopped. He pulled on his nose, perhaps, Lang thought, to show how bored and unintimidated he was with his task, which began to unfold immediately.

  ‘Lang, nobody likes violence,’ the man said.

  ‘Nobody,’ the feral man agreed.

  ‘You should tell the film industry,’ Lang said. ‘Body parts flying everywhere.’

  ‘So you like violence?’ the man asked as if it was an objective inquiry.

  ‘I’m not committed to it.’

  ‘You have any idea why we’re here?’ The big man walked over to Lang, who remained by the door.

  ‘Apparently to register your personal opinion on the nature of the world, but I’m not collecting or keeping track of opinions. You might want to talk to the Gallup people.’

  The big man smiled. Maybe he was going to get to enjoy his work.

  ‘But sometimes violence is the only answer,’ the man said, ‘don’t you think?’ He maintained a cool, conversational tone.

  ‘Depends on the question,’ Lang said.

  ‘Exactly,’ the feral man said.

  ‘Yes,’ the big man said, ‘he seems to be bright enough to understand.’

  Lang waited.

  ‘The question is: Will you drop your little adventure regarding Whitney Warfield?’

  Thanh came into the room. He brought with him a 35 mm camera. He smiled at the gentlemen.

  ‘Could you two move closer together, so I can get you both in?’

  The big man looked shocked. The feral man started to obey.

  ‘Get the fuck outta here, whatever in the hell you are,’ the big man said.

  ‘Solo portraits are good enough, I guess,’ Thanh said.

  He brought the camera up to his eye and the flash went off once. Thanh pivoted and caught the feral guy as the man started toward Thanh.

  Lang tripped him.

  ‘We have a collection of thug photos,’ Thanh said, as the big guy reached for his pistol.

  ‘It’s a lovely album,’ Lang said. ‘You are perfect specimens.’

  ‘My boss loves people like you,’ Thanh said, ‘His album is titled “Thugs I have Known”.’

  ‘And loved,’ Lang added.

  The feral man climbed to his feet, pulling out a 9 mm.

  ‘You are one sorry bitch,’ he said to Thanh.

  From the back room came Barry Brinkman, a lit cigarette between his lips, and a shotgun in his hands.

  ‘You’re not supposed to smoke in here,’ Lang said.

  The two intruders turned back. From the look on their faces, they didn’t know whether to laugh or run.

  ‘You guys are spoiling my nap,’ Brinkman said.

  ‘Get back in your cage, you old fart,’ the feral man said.

  The sound of the shotgun firing shook the office and created a steaming hole in front of the big man.

  ‘Now I got one barrel left. Who wants it?’

  Thanh took more photographs. The lights were flashing as Carly rushed in. She stopped abruptly.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Brinkman’s smoking again,’ Lang said. ‘The only way to trust him is to keep your eyes on him.’ He looked at the big guy. ‘You see what I have to put up with? You guys want some coffee or anything?’

  ‘Way too cute,’ the big guy said.

  ‘Too cute to live,’ the feral guy said. It was obvious the situation for them was awkward and embarrassing.

  ‘Take out your guns carefully,’ Brinkman said.

  ‘Don’t have one,’ the big guy said.

  ‘Yes you do,’ Thanh said. ‘Or a major growth you might want to have a doctor look at.’

  ‘Put it on the floor,’ Brinkman said, aiming the shotgun at him.

  The man did as he was asked and when Brinkman pointed the shotgun at the feral man, he too put his weapon on the floor.

  They left, backing out to the outer office, then turning and moving quickly. Lang nodded toward Thanh. Thanh nodded back.

  ‘You had to actually fire the damn thing?’ Lang said to Brinkman after everyone left the room. Carly had been the last to go, smiling and shaking her head in disbelief.

  ‘Didn’t mean to. I farted, startled myself so bad my finger flinched. Reflex.’

  Fortunately concrete separated the floors, Lang thought.

  ‘Let’s take the ammunition out, remove the firing pins and drop the guns down the trash chute,’ he told Brinkman.

  Carly and Lang went to the trendy little neighborhood of Hayes Valley for lunch. They picked out some miniature sandwiches at the new Boulangerie, some bottled lemonade and, because the bakery was crowded, took their treasure to a narrow park – a wide median, between north- and south-flowing traffic ending at Hayes Street.

  ‘I used t
o live in a little studio apartment at the Estrella,’ he said, pointing east to a thirties brick building, ‘when I first arrived. This area was basically Needle Park. I saw more fights at the laundromat than in most redneck bars. Now, its all shoe stores and restaurants.’

  ‘And slender, fashionably dressed young people,’ Carly said with a sigh.

  ‘And you are slender and fashionably dressed,’ Lang said.

  ‘Two out of three, huh?’ She’d see if she could get by with ‘slender’. It wasn’t likely she could get by with ‘young’.

  ‘Young is relative,’ Lang said, taking a bite of chicken and Brie downsized baguette. ‘This is why the rest of the country hates us.’

  ‘Chicken or Brie or tiny sandwiches?’

  ‘Brie mostly. I didn’t eat Brie until I was thirty-five.’

  ‘You eat it often now?’ Carly asked.

  ‘Usually with beef jerky, some pork rinds and a PBR. You?’

  She repressed a grin. ‘I do. I began eating Brie shortly after I was born.’

  ‘Mmmmh, I hadn’t thought about that. You don’t need teeth. We should bring some back for Brinkman.’

  ‘That’s cruel.’

  ‘Have you listened to his graphic lectures on the horrors of growing old? That’s cruel. It’s heartless. It’s best to make that journey in blissful ignorance . . .’

  She laughed, but caught herself.

  ‘They came to see you,’ she said, trying to introduce the business at hand.

  ‘That means it’s someone on my half of the list.’

  ‘Somehow. Directly or indirectly.’

  ‘Somehow,’ he agreed. ‘I talked with Richard Sumaoang, Marshall Hawkes and Marlene Berensen. So these two Mensa candidates were bought by someone who knew how to find them. I don’t see it.’

  ‘People talk,’ Carly said. ‘One of your guys talked to someone who talked to someone who became worried.’

  ‘Doesn’t give us much.’

  ‘Thanh is following them,’ Lang said. ‘He’ll find out something, maybe only where they live or work. We can go from there.’

  ‘What do you think of the people you talked to?’

  ‘As I told you earlier, Marlene is well preserved, doesn’t seem too broken up. Richard gave me nothing. He’s in great shape. Physically he’d have no problem killing his prey. Marshall Hawkes doesn’t seem like a physical kind of guy, but using the pen as a weapon has a certain bit of poetry about it and Marshall seems to appreciate that sort of thing. What about your people?’

  ‘The publisher. I’m not sure he’s agile enough to catch Warfield. Frank Wiley seemed so content to be on the outside looking in, I’m not sure what he’d have to lose if some secret came out, unless it could get him arrested.’

  ‘That could be enough. Pedophile kind of taboo.’

  She sipped her lemonade from the bottle and looked at her watch.

  ‘I have Nathan Malone at one thirty and Lili D. Young at four,’ she said.

  Behind Carly, a teen girl with a bare midriff twirled a hula hoop, entertaining a small audience, the most avid of which was a golden retriever. The park served its purpose, providing a brief respite to office workers on lunch break and a soft landing for a couple of homeless people who parked their shopping carts for a little while.

  ‘Mr Chiu is always unavailable, Mrs Warfield is still grieving,’ Lang said. ‘But I’ll try to get in to see ancient Agnes. Maybe she knows somebody who knows somebody.’

  They talked about movies, finished their lunches and went their separate ways. On the way to Lang’s beat-up Mercedes, Thanh called. He had some information.

  Ten

  Carly thought about Lang’s comments on Hayes Valley – how it had changed from derelict and dangerous to stylish and expensive. Where else would you find a liquor store that sold only sake? San Francisco had changed. She’d heard the complaint many times. With each passing generation, the older one bemoans the changes brought about by the younger ones. The Castro area she was driving through was a prime example. At one point it was an Irish neighborhood, then it became the most famous or infamous gay neighborhood in the world. Young guys with mustaches wore Levi’s jeans and plaid shirts and posed as Marlboro men not that many decades ago. Today, young heterosexual couples with their baby strollers were coming over the hill from Noe Valley to mix with the gay couples and their baby strollers. Just as there were no more pirates on the Barbary Coast and the Chinese were finally permitted to leave Chinatown, the entire city was both better and worse for changing times. Prejudice had indeed gone down. The cost of living had indeed gone up. San Francisco had one of the highest median incomes of any city in the country.

  She turned left on Hill Street and entered a quiet little hilltop neighborhood with handsome, well-kept homes; many, she guessed, with remarkable views. To the north one was likely to look down a long way as homes stretched out to the Bay. Nathan Malone lived on the other side of the street.

  Mrs Malone, as she introduced herself, was a silver-haired, spirited woman in a yellow pantsuit, who was carrying what appeared to be a drink. There was a twist of lime, an inch of clear liquid and some ice. She was in her late sixties or early seventies, Carly guessed as the woman guided her to the back of the house. They went through an arch and into a room where a wall of windows looked out over a deck and an expanse of homes that climbed up another distant hill. The walls on either side of the window were lined with bookcases. Malone was at the computer and hadn’t looked up, perhaps finishing a sentence before engaging the visitor.

  Carly noticed that the top row of the bookcase behind his desk contained books Malone had authored. Non-fiction mostly. Some biographies. Some seemed to reference history. But there were a couple, she recognized from her background check, that were novels.

  Nathan Malone got up from his desk. He was as striking and as energetic-looking as his wife and probably very nearly the same age. His hair, and it appeared he had all of it, was a mix of silver and blond in tousled curls. He came from around the desk to shake hands.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ Mrs Malone asked.

  ‘No, thank you. Just had lunch.’

  Malone answered his wife with a subtle shake of his head and a frown. His gaze was directed at his wife’s drink. She didn’t notice. He raised his eyebrows. His expression seemed to be one of total submission to the forces around him. As his wife retreated, he nodded toward a big, high-backed chair upholstered in brown leather, he sat in a matching chair separated by a small table. On the table were two magazines – The New Yorker and Publishers Weekly.

  ‘You’re from New York, right?’ Carly asked.

  ‘I am. In terms of career, moving out here may have been a major mistake. In those days and for many years thereafter, serious writers were supposed to live in New York.’ He paused, shook his head. ‘But you wouldn’t necessarily be interested in all that. You wanted to inquire about Whitney Warfield, you said on the phone.’

  ‘Yes, thank you for taking the time. We believe he was writing a major tell-all book that might have caused his death. Your name was given to us by someone who said that some of what he had to say would embarrass you.’

  Malone smiled. ‘I’m sure he could embarrass me. We had quite a few moments together, especially in our youth, that wouldn’t be flattering, but not worth killing over.’

  Malone seemed in general good humor.

  ‘I’m very sorry he’s dead,’ he went on. ‘I think we had a few wonderfully embarrassing moments ahead of us.’

  ‘Maybe you could just tell me a little about the man.’

  ‘Whitney always considered himself a major writer. If he had been a politician he wouldn’t have been satisfied until his countenance was on Mount Rushmore. So he felt slighted that the world hadn’t acknowledged that he was the voice of his generation at least. No Nobels, no Pulitzers, no National Book Awards.’

  ‘Were you too much competition, perhaps?’ Carly asked.

  Malone laughed. ‘Of course. He
loved the competition and often regarded his competitors as noble opponents. As life dealt him serious blows to his ego, his competitors seemed to lose their nobility.’

  ‘You haven’t had contact with him?’

  ‘No. But I doubt if his character has changed much. He was really, at heart, a noble warrior. He believed in truth and honor and loyalty.’

  ‘This is a man who cheated on his wife and was about to tell on his friends,’ Carly said.

  ‘If you have the scent of the killer, it could hardly have led you here, but for those of us who know and love Whitney, this is not in any way contradictory. What you have to understand is that when you are Whitney you are God, judge and jury. He is allowed his foibles because of how much he suffers . . . suffered for his art. It’s an ego not uncommon with writers. They create their own universes. And most, foolishly, mirror this one.’

  ‘You liked him?’

  ‘Sure. We were very close friends.’

  ‘You wrote a book together.’

  ‘Not really. We both contributed to a photography book. Frank Wiley’s. It was Wiley’s book, really.’

  ‘What happened to you two?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean. We stopped hanging out with each other primarily because I settled down. I no longer wanted to engage in drinking contests. I wanted to be with one woman. I wanted to go to bed early. I’m afraid I dwindled in Whitney’s esteem, but he didn’t hate me. And I didn’t hate him.’

  ‘He knew no damning secret about you?’ Carly smiled. She had received a thorough looking over when she arrived. He may have wanted to be with one woman as he said, she thought, but he wasn’t done looking. It was also clear that he was debating something. There was a long, long pause. Carly waited it out.

  Malone got up.

  ‘Once, when we had been drinking, which we both did to excess at the drop of a metaphor, we were talking about what it meant to be a man. And in order to be a man, one had to be willing to fight, physically, whenever it was called for. Honor, loyalty, etc. One wasn’t much of a man if he never seriously considered killing himself, never spent a night in jail, never planted a tree, never fathered a child, never slept with a whore, never . . . I forget. There was quite a list. And so we were being honest with each other.’