another. Even those Belasco called street punks tended to be territorial, and their acts of vandalism were generally limited to spreading graffiti and breaking into parked cars.
The kind of malicious mischief Mrs. Abbott had been subjected to didn’t have the feel or methodology of homeless, gang, or teenage troublemaking. No, it figured to be calculated to a specific purpose. Find that purpose and I’d find the person or persons responsible.
Helen Alvarez lived half a block to the west, just off Ulloa. This was a former blue-collar neighborhood, built in the thirties on what had once been windswept stretches of sand dunes. The parcels were small, the houses of mixed architectural styles and detached from one another, unlike the unesthetic shoulder-to-shoulder Dolger row houses farther inland. Built cheap, and bought cheap fifty years ago, but now worth small fortunes thanks to San Francisco’s overinflated real estate market and a steady influx of Asian families, both American and foreign born, with money to spend and a desire for a piece of the city. Long time owners like Margaret Abbott and people who had lived here for decades like Helen Alvarez were now the exceptions rather than the rule.
The Alvarez house was of stucco and similar in type and size, if not in color, to the one owned by Mrs. Abbott. It was painted a toasty brown with orange-yellow trim, a combination that made me think of a huge and artfully constructed grilled-cheese sandwich. The garage door was up and a slope-shouldered man wearing a Giants baseball cap was doing something at a workbench inside. Helen Alvarez ushered me in that way.
The slope-shouldered man was Leonard Crenshaw. A few years older than his sister and on the dour side, he had lived here with her since the death of her husband eight years ago. Leonard had offered to move in, she’d told me, to help out with chores and to keep her from being lonely. If he had a profession or a job, she hadn’t confided what it was.
“Don’t mind saying,” he said to me, “I think Helen made a mistake shelling out money to hire you.”
I didn’t tell him that I was working pro bono; neither did she. “Why is that, Mr. Crenshaw?” I asked.
“Always sticking her nose in other people’s business. Been like that her whole life. Nosy and bossy.”
“Better than putting my head in the sand like an ostrich,” Mrs. Alvarez said. She didn’t seem upset or annoyed by her brother’s remarks. I had the impression this was an old verbal tug-of-war between siblings, one that went back a lot of years through a lot of different incidents.
“Can’t just live her life and let others live theirs,” Crenshaw said. “It’s Charley Doyle should be taking care of his aunt and her problems, spending his money on expensive detectives.”
Expensive detectives, I thought. Leonard, if you only knew what some of the big agencies charge for their services. And how seldom they work pro bono, or take on cases like this one.
“Charley Doyle can barely take care of himself,” she said. “He has two brain cells and one of them is usually passed out drunk. All he cares about is gambling and liquor and cheap women.”
“A heavy gambler, is he?” I asked.
“Oh, I don’t think so. He’s too lazy and too stupid. Besides, he plays poker with Ev Belasco and Ev is so tight he squeaks.”
Crenshaw said, “You know what’s going to happen to you, Helen, talking about people behind their backs that way. You’ll spend eternity hanging by your tongue, that’s what.”
“Better than spending eternity hanging by what you’ve been overusing all your adult life.”
“Funny. You’re a riot, you are.”
“Oh, put a sock in it, Leonard.”
He didn’t put a sock in it. He said grumpily, “Telling tales about people, hiring detectives, sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong. Next thing you know, our phone’ll start ringing in the middle of the night, somebody’ll bust one of our windows.”
“Nonsense.”
“Is it? Stir things up, you’re bound to make ’em worse. For everybody. You mark my words.”
Helen Alvarez and I went upstairs, into a cluttered living room, and she provided me with contact addresses for Charley Doyle and the address of the real estate agency owned by the Pattersons.
“Don’t mind Leonard,” she said then. “He’s not such a curmudgeon as he pretends to be. This crazy business with Margaret has him almost as upset as it has me.”
“I try not to be judgmental, Mrs. Alvarez.”
“So do I,” she said. “Now you go give those Pattersons hell, you hear? A taste of their own medicine, the dirty swine.”
I didn’t go give the Pattersons hell or anything else, including the benefit of the doubt. Tomorrow was soon enough for that. It was late afternoon now, the end of my workday, and what I wanted was a hot shower, a cold beer, and a quiet dinner, in that order.
So I went home.
And walked straight into a sudden family crisis.
4
JAKE RUNYON
“Jumpers,” Abe Melikian said sourly. “God, I hate ’em, I hate ’em with a passion. They want to jump, why don’t they go jump off a bridge, jump off a building? No, they got to jump on my poor ass instead.”
Runyon made a sympathetic noise.
“As if I don’t have enough troubles,” Melikian said. “I got a bad back, I got hemorrhoids, and now my doctor says I got to have a hip replacement. I’m falling apart here. Business is lousy, and now I got another jumper trying to screw me. This Troy Madison bum loses himself down a sewer hole with the rest of the goddamn rats I’m out thirty-one point five K, and I can’t afford the loss. You understand what I’m saying to you?”
Bill had worked a few bail-jump cases for Melikian in the past and had warned Runyon he was a chronic complainer and poor-mouth. In fact, he now owned one of the more successful bail bonds outfits in the city: half a dozen employees and offices right across Bryant Street from the Hall of Justice. Healthy as a horse, too, Bill said, in spite of his usual litany of physical complaints. Right. Robust, fit-looking man in his late fifties, with a full head of dark brown hair that didn’t look dyed.
Runyon said, “I understand. You want him found as fast as possible.”
“Fast, that’s right. Before he disappears so nobody can find him.”
“What time was his court appearance this morning?”
“Ten o’clock. Soon as I found out he didn’t show, I sent one of my people over to his apartment. Gone. Flew the coop last night.”
“How do you know it was last night?”
“One of the neighbors saw him leave. Him and that skanky broad he lives with. Carrying suitcases, both of ’em.”
“What’s the neighbor’s name?”
“I don’t know; ask Frank outside. He’s the one talked to her.”
“The neighbor have any idea where they were headed?”
“Hell no,” Melikian said. “Jumpers, they’re like mimes-they don’t say a word to nobody.”
“What about Madison’s lawyer?”
“Public defender. Surprised Madison jumped, he said. Met with him two days ago, Madison promised he’d show, that was good enough for the PD. Why’s everybody frigging incompetent these days?”
“Everybody isn’t.”
“Meaning you? Better not be. I don’t know you, but I know your boss; he’s plenty competent. How come he didn’t come himself? He can’t be bothered with Abe Melikian anymore?”
“He’s semiretired. I do most of the fieldwork for the agency now.”
“Yeah? So I guess you must be okay. I’d hate to have to call in a bounty hunter. Those buggers want fifteen, twenty percent of the bond-I can’t afford to pay fees like that, put me straight out of business.”
Runyon said, “Tell me about Madison.”
