Till the Butchers Cut Him Down

by Marcia Muller

  Nurse Ratchet—Big Nurse of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. No wonder Ms. Lubbock had spoken so stiffly! I glanced at her. She shrugged and gave me a long-suffering look. Then she began guiding the wheelchair toward the exit. An orderly joined us, I went to fetch my MG, and the three of us maneuvered Suits into the passenger’s seat. “Good luck, honey,” Ms. Lubbock said to me as she slammed the door.

  I went around and slipped behind the wheel. “Why did you pick on that woman?” I demanded. “Don’t you know how difficult her job is, without patients indulging in cheap shots?”

  Suits slumped down in the seat. “Sorry. She reminds me of my mother.”

  That gave me pause. Of course Suits had a mother, but I couldn’t for the life of me imagine what she might be like, what the relationship between them might be. He’d never so much as mentioned his family. I let the comment pass, though, and asked, “Now will you please explain what happened to you?”

  He pressed his free hand over his swollen eye, pain momentarily stiffening his body. Then he sighed, relaxing some. “I was at a dinner meeting with one of my moneymen. Came home, maybe twelve-thirty. Bastard was in my condo.”

  “The person who did this to you, you mean.”

  He nodded. “Beat me up, broke my arm.”

  “For God’s sake, what’s wrong with Security in that building?”

  The anger in my voice startled him; he glanced at me, one eyebrow raised. After a moment he said, “That’s what I want to know.”

  “You get a look at him?”

  “It was too dark. I passed out, came to, called the doorman on the house phone. He got the ambulance.”

  “Well, obviously you’re not safe at Bay Vista. I’d better take you to a hotel.”

  “Hotel?” He laughed harshly. “No decent place would take me, looking like this. And I’m long past my days of sleeping in fleabags.”

  “What about an associate’s place? A friend’s?” As I made the suggestion, I realized its impossibility—and saw what was coming.

  “Take me to your place, Sherry … Sharon.”

  “Suits, I have a small house, and my nephew’s staying with me. There’s no room.”

  “I’ll sleep on the couch, the floor. I’ve got nobody else to turn to.” The admission shamed him; he looked away.

  I stared at the back of his head, its cowlick sprouting at odd angles and rendering him curiously vulnerable. Suddenly I was transported back to the night of the infamous Halloween party, so many light-years before.

  Suits had come to the party dressed as a troll, but nobody noticed he was in costume. The realization that his usual appearance closely approximated that of a creature who spent most of its time under a bridge depressed him; he took refuge on the stairway of the big house on Durant, watching the others through the balusters of its banister. I arrived late from one of my security-guard gigs, and everybody thought my uniform was a costume; the realization that my on-the-job appearance was something of a joke depressed me, and I joined Suits to share a joint. After a while someone—Hank, I think—took pity on us and brought over a jug of Carlo Rossi, which we also proceeded to share; and as the evening wore on, we remained content to view the party through the bars of our self-made prison. When I finally stood to stumble upstairs to my room, Suits looked up at me, and the naked loneliness in his eyes made me hold out my hand. Now I realized with some surprise that I no longer regretted the act, or those that had followed.

  And I also realized that I wanted to take on Suit’s case.

  * * *

  I expected Suits to pay little attention to my house; after all, he was in pain and—in spite of his claim to the contrary—probably exhausted. But he looked it over with interest and pronounced it charming. His flattery somewhat warmed me to his presence, and while my innate cynicism told me that had been his intent, I offered to make up the couch and fetch him some of the Percodan I had left over from my last trip to the dentist. He refused the pills, oversaw the bed-making, then asked if he could have some coffee. I started a pot for him. He asked if I had an extra toothbrush. I provided one. Then he asked if he could make some phone calls. By that time the effect of the flattery had worn off; I told him that if any of the calls were long-distance he should use a credit card.

  When I went to bed, Suits was sitting at the kitchen table, cordless receiver braced against his cast as he punched out a number. Even though I was very tired, it was a long time before I dropped off, and my fitful dreams were infused with the sound of his voice going on and on into the morning.

  * * *

  I could still hear talking in the kitchen when I woke around eight, only this time there were two voices, both male and neither of them Mick’s. I showered and dressed hastily, fleeing up and down the hall between my bedroom and the bathroom so Suits and whatever stranger he’d invited into my home would have only a fleeting impression of a white terry-cloth-clad figure. Then I went to see what was going on.

  A fresh pot of coffee sat on the warmer, and Suits and a gaunt man in dark business attire faced each other across the table. When I came in, the man rose. He was very tall, with black hair combed straight back and falling loose at the nape of his neck; the skin of his face was drawn so tight that it looked skeletal. I wondered if he was ill.

  Suits remained seated as he introduced his attorney, Noah Romanchek. Romanchek’s eyes moved over me; then he shook my hand, nodding slightly, his thin lips unmoving. This, I thought, was a man who owned others’ secrets, and he would guard them until he found a way to exploit them.

  When Romanchek released my hand from his dry, papery grip, I went to pour a cup of coffee. Suits said, “Sherry—”

  I turned and glared.

  “Uh-oh,” he finished. “Sharon,” he began again, “Noah and I’re just finishing up some of yesterday’s business. Then we’re going to take a spin over to the Port of Oakland. You want to come along for the ride?”

  “No. If I plan to earn that fee you told me to name, I’ve got to get moving.”

  Suit’s face brightened; in spite of his split lip he attempted a grin. “Thanks. You won’t regret this.”

  I wasn’t too sure about that, but I smiled back. Something in his eyes alerted me that he didn’t want to discuss hiring me in front of the attorney, so I changed the subject, asking, “Did my nephew leave already?”

  “About fifteen minutes ago. Nice kid. He fixed your microwave for you. Asked me to remind you to call his parents.”

  “Right.” I’d do that from my car phone on the way to a couple of stops I planned to make in South Beach. “Will you let me have the keys to your condo and a note to Building Security saying it’s okay for me to have access?”

  He took out one of his cards and scribbled on the back of it, then removed a couple of keys from his case and handed them over. Romanchek watched with interest.

  “Walk me out, will you?” I asked, setting down my coffee cup and nodding good-bye to the attorney.

  With an effort Suits got up and followed me down the hall.

  “About my fee …” I pulled a jacket from the coat tree in the front parlor.

  “Name it.”

  I did—one that exceeded the biannual salary I’d drawn when I worked for All Souls.

  Suits didn’t even blink.

  “Plus expenses.”

  “Sure.”

  “And a fifty percent bonus if I wrap the case up within seven days.”

  Now he hesitated. “Working or calendar days?”

  “Calendar. Every day’s a working day for me.”

  He nodded and we shook on it. I made a mental note to have Mick draw up a contract. As I went down the front steps, Suits called after me, “You need anything, phone the office, and they’ll beep me.”

  I waved and kept going. I wouldn’t call on him unless I absolutely had to; today I wanted to work solo.

  * * *

  Charlene had no problem with Mick staying longer, particularly when I said I was working on the college
issue and had hope he’d come around. I absolved myself of the lie by thinking that the boring day-to-day realities of private investigation probably would drive him into the halls of higher learning, and used the congested traffic near the construction on the Embarcadero as an excuse to cut the conversation short. Actually, it was a valid excuse; the car phone, like the computer, was a recent acquisition, and I hadn’t quite gotten the hang of simultaneous driving and talking.

  The same surly doorman was on duty at Bay Vista. I showed him my identification and Suits’s note, and his manner changed. He’d heard about what happened to Mr. Gordon, and wasn’t it a shame? Yes, it was, I said. Could he tell me the name and address of the man on the midnight-to-eight shift who had called the ambulance? He’d like to, but he wasn’t allowed to give out information about building employees or residents; of course Security would be glad to help me.

  The complex’s head of security turned out to be Sue Mahoney, a woman I’d occasionally worked with back when I guarded downtown office buildings at night while attending Berkeley during the day. Her job performance had never impressed me; it consisted mainly of reading the tabloids and painting her fingernails mother-of-pearl to match her frosted hair. Now her hair was its natural brown, crisply styled, and her fingernails were plainly polished; there wasn’t a tabloid in sight. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if some laxness on her part hadn’t contributed to the security breach that had sent my client to S.F. General.

  Mahoney didn’t act pleased to see me, nor did she like the fact that one of the residents had hired me to look into an incident that had occurred on her turf. At first she refused to give me the phone number and address of either of the other two doormen employed there, told me I could talk with them when they came on shift. I said that Mr. Gordon had given me instructions to speak with them this morning. Mahoney hesitated, probably reminding herself that her salary was paid out of the owners’ maintenance fees, then wrote down the information. I thanked her and went upstairs to Suits’s penthouse.

  The first signs of violence that I noted were bloodstains and scuff marks on the floor of the foyer. I checked the door locks, both an ordinary spring type and a dead bolt, but saw no indication that they’d been breached. In the living room I found the card table knocked over, files and papers fanning out on the cheap rug. The fax machine, an easily hockable item, was still on the stand next to the telephone, tending to rule out the possibility that Suits had surprised a thief. The terrace door, dead-bolted and bar-locked, further argued against it.

  I returned to the archway that led to the foyer and acted out what Suits must have done upon coming home. There were no overhead lights in the living room, except for recessed ones over the wet bar, and they operated on a switch at the far end of the room. The foyer light would have been bright enough for him to see the floor lamp next to the card table, so he had gone over there, and the attacker had come from … the archway leading to the unfurnished dining room, given the angle at which the card table had fallen.

  I went into the dining room and looked around for proof of my theory. Nothing, not even a scratch on the hardwood floor. Feeling very much the intruder, I then began exploring the parts of the unit that I hadn’t yet seen: a huge white-and-chrome kitchen that clearly was used for nothing more elaborate than making coffee and microwaving; two bedrooms and a library that were completely bare; two baths that looked as though they’d never been used; a sparsely furnished master suite. Nothing seemed to be out of place; neither the windows nor a service door off the pantry had been tampered with.

  Someone, then, had gotten past the doorman and Security and entered with a key. Or gotten to the doorman or Security and entered with a key.

  As I passed through the empty rooms again, I was struck full force by the strangeness of Suits’s life. He had no possessions to speak of, other than an expensive wardrobe and some office equipment; he had no home except for a succession of half-furnished shells in whatever cities his turnarounds took him to. The only family member he’d ever mentioned was his mother, and that hadn’t been an especially favorable comment. And when he ended up in the hospital, he’d had to turn to me, a woman he’d seen that morning for the first time in over fifteen years.

  It occurred to me now that Suits really hadn’t changed all that much, was simply repeating the pattern of his earlier years. He still led a nomadic existence; he still peddled his scams and schemes and dreams, only now his clients were investors and boards of directors. He was still restless, easily bored, and very much alone. Even in college, I’d felt as though a glass wall stood between Suits and the rest of us. Through it he talked, laughed, made glancing contact. But the wall filtered out emotion, shielded him from any intimacy.

  Yesterday he had implied that for me he once would have shattered that wall. The admission, I realized, must have cost him a great deal.

  When I went back to the foyer, I heard noises outside; a key rattled in the lock. I stepped behind the wall. The door opened and someone came in; a woman’s voice made a wordless exclamation of dismay. I peered around the wall, saw a maid in a gray uniform kneeling beside the bloodstains; her cart stood just outside the door. She started when I moved forward, her young Hispanic face alarmed.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “I’m a friend of Mr. Gordon. He’s been hurt.”

  She stood up, brushing her palms over her uniform skirt. “I heard what has happened. He is okay?”

  “He has a broken arm, but nothing more serious.”

  “A terrible thing.” She clicked her tongue. “He is home?”

  “Not now.”

  “Then I will clean these.” She ran her rubber-soled shoe over one of the stains. “Is there anything else?” Her eyes moved toward the living room.

  “Only the table in there, and you’d better leave it for Mr. Gordon, in case the papers are still in order.”

  “I never touch his papers.” She went to the cart and came back with a bucket and a sponge.

  “Tell me,” I said, “who else besides you has a key to this unit?”

  “Security. Building Maintenance. And the concierge, to return the dry cleaning and bring up the packages or flowers that are delivered.”

  “Not the doormen?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Do the keys ever leave the building?”

  She glanced down at the steel ring that hung from her belt. “We give them in to Security when we go home.”

  “What about the concierge and maintenance people? Do they give them in, too?”

  “Maintenance, yes. The concierge … sometimes I have seen him leave with the keys, when he does special errands for the people.”

  I thanked her and went downstairs to the concierge’s desk in the lobby, but found it unstaffed. When I asked the doorman, he told me that its operator, Sid Blessing, had called in sick that morning. Again he referred me to Security for the man’s address.

  * * *

  “What is this with the questions?” Mahoney demanded. “First you want the doormen’s addresses, now Sid’s. Can’t you wait till he’s back on the job?”

  “Mr. Gordon asked—”

  “Mr. Gordon is a pain in the ass!” As soon as she said it, she realized her mistake. Color flared on her cheeks, and she bit her lip.

  “Mahoney, I’ll forget you said that in exchange for the information.”

  She turned and walked stiff-backed to her desk, where she consulted a card file, wrote on a scratch pad, ripped the top sheet off, and extended it to me. “Here! Is there anything else you require?”

  I made a show of thinking, shook my head. “Not at the moment, Mahoney, but keep yourself available.”

  As I left the office, I realized just how thoroughly I’d disliked Sue Mahoney, ever since the night she bullied me into making her rounds at the Monadnock Building because the polish wasn’t yet dry on her fingernails. I’d usually found the settling of old scores not nearly as satisfying as I’d anticipated; this, however, was the exception.
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  * * *

  “No kidding—broke his arm?” Carmen set my coffee cup on the counter, then folded his own muscled arms across his apron and scowled fiercely. “Bastard!”

  I stirred my coffee, took a sip, and reached for the sugar dispenser. I seldom sugared my coffee, but something had to be done to improve this lethal brew. The diner was half full, the rush for the advertised Stevedore’s Breakfast long over. Carmen scribbled a total on a check, slid it down the counter to a waiting customer, and turned back to me.

  I said, “Yesterday I noticed that you didn’t quite agree with Suits’s … T.J.’s version of the night he went into the Bay.”

  He looked away, moved along the counter to the seat the customer had vacated. After he’d picked up the bills and coins left next to the empty plate and deposited them in the register, he returned to me, his expression conflicted. “Look, Miss McCone, I know you’re working for T.J., but a lot of people do, and he don’t seem to trust most’ve them farther than he can throw them. I’m not saying anything against you, but—”

  “That’s okay.” I took out the folder containing my I.D. and flopped it open on the counter. “T.J. hired me to find out who’s doing these things to him. If you like, you can check with him.”

  Carmen continued to equivocate. After a moment he went to pour himself some coffee, then motioned for me to join him in one of the window booths. “All right,” he said as he heaved his bulk onto the bench opposite me, “here’s how it was. T.J. was drunk that night—shit-faced. I’d never seen him that way before.”

  “You see a lot of him?”

  “Most days he eats here at least once, comes in a few times a week around closing to have a beer and some conversation.”

  “What do you talk about?”

  “The port. How it used to be.” Carmen’s gaze grew remote.

  I knew what he was picturing: the waterfront in its heyday. The seamen’s taverns and hiring halls; the jazz joints and flophouses and rescue missions; the freighters offloading coffee from Brazil, tea from China, spices from Ceylon, rice from Thailand. Last spring in San Diego a retired professor had spoken to me of that port’s glory days with the same bittersweet wistfulness I now observed on Carmen’s rough features; despite the obvious differences between the two men, I couldn’t help but liken them.