Cocaine and Blue Eyes Read online

He scurried between the raindrops with his hands in his jeans and his collar turned up. More than rain fell on him. Forgetting him was the easiest thing in the world.

  Chapter 2

  The telephone caught me poolside at the cocktail hour. I set my beer in the soap dish, dangled my hand over the bathtub and caught the Princess by the second ring. "Yeah. Who's this?"

  His name was Sam Khoury. He was a deputy coroner with the County of San Francisco. "I hope you're not too busy. We could use your help in solving a problem for us."

  My vanity struggled against animal wariness. "Down at the morgue?" Animal wariness won.

  "That's fine." Papers rustled at the other end. "We'll expect you within the hour. Goodbye."

  "But this is New Year's Eve!" But he had hung up, of course. They never make it easy on you.

  I raised both feet above the waterline and counted my toes and wondered what the coroner's office wanted with me. But there are no answers in a bathtub. If I wanted to know, I'd have to go downtown.

  I soaked a few minutes more, doused my cigarette in bathwater, then hauled my skinny butt from the tub. Thirty minutes later I had my car pointed downtown. A lot of San Franciscans had today off, and the morning traffic was light. Fifteen minutes later I was pulling into a meter space at 850 Bryant Street. I plugged a couple of pennies in the box and got a couple of minutes grace.

  I passed through the metal detectors in the Hall of Justice, then found the rear doors that take you to the morgue. The Coroner had his own building out back. His work begins where Justice leaves off.

  Deputy Khoury had a hot little room to himself on the second floor. He sat hunched over his desk, surrounded by files and reports, flanked on one side by a desktop computer. He was a little man, mean-faced, with slumped shoulders and red eyes. He wore a regulation suit and a regulation tie. The suit needed pressing, and the tie needed widening.

  "You said you wanted to see me."

  He didn't look up. "Any ID with you?"

  I passed over my driver's license.

  He played with the keyboard of his computer, wanting proof I was really Michael Brennen.

  I lit a cigarette and waited. I wondered which computer net he was tied in with. NCII, CII, CHP or the local heat. I wondered how many warrants I had for parking violations. I'd hate myself if I turned myself in.

  He was the salt of the earth. "That sign up there says no smoking." People like him kept the trains running on time.

  I stubbed it out. "So what's this all about?"

  He made a notation and gave me back my license. Then he threw an accident report my way, then went back into his files, making more little notes. I didn't want to wade through the thick file, but I didn't seem to have any choice.

  Just after 4 a.m. this morning, when the fog hangs thickest on the Golden Gate Bridge, a black Jaguar driven by a fifty-year-old playgirl from Hillsborough stalled in the right lane around the curve from the tollbooths. The drunk left her car and began hiking back to the toll plaza for help. She didn't set out reflectors or flares. She turned off her lights to spare her battery.

  Before the bridge district could send a tow truck, a VW microbus came through the toll plaza doing fifty miles per hour. It struck the disabled vehicle. The microbus stopped, but the driver's body sailed forward. His head punctured the windshield, the broken glass punctured his throat, and the steering wheel crushed what was left.

  A state highway patrolman doing speed-trap duty on the other approach was the first to respond. Recognizing a fatality when he saw one, he notified his supervisor who signaled the Coroner's Office in San Francisco. A two-man team of deputies was sent out. They pronounced the VW driver DOA at 4:22 a.m. An inventory of personal effects followed them and John Doe to the morgue.

  The CHP patrolman and his supervisor stayed on the scene. An accident report was made, photographs were taken, receipts were signed and countersigned, and the damaged vehicles were impounded and towed to storage. The supervisor noted strong alcoholic breath on the driver of the Jaguar. He advised the drunk of her rights and asked which drunk test she wanted to take—blood, urine or breath. The drunk became abusive and refused all three. She was arrested for Driving While Intoxicated, Resisting Arrest and Vehicular Manslaughter and taken to the women's drunk tank at the Hall of Justice.

  Business as usual, as far as I could see. A lousy way to go, but business as usual. And yet the Coroner's Office wouldn't bring me down here just for an accident report. I re-read it and tried imagining I'd been there.

  The poor stiff had been driving an eight-year-old microbus. Those vans are death traps. The engine's in the rear, and tin foil separates the driver and the road. You hit anything in one of those—a tree, a light pole, another car, a fire hydrant—and it's all over.

  When the fog hangs thick, the bridge seems more a very wide, low tunnel filled with lambs wool. In that fog, the television scanners on the towers go bananas with conflicting shapes and images. And with every other floodlight on the bridge turned off since the energy crisis, striking a stalled Jag in the dead of night was easy.

  Sure, it was a goofy way to go. Too goofy not to be believable. If it weren't an accident, the CHP and the Coroner's Office were a bunch of silly-headed sorority girls. Which they aren't and never will be. They were always looking for weird details, crazy gimmicks, nutty problems. It gave them a chance to use up their cop equipment, and they're not about to let that precious junk gather dust. Not when the Feds think crime prevention means throwing money into every cop shop in the land.

  I still had to ask. "It was an accident, right? It couldn't have been deliberate?"

  Khoury's pencil stopped roaming paper. He twitched his nostrils, and the ends of his moustache twirled through space. I was trying his patience.

  I got the message. If the lab boys found nothing suspicious, there was nothing suspicious to be found. If they were satisfied, then so was I. About the accident. Not about what I was doing here.

  "So what am I doing here?"

  "How well do you know John Wilmer Castman?"

  "I never heard of him before. Why?"

  "He's not a friend of yours?"

  "He's nobody I know."

  Khoury checked his file. "How about George Arthur Conroy?" He looked at me and looked back down. "Joseph Robert Crawford? James Walter Cheney?"

  "Hey, I'm new to all this."

  "You're a private investigator."

  "I got a license, yeah, but so what?"

  "Are you working on any case involving any of these men?"

  "I'm not working." I raised my hand. "I swear to God."

  He fished through the files, grabbing and throwing xeroxes at me. There was a fishing license made out to John Wilmer Castman of Napa, a library card for George Arthur Conroy of Sonoma, an ATD card for Joseph Robert Crawford of San Francisco, a vehicle registration card belonging to James Walter Cheney of Los Angeles.

  "Like I said, I never heard of these clowns."

  "He had these in his wallet."

  "John Doe?" Then I understood. "Oh, no. It's New Year's Eve. I'm not going downstairs and ID a stiff for you."

  "We know who he is," Khoury said.

  "No shit."

  He gave me an NCII teletype. A Washington State rap sheet on Joseph Robert Crawford (aka Joey Crawford) of Spokane. It had his fingerprint classification, his FBI file number, his birthdate, and his state of birth. When and where arrested, the aliases he had used, the penal code violation, and the eventual disposition of the case. Under the penal code number, somebody (probably a staff secretary) had checked the law library and translated the out-of-state code into plain English.

  Joey Crawford had quite a resume. Auto theft with six months probation. Six months in county for simple possession. Charges dropped on credit card fraud by the telephone company. Sentence waived for Aid to the Totally Disabled fraud. All in Washington State, and none for the past three years.

  "What do you need me for?"

  "We found this in his walle
t, too." Khoury threw down a business card from Pacific-Continental Investigations. It was torn in one corner, but still crisp. "This belongs to you."

  "I took it. "Thanks."

  "Where'd he get it?"

  "How should I know? I give it out a lot. Free advertising. Good PR."

  "Don't hard-nose me. How did he get it?"

  "I don't know." I hesitated. I still didn't want to go downstairs. "You got any pictures of him?"

  He gave me a Washington State Driver's license. It was crumpled and torn, as if tucked away for years, and made out to Joseph Robert Crawford of Spokane.

  I did a second take on the photograph. "Yeah, I know this clown. I picked him up the other night up north, in Mendocino county. His van broke down, and I gave him a lift down to Sausalito."

  He had his pencil ready. "When was this?"

  "Christmas night. After midnight."

  "What was he doing up there?"

  "I didn't ask. He didn't say."

  "How did he get your card?"

  "It was on the dashboard. I don't clean my car too often. He found it, and he must've kept it."

  "Any reason why he'd want it?"

  I tried remembering. "Yeah. His chick split on him. He took it pretty hard. He wanted me to find her. I told him no. That's all. I forgot about it, but I guess he didn't."

  "Any address on the lady?"

  "That's what he wanted me to find out."

  "Okay. What's her name?"

  "First name Dani." I spelled it out. "No last name."

  He looked up. "She isn't his wife?"

  "They were just living together."

  "Screw her." He scratched her name.

  "Why'd you scratch her? Somebody oughta call her, tell her Lover-Boy's dead."

  "Without a last name? How?"

  He was right, but it seemed a shame. I suppose she'd find out someday. Maybe she wouldn't, though. How many people know what happened to their senior prom date? Same story there.

  "How come you didn't take the case?"

  He had a great sense of humor. "I'm not getting involved just because some chick walks out on her old man. I'm not even in the business any more."

  He was curious. "What do you do for money then?"

  "Unemployment." I saw his face. "It's legit."

  His sneer could warp glasses. "Maybe you wanted to pad your claim."

  "How's a runt like him going to pay me? Give me a couple of lids, saying thanks a lot? Extra money is extra money, but I'm not crazy."

  He brought out a receipt. "Fifteen hundred sixty-two dollars. All cash. He could afford you."

  "Where'd he get that kind of bread?"

  "Dope dealing. That's how most kids get it nowadays."

  "Without proof, that's slander."

  "We found paraphernalia in the wreckage."

  I didn't think much of his evidence. Paraphernalia was cop talk, and cop talk can frame you anywhere except in court. Paraphernalia could be a syringe, a spoon, a pipe, an alligator clip, cigarette papers, dollar bills, soda straws or even candles.

  Khoury was eyeing me. "You're not so old yourself."

  "Oh yes I am." I stood up. "Too old to listen to this shit."

  I left Khoury with his pencils, found my car and deadheaded home. There was more traffic now—the New Year's crowd was awake and outward bound. The announcer on the radio said rain was expected later this afternoon.

  The mail was waiting for me at home. An overdue bill from Kaiser Medical wondering why I still hadn't paid for my firstborn's maternity care. My college alumni association asking for donations for an ice skating rink. An executive from Playboy offering me 17 issues for only 57 cents an issue. And a first class letter with no return address and my name misspelled.

  I took the mail into the kitchen and started breakfast. Hot buttered bear claws and chocolate milk. I slit the first class letter and dumped it on the counter. I knocked over the milk carton when a thousand dollar bill fluttered to the floor. Chocolate dribble landed on it.

  I held the bill beneath the hot water faucet. The ink didn't run. I found a magnifying glass. The red threads were all there, as were the dots along the President's nose. I never knew Grover Cleveland had beady eyes.

  I went back to the letter. A sheet of notepaper inside. The words "Find Dani for me" were scribbled across it, followed by Joey Crawford's signature. A wallet-sized photograph was wrapped in the notepaper. The young woman who smirked at the camera's lens had big blue eyes, all right. As blue as the bay at sunrise and larger than robin's eggs.

  Were those eyes worth a thousand bucks?

  A thousand dollars to do a job. Find a girl and the money was mine. Even an implication that this was just a retainer. There might be more. The punk was saying he could buy me.

  It didn't matter he was dead. That made no difference in the world. He'd been alive and well when he'd composed this silly little game, and maybe he even expected I might keep the money and still refuse him. The thousand dollars was throwaway money to him, but he had guessed it was enough to buy my attention. I owed him nothing for this windfall, but he hadn't even cared.

  Why should I play detective? I could keep the money and spend it on groceries and rent and spark plugs and laundry. I was still collecting unemployment from my last job. I wasn't in business for myself, and I knew I wasn't likely to start now.

  Playing detective is like being a gravedigger. There's always dirt to be dug up, people willing to pay to have it dug up. But what kind of a man wants to spend his life scrounging for human rot six feet underground?

  Shit, I knew the ropes. I could play the game. I know most scams being used today. And wandering husbands were always better off gone, and runaway wives should always come back. Even the opposite is sometimes true.

  But I was sick of tired scenes and cheap games. I wanted to be someone in my life, I wanted to be something. Not just a peeping tom in lotus land. The last thing I wanted was to go back on the streets again. I wanted no part of the detective game. The only way to win that game is to quit.

  I stared at the thousand dollar bill like some comic book hero with x-ray vision. I couldn't see inside it, and I wanted to burn it up until even its ashes had vanished. If I kept it, I'd have to accept some responsibility along with it. The thousand dollars was a sucker's game, and the runt had decided I was greedy enough to play.

  I hate how money screams.

  Chapter 3

  Think of an opened clam, and you've visualized the small harbor town of Sausalito.

  The bottom shell is Richardson's Bay, a dogleg of San Francisco Bay north of the Golden Gateway. Richardson's Bay is filled with salt water, seagulls and sharks, buoys and yawls, dinghies and schooners, houseboats and cabin cruisers. The top shell is Wolfback Ridge, part of the California coastal range. The freeway into San Francisco is the crest of the ridge, and the slopes below it are densely wooded and dotted with expensive homes for San Francisco commuters. The hinge between the two shells is at the base of the ridge, a two-lane black-topped road called the Bridgeway.

  Downtown, the Bridgeway is lined with taverns and clothing stores, art galleries and restaurants. The drinks come watered, the seafood has been defrosted and microwaved, the clothing wears out just before the fad does, and the galleries sell watercolors of gulls and buoys.

  The north end of town is further than most tourists can walk, so development there has been limited to serving the needs of residents. There are ship chandleries and marinas and yacht clubs, a couple of greasy spoons and a French laundry, a supermarket and a carry-out liquor store.

  The houseboats are north of downtown, too. Like all waterfront towns, Sausalito has residents whose appearances tend to frighten the tourists. Of course the houseboat dwellers say the feeling is mutual. They resent being considered tourist attractions, even if they do resemble the remark.

  I drove along the Bridgeway until I found the Mohawk gas station where I had dropped Joey Crawford last week. The gravel access road alongside led down
towards the boats and dead-ended at the foot of the Waldo Point boardwalk. I parked behind a weathered kiosk, rolled up my window and locked my doors, then went for a stroll on a lonely pier in the rain.

  The tide was nearly gone, leaving behind a foot or so of water, and the houseboats floundered in the mud. The round-hulled crafts looked like Noah's Ark after the waters receded, and the square-hulled ones like quake victims. With thunderclouds above them and the roiled waters of a gunmetal bay beneath them, the houseboats looked like a wino's nightmare.

  I stopped halfway down the boardwalk. With the tide leaving, small sea critters found themselves high and drying out, and their last gasps made the mudflats stink like rotten eggs. I didn't know which houseboat belonged to my client. I could always come back later in the day; a six-hour wait for high tide shouldn't make any difference. I retraced my steps downwind to think it over.

  The kiosk had a bulletin board on its backside, flanked by a row of mailboxes. I went over each mailbox. There was no Crawford scrawled on any one, and I didn't know Dani's last name, so I set about rifling the mail inside each one. There was no mail for Joey Crawford or for any woman named Dani. Which meant I might have to wait for the afternoon delivery and repeat the whole procedure. Even that was a gamble.

  The bulletin board was a good guide to the Sausalito lifestyle. There were people trying to buy houseboats, trying to sell sailboats, wanting to crew to Bora Bora.

  There were rock concerts and sailing schools and organic restaurants and macramé lessons. There were psychologies and theologies, philosophies and sociologies. And a yellowed card advertising Seascape Sofas For Sale. Contact Alex Symons on board the Mal de mar.

  The Mal de mar was a converted river barge jammed aft end first into a dismal little slip. The original deckhouse had been jettisoned, and a more spacious one built in its place with thick redwood beams for bracing. There was a small deck aft and a larger one forward. Large chunks of driftwood were strewn across the roof.

  I went around the unpainted deckhouse and came out on the canopied forward deck. A thirtyish young man in white denims, rugby shirt and brine-soaked tennis shoes was sitting on a wood bench. His hands were spotted with grease, and he was having trouble rolling a joint. A can of Olympia was beside him. Through an opened window, I saw hanging ferns and a stereo speaker. Someone inside was frying liver and onions. A portable radio on the door stoop played an afternoon jazz concert from Berkeley.