“Well, that shoots down a long trip,” I said.
“I’m truly sorry,” she offered.
“You’re sweet,” I said, and asked, “Is there a back door? I’m going down to the pier, save me some walking.”
“Follow me,” she said. “It’s the least I can do.”
She led me down a short hallway and opened the door for me.
“Sorry you wasted your day,” she said. “If you stay over, come back tomorrow, maybe he’ll be in a brighter mood.”
“Anybody who wears golf shoes on a floor like that will never be in a bright mood,” I said, and thanked her.
I stepped into the alley next to the bank, left my car on the opposite side of the building, walked rapidly down to Presidio, and headed for the park. When I got there, I mingled with the crowd and kept an eye out for my two shadows. They didn’t show. I got myself a hot dog, slathered it with mustard and onions, picked up a Coke, then sat down on a bench to enjoy the free lunch and wait for the captain to make his appearance.
At 12:02, a maroon Packard Super-Eight touring car drove up on Ocean Boulevard, turned into the street in front of the municipal building, and parked. A hard-looking guy with short-cut brown hair and a built-in frown got out of the driver’s seat and strolled around the car-a guy who was a stranger to a smile. Before he could get to the back door it popped open, and I got my first live look at Thomas Brodie Culhane.
He was about my height, five-ten and change, broad-shouldered, with a waist that a Gibson girl would die for. A hundred and seventy pounds, no fat, shaggy eyebrows over pale blue eyes, short-cut brown hair that a lot of sun had lightened, bronze skin over a craggy face, and a square jaw with hard muscles bunched up under his ears. He was wearing a three-piece blue gabardine suit. He peeled off his jacket, tossed it in the backseat of the car, and rolled the sleeves of his white shirt about halfway to the elbows. Then he pulled his tie knot down six inches and took it off over his head without untying it, and let it join the jacket. A gold watch fob arched from one side of his vest to the other. When he was stripped for action the driver handed him a freshly rolled cigarette, and Culhane lit it with a wooden match, which he fired with his thumb. He was wearing his shield on his belt. No gun.
He was followed by a taller man, a little beefy but not soft, with white hair and a wary, expressionless face. He wore a white linen suit with a dark blue shirt open at the collar. He fell in behind Culhane and alongside the unsmiling driver.
There was a crowd of about one hundred and fifty people already gathered, and they stood stone-still while Culhane arranged himself. Then he waved and the crowd broke into the kind of whoop-up you expect when the home team scores a winning touchdown against its archrival. Down near the pier, what I assumed was the high school band struck up “Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here.” They were awful. But nobody was complaining. Culhane walked across the street to the park and the crowd closed around him like water filling in behind a diver’s splash. They were waving hand-painted signs: culhane for governor, captain to the capitol, things like that. Several were waving American flags.
I remembered what Moriarity had said. Joan of Arc with a pecker. He was right about that. It was a festive occasion for a man whose life had been spent as the sheriff of a county that would fit in my glove compartment and who was getting ready to take on a couple of machine politicians who probably owned most of the state legislators in Sacramento.
He strode casually through the crowd, most of whom he obviously knew, calling kids by name, roughing up their hair, hugging the women, and shaking hands with the men. He walked in an easy lope with a touch of swagger to it. A man in control, self-assured, and cut in the heroic mold.
I stayed seated, watching his trek through the crowd. I finished my hot dog and started to roll a cigarette. That was when he saw me. He looked through the crowd and his eyes locked on me. The smile never left his lips but the eyes changed from a kind of mischievous delight to blue ice cubes. I stood up, leaned against a Monterey pine, and waited for him to come by.
It took him fifteen minutes to get there. He veered from one side of the park to the other, strolling easily through his fans and flicking a glance my way every so often. I didn’t move. I let him come to me.
CHAPTER 13
I watched Culhane work his way toward me through the crowd. He didn’t look directly at me but I could tell I was fixed in his peripheral vision. He took his time closing in on me, like a snake toying with a rabbit. When he was ten feet away and still greeting his fans, I took out a wooden match as he had done and snapped it with my thumb to light my cigarette. The match broke and the top half blew away in the wind. Culhane turned and looked at me, took a match out of his vest pocket, walked over to me, snapped it afire, and cupped it against the wind.
“Allow me,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said, taking the light.
“I presume you’re Bannon.”
“Zeke Bannon,” I said, and held out my hand. He had a handshake like a gorilla’s.
“Brodie Culhane,” he said. “Call me Captain.” He had a relaxed smile. If something was bothering him he didn’t show it. He was a very cool customer and I was beginning to understand why the mere mention of his name perked up so many ears. He was in complete control of his environment and he was comfortable with that power. This was a guy who had brushed off fear in all its forms a long time ago.
“You got my card, then?” I said.
“And I’m dying of curiosity.” He rested a hand on the shoulder of the big fellow in the white suit. “This is our ex-D.A., Brett Merrill,” he said, and jerked a thumb toward the driver, “and my right-hand man, Rusty Danzig.”
He took my elbow and led me to the edge of the park, out of the crowd.
“So, what can I do for you, Sergeant?” he said when we were near the street and sheltered under a big water oak. Merrill stood nearby being as innocuous as a big man can be. Danzig patrolled the perimeter of our spot in the shade like a watchdog.
“I guess you could say I’m up here on a mission of mercy.”
“Oh?” he said lazily, while smiling at someone passing by. “That’s stalwart of you.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know a woman named Verna Hicks, would you? Her married name’s Wilensky. Probably left here in the mid twenties. I was hoping to find a parent or family of some kind.”
He stared at me, almost bemused.
“That’s twenty years ago, more or less.”
“Right.”
“I take a great deal of pride in knowing everybody in this domain,” he said. “But I am at an age where fifteen years ago might as well be the turn of the century.” He turned to Merrill. “Name ring a bell to you, Doc? I don’t think we have anyone named Hicks in town.”
Merrill pondered a minute and shook his head. “I don’t recall anyone named Hicks ever living here.”
“What did she do?” Culhane asked.
“She got dead.”
That held his attention.
“Was she murdered?”
“What gave you that idea?”
“Your card. Bannon, central homicide…”
“Of course, right,” I said, rolling my eyes in embarrassment. “No, she slipped getting out of the bathtub and pulled her radio in on top of her.”
“My God,” Merrill said.
“Christ, what a way to go,” Culhane said, showing a modicum of concern. “How old a woman was she?”
“Her license says forty-seven.”
“You sound like you don’t believe that.”
I smiled. “Well, you know how women are about their age.”
He chuckled but said nothing. I could almost hear the cogs whirring behind his eyes. He knew there was more
