The Night Searchers (A Sharon McCone Mystery) (10 page)

“God. Another perfect candidate.”

Mick nodded. “Now we come to Malanzky. He’s a fan of the old
Perry Mason
TV movies. They’re all he watches—over and over. He identifies with the character Ken Malansky, who appeared in most of the later releases.”

“Ken Malansky—the assistant who was always getting hit on the head?”

“Right. Our Malanzky is Paul DeSoto, a used-car salesman from Daly City. Married, three kids. His job, I suppose, gives him the perfect excuse to be out late at night. He grew up on the Peninsula and went to San Mateo High. Undistinguished record, and no indication of higher education.”

“I wonder if the wife and kids also watch Perry?”

“They could do worse. And last, Alinzsky. True name Timothy Mantis. Rabble-rouser without a cause. Was a great admirer of Saul Alinsky, the community organizer.”

“The guy who threatened to stage a ‘fart-out’ at a performance of the Rochester Philharmonic, and a ‘piss-in’ at O’Hare Airport?”

“Shar, why do you always remember the worst aspects of people’s lives?”

“They don’t seem all that bad to me. Alinsky’s methods were unorthodox, but he energized and influenced a lot of people.”

“You mean you’d have gone to a ‘fart-out’?”

“Sure. Or to a ‘piss-in’ if I was pissed off enough.”

Mick gave me the look he reserves for when he doesn’t know whether I’m kidding or not.

“Who else?” I asked.

“They’re the core members. Givens and Hoffman played frequently, but not every game. And then there’re others who play the game occasionally, but I don’t know enough to identify them yet.”

“Okay, let’s get back to this Timothy Mantis. What does he do?”

“He prays.”

“Praying Mantis? Oh, God, no puns!”

“No, really. His thing is praying for death to all capitalists. He turns up in public places, mainly the Civic Center. Wearing a long white robe. With a big black beard, bare feet, and long toe- and fingernails painted purple. People describe him as a horror.”

“Well, I’m not sure that’s worse than showing your often unattractive naked body parts in public.” A while back the city had been hit with a nudist craze—finally outlawed by the board of supervisors—centering in the predominantly gay Castro district. The one glimpse I’d had of the Naked Guys, as the press had dubbed them, had not been a pretty sight, but they were benign; they just wanted to—so to speak—hang out, not pray for anybody’s death.

“There’s a lot more in this file,” Mick said after a moment. “Dates, specifics. I’ll get on to the occasional players tomorrow.”

“And I’ll take the file home, go over it in detail tonight.”

He looked at me as if there was something he wanted to ask. Then he nodded. “You have any questions, I’ll be at the new place on Potrero, helping Alison unpack.”

4:40 p.m.

I was about to leave the office when Kendra Williams, our receptionist, brought back an envelope addressed to me from Richman Labs; it was labeled “Personal & Confidential.” I opened it and read the report with increasing interest.

The gold lighter I’d brought them was an ordinary Dunhill that had been on the market for five years; as I’d suspected, its stippled surface could not take fingerprints. Its contents, however, were more dangerous than butane, the usual lighter fluid. That was present, but had been mixed with two reactants to form a powerful substance that can do serious harm to the nervous system. One or two inhalations of the altered gas can cause a person to experience hysteria, paranoia, temporary memory loss, psychosis, or death by asphyxia.

A note from Lonnie at the lab said she’d be happy to give me a more detailed explanation if I’d drop by sometime. Tomorrow I’d call her.

5:47 p.m.

Home, lovely as it was, wasn’t where I wanted to be, so I drove out to Rae and Ricky’s house above China Beach in the Sea Cliff district and invited myself for cocktails.

Rae looked happy to see me, even though she’d obviously been working, in the blue velour sweats she favored, her red curls loose around her shoulders.

“Nice surprise,” she said. “Want a martini? Ricky just mixed up a batch.”

Normally I avoid mixed drinks because they befuddle my thought processes, but tonight I was already befuddled, so what the hell?

“Sure. Where
is
Ricky?”

“Down running on the beach.”

“In this rain?”

“He’s got a six-state concert tour coming up, and he thinks he’s gotten fat.”

“Ricky, fat?” I laughed.

“Middle-age love handles,” she called from the kitchen. “But he can’t be all that worried—it’s a short beach.”

I followed her and took chilled glasses from the fridge. “Where’s Mrs. Wellcome?”

Phyllis Wellcome was their housekeeper—a stern-looking, gray-haired woman of indeterminable age whose appearance masked a lively sense of humor and even more lively curiosity. She was prone to eavesdropping and then rendering opinions—often right on—about the people she’d listened to. In fact, she had once told me she could be “persuaded” to help out my agency “when domestic matters” were involved.

Rae poured the martinis. “She’s staying at the Ritz-Carlton tonight.”

“What?” It was one of the top luxury hotels in the city.

“Yeah. It’s her birthday, and she always treats herself to something nice. This time it seemed different, though—I think she’s got a beau.”

“Oh?”

“I just happened to peek into her room and saw her packing some pretty racy underwear and a red gossamer nightie.”

“My God, that woman gives us all hope.”

We went into the living room, and I sank onto the sofa before the pit fireplace, my back to the threatening gray skies over the sea. “So what’s going on with you?” I asked.

“Things’re good. New book’s due out in May.”

Rae had set out years ago to write a “shop-and-fuck” novel—her favorite genre. Instead she’d penned—or computered—a gem of a romantic thriller, and others had followed.

“Trouble is,” she added with a frown, “I don’t know what to do for the next one.”

“Why don’t you take off on my current case?” I explained about the Night Searchers to her, and after a few sentences she picked up one of her ever-present pads and a pen and started making notes.

The back door slammed and Ricky came down the hall, dripping water and wiping his hair with his sweat shirt.

“Hi, Chubs,” I said.

He tossed the shirt at me and I caught it. “Hi, Trouble.” It had been his nickname for me ever since I’d ended up living in their guest room after a vengeful client burned down my house in Glen Park.

He added, “When the rain started to pour down for real, I should’ve known I’d find you up here.”

“What am I—a harbinger of bad times to come?”

“‘Harbinger of bad times to come,’” he quoted. “A good song title, but how many people know what ‘harbinger’ means?”

“Do you?”

“Yup. Want the dictionary definition?”

“Spare me.”

“No, really,” he insisted, “a harbinger is an omen, a sign, or a person whose appearance predicts…ah, fuck the harbingers,” he said, “I’ve got to take a shower.”

Rae laughed. “Sometimes he amazes me,” she said as she handed me my drink.

“Why?”

“Well, when I met him, I thought he was gorgeous and sexy and a great entertainer, but I supposed he’d be dumb as a post. So many of them are.”

“And now?”

“He’s gorgeous and sexy and a great entertainer—and smarter than most people I know.”

“Wow,” I said, “using the word ‘harbinger’ will probably get him laid tonight.”

Rae flushed and looked into her drink. “He never even graduated from high school. He was on the road with his first band when he was sixteen.”

“I know.” Then I changed the subject. “So this Night Searcher case,” I said, “you want in on it? Might inspire you.”

She looked thoughtful, nibbling at a fingernail. “It might at that.”

“It’d be nice to work together again.”

“Would.”

“You in?”

“I’m in.”

We shook on it.

9:23 p.m.

The opportunity came sooner than either of us expected, via a phone call from Mick while we were on our second martini.

“Something’s going on with the Night Searchers tonight,” he said. “There’s this one fairly regular player, Jim Norman, that I’ve gotten to know because of our mutual interest in Harleys. He hinted at it, asked if I was going along.”

“And you’re not.”

“No, neither is Jim. But he’s a born eavesdropper and found out it’ll end up on the waterfront, near those piers that’re gonna be replaced by the Warriors’ stadium.”

The Golden State Warriors, the area’s major-league basketball team.

“And that’s all he could tell you?”

“It’s all he knows.”

“Thank him for me. And tell him to keep eavesdropping.”

So now here Rae and I were, in the recessed doorway of an office building near the intersection of Brannan and Beale Streets, not far from the approach to the Bay Bridge overpass and Piers 30 and 32. Traffic thundered overhead and a few cars swished by on the wet pavement, but otherwise the largely industrial area was deserted. The rain, thank God, had slowed to a drizzle.

“Shades of yesterday,” Rae said.

She was, I knew, referring to when the agency had been located in Pier 24½.

“Do you miss it?” she added.

“Yes and no.”

“Me too. Shar, are we getting soft in our old age?”

“Old age?” I muffled my laughter. “You’re younger than I am!”

“I know. But sometimes I feel like I’m getting too fond of this plushy life I lead with Ricky. And you—look at the Mercedes Hy bought you. To say nothing of your new house.”

“We haven’t abandoned our work and sat around eating potato chips all day.”

“Or swilling martinis—well, not usually, and tonight’s have worn off by now.”

“So stop indulging in unwarranted guilt.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

We waited a while longer. The foghorns outside the Gate lowed like discontented cattle, and the rain came down harder. Street activity in the vicinity was minimal.

I was equipped with the agency’s night scope, which allowed me to see over five hundred times more than the naked human eye perceives in darkness; Rae had an infrared camera with nearly the same capabilities and a highly sensitive recorder.

With the advent of the Warriors’ state-of-the-art, multipurpose recreation and entertainment facility, this was another place along the waterfront that was about to change radically. And not a bad thing, since the two piers were crumbling, rat-infested, and mainly used for parking. But to me—the old nostalgic—the radical change was still somewhat sad.

“Jesus,” Rae muttered, “can you
believe
him?”

“Who?”

“Ricky. Pouting because I decided to come with you. He knows this is work—we discussed my book. It’s not as if he can’t order a pizza.”

“Ricky’s kind of a high-maintenance guy, as if you didn’t know.”

“Yeah. But he can’t expect to rule my life.”

“Trouble in paradise?”

“Maybe, but not the kind you think. He hasn’t been unfaithful; I doubt he’s looked at another woman since he met me. He’s been totally supportive of my new career. But he travels all over the place and when he’s here, he wants me here with him.”

“Isn’t that flattering?”

“I suppose so, but sometimes it conflicts with what I need to do. So he pouts. Does Hy pout?”

I smiled, trying to imagine such an expression on my husband’s rough-hewn face.

“I thought not,” she said.

“Mick pouts,” I said, by way of consolation.

“That’s probably why he’s lost so many women.”

“Maybe it’s a Savage family trait.”

“Well, if it is, Ricky’s going to get the trait kicked out of him.”

Minutes passed. Then Rae tugged my arm and whispered, “Over there.”

Flashlights were bobbing along the opposite sidewalk from the northwest. We drew back into the shelter of the building’s entry, and I focused the night scope on them. They were bundled in rain gear; I couldn’t recognize any of them as they passed by us, beams focused on the ground. All I could tell was that three people were moving in concert—men, I thought, from their size. They wore dark clothing, and I couldn’t make out their faces. They kept going toward the Embarcadero.

“The Searchers?” Rae whispered.

“Maybe.” I fine-tuned the scope. Stepped out of our shelter to train it on the group. I recognized Kilkarzo and Malanzky, but couldn’t make out the features of the man in the middle.

After they’d gone maybe twenty-five yards, I took the scope off and motioned to Rae that we should shadow them.

They crossed the wide Bay-side boulevard and turned south. A stylish new streetcar rumbled past, interior lights shining through the rain. Rae and I sprinted across and stopped in the shelter of a pier’s arched mouth to let the group get farther away. Then we moved after them, staying in the shadows, maintaining the same distance as they passed a few piers protected by gated and locked chain link fences. Finally they turned toward one where the arched mouth yawned open.

The pier—38—was one of the more derelict on this part of the waterfront: inside its open shell sat a jumble of forklifts and barrels and broken-down crates, barely illuminated by security lamps mounted on the overhead beams. The wind blew rain through it, whistled as it exited over the Bay. It was one of the most lonesome urban places I’d ever seen.

The threesome didn’t go into the pier, however, but passed around it. I slipped ahead of Rae to the building’s corner and peeked around. They were huddled at a waist-high seawall that guarded the shoreline. The slap of the waves was loud, the odors of creosote and brine pungent. Their clothing billowed in the sharp wind off the Bay, obscuring their companion. Behind me, I heard Rae’s camera softly clicking.

The unidentified man shifted his stance, and when I had a glimpse of his profile, astonishment caused me to break stride.

The man was Van Hoffman.

I started to run.

For a moment the trio stood at the seawall, looking like a prayer circle. I could hear voices, but not words. Then their energy shifted perceptibly. Suddenly Hoffman hurtled over the top of the wall and into the water. There was a splash and spray shot up, splattering the remaining two.