Chapter 36 - The Gunfight and Inquest

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

I did a quick reconnaissance of the vicinity surrounding Oakley’s Garage before finding a place to park. On the first pass I observed a loose group of men talking by the entrance to the garage. They were all familiar faces: Dwight and Billy Claxton, Tom and Frank McDonald, and the two jokers, Claymore and Cruz. I saw nothing of the child. Nor did I see William Graham or John Ringold. I drove around the block and down the back alley. There I passed a parked car. It was a brand new maroon Lexus. A woman sat in the passenger seat, with the window down, smoking a cigarette. She didn’t bother to look up as I cruised past her. But I recognized her anyway, as Doc’s wife, Katherine. I slowed way down to see if he were about; then I remembered that the studio apartment he rented was located at the back of the photography studio, here in the alley.

Christ, he was a reckless man, I thought.

At the end of the alley I turned right and headed towards Allen Street. I spotted Homer Johnson at the intersection. He was dressed in a charcoal gray suit and looked a little out of place carrying a shotgun. He crossed with the light and stopped in front of a small Mexican restaurant. A police car pulled up from the opposite direction and parked in a space across the street in front of a butcher shop. Pope Johnson got out of his car and joined his brother. He was in uniform, with a helmet and sunglasses. His badge gleamed in the midday sun. They exchanged few words, neither of them looked particularly happy to be there. A man came out of the restaurant and spoke to them. He wasn’t anybody I recognized, a workingman, middle aged in bib overalls and a baseball hat. Pope took down notes. Both brothers’ gaze followed the man’s finger down the street towards Oakley’s Garage. As they listened to the man’s story Pope unsnapped the latch securing his pistol to his holster.

I drove past them and went around the block. I parked on Third Street and as discreetly as I could made my way over to Nellie’s Diner. Nellie nodded grimly as I took a seat by the window. I was the only customer and I didn’t want anything; she brought me a cup of coffee anyway.

“They’ve been drinking all morning,” she said, setting the cup down on the counter beside me. “That and talking about killing Frame Johnson…”

I looked across the street. The boys had wandered past the garage towards the rear entrance. They were just sort of hanging out at the back by the alley I had just driven through, where I had seen Doc’s wife. They were still drinking, passing a bottle between them. I took out my binos for a closer look. Three of them, Dwight Claxton, Billy Claxton, and Frank McDonald, had pistols stuffed in their belts. Tom McDonald had a rifle, what looked to me like an AK-47, which he concealed behind a huge motorcycle that was parked there.

“And it doesn’t look good,” I said.

Nellie looked at me. “I called the police,” she said. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

She said it as a question. I nodded and told her she had done the right thing. Not that I was any too sure about that, not with all those guns and the liquor over there. Calling Maxie Gray might have been the more prudent course to take. Nor did I feel any better when I saw Junior pull up in front of Oakley’s in his BMW. He screwed around for about five minutes just locking and setting the alarm to the goddamned car. He then strolled leisurely over to the office and knocked on the door. When there was no answer, he looked inside the garage. He appeared to be about ready to leave when he noticed the guys huddled together at the back of the yard. They saw him coming and there was some hooting and hollering like they were all just the best of friends.

To his credit Junior refused the drink they offered him. He also requested that they do something about their weapons, which they did by concealing them beneath their shirttails. I was feeling sick just watching them. So was Nellie.

“That man, he’s a police officer?” She asked.

“He sure is,” I replied.

“He’s not going to do anything about them,” she said. “Is he?”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“I think I’m going to close,” she said.

“That might be a good idea,” I said.

And then I saw Eve. She was in the office, pressing her face and hands against the window nearest to the door. She rolled her face in one direction, then the other, clouding the glass with her breath. She traced something in the cloud with her finger, I couldn’t tell what. A moment later she disappeared from the window and reappeared at the office door. The pitbull was with her. They walked out onto the porch. The pitbull strutted out first, surveying his lot, with an eye on the corner post supporting the thin metal roof, which he marked as his own with a quick and routine splash of scent. The girl followed, in a red and yellow coat, jeans and cowboy boots, and a small box clutched firmly in her hands. She looked small and fragile and very alone, and what was worse, was that she looked used to being alone, except for the box which she held dear to her as though it contained something of great value. For the first time I realized how cold it was in spite of the sun.

I left Nellie’s and stood in her doorway, wondering what the chances were of just walking across the street and taking Eve by the hand unobserved by her deadbeat father or any of his loser friends. She had followed the dog down from the porch and stood beside him in front of the garage. A little girl and her pet killer dog. I almost darted across the street; I felt that good about it, but the dog stopped me. He was looking right at me, and he wasn’t wagging his tail, even when Eve reached down with one hand and patted the little brute on his head. It was like he could tell from across the street what I had in mind. When I saw Frame Johnson out of the corner of my eye I almost felt relieved.

I saw him drive by in a nondescript, government-issued sedan. He parked on Allen, close to Fourth, where apparently his brothers were waiting for him. When I caught up with him at the corner he seemed neither pleased nor displeased to see me. Like Homer, he was wearing a dark suit and tie, but sensibly, without any accessories, like a shotgun. Homer glanced at me but didn’t say anything. Pope sort of smiled and looked to Frame. Frame looked at me and shrugged.

“You’re after the child, right?” Frame said.

“She’s over there now,” I said. “She was supposed to appear in court today.”

“Must run in the family,” Pope said.

“Custody hearing,” Homer said.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Dwight Claxton’s been threatening to kill us,” Homer said, and with a glance at Frame: “Him most of all.”

Frame turned red and looked away, towards Oakley’s. “I want to talk to Dwight before this gets out of hand.”

“It’s already out of hand,” Homer said.

“Where the hell are they anyway?” Pope said.

“Behind the garage, at the alley,” I said. “Dwight, his brother, Billy, the McDonalds, Claymore. And they’re armed.”

Homer looked at me surprised. “We just spoke to a man who said he overheard them earlier talking about blowing Doc away.”

“Shit.” Frame looked back at Homer, then me. “Is Doc down there now?”

“I didn’t see him, but I saw his wife…”

Pope laughed. “His wife? You mean Kate?”

“Katherine,” I said. “In the alley, in a Lexus.”

“A rental,” Pope said.

“They had a fight last night,” Frame said. “Doc may have come down here to get some peace and quiet.”

“Yeah, right,” Homer muttered.

“There he is,” Pope said.

We all turned and saw Doc, his thin body cloaked in a dark trench coat, coming down Fourth Street towards us. He was limping behind his cane and coughing and dousing his coughing with the medicinal contents of his flask. He stopped in front of us and eyeballed the shotgun in Homer’s hands and smiled wisely at us.

“Nice day if it don’t rain,” he said.

“Where have you been?” Frame said.

“With my doctor. She thinks I should quit smoking.”

“We’ve got about half dozen halfwit’s waiting for us down by your place,” Pope said.

Doc lit a cigarette and glanced, one at a time, at the three brothers. “At best I may have a year, a year and a half tops, and she expects me to give up the few small pleasures left to me.”

“The Claxtons, the McDonalds, Cruz and Claymore,” Homer said, glancing down Allen Street towards Oakley’s.

“Katherine’s down there too,” I said. “Waiting for you, I guess.”

Doc smiled at me and winked. “Well, if those boys have any sense they’ll leave her alone.” He looked at Frame. “What about back up?”

“I think we can talk to them,” Frame said.

“I tried that last night,” Doc said. “But there’s six of them now.”

“Doc, I’d like you to stay out of this,” Frame said evenly. “You aren’t involved in this.”

“Frame Johnson, that is a hell of a thing for you to say to me.”

“Hell, we’re just going to scare them,” Pope said. “As soon as we show up they’re going lose a lot of interest quick.”

Doc tapped Homer’s shotgun with his cane. “Unless you scare them too much. Let me carry it, I do have a permit, I’ll keep the damn thing under my coat.”

Homer exchanged his shotgun for Doc’s cane and the four them started across the street towards the alley. I stood there watching them go, feeling scared. Then my feet started moving after them, completely against my will. One foot after another, as though my brain was evenly divided between my heels and toes. The whole time I kept thinking to myself that I knew better, but it didn’t matter, by the time they turned into the alley I had caught up with them. I was directly behind Frame. I told myself that there was nothing to worry about, that the Johnson’s were professional lawmen and all they were going to do was talk. Yet the warning signals were loud and clear: my mouth was dry, my heart was pounding wildly, and I was perspiring heavily. The oddest thing, however, was this: Doc Christmas, with the shotgun barely concealed beneath the length of his coat, was whistling a tune I loved, Beyond the Sea. He glanced back over his shoulder at me and blew a kiss. Then I heard Homer say: “There they are.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

They were there all right, the six of them, plus Junior. Cruz saw us first. We had just turned into the alley, and were about a quarter of a block away, the Johnson’s and Christmas walking abreast, with me bringing up the rear. Cruz was just passing the bottle to Frank McDonald when he spotted us. He did a double take and said: “Shit!” Then they all saw us. Dwight and Billy Claxton looking over their shoulders, Tom and Frank McDonald stepping back, their hands lowering defensively towards their weapons. Junior didn’t like the sight of us at all, he grimaced, and motioned to his friends to stay put, then he started towards us. Cruz was the smartest of the bunch; he cleared out in a hurry, across the garage yard, towards Allen Street, without looking back once. His buddy, Claymore, watched him go wordlessly, a combination of contempt and envy playing across his dim features. At some point I heard a door slammed shut. I followed the sound to Doc’s studio apartment, and caught a glimpse of long golden hair and an eye peeking out from behind a curtain. The Lexus was still parked in the alley beside a fence and a pair of garbage cans, but Katherine Christmas was no longer in it. Junior planted himself squarely in front us, his hands up before him, entreating us to slow down. But we brushed right by him. He turned in our wake and worked hard to keep up with Homer.

“You shouldn’t be down here, for Christ’s sake,” He said. “We don’t want any trouble.”

Homer said: “Why haven’t you arrested them?”

Junior said: “On what charge?”

Homer said: “Drunk and disorderly conduct, carrying concealed weapons, threatening the lives of law enforcement officers.”

Junior said: “They aren’t armed.”

We all sighed in relief. I felt about ten pounds lighter. Then I realized Junior had fallen behind and we were still going. I turned to look at him and he was headed towards the back door of Glide’s photography studio. He knocked on the door as he opened it and quickly stepped inside. And I started feeling like shit again. Seconds later time came to a halt. Doc let his coat fall from his shoulders and the business end of the shotgun came up. I think it was Pope who spoke first.

“You sons of bitches have been looking for a fight, now you can have one.”

Homer said: “We’re here to disarm you!”

Claymore backed off and started across the lot, by the time he reached Allen Street he was running. All the color drained from Dwight’s face. His brother, Billy, along with Tom and Frank McDonald began squaring off, Tom stepped behind the motorcycle where I had seen him hide the Ak-47. I saw hands reaching beneath shirts for weapons.

Homer raised Doc’s cane into the air and shouted: “I don’t want that!”

Then Eve followed the goddamned pittbull around the corner of the garage. She looked up and saw her father. I watched her mouth form the word, “Daddy!” She started running towards him, her arms outstretched. And, of course, the dog ran after her.

Time shifted into slow. I was watching Eve running, and the dog catching up with her, and then passing her. It was a frightening little brute, all muscle and bared teeth. It came to a stop just behind Dwight, and presumed a fighting stance, its head lowered, and emitting a low and steady growl that chilled me to the bone. I reached into my purse and took hold of my pistol and for the first time in my life I thought about killing an animal. I don’t think I was even breathing at that point. And I was only vaguely aware of Frank McDonald pulling his pistol from beneath his shirt and Frame Johnson muttering something under his breath. Something like “Jesus H. Christ…” and then suddenly two shots fired so quickly together their explosions blended into one.

I don’t know who pulled what trigger first, and the testimonies following the gunfight were conflicted, depending upon the perspective and the motives of the eyewitnesses, but Frank McDonald was the first one shot. In the stomach, I remember watching him spit blood. The bullet sent him reeling backwards, but he caught himself, and began staggering forward, firing his pistol madly in our direction. There were other shots, rapid and unsure. Pope Johnson pointed his pistol like a deadly finger right at Billy Claxton and fired; the bullet tore into his chest, right where I imagined his heart would be. But Billy fired back angrily, and Pope shot him again, hitting his right wrist, forcing him to change his pistol to his left hand, and despite his wounds he continued firing. This all happened at once, like some hideous nightmare. I couldn’t say if Dwight Claxton was armed or not, but he charged Frame Johnson, physically shoving him into the alley, where they wrestled together for what seemed a lifetime but in reality could only have been a little more than mere seconds. Dwight was screaming at Frame not to shoot him and Frame was shoving him back and shouting at him to fight or to get out and Dwight got out. He ran straight for the nearest door, which was the rear entrance to the photography studio and ducked inside. Somehow I managed to crawl past them on my hands and knees into Oakley’s back lot, towards little Eve. She was standing wide-eyed in shock with her thumb buried in her mouth. I got as far as the pitbull and just the sight of those narrow blood red eyes stopped me cold. He was all business, growling ferociously, as his breath rolled over me in thick, warm, dirty waves. I believe that animal scared me more than the shooting because I just knew he was going to go straight for my face. Then came an explosion followed by another, and I glanced up to see Doc with Homer’s shotgun, and two red casings flying through the smoke. The motorcycle Tom McDonald was standing behind went down in front of him, and I saw the smoking AK-47 slip from his hands, just as the second blast from the shotgun threw him against the side of the fence. Incredibly he remained standing. He drew a pistol from behind his back and started shooting. I heard someone, I think Pope Johnson, shout out that he’d been shot. I saw Frame Johnson move towards his brother protectively and, as cool as could be, shoot Tom McDonald twice in the chest. Tom McDonald clutching his wounds lurched past me into the alley, where he fell. Doc dropped the shotgun at that point and grabbed his pistol, a nickel-plated semiautomatic, and spun around ready to see who else needed shooting. When I looked back the dog lay dead in front of me. I don’t know who shot it, there were a lot of bullets flying every which way, and I supposed it was accidental. The weird thing was that I felt sorry for the poor damned thing and I started sobbing as I lunged over its small carcass and grabbed Eve.

Then the shooting seemed to stop. I was shielding Eve in my arms, pressing her head against my shoulder. She was crying, too, and her small body heaved violently against my own. I don’t know how long the lull lasted, a heartbeat or a small eternity, I simply couldn’t tell. I looked over my shoulder and saw Homer Johnson on the ground, blood streaming from the calf of his right leg. He was still holding Doc’s cane in his left hand, and his pistol in his right. Pope, too, was on the ground, bleeding from his right shoulder and also from his back where the bullet had exited. Pope struggled to his feet, his pistol dangling from his bloody hand. Frame and Doc stood unscathed, both looking unusually resolute. Across from them, by only a few feet, stood Frank McDonald, looking stunned and confused. He ignored his stomach wound and shifted his angry gaze from Doc to Frame and then back again. Behind him Billy Claxton leaned against the side of the garage, his knees buckling beneath his weight. There was a lot of blood; more blood then I thought possible. Blood everywhere. Then the shooting started again.

It came from inside the photography studio. I saw that much as I threw Eve down on the greasy asphalt and covered her with my body. I twisted around, searching for somewhere safe, and glimpsed Dwight’s stupid face from one of the windows, and right behind him, Junior who was looking on horrified. A moment later they were both gone as Doc started firing in their direction. I don’t know about Junior, but Dwight wasted no further time getting out. He broke through the alley door and hauled ass towards Fourth Street; stumbling in his haste, and falling, but with surprising catlike grace he rolled with the fall, and was up in a flash and running, his arms and legs pumping like hell. In his wake he left a pistol lying in the alley where he fell.

There was little I could do at this point but lie there with Eve beneath me. And pray. Homer Johnson shifted his body to shoot around us. He was aiming at Billy Claxton who was now sitting against the side of the garage, using his left knee to steady his pistol. I never saw a face look so angry. He fired and missed and swore and closed one bloody eye to take better aim. When he fired again so did Homer Johnson and Homer was the better shot. The bullet hit Billy straight in his chest and looked, from where I lay, to be utterly fatal. The amazing thing was that even as he lay there dying Billy never let go of his pistol. It had to be pried from his fingers; and he died an hour later.

Frank McDonald angled across the yard towards Doc Christmas and Pope Johnson. He didn’t appear to know which one he wanted to shoot most. His hand pressed uselessly against the wound in his stomach; blood soaked through his clothes and left a thick trail behind him. How he kept moving was beyond me. Doc looked contemptuously at him and fired his pistol but nothing happened beneath its hammer. The empty click reverberated throughout the lot. Calmly Doc holstered his spent weapon and reached for a second pistol, which he carried in a smaller holster on his ankle. Watching him take his time at such a moment was more than the surviving McDonald could bear; he pointed his pistol at Doc and said, “I’ve got you now, motherfucker.”

Doc looked at his opponent and smiled. “You’re a good one if you have,” he said, spreading his arms out wide, effectively enlarging his silhouette.

Four shots were fired simultaneously. I lost most of my hearing on that one alone. Cordite spoiled the air and seared my lungs. I heard Doc exclaim in amazement: “I’ve been shot through!” A single bullet struck Frank McDonald in his head and sent him reeling backwards, head over heels, to the asphalt. I heard Pope say to no one in particular: “I got him!”

Doc leaned over the prone figure to make sure, tapping him with the toe of his boot. “He shot me,” he said. “He’d better be dead.”

I didn’t move; I didn’t want to, not until I was absolutely positive it was over.

Frame Johnson tended to his younger brother, Pope, using pieces of his coat to staunch the bleeding from his shoulder and back. Doc studied his own wound, a graze on his right hip, whistling softly at the closeness of the call. Sirens reached through the dull ringing in my ears, and I slowly became aware of the growing number of people who had emerged from the surrounding buildings. Homer propped himself up on his elbows and soberly took in the carnage. He exchanged an unhappy glance with Frame.

“What just happened?” He asked.

Frame shook his head sadly. “I wish to hell I knew,” he said softly.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

And then it was over.

It took some time just for that much to sink in. The gunfight lasted, according to the various eyewitnesses, all of thirty seconds. Not that I believed it; I was there, and I know for a fact that I aged a good ten years during that brief moment. Later, as though to match those seconds, something like thirty rounds were found to have been fired. In the meantime Doc helped us up; I clutched Eve’s hand in my own and held her close. Dwight was long gone. His brother was slumped against the side of the garage, dying. Mr. Glide emerged from his photography studio and entered the yard. He calmly surveyed the damage, pausing in disbelief over each body. I watched him walk over to poor Billy Claxton, who was struggling yet to get off another shot, and force the pistol from his bloody hands. “You don’t need this anymore,” he told him.

Junior pushed his way through the crowd in the alley, waving his shield, and announcing that he was a lieutenant of detectives with the San Francisco Police Department. He was shaken badly by the shooting, his features were a sickly pallor, and his voice wavered, but I could tell just by looking at him that he wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity like this. Swallowing his fear he stepped right into the middle of things and confronted Frame Johnson.

“You and your brothers are under arrest,” he said with as much confidence as he could muster. Which wasn’t much. But he managed a glance at Christmas and amended his declaration. “All of you. I’ll take your weapons now.”

Frame just looked at him with cold contempt, and then deliberately brushed past him as he went to check on his other brother, Homer. Junior followed him, stammering.

“I said you and your brothers are under arrest!”

Frame swung around and pointed a finger straight at Junior’s face. “I’m not going to be arrested today,” he said. “Not by you; not by anyone. Goddamnit, Donahue, you told us they were unarmed!”

“I didn’t say that!”

“That’s what you told us,” Homer shouted from the ground. He was busy holding his hand over the bleeding wound in his calf.

“I also heard you,” I said.

Junior looked at Homer, then at me. You could see him thinking about his career, about it going down the tubes. In the meantime squad cars pulled up by the front entrance to the garage, uniformed cops, with their weapons drawn, took positions. Frame waved them inside with his badge. Paramedics followed. I pressed Eve’s head against my side and downshifted to idle. Junior looked like he wanted to do something to insure his control of the situation. I saw his hand flutter towards his pistol; then his fingers refuse to take it. He saw me watching him, saw what I was thinking, and looked like he hated me more than he did the first time we ever met in grade school. I was his babysitter then and he wanted to stay up late. And that’s where our relationship soured.

“That’s not what I meant,” he said lamely. But by then the Johnson’s
had cut him dead. He looked back at me, as though it just might be entirely my fault, then turned on his heel and joined with the cops now arriving on the scene.

He was barking orders like a traffic cop. I looked at my watch; it was one-forty. If we were lucky we might get out of here by five. I borrowed a cell-phone from Frame Johnson and called Darrell and Darrell told me he was on his way. Nellie came across the street and took Eve’s other hand. She brought a sack lunch and water for both of us, but we couldn’t eat just yet. The only thing that made any sense was the drink I shared with Doc Christmas, from the flask in his cane.

“A good scout,” he said. “is always prepared.”

We watched Pope and Homer Johnson, and Billy Claxton loaded onto ambulances. When he didn’t think I was looking, Doc looked pretty sad. Cops ignored us; Frame Johnson and Junior did most of the talking. There was clearly no love lost between them. It was amazing how their stories differed. At several points I thought they were going to come to blows. Junior kept insisting that the Johnson’s and their cohort, Christmas, had started the gunfight. He mentioned my name too. It had all been in the papers, he said, everything. The abuse of power, the harassment of innocent citizens, conduct unbecoming Federal officers, all of it, for days, leading to this bloody shootout.

Nellie interrupted Junior, saying that she had seen the Claxton’s and McDonald’s early yesterday day, in her diner, openly discussing murder, and then today, here at the garage. She said that he, Junior or Frank Donahue or whatever he preferred to be called, had also been there, with the boys, just before the shooting started. Junior did his best to ignore her, until she told him in no uncertain terms that she believed he was full of shit—and that he could have done something—anything—to prevent the shooting from happening. He responded by threatening to have her arrested for interfering with an official investigation or obstruction of justice, whichever, I imagined, might come first. Then Frame told him to shut up and there was almost another shootout.

Suddenly a very displeased Eugene was there, quietly but firmly taking control of the situation. Internal Affairs was right on his heels, as were representatives from the U.S. Marshals Office. Eugene put an end to the bickering and separated the disputing parties, treating them more like juvenile delinquents than the law enforcement agents they were, Johnson to one side of the lot and Junior to the other. Paramedics removed the wounded, loading them onto ambulances and packing them off to General Hospital; the bodies they photographed and outlined in chalk. I heard later that Billy Claxton died on his way into surgery. Christmas stuck around, the wound on his hip being no more than a scratch and treatable with, as he prescribed, the proper administration of vodka. Together we shared his medicine as we watched Junior pushing buttons on his cell-phone.

Junior, of course, called his father. I could read his lips. He was into industrial strength blame. The Johnson’s, Christmas, me. His mouth ran four-minute miles, and when he was finished he ran with the phone to Eugene, and told him that his father wanted to have a word with him. Eugene looked at Junior, then at the phone, which he took in his hand and disconnected with a finger before handing it back.

“I told you to stay on that side of the lot,” Eugene said. His expression booked no dissent; he pointed a finger towards the squad cars double parked on Allen Street. “Over there, while we sort this out.”

Junior didn’t like it, but he knew when he was beat. He took his phone and went back to his corner. Eugene shouted after him: “And don’t let me catch you talking to any reporters.

Reporters there were, of course, a bunch of them, zooming in on us from their side of the yellow police line. And helicopters too, from the local TV stations, hovered above us. We were live and in color. Eugene looked up in disgust and shook his head. Then he saw Eve and me, and then I guess he saw Doc. He came over to us and asked if we were all right. His expression was the usual blend of one part guardian and one part cop that he routinely employed in his dealings with me. He used only the cop part with Doc, but for Eve he was all heart, kneeling down in front of her, and asking her her name, and if she was all right and if there was anything he could do for her? But before Eve could respond he was already starting in on me.

“She saw this?” He asked me, incredulously.

“Most of it,” I said. I was very tired. “She was here, with her father, Dwight Claxton. I don’t know where he is right now.”

Doc motioned with his cane, down the alley, towards Fourth Street. “He went that-a-way,” he said. “He appeared to be in a hurry.”

Eugene turned a cold eye on Doc. “I bet he was,” he said.

“He dropped his gun,” Eve said. We all looked at her. She pointed across the lot at Junior. “He has it.”

Junior was with his two underlings, Breakwood and Stillwell. They huddled together like pros, cell-phones to their ears, their mouths on full automatic. I was sorry I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

“Where’s the girl’s mother?” Eugene asked.

“Court,” I said. “There was a hearing today. Eve was supposed to have been there.”

“My mother’s dead,” Eve said.

We all looked at her again. Eugene looked like he was going to cry.

“She was run over by a truck while she was jaywalking and she died.”

I squeezed her shoulders gently. “No,” I whispered. “She’s alive and well and she loves you very much.

Eve frowned skeptically. Her mother’s resurrection wasn’t something she wanted to discuss with strangers. She changed the subject by staring at the ground. After a moment she started crying. It was more than Eugene could take. Or Doc for that matter. They both looked at me with moist eyes.

“She needs her mom,” Eugene said solemnly. “Why don’t we go find her?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

But we didn’t have to; she found us. Ivy shot out of Darrell’s 1969 Volvo before it came to a halt. She tore through the police line like a track star, the yellow police tape streaming from around her waist. She had Eve in her arms before any of us knew what was happening. It was almost like a happy ending.

Five minutes later Maxie Gray showed up on his bike, with his briefcase in hand. He was screaming bloody murder before he even got his helmet off. He pointed fingers at Frame Johnson and Doc Christmas and demanded they be arrested. He wanted justice right here, right now, and the both of them sentenced to jail for life. Junior kept his distance but you could see he enjoyed the performance. Almost as much as Maxie enjoyed it. Maxie found a space and filled it completely with outrageous indignation. Nor did he stop with Johnson and Christmas. He saved his pinkie for me. A pinkie adorned with a large ruby ring. I was to be arrested as a coconspirator—believe me, a role I was getting used to. Cruz and Claymore filtered in through the crowd and joined their lawyer in protest. They had seen everything, by God, and if they had to, they would gladly testify to it in court. I looked around for Doc’s wife, but I didn’t see her. And her Lexus was gone.

Darrell took my side in everything. He told me not to worry and, in fact, he told me to enjoy the show. The show being Maxie Gray. But my nerves were shot and I was feeling a little bit drunk. Now that mother and daughter were reunited all I wanted to do was call it quits and go home. Ivy looked at me over Eve’s shoulder and thanked me wordlessly. For what, though, I was no longer sure. Doc read my mind and pulled me by an arm towards Eugene’s unmarked sedan. I sat shivering in the backseat for God only knows how long, until I finally fell asleep. Eugene woke me when he started the car. It was late afternoon by then and the sun was low behind the buildings across the street. We looked at each other in the rearview mirror. He looked like he wanted to say something, but then thought better of it, and gripped the back of the passenger seat as he looked over his shoulder and backed out into the street. We drove in silence to the Richmond District, and the only time we spoke was when he let me out in front of my apartment building. He was in Godfather mode and told me to eat something and to get some rest. And, if I wanted to, we could talk in the morning.

I took some of his advice. I ate a bowl of oat bran with milk and honey and chased that down with an ounce of vodka. I watched the news for an hour, which was all about the gunfight, wincing each time my name was mentioned. Maxie Gray’s rat-like features fit the tube perfectly. I wanted to ask him if he had no sense of decency, but we both knew the answer to that one.

Before the hour was up my phone started ringing. Ivy called first to thank me, profusely, once more for the life of her child, followed by Darrell, who wished me well, and who told me he would be calling the first thing tomorrow morning. Bryan Ward of the Bay Weekly alternative press called just to remind me he was still alive, if not altogether well, and thinking of me. He informed me that he would be doing yet again another feature article about renegade private investigators on the loose in the bay area. Three unidentified calls in a row broke up the monotony: guys, obviously drinking in some bar, laughing hysterically. As soon as they hung up, my Godmother, Wyonna, called. For her I picked up the phone. She was upset and feeling worse about the gunfight than I was. I could hear Eugene in the background telling her to take it easy, but she was beyond easy. She wanted to know exactly when she could expect me to come to my senses and start minding my own business. I didn’t have to say a word; I only had to listen. Her lecture lasted less than five minutes, when she started crying. Eugene took the phone from her and told me we could talk about this later.

The last call was the clincher though. It came late after all the lights were out and I lay sleeplessly in bed. Sky lay in a ball beside me, purring softly. The phone rang twice before switching to the answering machine. I knew who it was immediately. I could tell by the voice, a low, gravelly voice void of gender, and hoarse from too many cigarettes and too many drinks and altogether too much screaming at the kids. It made a weird sort of sense that after such a terrible day Evelyn Claxton would be calling me at my home at one thirty in the morning. But she was that kind of mother and one of her sons was dead. She would want to reach out and touch someone over that. And I guess I was the most likely candidate to be the recipient of her grief. Her words were cold and angry and crept through the dark like enemies. She started out by calling me a “Goddamned thing” and “a bitch” and telling me that I had no idea who I was “fucking around with”, and from there it just went downhill. Mostly threats. Good ones, too. The kind of threats that were meant to be taken seriously, the kind that stole sleep and got me up and put a pistol in my hands. She must have been pretty drunk; I know I would have to have been to leave a message like that one. Or insane.

I voted for insane. And I spent the rest of the night in a rocking chair with a thirty-eight in my lap instead of a teddy bear. Three motorcycles circled the block three times. I watched them through the Venetian blinds. They looked just like the ones who had harassed me only a few days ago. Then again they could have just been assholes. Sometimes it’s hard to tell. At some point I fell asleep in front of the TV, missing the last quarter of “The Lady from Shanghai,” not that I was in any mood to enjoy the shootout in the hall of mirrors at old Playland. When the phone woke me up it was nine-thirty a.m. and later than I wanted it to be when I found myself talking with Derek Flynn.

Flynn was calling from the Clover Club, where he said he was conspiring over drinks with a one eyed man and an ugly dog. It was that kind of morning.

“This is how bad it is, Katy,” he said, slurring more than a few words. “Can you hear the dog howling?” I could hear the dog, all right—a sort of pitiful series of high-pitched squeals more than an actual howl that, even over the phone, made my skin crawl. “The dog’s paying for the drinks, that’s how bad it is, Katy.”

“Sounds bad,” I said. “But what’s that got to do with me?”

“Damage control. That’s why I’m up at such a God forsaken hour. We’ve got AM/FM on, the television over the bar going, CNN up the wazoo, and every Goddamned morning paper from Sacramento all the way to San Jose. We are tapping the pulse of the concerned public. While all the other poor bastards are still asleep I’m up and working, salvaging what’s left of Marshal Johnson’s political career.”

“I’m sure that’s a lofty ambition, but I suspect that Frame’s political career might just be done for.”

“You’re just saying that because you almost had your head blown off.”

“Yes,” I admitted, “There might be some truth in that.”

“More than a little,” he said, “and if you were here right now then we’d have the pooch buy you a double of Ireland’s finest and make you see the light.”

“I don’t want to see the light. I want go back to bed.”

“Then tell me this, Katy O’Shea, before you return to your evil ways. Yesterday afternoon, when you found yourself standing between the Johnson’s and the Claxton’s at Oakley’s Garage, at the center of the storm, as it were, who would you say—speaking as an impartial witness, of course—fired first? And your answer could be very important, sweetheart, for the future of San Francisco. Who was the one who shot first?”

I didn’t hesitate; I didn’t have to. But I did choose my words carefully. “The Claxton’s and McDonald’s started the fight…”

“And Frame Johnson and his brothers finished it!”

“Something like that,” I said. “Yes.”

Derek Flynn chortled. “You see,” he said, “it’s not as bad as it seems. Because, let me tell you this—and this is true—everybody loves a hero. And if Frame Johnson is anything then he’s a hero.”

I ran the gunfight back through my mind. And yes, I couldn’t discredit Frame’s bravery, or that of his brothers, or that of his terminally ill friend. Yet a shiver wormed its way down my spine as I recalled the message I received late last night from the bereaved Evelyn Claxton, and the three bikers circling the neighborhood where I lived, and the cold realization that followed: that whatever happened yesterday in that small lot behind Oakley’s Garage was far from being over.

“Not everyone loves heroes,” I said.

CHAPTER FORTY

The coroner’s inquest lasted a month. It took that long for the smoke to clear. There were two actually. One conducted by the Federal authorities and one by the city. It was big news and the Feds opted to take a backseat to the city; no one in the U.S. Marshals Department wanted to be in the spotlight. Frame and Homer Johnson were reassigned to administrative duties pending the outcome of the inquiry, as was their younger brother, Pope, within the San Francisco Police Department. John H. “Doc” Christmas’s private investigators license was suspended and he was ordered to appear before the inquiry. There were strong rumors that Doc had been solely responsible for the gunfight, that he been the first combatant there to fire a pistol. The word was that it all had something to do with the recent attempted robbery of the armored car in which a guard was killed, a robbery in which Doc was strongly suspected of having been involved. Doc’s motive being that he wanted the Claxtons and McDonalds as fall guys for that particular crime. These rumors emerged quietly, like clockwork, from sources within the police department who spoke only under the shield of confidentiality. The primary source, so far as I could glean from my own unnamed sources, was one Lieutenant Frank Donohue Jr. and the two detectives directly under his command: Breakwood and Stillwell.

Once my actual role in the affair was made known almost everyone else lost interest in me. Working on a child custody case just didn’t possess the charm or mystery that you might expect from someone with vague and shadowy connections to the Federal Government. In a matter of seconds I was reduced from major participant to mere witness. Maxie Gray seemed to be the most disappointed. Our paths crossed the afternoon following the gunfight just outside the D.A.’s office, at Sixth and Bryant. He blocked my way and, cocking his head to one side, said in a purely mean and spiteful tone: “All you wanted was the goddmned kid?” And then, right before he swaggered off, he pressed one fat finger just as hard as he could against my shoulder and told me in no uncertain terms that, despite my good but simpleminded intentions, he planned on putting me through the ringer in court.

“And then I’m going to sue your sweet ass,” he said, his teeth gleaming, from over his shoulder.

Meanwhile subpoenas were handed out like favors. Dick Claymore, Raymond Cruz, and Dwight Claxton were all invited to tell the truth and only the truth at the inquest. As were Ms. Nellie Cash, Mr. C.S. Glide and, of course, yours truly, and perhaps a dozen others who happened to be in the immediate vicinity, either passing by or looking out their windows, when the shooting started: One Harry C. Sills, who worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad and who lived in an apartment across the alley from Doc’s room and who overheard the Claxton’s and McDonalds calmly discussing shooting Doc, just as soon as he returned to his room; one Billy Allen, who had just stopped by the garage to see about a used car, and who swore he saw the marshals shoot first at their obviously unarmed victims, and thus committing murder; one Albert Billickie who had just entered the alley, on foot, when the shooting began and who witnessed the entire incident from beginning to end, and who testified that it appeared to him that the Johnsons had wanted to avoid a fight; one Addie Borland, a seamstress, who owned a small shop in the alley, and who, with great reluctance, testified that she witnessed the shooting from the window by the table where she worked, and that it was Frank McDonald who fired first. And so on. You could tell the players by the sides they took.

Junior did his best to look like he was not taking sides. But his best wasn’t good enough. He was one of the first people to give his testimony and in this case he didn’t like being first at all. He had this bad habit of looking directly at me just before he lied. The old babysitter always knows the truth. By the second question he was struggling for the proper spin. He was there, at Oakley’s Garage, in his official capacity as a lieutenant of detectives with the San Francisco Police Department. He thought there might be trouble. He had been informed by phone that several people in the area of the garage, on Allen Street, between Third and Fourth Streets, had been seen with weapons. He understood from the papers that there was a great deal of tension growing between certain Deputy U.S. Marshals and the staff and management of the garage. He stated that the only people he observed carrying weapons turned out in fact to be the deputy marshal and his party.

But Junior didn’t see them, himself, the deputy marshal and his party that is, until it was much too late. He parked his vehicle on Allen Street and found Dwight and Billy Claxton, along with Tom and Frank McDonald, behind the garage at the alley. He talked with all four of them. He was certain at that time that none of them were carrying any weapons. No, he did not see any weapons at all. Not until Marshals Frame and Homer Johnson, and their younger brother, Patrolman Johnson, of the San Francisco Police Department, and their friends, Miss Katy O’Shea and John H. Christmas appeared in the alley. They were all carrying weapons, he said. Including me, or so he believed, as he noted at the time that I appeared to be holding something inside my purse, presumably a pistol. At that point Junior claimed he attempted to prevent them, the marshals that is, from confronting the Claxton and McDonald brothers. They wouldn’t listen to him; it looked like trouble. He then went into the photography shop, to use a phone to call for backup. He had left his own phone in his car, and his car was on the street, too far to get to at that point, as he believed violence was imminent. Which, in fact, it was, occurring only seconds later.

No, Junior didn’t remember telling the marshals that the boys at the garage were unarmed. He didn’t believe they were armed; again, the only weapons he remembered seeing were in the possession of the marshals and their friends.

No, Junior hadn’t found, during a three-month investigation, any evidence to support the marshal’s suspicions that Oakley’s Garage was in the business of receiving and distributing stolen cars. Yes, he was fully aware of the investigation being conducted by the marshal’s department; he was aware of the incident in Mexico the previous year, in which Newton Claxton was killed. Most of what he knew came through interdepartmental channels and through the media. If the allegations were true, then, he stated with a shrug, the people at Oakley’s Garage had simply suspended their criminal activities by the time his own investigation got under way. It happens. However, so far as his department was concerned, his investigation was, at least for the time being, closed.

No, Junior admitted, he did not get along very well with Deputy U.S. Marshal Frame Johnson. Both professionally and personally. He didn’t care much for Johnson’s methods as a law enforcement agent. The recent body count only served to reinforce that opinion. As for the personal matter, Junior didn’t care go into it.

Yes, the woman in question was one Michele Hammer. They had dated. And yes, she was now living with Deputy U.S. Marshal Frame Johnson.

And no, Junior insisted, he did not remember telling the Johnsons that the Claxton’s and McDonald’s were unarmed. As he told the inquest several times earlier, the only weapons he saw there were in the possession of the marshals. His goal at the time was to defuse a very tense and volatile situation. His only regret was that he was unable to accomplish that much; innocent men may have died that day.

Claymore thought so.

His testimony followed Junior’s. He was washed and groomed and wore a cheap silk suit over a thin T-shirt and a pair of expensive cowboy boots. He lied like he believed he was a good liar. He made lots of eye contact and did his best to ooze sincerity. He was, after all, on fairly good terms with the authorities. At least they knew where he lived. According to him the Johnson’s and their buddy, Doc Christmas, strolled right up the alley, to the back of Oakley’s Garage, just itching for a fight. He could tell what was going down, he could see it in their eyes: cold blooded, premeditated murder. That’s why he and his pal, Cruz, split. Man, they didn’t want anything to do with it. The only reason they didn’t call the police was because the Johnson brothers were the police. What the hell could they do, what could anyone do?

Yes, Claymore saw the entire fight, from Allen Street. He was still haunted by it and he was currently being treated for post stress traumatic disorder. He would, on advice of his attorney, probably be suing the city before too long. Anyway, the way he remembered it, the marshals walked right up to Dwight and Billy Claxton and Tom and Frank McDonald and when they saw that they were unarmed they started shooting. He had never seen anything like that before; it’s where all his nightmares came from. The man they call Doc Christmas started the thing. He shot first, at Billy Claxton, he believed. It had something to do with the robbery of an armored car. At least that’s what he been told. He wasn’t sure how.

Cruz was sure.

He was dressed in his best suit, a black polyester tuxedo, complete with a red cummerbund and a matching bandana. He used his hands a lot to help make things clear; he pointed fingers at all of us. Doc was the guy who tried robbing the vehicle. And killed the guard. It was Doc and the Johnson’s. And they wanted to blame it all on Dwight Claxton because of what they had already done to Dwight’s father, down there in Nogales. They killed the old man, Newton, in cold blood. For nothing, he spat. They were after car thieves but all they got were some dudes vacationing in Mexico. Nogales is fun, the place to go if you have some time and money. He loved Canal Street with all his heart. And the tequila, the best drink in the world. But if you asked him, Raymond Cruz, it was the Johnson’s who should be investigated. They killed the wrong people because they needed some guys to blame for stealing cars. Just like the armored car. It was a conspiracy and they wanted to blame everything on the Claxton’s. And that’s what he saw happen: three cops, their sick friend, and the puta walk right up to his unarmed friends and shoot them down. So help him God, that is what he saw with his own two eyes from right across the street. When he used the word, puta, he looked straight at me. And yes, he told the inquest, it was the puta who killed the dog.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Dwight Claxton alone was worth the price of admission. He strutted before the inquest like a gamecock, all ruffled up and filled with righteous indignation. He glared at Frame Johnson and John Christmas and cast a withering sidelong glance in my direction. He made a point of inquiring about Frame’s brothers, Homer and Pope, but they were still under medical care at some undisclosed hospital outside the city. His own brother, he uttered bitterly, had been murdered. Billy Claxton, just nineteen years old, murdered in the streets of San Francisco for no discernible reason by the law. Dwight made it very clear that had he only been armed that afternoon things would have turned out very differently. Unfortunately, like his brother and friends, he had not been armed.

And what, he was asked by the corner, precipitated the fight?

Dwight settled down with that question. His eyes rolled up, towards the ceiling and his lips moved silently as he organized his thoughts. Except for the obvious signs of a low I.Q., he was looking fairly civilized. He was dressed conservatively in a new, off the rack, dark blue suit, and a tie red enough to stop cars. His hair and beard were neatly trimmed and a small gold earring dangled smartly from his left earlobe. At the right time and place his vindictiveness might have passed for sincerity, however, this was neither the time nor place. The major obstacle in his testimony seemed to be his natural lack of credibility. Some people just don’t posses the social skills it takes to lie effectively, no matter how hard they try.

And poor Dwight was trying hard. Even Maxie Gray was looking just the tiniest bit embarrassed by his star client. I don’t know if they bothered to rehearse their responses, or not, to the inquiry, but as I watched from the third row center it seemed to me that Dwight had clearly split from the party line. My guess was that he was reading his own reviews in the Bay Weekly. He spun a web of conspiracy and police harassment so complex and bewildering that only an idiot could untangle it.

Simply put: the Johnson’s wanted Dwight dead. Frame Johnson and Doc Christmas in particular. He pointed a finger at both of them, one at a time. “That’s them,” he said, an odd smile lighting up his features, like he really had them now. “Sitting there. Both of them.”

The Johnson’s had come marching down that alley with the express intention of murdering him in cold blood. The snap of his fingers burst throughout the room. Both Frame and Doc exchanged astonished looks. That’s what it was all about, because of two things: the Johnson’s were professional car thieves and they had conspired with the Mexican police down there in Nogales to cover up their crimes by killing some gringos. The Mexican police were, of course, involved in the whole scheme, receiving and distributing cars, just like Raymond Cruz stated earlier. It was an international crime syndicate, a cartel, if you will, run and operated by the very same law enforcement agents who were assigned to investigate it. And they, the son’s of bitches—Dwight begged everyone’s pardon for his use of profanity—zeroed in on his father, who, along with some business associates, were on their way to some much deserved rest and recreation. Fun in the sun, see the sights, male bonding activities. And they were all killed—No, murdered—by the very people the honest citizens of this nation were led to believe they could trust.

Only you just can’t murder people anymore, not even in Mexico, and expect to get away with it. Not in this day and age, even if you are a cop. It reeked of police corruption and everybody knew it. “Watergate,” Dwight intoned solemnly, “Iran-Contra-gate, Whitewater. This was one of those ‘black-ops’. You know, cooked up by the shadow government. Only enough people knew what it was and once they knew it wasn’t working out the way they planned they decided to finish the job.”

Finish the job?

“Kill us all,” Dwight stated grimly. He paused to let his words sink in and looked about the assembly, frowning spitefully at Doc Christmas, who had burst out laughing and was now endeavoring to mask his laughter behind a series of deep lung-tearing coughs. Dwight crossed his arms and waited for Doc to regain control, but unfortunately their eyes met just long enough for Doc to burst out laughing again. And this time there was no masking it. An officer of the court was called upon to escort Doc out to the hallway. Doc laughed all the way, as Dwight waited patiently to continue his tale.

“First the old man,” Dwight said. “Then my brother, Billy. The coroner can tell you himself what they did to him. But it was me the Johnson’s really wanted. Me. I was the one who figured out what they were really up to. That’s why the whole bunch of them showed up in the alley behind the garage. They were there to kill me.”

“There to kill you?”

“In cold blood,” Dwight. “In my neck of the woods they call it murder.”

“Then why didn’t they?”

Dwight’s eyes narrowed suspiciously at that austere body before him, as though he just then realized that the coroner has been waiting throughout his testimony for just the right moment to lower the boom against him. And in that moment he froze, much like an animal caught in the headlamps of an oncoming vehicle, as he searched his short memory for what it was he had or had not said during the past few minutes that would undo all the good he had so far accomplished.

“Why didn’t they what?” He demanded in a voice cracking under the strain.

“Then why didn’t they kill you?”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Nellie came next. She looked just like everybody’s favorite great aunt. I have no idea how old she was but if I get that far I want to be just like her. Just looking at her had me thinking about good deeds and eternal rewards. She took the stand in her work clothes, an old but clean and freshly starched white dress and a pair of basic black orthopedic oxfords that made her look more like a nurse than the owner of a south of Market diner. I could tell by her voice that she was fearful about testifying. She glanced apprehensively around the courtroom as though looking for a friendly face; when our eyes met she forced an awkward smile on me and cleared her voice. She avoided looking at just about everyone else. Maxie Gray leaned his chin on his fists and stared at her intensely. I was afraid they would make eye contact. But she managed to ignore him and spent most of her testimony studying her fingers, as she played nervously with the handle of her purse.

Nellie made Junior squirm. She told of seeing the detective at the garage on a fairly regular basis. She could always identify him by his BWM. She knew his two subordinates, too. Not their names, but she pointed them out in the room: Breakwood and Stillwell. They squirmed too. I was particularly fond of the way Stillwell squirmed, very rat-like, with his beady eyes darting about the room from behind the small tent of his fingers. Nellie said that the pair sometimes had lunch in her diner with the boys from the garage. William Graham, John Ringold, Dwight Claxton, Dick Claymore and Raymond Cruz, just to name a few. They were all pretty chummy. Even after Officer White was killed.

“Lieutenant Donahue was at the garage talking with the Claxton’s and McDonald’s right before the fight,” she said. “He didn’t do a damn thing about them. They, the Claxton’s, the McDonald’s, and their pals, Cruz and Claymore, had been drinking heavily that morning and they all had guns. I saw them myself. Pistols and a rifle. Tom McDonald had the rifle; he had it stashed behind a motorcycle.”

Nellie was asked if the rifle was the AK-47. She said she wouldn’t know an AK-47 from a broom, but when she was shown the weapon she positively identified it as the one she saw in Tom McDonald’s hands. She also said that Junior had done nothing to disarm any of them. She did see him meet the Johnson’s at the back of the garage, near the alley. It looked to her like Donahue had tried to stop them from confronting the boys. She testified that Junior had raised his hands up in the air, in a halting motion, and when the Johnson’s and their two friends didn’t stop, he went somewhere else in a hurry. There was some laughter after that, enough to turn Junior’s ears red. She couldn’t see where he ran to, but he reappeared after the shooting stopped. There was more laughter, but it wasn’t tolerated; the participants were strongly warned to demonstrate their respect for the proceedings. Nellie looked extremely uncomfortable. She was thanked for her testimony, but before she was excused, she was asked one more question:

“Who in her opinion initiated the fight?”

“The boys,” she whispered.

“The boys?”

She nodded, biting her lower lip. She saw it from across the street, from inside her diner. “Dwight and Billy Claxton, and Tom and Frank McDonald,” she said. They were all spoiling for a fight. They were in my place for breakfast; they were talking about shooting Marshal Frame Johnson and Mr. Christmas, loud enough for everyone to hear. And later I saw it happen. Frank McDonald pulled his pistol first, then Frame Johnson pulled his. It happened very quickly. Frank McDonald fired first, but I’ll tell you this much, Mr. Johnson was a very close second. Then the shooting became general.”

Nellie described it in great detail, the larger picture, as seen from a distance. Some things I remembered easily, that first bullet striking Frank McDonald in the stomach area, Dwight Claxton wrestling Frame Johnson into the alley, the child Eve, wide-eyed and frozen stiff, and the pitbull growling. But there were things I didn’t see and some things I was glad I couldn’t remember at all. Nellie did testify that I had not been an active participant in the shootout. That I had covered Dwight’s little girl with my own body and that in her opinion—one I differed with greatly—I would someday make a wonderful mother, if and when I was lucky enough to find the right man.

Three other witnesses followed Nellie. Billy Allen, Albert Billickie, and Addie Borland. Allen swore it was Frame Johnson who opened up first, on poor unarmed Dwight. Without any hesitation, like it was purely premeditated. Frame and the skinny guy. Christmas. You could see murder in their eyes, Allen said, and it was a dark and fearsome thing. Albert Billickie recalled seeing Homer Johnson raising a cane up into the air and declaring that he’d come to disarm those fellows. And that’s when the shooting started. It was one of the bikers who fired first. He identified a picture of a Billy Claxton as the first shooter, then John Christmas as the second. But they all had weapons and they were all shooting, that is, except for the woman. Afterwards the marshals seemed to be pretty upset by it all—of course, three of them had been wounded. Addie Borland saw it from her shop, across the street. She didn’t stick around long enough to watch the whole thing, not with the bullets flying. She went straight into her bedroom, in the back, and lay down on the floor. She didn’t come out until long after it was over, and only then to speak with the police when they came to her door. She testified with great reluctance; she was scared stiff by the proceedings. Every word uttered came out in a depressed whisper. Only after repeated requests did she speak up. Once again Frank McDonald was identified as the first shooter, and Frame Johnson as the second. She didn’t know much about weapons and she seemed confused as to which weapon Christmas used first, the shotgun or his pistol, but whichever it was it was a bronze color. All she really remembered was that it was one of the bikers who drew first. She was thanked for her testimony and praised for her courage. When she left the stand her legs were shaking and she was unable to speak.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Frame Johnson was called next. But there was some discussion first between the coroner’s office and the district attorney. After about five minutes of frantic whispering they both studied their watches and announced that the inquest would break for the rest of the day and begin again tomorrow morning at ten a.m.

I was the last one out. I stuck around in hopes of dodging the reporters covering the inquest. I waited fifteen minutes and then crept outside and took the stairs down to the lobby and out the main door. It worked, with Maxie Gray’s help—he was giving an impromptu press conference on the front steps of the building. He had his jacket off and his sleeves rolled up and he was pounding his fist against his open palm as he held forth on the inadequacy of the judicial system. He was quite the orator, and nobody noticed me as I skirted the small group of reporters and cameramen surrounding him. I crossed the street at the light and was headed towards my jeep when I saw what looked like some serious trouble brewing in the parking lot at the Kangaroo Court.

I saw the bikes first. Five immaculate Harley Davidsons, gleaming in the sun like chromed steeds, parked right in front of the restaurant. Cruz and Claymore straddled two of them and William Graham the third. Dwight was standing next to his, grinning like an idiot. They were all wearing their best Monday-show-up-in-court suits and spit-shined cowboy boots. Graham was smoking a cigar and tossing back miniature bottles of tequila. John Ringold was standing in the parking lot with Doc Christmas; both of them smiling at each other like the old friends they most definitely were not.

When I saw them the hair on the back of my neck stood up on end and I had to fight back the urge to throw up. I had been through this once before and I really didn’t feel that I could handle any more of it. Not today at least. I stopped, hoping I might see a policeman nearby, but there were none. There were a only few other people in the parking lot at that point, either just on their way in or just on their way out of the place, lunch being over and the dinner hour just starting. A few glanced curiously at the motorcycles, oblivious to the potentially deadly confrontation unfolding before them. Both Ringold and Christmas appeared to be enjoying themselves, exchanging simple pleasantries, but what made me nervous were their hands, their right hands, which they each kept open against their chests, near to their hearts, only inches away from the pistols holstered inside their jackets.

Graham saw me at that point, before I could do anything else. He pushed his sunglasses up over his eyes and leered, winked, and whistled. “Hey, wild thing,” he shouted jovially, “haven’t we met somewhere before?”

Cruz and Claymore gave me the once over. They reminded me of a pair of hyenas. Cruz pursed his lips and threw me a kiss; Claymore looked over at Graham. “You be careful, Curly,” he said, “that’s the bitch who shot your dog.”

“You shot my dog?” Graham slapped his thigh and laughed heartily. “Now that was one ugly animal, but I surely did love him, Miss O’Shea, and believe me, I hated to see him shot dead like that.”

Dwight snapped his fingers. “She killed him and didn’t she even feel a thing,” he muttered.

I ignored them and crossed over to Doc Christmas. He saw me coming but he didn’t take his eyes off Ringold. They had closed the distance between each other to no more than four square feet. A couple emerged from inside the restaurant just then, a man and a woman, holding hands. They looked familiar to me and I placed their faces from somewhere inside the hall of justice. Court clerks, perhaps, or stenographers. They made their way down the steps and cut right between Doc and Ringold, both of whom seemed somewhat taken aback by the casual rudeness of the couple’s intrusion. I used that moment to step in close to Doc’s side.

“Mr. Christmas,” I said, “lets go have a drink.”

“Had one,” he said. “In fact I’ve had several.”

“Then how about one more for the road.”

“Perhaps you should start without me,” Doc said.

“I was just about to suggest the same thing,” Ringold said.

“No, I must refuse, sir” Doc said. “A matter of etiquette. You’re my guest, so I insist, after you.”

“No, after you.”

Doc shrugged and smiled and said: “Well then, why not.”

I said: “Shit.”

Ringold laughed.

Frame Johnson said, quietly in a voice that gave everyone pause: “Doc, what the hell are you doing?”

Everybody looked at Frame, standing in the restaurant door, a tall and formidable figure. His eyes darted around the parking lot, sizing up the situation and finding it not at all to his liking. He moved quickly down the few steps into the parking lot and stood between the two men, with his back to Ringold, and faced Doc.

“We don’t need this,” he explained.

“Yes, we do,” Ringold said.

“Shut up,” Frame said, without looking at him, “you’re drunk.”

“Yes, Johnny,” Doc chimed in. “Could you refrain from speaking for just a moment until Frame and I work this out?”

“We’ll work this out inside.” Frame pulled Doc by his arm towards the door. “For Christ’s sake, aren’t things bad enough already?”

Ringold looked astonished at this sudden turn of events. He did a double take, cocking his head from Frame and Doc to his buddies by their bikes and back again. A thin, mean smile spread across his face. “Johnson,” he said angrily, “work it out with me, you son of a bitch…”

Frame prodded Doc inside the restaurant and, shutting the door, turned around, so that he now faced RIngold. He ignored the others, who, like spectators at a sporting event, looked on with keen and professional interest. “I’m not going to fight you, Ringold,” he said. “There’s no money in it.”

Ringold reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a wad of bills, fifties and one hundreds, maybe five or six hundred dollars altogether, which he rumpled into a loose ball and tossed at Frame’s feet. “That should see you through, you goddamned pimp,” he shouted.

Graham laughed and when he laughed his buddies laughed. Dwight, Cruz, and Claymore. They laughed like hell. Especially once the wind started scattering the money. One hundred-dollar bills brushed against my shoes and tumbled across the parking lot. Cruz and Claymore went after them. Cruz dropped to his knees, then bellied beneath a Mercedes Benz, and came up with an image of Grant. Claymore did a little better, with a fistful of Franklins. Graham and Dwight loved it. But all Ringold got for his money was one last look of contempt cast from over Frame Johnson’s shoulder as he pushed his way in through the door.

“One of these days,” Ringold said, looking directly at me, “he’s going to really piss me off.”
CHAPERT FORTY-FOUR

Frame Johnson wasn’t the last witness to testify but he was the one everyone came to see. He was the man who would be king. I heard tell that Derek Flynn had spent the evening with him working on what they hoped would be the correct spin; I also heard tell that as far as a cop with a gun was concerned there could be no correct spin. Not in a city as diverse or as crazy as San Francisco. This was the sort of town where you not only have citizen committees watching the cops, but citizen committees watching the citizen committees. To be a nonconformist here in the bay area meant voting republican or at least being a good driver. Everyone had a vested interest in seeing Frame’s political career put on hold. If for no other reason than he was an outsider. Not that made him all that much different from anybody else around here—he was just newer—but there were other reasons too. And when he somberly took the stand in his charcoal gray suit and, resting his elbows on the arms of the chair, his hands folded loosely together in front of him, everyone in the room leaned forward from their seats in eager anticipation of his untimely ruin.

Personally, I thought he did well enough. He looked good. Blond, blue eyed, and credible to a fault. His voice was low and solid and he answered each question put to him like a man with nothing to hide. He started his story some years back in Ventura, California, with mucho stolen cars and a close knit family with the name of Claxton. Literally tons of top end automobiles were being stolen throughout Southern California and being shipped overseas from ports in Mexico. The black market for cars is second only to drugs. Foreign, domestic, luxury and sports, they were all selling like crazy abroad. One day a car thief was apprehended in a brand new red Ferrari. A kid with one bust behind him and currently on probation. He’s looking at hard time and doesn’t like the look of that at all. And so he cuts a deal. He gives us the name of the most successful unlawful dealership on the West Coast: Newton Claxton.

Newton Claxton, the patriarch of some weird clan of felons, is all over the map. He’s not only hot-wiring cars in Southern California, he’s hot-wiring them all over the goddamned country. At any given moment he’s got upwards of seventy fulltime employees. A few of them, Frame points out, are at this moment sitting in this room. Most of them are just petty thieves working for the criminal equivalent of minimum wage. Which of course, being criminals, they can’t help but resent, and eventually to supplement their income they branch out into different areas. Armored car robbery, for instance. This gets them all into deep shit in Mexico, where the Feds have entered into a joint operation with the Federales. And where two years of work went down the drain in a place known as Skeleton Canyon where the Federales hit the vengeance trail. Newton Claxton, along with a core group of his gang, is permanently put out of business.

Or so everyone thought. The marshals were so busy contending with the negative publicity from the Mexican fiasco that they initially failed to notice that the Claxton dealership had undergone a change of management and reopened business in a brand new location: San Francisco. While Frame mentioned no names, as the investigation is still in progress, he did point out that the surviving Claxtons were no longer filling any of the key management positions. After a lull of five months the number of reported stolen vehicles had not only risen to the previous levels but in certain regions have surpassed them. Word is sent out to the various law enforcement agencies on the West Coast to keep an eye out. Eventually an investigation in San Francisco appears promising. Certain connections are made between the late Newton Claxton and a garage on Allen Street in San Francisco. One of the connections is Newt’s oldest son, Dwight Claxton.

The drawback to the investigation in San Francisco is that it shutdown not too long after it opened. The officer in charge of the investigation, Lieutenant Frank Donahue, is unable to produce any evidence of criminal activity centered or around Oakley’s Garage. The Feds look elsewhere. Special Unit Investigator John H. Christmas follows up on the San Francisco angle. While undercover only a short time he produces evidence of large-scale grand theft auto. He notifies the U.S. Marshals Department. The Feds once more look at San Francisco. Frame Johnson leads the investigation; his older brother, Homer, a San Francisco County Sheriff, leads another. For reasons of security they agree for the time being to withhold information from San Francisco Police Lieutenant Frank Donahue.

Three things happen to breach the security of their investigation: Officer White is shot and killed in the street in front of Oakley’s Garage by William Graham. Due to a lack of witnesses this, what Frame Johnson refers to as murder, is ruled accidental. The second incident is the murder of a security guard that occurred during an attempted robbery of an armored truck in the south of Market area. The third factor is that anonymous informants accuse John H. Christmas of having taken an active part in the murder and attempted robbery.

This is where things got murky. The press goes with the Christmas story. That Christmas has an airtight alibi doesn’t matter, he’s good copy, eccentric, colorful, and in his own perverse way, charming. The bank however puts up a large reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of any or all criminals actually involved in the attempted robbery and homicide. The reward is fifty thousand dollars. Frame Johnson saw the reward not only as a tool in which to bring wrongdoers to justice, but one he could use to clear his associate’s name. He then stated for the record that his subsequent actions had nothing to do with local politics. Any personal interest of his in holding office was purely superficial and largely the product of the local media. He was foremost a law enforcement agent and took great pride in serving his country in that capacity. His record speaks for itself. And it was with this dedication in mind that he first approached Dwight Claxton, approximately one week before the unfortunate incident at Oakley’s Garage, with a proposition involving the reward money.