The Hammett Hex (20 page)

Always eat when you get a chance.

—The Kelly Rules

I
DUCKED DOWN
alleys and up side streets, trying to stay in character while getting away from anyone who might have identified me. I did manage to pop up to the window of a tiny taco shop and pick up a bite to eat. Uncle Seamus's words echoed in my head, and whatever else I could say, Uncle Seamus and his—possibly mythical— advice were the only reason I was still alive. Of course. I hadn't thought about food during the drama at the hotel, but now it was almost all I could concentrate on. I got two extra tacos to bring with me, one was part of a planned “hostess gift.” There was method in my madness.

Of course, I couldn't go to Gram's. For one thing, there was a good chance the house was being watched. And if it wasn't being watched, I wasn't sure whom in that household I could trust, aside from Smiley. I needed a place to hide and a place to observe. I needed someone who wasn't involved at all and who could be trusted. I was pretty sure that my new friend Sierra would help me. The two extra tacos were part of my plan to seek refuge with her, claiming to
bring lunch, until I got things sorted out. I could easily eat another one.

I trudged up and along the street, looking and feeling like the exhausted maid. I reached Sierra's front door without seeing anyone too suspicious. I rang the doorbell and waited. And waited. Nothing. No one. I imagined her out on those endless walks with the child that never slept. Unless he was actually sleeping at that moment and I was going to wake him up. Oh well, it couldn't be helped. I rang yet again and knocked.

Nothing.

My new strategy was to find access to the rear of the building and find a way in. Sierra was friendly and even naïve. She'd most likely forgive me for getting in the back door given my life was in peril. Or maybe she wouldn't appreciate me bringing danger to her home. Still, I thought she'd enjoyed the sense of adventure I had brought to her life. Because surely she was bored.

As I trudged down Sierra's front steps, still in character, a plump woman who looked to be in her sixties called out to me in a sympathetic voice, “There's no one there, dear.”

“Yes, they are out. I will wait.” I'd adopted a vague and unidentifiable accent.

She raised her voice a bit and spoke slowly. “No. No. Nobody lives there.”

I blinked. “What?”

“The house is empty.”

“Empty?” I was so surprised that I thought for a minute that my accent had slipped.

“Yes. Unoccupied.”

“But I met the lady. She said she needs help. I must have another job and she said—”

She shook her head kindly. “You must have the houses mixed up. This one has been empty since the man who owned it died.”

“He died?”

I must have sounded panicked, because she chattered on soothingly, “Yes, Mr. Himmelfarb was ninety-five. He was a lovely man. It was sad, of course, but he'd been failing since Alice died five years ago. Alice was his wife. She was lovely too. You know they'd been in this house since 1962. Can you imagine? I miss them both very much.”

“But this woman, she was here yesterday. I saw her this morning.”

“Couldn't have been. The house is definitely empty.”

I glanced at the door where the number was clearly the right one. The same one that Sierra had dragged her stroller into to see her husband, Michael. Was I losing it? That was entirely possible, but no, the number was exactly as I'd seen it earlier.

I said, “Lady, I am not mistaken. It was a young woman. I am sure she lived there. There was a baby and a husband sleeping inside . . .”

My voice trailed off as I recalled yet another of Uncle Seamus's guidelines, something about making sure they believe what you want them to. After all, I had never actually seen the husband. He had just seemed very real and very tired with a baby up all night. Come to think of it, I'd never actually seen the baby that was at the root of all the young couple's supposed stress and fatigue. I'd never even heard him cry. I was trying to deceive this kind woman and here I'd been fooled myself.

She smiled again. “Probably it was one of the real estate ladies. They're very keen about getting the listing for the place.”

I said, “Okay, maybe that is it.”

“Did she want you to do some work for her?”

I blinked and realized that I looked pretty down at heel. “We were talking about it, but she had to leave. She was
very pretty. About this tall.” I indicated Sierra's height. “She had a ponytail with what do you say? Highlights? And she loved to run. Oh, and she had a baby stroller.”

My source shrugged. “She does sound like one of the real estate gals. One of them had a stroller with her. Not very professional if you ask me.”

“How long has she been coming to this—”

“Sorry, dear, but you'll have to excuse me. My taxi's here now. Oh, my name is Gloria Zeller. I live next door. Come and see me and give me your name next time. Some of my friends may have a few hours for you.” She eased herself into the cab and closed the door.

I watched her pull away and thought hard. Was this actually true? Or was the deceiver the woman who'd just let me down? The nightmarish aspect of this day continued on. I spoke to a man entering a house two doors down, but he knew nothing and no one and didn't want to know me either.

I trudged down the hill a bit until I found a side passage that might let me get to the back of the Himmelfarb house, without appearing to be heading for it. Sure enough, some furtive scurrying through backyards got me to the rear of the house. I didn't dare go back to Gram's place until I had a better idea of what was going on. I needed to think and I needed a quiet place to do that. Sierra's alleged house seemed as good a place as any. I glanced around to see if I was being observed and didn't spot anyone. I waved elaborately to a nonexistent neighbor. And did what I thought was a very good pantomime of a person being invited into a home and accepting. I try not to break and enter, I want to be clear about that. I'm quite serious about living an honest and honorable life, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. This was one of those times. In fact, this entire day had been a series of those times.

The security was nonexistent. My bank card was all it took to open the door. I made a big production of pretending to offer the bag from the taco shop to the nonexistent person on the inside and then stepped in, locking the door behind myself. You can never be too careful, as I kept finding out.

On the inside, the house had that empty and echoing quality of an uninhabited home. So far it looked like my source, Gloria Zeller, had been right. From the style of the cupboards, backsplash and counter tops, the kitchen had been renovated not long ago with dark traditional cupboards and materials and appliances that matched the fine quality of the old house. It was spotless and the fridge was empty. Yes, I checked. The cupboards were quite empty too, although there were still dishes, pots, pans and utensils to give a sense of life to the place, I figured. There was no sign of an elderly man who'd lived alone for a few years. All that remained was the faint odor of a pet, probably also long gone.

The clock on the fairly new stainless steel microwave was working. Nearly four p.m.

I walked through the dining room and toward the living room, hugging the walls and making sure I wasn't visible to anyone on the outside, not that many people in the area would care. I wasn't worried about the neighbors, but I didn't know whom I
was
worried about. Any respectable Hammett character would be taking no chances in this no-man's-land. This house was very nice and beautifully preserved with some stained glass windows and mahogany floors and crown moldings. Everything looked original, something I value. It was considerably smaller than Gram's rambling Victorian, so I figured I could check it out quickly enough.

I got down on all fours and scuttled over to the living room bay window with the lace curtains. Sure enough, there was a perfect view of Gram's house and anyone coming and going from it. Now I knew what Sierra had been doing here.
I just didn't know why she'd been doing it. It didn't look like I'd learn anything more about that either. Up close, there were no indications of anyone having been there. No stroller. No baby toys. Nothing.

I crawled backward to the hallway, turned and headed up the stairs. Upstairs, the front bedroom was a mirror of the living room with that matching bay window I'd admired. Still pressed against the walls, I edged over. For all I knew, someone in Gram's house (Zoya? Gus and his boys?) was in touch with Sierra and whomever Sierra was working with or for.

This bedroom was crowded with antique mahogany furniture. Normally, I'd be very impressed with the heavy sleigh bed, the massive dressers and the two bedside tables with serious scale. But not today. A solid leather club chair was positioned by the window, and to judge by the darker spot on the carpet, where it had obviously been for years, it had been relocated. What a cozy spot to watch Gram's house.

Apparently Himmelfarb had been liked, so perhaps he wouldn't have minded. I did have goose bumps by this point. Over by the window, I had an even better view of the goings-on at Gram's. From the gap in the curtain I watched as Smiley hurried up the street, took the stairs two at a time and opened the door. It looked as though Zoya did her best to stop him getting in, but that may have been my imagination. A minute later, I saw his shadow in the bay window of Gram's new room upstairs. The shorter shadow must have been Gram herself.

Our watchers had ringside seats for sure. I glanced down at the window ledge and spotted the first sign of the spies, two Starbucks cups, off to the left, behind the heavy drapes. I bent down and took a look at the cups. One had a smear of glossy pale coral lipstick, easily recognizable as Sierra's. The other had none. I'd never seen Sierra without full and glossy lip color. It was a safe bet that she had an accomplice,
or maybe she was the accomplice. It was pretty brazen as it seemed they had no business being in this house.

I hesitated. If I took the cups and stuffed them into the plastic bag for the tacos, I might have a way to get them to Officer Martinez. She could keep them as evidence. Although I knew from talking to Smiley that the chain of evidence would be broken if I, not the police, produced it. The cops are picky about these details. I stuffed them into the bag. I could always return them later if I came up with a good plan.

I was desperate to call Smiley, but I could not remember his new cell number. I'd been relying on my phone a bit too much. Technology's great except when it isn't.

Since other people hadn't been too careful, I took advantage of the quiet and comfort to eat my taco in peace. When I say eat, I mean wolf. I inhaled the first taco and then I gobbled the one I'd bought for Sierra too. I washed them down with a can of cola. I leaned back, feeling a bit better, and closed my eyes. I needed peace to try to figure out what to do next. Who was the enemy? Who was Sierra? Who was Michael? Was there a Michael? Was he one of the men at the hotel and in the home invasion? What did they want? How were they involved with me, with Gram, with Zoya, with Tyler? And why would Sierra have warned me about the home invasion? Had she wanted me to be caught by the masked men?

We'd come to San Francisco to have a wonderful vacation and it had turned into a nightmare. For all unknown reasons, I felt myself dragged down into a dangerous world that Hammett himself might have invented. Sure there weren't “down and outers” and people with known criminal connections and there were a limited number of dark alleys, but we'd found villains willing to knock out Zoya, to threaten Gram with guns, to pose as a police officer in front of Gram's house, to shoot up a hotel room, steal beloved dogs and take
serious chances chasing me across the ninth-floor balconies, and to spy on us from an unoccupied house across the street. Whatever their reasons, they must have been powerful. And worst of all, there appeared to be so many of them.

I figured I'd have more information when I had a chance to look at the cameras we'd hidden in the hotel suite, unless the police found them as they sealed off the room as a crime scene, assuming that they'd done that. To be fair, the entire hotel was in an uproar, and it would have been very hard for the authorities to figure out what exactly had gone down and in what order.

I leaned back in the club chair and closed my eyes. It will sound weird, but for the first time in days, I actually felt relaxed. This house had a serenity about it, despite the gloom and the fact that at least two deceitful people had been spying on us from it. I felt grateful to Mr. Himmelfarb. I wished that I'd known him.

Never mind, it felt good to let my body relax and my mind stop whirring. I yawned and gave myself a little shake. No time for napping. I may not have had places to go, people to see, things to do, but I did have a lot of thinking to catch up with.