Death in North Beach (22 page)

‘No, not really. And besides I've always been slightly illegal.'

‘You knew him though,' she said.

‘You are having a crisis in confidence, here?'

‘No. Just want to make sure all the cards are on the table.'

‘It was a long time ago. It was Anselmo's idea. I used to model for Anselmo. Wiley came over during one of our sessions, where I was, as always, without some or all of my clothing. Wiley, straight as an arrow, I'm sure, was just beginning to photograph human beings. Like most artists, he found something especially challenging about nudes. That's it. Didn't see him much. Different crowds. I've passed him on the streets. But that's it. We didn't have a lot in common.' He smiled. ‘Frank was poor and straight.'

She poured the wine and handed him a glass.

‘Did you know any of the others?'

‘Never met Mr Chiu or Mr Sumaoang. I've met Nathan Malone at cocktail parties, but we weren't each other's type in any sense of the word. I was aware of Mr Hawkes, mostly through Anselmo. The two disliked each other intensely.'

‘Why?'

‘Anselmo said that he had been Hawkes's mentor and that once Hawkes got going he not only never acknowledged the help, but acted as if Anselmo was beneath him. Never met Mickey Warfield. Marlene . . . Marlene has appetites. It's been a few years though. As you know, I'm a professional companion. She used to have a large disposable income. There came a time when Marlene didn't.'

‘Didn't have any money.'

William nodded. ‘And you saw me naked?' He smiled and turned to walk back into the living room. ‘May I put on some music?'

‘You were seventeen and, yes, I saw you naked.'

‘Did you approve?'

‘Of what? Your body or your posing naked?'

‘Doesn't matter which,' he said. ‘He looked through the stack of CDs and put on some slow, quiet jazz.'

‘You know, about the music . . . I'm thinking maybe it's late.'

‘It is late. I put on music appropriate to the hour.' He smiled. ‘Don't try to get rid of me.'

Angel looked as if she had been in bed.

‘You gave up on me,' Lang said.

She nodded, giving him a faint, innocent smile. She looked softer tonight. Maybe it was the light, or near lack of it.

‘You were asleep?' There was only the one lamp lit in the room. The light was behind her and her nakedness beneath a sheer nightgown was apparent.

‘In bed, but couldn't sleep,' she said. ‘Come in.'

She stepped aside and once he was in, she shut the door behind him. He thought about turning on more lights to change the ambience, but indecision brought about by the conflict between lust and logic came to a passive end.

There were fresh flowers – white, long-stemmed tulips – in a vase beside the lamp. On the table near it was a small folded card, the kind that comes with delivered flowers. The smell of tobacco and whiskey hung in the thick, quiet air.

‘Beautiful flowers,' he said to move things along.

‘A drink?' she asked.

‘Yes.'

‘Scotch all right?'

‘All right.'

‘I have pretty much anything you want tonight,' she said.

He resisted saying, ‘I bet you do.' He could have said it. She loaded the sentence with innuendo.

‘Scotch is fine.'

When she disappeared, he looked at the card.

‘A small gesture for your generous help.' It was signed with what appeared to be an ‘M'.

He took the glass from her.

‘You wanted to see me?' he asked, sitting in the chair he sat in last time, giving her the sofa, the only spot in the room where light fell.

‘To tell you something,' she said. ‘I don't know what to do. I am frightened to do something, I'm frightened not to.'

‘And you think I can help you decide?'

‘I'm not sure I can think clearly,' she said, finally sitting on the sofa.

Looking at her, he wasn't sure he could think clearly either. It had been a while since he had been with anyone. This was purely physical, but it was strong. He knew the night wouldn't be just a bit of business about making a decision. She was seducing him with every move. The obviousness of it would have been humorous, if his mind was engaged in any kind of analytical thought. He'd find all this funny – tomorrow.

‘I lied about Mickey being with me the night his father was killed. I lied about that. He wasn't with me that day or that night.'

‘You could have told me that over the phone.'

‘I want to do more than just say that.'

‘You are trying to decide whether to tell the police or not.'

‘Yes.'

‘You told me, Angel. This is my case and I'm obligated to do something about it. Just like the police.'

‘I know.'

‘So you've decided.'

‘I have more to tell you.'

She sipped her drink, leaving him leaning forward, waiting for something perhaps more shocking than eliminating Mickey's alibi. There was a little more to it. To ask someone to provide a false alibi was even more incriminating.

She told Lang about her life, coming from Hong Kong as a child. Once rich, she was now reduced to getting by as best she could.

‘I had servants,' she said, as she fixed him another drink. ‘Our family did, I mean – a cook, a gardener, a driver. It's quite a comedown. Baths were drawn for me. I didn't learn how to bathe myself until I was separated from them.'

She had a long, sad story. It might have been true.

‘There's something else you wanted to tell me,' Lang said, after she seemed to have exhausted her autobiography.

‘Yes,' she said. She was being coy.

‘So?' Lang asked.

‘But I'm not going to tell you until morning,' she said, glancing at her watch. ‘Finish your drink.' She stood, slipped off her nightgown and walked toward the bedroom.

Twenty-Two

Carly woke enveloped in the warmth of his body, his flesh against hers. The memory was vivid and difficult to shake – not that she really wanted to. She had to, though. Nothing would come of it.

She scooted away from him and, as she pulled on her robe, he stirred.

‘Morning,' he said.

‘Morning.'

‘You slept well,' he said.

‘I did. Coffee?'

‘Please,' he said as he tossed aside the bedclothes. His body was firm, smooth, and appeared younger than it probably was. ‘You mind if I hop in the shower?'

‘Please don't hop,' she said. ‘It will spoil everything.'

She went to the kitchen, put the wine bottle in the recycling bin, placed the glasses in the sink and set about making coffee.

She didn't know what to think. Although far from being a prude about such matters, Carly had never really had what could be called casual sex. She could still count her sexual partners on the fingers of . . . both hands. She also felt, though she didn't know why, that she was cheating. On whom?

By the time the coffee maker gurgled it's last gurgle and let out a telltale, steamy sigh, William Blake was in the kitchen.

‘So who hit you?'

‘You just now noticed?'

‘No, I just now mentioned it. The light of day turns me from romantic to pragmatist.'

‘Don't know. It happened when I went to visit Wiley. Somebody clunked me pretty good.'

‘Would you know him if you saw him?' He poured his own coffee.

‘Not sure it's a him, but no, I wouldn't. I didn't see anything. But I have a question.'

He looked at her, waiting.

‘Am I aiding and abetting a fugitive?'

‘It's not official yet,' William Blake said. ‘You are aiding and abetting a person of interest, so say the newspapers.'

‘Lang thinks you might be the murderer.'

‘It's not a novel thought. But I don't hurt people. Not intentionally. I make them feel good.' It was obvious he was reconsidering his words. ‘I try to make them feel good. Do you feel good?'

‘I'm not the client. You are.'

‘You're right. And I put an envelope on the bedside table for you.'

‘The bedside table?'

‘If you want you can think of it as for last night . . .' He looked at her repressed grin. ‘It isn't. But if it excites you . . . And, Carly, you would never be my client. You are not nearly rich enough. Last night was because I wanted to. Very much.'

He kissed her cheek and quickly downed his coffee.

‘I'll check in from time to time. I hope no one else dies.'

‘I . . . uh . . . agree,' she said, not sure how to take the parting wish.

Go away, Lang thought. The pounding and shouting bounced against his monumental headache. Sleep. He just wanted sleep. He wanted everything to go away. Maybe he could just die. That would be OK. The pain would go away, then, wouldn't it?

Slowly the shouts became clearer.

‘Come to the door, Ms Chang. Come to the door now, please.' The ‘please' was urgent, somehow both begging and demanding.

There was a thud, then a crash. Footsteps on the floor, voices calling out for Ms Chang. He didn't want to open his eyes. That would make it real. He opened in time to see distorted, out-of-focus faces looking down at him, arms coming toward him, hands grasping him, pulling him up. Then turning him around, forcing him back on the bed. His arms were pulled behind him.

‘Dead,' he heard.

What? He was dead?

‘Noah Lang. Jesus Christ,' Lang heard, but couldn't see. His face was pressed into the bedding. Where was he?

‘Turn him over,' the voice said.

Though he still could not see clearly, he could make out the face of Inspector Stern and in moments, beside that face, the face of Inspector Rose.

‘What's going on?' Lang managed to say, but the headache was the worst he'd ever had and it was painful to speak, to move. To add to the punishment someone had pulled open the blinds, sending piercing shafts of light into his tormented brain.

Rose wrapped a blanket around Lang's nakedness.

‘We had a saying in the Navy, Lang,' Stern said. He was in his usual slightly too small suit and a tie that seemed on the verge of cutting off the cop's oxygen supply at the neck.

‘I don't want to hear it,' Lang said. He was beginning to get his bearings.

‘Find 'em, feel 'em, fuck 'em and forget 'em. Yours apparently added kill 'em.'

‘What?' He turned. Angel was still in bed, naked and quiet. ‘What?'

‘She's dead, Lang,' Stern said. He seemed to take pleasure in delivering the news.

There were several people in the room, a number of them in blue uniforms. Some were wearing white.

‘I got it,' a uniform said, his latex-gloved hand holding what appeared to be an ice pick.

‘That matches the body,' a man in glasses said.

‘Well, that didn't take long,' Stern said.

‘What happened?' Rose asked.

‘I don't know.'

‘You usually go to bed with dead women?' Stern asked. ‘Oh, that's right, you've been with dead women before.' He referenced cases, one fifteen years earlier and one more recent, each of them involving a dead woman.

‘You don't know?' Rose asked.

‘I don't remember anything. I came over last night because Angel asked me to.'

‘Miss Chang asked you to come over.'

‘Miss LeGard,' Lang corrected.

‘Chang,' Rose said. ‘Doesn't matter what name she gave you.'

‘Why did she ask you to come over?'

‘She wanted to tell me something.'

‘Tell you something,' Stern mimicked with disgust. ‘Jesus!'

‘What did she tell you?' Rose continued in calm tones.

‘She told me that she lied when she alibi'd Mickey Warfield the night of his father's death.'

‘She did, did she? Then you killed her.' Stern's face was contorted in anger.

‘Right. Then I crawled in beside her because I was too lazy to go home.'

‘She want to sleep with you?' Rose asked.

‘Yeah. She also had something to tell me, but I had to wait until morning. All I remember is following her to the bedroom, maybe getting into bed. It's vague. That's it. Now I have the worst headache I've had in my life.'

‘How much did you have to drink?'

‘A glass and a half of Scotch. You have the picture?'

‘She slipped you a Mickey?' Stern said, obviously finding the idea preposterous.

‘Mickey is right,' Lang said. ‘I think “Mickey” is just right.'

Rose looked at Stern. Stern shook his head, anger subsiding or turning into a general distaste for the universe.

‘Scene of the crime, Rose,' Stern said. ‘We got him. Right there. Got drunk as a skunk, had a blackout, killed her.' He laughed. ‘Poor, dumb son of a bitch. If we find your prints on the weapon, Lang, you are toast.'

‘Let's get him tested,' Rose said.

‘For what?'

‘Drugs and alcohol. Let's get some facts.'

‘We got the facts,' Stern said.

‘Now,' Rose said. ‘I'm not blowing a case because you have a Johnson for Lang.'

Stern stifled himself. And the process, Lang thought, looked painful.

Lang had never seen Rose take over like that, but he was glad he did. Stern was ready to administer capital punishment on the spot and this wasn't good cop and bad cop. Over the years Stern had developed an intense dislike for Lang. Rose didn't care enough to have feelings one way or another. He was, though, the saner of the two.