Chasing the Dragon (10 page)

“Yes. It is.”

“You still have those clothes?”

“Not on, obviously.”

“At home?”

“Dry cleaners. I took a load last night.”

Ying’s eyes narrowed, and Dante knew how that made things look. Like he’d run the clothes down to remove any fiber evidence that might be there. And he’d considered doing that, it was true. There was always the off chance he’d brushed against a sofa or a wall. That something had clung to him that might tie him to the inside of the house. But dry cleaning didn’t remove everything. And Ying would know that, too.

“What cleaners?”

“Red Wing. Down off Grant.”

“And the shoes?”

“I’m wearing them.”

Ying’s eyes went bright for a second then dead again, realizing perhaps that he had no way of knowing if these were indeed the shoes. If Dante had not dumped them—with blood smears on the bottom, carpet fibers—into a debris box somewhere. Which, of course, was exactly what he had done. Along with the clothes.

Then he’d gone down and bought a new red polo, new white slacks, identical to the ones he’d thrown away. These were the clothes he’d dropped at the dry cleaners, crumpled up, mixed with old laundry. So even if he’d brushed against something during his brief time in his uncle’s house, there was nothing for them to find.

“Unless things have changed since I left the force, you’ve got forty-eight hours to bring formal charges against me. If you’ve got the evidence, then bring the charges. Otherwise—let me go.”

Ying shut off the tape. Toliveri went lax. He could only play the bull for so long, then reverted to his usual demeanor.

“I can’t let you go,” said Ying.

“You don’t have any evidence.”

“We’ll search your apartment, you know. We’ll get a warrant.”

“You won’t find anything.”

“It’s our job to check, you know that.”

“I understand.” Dante was irritated now. His father was dead, and his uncle, and he had to put up with this treatment. And the day after tomorrow he was supposed to meet with the Wus.

“I’m going to have put you in a cell,” said Ying.

Dante didn’t argue. He was pretty sure how this would work out. They would check his apartment. They would find his gun, but it hadn’t been fired recently, and they would find never get a match on ballistics. They would examine his clothes for blood stains—but again, they would find nothing. They could hold him for a little while, but eventually they would have to let him loose.

Later that same morning, Marilyn Visconti and Tony Mora crossed the Golden Gate in the red Alfa. Mora drove in the center lane with the top down. It was cold. They were on the way to wine country, and Marilyn’s heart fluttered with misgivings, whether at the onrushing traffic—just inches away, across an unprotected divider—or for some other reason, she didn’t know. Or if she did know the reason, she was not about to admit it. Rather she shivered and adjusted her scarf. It was a silk scarf, bright and flimsy, very beautiful, but it did little against the wind. Though it was miserable on the bridge, the tourists were out, regular as seabirds, clinging to the chain link. Overhead, the giant suspension towers caught the sun, then disappeared in a confusion of fog. The traffic slowed, and Mora jammed the brakes. Just as suddenly the traffic let loose. They crossed into Marin and the fog was gone. The hills were flooded with a hard light.

“There’s a place on the way I want to show you,” Mora said. “Just up here.” Mora’s voice was difficult to hear in the wind, but he took the next exit and rumbled the Alfa down the hillside. “Mia Rancadore’s father died. And the estate wants to sell.”

The Rancadores were an old North Beach family who had left the city some twenty years before. Mia was a few years older than herself, and Marilyn remembered watching the moving van, wishing she could go, too. Everyone had been leaving then.

Tony pulled into the drive, and now she could see what had drawn the Rancadores away. It was the kind of place you didn’t find much anymore. Off on its own. Or it had that illusion. In truth it lay in a skelter of houses screened from each other by a jagged terrace of madrone and wild eucalyptus. The bay was below. On the hill above, at the precipice, a bank of fog hung as in a photograph, ready to run down a slope covered with gnarled oaks and yellow grass.

“It’s hard to find the perfect place,” Tony said. “But I think this might be it.”

And maybe it was, here on this sheltered hillside. An older house with a bit of grace. A backyard with a grape arbor and a view of the city.

“If we want this, I can probably do something, but we should move fast. Otherwise, they’re going to put it on the market.”

Marilyn toyed with the ring on her finger. Tony had given it to her. She had wandered the North Bay towns with him more than once, walking over pink flagstones with the sun in her face, intoxicated by the light. She had yearned for a place that was warmer, less confined, away from the alleys, the mildew and dry rot, the stench of the past, the familiar faces. But now, imagining herself in this house, sitting on the couch, under these redwood timbers, she felt overcome by nostalgia.

“No.”

“Why not? It’s the kind of place we’ve been looking for. Lots of upgrades.”

“It’s not right.”

“Well,” Tony looked around somewhat wistfully, “I admit, it is a bit on the small side.”

They drove north, taking the turn at Black Point, winding through what remained of the old marshes, up through Carneros, into the Valley of the Moon. Her family had owned a place up here once, a summer retreat, but they’d had to sell when they put their father in St. Vincent’s. It didn’t matter. Stepping out of the Alfa into the parking lot—in her traveling clothes—her slacks, her turtleneck, her shades, and the bright scarf around her neck—she felt as if the whole valley were hers. It was a transitory feeling: a sense of ownership that fleeted away with the birdsong and left her hollow.

The hotel spa was fed by hot springs, and Marilyn soaked for a long while in one of the stone tubs under the terrace. Then she went inside for a massage. At times the young man’s fingertips lingered overly long, but she said nothing. What could you say? Sometimes it was better to give in. To let your body relax and your mind drift.

She had been supposed to meet Dante that day, seven years ago. They’d made plans. They were going to go off, to hell with everyone—but a few days before she’d been overcome by bouts of nausea, and the tests confirmed her suspicions. She knew the truth, but there was no way to tell him. Because there was something hideous about the truth, and ugly, and she did not know how to explain. So she’d gotten the procedure, then gone to Italy. With her parents. To lay in the splendid light and forget the vacuum inside.

Now the masseuse helped her from the table.

“Enjoy,” he said. There was an invitation in his eyes. Once upon a time she might have accepted, but she strolled away from him, down the stone path to her room.

The hotel room was rustic and posh at the same time, done in the current ideation of Tuscany. She dressed for dinner. A gold blouse and pale skirt. Stockings just a shade darker than her normal skin. A blouse that required buttoning from behind.

“Tony?” she asked. “My buttons?”

Tony was thirty-five. When it came to his business, he was very sharp. When it came to women, he was part boy, part man. He had curly hair and bedroom eyes, and he wore a cologne that smelled of one of her father’s friends. In some way she couldn’t explain, it made sense she would be with Tony.

He took her to bed. In another moment, her skirt was up, her hose down. This was the way things always unfolded between them: Just as they were on the verge of going someplace, in the midst of departing, his hand found its way into her panties. She felt a trigger inside her, a door about to slip off its hinges, gaping into another world. He unbuttoned his shirt and pushed her blouse up so they could feel their chests one against the other. Except she wasn’t here, no. She was somewhere else. In an alley, maybe. Leaning against the seawall. Behind her was the squall of the seagulls over the old fishing grounds, and off on the horizon, somewhere, beyond all those sailboats floating like cocked hats on the blue water, was another land, a place they were all straining toward, trying to create in their heads. But when she opened her eyes it was Tony Mora, only Mora, looming over her with his tight curls and his good looks and his clothes that smelled like an old man with money.

“Over,” he said.

She turned on her stomach, and he got rougher now, grabbing her ass, all but penetrating, then backing off, starting over.

“Oh,” he said, “oh.”

He petted her, running his fingers over her body—but the truth was he could not keep his hands off her clothes, fiddling with the buttons, the collar of her blouse, and she knew that for him desire was not so much about the flesh but about the clothing. He exhausted himself on her skirt. He rolled over.

“Let’s set a date,” he said.

She felt the anxiety again, same as she had felt earlier crossing the bridge. She put a hand between her legs. He put his hand on top of hers, “Let me do that,” but instead his hand drifted to her collar, to the fabric.

“Let’s set a date,” he said again. “We’ve been engaged awhile.”

Then the phone rang.

“I thought you turned the ringer off.”

“I thought I did, too.”

He stood naked, talking on the phone. The conversation went on awhile. She saw his eyes go wide, and she knew something had happened.

“Salvatore Mancuso,” he said. “He’s been murdered.”

“What?”

“He was shot to death. And they have his nephew in jail.”

“Dante?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” she said. Her heart was racing.

“I was supposed to meet with him and his uncle later this week, you know, regarding his father’s will.” He put on his slacks as he spoke, zipping them up. He glanced at his watch. “We’re late for our dinner reservations. We’ll lose them.”

“Dante’s in jail?”

“It happened last night. It’s been on the news. And the viewing’s scheduled for Monday—down on Green Street.” He turned to her then. He looked a little like a gigolo, with his silk shirt and the way his hair fell into his eyes. “Will you go with me?”

It was part of his job, the funerals. A way of showing his respect—and recruiting new clients. Like a mortician, or a rabbi.

“Either way I have to go to the city tomorrow.” Tony’s voice grew anxious, and she could see the boy in his face. “I’m sorry to cut our trip short. But I don’t have a choice.”

“We were lovers.”

“Who?”

“Dante and I.”

His face registered no surprise. He knew, she guessed, the way people in The Beach knew everything.

“I’ve had lovers before, too,” he said.

“I’m sure you have.”

“But not one that’s murdered his uncle, I admit.” His voice was both bitter and wistful. He looked at her hungrily.

“He’s been charged?” she asked.

“They’re holding him for questioning. That’s all I know.”

“He used to be with the police, you know. A Homicide detective.”

“Well, isn’t the way it goes? People who investigate a thing—they’re drawn to it. You know how chefs—they’re so fat, most of them. The same thing, psychiatrists and crazy people. Detectives and criminals. We’re drawn to the things we despise.”

“I suppose.”

For some reason, she found it hard to meet his eyes. She went to the closet to get a clean skirt. The lamé, she decided.

“Let’s go to dinner,” he said, eyeing the lamé. “We’ll drive back in the morning.”

“Button me up.”

“All right. But we have to hurry if we’re going to make our reservation.”

When he was behind her, though, he put his lips against her neck, crushing against her. His dick was hard. He wanted to fuck her again. Or to fuck her lamé skirt, it was hard to tell.

So far the warrant had turned up nothing. It was as Ying suspected. The crew had pulled some fibers, confiscated a firearm, and otherwise torn the house on Fresno Street upside down, but found nothing of consequence. Ying wasn’t hopeful. In addition, Louisa Roma had talked to Regina Mancuso in the hospital, and the old woman’s story had checked out pretty well. There was no evidence of powder burns, no weapon at the scene. Gary Mancuso was another matter. He was evasive, hard to pin down. Ying needed talked to him again soon, even if it meant following him to his father’s funeral. Meanwhile, he had sent Toliveri to chase down the man’s alibi, starting with his colleagues at the warehouse.

At the same time, in regard to Dante, the forty-eight hours were just about up. Ying needed to make a decision—though he already had a pretty good idea what the decision might be. Dante Mancuso’s personal information was clean; he wasn’t wanted for anything, no criminal record. The only thing unusual had been the accusations around the Strehli murder, that Dante was somehow suppressing evidence—but nothing had come of it. Still, the name triggered something and Ying went back to his notes from SI. As it turned out, he had jotted Strehli’s name down during his investigation into the disappearance of Ru Shen. Strehli worked at Customs, and apparently he’d been on duty the day a Chinese family was found suffocated in a shipping container. Later, there were rumors that the dead were Ru Shen and his family, but it was only a rumor, and Ying had not had time to investigate before he left SI. Anyway, it seemed tangential at the moment. What Ying needed was to wrap up his check into Dante’s background, and he still hadn’t heard from the New Orleans police. He had a friend in the department down there, running an off-hours check. Ying decided to call and give things a push.

“I was just getting back to you,” his friend said, but something about his voice told him it wasn’t true.

“What did you find?”

“Well, the address checks out. He’s lived there for the last five years. In and out of town a lot. Mostly out. And the firm he works for . . .”

“Yes.”

The man hesitated. “This is confidential.”

“All right.”

“Run it through a system, you get a vinyl sheet.”