‘Who shall I hire to investigate?’ Chaz said, smiling, seemingly not concerned. ‘You’re busy, it seems.’
‘Not busy,’ Lang said. ‘Need to be busy. Can you get me out?’
‘Not before morning. And then, I don’t know. I don’t know what they’re charging you with yet. Murder, do you think?’
‘Maybe. She’s dead. I was there. My fingerprints were on the weapon.’
‘The big cop said ice pick. Ice pick?’
‘Yes.’
‘How strange. Who uses ice picks these days?’
‘You can work with Carly Paladino. She’s a partner now. And this is connected in some way with the investigation we were both hired to do.’
‘By whom?’
‘Some mysterious gigolo named William Blake.’
Lang filled him in. The rules had been relaxed and the two of them spoke for at least two hours. ‘I need to get a message to Thanh to stop by and feed Buddha.’
‘Feed Buddha?’
‘My cat,’ Lang said, checking his attorney friend’s face for a sign of disapproval.
‘Good for you,’ Chaz said. ‘I have three. Perfect companions for people who don’t need constant approval.’
The world was full of surprises. He never pictured Chaz having cats. Probably he had never really pictured Chaz beyond the time they spent together, not all of it business. Sometimes they had a couple of drinks somewhere jazz was played. Lang was partial to the Blues and West tended toward the pure and progressive. But they could meet in the middle on music and most things.
‘You have any ideas about who killed the girl?’
‘The obvious is Mickey Warfield. He had a key.’
‘But she was his alibi for another death, right?’
‘Yes, that’s a problem. If she was telling the truth, she was going to the police to retract her alibi statement.’
‘Did he know that?’ West asked.
‘I don’t know. Maybe he knew her well enough to know she wouldn’t be reliable. The thing is, she claimed to have something else to tell me. To get me to stay she said she’d tell me in the morning.’
‘That’s why you stayed, to hear what she had to say in the morning?’ West asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.
‘All right. All right. It wasn’t the smartest move I ever made.’
‘The bad news is that they have a weapon. That means they have means and opportunity. But they’re extremely shy of a motive . . . unless there’s something else you haven’t told me.’
‘I don’t know what they could come up with as far as motive. I gain nothing from her death. And it would be extremely stupid for me to hang out after I killed her. I think Inspector Rose understands that. Not sure what Stern thinks. Or if he thinks.’
‘Murder usually puts bail out of bounds, but I can use the shaky case as leverage. I’ll know better when I understand which judge is handling the arraignment. Maybe I can get the police to back off altogether. Who is in charge of the Warfield investigation?’
‘Inspector Gratelli.’
‘Good. He’s a pragmatist.’
Gratelli ran into Stern and Rose on the third floor of the Hall of Justice building. The third floor was lined with San Francisco City and County Superior Courts, the courts that handled felonies. They stood next to an old telephone booth. With the phone long ago removed by Ma Bell, the booth was merely a glass enclosure. People still slipped inside the booth to make calls on their cells away from the din of those gathered in the marble-walled echo chamber they called a hallway.
‘I understand they found Rohypnol in Lang’s system,’ Gratelli said to Rose.
‘What does that change?’ Stern asked defensively. ‘He could have drugged himself to avoid suspicion.’
‘Why wouldn’t he just have left?’
‘Maybe she drugged him and he realized it. Before he passed out he killed her.’
‘Possible,’ Gratelli said. ‘I just don’t buy it.’
‘It’s not up to you to buy it or not,’ Stern said. ‘It’s between us and the prosecutor.’
‘Sorry, Stern. I’m taking it.’
‘You can’t.’
‘Actually, I have. It’s part of the Warfield–Wiley deaths. The girl was Mickey Warfield’s woman. She was the son’s alibi on the night his father was killed. I don’t see motive for Lang. It doesn’t make sense.’
‘Christ,’ Stern said bitterly.
‘C’mon, Stern,’ Rose said, touching Stern’s elbow.
Stern jerked it away.
‘It’s just not right. Lang gets away with murder.’
‘I didn’t say he was getting away with anything. We’re holding him for a while,’ Gratelli said. ‘We’ll see what comes up.’
‘Fingerprints, Gratelli,’ Stern said. ‘Fingerprints.’
Gratelli nodded. ‘I know. But is he that stupid?’
‘He’s a lucky son of a bitch,’ Stern said. ‘This isn’t the first dead woman he’s been connected to.’
‘I know. He’s in that kind of business.’
Stern wasn’t convinced.
‘I need to work with you guys,’ Gratelli said. ‘Everybody’s got their eyes on this one. We can all come out on top or we can blow it.’
He looked at Stern. Stern gave no sign he was going to pick up on team spirit.
Gratelli noticed Chastain West standing a few feet away. He was pretty sure the defense attorney was waiting for one of them.
‘I need your help. I hope I can count on it,’ Gratelli said.
Stern and Rose went off with Stern still mumbling. Rose turned back, winked. West approached.
Gratelli nodded a hello.
‘You here about Lang?’ Gratelli said, aware that Lang was West’s prime investigator.
‘I am. He didn’t do it.’
‘That’s all I needed to hear. Let me get my key to his cell and I’ll go let him out right away. Anybody else you want me to let out?’
Chastain smiled.
‘I think this is one of those two birds with one stone kinds of thing,’ West said. ‘Somebody wanted to silence the girl and wanted someone else to go down for it, maybe put him out of business.’
Gratelli nodded. ‘That’s how I have it figured.’
‘I’m a little wary of your sarcasm.’
‘No, I do have it figured that way. Lang’s a little slippery. He bends the rules. I don’t think he’d kill some girl. And he’s too smart to leave his prints on the weapon and hide it in such an amateurish spot. Let’s go talk to him. You have the time?’
Lang was surprised to see West and Gratelli together. Gratelli sat on what approximated to a bed. West stood, leaning against the bars.
‘You guys look like the Governor said no,’ Lang said.
Gratelli might have grinned or he might have had a cramp, Lang thought.
‘What do you think happened?’ Gratelli asked.
‘I was invited over to Angel’s place. She told me that she was withdrawing her alibi on Mickey . . . that is, being with him the night his father was killed.’
‘Why you?’
‘I don’t know. I had been trying to find Mickey and couldn’t. In the process I discovered that he was a regular with Angel. I stopped by to see her. Maybe she thought we hit it off. Maybe she knew from the start that I was due for a set-up and didn’t know everything about what was planned for her.’
Gratelli nodded, but didn’t speak. West was quiet as well.
‘She’s a sexy woman,’ Lang said. ‘Was.’
‘What’s the last thing you remember?’ Gratelli asked.
‘Climbing into bed.’
‘You were doped,’ Gratelli said.
‘A headache like that and no memory of what ought to be very memorable says you’re making a lot of sense. I had one drink and part of another. I don’t black out that easy.’
‘Who?’ Gratelli asked.
‘The likely candidate is Mickey. He has a key.’
‘If Warfield and Wiley w
ere killed by the same guy, then it wasn’t Mickey. Young Warfield was in a San Mateo jail. DUI – driving under the influence.’
Lang didn’t hide his surprise. ‘Well, all I know is he tried to frighten me off the case once before by hiring some dumb muscle to scare me.’
‘And you didn’t scare?’
‘No. Maybe it was just that he didn’t like me messing around in his business. Then again, I’ve been teasing the snakes.’
‘These snakes have names?’
‘All speculation.’
‘Speculate,’ Gratelli said.
‘I picked up a tail after talking with Ralph Chiu. Seems as if there’s some top-secret hotel being planned for North Beach.’
‘The Fog City Voice opened that up already,’ Gratelli said.
‘But maybe not all the players. Maybe not the whole plan. I mean, I don’t really know.’
‘Then there’s the list,’ Gratelli said.
‘Yeah. Sumaoang, Hawkes, Malone, Marlene Berensen. Something fishy with Berensen and young Warfield.’
‘You heard of a William Blake?’ Gratelli asked.
‘The name’s floated by now and then,’ Lang said, hoping that he could dodge any extended conversation about Carly’s client. ‘I never met him.’
‘We’re going to let you out, Lang,’ Gratelli said. ‘You think you can keep away from crime scenes and public spectacles?’
‘I’ll try. What’s with Stern?’
‘If you give him a reason, he’ll shoot you. What did you do to that man, anyway?’
‘I seem like a lucky guy to him. He doesn’t like lucky guys.’
Again the expression. Maybe that was Gratelli’s smile.
‘Let’s go talk to the DA,’ Gratelli said to West. ‘Get Mr Lucky out on the streets again where he’ll no doubt get into trouble.’
‘One more question,’ Lang said.
‘You’re not in a hurry to get out of here?’ Gratelli asked.
‘What’s the real reason you’re letting me go?’
Gratelli didn’t answer right away. Maybe he wanted to get the words right, Lang thought. Maybe he had to come up with something believable.
‘I believe you. You wouldn’t be that stupid. And, keeping you here is counter-productive. I want the killer to know that we’re not buying it – that he . . . or she . . . is in trouble. Not only are we still looking, but so are you.’
‘You’re poking at the snakes too.’
‘Lang, listen.’ He leaned forward. His face was hard as stone. ‘We were working together, you and I?’
Lang nodded.
‘Now you’re working for me. You’re not a free agent. Legally, because this is a murder case and you are a PI, you shouldn’t have been involved anyway. There’s more. You are still a suspect. Even if you weren’t a suspect, you’re a material witness. So we proceed carefully, under my direction. You have less than nothing. I want to see your partner right away.’
‘Same little heart-to-heart.’
‘Yeah. You don’t have a problem with that, do you?’
‘No,’ Lang said.
‘If you screw with me, you’re back in here in a heartbeat.’ It was a matter-of-fact statement. No huffing and puffing. No macho attitude. That’s when Lang understood. Gratelli was a helluva lot tougher than Rose or Stern. And the old inspector was right . . . for the most part.
West hung back.
‘You didn’t say much,’ Lang said.
‘It’s my famous silent strategy.’
‘You’ll have to fill me in on how that works.’
West laughed.
‘We liked what he was saying, didn’t we?’ West said. ‘Why interrupt him?’
‘We’re not home free,’ Lang said.
‘But you’re going home.’
Thanh agreed to meet her, but asked if they could get together at Quetzal, a coffee house on lower Polk. He was working on his bike – a vintage motorcycle of undetermined brand identity – and pieces of the machine were scattered about.
He had to live somewhere in that area, Carly surmised. It didn’t matter. Quetzal was fine with her.
As usual, she didn’t know who or what to expect. What she got was a handsome fellow in battered jeans and a grease-stained sweatshirt. It amazed her that this sometimes delicate flower could take engines apart and do whatever needed to be done. Thanh, she concluded, would be much handier on a deserted island than anyone at her former employer’s firm and better equipped to deal with reality than either William Blake or Noah Lang.
Thanh smiled when he saw her, his hair disarranged and a cheek smudged with black. He explained that Lang had asked him to do a couple of things. But not much had been done yet.
‘I couldn’t get a line on Mickey Warfield,’ Thanh said, sitting down. ‘I called around. Called Marlene, pretended to be a friend. Called again, pretended to be a bartender with a message. Nothing. No bite. As far as I know, he could be in Sweden.’
‘Why Sweden?’
‘First country to come to mind. I like Swedes. Not when they talk, but when they look at me.’
She smiled.
‘I wanted to go out there, but my bike wouldn’t start. I’m fixing it now, which is why I look so butch. Anyway, Ralph Chiu is a member of a business association, a Tong. That’s not uncommon and it doesn’t mean anything really. Not all of them are criminal. No one’s real sure how much of that kind of crime still exists in Chinatown. And as a Vietnamese, I have no special access. We’re not generally loved by the Chinese.’
Carly’s cell played out its tune. She checked it. It was Lang. She pushed the screen and said hello. He said hello.
‘You’re out?’
‘Yep. Free as a bird,’ Lang said.
‘That was quick. Is it over?’
‘Dunno. But you are supposed to go see Gratelli.’
‘Why?’
‘He wants to read you the riot act.’
‘Why?’
‘Just to scare you. Mostly because you’re hanging out with me, so he wants to make sure you’re not contaminated with the wild ass virus.’
‘The wild ass virus?’
‘I have a mind of my own and he thinks that might have rubbed off on you.’
‘I’m insulted. I have my own wild ass virus.’
‘Go see him. We have to keep him happy or my wild ass will land back in jail.’
‘When?’
‘Now.’
Twenty-Four
Gratelli didn’t scare her. He could have been one of her father’s skinny brothers. But she knew the man had spent decades in homicide. He wasn’t a sweet, harmless old man. A smart person wouldn’t try to play him.
‘You have to clip his wings,’ Gratelli said. ‘At least for a while. I appreciate your help. But since last we talked seriously there are two more bodies. You are connected with one and he is unfortunately very intimately connected with the other. We’re no longer operating subtly below the radar – anybody’s radar.
‘We understand.’
He gave her a long look, measuring, it seemed, her sincerity.
‘We understand. We do,’ she said, trying to stop short of overdoing it.
‘Paladino,’ he said. ‘Your family from here?’
‘Yes. Restaurant in North Beach.’
Gratelli nodded. ‘Paladino’s?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘I’m quick. Used to eat there, when my wife was alive and when my kids were young and at home.’
‘I probably brought you glasses of water.’
‘Family style. That whole thing is pretty much gone now.’ He shook his head. ‘Times change. I don’t know why it continues to surprise me. What do you have on this thing?’
‘We’re down to Mickey Warfield, Sumaoang, Marlene Berensen, Malone and Hawkes. Oh and Ralph Chiu.’
‘We’re trying to find Mickey to talk to him about his girlfriend’s death. He’s not an easy man to find.’
‘We know,’ Carly said. That would b
e Lang’s top priority, Carly thought.
‘Don’t let Lang rough him up too much. OK?’
He was reading her mind.
‘He’s top of the list, don’t you think?’
‘He is a person of interest. What’s the angle on Chiu? Anything?’
‘Don’t know,’ Carly said. ‘A little research. He is influential in a Tong. Maybe Whitney Warfield was going to reveal a little secret, maybe who killed Allen Leung.’
‘Don’t get ahead of yourself,’ Gratelli said. ‘First, many of the Tongs are legitimate business associations. Second, aside from Leung’s murder in ’06, there’s not a lot of violence there anymore. Crime has moved from women, drugs and guns. It’s white-collar now. Identity theft, credit card fraud . . . things like that. And with the change, a lot less bloodletting.’
‘Leung’s murder is still unsolved, I’m told,’ Carly said, pressing it.
‘I don’t think either one of us knows enough about that,’ Gratelli said. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, there are those who believe he was killed in order for someone else to move up the ladder or maybe revenge for some real or imagined slight. A number of people, important people, believe that Leung was killed at the request of the Chinese Communist Party. Leung was a staunch believer in democracy. He put his money and his energy where his mouth was, as I understand it. He didn’t want the Chinese mainland to have any influence here and was a mighty thorn in the CCP’s side. That’s a story anyway. One of the many. But who knows? We don’t.’
Gratelli looked at her and continued. ‘All I’m saying is don’t get caught up in the stereotypes.’
‘At the moment all we can do is list the names and speculate on possible connections so we can run them down. Just like you do. We don’t know that much about Chiu except that he’s also involved in the hotel project in North Beach and that Lang picked up a tail after his meeting with Chiu. Asian guys in the front seat. Angel was Chinese.’
‘So’s a third of the city’s population,’ Gratelli said.
‘Again, we’re just seeing what matches and what doesn’t. Seems suspicious.’
Death in North Beach Page 18