Nocturnal: A Novel

  Rex felt so sick. He just wanted to sleep. Wanting to sleep during the day was nothing new — he routinely dozed off during second-hour trig class — but this was different. He’d been hurting for days. His mother wouldn’t let him stay home. He dragged himself out of bed. He blew his nose on some crusty Kleenex he’d used the night before, then shuffled out of his tiny bedroom into the hall.

  The hallway ran the length of the floor, a blank wall on the left, five doors on the right. The wall held old framed pictures from a time Rex barely remembered — pictures of his dad, of Rex when he’d been really little, even pictures of his mom, smiling. He was glad for those pictures, because he had never seen her smile in person.

  Rex walked into the toilet room. The room was barely wider than the toilet tank itself. Wasn’t really a bathroom, because it just had the toilet and a sink. The next room down had the bath — and no toilet — so Rex called that the shower room.

  He took care of his morning business and was headed back to his bedroom when he heard it.

  From down the hall, a voice on the TV made him stop. Not the voice itself, but the name the voice had spoken — a name both from Rex’s unremembered dream and from his unforgettable past. He wiped his hand across his runny nose. He turned around and walked down the hall, past the shower room to the living room, which was just inside the front door.

  He entered quietly. His mother, Roberta, was sitting in her chair that faced the television. The screen’s glow shone through her wiry hair, silhouetting her skull.

  Rex stood there, waiting to hear the name again, because he’d just dreamed about that name, dreamed about that man. And he’d drawn a picture of that man just last night, before he went to bed — he had to have heard it wrong. But he hadn’t.

  “… Maloney was a longtime priest at the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption in San Francisco, until he was caught up in a sex-abuse scandal and removed from that post. Maloney served a year in jail and was on probation. San Francisco chief of police Amy Zou said in a press conference this morning that the force is working to gather information on Maloney’s murder, but that it’s too early to make assumptions about the killer’s motives.”

  “Father Maloney’s dead?”

  Rex said the words without thinking. Had he thought, he would have quietly walked away.

  She turned, leaning over an armrest to look back at him. The television’s light played off her pockmarked face. A cigarette dangled from her skinny fingers. “What are you doing in the TV room?”

  “Uh, I just … I heard Father Maloney’s name.”

  She squinted. She did that when she was thinking. She nodded almost imperceptibly. “I remember the lies you told about him,” she said. “Dirty, filthy lies.”

  Rex stood there, motionless, wondering if she’d get the belt.

  “Finish getting ready for school,” she said. “You hear me talking to you?”

  “Yes, Roberta.” She didn’t like it if he called her Mom or Mother. When he’d been little he’d called her those names, but sometime after his dad died she told him to stop using them.

  Rex quickly walked out of the TV room before she could change her mind. Once out of her sight, he ran down the narrow hall to his bedroom. His room had a bed, a little TV with a video-game console, a dresser and a small desk with a stool — the sum total of his existence. He threw on his clothes and grabbed his backpack, remembering to get his notes for Freshman English off the floor as he did. No time for a shower; he had to get out of the house before Roberta thought of a reason to get mad at him. He hoped he didn’t smell like pee — some bum was using the alley outside Rex’s window as a bathroom. Not that it really mattered; sometimes Roberta wouldn’t let him shower at all.

  Before Rex left, he picked up the drawing sitting on his desk, the one he’d made last night. The picture showed a much larger Rex, a Rex with muscle-bound arms and a big chest, using his bare hands to snap Father Paul Maloney’s left leg. Now Father Maloney was dead. The drawing made Rex feel funny. Funny, and wrong.

  Rex put the drawing in the desk’s drawer. He closed it, then looked at it to make sure no part of the drawing stuck out.

  Time for the long walk to school. Rex prayed he could avoid the BoyCo bullies.

  Father Paul Maloney was dead, and that was awesome. Maybe, for once, Rex could make it to school and back without getting his ass kicked, and the day would just keep getting better.

  All in the Family

  The San Francisco Hall of Justice takes up two full city blocks. The long, featureless, seven-story gray building located at 850 Bryant Street houses most divisions of the San Francisco Police Department — Gang Task Force, Homicide, Narcotic/Vice, Fraud, Operations and, of course, Administration. SWAT and Missing Persons have offices elsewhere in the city, but by and large most cop-related things that don’t involve a local precinct happen at the Hall.

  Bryan set his weapons and keys on the conveyor belt, then walked through the metal detector. He recognized the old uniform on the other side. Recognized the face, anyway — Bryan was shit with names.

  “Clauser,” the white-hair said with a nod.

  Bryan nodded back, then collected his gear. Pookie came through next.

  “Chang,” the cop said.

  “Lawrence,” Pookie said. “How’s that artificial hip treating you?”

  “They think the screws on the ball part are coming loose,” the man said. “Feels like someone is scraping a knife in my hip every time I take a step.”

  “Terrible,” Pookie said, shaking his head in sympathy. “You suing?”

  “Naw,” Lawrence said. “I just want it fixed.”

  Pookie gave the man’s shoulder a squeeze. “Good man. You change your mind, holla at your boy. I know some great lawyers. Oh, and happy anniversary. Tell Margaret I said congrats on number … is it twenty-three?”

  Lawrence’s hard face split in a smile, which lasted only a few seconds until he turned to glare the next person through. Bryan and Pookie headed for the elevators.

  “We gotta get you on Jeopardy,” Bryan said. “How the hell do you remember this crap?”

  Pookie pushed the up button, then shrugged. “Not all of us are as antisocial as you, my black-clad little buddy.”

  Teddy Ablamowicz had been one of the city’s financial golden boys. A heavy contributor to the San Francisco Opera, the ballet, GLBT charities and just about anything involving a park, Ablamowicz had been a well-known philanthropist, a mover and a shaker.

  He had also been a money launderer. His murder — and the simultaneous disappearance of his wife — created reverberations throughout the organized crime community.

  Bryan and Pookie walked into the conference room for the morning status meeting. Their fellow task-force members were already there. Because money laundering was a financial crime, the task force included Christopher Kearney from the Economic Crimes Unit. Kearney was okay except for that fact that he dressed in sweater vests like some Ivy League grad, and he insisted on being called Christopher. So, of course, everyone called him Chris.

  A case of this magnitude also necessitated participation from the district attorney’s office, hence the presence of Assistant DA Jennifer Wills. No charges had been filed as of yet — the task force didn’t even have a suspect — so Wills was just there to keep tabs on the case. She mostly stayed quiet, only piping up if a planned action might get a perp off the hook somewhere down the road.

  Since it was a murder investigation, Homicide took lead. Inspectors Stephen Koening and Steve “Ball-Puller” Boyd — also known as the Brothers Steve — ran the fieldwork. Koening was as cool as cool got, a stand-up guy by all accounts. Ball-Puller Boyd, on the other hand, seemed to be oblivious to the fact that he was quite repulsive: the sweaty, porn-stached, self-touching man had little concept of personal space.

  Assistant Chief Sean Robertson ran the show. He was second in command for the entire SFPD. Bryan liked him. Robertson made people walk a fine line, but he was fair an
d didn’t let the power go to his head. Everyone knew Robertson was being groomed as the future chief. Zou was in her late fifties. Another six years, maybe, and the whole department would probably be Robertson’s.

  Bryan had seen all these faces before. Today, however, he noted a new one — a guy in a three-piece talking to Robertson. Bryan nudged Pookie.

  “Pooks, check out the suit. Fed?”

  Pookie looked, nodded. “Yeah, but no way he’s a gunslinger. Guy looks like he farts tax code. Excuse me for a moment, Bri-Bri, Daddy has to see about getting himself a date.”

  Pookie put on his best smile and closed in on Wills, the room’s lone female. She was taking advantage of the premeeting lull to go over a legal pad full of notes.

  “Jen-Jen,” Pookie said. “Stylish, as always. That outfit new?”

  She didn’t bother looking up. “I’m not your type, Chang. But good eye — it is new.”

  “Of course it is. I could never forget seeing something that fetching. The shoes really set it off. And what do you mean you’re not my type?”

  Jennifer looked up, brushed her blond hair out of her face, then held up her left hand and wiggled her fingers. “No ring. Word on the streets is you only like the married ladies.”

  Pookie leaned back, put a hand on his chest. “Assistant DA Wills, I am hurt and offended by your insinuation that I contribute to infidelity.”

  She again bent to her legal pad. Pookie walked back to Bryan.

  “Smooth,” Bryan said.

  “Sexual tension,” Pookie said. “Vital to any good cop drama.” He tapped his forehead. “It all goes in the vault to someday be played out in my brilliant scripts.”

  Steve Boyd walked up to Bryan and Pookie. He had a cup of coffee in his left hand. His right hand scratched at his balls. Where Polyester Rich’s upper-lip scraggle looked like it belonged on the face of a 1950s movie villain, Boyd’s walrus mustache was so thick you could barely see his mouth move when he talked.

  “Clauser, Chang,” Boyd said. The man tilted his head toward the suit. “Word is the nerd brought us a lead on the hitter.”

  Pookie sighed. “The hitter? Ball-Puller, you been watching the AMC gangster movie marathon again?”

  “Never miss it,” he said. “I hope he’s got something. We’ve been shaking down all of Ablamowicz’s clients, haven’t come up with jack shit.”

  Robertson clapped three times to get everyone’s attention. “Let’s get started,” he said. Robertson’s thick brown hair had recently started to go gray at the temples, a color that matched his glasses. He always looked half rumpled: neither sloppy nor neat. His blue tie and bluer button-down shirt didn’t quite hide a growing gut. That’s what a desk job would do to you.

  “Let’s make it quick and get you back on the streets,” he said. “I want to introduce Agent Tony Tryon, FBI.”

  The three-piece-suit man smiled. “Good morning. I’m here because I’ve spent the last five years watching Frank Lanza.”

  Ball-Puller Boyd started laughing. “Lanza? As in, the Mafia Lanzas of the Long-Ago Time?”

  The FBI agent nodded.

  Chris Kearney crossed his arms over his sweater-vest-covered chest and glared at the FBI agent. Bryan wondered if Kearney doubted the man or was just jealous of the tailored suit.

  “The mob hasn’t been here since Jimmy the Hat died,” Kearney said. “The Tongs and the Russians pushed them out.”

  Jennifer clacked her pen against the table, tap-tap-tap. “Wait a minute — did you say the hat? His mob nickname was the hat? Not exactly frightening, is it?”

  Tryon smiled at her. She smiled back. Bryan noticed Pookie scowl at the FBI agent.

  “James Lanza frightened people just fine,” Tryon said. “He ran the La Cosa Nostra in San Francisco for almost forty years. His dad, Francesco, founded the whole thing back in Prohibition.”

  Tryon picked up a folder off the table and walked to a corkboard at the end of the room. He pulled out black-and-white photos and started pinning them to the board. Pictures of four men went up in a row, with a single face on top. The face in that photo showed a man in his early forties, short black hair parted on the left side. Even in the still shot, Bryan thought the man looked smug and condescending.

  Tryon tapped that top picture. “Francesco Joseph Lanza, known as Frank. Son of Jimmy the Hat, grandson of the first Francesco. For years, we’ve known Frank has been asking for permission to take back San Francisco. Looks like he got it. We think he’s been here for six months, maybe more.”

  “Bullshit,” said Ball-Puller Boyd. “We’d have heard he was in town.”

  Tryon shook his head. “Like his father, Frank doesn’t draw attention to himself. He’s probably not here for the clam chowder, if you know what I’m saying.”

  The FBI agent smiled at the other cops, as if waiting for them to laugh at his joke. No one did. His smile faded. He shrugged. “Anyway, Frank Lanza has been here for about six months. He brought a few guys out with him.” Tryon tapped the faces below Lanza as he called out the names. “The big fella with the shaved head is Tony ‘Four Balls’ Gillum, Frank’s right-hand man and bodyguard. The guy in the middle with the oft-broken nose is Paulie ‘Hatchet’ Caprise. This one is Little Tommy Cosimo. Last but not least, and the real reason I’m here” — he tapped the final picture — “is this sleepy-eyed gent, Pete ‘the Fucking Jew’ Goldblum.”

  Pookie raised his hand. “This guy’s nickname is the fucking Jew?”

  “At least it’s better than the hat,” Jennifer said.

  “Goldblum is bad news,” Tryon said. “No convictions, but he’s got several hits to his name. If Lanza was behind Ablamowicz’s murder, you can bet Goldblum did the deed.”

  “But why Ablamowicz?” Pookie said. “Taking out an accountant? Accountants don’t mean shit. No offense, Chris.”

  “It’s Christopher,” Kearney said.

  Pookie hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Aw, damn. Sorry about that.”

  Kearney looked at Pookie, then used his middle finger to rub his left eye. Pookie laughed.

  “This accountant controlled cash flow for several organized crime outfits,” Kearney said. “Ablamowicz worked for the Odessa Mafia, the Wah Ching Triad and Johnny Yee of the Suey Singsa Tong. More recently, Ablamowicz was moving a lot of cash for Fernando Rodriguez, leader of the Norteños.”

  All those gangs were serious business, but Bryan’s role in Homicide brought him face-to-face with the Norteños more than any other outfit. For decades, the gang had spent most of their energy fighting their main rival, the Sureños. Under Fernando’s guidance, however, the Norteños were expanding operations. Fernando was known for his smarts as well as his boldness — he would order a hit on anyone, anywhere, at any time.

  “Ablamowicz controlled money,” Kearney said. “If you want to mess up cash flow in San Francisco, he was a good a place to start.”

  Tryon again tapped on the picture of Frank Lanza. “Maybe Lanza offered Ablamowicz a deal. Maybe Ablamowicz didn’t take the offer.”

  Robertson stood and smoothed his tie. “Thank you, Agent Tryon. That gives us more to look at. Tryon has copies of these photos for all of you, and he’s been kind enough to share addresses and hangouts for Lanza’s people. Brothers Steve, go talk to Paulie Caprise and Little Tommy Cosimo. Clauser and Chang, track down Goldblum and see if he has anything to say.”

  Everyone started to file out, but Pookie hung back. Bryan waited to see what his partner wanted.

  “Hey, Assistant Chief,” Pookie said. “Got a minute?”

  Robertson nodded, then shook Tryon’s hand. Tryon walked out, leaving Robertson with Pookie and Bryan.

  “What’s up, Pooks? You have some thoughts on Lanza?”

  “No,” Pookie said. “We’ve got thoughts on Paul Maloney.”

  Robertson nodded as he pushed his glasses higher on his nose. “Ah, I should have seen that coming.”

  Bryan’s throat felt scratchy and dry. He needed some wat
er — hopefully Pookie’s whining wouldn’t take long.

  “We want this one,” Pookie said. “Come on, man. It went down in the middle of the night. It’s ours.”

  Robertson shook his head. “Not going to happen, gents. It’s Verde’s case.”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Pookie said. “I like Rich Verde. I also like my grampa. My grampa drools a lot and tends to shit himself. Not that I’m making any association with Rich’s age, mind you.”

  Robertson laughed. “The fact that Chief Zou wants you guys on the Ablamowicz case is a compliment to your skills. Be happy with that. Now go talk to Goldblum. Find me something.”

  Robertson walked out.

  Pookie shook his head. “I hate this L-I-T-F-A shit.”

  “L-I-T-F-A?”

  “Leave it the fuck alone,” Pookie said. “The guys who should be on the case intentionally kept off it? An ME that hasn’t left the office in half a decade assigned to work the body? Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K, Bri-Bri.”

  Pookie had a point, but a couple of strange things didn’t add up to a conspiracy. Sometimes the brass made decisions that didn’t go your way.

  “Forget it,” Bryan said. “Come on, the sooner we find Goldblum, maybe the sooner we get back on nights.”

  Robin-Robin Bo-Bobbin

  Robin Hudson backed her Honda motorcycle into the thin parking strip on Harriet Street just outside the San Francisco Medical Examiner’s Office. Several bikes were already there, some owned by her co-workers. The guys had 1200s; the women mostly had scooters — Robin’s ride sat right in the middle at 745ccs.

  The morgue van was already backed into the unloading dock. Maybe it had been a busy night. She walked past the AMBULANCES ONLY sign and up the ramp toward the loading dock. She liked to enter work every day the same way her subjects did — through the doors where the bodies were rolled in.