City of Dragons (33 page)

It passed by in a hurry. She didn’t see any faces turned toward her. No glint of gun metal, sparkling like ice.

She still hurried to the store.

An old man in a faded suit dozed on a stool, listening to the sounds of a faraway orchestra. Magazines lay strewn on the counter, left there when he’d grown tired of reading them. A hand-lettered sign read KOSHER MEATS AND CHEESES—HOMEMADE SANDWICHES—CAKES.

He hadn’t opened his eyes when the door bell jingled, so Miranda cleared her throat.

He didn’t fall off the stool, but looked at her, still half-asleep, puzzled.

“You want some aspirin, lady? Somebody hit you? Got a pay phone in the corner …”

“I’m OK. Car accident this morning. Listen, I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m looking for someone. She might be in trouble.”

That made him hop off the stool for a closer look. He put his hands on the counter, stared at her.

“Lady, you look like you’ve seen enough for two. Why you chasing more?”

Miranda fished the photo of Phyllis out of her wallet. “This girl. She’s in danger.”

He scrunched up one side of his face quizzically.

“You a cop?”

“Private detective.”

“Not what I want my daughter to do, you understand me. Too dangerous. Look at that face … Here, let me get you some ice.”

Miranda leaned against the counter, looking around the tiny, cluttered market, took out a cigarette. This was going to be a while.

After a few minutes, he came back with a stained ice bag filled with cubes. “Here … put this on your cheek and it won’t hurt me so much to see it.”

“Thanks.” She held it to her face. “Have you seen that girl?”

The old man stuck a finger in his ear, turned it around twice, frowned, and shook his head slowly.

“No. I don’t think so. What kind of trouble?”

“Men trouble. Bad kind. She’s with a flashy-looking Italian.”

He thought it over. “Italian stopped by last night. Not flashy, like yours. Bought three or four sandwiches and some magazines.”

“Do you remember what he bought exactly?”

The shopkeeper sighed, leaned on the counter. “My days and nights get all mixed up. I think it was … maybe nine, ten o’clock. Not like this, you understand. I remember because I never seen him before.”

“You remember the magazines?”

He shambled out from behind the counter, and walked toward the magazine rack, thumbing through
Life
,
Time
,
Good Housekeeping
,
Family Circle
,
Saturday Evening Post
, and then a small section of movie fan magazines.

“I think it was some of these. Radio and TV stars. He don’t seem like the type, you know what I mean? Not the type to read anything more than the paper, and maybe a racing form. Yeah … I remember Shirley Temple on the cover of one.”

“What about the sandwiches?”

“I don’t remember, lady. Nothing stands out. Pastrami on rye, headcheese, ham and Swiss …”

“One was a ham and Swiss? You’re sure?” Phyllis’s favorite sandwich, according to Bobby.

He shrugged. “Seems right, but it’s getting on two o’clock in the morning. How’s the cheek?”

She took off the bag, felt her face. “Much better—thank you. All right … this Italian. Did he say anything about where he was, where he was staying?”

“Guerrero, I think he said. Talkative, he was. Said he just moved in, house was empty for a while.”

Miranda tried to keep her voice calm, nonchalant.

“Any idea where a house like that might be?”

“Couple of places. One up the street by Seventeenth, one down by Eighteenth. Don’t know if somebody moved in, but they’ve been empty.”

“Color to the house?”

He shrugged. “Everything is gray in San Francisco after one o’clock in the morning. One has a boarded-up window at the bottom, if that helps.”

“Is that the one by Seventeenth?”

“Yeah. You sure you don’t want any aspirin?”

She bought a small bottle. Tried to give him a dollar, but he wouldn’t take it.

“You come back when you’re hungry, try a sandwich. When you can chew good with that cheek.”

Miranda thanked him and headed back into the darkness of Guerrero Street.

The house was still.

Green-gray, it clung to the lot with desperation, neglect seeping through it from all sides. A gap in roof tiles on the cylindrical turret, the boarded-up window, the stairs covered in mildew. A drip from the broken gutter hit the ground, thudding like distant gunfire.

The house waited, silently, dreaming of better days.

Miranda blended into the shadows by the boarded window, away from the sputtering street lamp a house down, away from the occasional car light that meandered down Guerrero. She unbuttoned her coat, reached in, took the pistol from the shoulder holster, her left breast and shoulder sighing with relief.

This was trespassing. On a case she’d been fired from. She could lose her license.

But only if someone found out who wanted her to.

And maybe Duggan had done her a favor. Maybe they’d let her alone for a while.

She walked around the house to the rear fence. It was mostly intact, except for a rotten board. It would be tight. Try the other side.

A car drove by, the sound of shrieks and laughter incongruous in the somber neighborhood. She froze against the fence, the gun at her side, and then cautiously walked under the tree near the window, around the front steps, toward the other side.

She peered inside the window, wiping it first, fingers smudged with wet dirt and coal dust.

A very faint light seemed to trickle down a main stair. Nothing she could see definitively from below.

Miranda walked to the back, where the house was closer to its neighbor. A small gate opened into the rear yard.

She leaned against the wood, listening for the heavy breathing of a sleeping dog or the rattle of a chain.

Nothing.

She propped her handbag against the corner of the house, on the damp ground out of the light. Then, gun in hand, she slowly opened the latch of the gate. It was rusty and it squeaked, but it swung open, protesting, and she was in.

Overgrown weeds. Yellow mustard, a few California poppies. The smell was sweet—eucalyptus and elm, borne on the post-rain breeze from the Western Addition.

The back of the house offered two more windows and a door.

The window wouldn’t do much good. It would face the rear of the stairs, and she thought the light was on the first floor.

Taking breaths to calm herself, make herself alert and ready, Miranda moved toward the door.

Old paint flaking off, leaving an exposed gray, the doorknob tarnished.

She tried to turn it, and it responded, squeaking again, but offering no lock, no resistance.

She cocked the Spanish pistol, moving the safety into position. The noise sounded deafening, and she stood still, waiting. Counted a minute.

No noise. No steps. No light.

Miranda slid inside the house, waiting by the door for her eyes to adjust to the darker interior. Enough light was coming from the windows to let her see there wasn’t much furniture; even the kitchen looked barren. No carpets.

She stepped heel to toe on the wooden floorboards, as noiselessly as she could. Made her way to the back of the stairway and around the front, an old, ornate balustrade missing some rails.

A faint, very dim light landed at her feet.

She breathed again. And started walking up the stairs.

The fifth one creaked, and she stopped. Belch of a foghorn made her bring the gun up. She lowered it slowly.

Too shaky, Miranda. Steady. Shaky can kill you.

Top of the landing. Light was brighter, sliding underneath a crack in a door. Cigarette smoke and liquor made a dense cloud of scent, like a cheap bar on the wharf.

She sighed, thought about it, thought about the hat she wanted at City of Paris. Thought about Paris. And New York, and Johnny. And Betty.

She bent down to the keyhole. She couldn’t see much. Maybe a bed.

Miranda held the pistol ready in her right hand, tried to open it, slowly, carefully, with her left.

It was locked, and the clicking noise made her hold her breath, waiting for a sound or a bullet from the other side.

Nothing.

She pulled a hairpin from her hat. No pliers, but maybe she wouldn’t need them. She worked the pin around the keyhole for about five minutes until she could hear a couple of clicks in the silence.

Deep breath again.

Tried the doorknob.

This time it responded. She opened it, keeping her hand on the knob and turning it back around manually so that it wouldn’t recoil and click again.

Waited, breathing hard.

Let her eyes adjust.

Nothing.

She shoved it open, just enough.

A light with no shade was on the floor next to a bed with no headboard or frame. Sandwich wrappings, coffee cups, and movie and radio magazines lay scattered, along with a few clothes. An old radio lay on the other side of the bed, static droning from the torn speakers.

A blond woman was strewn across the mattress. Bruised, naked.

Phyllis Winters.

Part Four

Valentine’s

Day

Twenty-One

S
omehow she woke the girl, kept her from screaming, ignored the tears and lethargy of the drugs, and coaxed and bullied her into getting up and moving. Wrapped her in a man’s jacket hanging over a closet doorknob, hustled her down the stairs, still ignoring the sobs and shrill objections, the demands for food and “Where’s Sammy?” over and over and over again.

Didn’t take the time to count the bruises on her legs and breasts and inner thighs, or think about the terror that shook her too-thin body when she froze outside, paralyzed, and tried to run.

The wind was cold, and the fog wrapped and enveloped them, and Miranda hoped it would make them invisible to the occasional car on Guerrero Street, or to the men who had used the house, used the girl’s body, and could return at any time.

She pulled her, pushed her, until they reached a streetlight by the old man’s market.

Phyllis was quiet, now, docile and compliant, her eyes half closed, her naked legs broken out with goose bumps that looked like a child’s chicken pox.

Miranda held her upper arm tight, but the girl wasn’t complaining anymore. She let go for a moment, hoping she wouldn’t have to chase, not tonight, not with her leg. Put the pistol back in her holster, never taking her eyes from Phyllis.

What was left of her.

The old man was dozing on the stool again when Miranda pushed the girl through the door. He woke up suddenly, his forehead wrinkling, and held a hand to his mouth.

“My God! What—who—?”

“You got a blanket? She doesn’t have any clothes.”

He looked again, his eyes squinting as if he were blinded by light. Then he shook his head, and moved.

“Right away, I get you something.”

While he rummaged in the back, Miranda held the girl up. She was staring at the movie magazines, her jaw slack, her blue eyes unblinking. The old man came out with a thin wool blanket, patched here and there with discolored fabric, and handed it to Miranda, not looking.

“You need the police, maybe?”

“Yeah. Tell them Miranda Corbie found the Winters girl. You got some coffee somewhere?”

He grunted. “I get you coffee. Maybe put something in it, yes?”

“Not too much. Can we stay in the back while we wait? I don’t want anyone to see her.”

“This way.”

He led them through a gate to the register area, and from there past a faded black curtain, the fabric stiff. Crates and boxes filled the small room. A couple of moths fluttered around a single yellow lightbulb, banging themselves against the glass. She steered Phyllis to the saggy cot with a rumpled sheet, holding up the rear wall. The door on the right led to the toilet, orange rust stains along the edges of the upraised seat.

Miranda put gentle pressure on her shoulder until the girl sat down, her body responding automatically.