The Magician's Tale

by William Bayer

  "You can't prove a thing!"

  I hold up my tape recorder. "I think I can." I start toward the door.

  "Hey! Wait! We can work this out."

  I turn. He's up now, menacing, coming around the side of his desk.

  "Gimme that tape!"

  I laugh. He lunges at me. I grasp his wrist, turn, throw him across the room. He crashes into his filing cabinet. When he rises I note that his forehead's cut.

  "Bitch!"

  "Have to do better than that, fatso."

  He lunges again. This time I knife-hand the side of his neck, then back-fist him across the nose. He crumples to the floor. I stare down at him. He looks pathetic. I take his picture twice.

  A knock on the door. It's Battle-axe. "Everything all right, Mr. Judd."

  "Yeah, go back to work." He glares up at me: "I'll get you for assault."

  "God, you're dumb!" I show him the recorder again. "It's still running. You attacked me. I defended myself. It's all on tape."

  He touches his nose, winces. His eyes go meek. "What do you want?"

  "Names. The rich man who beat up the girl, the cop who took the bribe."

  "They'll kill me if I tell."

  "Who's 'they'?"

  "Listen, please—"

  "You listen! You've been stupid. When I walked in here I didn't know about a beating. I just wanted to know who arrested Tim. You could have refused, written off your twelve-fifty, sent me on my way. Instead you got greedy, showed off, as much as admitted you sold Tim out. Now it's time to get smart. You've got my card. Tell me what I want to know or take what's coming to you. You got three days."

  As I leave, old Battle-axe gives me the evil eye.

  "Your boss needs help. Got bandages?" I ask. I bring my face close. "Does he often attack women? You really should speak to him about that."

  Sasha wants us to spend Thanksgiving at an inn in the wine country or perhaps south in Pebble Beach or on Big Sur. The idea is to luxuriate—sleep late, make love on crisp linen sheets, eat breakfast in bed, bathe in a hot tub, take long romantic walks in the vineyards or on the beach. It sounds great. I give him my blessing. Three hours later he calls back. We'll have to spend the holiday in the city; every luxury place in Northern California's booked.

  Not to worry, I tell him. My idea of a perfect Thanksgiving is to catch a movie, hit Chinatown for a platter of grilled salt-and-pepper shrimp, walk home holding hands, make love, snuggle close, then fall to sleep.

  I stop at the farmers' market on the Embarcadero, peruse the produce, buy a bag of clementines, which have just come into season. Due to my achromatopsia, eggplants and tomatoes appear the same shade, namely black. But color-blindness, I feel, has its advantages, forcing me, unable to make quick decisions based on colors, to look carefully at shapes. Yes, it is the shapes of things—their forms, not their fields—that reach my eye. Color-blindness has taught me to look steadily, view the world, discern.

  Tonight, playing with my telescope, studiously avoiding the terrace of the Judge, I reacquaint myself with my neighbors, then sweep the city searching for points of interest.

  Alcatraz, the forbidding rock, fills my eyepiece. Then the apex of Coit Tower, and several office buildings downtown outlined in lights for the holidays. But, as always, it's the smaller structures of North Beach and Telegraph Hill that engage me, variegated cubes arrayed, stacked, fitting together like pieces in an intricate, superbly constructed puzzle. Doors, windows, streetlamps, houses, stores, churches, playgrounds, schools—the variety and complexity of shapes is music to my eyes.

  I realize that what I love best about San Francisco, and have rarely found anyplace else, is that here all these forms and shapes add up to something I can grasp. Each piece, each part, fits together to make the whole. The city is a unity, and now I wish that the mysteries that taunt me, the maze of photos pinned to my office wall, will come clear as well.

  In the morning I leave half my clementines on the bench for Drake, whom I haven't seen in two days. An hour later, when I go out again and cruise the spot, I find my package gone. I only hope it was Drake who took it, not some other denizen of Russian Hill. Since he has declared himself, as much as promised to protect me with his life, I figure the least I owe him is decent nourishment.

  I meet Joel at the Bay Area News, then we saunter over to the Transcendental Cafe for lunch. The late-autumn light catches the varnished tarot cards that paper the wall, creating a reflective sheen. The resident swami sits at his usual table reading the fortune of a boy with tresses.

  I fill Joel in on what Hilly told me about Vasquez and the scented soap, then play him the tape of my exchange with Judd. After listening to the noise of our fight, he gazes at me with mock awe.

  "Gosh, Kay—you really do beat guys up!"

  But he's confused about the rest, not clear on the identity of Tim's beaten friend. I tell him about Ariane, David deGeoffroy, the Zamantha Illusion, the twins' heist of deGeoffroy's savings, Ariane's strange identity as Amoretto, the key hidden in Tim's molding, and how I met Courtney Hill in Ariane's vacated flat.

  "Dammit!" he exclaims when I'm finished. "Why didn't you tell me all this before?"

  "It didn't seem relevant and I didn't want to distract you. Then, yesterday, I realized it may have been the reason Tim was killed."

  Joel nods. "What about Vasquez?"

  "Suppose he was the cop who picked Tim up?"

  "A lieutenant, commander of the felony prostitution squad?"

  "Why not? He's got a nice house. I'm sure he can use some extra cash. Suppose he freelances after hours? Cops run scams all the time."

  "Actually, now that I think about it, it's a good one too. Vasquez knows the streets, knows the pickup lines. Boys and girls—he goes after them all. They take his cash, he's got them cold. He doesn't even have to have sex with them if he doesn't want to. Just make the deal, fork over, snap on the cuffs."

  "How can we be sure?"

  "That'll be hard. But since both Hilly and your dad say he's dirty there's probably something there. Let me ask around, see what I can find."

  "When do you want to tip off Hilly on the buried treasure?"

  "Soon. Keep working with her, Kay. As for Judd"—Joel smiles—"that was a pretty good bluff: your friend the investigative journalist. Only trouble is . . . it would take me months."

  "I think Judd'll call."

  "I think so too. But be careful, kiddo. Knock a guy around, humiliate him like you did, you may end up facing a mad dog."

  Hilly and I meet again at The Duchess. Tonight her hair is beautifully slicked back. She's glowing with triumph. She's got a match on Knob's prints.

  "Your friend's a bad boy, Kay. Up to his ears in shit." She pulls out a computer printout, reads off a list of names:

  "Raymond Crogan, a.k.a. Ray Crow, a.k.a. Ray 'Crowbar,' a.k.a. Ray 'Knob' Cross. Arrests go back to his teens—stealing, pandering, soliciting, battery, attempted vehicular homicide . . . a few more. Get this: two California felony convictions, the first for burglary, two-year sentence, fourteen months served, the second for felonious assault upon a police officer—five years sentenced and served at Pelican Bay." Hilly looks up at me. "Bottom line, under California three-strikes law he's vulnerable."

  "Meaning . . ."

  "Beating up on you and stealing your camera was a big mistake. If a D.A. can prove it to a jury, he'll get twenty-five to life."

  Great! I think, and then, how strange that Knob would take such a chance. Which may explain why he pulled the pillowcase over my head and sent his boys up to my flat while he stood lookout below.

  "He must have been paid a great deal of money to take chances like that," I tell her. "Knob may be many things, but he isn't stupid . . . and to risk life in prison to settle a score would be stupid beyond belief."

  Hilly agrees. "Hiring out kids for sex is a felony too, and he does that every night. Which makes it even more risky. Unless—" She grins.

  "What?"

  "He's got protect
ion."

  Something about the smile on her face tells me she's tasting blood. What better vindication, after all, than to nail Vasquez for taking bribes?

  "What're you going to do about it?" I ask, hoping to taunt her into action.

  "I like your idea of hauling in Knob's boys, breaking them, turning them into witnesses. Trouble is . . . if I take this to Charbeau, he'll shoot me down or put Shanley in charge. And if I try it without authorization I'll get shit-canned even if it works."

  She ponders. "Thanksgiving's coming up. Shanley and Charbeau'll both be out of town. I was going to drive down to L.A., spend the holiday with my folks, but now I got a better idea." She squints. "With everyone away I'll have the field to myself. If I handle things right, it could be over before anyone gets back."

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Seven p.m., Thanksgiving night. A chill in the air. Mist clings to the streetlights while buoy bells and mournful foghorns float up to me from the Bay. I'm standing still and alert in the strip of park between Larkin and Hyde at the base of Russian Hill. The old clock tower at Ghirardelli Square is barely visible through the vapor.

  I've chosen this location and also the hour, insisting the meeting take place after dark. Judd argued for Fort Mason Park in daytime, but I took a hard line, figuring that anything he wanted would not be good for me.

  I wait under cover of a small grove of olive trees a hundred feet back from the street, beautiful ancient, gnarled specimens with thick black twisted trunks. Beneath these boughs the air smells good, sweet and loamy. And from here I can watch for Judd's approach.

  The fog is heavy, this place is dark and isolated, there are no pedestrians and, it being a holiday, traffic is sparse. But I'm not worried. Having already physically defeated Judd, I have the psychological advantage. Moreover, in darkness my vision is far superior to his, and tonight, unlike the night I was sandbagged in Sterling Park, I'm on guard.

  I know this territory well, traverse it regularly. Although a good two hundred feet below the summit of the hill, it is but three blocks from my building. I often walk down here via the Larkin steps, guided by the anise scent of wild fennel that grows so luxuriantly in the city. Anise, of course, is an olfactory cousin of licorice, that haunting aroma Dad smelled on Skeleton-man's body.

  A mid-size Toyota approaches, slows, speeds away. Three minutes later it reappears. This time it pulls into a parking space on Bay, then hovers, lights and engine on. I tense; this must be him, the timing is right and the behavior appropriately peculiar. A minute passes, the driver cuts his engine, waits a few seconds, douses his lights and gets out.

  I recognize him immediately, the aggressive waddle, extended paunch. He's even carrying an overstuffed briefcase the way a harassed lawyer should. I watch from my hiding place as he peers about, then paces back and forth, never straying far from his vehicle. Several times he stops, checks his watch, looks toward me and the trees above. Finally, nervously, he goes to the benches where I told him to wait, chooses one and sits, cradling his briefcase in his arms.

  I peer around to be sure no one's lurking. I search the shadows beneath surrounding trees for human forms. I scan the crest behind, the flat fenced-off reservoir above, finally the backs of the buildings behind me on Chestnut Street, where several large view windows are dimly lit.

  No uncommon movements, visible confederates, nothing extraordinary or out of place. This is a dog-walking area, but tonight the haze has confined evening strollers to residential streets. The only sound, beside the buoys and foghorns, is the erratic rumbling of the cable beneath the tracks on Hyde.

  I stoop, step out from beneath the boughs, straighten up, stand still, scan my surroundings again. Judd, back to me, sits quietly on his bench. I'm eager to go to him, but hold myself back. Five minutes more, I decide, to be certain he's alone. Then I'll approach him from behind.

  Judd moves as if to turn. "Don't!" I order. I hear the same labored breathing I heard in his office after I knocked him down. "Let's make this quick," I snap. "Give me the names."

  "Yeah, and what do I get?" he asks, his voice whiny, shrill. "You hand over the tape, how do I know you didn't make a copy?"

  "You don't. Which is why I won't be handing over the tape."

  "What?" He's outraged. It comes back to me now—how much I dislike him. "I thought we had a deal." Again he starts to turn.

  I place my hand on his sweaty pate, am revulsed at the touch. "Face front! We do have a deal. You give me the names, you don't get disbarred." He squirms beneath my palm. "Of course I've copied the tape," I tell him, "deposited it with friends . . . as I have all the incriminating photographs I took since I started delving into this vipers' nest."

  "Why should I trust you, missy?"

  How I loathe that word! Sensing he's stalling, I turn, check the trees behind, see nothing, focus again on the back of his head.

  "My deal expires in twenty seconds. Talk or I'm walking away."

  "You can't!"

  "I am!" I retreat a step.

  "Wait!''

  "Talk!"

  "Sure." Suddenly he turns, a light flashes and I go blind.

  An extremely brilliant lamp, a strobe, has been fired point-blank at my face. Instinctively I start running up the hill, feeling my way blindly, scrambling, grasping desperately at gravel and weeds.

  I open my eyes, see nothing, but hear someone climbing behind. Propelled by terror, I rush on as slowly my vision clears. At the top of the ridge, I turn and look down. I have but a split second to glimpse the scene below before lights flash again, twice this time, from two different points. Again blinded, I turn and rush forward, colliding with a fence.

  I know where I am, at the fenced perimeter of the old underground Francisco Street reservoir, closed off by the Water Department because the roof is weak. I turn right, run along the fence, brushing one hand against the metal. There are at least two people chasing me and both have strobes. If I trip and fall, they'll overtake me. I must outrun them even though I can't see. If I can keep from looking back, I'll gradually regain my sight. But if I turn to face them, they will strobe me again, and then I'll be at their mercy.

  The air's chilly but I sweat as I stumble along the path. I can see now, better every second, can also hear my pursuers' steps. Not Judd, I'm certain; he's a waddler, couldn't move this fast. Who are these people? Where did they come from? Then it hits me: they must have been hiding in Judd's car. He hid his strobe in his briefcase, fired it at me, then they got out with strobes of their own and chased me up the hill.

  I scramble back down toward the olive trees, choose one, hit the ground, crawl on my belly beneath the branches until I reach the trunk. So long as they can fire off strobes, I don't have a chance. If I turn to fight, they'll blind me; if I try to hide, they have lamps to find me out.

  I hear them now moving in the darkness. They know I'm in the grove. I catch a glimpse of one. He's holding a cell phone to his ear. They're conferring, coordinating their search. In a minute one of them will spot me. If I'm to survive I must move fast, gain back my advantage—superior vision at night.

  I choose the one closest. In silhouette he looks familiar, but even with my sight restored I can't make out his face.

  I crouch, ready to rush him, waiting for him to turn his back. Rita said: Use your camera as a ball and chain. Merge with it. I wrap the strap of my Nikon around my hand until there's but a foot of slack.

  He steps closer, stops and stares. Now he's just fifteen feet away. When he turns, I charge. He hears me, raises his strobe. Swinging my camera, I knock it from his hands. On the reverse swing, I smack him in the side of the head. He goes down. I stamp hard on the strobe, hear the lens and bulb crack beneath my shoe. He groans, moves. I kick him, then hear a shout. His colleague is charging at me from below. I turn just in time to avoid another burst of light, dash back up the hill, stumbling on my own shadow as the strobe flashes again and again like a hot lash against my back.

  Ping! Something nicks the earth bes
ide me. Ping!Ping! Two more nicks, closer. Must be bullets! I scurry along the north-south reservoir fence, prepared to rush up the Larkin steps.

  Suddenly another figure rises before me. I turn. Behind me the man with the gun is gaining fast. Cornered! I rush the new man, am about to strike him with my camera, stop just as the strobe behind me fires off. The light reveals Drake, illuminated like a ghost, his face chalk-white and flat. Confused, I drop my camera. Drake pulls me to him, pivots, pushes me down, then through an opening at the bottom of the fence.

  We race across the asphalt. I'm terrified. I know the reason this area is fenced, the weakness of the roof, can feel it cave beneath my feet.

  "We can't cross here!" I tell him. "We'll fall through."

  Drake whispers: "Stay with me. You'll be safe."

  He guides me to a wooden walkway that angles across the asphalt. I glance back, spot our pursuer wriggling beneath the fence.

  Drake lifts up a flap of asphalt, pulls up boards, throws them aside.

  "Down," he orders.

  "Into the water?"

  "It's empty. Go down, Kay. Feel for the ladder."

  Ping!Ping! More shots. I find a footing on the ladder, scamper down, several times feeling Drake's heels as they scuff my head. Just as I reach the bottom, the silhouette of our pursuer appears in the hatch above. I jump for the floor. Drake leaps too, then yanks the ladder from the opening. It crashes down, raising a cloud of dust. I turn away and choke.

  It's black down here, the floor is covered with debris and muck, there are pillars at regular intervals, the ceiling is twenty-five feet high and the smell is of old iron, rust and rot. Drake guides me toward the Hyde Street side. The man in the hatch opening is firing his strobe, trying to find us in the gloom. I flatten myself behind a pillar, draw in my legs, freeze. My vision has grown keen; I don't relish the thought of losing it. I shade my eyes, then peer around, taking care not to look directly at the strobe.