Till the Butchers Cut Him Down (32 page)

“Do you have his phone number?”

“T.J. must, somewhere here.” He rummaged, read it off. “Why d’you want to talk to Ger?”

“Just a routine question.” I ended the call before Josh could ask more.

When I identified myself to Gerry Butler, he recognized my name and didn’t seem surprised to hear from me. “Suits told me
when he came up here on Saturday that you worked for him for a while.”

“So he did visit you.”

“Uh-huh. Dropped in out of nowhere, like he used to back when. Spent the night and took off before I got up the next morning.”

“What did he want?”

“Just to touch base, I guess. We sat around, got stoned, reminisced about the old days. Talked about Anna and Josh. Noah.
The way we were.” Butler laughed. “Jesus, that sounds like a song on the easy-listening station.”

“How did he seem?”

“Very intense at first. If I didn’t know Suits, I’d’ve thought he was on something. After we’d smoked a few numbers, he relaxed,
and around the time I sent him off to bed, he was downright out of it. Not that I blame him; he thinks it’s his fault Anna
died, and in a way he’s right. You make enough enemies, shit like that happens.”

“Did he say anything about knowing who set the explosion?”

“No.”

“Or about getting revenge?”

“Well, sure. But I thought that was just the dope talking. I tried to tell him that getting revenge wouldn’t bring Anna back
and that he had to let go.”

“Did you get through to him?”

“Hard to say. He must’ve felt better in the morning, though, because he left a note thanking me for clearing up loose ends
for him.”

“What loose ends?”

“Damned if I know.” Butler hesitated. “D’you think you and Suits’ll get back together now that Anna’s gone?”

“What?”

Butler sounded taken aback at my sharp tone. “Well, before Anna, you were the love of his life. I just thought—”

“I was never the love of his life,” I told him. “Even Suits doesn’t believe that any more.”

* * *

When I got to Miranda’s pierside diner the lunch trade had thinned. I sat down at the counter and ordered a burger and coffee
from a waitress, caught Carmen’s eye as he slapped the patty on the grill. “Hey,” he said, “where’ve you been keeping yourself?”

“Here and there. You have a minute?”

“Once I get these last few orders out. Hang around awhile, coffee’s on the house.”

I accepted his dubious gift, ate my burger, and was eyeing a piece of chocolate cream pie when Carmen motioned for me to join
him in a booth he’d just cleared—saving me from a severe dietary error. As I sat down, he asked, “You seen T.J.?”

“No. Have you?”

“Not since Friday afternoon. He came in around four-thirty, had his usual order of sliders.”

“Did he say what he’s been doing, where he’s been staying?”

“Nope. Was awful quiet, for T.J.” Carmen’s face grew solemn. “’Course, that’s natural, considering what happened to his wife.
I tried to offer my condolences, but he just brushed them off, said he didn’t want to talk about her.”

“So what did the two of you talk about?”

Carmen looked away. “Oh,” he said in an overly casual tone, “the weather. He asked me if I thought the rains might start soon.”

“What else?”

“I told him that nobody can predict the weather any more, what with these crazy patterns—”

“No, I meant, what else did you talk about?”

“Well, he asked if his pilot’d been in. He hadn’t.”

“And?”

Carmen studied the window beside the booth, pulled a paper napkin from its dispenser, and carefully removed a ketchup smear
from a corner of the pane.

“Hey,” I said, “I’m on T.J.’s side—remember?”

“Yeah, I remember.” He hesitated. “Okay. The reason he came in was to ask where is a good place to buy a gun without a waiting
period.”

Not good at all. “What did you tell him?”

“I sent him to Howie Tso.”

“My God, Carmen!” Howie Tso was the biggest dealer of illegal firearms in northern California; both state and federal authorities
had been trying to get something on him for years, but up to now Tso and his legion of runners had been too clever for them.

“Ah, Howie’s all right,” Carmen said. “At least he don’t overcharge his customers.”

“How come you know him?”

“We go way back to when he was just a kid hanging around the piers.”

Probably waiting to take delivery on a shipment of Uzis, I thought. There was no way I’d ever find out if Suits had actually
contacted Tso, because even if the dealer would speak with me—which was extremely doubtful—he wouldn’t ever reveal the details
of a transaction. Unless …

“Carmen,” I said, “can you set up a meeting with Tso for me?”

“You want to ask him about what T.J. bought? He won’t tell you nothing.”

“Still, I’d like to ask.”

“Well, I can try. Call me later on, I’ll let you know what Howie says.”

The waitress shouted from the back room; there was a problem with the Coors delivery. Carmen stood up.

“Wait,” I said, “one last question. The old-timer T.J. said he’d been talking to the night he got drunk and ended up in the
Bay—do you know who he is?”

“Some old guy who’s living in his van up and down the waterfront. Knows all the places to park overnight and moves around
a lot so the cops don’t hassle him. Kind of an interesting guy, I’m told. Used to be captain of a Matson liner, dines out
on his stories.”

“You know his name?”

“Uh-uh.”

“The van—have you seen it?”

“It’s white, newish.” He shrugged. “But what with all these makes and models they’re coming out with now, I couldn’t tell
you what kind it is.”

* * *

I drove up and down the waterfront from the Ferry Building to Islais Creek, but didn’t spot a newish white van driven by anyone
who could be described as an old-timer. Near the Mission Rock Terminal, in a weedy lot across from a burned-out pier, sat
several old cars that looked as if people were living in them. I pulled the MG over there, bumping across the rusted tracks
of the defunct Belt Railway. A woman slept on the front seat of an old sedan crowded with boxed and bagged possessions, and
two little kids played in the dirt nearby. The place reminded me of the hobo jungles that had sprung up during the Great Depression—had
sprung up again in this era that nobody wanted to call another depression.

I looked around, spotted a trio of men fishing off the wreckage of a pier beyond the chain-link fence and the warning signs.
One segment of the fence had been knocked down and flattened; I went over there and stepped across it. The men glanced at
me, then returned their attention to their lines.

As I picked my way through the broken concrete and rubble, though, the men’s posture altered subtly. They looked at me again,
not with hostility—it wasn’t time for that yet—but with wariness. Then they exchanged glances, and one of them stood, handing
his pole to the man next to him. When I reached the edge of the broken planking, he faced me, arms loose at his sides, blocking
access. He was big—around six-three—and a long scar cut a jagged path across the deep brown of his left cheek. His eyes met
mine, cold and unyielding.

“Lady,” he said, “you can get hurt out here.”

“I won’t go any farther.” I motioned at the water. “You catching anything?”

He hesitated, glanced at his seated companions, who were silently watching. “Just a few bluegills. Enough for supper.”

I jerked my head at the weedy lot behind me. “You staying over there?”

“Why, you gonna roust us?” One of the other men snickered at the question; their spokesman glared at him.

“I’ve got no problem with where you stay.”

“So what you want?”

“I’m looking for somebody—an old man who lives along the waterfront in a newish white van. Used to be captain of a Matson
liner—”

“What you want with Cap?”

“I’ve heard he tells good stories.”

“Oh, shit, man.” Spokesman looked at his companions, laughed. “Don’t tell me this is another take-a-homeless-to-dinner week!
You rich bitches sure’re crazy for Cap and his stories.” The others joined in the laughter.

It was the first time in my life that I’d been mistaken for a society matron. I blinked, astonished, then said lamely, “Well,
they tell me he’s got some good ones.”

Spokesman looked at the others. “We don’t want to deprive Cap of his free dinner, now, do we?” he asked. “What you do,” he
told me, “is look for him up at Aquatic Park.”

I hadn’t thought to search the touristy northern end of the waterfront. “What’s he doing up there?”

“Cap, he’s got this schedule. Knows where and when they won’t hassle him for sleeping in his wheels. Mondays, that’s where
he’s at.”

I thanked him and started back toward the pushed-down fence. Spokesman didn’t reply, just reached out for his fishing pole.
When I got to the vacant lot, the kids were still playing in the dirt and the woman was still sleeping in the sedan. I glanced
back at the men on the pier; they sat with their heads bowed over their lines, and beyond them the burned pilings loomed above
the water, their shadows shivering and rippling on its slick surface.

* * *

I called Charlotte Keim while waiting for the drawbridge at China Basin to close, thinking that I’d really gotten the hang
of this car-phone business. McCone was hurtling into the twenty-first century faster than the speed of light. Pretty soon
I’d—

The car behind me honked. I saw that the one in front was already halfway across the bridge. I popped the clutch, stalled
the MG, and Keim’s voice repeated, “Hello? Who is this?”

Well, hell.

After I got things under control, Keim told me she had the information I’d requested. Suits’s purchases at the sporting-goods
outlet consisted of a sleeping bag, air mattress, tarp, cook set, and Coleman stove and lantern.

“Sounds like your guy’s gone camping,” she commented.

It would have sounded that way to me, too, if I hadn’t known Suits was looking to make an illegal gun buy.

* * *

I took North Point across town to Aquatic Park, bypassing the congestion near Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf, and turned downhill
at Ghirardelli Square. At the foot of Polk Street stood the nautical-style Maritime Museum building, a former bathhouse and
restaurant constructed in the mid-thirties as a WPA project. It’s been a long time since bathers flocked to the protected
cove behind it; about the only ones you see nowadays are members of the Dolphin swim club—hardy but, to my way of thinking,
somewhat demented souls who daily brave the icy waters. The streamlined Moderne building now houses both the museum and the
San Francisco Senior Center, and the park has been incorporated into the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

I wondered how Cap dodged the park-service patrols when he slept there in his van.

The van wasn’t in evidence now, though. I checked the parking area at the end of Beach Street, circled Ghirardelli, then continued
along North Point to the big parking lot by the fishing pier at the foot of Van Ness. Still no van.

So, had the fisherman lied to me about Cap’s whereabouts? Or had the old-timer simply not arrived yet? Either way, things
weren’t going well at all, and my sense of urgency about locating Suits was making me tense and edgy.

I pulled into a parking space, contemplated my options, then called Carmen at the diner. Howie Tso had agreed to see me, he
said, but not till seven o’clock.

“Where?”

“Here. Howie says he’s been lusting after my chicken-fried steak.”

I’d seen one of those passing by on its way to an unwary customer. If Howie Tso was making a special trip to the diner for
something that looked like that, he was not only a criminal but also insane. “See you at seven,” I told Carmen.

Now what? Nearing four o’clock, hours to kill. Go back to suite C and further frustrate myself by poring over the documents
in my briefcase? Go back to suite C and take a luxurious bath in that enormous Jacuzzi? Go back to suite C and get seriously
into the vintage wine? The latter courses of action were tempting—and definitely uncalled for. There must be something—

The phone buzzed. I snatched it up. Mick.

“A nurse from U.C. Med Center called,” he said. “Noah Romanchek’s in intensive care and wants to see you.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Visions of a violent confrontation between Suits and the attorney flashed through my mind.

“Heart attack. From the way the nurse talked, I guess it’s serious. She said for you to hurry.”

* * *

I hurried. Across Van Ness to Fell Street, then a quick jog through Golden Gate Park past Kezar Stadium to Arguello, where
I left the MG in Willie Whelan’s driveway. Rae’s former love owned a 1904 Edwardian just down from the med center parking
structure; it would be faster to leave the MG there than to brave near rush-hour traffic on Parnassus Heights. I scribbled
a note to Willie and stuck it under the windshield wiper, slipped a spare key through his mail slot in case he needed to move
the car. Then I rushed uphill to the parking garage on Frederick Street, took the elevator to the Parnassus level, and—with
the help of several kind strangers—finally located the intensive-care heart unit.

Romanchek was in a private room, his right arm connected to an I.V. bag, his left to a heart monitor. His face was gray and
even more skeletal than I remembered, and I realized with some surprise that, although I’d spoken frequently on the phone
with him, I’d only seen him twice—once at my kitchen table and once in his office at GGL. His eyes were closed when I entered,
but as I hesitated some feet from his bed he opened them.

With an effort he said, “Thanks for coming.”

“How are you?”

“Bad one.” His mouth twitched. “Monitoring me. Irregular activity, they’ll make you leave. We’ll … talk … fast.”

“Okay.” I moved closer and waited.

“Been thinking … why it all happened. At the farm …”

“Garberville?”

“T.J.’s first mistake. Anna … never loved … But he was … obsessed.”