A Dinner to Die For (21 page)

She nodded slowly. “What is it you want from me?”

“You haven’t paid your employees this month.”

If she found that comment strange, she gave no indication. Twenty-four hours into a murder investigation, most witnesses have given up trying to differentiate strange questions from the merely obscure but necessary ones. Laura shook her head.

I said, “Frank Yankowski must need his money. I want you to give it to Earth Man.”

“And let you follow him? You want me to set him up, right?” It was the first flash of anger she’d shown.

Had she and Yankowski been lovers? The question had arisen before. But a lover should have been frightened rather than angry. Was she protecting a lover, or just reacting to being used?

She wrapped both hands around her coffee mug. “I can’t do that.”

“This is your husband’s murder we’re working on.”

“Frank didn’t kill him.”

“How do you know that?”

“I know Frank.”

“How well?”

“What? Are you suggesting … ?” Her mouth quivered, then set into a hard line. “I don’t like that inference. My husband hasn’t been dead twenty-four hours and you’re accusing me of infidelity.”

I didn’t respond. Let her answer my question.

But she didn’t. What she said was, “You’re assuming Earth Man knows where Frank is.”

I nodded.

“But suppose he doesn’t know? Six hundred dollars is a lot of money to Earth Man. It’s unfair to tempt him like that.”

“In most cases it would be unfair, and foolish. But Earth Man has his own set of ethics. He’s not going to steal from a friend.”

“You’re asking me to betray his friendship.”

“Only if Yankowski killed Mitch. If he’s innocent, there’s nothing to betray.”

She stared down into the coffee as she sloshed it slowly around the sides of the cup. In the harsh white kitchen, the light showed up the myriad fine lines around her eyes. “Can you guarantee I’ll be reimbursed if it never gets to Frank?”

I restrained a smile. Ah, ethics versus economics.

“Give him two hundred, and if he skips the department will make good.”

She took a long drink of coffee, thinking. I wondered whether she was considering how to alert Yankowski. There were phones up here in the office and the bedroom. Downstairs the only one was at the front desk, behind that Plasticine-covered strip of twinkling lights.

She set down the cup with a thump and—resistance clear in every leaden step—walked into the office and unlocked the safe, and counted out two hundred dollars. Pereira stared blankly as if dazzled by a sleight-of-hand act, but Laura Biekma seemed to have forgotten she was there. Putting the money in an envelope, she said, “I’d better fix Earth Man something to eat up here. I don’t think there’s any food downstairs.”

“Make a sandwich he can carry with him, so he doesn’t have to hang around and return a plate.”

“Goose on black bread?”

“Fine.”

She cut two thick slices of ebon bread, spread them with a paste that resembled butter only in the broadest sense, laid on the meat and some greens I couldn’t name. The result looked like a sandwich that should have been consumed on the Left Bank with a bottle of champagne.

“Earth Man usually comes at eleven, right?” I asked as we walked down the stairs. Neither of us suggested that he might think Paradise would be closed tonight and there would be no handout. I wasn’t sure the possibility of closing would occur to him, and even if it did, I was willing to bet he’d decide the trip was worth the chance. Earth Man took comfort in the traditions he’d created, in occupying his spot at Sproul Plaza every day regardless of the weather, delivering his spiel regardless of the reception. Dinner here was a tradition he wouldn’t let go of easily.

By now Howard would be parked at the Josephine Street end of Grove Path.

Dum de dum dum,
a tape played as the clock hit midnight. “One of Mitch’s innovations,” Laura said with an embarrassed shrug. “It always amused the crowd. Then Mitch would go into his routine about the city insisting we throw them out. He was good, you know. No one ever complained. Other places practically have to shovel the dawdlers out, but Mitch, he always had them on his side.” Her face flushed, as if all the control that had supported her these last twenty-four hours was about to shatter. Again, I wondered if it was the realization that Mitch was dead or the fear of exposing Yankowski which was getting to her. She pressed her eyes closed. When she opened them she said, “Should I wait in the kitchen, where Earth Man will see me?”

“Why don’t you put something on the stove nearest the door.” I followed her into the kitchen and stationed myself inside the pantry, next to the back door, where I could see her as she filled a pot with water and put it on the burner.

It was twenty minutes before he rapped on the door. “I made you a sandwich,” Laura said as she pulled opened the door. “It’s goose, you’ll like it.”

“I appreciate that. You’ve been real nice to me all along,” he said in a tone he might use with a small child. There was no remnant of his public stridency, or the confusion and fear that emerged when he’d answered my questions. He sounded as normal as any of us, more sincere than many. Laura flushed. She stared down at the sandwich—her own thirty pieces of goose—as if frozen by her impending betrayal. Then, she thrust the sandwich at him. I wished I could have seen Earth Man’s reaction. But from my vantage point, only the front of his cloak was visible, moving toward the sandwich. It looked as if he were going to inhale the sandwich through his elephant trunk. “I have to ask you a favor,” she said to him.

“For you? Of course.”

She pulled an envelope from her pocket. “I didn’t get a chance to pay Frank. He’s going to need his money. I know you’re his friend.”

“You want me to take it to him.”

She swallowed. I wondered if Earth Man recognized the shame in her face. Would he catch on that she was deceiving him? As I had so many times before, I wished I knew the state of his mind better.

“Tuck it in my boot,” he said, extending one foot.

She bent down, lifted the hem of his cloak, and wiggled the envelope down inside his well-scuffed boot.

“Thanks,” she said in almost a whisper when she stood up.

Earth Man didn’t answer. Was he lifting an eyebrow in question? Was he looking toward the corner around which I stood, tacitly asking Laura if they were being watched? If she responded, it was too subtle for me to catch. Finally, she said to him, “Is something the matter?”

“No. I’m just sorry this happened to you. I’m glad to be able to help. Are you going to be here tomorrow?”

“I don’t know. But we’ll be open Tuesday.”

“But I can come tomorrow, right? This is where I have my dinner. Even if no one else shows up, I’ll be here,” he assured her, as if his continued patronage were the key to Paradise’s financial survival. He pulled the sandwich closer to him. The cloak covered it almost completely.

“Yes, you can come tomorrow,” she said as she closed the door. She turned to me, but I held my finger to my mouth, and listened to Earth Man’s footsteps. I had hoped he would head toward Josephine, toward Howard, and give me time to get to my car. But he was going east, to Martin Luther King.

I
WAITED TILL EARTH
Man had time to reach the street, then opened the kitchen door of Paradise and walked quietly down the steps. There was no sign of him. I raced up the path, my running shoes silent on the cement. Pausing at the edge of the building, I looked left. No movement. At the end of the walk, I peered around the hedge. There he was, heading north on King.

Keeping on the grass, as near to the buildings as possible, I ran the hundred feet south to my car and waited to open the door until Earth Man started into the intersection. Once inside, I keyed in the mike with my thumb and called the dispatcher to get a car-to-car channel. The dispatcher would notify Howard and would route anyone else to another channel. Only someone wanting one of us would be referred to our channel, and in this instance, with both Doyle and Pereira in bed, that meant no one.

“I’m here on two,” Howard said in a minute. “Where’s our boy now?”

“North on King, going away from his hotel. He just crossed the street. You take him.”

“Any guesses where he’s headed?”

“Could be the Bhairava, Prem’s place, or to Adrienne Jenk’s flat. Could be some secret hideout known only to him and Yankowski.”

“Wherever, he’s not headed there fast. He ought to have a turtle beak in place of some of those snouts. Or maybe a few more trunks.”

“Leave a message for his couturier.”

“I’ve just passed him. He’s crossing the street, still moseying north.”

“Okay, I’m starting up.” I hung a U. The fog was thinner than it had been last night, barely a filmy veil. I could make out Earth Man’s conical form a block ahead. “You’re certainly right about turtle steps,” I said to Howard. “I hope he’s not having second thoughts about delivering the money.”

“Or considering bankrolling a ten-day vacation in Acapulco.”

“With the money I authorized, it would be a weekend in San Jose.” I sighed. I passed him at twenty miles per hour. Any slower would be an invitation, if not a demand, for him to notice me.

“Five bucks says he’s just scouting around for a spot to sit and eat his sandwich. How long has he been coming here for meals?”

“Two months.”

“He must be an expert on moonlit al fresco dining in this neighborhood.”

“You take him, Howard. He’s three houses from the corner.”

“What about the fiver?”

“Listen, if I have to tell Doyle that I spent two hours trailing Earth Man just to watch him gobble goose, I’m going to lose a lot more than five bucks. Doyle already has reservations about me handling this case.”

“Reservations?” Howard demanded. “Hey, how come? He didn’t have
reservations
when you delivered your last killer. He thought you were pretty hot stuff then.”

An AC Transit bus passed. Its bright interior lights shone against the dark night. Inside, one man sat in the back, staring ahead like the last patient in a dentist’s waiting room.

“Jill?” Howard demanded.

“He keeps asking me if I feel up to handling the case.”

“Well, you have been on sick leave.”

“He asked me four times, Howard.”

“Maybe he’s just concerned. Earth Man’s midblock. I’m past him.”

“Okay.” I drove in silence, toes pulled back to keep the speed down. When I spotted Earth Man he was nearing Hopkins Street. “If Doyle’s concerned, it’s not
for
me, it’s
about
me. Each time he asked, I told him I could handle the case; he doesn’t really believe me. Howard, the thing is I don’t think he can bring himself to believe me.”

Howard hesitated. “Well, you were in a bad crash. You could have been killed.”

“Howard, damn it, don’t defend him. Look, suppose it were you. Suppose you’d been out on sick leave; suppose you’d come back with a medical release. Suppose he’d asked you if you could handle a case, and you’d assured him, and then he’d asked again, and again, and again.”

“He wouldn’t do that.”

“Exactly.”

“Oh.” A van passed heading south. A cat darted half way across the lane, froze, then spun around and leapt for the curb. “Jill, Doyle probably thinks of you as a daughter.”

“He should think of me as a cop!”

I could hear Howard’s sharp intake of breath. “Oh. Well, you know, Jill, it probably doesn’t even occur to him he’s treating you differently. It’s the generational thing.”

“The generational thing that could bounce me out of Homicide. Howard, he wants me off the case, and he thinks he’s doing it for my own good. I’d be better off dealing with Grayson, who’s just after my job.”

“Jill—”

“Howard, you’re not even mad.”

“I am.”

“You don’t sound it.”

“What do you want, a growl?”

“Skip it,” I snapped.

“Hey, I’m trying to look at this thing logically. You want me to go charging down to the station, to Doyle, to protect you?”

“I said skip it.” Earth Man paused at the corner of Hopkins. He turned east, toward the hills, toward the hills, toward Adrienne Jenk’s flat, but he didn’t start walking. Then he turned south, for a moment looking directly at me. “Earth Man’s at the corner,” I muttered, “facing back south. I’ve passed him.”

“Fine,” he snapped.

The north branch of the Berkeley Library sits on a triangle of land at the northwest corner of Hopkins and King. I pulled around it and stopped.

“He’s heading west,” Howard said. “He’s crossing Josephine, picking up his pace, going toward the running track. Maybe he’s warming up to run a few laps.” I could hear the unsureness in his voice, but I was too angry to deal with it.

“Umm.”

“He’s still walking. I’m past him now. You better start. That hurricane fence isn’t very high. It’d almost be worth the chance of losing him to see his beaks chirping on top of the fence.”

“Maybe to you. I don’t have the luxury of losing another suspect.” I turned right onto Hopkins, my hands clutching the wheel, my teeth clenched. A block ahead, Howard’s car moved slowly. Earth Man ambled along staring at the track as if he were watching the Olympic Trials. He passed the end of the track, walked behind one of the shade trees at the curb. Then he disappeared. “He’s gone!”

“Gone? What do you mean gone? Where could he go? He has to be in the park.”

“I’m twenty yards shy of where he disappeared.”

“I’m heading back toward you. You see anything?”

“No movement. Nothing. He has to be in the park; there’s nowhere else for him to be.”

“Maybe he’s just taking a leak.”

“Right.” I wanted to step on the gas, but I forced myself to keep the pace steady, not to chance alerting him by gunning the engine. I stared to the left. Despite the occasional streetlight, the park was dark. Too many trees. Scores of places to hide, in the playground, in the bushes, by the pool, up in the school yard. I scanned the track, the bushes, the macadam walkway into the park. Then I spotted him. I sighed, feeling simultaneously relieved, furious, and foolish. “There he is, on the path to the playground. He’s sitting on a bench.” I slowed the car and stared, the relief gone. Now I felt only angry and ridiculous. “Goddamn it, Howard, he’s getting out his sandwich.”