Till the Butchers Cut Him Down (v5) (epub)

by Marcia Muller

“You’ve got to make these guys talk. Find out who’s doing this to me.”

  “I am trying to find that out. But I doubt I can make any of them talk. If they’re stonewalling you, they’re certainly not going to open up for me.”

  Suits’s eyes narrowed and a muscle began to tic in his right cheek. “Then find out some other way. Tap their phones, plant bugs in their offices. What the hell’re you in business for?”

  Calm, McCone, I told myself. Keep calm. “Suits, what you’re asking is illegal. I don’t work that way. I suppose I could maintain legal surveillances on them, but I doubt that would be productive.”

  “Then what the fuck are you going to do for me?” The words came out high-pitched and shrill.

  I looked away, giving him time to compose himself. Realized we’d been circling above the Bay off Alameda Island the whole time. As the copter turned lazily, I noted bridges: the San Mateo, the Bay, the Richmond. Farther away, draped in mist, were the Golden Gate and the twin spans at the Carquinez Strait.

  When I turned back to Suits, he still looked aggravated, but seemed calmer. I said, “I’m not going to waste my time and your money maintaining useless surveillances. I do have a couple of leads on the person who attacked you last night, and I’ll pursue them. But I’m also going to have to look at some background information.”

  “On what?”

  “Your turnarounds. Your present associates, people you fired from GGL, people who don’t want the line moved from Oakland, people who don’t want the line moved to San Francisco. Your past associates on past turnarounds, people whose toes you stepped on back then. You.”

  “Me? Why the hell—”

  “Because someone’s out to get you, and it feels personal. You are the central figure here.”

  “Forget it.”

  “Suits, I know you’re a private man—”

  “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “More than you think, perhaps. For instance, I know that you went to Harvard.”

  A flash of surprise, followed by a scowl. “Who told you that?”

  “Russ Zola.”

  “Jesus Christ!”

  “And I know you got your start by turning a dope farm.”

  He included the back of Josh’s head in his scowl. Josh hadn’t reacted to his earlier agitation, and he didn’t react now. As he’d said, he tuned Suits out when he was flying.

  I asked, “Why didn’t you tell me about any of those things?”

  “I didn’t think you needed a rundown of my life.”

  “But even in the old days you didn’t mention about Harvard. None of us knew.”

  “I didn’t like to talk about it. I still don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  He sighed. “Look, that was an awful time. Really awful. When I started there I was just a kid who should’ve been out trying to talk to girls at the Dairy Queen. Hell, I couldn’t even drive yet. And when I got my M.B.A. I was still just a kid—seventeen, the age when most people start college. I had acne and dandruff; I’d never had a friend, I’d never had a date, much less gotten laid. I was a genius; I was a freak. And that’s all you need to know about my life.”

  “But—”

  “Uh-uh. Strictly off-limits. I’ll talk about the turnarounds and my associates, but nothing else.”

  I wanted to ask him about his drunken ramblings to Carmen—the railroad overpass, the people, the heat lightning on the water—but I knew this wasn’t the time. There might never be a time for that. Instead I said, “Is there anyone in your organization whom you trust completely?”

  The promptness of his reply surprised me. “My executive assistant in my L.A. office, Dottie Collier.”

  “And does she have files on your people and your turnarounds?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll need them faxed to me today—as much of them as possible.”

  The request didn’t faze him. “Dottie’ll manage it.”

  “Good. Now will you ask Josh to drop me at Bay Vista? I want to follow up on those leads I mentioned.”

  “You’ll be in touch later?”

  “When I know something more.”

  “About tonight, I need a place to stay—”

  “No.”

  “You yourself said my condo’s not safe. If whoever attacked me could get to me there, he can get to me in a hotel.”

  And at my house, I thought. I wasn’t concerned for myself so much as for Mick. “Then I’ll find someplace where no one will think to look for you.” As I spoke, inspiration struck. I turned my face toward the window so he couldn’t see the beginnings of my wicked grin. “Pack whatever you need and meet me at my office this evening,” I added.

  The hiding place I had in mind was perfect. In fact, the only drawback I could perceive was that after one night on the lumpy old sofa bed in Jack Stuart’s former quarters at All Souls, Suits would be begging the homeless shelters for a space.

  * * *

  I spent what was left of the afternoon tracking down Bay Vista’s doormen. The man on the midnight-to-eight shift didn’t want to talk with me; after I paid him ten dollars, all he would tell me was that he’d answered Suits’s cries for help and called the ambulance. His counterpart on the four-to-midnight shift wasn’t at his apartment in the Inner Sunset; when I finally located him at a bar on Irving Street that his landlady said he frequented, a shot of scotch bought me only the information that he’d admitted no unauthorized persons to the building the night before and had seen no strangers take the semiprivate elevator to the penthouse.

  I arrived at my office at a little after five. By then Mick had made himself at home at the desk in the room over the entryway—had forted himself up there, actually, as if building a wall of his books and pamphlets would make it impossible for me to oust him. The fax machine whirred as it disgorged a long, curling roll of paper.

  Mick looked up from the stack of cut pages he was tapping into alignment. “Did you talk to my mom?”

  “You’re here for as long as I need you.”

  “Yeeesss!” He raised his fist exultantly.

  “Is that”—I motioned at the fax—“from Dottie Collier in L.A.?”

  “Yeah. This, too.” He patted the stack on the desk. “She’s already used up almost two rolls of paper.”

  “That’s okay; we’ll bill the client.” I took the stack, glanced at the top sheet, and nodded.

  “There’re a couple of other things. A lady called from Pacifica, said you’d talked to her this morning.” He studied scribblings on a scratch pad, then went on. “She saw the guy in the Ryder truck again, asked about the Blessings. He told her he bought everything in the house from them. They came into some money and left the area, but the guy didn’t know where they went. Does that make sense?”

  “Uh-huh.” Someone had probably paid Bay Vista’s concierge to deliver copies of the keys to the building and to Suits’s penthouse; by now Blessing and his family would be untraceable. Unless … I looked speculatively at Mick’s bent head.

  He added, “A Claudia James from DataBase messengered over some job applications; she wants background checks run on the people.” He extended a manila envelope to me.

  I was so deep in thought that I stared uncomprehendingly at it. Then I took it and removed the apps. Claudia James used to own my former answering service; when machines threatened to render that business obsolete she sold out, went into computers, and now had her own firm—whose function I’d yet to figure out. The formal announcement of McCone Investigations’ opening that I’d sent her last week had already paid off. I looked the applications over: strictly routine.

  “Well, let’s get started.” I handed them to Mick.

  He looked down at them, blinking. “These’re … mine?”

  “Yes.” I pulled a straight-backed chair close to the desk. “I’ll explain what you need to do with them, and tomorrow morning you’re on your own.”

  “On my own,” he said.

  “Uh-huh. And after that
, how’d you like to try your hand at a skip trace?”

  * * *

  “Sherry-O?”

  “Yes?” The tartness had long ago gone out of my voice; Suits’s plaintive queries, addressed to me from the door of my office, had worn me down. It was all I could do to keep my burning eyes on the pages in front of me.

  “Are you sure it’s okay to hang my towel just anyplace in there?” The towel he referred to was one Ted had earlier loaned him; “there” was All Souls’s second-floor communal bathroom.

  “Anyplace, Suits.” I highlighted a phrase and read doggedly on. He was still in the doorway, though; I could hear him breathing. “What else?”

  “I need to make a call.”

  I motioned toward my phone.

  “Privately.”

  “My nephew’s office.” I waved toward the door.

  “Thank you.” It was as humble a tone, I was sure, as Suits had ever managed.

  I read on.

  From the other side of the wall I could hear the drone of his voice. I pressed my palm to my ear and leaned on my elbow; it helped, but not much. Suits droned. I read. And suddenly he was quiet. I stretched my arms, looked at my watch. Ten-thirty. Another page and I’d be finished with this stack. I’d bundle up the other, take it home to go over in front of the fire.

  Suits’s voice started in again, this time through the wall that separated my office from Ted’s Baroque cubbyhole. Probably checking again on towel-hanging proprieties, I thought. Ted’s voice responded, but only briefly. Suits said something else, went on and on.

  I gathered the other papers, crammed them into my briefcase. Put on my jacket and tiptoed into the hall. Ted’s door was open; as I flicked off my lights, I heard him say, “Well, how do you feel about that?”

  No reply from Suits.

  Ted remained silent, waiting him out.

  My God, I thought, he’s practicing therapy on him!

  For quite some time now Ted, a gay man who had lost many friends and two former lovers to the AIDS epidemic, had been severely depressed. In July I’d referred him to a therapist friend, who in turn had referred him to a grief counselor. While there had been no dramatic change in Ted’s emotional state as yet, he suffered from fewer of what he called his black-and-blue days, and occasionally I caught a glimpse of the cheerful, quixotic man of old. An unnerving side effect of his counseling sessions, however, was his tendency to play amateur psychologist to anyone who confessed to having so much as a hangnail.

  “I think—” Suits began.

  “No, how do you feel?”

  I stood quietly outside the door, hoping that Suits might open up to Ted and tell him something that would give me insight into the side of himself he kept so carefully hidden.

  Suits said, “I feel like I ought to go to bed now.”

  Before he could step into the hall, I hurried past the door and down the stairs.

  Eight

  Cold fingers and a dull headache and cramped limbs. And the smell of coffee. I opened my eyes as a hand set a mug on the table in front of them. Mick’s hand. He said, “Wake up—it’s after eight o’clock.”

  I struggled to sit, flailed, and watched a stack of papers slither off the couch and across the carpet like my childhood Slinky toy. I’d fallen asleep here in the sitting room. Mick must’ve covered me with this quilt, an old one made by my sister Patsy in her artsy-craftsy phase.

  Mick started picking up the pages; the slick fax paper slid neatly into order. I disentangled myself from the quilt, set my feet on the floor, and reached for the coffee mug. After taking a swallow, I asked, “What time did I doze off?”

  “Don’t know. You were still reading when I went to bed around midnight. I got up to take a pee at five, and you were sacked out good, so I covered you.”

  “Thanks. And thanks for the coffee.” I warmed my fingers on the mug and looked toward the window. The light that filtered into the walkway between my house and the Curleys’ next door was drab, promising another foggy day. Ralph was perched on the back of the chair again, hungrily eyeing W.C. “Don’t even think about it,” I told him.

  The cat regarded me with slitted eyes. When he did that, I could never be sure whether he was glaring or just near-sighted. In case it was the former, I added, “And don’t give me that look.” Ralph jumped to the floor, stretched nonchalantly, and sauntered toward the kitchen, batting my leg with his tail as he passed.

  Mick was putting on his down jacket. “You off to work?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I want to get cracking on those DataBase apps and the Blessing skip trace.”

  “Well, if you have any questions and can’t locate me, ask Rae.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He saluted me and hurried down the hall, a jaunty bounce to his step.

  Oh, to be seventeen again and have such enthusiasm for small tasks. …

  * * *

  When I got out of the shower, I found a message from Suits on my machine: “I’m off to Long Beach today, got to talk to my number two choice for terminal manager. Sherry-O, I like it here at All Souls. Reminds me of the old days.”

  Terrific, I thought grimly as I rewound the tape. He’ll want to live there and pester me for however long this investigation takes.

  I went to the kitchen, poured another cup of coffee, and noticed a stack of mail on the table. Yesterday’s: phone bill, white-sale notice from Macy’s, reminder that the cats’ shots were overdue. And a postcard from Hy.

  Just a few words in his bold hand: “Dinner and dancing at Zelda’s on your birthday?” I turned the card over and examined the postmark. Zurich. Good God! He was back in Europe.

  Zelda’s on my birthday. It wasn’t until September twenty-eighth. That meant he’d probably arrive in the Bay Area the day before and expect me to meet him at Oakland Airport, where the Citabria was tied down, for the flight to his ranch in Mono County. Zelda’s was a big old-fashioned roadhouse on the shore of Tufa Lake in the high desert country. We’d first danced together there, and I assumed sentimental reasons had prompted Hy to suggest it for our celebration.

  But what was he doing in Zurich? I turned the card over and over, fingering it as if it could provide some tactile answer to the question. What had he been doing in Miami, New York, and Taipei? These trips were costing plenty. Who was paying for them? Hy had money—a great deal, made in those nine missing years—and he’d inherited even more from his wife, Julie Spaulding. But still, there were limits.

  God, the man could be exasperating! There were times—such as today—when I wished him out of my life for good. No matter that he was tall, lanky, and handsome in a hawk-nosed, shaggy way. No matter that he had a lively mind, lively interests, and a lively manner in bed. So what if he possessed a wonderful off-the-wall sense of humor and could fluently speak English, French, Russian, and Spanish—and was currently getting practice in all of them, as far as I knew? He was also frequently secretive, occasionally violent, and sometimes emotionally stingy.

  It didn’t help my mood any to remind myself that I, too, was frequently secretive, occasionally violent, and sometimes emotionally stingy. …

  I balled up the postcard and hurled it across the room. It came to rest in a puddle next to the cats’ water dish. Lay there as sodden as my hope of ever figuring Hy out.

  The hell with it, I thought, and went to get dressed. Afterward I sat down and finished reading and making notes on the stack of papers I’d started in front of the fire the night before. I thought for a while, went back over all my notes, then made several phone calls. My day arranged practically to the minute, I set off for downtown and the Transamerica Pyramid, where Charles Loftus, one of Suits’s major financial backers, had his offices.

  * * *

  Six in the evening, and Suits still hadn’t returned from Long Beach. I called his office, was told that the JetRanger had taken off some fifty minutes ago but was delayed by unseasonably bad weather off the central coast. Maybe that was just as well, I thought. It would give me more time t
o prepare for the conversation I needed to have with him. I’d just finished going over the tapes of the interviews I’d conducted during the day and had come to a disturbing conclusion.

  Outside my office’s bay window the fog had thickened to a heavy mist, almost a rain. I swiveled and stared at the peaked roofs of the buildings across the triangular park out front. Two of those buildings were now leased by All Souls; what had begun as a renegade band of idealists out to aid their fellow humans had evolved into the largest legal-services plan in northern California. Fortunately the concept of quality representation regardless of income level had not died with the installation of the 800-number hot line. To one degree or other we all still …

  Not we. They. I was only a tenant here.

  The thought made me feel a little disconnected, but not for long. On its heels came other, more pleasant ones: I no longer drew a pitifully small salary for the extensive hours my investigations entailed. I would no longer fall victim to the often unreasonable whims of the partners. And should a complicated case come their way, they’d call me in. I still had the support and friendship of the people I cared about most.

  I turned back to the desk and began replaying selected passages of the tapes, getting my facts straight so I could present a strong case to Suits.

  Charles Loftus, billionaire venture capitalist and real-estate developer, who had backed Suits on two previous turnarounds: “I don’t know of a single developer who was whoring after that Hunters Point base. Too many problems there. Too many hurdles. You’ve got the federal and the city governments to deal with. Even if they like a project, you’ve still got to go up against agencies like the Bay Conservation and Development Commission. T.J. is the only one who’s willing to work with all of them and put that land back into maritime use. Frankly I think they should give him a medal for his vision.”

  Dana Wilson, Suits’s liaison at the city’s Port Commission: “No one, absolutely no one, is opposed to Mr. Gordon’s plans for the mega-terminal. They fit perfectly with the current mixed-use scheme for the port. Both the city and federal governments are grateful to him for coming up with a solution for Hunters Point. … Enemies? I’m sure he has plenty, but not where this project is concerned. To tell you the truth, I’m a very nosy woman; if anyone wanted to stop him, I’d have found out.”