The Dangerous Hour

by Marcia Muller

  Juan Salcido, mechanic, Len’s AutoWorks: “It’s a great job-training program. My parole officer steered me to it, and I really owe him. It’s not easy for an ex-con to get any job except for real shit work, but the center’s connected with these firms all over the city who don’t discriminate because you’ve made a mistake and done your time. I like my job; I like the people I work with. They give me respect, man, and what more can you ask? . . . Wagner and Aguilar? Now, that was a weird combo. Oil and water. . . . Who was oil and who was water? Aguilar’s oily as they come. Wagner was pure water. You couldn’t find a better man. The day I interviewed for this job? My truck was broke down. Something, huh? Auto mechanic with a busted truck. But Wagner hears about it and loans me his car. A class act, huh? Aguilar wouldn’t’ve loaned me the sweat off his balls—oops, excuse me, ma’am. . . . Did they argue? No, I didn’t see any of that. But Wagner was really worried about something the week before he died. . . . I don’t know how I knew; I just could tell. I asked him about it, and he said the situation would work itself out and the center would go on, with or without him. . . . Yeah, that’s what he said: with or without.”

  I pushed back from my desk, swiveled around, and stared out the big, arching window at the bay. A sailboat glided by, carrying a quartet of people, probably on their way to dinner at one of the restaurants up the channel. Maybe the Islais Creek Resort—where I had had a near-fatal encounter a while back. It had recently reopened, under the direction of a celebrity chef, and I’d been meaning to try it and banish the bad memories.

  Not tonight, though. It was almost six, and in two hours I was due at Johnny Duarte’s condominium for one of his catered dinners and “a talk that may result in our mutual benefit.”

  A talk that might give me more insight into his present relationship with Alex Aguilar. I wouldn’t go to Duarte’s alone, however; I’d have Craig waiting outside as backup. And I’d go armed. No need to take foolish risks when you’re dealing with a potentially dangerous individual.

  And Duarte was dangerous, as I’d discovered from the things he’d let slip the evening before.

  During the time we spent together, Johnny waxed philosophical: “Like you, I very much believe in the concept of situational ethics. That is the basis I operate on. Not everyone can or should do so. There are the masses, and for them there must be standards and laws. But those of us who, by virtue of superior intelligence, rise above the masses must be free to set our own standards and enact our own laws.”

  He’d also bragged of his friends in high places: “You would be very surprised at the powerful people I know, and at what they are willing to do for me. Last year, for example, I wanted to evict the tenants of an income property I own here in the Mission. One call to city hall, and it was accomplished. And my contacts in the police department provide protection for a business I run on the side.”

  I knew what that business was, and it didn’t surprise me that the SFPD employed cops who would look the other way. As for the evictions, earlier this afternoon I’d researched the history of several properties owned by Duarte, and found that the removal of six tenants from a multiflat building on South Van Ness had been facilitated by an attorney who was a major contributor to Alex Aguilar’s campaign fund.

  After another drink, Duarte lapsed again into philosophy, skating dangerously close to the nature of his second business: “When people make foolish choices, they deserve the consequences. Drugs, for example: addicts are weak and stupid; they take drugs, and then they die. We are supposed to feel this is a bad thing, but it is not. Drugs are nothing more than the tool by which these people are removed from the gene pool.”

  As the evening wore on and Duarte drank more, he began to drop increasingly blatant and unwise hints about his dark side, in an obvious effort to impress me.

  “I walk through dangerous territory, but I am very sure-footed.”

  “People, even powerful people, can be made to do anything. If money won’t sway them, coercion will.”

  “It takes a brave man to kill. I am a brave man. And proud of it.”

  I wasn’t impressed, especially by the latter statement. I had killed, more than once, and hadn’t felt either brave or proud. On bad nights, dreams of those acts—justifiable though they had been—still returned to disturb my sleep. Hy, during his years as a pilot for a corrupt charter service in Southeast Asia, had also taken lives—with far less justification than I—but afterward was overwhelmed by remorse and guilt, which it had taken him years to come to terms with.

  But the Johnny Duartes of the world felt nothing after they committed their crimes. Instead they went on and on, perpetrating greater and greater horrors, convinced that their “superior” intelligence, wealth, and connections were justification enough. That was what separated them from Hy and me, however flawed we might be: their lack of humanity.

  “I don’t like this,” Craig said. “The guy is not your typical street pusher. I’d feel better if you met him in a public place.”

  “I can’t do that. He won’t discuss what he wants to in public. I’m armed, and you’ll be right outside the building if I need you.”

  “I don’t like you taking a weapon in there. If he picks up your purse and feels how heavy it is—”

  “Craig, you’ve been in a relationship too long. You forget that a man does not handle a woman’s purse on the first date.”

  “How do you know what this asshole might do? He’s a loose cannon.”

  I smiled and patted my bag. “Then it’s good that I have my ‘cannon’ along, isn’t it?”

  “I’m glad you think this is a joking matter.”

  “I don’t. But, for God’s sake, lighten up.”

  I moved away from where our cars were parked around the bend from Johnny Duarte’s building on Upper Market. A chest-high barrier blocked the precipitous drop from the sidewalk to the rooftops of the buildings below. The day had cleared while I’d been away from the city, but now the sun had fallen behind the western hills; purple shadow wrapped the far-flung vista. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath as my hair streamed back on a sudden breeze; I caught the odor of someone’s barbecue. A fine summer evening in the city—and a rarity, since July was normally a cold, fogbound month.

  Craig came up beside me. I said, “I’ll be all right. Really.”

  “I must be cursed.”

  “Why?”

  “Because all my life I’ve been surrounded by women who’re tougher than I am. First my mother and my grandmother, later my younger sister. My classmates in college and at the Academy, my colleagues at the Bureau. Then Adah. Now you.”

  “Count yourself lucky, Morland. In a crisis, there’ll always be some broad around to defend you.”

  I received an immediate answering buzz at the door of Duarte’s building. The lobby beyond it was spacious, with a rock wall and exotic plantings; a stairway led to the floors above. I climbed all the way to the top, found the door to his condo open, and called out his name as I stepped inside.

  A woman greeted me. She was tall and slender, in slim-fitting jeans and a ribbed tee; her thick blond hair was permed and spilled to her shoulders.“Ms. Blackhawk,” she said, “I’m Harriet Leonard. Come in, please. I have a note for you from Mr. Duarte.” Her accent sounded Australian.

  I followed her down a hallway to a living room that opened onto the spacious deck Duarte had mentioned the night before. The view was spectacular, the furnishings expensive, but the space felt unlived in. Harriet Leonard went to a secretary desk on one wall, picked up a square vellum envelope, and extended it to me.

  I slipped my finger under the flap and took out a card printed with Duarte’s name.

  Robin—

  I very much regret that I will be unable to keep our appointment tonight. Urgent business takes me out of town. Perhaps when I return, we can meet to discuss our matter of mutual interest.

  —J

  When I looked up, Harriet was studying me. She said, “Would you like a drink be
fore you go? I know I’d like one. It’s the least Johnny can do for us, after he stood you up and made me wait around to give you his note.”

  “Why not?” In spite of her gracious manner, I sensed an edginess in the woman, perhaps a need to talk.

  “Red wine all right?” she asked.

  “Fine, thanks.”

  She went to a small bar cart and returned with two balloon glasses, handed one to me, raised hers, and said, “Cheers.” After taking a sip, she sank onto the leather sofa, and I took a chair across from her.

  I said, “You’re a friend of Johnny’s?”

  “Business associate. Oh, hell, you must know. I deal for him. He recruited me eight months ago. Let me guess about you. You recently met him at one of the clubs. He told you he was a marketing exec with business interests on the side. Then he wined and dined you, threw out a lot of pop psychology about superior intellect and the survival of the fittest, and offered to discuss a business proposition. Am I right so far?”

  “Except for the dining part. All we did was drink.”

  “Cheap date, you are. Tonight must be when he intended to reveal the true nature of his business and dazzle you with the unheard-of profits you’ll make if you’ll ‘step over the line of conventionality.’”

  “. . . I guess so.”

  “Oh, don’t give me that look of shattered innocence. You aren’t young or stupid enough to have believed him. I didn’t, and I’ve been fooled by countless men with countless schemes. But I walked in here knowing exactly what I was signing up for.”

  I sipped wine. Harriet had chosen a very good vintage. “And did you realize those ‘unheard-of profits’?”

  “I do all right.”

  “But not as well as Johnny claimed you would.”

  “No, but now I can’t get out; I’m hooked on the lifestyle. Before, I was a secretary in a brokerage firm—dreadful hours, dreadful pay. I never want to go back.” She frowned. “That’s why I’m worried.”

  “About what?”

  “Johnny. I snooped at that note you’ve got there. He said he had to go out of town, but his car’s still in the garage. And take a close look at his handwriting—doesn’t it seem strange?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never seen his handwriting before.” But as I examined the card, I saw what she meant: some of the letters were irregularly formed, as if he’d written them while stressed.

  “Well, I have seen his writing, and it looks strange to me. Also, when he called to ask me to come over here and give you the note . . . Well, he sounded . . . not himself. In fact, he sounded scared.”

  “Scared? That’s not a word I’d associate with Johnny—and I hardly know him.”

  “Exactly. But he was scared, and not hiding it at all well. I had the feeling . . . Well, this is absurd, knowing Johnny, but I had the feeling that he was making the call under duress.”

  “Why?”

  Harriet thought, compressing her lips. “Well, I didn’t hear any other voice in the background, if that’s what you mean. And he didn’t use any code phrasing to tip me off, like people do on crime shows on the telly. But there was something . . . something. I just can’t say what. And Johnny being afraid . . . Well, it makes me afraid.”

  Friday

  JULY 18

  “So that’s where we stand, after a week,” I said to my staff members. “Any ideas?”

  We were assembled in the conference room for our regular Friday afternoon meeting. Craig was making a note on a legal pad. Charlotte stared at the white presentation board where I’d drawn a crude diagram and a timeline in red Marks-A-Lot. Derek leaned over and consulted with Mick, who shook his head in the negative. Ted was frowning and fingering a scratch on the round oak table, which, like my office armchair, was a relic of our days at All Souls Legal Cooperative and had been lovingly refinished by him. And Julia, back from her one-day “time-out,” bowed her head, picking at her fingernails.

  Charlotte said, “Your timeline doesn’t go back far enough.”

  “Oh?”

  “It should start when Alex Aguilar was in San Diego, dealing drugs for Johnny Duarte.”

  I extended the line up the left-hand side of the board and scribbled, “A.A. dealing, J.D.”

  “And you should indicate when Dan Jeffers was down there.”

  “Right.” I scribbled again.

  Craig asked, “How major a distributor is Duarte, anyway?”

  “He’s got a lock on the Mission, according to my contact on Narcotics.” My contact being my former lover and good friend, Captain Greg Marcus, who headed up the detail.

  “And how major was he in San Diego?”

  “Middling. He handled the university and environs.”

  “Any idea who he worked for?”

  “No, but my contact’s looking into it.” I turned to Julia. “You haven’t remembered anything about any of the other names on the board, have you?”

  She shook her head, looking somewhat hurt. That morning she’d told me she hadn’t been able to recall anything else about her personal life that could conceivably discredit the agency, and I believed her, but I knew memories had a way of cropping up unexpectedly. If Julia had remembered something personally damaging in the interim, she might have been tempted to withhold it unless I probed.

  “Okay,” I said. “We have Alex Aguilar, who, according to one of his fellow board members at the Mexican Museum, has been touchy and out of sorts lately. He lodges the complaint against Julia, then leaves for a buying trip in Central America.”

  Derek consulted with Mick again. Mick said, “Go ahead, speak out. Shar even listens to me occasionally.”

  “Derek?” I said.

  He cleared his throat—nervous because as a new hire he was unsure how he fit into our tightly knit operation. “That import-export business of Aguilar’s—I think somebody should look into it. Central America, the drug angle . . .”

  “And that’s just what I was about to ask you to do.”

  He looked both pleased and relieved. “I’ll see what I can find out online, but somebody else should check it out in person; I’ve got no experience as a field investigator.”

  “I’ll handle that, after you get me the information. Next we have Scott Wagner, who, if you can believe the account of a drugged-out witness, was beaten to death and pushed into a ravine up in Marin County. What did your background check on Wagner turn up, Craig?”

  “Apparently his private persona was identical to the public. No arrest record, exemplary on-the-job and academic histories. Everyone I talked with spoke highly of him. A very ethical, stand-up guy.”

  Which didn’t fit with being beaten to death and pushed into a ravine. “What about Gene Santamaria?”

  “Much the same. Impeccable credentials, long record of work with nonprofits in the Pacific Northwest, which is where he’s from.”

  “Any connection with Aguilar or the other people we’re looking at before he came to work at the center?”

  “Negative.”

  “Okay, next we’ve got the witness, Dan Jeffers, who recognized the killer and took off shortly afterward. Any luck in locating him, Craig?”

  “No trace of him since he visited his brother in June, but I’m still on it.”

  “Okay, you may as well also try to find out what kind of business took Johnny Duarte out of town, and where. The woman I talked with, Harriet Leonard, described him as sounding frightened, but he doesn’t strike me as a man who’s easily intimidated. She also told me Duarte’s job with Heritage Marketing is legitimate—a front to cover for his drug distributing—so start with them.”

  He nodded. “What about this R. D.? The one who was staying with Aguilar for a while?”

  “Pretty difficult to trace someone when you only have a description and initials,” Charlotte said.

  Mick frowned at her. “I don’t know about that.”

  “Come on, Mick.”

  “I’ll bet you.”

  “Bet me what?”

&nb
sp; “Dinner at Piperade.”

  “Done.”

  The two of them were always wagering for food; before I’d given Mick an incentive package along with the go-ahead to establish our computer forensics department, he’d performed unusually difficult chores or overtime work in exchange for restaurant meals.

  Ted spoke up. “Shar, those files you had me copy after your briefcase was stolen—I’ve been thinking that the theft may not have been random. After all, one was on Aguilar. What if somebody’s keeping an eye on you, monitoring what you’re doing about the situation?”

  That should have occurred to me. “Good point. It was taken while I visited Aguilar’s building for the second time that day.”

  Charlotte said, “Maybe Aguilar himself has been watching you. How certain are we that he actually went to Central America?”

  “We aren’t certain. Craig—”

  “I’ll look into it.”

  Julia shifted in her chair, glanced up, troubled.

  “Yes, Jules?” I said.

  She hesitated, then shrugged. “You know, I’m kind of unimportant.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She folded her hands on the table, hunched her shoulders. “I’m just a trainee here. Haven’t even closed that many cases yet, and nothing major. I’ve got a juvie record, am a single mom struggling to get by, don’t have any power or influence. Nada. So why would anybody go after me? What if this doesn’t have to do with me at all? What if the person behind it is really after you?”