Cocaine and Blue Eyes Read online

  "Alex Symons?"

  He glanced up. "What can I do you for?" His face was babyish, like a fraternity boy. He had sandy hair and shaggy eyebrows and a moustache like an undercover vice cop. His hair was styled in an early Beatle, and he wore his sideburns long. His suntan came more from exposure than the sun. With his good looks, he probably did well at the fern bars and body shops on Union Street in the city.

  "I saw your card on the bulletin board."

  "Oh, glad to have you aboard." He set aside his makings, rubbed greasy hands on a nearby rag and offered me his hand. He had a good grip. His hands were rough and calloused, the hands of a carpenter. "How about dousing your cigarette?"

  I saw the bucket of kerosene by the bench. Scattered around were tools and pistons and casings and plugs. He had been overhauling an outboard engine. I made a move towards the port side.

  "Not in the bay. Use the beer can."

  I did as he wished.

  He saw me eyeing his joint. "I was just about to go inside." Carelessly, he tucked it into a crumpled pack of Camels. "You here about a sofa?"

  "What is a seascape sofa, anyway?"

  "Driftwood with legs." He pulled a tarp from a sample and told me how he built his furniture. A friend in Oregon searched for sofa-sized driftwood along the coast, then trucked the hunks down to Sausalito, where Symons would router some space for cushions, then screw legs on both ends. A girlfriend would tie-dye swatches of muslin, sew them into cushions, then stuff with fiberfill. The price tag came last.

  "How much does one run for?"

  "A grand." He watched my eyes.

  "Those tourists'll buy anything," I marvelled.

  He made an effort to control himself, then threw the tarp back on. "You didn't come about a sofa."

  "I'm looking for Joey Crawford's boat." I flipped open my wallet to my photostat. "I'm a private investigator. Joey Crawford was living with a girl, and about a month ago she walked out on him. I'm trying to find her." I gave him a photograph from Joey's letter. "Recognize her?"

  "That's Dani." He hesitated. "I don't know what her last name is. She lives down the boardwalk on a barge like mine. What do you want with her?"

  "Joey Crawford died this morning in an auto accident. His parents think she should know about it. They have no way to contact her, so they hired me to do it."

  My little white lie sounded better than saying I was here because Joey Crawford hated sleeping alone. It sounded better than admitting I had no client, that Joey died before I could refuse him. Anyway, somebody should tell her.

  "Did you know the guy she lived with?"

  Again he hesitated. "I never knew his name."

  "It was Joseph Robert Crawford."

  "If you say so."

  "But you've seen this girl before."

  "Oh yeah. Mostly in the late afternoons. I work outside a lot. You have to, with driftwood, and I'd see her sometimes. Never in the mornings, always in the late afternoons, like she was on her way to work, maybe."

  "Where does she work?"

  He didn't know. "She might be a waitress or a barmaid on the Bridgeway maybe. Like I said, I never saw her in the mornings. Maybe she works in San Francisco."

  "What did you think of her?"

  "She's a fine-looking piece." He gave me his All-American grin. "Those eyes, you know, that's what it is. Big blue eyes. Jesus, they are something."

  "How close did you get to them?"

  "I bought her a drink once." He shook his head, a little too sadly for me. "Her boyfriend bird-dogged her everywhere."

  "One drink? That's it?"

  "Yeah. Down at the No Name. I ran into her one afternoon, told her I lived on a boat, just like she did, and I asked if I could buy her a drink. She said sure, so I bought her a drink."

  "What did you talk about?"

  "My furniture, mostly. She thought I could make money off it. Lots of people, not only tourists, like driftwood. The hassle is getting enough logs."

  "What did she talk about?"

  "That boyfriend of hers. All she talked about was him. It was a real shame. A waste of a good woman."

  "Was she happy with him?"

  "She was living with him."

  "But you still tried."

  "Sure. Why not?"

  "What happened anyway?"

  "Her boyfriend walks in on us. I finished my drink and went down the street. As simple as that."

  "No hard feelings?"

  "Hey, if she's not the one, she's not the one. Women are like the tide. They come in. They go out."

  "Anything else you remember?"

  "She drank Galliano. I don't see how that helps you, but that's what I remember the most. Galliano. Sitting at the front bar. Does that help you?"

  "Hard to say. Anything else?"

  "That's about it. Galliano and blue eyes."

  "Did you see her after that?"

  "Sure. On the boardwalk. I was somebody to say hi to."

  "When did you hear she moved out?"

  "When you told me." He looked up. "I haven't seen her around. Hell, there's lots of people, you don't see them every day, and later you find they moved to New Mexico or got run over by a truck or committed suicide. Some people, you never know what happens to them. You just don't see them any more."

  "How about Joey? Seen him in the past month?"

  "Sure. On the boardwalk. But not often. A couple of times."

  "Did you ever talk with him?"

  "Not really. We never hit it off."

  "He stood in your way?"

  "What's that mean? I wasn't about to bump him off. He didn't stand in my way. He stood in her way. Christ, she could've been a helluva fox, if only she didn't live with him."

  "When was the last time you saw him?"

  "Last week sometime. Just after Christmas. He said he was having trouble with his van."

  "He didn't tell you she walked out on him?"

  "Why should he? I only knew him in passing. We weren't good friends, or anything."

  "He didn't ask if you'd seen her?"

  "He didn't ask anything. I asked him how he was doing. He said he was having trouble with his van. That's all we said."

  "Can you show me her houseboat?"

  He thought it over. "I guess so." He stood and started wiping the grease from both hands. Tucking a kerosene-soaked rag in his back pocket, he headed up the gangplank. I followed him. Behind us a girl inside the houseboat sang along with the portable radio. She didn't know how to sing.

  The houseboats came in all colors, from unpainted wood to psychedelic rainbow. Most were converted tugs or river barges, but some were covered lifeboats and floating shanties. Some were shaped like gypsy wagons and Chinese junks, while others were single-storied summer cottages over shallow hulls. Some were designed in Mineshaft Modern with redwood shingles and barbeque decks, and a few were floating mansions with stained glass windows and stone fireplaces. There was even a derelict paddle wheeler dry-docked in the mud, green slime coating her bare ribs.

  Joey Crawford's houseboat was a deepwater barge with a ferro cement hull. There were several portholes with brass fittings along the starboard side. The curtains behind the portholes were tie-dyed and drawn. A stovepipe from a fireplace looked like a misplaced nipple beside the diamond-shaped skylight.

  We came single-file down the gangplank, squeezing past a ten-speed bicycle chained to the railing. The boat lurched sideways as we boarded, then settled deeper into the mudflats.

  The houseboat had a single door, and there was a Yale padlock on it. I lifted the latch, checked the keyhole, then let it drop against the wood. I could open it, but I didn't need a witness to Breaking and Entering.

  He was a mind-reader. "Take out the screws."

  "You carry a screwdriver?"

  "I got one back at my boat."

  What the hell. "Go get it."

  A minute later he was back. Two minutes later we entered the houseboat. It was warm and stuffy inside. Joey had left the heat on and the wi
ndows closed. But then he thought he was coming back.

  The room was split level, with the lower level a small dining nook that led to the galley. The living room was done with chocolate shag carpeting and seamless burlap wallpaper. There were bamboo shutters on a bay window, and potted ferns hung from exposed beams. The plants needed watering, and a pane of skylight glass was cracked and needed replacement.

  A half-cord of wood and a stack of old magazines were near the stovepipe fireplace. There was a bookcase in one corner with rows of paperbacks, empty Galliano bottles and some of Dani's college textbooks. A battered TV sat on a cable spool probably stolen from the phone company. The houseboat had a fair stereo system, and a melon crate kept the albums together. Most were hard rock, some classical, and most had Dani scrawled on the back. A hatchcover coffee table was in front of a beige sofa bed.

  The galley was tight and compact—a woman or a sailor's design—with many built-in cabinets and all-electric appliances. The faucet was leaking, though, and the sink was crammed with dirty dishes. Most cupboards were bare, but one had a jar of unbleached flour and a bag of brown rice. A cookie jar held nothing but crumbs. The refrigerator held a bottle of locally produced carrot juice, a stale pack of natural cheese, a couple of cans of beer, three slices of luncheon meat, a post-dated quart of low-fat milk, a shrivelled orange, several potatoes growing new eyes, and a freezing compartment of beef pot pies.

  The bathroom was a man's mess, with toothpaste rotting in the sink, hair in the shower drain, a ring around the tub, dental floss on the tile floor. There was one toothbrush, no tube of toothpaste, a chewed bar of soap, a stiff washrag. The towel racks were brass, maybe from the neighboring chandleries.

  There were Penthouse magazines near the toilet. It was a chemical toilet and needed flushing. Like most sailors and would-be sailors, Joey (or Dani) insisted on conserving water. I flushed it into Richardson's Bay. Behind the toilet were several fuck books. Disfigured, tattered, vulgar. I paged through a couple. Somebody had a fetish for kissing cousins. Under the Penthouse stack, I found a pink battery-operated vibrator. Maybe that was their love life. Disgusted with the tool and with my thoughts, I threw it back.

  The bedroom was off the bathroom. Dani and Joey had water on the brain, for a king-size waterbed squatted in a redwood frame beneath the only window. A down-filled sleeping bag served as a bedcover. Rumpled sheets and a single pillow.

  A portable heater was on in one corner. I turned it from automatic to off and the coils went from scarlet to dull grey. A second-hand dresser was nearby with a few science fiction books on top. Arranged around them were a clock radio, a calendar for the next year, a terrarium with flourishing marijuana plants, several filthy ashtrays. The two bottom drawers held men's clothes. There was a lot of empty space, very few clothes. Dani had left Joey room to spare. I found several packs of wheat-colored rolling papers in the right-hand side.

  "Got any weed on you?" I called.

  Symons came over. His breath on my neck. "That was the last of my stash. Why?"

  "Just checking."

  "Fuck you." But his heart wasn't in it, and he wandered off towards the kitchen.

  He was an oddball. An over-the-hill frat boy with a salt water fetish. Maybe he was a mellow fellow in love with the sea. Maybe he just like playing the role. Maybe he lived on the waterfront because women found dockside life appealing. Maybe he could impress the ladies. Some women confuse vanity and self-assurance.

  I put aside my thoughts for something more tangible. A food stamp authorization card made out to Dani Anatole. It was two years old, but I now had Dani's last name. The address on the card was on Pacific Avenue near Steiner in Pacific Heights, the silk stocking district of San Francisco. An old-line family from the San Francisco society pages?

  Dani had left some clothes behind in the closet. I checked them over, but they seemed like the stuff everyone leaves behind when they move from one place to another. Excess baggage that never makes it to the new place.

  There was an empty knapsack on the top shelf. There were too many coat hangers. A muslin laundry bag sat on the floor. I spilled out Joey's last laundry. Nothing there. Several pairs of boots were underneath. Hiking boots, cowboy boots, desert boots. I shook each one and wondered which were for formal occasions. A pair of socks fell out and bounced. I pulled them apart and, found a wad of money wrapped with a rubber band. Several hundreds, a lot of fifties, and a helluva lotta twenties. The dough went into my jacket with my other souvenirs.

  The houseboat had the same empty feeling my own digs have had since my wife split. Whenever two people have lived together too long and one suddenly leaves, the one left behind always spreads out his belongings to mask the emptiness. But the belongings never seem to fill the available space.

  And then it hit me. Dani had left with no more than a carload of her belongings, but she had left behind too much. A modern young woman might walk out on her man, but she wouldn't leave behind her vibrator.

  I didn't like the notion, but it had merit. She had taken her clothes, most food stores, all her cosmetics, her toothbrush. She left behind her record albums, her stereo, her college textbooks. She had left behind brass fittings, a king size waterbed, her knickknacks and decorations, her plants.

  She had left behind her houseboat.

  It had to be hers, not Joey's. Probably she had paid for it, with her own money or help from her wealthy family. It showed her taste more than his. She had designed this living arrangement, and Joey was a tenant. She prepared menus and probably cooked organic food. When she left, Joey reverted to junk food.

  She had left in a hurry. Maybe she had given Joey an ultimatum to move. When he refused, she might've decided to leave herself. Or maybe she had been undecided and left to settle her own mind.

  Either way, it felt like she was coming back. Either she'd re-establish the old arrangement or she'd divide up the communal property. And the longer she stayed away, the worse shape Joey was in. And from the feel of things, if Dani did come back, he'd be leaving the way he had come. Filling up the backseat with his things.

  Joey had been more than a heartsick lover. He'd been totally dependent upon her. She was his meal ticket, and he'd been living above his station. When she left, she took his security, his livelihood, his future, his lifestyle.

  He had been at wit's end, running scared, when he mailed me a thousand dollar bill to find her. He had to find her. He had no choice. Maybe only a private investigator could find her.

  Joey knew the streets. He had been born a flight above them in Spokane, had fallen through in Seattle, had risen above them in Sausalito. Those who've lived on the street always expect the worse. They always hedge their bets.

  Joey died carrying fifteen hundred bucks. At least another fifteen hundred was in my jacket. Hard cash, not a bank statement, not savings bonds. Maybe Joey was afraid of an audit from the tax boys. Or, more likely, an audit from a vengeful Dani, if part belonged to her.

  It felt like getaway money, the last of the stash, a grubstake for a bleak future. And with Joey's criminal record, it would be a long time before he could find work. And with his record...

  Joey had sold dope before. And selling dope was easier than counting gas stations on the highway. Your regular customers call back for their friends. And the cash flow could account for the large sums, maybe even his last errand in the city. If he had been smoking samples with potential buyers, he probably never saw the stalled car in the fog. I went back to the living room.

  Symons was on his knees going through the record albums. There was a beer beside him. He had taken one from the refrigerator. He glanced up as my shadow reached him.

  "Planning on playing some music?"

  He shook his head. "His tone arm's probably set for high tide." Whatever that meant. "Wanna beer?"

  My turn to shake a head.

  He stood and dusted his knees. "Any skeletons in the closet?"

  "Just clothes," I told him.

  I waited until
he lifted his beer and was pouring it down his throat. Then I sidestepped and sucker punched him.

  He folded like a switchblade and sprayed beer on the wall. Since he was off-balance, I grabbed the nape of his rugby shirt and shoved him headfirst into the wall. His head thunked against the burlap. Then I hauled him backwards onto the sofa bed. He landed like a bear in a wallow.

  His face was choking red, and his rugby shirt was white with foam. His lungs shuddered, and he sucked air before he found voice. "Why ... why'd you do that?" His voice cracked like a teenage boy's.

  "Joey would've asked you about Dani."

  "He never asked nothing!"

  I watched his muscles tensing. He was stalling for time, debating whether to move against me. I hoped he'd make that move. I wasn't sure I could topple him again, but I wanted to try. I was sick of listening to the hip wharf rat.

  "He never asked me nothing!"

  "He asked me, and I never knew him."

  His beer can lay on the floor. I kicked it closer. It was an old-fashioned steel can. I grabbed it and crushed it in his face. A cheap trick, but his nerves sagged. He was a bundle of surprises.

  "Let's start at the beginning, and I want the truth this time. I don't expect the whole truth. I don't think you could tell me that, not even with a gun at your head, but you can tell me enough so I don't break your head in two."

  "I don't know nothing. Nothing, man, nothing."

  I chucked the beer can at him. He didn't duck fast enough, and the steel lip gashed his right temple. He howled and clasped his hand over the wound. Startled, he looked back at his hand. It was covered with blood, shaking like a house of cards. He looked at me as if he wanted to swoon. Maybe he had never seen his own blood before.

  "When was the first time you met her?"

  "Last year. May or June."

  "I can't hear you."

  "It was last year. May or June." He looked around for help. There wasn't any. "They had a party, her and that guy she lived with. Everybody from the houseboats was there."