The Cheshire Cat's Eye

by Marcia Muller

  Large gold letters on the plate-glass windows said: Nick Dettman, Attorney-at-Law. The room was brightly lit. I opened the door and stepped in.

  A Formica counter ran across the front of the office, and sagging rattan furniture filled the waiting area. The rubber plant on the counter looked dusty and discontented. The place made All Souls seem on par with the plushest Financial District tax firm. I saw no one.

  A deep voice said, “Come all the way in, please, and close the door. We have to conserve heat.”

  I did so and went around the counter.

  The owner of the voice sat at a desk toward the rear. He leaned back in his swivel chair, hands clasped on his paunch, little feet barely touching the floor. I recognized his lined black features and receding hairline from old newspaper photographs.

  “Hello, Mr. Dettman,” I said.

  “Miss McCone.” He nodded. “Please have a seat.”

  I took the chair opposite him and looked around the room. Framed photographs of Africans that looked like they’d been clipped from National Geographic decorated the walls. There were shelves of unpainted plywood, piled with reference books and papers.

  “Not an elegant establishment, but we do the best with what we have.” Dettman’s speech was educated, with only a trace of the ghetto.

  “Since I work for a legal-services plan, I understand that necessity.”

  “Yes, All Souls. A good group. I presume you know Hank Zahn.”

  “He’s my boss, as much as anyone there is. Our organizational structure is loose, to say the least.”

  “Do tell him hello for me the next time you see him.”

  I nodded. Not only would I do that, but I would also pump Hank for details about Dettman.

  Dettman unclasped his hands and slipped one finger under his striped tie, which was looped over but not knotted at the neck. Rhythmically he flapped it up and down, regarding me in silence.

  “Mr. Dettman,” I said after a moment, “you asked to see me. I assume you do have something to say.”

  “In good time.” He continued to flap the tie. “Let me start with a few questions.”

  “Such as?”

  “Who do you work for?”

  “I don’t have to tell you that.”

  “But it would make our conversation so much easier.” The words were slow, measured. Instinctively I glanced over my shoulder.

  “No, Miss McCone, we’re quite alone.”

  I smiled, covering my nervousness. “Good. I like my discussions to be kept private. As to your questions, you already know who I’m working for. There’s no reason Johnny Hart wouldn’t have told you. He hurried me through his restaurant so fast this noon that I didn’t see you there, though.”

  It was a good guess, and it drew a thin smile from Dettman.

  “So let’s get down to business,” I went on. “Why did you ask me here?”

  The corners of his mouth turned down. He stopped flapping the tie, and his hand crept forward to his littered desk. I tensed, imagined a gun, then almost laughed when he pulled a Fig Newton from a cookie box resting there. He popped it whole into his mouth and chewed, cheeks puffed out.

  Around the cookie, he said, “You’re a forceful young woman, Miss McCone.”

  “In my business, one has to be. And, speaking of business, may I once again suggest we get down to it.”

  His hand strayed toward the cookie box, but he restrained it and laced his fingers over his paunch. “All right, Miss McCone,” he said, “we’ll begin with some background about this part of the city.”

  “The Western Addition, you mean?”

  He shrugged. “Western Addition, Hayes Valley, Fillmore, call it what you will. Every mapmaker has a different label for it, and boundaries overlap. Let’s go into its history.”

  “The Western addition was a prime residential area in the eighteen seventies and eighties, when the fine old homes your friend Wintringham is so fond of were built. Many of them survived the earthquake of oh-six because the boundary line where they dynamited to stop the fire’s spread was Van Ness Avenue, several blocks east of here. In fact, for a while after the ‘quake, Fillmore Street was a major shopping area for the entire city.”

  “Interesting, but I don’t see the relevance.”

  He unclasped his hands and began flapping the tie again. “Let me continue. During World War Two, the shipyard business flourished in San Francisco. Southern blacks flocked to this area by the thousands to find work. The old homes were broken up into flats, and the ghetto you see today was under way.”

  “So what Wintringham is doing would be a welcome change.”

  Dettman shook his head. “What do you know about our local population shifts, Miss McCone?”

  “There’s been an exodus from the city. The middle class, especially families with children, have fled to the suburbs. It’s left us with the poor on one hand, the rich on the other, and a lot of single people somewhere in between who, like myself, prefer urban life.”

  “Your information is out of date.”

  “How so?”

  “Recently there’s been a return to the city, mainly by middle-class whites who couldn’t take the suburbs. There’s also been an influx of gays, who are well off as a rule because most gay households have two wage earners and no children. These people are moving into areas like the Western Addition, buying up old homes, and restoring them.”

  I remembered Johnny Hart’s similar comments to Hank and me last night. “And they’re displacing the blacks who have lived here for generations.”

  “Right. Do you know where the next black ghettos will be?”

  “No.”

  “In the older tracts of the suburbs. South, in Daly City. East, in Concord. Down the Peninsula. Look at East Palo Alto – as far back as twelve years ago, the residents sponsored an initiative on the ballot to change the name to Nairobi.”

  “Okay, I hear what you’re saying. But, still, what does all this have to do with the murder I’m investigating?”

  Dettman leaned forward, his palms flat on the desk. “It has everything to do with it. People don’t like to be displaced, to have to move far from their jobs and the area they call home. There’s a great deal of anger brewing in this neighborhood. We have a drug traffic that’s run out of control. What you see here is an upsurge of rage. And when large numbers of people get angry, others get hurt.”

  “And you think Jake Kaufmann was a victim of that rage?”

  “I know it.”

  I regarded him warily. There was a strange light in his eyes and his fingers, laced together once more, twitched. I wondered if Nick Dettman were completely sane.

  “How do you know this, Mr. Dettman?”

  “I know my neighborhood. I know my people.”

  “Or do you know about one specific person?”

  “What?”

  “Do you know who killed Jake Kaufmann?”

  Our eyes locked together in the long silence. Then Dettman leaned back in his chair and gave a hollow laugh. “If I knew that, would I tell you?”

  “No, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.”

  “You’d be surprised, Miss McCone, how much it can hurt to ask. You can become one of the people damaged by the anger I described.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “Of course not. But you should realize that the streets around here aren’t the safest place for a pretty white woman.”

  I didn’t like Nick Dettman and I didn’t like his insinuation. I stood up. “All right, if that’s the level this conversation has sunk to, I’m going.”

  His hand crept toward the cookie box, and again he pulled it back. “You won’t go before I give you a message for that faggot client of yours.”

  “Oh, yes?”

  “You go back there and you tell him he’d better halt that housing project and get out of my neighborhood.”

  “Or else?”

  He frowned.

  “Or else?” I repeated. “When you threaten a person, t
here’s always an ‘or else.’”

  His dark features twisted. It was a moment before he could speak. “Yes, Miss McCone, there is an ‘or else.’ People will get hurt. Like Jake Kaufmann was. It could start with Wintringham. Or his workers. Or his buddy, Paul. It could even start with you.”

  “Or you, Mr. Dettman,” I replied quietly. “Or it could start with you.”

  I whirled and strode out of there, pausing briefly on the sidewalk to catch my breath. A young black man in a leather coat stepped around me, throwing me a puzzled glance. It wasn’t until he had entered Dettman’s orange door that I recognized him as the man who had come into Johnny Hart’s the night before with the news of the “white dude’s” murder.

  10.

  Normally I would have waited outside to see what happened between the two men, but that would be foolhardy at night in this neighborhood. I hurried back to the Victorian block on Steiner Street by a more circuitous, but safer, route than I’d come.

  Dim lights showed in the windows of the yellow-and-blue Italianate. I knocked and, when I received no response, tried the door. It was unlocked. Crossing the hallway to the parlor, I saw the flickering light in the dining room. I went back there, calling out Wintringham’s name.

  Flames roared and leapt on the hearth of the fireplace. I stepped toward their warmth then turned, startled. Larry French sat on the long trestle table. A bottle of bourbon stood in front of him, the reflection of the flames playing on its surface. French nodded at me and tipped a glass to his lips.

  “Davie-poo’s not here, McCone.” His speech, while not slurred, sounded like he’d had a lot to drink. Was French the habitual drunk I was looking for?

  “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

  “After the show closes. Eight-thirty, nine.”

  I looked at my watch. It was close to that now.

  French removed his feet from the chair where they’d been propped. “You’re welcome to wait, if you can stand being in the same room with me. I’ll even offer you a drink.”

  “I can use one.”

  “Fetch yourself a glass.” He indicated the built-in cabinets on the far wall.

  I chose one from a collection of crystal. French produced ice from a silver bucket and poured, almost to the brim.

  “Has it often been your experience that people can’t stand to be in the same room with you?” I asked, sitting.

  “Tonight it has.” French refilled his own glass, not bothering with ice.

  “Who?”

  “You don’t really care.”

  “It’s as good a way as any to kill time.” Besides, Wintringham’s pug-faced business partner interested me. I was certain I’d heard of him before, but I couldn’t place where.

  “Yeah, I always heard private dicks were nosy and, being a woman, I guess you’re doubly so.”

  I fixed him with a stern gaze.

  “Aaaah, don’t glare at me. I’ve taken enough shit tonight from Charmaine.”

  I recalled the decorator’s distraught state. “She bawl you out for leaving her at the show?”

  “Oh, you already heard. My fame spreads fast. Well, shit, she had her own car. And this chick needed a ride. Christ, McCone, Charmaine raised a big stink at the show and then when I got back here she wanted to start in again. What’s the matter with you broads anyway? Get you in the sack a few times and you think you own a guy.”

  I bit back harsh words. Arguing wouldn’t get me any information. “So Charmaine is just a casual lay to you?”

  “They’re all casual. When you’ve been around the business as long as I have, you learn to keep it that way.”

  “The construction business?”

  He flashed me an exasperated look and gulped his drink. “No, McCone, not the construction business. The entertainment business. Don’t you know who I am?”

  “No.”

  “Ignorant, McCone, ignorant. I’m the Larry French. Promoter. Rock concerts. You heard of me. I made Bill Graham look like peanuts once.”

  I had heard of him, but years ago. “You sponsored a lot of big tours. What happened?”

  “It got to be a pain in the ass, that’s what happened. I took my bread and put it to work for me, instead of working for it.”

  “Like with this project?

  “This one I’ve been in on for a year, and before that plenty of other investments. I’m diversified. And I don’t do a lick of work. Oh, I run around here to the job sites, make sure the workers know I’ve got my eye on them. But that’s strictly a pastime. I don’t give a shit about construction.”

  “Nice. I wouldn’t mind such easy work myself.”

  “Yeah, you would.”

  “Why?”

  His little eyes were shrewd in spite of the alcohol. “Because, McCone, you’re the kind who gets a kick out of what you do. You’re nosy, and you like to play tough, and you probably have some half-assed idea you’re making the world a better place – only you don’t own up to that.”

  I felt a twinge of discomfort at the way he had me pegged. But then, I also had him pegged. Larry French hadn’t retired from the entertainment business because it had become a “pain in the ass.” Not him – his type liked being in the limelight, wheeling and dealing, rubbing elbows with the stars. I wondered about the real reason he had bowed out, and decided I’d have to unearth it.

  The front door opened, and French looked up, bored with me, already hoping for a new face. I turned and saw David Wintringham.

  “Hi, Larry. Sharon, don’t tell me you have something to report?”

  I’d decided not to tell him about Nick Dettman’s threat until I could check up on the black man and assess how serious he might be. “Nothing concrete. I need more information from you.”

  “Sure. Let me get a glass of wine, and I’ll join you.”

  French and I sipped our drinks in silence, waiting for Wintringham to return. He did, sprawling on a chair across from me and placing the jug of red wine between us. “What do you need to know?”

  “Let’s start with this project. Is it in solid shape?”

  He rubbed his nose. “We’ve got adequate financial backing.”

  “Mine,” French put in.

  “Is the work progressing on schedule?”

  “Well, there’ve been some setbacks.”

  French snorted.

  Wintringham said, “Larry sees them as far more serious than they are. He’s not all that familiar with how this business works.”

  “Business is business. A six-month halt is serious.”

  “Will you let me tell this!” Wintringham snapped.

  French shrugged and poured himself more bourbon. Obviously he had a good head for liquor, better than mine, which was not bad. I slid my glass farther away from me, remembering my appointment with Greg.

  “The setbacks,” Wintringham said, “are standard. Trouble getting permits. Hassles with City Planning.”

  “And vandalism,” French added. “We put in a window, some kid heaves a brick through it. Slogans sprayed on freshly painted walls: ‘Kill the Pigs. Faggots Go Home.’”

  “That’s typical of any project in a fringe area,” Wintringham said.

  French wasn’t to be stopped. “Then there’re the workmen who show up with six beers on their breath at ten in the morning and leave by three.”

  “That happens with nonunion labor,” Wintringham said. “But nonunion labor saves money. And they’re not all like that. You fired the worst one last week.”

  “After I caught him sitting on the scaffolding smoking a joint.”

  I said, “Given your background, I wouldn’t have thought that would bother you.”

  “Look, McCone, a singer smokes a J or snorts some coke to get up there, then goes on stage and gives one hell of a performance. That’s one thing. But some goddamned handyman gets stoned, falls off the scaffolding, and next thing we’re up to our asses in insurance claims. You follow?”

  “I follow.” I turned back to Wintringham. “I
take it the project is under way again?”

  “We have the permits,” he said grimly. “It’s going.”

  French raised a skeptical eyebrow and drained his glass.

  “What about your prospects for selling these houses?” I asked. “Don’t you anticipate difficulty, given the neighborhood?”