Cook's Night Out

by Joanne Pence

  Twenty years. Christ, he should be over it by now. He was a homicide inspector. He saw drug deaths, murders, suicides nearly every day.

  But even a homicide cop couldn’t shrug off the memory of his own sister’s senseless death at the hands of a man such as Klaw. In fact, knowing what he knew about drug deaths made it even worse. The convulsions, the pain, the blood from the eyes and nose…

  When he walked into his cottage, his big tom, Hercules, greeted him with a cry, then stood and slowly stretched before leaping off the sofa and getting himself tangled up in Paavo’s feet—his way of demanding his dinner. Paavo picked up the cat and petted him as he carried him into the kitchen, grabbing a can of 9-Lives Seafood Stew from a cupboard as he went.

  With Here fed, he went back into the living room and turned off the lights, but instead of continuing to the bedroom, he slumped into an easy chair.

  Jessica used to drink when she went to parties with friends. Still, it was a big jump from alcohol to heroin. He didn’t believe she’d have agreed to take the stuff unless she’d had so much to drink she didn’t know what she was doing. That was a tried and true way to get someone hooked. Start with just a little now and then at a party, among friends. Progress to just a little because there wasn’t any party going on, and wasn’t that depressing? Enjoy just a little now and then to be ready for a party in case one happened. Need just a little now and then to get through each and every day. Demand just a little, just because…

  Had that been what Axel Klaw had planned for Jessica? That kind of deterioration, that whirlpool into hell? Now he was back in San Francisco, within Paavo’s reach, and this time he wouldn’t get away.

  Jessica. How many nights had he lain awake wondering what she’d be like today, and how his own life would have turned out if she’d lived?

  He heard the thwack of the rubber cat door slamming shut. Hercules, now fed, was wandering off to check out the neighborhood. It was all right. Paavo needed to be alone tonight.

  He had always been alone. He still was.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “He was a drug peddler, a pornographer—for all I know, he was a pimp besides!” Angie paced back and forth in front of Reverend Hodge’s desk, flinging her arms as she spoke. When she thought of the way Paavo must have felt when he saw Klaw on TV last night, she became furious all over again. “How can you let a man like that be a part of something so beautiful?”

  Reverend Hodge slid his chair closer to the wall. “Miss Amalfi, you’re so agitated!”

  “You think this is agitated?” She put her face near his. “You haven’t seen anything yet!”

  “Calm down, please. I assure you, Mr. Clausen is not the kind of man you suggest he is.”

  She stuck her finger against his skinny chest. “Axel Klaw is his other name, and he’s evil and ruthless. My friend hates Klaw. The two of them nearly killed each other the last time they met, and it wasn’t very long ago. Not long enough for Klaw to have gone through this miraculous metamorphosis into a Lord Bountiful, that’s for sure.”

  “Please.” Hodge eased out of his chair and backed away from her, rubbing the spot she’d jabbed. “You look stressed and exhausted. Maybe you should have a bowl of chicken soup?”

  She clutched her head. “I look stressed and exhausted because I am! Don’t you understand? I spent all night worrying about my friend. I love him! I don’t want him hurt!”

  He backed up more. “Maybe you should get married to him. When married people go to bed, they fall asleep immediately.”

  He was treading on really thin ice now. “Maybe I would be getting married if Paavo weren’t so troubled.” Her tone was lethal. “And one of the things he’s troubled about is Axel Klaw!”

  “Miss Amalfi,” the reverend said, “sit down, please.” He grabbed a chair and wheeled it up behind her, hitting her in the back of the knees. She sat. He returned to his desk and also sat, then gave her a long, weary look. “Believe me when I say to you that Alexander Clausen is no longer this Axel Klaw creature. He’s a changed man. He’s been redeemed, saved. Born again.”

  Angie pressed her hands to her face, trying to steady herself. “How can I believe there’s anything good about the Random Acts of Kindness Mission when your benefactor is a criminal? Remember Brother Tweeler? He said there was numbers running going on here. I didn’t believe him. I believed you! But now I’m wondering. With Klaw here, anything’s possible.”

  “It’s Clausen, Miss Amalfi. Clausen, not Klaw. He confessed to me all about his past,” the reverend said, his hands clasped. “How sordid and ugly it was. But even then, he never did anything wrong. Oh, he was no angel, and he was around men who did plenty of bad things. But not a single illegal deed was dealt by his hand. Don’t you believe me?”

  “I don’t.” She folded her arms.

  “Tell me, was Mr. Clausen ever imprisoned?” Hodge asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “He wasn’t,” Hodge said confidently.

  “I told you he was clever!” she protested.

  “Also, if he’s so evil, why isn’t your boyfriend here right now to arrest him?”

  “Paavo said Klaw always got others to do his dirty work.”

  “Ah, I see. So this Mr. Klaw is not only a demon, he’s a Svengali besides.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Before I ever came here, Miss Amalfi, before I ever started this adventure called the Random Acts of Kindness Mission, I knew Alexander Clausen. He publicly apologized for all his past sins. Can you imagine the bravery it takes to make a public apology? He’s now completely, one hundred percent on the up-and-up, and he’s even given—”

  “Reverend Hodge, you’re making me blush!”

  Angie spun around at the familiar voice. Her whole body went cold at the sight before her.

  His eyes snaked over her. She felt in need of a bath just from his gaze. “Can it be? Angelina Amalfi, if I’m not mistaken!”

  “Axel Klaw,” she replied.

  “Clausen now. I’ve given up that tired, harsh name, that life. I’ve been reborn! Thanks to the reverend.”

  His words were too glib. Angie’s skin prickled. But strangely, she found herself wishing his words were true, that the ugliness and evil between him and Paavo could vanish.

  “Let me introduce my friends to you, Miss Amalfi,” he said.

  She’d been so busy taking in every aspect of Klaw, searching for any sign that he had reformed, she hadn’t even noticed anyone else enter the room. Klaw turned first to the woman in the doorway. “This is Lili Charmaine. My muse.”

  “Get outta town!” Lili gave a deep-dimpled smile to Klaw, then turned to Angie. “Hi.” She wore a skintight ivory dress. The gold zipper up the front strained to keep its teeth together, and Lili had plenty for the dress to strain against.

  “How do you do, Miss Charmaine,” Angie said, holding out her hand.

  “Hey, that’s way classic.” Lili wiped her palm against her thigh, then limply shook Angie’s hand. “You can call me Lili. That’s not with a y, but with an i with a little heart instead of a dot over it.” Her voice rose at the end, as if she were asking instead of telling.

  “So that’s Lili with two i’s?” Angie asked, more than a little dumbfounded. The woman talked like an over-the-hill Valley Girl.

  “Huh?”

  “This is Van Warren, my accountant,” Klaw said quickly.

  For a moment, Angie thought Klaw was mistaken. No one was there. Then the man stepped out from behind Lili-with-an-i. Angie had never before seen an accountant who looked so much like everybody’s stereotype of one. He was nerdy and nebbishy, a small man with brown hair slicked straight back, horn-rimmed glasses, a dark gray suit, and a light gray tie. Yet when she looked at him more closely, she saw that instead of accountant like rounded shoulders, his shoulders were square, and his compact body appeared hard, not flabby.

  He noticed her perusal, and for an instant she thought she detected a hardening of his eyes. But
then it was gone.

  “Hello, Mr. Warren,” she said, holding out her hand.

  “How do you do?” His handshake was even more limp-wristed than Lili’s. He bobbed his head, meek and even bashful. Her first perception of him had obviously been in error. Nerds might work out at a gym now and then, but even that wasn’t enough to remove their basic nerdiness.

  “I’m fine, thanks,” Angie said, pulling her hand free.

  “I’m so glad, Miss Amalfi,” Klaw began, “that we can meet here under better circumstances than we did in the past. It is my fondest wish that, in time, you will come to forget the man you thought I was, and learn to accept the man I have become.”

  Her back stiffened. “Reverend Hodge tells me you’ve changed. I hope, for your sake, he’s right.”

  Klaw smiled down at her. “Now I’m remembering what a suspicious soul you are. And brave, too, ready to take on all the Furies if it would help those you love.” He glanced at Hodge. “A commendable attribute in a woman, don’t you agree?”

  “Everything about Miss Amalfi is commendable,” Hodge said, smiling warmly at her.

  “Reverend Hodge!” Sheila Chatsworth, red-faced and flustered, burst into the office. “There’s someone to see you. Police!”

  “Police?” Hodge jumped to his feet just as Paavo and Yosh strode into the room. Angie also stood, her heart racing at the thought of Paavo and Klaw face-to-face again.

  Paavo didn’t say a word, but cast his gaze from one to the other, then focused a long time on Klaw. Klaw stared back. The hatred and tension between the two was tangible. Angie could feel the others back away from them. Klaw blinked, then raised his jaw. “We meet again, Inspector.”

  Paavo didn’t respond, but glanced toward Angie with as cold a look as he’d ever given her. He had asked her not to come here and was angry that she hadn’t taken his advice. He didn’t seem shocked to see her, only dismissive, and that hurt more than his anger.

  He faced Hodge and held out his hand. “Reverend Hodge, Inspector Smith, Homicide. This is Inspector Yoshiwara.”

  Hodge, looking tinier than ever beside the two big detectives, shook their hands. “Gentlemen, what can I do for you?”

  “Nothing at all,” Paavo said. “We’re just here to see what we can donate to a worthy cause. We were inspired by your TV appearance last night.” Despite his friendly words, his tone caused chills along Angie’s back. She could see that Hodge, too, was worried about the confrontation looming.

  Klaw spoke. “I realize it’s hard for you to believe, Smith”—his voice was a growl as low, mean, and dirty as any movie gangster’s—“but I’m a changed man. Since meeting Reverend Hodge, my life has turned around. He’s shown me the true way.”

  Paavo glanced at Hodge, taking quick measure, then turned back to Klaw with a sneer. “He’s a miracle worker. Is that what you’re saying?”

  Klaw laughed too loudly. Hodge and Klaw’s two friends joined in with nervous chuckles. “I can see why you think it’d take a miracle to redeem me. But thanks to Hodge, I’m sorry for any wrongs I may have done anyone in the past—truly sorry. I hope to find forgiveness.”

  Paavo’s glance caught Angie’s for a moment, as if to check on whether she’d been taken in by Klaw’s lies. She tried to let him know that she was with him, that Klaw didn’t fool her. “You’re a good actor, Klaw,” he said, his eyes narrow. “But then, I always knew that.”

  Klaw opened his arms. “This is no act. I mean everything I’m saying.” He turned to the others. “You believe me, don’t you?”

  Hodge, Lili, and Van Warren all nodded vigorously.

  “Miss Amalfi,” Klaw said, a pleading tone to his voice, “maybe you can convince him. You’ve worked with Reverend Hodge. You’ve seen the good works he does. Please, talk to Inspector Smith for me. Will you do that?”

  Stricken, Angie looked from Klaw to Paavo.

  “Leave her out of this, Klaw,” Paavo ordered, his tone lethal.

  “It’s all right, Paavo,” Angie said, alarmed. “Maybe this leopard has changed his spots. Reverend Hodge may have worked a miracle.”

  He gazed at her with tense fury.

  “Please,” she said softly.

  He turned to Klaw. “I’ve never seen a miracle before.”

  He and Yosh strode to the door to leave, but he glanced back at Angie. “Are you coming?”

  She shook her head, then bowed it, unable to bear the look in his eyes. But she had to stay; she had to keep an eye on Klaw. This was the best place to do it.

  She felt, rather than saw, Paavo’s whole being harden. Then he left.

  For the rest of the afternoon, Paavo investigated Dennis O’Leary’s murder, talking to the dead man’s friends, employees, and neighbors. Clearly, somewhere there existed a mysterious numbers runner who came by each day to pick up the money collected and leave the payoff for any winners. But no one knew which of O’Leary’s many customers was the runner, or runners. Runners often worked in teams to appear less obvious, since they didn’t like to be fingered—they carried too much cash for it to be safe.

  Investigating O’Leary’s murder deep into the evening helped Paavo block out, to a slight degree, the ugly scene at the mission. Now, though, back at his desk, it flooded over him full force.

  He could accept Angie’s being there. She’d never listened to his advice yet, and there was no reason for her to start now. But he couldn’t accept her staying there. She had to have seen what a liar Klaw was.

  What a liar he always was. And how evil.

  Even in Homicide, it was rare to come into contact with a person who was truly evil. But a few times in his life he had met someone who was, and one of them was Axel Klaw.

  Paavo called up Klaw’s rap sheet on his computer. It was disturbingly clean for a man who’d spent his life on the wrong side of the law. Despite a number of arrests, Klaw had had no convictions until four months ago, when he did a week-long stint in Las Vegas for passing bad checks. In San Francisco, the man had sold drugs, made porno films, and caused the death of at least one young woman, and the best anyone could do was nail him for stiffing a casino. What was wrong with this picture?

  After finding out all he could about Klaw, he turned his attention to the Reverend T. Simon Hodge. The way this real-life Elmer Gantry had appeared and had quickly become a force for the poor in this city bothered him, as did Angie’s trust in the man.

  Hodge had gotten the money somewhere to rent and renovate the interior of the building housing the mission and the next-door café. Hodge said his benefactor was Klaw, but Klaw wouldn’t do anything unless it brought him money. What had Klaw come up with that would cause a rescue mission to pay off big-time?

  Angie was helping with an auction. Could Klaw be planning a heist? It seemed like way too much work and too complex a plan for a mere robbery. There had to be a lot more to it. And the possibility of the reverend’s being a part of the plan was almost certain.

  Paavo checked for T. Simon Hodge, Simon T. Hodge, even T. or H. Simon. Nothing whatsoever turned up. No Social Security number. No credit cards. No driver license. No birth certificate. It was as if, prior to coming to San Francisco, in the eyes of the law T. Simon Hodge didn’t exist.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “You’re stepping all over each other!” Lieutenant Hollins’s face was the color of an eggplant.

  He had three teams of inspectors in front of him—Benson and Calderon, Mayfield and Sutter, Smith and Yoshiwara. “You’re supposed to be good at your jobs. But this is making you look like a bunch of ignoramuses! How many times are you going to go ask the same people the same questions? Can’t you six talk to each other? Can’t you work together? Doesn’t it enter your little pea brains that if one of you is working on a dead numbers runner, and another is working on a dead numbers runner, and a third is working on a dead numbers runner plus a guy with ties to illegal gambling that just might include numbers running, maybe you’re all talking to the same people?”

  �
�We talk all the time about these cases,” Calderon said. “We know what we’re doing.”

  “You talk, yes,” Hollins said, “But now I want you to brief each other—and me. Got it?”

  They got it.

  “Calderon, Benson, you’re first.”

  “Patrick Devlin was a numbers runner,” Calderon began. “He made the rounds of numbers writers in the Richmond, picking up new bets and making payoffs to the winners. He lived alone in a nice apartment in the Marina. No information about where he went the night he died, or who he saw. The body was a clean kill. The work of a pro.” Calderon stopped. A dead end.

  Sutter and Mayfield reported next on the liquor store owner. “Haram Sayir was a numbers writer,” Rebecca said. “His customers bought liquor and a lotto ticket. He kept ten percent of each bet and took a percentage of any winnings. His little side business probably brought him between seven and eight hundred dollars a month.”

  Sutter spoke up. “Sayir was killed in the middle of the afternoon. No one knows why. One bullet wound to the back of the head, very professional. No witnesses.”

  The other inspectors shook their heads sympathetically. Another dead end.

  Paavo and Yosh spoke last. “Dennis O’Leary was also a numbers writer,” Paavo said. “Drive-by shooting in broad daylight. No one saw the shooter.”

  Everyone nodded. They knew the story.

  Yosh spoke next. “We’ve kept surveillance on Peewee Clayton. He’s also done some numbers running, but we haven’t seen him travel much. We’ve begun gathering another round of evidence to prove Peewee murdered Sarah Ann Cribbs. So far, though, nothing is as good as the original blouse and beer bottle. So there we are,” Yosh said. “Nowhere, like the rest of you.”

  “Enough of this gloom.” Hollins stood. “Let’s look at this logically. First we have the numbers writers who take the bets and record them—O’Leary and Sayir. Next are the runners—Devlin and Clayton. At the top—the level we haven’t talked about at all yet—is the banker, the one who receives all the cash and makes payouts. He’s the money man in the city.”