by Robert Upton
When Amos McGuffin returned to San Francisco following a lengthy case in the Caribbean, he learned that his daughter and ex-wife had disappeared. He didn’t get this disturbing news all at once. It accumulated slowly, against all odds, like black clouds gathering on the horizon despite a sunny forecast.
He certainly had no inkling of it when he stepped into Goody’s saloon only a few hours after touching down at San Francisco International. It was ten o’clock. The cocktail crowd had long since departed, leaving the Spartan saloon to the lawyers, cops, politicos, and journalists who were its woof and warp. If there was anything important going on at City Hall or the Hall of Justice, the chances of hearing about it first at Goody’s were excellent. And to Amos McGuffin, a San Francisco private investigator, such gossip was the stuff of commerce. But by the time McGuffin had made his way down the long, scarred, mahogany bar, shaking hands and explaining his recent absence, he was still an unemployed private eye. He took his usual place under the television at the end of the bar and waited while Goody waddled apelike down to him.
“So how was the Medifuckin’terranean?” Goody growled. A San Franciscan for more than fifty years, Goody saw no reason to leave the city and disapproved of those who did.
“It was the Carifuckin’bean,” McGuffin answered.
“The same thing,” Goody said, reaching unbidden for the bottle of Paddy’s Irish whiskey on the shelf in front of the cracked, yellowing mirror. Then with a thick, broken-knuckled hand, the result of having served as bouncer as well as bartender for most of his forty years in the business, he snatched a glass from the rinse water and slammed it and the bottle down on the bar. “So now the case is finished I suppose you’re gonna get pissed.”
“I may have a whiskey or two before resuming my usual occupation,” the detective answered. For although McGuffin never drank while on a case, his consumption between assignments was the stuff of legend in San Francisco. And although Goody’s fortunes derived from the sale of alcohol, the wrath engendered in him by those who abused it was a fearsome thing. The owner’s attitude was one of the things that made Goody’s an unusual bar, along with the tin ceiling and ancient spittoons and wooden card tables scattered over the black and white octagonal tiles. Goody’s had changed little in forty years and had been dusted even less.
Goody splashed whiskey into the glass, then watched as McGuffin drank, carving straight lines and square angles in the air before snapping it down. The way McGuffin drank was a thing of beauty, Goody had often observed, until his fifteenth or twentieth, then he got a little sloppy.
“Another,” McGuffin said, sliding the glass across the rough wood.
Goody poured him a shorter drink this time and watched as the ritual was repeated. When the glass was half-finished, McGuffin placed it on the bar, ran the back of his hand across his mouth, and then stood very still while the whiskey worked its magical way through his body. It seemed to Goody that a slight smile formed at the corners of McGuffin’s mouth as he settled back onto his stool.
“Any messages?” the detective asked.
Goody rummaged under the bar and came out with a handful of scribbled notes. McGuffin picked through them while Goody went off to pour another round for the knot of drinkers at the opposite end of the bar. There were several messages, none of them of any professional consequence. Sam Wo wanted him to pick up his shirts, and Mrs. Begelman wanted him to pay his phone answering service which was more than two months overdue. And Elmo, who owned the Oakland Queen, the ferry boat cum offices where McGuffin resided free of charge in return for security duties, wanted to know where he had been for the past few weeks. McGuffin pushed through these quickly, searching for one from his ten-year-old daughter, Hillary, who was to have been informed on Monday whether she or her archenemy Rose D’Amato was to play Queen Isabella in the school play. The absence of this message was the first dark cloud on the horizon.
The second cloud appeared a few minutes later when McGuffin phoned his daughter and got no answer. He walked slowly back to the barstool and sat staring at his puzzled countenance in the yellowing mirror.
“You want another one?” Goody called, walking toward McGuffin. McGuffin shook his head.
“What’s wrong?”
“Did Hillary phone with a message while I was gone?”
“No,” Goody answered. “Was she supposed to?”
“Yes, she was,” McGuffin answered. “And I just phoned Marilyn’s apartment and nobody’s at home. Almost eleven on a school night and Marilyn’s got her out someplace,” McGuffin said uncertainly. His ex-wife could be flaky, but not where Hillary was concerned.
“I’m not surprised,” Goody, who had another opinion of Marilyn, put in. Like Zelda Fitzgerald, Marilyn had decided late in life to become a ballerina, but had given it up after several months. During that time, when Hillary was only five or six, Marilyn often left her at the bar while she attended lessons, knowing that McGuffin would come by sooner or later to relieve Goody of his babysitting duties. As a mother, Goody thought, Marilyn McGuffin was an excellent argument for abortion. “What’s she doin’ now that she ain’t dancin’ no more?” Goody asked.
“She’s become an actress.”
“No shit?”
“Why not? She’s tried everything else. She was a painter when I married her. Then she became a poet and then a singer. Only now she says she’s finally found her true vocation.”
“So maybe she took the kid and went to Hollywood to be in the movies,” Goody suggested.
“Too old,” McGuffin said. “Actresses over thirty aren’t allowed in Hollywood. That’s why they have guards at the studio gates, like fruit inspectors at the state line.”
“If they’re supposed to be keepin’ the fruits outta Hollywood they ain’t doin’ such a good job.”
“Yeah,” McGuffin said, glancing at his watch.
“Don’t worry, they probably just went out to get ice cream or somethin’,” Goody assured the detective.
“Goody, we’re parched!” Judge Brennan called.
“Yeah, yeah,” Goody muttered, as he turned and started down the bar.
McGuffin stared at the mirror without seeing himself. Goody was right, he knew. Marilyn had taken her out for ice cream or something like that. At ten-thirty at night? he asked his reflection.
“Shit!” McGuffin said, gathering up his messages and jamming them into his jacket pocket. There would be neither rest nor drink until he had the answer to these questions.
Goody looked up from the beer he was drawing and called, “Where ya goin’?”
“To check on my daughter,” McGuffin answered, continuing purposefully to the door.
“Hey, Amos, come and have a drink!” Judge Brennan called.
“Later,” McGuffin said, stiff-arming the door.
Outside at the curb, Sullivan the cop was hefting his bulk out of a cab, followed by Danny, the only drunk Goody allowed in his place, solely as an example to those like McGuffin who were not beyond redemption. The big cop pulled Danny to his feet, propped him against the car, and then went through Danny’s pockets for cab fare. He gave the driver a ten and told him to keep the change as McGuffin slid into the backseat. Seeing McGuffin in the cab, Danny blinked uncertainly.
“Hey, Amos, aren’t you comin’ in?” Danny asked.
McGuffin shook his head. “I’ve had enough.”
“Okay,” Danny said, spinning and nearly falling. Sullivan caught him, and together they lurched drunkenly toward the door. “Funny thing,” McGuffin heard Danny say, before the cab pulled away. “I don’t remember McGuffin bein’ with us earlier tonight.”
McGuffin gave the driver Marilyn’s address in North Beach, and he wheeled the car quickly into traffic. He turned right at the corn
er, then left after a few blocks, into the boutiquey Jefferson Market area, then up onto Broadway, the poor white way (sex comin’ atcha, snap crackle and pop, bottomless topless all-nude and live), sleazy thugs standing in the doorways like moray eels, waiting to pounce on passing tourists. They turned right at the Condor Bar, home of Carol Doda, the topless dancer who started it all, then right again on Grant Avenue, Main Street to the Beat Generation, forgotten but not entirely gone. The detective spied a few gray-bearded veterans as he rolled slowly past the Trieste coffeehouse, acid-shocked warriors of the Haight-Ashbury and Woodstock campaigns, now sharing an uneasy truce in North Beach with the Yuppie occupation forces. I’ve witnessed a lot of history and never been a part of any of it, McGuffin thought. Hell, until Time magazine gives it a name and sums up the decade, I don’t even know what I’ve missed.
The apartment McGuffin had once shared with his ex-wife and daughter was on the top floor of a three-story Victorian in a narrow alley within the shadow of Coit Tower. McGuffin pointed out the house and the driver glided to a stop at the front step. He paid the driver, slipped quickly out of the car, and skipped up the several stairs to the matching pair of wooden doors. He pressed the buzzer above his own name (Marilyn had chosen to keep it for Hillary’s sake) and waited for the answering buzz that would release the lock. Getting no answer he pressed the button again, for a long time. A moment later the door to his right was opened by Mrs. Delia, the landlady, clutching a man’s plaid bathrobe over her ample bosom.
“They aren’t home,” she said.
“Where are they?” McGuffin demanded.
“How should I know? I wouldn’t even know they were gone if I didn’t happen to glance out the window and see them getting into the car.”
“Whose car?”
She shrugged. “Some man - I never saw him before.”
“What did he look like?”
“Old,” she answered uncertainly. “I couldn’t tell, it was dark.”
“Dark? When did this happen?”
“About midnight,” she said hesitantly, then nodded vigorously. “Yeah, Sunday night about midnight.”
“You just happened to glance out the window at midnight?” McGuffin questioned.
“Something woke me up.”
“What?”
“I’m not sure. Voices, I think. Some sort of commotion.”
“What sort of commotion? Were they being forced into the car?” McGuffin asked, backing her up against the door frame. Private investigators accumulated vengeful enemies like parking tickets. Most of them cooled down after five to ten in San Quentin, but there was always the occasional psychopath who lived only for revenge, and that fact was never far from the detective’s mind.
“Of course they weren’t being forced,” the landlady protested. “Don’t you think I would have called the police if . . . ?”
“Are you sure?” McGuffin pressed.
“Of course I’m sure,” she answered, faintly indignant. “I mean Hillary may have been acting up a bit, but you know how it is with kids.”
“No, I don’t. So please, Mrs. Delia, tell me exactly what you saw,” McGuffin insisted, enunciating precisely.
“Well, she was sort of pulling away, like she didn’t want to go, but Marilyn managed to pull her into the car okay and then the old man shut the back door and that was the end of that.”
“And you didn’t think that was suspicious? You didn’t think the old man might have been forcing both of them into the car?” McGuffin asked, pressing closer to the old lady.
“I never thought . . . ,” she began, as a sudden look of fear flashed in her eyes.
“Never mind. Do you have the key?”
“I don’t like to go in when she’s . . .”
“Give me the key,” McGuffin ordered.
She dug into her robe and came up with it. McGuffin opened the door, stepped over a pile of mail, and took the carpeted stairs three at a time. He moved the length of the apartment in several long strides and threw open the door to Hillary’s room. Nothing seemed amiss. The unmade bed was cluttered with stuffed toys and schoolbooks, but the rest of the room was neat and orderly, as was Hillary’s wont.
The next bedroom was Marilyn’s. And although it was not so neat as her daughter’s, it scarcely looked as if anyone had been forcibly abducted from there recently.
“All the other times, she tell me when she goes,” Mrs. Delia complained as she pulled herself over the top stair. “Why don’t she tell me this time?”
“I don’t know,” McGuffin said, going into the bathroom. Both toothbrushes were missing, a good sign. Either that or an unusually considerate kidnapper. He pushed past the stout landlady and returned to Hillary’s room. Her dress with the ruffled hem, the one he had bought for their first brunch at the St. Francis, was gone from her closet, as well as two or three of the others he could remember. All of the dresses that remained seemed much too small for her, except for a few light summer things. Her brown loden coat with the plaid lining was also missing, the detective noticed.
“What are you looking for?” Mrs. Delia asked, as McGuffin crossed to the chest of drawers. Most of Hillary’s underwear and socks were gone from the top drawer, as well as her jeans and sweaters.
Ignoring the landlady for the moment, McGuffin returned to his ex-wife’s room and yanked the closet door open. The Burberry raincoat she had bought in London during the pound crisis was gone, but the ratty raccoon remained, like a forgotten animal at a defunct zoo. Marilyn, who seldom held a straight job, had a few dresses, most of which seemed to be hanging in their place - except the black sheath that set off her long, lean body so well. The red silk dress, too, was missing, as well as the wool knit. Most of the sweaters and pants that she favored were still in their drawers, McGuffin saw when he went through the chest, but the underwear drawer had been cleaned out.
“Did she have a suitcase with her?” McGuffin asked the landlady.
Mrs. Delia shook her head helplessly. “I couldn’t see.”
It looked as if Hillary had packed her winter clothes and left her summer clothes, while her mother had taken three dresses and a raincoat. The detective didn’t know what to make of it until he spied the yellowing newspaper clipping lying on top of the chest of drawers.
PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR SLAIN IN OFFICE ran the aged but familiar headline. McGuffin’s face paled, and his hand trembled as he reached for the clipping. He glanced at it, there was no need to read it – and then slipped it into his jacket pocket and turned to Mrs. Delia.
“The man who came for them would have been in his late sixties, small, with a round face and pop eyes. Does that sound like the man who took them away?” McGuffin asked.
“It was dark, I couldn’t see good,” Mrs. Delia answered fearfully. “I’m sorry, Mr. McGuffin.”
“It’s all right, I know who he is,” McGuffin said, crossing to the phone on the nightstand beside the bed. He picked up the receiver and dialed the operator. “This is an emergency,” he said calmly to the woman who answered. “Please put me through to the Napa Hospital for the Criminally Insane.”
McGuffin made his way slowly through the night-shift chain of command until, on the third try, he found an attendant able to give him the information he required.
“Otto Kruger was an inmate here for almost eighteen years. He was released last month,” the attendant informed him.
“Released!” McGuffin exclaimed. “Why, for God’s sake?”
“Because it was decided by a panel of psychiatric experts that he was no longer a threat to himself or to society,” the attendant answered frostily.
“Well, you can tell your panel of psychiatric experts that their harmless patient has abducted my wife and daughter. So will you please look in your file and tell me where I can find the sonofabitch!”
“I’m sorry. I’m not allowed to give out that information,” the attendant replied.
“Didn’t you hear what I said?” McGuffin shouted. “He has my wife and daug
hter! He may kill them if I don’t get to them in time!”
“I’m sorry. I cannot give out . . .”
“Look, I can get a court order, we both know that. But that’ll take time, and I don’t have time. So for God’s sake, man, please, bend the rules just this once. There are two lives in your hands.”
“I understand, don’t think I don’t,” the attendant answered in a soothing voice. “But I have my orders.”
“Fuck your orders!” McGuffin shouted, followed quickly by a dead phone line. “Goddamnit!” he said, slamming the receiver in its cradle.
“Mr. McGuffin . . . ,” the landlady rebuked mildly, as the detective lunged for the door.
McGuffin bounded down the stairs and fairly leaped from the porch to the alley. He ran down the strip of pavement and turned right, then sprinted down the middle of the street in the direction of Washington Square, shouting for a taxi. At the corner of Columbus and Union, he slid into a stopped cab through the left door, while a young couple was entering from the right.
“Police business!” McGuffin gasped, shoving the young woman out of the cab and pulling the door shut. “The Embarcadero, as fast as you can go,” McGuffin ordered.
“Hey, come back here!” the young man shouted after the departing cab.
McGuffin gave the kid behind the wheel the route to the Oakland Queen and the kid followed it, barely slowing for stop signs, squealing around corners, and roaring down the straightaways.
“You a real cop?” the kid asked, grinning at McGuffin in the mirror.
McGuffin looked at the young man’s eyes in the mirror. The kid was enjoying the excitement. “Yeah, I’m a real cop,” McGuffin answered.
The driver skidded the cab into a near U-turn and came to a sharp stop just inches from the gangplank leading to the ferry boat. It was a neat move, so McGuffin gave the kid a twenty, then jumped out of the car and hurried up the gangplank. The boat was empty, but the architects’ offices were lighted to ward off the vandals McGuffin was supposed to guard against in exchange for free rent in the wheelhouse. It was scarcely dignified work for a “real cop,” but it was only temporary, until he made a big score and moved into a posh suite in the financial district, he had been telling himself for more than five years. Until then he was forced to endure the landlord’s insulting messages which were periodically taped to the wheel-house door, directly over the detective’s name and title. He found three of them upon his return from the Caribbean, all of which he threw away unread. However, when he got to the top of the gangway and saw an envelope pinched between the door and the jamb, he eagerly snatched it away and quickly tore it open, hoping it might be a message from Otto Kruger. Instead, it was still another message from Elmo Bellini, the architect-owner and captain of the Oakland Queen.
