City of Dragons (48 page)

He shook his head. “They won’t admit to it, of course. Stroke of genius, about the green cars. One hid the other. People remember color more than they remember anything else.”

Miranda took a deep drag on the stick. Said it conversationally. “What about Eddie Takahashi?”

Gonzales raised his eyebrows. “We’ve assumed that one of Martini’s men killed him.”

“And his sister?”

He leaned forward. “Either she’s skipped town or was murdered.”

“She hasn’t been murdered. At least not by Martini’s gang, not by Wong. That leaves Gillio and Charlie. I think she’s alive.”

He studied at the floor. Neither spoke. Miranda looked at her Chesterfield. Watched the light breeze puff the curtains.

Gonzales’s voice was heavy. “Are you going to look for her?”

“Yes.”

He nodded, slowly. “I wish you luck.”

“Thanks.” She studied him, the play of color on his face, the thin film of stubble on his chin and neck.

“You might consider a vacation, Inspector.”

“No time. I am temporarily in charge of homicide, until—”

“What happened to Phil?” Her voice was quick, urgent. Guilty.

He looked at her. “I thought you knew. Early retirement.”

The smoke blew upward toward the window. A taxi honked outside, two men shouting. Then quiet.

“A little sudden.”

“Not really.”

More silence. Gonzales tried to smooth his trousers, but they were smooth already. Church bells started to ring the hour, the sound drifting in, the smoke drifting out. One bell, two bell. Her stomach growled.

Gonzales’s eyes were on her. Not hiding. He said: “Why do you do it?”

She looked at him. “Is that what you came here to ask me?”

“Yes.”

She thought for a minute. Cast around for an explanation, a reason, a defense. Merry-go-round of memory, funhouse follies, step right up, lady, it’s your life and for only one thin dime. Incubator babies on a man-made island of make-believe, pickpockets and burlesque queens, Laughing Sal and a firing squad. Bombed-out villages. Kids with no books and no food and no hope. Twisted fields, black with bullets, black with bodies. Dry farms, dusty, dead. Boots, always marching. Always marching.

And Johnny. Always Johnny, the sun in his hair, always in his hair, not needing the sun, he was his own sun, and she was the moon, and together they made the cosmos. Johnny.

Miranda said: “Because I can.”

Gonzales rubbed his chin and his cheek as if they were dirty. Reached into his jacket pocket, took out the Baby Browning and her trick cigarette case.

“You might need this. But get a license for it.”

She hadn’t expected to see it again. Stood up. Took it from his hands. His were trembling again.

“Thank you.”

He rose, looking everywhere except her face. “Please let me know if you find the Takahashi girl.”

“You know I will.” She walked with him toward the doorway. “I want Eddie’s name cleared. He gave his life for hers. For those other women.”

“That will be more up to the press than to us. But I believe you have connections in that area.”

She was taking out his coat, and turned around to a crooked smile that made her stomach tighten. Goddamn it. She handed him the coat and the fedora. And reached a hand out to touch his bandaged nose.

He flinched. She drew her hand back, took a step closer.

“I’m—sorry, Inspector. Mark. Thank you for saving my life.”

She held out her hand. Gonzales took it, enveloped it in warmth. “You saved your own, Miranda. You always do.”

He held it to his lips. Their eyes locked for a few seconds, until he turned away and walked out the door, closing it softly behind him.

She was hungry. Gonzales bothered her. Too much goddamn rest. She needed to work again.

The weather was still balmy for late February, the Bay wind gentle for a change. Miranda walked to Chinatown, bypassing her usual stroll down Grant for the outskirts on Kearny. Even here, Chinese lanterns hung from windows and doors, more than she’d seen since the Rice Bowl Party. Since Eddie’s death.

Even the run-down International Hotel on Kearny and Jackson looked spruced up and ready for a rhumba. Another holiday, maybe. Every day was a holiday in San Francisco, the jewel of the Bay. The City that knew how to do everything but quit.

Little Manila clung to life next to the International, serving Filipino food and American gambling in the back. The small nightclub stayed open all night, and so did the crap games. If Filipino Charlie wasn’t hiding in South City, he’d be here, overseeing the numbers game, tightening up his business.

The planted palm trees flanking the doors needed watering. Miranda felt one of the leaves, smelled hamburgers and grilled meat, spices, and Filipino egg rolls, her stomach doing backflips.

She lit a Chesterfield to cut the hunger pains, pushed open the double doors. Little Manila was too cheap to pay a doorman. Dark spilled out on the gum-spotted sidewalk, the inside light lingering in the kitchen but dead before reaching the dining room. Better if you don’t see what you’re eating. Charlie was known for good food and Mickey Finns, the kind of place where you’d walk in at three in the morning and wake up on a boat to Guam two days later. She wasn’t surprised that he was involved in drug smuggling, just that he’d teamed up against Martini to begin with.

Small-timer with big ambition, limited vision, no spine. But an opportunist was Filipino Charlie.

She approached the bar, asked for a bourbon straight up. Straight liquor in a dive, never let them add water. Water could kill you.

The barman looked at her, kept looking at her. There were three other people on stools. Two old Oriental men and another white woman, somewhere in her forties or older. She was throwing back shots like she needed inoculation.

Miranda tossed a couple of quarters on the table. Nodded her head to the bartender.

He arrived with the drink. She let it sit by her elbow, untouched. Said: “Charlie in?”

He wiped the counter down, yelled to the woman at the other end: “Y’want another one?”

She shook her head, her hat with the beaded veil swinging. He turned back to Miranda.

“Who the hell are you, lady?”

So Charlie was home. “Miranda Corbie. He’ll know the name.”

The confidence shook his resolve. Not much of a bartender, still less of a bouncer. He disappeared into the back, through the kitchen. The old men sucked down their gin, hoping he’d get back before the nipple went dry. The woman was already lost in her own dreams, where she’d always be twenty-five and the men wore mustaches and knew how to treat a lady.

Miranda smelled the bourbon. Maybe she was getting old, maybe her stomach wasn’t up to it yet, or maybe that goddamn Nielsen had her scared. She’d save herself for a drink at Twin Dragon or Forbidden City or China Clipper. Chewed on the Chesterfield instead. And took the .22 out of her purse and shoved it in her pocket.

The doors pushed open, sharp light cutting through the darkness. A small figure, man in a fedora, suit too big. A voice she’d heard before.

“Well, well. If it ain’t the tomato. You still lonely, lady? Anything I can do?”

She turned around on the stool to face the shiv kid from Fong Fong. The one who knew Eddie—and Eddie’s sister.

“Yeah. Tell Charlie I’m here to see him, and I’m a little goddamn tired of waiting around.”

He fingered his pencil mustache. Hitched up his baggy pants. Started to say something.

“Listen, sonny. I’m here to see Charlie. It’s about Emily Takahashi. Run tell your boss. He knows who I am.”

Red face. Angry eyes. “I ain’t a kid, lady, don’t make no mistakes.”

Her mouth twitched. “Make ’em all the time—sonny. Find Charlie before your pants fall down.”

He stalked off, muttering to himself, also disappearing into the kitchen. She was through with the games, cut to the end, the happy ending. The final scene. Find Emily Takahashi.

Bartender came back out. Walked to the stool. Said, “This way.”

He led her on a circuitous route through back doors, small, dingy rooms half-heartedly decorated, a tiny stage and a bare microphone, and finally down some wooden steps, through another door and into the basement.

Small card table, three men sitting, the shiv kid standing. The man in the middle Filipino Charlie.

He was fat, sweaty, fifty. Wiped his forehead with a dirty yellow hanky. Suit was bright blue, big buttons, white shoes with scuff marks. A cheap, loud lowlife, grubbing along the bottom of the chain until a big fish pulled him up. No wonder he turned on Wong.

He tried to put importance in his voice. Didn’t succeed.

“You want to see me?”

She walked to the table, looking at the tired muscle around him. Please, lady, they said with their eyes, don’t make us get up from the game.

“How much money did Eddie Takahashi get from Winters?”

Charlie dropped his hand on the table. The thickset man with the mismatched hat sighed, pulled his chair back.

“Who are you?”

The shiv kid piped up, venomous tones. “She’s that Corbie broad. Fishing around about Emily Takahashi. I seen her before, at Fong Fong.”

Miranda smiled, dropped her cigarette, and stamped it out with two quick motions. “You like your ice cream sundaes, don’t you, kid?”

He turned red again, then white, then faded back to the dark. She said to Charlie: “You know who the hell I am. No games. I want to know two things: How much money Eddie gave his sister, and who killed him.”

He stared at her, wiped his neck. Sweat was rolling off him. He stank of it.

“Why should I tell you anything?”

“You’re not in good shape, Charlie. The cops are pulling the lid off, and they’ll look at the bottom and find you. Might think you offed both brother and sister. If I find her—and if I recover the money—no murder case, not for Emily.”

He licked his lips. “What about the dough?”

She shrugged. “If she’s still got it, I see no problem turning over a little to you. Provided I find her.”

“How much?”

She smiled again. “That’s what I asked you, Charlie. How much was there?”

He looked hard at Miranda. She looked back. The other two men watched her, bored. No advisers for Charlie. None left. He searched the room for an answer, his fingers drumming on the table. Five card stud. Charlie showed a pair of ducks.

“Ten thousand dollars.” The words blurted out of him. The other men woke up a little; the junior gangster gravitated toward the light.

She nodded. “Thanks. What about Eddie?”

He shook his head, an extra chin wobbling. “How much you getting back to us?”

“Two thousand.”

“Not enough, lady.”

“Three thousand.”

“Still not enough.”

She looked at her wristwatch. “OK. Five thousand, take it or leave it. I’m in a hurry.”

He studied her again, swallowed some beer out of a bottle. “All right. You get the money, we get five thousand dollars.”

“Agreed.”

“We ain’t killed Eddie Takahashi.”

“You didn’t order it?”

He glanced at the men beside him. “I ordered him to be beat up. An’ he was. Up by the playground on Sacramento, an’ some more in Ming’s place. I ain’t crazy, lady. I wanted that money. He knew where his sister was, wouldn’t tell. Told us she had it, though. After a while.”

He took another sip of beer.

“So Ming shot him?”

“Said he didn’t. Don’t know, lady, you just asked about us. Remember, we wanted Martini out, too. What he was doin’ … wasn’t right. Japan an’ all.”

“Yeah. I know all about your patriotism, Charlie.”

He looked up at her. “You made a deal. You better stick.”

“If I find the money.”

He grunted, looked down at the card game. “You find the girl, you find the money.”

She left them to finish it. Turned around at the foot of the steps. One of the button men had a pair of jacks. Charlie was watching him pick up the money. The shiv kid was staring at her.

Thirty-Two

C
how mein and chop suey at the China Clipper. She used to watch the planes land in the lagoon in the early evening, the silver cigar flashing in the twilight, splashing water on the tourists and fairgoers, mouths open at the beauty man could make.

She asked the waitress about the lanterns. They were everywhere, all different shapes and varieties.

“Lantern Festival, lady. Last day of New Year tomorrow. Full moon. Night for lovers.”

She chewed on an egg roll. Night for lovers. How many nights had she seen, had she smelled, had she tasted on her tongue, sweet, bitter, sad?

The food filled the ache in her stomach. Appetite still not exactly right. What she needed was some Old Taylor or Old Crow or old bourbon of any type. What she had was lukewarm tea. She stared into the bottom of the cup.

The leaves wouldn’t talk.

No Rick, no Moderne, no club, no bourbon. Radio instead. Merry-go-round of Music. Better than memory, always better. Around and around, music on the radio, big bands, small sets, a tinkling piano from a music store. News, Fulton Lewis. Always a man’s voice, a man telling the world to be cautious, to be frightened, to be calm and forget their troubles, to face the music and dance.