Till The Old Men Die (The Jeri Howard Mystery Series Book 2)

by Janet Dawson

  As I crossed Broadway I saw a line of wide-eyed Chinese preschoolers on a midday adventure, each with one tiny hand clasping a long, thick rope, this lifeline held at both ends by teachers. Farther down Ninth Street I heard a lilting melody, looked for and found the Peruvian street musicians playing guitar and pipes. Near them an elderly black man leaned on his cane, enjoying the music, his purchases in a canvas bag at his feet.

  I waited for the light at Washington Street, with a group of women in business suits and sneakers, lunchtime refugees from the nearby office buildings. Then I crossed the street, past the stall where the Hmong woman, from Southeast Asia by way of Modesto, sold her exquisitely sewn handicrafts.

  Ratto’s International Grocery anchors the corner of Washington and Ninth, and it has been an Oakland tradition since the turn of the century. I had never realized there were so many different kinds of beans until I saw them at Ratto’s, displayed in bushel baskets on the wooden floor of the grocery, a culinary wonderland with tall shelves holding cooking utensils, implements, spices, vinegars, and other items to tempt the adventurous cook. Ropes of garlic festoon the light fixture over the deli case, full of fat wheels of Brie, wedges of Greek Kefalograviera and Italian Cacciocavallo, blocks of Marbier and Asiago and English Stilton rich with blue lines, the names rolling off the tongue as redolent and flavorful as the cheeses themselves. Every time I go to Ratto’s I see one I haven’t tried before, and one day I’m going to taste my way from one end of the counter to the other.

  Next door to the grocery is a big room with plain wooden floors, a counter, tables covered with red and white oilcloth, and mismatched chairs. In this utilitarian space Ratto’s offers a bill of fare that includes salads, sandwiches made to order, and plates of pasta with tomato or pesto sauce, one of Oakland’s best lunchtime bargains. That’s why the line of customers was already out the door.

  I saw Sid standing to one side of the door, next to a poster advertising Ratto’s regular Friday-night dinner of pasta enlivened by opera. He’s a tall, broad-shouldered man with slim hips and curly blond hair. I’m a tall woman, but Sid always seems to tower over me. I greeted him with a wave. We know each other too well to shake hands, and we’ve been divorced for too short a time to exchange kisses.

  “You look great,” I said, surveying him as we joined the line. He always did. Despite everything, I still felt a physical attraction to him.

  “So do you.”

  “How’s the shoulder?” I asked. He assured me it was fine, good as new. Sid had just gone back to work in April after taking a bullet, the result of a case I’d been working on last March. The line inched forward, into the grocery, past all those baskets of beans. I did my usual survey of the deli case and spotted a cheese called grana padano. I’d never heard of that one, I thought, promising myself a taste. As Sid and I moved slowly toward the doorway leading to the lunchroom, we traded news about our respective families. Sid’s seventeen-year-old daughter, Vicki, the product of his first marriage, lives in southern California. Worried about his gunshot wound, she had visited him on her spring break. I asked Sid about his sister in Sacramento and he inquired about my brother in Sonoma. His parents are dead, and mine are divorced, with Dad here and Mother living in Monterey.

  Despite the family news report, Sid seemed preoccupied, as though something was on his mind. Once through the doorway, we grabbed something to drink from the refrigerated case on the left, got our trays and pasta, and paid for lunch. We helped ourselves to napkins, cutlery, glasses, and ice, all arrayed on sideboards at the rear of the room. I turned and scanned the sea of tables. Most were occupied, but I spotted two empty places at one end of a big table near the front window. Sid and I set our trays down, ignoring the two corporate types next to us.

  “I need to talk with you,” he said, pouring his soft drink over ice.

  “Am I having lunch with Sid, or with Sergeant Vernon?” He didn’t answer. I stirred my pasta with my fork, making sure pesto and parmesan were liberally distributed. “Okay, what is it?”

  “You asked Angie Walters in Records to check to see if someone has a record.”

  “Yes, I did.” I broke off a corner of my French bread and mopped up some pesto. “Look, I know she’s not supposed to do that. I don’t want to get her into trouble. I withdraw the request, okay?” He didn’t say anything. “Isn’t that why you wanted to talk to me?”

  “Not exactly,” Sid said around a mouthful of pasta.

  My eyebrows quirked as I reached for my mineral water. “Just what exactly does ‘not exactly’ mean?”

  “What are you up to, Jeri?”

  “I’m working on a case. I hit the jackpot with Edward Villegas, right?”

  “This guy is no prize. His name is Eduardo Cesar Villegas — also known as Eddie the Knife.”

  “Eddie the Knife,” I repeated, leaning back in my chair. The sobriquet conjured up several images, most notably that of Dr. Lito Manibusan stabbed to death in the Sutter-Stockton garage. “He likes to play with blades.”

  “Eddie doesn’t play. He’s slick, with a nasty reputation. A couple of felony arrests for assault, charges dropped on both of them, probably because of pressure on the victims. He was a suspect in a homicide over in San Francisco three years ago, questioned but never charged. Insufficient evidence. He’s connected. Asian crime syndicates have been moving into the Bay Area in a big way over the past few years. Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese. And Filipino. Eddie’s been operating on the other side of the Bay, San Francisco, the Peninsula.”

  “But not Oakland, or not until lately,” I guessed. “How did you know I’d asked Angie to check his record? That was between her and me.”

  “When Eddie’s name came up, I just happened to be in Records, and so was Sergeant Gonsalves. He works in Theft. Villegas’s name rang a bell with him because of his connections. Gonsalves is working a case right now involving auto heists over at the Port of Oakland. I guess some of the major players are Filipino. So Gonsalves pinned Angie down, asking her why she was running a check on Villegas. Angie had to tell him. Gonsalves read her the riot act. I cooled Gonsalves down some, and told Angie not to do it again.” Sid cocked his head to one side and gave me the lecture in a stern voice. “And I’m telling you not to do it again. Records is not supposed to be a place you plug into every time you need the scoop. Got that?”

  “Of course. I don’t want Angie to lose her job.” I’d have to call her and apologize. Damn, it was getting hard to obtain information. I hated to lose Angie as a source. I stared down at my plate as though I were reading tea leaves instead of looking at pesto, digesting what Sid had told me about Villegas. Was there a connection between Eddie the Knife and Dolores Cruz, both trying to get their hands on Lito Manibusan’s files? Were they working together? Or did the two of them have conflicting interests?

  “Don’t step on Gonsalves’s toes,” Sid was saying. “He’s a real hardass, and he’s got no use for private investigators.”

  “I’m quaking in my loafers,” I said, unimpressed.

  “Don’t get prickly on me, Jeri.”

  “This is not prickly. You’ve seen me prickly, and you know the difference. Did Gonsalves ask you to warn me off?”

  Sid shook his head. “No. I’m doing this on my own. I don’t want you mixing it up with Gonsalves, or stepping into the middle of an ongoing Oakland Police Department investigation.”

  “Thanks for the tip, Sid. I’ll try to stay off Gonsalves’s toes, but I have an investigation of my own to conduct.”

  Sid gave me an exasperated look. “If Gonsalves comes after you, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Only if you promise not to gloat.”

  We finished lunch and went outside. I watched Sid stride briskly down Washington toward Oakland Police Headquarters, two blocks away, then I turned and went back into Ratto’s for a pint of frozen pesto, a half pound of Bulgarian feta, and a wedge of that grana padano. Then I headed back into the farmers market crowd, where I treated m
yself to dessert, a saucer-size chocolate chip cookie. I strolled along Ninth Street as I ate it, allowing myself to be seduced by purveyors of strawberries, greens, and baked goods. By the time I got back to my office I was laden with produce and a loaf of pumpernickel-raisin bread.

  I stashed my purchases in my office refrigerator and called Angie Walters to say I was sorry for getting her into hot water. Fortunately she didn’t seem too upset about the situation, informing me that she could handle “that piss-ant Gonsalves.” My second call was to Inspector Cobb at SFPD. I suggested he compare the partial print on the battery found at the scene of Lito Manibusan’s murder with those of one Eduardo Villegas, known as Eddie the Knife.

  I had a one-thirty appointment with an attorney in Berkeley, so I locked up and headed for the lot where I parked my car. On the way back to Oakland later that afternoon I detoured to Grand Avenue, parking outside Mabuhay Travel. I sat for a moment, looking past the Philippine travel posters into the front office. I didn’t see Dolly Cruz. Only one of the desks was occupied, the front one on my left. A slender black woman with oversize glasses talked on the telephone and punched the keys of the computer terminal in front of her.

  I waited for half an hour. Then I saw the Thunderbird pull into the driveway that led to the parking lot behind the building. I got out of my car and walked to the window of Mabuhay Travel, observing Dolores Cruz as she strolled into the agency through the door at the rear, carrying an Emporium shopping bag. The woman with the oversize glasses was off the phone now. The anger on her face was unmistakable as she turned from her computer and glared at Dolly. Through the plate glass window I watched their mouths. The pantomime left me with the feeling that Ms. Cruz and her officemate didn’t quite get along.

  I interrupted the sharp exchange in mid-word as I opened the door and walked into Mabuhay Travel. Both women turned to me, wiping all traces of argument from their faces, both smiling as Dolly set the shopping bag on the floor behind her desk. The phone rang as I moved toward Dolly’s desk. “Get that, Belinda,” Dolly ordered. Belinda picked up the phone, looking as though she’d like to do something else with the receiver besides talk into it.

  “May I help you?” Dolores Cruz said in her throaty, accented voice, flashing me a smile that extended only as far as her lips. She wore red today, a sleeveless number with a neckline cut for a generous view of her cleavage. Jewelry winked and glittered from her ears, neck, and fingers. But I didn’t see the wedding band she had worn the other day at the university, when she was posing as Dr. Manibusan’s widow.

  “Yes.” I stood in front of her desk. The surface was littered with papers, and I quickly glanced at the disarray, looking for anything interesting. “I’m considering a trip to the Philippines, and I’d like some information.”

  “Well, I can certainly help you. I’m from the Philippines. Ask away.” She said “ask,” not “ax,” I noticed. So she wasn’t the woman who had called Cal State to request Dad’s home address, unless the mispronunciation had been a deliberate attempt to disguise her voice.

  “I’d like to travel in August,” I told her. “Spend some time in Manila, then visit the countryside.”

  “I have just the tour for you,” she said.

  I put Dolly through her travel-agent paces, learning all about Manila and other favored tourist spots, getting fare quotes and airline timetables and a handful of travel literature. Behind my prospective-tourist questions I probed for information about Dolly, where she’d lived in the Philippines and when she’d arrived in the United States, but all I learned was that she had lived in Manila. While Dolly was looking up something on the computer screen, I glanced across the room at Belinda, who was helping another customer. I decided my next visit to Mabuhay Travel would be during Dolly’s extended lunch hour. No doubt Belinda could give me an earful.

  When I returned to my office, I tossed the Philippine travel information on the bookshelf behind my desk. It was past four and there were no messages on my answering machine, so I decided to continue my search through Dr. Manibusan’s boxes. I was lifting a carton down from the stack, when I was interrupted.

  He had a sallow, pock-marked face, dark hair, and brown eyes that flashed me a poisonous look at the same time he flashed his Oakland Police Department detective’s shield. “Sergeant Gonsalves,” I said. He didn’t waste any time.

  “You know who I am?”

  “Yes, I do. Have a seat, Sergeant.”

  “I’ll stand.”

  “Suit yourself.” I sat down on my chair, leaned back, and looked him over. He was in his thirties, medium height and build in his brown suit, and he wouldn’t be bad-looking if he’d lose the frown that seemed to have permanently soured his face. “Did you want something, Sergeant?”

  “You’ve been looking for information on Eddie Villegas,” he said, a challenge in his voice. “Why?”

  “I’m working on a case. His name came up.”

  Gonsalves pushed an exasperated noise through his clenched teeth and looked at me as though I were the most recent dirtbag in a whole day full of dirtbags. “Who’s your client?” he demanded.

  “Sergeant Gonsalves,” I said politely, “you know I don’t have to tell you that.”

  He put both hands on the surface of my desk and leaned over me, his eyes narrowing. “Let me tell you this, lady. You’re stepping in the middle of my investigation. My investigation gets loused up, I’ll kick your butt from here to Tahoe.”

  I dropped the temperature of my voice from cold to icy. “You’re a real charmer, Gonsalves. Drop the macho act. I’m not going to spoil your party. I’m just making a few inquiries. Besides, I could be in a position to help you out.”

  Gonsalves’s laugh was derisive. “I don’t need any help from some jerk PI.”

  “So forget I offered.” I stood up, feeling an overwhelming urge to smack the jerk cop in the face.” And get the hell out of my office.”

  Ten

  SATURDAY MORNING I STOOD IN MY UNDERWEAR, ironing a pair of blue slacks and a flowered shirt, when the buzzer sounded in the living room. Quickly I pulled on the clothes, buttoning and zipping as I walked barefooted to the front window. Alex Tongco stood at the security gate in front of my small apartment complex. He was fifteen minutes early. I think he did it on purpose to fluster me. At my age, I’m not easily flustered, but Alex seemed to have a talent for upsetting my equilibrium.

  I buzzed him through the gate. He crossed the courtyard toward my front door, carrying a book in his left hand. He wore a short-sleeve blue shirt tucked into a pair of khaki pants, Top-Siders on his feet. I opened the door to greet him.

  “You’re early.”

  He grinned and surveyed me with a leisurely gaze. “You’ve done your buttons wrong. Need some help?”

  I looked down and saw that he was right. “I can manage. Would you like some coffee?”

  He shook his head and handed me the book. “Here you are. Stanley Karnow. Not light reading, but well worth the effort.”

  “Thanks for the loan.”

  Abigail had abandoned the yellow mouse this morning and now sprawled on the back of the sofa, pinned by a sunbeam. Alex sat down and held out his hand. The cat opened her green eyes and sniffed delicately at his outstretched fingers. She decided he was all right and commenced a purr. Alex stroked her gently between the ears, then moved his fingers under her chin. Abigail tilted her head upward to get the full benefit of all this attention, cranking her purr up several notches.

  I retreated to my bedroom, unplugged the iron, and rebuttoned my shirt correctly, tucking it into the waistband of my slacks. I slipped on a pair of sandals and some earrings and reached for my purse.

  “Tell me about the fiesta,” I said as we walked back across the courtyard to the street where he’d parked his Mazda. “What’s the occasion?”

  “The Fiesta of San Isidro Labrador. People from Cavite Province get together every year, socialize, eat, and dance. My aunts will be there. It starts with a Mass and a procession
of flowers. After the Mass there’s a karakol.”

  “What’s a karakol?”

  Alex shrugged. “It’s a procession, a celebration. You’ll see.”

  He drove through Oakland to the Nimitz Freeway and pointed his red convertible south. Half an hour later we parked on a tree-lined street in a Fremont neighborhood and walked a block to the Veterans Memorial Hall. Clusters of people stood outside the Spanish-style building, talking and laughing, while children darted in and out of the building. As we approached, a group of men gathered on the steps turned and greeted Alex in Tagalog, punctuating their words with slaps on his back.

  Alex introduced me. Despite their friendliness, I felt out of place, the only Caucasian in view. As we moved through the crowd of people into the foyer of the building, a woman handed me a bunch of white daisies. Beyond her in the main hall of the building I saw a line of people laying flowers at the feet of a statue of the Virgin resting on a palanquin. To the left was a larger palanquin, also with a statue. This must be Saint Isidro, I guessed, studying the features molded in plaster. On the back wall I saw two flags, one the Stars and Stripes, the other a banner with wide horizontal bands of red and blue meeting at a white triangle on the left, with a golden sunburst at the triangle’s center. This must be the flag of the Republic of the Philippines.

  Rows of folding chairs lined the wooden floor of the main hall. It was noisy, full of people ranging from youngsters in short pants or pinafores to the old ones, white-headed and bent with years. Conversations in English and Tagalog swirled around me, bouncing off the walls. Teenage boys in jeans and T-shirts flirted with their female counterparts, decked out in the latest high school fashions. The younger men and women were dressed casually, like Alex and me, or more formally in suits or dresses.

  In front of me I saw a toddler riding his father’s shoulders, towering about the crowd in the hall. He was using Dad’s ears as handles, making varooming noises as he steered. I laughed aloud, then looked down as someone bumped into me. Staring up at me I saw the huge brown eyes of a little girl, about six, wearing a frilly pink dress and white patent leather shoes, her straight black hair fastened with two pink barrettes. I smiled and handed her my daisies. She took the flowers from me solemnly, then smiled like sunlight breaking through a cloud. She said something I couldn’t hear and disappeared into the crowd.