and a number popped onto the L.E.D. readout. I scribbled down the number while it rang twice.
“Sanders here,” a tired voice said. I could tell he was a cop, they always answered with their last name first.
“Your punk Jerry is dropping fast, I’d get out of the way if I was you.”
“Who is this?”
“A concerned citizen.”
“McGuire?” I placed his voice, he was the fed who had jammed me up at my place. “Didn’t I warn you about walking away, wasn’t I crystal clear about what would happen if you kept trampling around on my turf?” I hung up the phone, I was tired of people threatening me. I took the can of black spray paint from the trunk of the Crown Vic and scrawled in tall letters across the side of Jerry’s BMW, “PORNOGRAPHER”. It was childish but it made me feel a little better. On University Avenue I dropped the envelope into a mailbox, teach him the price of looking the other way while he collected a pay check.
I headed north on the Bayshore Freeway toward San Francisco. I pulled forty thousand dollars out of the safe, Cass and I could make a real border run on that kind of cash. Hole up in San Blas, eat fish fresh out of the sea, make love under the stars on a blanket down on the beach. So what if I had made a promise to Kelly, she hadn’t told me one straight word. But I gave my word, all my life that was the only thing I ever had that was worth anything. My word. So I kept driving north. I got a room at the same dive across the street from the Barbary Coast. The junkie desk clerk looked up with dead eyes, if he recognized me it didn’t show. I registered under the name Joe Strummer and asked for room two fourteen. I lay on top of the bed, my.45 clutched in my hand. The sky was turning gray when I finally drifted off.
My yell woke me. The muted afternoon sun was filling the room. Thankfully the fog kept the light soft, my head was splitting. I chased four aspirins with a deep drink of water from the tap then took a long shower. I changed the bandage on my leg, it looked good, no signs of infection.
Walking down to a Best Western I got a room in my name, taking several cards with the phone number. I couldn’t remember the last time I ate so I found a small coffee shop and had steak and eggs and a bottomless mug of coffee. I was feeling almost human when I entered Java Enabler, the kid behind the counter’s face lit up when he saw me. He looked around, clearly hoping Cass would trail in behind me.
“She’s in school today.” I answered the question he didn’t ask.
“How’d that thing work out?” he said.
“I shut them down.”
“Good for you, sir. I used to be proud to be on the cutting edge of geekdom, now I don’t know, maybe I’ll go back to school and learn to do something with my hands.”
“Before you do all that, could you help a Neanderthal out with a problem?”
“Sure, what’d yah need?”
“I have an old war buddy I want to surprise, but he’s unlisted.” The kid gave me a long grin, I don’t know if he knew I was lying or not.
“Hacking into the phone company is illegal,” he said.
“Yes son, it probably is.”
“It’s also easy. Their firewall is almost a welcome mat.” I gave him Jeffery Sabatini’s name and had him search the Bay Area, after a flurry of keystrokes he delivered an address on Skyline Boulevard in the mountains above Palo Alto. He smiled like a kid who had just won the spelling bee. I had given him a moment to shine, no need telling him that it would lead to some punk’s bloody end. I thanked the kid and promised to send his greetings on to my niece and moved out into the thickening fog. It was time to start dropping some chum in the water and see what I could bring to the surface.
The Barbary Coast was in full gear when I entered. A short chunky black man in a derby with a tall blonde on his arm bumped into me, he looked up and let out a loud laugh. “Boy, you a mountain of a man! ‘Scuse my rudeness, but my full attention is on this fine tail here.”
“I completely understand,” I said, flashing him a grin. At the bar, Jane was busy piling drinks onto a tray for a waiting waitress. I liked watching her, she had on low cut black jeans and a short tee-shirt with “Bitch” in rhinestones written across her chest. She caught me looking at her and her eyes twinkled. Working her way down the bar she joked with the drunks, serving drinks and flirts in equal portions, but from the corner of her eye she was watching me, getting closer and closer. It was a dance and I was her willing partner. Leaning over the bar so I could get an eye full down the cut in her tee-shirt, she looked deep into my eyes.
“For a man who isn’t interested, you sure keep coming back.,” she said in a quiet voice, meant just for me, I had to lean into her to hear.
“I didn’t say I wasn’t interested, just said it wasn’t going to happen.”
“Your eyes tell a very different tale. Now what is a girl to believe?” She ran her thumb down my jaw pausing to tug on my lower lip.
“Be a good girl and get me a drink,” I said, fighting the urge to bite her thumb.
“Gimlet, right?”
“Absolutely.” She poured the drink, set it down, gave me a wink, then moved back down the bar to service a cocktail waitress. I watched the money-mating dance gyrate around the room scanning for signs of mob boys. Rich men, poor men, old men, young men, hard men, soft men, but none had the look I was hunting for.
“I need you to do me a favor,” I said, when Jane had returned from her round of the bar.
“Does it involve two sheets and a lot of sweat?”
“No.”
“Then I’m not interested.”
“How about as a favor to Benjamin Franklin?” I slid a bill onto the bar top.
“My old dear friend, what does he need?” she said, scooping up the hundred.
“Some thugs may come looking for me, I need you to put the word out I’m staying at the Best Western down the street.” I handed her one of the cards with the phone number on it.
“Is that where I can find you, say, two thirty when I get off?”
“Straight up, girl, nothing would be finer. But there are some very mean men bent on cutting my life short. Last thing I want to see is you getting caught in the crossfire. When the smoke clears, if I’m still standing maybe we’ll go down to Chinatown have some dinner, see what happens. But until then, we better keep this bar between us.” She took it all in, watching my eyes. I wasn’t the first man she’d met who was in trouble, I doubted I’d be the last. Maybe that’s what attracted her to me. She set a fresh drink in front of me and smiled.
“This one’s on me big guy, and I prefer sushi, so when you get whatever it is you have to get done, done, we have a date. Right?”
“Right.” I shot her a wink. She moved back down the bar, shaking her head once and dropping back into her bubbly barmaid character for the drunks. I watched her go and for the hundredth time in the past few days, I wondered why I didn’t just let it all slip away, drift off into the night and forget I had ever heard of Kelly and Cass.
The fog had turned to an almost solid wall of white and grey in the streets outside. From the sidewalk I could see the glow of headlights but the cars were murky ghosts. I moved slowly along, feeling my way to the curb. Out of the mist an arm reached up grabbing my shoulder, pulling me down. I stumbled falling into the fog, landing in the back seat of a car. Before I could react, I was roughly shoved inside and we were rolling. I was sandwiched between Agent Sanders and a large Black fed with a massive shaved head.
