City of Dragons (18 page)

“Ever kill someone with it, Miss Corbie?”

She lowered it, slowly, not relinquishing her hold on the handle. “Why are you here, Inspector? And without your pet ape?”

“Assistant Inspector Duggan has been transferred to Vice. It’s where he began, breaking the heads of bootleggers. He was a good cop in his day, Miss Corbie.”

“I feel sorry for Pickles and the girls. And I suppose he’ll be out for my blood.”

“Not officially. But that hasn’t stopped Duggan before.”

Miranda pulled her chair out and sat down, keeping a distance between them. She laid the pistol on the corner, closest to her right hand, and took out the brandy, offering it first to Gonzales. He shook his head, and she didn’t drink either, but kept it on the desk.

“That explains the Duggan part. What about why you’re here? If you’re trying to get yourself killed or frame me for it, there are easier ways to go about it.”

He threw his head back and laughed, his throat muscles tight and brown against his shirt collar.

“My mistake. I won’t do it again. I tried to call you earlier, but your line was busy.”

She reached for a cigarette. He was leaning over the desk with a match before it was in her mouth. She met his eyes briefly, inhaled, and sat back down. He waited for her, resumed his seat.

She looked at him steadily. “As a matter of fact, I was going to call you. Eddie Takahashi’s address. I need it. I also had a question about that hit-runner you’re chasing. Near Seventeenth Street. Was it a green Oldsmobile?”

Gonzales raised his eyebrows. “ ’39 Dodge coupe. Why do you ask?”

She passed her hand over her forehead. “Who the hell knows. Maybe I can’t tell the difference anymore. Any damage on the car, make it recognizable?”

He shook his head. “Not by now. We found the bumper, but by now they’ve replaced it, possibly repainted the car. Why? What’s wrong?”

Concern crept into Gonzales’s tone. Miranda wasn’t sure if he was trying to keep it out or coaxing it across for her benefit.

“Nothing I can’t handle. So I told you why I wanted to phone you, and I don’t think you’re here because you read my mind.”

“I’m afraid not. I dropped by to warn you about Duggan, and to tell you I spoke to Mike Chen.”

“And?”

“He claims to be an honest merchant, of course. He’s got a record … served some time on a dope charge. I looked back further, and found reference to an attempted rape, later dropped. That was in Los Angeles, about fifteen years ago. Swears he did not know Eddie Takahashi, that Takahashi must have stumbled out of Waverly Alley.”

Miranda blew smoke toward the ceiling and watched it drift toward the window. “Exactly what I’d expect him to say.”

“He also mentioned that you propositioned him, and was thinking of filing charges.”

Her hand hit the desk. “What the—you’re fucking kidding me.”

He shrugged. “That’s what he said, Miss Corbie. I wanted to warn you, because if Duggan gets hold of it—”

“—yeah, I’ve got that much imagination, Inspector. Thanks. A dope peddler and rapist—who was on the spot and in the right location when a man was murdered—claims that I propositioned him. How nice to know the city’s money will be spent trying to imprison me for my obvious nymphomania.”

She stabbed the cigarette out on the Tower of the Sun ashtray with a violent twist.

“I’m just trying to—”

“Yeah, I know. Thanks. The honorable Mr. Chen must have forgotten that I’ve got a packet of poison he gave me, with a threat against my life—in his handwriting. Except that I don’t think Mr. Chen forgot it. I think you’re trying to keep me off the Takahashi case, like every other nickel-plated dick in this town. Maybe you think you’re protecting me, I don’t know and I don’t really give a damn. I’ve got all the protection I need.”

She picked up the pistol, took out the cartridge and reloaded it, while he watched.

“And yes—I’ve got a permit. I’m as legal as Mayor Rossi. Maybe more. You disappoint me, Inspector. I thought you were going to play fair.”

He slowly pinched his cigarette out with his fingers. “I am not lying to you, Miss Corbie. That’s what Chen said. Maybe it’s his way of trying to checkmate you? You have this poison—which you might have mentioned to me, if fair play is to be dealt on both sides—he has his testimony. Perhaps he regretted writing such a threat—perhaps he is trying to nullify what he sees as your advantage.”

Miranda set the long black pistol down on the desk again. “Possibly. If you’re telling the truth, and I’m not entirely sure you are.”

“And I’m not entirely sure you are, Miss Corbie, so we are well matched.”

He leaned forward, stubbing his cigarette out on the ashtray. “But you’re the one with the nine millimeter semiautomatic on the table. And I’d like to know why you’re so curious about green Oldmobiles.”

Church bells outside started ringing in five o’clock; shadows sprawled on the office floor through the open window. Miranda waited, letting the moment play out.

“All right, Gonzales. Give me Takahashi’s address, and I’ll talk about green cars and Mike Chen. And you can let the boys know I’m working another case—in fact, I’ll be at the Hall tomorrow morning.”

“They may not let you in.”

She shrugged. “I’m an authorized investigator. Authorized by law, with a signed contract. They’ll open the goddamn door.”

He smiled. “I believe they will. What is the case?”

She smiled back. “None of your business, Inspector. Eddie’s address, please?”

His grin broadened, and he searched his inner coat pocket for a notebook, which he looked through briefly.

“Hotel Bo-Chow. 102 South Park.”

“No roommate?”

“None that we could find.”

South Park made sense for Eddie. Close to the wharves and piers, it was the old Japantown, twenty years ago, now home to new immigrants from the Philippines and elsewhere. The people his mother didn’t like. She wrote the information down on the sheet of paper with Eddie’s name, still lying on the desk.

“All right. I found some bloody bandages in the back of Chen’s shop. I’m getting them analyzed. I’ll let you know when they come back, and hand them over.”

Gonzales gave his voice an edge. “You know we won’t be able to use the evidence. And you could be charged with theft. Or obstructing justice.”

“Justice? Don’t fucking kid me. You boys crossed the bastard off your list. If you’d done your job in the first place, the bandages wouldn’t have been there for me to find.”

He scratched his ear, visibly trying to control his temper.

“And the car?”

“Been following me around. This morning it was in front of my apartment, and when I was in the shower, someone decided to pick the lock and leave a card.”

He nodded his head in the direction of the gun. “You should take that home with you. Normally, I’d suggest a tail, just for your protection, but—”

“—even if I weren’t
persona non grata
with the brotherhood right now, Gonzales, that wouldn’t work. I’m a private detective. I know the risks.”

“So you do.” He took the fedora from his lap and put it back on, then stood up. “Remember, Miss Corbie—cards, not guns, on the table.”

Miranda pushed her chair back, standing up as well. “So long as you remember, Inspector—to knock.”

He glanced at the pistol. “Don’t worry. And watch out for Duggan.”

“Thanks.”

When he shut the door softly behind him, she sank back into the seat, shaking.

_______

It was five forty-five, two cigarettes, and several gulps of brandy before Miranda felt like herself again. She finished the list for Winters, adding “autopsy,”

“NYK,”

“Parker,” and “Italian.” Her stomach growled, letting her know dinner was late.

She placed a call to Rick. He wasn’t at work. She dialed home. No answer.

Miranda locked up the brandy and papers and pistol, and put the newspapers in the safe. She straightened her hat, her stockings, took her shoes off and straightened her toes. On her way out, she picked up the phone, and dialed the Club Moderne.

“Hi, Nancy, Joe around? No, just want to see him. Business. Yeah. I’ll be around tonight. No, different kind of case. Listen, you see Betty anywhere? Betty Chow, used to work for Dianne … huh. All right. Just dinner, as soon as I get changed. Yeah. See you.”

She dropped the phone in the cradle. The .22 in her purse felt heavy as she walked out the door, locking it, the Monadnock still noisy from people trying to get out of San Francisco.

Monday. The longest fucking night of the week.

Once out on Market, she decided to walk to the apartment. The financial wizards of the Stock Exchange—those that survived ’29—were hailing taxis and climbing into Pierce-Arrows and heading for the peninsula or Nob Hill. Their underlings rode a streetcar or cable car to a nearby apartment house, or climbed into a Ford and drove across the bridge to Oakland.

The cold, moist air cleared her head. Clangs and rumbles and whistles. Music blaring from jukeboxes in corner bars, kids pouring out of soda fountains. Pinball kings with girls on their arms. The women holding their hats from the wind and rushing home to make dinner before their husbands arrived, the old ladies emerging from lecture hall morgues in the libraries and institutes, clucking their tongues over the rising hemlines … all of it surrounding and embracing her, making her body feel warmer, her mind less her own. No thought, not tonight. Oblivion. Nirvana.

She reached Chinatown, the outskirts empty but still littered with refuse, some of it moving. Miranda stood on Bush Street and stared, at San Francisco, her world, her city, the cold air biting her face and hands. She closed her eyes. Let the bastards come, she thought. Let ’em come.

They washed over her like late summer rain, but not gently, never gently. Eddie Takahashi. And Betty and a Chinese woman who’d walked into a dead man’s room. And the anemic blond girl, her nostrils red with white powder, her eyes manic and snapping with dull energy.

Phyllis was somewhere in the city, close to a supply, somewhere where men with greedy eyes calmed her down with more powder, teaching her to use it, teaching her to want it, and to do anything to get it. Use your tongue, use your lips, use your throat muscles, baby, that’s it, keep going.

And she thought of Madame Pengo and the sad-eyed little girl, what she grew up seeing and hearing, and God help her, feeling, the men walking the alleys with furtive eyes, hunting for the young.

And she thought about the Italian with the staccato voice and the large hat, and Mr. Reece and Cheval’s wife, with a baby on the way.

She thought about the Japanese girl who knew Emily, who liked Eddie, who still smiled with innocence and bantered with a shoemaker. And Edith, too, and she hoped Milton would marry her, because Edith was running out of time and options, and what she wanted, more than anything, was to be someone’s wife.

And she thought about the men who had made her afraid, who had violated her and about all the others who’d tried, about the ones she allowed, the ones she fought off. She thought of Rick, and his sad Irish eyes and easy smile, and she thought of Gonzales, and how he aroused her physically, and how none of it mattered, none of it mattered a good goddamn, because none of them had been Johnny, none of them were Johnny, Johnny wasn’t marching home again, and there were no fucking hurrahs.

She opened her eyes. Lit a cigarette. A familiar croak made her spin around.

“Miranda?”

No-Legs Norris was sitting on his chunk of plywood, staring up at her, his eyes questioning, probing. He’d come back from the War half a man, but he liked to say that people were like cigarettes and booze bottles, and half of one was better than none at all.

One of the hardware stores donated some wood and wheels, and a carpenter made him his platform. He’d lived through the Depression on it, selling information, cadging crumbs and smokes and booze, watching people, remembering what he saw. Miranda wasn’t sure where he lived, but she always knew where to find him … somewhere near Chinatown, usually on Grant.

He pulled his platform up against the wall of a restaurant, leaning his back against it, the smell of bok choy and soy sauce drifting over them, making them both hungry. His arms were strong and muscled from propelling himself up hills and through the alleyways. Someone gave him some gloves early on, and he wore through a pair about every month.

“Hey, Ned. How’s tricks?”

“Almost got run over during the parade. Glad things’re normal again.”

She handed him a smoke, crouched down to light it for him with one of the Treasure Island lighters. The flame sparked on the third try and reflected in his brown eyes. While she bent down, she whispered: “You got something?”

His gaze shifted both ways, up the steep hill at Grant and along Bush. Miranda never knew how Norris found out about what she was working on, but he never approached her unless he had information that was worth something.

The gravel in his voice submerged to a low rattle. “Yeah. I hear you’re workin’ the Takahashi killing.”

She knelt by him, pulling her skirt down over her knees, one hand on her hat. “What is it?”

He stared at her, as if by staring he knew and understood. “Word on the street is the kid owed money. To people who don’t loan, if you get my drift.”

The breeze puffed up the navy hem, and she smoothed it again. “Names?”

He shook his head. “Just talk, Miranda. Some say tongs rubbed him out, he was stealin’ from a Chinese gambling op, some say Italians up in North Beach in the International Settlement, some say Filipinos and Mexicans.”

“Filipino Charlie mentioned?”

Norris shrugged. “He’s a bit player, minor key.”

“That it?”

He grinned, his smile missing some teeth. “That’s enough.”

Miranda pulled herself up, her knees creaking on the high heels. She opened her purse, looked in her wallet. Seven dollars, and eighty from Mrs. Winters. She handed Norris the seven.

“You get any more, I’ll be around. You see Betty by any chance?”

“B-girl friend from your old days? No, can’t say I have.”

Miranda nodded. “Thanks, Ned. Be seeing you.”