I drove to Carol’s apartment. It was a little after eight o’clock in the morning. Carol didn’t answer her door buzzer. Three times. But someone finally came down the stairs and opened the street level door on their way out. I knocked loudly on Carol’s door, and after shouting her name heard movement inside the apartment.
“Just a minute. Hang on,” she groaned. She coughed a couple times, deep and almost angry, like smokers do when they disturb their lungs from a nap. “Who is it?” More coughing, and the sound of her moving toward the door.
“It’s Lucas.”
Carol opened the door. She was a mess. Her eyes were bloodshot and her eyeliner was smeared into black streaks under both eyes. Her lips were cracked and dry.
“Whata ya want?” she said. She’d already turned away from the door, leaving it open for me to enter the apartment. She stumbled over to the coffee table, and as she bent over to pick up a cigarette and the lighter, the terry cloth robe she had on didn’t cover the ugly purple bruise on the back of her left thigh. She got the cigarette smoking and coughed. “Jesus, it’s gotta be early. What time is?” she asked as she flopped herself on the couch.
“It’s morning. What the hell happened to you in the last twenty four hours?”
The apartment was as stale and clammy as it was on my first visit. I noticed a rectangular mirror on the floor near the couch with a white dusty residue clinging to the surface. More drugs.
“Nothing happened to me,” she mumbled, running a hand through a tangled mop of hair and wiping at her nose. “I just didn’t sleep well, that’s all.”
“Looks like you didn’t sleep at all. But, hell I don’t care. I want to know about Cole. I want to know if you talked to him yesterday. After you left the court house. Did you call him? Did you see him?”
“You didn’t say anything to Ray, did you? You didn’t mention him to Ray?”
“No. Answer my question. Did you talk to Cole?”
“That’s my business.”
“Cole the one provides you with the coke?”
“What?”
“Did you talk to Cole about me?”
“Huh?”
“Did you mention my name to Cole?”
“About what?”
It was like trying to have a conversation with a rock. “Did you tell Cole I knew about the relationship between the two of you?”
“Yeah, I guess, I did.”
“Why?”
“We were talking. I wanted him to know we had to stop. It couldn’t last. I needed it to stop.” The conversation was hard for her. She’d get part of an idea in her head but getting the words completely through her mouth took effort. She curled herself into a little ball on the couch. “Is that all you wanted? I’m kinda tired.”
She was a damaged, but not yet destroyed, young woman, barely able to have a conversation, a huddled body collapsing in on itself, as if in retreat from everyone and everything. She closed her eyes, placed one hand to the side of her head, pressing in at her temple as if it were a button that would turn off the world. I left her alone.
I drove from Divisadero Street and snaked my way into Chinatown to visit Lee Wong. It was a short visit. The moment I walked into the store Wong looked at me, turned away from the counter where he had been arranging necklaces, and marched into the rear of the store.
His female assistant, somewhat startled looked from Wong to me.
“Yes?” she said.
I walked past her into the rear of the store.
“You not a cop,” Wong shouted at me. He had taken a seat on a work stool and was anxiously lighting a pipe. He used the pipe as a pointer. “You lie, just like all the others.”
“What do you mean?” I said, but I knew what he meant, and he knew I knew.
“Lie some more. You not cop. The other cop? I call him and ask about you. I.A.D. Shit! You not even a cop. Cole tells me.”
“Why did you call him?”
“What? Why not? He supposed to help me. Maybe I think if I tell him about you, it will make him keep his word and help with immigration. Like promised before.”
“I wouldn’t count on Cole,” I said.
“I not listen to you. You a liar, too. Just like him.” Wong drew on his pipe and exhaled the smoke in my direction. “You just like him. Like Cole. Go away.”
I knew Cole and I were not the same, but there would be no way to convince Wong of that. I left Wong silently smoking his pipe, locked into his world view of all cops as liars and users unworthy of trust.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
I drove from Chinatown into North Beach and exchanged parking places with an old Cadillac just two doors down from Cole’s flat. My plan was to confront Cole with the things I knew and see what happened. He would dictate the rest of it. Quite a sophisticated plan.
I could feel the weight of the Smith and Wesson and the pull of the shoulder holster as I went up the steps to the front porch. Cole didn’t answer the door bell. He could be out for a late breakfast, could be back in Marin testifying in court, or a thousand other places. Still, he was my priority, and I decided to wait around for at least a while to see if he showed. I crossed the street and went into a neighborhood deli called Dino’s that had a sign in the front window saying Fresh Coffee. I bought a cup of coffee and two newspapers from a woman with an amusing nametag that read: Dino’s Wife, and went back to my car.
I was finishing the coffee and the business section of the first paper when Marty Milner pulled his Mustang into the Cole’s driveway. He set his emergency flashers going, and used a key to enter the building. He hadn’t looked around the street, and didn’t see me. Less than five minutes later Milner was back. He was dressed in black jeans with thick boots and a white shirt with the tails left hanging out and the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. When he was behind the wheel of his car I watched him tilt his rear view mirror to look at himself. He ran his hands through his hair and wiped at his nose. He backed out of the driveway and headed up Stockton Street and I followed him.
Milner made a couple left hand turns, ending back on Columbus Street, took a right at California and then started sliding down the hill toward the Tenderloin. Near the corner of Taylor and Golden Gate he parked next to a fire hydrant, and I found a yellow zone across the street. He left his car and approached the three working girls half a block up the street. Morning prostitution is not exactly the high end of the working trade, but there are always some girls putting in a full day. Two of the girls were in miniskirts and their friend was in shiny red hot pants. All three stood tall on spiked high heels. Their clothes would work perfectly if anyone wanted to remake a 1960’s movie about go-go dancers. All three were smoking cigarettes and seemed to know Milner. They laughed and one of the girls pointed up the street. Milner turned and left the group, as the girl in the hot pants cruised up to the curb where a silver haired grandfather pulled over in his white Lincoln. Another retiree with more time on his hands than is good for him.
Milner walked into a bar called Tiny’s. From my car I could see the front of the bar and the grandfather in the Lincoln. The girl in the hot pants leaned into the passenger’s side window, and after some discussion opened the door and climbed in. Gramps had scored his morning meal.
A couple minutes later Milner came out of Tiny’s. He was with a young girl in tight blue jeans and a tank top. The two of them strolled to Milner’s car and pulled away from the curb. I followed him to a motel on Polk Street where he drove into the parking lot. Milner went into the motel office by himself, and when he came out he waved at the girl waiting in the car. She followed Milner to the second floor and around a corner of the building and out of sight.
I wasn’t excited about waiting for Milner and his date, but Cole wasn’t home and I had no other plans. I turned on the radio to a sports call in show and listened to callers argue about which local team had the most rapid fan base. Forty five minutes later the girl came around the corner of the building on the second floor and walked down the sta
irs. She was adjusting a set of headphones and swaying slightly from side to side with her morning music. I left my car.
“Hold it,” I said when I got close. She looked at me with a dazed, unfocused stare, and popped a bubble from her chewing gum. I flashed my badge at her. She stopped and I made a motion to her headphones. “Take those off.”
She slipped the headphones from the top of her head and let them dangle around her neck.
“Listen I was just with one of your own up there. You can’t mess with me for that.”
“I can do whatever I want.” Real tough guy talk. “I want you to walk with me back upstairs and lead me to the room you just left. You’re going to knock on the door and tell Marty you forgot something. When he comes to the door you can leave.”
She looked at me suspiciously. I wasn’t asking her to do anything that made sense to her, but it also didn’t sound difficult, and she wasn’t getting arrested.
“I never seen you before,” she said.
“That’s good for you. Now let’s go.” I put my hand on her arm and turned her back toward the staircase leading to the second floor.
She led me past seven or eight rooms and then we turned the corner and stopped at 323. I mimed a knocking motion with my fist and she knocked on the door.
“Yeah?” Milner said from inside the room.
“It’s Gina. I forgot something,” she said.
“Come on in.”
Gina looked at me and I moved my head to indicate she could take off, and she did. I waited until she was around the corner and I pulled out my gun. I turned the knob on the door and entered the room.
Milner was in a chair pulled up to a small round table. He was wearing only a pair of boxer shorts. There was a pile of coke on the table and Milner was leaning into the pile, holding on to a thin red straw that was stuck up his nose.
“Hi Marty,” I said.
Milner jumped slightly, almost losing his balance. He righted himself and pulled the straw from his nose. He stood up from the chair.
“What the fuck? You!”
“You’ve got problems, Marty,” I said.
“Where’s Gina?”
“She’s gone.” I grabbed one of the two chairs against one wall, spun it around and sat in it facing Milner with my arms straddling the back of the chair. There was a wet motel towel on the floor and I picked it up and threw it at Milner. “Wipe that shit off your nose.”
Milner followed my instructions. He looked too wired to be thinking clearly. The pictures weren’t in focus and the world had tilted.
“We need to talk about Frank Cole, Marty. I don’t really care about your drug use, though you obviously got a problem there. And I will use it to get what I want if you won’t help me.”
“What?”
“I can make you disposable. End your career, if I want to.”
The paranoia that comes from doing a lot of coke seemed to be getting the better of Milner. He used the towel to again wipe at his face and at the back of his neck. “Why do you want to fuck with me?” he said.
“I don’t really care about you, aren’t you listening. I want Cole. I want to know about the bust of Ray Rhodes, and about Carol Rhodes. I want to know about Charlie Ramus and Lee Wong.”
Milner stood up from the chair. “No…,” he said. He shook his head from side to side as if trying to dislodge a nightmare. “I don’t know about…” he couldn’t decide what to say, what he should do. “Frank’s my friend, almost like a big brother.”
I startled Milner by jumping up from my chair and slapping him across the face with the back of my hand. The blow knocked him against the table with the stash of coke. Some of the drug went flying off the table onto the carpet. Milner looked crushed. A thin line of blood dripped from the corner of his mouth.
“Wake up Marty. It’s story time.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
I left Milner with enough to go back and see McNamara. I called him at the station.
“I need to see you. You got some time?” I asked.
“I’ve been sitting here waiting for your call,” he cracked.
“Ha, ha.”
“I heard you were in a scuffle this morning?”
“A scuffle?”
“It an older word, I admit it. You prefer something else? How about rumpus?”
“Mac…”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m unblemished and absolute.”
“See, you get it. Well, I’m here. Come on in.”
McNamara was sitting at his desk polishing off a glazed donut with a swallow of coffee when I walked into his office.
“The perfect cop,” I said and sat down in a chair across from him and his large oak desk. “Is this brunch?”
“No, brunch implies there won’t be lunch, and that would be inaccurate.” He pushed a manila file folder across the top of his desk. I took it and opened it. Inside there were two rap sheets, each with an accompanying photograph paper-clipped to the top of the page. I recognized the men as the two Asian shooters who had tried to kill me.
“These two are Chinese. Members of the Wah Ching Gang. Imported from Hong Kong. Twenty-six years old and dead.”
“I have nothing to do with the Wah Ching? I said.
“Independent contractors. Wah Ching is said to be selling the services of its members. Branching out you might say. Diversifying.”
“How progressive of them.”
“I read your statement, Lucky. It’s pretty vague. Wrong target? You wouldn’t believe that. I don’t believe it,” McNamara said as he finished off the last of his coffee.
“Why not? It happens. The Feds do it. Don’t you watch 60 minutes?”
“No, I don’t as a matter of fact.”
“It’s Cole.”
McNamara stared at me. I gave him everything. I explained Cole’s relationship with Carol Rhodes, and how they first got together when Ray went to prison. How Cole convinced Carol he could help her. I tied in Ray’s eventual release and his return to Carol to his bust in North Beach.
“Milner told me Cole gave him Rhodes as sort of a target. Milner said the bust was clean, and it was only later that he learned Charlie Ramus had been involved in setting it up. Ramus planted the gun in Ray’s car, and the dope. He was the one who busted the taillight on Ray’s car. Milner said Cole told him about it later, and laughed about how smoothly it all went down.”
“What was in it for Ramus?”
“Cole found Ramus. He knew that Ramus had been to see Rhodes, because Carol had mentioned it. The two of them had served time together. Ramus wanted Rhodes back in the life with him, but Rhodes was not interested. Ramus got pissed off. Ramus then got busted for the jewelry store robbery and Cole concocted his little plan. He got the store owner, Lee Wong, to drop the charges against Ramus by convincing him he could help Wong’s relatives with some immigration problems. He told Ramus he could clear him in exchange for his help in framing Rhodes. But later Ramus got greedy and tried to squeeze a little more out of Cole. Milner wasn’t sure, but he thinks Ramus wanted money after the robbery charges had been dropped. But Ramus overplayed his hand and Cole decided to take him out. He’d become a loose end. Cole had someone call Ray and tell him Ramus learned something about Ray’s North Beach bust that could help him. Said Ramus wasn’t mad any longer about the turn down.
“Ray took the bait and hustled over to Ramus’ apartment. Old man in the lobby sees Ray. Cole had already killed Ramus and was waiting for Rhodes. He knocked him out, got Ray’s prints on the knife and planted it where he knew it would be found. It was just a coincidence that I happened to be the one to find Ramus. It could have been anybody.
“So, now Cole had Ramus out of the way and Rhodes framed for the murder. On top of the earlier charges. The gun possession and the drugs. Things were looking good.”
“Except you were digging around?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Everything followed from Carol Rhodes. When I saw her with Cole I knew some
thing wasn’t right.”
“But you’ve got no proof, Lucky. Did Milner tell you he knew Cole killed Ramus?”
“No. As a matter of fact, he didn’t believe me when I put the story together for him that way. He said Cole was not a killer.”
“So were waltzing around in theory here.”
“I’m right, Mac,” I said.
“Maybe you are. Sit on it. I can talk to some people you can’t. I’ll get back to you. And don’t shoot anyone else for a day or two.”
“You know Mac, I don’t like this any more than you do. Crooked cops.”
McNamara crimpled his paper coffee cup into a ball and threw it across the room. He snorted. “Yeah, shit,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
Leon’s black BMW pulled up alongside the curb in front of The Stud, a poor cousin to The Penthouse, where the girls weren’t as pretty, the floors not as clean, and the clientele not as polite. It was not a long fall from The Stud to the street, from the lap dance to the street corner.
Leon climbed out of the back of the BMW with the help of his driver and his fancy new black cane with the gold handle and gold tip. An eighteen year old wanna-be gangster greeted Leon at the door and ushered him down to the back of the club. He used a key to unlock and open a door with a sliver plate mounted on it that said: Private.
The room needed a new carpet and ventilation. A worn burnt orange velvet couch sat up against one wall and two metal chairs were at either end of a square card table. A stand-up ashtray was littered with old butts and matches. Leon sat down on one of the chairs and removed a toothpick from the pocket of the bright red vest worn under his cream colored jacket. Three minutes later Frank Cole walked in the room.
“I like this Cole,” Leon said, smiling, as Cole sat down on the couch. “You coming to me.”