All or Nothing (31 page)

Minelli’s eyes never wavered from the RV and the wounded man lying next to it. His bet was there were more of them inside that RV and he’d also bet that drugs were at the bottom of this shooting. It was usually drugs, or money or women, that accounted for most crimes.

Winesap had the kid on his belly on the floor, hands behind his head as the reinforcements arrived and the scene was suddenly illuminated by the headlights of a couple of squad cars.

“You in there,” Minelli said, directing his weapon at the closed door of the old Winnebago. “Put your hands over your head and come on out here. I give you thirty seconds . . . and I’m counting. . . .”

He’d gotten to ten when the door swung open and another kid stepped out, hands hovering in the air, eyes bulging with fear.

“He’s one of ’em,” the wounded man said, “but the one that shot me got away . . . he’s the one y’need, bro, the little fucker’s a killer. . . .”

“And I guess you’re Mr. Clean.” Minelli retrieved a couple of small cellophane packets from the floor. He recognized the crystals they contained as crack cocaine and he smiled grimly at the wounded man. “Your blood’s on these packets, man,” he said mildly. “I guess they must belong to you.”

“What packets? I ain’t never seen no packets before. . . .”

“Cut the crap,” Minelli said wearily.

By now the two young suspects were already cuffed and in the squad car. The paramedics were on their knees examining the man, asking what had happened, where he hurt, was there more than one bullet wound, taking his carotid pulse, his blood pressure, stemming the blood flow.

“How bad is it?” Winesap asked, coming up to them, his automatic still at the ready.

“As they say in the movies, “It’s only a flesh wound.’” The young paramedic grinned.

“What’s your name?” Minelli asked the wounded man as he was placed on a gurney.

“Michael Jackson.” The guy met his eyes sullenly.

“Don’t give me that crap.”

“It’s the truth, man, I get this shit all the time about my name. Don’t believe me, ask my mom.”

“Your mom’s gonna be thrilled to know you’ll be doin’ jail time again, Jackson. This RV belong to you?”

“Nope. The kids was livin’ in it, hidin’ out in the warehouse. Y’go inside there, the place stinks. Better’n axin’ me ’bout them little packets, y’should be asking them little fuckers what they doin’ living in an RV and where they stole it from.”

“We’re gonna be asking you a lot more questions once they get you fixed up at the hospital,” Minelli said. “And don’t worry, you’re not dying, bro. Not this time anyway.”

The two young men––boys really, ages fifteen and sixteen––were booked as juveniles on charges of possessing an illegal substance. The third member was caught a few blocks away, hiding out at his grandmother’s home, and charged with possession of an illegal substance, illegal possession of a firearm, and assault with a deadly weapon. He had shot the drug dealer in a fight over payment. He was just eighteen and would do a considerable amount of time.

“So where’d’ya get the RV?” the detective in charge asked the kids.

“It was on the street, man. Doors was open, keys was inside. We didn’ steal it. Somebody jist left it, y’know what I mean? It was jist there for the takin’. We didn’ have money for no more gas. We jist put it in the old broke–down warehouse, kinda like a garage, and kinda lived in it, like it was home, y’know what I’m saying?”

The detective did know, and it didn’t take much time or effort to check the Winnebago’s registration on the computer.

Thanks to an old friend, Al knew that Jimmy Victor’s Winnebago had been found in San Francisco at approximately the same moment Bulworth did, so when Bulworth called he already had the Corvette pointed north to San Francisco.

“Break number one––at last,” Bulworth said, sounding relieved. “I have to tell ya, Giraud, I was up against a stone wall. This woman has done a disappearing act like I’ve never seen. So now at least we know she’s in the San Francisco area.”

“Maybe,” Giraud said thoughtfully. He knew Laurie Martin was too clever to leave the RV right around the corner from where she had taken up residence. “Messin’ on your own doorstep” was what that was called, and Laurie was not a woman to be that crude. “She could have just dumped the Winnebago here and gotten a plane to Ohio for all we know,” he said to Bulworth.

It was the truth and they both knew it, but at least now they also knew that the theory of how Laurie killed Jimmy at the house, then transported him to the canyon and made her own getaway in the RV, was valid. Laurie was the killer, not the killee. Now all they had to do was find her.

The shot man, Michael Jackson, had been right. The RV did stink. Of methamphetamine and stale beer and moldy pizza, and three kids with a distinct lack of personal hygiene. Giraud controlled his revulsion, watching the San Francisco homicide squad team doing their stuff, sifting through every grimy item in the ancient Winnebago, every scrap of paper, every soiled piece of clothing, every hair on the carpet and furnishings, every print there ever was, and it seemed like there was a decade of prints because Jimmy Victor had been no great housekeeper either.

Nothing of great import seemed to be forthcoming, so Giraud took his leave of Bulworth and headed for the more civilized climate of Houlahan’s, a dark chummy little saloon on North Beach that served great draft Guinness, chilled to perfection with four inches of creamy foam that took all of ten minutes to subside, as well as a nice line in Irish comfort food like corned beef and cabbage and Swedish meatballs, based, Matt Houlahan himself said, on the fact that there had been an influx of Scandinavian immigrants to Ireland in the early eighteenth century, a fact that Giraud took to be a typical piece of Irish blarney. Nevertheless the meatballs were the best.

“You got a Yellow Pages, Matt?” he asked his old chum.

“Yellow Pages? Is that how you ace detectives do your detecting these days? I’ll bet you make a fortune, Giraud, and all you do is look up some poor bastard in the Yellow Pages, then pass on the info to your client and bingo, another hundred thou in the Swiss bank account.”

“Bullshit, Houlahan. You just wish you had thought of it at all, instead of being stuck behind a bar day and night.”

“You’re right there, boyo. But a bar is an Irishman’s destiny. It was written in Moses’ commandments, along with thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife and thy detective’s hundred thou.”

Giraud was grinning as he leafed through the Yellow Pages looking for churches, but the grin turned to a frown as he scanned the long list. He thought that at this rate there must be more religious establishments in the San Francisco area than homes.

Finishing his Guinness, he waved good–bye to Houlahan, hailed a cab and checked in at the Holiday Inn on Eighth Street.

Up until now, Laurie had kept within the boundaries of her childhood upbringing and been strictly Baptist in her seach for eligible candidates to murder. Holed up in his room, he called every Baptist church in the Yellow Pages, He called Sausalito and Mill Valley, Oakland, Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino, Monterey and Carmel. No one answering to the description of Laurie Martin, or Bonnie Hoyt/Victor/Harmon had been seen at any of them.

Wearily, he started again at the top of the list, this time checking every church whatever its denomination. The result was the same. Laurie had done another disappearing act. Either that or she was lying low, waiting until this whole thing had blown over.

Giraud wondered how she was managing financially. Her bank account with the twelve thousand in it was still untouched, she had not been near her condo and all her clothes were still there. Laurie had to have gotten some sort of job. She had to have gotten false identification. She had to have changed her appearance.

He sighed as he picked up the phone again, this time to call Marla. It was going to be a long haul, but one thing he was sure of, Laurie wasn’t going to get away with this. No, sir, not and leave Steve Mallard with a permanent question mark hanging over his head.

By a lucky coincidence, Marla was giving a lecture on criminal law at Berkeley that week so she was thrilled to be asked to assist the great Giraud in his church quest.

“Just like a proper P.I.,” she said, donning the appropriate outfit, a suitably Sunday churchgoing little number in beige with matching low–heeled pumps bought specially for the occasion. “I’ll submit my expenses later,” she told Giraud with a grin. “You’ll find most of them listed under “Disguise.’”

“I don’t need any disguise, so why do you?”

“A woman’s prerogative,” she said smartly. “I’ll bet Laurie has a disguise, so why shouldn’t I? That way, when we meet up neither of us will recognize the other.”

“Fat lot of good that will do.”

“Anyhow, Giraud, what are we doing in this Holiday Inn? You invite me up to San Francisco for an intimate little weekend––as well as for the private eye stuff––and expect me to find romance in the middle of an Elks convention?”

He grinned. “I’ll make it up to you.”

“How?” Her gray–green eyes gleamed with interest as she slid her arms around his neck, nuzzling the pulse at the base of his throat, feeling it speed up as she pressed closer.

“You want me to tell you right now?”

“Sure I do.” She nibbled his earlobe tenderly and his hands slid down her back to her pneumatic behind. He held it firmly, pulling her even closer, if that were possible.

“Mmmm, you couldn’t even get a knife between us at this point,” she sighed, her bones turning to jelly as she felt his hardness against her groin.

“’Scuse me for reminding you, ma’am,” he murmured in between long kisses, “but we have work to do.”

She heaved a sigh, still clinging to his lips. “Yeah, I know.”

“The Sunday churchgoing outfit,” he prompted her. “Remember? Laurie Martin? Assistant private eye.”

Her sigh was even deeper as she moved reluctantly away from him. “Slave driver,” she grumbled, running her tongue over her bruised–with–love–looking lips. “Anyhow, how are you going to make up for the Elks convention?”

“A night at Post Hill Ranch?” he suggested. “A cliff house perhaps, with the picture windows, where we can watch whales migrating while we lie in a huge, puffy bed, bathed in the glow of firelight. . . .”

“After a long soak together in the slate Japanese tub with aromatherapy candles and the view of the moon hanging over the ocean and the firelight lending a warm rich glow to our nubile bodies. . . .”

“
Your
nubile body,” he corrected her, kissing her again.

“My
nubile
body and your
slightly worn
body,” she amended, still caught up in the dream. “And after a long, long massage in our cozy room with Mozart on the CD player and some genius masseur from Esalan drawing the fatigue of the day out of our spines with his magic fingers   .   .   .”

“
Her
magic fingers   .   .   .” he interjected.

“Don’t keep interupting my dream. And suit yourself, I’m having a him. I like my masseur strong.”

“And I like mine female.”

She ignored him. “And then we’ll linger over dinner in that wonderful minimalist dining room that hangs over the cliffside, and we’ll eat only foods that are aphrodisiacs. . . .”

“I like that.”

“Then maybe we’ll sit in the infinity pool for a while, pretend we’re living on the edge   .   .   .”

“The very edge of the cliff   .   .   .”

“Yup, and hopefully we shall be all alone in there so I can practice the wonderful things I’m going to do to you later. . . .”

“In our cliff room with the grass and wildflowers growing on our earth roof, protecting us from the elements, or maybe you’d prefer a tree house, high up in the branches, or a butterfly house. . . .”

“Don’t interrupt,” she said again. “And no, I want the cliff house with the ocean and the wildflowers blooming on our roof as we sleep. . . .”

“I wondered when we were gonna get back to that big, soft, downy bed. I figure after all this we’ll be so worn out from all the soaking and massaging and food, we’ll just fall right to sleep.”

“Don’t bet on it,” she warned, kissing him again. “And I accept your offer, thank you kindly, Giraud.”

She fixed her lipstick and her hair, pulled down her skirt and picked up her bag. “Don’t wait up for me,” she said, heading for the door. “I’ve got work to do.”

“Honey?”

She swung around at the door to look at him.

“You could have worn the little French maid number. The reverend woulda thought you were a sinner opting for a little repentence.”

“I may just do that next time,” she said, flouncing out the door, though somehow a flounce in the matronly beige didn’t have quite the same effect as a hot little Versace number.

Marla drove the Corvette at a sedate pace through the San Francisco traffic––Giraud would annihilate her if she got so much as a scratch on it––even though at the same time she was reading the list of churches he had given her, and the demographic breakdown of each area. Her list had only churches in wealthy neighborhoods to visit––Giraud himself was checking out the ones in less salubrious areas.

All of hers were in Oakland and the surrounding areas and each was picture–perfect in its white stucco Mediterranean style, or in white clapboard with sloping green lawns and a picket fence, or stern, stone–walled edifices that looked as though anyone entering should prepare themselves for martyrdom. There were campaniles and turrets, Victorian gingerbread and English gothic, and at none of them was there a member of the congregation who answered in any way to Laurie Martin’s description.

By five in the afternoon, with the home–going traffic jamming every road and highway, Marla had had it. Her beige suit was crumpled, she had a run in her stockings, and the pumps hurt like hell. She kicked off her shoes and in the tight confines of the Corvette somehow wriggled out of her tights, which involved a brief spell with no hands on the wheel and a couple of astonished stares from passing motorists. She felt frowsy, hot, unattractive and fed up when she turned into the parking lot of the final church on her list. Actually it wasn’t the final one, there were four more, but this was as far as she went.