by J. L. Abramo
When I reached the door I opened it as quickly as possible, in a valiant attempt to rescue the fresh paint job. I nearly lost my teeth for the effort.
My visitor had reared back to give the door another massive blow and his fist was greeted by thin air, thin air located extremely close to my chin. The momentum carried him into the apartment and it was only my reading chair that stopped him from going through the rear window and into the dumpster in the alley below. The collision with the chair upended him and he landed on his back in the kitchen doorway. He looked up at me and suddenly the condition of my hair was of little concern. This guy had a face that looked like it had been run through a meat grinder.
“Jake Diamond?” he asked from the floor.
If I had ever wondered what Godzilla would have sounded like if he could speak, my curiosity was satisfied.
“Who wants to know?” I asked.
Hey, I just woke up.
“San Francisco Police,” was the answer.
It didn’t come from the floor, it came from behind me and it was a woman’s voice.
“I’m Lieutenant Lopez and he’s Sergeant Johnson,” she said. “So, are you Jake Diamond or what?”
I turned around and all I could think of was Beauty and the Beast. She had sky blue eyes that made the sky look brown and a figure that made Demi Moore look like a boy. I wondered what time it was.
“What time is it?” I asked. “Do you have ID?”
“Nine thirty-seven,” she said, flashing her badge while Johnson struggled to his feet. I couldn’t believe that I had slept for nearly six hours.
“And the question was?”
“Are you Jake Diamond?”
“At your service,” I said with a big smile that often worked but didn’t go over with her at all. It might have been my hair.
“We have a female corpse downtown with a bullet hole in her forehead and she had this in her handbag,” said Lopez, holding up an envelope which had miraculously appeared in her hand.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“An envelope,” said Lieutenant Lopez.
Give me a break.
“With your name and address all over it, Diamond,” said Johnson, finally back in the game.
“You moonlighting at the Post Office?”
“Mr. Diamond,” said the lieutenant, “there’s no reason to be rude.”
“There was no reason to try to pulverize my front door.”
“We were concerned for your safety.”
“This is the Fillmore, not Rockingham,” I said, “mind if I see the letter?”
“Sorry, it’s evidence,” said Lopez, “aren’t you just a little curious about who the victim is?”
Come to think of it I was, but then again I really didn’t want to know.
“I don’t know.”
“Well I’ll tell you anyway, just in case it turns out you are. Her name was Christina Pazzo.”
“That’s impossible,” I said. I was so sure that Tina would be absolutely safe under the protection of Joey Russo that I couldn’t accept it.
“Everything in the woman’s bag indicated that it’s not impossible,” said the lieutenant.
“Mind if I make a phone call?” I asked. I needed to get hold of Joey right away and find out if he’d lost Tina somehow.
“You bet, Diamond,” Johnson piped in, “as soon as we get to the station you can call anyone you like.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“Only if you’d like to be, Mr. Diamond. Or you could just be coming in to answer a few routine questions,” said Lopez.
Johnson and Lopez were kind enough to offer me a ride to Vallejo Street Station. Not that I had any choice. They did let me attempt to straighten out my hair, but it was basically a waste of time.
Neither detective said a word during the fourteen-minute drive. They were no doubt afraid that if they questioned me in the car the interrogation would be over before we got there. Which was true.
Instead I sat in silence, staring at the backs of their heads. Lopez’s Breck Girl strawberry-blond hair and Johnson’s lack of it.
Johnson was shaved bald with a nine forty-five shadow. He had a long scar at the base of his cranium. The scar curved slightly upward at each end and there were two large moles just above ear level, spaced approximately six inches apart. Poke a carrot stick in the middle and he’d look like a fuzzy Frosty the Snowman. It was a vast improvement over the front of his head.
When we reached the police station they placed me in an interview room for the mandatory twenty-minute wait. They were considerate enough to let me use the phone, so I called Joey.
“Russo residence, Joseph Russo Senior speaking.”
Joey cracked me up sometimes.
“Joey, its Jake. How’s Tina doing?”
“Seemed fine last time I saw her.”
Great.
“When and where was that, Joey?”
“Something wrong, Jake?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I gave her a five grand advance on her inheritance and dropped her at the airport about three hours ago. She was in a real yank to get out of the country and she was getting on Angela’s nerves.”
Angela is Mrs. Joey Russo and it didn’t take much to aggravate her.
“That was good of you, Joey.”
“So why does it sound like you’re not real happy?”
“The cops have me down here at Vallejo Street. They have a dead body in the basement they seem to think is Tina.”
“Jesus, Jake, did you see the body?”
“No.”
“Do the cops think you did something?”
“I don’t know what they think. They’re making me wait the wait.”
“I’ll be right down,” he said, and the line went dead.
Ten minutes later Lieutenant Lopez walked into the room. Frosty wasn’t in attendance.
“So, Mr. Diamond, where were you at around eight-thirty this evening?”
“In the middle of a bad dream, I should have thanked your partner for waking me. Has anyone identified the body?”
“Not yet. We’re trying to locate her husband,” Lopez said.
Bad idea.
“Mind if I take a look?”
“Are you admitting that you could identify Christina Pazzo?”
“Yes I am. In fact I saw her just last night, but if you tell Crazy Al that I said so I’ll deny it.”
“I’ll be right back,” Lopez promised.
Yeah, sure.
To my surprise she was back in less than five minutes, Johnson in tow.
“Let’s go,” she said.
They led me down the hall and down the stairwell to the basement.
I’d been in the morgue more than once before, but it still gave me the creeps.
It has a smell all its own, as unpleasant as the smell it was trying to cover up.
I waited with Lopez while Johnson went to find the Medical Examiner to locate the body in question.
“What was your relationship to Mrs. Pazzo?” Lopez asked.
“No need to be jealous, Lieutenant, just friends.”
She looked as if she were about to say something but decided not to. Instead she gave me another straight line.
“And what about you and Mr. Pazzo?”
“My relationship with Crazy Al Pazzo could be compared to the relationship between a wolf and a chicken, where I’m the chicken.”
Johnson waved us over from across the room.
Johnson stood over a stainless steel gurney; a white sheet was thrown over the shape of a human body. When we reached him, he slowly lifted the sheet away from the head of the corpse.
“Well, Mr. Diamond, can you identify her?” asked Lopez.
I looked down, unable to hide the surprise on my face.
“I can identify her,” I said sadly, “but it’s not Tina Bella Pazzo.”
The lieutenant and the sergeant looked at each other and then at me.
“If it�
�s not Mrs. Pazzo,” said Lopez.
“Then who is it?” finished Johnson.
It spite of the circumstance, it was comical.
“Her name was Brenda. Don’t know her last name, could be she didn’t know it either. She’s been down here so many times I’m surprised she didn’t have her own office. Street hustler, shoplifter, pickpocket. Hung around the bus station a lot, and at the airport when she could get out there, grabbing anything not tied down if you looked away for a second. I guess Tina wasn’t looking.”
“So you’re saying she lifted Mrs. Pazzo’s bag?” asked Johnson.
“It’s a possibility, a supposition if you will.”
When I’m forced to repeat myself I try to be eloquent.
“Do you suppose that her death had anything to do with Tina Pazzo?”
“No. I’d be looking for a pimp Brenda held out on or a john she ripped off. And if I might be so presumptuous as to give advice to a couple of consummate professionals, it would be real smart to leave Crazy Al out of the recipe.”
“Do you think Mrs. Pazzo will report the theft of her handbag?”
“Was there any money in it?”
“None,” said Johnson.
“Then I doubt it.”
“Do you have any idea where Mrs. Pazzo may have been when the theft took place, or where she might be now?” asked Lopez.
“No. I haven’t seen her in a very long time, remember?”
They gave each other that goofy look again and no one spoke for a good thirty seconds.
“If there’s nothing else,” I said, “I haven’t had dinner.”
“Go,” said Johnson, “but we may have more questions for you at a later date.”
“Any time,” I said, and then turning to Lopez added, “care to join me for a bite to eat, Lieutenant?”
When she didn’t answer I turned to leave.
“Mr. Diamond,” she said.
I stopped and slowly spun around, putting on my most charming smile and hoping she would ignore my hair.
“Would you like this?” she asked, holding up Tina’s envelope.
Seventeen
When I walked back up to the front entrance I found Joey Russo in a heated argument with the night desk sergeant. I quickly moved to break it up and ushered Joey out of the building.
“You come to pick me up or get locked up yourself?” I asked Joey.
“The asshole wouldn’t tell me where you were. Put them behind a desk five feet in the air and they get all uppity. I remember that clown when he walked a beat and he would give up his wife’s bra size for two bucks. Tell me it wasn’t Tina.”
“It wasn’t Tina. Any idea where she was headed?”
“Mexico. She said she’d get in touch with you and let you know where to send her money. Need a ride home?”
“I could use a bite. Haven’t had anything I could digest all day.”
“There’s an all-night diner just up the street makes a roast beef sandwich that’s fairly safe.”
“Sound’s perfect,” I said.
As hungry as I knew I was, and as good as the roast beef was, I picked at it like a finicky cat. As much as Joey Russo disliked getting too personal, my condition must have left him little choice.
“You look terrible Jake. And I don’t mean just your hair. Anything I can do to help?”
“You do enough to help, Joey.”
“Jake, remember last year when I called on you for assistance, asked you to pick up a guy at the airport and keep him under wraps for a few days?”
“It was no big deal, Joey.”
And he paid me well for it, in cash.
“It was a very big deal, you just didn’t know it. I won’t burden you with the details, but you actually saved his life. And his life is as important to me as my own. On top of that I may have put you in danger, and I have the Catholic guilt thing pretty bad.”
I looked at Joey and saw that he had said all he was going to say about that particular occasion. Not knowing how to respond, I simply remained silent.
“Thing is, Jake, I don’t have all that many friends that aren’t in it for their own benefit. You, on the other hand, always want to argue when I offer help. Don’t tell me I do enough, Jake. When I volunteer to lend you a hand, do me a favor, just say thanks or no thanks.”
“Sure.”
“Good. Now, at the risk of being redundant. Anything I can do for you? You’re sitting there like you don’t know whether to shit or wind your wristwatch.”
“I’m stuck on trying to find out who killed Jimmy Pigeon and the thing is taking me off on tangents in every direction. I have no idea if I’m getting closer or further away.”
“What’s worrying you most?”
“I’m not even sure I know. Jimmy Pigeon had a wife. He walked out on her years ago but I guess he came around to trying to do the right thing. Jimmy was sending money and he left her half the Internet company. Now I don’t know if the company is worth a plug nickel, I’m trying to find out. But in the meantime, I wonder if the woman knows anything. And even more than that, if she might be in danger. If Jimmy’s death had anything to do with the company then his murder, and Harding’s for that matter, may not be the end of it.”
“And you don’t know how to find her,” said Joey.
“Right.”
Joey could read me like a roadmap.
“Have any leads at all?”
“I’m sure Dick Spencer knows, but Spencer doesn’t want to tell me. Even if he did he’s having trouble speaking at all right now and on top of that Sally won’t let me near him. It’s also possible that Ray Boyle knows who and where she is. But getting it out of Ray would take hypnotism.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, and then before I could open my mouth he added, “Thanks or no thanks?”
“Thanks,” I said.
“So stop worrying for the rest of the night and finish the sandwich so I can drop you off at your place and get back to my house before Angela calls Missing Persons.”
Joey Russo could be very convincing. My appetite came back and I quickly devoured the sandwich and took his offered ride back to my apartment. I wasn’t at all that tired, having slept the afternoon and early evening away, so I put up a pot of espresso and settled into my living room chair with Dickens. I had to shove the chair back to its place near the pole lamp; the large recliner had moved almost four feet off its spot as a result of the collision with Sergeant Johnson.
I made sure that everything I would need was close at hand. Cigarettes, lighter, ashtray, cup of black coffee, lemon rind, paperback. I opened the book to the place I had marked and sat down. I reached to remove the lump in the back pocket of my pants and found myself holding Tina’s envelope.
I tore it open and removed the short note.
Jake,
Jimmy may have been working on something for Tony Carlucci. Be careful. I’ll let you know where to send the money.
Tina.
It was the last thing I wanted to hear. I managed to resist the strong impulse to call Joey Russo. Joey had told me to quit worrying for the night and I absolutely did not want to disappoint him.
I placed the note down and picked up the Dickens.
The telephone woke me, the Dickens book dropped from my hand to the floor, I found myself in my reading chair.
The espresso was ice cold.
“Jake, this is Lincoln French.”
“Hello, Lincoln. Anything wrong?”
“I won’t be able to meet with you tomorrow. Something came up. Sorry to call so late, I’ve been trying for hours. I was hoping we could take care of this by phone.”
I wasn’t all that surprised. I figured I’d better take advantage of the moment and get what I could from him while I had him on the line.
“I was wanting to ask you about Jimmy’s business. Sally said that Jimmy came to you to discuss the potential of going public. I was wondering how you advised him.”
“I told Jimmy that it didn’t loo
k promising. I had gone over the numbers. They weren’t getting all that many hits at their Web site, in fact the traffic was decreasing. I told him that I didn’t think he could find an underwriter.”
“So did you advise him to sell to Richman International?”
“Jimmy and I had that conversation before the Richman offer. I would have certainly recommended that they sell, from what I understand it was a generous offer considering the weakness of their company, but he never asked me.”
“You say that a million dollars was generous?”
“Extremely generous. I really can’t see why anyone would have been interested at all. A large investment in promotion might have helped the business, but there are far better Internet bargains out there. Richman isn’t known for purchasing companies that need a lot of work. He’s into the quick turnaround.”
“So Harding was smart to want to sell.”
“It would have been the smart move. Take the money and run. Find a new hobby.”
“So why would Jimmy want to hold on to it?”
“Jimmy wasn’t a businessman. For Jimmy it literally was a hobby. My guess would be that he had a sentimental attachment to the thing. Of course, there may have been other considerations that I was unaware of.”
“So, bottom line, what is the company worth today?”
“I think I know what you’re driving at, Jake. You’re wondering if the company is worth killing for. I thought about it myself when I heard that Jimmy had been killed, and then Harding. Honestly, I would have to say no. I would say that if you’re looking at the value of Ex-Con dot com as a motive, you’re looking in the wrong place.”
Looking in the wrong place. It came dreadfully close to sounding like the story of my life.
“Are you still there, Jake?”
“Yes, Lincoln, I’m here.”
“Can I help you with anything else?”
“Maybe. Do you know anything about Jimmy being married, years ago?”
“Sure. I remember the girl well. We were all in college at Isla Vista together. Hannah Sims. From Colorado. They were crazy about each other. After graduation Hannah wanted to get back home, teach school. Jimmy thought it would be fun, dump Southern California and be a cowboy. Jimmy followed her to Colorado and they were married. The novelty wore off quickly and he was back in LA before long, beating the streets, drumming up PI work. Jimmy loved Los Angeles.”
