City of Dragons (34 page)

The old man nodded, back turned, while Miranda wrapped the blanket around the girl. Then he pushed his way through the curtain. Miranda could hear him by the food area, pouring something into a cup. Phyllis’s eyes were closed again, her mouth still slightly open.

He returned, out of breath.

“Coffee. Strong and old. I added something to it, not much. I go to call the police now.”

Miranda took the coffee from his shaking hands.

“Thank you. I’m sorry to troub—”

“Hush, young lady. I go to call.”

She listened for the reedy tones of the old man’s voice, his accent stronger than earlier tonight. Phyllis’s head was drooping, slack. Miranda stood up, and tried to push her back, to make her recline.

She was surprised when the girl grabbed her arms, fought her. An almost-awareness wrenched her face. Panic and fear. The odor of urine rose from the cot.

“No … no more.”

The girl clung to her, as limp as a rag doll, the white skin on her thin arms translucent between the bruises.

Miranda held her, stroked her hair, dry and brittle. Held her, and murmured words that meant nothing, words she had said before to other women, women who lived in small Spanish villages, who had been left behind, who had no one to hold them, no one to help them.

Women who fought their own wars.

With pitchforks and kitchen knives. Jagged bottles and empty fists.

Until they lost or died, the bottle dropping from fingers pried open, the knife falling, falling, falling, their mouths open and shrieking a name.

Spoils.

Conquered.

Broken.

Like their little houses. The roofs torn, the doors broken down.

Like the house on Guerrero Street.

The Hall was warm, quiet, subdued.

The matron pried Phyllis from Miranda. A squat woman with eyes that weren’t unkind, but had seen too much to be generous. The girl wouldn’t let go at first, shaking, then shrunk into herself, refusing to speak. She’d said nothing to Miranda since the store, had gone quietly into the police car, the shock protecting her from self-consciousness.

Then Helen Winters hurried in, breathless, her veil askew, her nails chipped, heels tap-tap-tapping on the marble floors. The girl looked back at Miranda before she retreated, before she shut down everything that happened to her and everything that would happen to her.

Head slack, eyes blank, she turned and walked in infant steps to her stepmother.

The attorney with Helen glanced at Miranda, and glanced again, whispering something to his mistress while she threw her arms open, ever the sacrificing mother, ever forgiving. She’d seen
Stella Dallas
at least five times.

Miranda recognized him from his run for a board of supervisor’s seat. Phyllis held herself like a bird with two broken wings. She wasn’t recognizing anyone.

Mr. Would-be Supervisor discussed business with the cops; Johnson wasn’t in yet. He’d be disappointed at not getting to call in the FBI.

Miranda leaned against a wall, a Chesterfield between her fingers, watching the scenes unfold. Attorney, mistress, stepdaughter. Dead father. Dead husband. Cops caught by surprise. The girl would need time, and care, and patience. She’d get the time, once Helen stuck her in a mental home. The other two would depend on where they put her.

The attorney would keep most of it out of the papers. And he’d keep Helen Winters out of jail, for anything she knew or didn’t know about her husband and the drugs and the Italian named Sammy. And soon Miranda would get a check in the mail, made out for the full amount of her fee and a little more, while everybody pretended that Helen had never called to cancel the contract. Step right up, lady, we can erase your memory with money. Only five hundred dollars for a new history, a bargain at any price. Don’t bother to not cash it, girlie, you won’t be able to testify anyway.

Nothing to testify about.

There was still the little matter of who killed Lester, but Mr. Would-be Supervisor would make sure the press got the right script about the forgiving little woman with the wayward daughter and blackmailed husband. He’d been caught in a trap, murdered by smugglers and thieves. No one would find out if Lester was guilty or not.

He was dead, after all. Yesterday’s news. And nobody much gave a shit who killed him.

Just like Eddie Takahashi.

Miranda dropped the cigarette and rubbed it out into a gray streak in the marble. The attorney finished his conversation with one of the cops, and hurried after Helen and Phyllis, closing ranks on the girl, surrounding her, already telling her what happened until her reality would be swallowed up by theirs, wholly owned, never regained.

Miranda watched the family reunion and hasty departure until the echo of Helen’s heels bounced against the walls and drifted on, blending into the low hum of nightly business at the Hall of Justice.

Click-clack
.
Click-clack
.

So many nails in a coffin.

Phyllis had tried to escape once. Too young to wait for adulthood, too young to be patient. And now she’d live a half life, of doubts and self-loathing, pretending and hiding. Drowning them out, perhaps, in secret bottles. The marble hall lit with gold would always seem dark to her. So would the dances and the bands, the clubs and the clinking glasses, and the touch of the man, the safe man, the older man she’d be told to love and dutifully spread her legs for, all thought, all feeling, all pleasure locked up with the pain.

Miranda leaned against the cold stone, her eyes closed. Then she shook herself and lit another cigarette.

And phoned Rick.

Cops slouched through offices and dully lit corridors, waiting to process the knife fights and split lips of a lovers’ evening, spell broken with dawn. Tonight and tomorrow night. Bubbles bursting along with zippers and fasteners, remorse and tears running like the rain.

Jokes about another St. Valentine’s Day massacre. Then the arrival of the boyfriend or husband, hat in hand or spitting angry. And the girl with the black eye would shuffle out with him, sorry for making a fuss.

Lesson over.

Just another lovers’ spat.

Miranda sat at the desk and smoked, watching the cops drift by along with the nicotine. Johnson had come in for his stake, marked his territory, barking orders at no one in particular, and then turned on the siren on his way down to Guerrero Street. Noise always made the Johnsons of the world feel better.

Rick was down there already, waiting for him. He’d come awake at the information, rapped out a “Got it” to Miranda over the phone. She didn’t expect to hear from him. She’d just read the papers the next day. Today. This afternoon.

She wasn’t sure why she was waiting. Someone to talk it through with, someone to throw around ideas. Someone to fill an empty space. Gonzales drove straight to the house on Guerrero when they called. From a warm bed. Or wherever he was when they phoned him.

Miranda took a deep inhale of the Chesterfield, feeling the soothing bite of the smoke hit her lungs. The night shift was always understaffed, half on the take and the other half asleep. At least Grogan was one of the sleepy ones.

“So you think we’re talking Sammy Martini here?”

He held a fist up to his mouth and yawned. “You heard Johnson. Girl hasn’t identified anybody, and all we got is your description from hearsay and you sayin’ she said ‘Sammy.’ ”

“Don’t you know anything, Grogan?”

“Yeah. I know I wanta go home. So quit asking me questions.”

She leaned forward, pointing the cigarette at him.

“Listen to me, goddamn it. The girl was passed around when he got tired of her. On her way to getting dumped, or sold, or traded. Or murdered. They stashed her at that house, ran over the old man when he found out what they were doing there. That sounds like Sammy Martini to me.”

“He’s L.A.’s problem, Miranda, why the hell would he move up here?”

She looked for an ashtray, couldn’t find any, and bent over the desk close to Grogan, stamping the cigarette out in a hole near the typewriter.

“Because he is L.A.’s problem. Because things got too hot, and he found fresher water in the Bay and fresher meat in San Francisco. Because he’s got a partner or more than one working out of the Olympic Hotel or Chinatown.”

“Chinatown?” Grogan shook his head, swallowed some cold coffee out of a jade-colored mug. “Now I know you’re nutty. You won’t find Aye-ties workin’ with Chinks.”

Miranda sat back, studying him. “Spoken like a typical cop.”

He waved his hand at her. “Why don’t you go home and get some sleep, for God’s sake? You seen Johnson already. Gonzales’ll be the one to tie this in with the murder and the drugs. You can talk to him later, he’ll be at the house for a while. Along with your other boyfriend, the reporter—how many you stringin’ these days, Miranda?”

“Go to hell, Grogan.” She stood up, with difficulty. “Rick’s the best goddamn reporter in the city.”

“And you’re pissed off at not going along.”

“It’s my fucking case.”

“And the city’s, sweetheart. Don’t forget it.”

Her mouth twisted up on the side that wasn’t swollen. “How could I forget? So nice of you boys to let me share.”

Grogan grinned. “Don’t mention it. But go home. You look like shit.”

She put both hands on the desk, leaning over to face him. “Tell me one thing. Has anybody seen Phil?”

His face got noncommittal, cautious. “He’s around. That’s all you need to know, Miranda. Go home.” Grogan opened a drawer, busied himself with feeding fresh paper to the typewriter.

Her hands curled up into fists, resting on the desk. She rapped the scarred wood with the knuckles of her right hand.

“Yeah. You’re right. That’s all I need to know. Along with when Duggan gets out of the psychiatric ward and decides to come after me again.”

Grogan looked up from the typewriter. “Go home, Miranda. The Fair’ll be open soon.”

They stared at one another. Grogan dropped his eyes first, started to type. She watched him for a few seconds, then said softly: “Back to the Fair and the Gayway, the pickpockets and the pimps. Where I belong. Not exactly the kitchen, but not the boys’ club, either. Thanks, Grogan. And fuck you, too.”

She turned and walked away. The clack of Grogan’s typewriter never missed a beat.

5:30 A.M. by the clock on Old St. Mary’s. Chinatown, already long awake in the gray-black dusk that passed for dawn.

Miranda decided to walk home, taking the same route of four days before. No drunken sailors, no brass band.

No Rice Bowl Party.

No Eddie Takahashi lying dead on Sacramento Street.

Pallid red light from Buddhist altars spilled over the black tar, a Chinatown dawn two hours early. Her footsteps drowned in car honks and wooden shutters opening, an occasional pigeon still cooing from last night. Before her, San Francisco lay there and winked, redolent and glistening with sin and lamplight, forever a girl you didn’t take home to Mother.

Men in work uniforms leaving for the factories on the east side of town, men with heads bent, arms and minds tired from repetition on the assembly lines, straggling in after the night shift and a beer at Tomasso’s.

The White Fronts and the municipal buses and trains rumbled by, the concert accompanied by an occasional clang from a cable car. Miranda walked steadily on sore legs, waved to No-Legs Norris on Grant and Bush, who shook his head in response to her questioning hand. He’d hear about Phyllis Winters soon, if he already didn’t know more than she did.

She thought about the cops. Gonzales, Duggan. Johnson and Grogan. Phil.

The boys’ club. They loved her and hated her, used her and ignored her, tried to forget she existed, tried to keep her where they thought she belonged. One or two hoping he’d be the one.

Maybe some day she’d meet a cop she wouldn’t have to say “fuck you” to.

But she didn’t think so.

She crawled upstairs, the elevator out. Roy was the doorman this morning, old Leo sleeping one off in his own small apartment bed.

No one, Miss Corbie. Yes, he was sure. No one tried to come upstairs or deliver a package, no one asked for her at all.

Her feet trudged the four flights up. Skidding, heavy, sore. A man ran down beside her in a hurry, business suit rumpled, late for trading on the stock exchange. Wheat or oil? Just call Marvin.

He tipped his hat, left it perched sideways. She couldn’t remember if hers was still on her head; stopped, felt, found it.

The door opened, and the smell of warm wood floor and shut-in apartment air rushed to meet her. A package lay on the credenza. She turned it over, making sure it was from Edith.

Eddie’s bloody bandages, safely wrapped. She walked to the window, shedding her coat and bag as she went.

She pushed up the sill, the noise rising, filling the apartment. Whistles and clangs. Car horns in basso profundo and tenor. And the sound of voices, everyday people, asking directions, reading the headlines out loud, ordering coffee and doughnuts, how about the horses, buddy, muddy track and all, you got a tip for Tanforan today?

Miranda drank it in, closing her eyes, the Spanish pistol still in the holster, tight against her left side. She smelled the air, newly cleaned city of sailors and seagulls, full of possibilities and the promise of the morning.

And thought of the promise she’d made to Wong.

Emily Takashashi was out there, somewhere. Maybe underground or in a tunnel, left in a copse of Golden Gate Park or on a beach in Pacifica. But not according to the air, the thin warmth on her battered cheek. There was still a chance.

Not much of one for Phyllis. Alive and dead at the same time. Still, she was young. Never young enough to forget. But maybe old enough to make a life.

At least it was pretty to think so.

Miranda reached around to her left, and pulled out the pistol, holding the heft of it in her hands. She remembered the last time she’d killed a man with it.

She still wasn’t sorry.

She left the window open behind her, opened the bedroom door, and opened that window, too. The gauze curtain billowed with the up draft and the energy of the voices below.