Loose Ends (2 page)

“All-nighter?”

“A double. Been here since Saturday, trying to beat the boss on Level 666. No cheats.”

“No cheats, eh? So did you?”

Mickey shook his head. “Nope. Think I passed out. Woke up on the floor. Crawled to the couch…”

I sniffed. “At least you still have something to look forward to. That and a shower.”

“Yeah. Sorry. I have some deodorant in the bathroom. Got any food?” he asked hopefully.

“No, but I have a case, which means you have a job and you can buy yourself breakfast. Stay near your gear, all right? I need you to actually work today.”

Mickey licked his lips and put on puppy eyes above his scraggly beard. “Umm…”

Understanding perfectly, I took out a money clip from my front jeans pocket and peeled off a twenty. “That’ll get you something from Ritual Coffee. Here.” I photocopied Mira’s business card, back and front, on the all-in-one printer, and then handed it to Mickey, taking the copy for myself. “See if you can lift the original number from under that scribble. After that, find out all you can about one Miranda Sorkin, pharmacist.”

“Above or below the line?”

I chewed my inner lip. “Above, for now. I’ll let you know when to start tunneling.” I could afford to hire Mickey as a researcher, but didn’t want to promise him a lot more for hacking until I found out what this job would pay. While I wasn’t behind on my bills right now, I detested a negative cash flow like Mickey hated losing his T1 line.

“You got a working sniffer?” I went on.

“Sure…around here somewhere.” Mickey rooted among some equipment and came up with a box the size of an old transistor radio.

I took it, checked the battery, and thanked him with a nod while sliding it into my blazer pocket.

Chapter 2

Exiting the basement walkout, I approached Molly, my royal blue Subaru Impreza, parked in the courtyard. Her parking space was part of the office building deed, and of my two cars, Molly was the more practical and could stand the weather best. My house a couple of blocks away – Mother’s really, in her name though I’d paid for it – had only a one-car garage, like most of the local restored Victorians. I wasn’t leaving Madge, my lime-green custom 1968 Mustang California Special ragtop, out in the rain.

Besides, I liked the walk.

I gave the Subaru a once-over by habit before sliding behind the steering wheel with a contented sigh. Something about the driver’s seat of a rally car felt like home. No, not
home
. It felt like where I
belonged
.

Molly’s supercharged engine screamed and her grippy rain tires would have squealed as I pulled out if the pavement hadn’t been wet. While I had foregone most of the external markers of a hot rally ride when my girl had been customized, on the inside the car was a regionals-class racer.

I indulged my hobby whenever I had both time and money to spare, which meant not often enough. One nice thing about a case was I got to drive on the client’s dime.

Shooting up Valencia to catch 101, I wove exuberantly through light traffic past the Palace of Fine Arts before crossing the old Presidio and onto the Golden Gate Bridge. The early afternoon breeze blew gusty and the fog was clearing fitfully, the day promising mist and sprinkling at sea level beneath brooding overcast until inevitable swirls of night rolled back in. I cracked the window to let in the fresh offshore air, smelling the tang of kelp and fish as Green Day’s latest hit
Holiday
blasted from the stereo.

Five miles later I reached Mill Valley, a Marin suburb now green with recent rains. My GPS brought me to a house at the edge of the flat older section of town where the road just started to crawl upward into the low hills above. The dwellings I saw there were a bit smaller and more aged than those perched above, meaning they could be had for under a million. The higher the view, the higher the price. I glanced at a monstrosity at the top that had to cost at least ten mil and shook my head. When the Big One finally came, that puppy would mudslide down like a Stinson Beach surfer on steroids, taking eight or ten other dwellings down with it.

When I got close, I flicked the GPS off to stop the cheery canned voice from complaining and pulled over to take a casual look at the front of Mira’s house. Everything seemed neat and orderly except that a temporary wooden holder had been driven into the front lawn, the kind that held real estate “for sale” signs, though its crossbeam was empty.

I pulled out again and cruised the neighborhood looking for obvious signs of surveillance – delivery vans or small RVs parked on the street, large dark American sedans with suits in them, or houses with blinds lowered but rotated open. Nothing jumped out at me, so I parked around the corner at the end of the block.

Fortunately an unusual vacant lot bearing signs of local kids and their BMX habits allowed me to access the back gate of the Sorkin home without too much trouble via a footpath that wended its way behind the houses. This arrangement was odd but not unknown, especially in older developments built under the liberal or nonexistent zoning laws of the past.

It looked like these places had been individually constructed in the 1950s to house the Greatest Generation as they rebuilt postwar America, and had been renovated many times since, creating a patchwork of styles. Pseudo-Spanish architecture abounded – Sorkin’s was one of those – but I also spotted Cape Cod, Colonial and several variants on mid-century modernism. In short, typical coastal California.

I pushed on the back gate of the weathered wooden six-foot privacy fence and slipped inside. The yard I saw teemed lush and had begun sliding into overgrown as if neglected for months. No swimming pool – the coast range towns were too cold from the Pacific breezes to make that feature
de rigueur
. Mark Twain had famously said, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco,” which definitely applied to Marin County as well, even in July.

Movement behind the kitchen window made me pick my way up the garden path toward the back door, where I met a brown-haired Caucasian woman not too different in build from myself. With unwashed curls and housecoat, bloodshot eyes and shaky hands, she looked like hell.

Without speaking, she took my arm and pulled me toward a small, separate building.

Opening a door, the woman motioned me into what turned out to be the house’s small freestanding garage. It smelled of automobile, wood and dust. Shutting the portal behind, the woman flipped on the bare-bulb light above a nondescript Toyota sedan, and then let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you for coming, Ms. Corwin. I’m Mira Sorkin.” She clutched my right hand as if drowning, and then let go suddenly, confused at what she felt there.

It hardly bothered me anymore, people’s reactions. Best to get it over with. I brushed the hair back on my right side, revealing the scars that the reconstructive surgery hadn’t been able to completely banish. I’d had my bob cut to fall over them and with a bit of makeup I could conceal where they crept into the open along my jawline.

Mira’s surprise flattened out with the smoothing of her face. I ignored the other woman’s emotions by dint of long practice. “Bomb,” I said curtly, holding up my right hand and flexing it. “I was lucky. This hand’s a bit weak, but the blast didn’t even damage my eye.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Mira froze, as if not sure what to be sorry about, or how to act. “I suppose in your business…”

My business? I wondered if Mira thought all P.I.s encountered bombs, or should be damaged goods, like in a noir novel where the protagonist is always on the edge of falling apart, usually from alcoholism. Maybe Cole had told her I had been a cop, or that the P.I. trade was shady. Maybe that’s what she meant.

“It’s fine, really,” I repeated. “Can’t even tell with my hair in place. Got some ID?”

“What?”

“ID. I like to know for sure who I’m talking to.”

“Oh…not on me. Inside.”

I grunted in irritation. “Okay, later. Why are we in the garage?”

“I can’t be sure the house isn’t bugged.”

“Then why don’t we go somewhere else?”

Mira pulled a cordless handset out of her housecoat pocket. “I have to stay by my home phone.”

It appeared Mira would say more, but I held my hand out for the cordless and examined it briefly before pulling out a multi-tool from my belt. “Let’s make sure this isn’t bugged either, otherwise we’re in here for nothing.”

After opening it up, I shook my head, screwed it back together and handed it to Mira. “Nope. Looks clear. Now what’s this all about?”

Mira shuddered and breathed deeply in, and then out. Her exhalation sent the sharp sour smell of alcohol wafting under my nose. “My daughter was kidnapped two days ago.”

Hairs rose on the back of my neck as my cop sense woke up with a surge. I had expected some kind of marital dispute, even a custody battle, not capital crimes for breakfast. And Mira had been so calm on the phone.

If it was my daughter I’d have been climbing the walls and looking for someone to shoot.

I wiped the leg of my jeans where I’d brushed the Toyota in the close confines of the small garage. “Mira, let’s go inside. I’ll check for bugs in your house,” I said, pulling out the sniffer and holding it up, “and maybe I could trouble you for a bagel or something. I came right over after our call and I haven’t eaten. I think better with some calories in me.”

“Of course, of course.” Mira retraced her steps, leading us through the back yard.

“Remember, don’t say anything that matters until I give you the all-clear.”

Once we’d made our way into the house, Mira poured mugs of coffee and dropped two bagels into the toaster, puttering around as if lost. The interior of the house showed off the latest look. The kitchen had high-end counters, cabinets and appliances, and the brewing coffee dripped from a machine that probably cost more than a set of rally tires. It smelled heavenly.

So Mira was comfortably well off. I tried to figure how much I could ask for and not feel guilty, reminding myself that “a workman is worthy of his wages.” Even after two years off the force it was hard to charge people money to help them, but I had a business to run and bills to pay.

While Mira puttered, I ran the sniffer over the kitchen and nook, and then the living room, working outward.

Nothing.

A less thorough check of the three-bedroom upstairs made me reasonably sure that no microphones lurked. Someone might be wiretapping the phone line on the way out or there might be one of any number of devices attached to the computer in the corner, but at least it seemed we didn’t have to worry about talking.

I did see pictures of Mira and a girl in various settings taken within the last ten years. I recognized a couple of local landmarks – the carousel at Fisherman’s Wharf, the observation deck of Coit Tower, the Alcatraz dock. As I looked at the photos, nowhere did I see a man or anybody else that might be family.

The girl’s father must be out of the picture. Gone, rather than dead. People didn’t excise the dear departed from their memorabilia, only those they didn’t like anymore.

Or I suppose he could have been a sperm donor. Unusual, but not unknown.

Just to be sure we were not overheard, I shut the drapes and turned on the stereo in the living room, hoping the two tactics would limit the ability of anyone to paint a windowpane with a laser pickup. Devices like that read the sound waves coming off the glass, but worked best with a quiet background.

Finally, I sat down in the kitchen nook across from Mira. I slapped blueberry cream cheese on a bagel. “Okay, I think we’re clear. First,” I lifted a finger, “business. It’s a hundred an hour plus expenses, max a thousand a day, and I need ten thousand up front as a retainer.” I’d charged more, occasionally a lot less, but to a pharmacist who probably took down two or three hundred large a year, ten should be doable.

Nor was I wrong. Mira nodded without flinching. “I’ll write you a check. Just help me, please.”

“Good. Now, tell me about this kidnapping. Start with why you haven’t called the cops.”

Mira gulped from her mug, her eyes bleak. “The people that took her said not to talk to police, but they didn’t say anything specifically about a…someone like you.”

My expression might have turned a bit strained, but I tried to ignore her words. The client was the client. “I used to be a cop, if that makes you feel better.”

“Really? How did you…never mind.”

Ignoring her strange attitude, I asked, “So why did you wait two days to get in touch with me?” Or maybe she didn’t wait. The card could have been put into my drop box any time after Friday night.

“Cole Sage was the only person I knew that wasn’t police, that might have…connections to…people like you…so I called him first and he referred me. Don’t worry. I can keep my mouth shut. But I gave them what they wanted and thought I would get Talia back right away but it didn’t happen, and now it’s been more than an extra day and I’m about to lose my mind.”

So Mira could keep her mouth shut, she claimed. That was another odd thing to say. I fished the photocopy of the business card from a pocket, not letting her see the front as I unfolded it, glancing at it before I folded it over again. Something seemed out of whack, but damned if I knew what. Things were tugging at my subconscious, but weren’t ready to surface. “Cole said to get in touch with me…how?”

“I put the card where he told me to, and he said you’d get it.”

So that explained how the card got to my office. Cole Sage must have picked it up and dropped off. He did live in the City, a couple of miles from my office and home in the Mission District. It would be just like the journalist to do it that way. I’d probably come on too strong last time and scared him off, dammit. Or, to be fair, he knew of my late-night proclivities and when I didn’t answer the office buzzer he simply dropped it off and left.

On the other hand, there’d been no message on my answering machine. Cole was nothing if not meticulous. He confirmed everything. I filed that anomaly away.

While I was thinking, Mira finished her coffee, and then went back to the machine for another fill-up. Her stealthy motions as she did it, the details hidden by her turned back, and the
clop
sound of plastic on the counter triggered recognition in my brain.