City of Dragons (45 page)

T
he pain and the fear and the ugliness of a thing are always in the after-math.

Miranda couldn’t remember how long it took for someone to find Martini, to coax her out of the bathtub, to take her Browning, to wipe the blood and brains off her face.

All she remembered was Gonzales’s voice, and Martini’s wildness, his kicking the door shut, and screaming that the next motherfucking cop who came to the door was going home in a body bag. He’d forgotten about her, another caged animal, feral, cornered, baring its teeth. Except the natural world doesn’t make animals like Martini, doesn’t make wars, doesn’t make fascists, doesn’t make Martinis. The refrain repeated, her tiny pistol still trained on his skull.

War, Miranda, war. War, Miranda, war. War, Miranda …

Ranging, twitching, desperate. Big gun out, small gun from shoulder holster. Then he noticed her. The smile, the big exhale chilled her.

He yelled to the cops outside the small bathroom: “I’ve got a hostage, motherfuckers!”

And then he started toward her, the .45 on her, the Mauser in his belt.

“You my ticket out, bitch.”

He took one step. One more, a foot in the bathtub.

And she fired.

The .25 mm bullet tore through his forehead, a clean shot, spraying blood and brain and bone behind Martini on its exit. Small spatters. Polka dots on the wall.

He fell forward, the force of his momentum landing most of the body in the tub, against the yellow tile, sliding down, red streak, crumpled, rag doll.

Miranda stood, watching the blood seep out on the dirty white of the tub, watching it move slowly toward the drain. Her arms frozen in the firing position.

You OK, Miranda? You OK, Miranda? You OK, Miranda?

Gonzales’s voice, over and over.

Echo. Empty. Gone.

Hall of Justice. Nurse was nearby. “She’s had a shock” she said. “Give her a couple of hours.”

And so she sat, not saying anything, not feeling anything. Alone.

Cops walked by. Once in a while, one would peek in the window. “That’s the broad who put Sammy Martini on ice. Yeah, a real bloodbath. Don’t know all what happened, not yet, two of ’em in the hospital, the rest won’t talk. Bunch of Chinese women in the hospital, too, trying to get someone out to talk to ’em. She was there, cracked the fucking case. Yeah—a broad.”

They’d given her a cigarette. Then a pack. Smoke in her lungs made her cough. Then made her still. Shaking less. Just a tremor now and then in her right hand. Shooting hand.

Yeah, a broad. Little bitty gun she had, and all those men …

The door opened, finally, a waft of stale air filtering in from the hall. Night air, heavy fog, neon in it.

“Hey, sweetheart—you all right?”

Allen. Pinkerton op. She felt the muscles in her face respond.

“Yeah. I’m OK.”

He took his hat off, rubbed a hand on his nearly bald scalp, grabbed a chair, turned it around, straddled it and faced her.

“You look like shit, Miranda. They give you any of this?”

He held out a flask. She took it, gingerly, tilted some into her mouth, felt the heat cascade down her insides like fire.

Wiped her mouth, gave it back.

He said: “Nah, drink it all.”

“They gave me a little.”

“Not enough, the cheap bastards.”

“The nurse said—”

“Fuck the nurse. She ain’t an op. We take care of our own.”

Words. Whiskey. The frown on Allen’s broad face.

“You’re startin’ to look better now.”

“Yeah.” She took another pull from the flask. “So where are we?”

“The case? Your case?” He grinned. “You got the new police chief on his ass and on the phone with the dingus in L.A. And the feds are stepping in, hush-hush Q.T. stuff, because of the Jap-China angle. Seems you can’t smuggle occupied people out of occupied territory on occupier shipping lines without the occupier knowing a little something about it. Someone worked with Winters and Martini and the rest to set this up, and the state department don’t want a ruckus. Not with the war jitters. We keep an eye on Japan, but we don’t want to offend anybody.”

Another swallow. The flask was almost empty. “They find Gillio?”

Allen shrugged. “They’re not telling me. This is just scat I picked up in the hall. But I got a few connections between him and Martini they might wanna look at. The stuff you had me dig up for you this afternoon.”

“Anything good?”

“Enough to keep me digging and late on meeting you. Your friend Gladys was the one to tell me you were in trouble. She put in the call to the cops.”

“Gladys? Why? Did she—”

“Seems you got a bad habit of running out of Chesterfields. Those sticks saved your life, kid. Gladys was running after you with some decks she found and saw you getting swarmed. She got worried, and followed until she saw you shoved in the car around the corner, grabbed the plate numbers, and called the Hall. Took her longer to get someone to listen to her than it did anything else.”

“Yeah. It would. So she found Gonzales?”

“Eventually. And eventually, he found you. Got a message delivered late or something. Lucky thing you left one.”

Allen shook out a Lucky Strike, offered one to Miranda. She took it gingerly, and he struck a match on his thumb, lighting both cigarettes.

“I was on my way out. Found your note, figuring you were at the Pickwick picking up the goods. Then I went to buy some candy for the wife, and Gladys told me what happened.”

“Shit.”

“What’s wrong?”

She inhaled the Lucky Strike until it burned back a quarter of an inch, and then tilted the flask, draining the last of the whiskey. And stood up.

“We’ve gotta go.”

“What—why? They’re waiting to talk to you about—”

“Yeah, I know. I’ll lay it out. But not without the Pickwick evidence.”

“Shit, Miranda, you’ve already been through—”

“You said it yourself. I’m an op. Maybe not a Pinkerton, but I am a detective. So get off your ass and drive me down to Fifth Street.”

He grinned up at her, reached over and grabbed his hat. “Glad to see you again, Miranda.”

Phil was nowhere to be found. Gonzales came over briefly, eyes worried, bandage still on his nose. He was busy coordinating with the other departments, busy cleaning up the mess Miranda had spilled all over two cities and two countries.

His hand touched her sleeve for a moment, then pulled back.

“We’ve been waiting for your full statement, Miss Corbie. You’re supposed to stay here.”

“She hasn’t been charged with anything, has she?”

“Not yet. But she admitted she killed Martini—”

“In self-defense.”

Gonzales stared at Allen. “You’re not her lawyer. Who are you?”

The bald man reached into his back pocket, took out his wallet. “Pinkerton.”

Gonzales looked from one to the other, letting his gaze linger on Miranda. She was staring at the smoke from the Lucky Strike.

He said softly: “I’m not supposed to do this. But if you go and get back here in under an hour, I might be able to look the other way.”

“Keep lookin’, brother. I’ll see she gets back here.”

Gonzales nodded briefly, still watching Miranda. Then turned abruptly and walked back into the war room, the clatter of voices and phones surrounding him.

_______

She’d forgotten it was night. Valentine’s night.

Allen kept sneaking sideways glances at her, dodging the taxis and the streetcars, cursing the pedestrians crossing against the cars on the south-of-Market streets.

“How many were there, Allen?”

“How many what, sweetheart?”

“Women. In the basement.”

“Don’t know. You make ’em give you that information when you talk. Don’t walk away with nothing in your pocket. You want me to call your lawyer?”

She inhaled the third Lucky Strike he’d given her. “Yeah. Meyer Bialik. Guess he should be there, just in case.”

“Just in case, sweetheart. Never trust the cops. I don’t.”

She was quiet again, staring out the window. Yellow, blue, green. Red and pink. Music and noise, neon swirls against the black. Like red on white.

“Miranda.”

“Yeah?”

“We’re here.”

She looked around and saw the Pickwick, its own neon huge and splendid, yellow fireworks in the sky. Wondered how many lovers trysts were being held here, how many dates, how many sweaty embraces, guilty, three-minute climaxes before another evening at home.

Allen climbed out, walked around to her side of the car, opened the door. Held his hand on her elbow, pulled her up.

“You need another drink. C’mon, let’s hurry.”

They quickly walked to the Greyhound terminal on the Mission Street side. Sleepy time of year for buses. Anybody who had a home or a sweetheart and money enough to get back had already left.

An old man in a Greyhound cap was snoozing at the luggage claim. He wiped his glasses when he saw Miranda. Probably figured the specks were from the glass.

She held out her shoe to Allen, who pried it off her swollen ankle. Then he felt around the top until he found the ticket, and tore it away from the leather. The old man was watching, trying to remember the details.

Allen presented the ticket, and the baggage man cleared his throat, hemming and hawing, then disappeared behind a wall of suitcases, garment bags, and boxes.

Miranda slid her foot back into the shoe with the Pinkerton helping. They waited a few minutes, neither speaking, both smoking. The old man finally emerged, holding a thick file envelope.

He laid it down on the counter, licked his fingers, and started to page back through the list of receipt numbers. Let’s see, Friday the ninth? No … Thursday the eighth. Nighttime. Let me see, that would be six days, at twenty-five cents a day, that’ll be—

Allen had the dollar fifty laid out with a quarter tip. More hemming and hawing while he counted it, and counted it again, hoping for someone to explain what it was all about. Nobody did. He gave up, eventually, turned over the package.

Allen handed it to Miranda, who tucked it under her arm. They walked back to the car, climbed in. And he looked at her.

“That what you want?”

She shrugged. “It’s what Winters died to get. And Betty died to deliver. And Wong died to produce.”

The car turned over with a slight stutter, then purred back along Mission Street.

“You know, sweetheart, we’ve got a good fifteen minutes until Gonzales starts to send out a posse. And you need a drink.”

“What do you suggest?”

“How about the Rusty Nail? A little dive on Battery.”

“Whatever you say, Allen.”

The car sped along.

The bourbon was rough around the edges, but hearty and strong. Highball glass, neat, on a scarred wooden counter, a bowl of dice at her elbow, a truck driver on the other side of Allen.

The Rusty Nail gleamed near the waterfront with the twilight of Bay-shore neon, softer than downtown. It danced on the water, shimmering on the concrete and steel piers, the small fishing boats just down the way at Fisherman’s Wharf. The bar held a crowd that didn’t care who you were or what you did, as long as you liked your liquor strong and cheap, and minded the rules of the house.

No rough stuff. No politics. No pickups.

Allen stuffed his thick body into one of the small booths at the back of the room, where they served beefsteak and hamburgers to the dockworkers and the sailors, a bottle of hot sauce next to the salt and pepper. He was calling Meyer.

Miranda gulped the bourbon. Not refined enough to be sipped, the medicinal kind, the stuff that took your bad dreams away and replaced them with courage. The stuff that dreams are made on.

Goddamn it. Quoting Shakespeare like her fucking father. Sure sign of a bankrupt mind.

The cigarette tasted good. She could learn to like Lucky Strikes, but would always prefer Chesterfields, especially now. She’d take Gladys somewhere, do something for her. Not every day when your cigarette girl saves your fucking life. Happy Valentine’s, Miranda. Your heart’s still beating.

Another gulp. Allen was coming back.

“You feeling better?”

“I’m feeling drunker.”

“Drunk is good.”

The guttural laughs and higher-pitched chuckles from the single men and married couples around them—the regulars of the Rusty Nail—rose in volume, agreeing with Allen.

Drunk is good.

Miranda drained her glass, almost stumbling when she fell off the stool.

“Whas’ in that stuff, Allen?”

His eyes seemed to twinkle at her. Lights in the fog.

“Life, Miri. Life.”

Gonzales kept fiddling with his tie. Meyer was there, waiting for them, dressed for the opera.

“My dear girl, is this the man who phoned? Thank you, sir—”

“Don’t mention it. Miranda and I are neighbors, I’m a Pinkerton. Allen Jennings.”

“I’m glad someone is watching out for our Miranda.”

A throat cleared itself from a waiting area across the hall, and footsteps approached. Rick said politely, “Hello, Meyer. Gonzales.”

The inspector looked like a man cornered. “If you’re here in a professional capacity, Sanders …”

“I’m here in a personal capacity, Gonzales. I got the lead, saw Miranda’s name, and I’ve been waiting here to make sure she gets home OK.”

Miranda was clutching the package they’d picked up from the Pickwick. “H’lo, Rick.”

“Hey, Miranda.”

Gonzales threw up his hands, said, “Follow me.”

He ushered all of them into another of the small interrogation rooms. Allen looked around. “You’re stashing us in the confessional, Inspector?”

“We need to get a full statement from Miss Corbie when she’s ready. At that time, you’ll all have to leave. With the exception of Mr. Bialik, of course.”

Miranda’s lawyer drew himself up. “I understand that she has already made a preliminary statement, explaining the outlines of what happened, the names of the persons involved, and the circumstances surrounding the shootings.”

“Yes, but—”

“No ‘but’ about it, Inspector. Unless you’re placing Miss Corbie under arrest she should be released immediately. Further questioning can wait until she’s had some rest. She is obviously not in any condition to respond.”