City of Dragons (27 page)

Miranda was already examining the lock, and taking out a small set of lock picks she carried in a cosmetic pouch. “I’ll remember that.”

“Oh, before I forget—most important question.”

“What is it?”

“Do you still want those shoes?”

Miranda smiled, looking up from the mechanism, her face smudged with dust.

“You bet I do.”

She was lucky. The keyhole was fairly large, and after a couple of tries she managed it. Now all she had to worry about was whether or not it was blocked on the other side.

Miranda positioned her right shoulder against the door, thankful the gray wool she was wearing would hide some of the dust. From the front of the store, she could hear Matsumara laughing, trying to jolly the surly Mrs. Ibaraki.

She shoved. The door moved about a foot. She cursed herself for not carrying a flashlight. She shoved again. It scraped open another foot, enough for Miranda to see there were wooden crates surrounding it, some with sewing equipment.

She shoved one more time, and the door budged about six inches. Time to step inside.

She squeezed through, stepping over one box and into another, trying to avoid any more bruises. The door was at the back of the shop, and the light from the windows in front appropriately dim, but enough for her to make out shapes until her eyes readjusted.

Miranda stepped across one more box, and looked at the door from the vantage point of a clear spot on the other side. The crates on her right, the ones she’d climbed to get through, looked old, and contained a jumble of expected shop goods: bolts of cloth, lace, remnants, sewing machine parts, buttons.

The cartons on her left, the ones she’d shoved against, were a different story.

Propped behind the older crates were large, rough wooden containers. The kind used in shipping.

Miranda hustled over to the crates, digging in her purse for a lighter. She bent down to look at the writing, stamped sloppily on the side of one furthest from her. Most of it was in Japanese. At the bottom of a string of characters were the initials, NYK.

Excited, she closed the lighter, counted the crates. About three feet by five feet, and there were four of them. She raked the lighter again, and a spot of color drew her eye.

A piece of fabric, red brocade, the kind she’d seen in Chinatown, was caught on a box corner, looking as though it had been torn. She checked the floor quickly, noting the dust on the crates was minimal, the work of weeks, not years, and that the wooden floor of the cleaners was heavily scratched where the boxes were stored.

She followed the scratch marks to the back wall of the shop, where another door—with a new lock—led to the rear entrance.

Hurriedly, she returned to the box with the fabric, gently untangling it from the corner. The edges were ripped, not cut. She tucked it into the notebook in her purse before lifting the heavy lid of the crate, holding it steady with an arm and her weight, while she flicked the lighter on again.

Nothing. Disappointed, she almost dropped the lid, barely catching it in time. Wouldn’t want Mrs. Ibaraki or another of Mr. Matsumara’s customers to hear a thud from the empty building next door.

She opened the other three crates. Same results. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting.

Cursing herself again for not bringing her small flashlight, Miranda returned to the first box, and lifted and shoved the lid until she wriggled it off the box entirely, careful to lower it to the floor as noiselessly as possible, then laid it flat.

Breathing hard, and leaning into the crate as far as she could, she flicked on the lighter. A few dots of dirty white she’d missed on the first look seemed to form a line, smeared into a powder streak like flour on a pie.

Except this wasn’t flour.

Miranda retrieved her purse from where she’d left it on a crate. She tore out a piece of paper from her notebook, careful not to lose the fragment of cloth. Then she folded the paper into a makeshift funnel, patiently but quickly folding and tearing until the sides were secure.

She headed back into the crate, this time stepping in it, one hand on the funnel, the other on her lighter, and carefully scooped up the small white clumps of powder. She folded the funnel as flat as possible, shaking the powder to the bottom and folding over the top. Finally, she took out her billfold, and sandwiched the makeshift envelope in between one of Mrs. Winters’s twenties and a ten-dollar bill.

Her eyes hunted for white in the three other crates. Most of them had a few specks here and there, and the familiar smeared line from a sack being lifted and hauled out of the container.

Miranda checked her wristwatch. It was 2:45, almost time for her to meet Ruth Landis.

The front of the store carried more risk than the dim light of the back. She ventured closer anyway, her hands exploring the top of the counter. Probably where they checked the stuff, made sure it wasn’t fake. If she’d had time, light and freedom, she’d find more powder, here in the cracks.

More cocaine.

What she found, instead, was an old Bible, tucked under the counter. Inscribed to no one, it sat there, perhaps, on the days when Mrs. Takahashi could come in and mind the tailor shop for her husband.

Miranda opened it, unsure why. Then she thought of something, remembered the little girl with the old woman’s voice.

“Acts 27, 10 or 11,” she’d said. Miranda flipped through quickly. St. Paul’s shipwreck.

And said unto them, Sirs, I perceive that this voyage will be with hurt and much damage, not only of the lading and ship, but also of our lives.

Ships. Chinatown. Cocaine. What the hell had Madame Pengo known …

Miranda crept through Matsumara’s door a few minutes later, trying to pull it shut behind her. It wouldn’t close firmly, so she moved his boxes back in place. She could hear him in front of the shop, talking with another customer.

She found the back door, well oiled, well used, unlocked. Exited cautiously into a suddenly sunny afternoon brightening a back area of uneven open space and garbage cans that eventually led to both Webster or Buchanan on either side.

She headed toward Buchanan so she could check the lock on Takahashi Tailors. The back door sported a new padlock, as well as a new door lock. No more than a year old, more likely a few months.

The smell of tempura was drifting toward her from the Ginza Café. Miranda walked through their narrow alley, skirting more garbage pans, and interrupting more pigeons hungrily pecking some discarded rice. From the top of a roof nearby, a raven croaked his annoyance.

She looked up at it, shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun.

Maybe she’d found some truth at that.

Lester Winters was killed with cocaine. His daughter was addicted to it. Eddie Takahashi’s empty storefront had stored it, in bags inside crates—containers from Lester Winters’s shipping company.

Cocaine. The happy, helpful drug that gave you energy, making your eyes bright with excitement, your luck unstoppable, your sex appeal unmistakable. Until you looked in the mirror the next morning, or at whom you’d fucked the night before.

Nothing another line wouldn’t solve. Everything looks better through a haze of white powder.
I get no kick from cocaine,
the song ran. Brother, you might not, but plenty of people with plenty of money did.

The raven cawed again, and Miranda hurried to catch the White Front, heading back downtown on Sutter.

Seventeen

T
he Pig n’ Whistle was packed with shoppers and teenagers. Miranda checked her watch for the fifth time. 3:22.

She scanned the tables, her eyes lingering on well-dressed girls of the right age. None showed any interest in her, and none were there by themselves. The Pig was a place for boisterous groups of high school kids and matrons with tired feet, who could just manage the walk down from the shopping district at Magnin’s or The White House or City of Paris to refuel on Black Forest Cake, blueberry pie, or an ice cream sundae.

Afterward, buoyed with cream and sugar, they’d stop across the street at the Emporium, before heading back home to the Peninsula or across the Bay or to Forest Hill, where they’d climb the steps and walk through a wide, imposing door, throwing the packages at their maid before settling down on a settee with a Manhattan. Martinis were so terribly ’39.

A harried waiter hurried up to find what she wanted. Did Madame prefer a table, a booth, a counter seat and soda at the fountain? Apple pie à la mode, strawberry shortcake, hot fudge sundae, a sugar doughnut?

She winced at “Madame.” Hurt worse than the swollen cheek. Mademoiselle would like a goddamn table, please, in a dark corner facing the door, and a piece of Boston cream pie with black coffee. And never mind the fucking bruises, buddy, just shut up and serve. She slipped him a dollar, which accelerated the appearance of a table against the back wall, facing the door, not dark enough, but what the hell. It was a bakery, not a bar, and bakeries weren’t built for hiding the bruised faces of women.

Miranda hoped Ruth Landis wasn’t the late type. She had too much to do, too much to think about, too much to figure out, and too much to plan. Laughing girls only reminded her of the two she needed to find. And somehow, she didn’t think either one was laughing.

The coffee arrived quickly, sloppily poured by a waitress with one eye on the clock and the other on the beat cop at the soda fountain. Miranda wiped up the spilled brown liquid with a napkin. The cop wasn’t one she knew or recognized, and as soon as he picked up his cinnamon roll, he waved good-bye at the waitress over the tumult, who nervously cleaned her hands on her apron, running them down her stomach under her breasts, unconscious of her own desperation.

Hell, aren’t we all? Miranda thought. The pie arrived. 3:30 on the mark.

She started to eat.

She was on her third cup of coffee fifteen minutes later when a plump brunette in glasses walked in, holding a City of Paris shopping bag and trying to look mysterious.

Miranda lifted her hand up to catch the girl’s attention. Ruth blushed, looked around, and scurried toward the table.

Her voice was breathless. “I’m so sorry, Miss Corbie, I had to tell my mother that I was taking the ferry over to San Francisco because of a new hat.” She started to take the hat box out of the bag. “It’s really a dream—”

“I’m sure it is, Ruth, but we don’t have much time. You want a soda or something?”

Ruth wasn’t accustomed to women who didn’t dither, but she was a quick study and closed her mouth. “Root beer float. I brought some pictures.”

Miranda smiled for the first time. “Good girl.”

The first waitress was on break, so she flagged down another one, a skinny woman in her forties, with yellowed skin and large pores. “Root beer float, please, and I’d appreciate it if you could get it here quickly.”

The waitress looked her over, lingering on the bruises. “Sure thing, ma’am. Hurry is our middle name.” Her walk back to the soda jerk was anything but. Miranda remembered not to swear in front of a teenager.

“Mind if I smoke?”

“Oh, not at all, Miss Corbie. I like to smoke, too … when my father’s not around. He’s a doctor, and he’s against everything fun and modern and—”

“Most parents are. But he’s right about smoking. Don’t start, because once you do, it owns you.” Miranda lit a Chesterfield with the matchbook on the table, leaned back, keeping her voice low.

“I’ve got to leave in less than thirty minutes—”

“I’m so sorry, Miss Corb—”

“Don’t worry about it, Ruth, I appreciate you meeting me and you were inventive about getting down here. You’re a smart young lady.”

Ruth blushed again. “I—I recognized you from the papers.”

“That’s good. With this cheek, I wasn’t sure if you’d be able to.”

The girl stared at her, awe-struck. “Was it chin music, Miss Corbie? Did a bad hombre try to bump you off?”

Miranda sipped her coffee. “You’ve been reading too many magazines. Let’s talk about Phyllis. You’re a couple of years younger than she, right?”

“I’ll be seventeen in May.” The tone was defensive. Miranda ignored it.

“And you’ve known each other for how long?”

“Oh, gee—I’d say—I’d say almost ten years. Since second grade. We were at Sacred Heart together, too—I still am, anyway.”

Miranda leaned forward. “Ruth—I need you to be as frank as possible. What you tell me is very, very important—possibly for your friend’s safety.”

The girl reached up to touch her hat, as if for reassurance. “Oh, no, Miss Corbie—is Phyllis—is Phyllis—?”

Miranda said smoothly: “I can’t go over the details with you—by law. But it’s very serious, and we need your help.”

Ruth thought for a moment, as if considering something. Then she looked up at Miranda, and said simply and directly: “Ask me anything.”

Miranda was relieved. Adolescents were such a strange mixture of child and adult, and right now she needed the latter.

“Did Phyllis get along well with her father and stepmother?”

The girl thought about it for a moment, while fidgeting with her fork. “She loved her dad. I can’t believe Mr. Winters is dead—doesn’t seem real somehow. I figured we’d make up, you know, after fighting about Bobby Henderson, as soon as I found out about him dying and all. But Phyllis never called.”