The First Law (9 page)

Cuneo’s fingers started moving again. The
William Tell
Overture—ta da dum, ta da dum, ta da dum dum dum. “So you think Holiday’s the shooter?”

“I’m saying you might save yourselves some trouble if you talk to him first. If you can find him sober.” He sipped some coffee. “My brother Roy is working up in Thirty-two now. Maybe he could help you.”

“You keep wanting to help us,” Cuneo said.

If Cuneo was trying to get some kind of rise out of Panos, he wasn’t successful. The Patrol Special took no offense, turned his palms up. “I liked Sam Silverman, Inspector. I liked him a lot. If I’ve got resources that might help you find his killer, I’m just telling you you’re welcome to them. If you’re not so inclined, of course that’s your decision.”

“What’s your brother do,” Russell asked, “that he might help us?”

“Roy? He’s an assistant patroller, same as Mr. Creed last night. He works the beat. He’ll know the players.”

“In the game, you mean?” Russell asked.

“That, too,” Panos said. “But I was talking more generally. The connections.”

“Always Thirty-two?”

Panos nodded at Cuneo. “Mostly. He likes the action downtown.” A shrug. “He might be able to save you some trouble, that’s all. He’ll know where you can find Holiday anyway, without a bunch of running around.”

Cuneo flicked at the player list. “Why him? Holiday. Other than the old pharmacy beef.”

“He lost six thousand dollars at Sam’s the night before.”

The number jerked Russell’s head up. “Six
thousand
?”

“That’s the number Nick gave me.”

Cuneo whistled. “He came to this game with six grand in his pocket?”

Russell was on the same page. “Where’d he get that kind of money?”

“He owns a bar, the Ark.” He pointed northward. “Again, up in Thirty-two. A real dump, but they must move some booze. Whatever it was, he had the money on Wednesday, and lost it all.”

“I know the Ark,” Cuneo said. “Maybe your brother could meet us outside, give us what he can. Say a half hour?”

“I’ll call him right away,” Panos said. “Set it up.”

“Six grand?” Russell asked again.

“Yeah, well,” Panos said. “The point is he’d be motivated to get it back. Wouldn’t you think?”

They were driving back downtown through the dark drizzle. Cuneo was forcing air rapidly back and forth through the gap in his front teeth, keeping a rhythm, tapping the steering wheel to the same beat. After ten blocks of this, Russell finally had to say something. “You ever get tested for like hyperactivity or anything, Dan?”

His partner looked over. “No. Why?”

“Because maybe you don’t know it, but you never stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Making noise. Humming songs, keeping a beat, whatever.”

“I do?” A pause. “Are you kidding me?”

“No. You do. Like right now, you were doing this.” Russell showed him. “And hitting the steering wheel to the same beat.”

“I was? I was just thinking about these poker guys.”

“And last night it was ‘Volare.’ And back in the office just now with Panos, you were doing the
Lone Ranger
or
Bonanza
or something with your fingers.” Russell played the beat on the dashboard. “I mean, I don’t want to complain, but you’ve always got something going and I just wondered if it was something you could control.”

Cuneo accelerated through an intersection. He looked across at his partner. “All the time?”

Russell considered. “Pretty much.”

Cuneo made a face.

“I think, as you say, it’s mostly when your mind’s on something else,” Russell said. “When it’s just you and me it’s one thing. But around witnesses . . .”

“Yeah, I hear you.” They drove on another few blocks in silence. Finally, Cuneo turned in his seat again. “Maybe we could get some signal, where you tell me when I’m doing it. You pull at your ear or something.”

“I could do that.”

“And when it’s you and me alone, just tell me.”

“I don’t want to be on your case all the time.”

“Hey, be on my case. You’re doing me a favor.”

“Well, we’ll see.”

They had gone a few more blocks and were stuck in rain-soaked Friday rush hour gridlock a couple of blocks south of Market when Russell spoke again. “Dan. You’re doing it again. ‘California Girls.” ’

Clint Terry knew trouble when he saw it, and this time he recognized it right away. Roy Panos, all by himself, was usually good for some kind of problem, and tonight he had reinforcements. Cops, without a doubt, the smell all over them. Cops were always trouble.

In the bar’s mirror, he saw them enter, stop in the doorway, look the room over. They stayed by the front for a moment, talking. Checking out the place, the one good window with its view of the Parisian Touch massage parlor across the street. Plywood over the other one. The stools were bolted to the floor. The bar was pitted and overlacquered.

Clint Terry went about six feet four, 280. He had been almost famous once as a young man, when his life had breathed with great promise. An All-American linebacker at Michigan State, he then had gone on to play half a season with the Packers before a couple of guys had clipped him, one from each side, and had broken all three major bones in his right leg, which Bob Costas on national TV had conceded was a damn good trick. They still replayed the tape of his last moment in pro ball a couple of times a year, on shows with titles like “Football’s Ugliest Moments.”

By the time he was twenty-four, his football career over, he came out to the left coast, where nobody knew him, to explore his sexuality. He’d heard there was more tolerance for alternative lifestyles in San Francisco than anywhere else, and that turned out to be true. To support himself, he got a job as a bouncer at the Condor, a strip club in North Beach. For almost three years he did okay, until in a misplaced burst of enthusiasm he bounced one tourist too hard and got charged with manslaughter.

Now, thirty years old and a convicted felon, he’d served his four years at Folsom. He’d had sixteen months to get reaccustomed to living outside of prison walls, and he liked it way better than in. He had a partner he loved, and didn’t need much more. This bartending gig was about as good as he thought it was ever going to get, and he didn’t want to lose it.

The cops finally made it to an open spot at the rail.

Terry swiped at the bar with his towel, threw down some coasters. As always, when he spoke to law officers, his stomach fluttered high up under his ribs, but he ignored that as best he could and offered up a smile. “Hey, Roy. Help you gentlemen?”

The badges, the flat no-nonsense faces, one black and one white. Homicide inspectors. Then the black guy saying, “We’re looking for John Holiday. You know where he is?”

“No, sir. I haven’t seen him. He hasn’t been in today.”

“When’s the last time you saw him?” the white guy asked. He’d picked up his coaster, holding it in one hand and flicking it with the fingers of the other.

“Yesterday, I think. He opened up. What’s this about?”

Roy Panos moved forward, put his elbows on the bar. “Let’s see if you can guess, Clint. We’ll make it a quiz. What do you think homicide inspectors would be interested in?”

Terry wiped his hands on his towel, shifted his eyes up and down the bar. He had maybe a dozen drinkers for the twenty stools, and none of them looked ready for a refill.

“You nervous, Clint?” The white guy again, still flicking the damn coaster. He seemed pretty high-strung, maybe nervous himself.

“No.” He wiped his bar rag across the gutter. “It’s just I’m working . . .”

“That was the other thing,” the black guy said. “We were hoping you could give us a minute, maybe go to the office. You got a room in the back here I assume?”

“Yeah, but as I said.” He motioned ambiguously around him. “I mean, look.”

The white guy sighed heavily and finally put the coaster back down. “So you won’t talk to us?”

Terry wasn’t too successful keeping the fear and worry out of his voice. “I’m not saying that. I’m talking to you right now. Tell me what it is you want to know.”

“He wants to help, Dan,” the black cop said. “We can tell his parole officer he wants to cooperate.”

“That’s an intelligent response,” the cop named Dan replied in a cheery and suddenly frightening tone. “And especially coming from an ex-convict. It gives me confidence that the prisons are doing a good job after all.” His eyes never left his partner. “Ask him where he was last night.”

“Last night? I was here. The whole night, six to two.”

“And I didn’t even ask him yet,” the black guy said. “See? He’s just volunteering everything. Mr. Cooperation.”

“Yeah,” Dan said, “but you notice he happened to know what hours we’d be asking about?” He came back to Terry. “What about that, Clint?”

“I don’t know what you’re saying. You asked where I was last night and I told you. I was here.”

“So then you couldn’t have been up at Silverman’s pawnshop?” Dan flashed some teeth at him. “Did you hear about that?”

Terry felt sweat breaking on his forehead. “Yeah. Sure. But I heard that was like a gang.”

“No. Just three guys,” Dan smiled across at him. “But let me get this straight. You didn’t know what we wanted to talk about when we came in here tonight. Even hearing we were from homicide? But you knew about Silverman?”

“I just didn’t put that together,” Terry said. “And that couldn’t have been John.” He shook his head, wiped down the gutter again. “John wouldn’t have done anything like that.”

“That would be the same John Holiday who got arrested last year?” Dan asked.

“That was different,” Terry said. “And he got off on that. Besides, that wasn’t violent. John wouldn’t do anything violent.”

“Actually,” the black cop said, “it’s interesting you brought up Holiday again and mentioned violence, because as it turns out we don’t think he was the shooter. He just thought up the idea, is what we hear. Kind of like a white-collar idea that went south.”

“Yeah,” Dan agreed, jumping right in, giving Terry no time to process this stuff as it came out. “In fact, our best witness was one of Roy’s partners here, walking his beat last night. What’s his name again, Roy?”

Panos appeared to be enjoying every minute. “Matt Creed. You remember Matt, don’t you, Clint?”

He nodded.

“This place used to be one of the beat’s clients,” Roy explained.

Dan nodded, apparently fascinated with the history lesson. “Well,” he said, “Matt says no question it was the big guy of the three who shot Silverman. He was the last one out, the big guy. Big like a football player.”

Terry put his hands on the gutter for support. His legs were going to give out under him. “I was here,” he said.

“I
love
a consistent story,” Dan announced happily to his two companions. “He’s said the same thing three times now, you guys notice that? No deviation at all. Always a sign a guy’s telling the truth.” Suddenly, he started whistling the theme song from
Bridge on the River Kwai.
He stopped in midphrase. “Who worked till six?”

One of the customers slammed his glass down on the bar. “Bartend! You sleepin’ down there? I need another drink!”

Terry worked the orders for the next few minutes, finally made it back to where the cops sat. They hadn’t budged.

“You know, on second thought, I could use a glass of water,” Dan said. Then, as Terry was filling it. “So who worked till six last night?”

“Didn’t I say that? I told you John opened up.”

“So he was here with you when you changed shifts?”

“For a few minutes, yeah. But he had a date.”

“A date? With who?”

“I don’t know. You’ve got to ask him that.”

“I will when I meet him.” Dan drank some water, did another bar or two of
River Kwai.
He’d taken over the interview now, moved it into high gear. “So was Randy here, too?”

Terry gave Roy a bad look. “What did
he
tell you?”

“Nothing. Just that you and Randy were an item. You’re together a lot.”

“That’s right.”

“You seem a little defensive.”

“I’m not defensive. Randy’s got nothing to do with this.”

“With what?”

“What we’re talking about here. Silverman.”

“I didn’t say anything about Silverman. I asked if Randy was here last night.”

“He’s got nothing to do with it.”

“As opposed to you and Holiday?”

“No. I didn’t mean that.” Terry ran his whole hand through his hair. “But listen, whatever . . . it’s not Randy.”

“But he
was
here?” Again, the young white guy came quickly forward, pouncing. “Don’t be dumb, Clint. If he was here, he’s your alibi. Think about it.”

“I already told you he was here.”

“As a matter of fact, no you didn’t. But now you do say he was?”

Terry nodded. “We were alone here after John left for, I don’t know, an hour or two. It was a slow night.”

As quickly as he’d come forward, Dan leaned back, smiled triumphantly, spread his arms out. “There! Beautiful! That’s all we wanted. You, Randy and Holiday here together at six o’clock last night. That wasn’t so hard, now, was it?”

“He lives with you, doesn’t he? Randy?” The black cop got back in the game. “Is he there now, do you know? Maybe you could give us the address?”

When they came out of the Ark, the two inspectors stopped and stood on the sidewalk in front of the place. Roy Panos had gone to the bathroom, and they were waiting for him to finish up and come outside. “I like this guy Roy,” Cuneo said. “His brother was right. He knows the players.”

Russell cocked his head back toward the bar. “You think Terry was part of it?”

“I’ll tell you one thing—Roy thinks he was.”

“That would be pretty easy, wouldn’t it? The first guy we talk to?”

Cuneo shrugged. “I’ve heard it happens.”

“Not to us generally.”

A grin. “Maybe not yet. First time for everything, right?” The bar door swung open. “Hey, Roy, that went pretty well. Thanks.”

“My pleasure. I’ve got to tell you, it was awesome watching you guys work. Another minute, he would have been crying.”