by Seth Harwood
“We just had a few questions. Like if you were here the night before last?”
“Ha. Questions? I got one for you: How the parties at those LA hot spots, Jack dear?” Taffeta holds the back of his hand to his mouth, covering a big smile. “I seen you in the papers too. Broke up with your wife. Before you grew this terrible hairdo.”
Freeman steps forward, and Taffeta goes quiet.
“Questions,” Jack says.
Tattoos nods. “We were here. We found the car with the dead cop in it. Saw the shit you heard about on the news.”
“This all of you?” Jack gestures to the two, a small crew for a store as big as Nordstrom’s.
“Bob’s still in the truck.”
Jack looks over and sees a third painter standing by their van, smoking a cigarette. He tilts his chin up at Jack, takes a hard pull off the cigarette, and tosses it out onto the sidewalk.
Jack says, “Tell me what you saw.”
Tattoos drops down from the scaffold. “It was bad, like you probably heard. But there was a girl too. Somehow she didn’t make the papers.”
“It’s like we all told the cops, bro.”
“Tell it again.”
Taffeta asks, “Why you guys want to know? You’re like an actor and a Jet. So why do you care?”
Freeman starts toward him and that ends that line of inquiry.
“Sure. No problem.” Taffeta steps toward Jack. “We were painting this side of the building and saw a car come in late, like after four a.m. Too late to be anything good, but we figured it was probably some teenagers looking for a spot to fuck. New Mustang, so probably the head cheerleader, you know?”
“Anyway,” Jack says.
The one called Bob comes up to where they’re standing and leans against the scaffold. He looks tired, tired of painting, probably tired of it all. “We had to go down to the station. Spent all day with those dickheads at WCPD.”
Tattoos points at him. “They did give us donuts, though. Just saying.”
Freeman steps forward. He’s getting impatient, but Jack doesn’t know what to ask, how to get more out of them other than by feeling them out. “So you guys found the girl?” Jack says.
Taffeta says, “The girl, or the woman?”
“Well, we didn’t find the woman.” Bob smiles. “But we saw her. And damn, who could forget that, bro?”
“Smoking,” Tattoos says. “She comes across the lot in her skirt suit, pretty as you can imagine, like she’s just walking into the office. Four-thirty in the morning, and she gets into your boy’s yellow Mustang.”
“So then I knew it wasn’t a couple of high schoolers.”
“She gets done, she drives off. Walks back to her car, don’t even peel out.”
“Bro, and that’s after the gunshots, keep in mind.”
Jack wishes he was writing this down. “Who was she? What’d she look like?”
Taffeta says, “Like he said, she was stunning. Blond, stylish, very adult.”
“Huh?” Tattoos and Bob look at Taffeta as if they got a whiff of bad paint.
“What was she driving?”
“Car was mint. A dark pimp sedan with all-tint windows.”
“Like the kind you slow down for on the highway. Undercover shit.”
“Really?” Jack asks. He looks at Freeman.
Bob raises his eyebrows. “You know those cars when you see them. And she had a briefcase.”
“A Crown Vic,” Tattoos says. “But I didn’t see no briefcase.”
Taffeta holds up his hand like he’s being sworn in. “Sure as I’m standing here, I saw her briefcase.”
Bob and Tattoos look at Taffeta, and finally Tattoos shrugs. “I didn’t get that good a look.”
“Anyway,” Jack says, “briefcase or not, did she come on the scene before or after you heard the shots?”
“Before,” Bob says. “She was most definitely here when it all went down.”
“And you all agree it was two shots?”
They nod. Jack looks at Freeman, who shifts his eyes toward the car. He takes a step in its direction, down off the curb.
“Right. Anything else you can remember? Something we should know that you didn’t tell the cops?”
“Who are you guys? Why you even give a shit?”
Freeman cracks his knuckles. “Let’s just say we do.”
“Okay. Okay.” Bob holds his hands up. “Scene in the backseat with the girl was nasty. Almost made me not come to work today.” He shakes his head.
Taffeta says, “I couldn’t even tell my wife about it.” Bob and Tattoos look away.
Freeman cocks his head toward the car again.
“Thanks,” Jack tells the guys. He holds up his hand.
“One of the shots was fucking loud,” Tattoos says in a monotone. “Louder than the first one.”
“The loud one was first, bro,” Bob says.
Taffeta and Tattoos both stop for a beat. “Yeah,” they both say.
Bob goes on: “The loud one came first. Definitely.”
“Loud?” Jack asks. “How do you mean?”
“Like a cannon,” Freeman says. “The fifty.”
Bob nods. “First one was like, boom! I mean that shit could’ve been a fucking truck exploding. It got your attention.”
“Yeah,” Tattoos says. “That’s why I was sure the second one was a gunshot. I stopped dead after that. Like what the fuck?”
“You tell that to the police?”
“No,” Bob says. He hops up onto the bottom part of the scaffold.
“Why not?”
“Because they didn’t ask, bro.”
Freeman says softly, “Or because they already knew.”
“Alright,” Jack says. “Two shots, guys. Thanks for the info.”
“When’s the Haggerty sequel coming out, Jack?” Tattoos asks.
Taffeta pulls his scarf a little tighter. “And how about those parties in LA? Tell us what they’re like.”
“Got to go,” Jack says.
Freeman’s already getting into the car.
12
“Bunch of fucking losers,” Freeman says, driving across the lot. “Didn’t tell us shit.”
“How about that woman they saw walking away? Who was she?”
Freeman tilts his big head. “Yeah—”
“Hold up. I want to see the spot where O’Malley was parked.”
Freeman stops the car and looks at Jack, looks at him hard.
“Let’s check out the second level of the garage.” Jack waves toward the two-story parking structure.
“The fuck, Jack? You think this is what a real detective would do?”
Jack looks across the car at Freeman wedged behind the steering wheel with the seat way back and reclining. “What would a real detective do?”
“A real detective would sit at home and scour the Internet first, find out whatever he could about his dead guy, everything, and then he’d find out more. He’d poke around with the living people who knew the guy, people who can tell him something good. Those fucks?” He nods his head toward the painting crew. “They couldn’t tell you shit you won’t find in today’s paper. Maybe tomorrow’s.”
Jack thinks it over. “I guess I’m more of a hands-on guy. You know, follow the clues that I come to.”
“Did you read the newspapers today, all of them? And get everything you could out of your boy on the force, the guy who brought you into this?”
Jack thinks about what Sergeant Mike Haggerty would have said at a time like this, what he would do about finding O’Malley’s killer. In Shake ’Em Down, Haggerty would have gotten attacked by the painters, who turned out to be secret agents for the mob, beaten them down, and then wound up pursuing their leader in a high-speed car chase.
“You there, Jack? What’s going on in your head?”
“I’m thinking about how I got my ass into this.”
“That shit?” Freeman points at Jack’s temple and shakes his head. “Thinking won’t get you
nowhere. You here now.” He points to the floor of the car. “It don’t matter how you got here, because you in it. You start second-guessing, it gets us both killed. I don’t want to get shot at or worse. You hear?”
Jack nods.
“Now,” Freeman says, but when he starts to say something, a look passes behind his eyes, a consideration of something else. Then it goes away. The big man puts the car into drive and heads into the parking structure. He follows the ramp up to the second level, where the Saleen was parked.
“What would that slug do after it went through O’Malley’s car? Would it leave a hole in the ground?”
“I want you to call your cop,” Freeman says. “Find out what he knows and what he doesn’t.”
“We should also look for a building the sniper could’ve set up on.”
“This ain’t no Dirty Harry, Jack. You not going to find a slug—”
“But still.” Jack gets out of the car and starts across the lot. It’s late enough in the day now that whatever shoppers are still around have parked closer to the stores or downstairs. The upper level, more of an overflow lot than anything else, sits almost empty.
He can see the painting crew about fifty yards off and the progress they’ve made on the side of the Nordstrom’s: about a third of the wall so far.
Freeman gets out of the car and warily looks around. Jack starts searching the ground, looking for something on the tarmac, he’s not sure what.
“Shit,” Freeman says.
And then Jack finds what he wanted: an angled ditch in the concrete big enough to stick his toes into, not more than three inches deep. He looks down into it and doesn’t see anything; if there was something lodged here, it’s gone now. Maybe the Walnut Creek police aren’t doing such a bad job.
“Check this out,” Jack says.
When Freeman comes over, he whistles. “Good shit.” He crouches down and puts his fingers into the hole. From the way his arm points out of it, if the bullet went through the car roof to door, O’Malley wasn’t parked within the white lines. But at that hour he probably didn’t care. He’d have just pulled onto the lot, angled however he wanted. Jack looks up and sees the one building the sniper could have been on top of: a restaurant a hundred yards away with a big bing crosby’s sign on the roof.
“Right about there,” Jack says, pointing.
“Yeah.” Freeman stands up, and they both stay where they are, facing the restaurant, looking at its roof.
“Hard to imagine putting a shot through a guy’s car from that far out, knowing it’d take his head off.”
“You’d be surprised what these guns can do, Jack. Some sick shit.”
“So who the fuck was that woman?”
Freeman shakes his head. “I’m saying it’s time you called your friend the cop. See what more he can tell us.”
Jack’s got the phone in his hand and is speed-dialing Hopkins’s number before Freeman can finish the thought.
Hopkins picks up on the third ring.
“I got some questions for you, Mills.”
“You better get your ass down here to the Embarcadero, Jack. We just found something you’re not going to like. Another girl’s been killed. Looks like the same MO as the girl in O’Malley’s car.”
13
As the Mercedes comes out of the Caldecott Tunnel through the Oakland hills, headed toward the Bay, Freeman grunts and starts shaking his head. He carefully slides his hand underneath his long hair, then cradles the back of his neck in his palm and massages. Jack sees another tattoo at the top of his shoulder coming out of his shirt. He turns to look through the windshield, waiting for the familiar San Francisco skyline. The two of them have been quiet for more than fifteen minutes, and Jack knows the big Samoan will talk when he’s ready.
“What’s up with the girl, Jack? You know how a girl like that ends up in this city? What type of shit she gets into?”
Jack shakes his head.
“Slavery. Buying and selling of people. Here in SF. You spend enough time in North Beach like I’ve been and you know.”
“Unh-unh.”
“Ownership, Jack. That, plus someone with power in the city is protecting it. You sure you ready for that?”
Jack watches the trees, thinks back to being on the road with the Czechs and the rush of feeling as if his life were in his hands. The bike put him out there on the edge, something he never felt when he was trying to get himself clean, reading and hitting the gym. Back then it was more about what he didn’t do than what he did.
“Yeah,” he says. “I want to know what happened and how she ended up where she did. I want to know who sent O’Malley after me.”
“These motherfuckers don’t play, Jack. You see how they killed her?”
“They slit her throat. I saw the pictures.” As they come out of the hills, Jack can see the lights of downtown Oakland, and beyond that, the Bay Bridge.
“If someone put down big cash on this girl, that person be pissed when she’s dead. Akakievich don’t have penny-ante clients. It could mean he’s ready to take issue with a big player. And now there’s a second girl?” Freeman shakes his head and whistles. “That could mean he’s going after something big, like he wants something. I’m starting to wonder if I shouldn’t just drop your ass off downtown and opt out of this shit.”
“What?” Jack turns to Freeman, tries to read his face. “Now you’re the one who’s thinking too much. Are you serious?”
“This is big.”
Jack takes out his cigarettes. Freeman’s eyes dart toward Jack’s hands, and he’s already lowering the window before Jack has one out of the pack. “You smoke, that window comes down.”
Jack lights up. The first drag slows him down and gives him a new outlook on what he sees through the windshield: They’re not just heading into the city, they’re plowing straight into a world of trouble.
14
When they get to the Embarcadero, Jack calls Hopkins from the coffee shop like he’s supposed to. He orders an espresso and downs it, heads outside to wait. Caffeine is Jack’s rush now—not like the woozy down from alcohol or the incredible highs he got from the Colombian marching powder. It’s caffeine, a cigarette to smooth it out, and Jack’s in the life. That’s his high.
After a few minutes, Hopkins rounds the corner, still wearing the same old-fashioned Panama hat he probably thinks makes him look like a real cop. That or he’s old enough to be from the school where people actually wore them. Jack comes around to the idea of the second, ditches his cigarette when Hopkins gets close.
“Where the fuck you been? I’ve been waiting to show you the scene already.”
Freeman stands up to his full height from leaning against the car and gives Hopkins a hard stare.
“Who the fuck is this?” Hopkins points his chin at the big Samoan.
“This is my backup,” Jack says. “He’s on your payroll too.”
“That’s great. I get the fucking USA All Stars: an actor and a New York Jet. That’ll keep you two low profile.”
Jack starts to say something, but Hopkins beats him to it. “Come on. Fuck it.” He points at Freeman. “And you stay here.”
Freeman waves it off with an “I’m good,” and heads around the back of the car to wait inside. Judging by the look on his face, he’s happier the farther he stays from the cops.
As they head up the block, Hopkins takes off his hat and hands it to Jack. “Wear this. The fewer people who recognize you, the better.”
“I’ve got a couple of questions about the shooting. Did you know someone put a fifty-caliber slug through that car?”
“No, but that sure explains what happened to O’Malley’s head.” Hopkins points toward the next perpendicular street, and they make a turn around the corner. When they do, Jack sees twin light towers illuminating the scene of the police investigation: the yellow tape, a few onlookers, the whole nine yards. In the middle of it all is a maroon four-door Chevy.
“I saw the Mustang in impound. I
t has a hole in the roof you can put your arm through. Same for the door.”
Hopkins takes his eyes off their destination for a second to check Jack’s look, and Jack puts on the hat, pulls it down over his eyebrows. Hopkins holds up the yellow tape for him to enter. “I hear you, Jack. But I think what I’m about to show you is worse.”
He holds up his badge to the first cop in dress uniform he sees and says “Forensics—he’s our blood spatter expert” when the guy points his head at Jack.
Hopkins directs Jack toward the car. “We got a call about two hours ago. Somebody sees a girl inside a parked car, she’s not moving, doesn’t have clothes on, doesn’t look good. We get down here and find this. Now these guys are checking the car for prints. Least we’ll get to investigate this one, I hope.”
“Where’s the girl?”
“Come on.” Hopkins walks toward a big dark-blue police truck. In the back of the truck, a gurney supports a body covered by a blanket. Hopkins climbs in and motions for Jack to follow. Inside, he lifts the blanket off the girl’s head. She’s as young as the first girl, blond where the first was brunette but with skin just as white, like she never spent a day in the sun. She’s practically translucent, glowing.
Her blond hair falls around her face thick with dark red blood. The blood looks like it ran up from her neck, over her face, and into her hair, where it’s dried in clumps though some of it still looks wet. She’s clean from the neck down, except a few dark bruises around her shoulders. Her neck is the most shocking: gaping open, as if someone had tried to cut her head off with a saw.
“Back of that car was clean. Wherever she lost most of her eight pints, it wasn’t there.”
“Shit,” Jack says. “Any idea who she is?”
“Huh-unh. We’re trying to see if we can link her to the girl they found in Walnut Creek, the one in O’Malley’s backseat.”
“Fucking sixteen-year-old girls?”
Hopkins shakes his head, scratches his chin. “You don’t have to tell me shit about it, Jack. I got a daughter myself coming up on about this age.”
