Death in North Beach

by Ronald Tierney

  ‘I see you,’ Lang said, slipping out the elevator and to one side, and heading toward where the light was.

  Markham fired in Lang’s direction.

  Something hard hit something soft and there was another thud.

  ‘Just two of them?’ It was Thanh’s voice.

  ‘Inside anyway,’ Carly said.

  ‘Brinkman went after the post outside,’ Thanh said.

  The lights came on. There was a thick lump of apparel on the floor not too far from the trash dumpster beneath the chute. Carly was sure there was a human being inside. Between the boiler and the elevator was the crumpled body of Scotty Markham. Over Markham stood Thanh, in a gray pantsuit, a baseball bat in his hand.

  ‘You will reimburse for the dry cleaning,’ Thanh said, brushing off the grime and nodding toward the dumpster and trash chute. ‘It was a dirtier, but faster ride than I thought.’

  Carly called Gratelli.

  Lang felt for Markham’s pulse. Dead. Then the other guy. A little luckier.

  When Brinkman opened the cellar door, the feral guy from the previous visit preceded the old PI into the room. Behind them came the whooping of the police sirens. Lang nodded for Thanh to leave.

  Uniforms arrived first and everyone had to play nice until things were sorted out. In less than twenty minutes a perturbed Stern and an amused Rose arrived. Carly intercepted Stern who, face full of reddening anger, headed toward Lang.

  ‘These guys were waiting for us,’ Carly told Stern. The cop nodded but his eyes were still on Lang and his body language was that of an angry dog pulling against the leash. ‘They were going to assassinate us. Had the elevator shut down . . .’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ Stern was gathering calm, however slowly. His cell rang and he answered. It seemed to keep him busy for a little while.

  ‘I don’t know if either of Markham’s cohorts know anything,’ Lang said to Gratelli as the older inspector came in. Gratelli looked the place over, medics now working on the second guy, CSI working with Markham’s corpse, while the third member of the gang, the feral guy, was handcuffed and cowering in a dark corner. Rose was talking to him, but that seemed to be the way it was. Rose was talking. The feral guy wasn’t.

  ‘And we can track Markham back to Chiu?’ Gratelli asked.

  ‘Yep. Nothing more than they talked after Markham learned Mickey Warfield wasn’t going to get an inheritance. And on top of that he was missing.’

  ‘Worried him a lot,’ Gratelli said.

  Carly thought the inspector may have smiled.

  ‘Warfield’s body is found and Markham goes homicidal on you guys.’ Gratelli raised his eyebrows. ‘Why?’

  ‘We’re getting close,’ Lang said.

  ‘Why did the girl have to die? The alibi? Why would Markham care?’

  ‘Maybe Markham didn’t care about the alibi. She wanted to tell me something else, remember? Maybe about Chiu.’

  Gratelli nodded. ‘You know, all we have to do is sit back. Just let them kill each other and the killer will be the last one standing.’

  ‘Can I ask you a favor?’ Carly asked.

  Gratelli nodded.

  ‘You know the list? Get the last two months’ financials. Checking, savings.’

  ‘What do you have?’

  ‘Nothing yet. Not sure what I’m looking for.’

  ‘Yeah, you do.’ This time Gratelli’s smile was unmistakable. ‘I’ve got some of them. You need all of them?’

  ‘Please,’ Carly asked.

  ‘You’ll let me in on it, won’t you?’ Gratelli asked.

  ‘I will. Thanks. If there’s anything there, I’ll definitely get you involved. It wouldn’t work otherwise.’

  Carly, Lang and Brinkman spent thirty minutes answering more questions, most of them the same questions phrased differently. The police found the identities of both surviving attackers and both had records – one for armed robbery and the other several arrests for beating up people, including his wife.

  While Stern may have liked to lay something on Lang, the crime scene was pretty clear. It was consistent with the consistent stories told by the two intended victims. The only people using bullets were the attackers. Who actually bought the bullets seemed to trouble Lang more than it did the police. And the two attackers said that Markham had invited them along for backup. Their weapons told a different story.

  As Stern passed by Lang, he shook his head.

  ‘Do you believe the fucking luck?’ he said to the air.

  On the stairway going up to their offices – Brinkman stubbornly waiting for the elevator to be put back in service – Carly asked Lang, ‘Why did you have Thanh sneak out?’

  ‘We want to keep his superhero status secret.’

  ‘Can you ever be serious?’

  ‘If we acknowledge his special powers, we’ll have to pay him more.’

  ‘Cut it out, will you.’

  ‘Seriously, think about it, he’s kind of a secret weapon. And any undue attention by the authorities, especially our favorite detective Stern, might complicate his life – and ours.’ They were quiet for a while, but as they entered the office, Lang pulled Carly aside.

  ‘We’ve got to put an end to all of this, don’t we? You have any idea how we can do that?’

  ‘I do,’ she said. ‘Let’s have lunch.’

  ‘We just had lunch.’

  ‘Let’s have a coffee break.’

  ‘North Beach?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Let me have a few minutes with Thanh first.’

  Carly headed down the hall to the restroom.

  Lang found Thanh at the reception desk, head in hands. He looked up, eyes searching Lang for news.

  ‘How bad were they hurt?’ Thanh asked.

  Lang would have lied, but the truth would be in tomorrow’s newspaper.

  ‘Markham didn’t make it,’ Lang said.

  Thanh nodded. If killing Markham bothered him, he didn’t show it.

  ‘You want me to stick around?’ Lang asked.

  ‘You can if you want, but I’m going home to shower and change.’

  Thanh smiled. It was faint, barely noticeable. But it was a smile.

  Thirty-One

  Coffee in North Beach, Lang knew, was likely to be good, wherever they went. There was Graffeo, maybe the best in the city, but they didn’t serve it in cups, just beans in a bag. There was the famous – and not just for the coffee – Caffe Trieste. It was often wonderfully loud and one might hear an aria or two. But for a quiet spot with in-house roasting Carly and Lang settled on Caffe Roma.

  Not all kickback and homey, the interior was sparkling clean with an Italian feel that was more stylishly modern than one would expect in an old Italian neighborhood. Great wines lined one wall. Art hung on other walls. Carly ordered a latte, Lang a cup of the pick of the day. As they sat, Lang noticed that while the patrons of Caffe Trieste seemed to lean toward the artistic, the clientele of Caffe Roma tended to attract the establishment types. Suits and laptops. Everyone was entitled to a taste of Bohemia, he thought.

  Carly arrived at the table with her latte and a small plate of cookies, which she intended to share.

  ‘Kind of like recess,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘Where I went to school, we weren’t that civilized.’

  ‘Your school was a reform school?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh.’ She laughed. ‘It was a wild guess. Just being silly.’

  ‘Silly is good. You should be silly more often.’

  ‘Seems to be the direction I’m going, thanks to you and your friends.’

  ‘It’s the process of decorporatization. We remove dress codes, rigid hourly expectations, competition for the boss’s favor, and doing things we don’t believe are right,’ Lang said.

  She smiled. Despite this slightly arrogant litany, Noah was right.

  ‘But we still have a case. Murders to solve. We should get back to business.’

  Lang nodded.

 
Her expression was serious now. ‘What do you think? Where are we?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Lang said. ‘Let me reiterate.’ He stopped for a moment. ‘When do we iterate? Anyway, we’ve been operating on the assumption that this was the work of one of the people on the list.’

  She nodded toward him. ‘I see. Not one, but more than one. There were a number of people who didn’t want to see this book come to light.’

  ‘Including your client,’ Lang said.

  ‘Our client, Noah. Why would he hire us and then try to kill us?’

  ‘Point taken. So we have this: Whitney Warfield was murdered. Angel LeGard was murdered. Frank Wiley was murdered. And now Mickey Warfield is murdered. And these people, generally speaking, weren’t the real players.’

  ‘Whitney was killed to keep the book from surfacing. Angel was killed because, we think, she was pulling the alibi for Whitney’s son on the night of his father’s death. And possibly because she knew something else damning that had to do with the case or not. But why on earth was Wiley killed?’

  ‘There we are,’ Lang said, taking a sip of coffee and watching a line gather in the front for coffee and cannoli.

  ‘More than one,’ Carly repeated.

  ‘Which ones? I still have trouble seeing Agnes DeWitt involved in all this.’

  ‘Don’t let your attraction to her cloud your judgment,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘She is a charmer.’

  ‘I have an idea.’ Carly leaned over the table. ‘Trust me?’

  ‘Hey, it’s your case.’

  ‘I’ll get back with you.’

  Considering the events of the day, Lang was surprisingly relaxed. He would have to go through some additional police interviews at some point. Fortunately, neither he nor Carly had used a firearm, which would have raised all sorts of issues. Lang took the credit or the blame for using the baseball bat on the two victims and Brinkman had taken his shotgun out to his Buick once Lang tied his prey to some pipes.

  This meant that at the moment the case, the only case they were working on at the time, was now completely in Carly’s hands. It was too late in the day to go prospecting for new work. Thanh had completed all of the accounting for the month. Brinkman was at home, probably nursing a bottle of Scotch.

  The evening was before him.

  He gave it some thought. He could call Maura, a masseuse whom he engaged from time to time. Their occasional meetings had been going on for three years. He justified it because she worked for herself, was not part of any sex trafficking ring, and had chosen this line of work because she preferred it to others. Unfortunately, waking up beside a dead woman had destroyed what was left of his libido – at least for a little while. He had no desire to go to a bar, or even a restaurant that required him to be his formal self.

  Buddha waited by the door.

  ‘Yes, well, here we are. No offense to you,’ Lang said to the cat who had already walked toward the kitchen, expecting Lang to follow, ‘but this scares me. I’m relatively young, Buddha. I come home to a cat like, well, pardon my stereotypes, like a maiden aunt or an old guy who lost his mate.’

  Buddha stopped, turned back.

  ‘I know, that was unkind. I know that. Thing is, I don’t knit doilies and I don’t go to see the revival of Cats, but I live with a cat and seem to have no other life.’

  Buddha, Lang thought, may have regretted stopping to listen to such garbage. The brown creature walked gracefully toward the kitchen, where his water was changed and his dry food bowl replenished.

  Lang checked the cabinets and refrigerator. Aside from a few condiments, he might as well be on a deserted island. Not even a coconut. He didn’t feel like going out, but he pretty much had to if he wanted to eat and . . . drink.

  ‘You want something? A little crab, maybe?’

  Lang walked down to the Panhandle, the narrow sliver of Golden Gate Park a few blocks from his converted laundry space. A few blocks to the East was Falletti’s. He’d find something there. Maybe a bottle of decent, cheap wine or a beer he had yet to try. Some sausage to throw in a bit of pasta or a piece of fish.

  He began to feel better as he walked the few blocks on the path under the trees before the park ended at the Department of Motor Vehicles. The smell of eucalyptus was in the air. Dogs chased things – sticks, Frisbees or bright green tennis balls. Bicyclists and runners traversed the paths. Elderly folks were getting a bit of fresh air and exercise.

  Lang took a moment to sit on a bench. Yes, he told himself, stop rushing. It only hurried the end, didn’t it? Not the end of the case or the day, but the end of it all. He took a few deep breaths and allowed himself to re-enter the present, a slower present, a more pleasant present.

  He wandered inside the grocery unhurriedly, the evening now out before him in the most pleasant way. Even so, at the perimeter of his consciousness, he thought about how this case might all come down. And it was coming down. He could feel it.

  Perhaps William Blake was telepathic or just extremely intuitive. She wanted to talk to him. And now, there he was, sitting on the sofa. He was sipping what appeared to be a Martini. He wore a camel-colored cashmere V-neck sweater with a white tee shirt beneath and tobacco-colored pants with a deep crease. His feet were sockless inside some brown Gucci loafers. He looked comfortable but not all that happy.

  Carly felt as ambivalent as he looked. She was glad to see him, but had never quite gotten over his lack of respect for her privacy. She was entertained by his unpredictability as much as she believed it to be self-indulgent and immature.

  ‘Doors have locks for a reason,’ she said, more harshly than she intended.

  ‘If I were a little freer,’ he said, raising his eyebrows, ‘if I didn’t have to hide or look over my shoulder . . .’

  ‘All right,’ she said. It was a fair point. ‘Are you blaming me?’

  ‘No.’ He stood, put his hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m getting antsy. Another death. Mickey Warfield. This is what I wanted to avoid. Are we getting close, Carly?’

  She nodded. ‘I have some questions for you.’

  ‘How about I fix you a drink? Martini?’

  ‘Sure. Not too strong.’ She followed him to the kitchen. ‘How did you end up with Whitney that night?’

  ‘He called me,’ William said. He put some ice in both glasses as he cut a sliver of lime. He waited. ‘Wanted to meet me there.’

  ‘Whitney knew your number.’

  William nodded. ‘Friends and friends of friends. I don’t want my name on a billboard, but can’t be too hard to find or I’m in trouble.’

  ‘Why Alighieri’s?’

  William paused for a moment. A moment too long in Carly’s mind.

  ‘It’s where he holds court.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Every night after eleven.’

  ‘Every night?’

  ‘Every night. Everyone there knows his schedule. He has late-morning coffee at Caffe Trieste, writes in the early afternoon, has dinner, writes in the evening, and at ten thirty or eleven shows up at Alighieri’s where he drinks and pontificates the night away. He works really hard to get a buzz before closing.’

  ‘You say “everyone knows”.’

  William smiled. ‘I’m sure the president is unaware of Whitney’s habits, but the natives know.’

  He drained the water off the ice in the glasses and put it in the shaker along with additional ice. He poured an infinitesimal amount of vermouth and a more substantial amount of gin into the ice. He didn’t shake the container but swirled it for a few seconds and then poured the contents into the glasses. He snapped the lime peeling and rubbed the rims of the glasses. He handed one to Carly.

  ‘You said we were close to the end on this,’ William said.

  She wasn’t sure how much she wanted to say. Not all the pieces were in place and they wouldn’t be until she could get the people on the list together – including him – in one room.

  ‘You read or watch any of those old Britis
h mysteries?’

  William nodded and smiled.

  ‘I need a place,’ Carly said. ‘A place where I have enough room to put up sixteen large photographs and have maybe fifteen or twenty people in a somewhat relaxed atmosphere.’

  William took a deep breath, suspicion and amusement on his face. ‘I know of a place.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Alighieri’s. The back room. When do you want it?’

  ‘Just like that?’ Carly asked.

  ‘Just like that.’

  ‘How can you do that?’

  ‘I own the place,’ William said.

  ‘You own it?’

  ‘You look surprised. I’m not going to be beautiful for ever,’ he said, grinning. ‘I have a few investments. What I do is similar to playing sports . . . there comes a time, you know.’

  There was obviously more to learn, Carly thought.

  ‘Alighieri’s is the place where all this began,’ Carly said.

  ‘It was.’ He walked back into the living area. She followed. ‘I promise you,’ he said as he settled into the sofa, ‘I didn’t kill anyone. Ever. And I have never hired anyone to do anything nearly that evil. Faced with fight or flight, I always choose flight.’

  ‘I noticed. Anyway, I didn’t accuse you.’

  ‘Directly.’

  The Martini was good. It was also strong.

  ‘I’ll cook,’ he said. ‘Am I getting too comfy?’

  ‘When this is all over, will I ever see you again?’ Carly asked.

  ‘No. Probably not.’

  ‘Then you’re not getting too comfy,’ Carly said. ‘Dinner sounds lovely.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And that might be lovely too.’

  It was settled. Alighieri’s back room at ten. Ten was determined because, as Carly soon discovered, there was to be a prelude to the Alighieri get-together – services for Frank Wiley at St Francis of Assisi that would begin at eight. A phone call to Nadia was helpful. She would set up sixteen large easels to display the photographs as well as arrange the tables for the evening’s event. Nadia saw it as a launch to her very own show of Wiley’s ‘art’, as she now described it.

  Over dinner Blake asked Carly to tell him about all her loves.

  She laughed. ‘A boy when I was very, very young. He went away.’