So there we were, humming right along, getting ready for the first races at Santa Anita and Golden Gate Fields, when somebody knocked on the door.
Herbie and I looked at each other. Then I looked at my watch, as if the watch could tell me who was knocking on the damn door. It was ten forty-five, one hour and fifteen minutes after we'd opened for business.
"Who can that be?" Herbie said. "The landlord, maybe?"
"I thought you said he wouldn't bother us."
Two of the telephones began ringing at the same time. I jumped. "Muffle those things!"
Herbie hauled up both receivers, said, "Ring back" into each one, and put them down again.
There was another knock on the door, louder this time. "We better answer it," Herbie said. "If it's not the landlord, maybe it's the mailman."
"Yeah," I said.
"Anyway, it's nothing to worry about. I mean, cops wouldn't knock, would they?"
I relaxed. Sure, if it was the cops they would have come busting in already. They wouldn't stand out there knocking.
I got up and went over to the door and cracked it open. And the first thing I saw was a badge—a big shiny badge pinned to the front of a blue uniform shirt. My eyes moved upward to a neck, a huge, red neck, and then on up to a huge, red head with a blue-and-gold cap perched on top of it.
"Hello," the head said.
I saw another blue uniform behind it. "Arrgh!" I said.
"I'm Chief of Police Wiggins," the head said, "and . . ."
I slammed the door. "Cops!" I yelled. "The flash paper. Herbie, the flash paper!"
"Cops?" he yelled.
The door burst open. My backside was in the way, but not for long. It felt like a bull had hit that door, which in a manner of speaking was just what had happened. I flew into the room, collided with a chair, and fell down on my head.
A booming voice said, "What's going on in—" And then, "Well, I'll be damned!"
"Cops!" Herbie yelled.
"Watch it, Jed!" the booming voice boomed. "Flash paper!"
A blue uniform blurred past me as I struggled to my knees. I saw the uniform brush Herbie aside, saw a hand sweep across the desk. Saw all the paper flutter to the floor, intact.
"Bookies," the blue uniform said, amazed.
"Hoo-haw!" the booming voice said. "Hoo-haw-haw!"
"Right across the street," the blue uniform said, still amazed.
I reached up and touched my head. I could feel a lump sprouting there. Then I looked over at Herbie, who was now cowering in the grip of a long arm. "Herbie," I said, "I am going to kill you, Herbie."
"Right across the street," the blue uniform said again, shaking his head in wonder.
"Hoo, hoo, hoo!"
So, down the back stairs we went. Across the street we went. Into a cell we went.
Fortunately for Herbie, it wasn't the same cell.
I sat on the hard cot. The lump on my head seemed to be growing. But it was nothing, I told myself, to the lump that would soon grow on Herbie's head.
A little while later the blue uniform came back and took me to the chief's office. He took one look at me and broke off into a fresh series of hoo-hoos and hoo-haws. I sat in a chair and glared at the wall.
The chief wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. "Damnedest thing I ever heard of," he said. "Setting up a bookie joint within spitting distance of the police station."
I ground my teeth.
"It's one for the books, that's what it is," he said, and commenced hoo-hawing again.
I ground my teeth some more.
When his latest spasm ended the chief said, "What could have possessed you, son?"
Instead of answering I asked him, "Can I have a couple of minutes alone with Herbie?"
"What for?" Then he nodded his big red head and grinned and said, "Oh, I get it. His idea, was it?"
"Yeah. His idea."
"Damnedest thing I ever heard of," the chief said again. "It really is one for the—"
"All right," I said. "Look, how did you find out, anyway?"
"Well, to tell you the truth, we didn't."
"You . . . didn't?"
"We had no idea what you fellas were doing over there until we busted in."
"Then why were you there?"
"Business license. You got to have one to operate a business in this town."
I didn't get it. "I don't get it," I said.
"Saw some sign painters over there the other day," the chief said, "painting the name of a valve company on the windows."
"So?"
"New company setting up shop in town," the chief said. "Good for the growth of our fair city. But like I said, every business has got to have a license. So I did some checking, on account of it was a slow day, and found out this valve company never applied for one. Technically, they were breaking the law."
Herbie, I thought, I'm going to break your head.
"Wasn't a big deal, but still, the law's the law. So I figured to sort of welcome them officially and then bring up the matter of the license afterwards. Keep from ruffling feathers that way."
"You always go calling in person for something like that? Why didn't you use the phone?"
"Probably would have," the chief said. "Except for one thing."
I sighed. "What's that?"
"Well, son," he said with more hoo-haws lurking in his voice, "you were right across the street."
INCIDENT IN A NEIGHBORHOOD TAVERN
A "Nameless Detective" Story
When the holdup went down I was sitting at the near end of the Foghorn Tavern's scarred mahogany bar talking to the owner, Matt Candiotti.
It was a little before seven of a midweek evening, lull-time in working-class neighborhood saloons like this one. Blue-collar locals would jam the place from four until about six-thirty, when the last of them headed home for dinner; the hardcore drinkers wouldn't begin filtering back in until about seven-thirty or eight. Right now there were only two customers, and the jukebox and computer hockey games were quiet. The TV over the back bar was on, but with the sound turned down to a tolerable level. One of the customers, a porky guy in his fifties, drinking Anchor Steam out of the bottle, was watching the last of the NBC national news. The other customer, an equally porky and middle-aged female barfly, half in the bag on red wine, was trying to convince him to pay attention to her instead of Tom Brokaw.
I had a draft beer in front of me, but that wasn't the reason I was there. I'd come to ask Candiotti, as I had asked two dozen other merchants here in the Outer Mission, if he could offer any leads on the rash of burglaries that were plaguing small businesses in the neighborhood. The police hadn't come up with anything positive after six weeks, so a couple of the victims had gotten up a fund and hired me to see what I could find out. They'd picked me because I had been born and raised in the Outer Mission, I still had friends and shirttail relatives living here, and I understood the neighborhood a good deal better than any other private detective in San Francisco.
But so far I wasn't having any more luck than the SFPD. None of the merchants I'd spoken with today had given me any new ideas. And Candiotti was proving to be no exception. He stood slicing limes into wedges as we talked. They might have been onions the way his long, mournful face was screwed up, like a man trying to hold back tears. His gray-stubbled jowls wobbled every time he shook his head. He reminded me of a tired old hound, friendly and sad, as if life had dealt him a few kicks but not quite enough to rob him of his good nature.
"Wish I could help," he said. "But hell, I don't hear nothing. Must be pros from Hunters Point or the Fillmore, hah?"
Hunters Point and the Fillmore were black sections of the city, which was a pretty good indicator of where his head was at. I said, "Some of the others figure it for local talent."
"Out of this neighborhood, you mean?"
I nodded, drank some of my draft.
"Nah, I doubt it," he said. "Guys that organized, they don't shit where they eat. Too smart, you know?"
/> "Maybe. Any break-ins or attempted break-ins here?"
"Not so far. I got bars on all the windows, double deadbolt locks on the storeroom door off the alley. Besides, what's for them to steal besides a few cases of whiskey?"
"You don't keep cash on the premises overnight?"
"Fifty bucks in the till," Candiotti said, "that's all; that's my limit. Everything else goes out of here when I close up, down to the night deposit at the B of A on Mission. My mama didn't raise no airheads." He scraped the lime wedges off his board into a plastic container, and racked the serrated knife he'd been using. "One thing I did hear," he said. "I heard some of the loot turned up down in San Jose. You know about that?"
"Not much of a lead there. Secondhand dealer named Pitman had a few pieces of stereo equipment stolen from the factory outlet store on Geneva. Said he bought it from a guy at the San Jose flea market, somebody he didn't know, never saw before."
"Yeah, sure," Candiotti said wryly. "What do the cops think?"
"That Pitman bought it off a fence."
"Makes sense. So maybe the boosters are from San Jose, hah?"
"Could be," I said, and that was when the kid walked in.
He brought bad air in with him; I sensed it right away and so did Candiotti. We both glanced at the door when it opened, the way you do, but we didn't look away again once we saw him. He was in his early twenties, dark-skinned, dressed in chinos, a cotton windbreaker, sharp-toed shoes polished to a high gloss. But it was his eyes that put the chill on my neck, the sudden clutch of tension down low in my belly. They were bright, jumpy, on the wild side, and in the dim light of the Foghorn's interior, the pupils were so small they seemed nonexistent. He had one hand in his jacket pocket and I knew it was clamped around a gun even before he took it out and showed it to us.
He came up to the bar a few feet on my left, the gun jabbing the air in front of him. He couldn't hold it steady; it kept jerking up and down, from side to side, as if it had a kind of spasmodic life of its own. Behind me, at the other end of the bar, I heard Anchor Steam suck in his breath and the barfly make a sound like a stifled moan. I eased back a little on the stool, watching the gun and the kid's eyes flick from Candiotti to me to the two customers and back around again. Candiotti didn't move at all, just stood there staring with his hound's face screwed up in that holding-back-tears way.
"All right all right," the kid said. His voice was high pitched, excited, and there was drool at one corner of his mouth. You couldn't get much more stoned than he was and still function. Coke, crack, speed—maybe a combination. The gun that kept flicking this way and that had to be a goddamn Saturday night special. "Listen good, man, everybody listen good. I don't want to kill none of you, man, but I will if I got to, you better believe it."
None of us said anything. None of us moved.
The kid had a folded-up paper sack in one pocket; he dragged it out with his free hand, dropped it, broke quickly at the middle to pick it up without lowering his gaze. When he straightened again there was sweat on his forehead, more drool coming out of his mouth. He threw the sack on the bar.
"Put the money in there Mr. Cyclone Man," he said to Candiotti. "All the money in the register but not the coins, I don't want the fuckin' coins, you hear me?"
Candiotti nodded; reached out slowly, caught up the sack, turned toward the back bar with his shoulders hunched up against his neck. When he punched No Sale on the register, the ringing thump of the cash drawer sliding open seemed overloud in the electric hush. For a few seconds the kid watched him scoop bills into the paper sack; then his eyes and the gun skittered my way again. I had looked into the muzzle of a handgun before and it was the same feeling each time: dull fear, helplessness, a kind of naked vulnerability.
"Your wallet on the bar, man, all your cash." The gun barrel and the wild eyes flicked away again, down the length of the plank, before I could move to comply. "You down there, dude, you and fat mama put your money on the bar. All of it, hurry up."
Each of us did as we were told. While I was getting my wallet out I managed to slide my right foot off the stool, onto the brass rail, and to get my right hand pressed tight against the beveled edge of the bar. If I had to make any sudden moves, I would need the leverage.
Candiotti finished loading the sack, turned from the register. There was a grayish cast to his face now—the wet gray color of fear. The kid said to him, "Pick up their money, put it in the sack with the rest. Come on come on come on!"
Candiotti went to the far end of the plank, scooped up the wallets belonging to Anchor Steam and the woman; then he came back my way, added my wallet to the contents of the paper sack, put the sack down carefully in front of the kid.
"Okay," the kid said, "okay all right." He glanced over his shoulder at the street door, as if he'd heard something there; but it stayed closed. He jerked his head around again. In his sweaty agitation the Saturday night special almost slipped free of his fingers; he fumbled a tighter grip on it, and when it didn't go off I let the breath I had been holding come out thin and slow between my teeth. The muscles in my shoulders and back were drawn so tight I was afraid they might cramp.
The kid reached out for the sack, dragged it in against his body. But he made no move to leave with it. Instead he said, "Now we go get the big pile, man."
Candiotti opened his mouth, closed it again. His eyes were almost as big and starey as the kid's.
"Come on Mr. Cyclone Man, the safe, the safe in your office. We goin' back there now."
"No money in that safe," Candiotti said in a thin, scratchy voice. "Nothing valuable."
"Oh man I'll kill you man I'll blow your fuckin' head off! I ain't playin' no games I want that money!"
He took two steps forward, jabbing with the gun up close to Candiotti's gray face. Candiotti backed off a step, brought his hands up, took a tremulous breath.
"All right," he said, "but I got to get the key to the office. It's in the register."
"Hurry up hurry up!"
Candiotti turned back to the register, rang it open, rummaged inside with his left hand. But with his right hand, shielded from the kid by his body, he eased up the top on a large wooden cigar box adjacent. The hand disappeared inside; came out again with metal in it, glinting in the back bar lights. I saw it and I wanted to yell at him, but it wouldn't have done any good, would only have warned the kid . . . and he was already turning with it, bringing it up with both hands now—the damn gun of his own he'd had hidden inside the cigar box. There was no time for me to do anything but shove away from the bar and sideways off the stool just as Candiotti opened fire.
The state he was in, the kid didn't realize what was happening until it was too late for him to react; he never even got a shot off. Candiotti's first slug knocked him halfway around, and one of the three others that followed it opened up his face like a piece of ripe fruit smacked by a hammer. He was dead before his body, driven backward, slammed into the cigarette machine near the door, slid down it to the floor.
The half-drunk woman was yelling in broken shrieks, as if she couldn't get enough air for a sustained scream. When I came up out of my crouch I saw that Anchor Steam had hold of her, clinging to her as much for support as in an effort to calm her down. Candiotti stood flat-footed, his arms down at his sides, the gun out of sight below the bar, staring at the bloody remains of the kid as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing, couldn't believe what he'd done.
Some of the tension in me eased as I went to the door, found the lock on its security gate, fastened it before anybody could come in off the street. The Saturday night special was still clutched in the kid's hand; I bent, pulled it free with my thumb and forefinger, and broke the cylinder. It was loaded, all right—five cartridges. I dropped it into my jacket pocket, thought about checking the kid's clothing for identification, didn't do it. It wasn't any of my business, now, who he'd been. And I did not want to touch him or any part of him. There was a queasiness in my stomach, a fluttery weakness behind my kne
es—the same delayed reaction I always had to violence and death—and touching him would only make it worse.
To keep from looking at the red ruin of the kid's face, I pivoted back to the bar. Candiotti hadn't moved. Anchor Steam had gotten the woman to stop screeching and had coaxed her over to one of the handful of tables near the jukebox; now she was sobbing, "I've got to go home, I'm gonna be sick if I don't go home." But she didn't make any move to get up and neither did Anchor Steam.
I walked over near Candiotti and pushed hard words at him in an undertone. "That was a damn fool thing to do. You could have got us all killed."
"I know," he said. "I know."
"Why'd you do it?"
"I thought . . . hell, you saw the way he was waving that piece of his . . ."
"Yeah," I said. "Call the police. Nine-eleven."
"Nine-eleven. Okay."
"Put that gun of yours down first. On the bar."
He did that. There was a phone on the back bar; he went away to it in shaky strides. While he was talking to the Emergency operator I picked up his weapon, saw that it was a .32 Charter Arms revolver. I held it in my hand until Candiotti finished with the call, then set it down again as he came back to where I stood.
"They'll have somebody here in five minutes," he said. I said, "You know that kid?"
"Christ, no."
"Ever see him before? Here or anywhere else?"
"No."
"So how did he know about your safe?"
Candiotti blinked at me. "What?"
"The safe in your office. Street kid like that . . . how'd he know about it?"
"How should I know? What difference does it make?"
"He seemed to think you keep big money in that safe."
"Well, I don't. There's nothing in it."
"That's right, you told me you don't keep more than fifty bucks on the premises overnight. In the till."
Small Felonies - Fifty Mystery Short Stories Page 13
