The Love-Haight Case Files (10 page)

“Crystal’s good. Don’t worry. She can handle Holder.”

Evelyn decided to change the subject. “Your sister is coming over tomorrow. She called, said she’s planning your funeral for Tuesday.” She still couldn’t recall the woman’s name. “Are you … uhm … going to show yourself?”

“I suppose I’ll have to. Otherwise I can’t tell her I want you to have all my books. No rights, I can’t hold onto property.” He laughed. It was a haunting, sad sound. “Hell, I can’t hold onto anything. It passes right through my hands.”

“Thomas—”

“Seriously, though. I want you to have all my books. I know you like books. And you shouldn’t move. Not until March anyway. The rent for the whole building is paid until the first of March. Try to help Zaxil find another tenant.”

If—when—she moved, she’d probably never see Thomas again. If he was anything like Val, he was anchored to this place. Another business would move in … if Zaxil was lucky. If the condo developer came in and tore this place down, would Thomas and Val die again?

“I have to go. I have some errands to run. Then I’m meeting Dagger for an early dinner, see if he found anything. Then I’m coming back to let … I’m coming back to tend to some things.” She didn’t want to tell Thomas that the cleaner was going to wipe up his blood and make the place smell new. He’d probably watch it happen and could deal with it then.

Evelyn hurried out, locking the door behind her. In the low sixties on the street, it was quite a bit warmer than it had been in the office when Thomas was around.

Chapter 1.13

Dagger arrived early at the Jasmine Garden II on lower Haight, cleaned up in the restroom, picked out a table, and was on his second pot of tea when Evelyn came in.

“It was a hit,” he told Evelyn before she had a chance to sit down.

He thought she looked tired, a little pale, probably had been through an emotional wringer losing her second boss. She’d fixed her gaze on his swelling, purple cheek from where he’d connected with the bathroom sink in the biker bar. But she didn’t ask him about it.

The waitress appeared and handed Evelyn a menu. Dagger had already studied his.

Evelyn continued to stare at him.

“I will come back,” the waitress said in heavily accented English. “I will give you some time to look over—”

“No, we’re ready.” Dagger stopped her.
“Thit nuong cuon
with peanut sauce,
com tom rim cha,
and a half order of
com bat buu tom rimi
for me. The lady will take a bowl of
bun oc
and
com ga xao xa ot.”
He handed the menus back. “And keep the
tra nong
coming. I need the caffeine.” They’d eaten here before; Dagger remembered what Evelyn had ordered the last time, saying she adored the lemon chicken.

Evelyn wrapped her fingers around the cup, and he poured her some tea. She usually put one packet of sugar in it, but not today. He studied her. She ran her index fingers around the rim and stared at the tea’s surface to avoid looking at him. Dagger couldn’t tell if she was wallowing in grief or self-pity. He wasn’t worried on either account; he knew Evelyn was tough and would get over it.

The restaurant was fairly busy for five. More than half of the patrons were senior citizens. This early, the elderly turned out in droves for the specials. Their conversations were about grandchildren, doctor visits, and the upcoming election.

There was canned music playing, soft and under the shush of conversations. He’d spent time in Thailand and Vietnam and recognized the instruments: a jakhe and a few klong jins, and the song, “Sa-Bai Sa-Bai.” Dagger didn’t like oriental restaurants that played American music. If he was eating ethnic, he wanted the whole experience.

“Evey, it didn’t have the finesse of a bullet to the back of the head, but that would have made it look like a hit.” Dagger sat back as the waitress brought their food.
“Cảm ơn bạn,”
he told her in Vietnamese.
“Com ga xao xa ot.”
He waited until she returned with another pot of tea and then retreated to visit her other tables. “They wanted to make it look like something else, like maybe Tom had crossed someone with one of his cases, or stepped on the wrong set of toes. Maybe that he’d pissed off an OT client, and hence the OT coming to tear him apart.” He ate the shrimp first, and watched as Evey played with her soup. “But they didn’t want it to look like a hit.”

When he was pretty sure she wasn’t going to actually eat, he dropped more news. “The guy in the hoodie … he’d juiced up the fey, with something that set it out of control. Got a syringe with a trace of the juice in it, and a friend at the lab is checking it out. The guy, the one holding the fey’s leash, I haven’t found him yet. But I have a good lead, Evey. He’s a ganger, hasn’t been back on the street very long, owed some people some favors.”

“So whoever he owed a favor to,” Evelyn said, “that’s who ordered the hit on Thomas.”

“My guess.” Dagger thought the peanut sauce was a little too salty. He finished the shrimp and started on the rice. “The fey’s a dead end, though, Evey. Literally.” He could tell from her arched eyebrows that she didn’t know. “Someone gave him a Christmas tree to the stomach and shifted gears about an hour and a half ago, supposedly a lifer with a full hate-on for OTs.” He’d taught Evey enough of the terminology, that it was a type of shank. “The lifer was a member of a Latin gang.”

“The same gang as the guy who held the leash.”

Evelyn always caught on fast.

“So I need to find who’s at the top of the favor-chain, Evey.”

She set her spoon down. Dagger finished his meal and asked for Evey’s to be boxed up with a couple of extra beef rolls and a large to-go cup of tea. He’d stop by the alley and drop the meal on Sadie, should make her predisposed to him if he ever needed to chat again.

“This favor-chain,” Evelyn broached. “You’ll follow it right?” She paused and picked up the teacup again. It was empty, but it kept her hands occupied. “I can’t pay you much, Dagger. Whatever money the firm had, that’s going to Thomas’s sister. Even though he was young, he’d had the foresight to draft a will, and he left everything to her. Nothing goes to his father, they didn’t get along. A ghost, he can’t own property. Whatever money there is—”

“This one’s on the house, Evey.”

She brightened just a little.

“But know that I don’t make a practice of working gratis. Not even for you.”

“You’re going back to it now, right? Tracking the favor-chain?”

“Can’t work tonight, Evey. Not even for you. Not for Thomas the Friendly Ghost.” It was another full moon.

“Dagger, you have to. This is important. His sister is coming by tomorrow. I want to tell her something. The detective, she’s good, Dagger, but she doesn’t have your resources. You have to—”

“Back off, Evey.”

The waitress returned with his to-go box and large Styrofoam cup of tea.

He stood and fixed his eyes on Evelyn, showing a darkness he usually reserved for people like the ones he’d beaten up at the biker bar. “I’m not on the case tonight, understand? Leave it at that. Not happening. Other plans. I’ll be back on it in the morning.
Late
in the morning.” He’d turn off his cell phone for good measure.

The moon would be full, so he anticipated another rough night.

Chapter 1.14

“Exotic,” Sadie pronounced the Vietnamese take-out. She provided a few more details from the night of the murder.

“Shit.” Dagger looked at his watch: 6:30.

He had two hours and twenty-five minutes according to the local meteorologist’s report. Not a lot of time to work with, but perhaps worth a try.

It was a strip club on Folsom Street, with a twenty-dollar cover charge that left him only a twenty in his wallet. The neon was pink and purple, twisting like spaghetti along the ceiling and above the small stage. Three women undulated on it, two of them human, one of them a slight green fey with gossamer butterfly wings that sparkled like glitter, a looker and a half, he thought. The trio had gotten rid of whatever they’d been wearing before Dagger had come in.

A waitress with a few too many pounds for her G-string toddled over and pointed to a table. Dagger shook his head and said something. She shrugged, not hearing him over the new age music that blasted from speakers in the bar.

He leaned close, his keen senses picking up her cologne—cheap, along with the scent of cigarettes on her breath, perspiration, and deodorant that was failing her. “Sly Redmond. I’m looking for Sly.”

She pouted, and waved to a booth at the very back by an emergency exit sign. “You a friend of his?”

“No.” Dagger brushed by her. He could feel the beat of the bass coming up through the soles of his shoes; it was that loud. Already he had a headache from this place. The odors of beer and whiskey were nearly strong enough to choke him. Keen senses were hell sometimes.

Only half the tables were occupied, but it was early for a place like this, especially on a Friday night.

He sat opposite a man that weighed more than three hundred pounds, barrel chest wedged against the table in the booth so that some of the fat spilled over on the surface. He was Latino, with a tattoo like the men in the restroom at the biker bar, a similar scar on his face marking some sort of prison rite of passage. Dagger glanced at his watch.

“Do I know you?” The man’s words had a roundness to them; he’d been drinking.

“No.”

He leaned forward, as much as the table allowed him. There was a meanness to his dark eyes. Dagger met his stare.

“Sly, you own a car I’m interested in.”

“I don’t think so.”

The waitress came by and set a beer in front of the big man then looked to Dagger.

“Nothing right now.”

She shrugged and jiggled away.

“A Buick. A rusted-to-shit Buick.”

The big man gripped the edge of the table and started to squeeze out of the booth. Dagger was fast. He was up and out of his side and into the other wedged against Sly. In the same motion he’d pulled a gun and pressed it against the man’s stomach.

“It wasn’t you driving the Buick last night,” Dagger said. With his free hand he picked up the beer and took a drink. Nothing special, he pushed it away. “That was a man with your height but not your girth. Your brother. Brother-in-law.”

“He’s not here.” The man’s eyes flitted toward the bar. “He’s not—”

“That’s the problem with taking a booth like this, eh? Too far from the action. Nobody to see the Berretta.” He pushed it harder.

“My brother-in-law—”

“Yeah, yeah. I know. He’s not here. He’s the one who told me where I could find you.”

The big man moved, using his bulk to shove Dagger out of the booth. He pushed off on the table, tipping it and spilling the beer, drawing the attention of a passing waitress, who gave them a look and then rushed toward the bar, waving her empty tray to get someone’s attention.

Dagger shoved the Berretta in the waistband of his jeans and spun behind the man, reached up and grabbed his collar and a handful of the back of his shirt and propelled him toward the back door, conveniently located only a few feet away. Behind him the club was buzzing with “what’s going ons?”

“That’s the problem with a booth like that, makes it tougher to get help,” Dagger told him. An alarm sounded; it was some sort of a fire door, the alarm also serving as a warning that maybe customers were leaving without paying their bills.

The alley behind the club was cluttered with overflowing trash bins. Garbage pickup must be tomorrow, Dagger thought, given the sheer amount of accumulation.

“I figure I don’t have a lot of time to do this civilized,” Dagger said, pushing Sly farther from the club. The man struggled against him, but he was bulk without muscle, and he’d apparently had enough to drink that he was uncoordinated.

“They’ll come after you,” Sly said, his words still round from alcohol. “You can’t get away from this.”

“You better hope they don’t come out here.” The last time Dagger had glanced at his watch it had read 8:45. “And you better talk very fast, or unfortunately for the both of us, I’m going to tear into you.”

The fire door opened behind them, and Dagger heard men tromp out, two or three; he wasn’t going to turn around and look.

“This isn’t your concern!” he called to them. He gave Sly another shove and dug his fingers into the back of his neck. “Tell them to leave it.” Dagger’s voice had changed, sounding gravelly. He growled for emphasis.

“It’s okay,” Sly shouted. “Go back inside.”

There was some shuffling, and then the door closed. It sounded like they were alone again, but Dagger suspected there would be more company soon. Muscles bunched in Dagger’s neck. This was the second time today he’d not been especially smart—following the guy into the bathroom in the biker bar and working tonight. He’d told Evey he wouldn’t. He should have stuck to that.

Dagger threw the guy down and rolled him over, dropped to his knees on his stomach and grabbed the man’s thick throat. Sly struggled, and in the light from a bare bulb hanging over a business’s back door Dagger saw the man’s eyes bug out. He quit wiggling and Dagger eased up.

“You need to talk fast,” Dagger growled. He felt veins rising in the sides of his neck, felt his heart hammering in his chest. “You sent your brother-in-law after Thomas Brock.”

“Wh-wh-who?” Sly managed.

“The young attorney.”

Sly’s eyes glimmered with understanding.

“Why did you want him dead?”

“Following orders,” Sly said. “Paying a debt.”

“I get that.” Dagger pressed in again and watched the eyes bug wider. “Who’s holding your leash, Sly? And why did they want Thomas Brock dead?”

“Not just Brock. The woman, too. The redhead too. Everyone in that office. All of them dead.”

Sly told him a little more before Dagger pushed off him, his blood running hot and hurtful.

Dagger loped out of the alley.

Chapter 1.15

The cleaner had showed up a little early; Evelyn found him waiting in a big gray van in the loading zone spot in front of the abandoned building next door. The space was marked for 15-minutes, but no one paid attention to that, not even passing police.