by Seth Harwood
“It’s real nice,” she says.
Jack nods. “Did those guys last night say anything before they started shooting?”
“They said something to your friends, but it wasn’t English. Sounded different from that stuff they were spitting at The Coast the other night too.”
“Did anyone say anything back?”
Maxine shakes her head no. “But the guy you were supposed to trade with? He didn’t like it. He started calling them motherfuckers, saying he would kill their families.”
“Nice. So they shot him.”
“They shot his guy. The one who wanted to kill you.”
Jack laughs. “Right. Lots of that lately.”
“But that’s how it went. They were looking at the Czechs when they first walked in. Then the other guy spoke up.”
“You ever seen them before?”
“I feel like I have,” she says. “But I can’t say. Maybe they came into The Coast?”
“Think they know Tony?”
Maxine frowns. “I can’t say. Probably not, though. I don’t think they’re Tony’s kind of style. Too exciting, too—and I say this without any offense to your current bruises—too actually making something happen.”
“Right.” Jack’s not convinced that hanging with a few shooters is beyond Tony, but he leaves it for now. “But let’s acknowledge.” He waves his hands along the sides of his torso, putting some of Tony’s work on display. “Tony can make some things happen. He’s a bit of a psycho.”
“You’re not the first one to say that.”
“Not that he won’t see something coming back for this.”
“Forget it, Jack. Let’s move forward.”
They make eye contact, and Jack thinks it over. He gives it up for now.
Jack hits the button on his answering machine. The thing rewinds, then beeps. “Yo, Jack,” Ralph says. “Where the fuck are you, man? A couple of guys are here parked outside and banging the door. I may have to split. Wanted to make sure you knew I tried to call you if I do. Take care of Beatrice, will you? That’s my dog. She’s here. If anything goes wacky with the Czechs, talk to Joe Buddha, from Paramount. He’s here now in S.F. Pacific Heights—shit!”
And then that’s all. The machine beeps again and the voice from the bank comes on, the guy starting to say something about the mortgage payment, and Jack stops it. He rewinds the tape back to Ralph’s message and plays it again. “When did you last check this thing?” Maxine asks.
Jack waits for Ralph to finish. “I checked it Thursday morning, before I left.”
She moves around the counter to pour her coffee. As she walks, Jack sees the robe part and gets a good view of her leg, most of her thigh. He pulls her toward him and kisses her hard, running his hand down inside her robe.
“Hey,” she says. She turns and pushes him back. Then she kisses him on the lips. “Stay with me,” she says. “Pay attention.”
Jack nods, puts a good-boy look on his face. “Okay.”
“I guess Ralph called you when he knew something was going to happen.”
“And then he got popped.”
Maxine makes a face at this. “Okay. So who’s Joe Buddha?”
“He’s a guy from Hollywood who helped me get my start. One of the producers on Shake ’Em Down. The funny thing is, his name was above mine on the list in Ralph’s house. But I didn’t know he was up here, didn’t think of it until now.”
The machine beeps again and Hopkins’ voice comes on. “Jack Palms. Trying to get you out of some trouble tonight. Call me before you go to The Mirage, fuckhead. Okay?”
“Nice,” Jack says. “Very professional police work.”
“Who is this guy?”
“He’s an old friend on the force. The question is, how did he know about The Mirage? Seems like a lot of people got clued in on our meet.”
The machine beeps and Vlade’s voice comes on, says, “Jack Palmas. We are at the hotel and Al is not with us. Michal is no more. What the fuck was that happening? Call us. We want to talk.”
“Fuck,” Jack says. He pours his coffee, looks back down the hall toward the bedroom—he knows his cigarettes are on the table by the bed—and raises the mug. “Here’s to working,” he says. “Looks like I have to follow this through the whole way.”
She looks at him long and hard, gestures to the room around them: the high ceilings and skylights. “You sure you want to leave all this to deal with these people? There’s two dead at least now, people you knew. Plus three, four with that shooter. You want to be part of all that?”
Jack nods, thinking about the money, Sergeant Hopkins’ words about terrorists and warlords, Jack not knowing what he was into. He shrugs. “It’s a good fucking question. I could tell you I need the money, but you’d think that’s bullshit.”
“So why else?” Maxine’s eyes narrow, like this is the moment she’s really going to figure Jack out.
“Right,” he says. “Why?” He knows this has gone beyond the zero-sum-game part of his involvement, that if it hasn’t, he’s in it now for the positives: the chance to act again, be somebody he’s not, even if this is the real world with real guns. He has to admit it, to himself at least: He’s been enjoying parts of it, the challenge of acting like he knows what he’s doing, feeling like he has a part in something, a role to play. Like part of him that hasn’t felt in a while is starting to feel again. But he’s not ready to say this out loud.
“What’s going on up there?” Maxine asks, reaching for Jack’s temple. “I can practically hear the gears.”
“Right,” Jack says. “So I’ll tell you two things.” He holds up his hand, first one finger. “One, I’m not happy about this shit with Tony.” He gestures at his face and his ribs. “And I still think if I follow through I’ll find out why this happened and maybe get a chance to do something about it.”
Maxine’s starting to look more and more serious. She has her hands on her hips, everything about her telling Jack she’s evaluating him. “He’s a fuck. Why else you doing this? What’s two?”
Jack’s about to explain how he feels when he’s acting, that he hasn’t felt good like this in a while and how he enjoys that part, but there’s something in her face, her narrowed eyes, that tells him she’ll think it’s bull. He shrugs. “The second part is my name was on a pad at Ralph’s house and I want to find out who killed him before those same people come up here and try to get to me.”
She puts her coffee mug on the counter, and pushes her finger up underneath each of her eyes, wiping off last night’s makeup. “Yeah,” she says. “That plan did real well for us last night.”
Jack takes her in his arms, runs a hand across her back. “That was bad,” he says. “But what if I stay up here? Who’s to say they won’t come after me?”
He can already feel his eagerness to go back out there, down into the city: It’s in the way he feels in the robe, a tingle running across his skin, the way he’s already checked the clock behind Maxine and thought about what time he can get to Hopkins’ office to talk this over with the cop. He hasn’t even had his coffee yet and he’s already got that bump: a reason to get going like he hasn’t had in a long time, maybe as long as he can remember.
She shakes her head, her arms around Jack now. “Well, count me out. This girl’s had enough getting shot at.”
After Jack’s driven Maxine back to her apartment and dropped her off he heads to the Hall of Justice, like any good superhero would. But the secretary for Sergeant Hopkins’ section of the precinct won’t let Jack back to see him. “The whole task force does not take visitors without an appointment,” she says, stonewalls him until he finally has to go outside and call Hopkins from his cell phone.
“Mills,” Jack says, when the cop finally answers. “Tell your girl at the front desk to let me back there. She’s got this place like Fort Knox.”
“Palms. Glad you’re here. We need to talk.”
“I’m here. I’ve just been trying to get back to you.”
“We might’ve had to get a warrant for your arrest this morning.”
“Like I said, Mills, I’m here in your fucking precinct wanting to meet with you. Let me back.”
“Right. Actually, let’s meet outside. I’ll buy you a coffee across the street. Blue Diner.” Hopkins hangs up.
“Shit,” Jack says into the phone. Only a cop with something fucked-up going on wants to meet you outside the station, away from his desk. But Jack needs to see him, talk it through a little and find out what Hopkins knows. He has no choice.
Jack finds the Blue Diner right across the street from the Hall of Justice in the middle of a row of bail bonds offices that come in every ethnic denomination: Aladdin Bail Bonds, De Soto (Se Habla Español), AI Graf and Puccinelli’s (24 hours). The diner may as well be called the Justice Diner; the place is crawling with cops in blue uniforms, walking out with coffee and doughnuts or just coffee. The counter is lined with them from end to end.
Hopkins claps Jack on the back as he’s standing outside, taking it all in. “Nice place here, Sergeant. This would be a great theme bar for the Castro.”
“Good one,” Hopkins says. “I’ll have to remember that for later.” He starts to head into the diner and then stops short. “Ho! What happened to your face?”
Jack shakes his head.
“You look like you got hit with a truck. A small truck, maybe, but still.”
“Right,” Jack says, touching the fresh bandage along the side of his eye. “I’ll be happy to talk about that if you tell me why we can’t meet in the Hall of Justice. What’s up? Has Wonder Woman commandeered the whole place to vacuum out her Invisible Jet? It got lost?”
“I guess you’ve been through some tough times,” Hopkins says. He pats Jack on the back. “Must have been hard on you running out the back of The Mirage last night. Next time save yourself the trouble and call me when I leave you a message.”
“Why not, Mills? Aquaman’s upset because the fish won’t listen to him anymore? The Wonder Twins having separation anxiety?”
Hopkins looks nonplussed, folds his arms. Twenty years of working in a place called the Hall of Justice and the humor must get old. He shakes his head. “The Hall of Justice is nothing to fuck with, Jack.”
“Let me guess. You’ve heard these before?”
Hopkins nods, so Jack changes the subject. “Why the fuck did you want to meet outside? They bug your office?”
Hopkins directs Jack toward the diner with his chin. “Not quite.” Inside, he points to a booth by the wall, away from the windows. As they’re walking over, he winks at a waitress, orders two coffees.
“Seriously, Jack. Who knocked hell out of your face? Is it these Czech bastards? Did they interrogate you?” They’re just starting to sit down.
Jack looks at the sergeant. He’s got a tweed jacket on today and a blue button-down shirt stretched tight across his belly. The look’s an improvement, but he still looks like a human being posing as a cantaloupe, or the other way around. Above his pockmarked face, he’s wearing an old-fashioned Panama hat. He takes it off, puts it next to him on the table.
“What’s up with the hat, Mills? You trying to get some fashion?”
Hopkins shakes his head. “Cut it. We’re here to talk.”
“I’ll talk, but I’ve got some questions too. We need to share.”
Hopkins frowns. “Okay.”
“First off, tell me what you know about who killed Ralph.”
“We have some suspects, but nothing’s panning out. Truth is we don’t know much about that yet.”
The waitress brings two pots of coffee and pours Hopkins’ to the brim. Jack asks her for the decaf; he’s already had enough caffeinated with Maxine.
The sergeant takes a sip of coffee. “You don’t drink real coffee?” he asks.
Jack pushes the cup aside. “Listen. I didn’t come down here to have you jerk my chain. You wanted to meet in this place. We’re meeting. I don’t want coffee or to talk about coffee. Stop acting like you get paid by the hour.”
Hopkins looks at Jack, but Jack waits him out. Then Hopkins says, “Last night. Club owner gets a call from Alex Castroneves, a friend, but he doesn’t want the place to get the wrong kind of reputation. Also, he’s convinced there are a lot of young guys coming in, selling ecstasy. He wants that stopped. Figures he’ll call us before we move on our own, get him in some real trouble. Then I find out Castroneves was Ralph’s man, put two and two together, and I figure out it’s your thing. You had called me back, we could’ve both saved each other a lot of trouble.”
“You mean you could’ve saved me the trouble of going ahead with my deal.”
Hopkins shrugs. “Or you just move the location, we get a big bust of kids dealing X at the club of some asshole who’ll turn over his friends. If your boys are only in it for the drugs, I don’t much care.” He leans forward. “This is all off the fucking record.”
Jack looks at his coffee. “You’re a dirty cop, Mills. You know that?”
He shrugs. “Twenty-three years on the force, two more to go till retirement. So sometimes I’m more concerned with keeping my friends than with every fucking arrest. Is that the worst thing in the world?”
“Maybe not.” Jack sits back. “But friends can get you killed too.”
Hopkins laughs, sits back in the booth. “What’re you trying to say, Jack? You talking for you, or for me?”
Jack shakes his head. Though he gets Hopkins’ point, that he might be the one with the friends who’ll get him into trouble.
Hopkins taps his knuckles on the table. “Other thing is your boys can lead me to the serious weight in this town. You get me to that, I don’t care how much these out-of-towners want. Show me the supply line, Jack. That’s what I need.”
“You saying I give you a name, you stay off my back?”
Hopkins nods, waits for Jack to say something else.
“What?”
“Go ahead. Tell me a name.”
Jack shakes his head. “I need more time. Right now I don’t have anything bigger than Castroneves. You know him. Let me find out who else is there, who took down Ralph.”
“Done. But—” Hopkins holds his head rigid, his eyes fixed on Jack’s. “There’s one more thing: We’re getting more tips on the Eastern European mobsters coming in, guys who pack serious fire and don’t worry about civilian presence. It’s still the terrorist line. Your guys aren’t them, they can go and do whatever. Your guys are these warlords—and that’s the word we’ve been hearing, Jack, ‘warlords’—then they’re going down.”
“Sounds like you found your boys last night,” Jack says. “Two punks come in shooting up the place. That sound like they fit your description? Did you get them?”
Hopkins shakes his head. “That’s another part of the problem. One’s dead. That we know. We’re still trying to find out who he was. The other one we had in custody until six this morning, when one of the city’s finest, and by that I mean most expensive, lawyers comes down to spring him. You don’t get those fuckers out of bed in the morning without some heavy cash flow, maybe even political pull.”
Jack slides his coffee cup back within easy reach, adds some sugar and milk.
Hopkins drinks, sets his cup down on the table. “Now you’re waiting, Jack. What’s the next question?”
“Someone tipped them off about our meet. Say they popped Ralph, now someone’s looking to sour his deal, hit his supplier, and take him out of the picture. Why?”
Hopkins shrugs. “The way these things go? My guess is we follow this long enough, we find someone’s trying to take over the action in this town. That’s the supply line we want, because that’s the one who’s going to be big. Castroneves? He doesn’t give a shit about San Francisco. He’ll be gone in a week. We want the local line.”
“Someone had to tell them about our meet.” Jack makes sure he’s looking Hopkins in the eye when he asks, “You know who dropped that tip?”
Hopkins shakes hi
s head. “I’m with you. Either we got a hole somewhere in our force, or this club owner, guy who owns The Mirage, wants a raid and a shooting in his place in one night.” He shakes his head. “I’m not banking on that one. He wants bad elements out, he calls us. He’s not looking to call in a murder.”
“Agreed.” Jack looks across the room at a few of the other cops. “So you think there’s something wrong within your hallowed halls?”
Hopkins sips his coffee. “There may be, but these blue suits ain’t it. Something’s up in my task force. That’s why we’re here.”
“Ahh,” Jack says. “Some truth finally comes out.”
“Okay.” Hopkins holds his hands in front of him, pushing down air. “But be quiet about it.”
An officer from a booth across the aisle gets up, comes over to Jack’s side of the table. “You Jack Palms?” he asks, extending his hand with a pen in it and pushing a beverage napkin across the table toward Jack. “My kids loved your movie.”
Hopkins laughs. Jack signs the napkin, shakes the guy’s hand, and thanks him. Then Hopkins tells the guy to get out and make some arrests for a change.
Jack excuses himself, stands up. “I got to go too, Mills. You have any other questions?”
Hopkins shakes his head. “But next time you call me back. After this little talk, I think you’re the one who owes me.”
Jack drops a dollar on the table for his coffee, thinks about the press he got for the bust at his house, the pictures of him handcuffed in the newspaper, and Hopkins laughing in the frontseat of the squad car.
“Oh, no,” he says. “We’re not even close to square.”
Walking back to the car, Jack thinks over who knew they were meeting at The Mirage: Castroneves, the Czechs, the club owner, a few cops on the force, it turns out, and Maxine. It’s a small part of him, but there’s a nag inside that he’s got to get to the bottom of.
