Dirty Harry 06 - City of Blood (7 page)

“Martha is Martha Denby, the actress,” Owens explained to Harry.

Harry thought he’d heard of her somewhere along the line or maybe caught a picture she was in.

Martha now emerged from a boutique, which had been expropriated at least for the duration of the afternoon, for whatever scene this was. She was an attractive but by no means glamorous woman, slender, almost frail, with refined features and auburn hair. At this moment she looked a bit pallid, perhaps from the ordeal of going through this same scene again and again and again, and yet appealingly vulnerable, too.

She was wearing a silk cardigan jacket to her waist and a pleated skirt, wine-red in color, that extended to her ankles. Whenever she shifted her position, the front of the jacket would part sufficiently to reveal a surprising portion of her breasts, but the glimpse would last for no longer than a moment or two, before she’d shift, drawing the jacket together again. The breeze that was blowing in from the bay was growing stiffer, and the poor girl looked like she might be cold.

“They were shooting this scene yesterday,” Owens said. “They were shooting it the day before yesterday. If I didn’t know this business I’d never figure out how a movie ever got made. Sometimes, of course, they don’t.”

“Where’s your wife?”

Owens gestured to one of the large white vans parked across the street. “She’s in there. Don’t worry, she finishes at five even if they go on with this shit all night.”

Looking admiringly at Martha Denby, Harry assured his partner that he did not expect to be bored.

The scene was a short one even if the director was never very happy with it. Martha would make her entrance from the boutique, then stand quite still, a bewildered expression on her face as though she could not decide where she was going. Before a destination occurred to her, a man suddenly materialized on her right. So quickly and silently did he approach her that Harry was rather surprised; not having realized that he was an actor because he was standing off to one side, indifferently observing the proceedings, Harry had assumed he was one of the crew. But he was obviously in the picture, and when he stepped up to Martha, the actress grimaced, a look of fierce displeasure on her face.

“She has had an affair with this man,” Owens explained, “but she’s broken it off, never wants to see this guy again. He’s a real bastard. She had to get a court order to keep him away.”

“This is the movie you’re talking about?”

Owens laughed but quietly so as not to disrupt the silence on the set. “Martha’s personal history is something else again, from what Mary Beth says, but no, this is just the plot of the movie.”

Now the actor, a young man who looked as malevolent as the script called for, began to speak to Martha, though what he was saying was inaudible to Harry and Owens, and would, in any case, later be dubbed in in a sound studio. Nonetheless, it was clear that the man was attempting to persuade the girl to accompany him somewhere. At the same time, others began to move into the scene, an elderly couple, a mother with child in tow, a man in a business suit toting a briefcase. They were meant to be pedestrians, and they passed by the two leads, ignoring their argument which, given the more frequent and more exaggerated gestures they were making, seemed to grow increasingly heated. The man caught hold of the girl’s wrist and tried forcibly to drag her with him. She resisted and in doing so offered the viewers on the set and presumably, if the scene survived the cutting room, those in the movie theaters, a generous and tantalizing view of her breasts, which considering how very slender and small-boned she was, were astonishingly ample. Then the man released her and, apparently despairing of convincing her, threw up his arms and began to walk away.

A cameraman now dollied his equipment behind him while another camera remained focused on Martha who looked stricken, her face ghostly white, her mouth taut. All at once, she broke down, tears streamed from her eyes. She wheeled about and screamed—and this time Harry and Owens could hear—“Come back, damn you, come back!”

But the man kept walking, refusing to listen to her. She chased after him, sobbing, entreating him to stop. The man was not going very fast, and she had little difficulty in catching up with him.

“Cut!” the director shouted, rising from his chair triumphantly. “That’s a take. That’s a goddamn take!” His face expressed his jubilation.

“Well, maybe you brought some luck with you, Harry,” Owens said. “That was as perfect as they’ll ever get it.”

“That was some piece of acting,” Harry marveled.

The actress, savoring the moment, was no longer crying. On the contrary, she was every bit as happy as the director, maybe more so, and with girlish enthusiasm, she hugged her co-star and kissed the director.

“She just started living with the male lead, so don’t get any ideas,” said Owens, noting the glint in Harry’s eyes.

“No ideas,” he replied somewhat irritably. “Tell me, what happens after this?”

“After this I’m not quite certain. The script’s a big secret, even the leads don’t know exactly. But I do know that the man you saw there, his name’s Jim Corona by the way, well, Jim, he takes her to a room somewhere and fucks her. And—”

He stopped, suddenly looking across the street. A woman was making her way toward him. Mary Beth.

“And what?” Harry prodded him.

“Oh, and then he murders her.”

“Shit, can’t get away from it anywhere,” Harry muttered.

Owens wasn’t listening. He was too busy greeting his wife, embracing her, then introducing her to Harry.

Mary Beth Owens was a fair-haired woman, with a pleasing face that suggested Midwestern-Scandinavian stock, and a figure that while slightly on the plump side would still make a man happy. Taking Harry’s hand, she smiled demurely, “Well, it’s a pleasure finally to make your acquaintance.”

“Finally?” Hadn’t she only heard about him the day before?

“Oh yes, Drake’s spoke of you often. All your adventures inside the department and out. You don’t realize you’re something of a celebrity.”

“It’s nice of you to say so.” Harry neglected to add that his was the sort of celebrity that inspired people to think of killing him.

“Now, Inspector Callahan, tell me, have you any objections to roast beef?”

Harry had no objections to roast beef, nor to the salad or baked potatoes that accompanied it. It was an all-American dinner served in a no-nonsense fashion. Harry had the impression that Mary Beth was an eminently practical woman, equally efficient at home or at work.

The Owens’ house was a renovated two-story, Victorian-influenced structure. Five or six years ago the neighborhood in which it was located, half a dozen blocks or so from the celebrated intersection of Haight and Ashbury, would have been considered a slum. But now, with creeping gentrification, characterized by boutiques and drinking places that favored plants, picture windows, pretentious names, and a tendency to sell great quantities of Perrier and quiche to their clientele, the last thing anyone would call this area was a slum.

“This house for us is like a boat to others,” Owens said. “There’s always more restoration to be done or something to be fixed.”

“That’s where most of my wages go,” Mary Beth added. “Our next objective is to insulate the attic. We can’t afford it until next month.”

“Next month,” Owens scoffed. “You’re a hopeless optimist.” He did not seem to appreciate the contradiction in that last phrase. “My wife has a five-year plan for everything,” he added, gently mocking. “First the attic, then we build more bookcases in the living room . . .”

“Then we have a baby,” Mary Beth put in, smiling mischievously. “In that order.”

Owens laughed. “See if the City of San Francisco gives me a raise. Or if Global gives you one.”

“The only way I’m going to keep working for Global is if I go to L.A. You know what I think of L.A. I wouldn’t want my child conceived there, let alone born and raised there.”

“Well,” Owens said in the manner of a man who has repeated himself many times over, “money is money. And Global does pay well. Maybe there’ll be more work for you in San Francisco. Who knows, maybe you’ll find a job with another production company.”

Mary Beth shrugged, evidently not anxious to continue discussing this subject.

Looking from one to the other, Harry was struck by the utter normalcy of their lives. Whatever financial problems they might be experiencing, whatever schedule they had worked out for bringing a child into the world, they were of little significance when weighed against the air of domestic tranquillity that obtained in this household. For a moment Harry wondered at why such a normal life was a goal that had eluded him. On the other hand, being a good cop, even being a bad one, and maintaining a successful marriage were not always compatible objectives. One had a tendency to cancel out the other. Harry only hoped that Owens and his wife would be able to make it in the future as they seemed to be doing now. Once again, he regretted that Owens had become his partner just because as far as he could see he was not the greatest asset to the institution of marriage—for himself or anyone else.

Before they left the house, Owens announced that he was first going to get into his costume.

“Wait until you see him,” Mary Beth said, delighted that her husband would finally be able to demonstrate to Harry a talent that he had not yet witnessed.

Twenty minutes later Owens appeared, though if Harry had not known in advance it was the same man he would never have been able to identify him.

The man who stood before him no longer resembled a cop or indeed any member of respectable society. Here was a derelict who had undergone the ravages of a life lived entirely on the streets and in men’s shelters. His clothes were naturally ragged, but they were also stained and exuded a powerful odor of alcohol and urine long since dried. The coveralls he wore were loose, precariously held up by a strand of rope, his flannel shirt was alternately patched, and riddled with gaping tears, and generally looked as though it had been worn so continuously that a razor would be required to remove it from Owens’ body. But the
pièce de résistance
was the face, the way Owens had with makeup and a wig created a creature so pathetic, so lost, and so resigned to scorn and abuse that Harry was practically ready to stuff his grime-coated hands with all the money he had in his pockets.

Owens, Owens the cop at any rate, was maybe thirty-two, thirty-three years old; the man he had transformed himself into looked to be close to sixty, but a prematurely aged sixty. A beard straggled gray and limp from his chin, his eyes seemed rheumy, unfocused, his cheeks were ruddy as though from years and years of alcohol consumption, his lips were gray and chapped, his brow was gnarled. To complete the effect, he wore a hairpiece that sprawled wildly, tangled and dirty, on his scalp, sending loose strands over his ears where already graying tufts stuck out.

And his walk had altered; he shambled, a bit hunched over, dragging one leg slightly behind the other as though he’d never quite recovered from an old wound in that limb. Saying nothing, he extracted a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, dug out the last remaining cigarette, which was bent in the middle, and parked it between his lips. No sooner had he managed to light it than he started a dreadful hacking cough that persisted long enough to nearly double him up.

Harry watched all this with astonishment. The cough itself was incredible. He nearly believed that the real-life Owens was suffering from some terrible bronchial disorder, TB maybe. But no, suddenly Owens stopped his coughing, smiling broadly under his unruly mustache. “Well, what do you think?”

Harry shook his head in wonder. “I’m impressed.”

Mary Beth stood alongside Owens, proud at how well he had mastered the art of deception.

“You should see me when I play the Creature from the Black Lagoon.”

“This will do fine. Jesus, you make a better bum than the bums do themselves.”

“Comes with practice,” Owens laughed, consulting his watch, a Seiko well hidden under his shirtsleeve, then checking his .38 which was tucked safely out of sight beneath the waistband of his coveralls. “Everything where it should be,” he declared.

Mary Beth kissed him—on the cheek so that she would not ruin the lipstick he’d employed to make his lips look so pallid. “You take good care of him, you hear,” she told Harry.

“I certainly will do my best.”

“And any time you feel like a home cooked meal, you know where to come.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Harry told her, “you’ll never see the end of me.”

C H A P T E R
F o u r

I
n the past five and a half months the Mission Street Knifer had struck at several locations in the vicinity of the Greyhound Bus Station, on Market and Seventh, on Sixth and Mission, on Fourth, proximate to the Santa Fe and Western Pacific Depot, on the corner of Fulton, and farther south on Howard. The last time he had attacked was the fourth of October at quarter past two in the morning. His victim had been an elderly black of indeterminate age; he could have been anywhere from sixty to eighty-five. He was evidently sleeping on a bench inside the Greyhound terminal itself. The Knifer ended his life quickly enough, gouging out his throat immediately below the Adam’s apple, but in keeping with his notorious reputation, he had not stopped there but had proceeded to slash open the man’s chest possibly with the intention of tearing out the heart—a favorite habit of his—but had failed to do this, perhaps because he feared interruption. The results had been messy enough regardless, and the supervisory staff of the terminal was thankful that if this sort of mayhem had had to occur it was done at an hour when no one else was around to suffer the spectacle or, worse, the knife thrusts of the psychopath who regularly stalked those who were most helpless and beaten down.

The Mission Street Knifer was talented, if that’s the word for it. He left no clues behind. Moreover, the victims he chose, even if they survived his deadly assaults, were often drunks, people whose minds were so generally befuddled or riddled with holes that they made for the most unreliable witnesses conceivable.