Death in North Beach (15 page)

There was something else. Given the history of the Chinese community in San Francisco it was maybe stereotypical but certainly conceivable that someone as prominent as Chiu could find a way to have an impediment like Warfield removed by folks without taking his business outside of Chinatown.

‘I'm hoping, Mr Chiu, that I can be helpful to the investigation in order to prevent police and media inquiry.'

Chiu's eyebrows raised a centimeter.

‘You've got my card,' Lang said, extending his hand, aware that if his analysis was even remotely correct, then an irritant, say a private detective, could be dealt with as well.

Chiu remained quiet.

As far as Lang knew, Chiu was a legitimate businessman who simply didn't want the news of a hotel to come out at an inauspicious time. If he was involved in one of the underground gangs, the only thing Lang could think of was that Warfield knew something about it – threatened to reveal it. He'd do some research.

If Lang were ever inclined to write off Chiu as a criminal type, an old, white, beat-up Toyota Cressida following him back to his office would prevent it. Though the tail was back a few cars, Lang was pretty sure the driver was Asian.

‘I feel like I'm just stirring up the snake pit,' Lang said into his cell. He had parked a block from the office and was heading toward it. ‘I don't feel like I've made any progress. Do you feel any closer or do you sense a direction here?'

‘It's early yet,' she said. ‘One thing to keep in mind is that we've been hired to find out what we can. What we can,' she repeated. ‘If we decide at some point that we're not making progress, then we'll file a report and bill him for any time beyond his advances.'

‘Only a sane person could say that.'

‘Thank you. Or was that a compliment?'

‘Your guess. I gave you a compliment the other day and you spit in my face.'

‘I did not,' Carly said.

‘Wait, you said advances. Plural.'

‘Did I?'

‘Have you come in contact with our Roaming Romeo?'

‘We're covered for expenses,' Carly said.

‘Did he give you the money in person?'

She thought a moment. William had placed an envelope on a table. She could reply in the negative without being dishonest.

‘No.'

‘That was awfully tentative,' Lang said. ‘You've met him again.'

‘And?'

‘That's my question. And?'

‘There is no and.'

‘Ooooh.'

‘What?'

‘Nothing,' Lang said. He'd reached the door and went up the steps. ‘Be careful. The man's career is based on his ability to use people.'

‘And you? Your career is built on . . . what?'

‘Finding out things people don't want me to know. I did pretty well, didn't I?'

The office was open, but empty. He heard something stirring in the back.

‘I'll talk to you later,' he said softly and closed his phone.

Lang went to his desk and retrieved a roll of quarters and moved toward the back room. There were strange flashes of light and the sound of someone moaning. Lang moved quickly around the corner.

Brinkman was sitting in his chair, smoking a cigar, sipping whiskey from a coffee cup. A small television was on his desk.

‘You don't have a home?'

‘My wife's sister is visiting,' Brinkman said.

‘I thought your wife was dead,' Lang said, regretting he hadn't put just a little sympathy in his voice.

‘You see my dilemma.'

‘Are you going to live here now, smelling up the place with cigar smoke and liquor?'

‘I haven't decided yet.'

‘How long is she going to be living with you?'

‘The world's a cruel place.'

He looked at his watch. It was getting dark earlier now. In a month or so, it would be dark at five. He still needed to talk with the widow, Elena. Maybe he'd drop by this evening. That would complete his list.

Fourteen

When in doubt, do the obvious, Lang thought. He drove his dilapidated Mercedes up Russian Hill. The car struggled, but was otherwise equal to the task. He found Warfield's home. The sun was floating on the horizon and in deepening twilight he could see lights were on inside the home. After twenty minutes trying to find a parking place on the hill, he braved parking near a fire hydrant.

He would be only a few minutes, he told himself to relieve both the guilt and the fear of receiving an expensive fine.

He knocked on the door to a handsome two-story home. It was far enough from the edge of the hill to forego a view from inside. But a short walk would yield all of San Francisco at your feet.

He thought it might be the maid who answered. The woman was older, somewhat dowdy in an earth mother sort of way. She wore an apron.

‘I'm looking for Elena Warfield,' he said.

‘I'm very busy,' she said. ‘Who are you?'

‘My name is Noah Lang. I'm a private investigator looking into Mr Warfield's death.'

‘The police aren't enough?' she asked, anger rising. ‘Who hired you?'

He wasn't sure what to tell her. ‘Someone who wants to be cleared of any suspicion.'

She looked at him warily. ‘It's true? What you say?'

‘Yes.'

‘Come in.'

It was a small entryway with a small table, a chair and wastebasket holding umbrellas. Through the arch was what appeared to be a living room. Pleasant enough, but not staged, as many do, as if it were about to be photographed for
Architectural Digest
. He followed her through a formal dining room into a large, well-lit kitchen. Pots and pans – far from shiny and new – hung on hooks over a center workstation. The stove, which she was now tending to, had six burners and steam rose up a vent. It was not a pretty kitchen, but it was a serious one.

‘You expecting guests?' Lang asked.

‘Not today,' she said, then realizing what all of this looked like, she continued. ‘Tomorrow night people will be over. Relatives, friends . . . after the service.'

‘You're cooking for them?' he asked.

She smiled at him, broad and friendly, revealing an unexpected beauty. ‘I'm not a martyr, Mr . . . I'm sorry, I've forgotten your name.'

‘Noah.'

‘This is therapy, Noah. What else would I do? My brother is making all the funeral arrangements, a sister is working with the Church and that leaves me with nothing but questions.'

‘Maybe I can help you answer them.'

There was a cutting board with chopped vegetables – red, orange and yellow peppers – on one side of the board and garlic and onion on the other. There was fennel and oregano and on the counter blocks of some sort of hard cheese.

‘Maybe,' she said, continuing to work. ‘Have you had dinner?'

‘I will,' he said.

‘I'll put on a little pasta. Take me only a moment.'

‘Is your son helping you?' Lang asked.

She looked back sharply. ‘Mickey is Whitney's son.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘You couldn't know. He's no good, like his father.' She seemed embarrassed at having said it, then changed her mind. A look of determination on her face, she added. ‘Without the talent to redeem him.'

‘Does he stay here?'

‘He crashes here,' she said. ‘That's what they say, don't they? Crashes? He says that. Almost fifty years old and he talks like he's a child. Crashes? Can you imagine that? When he is drunk or broke or has nowhere to go he stays here.'

‘Is that often?'

‘Too often.'

‘Did Whitney get along with his son?'

She shook her head as if she'd just been told her village had been destroyed.

‘The two of them are the same. Drink. Women. Arguments. Mad at the world.'

‘Tell me about your husband.'

She filled a pot with water and put it on to boil. ‘You like penne?'

‘Penne's good.'

‘His family was in New York. One brother is all that's left. And he's coming out tomorrow morning. Whitney was some sort of big shot when he was young and he decided to move out here for a while. He and some friends of his thought this was the place to be for people like him.'

‘People like him?'

‘Writers, artists.'

‘Who came out with him?'

‘A bunch of them. Some painter named Hawkes, a writer friend . . . what was his name? Malone. Nathan Malone. Another artist, a very big man of absolutely no morals. Anselmo something or something Anselmo. Some others. They palled around together for a while.'

‘Was Whitney close to anyone?'

‘Less and less. He'd get so angry at his friends.'

‘You two stayed close.'

‘We stayed together. Why?' she asked, shaking her head. ‘Why I don't know. We fit in our odd way, I suppose.'

‘You know who might want to kill him?'

‘Me sometimes,' she said, and laughed. ‘Well, that felt good. Thank you, Noah. I'm sorry, the answer is anybody and everybody, I think. I'm not aware of anyone in particular.'

‘Do you know a William Blake?' he asked.

‘No. Should I?'

‘I don't see why.'

‘What about Marlene Berensen. I'm just throwing names around.'

‘No need to lie to me, even if it is for a noble reason. How is she? Have you talked to her?'

‘Yes. She seems to be holding up.'

‘She would seem to be holding up. That's how she is. She gives you nothing . . . I mean nothing about how she feels. I would have killed Whitney if it wasn't for her.'

‘How's that?'

She lifted the lid off the small pot. She dropped in a handful of pasta, then another.

‘I couldn't have handled Whitney's . . .' She either couldn't find the word or didn't want to say it. ‘I couldn't have handled Whitney all by myself.'

‘And Mickey?'

‘No,' she said, again a little sharply. ‘Not from Miss Berensen. Before. I don't know. I don't want to know.' And that subject was gone, not to be revisited. ‘It will be just a few minutes.' She had moved on to her cooking. ‘I have an open bottle of wine. Would you like a glass?'

Lang left an hour later. It was completely dark. There was no ticket on his windshield. He had a full stomach and a feeling of well-being. He wondered though, why this woman, just days after her husband's death, was all alone.

Whitney had come to San Francisco and fallen in love with a young Italian girl. Somewhere along the line, he had a son, apparently from a third woman. And he spent most of his later years alienating his friends – at least one of them to the point where he or she murdered him.

Lang learned a little more as he dined at the counter in her steamy kitchen. He learned that pasta puttanesca, which is what he was eating, came from Naples not all that long ago and was called that because it was the kind of sauce ‘a whore would make', all tarted up with anchovies, capers and black olives. He liked it and he liked the Sangiovese she poured for him.

Lang also learned that Mickey Warfield was seeing some woman whose name was Angel LeGard. Elena Warfield remembered it because she thought it pretentious and because the woman was Asian, not French. She was a suspect in Elena's mind, but somehow fitting for Mickey. She wanted nothing to do with either of them.

‘Puttanesca,' Elena said smiling, referring to Angel. The name LeGard meant something to Lang as well. He wasn't certain why.

Carly stopped by Whole Foods, created a small box of various greens with some crumbles of blue cheese from the salad bar and two Vietnamese shrimp rolls from the deli. She went back to her flat, where she dined in the living room with a glass – just one – of a light white wine. She would relax a few minutes, change into something a little warmer for the evening and trudge down to Frank Wiley's gallery. She'd just drop by. A call might act as warning, forcing him into hiding.

She found a parking space on Grant. It was good fortune born of the time of the evening. The daytime businesses had closed and the daytime people were gone. The evening revelry had yet to begin. It wasn't far to Frank Wiley's little alley. As it was on her first visit, the address was a little forbidding at night, though North Beach, the part that was away from bars and strip clubs on Broadway, was generally safe.

The bulb over the landing at the top of the outside stairway was on, setting more of a mood of desolation than light on the stairs. She climbed, taking deliberate steps. As she approached the top, she heard music – classical. She didn't recognize it. The door was ajar by maybe two feet. Inside was dark. Further in, she could see a light angling into the darkness.

‘Frank!' she called out. She waited, looked down on the alley. It was empty. She called out again. Bach, she thought. She wasn't an expert, but it sounded more controlled and less sweeping than she remembered of Beethoven, not sentimental in the way Tchaikovsky is, or Mozart . . . what was she thinking? What did she know? What did it matter? She called out one last time as she opened the door and edged in, moving in the near darkness to the sharp-edged shaft of light that came through the door from the next room and on to the floor.

She moved slowly, alertly, ready to retreat quickly if need be. She pushed against the door to the lit room, but it didn't budge. She poked her head through the gap and saw Frank Wiley sprawled on the floor, his head in a pool of blood. She backed away. She would leave and call 911. She turned, went toward the door, lifting her cellphone from her jacket pocket. She may be in trouble, she thought. More light. Sudden light. She was in trouble. She turned, saw a human advancing quickly, too quickly. She saw even more light, illuminating the inside of her cranium for a split second before everything went suddenly and profoundly dark.