City of Ghosts (A Miranda Corbie Mystery) (10 page)

“And I will be there to protect
your
interests, as always. Shall we meet, say, at seven-thirty? In front of the Hall of Justice?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Meyer.”

She rang off and shuddered, thinking of the cold weight of Lois Hart’s jade and how heavy it had felt in her hands.

*   *   *

Quick, greasy breakfast at the Universal Café, sunny-side-up eggs and rye toast, coffee black, film on top swirling like a kaleidoscope.

Miranda’s thick fingers wandered to her neck.

The pearl necklace was cold, but not as cold as Mrs. Hart.

A shrill stream of Chinese erupted from the short-order cook. He was gesticulating from behind the grill at a hobo who’d wandered in through the back alley door.

Tall, slim, unshaven, with a dented gray fedora, the bum took a step backward, still clutching an orange in his hand. The cook held up his egg flipper like a club, stomped with his left foot. The hobo stumbled again, braced against the inside of the door, and blended into the sun and shadows of Chinatown.

A woman with thick gray hair pulled back in a severe bun emerged from a backroom curtain and spoke sharply to the cook. She was dressed in black, skin like parchment, ancient aristocracy etched in her cheeks.

Miranda recognized one phrase, spoken with derision. One phrase, over and over.

Gweilo. Sei gweilo.

She’d heard it before, usually aimed at the men who were buying twelve-year-old girls around the corner on Ross, or sometimes at beat cops like Doyle, on the make and on the take, silk scarves and silken thighs, wife in a Sears and Roebuck calico dress with six kids screaming for supper.

Ghost. Damned ghost.

Cantonese for the bad white man, the kind the Cantonese in Chinatown knew best.

The older woman touched the arm of the cook, soothing him with a murmur, until he shrugged and turned toward the bacon smoking on the flat-top grill. Her eyes caught Miranda’s, and she arched her thin, penciled brows before nodding back, then disappeared behind the faded orange curtain.

Miranda drained the coffee, opened her purse, and pushed thirty-five cents toward the napkin holder. Meyer was meeting her in five minutes. She didn’t have time to figure out why the bum was wearing new Florsheim shoes and a bulge under his left arm.

Too many debts.

Too many ghosts.

*   *   *

Meyer was gazing up at the Romanesque window arches of the Hall of Justice, while young women strolled along the green with baby carriages and a group of sharpies idled near the damp grass, passing a cigarette back and forth. A yellow ’32 Lincoln screamed down Washington Street, Glenn Miller and Ray Eberle blaring from the radio.

Are you just careless, as you seem to be …

He smiled when he saw Miranda, tapping his ebony cane on the cement.

“You look as lovely as ever, my dear. Perhaps a trifle undernourished. Shall I buy you breakfast after the meeting?”

She flicked the Chesterfield onto the sidewalk and rubbed it out with a navy pump. The morning sun was bright, glinting off the dirt of Kearny Street. Miranda held up her hand to shade her eyes.

“It’s kind of you to offer, Meyer, but I’ve eaten.”

“Something quick and cooked in bacon grease, no doubt. I was planning on a tête-à-tête at the St. Francis, Eggs Florentine, perhaps. I worry about your health, my dear, I truly do.”

Her lips turned up in a wry smile. “Then you shouldn’t have hired me last month.”

His soft, fleshy face dimpled and he clapped her shoulder. “You are very brave. Brave and brilliant, and you helped save more than an innocent man. You and Mr. Sanders. How is he, by the way?”

Miranda raised an eyebrow. “Rick? He’s fine. And by the way, the green dress and tennis suit fit perfectly. But don’t hire me again, Meyer—it’s too hard on the wardrobe.”

Two uniforms were coming off duty and clunking down the Hall of Justice steps, one spitting tobacco on the sidewalk. She nodded toward the stairway across the street. “So who are we meeting with?”

“We’re in luck. Our friend Inspector Fisher is handling the case.”

“Then why the hell are you so worried? And don’t tell me you aren’t. Who is it? Johnson?”

Meyer drew a curve on the sidewalk with the tip of his cane. “Johnson is not a concern. He’s a sycophant but harmless. I’ve been led to understand, however, that Captain O’Meara—”

“The pompous ass on the Fair squad?”

“The same. He is, of course, embarrassed and humiliated that you not only solved Pandora Blake’s murder—which you were specifically asked not to investigate—”

“I wasn’t asked. The bastards fired me.”

He held up a hand. “I know, my dear. Let me finish. You also prevented a bomb from destroying the Federal Building and quite possibly killing several dignitaries in the process. Your success has made him feel foolish and has threatened his upcoming bid for assistant district attorney.”

“That arrogant sonofabitch is even worse than Brady. Thinks he’s king of Treasure Island.”

Meyer continued patiently, “District Attorney Brady doesn’t trust you, Miranda, and he can’t control you, and therefore he would like you to disappear. O’Meara bears a grudge. What you may not know is that O’Meara was in charge of the Anti-Radical and Crime Prevention Bureau six years ago.”

“The year of the Strike. So he was Brady’s Gestapo chief.”

Her attorney nodded. “They smashed the so-called Communist and Workers Schools. O’Meara was a hated figure on the docks. Brady desperately wanted Harry Bridges to hang from the yardarm.”

“Bridges isn’t the hero some people make him out to be. He’s been railing against FDR and the New Deal since Stalin made goo-goo eyes at Hitler. So what the hell does all this have to do with me and Mrs. Hart?”

Meyer sighed. “My dear, you are a feminine gadfly, and they think they’ve found your Achilles’ heel. O’Meara still has Brady’s ear and is whispering—loudly—that you are a Communist. Your relationship with Miss Gallagher—”

“Is none of their fucking business! So what do they think? That I killed Mrs. Hart because she’s a rich capitalist? I’d be out of clients without rich capitalists. Stupid, stupid bastards.”

Miranda breathed in deeply, blinking her eyes at the sun and blue, cloudless sky, smell of seagulls and crab cocktails and sourdough bread floating in from the piers. She started to laugh.

“Darling girl, this is no laughing matter, I assure you—”

She shook her head. “No, Meyer. I assure
you.
Gonzales works for the Dies Committee and he’ll vouch for me. Not only that, I’ve got—well, let’s just say I’ve got an in with Uncle Sam at the moment.” Her eyes glinted green as they met his. “This is penny-ante stuff. Don’t worry about it. Let’s go talk to Inspector Fisher.”

Meyer’s thick brows furrowed while he laid a hand on her arm. “I will worry, my dear. Especially if you don’t tell me about these dangerous new waters into which you are dipping your charming toes. You know as well as I do that politics are never petty.”

She gazed across the street at the Hall of Justice, pigeons cooing on the warm stone, two more uniforms clomping down the stairs and headed for the Last Chance Saloon.

“Where angels fear to tread, Meyer. Let’s go.”

*   *   *

The wooden chair was soft and worn from years of sitting, pleading, crying, tears flowing like wine and gin and sin the night before. Men and women, drunk and stumbling, some staring at the wall, watching the clock, eyes vacant, others memorizing the details of the detective’s face, figuring the lay for the mouthpiece, looking for the pressure point, the soft spot, getting ready for the day in court. Other men, in black and gray fedoras with cigarette ash on cheap checkered lapels, sat with fear in their eyes, cue chalk on their fingers, wondering about a bump-off … whether the boys would believe them, or whether they should squeal like a rat and catch the next freight out to Philly.

Miranda traced a finger along the desk, wooden mate to the ancient chair. Old and scarred, the deep grooves still smelling like Prohibition hooch, burn marks from one too many Fatimas and one too many crooks.

“I’ve told you what I can, Inspector. Mrs. Hart didn’t call the police, didn’t call her insurance company. She wanted it kept quiet and handled fast, and she came to me and I delivered. Her reasons were her own. Though a man of your resources should be able to figure them out.”

Miranda crossed her legs, grinning at the short well-built cop. He ran a squat hand through curly salt-and-pepper hair.

“I admire your principles as a private op, but if you at least let us know where you recovered the necklace…”

She shook her head. “Confidentiality was built into the terms of the hire.” She glanced at Meyer, who was perched on the edge of his seat, looking fat and uncomfortable. “I didn’t have time to pick up the contract, but it’s at the office.”

Fisher sighed, rocking back in his chair until it squeaked. “Look, Miranda. Maybe this is a snatch-and-grab. If it is, it would make all of our lives a hell of a lot easier. But Old Man Hart is putting pressure on us from the top down … and there’s already enough there to blow the whole department sky-high. Listen to your lawyer. Give us something, anything I can take upstairs. Help me out here.”

Miranda tapped her cigarette in the chipped milk-glass tray on his desk. Took a breath and raised her face to his.

“You delivered for me on the Pandora Blake case. And you’re a good cop. Where would you expect to buy a jade necklace in San Francisco?”

He opened his eyes wide. “OK. That helps. And look—in the meantime, I’m sorry, but I’m supposed to officially tell you not to leave town, as we may have more questions and we’ll want a copy of your contract with Mrs. Hart.” He shifted his gaze to Meyer before the lawyer could interrupt. “She’s not being charged with anything.”

Her attorney’s voice was smooth. “I’d have her out in five minutes. You have nothing and you know it.”

Meyer braced himself on his cane and stood up from the chair. “If you are, indeed, looking for a motive outside of robbery, read the society column, Inspector. There is a world of motives awaiting you.” He gestured with his head toward Miranda. “Come, my dear.”

She rose, looking down at the burly cop.

“I’m telling you right now, Inspector—and you can tell Brady and anybody else who wants to know—I’m on a case that may require me to go out of town. So don’t get in my way.”

Fisher studied her solemnly. The last month had aged him, but he still smelled like Ivory soap. A grin spread across his face and he started to chuckle.

“You are a pip, Miranda. One hell of a pip.”

Nine

The Key train started to move, orange and silver livery still new, smell of fresh-roasted coffee on the wind from Hills Bros. Miranda blew a stream of smoke against the window, watching it form eddies and whorls like the choppy gray water across the Bay.

She’d have to transfer at Adeline, but better that than a ten-minute wait on an Interurban to take her straight to Shattuck.

Straight to her father. Straight to hell.

Miranda fidgeted with the large flat-sheened navy buttons on her jacket. Steel piers of the Bay Bridge clicked by,
tick tock, tick tock
,
tick tock …

Treasure Island flashed into view, gleaming in a spotlight of sun. Parking lot nearly full, good attendance for a Wednesday. Magic City, four hundred acres of sand to bury your head in. Forget France, forget Germany, forget Japan, just watch Stella breathe, brothers, she’ll give you a real rise …

The island disappeared, swallowed by the green of Yerba Buena.

Truth is, she missed it.

Missed Shorty and the Singer Midgets from last year, missed the magic lights and magic carpet, the high school bands and the quick-sketch artists and the Maxwell House Coffee Tower and the ridiculous Elephant Trains. Missed the shouts of barkers and the smell of Threlkeld’s Scones and early morning steam from a scorching cup of coffee. Missed Sally. Missed the girls.

She thought of Lucinda, still recovering in Dante’s Sanitarium, private hospital, where Phyllis Winters roamed the halls, shrinking in corners from men with brutal hands, while her mother the socialite threw a garden party in Alameda.

She’d paid for a week at Dante’s, what she could afford to help Lucinda.

Money couldn’t help Phyllis.

Like the girls in Spain, the ones with dried blood on their thighs and buttocks, crouching in fields plowed with shells. Afterward, cleaned up by a nun or a Red Cross nurse, by a village woman who recognized the pain and had daughters of her own.

Dead eyes, dead girls, lungs in and out, heart still beating.

Alive in name only.

Miranda blinked, brown-green eyes focused on the blurred outline of Angel Island and Alcatraz.

No time to think about Spain, about Phyllis Winters. It was a little over four months since Eddie Takahashi’s murder, four months since she’d killed Martini, and only a few weeks since she’d run in the Napa woods, dogs baying, breath coming out in stabs, waiting for the men in white suits.

Waiting to kill herself.

She arched her neck, rubbing it with her right hand, and sat up against the seat, straightening her hat.

Twenty-five hundred dollars lay crisp and cool in her rusty Wells Fargo safe, payment for chasing a Nazi spy. Mrs. Hart lay colder on a slab in the morgue, dead client, dead victim, the priceless jade, funereal green, missing once again and presumably the motive.

And somewhere in England, last bulwark against the Dark Ages, was Catherine Corbie … or at least a woman who knew enough about her to send a message.

Miranda carefully took the photo postcard of Westminster Abbey out of her purse and read it again:

Would like to meet you. Your loving mother.

*   *   *

The office was in a dark corner of Wheeler, down a long hall and tucked under a stairway. A small black hole, just like the ones Hatchett threw her in, attic or basement, cupboard or closet. Now he had one of his very own.

She raised her hand to knock at the door. Faded blue ink, handwriting precise: