This Is Life

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This Is Life Page 9

by Seth Harwood


  He makes his way up the two levels to the street entrance, watching all around him, ready to gun the engine if he sees any Russians in gray suits. But he doesn’t. At the booth, he feeds in his ticket and the gate rises in front of him, leaving an unobstructed path to the street.

  Before he makes his way into traffic, he takes a long look down the sidewalk, scanning the entrances in front of the hotel. Sure enough, the two Russian Suits are standing in front of the main door, both looking pissed. Jack rolls down his window. He knows it’s not cool, not the best move for a smart, streetwise investigator, but he really can’t resist.

  “Hey, guys,” Jack calls out. He honks the big American 1960s horn—a foghorn compared to the sounds that come out of today’s cars. It takes them a second, Mr. Gray Suit and Mr. Gray Suit, but then they look his way, and he gives them the finger. “Go fuck yourselves,” he says, making a right turn onto the street.

  He can see them give chase for maybe ten feet, and then he gets into third gear, heading for Market during a relative lull in traffic, and they disappear behind him in the crowds.

  24

  Jack calls the number on the back of Alvin Shaw’s card as soon as he gets over the Bay Bridge. It goes to voicemail, and he leaves a message, saying he’s a friend of Mills Hopkins. Jack has no idea where else to go, so he keeps on toward Walnut Creek.

  When he’s passing through Oakland on 24, he gets a call from Shaw’s cell.

  “Thanks for calling back.”

  “What’s this about?” the cop asks.

  Ahead of him, Jack can see green hills with a ridge of fog trapped up against them. This is where the mist comes in off the Bay and then builds up as clouds or fog—take your pick. The clouds will dump the heavy moisture and then move east over the hills into the dry, sunny country beyond.

  “Mills Hopkins said I should make contact.”

  On the other end of the phone, Shaw grunts. Jack keeps on. “Something bad happened to him this morning. I’m not sure if we’ll be seeing him again.”

  “You know anything about that, I need you to come in.”

  “I was there.”

  “What I said, then. How soon can you meet me at the station in Walnut Creek?”

  Jack’s about to answer when the cop cuts him off. “You can trust me,” he says.

  In Walnut Creek, Jack finds the station and parks outside. He studies the small building: brick with a peaked roof and trimmed bushes out front, a hundred times friendlier than San Francisco’s Hall of Justice. Here brick steps lead up to the building, and there are no statues of Justice with her scales carved into the wall. It gives you less reverence for the law maybe, but if that comes with less fear then that’s fine with Jack.

  As far as he knows, he hasn’t been followed. He checked his rearview mirror enough times to see about every car that was behind him from the hotel to Walnut Creek, and none of them were recurring offenders. Maybe it’s not a pro job of checking for a tail, but it’s the best Jack can do.

  Jack gets out of the Fastback and shakes a cigarette out of his pack. He’s early, still has ten minutes before he’s supposed to meet with the cop. He lights up, watching cops and other people walk in and out of the station. Everything seems busy for a Saturday. After a few drags, Jack figures his safety’s not worth the small indulgence. He snuffs out the cigarette and heads inside.

  “Yo, easy rider,” calls a black cop with a shaved head when Jack gets up to the homicide division. He’d recognize the gruff voice from the phone even if this guy didn’t have a sign on his desk that says he’s Shaw. The cop stands up, and Jack can see he’s built like his voice: his tan polo shirt stretched tight across his pecs and shoulders, the short sleeves even tighter around his arms. The leather straps of a shoulder holster are visible around both shoulders. This guy’s all cop—younger than Hopkins, but the same breed upgraded. Even his mustache is tight, and his bald pate gleams.

  “Shaw,” Jack says, coming forward and extending his hand.

  “The movie star. So what’s up with your hair?”

  “Sorry. It’s bad.” Jack touches the too-long locks behind his head, aware he’s sporting a nasty salad. “But I haven’t had a chance to cut it. I was on the road and—”

  “Come on.” Shaw hits Jack’s arm with a bunch of papers and is already on the move, walking toward the stairs. “Lucky for you we have a barber down the basement of the station. One of the benefits of the ’burbs. Seriously, your shit looks like shit, Jack. When we get you down there, we can talk.”

  Sure enough, in the basement of the station is a small barbershop: three big old-fashioned leather chairs and one old barber with a white smock and a hot lather machine on the shelf by his mirror. They get Jack set up in the middle chair, the sheet around his neck, and Shaw sits down in the next chair.

  “Short?” the barber asks, his voice a little strange.

  “Ahh, yeah.”

  The man takes out his clippers to go to work.

  “So tell me what happened to our friend.”

  “Anyone make a report?”

  “They just faxed over forensics from Vaillancourt Fountain ten minutes ago. Hell of a big hole there and a shit ton of blood. Witness said he saw some guy from a movie. But he couldn’t remember the dude’s name.” Shaw smiles. “And no mention of Mills in the report.”

  “Because he was gone by the time anyone showed. Someone put him in a trunk and drove off.”

  Shaw watches Jack’s eyes in the mirror, meets his gaze with an intense stare. “Someone shot the shit out of that place. Witnesses in the report don’t mention you as a target, but they identified a”—Shaw makes air quotes as he says the words—“B-list movie star.” He smiles. “So pretty soon someone puts your name to that and you got people wanting to ask you questions.”

  “How would I—”

  “Relax, Jack. That’s why it’s good you came here. Hopkins told me about you; I know you couldn’t have been down on the scene shooting a Barrett M107. So don’t worry about the SF cops right now. They’re a whole other world away.”

  “But?” Jack looks around at the barbershop. Above them is a whole station of police officers.

  Shaw shakes his head. “Technically, you’re not even in the station right now.”

  The barber touches the base of Jack’s neck with the clippers, and Jack jumps.

  Shaw picks at a stack of magazines. The barber pats Jack’s shoulder, his eyes calm in the mirror, and brings the clippers up to Jack’s neck again. Their vibration sends a chill down Jack’s spine.

  “Let him cut your hair. This is a good time for you to start looking a little different—not that anyone won’t recognize you after a second anyway.” Shaw pauses his search through the magazines to look up. “So tell me what it was like to star in a big Hollywood movie.”

  “What?”

  “Technically, we’re not even talking. We’re just two guys sitting next to each other in a barber shop.” He lifts a magazine and starts to flip through the pages.

  Jack looks in the mirror at the barber and then at Shaw. He waits for Shaw to lower his magazine—Guns and Ammo—and then makes eye contact.

  “Who, him?” Shaw asks. “You can say anything in front of Lou that you’d say in the privacy of your own home. Isn’t that right, Lou?”

  Jack watches the barber stay focused on his hair, buzzing away the dirty locks of the road.

  “He’s deaf,” Shaw says. “Reads lips like a wonder, but if he’s not watching you? Forget it. You might as well be talking in Dutch.”

  Jack laughs his quick laugh, a puff of air coming out his nose—all nerves.

  “Tell me where the shots were coming from.”

  “I can’t be sure. I heard a car speed away when it was over, but I don’t know if you could—”

  “You couldn’t shoot a gun that size out of a car unless you had a steel mount built into the door. And I don’t know anyone who’d want that much profile on their vehicle. Do you?”

  “
No, I—”

  “SF is checking the surrounding area for casings, but they won’t find any. They’ll find lots of potential places a shooter could’ve sighted from, but no casings. Not this guy.”

  “You know the guy from his gun?”

  “Give this boy a prize. You know who’s got the Barrett M107? Serious motherfuckers who don’t screw around and the FBI. You want to take a shot at which one it could’ve been?”

  “What?”

  “Exactly.” Shaw puts down the magazine and looks at Jack in the mirror. “Now listen. In a minute someone you don’t know is going to come in here and sit in that other chair.” He points to the empty chair on Jack’s left. “That person is your friend. Whatever you may think, do not doubt that.”

  “Who is?” Jack shuffles to get up, but Shaw puts his hand on Jack’s forearm.

  “Relax. You’re not going anywhere, and you don’t need to go yet. Get your fucking haircut. If you leave now, you’ll look like a freak.” He points to the mirror at Jack’s hair, half shaved, half long and greasy. “You’re looking better already.”

  Jack’s starting to look like his old self: His forehead’s appearing with a pronounced tan line across it, but he’s looking younger without all the curls.

  “Thing is,” says a soft voice behind Jack, “all of San Francisco’s pissed off right now.”

  A woman walks from the entrance of the shop toward the chair on Jack’s left. She’s got long blond hair, sports nice, understated makeup and wears a navy blue business suit with a white shirt underneath. Her collar’s splayed out to show a glimpse of gold—a necklace as well as the skin beneath it. It’s the Fed from the scene of the second dead girl.

  “The whole PD. Truly. More so than with O’Malley. Let’s just say O’Malley had his enemies. Now, Sergeant Hopkins on the other hand,”—she sits down in the empty chair, looks Jack dead-on in the mirror—“he had people on his side. And now they all want you for his murder.”

  25

  For a second, Jack has a Mohawk. Then the barber takes a last run over Jack’s scalp, back to front, and the last of his long hair falls from the middle of his head.

  “This is Federal Agent Jane Gannon,” Shaw says. “She and I are the only ones who know you’re here.”

  “Call me Jane.” She touches Jack’s wrist, all smiles.

  Jack feels like he’s walked into the bad guy’s lair, almost like they’ve strapped him down and are telling him their sinister plan.

  “How do you two know each other?”

  They look at each other and smile. Shaw says, “Oh, we go way back. Met down in Central America about that thing.”

  She nods. “Right. That thing.”

  “It’s okay,” Shaw says. “We’re all friends of Mills’s.”

  “Are we?” Jack looks at the two of them. “Then tell me what the hell’s going on.”

  Gannon shakes her head. “Tsk-tsk, Jack. No need to get so upset. What we’re doing?” She fixes Jack with her baby blues in the mirror. “Is we’re protecting your ass. Because if we didn’t—”

  She holds up her hand to cut off his interruption.

  “Because if we didn’t, you’d be nine-tenths of the way to getting yourself killed or thrown in jail. Ultimately you’d probably get both.”

  “How do I know I can trust—”

  “That’s not the right question for this moment, Jack. What you should be asking is how we’re going to keep you safe.”

  Shaw adds, “That or who you’re about to get killed by.”

  Jack turns to Shaw, but the barber catches his head and straightens it out. He’s bringing the tight trimmer along the back of Jack’s neck. “Akakievich, probably,” he says. “Him and some corrupt insider cops with a fifty caliber sniper rifle. Is that right?”

  “But what we don’t know,” Gannon says, “is who the corruption starts with and how far it runs.”

  “How do you plan to find out?”

  Shaw starts shaking his head.

  “Well,” she says. “We could follow you around and see who sends you to the morgue, but we think there might be a better way.”

  Jack feels the buzzer tickle his skin below the hair line and hopes the cut will be over soon. “Try me.”

  “Well,” she says. “I think we should work together.”

  Jack knows that he’s in no position to negotiate, that these two are probably his only chance on the street. Still, he can’t go along unless he knows who or what he’s working with.

  “So you’re FBI,” Jack says. “Why are the Feds involved here? What’s your angle?”

  Gannon winces. “I’m afraid—”

  Shaw cuts in. “It’s okay, Jane.”

  She shakes her head. “I’m afraid that’s not open for discussion.”

  “Then what?” Jack asks. “Tell me why you were there when O’Malley got shot.”

  Shaw catches Gannon’s eye in the mirror, and even with the barber lining up his sideburns—long still, but straight across—Jack sees the look they exchange plain as day. Something goes between them in that instant. Then Gannon looks at her hand, eyes a ring on her finger that would make a diamond buyer jealous.

  “You’re right,” she says. “I was there. But now I’m the one who doesn’t trust this location.”

  ***

  When the cut’s finished, the barber won’t let Jack pay for his haircut. “It’s covered by the department,” Shaw explains. But that doesn’t stop Jack from tucking a twenty-dollar tip into the guy’s coat pocket.

  “Anything you can do about this jacket?” Jack says, eyeing himself in the mirror on their way out of the shop. The leather’s seen much better days.

  Shaw shakes his head and laughs. “Don’t think so, pal. Looks like you’ll be our biker dude for a little while yet.”

  “But don’t worry,” Gannon says. “That look is in style.”

  Jack laughs uneasily, always ready to go along with a joke at his own expense.

  Shaw leads them through a side door off the barber shop, around to the back of the station where a black Town Car with tinted windows is parked. Gannon unlocks it with a remote and walks around to the driver’s side. Jack and Shaw get in, Shaw taking the front.

  Jack asks where they’re going as Gannon starts the engine.

  “It’s okay” is all Shaw says.

  Gannon starts to drive, making her way along the streets of Walnut Creek, away from the station and the Fastback. Jack watches his car through the rear window as it recedes from view.

  “Is my—”

  “It’s all okay, Jack.”

  They drive streets Jack doesn’t recognize. All he knows about Walnut Creek is the mall, and he’s seen some residential streets the few times he’s gotten lost looking for the highway.

  “So at the mall,” Gannon begins, watching the road but checking Jack’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “O’Malley was ready to come in. We’d been talking to him for a while, and then in the middle of the night, he calls me and says he’s ready to come in. Wants to spill his info and go into protection. Nobody was supposed to know. But somebody did.”

  “O’Malley was shooting at my house a few hours before that,” says Jack. “He fucks up and then has a big moralistic change of heart? Nice fucking guy.”

  “That’s how it is sometimes.” She looks back in the mirror and meets Jack’s eyes. “Sometimes we’re an all-night operation. Guy figures he’s gone too far, he’s in too deep with something, we get the call. Whenever. Wherever.”

  “But then he gets dead.”

  “We make the meet at his car. I see the girl in the back and know something’s gone wrong. Very wrong. He was coked to the gills, jumpy. Waving a gun around because he thought someone was going to get him.

  “Then someone takes his head off with a cannon. I was lucky it didn’t hit me too. Lucky O’Malley didn’t shoot me. His gun went off and blew out the windshield. I look out and try to find someone to shoot at, but there’s not a damn thing there. Just black ni
ght.”

  “Then you walk away,” Jack says. “Leave the body for the police to find.”

  She nods. “If we had taken over the case at that point, it would have let too many people know the FBI was involved. We didn’t want to tip our hand. We still don’t.”

  “But you walked away instead of running like you might get shot at. I interviewed witnesses who say you walked away calm as ice.”

  Shaw tips his head toward Jack. “Boy does some homework. You have to give him that.”

  Gannon shrugs. “You see a bullet like that tear a man’s head off, you know a sniper’s got you. There’s not much you can do but walk away. If he wants you, you’re his.”

  Jack thinks back to the scene that morning at Vaillancourt Fountain. Maybe running saved his life, or maybe—he realizes—the sniper didn’t want him dead.

  He takes a closer look at Gannon: beautiful, not a woman he’ll be forgetting anytime soon. But a woman he can believe? She looks good—maybe better than someone in the FBI should. The government wouldn’t waste a looker like her on a porn-ring investigation any more than a San Francisco cop should be driving a fully loaded Saleen Mustang. She should be schmoozing international playboys and spies. Jack still has doubts—doubts he’ll keep to himself.

  It’s starting to get dark outside. Lights are coming on in front of the houses. Another Saturday night in the suburbs. “Okay. Start at the beginning. Explain this to me like I’m a six-year-old child.”

  26

  Jane Gannon shrugs. She angles the Town Car over to the side of the road and pulls to a stop outside a gated community, one full of identical condos with brown shingles. She parks and turns around in her seat to eye Jack.

  “We knew that O’Malley was in deep with Akakievich and that he wasn’t the only one involved from the force. He came to us and said that he’d been inside, undercover, then Akakievich asked him to go after cops and his connection from above suggested he do it. That he was afraid for his life if he didn’t.”

  “You know that’s all bullshit, right?”

  Jane tilts her head from side to side. “Sometimes you have to listen,” she says. “You buy into what they tell you, and then they come in and you get the real story, you work them for more.”

 

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