Portland Noir (16 page)

T
wenty-five years a cop, seven working homicide, and this is what I’ve come to: staking out Starbucks in the middle of the night in the hope of catching a vandal in the act of bricking the windows. Welcome to retirement. I’m parked in the shadows outside the food mart at Seven Corners, a tangled confluence of streets at the southeast edge of Ladd’s Addition. Starbucks is across Division, part of a corner development that includes a day spa, a pasta restaurant, and a cramped parking lot apparently designed in anticipation of the oil bust. Three nights, and the most exciting thing I’ve seen so far is a half-naked couple humping in the cob outside the kitchen shop on the opposite corner. I snapped a few pics, but even with the shutter wide open, it’s going to take someone with more Photoshop voodoo than me to make the shots Internet ready.

Just after midnight, as I’m thinking about taking a piss behind the dumpster next to my car, I catch sight of a figure approaching down 20th. He high-steps across the parking lot, elbows flared, as if he learned his ninja moves off Cartoon Network. Jeans, black hoodie pulled tight around his face, medium height, medium build. Cigarette held behind his back, a smoldering tail light. About what I expected, some nitwit tweaked on vodka-’n-Red Bull who thinks he’s striking a blow against insatiate corporatism.

I slip out of my car and rest the long lens on the roof, sight through the camera’s LCD. The light isn’t good, a silver-jaundiced mix of mercury vapor and sodium streetlights, sky-glow, and the gleam from the quickie mart. It’s adequate. I’m not shooting art photos. I just want to capture an identifiable face.

As I snap the first pic, I hear the scrape of a shoe and turn as a broad, dark shape swoops across the roof of my car. I duck, but not fast enough. Fabric nets my face and shoulders. Hands grab me from behind, shove me hard against the car. A sound whuffs out of me, half shout, half gasp. I drop the camera and thrash, grab the cloth on my head, realize I’ve got the arm of a jacket. For an instant, I’m in a tug-o’-war, unable to see my opponent. Then the sleeve starts to tear and someone hisses, “Just leave it, doinkus!” The hands release me and I windmill backward onto my ass. As feet slap pavement, fleeing, I hear the sharp, brittle crash of breaking glass.

I shout, yank the jacket off my head. My assailants are gone, the camera with them. No sign of the ninja either, but across the street I see a fresh lattice of cracks in one of Star-bucks’ oversized windows.

My employer is an insurance company, a circumstance I see as having the moral equivalence of working for the Russian mob. They’ve been buying glass at least twice a month since Starbucks went in. They bought me for five nights, about the cost of one double-paned window. The camera and lens have to be worth two windows easy, maybe three. Helluva lot more than me, anyway. I’m not looking forward to explaining to the adjuster how I not only failed to stop the vandal, but also let some miscreant make off with his company’s camera rig.

I drag myself to my feet and lean against my car. All I’ve got to show for myself is the jacket in my hands, and it’s nothing to get into a twist about. Blue, softer and darker than denim, white cotton lining, one sleeve half ripped off. I check the pockets, find a matchbox embossed with a logo—a pair of stylized legs suggestive of wisps of smoke—and a happy hour menu from the Night Light Lounge, a louche neighborhood joint two blocks down on Clinton. Stakeout blown, I figure it’s the only lead I got.

The Night Light isn’t my typical hangout. Smoky, dense with poseurs and reckless youth. Local art on the walls, dim light the color of old cream. I find an empty table next to the open door—a nebulous link to fresh air. Eventually a waiter approaches, drops a Bridgeport coaster on the table, and stands there. I think I’m supposed to order.

It’s the kind of joint that’ll sell you a Pabst Blue Ribbon for a buck and a half or a microbrew for five. I refuse to pay five bucks for a beer, but I haven’t absorbed enough Southeast Portland self-conscious irony to drink shitty beer from a can. I order coffee, black, and settle back to survey the crowd.

I see a lot of piercings and even more tattoos, some more artful than others. The best peek out, mostly hidden, around the edges of straining wife-beaters—de rigueur uniform for most of the girls on hand. The music is loud, the voices louder. Cigarettes trend toward Camel straights and American Spirits. With the state-wide smoking ban due in January, everyone around me seems desperate to take advantage of indoor privileges while they can.

I lock eyes with a woman sitting alone at a table in the middle of the floor. She swirls her beer. Not a PBR. She’s wearing a white camisole, Georgia O’Keeffe flower tattoo sprouting from her cleavage. Hair the color of Velveeta in a style bought off the cover of a grocery store tabloid. She’s a touch thick, not quite shed of her winter fat, but she wears her flesh with oblivious self-assurance. I have no doubt a man ten years younger than me and with a flatter belly could pay her bar tab and bed her the same night, with no idea of the problems she’ll cause over breakfast.

There’s no sign of my coffee, and rather than wait around I heave myself to my feet and amble over. Her gaze brushes across me, and I lift the jacket for her to see. With no sign of recognition, she says, “Join me?”

“Sure, why not?” I drop into the chair across from her.

Some guy approaches the table from the direction of the back room, sees me, looks confused. “Dude—”

She cuts him off. “It’s okay, Zeke.”

“But he’s sitting in my chair.” He’s wearing baggy shorts and an oversized Winterhawks jersey that conspire ineffectively to hide his bulk. Too big in every dimension to be my ninja—big enough, in fact, that if he decides to evict me I won’t have much to say about it.

But she just shoos him off with one hand. “Idiot.”

I have no opinion on that, but I am wondering why she gave me his seat.

She fishes through a purse next to her, hooks a pack of Parliaments. “Want one?”

I doubt she’ll be impressed with,
No thanks, I quit
. Almost anywhere else, the smoker would be on the defensive, but here in the Night Light, I’m the outsider. So I pull out the box of matches with the embossed legs and offer her a light. I can’t tell if her eyes linger on the matchbox, or if I just want them to. She inhales and says through smoke, “You’re the cop that’s been sitting outside Starbucks the last few nights.”

So much for my unobtrusive stakeout. Jesus. “Not a cop anymore. I’m retired.”

“Well, you’re not going to catch them.”

“Them?”

“The anarchists.”

“Anarchists.” I lean back in my chair. “You’re kidding, right?”

“That’s what they call themselves.”

“And you know this how, exactly?”

“Everyone around here knows the anarchists.”

I can’t tell if she’s shining me on. “Is your buddy Zeke one of them?”

That nets me a giggle. “Zeke is about as militant as a kitten.” She looks over her shoulder to where her hulking boyfriend hangs off the end of the bar. He’s drinking PBR. I can’t quite make out his expression in the dim light, but friendly it’s not. She waves at him, then turns back to me. “I think he wants his seat back.”

“Tell me where to find these anarchists and he can have it.”

“If you don’t know about them already, maybe I shouldn’t tell you.”

“Now you gonna leave me blue-balled? You brought it up.”

She laughs again. “Okay, Mr. Not-A-Cop. You know the Red and Black?”

A café a block or so up Division from Seven Corners.
Worker-Owned,
proclaims a sign over the door. I’ve driven by, but never gone inside.

“You
are
kidding.”

“They have a problem with corporate coffee.”

“How about you? How do you feel about corporate coffee?”

She brushes invisible ash off her tattoo. “I can’t say as I’ve given it much thought.” Zeke joins us, puts his hand on the back of the chair like he’s worried I’m gonna walk off with it. I take the jacket and head out into the clear night air, curious about my new friend’s game. Never did get my coffee.

The phone wakes me too early, the adjuster at Mutual Assurance. He’s a big-voiced fellow named Hamilton whom I’ve never met in person. When I describe the events of the previous night, he says, “I apologize if I was unclear about this before, Detective Kadash—”

“It’s just Mister now.”

“Whatever. The point is we hired you to stop this crap.”

“I thought you hired me to photograph the ne’er-do-well doing this crap.”

“You didn’t manage that either.”

“This isn’t just a little vandalism. I got mugged, for chris-sakes.” “I thought you were a cop.” I can almost hear his smirk. He’s quiet for a moment. “Under the circumstances, I think we’re going to go in another direction.”

“What’s that mean?”

“There’s no need for you to continue the stakeout.”

I guess I can’t blame the guy, but I was counting on five nights. Nothing’s getting cheaper except the value of my pension. “Maybe I could look into these so-called anarchists, get a line on the camera.”

“That won’t be necessary,
Mister
Kadash. Just invoice me for three nights.”

I’ve never written an invoice. “I was just thinking—”

He hangs up without saying goodbye.

You’d think I’d know what I’m doing. Maybe I should take a class, learn how to do the job right if I’m going to pretend I’m some kind of private investigator. But that wasn’t in the plan when I retired. The plan was to hang out at Uncommon Cup, my friend Ruby Jane’s café, and drink coffee. The only reason I originally agreed to the stakeout was because of her. RJ has been trying to get me involved in freelance investigation since I retired, but it took a coffee case and a fat paycheck to get my attention. Turns out she knows a guy who knows a girl who sleeps with the manager of the Seven Points Star-bucks. Apparently my name came up at some java maven’s secret society meeting. Next thing I know, I’m salivating over how much insurance money five nights sitting on my ass is worth.

I figure the least I can do is let RJ know how it worked out.

I catch her at her Hawthorne location, a few blocks east of the Bagdad. The place is three-quarters full and hopping when I arrive, the air thick with chatter and the smell of coffee. Customers cluster around tables or hunker down in the soft, well-worn couches against the walls. I order a black coffee and grab a table to wait until Ruby Jane can take a break.

When she finally joins me, her eyes are bright. She doesn’t blink as she examines my own sunken orbs. Her chestnut hair is shiny and full, a round cap that seems suffused with its own light. “Rough night?”

“I look that good?”

“I’ve seen prettier road kill.”

I don’t argue. I give her a rundown of my evening: the ninja, the jacket, the stolen camera. When I get to the Night Light and the woman at the table, Ruby Jane interrupts me.

“Wait. Orange hair, mammalian, acts like she owns the joint?”

“Yeah, that’s her. Who is she?”

RJ is quiet for a moment, thoughtful. “Well, in point of fact … the competition. Her name is Ella Leggett.”

“Oh?”

“She’s got a shop at the other end of Hawthorne. Not direct competition, I guess—there’s no foot-traffic overlap. But, you know, another shop owner.” She purses her lips. “What did she say to you?”

“Not much. She turned me on to some anarchists.”

“Red and Black.”

I’m not surprised she knows about them, or about Ella Leggett. Ruby Jane makes it her business to stay informed about the coffee crowd in Portland.

“She thinks they’re responsible for the windows at Star-bucks.”

“She might be right.”

“Seriously?”

Ruby Jane shrugs. “It’s no secret George Bingham, the lead partner there, has been pissed ever since that Starbucks opened. He thinks it’s cutting into his business.”

“What do you think?”

“Well, the chains mostly appeal to a different kind of customer than indies do.” She tilts her head. “Maybe I’d spin a different tale if one opened across the street, but I think they mainstream the idea of quality coffee. That helps all of us.”

I recall Ella Leggett’s phrase. “Corporate coffee as a gateway drug.”

She grins. “Something like that.”

“But the anarchists don’t see it that way.”

“I’m not sure George qualifies as an anarchist. He and his team are just small-timers like me trying to make it work.”

“Still, you think they might take out their frustrations on Starbucks?”

“Maybe. Or maybe they’re just working to stay afloat. It’s something of an open secret the building owner wants them out so he can redevelop the whole block, add upper-story condos and high-end retail on street level. When you’re working your ass off just to make rent, there may not be a lot left over for extracurricular vandalism.”

“Chucking bricks wouldn’t take a big bite out of someone’s free time.”

“You’re the cop.”

“Ex-cop. Ex-investigator too.” I tell her about Hamilton letting me go. “I should have taken that kidnapped dog with the MySpace page you told me about instead.”

“What are you going to do?”

Ruby Jane once described me as having the determination of a rat guarding a chicken bone. I’m not sure she meant it as a compliment, but I take what I can get. “Gonna earn out my contract.”

I’m curious about Ella Leggett, but I decide to start with the Red and Black. It will probably turn out to be a dead-end; too easy, really, to blame the anarchists. But the sight of the glowering, dreadlocked fellow behind the counter, arms folded across his chest, suggests maybe I shouldn’t be so hasty.

“You must be George.” His stature matches my ninja, but I see no evidence of a hoodie.

“And you must be that asswipe who’s working for Star-bucks.”

Hamilton’s decision to can me is starting to look pretty good, considering how effective my attempt at a covert operation had been. I step up to the long, wooden counter. The wall behind looks like it belongs in a tavern, though on closer inspection the lined-up bottles turn out to be a variety of flavored syrups and cane sugar soft drinks. Booths run along the opposite wall. The place is half-full, the customers a mix of young hipsters and older tweedie types. Talking politics, I presume.