The Little Death hr-1

by Michael Nava

  “Nope. He’s not a local. He’s got himself a fancy address up in the city. You want it?”

  I nodded.

  He scrawled an address on a sheet of legal paper and pushed it across the desk.

  “Thanks,” I said, rising to go. “You don’t think Hugh’s death was an accident, either, do you?”

  “If I did,” he said, suddenly grim, “I wouldn’t have given you the time of day.”

  “Then why are you?”

  “The cops botched this one,” he said. “I know it, but I can’t prove it. I’ve already beefed Torres but even if they reopen the investigation now, the trail’s cold. You seem to know something about this case. Better you than no one. Good luck and remember,” he said, as I opened the door, “you’re an officer of the court.”

  “Meaning?”

  “If you find out who did it, let me know the bastard’s name. He won’t get away with it.”

  But so often criminals do, I nearly said, but I kept the thought to myself.

  At the end of the day I drove to San Francisco on highway 280, the serpentine road that wound through the foothills behind the posh peninsula suburbs and within view of the hidden houses of the rich. The twisted eucalyptus trees stood high and elegantly on those hills and the air was moist with the fragrance of their leaves. Deer grazed those hills and now and then a jeep went flying along the dirt roads with no apparent destination. A line of horses appeared on the horizon and then disappeared behind a clump of oak.

  I was passing through some of the wealthiest communities in the country, and the only sign of money was its absence. The developer’s hand was stayed from these hills and woods to perpetuate a view of California as it had existed a hundred years earlier. Even the Southern Pacific commuter train, whose whistle I heard in the distance, was a subsidized prop, reminding listeners of the pristine age before Henry Ford gave wheels to the masses. A hundred years earlier, Grover Linden raised monuments to his wealth, but his heirs bought privacy, the ultimate luxury. Judge Paris lived somewhere in those hills, as safe as money could make him. Like God, he moved a finger and the sparrow fell. To him, a little death. But not to me. I floored the accelerator as if physical speed could make time move faster. I would bring this death home to him, whatever it took.

  I followed a curve in the road and when I looked up, the darkened skyline burst across the rose-colored sky of dusk, vaguely Oriental in shape and pattern and decidedly sinister. This was the first time I had returned to San Francisco since Hugh’s death. Those untroubled summery days seemed far more remote than a mere ten days ago. I exited near the Civic Center and came up Market, now nearly deserted as downtown emptied, toward the bay. For all its magnificence the city seemed shabby to me as little gusts of winds kicked up scraps of newspaper and blew them across the street and the bag ladies stood shapelessly in front of dark windows muttering invectives. It would be cold later. I had not thought to bring a coat.

  Stephan Abrams’s office was on the fifth floor of a highrise on Montgomery Street. Having called him earlier, I followed his directions and got to his office a few minutes before I was expected. His secretary told me he was on the phone and asked me to sit and wait. I took a look around the office. Chrome-and-leather furniture, off-white walls, industrial gray carpeting, an unnumbered Miro lithograph; all the indicia of unspectacular success. He entered the room and confirmed my image of him.

  Abrams was bulky but not fat. He had sharply etched features, a receding hairline he made no attempt to disguise, and eyes that shone from deep within their sockets. He wore a dark gray suit, a white shirt, red silk tie. He looked solid, not one to start a fight but not one to run from a fight either. The perfect all-purpose family lawyer. We shook hands. His grip, predictably, was firm.

  “Mr. Rios?” he said. “I’m sorry to make you come up so late in the day but I was booked solid.” “That’s fine. I have another appointment a little later.”

  “Oh? Well, then, there’s no problem, is there? You said something over the phone about a client we had in common.”

  “Yes, Hugh Paris.”

  “Maggie,” he said to his secretary, “why don’t you go on home, now. I’ll close up here. Step into my office Mr. Rios.’’

  I went into his office and he followed me in, closing the door behind him. There were the usual framed degrees on the wall, one from Berkeley and another from Hastings Law School, full of seals and flourishes; a little vulgar, I thought. Abrams stepped over to a small roll-top desk against a wall, fiddled with the lock and opened it to reveal a bar. He motioned me to one of the two armchairs in front of a large plain desk in the center of the room. Without asking, he poured two glasses of scotch, Chivas Regal, and carried them over. He sat down in the other chair and handed me a glass.

  “So,” he said, “Hugh Paris. At what point did you represent him?”

  “I didn’t, actually. I offered but he turned me down. Then you picked up the case and got the charges dismissed.”

  “It wasn’t hard, considering the lab report. Your cops have itchy fingers down there, but then that’s true of cops in most college towns when it comes to drugs.”

  “The voice of experience?”

  “I was a P.D. too, in Berkeley, back in the ‘sixties.” He took a healthy swallow of his drink. I swilled mine around in my glass, to be sociable. I hate scotch. “But the fires burn out.”

  “You’re doing well.”

  “I have no complaints,” he said. “So, what’s on your mind, Mr. — look, do you have a first name? Mine’s Steve.” He smiled engagingly. I was beginning to dislike him.

  “Henry,” I said. “Did Hugh hire you?”

  “I was retained on his behalf.”

  “By whom? Robert Paris? Aaron Gold?”

  “I have to claim the privilege, counsel. But if you speak frankly, then perhaps I can, too.”

  “Hugh was murdered,” I said. “That’s to the point, isn’t it?”

  “Brutally,” he replied, smiling. “Do you have any evidence to support your assertion?”

  “None that I can share with you.” His eyebrows shot up. “But it seems to me that someone who cared enough to hire a lawyer on his behalf might also care enough to assist me in finding his murderer.”

  “Anything you say to me, Henry, I assure you will reach the right ears.”

  “I don’t deal with middlemen,” I said, tasting the scotch.

  “Then why did you come here? To insult me?”

  “To give your client a message,” I said.

  “A message, Henry?” he asked softly. “If you want to deliver a message, I suggest UPS. Their rates are lower than mine.”

  “Tell your client I know who killed Hugh Paris. The police are cooperating and it’s just a matter of time before we nail him. He’s not safe. And neither are you. You may not answer my questions but you’ll answer to a subpoena and, if you’re helping to cover up a crime, I’ll have you brought up before the Bar.”

  “Get out of here, Henry, before I throw you out,” he said, rising. “Now.”

  I stood up. “All right. Thank you for your time — Steve. And here’s my card.” I flicked it on the desk.

  I shut the door behind me, and stood outside waiting to see if he picked up the phone. He didn’t. I went out into the street. I’d blown it. My purpose in coming to Abrams was to find out for whom he worked and the extent of his relationship to Hugh. Instead, I’d implied misconduct on his part and threatened him. Those were courtroom tactics, not the way to handle an investigation. But then, I’d been thrown out of a number of offices during this investigation. I seemed to be making people uncomfortable. That was some progress. Now, if I could only get them to talk. I set off in the darkness to find Grant Hancock.

  Grant lived in a twenty-eighth floor condominium in a building that rose above Embarcadero Plaza. I walked there from Abrams’s office through the early evening. Seagulls squawked overhead as I approached the blue awning that marked the en trance. A doorman stood just
outside the double glass doors. He wore a blue blazer over gray flannel trousers. I noted the bulge beneath his jacket where he strapped his holster. It was an odd neighborhood for a luxury high-rise, but there were spectacular views of the bay from the condos and, at night, it was as quiet in the streets as a graveyard. In the noisy, cramped city in which new construction was constantly obliterating someone’s view, peace and a vista of Sausalito from the living room were reason enough to pay the toney prices for a few hundred square feet of condo.

  I identified myself to the doorman and he called up to Grant’s apartment. A moment later I boarded a dimly-lit elevator that carried me to the twenty-eighth floor.

  I rang the bell and he opened the door. Behind him, in the darkness, candles were burning, and his window framed the bridge and the lights of Marin blazing across the bay. He still wore the slacks from his suit and a button-down shirt the shade of pearl; purchased, no doubt, from one of those men’s shops that sell to you only if your great-grandfather had an account with them. The three top buttons of his shirt were undone, revealing a patch of tanned and expensively maintained flesh. His sandy hair was clipped short above his ears and the handsome, expressionless face was as mysterious and self-contained as ever. He smelled of bay rum, and his clear blue eyes took me in with a long detached look. I could see myself in that look; disheveled, thin, dark beneath the eyes and getting grayer, liquor on my breath. I heard, for the first time, music playing softly in the room, guitar and flute.

  “Come in, Henry,” he said stepping back. I took it all in and smiled. The room was a joke. The candles were set in a pair of silver candlesticks atop an orange crate. There were some pillows stacked against the wall and an elaborate stereo system but no other furnishings. There was, I remembered, a mattress on a box spring in the bedroom and a butcher block table and two chairs in the kitchen. The refrigerator was apt to be stocked with wine, fruit juices, vitamins, some apples and cheese. The kitchen shelves contained a few mismatched plates of heirloom china and beautiful old wine glasses. He was holding one in his hand. The years had faded for a moment and all my feeling for him came back with an intensity that made my heart pound. And then he took a step and the feeling passed as quickly as it had come.

  “I see the decorator hasn’t been in yet,” I said, more edgily than I’d intended.

  Grant shrugged. “When I get lonely for furniture I go to my father’s house. A glass of wine? Or do you want to stick to whiskey?”

  “Wine,” I said. “I was drinking scotch with a lawyer.”

  “A seemingly innocent pursuit,” he observed drily, pressing a glass into my hand. “You’re awfully thin, Henry. Still forgetting to eat?”

  “As always. You look — very well, Grant.”

  Aloud he said, “Thank you,” but he was thinking something else. Bad feelings have a life of their own.

  I wanted desperately to say something that would wipe away the stain from our last, angry conversation four years earlier but for me that was all history. I had lost the scent of the emotions that led to the breakup. I had almost forgotten that I was the one who stopped returning calls. I could only think of how well he looked and how it was good to see him.

  He sat on the floor, cross-legged. Candlelight blazed through his hair. Theatrical, I thought, but effective. I lowered myself to the floor until we were face to face. “I wanted to ask you about Hugh,” I began, tentatively.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “What did you know about him?”

  He shrugged. “The Paris family is peninsula and seldom ventures up to the city. I didn’t really know Hugh until we were undergrads at Yale. He was younger than I by a couple of years and I took him under my wing.” He looked into his wine glass. “I was in love with him,” he added simply.

  “What happened?”

  “Hugh was eighteen and not out of the closet. Neither was I, for that matter. He was tactful enough to overlook my infatuation. We behaved toward each other,” he said, suddenly bitter, “like perfect young gentlemen. And at night I lay in bed praying to God to make me different or kill me or, preferable to either, put Hugh beside me.”

  “You never told me any of this.”

  “It was ancient history by the time I met you and, besides, I hadn’t seen or heard from Hugh in years. Not until about six months ago when I ran into him on the streets. He saw me and tried to slip by but I stopped him. He wasn’t particularly friendly but he agreed to have a drink with me that night.”

  “And did you?”

  “Yes, and he spent the night here.” A twinge of jealousy constricted my chest for a second. “It was nothing like I’d imagined it would be when I was nineteen,” Grant added. “It wasn’t memorable and yet-” he poured wine into his glass from the bottle beside him — “I’ve thought of him almost every day since then. He’s one of those people who live less in your memory than your imagination. Like a symbol.”

  “Of what?” I asked.

  “I suppose it’s different for everyone who knew him,” Grant replied. “For me, he was a symbol of being young and unknowing.”

  “I’ve never thought that was an enviable state.”

  “No? Then maybe life has spared you some of the things I know about.”

  “I don’t think I’ve been spared much of life’s nastiness,” I said, “but I don’t take it personally. And as for Hugh, I preferred the flesh-and-blood human to the symbol. Tell me, what do you know about the judge?”

  “What does anyone know about Robert Paris? The poor boy who made good by marrying into the right family. My father thinks he’s the ultimate nouveau riche, but no one denies that he’s a brilliant and ruthless man. Of course, that was before the stroke. Now I hear he’s half-dead but he hasn’t actually been seen in town for months.”

  “What stroke?”

  “He had a series of strokes about a year ago. Since then, he’s stayed up on the Linden estate in Portola Valley. He sees no one, and no one sees him.”

  “What about a man named John Smith?” I asked.

  “Are we going to explore every branch of the Linden family tree?” Grant asked mockingly.

  “Hugh saw him the day he was killed.”

  “Well, he is Hugh’s great-uncle,” Grant replied. “So surely there’s nothing unusual about Hugh having seen him.”

  “I don’t know. Is there? What kind of man is John Smith?”

  “He’s a stuffy old zillionaire,” Grant said, “nominally a banker but only in the sense that he owns banks. He’s Robert Paris’s brother-in-law and controls the other half of the Linden fortune. He and the judge don’t get along.”

  “Really? Do you know that as a fact?”

  “Good Lord, Henry, half of the city knows that as a fact.”

  “Then he’s someone Hugh might have gone to for help.”

  “Help for what?”

  “I don’t know. I’d like to talk to him though.”

  “It’s easier to see the Pope,” Grant said, “and probably more fun.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Smith is a recluse. You’d never get past the palace guard.”

  “Could you?”

  “I’d have to know why I’m trying.”

  “I think Robert Paris had Hugh murdered.”

  Grant sipped his wine. “You’re crazy,” he remarked cheerfully. “Smith would throw you out the minute you uttered those words.” Grant shook his head. “Sorry, I can’t help you.”

  He finished his wine and set the glass down on the floor.

  “I’m perfectly serious, Grant.”

  “That’s your forte,” he said, “but even so you don’t go to someone like John Smith to accuse a member of his family of homicide. That’s what the police are for.”

  “They’re not interested.”

  “Then perhaps you should take your cue from them,” he said, rising. “I’m going out to get some dinner. Want to join me?”

  “I can’t tonight, but I’ll take a rain check.”
/>   “Suit yourself,” he said. “I’ll call you.”

  Rising to leave I said, “It was good to see you again, Grant.”

  A smile, at once cynical and tender, flickered across his lips. “What amazes me most about you,” he said, “is your sincerity.”

  “I’m afraid that it’s my only social skill.”

  “Good night, Henry,” he said, letting me out.

  I stepped out of Grant’s building, passing the doorman who acknowledged my departure with the slightest of nods. I had parked down by the piers on Embarcadero and had walked, first to Abrams’ office and then to see Grant. Now as I returned to my car, walking beneath the freeway, the streets around Embarcadero Plaza were deserted. It was only the racket from the freeway and the lumbering noise of the buses as they screeched to a halt at the nearby bus yard that gave an illusion of activity.

  It was the road noise that kept me from making out my name the first time it was shouted by a voice behind me. The second time I heard it distinctly, stopped, and turned around. A man, my height but considerably more muscular, hurried toward me. He wore tight levis and a leather bomber jacket over a white t-shirt. As he stepped beneath a streetlight, I saw he was carrying something in his right hand. A gun. Aimed at my stomach.

  “Henry,” he said in a friendly voice, “I’ve been shouting at you for the last block.” His dark hair was cut short and he wore a carefully clipped moustache. He was good-looking in an anonymous sort of way. A Castro clone.

  “I don’t think I know you,” I said.

  “Well, we’re going to be good friends before the night is over.”

  He kept the gun on me while he raised his left hand in the air and motioned toward us. A moment later a car — black, Japanese, four-door, with its lights out and no license plate — crept up beside us. Two other men were in the front seat and one in the back. The two in the front and my friend with the gun were not only dressed identically but, as far as I could see, might have been a set of triplets. The man in the back seat differed from the others only in that he was a blond. He stepped out of the car and approached us.