by Hailey Lind
“You got me. I made that up. You’re looking pretty spiffy yourself today, partner.”
“Michael, cut the bull. You owe me an explanation. Where were you last week?”
“On a business trip.”
“What kind of business trip? You mean business as in your old business, as in stealing something?”
He frowned at me. “Annie, I’m hurt.”
“Not half as hurt as when I finish with you—or more precisely, the feds finish with you—if you’re back to your old ways.”
He leaned back against the door.
“You want the truth?”
“It would be so refreshing.”
“I had some family business to attend to.”
“Family? What kind of family?”
“What do you mean, what kind of family? I didn’t think there were that many options.”
“Flesh-and-blood family?”
“Yes.”
“The people you share your DNA with?”
“Is ‘family’ a difficult concept for you?”
“Huh.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s just—nothing. So, where does your family live?”
“All over.”
“What did they need from you?”
“It’s personal.”
First he mentions a mother, and now a personal life. Next thing you know the man would turn out to be a real person instead of a demi-god, and things would really spin out of control. I had an intense craving for chocolate.
After a brief pick-up in speed, the traffic slowed to a standstill again. Out the window Alcatraz Island and the Golden Gate Bridge shimmered in the morning light. My eyes fell upon the dozen bright red mechanical cranes that were supposed to be rebuilding the eastern span of the Bay Bridge, though they never seemed to be in operation. The Bay Bridge is actually two bridges: the western span connects San Francisco to Yerba Buena Island, and the eastern span reaches from there to Oakland. San Francisco’s half is attractive and in good condition. Oakland’s half is ugly and seismically unsafe. A chunk of it fell during the last significant shaker.
Many Oaktown boosters find this symbolic, and more than a few whisper of conspiracies. Usually I’m happy to jump aboard the victimization bandwagon, but I find it hard to embrace conspiracy theories. In my experience, people are too self-centered to organize a decent block party, much less pull off a successful conspiracy.
“Maybe you should stop disappearing,” I said, sipping my coffee. “It makes me question your reliability.”
He laughed and reached over with his left hand to smooth my hair, letting his hand rest on the back of my neck. “I am many things, Annie. Reliable is not one of them.”
“I know, I know. If I want reliability I should marry Frank.”
“I sure as hell wouldn’t go that far. In fact, about your golden boy Frank—”
“I already know your feelings toward the man, Michael. My point is, this is your chance. Your shelf life as a thief is limited, you know. Surely you must be on your third strike by now. This is California. Despite our loosey-goosey reputation, we put people away for life for stealing candy bars on their third strike in California.”
Traffic picked up and we zoomed through the tunnel at Yerba Buena Island.
“Shocking,” Michael said. “Then again, sometimes you feel like a nut....”
“I’m serious.”
“Careful, Annie. It almost sounds like you care.”
“I...”
“Take the Embarcadero exit,” said Michael as we reached the foot of the bridge and entered San Francisco.
“Here? Why?”
“I have a lead on Hermes. We have to talk with some folks.”
“I don’t feel like it. I don’t like those clubby types, and they don’t like me. I want to do something fun, like work on the sketches for my clients’ living room. Besides, I have to go by Mayfield’s to check on the Kiwi’s painting.”
“This will be quick. And it’s practically on the way. And need I remind you, you’re the one who accepted this job.”
I pointed the truck toward one of the last affordable neighborhoods in San Francisco: Bayview–Hunter’s Point. Crime rates are high, drug use rampant. On the up side, there is plenty of parking. I followed Michael’s directions and pulled up in front of a run-down, two-story apartment building painted a bilious Pepto Bismol–pink that reminded me of the repurposed Motel 6 where I had lived in my senior year at college. The downstairs apartments opened onto the parking lot while the upstairs ones opened onto a covered walkway. In front of the former motel office was a small, kidney-shaped pool that had been emptied of water and filled with trash and broken furniture. A dusty neon sign with a palm tree declared the place to be “Aloha Court,” though based on the number of crack vials littering the premises, “Sayonara City” seemed more apt.
“Who—or what—are we looking for?” I asked.
“I ran the license plate number the homeless guy gave us,” Michael said, handing me a slip of paper with a name and address.
“The truck’s owner is ‘Perry Outlaw’?” I said, reading. “You have got to be kidding. A man named ‘Outlaw’ becomes a criminal? If he had any sense of irony at all he’d have become a judge.”
Michael chuckled as we climbed out of the truck.
“You guys cops, or Social?” a scrawny young woman called out to us, and I surmised our business-themed attire screamed “outsider.” She was dressed in jeans and a bright yellow T-shirt, her shaggy hair an unnatural arterial-blood red with dark roots.
“Something we can help you with?” Michael asked.
“Bitch stole my money!” she fumed, flinging her arm toward the squat building. “Apartment Two.”
“What happened?”
“I gave her twenty bucks and she gave me a hunk of plaster!” On her outstretched palm sat a small white chunk of plaster. We looked at it, at her, and then at each other.
“What do you want us to do about it?” I asked.
“Get my money back!”
“You think we’re cops, and you want us to get your drug money back?” I said, not sure I’d followed the conversation.
“Hey, she stole my twenty bucks! This is America! Do something!”
“I’m afraid we’re on another case, ma’am,” Michael said. “But if you’d like, I’ll be happy to call in some backup and you can explain to the nice officers that you want your drug dealer arrested for selling fake crack cocaine.”
The woman stared at us, mouth open, before turning away with a look of pure disgust.
“I think we’ve shattered her faith in the system,” I said softly as we walked away.
“That’s what she gets for seeking justice from a forger and a thief,” Michael replied.
“Former forger.”
“Former thief.”
“Fine.”
“Good.”
We shared a smile.
“So how do we handle this?” I asked.
“Let me lead. I’ll be the bad cop. Jump in when you think you should.”
“Okay, but be careful—impersonating a police officer actually is a crime.”
We reached Apartment Six, on the ground floor, and Michael knocked briskly. A skinny, pale young man in his early twenties answered, dressed in nothing more than a pair of tighty-whities that were more gray than white. After my initial impression I tried very hard not to look.
“Perry Outlaw?”
“Who wants to know?”
“I’m Johnson. This is Kincaid. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“You from Social?”
Michael inclined his head.
Outlaw stepped back and we walked into an apartment that looked like a cheap motel room: to the left was an unmade double bed flanked by a pair of generic faux-wood nightstands, and to the right a dresser was pushed up against the wall. Atop the dresser a television set was chained to a bolt in the wall. The floor was carpeted in t
he common brown-and-tan mottled shag favored by tightwad landlords wanting to disguise suspicious stains. The room smelled of stale cigarette smoke, fried chicken, and spoiled milk.
A thin blond woman, resembling a strung-out Kate Moss with bad skin, perched on the room’s only chair, a towheaded toddler in her lap. The child pointed a bright green laser-type gun at us and pretended to pull the trigger.
“We’re doin’ okay,” Perry said. “Erin’s just fine, aren’t you, sweetie?”
I smiled at the child, who turned back to the cartoons that nipped and squawked on the TV.
“That’s not a real gun or nothin’,” Outlaw said ingratiatingly. “Her uncle gave it to her on account of she wouldn’t stop crying. But it don’t shoot nothin’. Listen, we’re clean,” he insisted, dropping his voice but speaking in a determined tone. “Ever since Melissa got outta jail the last time, we been on the straight and narrow, swear-to-God. I know this place don’ look like much but—”
“Where were you last Monday night?”
“Monday?”
Michael nodded.
“I...uh...let’s see. I guess I was here. Yep, I was here. I come home straight after work.”
“When’s the last time you were on Nob Hill?” Michael asked.
“Downtown?”
Michael nodded.
“Nah, man, not for years.” He shook his head.
“Your truck was seen there.”
“Ah, maaaaan.” Outlaw clutched at the top of his head with both hands and blew out a breath in a dramatic move. “I told those dudes to stay clean. What’d they do?”
“There was a sculpture stolen.”
“Naaaah, dude, they just borrowed my truck.”
“Who?”
“Dude, I don’t even know, man,” Perry moaned.
“Listen, bud,” I said. “Your scumbag friends stole an extremely valuable sculpture that belongs to someone with a whole lot of juice and not much patience, understand? If we don’t get it back for him the legal way, he’ll hire someone who will get it back the hard way. A real sick S.O.B., let me tell you. ”
Michael looked amused, and I remembered I was supposed to be the good cop.
Outlaw looked genuinely stricken. “I’m telling you, they just borrowed my truck! I had nothin’ to do with it, I swear!”
“Names and addresses. Now.”
He continued to protest as he wrote down the information. “I got me a job, a legitimate job. Don’t pay much, but I’m legit. Here.”
He handed Michael a piece of paper with two names, Alan Dizikes and Skip Goldberg, and an address in Crockett, a small city on a northern finger of the bay about half an hour’s drive.
“Hey, I can’t get in trouble for lendin’ them the truck, right?” Outlaw pleaded. “I didn’t know what they was up to and I wasn’t there, man. Hey, maybe I got somethin’ you could use for another case. Go ahead, ask me anythin’.”
“We’re just interested in the sculpture, Mr. Outlaw,” Michael said. “Any idea what they’d do with a sculpture like that?”
Outlaw rubbed his jaw, the stubble making a skritching sound. “Sell it. Ain’t like none of them wants it for his garden.”
“Sell it where?”
“Dude, anywhere they can.”
“Anything else?” I asked. “Now’s your chance to do the right thing. Because if I find out you held out on us, I’m gonna take that as a personal insult. Johnson, tell Mr. Outlaw here what happened to the last lying low-life who insulted me.”
“Well, now, that’s hard to say, seeing how the body was never found.”
Outlaw’s jaw dropped, but no sound came out.
Michael handed him a business card. “You think of anything else, just give me a call.”
“Sure. Sure I will. You can count on me.”
Michael and I walked in silence to the truck. The sights and sounds of the Outlaw apartment had given me a dull headache and a nauseated feeling in the pit of my stomach. I felt the urge to go paint. Yes, I whined about the pitiful state of my bank account, but as an artist I could consider myself bohemian rather than just plain poor. Aloha Court was depressing.
“I don’t think I’m cut out for this investigating gig,” I said, climbing into the driver’s seat and leaning across to unlock the door for Michael. “First snooty club types, now this. How can people live like that? And with a kid? Maybe my grandfather’s right. Maybe I should go back to forgery.”
“They’re not as bad as some. At least they’re trying, and that counts for a lot. So: off to Crockett? We could swing by Mayfield’s first.”
“I don’t know...maybe we should split up on this one.” I pulled onto busy Third Street. “We could get more done.”
“It’s more fun together,” Michael said. “Besides, you just want to go hide in your studio and paint. Admit it.”
“That is still my main job, you know.”
“You’ve seen how lucrative some of these gigs are, Annie. We wrap this one up, plus that Gauguin gig, and you’ll be able to put money down on that new truck you keep talking about.”
My cell phone signaled an incoming call with an electronic version of Flight of the Bumblebee, which Mary put on it last month after I demanded she remove the annoying rap tune she had previously uploaded. Rooting around for my Bluetooth was enough to make me frantic; the frenetic music was not helping.
“Hello?” I answered, barely evading the switch to voicemail.
“Annie? It’s Jarrah Preston.”
“Hi, Jarrah. Thanks for calling back. I wanted to ask you—”
“Listen, Annie. I don’t know if you’ve heard but your uncle Anton,” Preston interrupted. “Anton Woznikowicz—”
“Has he been involved in something? Is he in trouble?” Lord, I had known something was going on. Damn. I just hoped the bail wasn’t set too high, because I really needed to buy that new truck.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Annie. I stopped by his place this morning and found him on the floor. He’s been poisoned.”
7
The history of paint is the history of poison, judiciously applied.
—Georges LeFleur, “Craquelure”
“He hasn’t been able to tell us what happened.” Jarrah greeted me when I burst into the ICU waiting room at San Francisco General. Michael had gone to park the truck after I jumped out in front of the emergency room. “When I found him he was conscious and mumbling, but just barely. The ER doctors said we have to wait and see if he regains consciousness.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. I should have done more. I should have forced Anton, at the point of a palette knife if necessary, to tell me what was really going on. And then I should have hand-delivered the nefarious fellow to his daughter’s doorstep.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Here’s the doctor now.”
The physician was dark-featured and petite. Notwithstanding the stethoscope hanging around her neck, the clipboard under her arm, and the spotless white lab coat, she looked all of fifteen years old.
“I’m Anton’s niece,” I said. “I’m his only local family. What’s the prognosis?”
“We believe your uncle’s been poisoned,” she said with a slight Pakistani lilt. “It looks like arsenic.”
“Arsenic poisoning?”
“We’ve begun a process known as chelation, which is a way to try to rid the system of the poison.”
“How does that work?”
“We’re administering a drug called dimercaprol every four hours. It’s more toxic than succimer, but we don’t have much choice given his acute condition. We’ll do that for the first two days, followed by two injections on the third day then one a day for the next five days.”
“And what does ‘chelating’ do, exactly?”
“The chelating agents sequester the arsenic away from blood proteins, which is the most immediately damaging aspect of this kind of poisoning.”
“Are there side effects?”
“Sure.
The most important side effect is hypertension, and possible kidney damage later. But at this point we don’t have much choice. I hate to be blunt, but your uncle’s condition is considered grave at this time. Given his age...well, it’s not an ideal situation. It’s lucky his friend found him in time. Be assured we are doing everything we can. ”
I sensed a presence behind me, and turned to see a large, square-headed man who looked like a caricature of a Polish Mafioso. In fact, he was a Polish Mafioso. Hipolit—Hippo to his friends; I could only guess what his enemies called him—was an Old School gangster, which meant he rained mayhem down upon the heads of his enemies but drew the line at their families, civilians, and cops. I wasn’t sure how he and Anton knew each other—whether the connection was social, business, or cultural—but they were long-term associates. Most of the time Hippo’s very existence made me nervous, but today I was glad to see him.
“I have my best man on it, Annie,” he said, hugging me. He smelled of tobacco and Juicy Fruit gum. “You need anything, Anton needs anything, you let me know. Here’s my private line.” He handed me a business card engraved with his name and phone number.
“Do you know how to get in touch with Anton’s daughter?” I asked.
“I’ve already called her,” Hippo said. “But she won’t be able to make the trip in her condition. She’s in Milan, due to have her baby any day now.”
Michael hurried in from the parking garage and put an arm around my waist. I leaned into him, grateful for his presence, and told him what I knew. He and Hippo acknowledged each other with a barely perceptible nod.
“Can I see him?” I asked no one in particular.
“He’s this way,” Hippo replied.
A short way down the hall I spied Anton through a window. I moved to stand next to my unconscious faux-uncle, who looked small and fragile in the hospital bed. A plastic tube was taped to his mouth, he was hooked up to an IV stand, and wires and electrodes connected him to a bank of monitors that made rhythmic beeping sounds. For the first time he looked every inch of his seventy-something years.
Michael took up a position on the other side of the bed and gazed at Anton, shock and sorrow in his eyes. In my own grief I’d forgotten that Anton was a big part of Michael’s world, too.