The Rackham Files (3 page)

"Santa Clara County Jail is on Hedding, less than a mile from here. We'll be back before you know it," Quent soothed, still seated, giving me time to evaporate.

I saw the bail-jumper watching me in a window reflection, but I gave him no reason to jump. I would soon learn he was just naturally jumpy, pun intended. Can't say it was really that long a fight, though. I pushed through the door and into the San Jose night, realizing we could jam Rooney in it if he tried to run out. And have him start shooting through heavy glass partitions, maybe; sometimes my first impulses are subject to modest criticism.

Outside near the entrance, melding with evening shadow, I listened to the buzz and snap of Joe's old neon sign. I could still see our quarry, and now Quent was strolling behind diners at the counter, apparently intent on watching the chef toss a blazing skilletful of mushrooms. Quent reached inside his coat; brought out a folded paper, his face innocent of stress. Then he said something to the seated Rooney.

Rooney turned only his head, very slowly, nodded, shrugged, and let his stool swivel to face Quent. He grinned.

It's not easy to get leverage with only your buns against a low seat back, but Rooney managed it, lashing both feet out to Quent's legs, his arms windmilling as he bulled past my pal. I heard a shout, then a clamor of voices as Quent staggered against a woman seated at the nearest table. I stepped farther out of sight as Bobby Rooney hurled himself against the inertia of that big revolving door.

He used both hands, and he was sturdier than he had looked, bursting outside an arm's length from me. Exactly an arm's length, because without moving my feet, just as one Irishman to another I clotheslined him under the chin. He went down absolutely horizontal, his head making a nice bonk on the sidewalk, and if he'd had any brains they would've rattled like castanets. He didn't even pause, bringing up both legs, then doing a gymnast's kick so that he was suddenly on his feet in a squat, one arm flailing at me. The other hand snaked into his jacket pocket before I could close on him.

What came out of his right-hand pocket was very small, but it had twin barrels on one end and as he leaped up, Rooney's arm swung toward me. Meanwhile I'd taken two steps forward, and I snatched at his wrist. I caught only his sleeve, but when I heaved upward on it, his hand and the little derringer pocketgun disappeared into the sleeve. A derringer is double-barreled, the barrel's so short its muzzle blast is considerable, and confined in that sleeve it flash-burnt his hand while muffling the sound. The slug headed skyward. Bobby Rooney headed down San Carlos Avenue, hopping along crabwise because I had held on to that sleeve long enough that when he jerked away, his elbow was caught halfway out.

I'm not much of a distance runner, but for fifty meters I can move out at what I imagined was a brisk pace. Why Bobby didn't just stop and fire point-blank through that sleeve I don't know; I kept waiting for it, and one thing I never learned to do was make myself a small target. Half a block later he was still flailing his arm to dislodge the sleeve, and I was still three long steps behind, and that's when a conservative dress suit passed me. Quentin Kim was wearing it at the time, outpacing me despite that limp. He simply spun Bobby Rooney down, standing on his jacket which pinned him down on his back at the mouth of an alley.

I grabbed a handful of blond curls, knelt on Bobby's right sleeve because his gun hand was still in it, and made the back of his head tap the sidewalk. "Harder every time," I said, blowing like a whale. "How many times—before you relax?" Another tap. "Take your time. I can do this—for hours."

As quickly as Bobby Rooney had decided to fight, he reconsidered, his whole body going limp, eyes closed.

"Get that little shooter—out of his sleeve," I said to Quent, who wasn't even winded but rubbed his upper thigh, muttering to himself.

Quent took the derringer, flicked his key-ring Maglite, then brought that wrinkled paper out of his inside coat pocket and shook it open. "Robert Rooney," he intoned.

Still holding on to Rooney's hair, I gazed up. "What the hell? Is this some kind of new Miranda bullshit, Quent?"

"No, it's not required. It's just something I do that clarifies a relationship."

"Relationship? This isn't a relationship, this is a war."

"Not mutually exclusive. You've never been married, have you," Quent said. He began again: "Robert Rooney, acting as agent for the hereafter-named person putting up bail . . ."

I squatted there until Quent had finished explaining that Rooney was, by God, the property of the bondsman named and could be pursued even into his own toilet without a warrant, and that his physical condition upon delivery to the appropriate county jail depended entirely on his temperament. When Quent was done I said, "He may not even hear you."

"He probably does, but it doesn't matter. I hear me," Quent said mildly. A bounty hunter with liberal scruples was one for the books, but I guess Quent wrote his own book.

"How far is your car?"

"Two blocks. Here," Quent said, and handed me the derringer with one unfired chamber. I knew what he said next was for Rooney's ears more than mine. "You can shoot him, just try not to kill him right away. That's only if he tries to run again."

"If he does," I said, "I'll still have his scalp for an elephant's merkin."

Quent laughed as he hurried away, not even limping. "Now there's an image I won't visit twice," he said.

Twenty minutes later we returned from the county lockup with a receipt, and to this day I don't know what Bobby Rooney's voice sounds like. The reason why those kicks hadn't ruined Quent's legs was that, under his suit pants, my pal wore soccer pro FlexArmor over his knees and shins for bounty hunting. He'd suggested Original Joe's to Dana because, among other good reasons, Rooney's ex-girlfriend claimed he hung out there a lot. Since Rooney was dumb as an ax handle, Quent figured the chances of a connection were good. He could combine business with pleasure, and show a pair of Feds how efficient we were. Matter of fact, I was so efficient I wound up with a derringer in my pocket. Fortunes of war, not that I was going to brag about it to the Feds.

Dana and Reuben Medler were still holding down the booth when we returned, Medler half-resigned, half-amused. Dana was neither. "I hope your victim got away," she said. If she'd been a cat, her fur would've been standing on end.

Quent flashed our receipt for Rooney's delivery and eased into the booth. "A simple commercial transaction, Agent Martin," he said, ignoring her hostility. "My apologies."

She wasn't quite satisfied. "Can I expect this to happen again?"

"Not tonight," Quent said equably.

It must've been that smile of his that disarmed her because Dana subsided over coffee and dessert. When it became clear that Quent would take the San Francisco side—it has a sizable Korean population—while I worked the Oakland side of the bay, Reuben Medler told me where I'd find the
Ras Ormara
, moored on the edge of Richmond near a gaggle of chemical production facilities.

Eventually Dana handed Quent a list of the crew with temporary addresses for the few who went ashore. "Sonmiani's California rep keeps tabs on their crews," she explained. "I got this from Customs."

Medler put in, "Customs has a standard excuse for wanting the documentation; cargo manifest, tonnage certificate, stowage plan, and other records."

"But not you," I said to Dana.

She shook her head. "Even if we did, the Bureau wouldn't step forward to Sonmiani. We leave that to you, although Sonmiani's man in Oakland, ah, Norman Goldman by name, has a clean sheet and appears to be clean. We feel direct contacts of that sort should be made as—what did you call it, Quentin? A simple commercial transaction. Civilians like to talk. If Goldman happened to mention us to the wrong person, the ship's captain for example, someone might abort whatever they're up to. If they see you rooting around, they'll assume it's just part of a routine private investigation."

Maybe I was still pissed that our teen mascot had become our boss. "Implying sloth and incompetence," I murmured.

"You said it, not I," she replied sweetly. "At least Mr. Goldman seems well enough educated that he would never mistake you for an agent."

"You've run a check on him, then," said Quent.

"Of course. Majored in business at Michigan, early promotion, young man on the way up. And I suspect Sonmiani's Islamic crew members will watch their steps around a bright Jewish guy," she added, looking over the check.

Quent drained his teacup. "We'll try to keep it simple; Park Soon could show up tomorrow. Then we'll see whether we need to talk with this Goldman. Is that suitable?"

Quent asked with genuine deference, and Dana paused before she nodded. It struck me then that Quent was making a point of showing obedience to his boss. And his quick glance at me suggested that I might try it sometime.

I knew he was right, but it would have to be some other time. I shook hands again with Reuben Medler, exchanged cards with him, and turned to Dana. "Thanks for the feed. Maybe next time we can avoid a floor show."

She looked at Medler and shook her head, and I left without remarking that she had a lot of seasoning ahead of her.

It was Quent's suggestion that I case the location of the
Ras Ormara
itself, herself, whatever. Meanwhile he made initial inquiries across the bay alone in his natural camouflage, in the area everyone calls Chinatown though it was home to several Asiatic colonies. It was my idea to bring my StudyGirl to record a look at this shipshape ship we'd heard so much about, and Quent suggested I do it without making any personal contacts that required I.D.

StudyGirls were new then, cleverly named so that kids who wanted the spendy toys—meaning all kids—would have leverage with Dad and Mom. Even the early versions were pocket-sized and would take a two-inch
Britannica
floppy, but they would also put TV broadcasts on the rollout screen or play mini-CDs and action games, and make video recordings as well. It was already common practice to paint over the indicator lights so nobody knew when you were videorecording. I'll bet a few kids actually used them for schoolwork, too.

I took the freeway as far as Richmond, got off at Carlson Boulevard, and puzzled my way through the waterfront's industrial montage. Blank-fronted metal buildings with ramped loading docks meant warehousing of imports and exports, and somewhere in there were a few boxcarloads of Peruvian balsa logs. Composite panels of carbon fiber and balsa sandwich were much in demand at that time among builders of off-road racers for their light weight and stiffness. I enjoyed a moment of déjà future vu at the thought that I might be using some of the
Ras Ormara
's balsa for my project in a few months.

Unless my woolgathering got me squashed like a bug underfoot. I had to dodge thrumming diesel-electric rigs that outclamored the cries of gulls and ignored my pickup as unworthy of notice. Hey, they were making a buck, and this was their turf.

In a few blocks-long stretches, the warehouses gave way to fencing topped with razor wire, enforced isolation for the kind of small-time chemical processing plants that looked like brightly painted guts of the biggest dinosaurs ever. Now and then I could spot the distant San Rafael Bridge through the tanks, reactor vessels, piping, and catwalks that loomed like little skeletal skyscrapers, throwing early shadows across the street. You knew without a glance when you were passing warehouses because of the echoes and the sour, last-week's-fast-food odor that drew those scavenging gulls. The chemical production plants no longer stank so much since the City of Richmond got serious about its air. And beyond all this at an isolated wharf, berthed next to a container ship like a racehorse beside a Clydesdale, the
Ras Ormara
gleamed in morning light. I wondered why a ship like that was called a "she" when it had such racy muscular lines, overlaid by spidery cargo cranes and punctuated by the gleam of glass. I pointedly focused on the nearby container vessel, walking past an untended gate onto the dock, avoiding flatbed trucks that galumphed in and out. I had my StudyGirl in hand for videotaping, neither flourishing nor hiding it. In semishorts, argyle socks, and short sleeves, I hoped I looked like a typical Midwestern tourist agog over, golly gee, these great big boats. If challenged I could always choose whether to brazen it out with my I.D.

I strolled back, paying casual attention to the
Ras Ormara
, listening to the sounds of engine-driven pressure washers and recording the logos on two trucks with hoses that snaked up and back to big tanks mounted behind the truck cabs. I could see men operating the chassis-mounted truck consoles, wearing headsets. Somehow I'd expected more noise and melodrama in cleaning the ship's big cargo tanks.

Words like "big" and "little" are inadequate where a cargo vessel, even one considered small, is concerned. I guess that's what numbers are for. The
Ras Ormara
was almost three hundred feet stem to stern, the length of a football field, and where bare metal showed it appeared to be stainless steel. All that cleaning was concentrated ahead of the ship's glassed bridge, where a half dozen metal domes, each five yards across, stood in ranks well above the deck level. Two rows of three each; and the truck hoses entered the domes through open access ports big enough to drop a truck tire through. Or a man. Welded ladders implied that men might do just that.

I suppose I could have climbed one of the gangways up to the ship's deck. It was tempting, but Quent had told me—couched as a suggestion—not to. It is simply amazing how obedient I can be to a boss who is not overbearing. I moseyed along, hoping I stayed mostly out of sight behind those servicing trucks without seeming to try. From an open window behind the
Ras Ormara
's bridge came faint strains of someone's music, probably from a CD. It sounded like hootchie-kootchie scored for three tambourines and a parrot, and I thought it might be Egyptian or some such.