City of Secrets (12 page)

“Does best? Does best? I don't need her. I need—I need…”

Gerry Duggan's face crumpled up and then let go, unable to hold on. His eyes opened wide, as if seeing his cell for the first time. Covered his face with his hands. And kept rocking, drops of tears and sweat dripping through his fingers.

*   *   *

They didn't get much more out of Duggan. He stank of fear and urine and wet, warm tears, entrapment his only reality. He rocked and cried and growled, anger throwing off a spark or two, aimless and unfocused.

Another toothless tiger, pacing his cage.

No, he wasn't guilty. Wouldn't say if he knew Pandora, admitted he'd been there that morning. Walked into her dressing room, found her with the ice pick in her chest. Nobody else was there. Pulled it out, ran. Took a taxi from the Island. Cops found the cabdriver, who remembered the shaking Irishman with the darting black eyes clutching his stomach.

Couldn't remember what he did with the ice pick. The cops dug it out of a trash can over by Sunset Bridge, where he caught the taxi off the Island. Couldn't remember any writing, couldn't remember anything except her white, dead body, how the blood was dripping slowly around the hole and how the pick made a sucking sound when he pulled it out.

He crawled back to his apartment and tore out the phone. Got drunk and stayed that way until they broke down his door and handcuffed him.

Duggan talked to the wall, mumbling first, growing louder, more articulate. Wouldn't explain why he walked in on Pandora. They asked him about Annie Learner and he shook his head back and forth, not stopping. Eyes, moist and red, stared at the wall like a lost lover.

Duggan was in agony, and not just from the confinement.

*   *   *

She didn't speak to Meyer until they reached the steps of the Hall of Justice. Checked her watch. Still early, just past one thirty.

“You see what I mean, Miranda. He isn't even fighting.”

She blew smoke out the corner of her mouth. “Still doesn't mean he's not guilty. But I agree. Something's not right. And they've got a hell of a circumstantial case against him, Meyer. This isn't going to be easy, even if there's something crooked in it.”

The lawyer nodded, staring at his spats, vest and demeanor both wilted.

“I'll send you a retainer by messenger along with the reports. Everything should be at your office in an hour.”

“Thanks. I'll be in touch.” She looked up at the older man, noticing the circles under his eyes, the yellowed skin. “Get some sleep. Jesus Christ, why are you even taking this case? What's Duggan to you?”

Meyer looked past her toward the gaily colored Chinese restaurants and shops along Washington Street. “Two years ago, Polish Jews were expelled from Germany. Left to rot on the border, unwanted by either country.” His eyes dropped to his hands and the thick gold rings on each of them.

“I practice law. I earn a good living. I owe it to this country—and to my father's country—to defend Gerald Duggan.”

Miranda flicked the cigarette on the steps, rubbed it out. “You believe in him that much?”

He shrugged. “I believe he is innocent of these crimes, at least.”

She shook her head. “You're a goddamn knight, Meyer. But this is a war we're in. And nobility can be fucking expensive.”

He cocked his head and gave her a small smile. “I'll keep that in mind, my dear. And in the meantime, perhaps you can explain to yourself why you almost died for Eddie Takahashi. And why you just signed my contract.”

Miranda opened her purse, lit another cigarette, then turned and walked down the steps.

*   *   *

She found No-Legs Norris on Grant and Commercial, propped against a wall next to Blind Willie and eating a liverwurst sandwich. Miranda dropped a dollar in Willie's rusty Campbell's Soup cup, and he smiled at her, no teeth, holding out a sharpened pencil. She gently pushed his hand away.

“Keep it for next time, Willie.”

He folded his lips together, sucking on his bare gums. “Tha's wha' you always say, Miss Corbie.”

She leaned against the downside of the slope next to Ned, her back against the wall of the Far East Bakery. He pushed himself up straighter, weight resting on his powerful hands. She kept her voice low.

“Something's rotten.”

“Nothin' new.”

Half a man, and still fighting a war that left him that way. Face brown and lined with sun, mouth thin, eyes sharp. Good-looking as a boy, fresh from Flanders Fields.

Could've joined the sideshow, dancing on his hands, wearing a tux and driving a race car like Johnny Eck. But Ned turned down Ripley and all the cheaper impresarios that followed in his wake. He preferred to work on the streets in the city he was born in.

Miranda admired him for that.

“You hear anything about Pandora Blake or Annie Learner?”

He looked up at her, squinting in the sunlight. “I heard they arrested Duggan real damn quick. And I heard about the name, the Nazi connection. Goddamn bastards. My old lady's mother's side is Jewish.”

Miranda raised her eyebrows. “I didn't know you were married, Ned.”

He shrugged. “We been living together for a while. It ain't official.” He winked at her. “It's only my legs I'm missin', remember.”

She grinned. Handed him a five-dollar bill.

“Any scat you hear. On Duggan, on Hitler lovers, on Pandora or Annie. Anything at all. I'll be around to check.”

He saluted her, pocketing the money too fast to follow. Motioned for Miranda to bend closer. Whispered: “OK if I bring Willie in on it? I been tryin' to help him get around. And it's surprising what folks'll say around a blind man.”

“There's plenty of money for both of you.”

He turned to Willie, who was smiling vacantly. “You ready to scram?”

The blind man's voice piped like a baby chick's. “Anytime, No-Legs.”

Miranda headed down Grant toward California. At Sacramento she turned around. Ned was pulling himself across the street one-handed on his plywood platform, holding on to Blind Willie with his other hand.

*   *   *

She walked into the Republic Drugstore at Grant and Sacramento, bought more Pep-O-Mint and Butter Rum Life Savers. Supposed to put spring in her step and pep in her back and take her mind off the goddamn nicotine withdrawal.

She looked to her left, up the Sacramento grade to the Baptist church. Thought about Eddie Takahashi.

Telegram from Emily was still at the office. Miranda received it just a couple of weeks ago, while the Fair was in rehearsal, so she wired congratulations from the Western Union exhibit. The sales representative gave her a funny look. Guess she wasn't supposed to know anybody with the last name of Chen.

She unraveled the foil on the Pep-O-Mints and popped two in her mouth, staring at the vacant, shuttered shop on Sacramento Street. At the spot where Eddie lay dying.

And she thought about her life since February, about the flood of high-profile divorce cases that came her way, word on the underground circuit that the Corbie dame was good and good-looking besides, and that made it easier to get what you wanted, that grade-A divorce settlement, no Reno trip necessary. They were surprised when she turned most of them down.

She took on three cases. A bigamist—made the second one this year. Then a medical school case where the wife helped put him through it, and once he got the degree, it was
Young Dr. Kildare
time, tired old lines for the suddenly tired old wife.

You're such a drudge, Nancy. You never take care of yourself, never meet me with a Manhattan after work and ask me how many lives I've saved. Nurse Rollins understands my work, understands a man has needs underneath his white lab coat.

Doctor who liked to play doctor. She enjoyed that case.

Then there was the most recent, the old lady who thought her husband was philandering on her. Took Miranda two weeks to convince her it was all in her head. Took her two weeks to convince the stubborn old bastard of a husband to buy his wife a new dress and take her out to the Golden Pheasant. Earned every fucking penny she made.

Miranda sighed, chewing on the Pep-O-Mints, and walked down Grant toward California, past Old Saint Mary's and her favorite admonition.

Son, observe the time and fly from evil …

Shoe taps on cement kept time with the images clicking by, slow-motion style, then fast, too fast to catch, to remember.

Pandora's body, sepia photo of her and Ozzie. Painted swastika on a synagogue wall, old man, blind man, legless man. Cruel man, strutting, brandishing a hot iron, harpy of a woman crowing in triumph. Perfume counter girl making eyes at a customer, Hitler's latest speech, spittle flying, Coughlin and Lindbergh on the radio, explaining why the Nazis were really fighting our war, the war against Communists and Jews.

And still they flooded her, overwhelmed her, until she had to stop walking and lean against the shaded brick of an apartment building on Pine, waiting for the film to unroll, the parade to stop.

For her hands to quit shaking.

Through it all, Gerry Duggan's eyes. Accused and accusing. In agony.

Miranda pushed on, walking faster. Finally turned the corner on Mason and was heading toward Bush when she saw it.

A Ford in Cordoba tan.

 

Eleven

Parked on Mason at the corner of Bush, facing downhill toward Union Square. One man in it, neck and shoulders bent. He straightened up with a cigarette, cranking down the driver's window, arm in a white linen suit resting on the door.

Miranda ducked into the shadow of a small redbrick apartment building, breathing hard, and not because of the walk from Chinatown.

Memory of the green Oldsmobile bearing down on her was still nightmare fresh, after the calendar pages turned and the bruises faded and Martini's grave was covered in ostentatious wreaths at the Lawndale Italian cemetery. She rubbed her right leg without realizing it, hand brushing against the thin dark wool.

She relied on Joe Merello to let her know if the Lanza and Lima families and their associates had her marked. Whether Gillio still wielded any power. Joe heard everything, either at the bar of the Club Moderne or behind the palm fronds and the little door in the back. Over a roulette wheel people talked, and Joe's boys listened.

He figured she was safe, they owed her a favor, since Martini was L.A.'s boy, pissing on territory that didn't belong to him, brought up at Gillio's invitation.

She wasn't so sure. And she didn't like the Ford sedan.

The man in the car looked at his watch. He was wearing a Panama, and it shaded his face. Tall, skinny build, with a long oval head to match, left wrist knobby even at a distance.

Miranda waited. Man in his late twenties, wearing overalls and carrying a box of tools on his shoulder. Ran down the apartment steps in a hurry, slowing down enough to get a look at her.

She smiled at him. He smiled back, no hat to tip.

“You need directions, Miss? Anything I can help you with?”

Shook her head, smiled again.

“No thanks. Just catching my breath before walking uphill.” She gestured toward Pine. “I see there's an apartment vacant here. Looks like a nice building.”

Eager voice. “Oh, it is, Miss, it is. The supe's a swell guy. Rent's fair, neighbors are all right.” He looked her up and down again.

“My name's Albert. Albert Daniels.”

The thin man in the Ford opened the car door, clambered out. Looked around the street and stretched. Miranda kept her eyes on him.

“If I had a car, I wouldn't have stopped to rest and we wouldn't have met—isn't that funny? I'm thinking about saving up for one. Maybe something like that.”

She pointed to the Ford. The linen suit hung loosely off the driver while he walked across the street to the Cottage Food Shop. Albert glanced over at the sedan, shrugged.

“Fords are OK, Miss. Dependable. That one looks like a '38, good engine on it. Gets about eighty-five horsepower.”

Miranda turned toward Al. “Do you know that car?”

The young man shook his head modestly. “No, can't say I do. Never seen it before. But I know my autos, Miss—I've got to.” He pointed to the toolbox, gave her a grin. “I'm a mechanic.”

She started backing down the hill toward Bush, sunlight making her squint up at Albert, smile fixed.

“When I get my car, I'll come looking for you.”

“Hope so, Miss. Say—I never did get your name. And I thought you were headed up to Pine? That's where I'm going.”

“You know, I think I'm just going to get a bite at the Cottage first. My name's Miranda.”

He nodded, repositioning the toolbox on his shoulder, face a little crestfallen.

“Well … Miranda—hope to see you around.” He called out to her when she was almost even with the Ford. “Personally, I like the Nash. A lot of power for only a few dollars more.”

She waved. The mechanic stared at her for a few seconds, confused, then turned and trudged slowly up Mason.

Miranda crossed the street quickly, heading for the tan car.

*   *   *

Not much time. Skinny would get his pastrami on rye eventually and come back to the car, staking out her apartment.

If he was staking her. If she wasn't just wasting time she didn't have, worrying about nothing.

Car was clean inside. Passenger window rolled halfway down. Blanket in the backseat, nothing too unusual. Maps of San Francisco, Oakland, and Los Angeles. Some coffee-stained napkins on the passenger side. Couple of matchbooks, Fisherman's Grotto Number Nine and the Chat Noir Café on Sutter.

Miranda wasn't sure what she expected. No bloodstains, no nooses, no blackjack. No gun visible, though he'd be wearing it, and the extra would be in the glove compartment.

She glanced over at the sunny corner of Bush and Mason. If she had any sense, she'd hightail it down to her apartment and pick up Pandora's packet, which was why she'd walked home in the first place.