The Magician's Tale

by William Bayer

  This reservoir, I recall, was built in the last century. For years there's been talk of making it safe, retrofitting it to withstand a magnitude-8 quake. Meantime it's been sitting here, a vast subterranean space, forest of old columns supporting a crumbling roof, dusty, unused, uninhabited by anything except rodents and an occasional vagrant.

  In the distance I spot another ladder leading up to a second hatch. Our pursuer apparently sees it too, for he and his strobe disappear from the opening. I hear his footsteps on the roof. I whisper to Drake we must pull the second ladder down. Drake brings his finger to his lips. The ceiling creaks. He grins.

  The groan of wood under strain. Splintering, then a scream as a huge piece of roof crashes down. An explosion of dust. I turn away. When I look back up, the night sky's visible. The man pursuing us has fallen through. When the echoes die, I hear his cries in the darkness, like the whining of an injured dog.

  To approach or not? I hold Drake back; the man may still have his gun.

  "Is there another way out?"

  Drake nods, starts crawling. I crawl after him through the dust toward the sound of traffic on Hyde. By the time we reach the reservoir wall, the moans of our fallen pursuer have grown faint. Suddenly there's a roar as a cable car ascends. I think of myself with Sasha, just a few weeks ago, walking up this hill which I am now beneath, en route to our first kiss at my door.

  Drake motions toward rungs built into the wall. He climbs, I follow, until we are at the top, parallel with the slanting sidewalk. We swing ourselves up, Drake pushes out a section of grillwork, then we crawl out between close-fitting struts. At last in the open, I gulp fresh inky fog.

  "You saved my life, Drake." He's stunned when I take his face in my hands, plant a chaste kiss on his cheek. I feel him withdraw. When we were in danger there was contact; he grasped me, pushed and pulled me to safety. Now that we're safe, he retreats back into his solitude.

  He lowers his eyes. "I am always watching out for you, Kay."

  "I know." I gesture toward the reservoir. "He's s still down there. I've got to call the cops."

  He nods sadly.

  "You won't stay?"

  He shakes his head. "Be careful. The other one—"

  "I'll be careful." I touch his hand. "Thanks."

  He reenters the park. I watch as he skits along the reservoir fence toward Larkin, disappears in the fog. He will climb back up to Sterling Park; I know, hole up again among the trees and shrubs and from there gaze up at my window. I wish that one time at least we could hug one another, but I know this is something my secret watchman of the woods will not permit.

  I walk up to Chestnut, find a pay phone. My finger trembles as I punch in Hilly's number. Thank God she's home! Excited, she hears me out. When I'm done she says: "I'm on my way." I replace the phone, venture carefully back toward my vantage point among the olive trees, noting that Judd's car is no longer on the street.

  I'm looking for the other man, the one I hit in the head. There was something familiar about the way he moved I couldn't place. No trace of him now, but I do find my Nikon and the strobe I smashed. To my amazement Dad's old camera still works; beneath the black exterior it's solid brass.

  I pick up the broken strobe, examine it. Brand-new. Judd brought them here expressly to blind and kill me. How did they know I'm photophobic? I look down at my hands; they're still shaking. I drop the strobe in the dust.

  I feel no pity for the man I struck or the one lying at the bottom of the reservoir. I have no doubt that if they had caught me, they'd have heaved me through that very roof.

  Three squad cars pull up, then Hilly in her Volvo. I tell her about Judd. A minute later a police rescue unit arrives, followed by an ambulance. Hilly joins them. I watch through the fog as men and women with flashlights go to the reservoir, peer down through the hole. A crew arrives with a portable block and tackle. Another crew sets up a generator and lights. Rescue workers descend. I start taking pictures, hear the crackle of police radios, watch as the injured body of my pursuer is hoisted up.

  He's placed on a stretcher, rushed down to the ambulance. Hilly walks to where I'm standing. She's carrying another broken strobe and a .22 automatic in a Ziploc bag. There's some kind of attachment on the barrel. Hilly tells me it's a silencer.

  "It's Vasquez," she says. "He can't move. Lots of broken bones." She stares at me, smiles, shakes her head. "Can you believe it, Kay—chief of Felony Prostitution shooting at an unarmed woman with an illegally silenced gun! Jesus hot fuckin' dog!"

  I tell her why I'm not surprised, that I suspected he was Judd's partner in the scam.

  She tells me Vasquez is crying for his lawyer, that she's sent a team to find Judd and arrest him, also put out a call to all hospital E.R.s to look out for the man I hit.

  "There's plenty of blood," she tells me. "Looks like you whacked him good."

  "I'm thrilled."

  "Seen him before, Kay?"

  "I think so. Can't remember where."

  "It'll come to you." She steps closer, smiles again. "Last night I checked Knob's record at Pelican Bay. They try and train the boys up there, teach them a trade so they can find work when they get out. Guess what? His job was in the kitchen, apprentice meat cutter." She curls her lip. "They say near the end he got pretty good." She pauses. "I'm going to pick him up. Wanna come along?"

  As we drive over the top of Russian Hill, followed by two squad cars, each containing a team of uniformed cops, I catch glimpses through lit windows of cheerful domestic scenes, families clustered in comfortable living rooms relaxing after Thanksgiving dinner. Down on Polk it's a different story, lonely singles sitting in all-night Chinese restaurants, staring at their food. In doorways the homeless lie like broken dolls, while the addicts in the alleys peer at us with haunted eyes.

  After Bush Street we come upon hustlers. Hilly says she's surprised to see them out. I tell her what I learned from Tim, that around holidays business is always good, the streets filled with lonely johns, married men seeking rough trade, obsessed chicken hawks yearning for sweet boy-love in the night.

  We spot Knob, standing with Tommy and Boat, beside the door of The Werewolf. Hilly drives a block, pulls over, confers with the cops in the squad cars, returns to talk to me. The cops, she says, will scoop up all three, separate them, run the kids down to the Hall of Justice, place them in cubicles. She'll take Knob in her car on a longer, slower ride around the city. Certain he'll ask for a lawyer, she wants to talk to him informally first. I can't come along, but I'm welcome to meet her later at the Hall.

  "Aren't you afraid to be alone with him?" I ask.

  Hilly grins. "He's already done one five-year stretch for felonious assault. I kinda doubt he wants to go back for life."

  I walk home, shower, change and then, in an attempt to stop my hands from shaking, clean my camera and reload. The shaking's so bad I can barely get the fresh film aligned.

  Calm yourself. Find your center, Kay.

  I go to my office, look down through the window at Sterling Park. Drake's down there, I know, possibly, this very moment, gazing up at me.

  I phone for a cab. On my way out the door, it suddenly comes to me—the identity of the third man with the strobe.

  I return to my office, check the photos pinned to the cork. Yes, now I'm certain—it was Sarah Lashaw's lover and tennis coach, the man I know as Roy.

  The receptionist at the Hall of Justice phones for Hilly. She comes down to meet me, glow of triumph on her face. I sign in, a guard hangs a visitor's ID around my neck, Hilly escorts me back up to the Homicide Division.

  I tell her about Roy. She beams. "It fits. The house of cards is falling fast."

  In her office she instructs the duty detective to call the Lashaw house in St. Helena, get the full name of the resident tennis coach. Then she takes me into a viewing room.

  The cubicle on the other side of the one-way glass is small, oppressive like a cell. I think: Maybe this is the one where the T case detectives worked o
ver Dad. Knob faces us. He doesn't look like king of the Gulch tonight. His eyes are puffy; there're bruises on his. cheeks.

  I turn to Hilly. "What'd you do to him?"

  She grins. "Explained a few facts of life. Like whatever happened he was going down, the only question being whether he'd get life or lethal injection."

  "Okay if I take his picture?"

  "Be my guest."

  As I trip the shutter, I think I see him wince.

  "He's in recovery," Hilly says. "That's normal after a confession. Come on, I'll show you the videotape."

  She escorts me to another room, equipped with TV monitor and VCR, gestures me to a chair, slaps in a tape, fast-forwards it, stops.

  "Here's the good part," she says, restarting the tape at normal speed.

  I lean forward. This, I feel, is a moment I ought to savor.

  Knob, sobbing, desperate: "I swear I didn't kill him!"

  Hilly's voice, sympathetic, calm: "But you know who did?"

  Knob, crying, insistent: "Wasn't me!"

  "But you did something, right?"

  A moan, a nod: "Helped clean up, that's all."

  "Clean up? What does that mean?"

  "He was dead. I did some cutting. I swear—he was already dead."

  Hilly freezes the frame.

  She has things to do, leaves me alone to watch the rest of the tape. I stare spellbound as Knob tells how Crane became his most important client, the huge amounts of money Crane paid him to procure boys.

  "He kept wanting them younger, prettier. I broke my ass trying to please the guy. Then he met Rain, liked him. . . which wasn't good for me. See, Rain worked freelance. He wouldn't cut me in."

  "You hated Rain for that?" Hilly asks.

  Knob winces, shakes his head. "Wasn't personal. Business, that's all it was. He stole my best client. It's tough out there."

  "Tough?"

  "I had expenses. I was paying out big to Vasquez."

  "For what?"

  "Protection. If I didn't pay, he'd run me off the street."

  "You the only one who paid him?"

  "No, everyone does. He knows everything going on, names of all the important johns, who pays how much and what they get for it. He knows Crane, takes money from him, too. Knew Rain. When Crane got in trouble with Rain, he was there to help."

  "What kind of trouble?" Hilly asks.

  "Rain stopped seeing him."

  "Dropped him?"

  Knob nods.

  "Why?"

  Knob shakes his head. "Didn't like the way Crane kept crowding him, I guess."

  "You said Crane paid big."

  "He did, but Rain didn't care. Last month he comes to me, asks me to find Crane someone else. 'Get the guy off my back, I'll give you a split,' he says. So then we were friends again."

  "What happened?"

  "Beginning of October, when Rain stopped seeing him, Crane started talking crazy. One night he tells me since he can't have Rain he wants the next best thing. I try to fix him up for a three-way with Tommy and Boat, but this isn't what he's got in mind. Turns out he wants Rain's twin, the girl."

  Amoretto! I marvel at how her story keeps getting entwined with this. And certainly it makes sense: if Crane couldn't have Tim, he'd have his androgynous twin, Ariane. Boy, girl—small difference if the game was about possession.

  Knob requires little prompting now. Studying his face, expressionless eyes, listening to his matter-of-fact tone, I'm mesmerized as much as repelled. I even think I catch a glimmer of relief. Cool and amoral as he is, Knob isn't a pure sociopath, just a Catholic boy gone bad, carrying a burden of guilt. To confess to Hilly is to seek absolution, a first step toward redemption. She wants so much to understand him; he tries so hard to make her understand.

  After all, he keeps insisting, he didn't kill anyone, just helped clean up. . . and was thus but a bystander to the drama.

  "Scene with the girl didn't work out. Way I heard, got nasty too. I think that was Crane's plan—belt the girl around, get Rain mad. Then Rain'd have to come see him." Knob laughs. "Oh, Rain got mad all right. Real mad. Said he was going to go after the guy, report him, sue his ass. I told him, 'Don't do that!' It's the number-one rule on the street. You don't tell on these guys. They got too much to lose—family, reputation, whatever. You threaten them, try and blackmail, they're as likely to kill you as pay you off.

  "Not that Crane had the guts to kill anybody. Least I didn't think he did. More like he'd hire someone to do the job. There're plenty of guys on the Gulch, addicts and whatnot, they'll do anything you pay 'em enough."

  But Knob had underrated Crane, who, as it turned out, was quite capable of killing Tim. Knob didn't know what happened, only that Crane came to him and Vasquez afterward with twenty-five thousand cash each to clean up and cover up the killing.

  Right away Knob knew what to do—cut Tim up and dispose of the pieces. Then Vasquez got the bright idea of tying the Homicide Division up in knots. He'd wash Tim's torso with licorice-scented soap, then apply designs and the number "7" to make it look like a copycat T killing. Knob, figuring the head and limbs would never be found, bagged and dropped them into an alley dumpster. Vasquez, hoping the tricked-up torso would be found, ditched it in open sight in Wildcat Canyon.

  "So, see, I didn't kill anyone," Knob says, pleading for sympathy. "I'm bad, but not that bad. Like I said—the kid was dead. Guy offers you a bundle to clean up, what would you do? Huh?"

  Hilly reappears to tell me Crane and Roy have just been picked up at Sarah Lashaw's San Francisco house. I'm impressed with the way she's handling things. Without a supervisor to slow her down, she's moved decisively. Now with Crane under arrest, I have to agree that yes, the house of cards is falling fast.

  "The way it comes down," she says, "Vasquez and Knob were accessories after the fact. They'll both get life sentences for that. Crane'll get the needle, Roy and Judd'll do serious time for trying to kill you. It's all over now except for the trials."

  I shake my head. The riddle is solved. Now that I know the story all the pieces fit: Crane, the Chicken Hawk, kills Tim to shut him up; Knob, the Butcher, cuts up Tim's body; Vasquez, the Bad Cop, ornaments Tim's torso to complicate the investigation.

  But why did Crane have to kill Tim? Why not just pay him off? I think I know. Crane, I believe, tried to pay, but Tim refused his money. Ariane, his beloved twin, had been brutally beaten; no amount would stop him from bringing Crane down.

  In the morning Joel and I attend the arraignments. The courtroom is packed with squabbling lawyers, bored cops, irritable bailiffs, terrified spouses, some with infants in their arms. Judge Helen Lesser, gray-haired and gaunt, presides.

  The players perform like robots, each accused person approaching the bar with counsel, listening to, then answering the charge, followed by a brisk argument over bail, a quick decision by the judge, a stroke of the gavel, then a rapid march-off to the wings.

  We sit through a string of minor cases: pickpockets, prostitutes, shoplifters, persons accused of peddling without a license. At one point Hilly approaches with an attractive young Asian-American woman whom she introduces as Assistant D.A. Patricia Chu. Pat Chu, Hilly tells us, will be prosecuting the Lovsey defendants. We shake hands, Pat returns to her table, Hilly whispers: "She's young but one of the best."

  The clerk calls Luis Vasquez.

  One Laurence Granby steps forward, former police officer, now shiny-suited defense attorney specializing in the representation of accused cops. His client, he tells Judge Lesser, cannot appear, being presently in the hospital recovering from a fall. He presents papers allowing him to plead in his stead.

  The charges are read: attempted homicide; corruption; obstruction of justice; accessory after the fact to murder. Granby tells the judge that his client pleads not guilty. Mr. Vasquez, he argues, being a sworn law enforcement officer with strong ties to the community, should, upon his recovery, be released without bond.

  Pat Chu, with just the slightest hint of a sna
rl, argues for confinement. Judge Lesser agrees, orders Vasquez transferred to the jail ward at Cal Med. "Next!" she tells her clerk.

  J. F. Judd appears, accompanied by his former law partner, a rumpled old-timer named Jeremiah Waldroon. The charges: false representation; solicitation of corruption; conspiracy to commit murder. Waldroon asks for minimum bail. Judge Lesser sternly sets bond at $400,000.

  Raymond Crogan, a.k.a. Knob, accompanied by public defender Wendy Aronson, is called next. Knob pleads guilty to the charge of accessory to murder. Pat Chu informs the judge that Crogan has agreed to testify against other parties in return for being allowed to plead to a single three-strikes offense. Since there can be no bail for a three-strikes offender, Judge Lesser sets a date for the formal plea and sentencing. Knob is led away.

  Next up is Peter Royal, known to me as Roy, dressed in pressed chinos and tennis shirt, head swathed in bandages. His lawyer assists him in pleading not guilty to the charge of attempted murder, then asks for bail.

  "My client," he pleads, "is the injured party here. Truth is, the person he's accused of trying to kill, tried to kill him . . . and nearly did."

  Pat Chu explains that the victim, namely me, was acting in self-defense. She asks for $500,000 bond. Judge Lesser agrees, smacks her gavel, asks the clerk to call the next case.

  The room becomes still. This is what everyone's been waiting for. Marcus Crane, toupeed, dressed in dark gray slacks, bespoke sports jacket and Pacific-Union Club tie, walks confidently to the bar, accompanied by J. Carter Hackford, possibly the best and certainly the most expensive defense attorney in San Francisco. The charge: first degree murder.

  During the reading, Crane, head held high, stares straight ahead. But scanning the courtroom, I spot Sarah Lashaw. Our eyes meet. She glares raw hatred. I turn away.

  Hackford argues for bond; the charge, he says, is based solely on the testimony of a lying street hustler and convicted felon. He lists various important corporate and charity boards upon which Mr. Crane sits, his role as scion of one of the city's oldest, most distinguished families, the lack of any criminal record and the absurdity of the notion that such a man would attempt to flee.