Arsenic and Old Paint

by Hailey Lind

  “How did he die?”

  “Shot. In an alleyway, right outside the Power Play.”

  “You were at the Power Play last night? How did I miss out on this little excursion?”

  I glared at him. “We’re talking about a man’s life, here, Michael.”

  “Sorry. Why do you say he died because of you?”

  “I was trying to ask him some questions. I think someone stopped him from answering.”

  We were approaching the typical rush-hour traffic backup at the MacArthur Maze.

  “Don’t get on the bridge. Take 80 North instead,” Michael said.

  “Why?”

  “I have my reasons.”

  “There is no 80 North. You mean 80 East?”

  “It says East, but it’s going north.”

  This is typical Bay Area signage. The freeway runs more or less north–south, following the edge of the bay, but the signs say 80 East and 580 West. So a person could go north, east, and west all at once. It seemed a fitting metaphor for my life these days.

  After a brief hesitation I crossed six lanes of freeway, weaving my way through traffic with the skill born of near-daily experience dealing with this difficult, intricate intersection, to take the far-right off-ramp for 80. I noticed that the silver Honda Pilot tailing me didn’t make it over in time. Poor guy. Looked like somebody was going to get in trouble with a Mr. Frank DeBenton.

  “So you’re saying that since you were trying to get some information from this Kyle fellow, and he was killed, now you’re responsible?”

  “He’d be alive right now if not for me.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  Silence. I took a swig of coffee and savored the familiar, comforting smell and taste. Peet’s French Roast is one of the few things in life I am utterly, completely sure about. I was grasping at straws, but there it is.

  It was confusing to be with Michael so soon after Frank. I was beginning to yearn for the simplicity of last week, when my frustrating business partner was still missing and my sexy landlord was still refusing to talk to me. And my uncle was still well.

  Traffic in the opposite direction was at a standstill, but 80 East is against the A.M. commute direction so we whizzed along, passing UC Berkeley’s Campanile to our right, the bay and San Francisco to our left. The Golden Gate was socked in under a thick blanket of fog.

  “Where are we headed?” I asked.

  “Crockett.”

  “Why?”

  “Remember Perry Outlaw? He gave us that Crockett address?”

  I let out an exasperated breath. “I don’t care about finding Hermes anymore, Michael. I have to figure out what’s going on at the F-U. I have to find some way to talk to Balthazar Odibajian. I have to—”

  “Turns out Perry has—had—a brother. Named Kyle.”

  18

  Pablo Picasso said that copying oneself is more dangerous than copying others, for it only leads to sterility.

  Therefore, I feel free to copy others.

  —Georges LeFleur, “Craquelure”

  “Kyle Jones?”

  “Née Outlaw. I guess in his line of work he felt he needed an alias. Maybe he was the brighter of the two brothers.”

  “He couldn’t come up with something more interesting than Jones?”

  “I’m thinking intelligent creativity wasn’t his strong suit.”

  “You’ve got me there.” So if Perry and Kyle were brothers...was this yet another unlikely coincidence?

  Crockett is a small industrial town on a northern finger of the bay called the Carquinez Strait. Though I had seen the signs for the town, I had never gotten off the freeway, just noticed it as I whizzed by on the way to the Carquinez Bridge and points north. From the freeway the most remarkable thing about the town is a huge C&H Sugar plant sitting right on the water.

  Once we exited and drove along surface streets, however, Crockett was charming. It had been caught in a 1950s time warp, and had the mien of a pleasant, slightly depressed Mayberry RFD. The small main street had a number of boarded-up businesses, but there were still several shops and people on the sidewalks. Colorful banners batted around by the wind off the strait announced an upcoming SUGARTOWN FESTIVAL AND STREET FAIR!

  I pulled up to the curb on Pomona, the main drag. It was early yet; folks were headed to their cars, newspapers tucked under their arms, travel mugs of coffee in hand. Michael steered me across the quiet street to an old-fashioned diner, where we slid into an orange vinyl booth by a spotless plate-glass window.

  “I’m not a breakfast person,” I grumbled.

  “Most important meal of the day,” Michael said brightly.

  The waitress came over, “Sandy,” a middle-aged woman sporting a huge smile and orthopedic shoes. Michael ordered coffee and grapefruit juice for both of us, even though I was still clutching my travel mug full of Peet’s. I leaned back into the corner of the booth, feeling listless. Elijah Odibajian, Anton Woznikowicz, Kyle “Jones” Outlaw...other than having complicated names, what did they have in common? Why had they been marked for death? Perhaps most importantly, how did I get myself wrapped up in these things?

  When Sandy came over with our drinks, Michael ordered a Western omelet for himself and an English muffin, well-toasted, for me.

  I stared out the window. Maybe I should move to Crockett. Seemed like a nice place. Slow pace, friendly people, cute houses. I bet people hardly ever got shot outside sex clubs here. On second thought, it wasn’t nearly far enough away. At this point Siberia seemed like the better option.

  Would Frank like Crockett, I wondered? My heart thudded. What, was I going to run out and purchase our first home? You slept together once, Annie. Don’t blow it out of proportion.

  While I was lost in thought, Michael struck up a conversation with Sandy. By the time I started listening in, she was eating out of his hand.

  “Oh, sure, the Outlaw boys,” she chuckled. “With a name like that, I guess it’s no wonder that they were into mischief. Not bad kids, but lots of petty stuff, ran a little wild.”

  “And their friends...?”

  “Alan Dizikes and Skip Goldberg. They were like our own little Crockett gang,” she chuckled again and shook her head, “but like I say, they were basically good kids. Bored, is all. Not much to do here in town, so a while back Perry and Kyle moved to San Fran, but Alan and Skip stuck around.”

  “And they’re up on Cherry Street?”

  “That’s right. Alan’s folks passed away early on, so he inherited the house, rents out rooms. Skip lives there now, too. Corner of Tilden.”

  Michael gave Sandy one of his patented “you are the most fascinating creature in the world” smiles.

  She melted. I wasn’t sure Crockett was ready for Michael’s megawatt sexiness.

  “Thanks, Sandy,” I said, reaching across the table and putting my hand atop Michael’s. “I’m sure you’re busy; don’t let my nosy husband monopolize your time.”

  “Oh, sure, no problem,” she said, picking up her coffeepot. A little bell tinkled as the front door opened, capturing Sandy’s attention. “Well, look who just walked in. Speak of the devil....”

  We looked around to see a short, paunchy man in wire-rimmed frames and a cheap brown suit walk in and take a stool at the counter. By his graying temples and jowly face I would guess he was in his mid-fifties. Surely this couldn’t be one of the Crockett Boy Gang?

  “That’s Jim Stafford. He’s their lawyer.”

  “Whose lawyer?”

  “All of ’em. Every one of those boys has needed a lawyer at least once in their lives. Well, eat hearty.” She hustled off to refresh coffee cups on linoleum tables throughout the small diner.

  Michael and I looked at each other, and without saying a word we got up and each took a stool on either side of Jim Stafford, lawyer to the Crockett gang.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Um, hello,” Stafford said.

  “Good morning,” Michael said.

  Staf
ford swung his head toward Michael, then back to me. “Is...everything okay? Can I do something for you two?”

  “We wanted to talk to you about a client of yours.”

  “Clients’ information is entirely confidential.”

  “What about after they’ve been shot to death in a dirty alleyway?” I asked.

  Stafford took off his glasses and looked at me. Up close I realized some of his puffiness probably had to do with the veins on his nose and in his cheeks, and the red rims of his eyes. He was a drinker. But I had the sense he was no fool.

  “Who? Who died?”

  “Kyle Outlaw. A.k.a. Kyle Jones.”

  “Kyle?” Stafford stared straight ahead, sipped his coffee, and shook his head. “I guess I’m not surprised. Kyle did have a way of living on the edge. I’m sorry to hear that, though.”

  “He was a client of yours, right?”

  He nodded. “But I haven’t seen him for some time. I was under the impression he was toeing the line, keeping out of trouble. I represented his brother’s wife not too long ago, but Kyle and Perry have both been trying to straighten up.”

  “What about a few years ago? Kyle was working for a couple in Sausalito, and a valuable painting was stolen. Do you remember that?”

  “Kyle was questioned by the police at the time, but he wasn’t ever charged.”

  “When did you represent him?”

  “It was shortly after that, actually. He got involved in a robbery, was driving the car, wasn’t part of the heist at all, didn’t even know what his friends were up to until it was too late.”

  Uh-huh.

  “Would you happen to know anything about Kyle being involved with stolen paintings?”

  His red-rimmed eyes looked at me, then over to Michael. He gave a mirthless chuckle and climbed off the stool, throwing a few dollars on the counter.

  “Let’s talk outside.”

  Michael settled up with Sandy and the three of us headed out to the street.

  “Listen, I’ve got an ex-wife going for my jugular, prostate problems, and chronic heartburn. Last thing I need at this point is to get hassled over some dead kid’s past.” Stafford paused and looked up and down the street, as though searching for inspiration. “Tell you what. Kyle gave me something for safekeeping a while ago, against a later payment...which never came, thank you very much. You want it, it’s yours.”

  The Stafford Law Office was just a few blocks away, housed in the front room of an old Victorian on a corner lot in a residential neighborhood. The lawyer brought us in, then marched upstairs to a small bedroom, pulled down a set of retractable attic stairs from the ceiling, and led the way up. He pulled on a string and a bare lightbulb lit up the cramped space: a few crates of Christmas decorations, an old footlocker covered with University of Washington stickers, random cardboard boxes and bags, and numerous white file boxes neatly labeled with names and dates.

  “I got a bum knee on top of everything else,” Stafford complained, his hands shoved into his pants pockets, jingling change. He looked around absently, as though he couldn’t remember why he was here. “I tell you, I don’t need the hassle.”

  “What are we looking for?” Michael asked.

  “It’s here somewhere...a black plastic Hefty bag...”

  In the distance we could hear the phone ringing.

  “That’s my business line,” Stafford said. “I’ll be right back.”

  He descended the stairs, then slammed the apparatus shut and locked the trapdoor from the outside.

  “Hey!”

  We could hear him thundering down the stairs, and the front door slamming. I ran to the tiny ventilation window just in time to see Stafford run out of the house and climb into a dated red Cadillac, talking on his cell phone. He peeled out. Damn!

  The window was far too small to crawl out, and I’m not good with heights, anyway. I pondered for a second. Calling 911 wouldn’t do—there was no way I was going to deal with the police again. Besides, my cell phone was in pieces.

  “Do you have your cell?” I asked Michael, hand outstretched. He handed it over.

  I dialed Mary.

  After she stopped laughing, she said: “I’m impressed, though. You had your cell phone, and it was actually charged. Awesome.”

  “Actually it’s Michael’s phone. Do you think you could borrow a car and come get us?” I asked.

  “Are you serious? Michael the über-thief is with you, and you thought you needed my help to get you out?” She yawned loudly. “Annie, you have got to learn to take that man seriously. I’m going back to bed. You can’t ask a girl to traipse through vampire tunnels all night, then get up with the birds.”

  I heard a crashing noise. I turned around to see Michael using a heavy candelabrum to bash at the attic door. He shoved a corner between the attic floor and the lip of the panel and fortunately seemed to be making progress prying the pieces apart. Wood whined and splintered.

  The hatch finally popped open, hanging limply on one hinge.

  “Good work there, chief, but now we can’t use the ladder.”

  Michael had a relieved look in his eye, and I remembered his claustrophobia. Probably he just needed to know there was a way out.

  “Let’s look through this stuff first,” Michael said.

  “What are we looking for?” I asked.

  He hauled a couple of boxes to the side, then checked the date on one and looked inside.

  “Goldberg was one of ‘the gang,’ right?” He pulled a file.

  “And...?”

  “Alan something. But Kyle’s who we most want.”

  We found files for Perry Outlaw, Alan Dizikes, and Skip Goldberg...but nothing at all for Kyle, even though we ended up looking through each and every box. No mystery treasure in a black plastic Hefty bag, either.

  “All right, I don’t think there’s anything here,” Michael said. “Let’s check downstairs.”

  Rather than try to use the now lopsided, perilous ladder Michael hoisted himself over the side of the opening, hung down by his arms, then dropped the rest of the way to the floor below. As easy as pie.

  “Your turn.”

  “It’s high. I don’t like jumping from high places.”

  “I’ll catch you.”

  “Yeah, right.” I’m no lightweight. I could just see flattening Michael like a pancake, and then I’d have a paraplegic partner on my hands, one who would spend the rest of his life waxing on about his exploits before Annie-the-elephant landed on him in a rescue attempt gone bad. No thanks.

  “Annie? You there?”

  “Just stand to the side.” I didn’t even try to keep the irritation out of my voice. Gingerly, I sat on the edge of the opening, then turned over on my stomach, butt in the air, and ooched my way toward the edge. I hung briefly, but I didn’t have great upper body strength. I finally made myself let go, and dropped to the ground, thumping and rolling. Luckily during all my machinations Michael had thrown some cushions from a nearby couch onto the ground, so I survived, winded but unbroken. I lay on my back for a minute to recover.

  Michael stood over me, crooking his head, eyebrows knitted in confusion. “You okay?”

  I nodded.

  “You might want to work on your physical prowess a bit, there, sweetheart. In this business you occasionally have to jump all of three feet.”

  “It was a lot more than three feet.”

  “Four, tops.”

  “At least five. And I’m taking yoga, but I’m not as young as I used to be. And I don’t like heights. And what ‘business’ are you referring to that requires me to study gymnastics?”

  “Investigations.”

  “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. According to both Frank and Inspector Crawford, we’re not investigators. Apparently a person does have to be licensed to call yourself a private eye, whether you carry a gun or not.”

  “So?”

  “We’re not licensed so we can’t call ourselves investigators.”

&nb
sp; “Hmm. Maybe you should get on that.”

  “It requires forms to be filled out. Fees to be paid. And tests to be taken.”

  “Sounds like your strong suit, not mine.”

  “Not hardly.”

  Michael held his hand out to me and pulled me to my feet. “Let’s get moving,” he said.

  We rummaged through Stafford’s office for a bit, Michael standing at a big gray metal filing cabinet and me poking around his large oak desk.

  “What is it we’re looking for?” I asked.

  “Hard to say. Usually it’s a sort of ‘we’ll know it when we see it’ scenario. There may be nothing at all, but Stafford’s behavior seems rather unusual for an innocent man.”

  True enough. I riffled through his desk drawers: plenty of files and legal pads with notes; a bottle of The Macallan 18-year scotch; Xeroxed reference materials. And in one desk drawer, several auction catalogs for fine art. I hadn’t noticed a lot of collectible art in the home; in fact, there was nothing on the walls beyond family photos and a decorative print or two.

  “Find something?” Michael asked.

  I shrugged. “Could be something, could be nothing. Art catalogs.”

  Could Stafford have been telling the truth, that Kyle offered him something in lieu of a retainer? Something like a valuable painting? Your average person would have no idea how to put a well-known painting up for sale. I thought back to the pawnshop fence I had spoken to in Oakland: he had mentioned a couple of white guys offering up a Gauguin, one middle-aged, one young. Jim Stafford and Kyle Jones?

  “Why don’t we check out Skip Goldberg’s current address?” Michael suggested.

  “You don’t want to ransack this place, see if there’s stolen artwork stuck in a closet somewhere?”

  “We can look around if you want, but somehow I doubt he would have it just lying around, and left us in here with it. He must have known we’d be looking around once we got out of the attic.”