Breakdown - [Nameless Detective 19]

by By Bill Pronzini

  I just could not make up my mind, one way or the other.

  * * * *

  Chapter 6

  From Terrific Street, I drove back to O’Farrell and the office. Eberhardt wasn’t there, but the answering machine had a message from him.

  “Vega wasn’t home,” his voice said. “Nobody else was, either. One of the neighbors told me Mrs. Vega works too, cooks in some restaurant in South San Francisco, doesn’t get home until after six. There’s also a son living with them; neighbor didn’t know where I could find him or his father. I’d go back out there after six but I’ve got an early date with Bobbie Jean in San Rafael. Vega can wait until tomorrow, no? Let me know how it went with Glickman and Thomas. I’ll be home until five forty-five or so.”

  No, dammit, I thought, Vega can’t wait until tomorrow. But my annoyance didn’t last long. There was no sense in blaming him for not being a workaholic. Detective work is just a job to him—nine-to-five and on to more important things. Hell, he was getting married in a few months. I couldn’t expect him to put extra hours into a muddled and maybe futile case like this one, just because it was frustrating the hell out of me.

  I called him at home and told him how things had gone with Glickman and Thomas Lujack. Then I told him I’d do the follow-up on Rafael Vega myself, tonight.

  He said, “You trying to make me feel guilty?”

  “No. I don’t have anything better to do.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure. Give my love to Bobbie Jean.”

  I locked up for the night and walked to Van Ness and ate an early dinner at Zim’s. It was just six when I came back and got the car out of the parking garage near the office, and six fifteen when I turned off Mission Street onto Sixteenth.

  On a dreary weekday evening like this one, at the tag end of rush hour, the Mission looks like any other crowded ethnic neighborhood of older buildings and graffiti-scabbed walls; you need a hot summer Saturday to appreciate its full ambiance and flavor. The people hurrying along the wet sidewalks and the types and names of the business establishments told you that the population here was heavily Latin. But this was far more than a barrio. It was a place where old cultures clashed with new; where you could sample the pleasures of yesterday’s world and the probable horrors of tomorrow’s; where the good and the bad and the ugly coexisted and cohabited in a tolerant, dynamic, and too often deadly disharmony.

  When I was a kid growing up a few miles from here, in the Outer Mission, this neighborhood had been solidly working-class, populated mostly by Irish immigrants, and dominated by two-hundred-year-old Mission Dolores and its newer, ornate basilica. The district’s metamorphosis had been gradual at first, radical in the past decade or so. It was still solidly working-class, at least at its residential core, and still one of the poorer neighborhoods in the city, but Mission Dolores was no longer its spiritual hub—a fact you might find surprising, given the strong Latin emphasis on religion, if you weren’t aware of all the other factors that had gone into making it what it was today. It had no hub, no focal point now; it was a kind of mutant, neither one thing nor another, neither bad nor good, just a teeming, formless entity that writhed this way and that and went nowhere at all. And it was still mutating—into what was anybody’s guess.

  The Latinos were partly responsible for its present state, in particular the disillusioned young and the steady influx of frustrated and sometimes desperate illegals. So was the heavy concentration of drug dealers and cocaine, heroin, crack, and methamphetamine addicts in the four-block area around Sixteenth and Mission that has been dubbed the Devil’s Quadrangle. So was its floating population of drunks, hookers, misfits, drifters, and homeless citizens. So were the impoverished elderly, forced into the area’s shabby residential hotels by redevelopment projects in other parts of the city. So were the predators who preyed on the unfortunate and the unwary, and seemed to take periodic delight in setting fire to buildings both abandoned and occupied. So were the neighborhood activists, who had brought about small cosmetic and public-service improvements and who continued to lobby long and loud for major ones. And most recently, so were the New Bohemians, once entrenched in North Beach and then in the Haight-Ashbury, who had been drawn to the Mission by its still-affordable rents; who had opened repertory theaters, avant-garde art galleries, funky cafes where you could listen to poetry readings while you sipped espresso, bookstores new and used that specialized in radical political and feminist literature, and legitimate nightclubs as well as the bandit variety that operated without business permits. You could buy or do or see just about anything in the Mission these days, from the simple to the depraved. You could also lose your money or your life if you weren’t careful—and not just after nightfall.

  I drove up Sixteenth past Mission Dolores. Some of the older wood-frame homes and gingerbread-adorned apartment houses in this area had been damaged by the October quake, especially along Shotwell a few blocks east; but the structures flanking Albert Alley, the narrow little side street on which Rafael Vega lived, seemed to have survived with a minimum of harm. Parking on Albert or in its immediate vicinity was impossible; finding a space within walking distance took me fifteen minutes of circuitous driving. The rain had quit for the time being, but the wind still blew cold and damp. I was chilled by the time I completed a vigilant five-block walk and located Vega’s address.

  He and his family occupied the lower flat in a well-maintained two-unit Italianate Victorian, set back behind a gated fence and a nice little garden. By Inner Mission standards, it was a pretty affluent residence. The Vegas had cut themselves a slice of the American Dream, and never mind that it was at least partially at the expense of their Latino brethren.

  Lights glowed behind a drawn shade in one of the front windows, so somebody was home. Huddled on the porch, I rang the Vegas’s bell. Almost immediately, hurrying footsteps sounded inside. A porch light flicked on, locks clicked, and chains rattled, and then the door jerked inward—all as if the woman who stood there had been waiting eagerly for a caller. She was in her mid-forties, plump without being fat, with coffee-dark skin and black hair pulled into a tight bun. One hand came up to her mouth when she saw me. The worried look in her eyes staggered over the edge into fear.

  “Si? Yes? What do you want?” Her English was heavily accented, her voice a little thick—the kind of thickness that comes from alcohol. I could smell the wine on her breath.

  “Mrs. Vega?”

  A convulsive nod. “¿Es él mi esposo? Dios mia, my husband?”

  “He’s why I’m here, yes, but I—”

  “What has happened to him? Where is he?”

  “Mrs. Vega, I’m here to see your husband, not to tell you anything about him.”

  She stared at me for two or three beats. Then the fear-shine in her eyes dulled and she sagged a little against the door, crossing herself. Relief seemed to have clogged her throat; she had to clear it before she could speak again.

  “Who are you? What do you want with Rafael?”

  “Just to talk to him.”

  “You are not from the—” She bit off the rest of the sentence: “police,” maybe, or “Immigration Service.”

  “I’m here on my own,” I said. I told her my name, but not what I did for a living. “Your husband and I work for the same man—Thomas Lujack.”

  “Ah,” she said, but it was just a sound without meaning.

  “May I come in, Mrs. Vega?”

  She hesitated. “Rafael . . . you know he is not here.”

  “I’ll talk to you instead, if that’s all right. It won’t take long. Con su permiso.”

  Again she hesitated, longer this time. Finally she made a motion with one hand, almost of resignation, and drew the door wider. “Come in.”

  I followed her across a short hall and through a doorway on the left. She was steady enough on her feet, but slow and deliberate in her movements: not drunk yet but working on it. Alcoholic? Her appearance said no. Her face was free of the blotchin
ess and doughy laxity of the habitual drinker, and her hair and her brown wool skirt and white blouse were in neat array.

  The room she led me into was a high-ceilinged front parlor. It was overstuffed with a hodgepodge of good quality but mismatched furniture, and dominated by religious paintings and a large statue of the Virgin Mary on the mantel above a walled-up fireplace. Two odors lingered on the too warm air: scented candle wax and red wine. There was a bottle of burgundy and a half-filled glass on the table next to a Mexican rocker.

  “You will have some wine?”

  “No, thank you,” I said. “Nothing for me.”

  We both sat down, her on the rocker and me on a carved rosewood settee. She looked at her glass but didn’t pick it up. Instead she plucked at her skirt as if removing invisible flecks of lint. I noticed then that her hands were remarkably young and delicate—the hands of a woman half her age.

  “Mrs. Vega, will you tell me why you’re so worried about your husband?”

  “He . . . since last night he has not been home. Always before he tells me first before he goes away, but this time ...” She shook her head and sighed and said, “Ay de mi,” as if in supplication.

  “You have no idea where he might be?”

  “No one has seen him, no one knows. Paco has gone to ask others, friends of my husband. ...”

  “Paco?”

  “My son. He believes ... ah, no. No.”

  “He believes what, Mrs. Vega?”

  “Nada. No es importante.”

  “What time did you last see your husband?”

  “Half past ten. Here, in this room.”

  “Did he say where he was going when he left?”

  “No. He said nothing.”

  “Why would he go out at that hour?”

  “The telephone call ... it must have been.”

  “Someone called him right before he went out?”

  “Si.”

  “Do you know who it was?”

  “No. He talked in the kitchen . . . not long.”

  “How did he act after the call?”

  “Act? ¿Que quiere dear?”

  “Was he upset, angry, excited?”

  “Upset . . . disconcerto? Si, disconcerto.”

  “Who might he have gone to meet? Someone from his work, maybe? Or a close friend?”

  I thought I saw her wince before she said, “Rafael knows many people. Many people . . .” She shook her head again; reached for the glass of burgundy and took a small swallow and then held the glass in both hands, as though they were cold and the wine radiated warmth.

  “You said he always tells you when he’s going away. Did you mean away on a trip?”

  “Si.”

  “Does he take many trips?”

  “No. Not many.”

  “How often?”

  “Two times, three times each year.”

  “For how many years now?”

  She made a vague gesture.

  “Where does he go on these trips?”

  “San Diego sometimes. Mexico sometimes.”

  “Where in Mexico?”

  Another vague gesture.

  “Does he have friends in San Diego? Relatives?”

  No answer. Again she drank from her glass, a larger swallow this time.

  “Does he go alone on these trips,señora?”

  “Si, alone,” she said. Firmly and positively, the way you do when you’re not at all sure of something and trying to convince yourself it’s so.

  “So you think he might have gone to Mexico or San Diego this time?”

  “Only last month he was away,” she said.

  “For how long.”

  “Four days.”

  “What do you think he does when he’s away?”

  No answer.

  “Is it part of his job to go on these trips?”

  No answer.

  “Mrs. Vega, I know your husband hires illegals for Containers, Inc. Is that why he—”

  “What the hell’s the big idea, pancho?”

  He was standing in the hall doorway, a beefy kid who walked soft for his size: I hadn’t heard him come into the house and apparently neither had Mrs. Vega. He was about twenty, wearing a thick down jacket and a pair of Levi’s jeans; his bandit’s mustache would give him a ferocious look even when he wasn’t angry. He was angry now. His eyes blazed, the cords in his neck bulged, and he stood with his feet apart and his hands fisted on his hips. There was nothing belligerent in the pose. His anger struck me as the protective variety.

  “What you bothering my mother for?” he said. “Asking so damn many questions?”

  “Are you Paco?”

  “Yeah, I’m Paco.” He took a couple of steps into the parlor. “Who’re you, man? INS green-carder?”

  “No.”

  “You sure talk like one.”

  I stood up, doing it slowly so he wouldn’t get any wrong ideas. “I’m a private investigator,” I said. “Working on behalf of your father’s employer, Thomas Lujack. I’ll show you my ID if you want to see it.”

  “. . . You trying to get Lujack off? The murder charge?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, you’re wasting your time. That marrano is guilty as hell. I hope they stick his ass in the gas chamber.”

  Mrs. Vega said, “Paco!” in a thick-sharp voice.

  “Sure, Mama, I know—you don’t like that kind of talk in your house. Well, I don’t like you drinking so much wine either. What good’s that stuff gonna do? Bring him back, make things better?”

  “Paco,” she said, and this time it was like a moan. Softly she began to cry.

  He said, “Christ,” but he went over and put his hand gently on her shoulder, leaned down to whisper something in Spanish. The words didn’t make her stop crying, but they did make her put her glass on the table and then reach up to clutch at his hand.

  “Why do you think Thomas Lujack is guilty?” I asked Paco.

  “What I think is my business.”

  “Why don’t you like him, then? Something to do with your father?”

  “Look, man, why don’t you get out of here? There’s nothing for you in this house.”

  “You have any idea where your father is?”

  “No. I wouldn’t tell you if I did.”

  “Why not? You wouldn’t be afraid he had something to do with Frank Hanauer’s murder, would you?”

  “What? Man, you’re crazy. Get out of here.”

  “Why does he go to San Diego, Paco? Why to Mexico?”

  He pulled away from his mother, stood flat-footed again with his hands curled into fists. “I’m not gonna tell you again. Out, right now, or I throw you out.”

  He meant it; it was in his eyes. I had pushed him as far as you could push a man in his own home. I raised my own hands, slowly, and held them palms outward as I said, “I’m going. I didn’t come here to make trouble. All I’m after is the truth.”

  “You got everything you’re gonna get out of us. So don’t come back. Understand?”

  Without answering I moved over to the doorway. Paco stood watching until I passed through into the hall; then he turned back to his mother. She was still sobbing quietly. Just before I opened the front door, I heard him speak to her in Spanish. He didn’t know that I had a working knowledge of the language, so he didn’t bother to lower his voice. The words were as clear as they were bitter.

  “Hush, Mama,” he said. “He’s not worth your tears.”

  He didn’t mean me. He was talking about his father.

  * * * *

  When I got back to my car I found that somebody had broken into it. The passenger door had been jimmied open, snapping the lock so that I ended up having to tie the door shut with a piece of wire. The only thing of real value, the mobile phone unit, was intact and undamaged, which meant that the thief hadn’t had the right tools or was scared off or was just some poor desperate junkie looking for cash or small valuables. In any case the glove compartment had been hurriedly rifle
d.

  An old clunker like mine, I thought. Parked on the street for little more than an hour, nothing in it worth stealing except a difficult-to-remove cellular phone, and it had still been an instant target.

  Life in the Mission at the beginning of the nineties.

  Life in the goddamn city.

  * * * *

  Chapter 7