Cocaine and Blue Eyes Read online

  "What kind of a party was it?"

  "Just a normal party."

  "What do you mean by normal?"

  "If everybody hadn't been invited, somebody would've called the cops, because the music was so loud. But since everybody was there, there was nobody left to complain."

  I lit a cigarette and threw the match into an ashtray. The match covered a whitish etching in the glass. The etching was a leering dolphin in Victorian skirts clutching a parasol Mae West style. White lettering around the dolphin advertised the O. Anatole Fish Company of San Francisco.

  "So you went to their party?"

  "I didn't go. This chick came over. We stayed on my boat. It was a nice night. She didn't want to go out."

  "The same one who's on your boat now?"

  "A different one. She was a school teacher, I think."

  "You're not sure?"

  "That was last year. This one's an actress."

  "And that's how you met Dani."

  "Sorta. I saved her life that night."

  "Oh yeah? How'd you do that?"

  "Like I said, it was a nice night. I got up to take a leak over the railing..."

  "What time of night was this?"

  "I dunno. It wasn't that late. I think I saw the lights of the last ferryboat from the city. It was just coming in past Alcatraz."

  "Then what?"

  He almost touched his lips first. "I heard this racket coming from their party. People shouting and screaming. Like they were trying to get off in a hurry. I thought they were sinking, or maybe they'd lost their moorings." Symons looked at me. "If you've ever lost your moorings, it takes forever to get them back. So I zipped up and started up the gangplank. I was sober. I was straight. Maybe I could help. And then Dani ran past me, and she almost knocks me into the bay. Everyone else, they're still trying to get off the boat."

  "So you chased her?"

  "Yeah. Right behind her." He was almost wistful at the memory of his daring. "I caught up with her, too, down on the Bridgeway." His face sombered. "She was running down the middle of the Bridgeway, screaming her head off, cars all around her, all that Friday night traffic." He stopped to shake his head.

  "What did you do then?"

  "I chased her, grabbed her, tried pulling her back, out of the traffic. She started pulling me the other way, right back into the cars. I thought she was gonna kill me."

  "Was she trying to commit suicide?"

  He didn't know. He couldn't be sure. "Maybe she's suicidal when she's stoned. I've known crazier things to happen."

  So did I. That was the problem. "What did she say?"

  "She said she was a free spirit."

  "A free spirit."

  "That's what she said." He squirmed. "I told her she was crazy. That she had her whole life ahead of her. But she kept tugging away from me. She kept saying she was a free spirit, lemme go, I want to run forever."

  "Why didn't you deck her?"

  "I tried, but she wiggled too much." He got sheepish. "I guess I'm not much good in a panic situation. I got her back to the curb, though, and a couple of guys from the party showed up, gave me a hand with her, and took her back to her boat. She was pretty wacked out."

  "You didn't take her to your boat?"

  "I had a chick on board. I couldn't ditch her and bring some maniac onboard in her place. The last thing I needed was a suicide on my hands."

  "After the party, did you try again with her?"

  "Sure. A couple weeks later. That's what I was telling you before. Her boyfriend wasn't around, I got curious, she was good-looking, so I bought her a drink. I figured we had something in common, her running down the Bridgeway and me catching her."

  "Did she remember it?"

  "Not at first. When she did, she got embarrassed and walked out on me. She didn't even thank me."

  "You don't walk up to a girl, tell her you saved her life, then expect her to fall all over you."

  "Yeah, sure, but she didn't even thank me."

  "And since then?"

  "She won't talk with me. Just keeps walking out, like I'm poison. Like I'm a bad memory."

  "Where did she go when she walked out on Joey?"

  "I didn't know she had left."

  "D'you think she might've left the Bay Area?"

  "She might've. Sure, she could have. It might be an easy way to break up with him."

  "Did she have any girlfriends?"

  "I never saw any, but she probably did."

  "How about boyfriends?"

  He thought that was funny. "Joey wouldn't let her have any. He never let her outta his sight. He bird-dogged her everywhere."

  "What about relatives?"

  "I s'pose she's got some. She never talked about them."

  Symons sat like a hound waiting for his master's kick. The blood on his temple had dried like a summer creek, and his rugby shirt wasn't white with foam anymore. He wanted me to believe he had "saved" Dani's life. That he had tried his best, but never scored with her. That he was a defensive clown, lonely and vain, who hadn't even scored with a warm telephone number.

  Maybe he told the truth. Some seemed plausible. A lot didn't. A lot sounded too plausible, too traditional, too melodramatic. I knew a wealthy Union Street stud who told a jury he was a faggot to avoid a rape charge. They didn't believe him and sent him away. When he came back from Q, he was a flaming queen.

  When I said we were leaving, Alex rose slowly, afraid I might sucker punch him again, or throw something else at his head. But I wanted nothing more to do with him today.

  We left in a single-file. I refastened the hinge screws as best I could. The padlock would keep out the curious and the nervous, but it was useless against the professional or the hungry. Dani was the only one who could improve the security.

  I clambered up the gangplank. It creaked like splintering wood as it settled deeper into the mudflats. The noise spooked some seagulls and they scattered bitching into the air lanes.

  I walked Symons to his houseboat. The drizzle had stopped, but off towards the Golden Gateway, against a wrinkled sky, storm clouds were rolling in like dull grey bandits. The sky was greyer for it, too.

  The kitchen lights were already on inside the Mal de mar, and the sound of a woman singing softly to herself came through the half-opened windows.

  I left Symons, hiked down his gangplank and scooted aboard. I peeked into his kitchen window. She was short and fat and naked. But she wasn't Dani, and she couldn't sing. I wondered if she were any better as an actress.

  Symons hadn't said a word, but he was madder than a hooker in the rain. "You're a fucking bounty hunter," he hissed.

  I considered it. "That's as good as any."

  He was shook. "You don't mind being called a bounty hunter?"

  "That's what I get paid for."

  "That's shitty," he said.

  "Sometimes it is," I admitted. I left him standing there and made my way back to the parking lot. The tide had gone for good, and the mudflats were a backed-up toilet. I vowed I'd never set foot again on the Sausalito waterfront without a tide table.

  I made a stop at the mailboxes. Anatole was the next to last box. I rifled it and found a surfboard catalog from Matzalan. I threw it back in disgust. I went for my cigarettes and found Dani's food-stamp authorization card, along with the money from Joey's boot. I counted it. Sixteen hundred forty-seven dollars. A lot of money for an unemployed hippie. But Dani and Joey could all wait until after lunch.

  After all, they were buying.

  Chapter 4

  I took Bridgeway downtown. In the summer you can windowshop faster than drive, but the rainy season isn't the tourist season, and the downtown was deserted. Most of the shops were closed for mid-winter vacation, and the rest did business with a skeleton crew. There were even parking spaces by the town square.

  I parked in the Trident lot and went across the planks into the restaurant. I had arrived before the noon crowd, and there were plenty of open tables. A cute little waitress i
n a t-shirt and no bra gave me a menu and a seat near the fireplace. I gave her my order and settled down with a cigarette.

  I needed to find a missing person.

  What makes a missing person? Someone vanishes and someone else misses him. Silly, but factual. It's a question of identity. What makes up a person? Is it his name, his haircut, his clothes, his home address, his occupation? All these are easily changed, of course, and people pick and choose what they want to alter this time around. The telephone directories changed a third of their listings every year. Change all those characteristics, and you're a missing person. Part of the Vanishing Breed.

  I did have some luck on my side. At least I didn't think Dani was trying to jump totally underground. Some disappear to avoid the whole show. They're willing to live on the periphery of the action. And the underground makes up a sizable proportion of all big cities. Dani had ducked below the surface, but I didn't think she had gone too deep.

  It would be a different story if she were a criminal. Then the cops would be watching for her. And, given their patience, they'd find her. Cops have all the patience in the world. They don't bother with dragnets any more. There aren't enough loopholes left in society for anyone to escape unscratched. Sooner or later, everyone runs afoul of the Law. It might be a routine security check for a job. It might be a traffic ticket for a faulty taillight. The game is over once they check their files, run names through their computers, send prints off to Washington. But as far as I knew, Dani was nothing to the cops. Joey Crawford's death was accidental. His criminal record was ancient history. His file had been microfilmed and sent to the vaults.

  And my best clue was a food stamp authorization card which was two years old. A good candidate for ancient history, too.

  Doug Lacjak was a source who could help there. He was a lawyer with Legal Aid in the city's Department of Social Services. We had been friends ever since his landlady had Pac-Con investigate him during a prolonged rent strike in North Beach.

  I gave him a call at work. The operator said he was on another line. I convinced her it was important, and eventually she transferred me to his line.

  Doug answered quickly. "You picked a good day to call," he grumbled. "What's wrong with my day off? Why don't you ever call me on my day off?"

  "I never need you on your day off."

  At first he refused to run a computer check on Dani Anatole. Then he tried putting me off for a week. Finally he relented and said he'd get me a print-out. He put me on hold, and I settled back for the long wait.

  I wondered what I'd do if Dani wasn't in the computer. I could always check new apartment listings. All I needed would be this past month's newspapers, and luckily I'm a lousy housekeeper. I have a closet filled with San Francisco Chronicles I'm too lazy to throw out.

  I could haul out the December papers and section out the classifieds. That would be a large stack to whittle down, but the classifieds seem to change on Wednesdays and Saturdays only. That would leave me with a half-dozen problem children.

  Even if I crossed out all apartments with more than three bedrooms, all apartments under a hundred bucks a month, and all apartments over five hundred, there'd still be too many to crosscheck. There were also flats and houses for lease and shared rentals and residence clubs.

  I could make a telephone call to each listing, asking for Dani Anatole and posing as the credit bureau, the Kaiser hospital or All-State Insurance, the Triple-A, whatever. But if she were in San Francisco, it would be fishing for a needle in a haystack of six hundred thousand people. And she needn't be in the city, either. She could be anywhere in the nine Bay Area counties.

  I watched my waitress bring my eggs benedict. I watched neighboring tables finish their meals and leave. I watched new tables being set up and new customers ushered to them. I watched my eggs benedict cool.

  "You picked a great day to call."

  "I'm sorry, Doug, but I needed your help."

  "As long as it doesn't take too long..."

  "What've you got for me?"

  "I don't see how it can help ..."

  "Let me do the detecting, okay? Now, is Dani Anatole still on the dole in San Francisco?"

  The phone said yes.

  "No change of address?"

  "Just the one on Pacific Avenue."

  "Then she hasn't reapplied anywhere else?"

  "Not yet. But it takes thirty days for the computer to process new applications and/or changes of address. Maybe there'll be a new listing next month."

  "Oh joy. Back to square one."

  "Something else, too. What if she changed her name?"

  I had thought of that. I hoped she hadn't, but she might've. She wasn't running from the law, but she was running from a nutty lover, and women on the run do change their names for less cause.

  But I had to go with what I knew. Dani hadn't filed for reapplication nor for change of address in San Francisco or any other county in the state. Which meant she might still be collecting food stamps at that same address in San Francisco. Someone might be holding them for her.

  My waitress came by and flashed me the evil eye. She needed my table. The lunch crowd was drifting in. I gave up my detecting and went to my eggs benedict. They were colder than a hooker's eyes.

  Chapter 5

  The house was a grey Victorian mansion stuck between two African consulates. There were many leaded glass windows, and a wreath of real holly encircled a wrought-iron door knocker. The door itself was rich mahogany, piano-width and sturdy enough to forestall the Second Coming.

  The young black maid who answered the door chimes wore tie-dyed blue jeans and a Mexican peasant blouse. Dark nipples pouted like sharks against the fresh white linen. She eyed me like a doorman eyes a drunk. Maybe I was trouble. Maybe I wasn't.

  I asked to see Dani Anatole.

  "She don't live here."

  "Then I'll wait until she does."

  She pretended she hadn't heard me. "She don't live here."

  I gave her a smile. "Maybe she'll visit."

  "Maybe you better go away."

  I gave her my photostat. She handled it as if it might wet her hand. She didn't like the law. Not even the hint of law. I took back the card before she could spit on it.

  "Dani Anatole."

  She told me to wait outside. I stepped into the hallway. She gave me another deeper foul look. "Maybe you'll wait here."

  "Sure. Why not?"

  She turned and left me alone.

  The hallway went several yards, then split into two halves. One half went level on towards the kitchen and the pantry, while the other became a staircase towards the upstairs bedrooms. The doors to the living room were closed, and white curtains hung over the leaded glass panes. The doors to the dining room had been slid back into the wall. Though dinner was hours away, there was an eight piece setting of fine china and crystal atop a mahogany table.

  I touched the wallpaper. It was real leather, and the seams were invisible. This was privacy that stretched back before the turn of the century. Security from the institutional wolves and street jackals who crave old money and the influence it can purchase. I wondered who dusted the money.

  Several red tapers from the Christmas season were on a sideboard near the hall closet. They were subdued and tasteful, and their wicks hadn't seen flame yet. The morning mail was also there. I moved quickly and fanned the stack. When I saw the letterhead from the Department of Social Services, I knew my ammunition was good. Dani was still on the dole.

  Then it hit me. Dani had a letter here, but there had been no mail inside the houseboat. Even though she had been gone most of December, that Matzalan catalog in her mailbox had been addressed to her, so she hadn't applied for a change of address with the Sausalito post office. Somehow she was getting her mail.

  Joey wouldn't have needed me to help him find her if he had been forwarding it to her. If he had been saving it for her, there would have been a stack of mail, even if only junk mail or Christmas cards. He wouldn't have
chucked it overboard, either, because he didn't know whether she was coming back.

  The maid was gone long enough to announce me, not long enough to discuss me. When she returned, her face was blank and her chin was pointed at the carpet, unhappy with the news she carried. "Miss Anatole says you should come with me."

  She led me past the staircase and ushered me into a tiny library off the hallway. It was a cozy room with a ceiling a mile away. The door closed silently behind me, entombing me with Great Literature.

  There were two ladderback chairs and a long flat desk with a single drawer. A nearly filled bottle of Grand Marnier on a sideboard. Some poinsettias in decorator pots by the Grand Marnier were the only concession to the Christmas spirit.

  I opened the desk drawer. Inside were a ballpoint pen, a Gucci leather checkbinder and a .25 caliber Baretta. The Baretta wasn't much larger than a track pistol, but the little bugger was well-oiled and fully loaded. It was easy closing the drawer on trouble.

  Fifteen minutes passed, and then the library door reopened. In the hallway a woman wearing tennis togs was talking with a black man in tennis whites. She wore smoke-lensed sunglasses and carried a brandy snifter with amber liquid and ice cubes. The black man, who whispered with a cultured accent, as if he had learned it overseas, fiddled with the racquet in his hand. She told him to wait for her upstairs. He glanced at me as if I were a nuisance and said something even more indistinct. She laughed and squeezed his forearm. She watched him disappear down the hallway towards the staircase. She came into the library, closed the door behind her, and stood facing me.

  She came right to the point. "What do you want with Dani?"

  I stood. "You're not her."

  "I'm Catherine Anatole. Her sister."

  Thirty-five-year-old blondes are an endangered species these days, and Dani's sister was a real palomino. A big-boned woman with long legs and a golden mane. She had a tan that bordered on fanaticism. She was a show horse bred by money and the best it can buy. Even if she hadn't been born rich, money would've still gravitated her way. She had the beauty money always finds irresistible. And you didn't have to be a woman to resent all she had.