Muller, Marcia - [McCone 05] Leave a Message for Willie [v1.0] (htm) (30 page)

"Not really. I just had the tape made…" His voice
trailed off and he began to cut some mozzarella.

I was being horrible and spoiling all his pleasure. Why? I liked
having Don around; I should be pleased he wanted to move to San
Francisco. If he did, it wouldn't necessarily mean… I reached
across the table and took his hand.

"I think it was a great idea to bring the tape with you. And
it would be terrific if you got a job up here."

He set the cheese cutter down. "Do you mean that?"

"Of course. Can I listen to the tape?"

"Sure." His enthusiasm rekindled, Don got up and bustled
into the bedroom to get the tape from his suitcase. And I sat there,
an odd, hollow feeling in my stomach.

The Oasis was a country-and-western bar. When I entered, a bunch
of urban cowboys were rolling dice for drinks, and Waylon Jennings's
voice boomed from the jukebox. I spotted Willie at the back of the
room, behind a potted palm that seemed to be the bar's only
concession to its exotic name.

I got myself a beer from the bar, then joined my client. He nodded
perfunctorily. "You're early."

"Only fifteen minutes." I hadn't wanted to stay at home
after Don had played his demo tape. It was very good, and chances
were he'd get the job. He had wanted to talk about the possibility,
something I couldn't do with this inexplicable flat feeling growing
inside me.

There was a leather pouch on the table in front of Willie. I
motioned at it and said, "What's that for?"

"The weekend's profits."

"From the flea market, you mean?"

"All of them. Sunday night, my runners check in and we divvy
up the take. Usually they come to the house, but I left a note on the
door for them to meet me here. All of them except old Sam have been
by."

"Do you really expect him?"

"Yeah, Sam'll make it. Maybe."

We fell silent. From the jukebox, some singer whose voice I didn't
recognize was complaining about lost love and loose women.

"So what do you think?" Willie said. "Is this Levin
guy giving you a straight story?"

"I think so. Unless you're an awfully good actor, it's hard
to come across as confused and inept as he did." But as I said
it, I closed my eyes, reviewing my encounter with Jerry Levin.

"Huh." Willie was silent again.

I looked at my watch. Five to seven.

"Willie!" A woman with long blond hair stuck her head
through the leaves of the potted palm. I jumped in surprise. "Sam
told me you'd be here." She looked at me, a quick, appraising
glance.

"Hi, honey." Willie took her hand and pulled her out
from behind the plant. She was tall and very slender, and the tight
jeans and T-shirt she wore accentuated it. Her Nordic face was deeply
suntanned, almost flawless, and free of makeup.

"This here's Alida Edwards, my lady," Willie said.
"Honey, this is Sharon McCone, the detective I told you about."

The tight lines around her mouth relaxed. "Thought he was
stepping out on me for a minute there." She grinned and reached
across the table to shake my hand. "Appreciate what you're doing
for Willie." Her accent was Southern— Texas, perhaps.

"You said Sam told you I was here?" Willie took his feet
off the other chair and turned to scan the bar.

"Yeah. Ran into him over at your house. He'd seen your note."
She reached into her fringed leather purse and brought out a large
manila envelope. "Said for me to give you this."

"Damn! He's gone and taken his cut and split. Every week I
tell him to let me divide it up, and most every week he pulls
something like this."

Alida put a hand on Willie's shoulder. "Sam wouldn't cheat
you, baby. He's just in a hurry to drink up his pay."

"Yeah, I know. But his arithmetic isn't so hot sometimes."
Willie stuffed the envelope into the pouch and sat back, propping his
feet on the chair again. "So what're you up to right now, hon?"

"Thought I'd join you… and Sharon."

"I wish you could, but this is business. Maybe we can get
together later on, okay?"

Her hand dropped from his shoulder and the lines around her mouth
went taut. "Business, huh?"

"Yeah, Sharon and I have to meet a guy—"

"I'll bet you do."

"Well, that's how it is. I'll call you later."

"Sure. You do that, Willie." She turned and stalked
toward the front of the bar, fringed bag bouncing. One of the urban
cowboys spoke to her, and she tossed her blond mane and snapped at
him. Whatever she said made him slop his beer and turn back to the
bar, shaking his head.

Willie watched her go. "That woman can get madder at me than
anyone I've ever known."

"Some people just have short fuses, I guess."

"Maybe. I don't know, though—sometimes I think it's me.
All my life women have been getting mad at me for practically no
reason, no matter how good I treat them. Sometimes they get violent.
My ex-wife tried to bust my head with a quart beer bottle the day she
split." He stared moodily into his glass.

I looked at my watch. Seven-fifteen. "Levin's late."

"So have another beer."

"I think I will." I went and got it, and fell to
brooding about Don and the demo tape. In spite of his living several
hours down the coast, Don and I saw a lot of each other already. What
would happen if he were here in town all the time? Would it be even
better? Or would it spoil things? What if…?

At seven-thirty Willie said, "I don't think Levin's coming."

"Maybe he's having trouble finding the place. He
is
from out of town, you know."

"Is there any way you can check?"

"No. It was stupid on my part not to at least get a phone
number. Wait a minute, though—he did say where he was going.
Why don't I check and see if he's been delayed?"

I went to the rear of the bar, where I'd spotted a pay phone, and
checked the directory for Rabbi David Halpert. When his phone started
to ring, I stuck my finger in my ear to blot out Kenny Rogers's
rendition of "The Gambler."

A little girl answered, told me she'd get her daddy, and went
away. I listened to a baby crying in the background. Then a strong
male voice said, "David Halpert speaking."

I gave my name and explained I was looking for Jerry Levin. "I
understand you had an appointment with him late this afternoon."

"With whom?"

"Jerry Levin. He's with the Torah Recovery Committee."

There was a pause. "I'm familiar with the committee, but I
don't know Mr. Levin. And I certainly didn't have any appointment
today; we just now got back from Marine World."

"You're not the local advisor for the committee's
investigator?"

"No, I have no connection with them."

"I see." I thanked him and hung up, then went back to
Willie. "It seems Levin's story isn't so straightforward after
all. The rabbi he said he was meeting has never heard of him."

"So what now?"

I paused, thinking I should have asked Rabbi Halpert to put me in
touch with the committee. "Let's go back to your house. I want
to phone the rabbi back, but I don't want to have to talk to him with
the jukebox blaring in the background."

Willie nodded, tucked the money pouch inside his denim jacket, and
we left the table.

The fog was in now. It crept up the slanting sidestreets,
obscuring the facades of the Edwardian row houses and softening the
lights on the parking structures of the Medical Center. As we walked
up Irving, a streetcar's bell clanged in the mist ahead of us, and
then the car came into sight, its wheels wailed on the tracks as it
rounded the curve at the top of Arguello. Willie's porchlight
beckoned us.

I noticed a piece of paper fluttering on the door. "The note
you left for your runners is still there. Aren't you afraid somebody
will realize there's no one home and break in?"

"Nope. All the note says is 'Oasis.' I have to do business
there pretty often, so one word does it."

"Why do you do business in a bar, anyway?"

"Well, Jesus, you've seen the kind of people I have to deal
with. You never know what kind of scum they might be. Until I know a
person, I don't just want him calling me or coming to my house. Like
I told you before, I got my reputation with the neighbors to
consider." He pocketed the note and ushered me inside.

Ahead was a hallway with wine-red carpeting and waist-high
wainscoting. A small table lamp provided the only light, and the
red-flocked wallpaper above the paneling was oppressive. Willie
dropped the leather money pouch on the table. "You want a
drink?"

"I don't think so."

"Suit yourself." He started toward the rear of the hall,
then paused. "That's funny."

"What is?"

"This door to the garage; I always leave it closed."

"Maybe the wind blew it open."

"No, this is a tight latch." He came back down the hall,
then went into the room to my left.

The light he turned on came from a brass chandelier. It revealed
more red-flocked wallpaper and dark wainscoting. The room was full of
lumpy overstuffed furniture whose cushions had been tossed on the
floor. Drawers from two end tables had been pulled out and emptied.
Even the box of wood next to the fireplace had been dumped.

Willie whirled and went to the archway at the rear of the room. He
flicked on a light above a dining room table. The built-in cabinets
there had also been ransacked.

"You're right," he said angrily. "I should be more
careful about leaving notes."

I held up a hand for him to be quiet. The only sounds I heard were
traffic on the street and the faint murmur of a TV, probably in the
house next door. "Let's check upstairs."

"There's nothing up there but my bedroom. I closed off the
other rooms after my wife took all the furniture."

"Let's check anyway."

I led him up there cautiously, braced for an attack if the
intruder was still in the house. All was quiet. There were four
bedrooms, three completely empty. The other had been tossed like the
rooms below. I checked the bathroom, but found only a dripping faucet
and crumpled towels on the floor.

"How do you suppose he got in?" I said.

"The garage, since the door from there was open. He's
probably cleaned me out of my entire stock." Willie started for
the stairs.

"I doubt it. From the looks of this, he was after something
specific."

"What, though?"

"You would know better than I."

I followed him to the stairs leading to the garage. A light shone
somewhere below, toward the rear, where Willie had his office.

"You think he's still down there?" Willie said softly.

"No. We've been making too much noise; it would have scared
him off by now." Still, I started down slowly, listening. Willie
stayed close behind me.

The piles of cardboard cartons cast elongated shadows on the
cement walls. I reached the bottom of the stairs and skirted a stack
of old furniture, moving toward the office. A sudden rustling sound
came from the front. I stopped, and Willie bumped into me.

"It's the parrot," he said.

"Oh, good Lord." Realizing how silly our sneaking around
was, I stepped into the open and went toward the desk. It, too, had
been broken into, drawers standing open and chair overturned. The
rest of the garage was a shambles.

Clothing had been pulled from racks and dumped on the floor.
Cartons had been removed from the shelves and emptied. Toward the
front one of the pedestal sinks lay on its side, smashed—and
beyond it was a dark form.

Willie came up beside me. I put a hand on his arm.

"What is it?" he said.

I took a deep breath, conscious of the smell for the first time.
It was acrid, the way it always is when a gun has been fired in an
enclosed space. Acrid, yet sweet, the way it always is when blood has
been shed…

Letting go of Willie, I moved forward.

Beyond the smashed sink, Jerry Levin lay on his side. He lay
quiet, without breath. His
yarmulke
had fallen off,
revealing a bald spot almost the size of the cap. There was a bullet
hole in the back of his head.

While the Homicide men and Police Lab personnel took over the
garage below, Willie and I sat in his living room amid the disordered
furniture. A uniformed cop stood at the door, not exactly guarding
us, but giving us little freedom to move or to talk. Not that his
presence mattered anyway; Willie sat slumped in a cushionless corner
of the couch, arms folded across his chest, silent and withdrawn.

After a few minutes he motioned for me to move over next to him.
"I've been trying to figure out if everything's okay down
there—my business, you know," he said in a low voice. "So
far as I know, it is. It'll be pretty obvious to the cops what all
that stuff is, but they won't be able to prove it."

"They'll interrogate you, try to find a connection between
your business and Levin."

"I can stand up to it. I have before, without falling apart."

There were voices in the hall near the door to the garage, and the
cop went back there. In a few seconds he reappeared, Hank Zahn close
behind him. I'd made Willie phone Hank after he'd called the police.
In addition to being the fence's lawyer, Hank was mine, and I felt
more comfortable having him there.

Hank's eyes, behind his thick horn-rimmed glasses, were t filled
with concern, but a flicker of amusement crossed his , face. "Well,
you're a hangdog pair if I ever saw one." He came over and sat
down on the coffee table in front of us, his lanky form blocking the
cop's view. "What happened?"

Briefly I explained about Levin, our planned meeting with him, and
our discovery when we'd returned here. Hank looked around the room,
then said to Willie, "You have any idea what he might have been
looking for?"

"It's pretty obvious, isn't it? Those Torahs."