Loose Ends (7 page)

“Plankton.”

Bill sniffed, looking away. “I always loved those marine shows. Sea world. Aquariums. Cousteau. So did Sandy.”

I resisted the temptation to talk about his dead child. This wasn’t the time for therapy. “Okay. It’s a shot. I know a few people.”

“So where’re we going?”

“You’re going home, Bill.”

“The hell I am.” He sat forward with a drunk’s bluster, bouncing against the four-point harness.

“You’re fine now, Bill, but soon enough you’ll be wanting more of the sauce and it’s getting later all the time. You’ve been a big help, but right now I have to go places you can’t, or shouldn’t.”

“What is that supposed to mean? I saw it all back in Chicago. No way anything in this burg can be any worse.”

“That was back before you cracked. Before Sandy,” I said harshly, regretting it immediately. “Sorry.” Me and my mouth.

Bill deflated next to me. “Never mind. You’re right. I’m useless now.”

“You’re not useless, Bill, but you’re not ready for the streets yet. You’ve done enough for tonight. I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know what I found.” I turned toward Oakland and the Bay Bridge, heading back to the City. In light traffic, nowhere was far from anywhere around here though during rush hour some destinations might as well be on the moon.

I offered Bill a ride home to his San Rafael condo, but he insisted on being dropped off to take a cab, talking to me in monosyllables. I could tell he was angry and hurt. He’d get over it.

Where I was going, having no partner at all seemed better than bringing along a shaky one.

Chapter 5

Some say the Tenderloin is getting gentrified since the 2004 city initiative to clean things up began. It’s true that there’s been nibbling around the edges. PD has more presence, at least between daybreak and midnight. Enterprising restaurants can rent cheap on the corner of a street the average tourist wouldn’t want to walk down, night or day. Maybe that adds to the charm: the whiff of slum, the scent of danger just a stone’s throw away. As long as the establishment is willing to pay for round-the-clock security and the patrons don’t mind getting the stink eye from the crackheads and pregnant junkies and prostitutes – often one and the same – they can make a go of it. Some served absolutely top-notch food.

Me, I’m a bit bolder than the next girl. These may not be my home waters but I can handle all but the biggest of the sharks. The trick is to always seem too much trouble to mess with.

Though all the chic places had closed, a meal was still my rumbling stomach’s first priority. Tonight’s nirvana was an all-night Mexican place near Fifth and Ellis called Boca Grande’s, which served up fantastic California-style crispy tacos.

Something you have to taste to believe, crispy tacos are made by stuffing a large corn tortilla with filling, traditionally
barbacoa
– shredded beef – clamping it closed and then dropping it into a lard-filled deep fryer. Brought out piping hot and crunchy, the clamp is then removed and they’re finished off with cheese, shredded lettuce, salsa and anything else your heart desires. Heaven in your hand.

After I dropped Bill off, coming up on eleven thirty p.m. the crowd was still fairly respectable with the inevitable security guard keeping the worst of the transients away. Not all of them, of course; those that could pay and didn’t smell too bad or cause trouble got a hot cheap meal and a seat on a hard plastic bench for as long as they could nurse a soda.

When I got in line I felt a hand on my ass. Turning cat-quick, I grabbed the shirt front of the offender – or tried to. What I ended up with was a handful of silver chains cascading within cleavage between mounds to rival Moro Rock, all framed in a black leather biker vest. I shoved the big smirking mulleted bull dyke back with, I had to admit, a touch of envy. Okay, maybe I shoved myself back more than I did her, but my message was clear, I hoped.

“Problem, ladies?” the hulking young security guard said from behind the groper. His nametag read TYRELL.

“Not unless this bitch tries to feel me up again,” I replied, releasing the chains with a flick of my short-nailed fingers. I was glad he’d been on the ball. My next move would have been to rake my heel down her shin and stomp her foot. As she sported more muscle than a lot of men I knew, I sure couldn’t hold my own in a close-quarters wrestling match.

Welcome to the Tenderloin.

“Back up a bit, please, miss,” the guard said to my opponent, and after a look of pure poison she did.

“Here or to go?” I heard from behind me, and realized I was now first in line.

“Combo number one, for here,” I replied, turning my back on the two behind me to pay. Afterward, I nodded to the guard, ignored the bitch and waited off to the side. Three minutes later I’d collected my styrofoam plate and sat down to eat next to a group of slumming college kids.

When I started on my second taco, the guard came over to me. Amused eyes lit up his dark face, highlighting even white teeth. “Don’t let that bother you,” he opened.

“I don’t.” I wasn’t giving him any rope, not tonight. Cute, but not my type.

“Yeah, you handled yourself all right.”

Yet, as long as he was here…I crooked my finger, motioning him to lean over. With the chaos and buzz of conversation all around, that was all the privacy I needed. “Hey, you been doing this for a while?”

“Over a year. I work for a service, though. Not always this joint.”

“Then you might hear things.”

“Maybe.” His face clouded a trifle.

“Hear about a big shipment of new high-grade pills hitting the street anytime soon?”

Eyes narrowing further, he shook his head. “You a cop?”

“Not anymore. P.I.” I slid my money clip out of my front pocket, peeled off a twenty. “Got anything for me?”

“I don’t need your money,” he said.

“But I need your tip if you got one, Tyrell, and everyone needs cash. No offense, but they can’t be paying you much over minimum.”

Tyrell licked his lips. “Okay. Yeah, I got something. I play college ball,” he said, flexing a bit, “and I heard guys talking about some good juice that’s going to hit this week.”

“Steroids.”

“I don’t use. Shrivels your dick.”

“Doesn’t seem to bother her,” I said, pointing with my chin at my handsy lesbian fan glowering at us from across the room.

Tyrell laughed in my ear, a little closer and huskier than necessary. “You a trip, girlfriend.”

I patted his cheek. “Thanks, bro, but I’m busy tonight. And why aren’t you hitting on some younger hotties?”

“I like a woman who stands up for herself. Besides, I never been wid’ a Asian.”

Hoo, boy. That was the way to make a girl feel special for sure: tell her the conquest checks a block on your bucket list. I held back my eyeroll with difficulty. “Thanks.”

A folded piece of paper appeared between his fingertips. He set it down next to my plate. “Call me when you got a night off,” he said, winking and standing up, all brash confidence. “I work six to two, mostly.”

I picked up the paper and slid it into my blazer pocket with a cock of my head. “I might.” I wouldn’t, but there was no point to stomping on his ego, and for a P.I., a source was a source. “Oh, do me a favor, would you? That’s my Subaru parked on the corner. Keep an eye on it for me until your shift ends, will you?”

“Sure thing, gorgeous.” Tyrell turned to deal with an obvious crackhead sliding in the door, making sure the guy had money and kept his cool.

After finishing my meal and nodding to Tyrell on the way out, I hustled down the steps and into the street, angling deeper into the Tenderloin. Within half a block the streetlights above had gone dark and the junkies began inspecting me much like I’d eyed my tacos. Wisps of light fog blew cold, faint ghosts to match the denizens of the night.

Instead of using either sidewalk, broken with root heaves from the sickly trees growing from their niches, I walked in the street, between the parked cars and traffic. That provided more visibility and distance from the lurkers in the doorways and the groups of young men hanging out and doing business.

The working girls didn’t give me a second glance, nor did their pimps skulking in their tricked-out rides. I obviously wasn’t competition, not dressed as I was. Hopefully my purposeful stride and no-nonsense demeanor would keep trouble at bay long enough for me to reach my destination.

Several blocks and corners later my hopes were dashed. In the dimly lit street, the gloom broken only by the flickering neon signs of a seriously run-down bar, two men drifted into the street in front of me.

Immediately I made a hard right turn and hustled between two parked cars, glancing back the way I came to see two more closing the trap behind me.

Had I still been a cop I’d have shown my badge and weapon, trusting to the double threat of immediate force and the weight of PD retribution to back them off. I could have tried it anyway, using my P.I. badge and a false claim, but if that didn’t work, bullets would be my only remaining response. Instead, I hurried down the steps into a half-belowground after-hours joint and pushed open the scarred steel door.

Inside, the clientele and bartender stared at me as if I’d stepped off a flying saucer. With my business casual attire and mixed-Asian racial type, I didn’t fit in among the mostly dark faces. Those few lighter types still matched the social group, looking as if life had dumped them over the side too many times to count, leaving them broken and washed up here like bloated and gasping fish.

“Got a back door?” I said to the ancient barman as I hurried past the onlookers before they could react further.

He pointed silently and I followed his finger past a stinking toilet to a portal with an
Alarm Will Sound
bar across it.

Ignoring the warning, I shoved the heavy door open, my rubber-soled boots making an unpleasant ripping sound on the sticky floor. No alarm sounded after all. Up the stairs to street level with my hand on my weapon, I debouched into a dark alley and immediately turned left, which would, I hoped, allow me to continue toward my destination while circumventing the bandits.

A rustle and groan from a nearby dumpster brought my Glock out of its holder and into a two-handed grip, but the bleak soul who leered a meth-rotted smile at me from within presented no threat. Trotting down the alley with the weapon held low, I glanced over my shoulder to see dark figures burst out of the door behind me.

Damn. I’d hoped they were just muggers, though four working together would be unusual. No, these guys seemed to be after me specifically. I was no runner, though. My workouts consisted of yoga, light weights and judo several times a week.

Fortunately, as a P.I. and private citizen I had an option I’d never have exercised as a cop: a warning shot.

To cops, warning shots are pure bullshit. If you’re under direct threat, you shoot to take the bad guy down and if he dies, he dies. If not, discharging your weapon will only bring a pain-in-the-ass investigation that will put you on a desk for weeks or months before it clears.

In this case, in this neighborhood, keeping my five quarts on the inside outweighed the slight risk of getting caught to face a reckless discharge felony.

Besides, were my pursuers going to call the cops? Not likely.

Aiming low, I put a shot into the ground halfway between them and me. “Back off, scumbags. The lead man gets the next one in the face,” I snarled.

They stopped, but didn’t run right away, another sign they weren’t ordinary lowlifes. “Not kidding,” I said, shifting my weapon.

They backed off, reluctance in their body language. “C’mon,” I heard one say, and then four figures sprinted for the other end of the alley, visible momentarily within the backlighting as they disappeared into the mist.

Using my mini-light, I located the shell casing and pocketed it after holstering my weapon. Odds were nobody would even report the shot, much less find the ricochet, but the fewer bits of evidence lying around the better. I trotted down the alley, slowing to a determined walk when I reached the street. Checking my watch, I saw it read quarter to midnight.

As I strode I considered what Tyrell had said. I hadn’t thought about the underground sports market until then, but high-grade steroids could bring a mint. If I couldn’t wrap this thing up soon I might have to get Tyrell to cough up the name of his supplier and interview him – and so on up the chain. Maybe the security guard could be persuaded to back me up in my inquiries. If not, I had a couple of freelance bounty hunter friends that didn’t mind taking my money to crack a few deserving lowlifes’ knees.

The sharks kept their distance for the moment, and three blocks later I slipped into
Vyazma
, another dive on the outside not so different from the one I’d dashed through. This time, though, the familiar clientele was relaxed, no more wary than usual, sparse on a Monday night.

Sergei nodded at me from behind the bar, and a couple of acquaintances lifted hands when I entered. The tapman had a frigid MGD already opened when I stepped up to the rail, and I took an appreciative pull, dropping a bill onto the counter. That vanished with a swipe of a towel as if by magic, at least thirty years practice behind the move. “
Za vas,
” he said.

“Thanks. Game going yet?” I turned to lean an elbow on polished wood as I surveyed the joint. As I was here, I might as well play a few hands. Just to keep in practice, you understand. Besides, Sergei wouldn’t appreciate me hitting him up for info only to bolt out the door. He had an old-school attitude about relationships and respect.

“
Da
. Two tables. Seat should be open.” Sergei’s English was nearly perfect, but he stubbornly refused to use even the simplest articles such as “a” and “an” unless forced and like most Russians I knew he couldn’t resist dropping bits of his mother tongue into every conversation.

 “
Spasibo
.” I lowered my voice and rotated back to him, hunching my shoulders. “Sergei, you heard anything about some high-grade pharmaceuticals arriving in the next few days?”