Death in North Beach

by Ronald Tierney

  For Noah Lang, going into that good night for a few hours of sleep seemed appropriate. Sleep was overtaking him even as Chet Baker’s voice inhabited his mind. He was distantly aware that Buddha was at the edge of the loft as usual, looking down, making sure there was no movement below.

  San Mateo is half an hour or forty-five minutes south of San Francisco depending on traffic and one’s opinion on speed limits. It is a thriving area that benefits from its location on an interstate between San Francisco and Silicon Valley and minutes from the area’s busy international airport.

  Nadia was uncharacteristically quiet as Carly’s Mini Cooper purred like a car twice its size on 101. Carly had already talked to Lang, who filled her in on Richard Sumaoang and his Filipino posse. She agreed that it clouded both their theories. On the other hand, one didn’t have to be a murderer to pursue what appeared to be a most embarrassing exposé.

  The trip was a waste. Except for the food paradise that was Draeger’s. Rarely did she have the chance to ooh and aah at the luxury supermarket – vast selections of high-quality chocolates and wines, a deli that went on for ever, baked goods that doubled as art masterpieces. She and Nadia took the escalator to an upstairs that featured fine kitchen and dining paraphernalia, including such things as Versace teacups. But really all she had to show for the trip was an apology from the manager of Blue Monkey Press.

  The mock-up and supporting materials to Warfield’s tell-all could not be found. The wispy-haired owner explained that they had thought at first they couldn’t find it because it had been sent out, but then they realized they’d been burgled. The place had been broken into recently, but they had found nothing missing – until now. It hadn’t occurred to him that this kind of thing would be stolen and he had therefore not checked, even after Carly’s call.

  Carly remembered to check with the San Mateo police about Mickey Warfield’s DUI. The story was verified. He had been in jail the night that Frank Wiley was killed. He was stopped at three a.m. The police allowed her to see the arrest report and the mug shots. She thought, no matter all the great advances in technology, it was still impossible for a man to be in two places at once.

  This was not going to be good news for Lang. But it was another lead followed to the end. Mickey Warfield did not kill Frank Wiley – personally. On the other hand, the San Mateo police should have charged Mickey Warfield with theft in addition to driving under the influence.

  Vincente Gratelli was in no hurry to get to work. The Chief was complaining about overtime because the Mayor was complaining about the budget – the city was deep in debt and the Mayor was running for Governor – and because the daily newspaper was hammering them on unsolved murders from one side and overtime on the other.

  This morning, Gratelli was feeling ‘puny’ as he would put it. He wasn’t exactly sick, but his sinuses were full and deadening the brain and his stomach was just this side of turning. He poached an egg, which he put on a toasted English muffin. To soften the acid in his coffee he uncharacteristically made it half milk.

  He may not have gone into the office, but that didn’t keep his mind from going to work, propelled it seemed by the news that the body of a slightly heavy-set, red-headed, middle-aged white male had been found in an old steel mill in a dry dock at the foot of Potrero Hill. The call had come in last night as he prepared for bed. A routine patrol in the abandoned dry dock area indicated the old brick steel foundry’s front gate had been breached. When the officer investigated further he found the body – fully dressed – on the floor. The wallet was missing. The cop on duty at homicide thought it might be the missing Mickey Warfield. Gratelli thanked the cop and said he would call later to see if the victim could be identified.

  Gratelli could feel it in his sour belly. Mickey Warfield. If it were Warfield, he would put Rose and Stern on it. Have them revisit Marlene Berensen. He didn’t want to get ahead of himself on this, but it seemed like the people on Carly Paladino’s list were getting eliminated one by one.

  Still in his robe and wrinkled pajamas, he finished his egg and coffee at the Formica table in the kitchen as he turned the pages of the Chronicle, more out of habit than interest. He set the dishes in the sink and went to the phone. He wished he could not think about work. Maybe read a book. But he couldn’t. Paid or not, he needed to follow up.

  It was Mickey Warfield, the medical examiner said an hour later. Maybe it was good Gratelli wasn’t at the office. The murders were piling up and no one in the chain of command beginning with the Mayor – not to mention the constant nattering of some members of the board of supervisors – would be happy about it. Cut the overtime. Solve the murders.

  ‘Ooooh,’ Gratelli moaned with disappointment bordering on despair. ‘Cause of death?’

  ‘Neck snapped,’ she said matter-of-factly.

  ‘Put up a fight?’

  ‘No bruises on his hands. But he might have been punched a couple of times before the coup de grâce. Contusions under his right eye.’

  Twenty-Nine

  Noah Lang didn’t like the news of Mickey the Younger’s demise. His feeling had nothing to do with the senseless loss of life, but that the dead cannot be cross-examined. Gratelli had called Carly, who called Lang. This, coupled with Carly’s verification of Mickey’s whereabouts on the night of Wiley’s death, did little to promote his theory of the murders.

  Lang climbed down the ladder from his loft carrying his frustration on his shoulders. He put the coffee on, shook some dry food into Buddha’s bowl, and plunked down on the sofa. He allowed himself a few seconds to feel sorry for himself. Back to square one. Or maybe just back to square three. He felt a jolt of energy. He hadn’t figured it out, exactly, but maybe they had been looking too narrowly. Given what all the people on the list had in common . . . it was an idea, a thought with a little electricity to it.

  He went to the kitchen, picked up his cell, flipped it open and pushed the button for Carly.

  ‘Did you have lunch in San Mateo?’

  ‘Too early.’

  ‘Good, let’s have lunch.’

  ‘Noah, Noah, Noah,’ she said.

  ‘A business lunch. You tell me what you found out . . .’

  ‘I can do that in a minute and a half,’ she said.

  ‘And I have an idea, but I need your input.’

  ‘Input?’

  ‘A bull session, we used to call them. Carly, I need your very valuable, no-nonsense, linear thinking.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Her tone wasn’t heartfelt.

  ‘Lunch?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Could you sound more excited?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Meet you in North Beach at one.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘City Lights. If one of us is late, we can browse the books.’

  Carly didn’t see Lang coming. She was in a relatively dark corner of the basement where the mystery section resided. City Lights was a great bookstore. She remembered sneaking away from her parents’ restaurant when business was slow and heading over to City Lights. There was something almost sacred about the place. History was made there. Literary giants hung out there. Third floor, poetry. Main floor, literature – real literature, including a section of small, handmade books – and uncommon magazines. Downstairs was another main floor – travel, women’s studies, philosophy, and mystery.

  ‘You’re hard to find,’ Lang said.

  ‘And you chose to become a private investigator?’

  ‘You presuppose talent is a factor in my decisions.’

  ‘Let’s see if we can get into this little place I know,’ Carly said.

  ‘Break in?’

  ‘It’s crowded.’

  Lang, in his many trips to North Beach, never noticed The House, a narrow-fronted restaurant on the first block of Grant from Columbus. Perhaps it was because there was nothing Italian about the restaurant. It was small, the decor modern, and the food, though nothing on the outside would provide a clue, had a strong Asian
influence.

  The two of them were seated at the only table by the window, which meant they could watch the goings-on inside and out.

  Lang waited for things to settle, for their order to be taken, for the drinks to be delivered, before he launched into his scattered thoughts about the list and the deaths.

  ‘I’m kind of at a loss for words,’ Lang said once the cheerful server had brought him a glass of rice beer and Carly her usual Pinot Grigio.

  ‘That’s a rare condition,’ Carly found herself saying. For some reason she wanted to needle him.

  ‘It is. What I’m about to suggest is: I don’t think we have a killer.’

  ‘We have more than one,’ she said, nibbling on the sesame-soaked cucumber skins from the little bowl in front of them.

  ‘How long have you been harboring that idea?’

  ‘It’s what’s going through my mind. Especially now that Mickey is dead.’

  Lang nodded. ‘Well,’ he said, deflated a bit. His approach wasn’t so novel after all.

  ‘You thought that was a pretty clever deduction, I bet.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘We were locked into a specific solution the moment we began. The list. Someone on the list did it. Could be some ones.’

  ‘There are pieces to this,’ Lang said. ‘The murders, stealing the manuscript, deflecting the investigation . . .’

  ‘The missing photograph,’ Carly added.

  ‘I thought it came back,’ Lang said.

  ‘Yes, a photograph came back.’

  ‘. . . the killing of Angel. Mickey’s relationship with his father’s mistress and his sloppy old private eye’s contact with Ralph Chiu.’ He stopped. ‘Shit.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I assumed that because Mickey was having an affair with Angel, or something, that Scotty Markham worked for him. Maybe Markham was working for Chiu.’

  ‘A real estate deal maybe,’ she said. ‘And lots and lots of deep, dark secrets, including a man who admitted to murder. We got to where we are now by poking and speculating. The question is, what do we do now?’

  ‘Eat,’ Lang said, leaning back so the lovely lady serving could put the appetizer in place – white shrimp and chives Chinese dumplings.

  ‘What do we do now?’ she repeated.

  ‘Just last night I discovered Sumaoang was the one who had these guys following me, not Chiu.’ Lang shrugged. ‘Gain one, lose one. But I don’t think Sumaoang was paying the boys who were tailing me. We’re being pulled in multiple directions.’

  She sipped her wine.

  ‘I like my life,’ she said. ‘I was worried that I made a mistake leaving the comfort and financial stability of Vogel Security. But how could that compare to the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants operation I’m involved in now?’

  ‘Precisely,’ he said, smiling. ‘Who could possibly be comfortable knowing what’s coming next?’

  ‘The sesame glazed salmon, I hope.’

  And it came. As did the grilled chicken breast with black bean mushroom sauce – and he was not disappointed.

  Mickey Warfield had been dead at least seventy-two hours when he was found eight hours ago. This, Inspector Vincente Gratelli learned from the Medical Examiner herself, who understood the urgency of the case. She was working directly with both CSI and the Crime Lab as well.

  Gratelli sipped the coffee he had brought with him from Caffe Trieste, his first and best cup of the day. He sat behind his desk, noticed Rose and Stern taking a young Asian into an interview room. After scanning the serious parts of the newspaper he thought about Mickey’s death and the timeline of the deaths. Mickey couldn’t have killed Frank Wiley because he was in a jail cell in San Mateo. And he couldn’t have killed Angel LeGard because he was already dead.

  He shook his head. None of the pieces seemed to fit. He made a mental note to let Carly Paladino know. He preferred talking to her rather than Lang. Was he feeling fatherly? Was that the reason? He hoped so.

  Gratelli pulled Rose out of the interview room.

  ‘What have you got?’

  ‘Not sure we have anything,’ Rose said. ‘We were tailing Lang and his gal Thursday and this guy was tailing them too.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Don’t know. Filipino. Babbles away as if he doesn’t understand English.’

  ‘Get that Filipino cop up here. You know, what’s his name. He speaks Tagalog.’

  ‘There’s some stuff all mixed up here, Vincente.’

  ‘I know. None of it makes sense. Murders, why? Looking for the book as if it’s a treasure.’

  ‘A treasure in reverse,’ Rose said.

  ‘How’s your partner doing?’ Gratelli asked.

  Rose shrugged, smiled. ‘Stern is Stern is Stern.’

  ‘My old partner was a lot like him. He’s confused by the fact that he cares so much, covers it up by being a stubborn, sometimes stupid, rock.’

  Gratelli regretted his comments immediately. It wasn’t like him to psychoanalyze, or say anything about other cops, good or bad. That’s how he had stayed out of trouble all these years. But he often thought of his partner. Everyone thought he was tough, but, in fact, he was ill-equipped to deal with evil every day.

  ‘Forget I said anything,’ Gratelli said just before Rose went back to the interrogation.

  ‘Forgotten.’

  It was probably the death of the Chinese woman that got to Stern most. Women and children. Same as his partner.

  Time to wrap all this up.

  Thirty

  Lang and Carly entered the lobby of their small office building. They were both prepared to walk the two floors to avoid the glacier pace of the elevator, but there was a yellow cone on the second step and yellow tape across the entry. At first Lang thought it was a crime scene, but there was a little sign that said ‘Pardon our dust’.

  Lang went closer, looked up. There was a portion of a ladder visible.

  It didn’t feel right, but there were many times when he had let suspicion get the better of him and the situation had turned out to be harmless. He looked at Carly.

  ‘That happen often?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’ He pressed the button.

  ‘Something wrong?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  The elevator was on the first floor, but it took thirty seconds for the lumbering doors to open. They stepped in. Lang pressed the button to close the doors as if the elevator would pay attention – and then the floor number. The doors closed, banged open, then closed again.

  The gears locked in place, the windowless room groaned.

  ‘This is going down,’ Carly said.

  ‘It is.’ Just as he attempted to stop the elevator, the dim light expired and the elevator clunked to a stop. Then it moved again.

  ‘It’s still going down,’ she said.

  Lang flipped open his cellphone and punched in the code for the office. Nothing happened. Inside the thick, steel-lined elevator and in a basement, no signal went out.

  The elevator came to a rough stop. There was a long moment of silence and the doors opened. The only way they knew that was the sound and slightly, ever so slightly less darkness.

  Lang pushed Carly to one side of the elevator and he stood on the other, away from the opening.

  The guns fired, explosive sounds and the pings of bullets against the elevator walls. Lang hoped luck would keep both of them out of the way of ricochets.

  Lang flipped open his phone and punched in the code again, this time with a prayer. He slid the phone out on the floor into the darkness.

  ‘Can’t see anything,’ Lang yelled out as if he were communicating with the assassins. What he wanted, hoped, no begged for, was that Thanh or Brinkman was picking up on the message. ‘Who are you and what the fuck you doing in our basement?’

  ‘Time’s up,’ the voice said.

  ‘You made a mistake,’ Carly yelled out. ‘This makes it a standoff.’

  ‘We’ll just come get you. If you had a gun, you’d have
fired it.’

  It was Scotty Markham’s voice in the darkness. Lang didn’t figure the guy would go this far.

  ‘Come on over, Scotty, see for yourself,’ Lang said. He hoped someone upstairs was listening to all this and figuring it out.

  ‘He said “we”, didn’t he? Two here, at least,’ Carly said in a whisper. ‘Another outside to let them know when to take control of the elevator.’

  New sounds in the darkness: thooot, phut!

  ‘What was that?’ a voice asked. It wasn’t Markham’s.

  ‘You weenies, you’re a disgrace to tough guys everywhere,’ Lang said. ‘Somebody put some trash in the chute. Scared of a little trash? How are you doing with the rats? They like the dark. Crawl up your leg.’

  ‘Shut the fuck up,’ Markham said.

  ‘I have to admit, I didn’t think you were too bright,’ Lang said, ‘but I never figured you for this. This is low.’

  ‘High and mighty, that it? You’re about a year and a half off being me.’

  ‘No, Scotty. I’m not adept at snapping a man’s neck.’

  ‘A little practice.’

  ‘I’d have a hard time, stabbing a woman with an ice pick. Truly cold-blooded.’

  ‘You sound like a high school kid majoring in dance,’ Markham said.

  On one hand, Lang wanted this to be over, but the fact that the other guys had guns meant he couldn’t push it. He and Carly were living on a bluff.

  ‘What’s that?’ said the other voice.

  ‘What?’ Markham said.

  ‘I heard something.’

  ‘Rats, I tell you, and not the Disney kind,’ Lang said. ‘You don’t believe me.’

  ‘I believe you’re dead,’ Markham said.

  Lang sensed someone, something, coming closer.

  There was a thud, something soft but heavy hit the floor.

  ‘Eddie,’ Markham said. ‘Eddie!’

  ‘Things not going according to plan?’ Carly asked.

  ‘I told you those rats are big,’ Lang said. He whispered for her to see if the doors would close. If not she was to get down to the floor.

  Lang saw Markham’s face light up briefly as he tried to use his cellphone.