Authors: Tim Maleeny

Tags: #FICTION / Mystery & Detective / General

Beating the Babushka (9 page)

“You want to run that by me again?”

Adam Berman sat behind his desk, his bloodshot eyes glaring at Angelo. It was almost two in the afternoon, and the drinks from lunch had worked their magic. The booze had seeped into his consciousness and uncovered his inner reptile. To Angelo he even looked like a snake, his tongue flitting between his lips as he sneered across the desk.

“The detective who was investigating Tom’s death,” repeated Angelo for the third time. “The one in the article.”

“Yeah?”

“It seems he got shot.”

“Did we shoot him?”

“No…of course not.”

“Then why the fuck do I give a shit if some private dick got shot?” Adam yelled. “Why is this entire news bulletin of any interest what-so-fucking-ever to me?”

“He was working for the studio,” replied Angelo. “Investigating one of our producers, who might have been involved with drugs.”

Adam sat up, blinking rapidly. “Drugs? You didn’t say anything about drugs. What about drugs?”

Angelo swallowed and braced his feet, mentally adjusting the cup but keeping his hands at his sides.

“I, uh, mentioned that the first time—the police found drugs in Tom’s apartment.”

“Drugs?” Adam smashed his fist on the desk. “I can’t stand anyone who uses drugs.” He paused, reaching for the glass tumbler on his desk. Angelo noticed the ice was fresh, the drink amber. Probably bourbon.

“Fire him,” muttered Adam.

“Who?”

“What do you mean who? Didn’t you just say they found drugs in Tom’s apartment?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then fire Tom, Goddammit,” snapped Adam. “Today.”

Angelo screwed up his face. “Tom’s dead.”

“Fire him anyway,” said Adam, pounding the desk again. “What about the detective? Is he dead?”

“I…I don’t know, sir,” replied Angelo. “Grace didn’t say…she was pretty upset. I’m sure the papers—”

“The papers?” screamed Adam, standing up. “The fucking papers know about this?”

“Well, it is a shooting…”

“You’re a vibrator with no batteries, you know that?” Adam scanned his desk for something to throw. “Fucking useless.”

Angelo shifted his weight. “The investigation—”

“Has nothing to do with my movie!” shouted Adam, grabbing the receiver off the phone. “Make some calls, Angelo. Fix this—make this go away.” He shook the phone like a club. “None of this shit matters. Only the schedule matters.”

“I understand,” said Angelo.

“Make it all go away.”

“I’m on it.”

“Or I’ll make you go away, Angelo.”

“Consider it gone, sir.”

“The schedule is all that matters,” shouted Adam, pounding the phone’s receiver against its base. “The schedule.” Again the phone came down, harder this time. “The schedule!” The phone shattered, bits of plastic flying across the floor.

Angelo sighed, relieved that today’s object of frustration had been attached to a cord.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Adam, sinking back in his chair and grabbing his drink. “Get me a new phone.”

Chapter Twenty-one

“These chairs are an embarrassment to the city.”

The interrogation room only had two chairs, both made from cheap plastic and aluminum, and Cape sat in one of them. Vincent sat in the other, looking immaculate in a gray suit and cornflower blue tie. The table between them had been scarred by cigarettes before the state of California made it illegal to smoke in public buildings. Cape didn’t smoke, but there was something about the room that made him long for a cigarette. A quiet despair seeped into the pale green walls.

“They’re supposed to be uncomfortable,” growled Beau. He was leaning against the wall behind Vincent. In the small confines of the room, his voice reverberated against the walls like an electric bass.

Vincent shifted uncomfortably in his seat and straightened his tie. “He’s got a point, Beau. We could go somewhere and—”

Beau cut him off with a warning glance, then turned on Cape. “This room is discreet—me, I like discreet. Some people, on the other hand, like to cause a ruckus wherever they go.”

“Ruckus?” Cape put a wounded expression on his face. “I’m not even sure I know what a ruckus is.” He turned to Vincent, who shook his head noncommittally.

“You are a pain in my ass,” said Beau. “Here I am, tryin’ to conduct a proper investigation, and you go and get yourself shot in the middle of it, and waste my valuable time.”

“Nothing personal.”

Beau shook his head sadly. “Now if you’d found a clue in the park, maybe drugs, or maybe a written confession from Jimmy Hoffa—that might have helped the investigation. But no, you had to find yourself a dead Russian.”

“Was he Russian?”

“Seems that way,” replied Vincent. He pulled a stack of black and white photographs from a manila envelope and pushed the one on the top toward Cape. It was an image of a man’s hand, fingers curled in early-stage rigor mortis. On each knuckle was a curving black line, a symbol tattooed into the flesh.

Cape squinted at the photo. “That’s the Cyrillic alphabet.”

Beau clapped slowly, the sound echoing off the walls. “Send the boy to college and see what he comes home with? Lots of game show trivia, but no common sense.”

Vincent took the photograph and returned it to his pile. “When we took the driving gloves off your dance partner at the beach, he had those on both hands.”

“What’s it say?”

Vincent shrugged. “We don’t know yet. Had a guy on the force who knew Russian, but he left to become a school teacher when he didn’t get a promotion.”

“Budget cuts,” said Beau.

“Well, who was he?”

Vincent shook his head. “An import.”

“Import?”

“Prints didn’t come up on any local or federal databases,” explained Vincent. “I seriously doubt this was a first offense for this guy.”

“No way,” said Cape. “He’s done this before.”

“So we think he’s fresh off the boat, imported for this kind of job.”

“I’m flattered.”

“You’re lucky,” said Beau. “Hadn’t been for the dead Russian’s spine, you’d be leaking on the carpet every time you took a drink.”

Vincent nodded. “The first shot entered his back almost directly behind his heart but came in at an angle and ricocheted off his spine. That’s why it grazed your ribs instead of going straight through both of you.”

“How’s your side?” asked Beau.

Cape raised his left arm and winced. “Hurts.”

“Good.”

Cape used his right arm to feel the bandages wrapped around his torso. “The doc said the bullet gouged the bone and bounced off, so it’s more like a deep cut than a gunshot wound, but I’d rather have a hang nail.”

Beau nodded for Vincent to continue his lecture.

“The second shot took the guy’s head off.”

Cape exhaled slowly. “I wasn’t sure,” he said. “I had his gun under his chin when the first shot hit me, so I thought—”

“We thought that, too,” said Vincent. “But his gun hadn’t been fired.”

“Lucky for you,” said Beau. “We found the gun in the water, maybe six feet from shore.”

“Where was the shooter?”

“On the hill, looking down toward the beach. That’s our best guess.”

Cape nodded. “In the same car as the guy that came after me.”

“Or a rooftop in the square,” said Vincent. “Either location makes it easy to dump the rifle.”

“You found the rifle?”

By way of answer, Vincent opened a brown cardboard box at his feet. Cape took the gun from Vincent and hefted it, guessing it weighed close to fifteen pounds. He had seen a lot of guns over the years, but this one was new to him. The lines of every gun said something about why it was made. Hunting rifles had clean barrels and stocks carved from burled wood that looked like it came from the forest where the game lived. Target pistols had custom grips and ergonomic curves so sleek they were practically works of art. The gun in Cape’s hands consisted of hard, angular shapes that tapered toward the barrel, giving it a distinctly predatory look. It was a gun designed to shoot a man from a great distance. From so far away you’d never hear the shot that killed you.

“What is it?” He set the rifle on the table.

Vincent pulled a card from his pocket and read aloud. “A Dragunov SVD, according to one of the instructors on our shooting range.”

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s a Soviet sniper rifle,” said Vincent, glancing at the card. “Shoots a 7.62-millimeter cartridge that’s different from the standard NATO cartridge, accurate up to one thousand meters.”

“Sheesh,” muttered Cape. He reached over to touch his left side. “Where do you get one?”

“Not at your local gun shop,” said Beau.

“Why leave the rifle?” asked Cape. “Or why not, right?”

“Exactly,” said Beau. “Drop the rifle and walk away. The rifle’s compromised ’cause it’s been shot, but it can’t be traced, so why not trash it? Makes it easier to disappear into the crowd.”

Cape opened his mouth to ask something else but caught himself. He looked from Vincent to Beau, his expression grave.

“The first guy was just a decoy—they trashed him just like the rifle.”

“Sure looks that way,” said Vincent. “Maybe they ship him over and give him a shot at you. If he takes you on the beach, then he gets a green card, a blonde with big tits, and a rent-free apartment in the Land of the Free. Or he gets a suitcase full of rubles and goes home, vanishing into thin air. But if he fucks up, which he did, then he’s disposable.”

“Nice.”

“Either way, the guy behind the hit doesn’t get his hands dirty.”

Beau pushed himself off the wall and stretched. “Looks like you made yourself some new friends.”

“Any idea who might want you dead?” asked Vincent.

Beau took a step forward. “Don’t ask him that, Vinnie—it’ll take too damn long.”

“Hey,” said Cape.

“First you got to consider all the people he’s pissed off over the years,” said Beau. “Clients, lawyers, cops—the list goes on and on. Then you got to look at the ex-girlfriends—could take forever. Hell, even I wish he were dead sometimes. Like today, for instance.”

Vincent raised a hand for silence. “Any idea who would want to kill you?”

Cape told them about the visit from the Russians at his office.

Beau was incredulous. “You just now bringing that up?”

“You guys were doing all the talking.”

“Withholding evidence,” muttered Beau.

“Bullshit,” said Cape. “You weren’t even working on the movie thing beyond asking my client a few questions. You said yourself it was a waste of time.”

“Compared to four homicides, it is,” said Beau. He turned his attention to the rifle. “We got plenty of Russians in San Francisco, but not many bad ones. That’s an East Coast problem.”

“They say who they were working for?” asked Vincent.

Cape shook his head. “Not when they came to the office. But I’d just left the apartment where you found the drugs when I spotted the tail, which makes you wonder.”

“They could have been on you all morning.”

“Not a chance,” said Cape. “You should have seen how these guys drove.”

“The heroin,” said Beau.

“Maybe,” said Vincent cautiously.

“Which means it might have something to do with Frank Alessi,” continued Beau. “Fat Frank has a hand in every drug deal in this town.”

Vincent frowned. “But why follow Cape?”

“He can’t very well follow you,” said Cape. “And Frank doesn’t like me much.”

Beau nodded. “That’s a fact.”

Vincent raised his eyebrows.

“Frank and I interacted, you might say.”

“You crossed him?” asked Vincent. “And you’re still alive?”

Cape shook his head. “Actually, I inadvertently did Frank a favor, which is even worse. A prick like Frank would rather kill you than be in your debt.”

“Seems pretty thin.”

“Nothin’ about Fat Frank is thin,” said Beau.

“Maybe I’m on to something,” said Cape, as much to himself as anyone in the room.

“Like what?” asked Vincent and Beau in unison.

“Haven’t a clue,” said Cape. “But clearly drugs are involved. What are you guys gonna do?”

Vincent shrugged. “We need probable cause.”

“You told me there was a turf war going on,” said Cape. “Isn’t that reason enough to ask Frank a few questions?”

“Frank’s a legitimate businessman,” said Beau, his jaw working to keep a straight face. “Construction, import-export, restaurants. Large political contributor to both parties. A model citizen. Don’t you read the papers—seems Frank’s got nothin’ to do with drugs or killin’ people.”

“That reminds me,” said Cape. “I need a favor.”

“You mean another favor,” said Beau. “Forget it.”

“Has the press done anything with the shooting?”

“Not the whole story, if that’s what you mean,” replied Vincent. “Tourists have been interviewed, and the radio’s buzzing about a shooting in Ghirardelli Square, but the papers don’t know who got killed, because we haven’t told them jack shit. Frankly, we didn’t know shit until about an hour ago.”

“We still don’t know shit,” said Beau.

“Then I want you guys to do something for me.”

“What?”

“I want you to kill me,” said Cape.

Beau smiled broadly.

“With pleasure.”

Chapter Twenty-two

“You look pretty good for a dead man.”

Grace stepped through shafts of sunlight, the canopy of trees overhead keeping most of the path in shadow. Her dark hair looked almost gray in the half-light, creating the illusion that Cape was seeing her as she would appear twenty years in the future. He wondered if the shadows let him age as gracefully.

“It must be the lighting.”

They walked along a winding path, the air heavy with the scent of eucalyptus. The Presidio was probably the most beautiful naval base in the country, converted to a national park years ago when the Pentagon started closing bases to save money. The park ran from the Golden Gate Bridge to the cusp of downtown. It boasted a YMCA, a bowling alley, a post office, and historic homes available for rent, the former quarters of the naval officers who had served on the base. But it had no attractions worthy of the attention of anyone working in the drug business, organized crime, or any other felonious enterprise. Cape figured it was a reasonably safe place to meet, and he didn’t want to go back to his office just yet—he wanted to keep moving.

The most recent addition to the Presidio was a state-of-the-art film and graphics facility built by George Lucas. The trees were so thick on either side of the path, Cape wouldn’t have been surprised if an army of Wookies jumped out at any moment, Chewbacca in the lead.

“Too bad I left my lightsaber at home.”

“Excuse me?”

“Never mind,” said Cape. “Just thinking out loud.”

Grace looked at him as she walked. “How did you manage to get yourself killed?”

“I was taken from the scene in an ambulance,” replied Cape. “So was a guy in a body bag. The newspapers know what the cops tell them, and the cops were a little vague.”

“And you have a friend at one of the papers.”

“That doesn’t hurt,” said Cape. “Once one newspaper reports their version of the story, the others typically assume it’s accurate. That’s a dirty secret of the newspaper business—they’re either understaffed or lazy. Fact-checking is a pain in the ass and often overlooked if a scoop is already lost. The stories were ambiguous.”

“Possible second fatality is a suggestive phrase.”

“That’s the idea.”

“What are you hoping to gain from your untimely demise?”

“Breathing room. I can’t conduct an investigation if I’m spending all my time looking over my shoulder.”

“Sorry I got you into this.”

Cape laughed. “I’m not sure what you’ve gotten me into. That’s the problem. But you’re not responsible—the client never is. It was my decision to take the case.”

“But you didn’t know…I mean, I didn’t know…”

Cape raised a hand gently and let it drop to his side.

“Your case was either pure imagination, total bullshit, or something bad enough that people would kill for it. It turned out to be the latter, which means trouble.”

“You talk as if you get shot at every day.”

“I try not to make a habit of it,” said Cape. “But if I was afraid of guns I wouldn’t be doing this.”

“Why do you do this?”

Cape shrugged. “Because I can.”

“That’s not much of an answer.”

Cape squinted as they emerged into a clearing. “I used to work for a newspaper. Then I worked for another. And another. After a while it was time to do something else.”

Grace looked his way again. “You were a journalist?”

“A journalist is just a pretentious reporter,” said Cape. “It’s like your distinction between movies and films.”

“Were you a good reporter?”

“Very.”

Grace gave him an appraising look from head to toe. “You don’t suffer from a lack of confidence, do you?”

“Only when I first step out of the shower.”

Grace laughed.

“My first editor was an asshole,” said Cape, “but he knew what he was doing. My second month on the job, he told me to get close to the Mexican gangs running the dope business—and try to avoid getting killed—in that order.”

“He does sound like an asshole.”

“Yeah,” said Cape. “But I loved every minute of it.”

“Why’d you leave?”

“You read the papers lately?”

“What do you mean?”

“If a story isn’t about a celebrity, an athlete, or the paparazzi chasing them, you won’t find it on the front page,” said Cape. “After a while I started telling my friends I was a lawyer, politician, or advertising executive—somehow those seemed more respectable than being a reporter.”

“But you weren’t writing stuff like that.”

“No,” said Cape. “But the stories I wrote didn’t make a difference, either. They might make for good reading, or get a politician to express sorrow and outrage at the problems in our fair city, but the city didn’t change because of anything I wrote.”

“Now you sound cynical.”

“Not at all,” replied Cape. “Read the headlines today, then go to the library and read the headlines from ten years ago. Five will get you ten the stories are the same. Mayor cuts budget. Trouble in the Mideast. President promises tax reform.”

“This is starting to get depressing.”

“You’re missing the point. I’m saying that I couldn’t change those things—they were too big, too complex for one person to solve. So I decided to stop writing about other people’s problems and start doing something about them. I just needed to do something.”

“So you woke up one day and said, ‘I’m going to be a private investigator’?”

“Actually, it never occurred to me,” replied Cape. “Then one day I get a call from an old friend who says his sister has gone missing and the cops aren’t buying his story.”

“I know the feeling.”

Cape let that sit for a minute before continuing. “I always had a knack for finding people. Over the years I’d learned where to look, what questions to ask, how to piss someone off just enough to get a reaction.”

“You found her?”

“Yeah, I did,” said Cape. “And it made a difference.”

“Where was she?”

“With a very bad man,” said Cape. “I got her back, he got hurt, and I got arrested.”

“Arrested?” said Grace. “Why?”

“I think it had something to do with the bad man getting hurt,” said Cape. “But in the end, she came home and he went to jail. And I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.”

“The risk doesn’t bother you?”

“I used to be a war correspondent,” replied Cape. “A real reporter gets into lots of scary situations, but he can’t fight back. I’d rather be a participant than a spectator.”

“Sounds like you’ve been doing this a long time.”

Cape shrugged. “Long enough to know it doesn’t do any good to wish you’d done something else.”

Grace nodded absently, walking quietly along the path. Cape suspected she was thinking about her own choices. When she spoke again her tone had changed, as if changing the subject put a weight back on her shoulders.

“The studio wants you to come to New York.”

Cape stopped walking. “They know I’m alive?”

“No—sorry—no, they don’t. I didn’t know myself when I called them. I was…kind of upset.”

“You’re gonna make me blush,” said Cape. “So what did they say?”

“I talked with Angelo, that unctuous asshole. He said Mr. Berman wanted to meet you, see if he could help.”

“He said that before I was shot, or after?”

“Does it matter?”

“I don’t know,” said Cape. “It might.”

“It was like we were having two different conversations. I was calling to tell them about the shooting, Angelo was calling me to see if you could come to New York.”

“Which Mr. Berman?” asked Cape. “Adam or Harry?”

“Angelo didn’t say, now that you mention it,” replied Grace. “But it sounds more like something Harry would say. Adam isn’t normally that, umm…helpful.”

Cape nodded. “I’d like to drop in on the folks in New York unannounced, if it’s all the same with you.”

“Sure,” said Grace. “But you don’t think the studio has anything to do with the shooting? I thought you said there might be a connection between the drugs in Tom’s apartment and a local drug dealer?”

“There probably is, and I’m going to check that out. But Tom was working for the studio when he got killed. And we still don’t know he didn’t jump.”

Grace turned, her nostrils flaring. “He didn’t jump.”

Cape held up both hands. “The point is we don’t know what Tom was into, or how those drugs got into his room, or why someone tried to kill me on the beach.”

“I’m your client and you’re telling me you don’t know anything,” said Grace. “What are your rates again?”

“Funny,” said Cape. “You want me to start earning my fee, then you’ll let me ask your bosses some questions.”

“Even if they’re not involved?”

“They might know something without knowing they know it. That’s sort of how this works.”

Grace took a deep breath. “Just—”

Cape cut her off. “Tom was working for Empire when he got killed.”

“So?”

“Now I’m working for Empire, and someone tried to kill me.”

“A lot of people work for Empire,” replied Grace, defensively. “What are you getting at?”

“You work for Empire.”

“You think someone wants to kill me?” Now she sounded more indignant than alarmed. “Why?”

“I don’t, really,” said Cape. “So far the heat has been entirely on me, but you were close to Tom, and now you’re connected to me. So I’d be remiss not to mention the possibility.”

“Remiss?”

“I did really well on my SATs.”

“I’ll bet.”

Cape chose his next words very carefully.

“I don’t think you should be worried,” he said. “But you can always call off the investigation.”

“I’m not ready to fire you yet.” Grace forced a smile. “The only thing I’m afraid of is what you might find out about Tom.”

Cape thought that if he’d been Tom, he couldn’t ask for a better answer.

“I’ll probably fly to New York sometime tomorrow,” he said.

“I know there’s a flight out later today.”

“There’s someone I have to visit first.”

“What does he do?” asked Grace. “Another reporter? A cop? You seem to know some interesting people.”

“She—my friend’s a she.”