Death in North Beach

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This first world edition published 2009

in Great Britain and 2010 in the USA by

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

Copyright © 2009 by Ronald Tierney.

All rights reserved.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Tierney, Ronald

Death in North Beach. – (A Paladino and Lang mystery)

1. Novelists – Crimes against – Fiction. 2. Private investigators – California – San Francisco – Fiction. 3. North Beach (San Francisco, Calif.) – Fiction. 4. Detective and mystery stories.

I. Title II. Series

813.5′4-dc22

ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-037-1   (ePub)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-6850-3   (cased)

ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-199-7   (trade paper)

Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

This ebook produced by

Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Thanks to brothers Richard and Ryan and to David Anderson, Ray Ng, Jovanne Reilly and Karen Watt for their help.

San Francisco's North Beach isn't a beach. It once was. But a portion of the Bay was filled in to make room for more buildings. Now it is a low-rise village tucked in between Chinatown, the Financial District, Jackson Square, and the lofty neighborhoods of Russian Hill and Telegraph Hill.

North Beach is half tourist and half authentic San Francisco. The neighborhood wasn't made to look like an old Italian neighborhood. It is an old Italian neighborhood. True, modernity crept in as families died off. A hardware is gone. So are a few family-style restaurants. But the chain stores were kept at bay. There are no Olive Gardens or Starbucks. No Borders. No Banana Republics. No skyscraping office buildings or condominiums.

The Beat Generation was born here and so, perhaps, was the idea of Americans hanging around in coffee houses. It was and still is, in a sadly decreasing way, the neighborhood of poets, artists, writers, philosophers and strippers. Most of the Beats are very old or very dead now.

One of them, old and very recently dead, floats in a shallow pond on a small triangular island at the intersection of three streets. A few feet away from the pond, across one of those streets, was the victim's favorite watering hole, the Washington Square Bar and Grill. Lovingly called the ‘Washbag' by its colorful and often celebrity clientele, the landmark has died and been reborn a few times. The cosmic jury is still out on Whitney Warfield.

One

Inspector Vincente Gratelli, a man who looked older than his 60-some-odd years, didn't have to come far. He was awakened at five a.m. in his North Beach flat and told there was a body a few blocks away. By five twenty-five, the San Francisco police detective was there, standing within the confines of a waist-high wrought-iron fence that enclosed the strange little pond, a tree, a bush or two and some purple flowers. The body, suited, shiny and dark, looking like the wrinkled carcass of a walrus, had been pulled out. It rested on a bed of ivy.

Gratelli buttoned up his threadbare London Fog raincoat and tightened the scarf around his neck. The scarf wasn't there as a fashion statement. The air was damp and often cold even on September mornings and he had become prone to sore throats. He went about his business despite the grogginess of his brain. It was too early even for a cup of coffee. Caffe Trieste, his usual stop on the way to work, didn't open until six thirty. He'd been rousted from bed and missed his morning routine. He needn't have hurried. The dead, he reminded himself, were a patient lot.

Though he told no one, he guessed that the man was killed or placed at the scene around four a.m. It would be the time when the usually busy neighborhood would be the most quiet – after the bars closed and before the locals headed for work. The medical examiner and CSI had been called. A few early-risers had gathered and Gratelli had the benefit of a couple of uniforms to keep order. One of them called it in after a Chinese woman coming from the number 30 Stockton bus discovered the body.

Gratelli found the dead man's wallet. Aside from the credit cards, much of the wallet's contents were saturated. The driver's license, however, was laminated. Gratelli used a pocket flashlight to illuminate it. The name on it was Whitney Warfield.

Gratelli winced. Not usually excitable, the inspector realized what he had on his hands – a big, self-promoting curmudgeon of a novelist and an active political provocateur murdered in a sensational fashion. Gratelli looked around. A few more police cars had arrived and the intersection was lit like a carnival. Fortunately, because of the hour, it would be a while before the media arrived. But they would most certainly be there before the morning news.

Whitney Warfield, Gratelli knew, was a North Beach habitué. He lived just up on Russian Hill. He was a close friend of the North Beach board supervisor, one of eleven elected officials to advise and frustrate the mayor. He had legions of enemies; but they were usually journalists, novelists, the rich and the powerful, whom he held in contempt. None were likely to kill the author over his self-puffery and theatrical tirades – all designed to keep a writer who hadn't written anything of note in some time from fading from the limelight.

Gratelli verified the face against the photo on the license and allowed the thin, weak beam of light to traverse Warfield's body, discovering something long and cylindrical protruding from the side of Whitney Warfield's neck. It was a pen, a fountain pen. A Mont Blanc. An expensive weapon to leave behind. The killer had gone so far as to put the cap on the end.

Carly Paladino was afraid she'd be early. Her friend Anselmo was an angel of the night; an old angel, but an angel. He was an artist. Paladino, half of Paladino & Lang Investigations, was recently ensconced in a refurbished office and wanted one of Anselmo's paintings for the large wall behind her desk. She liked having familiar things around her, things that reminded her of people she cared about or times she could remember with fondness. Anselmo was part of that. A friend of her parents, his work was often featured in the restaurant they owned.

Anselmo lived in an alley not far from the heart of North Beach, a block from Washington Square and the imposing Saints Peter and Paul Church. The door to his place was open. The stairway that went up to his second floor space was before her. That door was open too. Perhaps Anselmo was expecting someone. He would be surprised to see her.

At the top of the steps she could see him in through the doorway of a room beyond the entry. He was face down on an oversized sofa, his huge body a range of rounded hills. As she moved closer, she worried that he might be dead.

‘Anselmo,' she said, at first softly, then increasingly louder. ‘Anselmo, Anselmo.'

His face was smashed against the corner of the pillow as if it had arrived there as a result of some terrible collision.

She leaned down, ear against his nose. He was breathing.

‘Mo!' she said sharply, still thinking there might be something wrong.

The old man awakened with a start. Disoriented. Eyes darted for something familiar or solid. He looked at Carly. Still startled. For a moment, at least, Carly's face, like the rest of the universe, was undecipherable.

Wearing a black robe over some sort of black sleeping gown, the old man lurched to his feet, stumbled. Arms stretched out for a wall or a chair or a solid body, perhaps. His face was red, cheek creased, eyes settling now. He put his hand against the wall.

‘Do you always get up this way?' Carly asked.

Anselmo took a deep breath. He looked around uncertainly.

‘It is becoming more and more difficult to come back. Soon, maybe, I'll just stay.'

His eyes seemed to focus. He ran his hand down his full, silver beard.

‘Did I tell you what happened last night?'

‘How could you,' she asked. ‘This is the first time I've seen you in months.'

‘Ah, you never know about these things, Carly. Time is funny. You'll learn that some day.' His eyes softened. His face wrinkled in a smile. ‘You are so beautiful, Carly. You've put this new day in a golden light. I've always had a crush on you, you know.'

‘You have more crushes than a schoolgirl,' she said. He did. He wasn't fickle. He just loved – or hated – passionately, frequently.

Carly felt fortunate she could still charm him. She loved coming to the studio. She loved everything about the place. The smells especially. Oils and mineral spirits infiltrated by damp must. Anselmo had those scents about him, the smells of a painter's studio mixed with the smells of wine and tobacco.

‘What brings you here?' he asked as she followed him to the kitchen, though the word kitchen might be too specific. All the rooms were rooms he worked in. He put a bent tea kettle on the stove and fired up the burner.

‘I want to purchase a painting,' she said.

‘You do?' He smiled.

‘Yes. For my office.'

‘Your stuffy old security firm?'

‘No,' she said. ‘I left Vogel Security. I'm out on my own.'

‘Well, that's entirely wonderful,' he said, fumbling with a crumpled pack of cigarettes, eventually wrestling one loose. ‘You're going to finally live a little, is that what you're saying?'