I could feel his disbelief in the horrific outcome of his plan—a combination of the love of a father for his child and the rage of a deeply flawed man against a cruel world. Having been degraded by the elite, the humpbacked jester had lashed out bitterly in the Duke’s court, evoked a curse from an elderly Count he’d viciously mocked, and thereby sowed the seeds of tragedy. Are we supposed to feel sympathy for Rigoletto or disdain? Tonight, I felt a disturbing kinship. When my plan reached its end, who would be in the sack? Would the body reflect honorable motives or moralistic rage? Crappy food and drink bring out my melodramatic side.
I contemplated driving over to Nina’s to fulfill my promise of knotted sheets in the hope that late night lovemaking would break the gloom. But I knew if there was going to be a time when my libido failed, tonight would be a good bet. So I called her and offered a feeble, rambling explanation with assurance that both body and soul would be hers tomorrow night. She gave a soft, throaty laugh and assured me that celibate solitude could be its own seduction. I hung up and ruminated on her having once told me that while she could keep me from being alone, nobody could keep me from being lonely. “That’s who you are,” she told me, “and I love you anyway.”
I considered thawing some scarab beetles from the freezer, but pinning insects conjured images of Vlad the Impaler’s forest of corpses. So I threw back another shot of Jameson, stumbled up the stairs and crawled into bed. Alone.
CHAPTER 34
In the morning I felt like Courtney’s shoes—the ones behind the warehouse, splattered with puke. The weather was an unrelenting drizzle, although the radio promised that a high pressure system was on its way. But we’ve also been assured that computers will make life easier, nuclear energy will make electricity cheaper, video games will make children smarter, and the Army will make young men all they can be. So, I wasn’t counting on sunshine later in the week.
Fungus gnats know that the best way to get out of a dark place is to find a ray of light, which accounts for their swarming around windows after emerging from the soggy soil of houseplants. Given the rot I wallowed in last night, fungus gnats seemed like fine models. So after a shower and a late breakfast of coffee and cold pizza—the stuff is actually improved by refrigeration—I headed over to St. Teresa’s for a bit of light in the form of moral decency. And I was hoping Nina could use her skills to gently extract some more information from Tommy and Karsa.
The daycare was fully engaged in a craft project. Over the years, blobs of tempera paint and Elmer’s glue had created a reasonable facsimile of a Jackson Pollock canvas on the cement floor of the undercroft, despite the best efforts of the custodian. I explained to Nina that events were unfolding quickly, and anything I could learn about Petey or his whereabouts might be valuable in determining if he was actually in danger.
“Tommy’s pretty excited this morning,” Nina said, sneaking a kiss while her charges were occupied with their art. “The theme is Saint Brigid of Ireland since this is her feast day. Your mother is bringing scones for mid-morning treats, and Tommy’s Irish pride has him going full tilt on the craft project. So I’m not sure that I can redirect his attention, but it’s worth a try.”
Tommy was sitting on a bench beside his pal, Karsa, and they were shaping clay into figures and arranging them on the table. Nina sat across from the two friends and I stood behind them, trying to listen without intruding. Tommy glanced over his shoulder, greeted me and went right back to his sculpting.
“We’re making cows and babies,” he said, rolling a ball of clay between his palms that was going to be head of another infant judging from what he had lined up on the table. “Today is for Saint Bridges and she’s a patron saint of Ireland, where mom and dad came from.”
“And she’s the patron saint of cows and babies, too,” Karsa added which explained the clay figures.
“And dairymaids and midwives,” Nina added. “Remember what you learned from our reading this morning?”
“Yes,” said Tommy, “but those are boring. They just milk cows and help women have babies.”
“Wouldn’t it be fun if Petey was here to make cows and babies along with you?” asked Nina. The two men paused in their work. “If we sent Riley out to find him, where should he go? Can you remember anything about where Petey said he lived?”
“Petey liked watching bridges go up and down. He told us it was like living in a castle,” Tommy said, and the two fellows went back to their clay.
I figured these had to be the Fourth Street Bridge and the Lefty O’Doul Bridge. O’Doul, a good Irish name for a European mutt, played for San Francisco’s minor league team in 1917. He was drafted by the Yankees and then traded to the Red Sox, where he set a record that still stands. He allowed thirteen runs in a single inning as a relief pitcher. I guess the bridge honors his efforts to introduce baseball to Japan rather than his getting clobbered on the mound.
Karsa broke my reverie with another detail about Petey. “He slept in a park sometimes. It would be fun to sleep on the grass. Except he said there were lots of bad men selling drugs. But they didn’t bother him, so it was like camping out, I guess. Father Griesmaier said he’d take us on a campout this summer when it’s warm.”
At that point, Tommy and Karsa decided that their sculpted babies and cows were having a campout, which delighted them and had Nina laughing as they arranged the figures. From what Karsa described, Petey had been sleeping at South Park, a few blocks from the drawbridges. That put him in South of Market, where I’d been last night. Where Eunectes lived. Shit.
~||~
I called Carol from the church to pull together the crew. Her plan was to connect with the guys and snag us lunch from Goat Hill Pizza—two extra-large, special combo pies with sourdough crusts. The pizzas had nothing in common with last night’s dinner other than the coincidence of a name.
The food was more than sufficient to draw Larry and Dennis back from their work on a termite control project which, by the pathetically muddy looks of them, had advanced to the final stage of treating around the foundation. They washed up, which led Carol to warn if she found mud in the bathroom sink their asses were going to be chewed like pizza crust, which sent them back down the hall—a very wise decision. They returned and Larry pulled a six-pack of Miller from the fridge, setting it on the dilapidated coffee table. I generally had a rule against drinking before the end of the day, but I could tell that they sensed this was not a normal lunchtime gathering. They were right.
We settled into the scruffy furniture of the warehouse living room, which wouldn’t suffer in the least from pepperoni grease stains. Most of the pizza had disappeared by the time I’d brought everyone up to speed on the case.
Dennis leaned back into the over-stuffed, under-hygienic couch cushions and started the summary. “Sheeit boss, lemme get this right. You be tellin’ us that you’ve moved from two dead, rich old folks, to their twisted son—”
“—who was being blackmailed for jacking off with his six-legged playmates on a video made by a sex shop owner,” Larry continued and then paused to wash down a mouthful of crust.
“Who,” Carol picked up the thread, “was killed by a spider—”
“A very righteous spider,” Dennis interjected, reaching for the last slice of pizza.
“You bet your jive black ass,” Larry affirmed and continued the synopsis. “And now her kinky hubby is paying Riley to find who swapped out their foreplay spider for an endplay spider, which might be some redhead guy from the Cal Academy.”
“Which then led Riley to meet up with a Hispanic hunk working at the sex shop, who’s into watching women crush crickets,” Carol added, moving the sordid tale towards last night.
“But who doesn’t have the balls to stop a twisted sonofabitch from planning to mash some sweet, misguided dude as the ultimate fantasy,” Larry went on, tossing a wadded napkin toward the trash and missing. “So he wants Riley to put his ass on the line, which he’ll do because some equally sweet and misguided ch
ick has been sucked into doing the dirty work when the time comes.”
“And because Riley, being a most triumphant investigator, figures that there be a connection between the evil asshole and the spider lady,” said Dennis.
“And, let’s not forget,” said Carol, “at the end of this sick trail is Goat Hill Extermination’s reputation, which our hero will save from being besmirched by the newspapers.”
“‘Besmirched’? White folks sure do have some goofy shit ways of saying simple things,” Dennis said, shoving the last bite of pizza into his mouth and washing it down with a gulp of beer.
“Okay gang, you got the outline right and the details don’t matter in terms of our next move,” I said.
“And that would be?” asked Larry, finishing his beer and opening another. Carol scowled at him, and he looked contrite, pouring half the drink into a mug on the table and shoving it to Dennis. The taste of Miller beer couldn’t be harmed by coffee dregs.
“Eventually, I need to figure out how Eunectes and Redbug fit into Michelle’s death—”
“That’d be the king of crush, his lieutenant and the spider lady, right?” Larry asked.
“Yeah, well done. Sorry if I’m moving quickly. But my real concern at the moment isn’t those three. It’s Petey—the retarded kid who Tommy befriended—who, from what I can tell, is slated for crushing. And if saving him means also saving our reputation by tracing this moral mayhem back to the Linfords, then all the better.”
“Got it, boss, humans first, business second,” said Larry.
“Seems right by me,” said Dennis.
“You guys are aces,” said Carol.
“Alright, enough of the love fest. It’s time for some action so we can get back to business as usual.” I considered one of the beers and thought better of it, given its quality and my need to stay sharp.
“So what do you need us to do?” asked Carol.
“Just be ready,” I said. “I don’t know when or where the Big Crush is going to happen. But from what I gleaned, it’s likely to be soon.”
“And not where you hung with yo’ homies last night?” asked Dennis.
“Apparently not. It would help if I knew how Eunectes plans to make it happen,” I said.
“Shit,” said Larry, “could be driving a car onto a guy or lowering a weight from an overhead crane. This is messed up, but it probably involves some big space indoors to generate the force and maintain secrecy.”
“Maybe, but it could be simpler,” said Carol. “I read about how in the Salem witch trials they put a guy under boards and piled on rocks to press him to death.
“A dude?” Dennis said.
“Yeah, mostly they hung women—”
“Okay, I hate to break up our history lesson, but we’re just guessing about the how, which doesn’t tell us much about the where. Courtney will call me with the location as soon as she knows. I’m hoping that will give us enough time to formulate a workable plan. So Larry and Dennis, for the next few days I need you to be near a phone or to call into the office every hour while you’re working. I know it’s inconvenient, but we might need to act fast.”
“No problem, boss,” said Larry.
“I still feel like I got us into this scene and—”
“No Dennis, we’ve been through that. It’s nobody’s fault and we’re fixing it together,” said Carol. “Speaking of which, what’s my role?”
“I need you to coordinate communication among the three of us—and be there for whatever the hell comes up that I can’t predict, which is most everything. As for the takedown, you’d stick out like a sore thumb.”
“Or a crushed one,” Larry mused.
“Other than the crush mistress, it’ll be a men’s only event,” I said.
“Yet another upside to being lesbian,” Carol mused.
“As soon as I get word from Courtney, we’ll need to do a recon of the place and decide how to stop the action and grab Eunectes. He’s key to fitting together the last pieces of this perverse puzzle.”
“And there’s a price for him to pay?” asked Larry as he moved to the weight bench.
“And you be the collection agency,” said Dennis.
“We’ll see,” I said.
“You’ll let the other crush creeps go?” Carol asked.
“Redbug might have some useful information, but the others are worthless. They’re into some freaky shit, but people do lots of weird things for pleasure,” I said. “Swallowing raw oysters, jogging in circles, breeding goldfish—
“Listening to opera,” Dennis said.
“Touché,” Larry said, working the barbell.
“My point is that the crush freaks are just following Eunectes, lacking the guts to resist a charismatic leader. In the end, they’re like most people.”
“Damn straight,” grunted Larry, finishing a set of curls.
The guys headed into the rows of shelves, stocking the van for an afternoon job. I told them to wait for me while I made a phone call, and Carol expressed mock amazement that I was going to do some actual work that generated income for the business. That stung a bit, but she was right. I hate it when she’s right.
I went down the hall to my office and pondered whether or not to make the call. On the one hand, Stefan was generously compensating me for finding his wife’s killer. And he had made it clear that he wanted to decide the fate of whoever I fingered. I hadn’t exactly agreed to his terms, telling him that I also had an obligation to the cops without mentioning Lieutenant Papadopoulos by name.
On the other hand, I wasn’t certain how the spider swap occurred. I figured Redbug and Eunectes were somehow entangled in this homicidal web, but understanding what they did and why they did it wouldn’t be evident until I squeezed it out of them at the culminating crush. I didn’t exactly admire Stefan, but a deal’s a deal. I picked up the phone.
“Stefan speaking.”
“Riley here.”
“You’ve found Michelle’s killer!”
“Not so fast. First, I have a decent idea who was involved but no proof. Second, there’s an event in the next few days that should provide definitive evidence. Third—”
“I want to be there. I insist on confronting whoever orchestrated that horrible—”
“Third, and don’t interrupt me, you can be at or near the location, but only if you follow my directions to the letter. If you don’t, you could screw up the whole thing.”
“Okay, okay,” he sighed.
“Stay by the phone at your apartment or the store for the next few days. I’ll call you when I know when and where it’s going down. I’ll only call each number once. If you don’t answer, I’ll move on my own and let you know what happened after it’s over.”
“I understand,” he said.
I hung up and went back to the warehouse. Spending an afternoon killing vermin with a couple of loyal guys while checking in every hour with a trusted Girl Friday seemed like just the thing to give me a glimmer of hope for humankind.
CHAPTER 35
“Well boss, I gotta say that an afternoon of splashing through puddles to outsmart seagulls beats the hell out of a morning of slopping around in mud to outflank termites,” Larry said, pulling tight the hundred-pound monofilament and tying it off.
“That be right,” Dennis said, fastening brackets at regular intervals and occasionally looking out to the Bay and into the swirl of drizzly fog.
We were putting down a grid of fishing line for a block of shops and restaurants on Fisherman’s Wharf. The guys had already strung line above the parapets and now came the process of stretching a grid a few inches above the flat roofs. The idea was to discourage seagulls from gathering on the rooftops and turning the building facades into something resembling a giant cake—except the icing dripping down the storefronts was bird shit. Apparently the dribbles of what could have been sugary confection streaked with brown caramel weren’t fooling the tourists, making it bad for business.
“So, the theory is
that the gulls get wrapped up in the fishing line?” asked Larry.
“And the other ones swoop down and eat their tangled homies. That be how these nasty birds see the world,” said Dennis.
“Not quite,” I said. “According to the experts, gulls don’t like places where they can’t get a long run before taking off or landing. The lines don’t snag the birds. They’re more like obstacles on seagull runways.”
“Bird hurdles, cool,” said Larry.
I kept tying Palomar knots to secure the line at each bracket while wondering if this new method was going to work as well as the company who sold us the system had claimed. The business owners had agreed to give it a shot. They’d tried putting fake owls on the parapets and within days the seagulls had expressed their disdain and frosted the avian mannequins. For my customers’ willingness to experiment, I’d given them a big discount, figuring that if the approach was successful, we’d have another arrow in the quiver of Goat Hill Extermination and I’d make up the shortfall with future contracts.
Larry looked up and stretched his back. “Now, we just need a way to keep Eunectes and his flock of sex freaks from roosting in the city.”
“I be down with that,” said Dennis.
“To be honest guys, what we’re doing here is moving the pests to some other rooftops. It’s not like they’re going to head out to sea and find a desert island to take a crap,” I said.
“I suppose gulls and perverts are just heeding nature’s call. We provide full dumpsters and empty warehouses and then wonder why nasty creatures show up,” said Larry.
“But people don’ need to be acting like animals,” Dennis said. “That be the whole point of getting ourselves civilized. Can’t just graze garbage or—”
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