As a Favor (14 page)

“Thanks.” The Krishnas were conferring, moving back from the car, glancing about. “Your follower—the one who mentioned Anne—I’m going to have to know his name.”

“You never answered my question, you know—the one about hassling.”

The Krishnas moved off slowly, still looking back. I let my tensed legs relax, and spread my fingers apart and rested them on the table. “Hassling? Well, all I can tell you is that I’ll be fair. It’s information I want, and it’s usually easiest to get if you’re straight with a person.”

The shadows deepened. On the far side of the patrol car I thought I spotted a head at door level. Stretching up in my chair, I could make out a shoulder and hands.

The hands were on the rear-view mirror.

I muttered something to Sri Fallon and hurried to the door, outside, and down the steps.

The thief looked up, started, and took off up the street, away from Telegraph, shirttail flailing, sneakers splatting on the sidewalk. The long curly hair flowed back at me as I ran after, swerving around groups of strollers.

The thief passed the Ice Cream Shop, just as four cone-carriers emerged. Ignoring their cries of outrage, I pushed between them. The thief was half a block ahead. I was gaining. He crossed the street, darting in front of a pick-up.

I cut in behind a motorcycle, yelling, “Stop! Police!”

He kept moving, east across Bowditch. Howard would be waiting on Bowditch one block south. The thief glanced to the right and then left. He stopped, momentarily. He’d seen Howard. Would he cut north now? I could lose him that way.

Pressing my legs faster, I crossed the street just as he turned left into the gates of the University Museum. Pushing harder, I came up to the arch and stopped, panting. Would Howard realize he was in here, or would he go on?

I stared into the courtyard. No one was visible.

The courtyard was akin to a cement shoebox, with the east side formed by the darkened glass of the museum itself and the south end, where I stood, open only at the gate. It was dusky now and deep shadows hung off the west wall and the high cement divider that bisected the box halfway across, west to east. The grass rose in tiers to the west, and northward it climbed to a grassy mound next to the divider, then continued upward in steps to the exterior wall. Behind the divider, I knew, was a set of descending tiers, leading downward to a pair of cement benches by the base of the west wall.

Two yards ahead of me by the museum gate was a sculpture—a four-foot metal ball with a hole in the center. He could be behind that. To my left halfway to the divider was another metal sculpture. There were a hundred places to hide. And there was the museum itself. He could be in there.

Opting for the courtyard, I moved north, past the round sculpture, looking right and left into the grassy mound beside the divider. The whole courtyard was silent now, except for my footsteps slapping on the grass. I glanced down into the depression by the west wall. It was all in shadow, almost black. I couldn’t even make out the benches. I started down, stopped, waited. Nothing moved. I turned, ran back up the tiers to the north wall, leapt to the top and looked down into the emptiness on the far side.

From my vantage point I glanced down the tiers, turned to check the tinted glass of the museum. There were still plenty of places to hide. I moved back toward the entrance to cut off any escape, wishing I had my flashlight.

From behind me came steps.

Whirling, I got set to run.

It was Howard, abreast the south exterior wall. I sighed. Another miss. The best we could say was that the rear-view mirror was still on the car.

Starting toward Howard, I heard a noise behind me.

Howard took off, past me around the divider and out of sight. I followed. My sandals slipped on the wet grass. I fell, scrambled up, ran to the dark alcove. Grunts, pants came from the bottom. No one was visible. Forms became clearer. I jumped down. Howard howled. The thief had him down. The thief was on top of him. His hands were on Howard’s neck.

“Get off!” I leapt down, and stopped dead.

The thief was kissing Howard.

“Y
OU’RE A WOMAN!”
I
PULLED
the thief off Howard.

Howard scrambled up. When his face hit the light it was as red as his hair. He shook his head and kept shaking it as he stared at the young woman.

Now that the shock had passed I felt a grin taking hold. I turned away from the woman and whispered to Howard, “A new method of subduing a suspect? Is that in the Department manual?”

Ignoring that, Howard turned to the woman. She was young, probably not twenty, but there was an innocence to her expression that made her look younger still and very vulnerable, hardly the type one would expect for a thief.

“You’ve been stealing things from my car, haven’t you?” Howard demanded.

The girl smiled shyly at him. “Yes.”

“An aerial, a license plate, the tail-light reflectors, and whatever you were going after tonight. Right?”

She was still smiling. “Yes.”

“You still got the stuff?”

“Oh, yes. I wouldn’t give it away. It’s all in my room. Do you want to see it?” It was a come-on, junior-high-school style.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

She turned to me, surprised. She’d forgotten I was there. Her whole rapturous gaze had been aimed at Howard. But now that she looked directly at me, I realized I had seen her before. She’d been at Priester’s—the Miss Muffet who’d been staring at Howard.

“Daisy Arbutus.”

“What’s your real name, Daisy?”

She looked adoringly back at Howard. “I don’t have to tell you that, do I?”

“Yeah, you do.” Howard was getting the picture. He turned redder still.

“I always go by Daisy. A friend of mine, a man, he called me Daisy Arbutus. I don’t like my old name. It’s not me.”

I put a hand on her arm. “Show me some identification, Daisy. A driver’s license.”

“I don’t drive.”

“Library card.”

“I don’t read real good.”

“MediCal card?” It was a stab.

But she smiled, pleased to be able to produce something, and began digging through her pockets until she pulled out a card with rows of MediCal stickers on it. “Harriet Turner,” it said. Glancing back at her, I had to admit Daisy Arbutus fit her better.

“Where do you live, Daisy?”

“On Dana,” she said, pointing west of Telegraph.

“Okay. You’ll get to ride in Officer Howard’s car, or what remains of it.”

“With Seth?” she asked dreamily.

“With Seth Howard.”

I glanced at Howard, waiting for him to do something, but he just looked awkward. He looked like an older brother at a thirteen-year-old’s pajama party.

“Daisy,” I said as we headed toward the car, “what about the Ranier Hotel, the one you ran through the other afternoon?”

“I don’t live there.”

“Why did you go through it?”

“It was easy.”

I waited.

“I used to get letters there.”

“Why?”

“Well, people do.”

“It’s a mail drop, isn’t it?” That didn’t surprise me. Mail drop was doubtless one of its more legitimate functions. I remembered noticing the hotel didn’t have individual mailboxes. It wasn’t that type of place. If you wanted to get your mail there you made sure you were waiting when the postman came—a time-consuming ritual, but time was one thing the Ranier’s tenants had in abundance. And with the manager who made himself scarce, it was the perfect set-up for a mail drop.

“I guess it’s a drop. But I didn’t do anything against the law. I mean I just got letters from my father there because it was easy. I was living around, you know. Like I couldn’t tell him an address.”

“Do a lot of people get mail there?”

“I think so. There’s a big table in the lobby and the mailman leaves the letters there. People wait for the mailman.”

Thinking of Anne’s cases with that address, I asked, “What kind of mail did people get?”

Daisy shook her long curls. “I didn’t look.”

“Are you sure?”

She stared at me, her brown eyes wide, puppy-like. “Oh, yes. I know it’s good to stay out of people’s business.”

We were at the car. Howard opened the back door and motioned Daisy in. Shutting it, he moved back a few steps.

No longer able to control my grin, I said. “A shrine to you in auto parts. I’ll bet she has your picture from the paper on top.”

“Shit. It’ll be the next century before I hear the end of this.”

I could envision the station, with the entire staff making cracks.

“Look on the bright side. You could be short and ugly, then no one would pay any attention at all.”

“Wonderful. You know, Jill, Lieutenant Davis isn’t going to be laughing. Particularly when this hits the papers, he won’t be laughing.”

It was true. Rarely had the lieutenant laughed about things connected with police work. And theft of any kind certainly would not move him to mirth.

“I’d give a lot to keep this quiet,” Howard said.

We stood silently, as Daisy looked through the wire mesh in the squad car, eyeing the radio, the log book, the odometer.

Glancing from her to the street, Howard said, “I’ll bet she has access to a lot of information.”

“You’re right, she probably does. I’d like to know more about that hotel, and about the welfare scene here, particularly as it relates to Anne Spaulding. Daisy could be a big help.”

The frown lines around Howard’s mouth disappeared. “She could return the aerial and stuff. She could say it was a prank—it was, sort of—and we could swap the information you get for dropping the theft charges. Okay?”

“Sounds good to me.”

Looking back at Daisy, who was now gazing up at him, Howard said, “I guess I’m the one to ask her.”

“I’m sure whatever information she has is yours.” Still grinning, I started for my own car. With luck I could change back into uniform and still have time to find Ermentine Brown. She had lived in one of the Avenue hotels. If the hotels were drops, Ermentine would know what went through them.

It was nearly dark, but it was also Thursday. Any weekend is a big sales time on the Avenue and Thursday nights are the start. Street artists still manned tables, their wares illuminated by the yellow glare from the streetlights and the harsher fluorescent lights flowing from the stores.

I hurried along, glancing at each table, hoping Ermentine Brown would be there.

I was nearly to campus when I spotted her, sitting on a canvas chair behind her card table of feather necklaces. Her wide Afro wig sparkled in the light and her brown face had the illusion of softness.

Two young women glanced at the jewelry but Ermentine Brown didn’t look up.

“Ms. Brown,” I said.

“Huh?” It was a growl. And seeing me, her face tightened to match her voice.

“I’m Officer Smith, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember. Come by later. I gotta take care of business.”

“This is business, too. You can get your neighbor to watch things for you.”

“You tellin’ me how to run my place?”

“Look, Ms. Brown, I have to talk to you—now. Make whatever arrangements you want. Or we can talk here.”

“Here? Yeah, that’s cool.” She settled back in the chair.

“You said you’d lived in a hotel off Telegraph. When was that?”

“Why you want to know?”

“I’m still checking on Spaulding.”

“Well, what the hell—”

“Just answer the question.”

She shrugged. “ ’Bout a year ago.”

“With your kids?”

Her jaw jutted out. “Look, you checkin’ for the welfare people? Are you trying to say I let my kids live in one of those places? Listen, woman, I wouldn’t let my kids in there if it was snowing outside. Those hotels are full of winos and junkies and whores.”

The fact that the clientele was not screened was hardly news to me. I’d had enough nuisance calls from the hotels to know what kind of people lived in them. I leaned gingerly on the edge of the card table. Ermentine Brown eyed my rump as it skirted her merchandise. Behind me, I could hear shoppers commenting on the necklaces, talking about coming back.

“You’re ruining my business,” Ermentine Brown complained. “I could have made ten dollars in this time. No one buys from a table with a cop on it.”

“I’ll be brief, if you’ll answer my questions. When you lived there, was the hotel a drop?”

Her hand went to her lip and poised there, then fell to her lap. “Yeah. Sure.”

“And now?”

“Right on. Everyone knows those places are drops. I’m surprised you don’t—and you a police officer.”

“Do the eligibility workers at the welfare department know?”

“If they don’t they should.”

“And they send money there anyway?”

“Not without checking, they don’t.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“I mean, they come out, they look at your rent receipt, and they look at your room, with you in it.”

“Anne Spaulding did that?”

“Believe it. She was the last one to trust you. I was hardly out of the welfare office and she was checkin’ on me.

I made a note of the procedure. “It’d still be pretty easy to fake. All you’d need would be a friend living there, and a receipt book.”

Ermentine Brown shrugged. “Maybe you’re on the wrong side of the law.”

As I headed back to the car, I wondered why Anne Spaulding had checked on Ermentine Brown and not on others. Was the rule intermittent? Or was she already aware that they didn’t live there? I needed to know the policy. What was printed in the welfare manual I could read, but what I had to find out was how the workers translated that into practice. And for that I’d let Mona Liebowitz start helping me.

I
N FIFTEEN MINUTES
I was knocking on the door of the house in front of which I had left Mona Liebowitz. But Mona didn’t live in a house either. She lived in the “rear cottage.” I was beginning to wonder if this type of living arrangement were a prerequisite of welfare work.

I hurried up the driveway, but the backyard held no cottage, no rear flat attached to the main house, only a garage that had been amateurishly converted to a dwelling. I knocked on one of the double doors.