City of Dragons (24 page)

“Thanks, Inspector.”

“Call me Mark.”

“All right. Call me Miranda.”

They were shaking hands when a rasping voice, followed by a hawking cough and a guttural spitting noise, assaulted them.

“Well, if it ain’t the Mex and his girl.”

Miranda turned to face him, and Duggan squinted up at her, staring.

“You finally backhand her, Gonzales? Got tired of sharing?”

Duggan was mounting the steps. Miranda clenched her fists, the pain in her ankle and legs forgotten.

“Why aren’t you with the sideshow, Duggan? No more room for shrunken heads and dickless wonders?”

His heavy features compressed, jutting forward in a projection of rage. He took a step closer to Miranda, and Gonzales moved to block him him.

“We’ve been through this before, Gerry. Don’t embarrass yourself further.”

Duggan stood in front of him, half a foot shorter, stocky, thick in the middle, scars on his face, his head, and his hands. Breathing hard. Frozen.

Miranda waited and watched. He only had eyes for Gonzales. He finally looked away, hawked up a wad of yellow-gray phlegm, spitting it out so that some of it landed on Gonzales’s shoe.

He took a step up and to the side, and muttered under his breath. “Watch yourself, you greasy bastard. I ain’t the only one who thinks you oughta be shipped back home the hard way.”

Duggan turned at the sound of the click.

“What the fuck—”

“Pick it up, you son of a bitch. Wipe up his shoes. Or so help me God, I’ll blow your motherfucking head off.”

She was holding the .22 against her body, aiming it at Duggan, her hands shaking. Gonzales reached over, his long fingers gently taking the gun from her.

“It’s OK, Miranda.”

Duggan looked from one to the other—Miranda trembling, white, Gonzales holding the gun, his hand on her arm.

He said softly: “That’s one crazy fucking whore, Mex. Watch your back.”

They both watched as he climbed the stairs and sauntered into the Hall of Justice.

Fifteen

M
iranda stood and shook, not yet realizing her hand wasn’t holding a gun. Gonzales took out his display handkerchief, wiped his shoe off, left the handkerchief behind, and took her by the arm and down the steps.

He tried to lead her to the Last Chance Saloon, the century-old watering hole for Hall of Justice habitués: cops and the accused, guards and judges, drunks who managed to stay sober long enough to walk half a block down and through the old wooden swinging doors, and found themselves back in jail by evening. Decrepit, dark with age, they squeaked and whispered about a San Francisco long gone, a gold rush Tombstone, where the only difference between the lawless and the lawful was the size of the revolver.

She shook her head, angry at him, angry at herself. It did no good to be angry at Duggan, angry at all the Duggans she’d fought over the years. Anger was their domain, their ammunition. Anger and hate.

“I’m all right. Not my usual behavior, I admit.”

He still held her by the arm, looked at her with brown eyes full of worry. She avoided them, pulled away.

“I know I’m in shock. Best thing for me is a hot meal and a shot of bourbon, and some time in the office.”

He handed her the .22. “If you’re sure.”

She appreciated the fact that he didn’t second-guess her, didn’t treat her like a cracked Dresden shepherdess.

He added, hesitation in his voice: “Miss Corbie—Miranda—I think you should know that Duggan had a … well, a heroic war record. He comes from a poor family—never had a chance at much education. He was a pretty good cop, once. He lost his brother to syphilis a few years ago, and—I—I’m not telling you this because it excuses anything—”

“Doesn’t make a goddamn difference if you are. There’s a lot of hurt to go around, Inspector. Try the Dust Bowl on for size. There’s a hell of a lot of people with reason to be mad at the world, to give up, to give in. Most try to be more than a bully in a uniform, a home-grown fascist. Duggan doesn’t. End of story.”

They stared at one another for a moment, Gonzales surprised by her anger, looking sideways at her gun as if she might turn it back on him.

She said abruptly: “I’m going to eat in Chinatown and get on with my day. Thanks for working with me.”

He nodded and smiled, his teeth gleaming beneath his thin mustache. “I’ll call you later.”

They shook hands again, this time with no interruption. Miranda turned her back and crossed the street toward Portsmouth Square, trying not to limp. Gonzales stood for a long time, smoking a gold-tipped cigarette, watching her blend into the crowds on Clay Street.

The sun was starting to crack open the fog bank over Chinatown.

Miranda sat with a plate of scrambled eggs, French toast, hash browns and sausage at the Universal Café on Washington. The late-breakfast crowd packed in around her at the counter, reaching for Tabasco sauce to enliven the eggs and sugar for the bitter coffee.

The Universal was cheap and cheery, and never closed. The kind of hospitality that was worth overcooked hash browns.

She sipped the coffee, feeling it course through her, giving her strength. No one here had looked at her swollen face twice. Another dame with a bad-tempered boyfriend or husband, drunk over the weekend, tired of hearing her complain. Will that be one lump or two?

The French toast resisted her attempt with the fork, so she brought in the knife. Reached for the syrup, and brushed the sleeve of a man in a dirty gray suit with worn shoes, who looked like he sold things no one ever needed. He didn’t notice, didn’t speak. Suited Miranda.

There was the French toast and the powdered sugar. The black coffee so black that cream couldn’t cut the darkness. The pack of Raleighs she bought at a corner shop, to last her until she could find more Chesterfields.

Philosophy didn’t matter a flying fuck to anybody. Except the walking dead, like her father, thinking life was leather-bound in a language as dead as he was. Or in a gin bottle. All kinds of philosophy there. She took a puff of the Raleigh, wrinkling her nose. Miranda had no use for philosophers. She’d never met one who could explain what she’d seen in the fields of California or the churches of Spain.

What mattered was the fact that the Winters case and the Takahashi case connected. Gonzales wouldn’t believe her, wouldn’t accept a matchbook as evidence of anything other than delusion. But—as she’d told him—she didn’t believe in coincidence.

Italians didn’t give a damn about small-time operators in Chinatown or South San Francisco. Eddie owed somebody money, and Italians tried to collect out of Miranda’s legs. Cheval thought the man he took upstairs in the elevator was Italian; the woman who visited Winters was Chinese. East was east and West was west, said Rudy Kipling, and he was still right: outside of the city-sanctioned carnival called a Rice Bowl Party, they were separate worlds.

Throw in a Sicilian who squired the Winters girl around gambling joints, getting her high on coke—the same stuff that killed her father. And a card from Gillio’s on her credenza and a fresh matchbook from the Olympia in a dead man’s room.

Too many Italians, and too many fucking coincidences.

It meant more than one group of killers, too. The hit-runners with the sedan. The gunner who shot Eddie Takahashi. The precise plunge of the needle into Lester Winters’s neck, pumping his body full of cocaine until his heart couldn’t handle it. Sounded like a doctor in somebody’s house, and not the Ming Chen type.

Maybe the herbalist knew something, but he was running scared and angry, trying to stalemate her … precisely as Gonzales suggested. The actions of a frightened bully, not a professional killer.

And there was what happened to Betty.

Miranda gulped her coffee, wishing she had some bourbon with her. She’d overreacted to Duggan. Gonzales was a cop, a rich boy from Mexico. He could handle himself. Too wealthy and isolated to understand. Making excuses.

She rubbed the Raleigh out in disgust in the ashtray. The bored man at the counter yelled something to the Chinese short-order cook in the back. The smell of burning bacon answered him. Miranda got up, careful of her legs, and headed out of Chinatown.

She took a cable car down to Powell and Market, walked down to 137 Powell and into Martell’s. She found a quart of Four Roses, checked the price. Same tag, same price as the one in Lester’s room.

Miranda knew better than to ask the clerk for information. A gruff, middle-aged man with a weak left eye, he yawned and waved his hands. Didn’t remember anybody buying Four Roses and vodka, fancy suits walk in here all the time, it’s a liquor store, lady, best prices in town, you expect me to remember who wanted a shot five days ago? You want that Old Taylor Kentucky Straight Bourbon wrapped and sent, or you gonna walk out with it? A buck ninety-five, lady, best prices in town.

She left with the Old Taylor, walked down to Market, and disappeared into the Owl for ice, an ice pack, aspirin, and two cartons of Chesterfields.

A dusty quart of Four Roses was twenty cents more than Martell’s price. So they’d gone to Martell’s, bought the whiskey. The vodka probably came with Winters. He and Helen were the vodka types, preferably in delicate martini glasses. Spiced with an olive, never an onion. The country-club way.

She caught one of the cars heading to the Ferry Building, saving her left leg a few blocks of pain. From the ankle up, it hurt like hell, and Miranda hated to limp.

She waved at Gladys from the elevator bank, not responding to the girl’s eager look. When Miranda reached the fourth floor, squeezing out of the elevator between a portly man with a pocket watch and a woman with a baby, the noon bells of the downtown churches started to chime for lunch.

She hurried to her office, not stopping to greet the Pinkertons, hustling by the railroad offices.

Clang.

Business was slowing down, the papers said. War worries.

Clap.

Gas prices. And by the way, America, you’re still in a Depression.

Bong
.

It’s a long climb back up the hill.

Ding
.

She rested against the wall beside her door, letting the rest of the peals and claps and tolls roll over her, while the Catholics and the Protestants fought the Reformation all over again. She used the time wisely, remembering God helps her that helps herself, and took out her .22.

Just in case.

Miranda opened the door and walked in, the gun cocked in her right hand, the quart of Old Taylor awkwardly secure under her left arm, which also held her Owl bag and her purse.

The office was just as she’d left it, except for a package sitting in one of the chairs and the phone ringing. She hadn’t heard it outside, thanks to the church racket, released the hammer on the .22, and limped to the desk as fast as she could.

Her hand was reaching for the receiver when it stopped ringing.

Miranda cursed, and set the gun, the whiskey, and the bag with the ice pack and partially melted ice and aspirin on her desk. She eased herself back around to the chair, sighed a little when she sat down. Put the .22 back in her handbag, unlocked her desk drawer, took out the black pistol, left the drawer open.

Stood up with difficulty, walked to the safe, and removed the newspapers from Winters’s room. Walked back to the chair, picked up the package, sat down, opened the quart of bourbon, and swallowed four aspirin. Then she turned to look at the thin parcel. A note scrawled in pencil on the brown wrapping said: “This was waiting for you downstairs. Thought I’d save you a trip. Allen.” There was no return address.

Miranda tore it open. A new Chief tablet. She lifted the cover, saw it was a note from Helen Winters with information, and a dark green envelope, probably with some photos.

Then she filled the ice pack up with the ice, got up again, walked to the window, opened it, and left the rest of the ice on the sill. She stood for a minute, looking out at Market Street, the ice bag cold against her face.

“So it was definitely human, and type A … and within the time frame, but can’t tell exactly. No, I understand. Yes. Uh-huh, thanks, Edith. No, that’s really helpful. What? Oh, just drop it at my apartment, will you? You’re right around the corner … yeah, I’ll be working late tonight again. Uh-huh. Yeah. Oh, I won’t. Two all-day passes, Elephant Train tickets, the works. Yeah. Thanks, Edith.”

Miranda dropped the receiver into the cradle, looking at the list from yesterday. So the blood was human, it was type A, and it could’ve been from a few days before or older. If Eddie’s was also type A, just one more coincidence.

She rested the ice bag on her cheek again, setting it back on her desk and away from the list and the newspapers before she picked up the phone. She dialed the number directly, waited for the connection, the ring, and finally a response.

“Roy? Miranda Corbie. Listen, there’s a woman coming over later today with a package for me. Take it upstairs, and leave it on my credenza, all right? Just make sure you lock it up again … uh-huh, yeah, I’m all right. No, word gets around.”