Bad Scene

by Max Tomlinson

  Sergeant Matt Dwight. She let him in. A moment later he was jogging up to her landing in nice-fitting slacks, along with his herringbone jacket, blue Oxford shirt, burgundy tie.

  “Is this about the Moscone case?” she asked.

  “Yes and no,” he said, coming in. He stood, hands on his hips. He raised his eyebrows, obviously listening to the water running.

  “My daughter’s staying with me,” Colleen said.

  He looked surprised. Maybe relieved it wasn’t a man. Matt knew the reason for Colleen’s ten years in prison but hadn’t connected that Colleen’s daughter was a factor in her life. Then again, she kept Pamela to herself. Pam was hers and no one else’s. “I haven’t seen her for some time.”

  “Nice.” He smiled and she liked him for being happy for her. But it was a brief smile. His face grew serious, tense. He dropped his voice. “We need to talk.” His eyes shifted toward the bathroom where the water was still running. “Just you and me.”

  She showed him into her office in the corner of the flat, shut the door. She had a guest chair and a spider plant but not much else besides her desk and the new, used IBM Selectric. The sun was trying to break through the clouds wafting through the spans of the Bay Bridge.

  Matt chose to stand. She leaned back against the desk. She gave him an inquisitive look.

  “Ryan has been digging into my file on your anonymous call,” he said.

  “So, you did have a file.”

  “Of course. But it was confidential—until he pulled rank and had the case assigned to him. Given the outcome of the shooting, it’s no surprise. But he’s been following up the leads and interviewing people: your friend Shuggy Johnston, to be exact. And his two buddies.”

  “Better late than never,” she said.

  “I know you think I dropped the ball,” he said, “and I did, in a way. Once I checked out Jordan Kray, the chief felt everything could be taken down a notch.” Matt let an ironic smile slip. “One thing I didn’t quite level with you on was that I wanted to look into Dr. Lange further, but I got pushback.”

  The surprise must have shown on her face because Matt said, “Dr. Lange is the focus of another investigation I cannot share with you. We’re talking high profile.” He raised his eyebrows. “It’s Ryan’s case.” Matt continued: “So pulling Lange in for questioning earlier was considered too risky.”

  “And once Kray was given the green light, the mayor rumor was back-burnered. To protect Ryan’s case with Lange.”

  Matt confirmed with a nod. “You were good enough to warn me about Ryan. Now it’s my turn to return the favor.”

  She was wishing she had a cigarette. She crossed her arms. “About Ryan?”

  “Ever since he took over the case, he’s been a busy boy. He just had Shuggy Johnston pulled in for questioning.”

  It made more sense that Ryan had been following her that day now, up by Sears. It still didn’t feel quite right, though.

  “Better late than never,” she said. “Maybe Shuggy and his two thugs will go down for Lucky at some point.”

  “One of the detectives in the interview said Ryan was throwing your name around when Shuggy denied having any knowledge of Aryan Alliance. Said he knew for a fact Shuggy had been to one of their recent meetings. Said he had a witness who said she went to one such event with him.”

  Colleen’s heart seized. “Did he mention my real name?”

  Matt Dwight gave a solemn nod.

  “My real name.” She had used an alias with Shuggy.

  “Your real name.”

  “And Shuggy put two and two together.”

  “It’s not that hard. Who else could have gone to that meeting with him?”

  “Jesus H. Christ.”

  “Tell me about it.” He grimaced. “Ryan has a rep for being a bull in a china shop. Especially when he’s doing things his way. He’s protecting his turf.”

  And not worrying too much about anybody else. Colleen wasn’t high on his list of people to look out for to begin with. In fact, Ryan might just have been doing a little bit of the opposite when he dropped her name around Shuggy.

  “Looks like I better keep my eyes peeled.” She better watch out for Pam, especially, who knew Shuggy from her Moon Ranch days. The two of them could not meet again. Ever. There was no telling what Shuggy might do to get at Colleen.

  Matt slipped his hands in his pockets. “It’s not going to be hard for Shuggy to find you, if he puts his mind to it.”

  Colleen was aware of that. “I’m used to making enemies.” The water shut off in the bathroom.

  “Since this is all off the books, I can’t assign a cop to watch your house. But I’ll swing by whenever I can. And if you even think you need help, you call me.”

  “I appreciate that.” And she did.

  Matt cleared his throat. “Do you own a firearm, Colleen?”

  An unregistered one. “Who’s asking?”

  “I’m not going to ask about legality.” He divulged a tight smile. “But keep it handy.”

  “I take it Shuggy isn’t in police custody.”

  “Not yet.”

  “He and his pals killed Lucky. I’ll make a statement.”

  “All in good time. Homicide is short a man right now. Hopefully, Owens’ll be back in action soon.”

  “Do you think Ryan and Dr. Lange might have some other kind of connection?”

  Matt frowned while he thought about it, shook his head.

  “Took you a minute to come to that conclusion,” she said.

  “Can’t see it,” he said. “No, I can’t.”

  She wasn’t so sure. But she didn’t like Ryan. Cops who threatened her tended to have that effect.

  Matt checked his watch. “I’ve got a dozen things I need to do.”

  She pushed herself up off her desk, thanked him for the warning, as much as it troubled her, and showed him out. Pam was in the kitchen, getting a glass of water. She had taken over Colleen’s kimono. Her wet red hair was combed back. More pinkness had returned to her cheeks and Colleen felt a flush of optimism.

  Colleen introduced Matt Dwight simply as Matt, keeping the cop connection to herself. She saw Pam give him the once-over. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

  “I still haven’t forgotten about that other thing,” Matt said quietly at the door, meaning dinner.

  Their eyes met for a moment.

  “Good,” she said. She liked the whole idea better now that she saw how he’d been compromised by Ryan on his case.

  Back in the apartment, Pam was in the spare room, getting ready, with the door open.

  “Boyfriend?” Pam said, brushing her hair. Conversations seemed to work better if they were in different rooms.

  “Work related,” Colleen said.

  “You sure about that?”

  “I barely know him.”

  “But you’d like to.”

  “He’s a nice guy.”

  “Nice looking, you mean.”

  After ten years in prison, she had missed Pamela’s adolescence. Pam was still her little girl. Having a conversation like this was new territory.

  “I guess,” she said.

  “You guess?” Pam stuck her head out of the bedroom, grinning.

  Colleen smiled back. “Okay. He’s easy on the eyes.”

  “Just a little.” She went back to brushing her hair. “You been to bed with him yet?”

  Colleen felt herself blushing. “If I had, I sure wouldn’t tell you.”

  “Ah,” Pam said. “We have a prude in our midst.”

  “Not really. But I am your mother, believe it or not. I’m also not a big fan of kiss and tell.”

  “Sex is no big deal, Mom. It might loosen you up to get your rocks off.”

  Talk about a conflicted message. Her one and only—fathering the child of an insane cult leader—giving her mother sex advice. But, on the plus side, Pam had called her Mom. But none of that was important right now. Getting Pam somewhere safe was.

&nbs
p; “Matt’s visit does mean a change of plans, though,” Colleen said.

  “What? Why?”

  “I’ll be right back.” Colleen ducked into her office, shut the door, and called Alex in Half Moon Bay.

  “Hey, Duchess,” Alex croaked, sounding groggy, after Harold the butler put Colleen through. Colleen checked her watch. Late morning and Alex was just rising. Another night out on the tiles? Colleen wasn’t going to pry, but she worried about Alex’s consumption of late.

  “I’ve got a huge favor to ask,” Colleen said. “Huge.”

  “Oh-kay …” Colleen could hear Alex light a cigarette.

  “Pack your bag,” Colleen said to Pam.

  “What for?”

  “You’re staying with a friend of mine for a few days.”

  Pam furrowed her brow. “Why?”

  “Don’t worry,” Colleen said. “Alex has a mansion in Half Moon Bay. Not to mention a butler and a chef.”

  “Great,” Pam said. “But, again, why?”

  “I’ll tell you on the way.”

  Colleen and Pam drove along the Great Highway, heading south, beach sand blowing across the road. The skies were churning gray and the waves uncertain.

  “This Alex,” Pam said, brushing her red hair back off her shoulder. “She’s a friend?”

  “A good friend,” Colleen said. “She’s been dying to meet you.”

  “But why? One minute you and I are going out to lunch, the next I’m being whisked off to some rich chick’s castle.”

  “I made an appointment with Alex’s gynecologist tomorrow,” Colleen said. “Alex is going to take you.”

  “Cool.” Colleen felt a surge of relief. “But you keep avoiding my question.”

  Colleen frowned as she drove. “I’ve got a lot on my plate right now.”

  “So? I thought I wasn’t in the way—am I?”

  Colleen wasn’t going to go into Shuggy Johnston. “I’m in the middle of a delicate case.”

  “Delicate means dangerous?”

  Colleen was actually heartened. Pam cared enough to worry about her safety. But she still didn’t want her anywhere near Shuggy. “No.”

  “So why don’t you want me around?”

  “It’s just some tedious divorce work I’m on and I need to wrap it up. I’m going to be in and out at all hours. I won’t have time to look after you for a couple of days. And you need rest. Better for you and me if you stay with Alex. Just for a little while.”

  “You sure you’re going to be okay?”

  “I’m sure,” Colleen lied.

  “Okay,” Pam said. “I guess.”

  There was so much they didn’t know about each other. But it felt like they had made some progress.

  Colleen breathed a sigh of relief. Now she could deal with Shuggy. And whatever that entailed. Without Pam.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Back in San Francisco, Colleen spent the afternoon staking out Mr. Philanderer’s love pad, with no sign of him or his paramour. With a sigh she headed home, stopping at a payphone near Sukkers Likkers.

  She needed to be prepared in case Shuggy or one of his pals came visiting. Her Bersa Piccola was lightweight and fit the back pocket of her Levi’s without ruining the curve of her jeans but didn’t quite cut it for handling multiple attackers and certainly wouldn’t scare off people of Shuggy’s ilk. Boom had such a weapon, but she wasn’t going to involve him. He’d done his bit, and then some.

  She dropped a dime into the payphone and called Al Lennox, a bail bondsman down by 850 Bryant who had put her in touch with some disreputable people in the past. She needed somebody disreputable right about now.

  Al answered in his raspy but cheerful voice.

  “I was just closing up shop, cute thing,” he said. She’d never really seen herself as cute.

  “Glad I caught you,” she said. “I have a rush order.”

  “Oh, yes? You are singing my song.” Al Lennox loved rush orders, because they meant rush order money. “Who’s the lucky guy who needs bail at this late hour?”

  “A friend of mine named Rodney Strong.”

  There was a pause. Strong was a code name. There were several Al used. Sweet was anything that might get you high. Green was a loan, fast, at high interest. Strong was a weapon.

  “Give me your number,” he said. “I’ll call you right back.”

  Colleen gave him the number of her payphone. She waited for Al to leave the office, use the payphone at the bar nearby, his unofficial line. It would’ve been the perfect time for a cigarette. But she’d given them up for her future grandchild, if it came to that.

  A few minutes later, cold wind blowing up Polk, the phone rang.

  “Poor Rodney,” Al said, and she could hear the exuberance of the after-work bar patrons where he was calling from. “What’s he up for?”

  “10-32,” she said. Police code for a firearm.

  “What kind?”

  “Sawed-off,” she said. “Portable and easy to conceal.”

  “Bail for something like that isn’t gonna be cheap, you know.”

  She figured as much. “Why am I not surprised?”

  He told her how much.

  “Ouch,” she said.

  “And don’t forget my fee.”

  Double ouch.

  “Okay,” she said. “But he needs it tonight.”

  “Oh, you kidder.”

  “Yes, I love to joke about things like this.”

  Al’s tone turned serious. “Let me make a phone call and get right back to you.”

  “I’ll need some shells, too.”

  “She sells seashells by the seashore.” Al hung up.

  She shivered in the cold San Francisco evening that was approaching, wishing she’d worn more than a denim jacket.

  But, not long after, the phone rang.

  “Clooney’s,” Al said. “Nine o’clock. Bring cash.”

  She went back home, rummaged around in the back of the pantry, found the can of Brim decaffeinated coffee she never used, opened it, fished her roll of emergency money out from the grounds. Shook it off over the sink. Paying for Rodney Strong’s 10-32 was pretty much going to clean her out. But so be it. Maybe she could sell the damn thing back to Al when Shuggy was out of her life.

  At nine p.m., she walked out of Clooney’s bar on Mission with a large double paper bag weighed down, feeling just a tad nervous, a woman on parole with an illegal firearm. Her second illegal firearm. She put it in the trunk, drove over to O’Farrell Street, motored by the Thunderbird. No ratty Harley-Davidson with a white eye swastika on the tank parked out front. On the third floor Shuggy’s light was off. Shuggy was out. Shuggy might even be out looking for her.

  She headed back home, circled the block, no suspicious vehicles. No maniacs wielding swords, no Symbionese Liberation Army members brandishing submachine guns. But if Shuggy made an appearance, she was ready.

  She parked in the back lot, pulled her Bersa from the gym sock under the dash, checked around before she locked up the car, trudged up the back stairs with her paper bag to her porch. Let herself in. Set the bag on the kitchen counter. Bersa in hand, she checked the flat. Matt Dwight’s warning had her on high alert.

  No one.

  It already felt empty without Pam. Colleen went back into the kitchen, set Little Bersalina on the kitchen counter, checked the contents of the bag.

  Pulled out an ancient Century Arms 12-gauge shotgun that was just over a foot long. The wood was grimy black, the metal oxidized. The barrel had been sawn back as far as it could go. Much of the stock had been lobbed off, too. Two rabbit ear hammers poked up. A hillbilly handgun. She broke the weapon, sniffed the empty barrels. Not recently fired but there was definitely the tang of gunshot residue.

  She looked in the paper bag. Four 12-gauge shells. Six would have been nicer. But Al Lennox never over-delivered.

  She loaded up the gun with two shells, put the other two aside. She went and got her military surplus parka with the white fur-lin
ed hood, put it on, popped the under-the-bed gun in the deep inside pocket.

  Trotted around the flat, practiced whipping the gun out. Efficient. Stylish, too.

  She put everything to one side, got herself a glass of water. Leaned back against the counter, drank.

  She wanted to call Alex, see how Pam was settling in. But no. She’d keep a lid on her feelings, the need to be Pam’s mother, the urge to fix things that might not be easily fixable. She’d keep her distance, no matter how lonely it felt. It wasn’t about her; it was about getting Pam some semblance of sanity back in her life. Let her recover. Deal with her pregnancy.

  She thought about being the grandmother to Adem Lea’s child. It wasn’t easy to get her head around. But she’d deal with it.

  She took her glass of water and personal arsenal into her office and called her answering service. No new messages.

  She hung up, took her Bersa and Princess phone on its long cord into the bathroom, set both on the edge of the sink, took a long steamy shower.

  She stood under the water and let it needle her face, run down her body. She was still fuzzy from her trip to South America. Along with the images of Kerkers leaping into the volcano, things still felt unreal. She needed the opposite.

  While she was in the shower, the phone rang. She leaned out, flipped her wet hair to one side, answered the phone. It clicked off. She’d been hoping for a surprise call from Pam. She told herself to quit hoping. Now she was thinking of Shuggy.

  Out of the shower, she pulled on her kimono, which smelled like Pam, which made her miss her more, grabbed the shotgun, did the rounds. Back porch—nothing unusual in the yard below. Front window, peering out from behind the blinds. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  She made a cup of coffee. As much as she wanted a glass of Chardonnay, she needed a clear head.

  The phone rang again. She answered.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  The nicest two words she could have heard.

  “Hi, Pam,” she said, sipping coffee. “How’s Alex treating you?”

  “She went to visit a friend. It’s just me, the butler, and the chef.”

  “Life is rough.”

  “It’s a little weird having a butler float around after you. I asked him if there was possibly any ice cream. He said: what kind? They have several flavors. Homemade, of course.”