Muller, Marcia - [McCone 05] Leave a Message for Willie [v1.0] (htm)

THE MYSTERIOUS PRESS

Published by Warner Books

For Mary DeYoe and Terry Milne

WARNER BOOKS EDITION

Copyright © 1984 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust All
rights reserved.

"You want any of those paintbrushes, they're all half price."

The vendor, in cut-off jeans and a baseball cap, loomed over me as
I squatted, considering his wares. I rocked back on my heels and
looked up at him. "Business is slow, huh?"

"Nah, I'm generous, is all. Half price, and you buy ten
brushes, I'll knock off another dollar."

"What on earth would I do with ten of them?"

He grinned, his suntanned face creasing into deep lines. "Open
your own stall. That's how I got started in the flea market
business."

"I'll take two." I stood up and fumbled in my bag for
change.

The man shook his head. "Some people wouldn't know a bargain
if it bit them on the ass."

I waggled the brushes at him and started down the crowded aisle,
looking for my friend Don.

The Saltflats Flea Market was spread over several acres sandwiched
between the Bayshore Freeway and the frontage road, near the little
town of Brisbane. During the week, it was nothing but a barren,
rock-strewn plain; but on Saturdays and Sundays, the vendors streamed
in. They erected booths with colorful canopies or sold their goods
from blankets on the ground. Balloons flew, banners waved, and
music—from dozens of radios, most tuned to country-and-western
stations—filled the air.

I weaved down the aisle, avoiding baby strollers and a kid on a
bicycle, and spotted Don at a stand featuring stereo equipment. He
was closing in on a bunch of speakers with an ardent disc-jockey
gleam in his eye, and I quickened my pace, knowing I'd better get him
out of there, fast. By the time I reached him, he was crawling on his
hands and knees, examining the connections at the back of one
speaker. I nudged his foot with mine and he looked up, his expression
blank for a moment.

"It's me. Sharon. Remember?"

"Oh, yeah. We've met someplace. Give me a minute and I'll
figure out where." Then he looked back at the speaker, a shade
wistfully. "These are a terrific deal."

"Of course they are. They're probably hot."

Don straightened up to his full six foot two, brushing dirt off
his hands. He raised one dark eyebrow and waited.

"A lot of the stuff they sell here is," I went on. "Some
of the vendors are legitimate business people and craftsmen, but
quite a bit of fencing goes on too."

Don continued to wait, stroking his shaggy black mustache, his
hazel eyes interested. At the beginning of our relationship I'd taken
this quiet interest to be boredom— mainly because he'd struck
me as such a motormouth when we'd first met. But, as we'd become
closer and more comfortable with one another, I'd realized he only
chattered when he was nervous or felt he needed to be on stage. Don
Del Boccio, star disc jockey of a mid-coastal radio station,
conserved his words in his private life as much as he squandered them
on the air.

"This particular flea market," I said, "has a
reputation for tolerating illegal activity. I myself just bought what
are probably hot paintbrushes to use on the trim in the living room."

Don put an arm around me and began steering me through the crowd.
"You bought hot merchandise when you're here on a mission of law
and order?"

"I wouldn't label meeting with a prospective client as 'a
mission of law and order.' But I did promise my boss I'd look the guy
up, so I guess I'd better quit wandering around and try to locate
him; supposedly he has a stall here."

“Why not ask one of the other vendors? Maybe the guy at the
snow-cone stand can tell you. I'll treat you to a cone."

"Okay. A rainbow one, please."

The snow-cone vendor was a tall black man in a satin shirt and
silver-studded jeans. I wondered how he could stand the noontime heat
in that getup, but he looked as cool as the ice he was shaping into
cones. When Don asked for two, the man took them and deftly began
adding syrup from the big plastic dispensers.

"First you put on some blue," he said in what was
probably a standard spiel. "For the sky. Then add yellow. For
sunshine. And now"—he flourished the cones
dramatically—"red. For excitement!" With a bow he
handed them to us. "There you are, folks."

The three kinds of syrup had begun to run together. I tasted mine
and felt a sudden, sharp pang of nostalgia for my childhood. When I
looked at Don, he had red ice stuck in his swooping mustache.

I laughed and said, "Hold this for a second, will you?"
When he took the cone I reached into my bag and got out the card that
my boss, Hank Zahn of All Souls Legal Cooperative, had given me the
previous afternoon. Printed in black on gold metallic stock, it read:

NEED STUFF FOR FLEA MARKETS?

CALL 755-4200

LEAVE A MESSAGE FOR WILLIE

I handed the card to the snow-cone vendor. "Do you know where
I can find Willie Whelan?"

"Everybody knows Willie." He gave the card back without
looking at it. "Go to the end there, turn left, and take the
third aisle. He'll be midway down on the right, set up in front of a
brand-new red pickup truck."

"Thanks." I retrieved my snow cone from Don, and we
started off in the direction the man had pointed.

The cone was melting fast, and I tilted the paper cup clumsily,
smearing the sticky liquid on my face and hands. Don, used to my
minor mishaps by now, merely rolled his eyes as I fished out a
Kleenex. "Well, it's melting faster than it should," I
said, scrubbing at my chin.

"I know." He squeezed my shoulder and continued eating
his own cone, which seemed to be surviving just fine.

It
was
a hot day for May. We'd had an early spring and
already the hills above Brisbane, a village only miles south of San
Francisco, were turning brown. The wild grasses around the perimeter
of the flea market were baked to a wheat color and the bay, beyond
the cars that whizzed by on the freeway, looked like a desert mirage.
I pulled my cotton blouse free from my damp back, wishing I'd worn
something cooler.

"Hey, babe," Don said, "there's something that's
absolutely you."

I looked where he pointed. It was a pair of roller skates with
bright green vinyl shoes. They stood among an assortment of rumpled
used clothing, some in cardboard boxes, some merely heaped on the
ground. I started to laugh, then looked guiltily around for the
seller. He was curled up on the ground under a scabrous old van, as
limp as the clothing and totally oblivious to us.

We continued along past stands offering assorted junk,
houseplants, hand-thrown pottery, dried fruit, nuts, olives, and
honey. There were fake oriental rugs, real live rabbits, books,
posters, and bright red popcorn. A sign on a box of records read
THESE ALBUMS 25¢,
(NOT ALL ARE SHITTY.) One stall advertised a "crazy sale"—any
post-season quilted Easter basket, complete with green celluloid
grass, for a dollar. Behind a glass case full of hunting knives, a
smiling fat man sat under a miniature beach umbrella that attached to
his head like a halo in a child's Christmas play. I glanced at his
sinister-looking wares, grimaced, and moved on.

A beat-up Chevy piled high with junk edged along the crowded
aisle, beeping its horn, and some of the kids jumped on its bumper.
The driver began to inch into an empty space to the accompaniment of
good-natured jeers and catcalls. As we waited for the car to move out
of our way, I spied the red pickup truck pulled up in a large space
on the right. There were no vehicles within ten or twelve feet on
either side of it, as if its shiny newness deserved more room than
others. Pointing to it, I grabbed Don's hand and we squeezed around
the slow-moving Chevy.

Willie Whelan's concession was of the assorted-junk variety—but
a much higher quality of junk than we'd seen up to now. Several
shabby Oriental rugs were spread on the ground in front of the truck,
and on them was arranged a truly fascinating accumulation of objects.
There were three old pedestal-type sinks and a claw-footed bathtub;
four or five newel posts that had been converted to plant stands;
illuminated beer signs, Depression glassware, and a whole stack of
drip coffeemakers still in the manufacturer's packaging; old mantel
clocks, new clock radios, and a cello. Near the truck stood a player
piano. At the very front was a huge birdcage, complete with parrot.

I glanced from the beady-eyed bird to the truck and spotted a man
sitting on its tailgate. He was in his late thirties, wearing Levi's,
a leather vest, and a cowboy hat. When he saw Don and me, he unfolded
his tall, lanky frame and ambled over. His clean-shaven face was open
and amiable, his eyes, above a slightly hooked nose, a startling
shade of blue.

"Help you folks?" It was the same voice I'd heard on the
phone the night before.

"You're Willie Whelan?"

"That's the name." He held out a hand and I grasped it
briefly.

"I'm Sharon McCone. And this—" I turned to
introduce Don, but he had gone over to inspect the claw-footed
bathtub, probably with the idea it might do for my new house. "That,"
I said, "is my friend Don Del Boccio."

Willie took off his cowboy hat and smoothed down his curly brown
hair before carefully resettling the hat. "He a detective too?"

"No, a houseguest."

He nodded. "Well, he looks like he can amuse himself. Why
don't you come back to the truck? We'll talk, have a beer."

I followed him and seated myself on the tailgate while he took
beers out of a cooler. He gave me one, crossed over to Don and handed
him one, then returned and sat next to me.

"Zahn said he'd send me a lady detective, but he didn't say
she'd be such a pretty one."

"Well, thanks for the compliment."

"It's no compliment, just the truth." He swigged beer
and looked appraisingly at me.

"Have you been a client of Hank's long?"

"Years, ever since we started the co-op. I knew him in 'Nam.
He was an officer, I was an ordinary grunt. But Zahn always treated
everybody like regular human beings. Rank didn't matter to him."

"Still doesn't. He even treats
me
like a human
being."

"Shouldn't be so hard to do." He winked one of those
incredibly blue eyes at me and drank more beer. "What did he
tell you about my problem?"

"Nothing. Just said to call you."

"Yeah, and thanks for waiting until I could get back to you."

"Where was it I left the message anyway? The guy who answered
said something about an oasis, but I didn't catch the rest. There was
a lot of background noise."

"The Oasis Bar and Grill, on Irving Street. They take my
messages."

"I see."

"To get to my problem: Somebody's been following me, and I
want it stopped."

"Following you."

"Yeah. Watching my stall here at the flea market. And my
house, where I've got this permanent garage sale. He isn't watching
my people yet, but that's probably next."

"Your people?"

"The runners I send out to the other area flea markets. There
are three of them."

I took out a pencil and notepad. "How long has this been
going on?"

"About three weeks."

"How many people? One? More?"

"I've only noticed one."

"Can you describe him?"

He took off the cowboy hat and ran a hand through his curly hair.
"He's weird."

"Weird?"

"Not one of the usual types."

"What usual types?"

"You know, the cops."

I gave him a puzzled look.

"The cops. They're always after me."

"Why?"

Now he looked confused. "Didn't Hank tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"I'm a fence."

I stared at him, then glanced over at the coffeemakers and clock
radios. "You mean you deal in stolen goods?"

"Sure. I don't broadcast it usually, but Zahn said I could
trust you. I just figured he'd spelled it out."

Disturbed, I set the pencil and notepad down. While all my clients
weren't necessarily on the right side of the law, I didn't hold much
brief for fences. A couple of years ago I'd unmasked a ring of them
operating in my former neighborhood, with tragic consequences.
Fences, while not thieves themselves, encouraged thievery. And I'd
often seen the heartbreak it could cause.

In my contract with All Souls I had the option of turning down
jobs, providing the investigation wasn't related to a case we were
handling. Knowing me as he did, Hank would have realized I would have
reservations about working for a fence. So why hadn't he briefed me
on Willie's occupation, as he normally would have on any sensitive
detail about a client?

"And you say Hank's aware of what you do?"

"Of course; he's my lawyer."

I was amazed. The statement revealed a totally new aspect of my
boss's character. Or did it? No matter how irrational they might seem
on the surface, Hank usually had good reasons for his actions. If
he'd sent me to see Willie, neglecting to mention his profession,
there was more to this than was readily apparent.

Willie leaned toward me, frowning, as if he were worried that he
had made a social blunder. "You're not shocked or anything?"

"Well… not really. It doesn't matter." But I would
have to talk to Hank before I agreed to take Willie on as a client.

"Damn straight!" There was a touch of relief in the way
he crumpled his beer can and tossed it under the truck. "I look
at it this way: I may be a fence, but I've got rights just like the
next guy. And I want this following business stopped."

I decided I might as well take down the preliminary information,
so I picked up the notebook again. "Okay, describe the person."