City of Sharks

by Kelli Stanley

  Miranda traced a circle on her desk with a fingernail. “I don’t need to worry about someone else’s sleep. I don’t know, Allen. I just can’t see myself doing anything else. I’m not the kind of girl that gets brought home to a four-room cottage and cooks dinner for the mother-in-law every weekend.” She looked up and smiled at his worried face. “But thanks for listening. And caring. And who the hell knows—maybe the world will end and we won’t have to worry about it.”

  They clinked glasses and downed another shot.

  * * *

  Miranda pushed the Big Chief tablet aside and closed her eyes.

  Too many notes, too many clues, too many coincidences.

  If she could just get a handle on the case …

  Motive. Motive, motive, motive. It all came down to motive, and the only real one she’d dug up—the one that connected Smith, Louise, and a stolen manuscript—was what Linkletter and Miller were hiding.

  Rape, corruption, torture on Alcatraz, all stamped and approved by the associate warden.

  Sure, maybe covering that up was enough to kill for, though it looked as though Miller, at least, had friends in high places that were a better bet than cyanide or a blunt instrument.

  Goddamn it. How it happened—how everything unfolded—none of that made sense with Linkletter or Miller behind it.

  She sighed for the tenth time and stubbed out the Chesterfield.

  Alexander. His death was unplanned—in the way that it happened, the struggle, the spilled drink. But there had been a plan—that’s where the cyanide came in.

  Why kill him if the manuscript was the goal? Simply because he’d read it?

  And what about Louise? She was set up for a fall—those attempts on her life were blinds, maybe even practice. She could either take the blame for Alexander’s death—which would explain the cyanide planted in her desk, the second suicide note, and the letters typed on her own machine, suggesting she’d faked the earlier attempts as a cover for her own guilt—or maybe look like the intended target, if the improvisation of Alexander’s murder hadn’t been necessary.

  But why go through all the trouble of framing her if she was a murder target? Insurance?

  The killer wanted it both ways and all ways, Louise as a dupe or Louise as a victim or Louise as a scheming killer …

  And then there was Smith. She could understand the murderer wanting to examine Smith’s storage room—make sure there were no other copies of the Alcatraz manuscript—but why burn it and leave it by his body? The whole scene reeked of contrivance, of unnecessary drama, page 113 of a locked-room mystery with a gimmick at the end.

  Maybe Bunny was right … maybe someone was trying to destroy Alexander Publishing, piece by fucking piece …

  Miranda was rubbing her temples, trying to think, when the phone rang.

  “Miranda Corbie, private investi—”

  “Miss Corbie? Charlie Segal here.”

  She sat upright, opened her eyes. “Yes, Mr. Segal, how can I help you? I’m terribly sorry about Mr. Smith—”

  His voice was heavy. “We all are, Miss Corbie. Howard was destined to be a literary heavyweight. And now … well, that promise is unfulfilled. I just hope they find this gang or whoever they are. I hope they find them and kill them.” He took a breath. “I think you understand how I feel. Death’s too good for some people. They’ve destroyed more than a man—more, even, than his exposé on Alcatraz, uncovering crimes we’ll never know about. The fact is, I can’t find Howard’s new novel anywhere … I’ve searched his apartment with the police, I’ve checked and notated the list from Bekins … nothing. I know you spoke with him the day before—before he was killed. Did he say anything—anything at all—about the novel and where it might be?”

  The words came out slowly.

  “No—nothing but the fact that he was nearly finished with it. Are you sure you’ve looked everywhere?”

  The agent sighed. “As sure as I can be, given the fact that I’ve got to fly back to New York tomorrow and I can’t search Bekins for myself. Listen, Miss Corbie—can you continue looking for it? I can’t believe the gangsters would destroy it—I mean, why bother? It was a detective story, from what he told me, something in the line of Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler. Howard was very proud of it—considered it a literary triumph, a kind of blend of social drama and thriller. Besides, there was plenty of older material in that storage room, first drafts of published works, and none of it was touched.”

  “I’ll do whatever I can, Mr. Segal.”

  “Thanks. If you turn anything up—I hope like hell you do, for Howard’s sake, or at least his memory—then call me in New York. Bunny Berrigan has my number.”

  They rang off. Miranda sat holding the phone, staring straight ahead, two fingers on the switchhook.

  She hit it twice with force, and dialed the mail room.

  “This is Miranda Corbie. Do I have any mail or deliveries? Yes—please bring it up.”

  She hung up, dug into her purse for change, lit a Chesterfield, and waited, staring out the window on Market Street, watching the DO NOT WALK signs flip into place, watching the neon of the pool halls and bars blink on and off.

  The knock was hesitant. She thrust two bits at the blushing kid from the mail room and slammed the door.

  Two items: a thick manila envelope from Fisher, hand-delivered by messenger, marked inventory. Underneath it, a standard envelope, handwritten and addressed.

  To Miranda Corbie … from Rick Sanders.

  * * *

  She stared at the typewritten list from Fisher, holding it in her hands and reading it for the second time.

  Glanced at the unopened letter on the desk.

  Miranda stood, shoulder sore, body aching from the rough and tumble of the last few days. She walked to the window and looked out at the San Francisco evening, purple light of twilight and coming blue-black sky.

  A White Front roared by, advertising the last days of the 1940 Golden Gate International Exposition, gone forever and a dream remembered after September 29th, only six days to go …

  She shut the window.

  Best not to dream, an old lady told her once when she’d run away again. The old woman was toothless and smoked a pipe and hunkered in a corner of an alley off Pacific. She patted the girl in the thin dress, patted her on the head and cheek and told her not to dream and Miranda stared at her and ran away.

  She passed a shaking hand over her cheekbone, glancing again at the letter on her desk. Her jaw clenched, and she scooped up the list and the letter.

  Maybe she just needed a change of scenery.

  * * *

  She grabbed a sandwich at White Star Tuna and chased it with a Threlkeld scone, not as fresh as a morning batch but still delicious, especially with a cup of Maxwell House.

  The Gayway was thronged, Greenwich Village and Madame Zorina’s Nudist Colony doing brisk business. The line to get inside Sally’s circled the fence, and the Headless Girl and even “Have You Seen Stella?” were attracting crowds, desperate to cram in a final look at the future, past, and present before it became someone else’s discarded and forgotten dream.

  A couple of the barkers smiled when they saw her and she ran into Edna, one of Sally’s girls. Carnival life revolved like a carousel, up and down like the notes on a calliope, and new people she’d never met were selling tickets to the Astro-Mentalist and Roll-O-Plane and Ripley’s Odditorium.

  She sat in a red leather booth nursing the coffee, watching the neon lights run up the doughnut tower.

  Charlie Segal was right.

  No manuscript—no fresh manuscript—from Smith.

  Nothing about a new novel, detective or otherwise.

  Miranda glanced up at the window again, red light reflected on her face. She set aside the inventory list and opened Rick’s letter.

  Dear Miranda,

  Hope you’re OK. I’m on the way to Washington. Asked for an early transfer. I’ll be there for the duration—until the fightin
g starts, anyway—so it’s my new home and I want time to get to know it.

  Speaking of knowing something, I thought I’d let you know that Annabelle and I—well, it didn’t work out quite the way I wanted it to. Her parents had some objections. Some legitimate, some not. Most importantly, I had objections, too. They’re down on the Commander-in-Chief and had plenty to say about other things. I just can’t see myself eating Thanksgiving Dinner with in-laws who frankly ought to be shipped to Berlin. I was never involved in politics quite as much as you and John, but I’d like to do my fighting on the front, not at home.

  I don’t understand people like that. I guess I never will. And I guess that spending so much time with you … well, a little of you rubbed off.

  Annabelle’s a nice kid except when she gets around her folks and starts talking about Jews. And that was enough of that.

  Anyway, please write and let me know when you leave San Francisco and when you get to Britain. You know me too well to believe I won’t worry. And I hope you know I’ll always be there if you need me.

  Take care of yourself, Miranda. I’ll be seeing you.

  Rick.

  She rubbed her cheek absent-mindedly, eyes lingering on the words.

  I’ll be seeing you, in all the old familiar places …

  Except nothing was familiar, nothing. She was leaving for a war-torn country, bombed and on its knees, and Rick was in Washington, D.C., ready to fight a battle with his typewriter, waiting for the mortars and machine guns to start.

  Even how she felt wasn’t familiar, the years she spent pushing him away, irritated at having to hurt him, over and over. Now—now all she could think of is being close to him, wondering if he could accept her—if she could accept him—if they could love each other like …

  Like she and Johnny.

  She lit a cigarette and gathered up the papers and Rick’s letter, walked out of Maxwell’s and onto the Gayway, step right up, little lady, and meet the man of your dreams …

  Too late for that, Miranda. Too late.

  Johnny was dead. Spain was dying. The world was on its way out.

  She started walking toward the amusement section, the Fun House calling her, with trick mirrors and laughing clowns and topsy-turvy slides.

  Just the ticket to examine her life.

  Miranda inhaled the Chesterfield before stamping it out and bought a ticket from the bald barker, a man with a thick Russian accent she’d never seen before. Her shoes skidded on the sawdust and she entered to the tune of a tinny organ and a laugh like Laffing Sal’s, wandering through the surreal landscape with twelve-year-old boys and couples on first dates.

  She stood in front of the fat mirror, not really seeing herself. All she could see was Rick and Johnny, Johnny and Rick.

  Did she really love Rick? Or did she miss Johnny so much that she willed herself to love him as soon as he was in uniform, as soon as he was doing something Johnny would have done, dressed how Johnny would have dressed …

  Miranda closed her eyes and let memories wash over her, not memories of Johnny but of Rick, the meeting at Lotta’s Fountain, his eyes when he saw her again, and how they fell and then steadied when he knew she was working for Dianne … his bent brown hat and the way he always talked her into dinner at John’s Grill, the way he helped her catch the clown on the Ferris Wheel, how he waited with her in the dark in the Incubator Baby exhibit, how he dressed up as Robin Hood and rescued her from Fritz Wiedemann.

  How he saved her life in the Napa woods, when she thought she’d have to end it herself.

  Her eyes opened and she stared at the three-hundred-pound Miranda.

  Memories of New York, of Spain, of Johnny burned with a fire that would never go out, never leave her, always there, just below the surface, a laugh, a dance of sunlight, a note of music, the smell of oakmoss and red, red wine …

  But she loved Rick, too. And she loved him for himself.

  For now, that would be enough.

  She opened her purse to put the letter inside it and a small piece of paper fluttered to the ground.

  She picked it up.

  It was the fragment from Smith’s room:

  license

  hesitation can

  She gave me a look and I

  Dusty, decayed, dead, like all

  “I would—if only I knew how. She

  Miranda looked at it, surrounded by distorted nightmare doppelgängers, fat Mirandas, tall Mirandas, Mirandas with heads too big and legs too long, Mirandas cracked and Mirandas whole.

  And she remembered …

  Remembered magic and illusion and the tricks of makeup.

  Remembered timing and alibis and improvisation and planning.

  Remembered character and plot and motive and how she’d lost track of time reading The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man and The Big Sleep.

  She nodded to herself, the bright bulbs reflecting garishly in a hundred mirrors, a thousand mirrors, Miranda backwards, not forwards, upside down and not right side up.

  It would be difficult to prove, at least with the time limit they were working under.

  The mirror Mirandas nodded back soberly, all in unison.

  The mirrors would help.

  Thirty-Six

  She slept well that night.

  No dreams, good or bad. No intruders, either.

  She called Fisher and Herb Caen as soon as the sun rose, Fisher grumpy and Caen not awake. Neither one held out much enthusiasm, but both were willing to play.

  Miranda splurged for breakfast at the St. Francis, hungry for eggs and sausage for the first time in days. Left the surprised waitress, an older woman in her fifties, a dollar tip.

  She spent the morning on the phone, dialing every druggist in San Francisco. Phoned scientific supply companies—only two in the city—and made notes, nodding, in the Big Chief tablet.

  She called Goldstein’s Costumes and asked for Peg. The girl had just started her senior year but any beginnings of cool professionalism melted away when Miranda identified herself. She squealed, the seventeen-year-old who’d helped Miranda catch a Nazi spy …

  Miranda laughed and spoke with her, asked her about boyfriends and classes and any plans she had. Peg, as always, was happy to help.

  Lunch was from Tascone’s, ordered up to the office, while she fended off phone calls for more jobs and a few panicked messages from Fisher and Caen. Allen wasn’t in; she left an urgent message with the bored secretary.

  Renata Dante called to report that Louise was much better today, about seventy-five percent herself. Miranda phoned Meyer and gave him the good news. The attorney sounded better, too, almost caught up with his rest.

  After half a cheeseburger, onion rings, and a large cherry Coke, she walked the two flights upstairs, working tired muscles, stretching her legs. Alexander Publishing was quiet, gloom not quite receded. Hank and Emily were arguing in the outer room, and Miranda waited until they could hear before she dropped the story.

  Relief erupted like Vesuvius. Miranda smiled, and left them in a whirlwind of activity.

  She finished her notes and preparations in the late afternoon, then headed down to see Gladys.

  “Sugar—it’s been days! I—Miri … what happened to your eye?”

  The blonde’s large blue eyes welled with concern. Miranda smiled.

  “I’ll give you the whole story over lunch. We’re overdue. How about—how about day after tomorrow? I’ve got a lot to tell you.”

  “Sure, honey. That will be—let’s see—Thursday. I get off at twelve, OK?”

  Miranda gave her a big hug. God, she’d miss Gladys.

  Never truly realized how comforting it was to have someone always there, always happy to see her, always watching over her.

  She purchased all the afternoon editions and checked them back in her office.

  Chronicle, page two: FEMALE DETECTIVE FINDS LOST MANUSCRIPT.

  News, page one: WOMAN PI DISCOVERS LAST BOOK OF MURDERED WRITER.

  Call-Bullet
in, page two: GIRL GUMSHOE LOCATES HOWARD SMITH’S FINAL BOOK.

  Examiner, page one: WOMAN PI FINDS MISSING MANUSCRIPT OF MURDERED MAN.

  Miranda took a deep breath. All the articles stated the necessary facts.

  … the lost manuscript, thought to be an early draft of the author’s latest work, has not yet been examined by the police. Miss Corbie suggests that it could be combed for clues to Smith’s recent murder. She will be presenting it to Inspector David Fisher tomorrow morning and is “keeping it under lock and key” in her Wells Fargo safe. Miss Corbie further suggested that it is safer with her than with Alexander Publishing, where Smith was under contract and whose owner, Niles Alexander, was also recently and mysteriously killed.

  She nodded.

  The trap was set.

  * * *

  Light filtered in from the window, from the pool hall up on Kearny and the Top Hat Club and the bar half a block down. Red lights, too, from cars, the few that drove down Market Street at three in the morning.

  The sky was black and she could almost hear the water breaking surf along the Bay.

  She stretched her legs under the desk, trying not to make a sound …

  There.

  Outside.

  Could be a footstep.

  Miranda slid her hand toward the .22 until she could feel the cold metal. Hell, everything felt cold on the floor behind the desk, even with the wool blanket she brought from home. At least she’d dressed for the occasion, dungarees and a fisherman’s cap and man’s shirt. Reminded her of trying to pass as a Southern Pacific railroad man in Reno …

  Again.

  Low scuffle, like a … yes.

  Like a wire in the lock.

  The light only illuminated the back of her office. The black desk glinted red from the reflection and the safe and file cabinet could be made out as dim, hulking shapes in the darkness.

  Had to rely on sound. She held her breath.