City of Dragons (13 page)

Rose’s hat feather trembled as she nodded her head. “I wish I knew how Emi is. I haven’t seen her. Not Saturday, not yesterday. I asked my mother to ask Mrs. Takahashi when I can visit her, but Mrs. Takahashi won’t say. Just says that Emi is in her room and won’t talk to anyone. But that’s not like Emi. Is it, Mr. Matsumara?”

The shoemaker folded his arms together, assuming a thoughtful look. “No, I wouldn’t say so. Emi’s a delicate girl, but strong, too. And a talker. Though she’s been more quiet in the last six months than I’ve ever seen her. But that may just be growing up.”

He let his hand drop on the brown shoes. “So, Miss, would you like to come back in a week? Shoes plus stretching will cost you one dollar fifty cents. And they come with the Matsumara guarantee.”

“And what is that?”

“It changes with the shoes and the customer. For you, that a Prince Charming will find you when you wear them.”

Miranda smiled again and took out her change purse. “How can I refuse?”

She put two quarters and a dollar coin on the counter.

“Do I fill out a ticket?”

He pulled a carbon-copy pad out from the counter and wrote a couple of words on it. “Just put your name and address down here, on the receipt.”

While she wrote, Miranda asked carefully: “What sort of boy was Eddie Takahashi? From what I’ve read in the papers …”

“You can’t believe everything in those, Miss. Look at the shoe prices.” Matsumara was staring at Rose. “I wouldn’t have trusted Eddie around my daughters. But he was good to his sister. You could tell whenever you saw them together, which wasn’t so often anymore. He didn’t stay home or in the neighborhood much, and frankly, I don’t think he lived with his parents.”

“He didn’t, not anymore. Emi told me he moved out about a year ago. I didn’t know him very well; my parents never let me see Emi when he was home.” Rose blushed. Eddie had been a good-looking young man.

The shoemaker was writing out his portion of the receipt. Miranda said: “Too bad he didn’t take his father’s trade. The tailor shop looks lonely, doesn’t it?”

Matsumara looked up, handed her the copy. “It is, Miss. It’s been shut up for over a year. Hiro’s too old to run it. His health’s no good anymore. Started to fade about two years ago.”

“Why don’t they sell, or lease the space? Surely on a busy street like this …”

“Oh, they could sell. They could even lease it to me, I could use the room. More new shoes.” He winked at both of them. “But they won’t. Eddie used to open it up sometimes in the late afternoon. I close at five, so I don’t know what kind of business he was doing, and I don’t want to know. There, I’ve said enough. Matsumara, the human talking machine. I’m worse than that phone company robot at Treasure Island.”

Miranda laughed, waving good-bye to both of them. The shoes were worth a buck fifty. And so was everything else.

She wanted very much to know what Eddie was doing in his father’s closed shop at night. And where the Takahashis were keeping his sister. And why.

The White Front was chugging along Sutter, and Miranda climbed on board. Mrs. Winters and her dead husband were waiting.

Nine

T
he lady with the Owl Drug Store bag wanted to make conversation about the state of her bowels. Miranda smiled and nodded for as long as she could, finally telling her to believe her doctor and lay off the headcheese and ice cream cake.

The woman harrumphed and made a theatrical performance out of moving her polka-dotted bulk to another seat. Miranda leaned back, relishing the extra space, and lit a Chesterfield on the second try.

She should’ve guessed Eddie wasn’t living with his parents. Not if he was working for Filipino Charlie. He was just so goddamn young.

She lowered the window, blowing smoke and watching it drift down the street. She’d have to call Gonzales. She didn’t like that part of her wanted to.

Her eyes widened when she saw a green car parked on the corner of Taylor. Breathed again when an elderly party that looked like Hollywood’s idea of a judge got in. Tall, gray hair, portly from too many well-cooked pot roasts served by Ma Hardy in her floral-print housedress while dispensing advice to Andy. Good old Judge Hardy. Probably a prosperous bookseller with a pornography business on the side.

A few stops to go before Powell and Sutter. She took the card out of her wallet again. The smells had faded; it was just a dirty, dingy little card, from a dirty, dingy little man.

Miranda climbed out at Powell in time to dig for seven cents and catch the cable car heading for the turnaround at Fifth and Market. She squeezed by a man in soiled dungarees and found a seat inside next to a pimply faced boy in his Sunday best, holding hands with the girl from the ice cream social. Fresh off a farm in Fresno. Homely as mother’s apple pie.

The girl giggled at every lurch, and Miranda noticed a gold band on her left finger. The girl was twisting it nervously, her high-pitched titter cascading up and down the scale. Miranda turned toward the man in dirty Levis, who was busy with a wad of tobacco and using Powell Street as a spittoon.

She checked her wristwatch. Twelve-twenty. She’d still get there early enough to eat lunch and look like she’d spent all morning thinking about Mrs. Winters and her late husband.

A few shoppers stepped in at Union Square, those who didn’t mind paying the two cents they’d saved on lace hankies for the luxury of the seven-cent cable car. The White Front Market Street Railway cars cost a nickel, but you paid two cents more for history and atmosphere, that peculiar, lonely little clang when the gripman found the cable and the conductor rang the bell past the St. Francis.

The ladies were fresh from the cosmetic counters at The White House and City of Paris. A blonde wearing the new “hot pink” lipstick shade leaned over Miranda, nearly suffocating her with too much Shalimar, until the homely Sir Lancelot gave up his seat. By the time they reached Market and Fifth, Miranda never wanted to smell Shalimar again.

The Owl Drug Store dwarfed the cable turnaround, a small city of departments occupying the basement and ground-floor levels of the venerable Flood Building. The store serviced nearly every human need. Those that it didn’t provide you could find elsewhere in the city with little trouble. So extensive was the Owl that if you sealed yourself inside for six months, you’d reemerge five pounds heavier and with a complete stamps-of-the-world collection.

Miranda took the stairs down to the basement floor and the lunch counter. The normal assortment of wives and mothers were gathered like buffalo at a watering hole, their children occupied with ice cream sundaes, the gossip revolving around who cheated at bridge on Saturday and whether Mary Noble, Backstage Wife would ever really leave Larry.

The only open table hadn’t been cleaned yet, and it was in the middle—not the best place to be discreet. She took it anyway, sitting and smiling at the waiter while he bussed it. He smiled back. Hostility from some nearby matrons perfumed the atmosphere, making it smell like Shalimar.

Miranda adjusted her hat, and the old cows went back to chewing cud. She checked her wristwatch. Twelve-forty. She hoped Mrs. Winters was the early type.

The waiter came back with a menu, still smiling.

“Valentine’s Tuna Salad is the special today, Miss.”

“I didn’t know tuna was part of the holiday.”

He laughed, drawing a few disapproving looks from the barnyard. “It’s not, Miss, but the tomatoes are.” He leaned over conspiratorially. “It’s our regular stuffed tomato salad except the cook cuts the tomato to look like a heart.”

“I’m sure it’s beautiful. I’ll take the Waldorf, rye toast, and a cherry Coke. Is that a paper on the counter? May I see it?”

“Certainly, Miss. Of course.” He nodded, a thin man in his forties with a boyish, West Virginia drawl. Probably lost his job and came out to California to find it. Like everybody else.

He turned to the counter, and a fashionable woman with a fashionable figure and country club in her face approached Miranda’s table, one gloved hand on the red vinyl and chromium chair back across from her.

“Miss Corbie?”

Miranda jerked her head at the waiter. “Don’t worry about the paper.”

The woman, an ash blonde, stood elegantly, looking nervously between the two of them as if she expected Miranda to announce their engagement. When the waiter scurried to help a young mother of two needing fresh napkins and a mop, the woman pulled the chair out and sat down. Miranda reached for her purse and pulled out her half-empty pack of Chesterfields.

“How do you do, Mrs. Winters. I’ve already ordered.”

Helen Winters was wearing one of the new hats from the City of Paris window, veil down. Gloves immaculate, except for a tobacco stain on her right forefinger. Black of course, but tastefully lugubrious. One didn’t want to overindulge, whether in dessert or mourning. It ruined the waistline and ran the mascara.

She looked around, the veil not concealing her worry or distaste, though it helped hide the age lines of a woman fighting to look under forty and not quite winning.

“I thought you’d find a table more … discreet. We’re sitting in the middle.”

Miranda lit a cigarette and took a long drag before responding. “The Owl Drug Store isn’t exactly known as a reservation-only rendezvous. We take what we get, Mrs. Winters, and this is what we got. You can come back to my office with me, if you’d like.”

She was pulling at her gloves, a repetitive motion that made her seem almost human. “No, Miss Corbie, that’s all right. If you don’t think we’ll be overheard—”

Miranda leaned forward. “As long as we keep our voices down, Mrs. Winters.”

The matrons and few working men at the counter were either busy with their own conversations or distracted by the screaming three-year-old. Mrs. Winters’s air of respectability was thick enough to choke the Owl Drug Store, but at least it kept buffalo eyes off of both of them.

The waiter emerged from his wrestling match with the mop, the children, and the harassed young mother, and addressed Mrs. Winters, slightly out-of-breath.

“Good afternoon, Madame. Would you like a menu?”

She lifted the veil, eyes pale and sharp and all business. “No, thank you. Coffee, please.”

He nodded, throwing a quick glance at Miranda before he bowed and walked back to the kitchen.

The older woman was finally removing her gloves. She wore a French manicure with an accent that was strictly Emporium. Mrs. Winters’s gray eyes, watery like melted ice, lifted up and stared at Miranda. Her voice was clear, cold, and quiet.

“I want you to find out who murdered Lester. I don’t care how long it takes. And if you happen to find out his daughter was involved, don’t let that stop you. There’s a reason why certain species eat their young, Miss Corbie.”

Miranda knew from the phone conversation that Helen Winters wasn’t Shirley Temple. But she didn’t expect Bette Davis on a bad day. The waiter bustled noisily to the table, giving them a few seconds of warning. Miranda stubbed out her cigarette in the glass ashtray next to the salt shaker.

“Your cherry Coke, Miss. Waldorf salad will be right out. And for you, Madame.” He placed the thick, white cup in front of Mrs. Winters along with a small, matching creamer. “If you change your mind and would like to order—”

“I won’t. Thank you.”

Peremptory dismissal. He shrugged, moved off. Miranda stirred the drink with her straw, watching the cherry-flavoring swirl in patterns through the dark brown sweetness of the Coke.

“I haven’t said I’d take the case.”

The other woman’s lip stretched slightly, her nose wrinkling as she sipped her coffee. She left it black. “You’re here, aren’t you? I assume you do work as an investigator, that is what the papers say …”

“I work for myself. It’s my prerogative whether or not to accept a commission. Give me the facts of your husband’s death, the particulars of your family situation, and why you suspect your daughter’s involvement. And if I decide to investigate it, I’ll let you know.”

Mrs. Winters leaned back against the vinyl of her chair, her coffee cup wearing a red gash from the imprint of her lips. “If you’re not going to work for me, then my family is none of your business. It seems we’re at cross purposes, Miss Corbie. You will investigate depending on what I tell you. I will tell you what you want to know only if you agree to investigate. I’ll pay you twenty dollars a day—that is your going rate?—and give you carte blanche to do whatever is necessary to solve my husband’s murder.”

Miranda caught the waiter’s eye coming forward with the salad, and she shook her head very slightly. He nodded, setting it on the counter. She opened her bag, removed another cigarette, and lit it with a Sally Rand lighter. Mrs. Winters sipped her coffee.

“Why is it that you want to hire me in particular? You said you’d explain if we met.”

“Because, without putting too much of a fine point on it, you associate with the right—or should I say wrong?—type of people.”

“Most detectives do.”

“Most detectives don’t have your background. And that’s why I want you. I could hire a man, I could hire Pinkerton, but it will take too long. I think you have a chance of quicker success.”