She got out her clip, peeled off a couple of twenties. She got one of her business cards out, jotted her personal phone number on the back, futzed with the broken zipper on the top pocket of Lucky’s down jacket, tucked her business card in with the money folded around it. Zipped it up as best she could, which was halfway. “With what you have here, you can rent a room for the better part of a week. Do it today and make me happy. In fact, do it right now. Before you even go back to work.”
He looked down in the direction of his pocket. “How am I going to pay you back that much money?”
She gave his cheek an affectionate pinch. “With all the good info you give me, mister. You are my eyes and ears on the street.”
“Aww.” He looked down, blushing.
Her voice croaked slightly before she spoke. “Lucky, you haven’t heard or seen anything new about Pamela, have you?”
“Your little girl.”
“She’s nineteen now. But yes, I suppose you could still say that. You saw her a couple of months back, with some Moon Ranchers. Remember?”
“So I did. Near the Thunderbird.”
“And if you ever hear anything about her again, or the people from Moon Ranch, you’re going to let me know again, right away, correct?”
“I’m your eyes and ears.”
She smiled. Straightened his collar.
“What about the mayor thing?” he asked.
“I’m going to talk to someone,” she said. “You, however, are not. Loose lips, remember?” She made a zipper motion over her mouth.
Lucky made the same zipper motion.
“Good man,” she said. “No more biker den for you. Hugo. Sixth and Mission. If they give you any guff, you tell them to call me and I will set them straight.”
“Hugo,” he said. “Six and Mission. Hugo. Six and Mission.” He turned around and marched off down Columbus, mumbling the words to himself.
She watched him, swinging his arms like a big kid, his apron flapping over his baggy jeans, his down jacket puffing out his skinny torso, talking to himself. He looked so vulnerable. He was vulnerable.
The mayor story might be drunken biker BS. But she’d check it out. Because the world was going to hell.
CHAPTER TWO
The Thunderbird was a three-story flop hotel on O’Farrell in the heart of the Tenderloin, one of the city’s “non-touristy” areas. Built of brick and stone shortly after the 1906 quake in what had once been the ritzy part of town, not much had transpired since in the way of upgrades. A non-functioning neon sign in the shape of a stylized thunderbird, black with dirt, hung over the doorway, where a couple of residents sat on the steps with a boom box thumping Earth, Wind & Fire. A window was boarded up. Another had a sign advertising rooms available, by the day, week, month. Section 8 accepted.
Little parking was to be had. O’Farrell was one-way so Colleen circled the block, parked near the Mitchell Brothers Theater, where the marquee proudly proclaimed the club to be the home of the country’s first lap dance. Locking up the red Torino, she headed down to the Thunderbird. A working girl in gold hot pants with platforms to match her shiny blond wig was hunkered down outside the corner store, smoking a cigarette to keep warm. It didn’t appear to be helping. In her skimpy black tank top, her skin bore a blueish tint.
Colleen did not recognize the stoop dwellers from her time at the Thunderbird. But residents came and went. One grizzled young guy wore a long sleeved Mad Dog T-shirt. His friend was a heavyset Latino in a pink hair net and sunglasses. Both seemed to lack facial expressions. The music pulsated.
“How’re the rooms?” she asked.
“Like shit,” Mad Dog said.
“Hey, you guys wouldn’t happen to know if Shuggy Johnston is home, would you?”
Hair Net examined her. “Out. Why?”
“Just in the neighborhood and thought I’d say ‘hi.’”
A stare. Plus one from his friend.
Did she look like a narc? Maybe she was bathing too often. But Shuggy Johnston did indeed live there. She could always ask the manager, Lawrence, from her residence period, but then she would be giving the game away. Low key was king.
She thanked them, strolled back up O’Farrell, stopping at a payphone near the Mitchell Brothers, where she called SFPD’s anonymous tip line, said there was a rumor that Jordan Kray was going to shoot the mayor. The woman manning the hotline seemed barely interested but made note of it.
Colleen hung up, dissatisfied with SFPD’s response. This called out for a little more due diligence.
It was late evening when the motorcycles came roaring down O’Farrell towards the Thunderbird. Colleen was dozing at the wheel of the Torino, parked across from the liquor store. She sat up, rubbing her eyes as the bikers curbed their rides. She readied her Canon SLR from under the Chronicle on the passenger seat.
Two choppers had raked front ends and the other was a big black Harley motor trike, like something a kid might find under the tree. A big kid in this case. Not that big actually, a fireplug in leathers with a sprig of frizzy hair. He climbed off, stepping down, having to reach. A Confederate flag was painted on the trunk door on the back of his trike. If he was over five foot tall, she’d have been surprised.
Using the newspaper as a partial shield, she snapped a photo.
The other two were more typical biker specimens, one a tall beanpole with sunglasses on at night and a sweep of black hair that he flipped to one side as he climbed off a beige Harley Police Special. He stood, hunched over like Nosferatu in black leather.
She snapped a photo.
The last guy rode a matte black Frankenstein bike of no determinate year or style. He was late thirties—early forties, built like a football player who had stopped exercising but was still plenty intimidating. He wore a faded sleeveless denim jacket over a motorcycle jacket so old the leather was worn down to dirty white skin in places. Long greasy dark hair was held in place, more or less, by a black paisley bandanna. Through the telephoto lens she saw his face was hard and gray, like cement, pocked with ancient acne scars. He’d been good-looking at one time, but that had been a long time ago. The years had etched sharp grooves around a sneer. Thick eyebrows protruded above deep-set, hooded eyes. A brutish intelligence lurked but mean was the prevailing feature.
Colleen could read his face like a book.
That was because he looked a lot like her ex, another guy who’d had badass down to a T. It repulsed her that she had ever been that foolish, but she’d been sixteen and he’d been in his twenties. And she’d ended his life long ago.
She took a photo.
He shut off the bike, clambered off, spit as he hitched up his faded jeans.
The three men mounted the half dozen stairs to the Thunderbird.
Colleen stashed the camera, slipped on a pair of sunglasses, pulled her hair up, stuffed it under a black ball cap.
Out of the car she flipped up the collar of her leather coat, jammed her hands in the pockets, scooted down, across O’Farrell, up to the Thunderbird. Archie Bunker was yelling at Edith at high volume from a TV in a ground floor room. Colleen wandered by, checking out the bikes as if out of casual interest.
On the black gas tank was painted a swastika with a white eyeball in the center, like a third eye. As Lucky had said. The big brute was Shuggy Johnston.
A classy bunch. Guys who might well sit around and brag about someone going to shoot the mayor. And this crowd might know what they were talking about.
She was about to turn back when she noticed, on the corner by the liquor store, the girl in the shiny blond wig in her mini and platform shoes, wearing a short jacket now, looking at Colleen looking at the bikes. A snitch? Colleen headed back to her car, taking a circuitous path.
She drove home to Potrero Hill, an old Edwardian top floor flat with big white rooms, sparsely furnished, and high ceilings that reverberated with the rush of the freeway up the hill. The place was shabby chic and the view from her many windows most days was fog, but she
liked it just fine. After her stint sleeping in a defunct warehouse she had guarded for a client, broke, it was heaven. One bedroom had a bed made up for her daughter, Pamela, if—when—Colleen found her.
In her office overlooking downtown and a Bay Bridge swirling in vapor, she called Inspector Owens at work. She knew he wouldn’t be there this late so she left a message, saying she needed to talk to him as soon as possible. She didn’t want to get ahead of herself, but Lucky’s story was seeming less of a story and more of a possibility.
Colleen turned in, lay there on the warm, undulating, water-filled mattress. Thinking about Pamela. And where she might be. Hoping she was safe. Hoping she wasn’t in some kind of trouble again.
CHAPTER THREE
“Sorry to drag you away from the bad guys,” Colleen said.
She and Inspector Owens were sitting in Red’s Java House on Pier 30. The view of the early morning Bay Bridge looming overhead was worth the cold drafts that blew in through gaps in old doors and windows. The lunch crowd hadn’t arrived yet and they almost had the place to themselves, save for a couple of longshoremen sitting at the counter, lamenting the decline of San Francisco’s waterfront. What was left was moving over to Oakland.
“Fucking containers,” one said, slurping coffee.
“Your call sounded important,” Owens said to Colleen, as he sipped a cup of black coffee. Owens was heading into middle age, with the beginnings of jowls on a face paled by too many nights under the fluorescent lights at 850 Bryant, and a body thickening around the middle. The disco look had invaded his wardrobe, however, today with a checked jacket and a shiny wide tie of iridescent blue. His graying hair had been blasted by some formula for men, rendering it an unnatural-looking reddish-brown, and was blow-dried, touching his collar. Colleen had to give him credit for trying. A lot of guys his age were giving up. And that was something Owens didn’t do. Plus, he had a young wife he was trying to keep, if the rumors were true.
Owens was one cop she could trust.
But, as reassuring as his presence was in general, today something was off. A tenseness around the eyes. But she didn’t know him well enough to ask. Maybe it was Colleen, worrying about the biker den.
“I think it might well be,” she said, pushing her cup of coffee away. She hadn’t really wanted it in the first place. Unlike Owens, her outfit was basic, a floral polyester top tucked into her faded bell-bottoms under a suede sheepskin coat she had not taken off, trying to keep warm.
She told him what she knew about one of the supervisors scheming to shoot the mayor.
Owens sat for a moment, set his cup down, licked his lower lip. “And where did you get this little gem of information, Colleen?”
She shook her head. “Hayes Confidential?”
“Thought so. Well, I wish I had a dollar for every assassination rumor that came along.”
“You’d have a few dollars,” she said. “But not that many, surely.” She got out her envelope from One-Hour Photo and splayed out the shots of the three bikers. “Neo-Nazi/KKK biker types. The big guy is Shuggy Johnston. Lives at the Thunderbird Hotel on O’Farrell. He’s the one to watch. He’s also rumored to deal dope. I checked around. LSD is his specialty.”
Owens studied the photos. “And you’re sure your source is telling you the truth?”
“As much as he knows. It could all be a drinking story, but you and I both know one or two supervisors who hang with a—ah—less tolerant crowd.”
“Did you think of calling the hotline?” It was clear Owens had better things to do.
“I did call. But the operator I spoke to seemed about as interested as if I was reporting skateboarders in my driveway.”
“It would’ve been logged. Someone will get to it.”
“Maybe. But I think it might need closer scrutiny sooner.”
“I’ll see someone gets these,” he said, gathering up the photos, looking at his wristwatch.
She was a little disappointed. “I know you’re busy, but I guess I was hoping …”
“It’s not my department. It’s not really anyone’s department. These things are handled ad hoc. If it warrants attention, a team will be formed.”
She looked him in the eye. “Okay, tell me if I’m out of line, but is everything okay?”
“With me, you mean?”
They really didn’t know each other personally.
“No, the guy posing as Inspector Owens.”
He looked at her for a long moment. “Busy. Getting ready to take some time off work.”
“The holidays and all that,” she said.
“Right.”
He sure didn’t sound very jovial about holidays and time off. But it was none of her business. She thanked him, wished him a happy Thanksgiving, and they parted ways.
A busy morning so far but she still had to get some real work done, meaning paid work. She drove over to the Marina where she parked kitty-corner to an imposing 1920s stucco house facing the yacht club. The Golden Gate Bridge was fighting its way through the fog. Eventually the garage door opened and a new baby-blue Dodge Magnum backed out, sporting rakish rear side windows with decorative louvers. A little bald man in glasses sat at the wheel. Colleen followed at a distance to an address on Polk Street where he parked, plugged the meter with quite a few coins, and went into an apartment above a dry cleaners. She got a photo of that. An hour later he came out with a furtive, self-satisfied look on his face, looking either way. She got photos of that too. She smoked a cigarette, listened to KGO Newstalk carry on about gay bathhouses, waited some more. Just over half an hour later, a young woman left the apartment. She was statuesque, with long blond hair that looked great with her dark one-piece jumpsuit and short red leather jacket. Red platform wedge sandals made her seem even taller. She wore sunglasses even though it was overcast. She was clearly out of Mr. Philanderer’s price range. Colleen got a picture of her, too, and wished she could have gotten the two of them together. She made notes in her file and sighed at what it took to pay the bills. But divorce work was plentiful.
CHAPTER FOUR
Middle of the night, the white princess phone by Colleen’s bed rang. She blinked herself awake, checked the clock. 2:05 a.m. The bars had just shut. She suspected it might be her friend Alex, in her cups again. Ever since Alex’s father had died of lung cancer, she had taken her drinking to a new level, barhopping with friends in the city and then driving down the coast late at night to the mansion she’d been left. Colleen had urged Alex to stay over in the future, not go up against the cliffs of Highway 1 when she was seeing twice as many guardrails.
Colleen rolled over, picked up the phone. Rain pattered on the windows. She croaked a hello.
“Ms. Hayes?”
Not Alex. Hurried voices in the background. Sounds of activity. Not a bar.
“Speaking,” Colleen said.
“This is SF General Hospital Emergency Room. We have a patient in serious condition, a Mr. Herman Waddell.” The woman’s voice was calm, professional, but distressed. “We found your business card in his pocket.”
Colleen’s heart thumped unpleasantly. “Is he a middle-aged guy, gray hair, a little weathered-looking?”
“That’s him. We thought he might be a vagrant.”
Lucky. She had never known his real name.
“He’s a friend,” she said. “How bad is he?”
“Unconscious. Badly beaten.”
She felt the breaths coming fast and quick. The irony of Lucky’s nickname hit her like a sucker punch. “And he’s in the ER?”
“On his way to surgery most likely. They’re doing a CAT scan first.”
“I’m on my way,” she said. “By the way, he’s got Parkinson’s.”
“That’s good to know.”
Colleen hung up, pulled on jeans and a white T-shirt as she stepped sockless into her white leather Pony Topstars. Threw on her leather coat, grabbed purse and keys, exited out the back, taking the stairs down to the rear parking yard two at a time. Wonde
ring who the hell beat poor Lucky up. But she already had a pretty good idea.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Subdural hematoma,” the surgeon said, pulling off his green surgical cap. He was a tall, slender man with flecks of gray in his beard. It was almost three a.m., but in the stark fluorescent hallway of SF General, it could have been any time of day, except for the relative silence of what would normally be a busy public hospital.
“That doesn’t sound good at all,” Colleen said. “What exactly is a ‘subdural hematoma’?”
“Bleeding in the brain,” the doc said. “The best we could do was relieve some of the pressure by draining blood. Are you a family member?”
“A friend. I don’t think he has any family.”
“Well, if he does, this would be a good time to notify them.”
Colleen fought a palpitation. “Are you saying he’s not going to make it?”
“Never say never.” The doctor frowned. “But someone went to town on him. His skull is fractured. Blunt-force injury.”
If the attack wasn’t random, she could only think of Shuggy Johnston and the bikers Lucky had spied on. The story about shooting the mayor.
But she needed proof.
“Have the police been notified?” she asked.
“The ER would’ve done that once they triaged him and suspected a crime. But, being as General is the San Francisco Knife and Gun Club, SFPD don’t always show up right away. Sometimes they bundle multiple reports into one call.”
“Can I see him?”
The doc pursed his lips. “Not sure what good it would do.”
“I would just really appreciate it.” And if she could find out how Lucky got to SF General, it would help nail down any evidence.
“I’ll get one of the nurses to take you back there. But give it a little while. They’ll need to discharge him from the Recovery Room and move him to Intensive Care.”
Colleen thanked him. More than troubled, she headed down to the ER, asked the desk nurse where the EMTs might have found Herman Waddell. It felt odd to be using Lucky’s real name. But Lucky wasn’t an appropriate name for him today.
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