by Steven Gore
Socorro took a sip, and then asked, “How do you and Graham do it? All these years and you still hold hands. Who does that anymore? At least not at our age.”
Faith didn’t want to respond. She never wanted to give women advice about how to live, or present herself or Graham as examples, or recommend their lives to anyone.
How could she? She knew how many times she’d lain awake when he was working in Pakistan or Russia or Egypt or dozens of other countries, afraid for him, and him afraid for her when she was researching in deserts and jungles where medical care was days away and in China or India where sudden changes in political winds often swept the innocent away.
Faith took a sip of her coffee to avoid answering.
And all of this, though it was invisible to outsiders, had been earned by worry and sacrifice. They’d grown into their life together. It hadn’t been guaranteed by their marriage vows or received like an inheritance.
What made it bearable was that they had each other and respected each other’s need to do some good in the world where it was in their power to do it.
But how could she say all that to Socorro?
In looking at her now, Faith realized Tolstoy was wrong: Happy families aren’t all alike. And the way she and Graham found happiness wouldn’t be how Socorro would, if she ever did.
Faith glanced at her watch. “Maybe we should . . .”
Socorro gave Faith a hug just before arriving at the first security checkpoint. As she watched Faith walk away, Socorro’s peripheral vision caught the profile of a familiar face at the rear of the line next to hers. She stared at the dark-haired man for a few moments, but couldn’t resolve whether it was someone she knew or maybe an actor she’d seen on television. She shrugged, then turned and presented her driver’s license and boarding pass to the security agent, and passed on through.
An hour later, Viz filled the doorway of the China Garden Restaurant in San Francisco, where Gage was eating lunch with Faith after she’d left Socorro at the airport. He spotted them in a far booth and approached, hat in hand. Faith scooted around the semicircular bench so Viz could sit down.
“I figured I better tell you myself, boss.”
“What’s that?”
“I lost Boots.”
“What happened?”
“He found the GPS I planted on his van and stuck it under a FedEx delivery truck. By the time we figured it out, he’d slipped away.”
“What about the hotel?”
“I talked to Rosa, gave her a few bucks and asked her if she knew why he moved out. She told me she started to throw away a newspaper one morning and he told her he wanted to keep the real estate section. Later she overheard him talking about an investment he was making, and the next day she saw he’d circled some listings. He took it with him, was gone for a few hours, and then came back and checked out. She doesn’t think he’s coming back. She looked real disappointed. I think she’d gotten used to the extra money.”
Chapter 79
Namaste.”
The Indian accent carrying the words into Gage’s cell phone was both heavy and familiar. Gage swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. He looked at the alarm clock, the red letters glowing in the dark.
“You know what time it is?” Gage asked as he emerged from the gray haze of sleep.
Babu laughed. “Of course, five in the evening.”
“I mean here.”
“Twelve and a half hours earlier. As it should be.”
“Which means?”
“It’s time to get up.”
“Not in California.
Babu paused. “You mean Americans aren’t getting up at the same time as us? I am always assuming they did. You want me to call back?”
Gage glanced over at Faith. He couldn’t see her face, just the moonlit outline of her head propped up on one elbow.
“Hold on a minute,” Gage covered the mouthpiece. “I’ve got a new cultural insight for you. Babu seems to think everyone in the world gets up at the same time as Indians.”
Faith shook her head.
“I’m sure that’ll be the next cover story for the American Journal of Anthropology,” Faith said, then dropped her head back onto the pillow.
Gage slipped on his robe and uncovered the mouthpiece.
“Hold on. I’ll take this downstairs.”
Gage stood at the kitchen counter in the darkness, looking toward the lights of San Francisco, his view framed by pines and oaks on the lower part of the property. It was still more than an hour before the sun rose, and the owl hooting in the branch overhanging the deck seemed to be asking why Gage was already awake.
“The Hyderabad police found Mr. Wilbert’s body in a mango grove behind one of the dhabas along the highway,” Babu said.
Gage felt his muscles tense.
“Did you see it?” Gage asked.
“No. He was cremated right afterward. We use our limited refrigerated storage for food, not dead people. But the local police took photos beforehand. That’s how I knew who he was.”
“What killed him?”
“Natural causes.”
“How do you know?”
“Because foreigners in India only die of natural causes, even if the body shows signs of . . . of . . . shall we say . . . abuse? Our Ministry of External Affairs insists on it.”
“How much abuse?”
“Maybe as long as a few hours. Some bruises had time to form and some wounds scabbed over, others didn’t. My guess is that he was strangled in the end.”
“Do the local police know who he is?”
“They suspect he’s German because it’s mostly them who come to India on the sex tours. More to Kolkata and Goa than to Hyderabad, but still . . .”
“How about encouraging them in that idea?”
“They’ll find encouragement in anything that allows them to put the matter to rest.”
Just before sunrise, Gage brought a cup of coffee to Faith, still lying in bed and watching the local news. On the screen was a repeat from a previous evening’s news segment.
A self-satisfied President Duncan leaned forward in his chair toward the interviewer.
“Of course, we’ll swear them in immediately after the Senate vote.”
“What about a filibuster?” the reporter asked.
“The Democrats would look ridiculous if they tried. A third of the Senate and the entire House hit the campaign trail in a few months, and nobody wants to carry that kind of ugly baggage.”
“Or is it merely that they don’t want the same treatment if they take the White House a year from now?”
Duncan straightened his shoulders.
“That’s not going to happen.”
Gage handed Faith her cup, then sat down on the edge of the bed.
“I think we’ve lost TIMCO.”
“Hawkins? Is that what Babu called about?”
Gage nodded. “Murdered.”
Faith shuddered.
“Now we have no admissible evidence.”
“Unless you can work back from whoever killed him.”
“That’s assuming the killing was related. For all we know, it was something else. Maybe revenge for Hawkins’s mistreating a girl.”
“But you don’t think so.”
“No. But we’ll never know for certain. There’s nothing left of the crime scene except dirt and rotting mangos, and nothing left of Hawkins except ashes.”
“And Babu?”
“There’s not much he can do. I’m positive the local cops he’d have to rely on have already been paid off by whoever did it.”
Gage called Joe Casey as he drove toward his office.
“Can you find out if a Robert Marnin came through customs recently?”
“Hold on.”
Casey came back on the line a few minutes later.
“He flew into Newark. Flight AI–191 from Paris a few days ago.”
“Thanks.”
Gage disconnected and slipped his phone int
o his shirt pocket.
AI–191. AI. Air India. A redneck like Boots Marnin wouldn’t fly Air India from Paris unless the flight originated in Delhi, Mumbai, or Kolkata.
Gage looked up from the Bay Bridge at the fog intertwining itself in the financial district. Then his mind cleared: Charlie Palmer, the OSHA inspector Karopian, and Wilbert Hawkins weren’t killed for revenge.
They were chosen one by one because they were links in an evidentiary chain Gage had followed hand over hand; one that now had exploded into a thousand pieces, just like the valve that had set off the TIMCO firestorm.
Gage shook his head and exhaled. At least there’s no one left to kill.
He drove on for a half mile, then found himself gripping the steering wheel.
Unless whoever was behind the killings stopped thinking like a lawyer.
Instead of taking the exit toward the Embarcadero, Gage continued on the freeway to the off-ramp nearest the Hall of Justice. After a couple of hours researching criminal files in the superior court clerk’s office, Gage realized he was wrong.
There was one person left to kill.
Chapter 80
The Elf was leading a different Wolf when Gage pulled to stop on the one-way Folsom Street in front of the Bootstrap at eleven-forty that night. Apparently Jeffrey Stark, Charlie Palmer’s physical therapist, hadn’t taken all that well to the yoke.
Gage stepped out of his car as they came even with him. The overhead streetlight gave Elf’s face a yellow pallor. His eyes widened and he dropped the leash.
Gage shook his head. “This isn’t about you. I’m trying to find Jeffrey. His cell phone is disconnected.”
“He fell behind on the payments so it got turned off.”
“And I went by the place where he told me he was staying. Nobody answered the door all day.”
Elf’s eyebrows narrowed. “Why’s everybody so interested in Jeffrey?”
“Who’s everybody?”
“The company he worked for—”
“Physical Therapy Associates?”
“Yeah. They called me like six times in the last two days, real anxious to contact him.”
“Why you?”
Elf glanced over at his Wolf. “He put me down as his next of kin on his application.”
The Wolf glared at Elf, then stomped away.
“Sorry,” Gage said.
“No problem.” Elf tilted his head toward the club. “There’s lots where he came from.”
“Practically a candy store.”
Elf’s eyebrows went up. “You’re not . . .”
Gage shook his head again.
“Too bad.”
Gage smiled. “Anyway I think I’m a little old for you.”
Elf smiled back. “I don’t know. I’ve seen Sabrina like a hundred times. Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. May and December.”
“Sorry.”
Elf shrugged. “So what’s up with Jeffrey?”
“I’m trying to figure that out. Do you know why the company was trying to contact him?”
“A job, I guess. But I’m not sure why they ever hired him.”
“Because of the identify theft convictions?”
Elf nodded. “The state revoked his license because his victims were all people he was treating. Mostly old folks recovering from hip and knee replacements.”
“Then why did Physical Therapy Associates take him?”
“It’s not like he applied. They came to him. Like out of the blue. A couple of days after he got out of jail.”
“When did they last call you?”
“Three hours ago. I got tired of them bothering me so I told them about his new job working as a security guard at the MetroTowers construction site.”
“Which shift?”
“Midnight until eight.”
Gage checked his watch. Eleven forty-five. He pulled out a business card and handed it to Elf.
“I’ll head over,” Gage said, “but if you hear from him before I get there, tell him to go to a safe place and give me a call.”
Elf peered up at Gage. “A safe place? What do you mean a safe place?”
Gage opened his car door.
“He’ll know.”
Gage made the half-mile drive to New Montgomery Street in two minutes. He squinted as he cruised the half-block construction site trying to see past the halogen lights flooding the perimeter. He caught glimpses of rebar rising from the unfinished below-ground parking structure and a latticed crane rising up fifteen stories, its mast topped by a horizontal jib. He finally spotted a brown modular construction trailer stationed along the alley behind the site. He parked on a side street next to a half-finished condo tower and retrieved a semiautomatic from a lockbox in his trunk.
Gage ducked in and out of the shadows until he reached the single lit window of the trailer, and then climbed the metal steps and stretched over the railing until he could peek inside.
The body in the chair was slumped over the desk.
Damn. Too late.
He straightened up and checked the time. Eleven fifty-five.
This isn’t right.
He smiled to himself, then leaned over again and tapped the window. Jeffrey Stark’s head jerked up. He blew out a breath when he saw it was Gage, then pushed himself to his feet and opened the door.
“Man, you scared the hell out of me,” Jeffrey said. “I thought you were my supervisor.”
“What are you doing at work so early?”
“I kinda used up my welcome where I was staying, so I’ve been sleeping here before my shift.”
A clunk sounded from the wall behind Jeffrey. Gage glanced over, then at the opposite window. A dime-sized hole was centered in the glass. He grabbed Jeffrey by the front of his uniform jacket and yanked him down to the floor. Gage heard a bone crack and a shriek as Jeffrey’s shoulder hit the linoleum, then the rapid-fire clunk-clunk-clunk of slugs piercing the trailer.
Gage dragged Jeffrey behind the desk, fired three times to knock out the overhead lights, then punched 911 into his cell phone.
“Shots fired at New Montgomery near Mission. MetroTowers,” Gage told the dispatcher. “We’re trapped in the construction trailer.”
The clunks then became methodical, as if the shooter was calculating how to place his shots for the best coverage. One slug ricocheted off the desktop, two hit the file cabinet.
Sirens in the distance brought them to a halt.
Jeffrey grabbed the edge of the desk with his good arm and tried to get up. He yelped as Gage pulled him back down and propped him against the wall.
“Let’s pick a story,” Gage said.
“As opposed to what?”
“You bird-dogging Charlie Palmer and conspiracy to commit murder.”
“Murder?” Jeffrey’s voice rose. “Murder wasn’t part of it. I was just supposed to keep an eye on him and report in.”
“To who?”
“I can’t say.”
Gage jammed his elbow into Jeffrey’s broken shoulder blade. “Yes you can.”
“Shit, man.”
“I need the name.”
“Mr. Botas.”
“Is that a nickname or last name?”
Gage didn’t tell him, but botas was Spanish for “boots.”
“That’s all I know. Botas. I never met him. Just by phone.”
“He have an accent?”
“Texan.”
“How’d you meet—”
Spotlight beams hit the side of the trailer. A voice boomed from a patrol car loudspeaker:
“This is the San Francisco Police.”
“I can’t go back to jail,” Jeffrey said. “What’s our story gonna be?”
“I’m investigating construction equipment thefts at a site down the street. I was canvassing the area. We’ve never met before.”
“Are we going to meet again?”
“You want to keep on living?”
What are you going to do with me?” Jeffrey asked Gage.
It was two o’clock in the morning and they were sitting outside the emergency room of SF Medical, waiting for the radiologist to examine the X-rays to decide whether a sling would be sufficient to immobilize Jeffrey’s broken shoulder. An icepack was strapped over it.
“That’s up to you.”
“Right now I’m afraid to leave this place. What if the guy’s waiting outside?”
“He probably is.”
Jeffrey’s gaze shifted toward the door. “Thanks. That’s just what I wanted to hear.”
“Tell me how you got hooked up with Botas.”
“Shit. Is he the one who’s out there?”
“Probably.”
Jeffrey held out a trembling hand. “Look at this. Nobody’s tried to kill me before.”
“How’d you meet him?”
“Through somebody in jail. He knew somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody who wanted a guy to keep an eye on Palmer. They set it up with Physical Therapy Associates to hire me and place me at his house.”
“Did you ask who arranged it?”
“The director just said somebody dropped by and offered to pay triple the going rate if they did it.”
“What was this somebody trying to find out?”
“They didn’t tell me. They just wanted me to cozy up to him. Dependent people tend to talk a lot. But I didn’t have much time. I was only there a week before he died.” Jeffrey drew back and winced. “Is that what this is about?”
“Yes.”
“So the comb-over guy really did it?”
“Porzolkiewski.”
“Yeah. Porzolkiewski.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Tell me the truth about when he came by.”
“Sorry about that. Botas told me to say that Porzolkiewski showed up the day before Palmer died, not three days before.”
“Did you ask why?”
“I tried to, but he cut me off. And he isn’t the kind of guy you argue with.”
“Did Porzolkiewski come back?”
“Not that I saw. But I was only there in the afternoons.”
“Anything happen the day before Palmer died?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be asking me about the day he died? I thought he was murdered.”
“Just play along.”