Glitsky 01 - Certain Justice, A (45 page)

Glitsky cracked the new bottle and poured a half inch over his ice. 'So how's business?'

Mo-Mo held up his hands. 'Hey, the blues, you know.' He glanced out over his domain. The music had changed, now either Albert or B.B., still loud. No one was paying any attention to Mo-Mo or Glitsky. 'This about Jerohm?'

'Should it be?'

Mo-Mo shrugged. 'Jerohm,' he said, 'he some bad nigger. But he old news. He in jail again?'

'I hear.'

'Me, too.' Mo-Mo settled his bulk against the counter behind him. 'So it ain't him.'

'No. I don't think so.'

Another silence. 'Some bad shit going down out there, huh?'

Glitsky nodded. 'Not good.' He took a small sip and the straight spirits, as always, constricted his throat. How did people drink this stuff every day? He swallowed again, wished he'd ordered tea, dug out a cube of ice and chewed at it.

'So, what?' Mo-Mo asked.

There wasn't really any subtle way to get what he thought he wanted, so Glitsky figured he might as well just out with it. 'You know Loretta Wager, Mo-Mo?'

No movement. Not a tic of the eye or a twist of the head. It was as though Glitsky hadn't spoken a word. Finally, the body heaved slowly and Mo-Mo reached for the well in front of him. He poured what looked in the dimness to be some yellow custard out of a bottle into a large glass into which he dumped a handful of ice, then drank off half of it.

'Can't say I really know her,' he said at last. 'Ain't seen her now in a long time. Girl goin' pretty for husself, ain't she?'

'Looks like. When you were seeing her, how was that?'

He sucked some more of the pudding out of his glass. 'We had some of the same friends, best way to put it.'

'The same friends?'

Mo-Mo nodded. 'Other day, your man axed me again 'bout this.'

'Ridley Banks?'

'That's him. Man who take down Jerohm. He and me, we go back.' His voice went down further. Glitsky had to lean halfway across the bar to hear him over the music. 'We do some tradin' now and again.'

Glitsky knew what this meant. Banks had evidently discovered something about Mo-Mo or his operation here at the Kit Kat that wasn't exactly kosher. But it didn't concern any of Ridley's active homicides. The most obvious thing would be that drugs got sold out of here. And armed with that information, Banks would make a deal – he wouldn't drop the dime on the fat man, and Mo-Mo would become an informer. This, Glitsky reasoned, was how Jerohm Reese came to be found here at the Kit Kat in such a timely manner after he had shot – oops, allegedly shot – Michael Mullen.

In his career, Glitsky had himself maintained relations with any number of criminals – prostitutes, drug couriers, con artists, burglars, car thieves. He was a homicide cop, and if these people didn't kill anybody, it wasn't his mission to bust them. They were sources of information you couldn't get at, say, the Lions' Club. So you left them alone if they stayed out of your own personal face.

'Ridley asked you about Loretta Wager?'

Mo-Mo shook his head. 'Not direct, no. Not her. But you now axin' me 'bout her, I put it together.'

'Put what...?'

'The Pacific Moon, must be.'

Glitsky felt a chill run up his back.

'But hey, them statues of limitations, they all gone run out now. Been like fifteen, sixteen years

'What has? Since what, Mo-Mo?'

'Since them days.' He obviously wasn't going to elaborate. 'You look aroun' here now. This place is what I do. Straight and legal, got no time for that crazy blow. Got a bidness here.'

'I can see that, Mo-Mo. You got a business now. But what happened all these years ago?'

Mo-Mo put down the last of his custard, belched discreetly and placed the glass on the bar. Holding out his hands defensively, an innocent man.

'Ain't none of this no secret now.'

'No. All right.'

'I mean Ridley he know all about this.'

'Okay, Mo-Mo, I read you. But what?'

'Well, one deal. Last one I done.' Glitsky swirled his ice, waiting, and Mo-Mo went on. 'Got, like, a load of bread all at once, was like a bean, bean and a half, like that, I don't remember exactly.' Mo-Mo was talking about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That was a load of bread all right.

'But it was gettin' ugly, people gettin' theyselves killed over that kind of green just layin' around. I figure I stay in the bidness I don't get old. I am not the fastest-movin' man they is, you might have noticed. But the blues, man, I love the blues. I say, "Mo, get out of this. Put that money down on some dive, make it you own." But the money needs cleanin' up. You follow me?'

Glitsky nodded. 'So you invested it in the Pacific Moon.'

"Zackly. They take a lot out, mind you, but I get like eighty ninety clean. I put it in this place. Hey, look around. Fifteen years, I still goin' strong.'

There was a hole in the blues as another song ended. One of the patrons came up and ordered a couple of longnecks while Glitsky sat there playing with his glass; Mo-Mo got the beers from the cooler, then lumbered down to the end of the bar, got his stool and carried it back with him. He sat with a sigh.

'And Loretta Wager was in this with you? Her husband?'

'Not with me. Nobody in it with me.' He lifted his heavy shoulders. 'People mind they own business. Her name come up, that's all.'

'Laundering money?'

An expansive gesture. 'I don't know that. Don't know what she doin'. Her husband either.'

'So it's possible she might have had a legitimate investment with the restaurant?'

Mo-Mo balanced himself a little more securely on his stool. 'Anything possible,' he said.

Glitsky was inundated with more stacks of paper – reports, phone messages, the day's mail – strewn across his desk, three of his inspectors hovering outside in the all-too-visible doorway. He had already made two phone calls, both to Wes Farrell. On the first one, Shea's lawyer told him that he had a lot of nerve and hung up on him. On the next, he got more personal.

With the third call, Glitsky was luckier – his friend Hardy had gone back home after his lunchtime visit at Abe's and was spending the day, he said, planing some windows.

'I've got a question for you.' Glitsky was holding up a finger, keeping his inspectors at bay. There were rumblings of impatience.

'And I've got an answer,' Hardy said. 'Just a second, let me think – the Greyhound bus station.'

'Amazing. You got it on the first try. The question was, name a common acronym for the initials TGBS?'

Hardy liked it. 'What's the real question?'

'The real question is how well do you know Wes Farrell?'

'Who?'

'Wes Farrell, the lawyer. You said he hung out at the Shamrock sometimes, which is the bar you own, am I right?'

'Oh, that Wes Farrell.'

'I just called
that
Wes
Farrell and he wouldn't say boo to me.'

'You know what, Abe? Sometimes I feel that way, too.'

'Yeah, well yesterday he wanted to talk to me in the worst way and today he's a stone wall. I've got to find out what's going on.'

'Okay. Go find out.'

'He won't talk to me. Are you listening? Are you hearing me at all?'

'You ring his doorbell, say you're the police, I don't think he's got an option.'

'I don't want to do that.' He omitted the information that he had been forbidden to work on Kevin Shea at all. He couldn't assign any of his inspectors. The sudden realization that Hardy could help him had been a bolt of inspiration.

There was a silence on the line. 'You want
me
to do that?'

'I don't want to alienate him any further. I may need him.'

'You may need him?'

'That's right.'

'What for?'

'To get Kevin Shea to give himself up.'

'Without a deal?'

'If I need to. If I can. At least I've got to know what's going on, and right now I don't have a clue. I'd put off mentioning my name for the first couple of minutes, though. He really doesn't want to talk to me, I can tell.'

'What if he won't talk to me?'

'Why wouldn't he? A fellow defense attorney? You guys are all a big happy family, aren't you?'

'Oh, that's right, I forgot for a minute.'

'Hardy ...'

'All
right
, I'll call him. Get the lay of the land. Do I bill you or the city?'

'I'll buy you a can of chili,' Glitsky said, and hung up.

For the next twenty-five minutes, the lieutenant put in a few licks on his regular job, listening to the complaints, problems, strategies of his men. They were working on the usual – witness interviews, getting warrants, plans to testify in court, report writing, rebookings (an administrative process whereby after a suspect was arrested for a given crime – in all Glitsky's cases, degrees of murder – the district attorney's office then decided on the formal charge). It was never ending, especially lately – he discovered he had two more non-riot-related homicides that he needed to assign, families that had to be informed, witnesses to cajole or hassle, legwork, background checks and alibis. He called in two men at random and gave them the cases, told them – a joke – he wanted both cases closed in under twelve hours and went downstairs to the cafeteria for a cup of tea, maybe settle his stomach.

Griffin was eating again – there were two unopened bags of Twinkies in front of him, one of the tiny cakes in his hand, and cellophane and cardboard from at least two more packages on the table in front of him. A quart of milk.

Glitsky stood across from him with his tea. 'You on a diet, Carl?' He sat down.

'I was on my way up.'

'That's all right. I was on my way down. What'd you get, anything?'

Griffin chewed happily, nodding. 'Just a minute,' he said, hoisting the milk carton and holding it to his mouth for three swallows. 'Okay. Something.' He used his notes, pulling a steno pad from somewhere beside him. He brought that, too, up to the table.

'General consensus seems to be that it went down near Dearborn and 18th Street.' San Francisco had both numbered streets and numbered avenues – it could be bad luck to get them confused. 'There's a dead end halfway down Dearborn.'

'A dead end?'

'Yeah. Bird Street.'

Glitsky frowned, but Griffin didn't see it. He was consulting his notes. 'All this is about a block and a half east of Dolores Park, where they used to have the tents up.'

'What do you mean, used to?'

'I mean they're gone. They relocated after the fire down there. Moved 'em somewhere else.'

'So who'd you talk to?'

'I went door to door. I knew it was on the Guerrero side so I rang doorbells.'

'And...?'

'And the usual. Got one guy ...' He flipped some of his pages, searching for names and addresses he could show his lieutenant. 'Says he heard a shot on Dearborn. Another coupla ladies live together' – he flipped the page – 'they say no, it was Bird. Another guy on Bird says it was Bird. I figure two out of three. But there's apartments all up and down the block. You couldn't tell where from hearing – the sound of the shot bounced off the buildings around the corner.'

'But there would have been two shots?'

'Yeah, I know. But I couldn't find anybody who'd heard two. Nobody recognized two, anyway.' He shrugged, chewed some Twinkie. 'Hey, we're lucky we got one. We can talk to 'em again, the people who heard one, maybe they'll remember.'

'Anybody actually
see
anything?'

'No. It was dark, or just near it. The streetlights don't work on Bird. A few people mentioned it.'

'Maybe some of the rioters?'

Griffin was finishing the Twinkie, shaking his head. "They were all gone, remember. I got no idea where they are now, who was there then.'

Glitsky didn't like it but he had to take it.

'So I go, it must be Bird. Except there's nothing to call forensics about on Bird. No fresh treadmarks. No accumulation of glass. No big rocks might have gotten thrown. No nothing. I walk the whole street and I'm just about through when the old ladies are coming out for lunch, and they say the riot never came around to Bird – it stayed out by 18th, maybe pitched a little into Dearborn. So now I'm thinkin' that it's the reverse of what I thought before – the shots were on Dearborn, they bounced around the corner to Bird.'

'So you checked out Dearborn?'

'What I could. You want to come down again, look with me, I'd do it again. But I didn't see anything in the street.'

Glitsky took a sip of his tea. It had gone lukewarm. He grimaced – it wasn't turning out to be his day. 'But listen to this, Carl. You're telling me there's a riot below these apartment buildings and nobody's looking out their windows, down at it?'

'No. I talked to half a dozen folks saw the riot—'