by Jack Lynch
“How about the walls and electrified fence?”
“Many of the children are from broken homes, Mr. Bragg. Wealthy broken homes. There might be custody rows. One partner might want to spirit away the child. That sort of thing would be devastating to our reputation, so we are quite careful.”
It all seemed sound enough. I thanked her for her help and Bobbie and I returned to the Porsche and headed homeward. I asked her if she’d mind dropping me off on Market Street.
“Where on Market?”
“Near the Emporium.”
“What’s there?”
“An office building.”
She didn’t speak again until we were on the Golden Gate Bridge. “Cop,” she said finally.
“What?”
“I bet you’re a cop.”
“What makes you think so?”
“The way you ask things. Probably not a real cop, but a private one. How about it, Pete? If I look in the yellow pages when I get back home, would I find your name there?”
“Yeah. You’re a lot smarter than you act.”
That brought a grin to her face. “Woman’s intuition.” She turned her head away and spit the gum out the window. “But what’s Armando need a private cop for? Something to do with Beverly Jean?”
“Not that I know of. I’m just checking into some things, is all.”
“Like what?”
“Like you.”
She gave me a wounded look. “You’re kidding.”
“You’re right, I am. But how did you get tied up with Armando? I am curious about that. Seems to me you’re young and fresh enough to do better.”
“Aw, go on. I don’t have all that much going for me. I’m a high school dropout. Ex-soldier’s wife. Ex-hippie. Seems like I’m an ex-everything. Don’t know enough to get a really good job. This pays okay. The hours are flexible. I’m just trying to get my head together. I don’t know, maybe I’ll go back to school someday.”
“How long have you been with Armando?”
“Since the first of the year. Actually, I got a job at the Palm Leaf Club a little before Christmas. Topless go-go dancer. He took an interest. Asked me out to dinner a couple times, then asked if I’d be his paid companion. It sounded easier than dancing around all night with a bunch of tourists staring at my boobs, so I took him up on it.”
“No regrets?”
“No. He doesn’t have syphilis or anything, and he gargles with Listerine…” She shrugged. “What’s a poor girl to do?”
“You live there with him?”
“Some of the time. It’s no big sex trip so much. He just likes to be able to reach out in the night and touch somebody. Know how that is?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Are you married, Pete?”
“Nope. How do you get along with Moon?”
“Okay.”
“He looks at you as if he’d like to carry you off somewhere.”
“I know, but he never gets out of line.”
“Do you spend much time with Armando when he’s around other people?”
“Some. But it’s mostly business acquaintances. The woman who runs his massage parlors or one of the restaurant suppliers. He doesn’t have any real social life, aside from me and Moon.”
“How does he get along with these business acquaintances?”
“Okay. I think he’s a fair man. At least now.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure,” she said after a moment. “There’s a town some place, called Sand City, or Sand something.”
“Sand Valley?”
“That’s it. I heard it mentioned in conversation between Armando and Moon once. I guess they used to live there. Anyhow, they were talking about somebody who lived there. I heard Moon say, ‘Well, it’s no more than he has coming.’ ”
“You didn’t hear a name that went along with whoever they were talking about?”
“No.”
“When was that?”
“Months ago. Just after I went to work for Armando.”
That meant it was something that had happened at least four months earlier. It didn’t seem likely that it would be connected with Armando’s present problems. And then something completely different occurred to me. I asked Bobbie if she had dated other guys since taking up with Armando. She misinterpreted what I meant, giving me a sidelong glance and a smile to go with it.
“I haven’t so far, but there’s nothing in the contract that says I can’t, on my own time, at least. What did you have in mind?”
“I didn’t have anything in mind. I just wondered if you saw other fellows.”
“No, but it’s something to think about now that you mention it.”
She swung onto Market and pulled over to the curb where I told her to. When I started to get out she put one hand on my knee.
“If there’s anything more I can do, be sure to let me know, huh, Pete?”
“Sure. Thanks for the ride.”
“In fact,” she said, reaching in back for her purse, “I’ll give you the address and phone number of where I live when I’m not with Armando. In case you want to call tomorrow.” She scribbled on a piece of paper and gave it to me.
“Thanks. If I think of anything more to ask I’ll give a call.”
“Or whatever,” she replied.
I got out of the car and she gunned the motor. I watched her roar down to the corner and turn. I went into the building shaking my head. Who the hell knew what went on in the minds of young girls these days?
THREE
I spent most of the rest of the afternoon on the telephone irritating cops and newspaper people and various other sources whose Sunday afternoon I interrupted to ask questions about the Chop House and Armando Barker and Moon and a couple of massage parlors—one, the Pressure Palace on Kearny, and the other, Adam’s Rib near Union Square. I even asked some of these people what they knew about a town named Sand Valley, down by the Sanduskis.
The ones who knew anything about Armando Barker and his local enterprises had nothing bad to say. Barker wasn’t a prominent community figure by any means, but nobody knew of anything that might turn into a grudge. Nor could they tell me much about Sand Valley. Whatever went on there seemed to go on in a quiet manner. There was one whisper about Moon. A fellow in the local U.S. attorney’s office told me his real name was Rodney Theodore Jones, and a few years back Nevada authorities and FBI people had established that his car had been parked at a remote site where some bodies had been buried outside of Las Vegas. The bodies were of minor gangland figures from New Jersey. It wasn’t established that Moon had anything to do with putting them there, just that his car probably had transported them. Moon had been able to show that any number of people could have used his car, so nothing came of it, although the investigators had felt that not only had Moon been the one to bury them, but that he’d also been the one to turn them from human beings into bodies. But it all was very old business, and didn’t seem likely to have a bearing on the present.
That evening I went up to the Palm Leaf Club on Broadway and had a chat with Sam Whittle. Sam had run a series of small clubs through the years, with business ranging from not bad to awful, but he managed to stay afloat by one means or another, and one of the means had been to develop a capacity to charm money out of new bankrolls in town whenever he was on the shorts. That’s how Armando had picked up a piece of the club. There is a type of guy who seems to feel if he has a piece of a dive like the Palm Leaf featuring thinly clad girls it was just a country spit from being proprietor of a Las Vegas showplace. Armando obviously was this sort, and Sam had built-in radar that could detect a penchant for sleaziness from clear across town. Sam said he was content with the partnership. Armando let him run the club pretty much the way he wanted, which is the way Sam liked to do things. Armando’s only demands were that he not have to pay a cover charge when he came in to watch the girls dance, and that they not water down his drinks.
I strolled up Grant
to the Chop House and sat around in the bar for a while listening to the help talk. Armando wasn’t in the kitchen that night, and it turned out I’d just missed Connie Wells, the woman who managed the place for him. I tried phoning her at home but nobody answered. When I left the Chop House I took a look at the driveway alongside, where Armando said he’d been shot at. The light still was out on the street above. I had to agree with Armando, though. He would have been a pretty easy target if somebody had really wanted to shoot him.
I reached the Wells woman at her home the next morning. I told her I was hired by Armando for a special job and wanted to talk to her. She had a busy day scheduled, but agreed to meet me that evening for a drink at the Pimsler Hotel. Later I went around and talked to the woman Armando had running the massage parlors. She was a loud-talking lady of about fifty named Marcella Adkins who dyed her hair blonde and used language you’re apt to hear when they play reveille over the barracks loudspeaker. I had to show her the note from Armando before she’d tell me anything, and even then she phoned him to make sure she was supposed to cooperate. She said she had done different things around town until she met Armando through a friend who ran a North Beach parking lot. The friend knew she was a good businesswoman and also knew Armando had cash to invest, so suggested they get together and see if they could work out something. It was Marcella’s idea to open the massage parlors and Armando of course went for it. He provided the backing, paid her a salary and gave her a percentage of the profits. After laying down the ground rules he had told me about, he left her alone to run things and she seemed satisfied.
The Pimsler Hotel was one of San Francisco’s newest. Jet age and trendy. It was near the foot of Market Street. From Treasure Island it looked like an Aztec temple; from Twin Peaks, a block of glass. The lobby was its major attraction. It was the core of the building and extended to the roof, shaped like a half cone, with the rooms built around it on ever smaller tiers as they rose. The floor of the lobby was imitation Italian terrazzo, polished to a high luster. In the center of this spacious area was a tall fountain that splashed water down over great plastic slabs with interior, colored lighting. Tape recordings of chirping birds came from discreetly placed speakers throughout the cavernous room, miniskirted room clerks tended the check-in desk in back, and to one side was a great bar called the Roman Lounge. It had been open for six weeks and the word was spreading that you didn’t have to be from out of town to enjoy yourself there. It was a place you could bring your wife or girlfriend. Plenty of waterbeds were available beneath ceilings of mirrors. Already it had gotten four mentions in Herb Caen’s column. It had a decent dining room and good drinks in the Roman Lounge that were served up by good-looking girls in skimpy outfits. The help enjoyed itself. Management had a smile on its face.
Connie Wells had told me what she’d be wearing so that I’d recognize her: a dark blue dress suit with high-necked white blouse. It was a simple outfit, and when you saw her you realized she didn’t have to climb into anything fancy to attract attention. She was a tall, large-boned girl who had a great carriage, glossy chestnut hair and good-looking legs. Her eyes were smoky and her mouth generous. It occurred to me she’d seem much more the sort of woman to attract Armando than Bobbie was. Maybe the kid had something I’d missed. In the Roman Lounge I ordered some expensive Scotch and we made small talk about the hotel until the drinks came and we’d had a toasting sip. Her movements were measured, like a journey well thought out. It gave her an air of strength that measured up well to her size. I asked what she did for Armando.
One eyebrow rose slightly. “I sort of run the place, Mr. Bragg. Eighteen months ago I answered his advertisement for a cashier-bookkeeper and that’s what I started as. But I learn quickly, and soon I found a lot of areas nobody could look after, and Armando didn’t want to look after, so I did. I still work some as cashier, but I also hire and fire and oversee the people who work there and deal with the janitorial service and linen supplier and liquor salesmen and business agents for the union and representatives of the firm that we lease the building from. I even order most of the food now, which is the critical part of running a restaurant, but once Armando had the menu set up he taught me how to do that too.”
I had ordered Scotch over ice and Connie stared at her nearly empty glass with a faint expression of surprise. “I guess I had a busy day.”
“It happens to us all.” I signaled for two more drinks.
“You never told me what it is that you’re doing for Armando,” she said.
“I’m a private investigator. He’s had a problem come up and wants me to try solving it for him. I’m just talking to all the people he knows and deals with to try understanding his life a little better.”
It didn’t completely satisfy her, but she accepted it for the moment and raised the fresh glass of Scotch to her mouth.
“How is Armando to work for?”
“He treats me fine. I think he respects my abilities. He pays well. I’m better off than a lot of working girls.”
“You’re not married?”
“No.”
She sipped at her drink and looked away, putting a little period to that line of query.
“Have you ever done any modeling, Miss Wells?”
“Whatever does that have to do with any problems Armando might be having?”
“I was just curious.”
She stared at me another moment before replying. “Not around here.”
“Somewhere else then?”
“When I was younger. But why are you curious?”
“You’re a good-looking woman and you know how to use your body. Just seems more the sort of work you’d be into, instead of running a hash house.”
“I don’t think of it as a hash house, Mr. Bragg.” She nearly drained her second drink and put down the glass rather firmly. “Modeling is a lot of hard work. And it’s a brief career, unless you just want to drift on into laxatives and Preparation-H work.”
Our cute waitress wearing a scalloped skirt short enough so you could see her underwear when she leaned over drifted past with a questioning glance toward Connie’s glass. I signaled for one.
“Are you a local girl, Miss Wells?”
“No. I’m from Southern California, and that’s all ancient history, Mr. Bragg, which I don’t pursue with anybody. Mind?”
“I guess not. Seems there are a number of things you don’t want to talk about.”
“Perhaps. Maybe if you told me a little more about Armando’s problem I’d be more cooperative.” Her drink arrived. She took it with a nod and a smile to the waitress, lifted it in toast to me and drank.
“He’s been getting threats in the mail. After he got the first one, about a week ago, somebody emptied a gun at him out in the driveway beside the restaurant.”
She put down her drink. “You’re joking.”
“No. What makes you think so?”
“He would have told me.”
“But he didn’t. Now he’s gotten another warning. A threat to his bodyguard, Moon.”
She laughed outright. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Why?”
“Have you seen him? Armando used to have him around the Chop House as sort of a bouncer. I finally had to tell Armando the man was chasing away customers, just by standing around.”
“We can all die, Miss Wells. Even the big and the mean.”
“I’m sure, Mr. Bragg. But I think Moon has many more years of standing around and making people tremble left in him.” She knocked back the drink and got to her feet. “I have to go to the john.”
I got up and gestured to the area over near the desk. She picked up her handbag and strode across the lobby. Two elderly women a couple of tables away watched her with the jealousy of their years. One of them, with a tiny straw hat and skin that looked like flour paste, sucked a frozen daiquiri through a straw. Her friend had what looked like a glass of cherry pop. Maybe it was a Singapore sling. Everybody had a good time at the Pimsler.
&
nbsp; I stared around at the waitresses when they leaned and wondered about Connie Wells. I wondered what she’d done in Southern California, and despite what she had said, I wondered why she was doing what she did for Armando. She was too beautiful for all that. I could understand if she’d been hustled one time too many and wanted to forget about her body, but that wasn’t the case because she looked after her appearance. And I wondered why she drank as if they’d just opened the last bottle in town.
I was wondering these things when my eyes roved back toward the elderly woman with the pale face and silly hat and I saw her make a sharp little intake of breath and rise half out of her chair, staring upward. I turned in time to see a falling body drop from sight behind the plastic slab fountain and then heard a sound similar to a person whacking a large tube of salami onto the fake Italian terrazzo.
Screams filled the lobby. I got up and went around to see if anybody had been strolling where the body landed. Luckily, nobody had, not right there anyway. A middle-aged fat guy with a half-swallowed cigar stood a few paces away with the blood draining from his face, and a younger woman who must have seen it hit had fainted nearby. I took her under the arms and moved her around a corner of the fountain so that when she came to, the pulpy mess wouldn’t be the first thing she’d see again.
People were beginning to gather. At a distance. There is a limit to how close normal curiosity will draw a person toward that sort of death. A few hotel employees went closer because they figured somebody had to. I pointed out the stricken young woman to a couple of them. Two clerks were standing near the body without really looking at it, discussing whether to call the police or a city ambulance.
“Police,” I told them. “Look at the back of his neck.”
They did, without much enthusiasm. One of them murmured, “Jesus,” and the other went to make a phone call.
I knelt and confirmed two things about the shattered, battered, but colorfully dressed corpse. Somebody had jabbed an ice pick in the vicinity of his neck at an upward angle just below the hairline of what used to be his head. The other thing was that I recognized what was left of him. It was Moon.
