“Somebody has to worry about this place while you two are primping and pumping,” I said, waving my arm toward their interior decorations. Dennis had mounted a mirror on the wall of the warehouse, while Larry had brought a weight-lifting bench to occupy himself when business lagged, which wasn’t often these days. They made an odd couple with an Afro and a crew cut, but maybe that’s why things worked so well.
“Do either of you know where Isaac might be?” The new guy had me a bit worried. I’d checked him out pretty carefully. His previous employers—the kid had bussed tables at Salvadore’s and stocked shelves at Rainbow Grocery—said he was reliable. My guys were willing to teach novices, but people had to bring their own work ethic. The last three hires hadn’t panned out, and we really needed a third technician the way things were going.
“We got him doing inventory.” Larry nodded toward the far end of the warehouse.
I dropped my voice a bit. “That’s fine, but he needs to get out with one of you on some jobs. He’s book smart, so I figure he’s teachable.” Isaac had brains, but he was built like the artist he dreamed of becoming—a tidbit he’d confided to Carol. Not that what we did took lots of muscle, but it took a kind of mechanical and physical aptitude.
“Yeah, the kid’s awfully green for a whitey.” Dennis smiled at his own cleverness. “Larry had to explain about reverse-threaded gas cylinders or Isaac would’ve broken his skinny wrist trying to get the regulator off the propane tank.”
I told the guys to work with Isaac, that he’d come along. Even with the recession, which was supposedly ending despite high unemployment in the city, I didn’t have a backlog of promising applicants in my files. I headed to my office, a cramped eight-by-ten room across the hall from the restroom. This arrangement delighted Dennis and Larry, who had put a sign on my door saying “Riley’s Stall.” In a way they were right—some of my best ideas had come to me both in that office and on the crapper. And between wondering what to do about Tommy’s care and Isaac’s training, I was in need of good ideas.
CHAPTER 9
My office, such as it was, had been straightened up in my absence. The oddball collection of coffee-stained mugs was cleaned and arranged on top of the filing cabinet, Chinese takeout boxes had disappeared, and the equipment catalogues that I’d left scattered across my desk were neatly arranged on a shelf. Carol couldn’t stand my messiness. But I found the clutter comforting at work, just as the neat precision of my insect collection had a way of soothing me at home.
I looked over the papers Carol had given me and started composing a list of visits and calls I needed to make. Aside from being the owner of Goat Hill Extermination, my major job was to cultivate new clients and ensure that existing customers were happy. I wasn’t all that good with homeowners, who wanted every insect annihilated but without using any chemicals. Just like wanting the streets cleared of criminals without the cops resorting to nightsticks, handcuffs, or guns. But I really liked doing business with restaurant owners, hotel managers, and landlords—folks who worked hard for a living and knew the importance of honest labor and attention to quality. The four of us were good at what we did, so the business was doing well. Well enough to support Tommy and my mom, to give me everything I needed and a few things I wanted, and to provide a decent living for Carol and the guys.
Looking through the phone messages on my desk, I saw that Carol had jotted a note to visit the manager of Bay View Terrace, a public housing complex in the Mission. I remembered talking with Tony a couple months ago when he took over as manager and was looking for an exterminator to clean up the property. He seemed like a nice guy, a little young and idealistic, but he cared about the tenants. I told him that the national companies would give him a low bid, but he’d get what he paid for. He ended up signing a contract with Orkin.
The big boys were good at muscling in with their shiny vans and nozzle heads, dressed up like paramilitary troops. If some grinning moron wearing a starched white shirt with red epaulets showed up at my door with a sprayer, I’d figure the Salvation Army had branched out into pest control. But I know from my days as a cop that people trust uniforms.
Now it seemed that Tony was having some problems. I was headed for the door and looking forward to catching up with Tony when Carol’s phone rang. She covered the mouthpiece and said, “Riley, it’s some woman asking for you.”
“Ask her what it’s about.” Carol did so and listened for a long minute.
“She says you don’t know her but it’s a very serious matter. She indicated that it has to do with Los Angeles. The lady sounds hysterical, Riley. What the hell happened down there?” The only woman who might have my number was Linda from the hotel. Maybe she’d come across something.
“Nothing big, Carol. Just a dead guy in the hotel.”
She pursed her lips and frowned. “Riley, don’t you go getting involved in one of your ‘projects’ until you’ve cleaned up the phone messages and visits stacked on your desk. I’m serious, damn it.” I’d occasionally used my detective experience to help out people in a jam, and sometimes these little ventures took on a life of their own.
“Okay, okay. Transfer the call to my phone.” I headed back to my office, closed the door, and picked up.
“Riley here.” I expected to hear Linda, but it was another woman with a much less melodious voice.
“Mr. Riley, this is Laurie Odum.” She paused and inhaled sharply, her voice on the edge of breaking. “Paul’s wife. I believe that you know about my husband.”
“Yes I do, Mrs. Odum. I’m sorry about your loss. I’m sure it’s a very difficult time for you.”
“Yes, thank you. Mr. Riley, I need your help.”
“I really don’t know how you got my name or what I might be able to do for you. I run an extermination business.”
“When Howard brought Paul’s car back last night, he told me about you.” Her voice became steadier now that we were past the dead-husband part of the conversation.
“There’s not much to tell.”
“He thought you might be a good person to contact about what happened to Paul.”
“I don’t see why. I don’t know anything more than what you can find in the police report.” I couldn’t tell what she was up to, and I’ve learned to move cautiously in these matters.
“Because, Mr. Riley, I don’t think his death was natural.”
“And?”
“And from what Howard said, you might be the right person to figure out what happened.”
“I don’t know what Howard told you, but I just spray pests these days.” The kid probably figured my questions were overreaching once he had time to think about our little chat.
“Let’s just say that I think you might have the skills I need. And I’m willing to pay very well for your services.” Between worrying about the depletion of Tommy’s Fund and the backlog of calls at work, I’d pretty much put Odum’s death out of mind. Now the dead flies and the nagging doubt about Howard’s story flooded back. If Laurie Odum was offering substantial cash, maybe there was a windfall that could get the daycare center through the next couple of months until the church could put together a fund drive or something.
“Look, I’m absolutely flooded with work this morning, but I could meet with you late this afternoon. Say, five o’clock.”
“That would be fine, Mr. Riley. And until then, please keep this conversation between us.”
I promised her I was discreet, and she gave me her address in Berkeley. A pretty nice neighborhood, if memory served. I’d once taken up the slack for a one-man extermination company over there while the guy was laid up with gallbladder surgery. I started to slip past Carol’s desk, relieved that she was on the phone.
She put her hand over the mouthpiece and said, “Hold it there, buster.” After apologizing to whoever was on the other end and promising to call them back in just a minute, she glared at me. “Riley, you’re onto another one of your projects, aren’t you?”
“Carol, l
ook. I’ll make a big dent in the list of contacts today, and then there’s somebody who needs my help. By the end of the week, I’ll be all caught up. Promise.”
She sighed. “Face it, Riley. You can’t stop being a cop.”
“That’s not it. Well, not this time. At least entirely. You see—”
“Stop already. You’re digging yourself a hole. But then if your brain was half the size of your heart, you wouldn’t be an Irishman, eh?”
“Carol, this one could pay.” I thought about how much I should say and decided she deserved to understand my motive. “Tommy’s Fund is in a bit of trouble.” Having worked for my father, she knew all about Tommy and my mother.
Her face softened momentarily. “Go, go,” she commanded and waved her hand to dismiss me. A hint of a smile undermined her cross expression as she shook her head in dismay.
The drive out to Bay View Terrace was tedious in the morning traffic. As I climbed out of my decrepit truck, Tony came around from the side of the building, wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt and bell-bottom jeans and hauling a couple of overstuffed garbage bags. As the new manager of the apartment complex, he had some big plans for landscaping, a community garden, and a playground, all of which would be trashed within a year. But his heart was in the right place, and maybe someday a guitar-strumming idealist will pull it off in one of the projects. Until then, I was just hoping to wipe out the vermin.
We walked to his office, where he settled behind a military surplus desk and I pulled up a folding chair on the other side.
“I sure appreciate your time,” he began.
“So what’s up? Things not working out with Orkin?” I was a little curt with him, but he was the one who’d decided to take his business elsewhere.
“Hey, I hope there’s no hard feelings, but their bid undercut you by a third.”
“Business is business, Tony. That’s the past and I gather you’ve got a problem in the present.”
“Yeah, Orkin’s regional manager called and said they wouldn’t send out another technician unless I paid a five-grand damage deposit.”
“The cockroaches been chewing up their uniforms?” I pretty much knew what the problem was, but wanted Tony to lay it out.
“No, it’s their service vans. The last three times they parked in the complex, my residents helped themselves to tires, radios, and engine parts.”
“And the small print on their contract says that if they experience repeated loss or damage of equipment at a worksite, they can impose a payment of up to ten times their losses to be held as a deposit against future losses.” I’d seen plenty of the corporate contracts.
“You got it. And I can’t afford that with my budget.”
“So let’s figure out how you can pay me to make this place livable.”
We talked for a while and agreed on a rate ten percent higher than my original bid. I told him that Carol would mail a contract and I’d have Dennis come out early next week. He’d take my truck and the residents wouldn’t pay any attention to a black guy driving an old junker, unlike the fancy vans being driven by the white guys in white shirts.
CHAPTER 10
My metamorphosis from cop to exterminator—and from homeboy to pariah—began with a tip that Jamal Watson was a member of the African Liberation Front: a group of angry blacks who didn’t seem to know what they wanted other than power. And it wasn’t clear what they meant by that, except it involved inflicting pain and extracting money. The ALF had snatched a Chinese kid from a bus stop and demanded a ransom to finance their “War on White Privilege.” Not that the Chinese are white, but I guess being not-black was good enough. I knew the girl’s family from my youth. Mr. Wang had a dry cleaning store on Van Ness, and every November my mother had me take our wool coats and sweaters to him after San Francisco’s Indian summer had passed. The Wangs—and I don’t think anyone ever figured out how many of them there were—operated at least a dozen dry cleaners and laundromats from Chinatown south to Bernal Heights. According to my father, nobody in San Francisco worked harder than Mr. Wang. If the ALF wanted to get even with rich whites, they picked the wrong target. Rather than kidnapping some rich kid from Pacific Heights, they grabbed Mei Wang from the street in front of Commodore Stockton Elementary.
The case would’ve been hot enough without little Mei having a seizure disorder that required daily medicine. After Mr. Wang got the call from the kidnappers, he called the police. I was on the margin of the case, helping with grunt work as needed. But I stopped by to visit the family because Mr. Wang and my father had become pals through an organization that promoted immigrant enterprise.
Years later, Mr. Wang took me aside at my father’s funeral. Frustrated by his limited English, Mr. Wang struggled to express himself, falling silent while grasping my shoulder. Then he smiled at having found the right words and declared that my father was “trustworthy and honorable.” To Mr. Wang there was no higher praise.
When I got to the house, Mr. Wang was beside himself. While he paced, Mrs. Wang sat catatonically on a floral sofa, staring at a row of photos on the mantel across the room. I told them that I wasn’t running the investigation, but that I’d squeeze every snitch in my book for a lead. Mr. Wang said the police didn’t want him to pay the ransom, but if Mei didn’t have her medicine soon she could die. I said he was right to trust the police with his daughter’s life because they knew what was best.
The ALF was a diffuse and disorganized group, and the federal boys didn’t have a good bead on who were members, let alone ringleaders. Hard work is essential in these cases, but oftentimes it isn’t enough. The investigators needed some luck, and I had the luck of the Irish. At the time, I was working a case involving a dead junkie—a once-pretty, nineteen-year-old runaway found in a dumpster near Market and 6th. I didn’t figure to solve the case, but I had to give it a go for the dead kid. My mother would have said that St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, was with me as I headed to an interview with the deceased’s last known boyfriend. Whatever the explanation, as I turned the corner at Turk and Franklin I nearly collided with Li’l Sly, one of the Tenderloin’s busiest dealers. He was moving fast enough that the ridiculously large collar flaps on his overcoat might’ve allowed him to take off like an inner-city version of the Flying Nun. I figured he might be good for some information on the girl, so I asked him a few questions while giving him the customary pat-down.
Li’l Sly seemed unusually nervous, so I thought maybe he had some connection to the dead girl. But he had a better reason for being anxious. He’d been on his way to a major sale at Jefferson Square Park and his coat pockets were stuffed with smack. Hoping that I might overlook the size of his inventory, which was more than sufficient to boost the charge from possession to intent to distribute, Li’l Sly became highly cooperative as I asked about happenings on the street. He didn’t have anything to offer about bodies in dumpsters, so I took a shot to see what he knew about the ALF. He gave me the name of an ALF “lieutenant” living in the North Beach projects and looked hopeful that this would help me forget the contents of his pockets. If he was telling the truth, tracking a hot lead on a kidnapper trumped booking a lowlife dealer. So I kept his junk and cut him loose with a promise that I’d be back to nail his skinny, leather-clad black ass if Jamal Watson wasn’t my man. I was betting that his information was good, given the stakes and the fact that a year earlier he’d saved his own skin by ratting out Big Sly, his own brother, during a homicide investigation.
The day was getting late, so I drove straight to the projects before darkness ushered in the nightly insanity. To find Jamal’s hangout, I shelled out a five-spot to a couple of kids who were throwing rocks at one of the last surviving streetlights on Taylor Street. It seems that Jamal hadn’t cultivated much fidelity among his friends, because when the red light on the unmarked police car announced my arrival at Jamal’s favorite alley, it looked like cockroaches scrambling for the baseboards when the kitchen light comes on. But Jamal wasn’t going anywhere fa
st between his Jesus boots and the purple dashiki that hung down to his knees, just in case his footwear wasn’t enough of a hindrance. Catching him was mostly a matter of letting the rest of them escape.
Jamal was more defiant than smart, a common shortcoming in amateur militants. All it took was for me to mock the ALF by calling it “a bunch of chump revolutionaries” and Jamal came on like I’d called his mother a hooker, which wouldn’t have been a bad guess. Knowing he was connected, I got down to business. There was a damp chill in the air, and I could sense that the fog was rolling in. That was fine for the most part, as it would muffle my interrogation. I half-worried that the fog might make some of the hoods a bit braver when their pal needed help, although they hadn’t shown any loyalty when I arrived. His Afro made him nearly a foot taller than me, but I took care of that with a solid shot to his scrawny gut. When he finished puking up his dinner, I dragged him to his feet. The stench of his vomit mixed with the smell of rotting garbage. The moisture in the air trapped these odors in the alley, providing our own vile fogbank.
“What was that for, man?” he asked between gasps.
“For lying to me.”
“I’ve been straight with you. I was just hanging with some brothers, minding my own business.”
“Tell me Jamal, does your business include ALF?”
“Not sayin’.”
I delivered a sharp right to his ribs and a left jab to his mouth—just enough to split his lip and keep my finger from popping out of joint, a legacy from my Golden Gloves days. I did most of my hard hitting outside of the ring with my right.
“Shit, man,” he mumbled, grabbing his side with one hand and using the other to wipe the blood from his mouth. “I won’t jive you. I know some brothers with connections.”
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