Muller, Marcia - [McCone 02] - Ask the Cards a Question 3S(v1)(html) (24 page)

I yawned again.

“Circle Wharf and Warehouse also recently lost fifty-one bags of Colombian coffee worth twenty thousand dollars. That much for only fifty-one bags! No wonder it’s so expensive. Corned beef is another item that’s pilfered a lot. I wonder why…” He paused, frowning at me. “Am I keeping you up?”

“As a matter of fact, I wonder if I could sleep on the couch tonight?”

He grinned. “Sorry. I do have a tendency to ramble on into the wee hours. I’ll get you some blankets.”

I cleared the coffee mugs and, when Hank delivered the bedding, curled up on the long leather sofa in the combination living-and-waiting room. My head still spun. It definitely must be the brandy, I decided, as I fell into a deep sleep.

I awakened the next morning to a big brown eye staring unblinkingly into mine. Soft little breaths tickled my face.

A voice spoke in Chinese, and the eye disappeared. I jerked upright and saw a small girl scamper across the room to where her mother sat knitting. She scolded the child and pulled her into the chair beside her.

I shrank back down and looked at my watch. Almost ten o’clock. What were they doing, letting me oversleep in the waiting room with the clients!

Hastily, I got up and gathered the blankets. “Rough night—busy litigating,” I muttered as I backed out the door.

Halfway down the hall, I bumped into Hank. He had my bag and jacket in hand. “Here, take these. Give me those blankets,” he commanded.

“What? What’s…”

“Greg’s out front. Ted’s stalling him. You’d better get out of here, if you don’t want to wind up your investigation in a cell.”

“Oh, Lord! Thanks. I…”

“Go!”

I crashed through the waiting room and the kitchen to the service porch. As I went out the back gate and climbed the hill, I wondered what the client with the little girl had thought. If she’d been there before, she was probably used to all sorts of strange behavior.

The stone steps were slippery with fine, gray rain, a rarity for the month of June. When I reached my MG, I ran the defroster for a few minutes. My face looked pasty in the rear-view mirror, and my hair was tangled and snarled. I brushed it, which helped some. I could still do with a toothbrush, a bath, and a change of clothes. A couple of aspirin wouldn’t hurt either.

So Greg was anxious to locate me. That meant he probably had a man on my apartment. The last thing I needed this morning was to unravel my complicated discovery for Greg, and lose time explaining why I’d fled the scene of a crime, an offense for which I could lose my license. The only way out of this jam was to find the killer and present him to Greg like a box of See’s candy.

I drove to Guerrero Street, cursing the wiper blades that never got the windshield clear. Sure enough, a vehicle with the unmistakable aura of unmarked cop car stood at my curb. Head averted, I went on to the intersection.

The Superette was a hive of activity. Trucks from the Produce Terminal, the bakeries and the grocery wholesalers double parked, unloading crates onto the wet sidewalk. Mr. Moe scurried about, dragging them in from the rain. The grocer looked none the worse for his late-night mission.

When the light changed, I turned left, toward the alley behind my building. The apartments were built on two levels, with a three-car garage at the rear. I glanced up at my window, over the garage. The draperies were tightly drawn. No one who resembled a cop lurked in the alley.

I pulled the MG behind the trash bins and followed a narrow passageway to Tim O’Riley’s apartment at the front of the basement near the furnace room. Tapping on his door, I glanced around nervously. Tim answered right away.

“You!” he exclaimed, regarding me with censorious bloodshot eyes.

“Sssh!” I pushed past him. “Lock the door quick!”

Frowning, he did as I told him. “You’re in a whole peck of trouble, you know.”

“I know. Where’s the cop?”

“In the lobby. Jesus, this place is practically turning into a branch of the morgue. You really kill her?”

“Of course not! They just want to ask me some questions.”

Tim looked dubious. “You know something?”

“They think I do.”

“How come your boyfriend isn’t sticking up for you? He’s a cop.”

Greg wouldn’t stick up for me, not after what I’d done. He’d be more likely to start proceedings to yank my license. I ignored Tim’s question and glanced around the apartment. It was smaller than mine, with pale-green cinderblock walls. Tim had decorated with bullfight posters and those hideous paintings on velvet that were the pride of any Mexican border town. On every surface stood souvenirs of his yearly fishing trips to Mexico—mostly ashtrays lifted from cheap motels.

In a moment, Tim flung out his arms resignedly. “Since you’re here, you want a brew?”

“I don’t think so, not this early. Do you have any coffee?”

“Never touch the stuff, but I think there’s some instant. Myself, I’m having a beer. Might as well start the day right.”

From his breath, he already had.

I sat down on a rattan chair. When Tim came back, I asked, “What are your chances of going up to my place and getting me a change of clothes?”

“Zilch. That cop would catch on in a flash if I was to stroll through the lobby with an armful of ladies’ duds.”

“True.” I stirred my coffee. “Have you seen Linnea this morning?”

“Nope. She must be sleeping it off. She was really stinko last night when your boyfriend talked to her. Was downright nasty to him, as a matter of fact.”

“She’s got reason to be.” I recalled Linnea’s account of her previous meeting with Greg. “Well, I guess I’m stuck with these clothes. Do you think I could wash up?”

There was a knock at the door.

Tim and I stared wide-eyed at one another.

“In the closet,” he whispered, yanking me up and pushing me toward a curtained-off alcove.

I leaped in there and stood, wrapped in the embrace of Tim’s only suit.

“Yeah? Who is it?” Tim unlocked the door.

“Me, Gus.”

“Come on in. Some commotion around here, huh?”

“I’ll say.”

“What’s up?”

“I want to give you something toward next month’s rent.”

“The rent? I thought you was gonna give the place up.”

“Nope.” There was a note of pride in his declaration. “I’m staying. I got me a roommate.”

“And who might that be?”

“Sebastian, the brush man. He’s decided to leave the Blind Center and put in with me.”

Tim grunted. “You sure you can afford it?”

“Sure I can!” Gus said indignantly. “I’ve got plenty of money.”

“Okay, then give me some.”

“Will fifty hold it until I get the rest?”

“Sure, I’m easy. Let me give you a receipt.”

I risked a look through the curtain. Tim rummaged on his cluttered formica table for a receipt book. Gus wandered around the room, reading the inscriptions on the ashtrays.

“Raining like a bastard out there,” he commented. “This is the strangest June we’ve ever had. I got to go over to the Superette in it and get some TV dinners so they’ll be defrosted by lunch time.”

I suppressed a snort of laughter. Sebastian had been right: Someone would have to teach Gus to cook.

Apparently Tim wasn’t much of a hand in the kitchen, either. He merely said, “Getting all settled up there, huh?”

“Sure am. It’s a nice place. I never appreciated it when I lived there with Molly. By the way, the funeral’s tomorrow. You coming?”

“You bet.”

“I hope the rain quits. Folks won’t want to drive all the way to Colma if it doesn’t.” Colma was the necropolis south of the city.

“Of course they will,” Tim said, writing laboriously. “Molly had lots of friends.”

“Yeah, she did.” There was a note of woe in Gus’s voice that could have been either for Molly or for his own relatively friendless state. He sidled across the room, glancing over his shoulder at Tim, who had his back turned.

Gus stopped in front of a bookcase by the door. With a final glance at Tim, he reached out and grabbed the nearest ashtray. Quickly, he stuffed it in his jacket pocket.

This time I had to suppress a gasp.

Tim turned. “There you go.” He extended the receipt. “See you pay up on time every month—and no wild parties, you hear?” He laughed boisterously.

Gus departed, giggling.

I stepped out of the closet. “Well, that’s a surprise. The last I heard, both he and Sebastian were broke.”

“Beats me where they’re getting it from. And the two of them as roommates—I bet Molly would’ve had a fit.”

“Why?”

“Molly didn’t approve of anything Gus did, unless she told him to do it first.”

“He’s developed an independent attitude rather rapidly.” A suspicion formed in my mind. “Tim, you’ve known both Gus and Molly a long time, right?”

“Since I first took over as manager here, about fifteen years ago. Of course, they lived together back then.”

“Then you must remember when she threw him out.”

“I sure do. She rented him that room up the hill and moved him lock, stock and barrel. At first he put up an awful howl, camped out on the front steps for a couple of nights. But once he got settled in up there, he seemed to like it.”

“Do you know why she threw him out?”

Tim swigged beer and belched. “Sure. She couldn’t take any more.”

“Any more what?”

“You don’t know?”

“No. Tell me!”

“Gus is a kleptomaniac—one of those folks who steals things and can’t help it.”

Of course. He had to be.

“Believe me,” Tim went on, “it was hard on Molly all those years while she worked at Knudsen’s. He’d come in to see her and steal stuff. A couple of times he got caught. She covered up for him and paid them back for the stuff he took. I guess it got to her, though, when she retired and had to be around him all the time. Anyway, she finally lost her temper and gave him the old heave-ho.”

I remembered Sebastian asking Gus if he’d taken some brushes off his parka. And Gus’s feigned innocence. It was disturbing.

“What’s wrong?” Tim asked. “He steal something from you?”

“He may very well have. He did from you.”

“Oh, yeah?” He glanced around suspiciously.

“Yes. Next time you see him, you should ask him for your ashtray from the Ensenada Inn.”

“Well, I’ll be darned. I’ll be darned.”

When I had washed up and gotten ready to leave, Tim was still shaking his head and looking anxiously at his beloved ashtrays.

There were no police cars, unmarked or otherwise, at the Blind Center. That could mean they had already picked up Neverman for questioning in his wife’s death. On the other hand, they might not be aware that this was his temporary abode. Either way, I was fairly sure I wouldn’t run into him here.

I hurried down the path to the church, keeping close to the shrubbery. The basement was cold and damp, and Neverman’s room was deserted. I went in and inspected the butts in the ashtray. They smelled long dead. The bag on the floor felt clammy and unslept-in. Neverman probably hadn’t come home last night.

To get a better feel for my prime suspect, I thumbed through the books on the crate. They were from the public library: a thick pictorial on the works of Paul Gauguin, a biography of the same artist, and several travel books on Tahiti. I opened the pictorial to a color plate. It was all there: the bold hues and graceful shapes which Neverman had tried to imitate in his dreadful mural.

Everyone, I thought, had his dream, however improbable. Did Neverman imagine an arty idyll on a tropic beach, bought and paid for with the proceeds of ripped-off gloves and shoelaces? And Clemente—did he see fencing as a way to escape this bureaucratic dumping ground of the maimed and the flawed, where red tape and denials of grants brought frustration and failure?

I shut the book.

The storeroom down the hall was crammed with cartons bearing the names of cosmetics manufacturers, apparel houses, and electronics firms. I found transistor radios and calculators, power tools and paint brushes, cashmere sweaters and crepe pans. I pawed through several cartons of stereo components, a stack of individually packed electric crock pots, and boxes of costume jewelry. All of it undoubtedly was stolen, but Clemente undoubtedly had bogus receipts to deny the fact. Although I stood in a treasure trove of hot merchandise, I might never be able to prove it.

A padlocked door at the back of the room must lead to more loot. I took out my collection of keys and tried the smaller ones in the lock. After a few minutes, it yielded.

The room was wall-to-wall wooden crates. I forced the lid on one and looked inside.

Fat green bottles with red seals. The distinctive packaging of Tanqueray gin. I lifted one and almost dropped it, as Mr. Moe had last night.

This gin had to be part of the two forty-foot container-loads stolen last week from Circle Wharf and Warehouse. It would retail at around four hundred and sixty thousand dollars. Clemente, Neverman, and Mr. Moe would have invested a maximum of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the goods—the one-third of retail value that thieves customarily demanded but seldom got. No matter who they unloaded this gin to, they could easily double that investment.

I stared at the green bottle, pondering Mr. Moe’s role in all this.

A good drop for stolen goods was a place where many trucks unloaded cargo. A thief could offload his merchandise, then leave. The fence would be nearby in another truck. If no one resembling the law displayed interest in the hot goods, the fence would merely drive up and take it away to a permanent drop. The temporary drop—on the sidewalk—minimized the contact between thief and fence, thus safeguarding against arrest.

Who would notice if some of the goods delivered to the Albatross Superette were not standard grocery items? And who would pay attention when the Blind Center truck picked them up? And why would anyone become curious about trucks that came and went at the Center, which most likely bought its materials and groceries wholesale?

But how did they expect to move two containerloads of the gin through the little Superette? The thieves at the old ironworks at India Basin would be edgy and demand speed of the operation. Were there other drops in other grocery stores throughout the neighborhood? Was that why the Blind Center van traveled about the Mission District with such regularity, even though Sebastian was the one who actually restocked the racks?

Maybe I’d stumbled onto a network of temporary drops.

The thought was intriguing.

I set down the gin bottle and took out my notebook, where I copied the marks that were stamped on the crates: “Sales Liquor Distributors, Oakland, P.O. 7786-52-B.” It didn’t mean much right now, but it would come in handy later. I relocked the room and crept down the hall to the side door. Opening it a crack, I peeked out in time to see Clemente bustle by. I followed at a distance and watched him climb into a cab on Twenty-fourth Street. It pulled away, but was halted by the traffic light. I rushed to my car and started after it.

The cab took Army Street to the freeway. We cruised down the Bayshore, past Candlestick Park and the industrial flatlands of South San Francisco. At the airport, the cab took the off-ramp and swept through the endless construction zone to the departure area of the central terminal.

Clemente was taking a sudden trip, without a suitcase.

I found a parking space in a twenty-minute green zone. If I followed Clemente all the way onto his flight, I would get a hell of a ticket. Still, it would be worth the fine: What better place to interrogate a suspect than at thirty thousand feet, where he couldn’t get up and walk out on me?

Clemente left the PSA ticket counter when I entered the terminal. PSA ran commuter flights up and down the West Coast, with frequent service to Los Angeles. I followed Clemente to the concourse, hanging back until he completed the security check. As I passed through the metal detector, I saw him disappear down the ramp to where the LA flights departed. I snatched my purse from the security man and raced to the gate. Clemente entered the boarding chute to the plane.

Commuter flights did not normally require reservations. “Can I buy a ticket for LA here at the gate?” I asked the attendant, checkbook already out.

“You’ll have to purchase it at the desk, up the ramp and to your left.”

“Thanks.”

I ran up and joined the line of LA-bound passengers. It moved slowly, and the clock showed four minutes to departure time.

“Will we make it?” the woman in front of me asked the ticket agent.

“Don’t worry.” He glanced at the line and spoke into an intercom. “We’ve got five more passengers up here.”

“Okay, we’ll wait,” a voice replied.

I made out my check and presented it as soon as I reached the desk. The agent slowly wrote up a ticket.

“I need two pieces of identification, a driver’s license and a credit card.”

Why hadn’t I had enough cash on me? “I don’t have any credit cards. I quit using them.”

The agent looked at me as if I were demented. “Not even a gas card?”

“Oh. Gas card. Yes.” I pulled it out. “Are you sure I’ll make it?”

He switched on the intercom again. “We’ve got one more lady up here, Bill.”

“Okay. We’re holding.”

Slowly, the agent recorded numbers from my license and credit card onto the check. When he finished, I grabbed them and thrust them into my bag. He held onto the ticket while he punched more numbers into a machine. Apparently my check was acceptable, because he noted a code on it and handed me the ticket.

“Have a nice flight.”

“Thanks.” I tore down the ramp.

“Going to LA? Hurry up.” The attendant ripped off a section of my ticket and waved me through the gate.

I raced along the boarding chute. A second attendant stood at its end, silhouetted against the runway. The plane had pulled away.

“The ticket agent called down to the gate!” I wailed. “He said they’d hold it!”

The man looked unconcerned. “Sorry, lady. He may have told the gate, but the gate didn’t tell the plane. There’s another flight in fifty-five minutes.”

I could have sat down and cried. Or kicked him. Or screamed at the ticket agent. But, remembering my mother’s teachings on good conduct in public places, I did none of those things. I merely turned in my ticket, haughtily refusing their offer of a later flight.

“But, ma’am, this ticket is good for an entire year.”

“Forget it. I’ll never attempt to fly your goddamn airline again.”