He was careful, pouring the cocaine onto the wooden desk, cutting it cleanly into four lines with his pocket knife, the one he’d used on Sam. It was a sharp knife.
They made a game out of it. “Right two,” Alphonse said, and Linda, on her knees with her ass sticking out-was she doing that on purpose?-and her tits-and Alphonse loved tits-big and firm-looking held up under the T-shirt, just turned that little dial. “Left, eighteen.”
“Daddy’s gonna shit we don’t get this back.”
“We’ll get it back. Right seventy-seven.”
“Sunset strip.”
“You wanna?”
She giggled.
“Right nine,” he said.
“Okay.”
“Left-don’t go past it-sixty-three.” He expected they’d go at it nine, eleven, forty times, but goddamn if the thing didn’t open just like a refrigerator.
Linda, wordless, reached in and pulled out one of the packets of hundred-dollar bills, tied with a banker’s ribbon on which was written, in red felt-tip pen, “$10,000.”
Alphonse eased his ass off the desk and made himself go slow the fifteen feet across to her. She just held it out, like, “What is this?”
He took it, riffled it, realizing deep in his heart that it was the real thing, that this was the number-one end of the line roll to end all rolls.
He crossed back to the desk. The packet of money fit easily into the front pocket of the camouflage pants. “Goddamn,” he said, surprised at the high end to his voice. He turned to look at Linda, still kneeling by the safe. “God-damn! You hear me? God… god-damn.”
He felt like he had to go to the bathroom. “How much is there?” Linda asked, her voice small now behind the cavernous roaring rush in Alphonse’s ears.
He didn’t even hear her. Over at the desk now he saw the knife and maybe a quarter line of powder and, knowing he’d just busted the house, he leaned down and scraped it into a small pile, licked his finger, ran it over the wood and then popped it hito his mouth.
“How much is there? Enough for your deal?”
He turned around. What was she talking about? She was still kneeling by the open safe, which seemed to be filled with packets like the one in his pocket. And she was crying.
“Is that enough?” she repeated.
It was like he couldn’t understand what she was saying. He crossed over to her, took her face in both his hands.
“Hey.” Going to kiss her, but she turned away. Again, “Hey.”
Her eyes came up to him. “It’s all for her, isn’t it?” she asked. “He saved all this for Nika.”
What?
“What are we gonna do, then?” she asked. Alphonse didn’t know what she was talking about, but he understood the literal question. “We gonna walk outta here,” he said, pointing inside at the stack of money, “with that shit.”
“No,” she said.
“What do you mean, no?”
“I mean no. It’s not ours. Just to borrow.” She went to close the safe door. He remembered the lesson then, the slap that had made her somebody he could control, and he slashed out.
What he forgot, just for that second, was that he still held the knife, razor sharp, open in his right hand. And the next thing he knew there was blood all over him, the floor, everywhere.
Linda just opened her eyes wider, as if wondering what was going on. She opened her mouth, but no words came out, just more of that blood.
Alphonse looked down at the knife in his hand, remembering.
He dropped it, grabbed at his shirt, couldn’t rip it, and so pressed Linda’s shirt up against her neck as she collapsed into him.
“Hey, girl, it’s all right. It’s all right now,” he said. He patted her head on his lap, but the blood was getting out everywhere, spreading in a stain across the floor. He backed himself out from under her, cradling her head in his hands, then laying it gently in the pool that had formed under it.
He leaned back on his heels. “Shi…”
But the blood was spreading over to where he kneeled, and he thought he already had enough on him, so he slid back, then forced himself up. “What’d you go do that for?” he said. He didn’t know, though, who he’d asked.
The pockets in the pants were big, but they wouldn’t hold twelve of the packets of money, and that’s how many there were all together-eleven more. He took them out of the safe and stacked them on the desk.
Outside Sam’s office, past Linda’s secretary spot, and down the hall, across the parking lot back to the warehouse, he walked to where they wrapped newspapers when it was wet, which was most days. The machine there spit out wrapping plastic and had a bar that heated it and cut it off clean. He flipped the switch on.
It took him only two trips, trying not to look at Linda. He could hold three of the packs in each hand-three and two the second trip. He put two of the packets of three end to end, then next to them put the last packet of three and the one of two. The ten grand in his bloodstained pocket never entered his mind. What he’d put together wasn’t exactly symmetrical like a newspaper, but the machine worked perfectly, sealing the whole thing together so it would seem like one long package-a loaf of bread maybe.
Alphonse, breathing hard now and not high in the least, found one of the brown paper bags they used for Sunday papers and slipped the plastic-wrapped bundle of money into it.
Out in the parking lot Linda’s car sat alone in the overcast and windy midafternoon. Alphonse walked by it, carrying the bag, on his way to the street.
He had the money. He didn’t need to drive. If he walked tall and fast, he’d be home by dark. He never even thought about the knife, lying on the floor in a thickening pool of blood, about midway between the open safe and Linda Polk’s head.
Nika always slept after they made love, and normally so did Sam, but he couldn’t get his mind off the money. He could get down to Army, check it out, and be back within an hour, and after that he’d get some rest tonight. It had been a long weekend, and it still wasn’t even Sunday night.
He got the call that morning. Same time, same station, okay? No, it wasn’t, he’d said. The Cruz parking lot was just too stupid. Why run up flags? How about the Coyote Point marina, the old cement dock nobody used anymore? Monday at eight-thirty?
So that was settled, but the money still kept his stomach churning. He’d just check the office safe and make sure it was okay, then tomorrow would be the delivery and it would be all over.
He’d tried to reach Alphonse, but nobody was home. That was all right. Alphonse would be in at work in the morning. They’d lay out the details of the transfer then-but after Friday’s display, Sam would bring his gun. Couldn’t be too careful, he thought.
Nika slept soundly, breathing heavily, uncovered above her waist, one leg out wrapped over the blanket, on her side. Sam ran a hand along her flank as he took a last look at her before heading up to the city, perhaps checking if she was worth all this. He decided she was.
He made it from Hillsborough to the Army Street exit in twelve minutes, then in another three he was at his lot. And there was Linda’s car.
Overtime? It was possible, though he knew that they had been having their troubles lately. With her there, he knew the money would be safe. He almost turned to drive back home, not wanting to deal with her, to hassle her jealousy.
But he softened. Look at her, she’s okay, working in here on a Sunday, trying to keep it alive.
Maybe with the new money I’ll take another run at it, he thought. Patch up things with the kid.
He pulled into the lot.
Chapter Nineteen
HARDY WAS walking a shark.
Wearing one of the wet suits that hung on the back of the door behind Pico’s office, he trudged around and around in the circular pool in the basement of the Steinhart Aquarium, his gloved hands trying to hold on to the great white shark that some fisherman had delivered in the hope that it would be the one that somehow would survive the trauma and become the centerpiec
e of Pico’s shark tank.
But Hardy wasn’t walking for fame, for the feather it would be in the cap of Pico Morales, who happened to be the Steinhart’s curator. Hardy wasn’t walking the shark to make Pico’s career. He walked it to save its life. When Pico had called him this morning, suddenly it had occurred to him that though this shark madness had always been futile, that didn’t necessarily make it any less worthwhile. He’d surprised himself this time by saying he’d do it.
Pico had first gotten the bug maybe two years before, and he’d explained it to Hardy: “To breathe, sharks need to move through water, Diz. Time they get here they’ve usually been badly mangled, sometimes just kept on deck while the boat limits out, then rolls in from the Farallones. So they’re wasted when they get here. I figure if we can keep one moving long enough…” He shrugged. “So I need volunteers to walk around with ’em, and you, a true aficionado of things nautical, to say nothing of the underdog, or undershark in this case, seem to be the perfect candidate.”
Hardy couldn’t say why, after the long hiatus, suddenly the endeavor was bearable once again-more, it was appealing. Pico had never given up on him, kept calling every two or three weeks, whenever they got one. And Hardy’d kept saying no thanks until this morning.
It was now three o’clock, though if any place were timeless, it was this enclosed green room within the bowels of the Aquarium, surrounded by its vague bubblings and hums, its shiny wet windowless walls.
Hardy was on his third one-hour walk. The other volunteers were as unlikely as he was-a retired car salesman named Waverly and a Japanese kid named Nao who worked mostly as a porter at the Miyako Hotel, and of course Pico. There were other eccentrics in Pico’s stable, but today it was Waverly and Nao. Hardy had gotten in at seven A.M.
He hadn’t been planning on doing anything about Cochran today anyway, and he’d just as soon avoid thinking about Jane.
Pico arrived to spell him. In his clothes, Pico appeared to be moderately overweight. In his wet suit, Hardy thought he most resembled a sea lion heavy with calf.
He stood at the side of the tank, smoking. His mustache drooped to his jawline, his thick black hair was uncombed. Under his arm he held a newspaper.
“How’s Orville?”
He’d taken to naming his sharks. Helped them with the will to live, he said, although the theory hadn’t proved itself out. At least not yet.
Hardy didn’t stop walking. “Orville”-he goosed the shark under its belly-“is lethargic.”
Pico walked into his office and reappeared a second later without either the cigarette or the newspaper. Vaulting the side of the tank with an agility that belied his size, he fell in next to Hardy. He put a hand on the huge dorsal fin and, walking sideways, tested for reflexes in the tail.
“Lethargic? You call this lethargic? He’s in the pink. Orville” -he petted the shark’s head-“forgive him. That was just some poorly timed sarcasm.” He gave Hardy the bad eye. “Try to be a little sensitive, would you?”
Hardy let Pico take over, hoisted himself out of the tank and went into the office to change. When he came out in a couple of minutes, Pico’s newspaper was in his hand. Pico was coming around with the shark, and Hardy started walking outside the pool along with him.
“You read this?” Hardy asked. “ La Hora?”
“Si. Keeps me up on my ethnic heritage.”
“You know anything about the publisher?”
“About as much as you know about William Randolph Hearst.”
Hardy opened the paper, scanning the front page as he kept walking. The water slushed behind Pico and the shark.
“I talked to the guy. He lied to me.”
“Who?”
“Who are we talking about, Pico?”
“William Randolph Hearst. What, did Patty get kidnapped again?”
Hardy pressed on. “Cruz.” He tapped the paper. “The publisher.”
“He lied about what?”
That question stopped Hardy. It was one he hadn’t asked himself, and should have. Cruz had lied about knowing Eddie-at least Hardy had felt pretty sure about that-but maybe that hadn’t been all. Pico had gotten to the other side of the pool.
“What’d he lie about?”
But Hardy was already at the door, headed out. “Thanks, Peek.”
Pico tightened his grip on the shark. “Don’t let it get you down, Orville. He’s just like that. Sometimes he forgets to say good-bye.”
Hardy hit the twenty on the first throw, then the nineteen, eighteen, seventeen. The sixteen took him two. Fifteen through twelve he nailed, but eleven, his “in and out” number in 301, hung him up for four throws. That was really abysmal. He prided himself on never using up an entire round of three darts on one namber-and especially on eleven, hanging out there at nine o’clock-for a lefty, the easiest angle on the board.
He shook his head in disgust.
The Shamrock hummed slowly in the late afternoon. Bruce Hornsby was on the jukebox, allowing as “that’s just the way it is, some things they never change.” Lynne was behind the bar.
Hardy had the dartboard to himself, a fine time for emptying the brain, just letting things happen. A Guinness, his first of the day, was half finished on the table next to him.
He began the next round, shooting for the ten, and when two out of three of the darts missed, what he felt wasn’t disgust anymore. Something had worked its way up, ruining his concentration.
He picked his darts from the board. In the back, by the bathrooms where he’d had his talk with Cavanaugh under the stained glass, he made himself sit still in one of the deep chairs. He put the Guinness on the low table in front of him, then leaned forward and removed the flights from his darts-light blue with an embossed gold dart, just like his business card-folding them up carefully and putting them in their slot in his case. He laid his tungsten darts, one at a time, into the worn velvet grooves. The case went into his jacket pocket.
Okay.
He sipped the stout and leaned back in the chair. If he wasn’t going to be getting any official help, he was going to have to start paying more attention to details. He resolved to start a written report when he got home that night. For now, something was bothering him. What else had Cruz said?
Almost nothing. It had been the most superficial of meetings- if he hadn’t lied about Eddie, Hardy would never have thought of him again.
He went over everything they’d said. First, the kid who’d freely admitted he knew Eddie. But then Cruz had gotten rid of him pronto. Then there was the vandalism with the fence, which had apparently caught Cruz by surprise. Hardy remembered him standing at the fence after he’d gone to his car, just staring at it, hands on hips, shaking his head. Kids must have done it, he’d said, but again Hardy came up with a question: What kids?
And what about the car Eddie had driven to the lot? Had the department checked it out for prints? Hairs? Fabrics? Had Griffin? Maybe it was still in the city garage.
He got up and went to the bar. Lynne gave him a pen and some paper and he scribbled a few notes while he waited for the next Guinness to settle out.
He looked at his watch. It was nearly six o’clock. He’d put it off long enough, getting out of the house early to walk Orville. Maybe that’s why he’d said yes to Pico this time, without even thinking about it too much.
He asked Lynne to hand him the phone over the bar, dialed information, got the number and called it. She answered on the first ring.
“Please don’t hang up,” he said.
A long silence, then: “Why not?” she asked.
He struggled through an explanation.
“I don’t know why,” she said when he’d finished, “but that upset me more than I can remember.” He sat biting his lip, not knowing what to say, hoping she’d stay on the line. “I thought you were just getting back into character, running away,” she said.
“I’m not doing that anymore.” He’d let her get her jabs in-he owed her at least that much. “I called
now, didn’t I? We’re talking.”
“Please, Dismas, don’t do this if you just can’t. I don’t think I could take it.”
He thought about it long enough that she repeated his name.
“Okay,” he said.
“Okay what?”
“How about we try again tonight. I swear to God I’ll show up.”
“Why don’t you give me your phone number? That way if you don’t, I can do something about it.”
“You got a pencil?”
They went to a place on upper Fillmore that specialized in Cajun food. They sat in a booth, next to one another on a bench as though they expected another couple. A maroon cloth was pulled across the front of the booth between visits from the waiter. Jane sat closest to the wall, Hardy on the outside.
They had oysters with Cajun martinis while Hardy talked in a little more detail about the events of the day before. For entrées, Jane ordered catfish cut into strips and tossed with peppers, onions and baby shrimp. Hardy had a blackened filet, extra rare, with a tamale. They shared a bottle of white wine and found out a little more about each other.
When she and Hardy had been together, Jane had worked in the advertising department at I. Magnin, but after a couple of years had become more fascinated, she said, with the fashions than with the actual selling of them. She had become a buyer, starting over from the bottom, and liked it now very much, traveling to New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, even to Europe and twice to Hong Kong.
Hardy regaled her with tales of bartending, Moses, Pico and his sharks, a little about Eddie Cochran. Their desserts arrived- a couple of crème brûlées and some espresso. The talk wore down. Hardy looked at his watch. Jane half-turned on the bench to face him. She reached out and covered his near hand with hers. “Do you think,” she asked, “it’s time we talk about Michael?”
Hardy looked straight ahead, across the booth, at the knotholes in the redwood-stained plywood. He lifted his espresso cup, then put it down without drinking. He moved his hand out from under hers.
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