Samson's Deal: A Laid-Back Bay Area Mystery (The Jake Samson & Rosie Vicente Detective Series)

by Shelley Singer

  “You didn’t stay long,” she said.

  “With you waiting here?”

  She threw me a sardonic glance. The musicians were leaping acrobatically back onto the stage. I was beginning to wish we were sitting down. Close.

  “Ready to sit at a table yet?” I asked her.

  “All right,” she said, and our relationship advanced a notch. From casual just-meeting at the bar to actually sitting down together and admitting, thereby, that we were in some way together.

  I didn’t want to talk about my exciting work as a writer, so I got her to talk about her work instead. She was happy with it.

  “I love drawing up the plans, designing a yard, an environment, really, and then letting someone else do the physical labor.”

  “Do you have an aversion to physical labor?”

  “Yes,” she said, and then she surprised me. “I grew up on a farm in the Central Valley. Hot and dusty and always something dirty to do. Where did you grow up?”

  “Chicago,” I said. “Hot and muggy and always something dirty to do.” If Faye had been a lesser woman, the “Where are you from?” game would have deteriorated into a “Where are your moon and Venus?” conversation. Very few people are so gauche as to ask “What’s your sign?” anymore. And, bless her, she didn’t make some idiotic remark about the “Windy City” either. I glanced over to where Debbi and Joe were sitting. They were holding hands and talking eagerly. And he didn’t look anything like a soldier. I pulled my chair closer to Faye’s and put my arm around her. She moved against me.

  “Jake, I think I should tell you something about myself.” I gazed at her lips. They were wonderful.

  “You’re a lesbian,” I said.

  She laughed. No, that wasn’t it.

  “You’re bisexual.” She pulled my earlobe. I drew back in mock horror. “You’re a man in drag.” She squeezed my hand and smiled at. me. “You eat garlic before sex to ward off pregnancy.” She kissed me on the lips. “You’re a sex maniac.”

  “No, no, and no, or however many there were. What I wanted to say was that I’m free Thursday night, and I never go to bed with anyone the first time I meet them.”

  “That’s reasonable,” I said. “It’s always nice to let the mystery build for a couple of days.”

  “Unless”—she grinned—“they don’t push me to do it. Do you like this music?”

  “No.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  She had a pretty apartment in a fourplex in South Berkeley. She also had good brandy and a fireplace and a waterbed. And she made love like she was at a banquet after a three-day fast, her long, strong legs wrapped around me, her mouth holding mine, her tongue probing, her hands caressing. We fell asleep sweaty, wrapped around each other, and I suspect she was smiling just like I was. Before I dropped off, I thought of Debbi and her husbandly friend. I wished them well, if it wasn’t too late for well wishing.

  – 29 –

  I awoke to mingled smells of coffee, hours-old lovemaking, and, oddly enough, lemon. Not, I hoped, some body-insulting room deodorizer. Following my nose to the night table and the lemon-scented hand lotion, I smiled and yawned.

  Faye appeared in the bedroom doorway. She had the slightly wry look some women get when they’ve had a good night and aren’t sure they should admit it.

  “Towels in the bathroom for you. When you’ve showered, the coffee will be waiting.”

  “Thank you,” I said, trying to equal her romantic repartee. She grinned and disappeared again.

  I stood under the spray for a good five minutes, humming under my breath, controlling the impulse to sing as loudly as I usually do, and feeling a little angry with myself for playing cool games.

  The coffee was waiting. She was wearing a jacket and looking antsy.

  “I have to go, Jake. I’ve got an appointment with a client.” The implication was clear. She liked me okay and everything, but she wasn’t in the habit of leaving men alone in her apartment on such short acquaintance. I could understand that. Debbi had been more trusting, but she was younger than Faye and I suspected that she had, and would probably continue to have, an easier life. This woman knew from experience that a person could wind up buying a lot of stereos and color TVs by trusting the wrong men.

  We kissed at the door, promising to get together on Thursday, and went our separate ways.

  A note from Rosie had been slipped under my door. Aside from having filthy cat pawprints all over it, it was clear enough. It said, “Fed the cats. Meet me at 3 P.M. I need to wash myself clean in an atmosphere of sanity. Polly’s.”

  I laughed out loud. Polly’s was, depending on your vocabulary and your politics, a neighborhood tavern, a women’s entertainment center, a lesbian club, or a dyke bar. It was actually a whole complex: bar, combination game room and dance floor, restaurant, and, at the rear, a big performance hall. Polly herself was a likable wise ass who had been known to insult those with thin skins or humorless dispositions. She kept a nice place, and she didn’t let anybody hassle anybody else. I’d been in there only a couple of times before, both times with Rosie and her friends as escorts. I behaved myself and was more or less acceptable.

  Even though the cats refused to listen, I talked to them for a while and then went back to bed. There might have been other dreams, but the one that lingered after I woke was the one about the steak and the baked potato. I was ravenous and went out for a steak and baked potato. By the time they were tucked away, it was close to three o’clock.

  Polly’s was quiet. It was dark and foggy outside and not yet happy hour for the nine-to-fivers. There was a small afternoon crowd of night workers, self-employed, and outdoor workers who quit early on wet days if they worked at all. In the lot I had noticed a truck that belonged to Mickey’s roofing, a couple of Volkswagens, one with a UC Berkeley sticker, an old red Gremlin holding a tarp full of cuttings, a lawn mower, a rake, and, I assume, other gardening paraphernalia. A couple of vans.

  The barroom had red flocked wallpaper, left over from a previous tenant, a gaslit fireplace at the left, a long bar at the right, and red carpeting. There were four women in the bar: one of them sitting alone by the fire reading a book in the dim light; another, at the bar itself, wearing overalls splattered with roofing tar; another wearing muddy jeans; another wearing a business suit, stockings, the whole works. Two women were playing pool in the next room, and one was sitting rapt and intense at an electronic game.

  Polly was behind the bar talking to her afternoon bartender. She looked me over when I walked in, either remembered me or made a favorable decision, nodded cordially, and wandered off into the back regions of her empire. She was wearing a Panama hat.

  The bartender was a woman named Judy, a friend of Rosie’s I’d played poker with once. She was small, with a great body, shoulder-length brown hair, freckles, and a cute smile. She had a tendency to say things like, “You’re okay, for a man.” The kind of thing you take as a joke because what the hell else can you do with it?

  “Jake, right?” she said, flashing that smile. I smiled back and climbed onto a barstool, two down from the woman with the muddy jeans on one side, three down from the business suit on the other.

  I skipped the happy hour specials and had a Danish beer. An old guy from the neighborhood ambled in and took the stool nearest the door. He and Judy exchanged greetings, and, without being asked, she brought him a beer. Then she began a flirtation, or probably continued it, with the woman wearing the muddy jeans. The two playing pool sounded like they were having a lot of fun, laughing and screaming and carrying on. I strolled to the door of the game room.

  “Mind if I watch?” I asked. The shorter one, a blonde with paint on her pants, shrugged “Why not?” and the taller one, a black woman wearing tweed slacks and a silk shirt, pointed to the chalkboard and told me to sign up if I wanted to play. I’m not a bad pool player, but I prefer to play with people I know if I’m going to make a fool of myself. So I leaned against the door frame to watch and
see how good they were and whether I should get into the game.

  The blonde was just learning. The black woman was good. I watched her make an astounding bank shot to get around the eight and sink her five ball. She whooped gleefully, and the two women hugged each other. I decided she’d be fun to play with, but I was rescued by a pinch on the butt heralding Rosie’s arrival. I almost spilled my beer, recovered nicely, and threatened to complain to the bartender that I was being sexually harassed.

  Judy wanted to know if I was making a pun. The roofer chuckled in her beer. The woman with the muddy jeans smiled blindly on Judy. The business suit looked at Rosie blankly, then looked again a bit less blankly, and returned to her small bottle of champagne and her menthol cigarettes. Then, unaccountably, she suddenly got the joke, laughed uproariously, and startled everyone in the room, especially the old guy at the end of the bar, who I suspected hadn’t heard anything up until that point.

  Rosie and I took a table so we could talk without being overheard.

  “Those people,” she said without preamble, “are terrifying.”

  I nodded soberly. “I thought you might not like them.”

  “No, you don’t understand. I knew I’d hate them, but I hadn’t imagined them to be quite as nasty as they are.” She took a long pull from her beer. “We have to stop them.”

  “Calm down, Rosie,” I told her.

  “Hardest thing I’ve ever done. Ever. Acting friendly and interested in that bunch of—God, I can hardly even talk about it without palpitations.”

  “Think they’d kill for thirty-three thousand?”

  “I think they’re capable of anything.”

  “Right. Now give me the basics.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Okay. There were fourteen people there counting me. My little dress was a big hit with one guy. He really turned on to me. Sat next to me through the whole disgusting thing and impressed me with the importance of the group and the people in it.”

  “He told you about them?”

  “Yes. I wrote it all down later, what I could remember.” She pulled a sheaf of notes out of her pocket and handed it to me. “But there are a couple of items in particular that I think will be useful.” The glint of triumph was in her eye. “Frank. That Frank character. He was there. And this guy was telling me all about how he’s a big real estate man in Oakland, and he really believes in what this group is doing and helps them out and gets support for them.” She looked at me over the rim of her glass, smiling. “We should be able to find him. Frank Shane. Real estate. Oakland. Great, huh?”

  I smiled my love at her. Shane. I knew the name. I’d heard it back in the days of my brief real estate career, but there was more to it than that. I’d remember. It was right on the edge of my mind.

  “And the other thing was this,” Rosie went on. “This asshole kept bragging about how big this thing was, with a big organization behind it. One big organization in particular.”

  “Did he say what it was?”

  She shook her head. “He wouldn’t. He got all sly and cutesy and said I’d find out if I kept coming to meetings.”

  “Apparently it’s not something they’re supposed to blab all over the place, even when they’re trying to score,” I said. “He didn’t mention any other names, did he? Like Jared?”

  “No. And I don’t think I should ask too many questions yet. I just acted all impressed and wimpy and batted my eyelashes at him.”

  “Careful, Rosie,” I warned her. “He’ll ask you out, and then what will you do?”

  She stood up. “I’ll have another beer. You?” I handed her the money for my beer and glanced through her notes. A few occupations, and just a couple of names. None of them meant anything to me except Frank Shane and Eddie Cutter. Hard to tell whether any of these other people were important to my case or not, but it occurred to me that they might be important to another case that connected arson with political terrorism. I stashed the notes in my hip pocket and glanced over at Rosie at the bar. She was standing with her arm around the woman with the mud on her jeans, and the two of them were laughing at Judy. The roofer was talking to the business suit, and the two pool players, I could hear, were still prancing around the pool table, laughing at their bad shots and hooting victoriously when they did something good. Meanwhile, I kept trying to remember what the name Shane meant to me.

  Rosie returned to our table.

  “Maybe this lead to Frank will be enough,” I said to her. “Maybe you won’t have to go to another meeting.”

  She glared at me. “I’ll decide that. I want to find out more about this group.”

  I couldn’t argue with her, but I must have looked skeptical.

  “You don’t understand,” she growled. “You can’t understand. How it felt to hear them saying the things they were saying.”

  “Hey,” I objected, “you forget that I’ve been called names, too, and had to fight off a lot of sons of bigots when I was a kid. I’m Jewish. That ought to count for something.”

  “You’re right,” she agreed. “Sorry. But on a scale of five things these bastards can hate you for, you might qualify as a two. I’m a five.”

  Hoping to get some kind of handle on who was behind the group, I asked, “Who do they seem to hate the most?”

  Rosie sighed. “I don’t know what they hate besides moral corruption, queers, ‘women’s libbers,’ and un-Americanism. That’s mostly what they talked about. They didn’t mention anyone by race or culture.”

  “Nothing about white supremacy?”

  She shook her head. “But maybe they don’t talk about it all the time.” She was right. It would be premature to start crossing off possible affiliations without learning more. But I was afraid for her.

  “Rosie,” I begged, “you’ve got to get out of that group as fast as possible, before one of them sees you coming in here or talking to me.”

  She reached across the table and patted my hand. “I’ll be all right, Jake. I’ll get out just as soon as I can. Believe me.” She shuddered. “I’m scared to death of them.”

  “Good.” It was just about three-thirty, plenty of time to check out Frank. “Be right back.” I went to the phone booth and ran a finger down the real estate listings. Sure enough, there was a Shane realty over on Broadway. Then I remembered. Rebecca had been in real estate for years. She’d worked for a lot of agencies. Shane was a name I connected with her. I went back to the table, swallowed the rest of my beer, told Rosie where I was going, waved good-bye to Judy and pushed back out the padded door into the gray, depressing light of the afternoon.

  – 30 –

  Ten minutes later I found a vacant parking meter half a block down from Shane’s office and walked back to the entrance. Looked like a small operation to me. Rosie’s admirer had been exaggerating about this important real estate man.

  There was only one person in the four-desk office. She was a woman in her fifties, wearing half-glasses and, I thought, a wig. The face she raised to me was friendly, nearly unlined, and rather sweet.

  “May I help you?”

  “I hope so,” I told her. “Is Frank Shane around?” She glanced toward a door at the back of the office as though she were trying to remember whether he was behind it or not.

  She remembered. “Oh, no. He isn’t in his office.”

  “When do you expect him back?”

  “I don’t really know,” she admitted.

  “Perhaps you could give me some information then?”

  She smiled. “I’ve been here for five years. I might be able to tell you what you want to know.”

  “Okay,” I said, jumping right in, “I’m looking for a friend of mine, someone I kind of lost touch with. I think she used to work here. Or works here now?”

  “Sounds romantic,” the woman said. I played it her way.

  I looked at my shoes, shrugged, looked into her eyes, and said, “Her name is Rebecca Lilly.”

  The woman’s smile drooped. She shook her head. It looked like
I’d been wrong.

  “Oh, I’m afraid I can’t be of much help there, Mr…” I ignored her search for my name. “She hasn’t worked here in, oh, a year or more.” That was it then. She’d gone to Shane’s agency right around the time we were dropping each other out of our lives. The woman brightened a little. “But we may still have her file stored away somewhere. Of course, it would be old information. Perhaps you should talk to Frank after all. He might know where you could reach her.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, “I think I should talk to Frank.” I looked thoughtful. There was one more item to clear up. “Say, I know Rebecca had a friend. Someone who might know. Let’s see. Maybe you met him. His name was Eddie… um…” I pretended to think some more. “If I could remember his last name.” I screwed my face into a painful caricature of tortured memory.

  She was no longer smiling. “I didn’t know they were friends,” she said. “Poor Eddie. He seemed like such a nice boy. I can’t understand what happened. Mr. Shane was terribly shocked.”

  I managed to look inquiring.

  “You know, that fire on the campus? The police think Eddie did it, of all things. Surely, you’ve seen it in the papers? Eddie Cutter?”

  “That’s right,” I gurgled triumphantly. “Cutter. That was his name.” Then I pulled a solemn face. “Rebecca’s friend was that Eddie?”

  “Well, as I said, I don’t know whether they were friends.”

  “But they did know each other?”

  “Oh, certainly. Eddie used to stop by every so often to see Frank. Some kind of family connection, I believe. Of course she knew him.” She brightened again. “Perhaps if the police would let you talk to him, he could tell you where Rebecca is.”