City of Dragons (15 page)

The girls got paid. That was nirvana enough. Two bridges and nudie shows kept San Francisco from drowning in the Depression, but the bridges were over, and all that was left was the Fair. The last hurrah before the storm.

Except the storm was lashing France and England, drowned Mother China three years before. The wreckage washed against America, lighting Liberty’s crown with shell fire, bathing her robe in soldiers’ guts. Huddled masses begging for help, begging for asylum. Liberty looked away, country-club membership still exclusive.

She turned away the SS
St. Louis
last year, sent Jews back to concentration camps in Europe. Sure, give us the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. But not your Jews, Catholics, or nonwhites. Hitler’s got a plan, did you hear?

Plenty of Yankee Doodles, champions of Liberty, were screaming holy hell about the European War, how it was their problem, not ours, and by the way, the Germans really do impress, remember the Berlin Olympics? And the trains run on time. So clean, so white, so pure. Nobody likes Jews and Bolsheviks. See—Hitler’s got a plan.

So if Charles A. Lindbergh, an honest-to-God (and maybe only to God) aviation hero thinks we should stay out, and let the English sink or swim (remember the War of 1812!), then by God or by the Devil, we’re staying out.

All we want is Peace in Our Time.

Fuck everyone else’s.

Miranda opened her eyes. The waiter was watching her, a strange expression on his face. Then the jukebox started, and it was “Oh, Johnny, Oh, Johnny, Oh.” A cue to leave. She walked out of the Owl, heading for the Pickwick Hotel.

The Pickwick towered over Fifth and Market, a large middle-class hotel built fourteen years earlier, with all the macabre gothic optimism of the late, great Roaring Twenties. A venture of the Pickwick—now Greyhound—Stage Lines Corporation, the hotel was a perfect meeting place for disreputable reputable citizens, an architectural embodiment of a bus ride.

You could check your blackmail photos, pack your mistress off to Topeka at the adjoining coach station, or fuck whomever you were paying to fuck in the privacy of your own room, complete with ice water on tap and for only $1.50 per night. You could even, occasionally, get killed there. Just dial GArfield 7500.

Miranda stared up at the light henna brick. Hammett, the pulp writers’ Hemingway, wrote about the Pickwick in
The Maltese Falcon
, back in ’30, when the hotel was new and so was Hammett. Both looked like they’d had a few drinks over the last ten years. Hell, didn’t everybody?

She read the book on a lark, a bet from a boy with a name long forgotten. And years later, when she took the job with Burnett, she remembered what a bastard Sam Spade was. But he still didn’t hold a candle to her ex-boss.

She tossed the cigarette on the sidewalk, crushing it with her toe. A doorman dressed in the garish plumage of his breed stepped into her path. His shoulder tassel was loose, and he smelled like cheap whiskey.

“Any luggage, Miss? Be happy to call the bellhop.”

“Thanks, but I’m not staying. I need a word with the house detective.”

The beefy, red-faced Irishman raised his eyebrows. “And why would a pretty little thing like you be needing the house detective? Somebody bothering you?”

“At the moment, only you. He in today?”

The doorman paused, rubbed his fat thumb along the stubble on his chin. “He’s here, been here every day. Quite a change for Finnigan. He’s from one of the wrong counties.”

She nodded. “And that would be whatever county isn’t yours, right?”

The grin gave him deep dimples. “He’s a lesser specimen, girlie. Why not stick with me?”

Miranda sighed, removed her wallet, and extracted her license. “This is business, not the goddamn blarney stone. You know anything about the man that died here on Friday? What room he was in, the skitter with the staff?”

He took a step backward, squinting at her. “I would never’ve figured a looker like you to be a peeper, now. What’s in it for me if I talk?”

She drew him toward a spot against the brick, away from the doors. “Depends on what you’ve got to talk about.”

He rubbed his chin again. “You’ll want to see Finnigan. He was runnin’ around givin’ people the third degree like he was Hoover, right after the guy got knocked off. The maid who found him ran to Finnigan before she decided to pass out. Then the coppers came, and he was out in the cold.”

“A bump-off?”

The Irishman shrugged his massive shoulders and they strained against his uniform, the shoulder tassel dancing. “That’s what Finnigan says. But you can’t believe anything he tells you. All I know is it was room … room 327. And the guy wasn’t drilled—Estelle thought he was asleep, went to shake him. No blood, you get me? She says some Chinee girl walked out of the room when she was coming up the hall, and lammed off down the back stairs. And ever since, Estelle acts like she was holier than the Sainted Virgin. Except she ain’t one.”

He leaned over and leered at Miranda. “I talked, so what’ll it get me, eh?”

She’d palmed out a dollar earlier, and held it out to him. “Thanks, Pat. Buy yourself another pint, and make it better than what you had for lunch.”

His face showed confusion, as she pushed past him toward the door. “How’d you know my name was Pat?”

Miranda looked back briefly. “It always is.”

The manager, a spectacled, nervous man in his early forties, examined her license. She thought about handing him a microscope. The lobby was slow and overly warm, decorated with a couple of the old people who reside, lodged like potted plants, in hotel lobbies. They were of indeterminate sex, their genders muted with age, though one was wearing striped trousers and the other a baggy brown dress. They sat across from one another in separate arm chairs, not speaking, not reading, but crouched, listening to footsteps and laughter and trying to remember what life felt like.

Miranda lit another cigarette while the manager called his boss. The Pickwick was part of a chain of hotels, strung together by the coach line, and if one of the girls in the chorus missed a kick, they’d all fall down.

He cleared his throat, and she turned back toward the ornate marble counter.

“Everything seems to be in order. Mr. Finnigan’s office is down the hall, past the elevator banks, on your left. I’ve rung him. He’ll be expecting you shortly.”

She nodded. “Thanks.”

Miranda walked toward the rear section, behind the scenes where the carpet wasn’t as clean. Down a hallway that smelled like cherry pipe tobacco. A door on the left was open about a foot. She tapped on the frosted glass.

A deep voice drawled, “Come in.”

She walked into a room the size of Mrs. Astor’s closet. A tall, gray-haired man, lean, hard, and brown, sat behind a desk, his long legs stuck out in front of him. He wore a fedora, but a western Stetson would’ve suited him better. She expected to see a six-gun strapped to his hip, and a wanted poster for Billy the Kid on the wall.

“You’re Finnigan?”

“No, I’m Parker. This here’s Finnigan.”

He nodded with his head toward a portly man in a derby with mealy skin and bright, shifty eyes.

Neither of them said anything else. Parker reached into his coat pocket, and pulled out a pipe, filled it carefully with tobacco, and lit it with a match he ran along the top of Finnigan’s desk.

“Finnigan.” He gave a small jump at the sound of his name. “The manager called you. I’m Miranda Corbie.”

He grinned, took out a stained handkerchief out of his display pocket, and wiped his forehead. The sweat stains on the inside of his shirt collar clashed with the faded blue suit. Miranda pivoted, turned toward Parker.

“And just who the hell are you, Mr. Parker?”

He blinked at her, his eyes indifferent. “I’m with the Bureau of Marine Investigation and Navigation.”

“Aren’t you a long way from the Port?”

He shrugged. He wore his collar open, with a clean white t-shirt peeping out the top. Checkered shirt, pressed pants. He didn’t look like a cop.

“This Lester Winters was an engineer for the NYK Line. Nippon, Yusen, Kaisha.”

“I know what it stands for. He didn’t die on board a ship. If he did, he’d still be the territory of the SFPD—unless he died in international waters, then the Coast Guard would have something to say.”

He shrugged again. “I might ask you the same thing, Miss Corbie.” With a graceful move, he rose from the desk. “Don’t look like murder, anyways. Natural causes, if you ask me. Well, Finnigan—it was nice jawin’ with you.”

The house dick grinned, stood up from his chair and reached out to pump Parker’s hand. “Sure was, Inspector. Come back any time.”

Parker nodded, disengaged himself from Finnigan, and with a couple of long strides left the room, shutting the door behind him with a soft click.

Miranda said slowly: “Did he leave a business card?”

Finnigan looked confused, patted his pockets. “I—I don’t think so, Miss Corbie. But the operator can call—”

“Yeah, I know. Thanks. Would you show me 327? And tell me what happened?”

Finnigan wedged behind his desk and opened a door, pulling out a flask of rye that was three-quarters empty. He uncorked it, tilted his head back for a messy swig, and then corked it again. Then he looked up at her, uncorked it again hurriedly, wiped off the top with his sleeve, and offered it to her in the spirit of brotherhood.

She accepted it only to win his confidence, closed her eyes and felt the familiar warmth bite through her intestines. “Thanks. Let’s go upstairs.”

The Pickwick elevator operator, a Negro in a pressed uniform with a patient smile, crated them upstairs. He looked smart and alert; a good man to talk to, particularly if he’d been working on Friday. Miranda wrote his name down—Cheval—while Finnigan chattered.

The short man wasn’t one of those house peepers that kept himself to himself. He spread it around, as thick and smelly as manure. It was hard to shut him up, and harder still to figure out what was Irish bullshit.

“So like I said, Estelle—and she’s a good kid, Miss Corbie, hardworking, supports her mama and four younger sisters—she’s out of breath from running, see, and screams ‘Murder in 327!’ and just flat out—
pffffft
—like that, on the carpet, and, well, I think we’ve got an escape from Alcatraz the way she’s carrying on—you remember what happened last year, when they shot Doc Barker—so I get my .45—I use a Colt semiautomatic, had it since the War, and I—”

“We’re here, Finnigan. Mind if I take a look?”

He yanked out the handkerchief again, mopped around his hairline, and fished a key out of his pocket.

“Sure thing, Miss Corbie. Cops were here twice already, came back and dusted the second time, though I sure couldn’t get much out of them, tight-lipped they was, and Estelle, she was sure it was murder, though—”

“Thanks.” Miranda pushed the door open, leaving her gloves on. The room was spare, not the lap or even the elbow of luxury, but comfortable. “This is one of the cheaper rooms, isn’t it?”

“Why yes, it is, Miss Corbie, smart of you to know that. This here’s our dollar special room. The Pickwick is a good, moderate hotel, good business clients, a lot of out-of-town salesmen, some conventioneers. We were full up during Fair season, expect to be again when it opens in May—too bad about the shorter season, though, we could really use the—”

“Why did Estelle think it was murder?” She opened the closet. Any luggage or clothes had been cleared out by the police. Or Winters hadn’t brought any.

“Well, she’s a Mexican, Miss Corbie, and they can be flighty. She’s been reading a lot of them magazines, and she’s always talking about Alcatraz—just seeing it scares her—and when I come back to ask her, she says she’d just come on duty around five in the morning and saw a Chinese girl leave the room, kind of scurry like they do, and then run down the back stairs. The door to the stairway is only a few steps away, and Estelle said the girl just out and out ran. She’s a flighty girl, Miss Corbie, but you know these Mexicans, they get feelings sometimes, and Estelle, she said she got cold all over like something bad had happened in the room, and she just knew Mr. Winters had been murdered.” He stopped momentarily, out of breath.

Miranda moved to the small desk near the bed, and started opening drawers. “Did Mr. Winters bring any luggage? And did he request this room in particular?”

He flushed, scratched his head under this derby. “You know, I don’t rightly know, Miss Corbie. I didn’t see any luggage, and I don’t know if the cops brought any out, because they had me down in the office. I reckon Burt—he was the clerk on duty when Winters checked in, I do know that—I’ve questioned everyone I could think of about this, figurin’ the cops could use the help, and thinkin’ I don’t want no Chink girl gettin’ away with poisoning somebody on my watch—so Burt could probably tell you whether …”

The desk held a Bible with an uncracked spine and a copyright of 1911, some envelopes and paper. Miranda took them out and counted them, while Finnigan watched with his mouth open. A few ink blotches stained one sheet; she set it aside on the desk. “How many pieces of stationery and envelopes do you give the guests? And are they replaced every time the room is cleaned?”

Finnigan’s mouth opened and closed again. “I—I wouldn’t know, Miss Corbie. Estelle or the other maids could tell you.”

Miranda nodded, and turned to the wastebasket, full of newspaper and evidently ignored by the police. She pulled out folded-up sections of the
Chronicle
, and laid them open on the desk. “When did he check in?”

“About—I think Burt said Thursday night.”

“Night or evening?”

“Let me see.” Finnigan pulled a black memorandum book from his inside jacket pocket, and rifled through it, making nervous humming noises.

There were three days’ worth of
Chronicle
sections—front page for Wednesday and Thursday, shipping news section for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and movie pages for Wednesday. Either Winters brought the older papers with him or the maid hadn’t cleaned up after the last guest. Miranda folded them carefully and tucked them under her arm.