The Gunfight at Oakley's Garage Chapter 23 plus some

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Frame Johnson’s eyes were a friendly, gunmetal-blue. He was drinking coffee and drumming his fingers on the tabletop. The tapping reminded me of running horses. He was dressed casually in a blue sports coat and a tee shirt, and both his blond hair and mustache were a little too long for a Deputy U.S. Marshal. Sitting at the table with him it was easy to see what Michele Hammer saw in him, but this close up I could also see the ambition. And that made me uneasy, especially when combined with the likes of Derek Flynn. All these Johnson’s suddenly appearing in San Francisco, all wanting a piece of the pie. But that’s probably what Michele liked best about him.

What Frame liked about me at the moment was my story, the one about sushi and Maxie Gray and my close encounters of the weird kind with Cruz and Claymore and the trashing of my office.

We were in his brother’s place in the Mission, on Valencia near Twenty Fourth Street, only a stone’s throw from the Clover Club. It was an old fashioned bar and grill called The Oriental and popular among the off-duty cops from the Mission precinct. Frame’s oldest brother looked good behind the bar. He was about fifty and thick, with a handlebar mustache, and had a good word for whoever entered his place. He brought me a tall glass of mineral water topped with a slice of lime and an umbrella. Any friend of his younger idiot brother was an enemy of his, he told me.

Frame remembered me from the papers last year, my fifteen minutes of bad publicity. He was wondering why I happened to be there at Oakley’s the other night when Officer White was killed. I told him I was working for Ivy Claxton, trying to get her child back. He shook his head sadly. He told me Dwight had no business having children, since he probably wasn’t going to live very long.

“Like his father,” I said.

“Just like him,” he said. “Except Dwight isn’t as smart as his old man was. Newt was selling almost as many cars as Ford. Believe me I didn’t want the old man hurt, I wanted him in prison. But the Federales were pissed.”

“And they killed him.”

“And five members of his gang. There had been some previous problems down there, a robbery, and some people dead. So the moment they saw old Newt they opened up. I caught a lot of heat over that one.”

And it looked to me like he was just about to catch some more. I could see Michele Hammer standing outside looking in through the window, and when, a moment later, she breezed in through the door every male head in the place turned towards her at once. Except for Frame who was still looking at me. He paid her absolutely no mind. He just sipped his coffee and kept on talking about Mexico and stolen cars as though they were all that really mattered, while she sat on a stool and ordered a small pink frozen drink, which she sipped while she stared at the back of his head in the mirror behind the bar. I felt like I was witnessing some exotic mating ritual straight out of the National Geographic where the participants ignore each other right up until the moment they start exchanging vows. Nobody else ignored her though. Guys were falling over themselves just to get next to her. Not that she seemed to mind. For a moment she reminded me of a black belt, or something like that, the way she so effortlessly parried each advance.

I thought she looked good on the stool alone and took my time with Frame. I asked him about his friend, John Christmas, and he told me Doc, as he called him, once saved his life. He had made one too many inquiries one night in some dive in Kansas concerning the whereabouts of a certain felon. Upon leaving the establishment he found himself surrounded by about a half dozen or more of the felon’s friends. They were armed and ugly and he was just about convinced that his time on earth was over. Then Doc suddenly appeared from out of nowhere—and Frame swore he was not exaggerating, because of Doc’s illness, some weird strain of TB that was never going to get any better—like some pale angle of death armed with a bitter smile and a sawed-off shotgun. They had been close friends ever since. And any question regarding Doc’s character could only be taken offensively.

“And the allegations,” I asked. “That Mr. Christmas may have been involved in the recent attempted robbery of the armored car, in which a guard was slain?”

“False,” Frame bristled. “Patently false. For Christ’s sake, Doc is no criminal. For one thing he’s too damned sick and for the other, he’s too damned honest. You can ask Maxie Gray if you don’t believe me.”

“I believe you,” I said. “But I just might ask Gray anyway.”

“Hell, I’ll ask him for you.”

“Ask him what?” Michele hammer wanted to know. She had grown weary of waiting for Frame to approach her at the bar and had now taken the law into her own hands. She smiled at both of us, but mostly at him. “Maxie is a friend of mine.”

I winced but Frame just sort of smiled lazily and asked her to join us. She took the chair opposite mine, closer to his. One look at her told me three was most definitely a crowd. I excused myself and got up to leave.

Michele looked at me gratefully. “You don’t have to go,” she lied. “Really, I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”

“No, it’s late,” I said. It was only seven. But before I left I leaned across the table and whispered a sweet nothing in Frame’s ear: “If you hear anything about Dwight leaving town in the next forty-eight hours would you let me know?”

“Of course,” he said loud enough for Michele to hear. “Anything you want.”


CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Outside it was a different story: a cobalt blue BMW was parked one block down the street, facing south, with the driver sitting low behind the wheel studying this part of the neighborhood in his rearview mirror. I saw it immediately. I was familiar with both vehicle and driver and it cheered me up just to see them there. The youngest Johnson brother, Pope, observed the car too and he grinned at me conspiratorially. He was just parking his motorcycle at the curb and wondered out loud why such an up and coming lieutenant of the San Francisco Police Department would be sitting all by himself in his own vehicle a block away from such a happening place. Pope and I didn’t know each other but he was too friendly and good-looking to ignore. I told him I had no idea and he told me that neither did he as he pushed his way through the door into his brother’s saloon.

The October sun was fading rapidly and leaving Valencia Street dark in shadows. It was still warm, however, and I thought about asking Junior if he’d care to join me for dinner at La Rondala’s, a Mexican restaurant down the street, but I decided against it; he was obviously preoccupied, his eyes riveted on The Oriental. And what I could see of his face possessed the haunted, desperate look of the forsaken. He knew the woman he was seeing was in the company of another man. I didn’t know whether to feel sorry for him or not, but then after a few moments I decided on not. I knew Junior too well and too long to be overly concerned with his little traumas. If it weren’t Michele Hammer than he would be stalking someone else. Besides I had my own problems.

Ivy Claxton was waiting for me back at the office. I didn’t like her dropping in like that, not after today. I didn’t want Gray connecting the dots. She was all done up in black. Boots, pants, sweater and watch-hat. She had a small tin of blackface in one hand and all she was waiting for now was the word and she would be deep into Claxton territory on some sort of lone suicide mission to get her kid back. I bought her dinner at a Vietnamese place on Clement Street and explained to her that we would be better off postponing any screwball actions at least until her husband, Dwight, actually ignored the court’s order to produce their child.

“You want Eve back, right?” I asked.

Ivy nodded.

“Then go home,” I said. “And don’t say a word to anyone about this, now or later. OK, do you hear me?”

She nodded again. “Yes,” she said sheepishly.

“Good,” I said. “Because Dwight’s going to blow it. He’s not about to let the court examine Eve and he will be found in contempt. If he tries to leave, especially with Eve, he will be stopped. Believe me. I promise you we’ll get your daughter back.”

“No matter how?” She demanded.

“No matter how,” I said.

She made a phone call from the restaurant and thirty minutes later a guy picked her up in an old used car. He looked like the Marine she knew from Oceanside, his hair was that short on top and nonexistent on the sides. He didn’t get out of the car; he just leaned across the seat and pushed open the door. In the streetlight he looked maybe twenty-two or three years old. He looked fit enough but no match for the likes of Dwight, or any of Dwight’s buddies.

And just thinking about Dwight and his buddies gave me the willies. I cruised my neighborhood three times before parking four blocks away. I studied my apartment from the corner. There was a lamp on inside somewhere and I couldn’t remember if I had left one on or not. Then I saw the cat looking out the window, his dark eyes catching moonlight. Sky was no watchdog, if there had been any intruders he would have been hiding under the bed or in the bedroom closet.

Just like me.

I double locked both the front and back doors and checked every window. I kept the pistol under the pillow and a smaller thirty-eight in my purse. I assumed that the visit Cruz and Claymore paid to my office this morning was merely for show. But I still didn’t like it. I showered and brewed a cup of tea and looked through my mail. There was nothing new. I found a book and sat in bed, but instead of reading I listened for motorcycles. I didn’t hear one for the longest time and when I did it was late. It came slowly at first from another part of town, from the sound of it the Haight; a steady whine of engine that grew in size as it approached the avenues. I got out of bed and peered through the venetian blinds.

The bike came to a stop at Second and California. The driver balanced the machine between his legs and revved the engine as he cased the neighborhood. A street lamp silhouetted him; a helmet concealed his features. He sat like that for about five minutes before he pushed the guard up on his helmet and ignited a cigarette. He had the night to himself, it was that late, and he took his time smoking. The smoke drifted into the air above his head and lingered ghostly blue in the lamplight. When he finished smoking he tossed the cigarette onto the street in front of him and lowered the guard down over his face. He slowly turned his bike around and looked back once over his shoulder. He raised a gloved hand and motioned farewell with two fingers. Like he knew I was watching him. And then he pulled back on the throttle and the roar of the engine took over and he was gone long before I knew it, and there was once more only the high pitched scream his bike made as he shifted gears and sped back the way he had come. Not once did I hear him slow down or stop until I could no longer hear him at all.

It was too late by then to go back to sleep so I made a pot of coffee. I took my cup into the living room and sat down on the couch in the dark. Sky kept me company by curling up beside me. While he purred I thought about motorcycles and the men who drive them. So far I can’t say I cared much for either. They were getting on my nerves. After awhile I stopped thinking about them and thought about moving instead. Maybe to another state, and changing my name. I sort of liked the idea but I couldn’t afford to at the moment. I had serious doubts about affording it later too. Thoughts like these got me to dawn. So did the coffee. When I could see the street clearly enough I went running.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“I got the message.”

It was Maxie Gray’s voice on my machine. I didn’t have to play it again. His voice sounded half-amused, half-mad. That was it, all he said, but he didn’t hang up, he just let the time allotted for an answer play out and then the machine itself disconnected the call. It worked: it gave me the creeps. I looked out the window expecting to see Cruz and Claymore and the mystery rider from last night parked out front. But there was only the street and the sidewalk and some kid on a skateboard trying to break his neck.

And two detectives.

Two guys, one big, one small. They entered without knocking. The big, dumb-looking one introduced himself as Breakwood, and the smaller weasel-like one chewing on a toothpick as Stillwell. I had seen them before, the morning after Officer White had been killed, at Sixth and Bryant while I was being questioned. They worked under Junior and apparently they liked it. They both were wearing the kind of suits most cops couldn’t afford and matching fedoras. The same kind of fedoras the mayor wore. Stillwell went to the wall behind my desk and studied my license. He expressed admiration for it; he almost wished he had one, too.

“Hell, I just might take yours,” he said. Then he either laughed or belched—I wasn’t quite sure which.

Breakwood was nicer. He smiled and called me, ma’am. I hated them both on the spot.

“Ma’am, this is merely routine,” Breakwood said. “Your name came up, that’s all.”

“What do you mean that’s all?” I asked.

Stillwell belched again and said: “Routine. In accordance with our duties, that’s what it means.”

“What about my name?”

“Ma’am, it was mentioned,” Breakwood explained. “During the course of our investigation this morning.”

“And what were you investigating?”

“Breaking and entering,” Stillwell said. “Vandalism. Possibly burglary.”

I looked at them. They looked at me. Stillwell was grinning. Breakwood had his notebook out but he couldn’t find his pencil. After awhile I sighed.

“You guys work for Donahue,” I said. “Right?”

“You are acquainted with Maxwell Gray,” Breakwood asked instead. “The attorney?”

“You mean Lieutenant Donahue’s good friend?”

Stillwell stepped in front of me; his toothpick was even with my throat. “We can do this at Sixth and Bryant,” he said.

“I would love to,” I said.

“That won’t be necessary,” Breakwood said.

“Then what about Maxie Gray?” I asked.

“His office downtown was broken into last night,” Breakwood said. “And torn apart.”

“He said that you might know something about it,” Stillwell said. I had to look down at him so that he could look me straight in the eye. “That we should talk to you.”

“No, he’s got that wrong” I said. “He’s confused. You want to talk to some other people. Two guys. Their names are Claymore and Cruz.”

Breakwood and Stillwell glanced at each other. Breakwood still didn’t have a pencil, so he repeated the names.

“Claymore and Cruz?”

“The same assholes who tore my office apart yesterday morning.”

They looked the place over without moving. “It doesn’t look like it was torn apart,” Stillwell said.

“That’s because I spent all yesterday afternoon putting it back together.”

“You did a good job,” Breakwood said. “And you filed a report with the police?”

“No,” I said.

“You should have,” Stillwell said. “It would make our job easier.”

“You already have an easy job.”

Stillwell bristled. It added about a quarter of an inch to his height. “Listen,” he said. “You’re nothing but a-”

Breakwood cut him off. “So would you happen to know where can we find these gentlemen, Claymore and Cruz, if we want to talk to them?”

“Oakley’s Garage,” I said. “They work there. You know the place, over on Allen Street. I believe they steal cars for a living. And if they’re not there you can always ask Maxie Gray.”

“Maxie Gray?” Breakwood asked.

“Sure,” I said. “Maxie’s their lawyer.”


CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Breakwood and Stillwell left the same way they arrived, unannounced and without courtesy. Once again I watched them from the window. They drove off in a light blue Volvo stationwagon. What I didn’t get was that Stillwell was driving. He didn’t seem like the Volvo type. He was small and mean and mean because he was small. I figured the car belonged to somebody else in his life and he was only driving it because his car wasn’t working. Or something like that. Whatever, I didn’t think they were rushing over to Oakley’s Garage to question Claymore and Cruz. They would want to check in with Junior first, and most likely only after lunch.

Junior, of course, would check in with Maxie Gray. I imagined Junior was beginning to feel like I did. Like things were getting out of control. Bikers and lawyers are a dubious proposition at best, especially when they have you in their pocket. He was probably feeling fairly claustrophobic at this point.

As I was.

To break the monotony I made two phone calls. One to Darrell, one to Frame Johnson. I filled Darrell in on the events of the past two days. He asked me to make detailed notes so that he could review them later that evening. He then told me Maxie Gray had requested Judge Freeman to postpone Eve Claxton’s appearance in court. The child was down with the flu; her father had produced an affidavit from the family doctor. Judge Freedman ordered Dwight Claxton to produce his daughter for the court within five working days. Gray foresaw no difficulties in that, excepting for the child’s health. Darrell asked me about my office, then Gray’s. I told him about Claymore and Cruz, I told him I knew absolutely nothing about the damage done to Gray’s office. That was almost the truth.

Frame Johnson admitted nothing, only that he’d heard about Gray’s office being vandalized. He told me not to worry about it; that a dude like Maxie Gray probably had lots of enemies; that Lieutenant Donahue was only hassling me because I was a private investigator and therefore hassable; and that he would personally see to it that the bikers Claymore and Cruz steered very clear of my personal space from now on.

He also told me that a snitch had dropped the names of three of the men responsible for the assault on the armored-vehicle. Leonard, Crane and Head. A trio of hard core losers--and occasional associates of Dwight Claxton. Their present whereabouts were unknown, but Frame was optimistic. The armored-vehicle company was offering a sixty thousand dollar reward for information leading to the arrests and convictions of the parties responsible for the attempted robbery and the death of their guard. Results were expected momentarily. He wanted to clear what was left of Doc’s good name and maybe push Junior a little farther along. I thought of Junior parked in his BMW last night up the block from the Oriental.

“Just don’t push your own luck,” I told him.

“It’s not my luck I’m worried about,” he said.

Things started happening very quickly after that. Federal Marshals arrived with search warrants at Frank and Tom McDonald’s garage and parts shop in Oakland that afternoon. Both brothers were arrested after one partially repainted brand new Mercedes Benz was identified as stolen. Their lawyer, Maxie Gray, was able to have them released on bail by six that evening. The brothers, of course, were able to produce a bill of sale and a pink slip, which they smugly presented as proof of their innocence.

The Feds also conducted a routine search of Oakley’s Garage and while they found nothing of an illegal nature on the premises, they did, however, manage to arrest and detain both Claymore and Cruz on a good number of bench warrants issued for outstanding vehicular citations. I was informed later that Frame and Homer Johnson spent some time with each of the boys counseling them on the virtues of modern etiquette. My understanding is that Claymore and Cruz both displayed adequate amounts of remorse at their most recent poor behavior and that they promised to be extremely careful in the future when they felt like venturing out of their home-turf on errands and other sundry matters.

Lieutenant Frank Donahue Junior lodged official interdepartmental complaints accusing Frame and Homer Johnson, as respectively a Deputy Marshal and a County Sheriff, of interfering with an ongoing San Francisco Police investigation. He requested that the officers immediately desist in any aggressive action that might compromise the integrity of any city investigation or jeopardize the lives and/or cover of any city police officer. This complaint was presently under review by a Federal judge and a decision would be rendered the following morning.

Soon afterwards Michele Hammer officially ended her relationship with Junior. Not that there was much to end, according to her. They weren’t really all that good together. The fun and excitement Junior initially offered her gave way after the first two or three dates to the more routine and predictable ruminations on his favorite subject: his career. Apparently he only wanted three things from a relationship: someone who would have sex with him, listen to him, and agree with him. And not necessarily in that order. Junior, on the other hand, didn’t quite see it that way. He thought of himself as the sincere and sensitive sort of modern male. But unlike some people he could mention he was not about to stand in the way of Michelle’s happiness, even if he didn’t approve of her latest source of happiness. That Frame Johnson was already a married man was a matter for the three of them to settle between themselves.

That was pretty much the way Junior explained his take on the situation to Frame’s wife, Maddie—and to all the local gossip columnists. It made for fairly good reading over coffee and bagels at the local stopovers the next morning, especially around the civic center where a faux pas of this nature could be truly appreciated. It appeared in both the morning and afternoon editions right before the three dots leading to the item about Frame’s sports utility vehicle being stolen. His recently purchased, teal-blue Landrover convertible that had been parked on the street right in front of his flat—the flat Maddie was now demanding he vacate until he decided on exactly what course he, in his personal life, would be following.

Frame took the only honorable course left to him. He moved in with Michele Hammer at her apartment on Sacramento Street. We were almost neighbors. As for his foreign sports utility vehicle, it was found stripped and vandalized just a stone's throw from the Claxton residence in Daly City. An anonymous caller tipped off the local authorities. When Frame, along with Doc, showed up to assess the damage, all he had to do was shift his gaze from the remains of his once rugged all terrain vehicle down the short street to where most of the Claxton’s were at the time gathered in their front yard, reveling in some sort of demented celebration.

They were having drinks and barbecue in the October sun. Twenty or thirty people. Sixties rock damaged ears. Motorcycles crowded the driveway and the street in front of the house. The men were all wearing their colors: sleeveless jean jackets adorned with their club logo and name, “The Fugitives.” The logo was of a biker at a center of a bull’s-eye looking back over his shoulder. The old matriarch, Evelyn Claxton, stood guard over the grill, her mean grin lopsided from too much alcohol and the meat on the grill blackened from overcooking. Billy sat like a gunner in a lawnchair facing the street, a fifth of whiskey cradled between his legs, chewing on a drumstick, while his older brother, Dwight, stood behind him, laughing, with a cigarette in one hand, and in the other, the hand of his young daughter, Eve.

It was enough to make an old man cry, but Frame wasn’t an old man yet; he was only thirty-three and far more prone towards anger than grief. But he held it together by turning his back on the Claxtons and their friends, and with a simple shrug of his shoulders and something of a bemused smile pulling at his mouth, he climbed back into Doc’s old Cadillac and drove off with his friend from that deliriously weird and nefarious neighborhood.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The next morning the news was busy with the three suspects now wanted for the assault on the armored-vehicle: Leonard, Crane and Head. Front page stuff, mug shots, and complete criminal histories. They were bad boys. And their photos probably did them justice: they looked just like criminals—their grim features set unnaturally by flashbulbs and the dread of consequence. They were all from Los Angeles County, Leonard from La Puente, Crane from Pomona, and Head from Baldwin Park. They were all on speaking terms with the police. Drugs, purse snatching, the occasional foray into burglary or grand theft auto. Crane was wanted in San Bernardino for robbing cabs, where he was also suspected in several liquor-store robberies. Leonard was the more sensitive type. He was a jeweler by trade. A craft he had learned in prison, but which he had sacrificed for advancement within his native career of crime. Head had an extensive background of petty criminal activities, including battery and extortion, his official occupation was listed as manager of customer relations at a well-known massage parlor in the tenderloin. One of the more interesting items in the article was the fact that at one time or another they were all gainfully employed as auto mechanics at Oakley’s Garage.

This was the morning, Johnson-friendly paper. The article dutifully exonerated one John “Doc” Christmas, a licensed and respected private investigator, of participating in the attempted robbery of the armored-vehicle and the subsequent murder of one of its guards. The article went out of its way to clear Doc’s good name. It explained how certain criminal elements initially accused him of involvement in the crime because of his friendship with Frame Johnson, a Deputy U.S. Marshal. These elements possessed strong ties to the aforementioned wanted men. These same elements were currently under investigation by both the San Francisco Police Department and U.S. Marshals Office.

The article did not go into great detail concerning the duo investigations. There was only one brief indication that the death of Officer White may have been somehow connected to the attempted robbery and ensuing murder through the three outlaw’s past connection to Oakley’s Garage. There was no mention by name of Dwight Claxton, or William Graham or Jon Ringold; or of the McDonald brothers; or of their favorite mouthpiece, Maxie Gray. Only that the three alleged robbers were being aggressively looked-for by a large and determined force of law enforcement agents.

Eugene called me first. He didn’t approve much of the company I was keeping. There were suddenly too many Johnson’s in San Francisco for his comfort. He kept hearing rumors that they were planning on taking over the city. The politics were getting nasty. Internal Affairs was taking something more than an idle interest, and worse—my name was starting to be dropped unfavorably in certain departmental circles by old foes of my father’s. And Eugene was somewhat, and understandably, apprehensive about constantly having to defend his Goddaughter’s actions. The afternoon paper already had a platoon of reporters out on search and destroy—a mercenary bunch from the looks of them, and the only thing that concerned them was the body count.

“Donahue has been talking to them with a vengeance. This morning the Federal judge ruled against his complaint and he’s one unhappy trooper. He’s hoping the media will finish Johnson for him. On top of that, Maxie Gray’s law office was broken into and vandalized, and some files stolen. But I suppose you’re aware of that, aren’t you?”

“I’m aware that I’m being blamed for it. I already spoke with two detectives, Breakwood and Stillwell. You probably know them. They work under Junior. They said my name came up.”

“I know them. I don’t like them. And your name has come up. Maxie Gray mentioned it several times. He said you’re working for Deputy Marshal Johnson. You and this joker, Christmas. He said you two have been harassing him and certain of his clients.”

“Maxie Gray is full of shit,” I said.

“Katy!” Eugene admonished me.

“It was my office that was broken into. By two of Grays clients. They vandalized it and wrote obscenities on my bathroom mirror with my own lipstick…”

“Who are they?” Eugene’s voice narrowed into a tool of vengeance. I was sorry I mentioned it. Things like that are not done to women, especially to Goddaughters of upper echelon police officers. “What are their names?”

“Forget it,” I said.

“Don’t count on it,” he said.

“It’s already been taken care of.”

“You mean by Frame Johnson?”

“I wouldn’t know. But it’s over.”

Eugene said nothing for a moment. He was too pissed. From over the phone I could hear his pen tapping sharply against his coffee mug.

“Listen to me,” he said. “Maxie Gray is someone you don’t want anything to do with. All of his clients are criminals; all of them are dangerous. I want you to seriously consider dropping your investigation into his business.”

“No can do,” I said. I heard my Godfather suck in air. Perhaps it would have been easier if I had lied. “There’s a little girl involved. Dwight Claxton’s daughter. I want her out of there.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“Judge Freedman has the case.”

“Freedman…child custody?”

“I’m working for Dwight’s wife—they’re separated. Freedman will give custody to either the mother or the state. Depending on the stability of the mother.”

“But Claxton won’t surrender the child, will he? He’ll take her with him somewhere. Probably out of state. Maybe even out of the country. Which means that you plan on snatching the kid before he can make a move…”

I didn’t say anything. His sigh said it all. For the first time in a very long time I heard my Godfather curse.

“Jesus Christ, Katy,” he said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The lecture was a good one. One half-Godfather, one half-cop. Eugene spoke of family and honor and duty, of crime and punishment, and of discipline. Of people like us, in not altogether unrelated professions, committed to meting out justice. Something we all have a stake in, which is why the individual approach to law and order could never truly be accepted. It went on for about twenty minutes, until I could no longer stand it and had to lie about having to see another client. I could hear him shaking his finger at me over the phone as he hung up. I sat at my desk for ten minutes getting over it. The second call was from Nellie.

She was upset and her voice broke into pieces over the phone. I had to wait for her to put it back together. That took awhile. When she was finally able to talk I was sorry she called me. Oakely’s was opened again this morning. Dwight and Billy Claxton and the McDonald brothers had a late and leisurely breakfast together in her diner. They were an angry little band and all of them had been drinking. Nellie could smell the alcohol on them from the counter. They had the table furthest from the door, against the back wall. Dwight sat facing the door and when she served them coffee she noticed he had a pistol, under the table, on his lap. The pistol scared her, especially in the wake of Officer White’s death. It took most of her nerve just to take their order. She would have called the police but she was afraid of what might happen once they actually showed up.

Nellie served them coffee and breakfast and gave them a wide berth after that. She stationed herself behind the counter and worked hard at minding her own business. Which had been impossible with all the noise they made, and the gun lying in Dwight’s lap. They were all talking at once about their recent troubles with the law--with the Johnson brothers in particular.

“And Doc Christmas,” Nellie recalled them saying:

“The son of a bitch was undercover all this time,” Billy Claxton said. “Living right next door.”

“At the photographer’s studio, for Christ’s sake,” Dwight Claxton said.

“The son of a bitch,” Tom McDonald said. “A Goddamned cop.”

“Hell, we played cards with that cocksucker,” Frank McDonald said, “I don’t know how many times.”

“He cheats too,” Billy Claxton added spitefully, “but he ain’t no cop.”

“Then what the hell is he?” Tom McDonald demanded.

“A police informant,” Dwight said. “A Goddamned snitch.”

And Nellie said: “That’s when Billy said they ought to just kill the bastard.”

“Drag him outside and shoot him down,” Dwight had said, brandishing the pistol in the air over his head. “Like you would a sick dog.”

They all enjoyed a good laugh over that one.

“But they weren’t kidding,” Nellie whispered urgently over the phone. “None of them were. They were dead serious. You could see it in their eyes. They were plotting murder.”

“And have you seen Doc?” I asked her.

“Not for the past few days. I think he’s been staying with his girlfriend. She has a place in North Beach. Her name is Katherine Fischer. He might be with her. Frame Johnson would know.”

But Deputy Marshall Johnson didn’t know.

“Doc’s like that,” he told me over the phone. “He disappears every now and then. Sometimes, for days. He likes to gamble. Poker, the horse’s, games of chance. It gets his mind off his health, I guess. Odds are he’s in some card den right now, somewhere. Maybe even Reno.”

I told him what Nellie had told me, about the Claxton and McDonald brothers. The silence over the phone was as hard as steel. I stressed that what I was telling him was secondhand news, that I had not heard their conversation myself, that according to Nellie the four idiots had been quite drunk.

“But they’re professional idiots,” Johnson said. “And they’re drunk and they’re armed. I’ll call the police.”

Forty-five minutes later Junior showed up with detectives Breakwood and Stillwell in an unmarked car at Oakley’s Garage. Nellie watched him from her diner window across the street talk to the boys.

“Just like they were old friends,” she told me later.

And after a few minutes all parties reached some sort of agreement. Tom and Frank McDonald departed in their brand new Mercedes Benz SUV and Dwight and Billy Claxton in a spare Cadillac from the garage. Junior and his detectives watched them go. According to Nellie the question of Dwight’s pistol apparently never came up. William Graham emerged from his office and shook hands with each of the detectives. Ringold sullenly watched from the door without expressing any pleasure at seeing cops on the premises. Graham offered cigars; Breakwood and Stillwell accepted. But Junior looked at his watch, then over each of his shoulders at the neighborhood, as he hustled his detectives back into their car before either of them could be seen lighting up with a known criminal in public. A criminal who was one way or the other involved with the killing of a fellow police officer. Graham lit his cigar and waved goodbye. Ringold faded back into the office. None of what Nellie witnessed made her feel any better.


CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
That there were people plotting over breakfast to kill him struck Doc Christmas as extremely funny. He was very sorry he hadn’t been there. For somewhere in his heart there was a special place reserved for the brothers Dwight and Billy Claxton. He thought of them as probably his favorite morons, and someday, sooner than later, he felt certain he would miss them very much.

That’s what he told me over the phone when he called. It was late afternoon and he advised me to take the rest of the day off and meet him in North Beach at a small restaurant he favored. A good old fashioned Italian place I knew very well. It was small and narrow and the air was filled with layered fragrances of some of the best cooking in San Francisco. Eugene and Margo, my Godparents, were long time regulars and I spent virtually every Sunday evening there while I was growing up. It was one of those places where there was rarely an empty table and nearly everyone still considered it to be a well kept secret.

We sat at a table in a corner in the back. In the dim lighting Christmas didn’t look quite as ill. He was dressed neatly in a dark suit and a crisp white shirt open at the collar. Perspiration glistened over his brow and he kept a handkerchief folded in his left hand. The glass in his other hand looked to be straight gin or vodka and from the rings left on the table I suspected it had to be at least his third drink. A copy of the afternoon paper was open to the story about the break-in and vandalism of Maxie Gray’s office. Christmas pushed the paper towards me with the tip of his finger.

“It gets better on the following page,” he said with a thin smile. “There’s an editorial assault against our profession. It must be your red hair that brings out the worst in these stalwarts of the free press.”

I didn’t say anything—the paper said it all. After a quick perusal of the story I needed a drink. Christmas raised a hand and a waiter with two shots of vodka appeared like magic. The vodka got me through the rest of the story.

At the moment Maxie Gray was one of the most obnoxious creatures on earth, a lawyer with a grudge. He felt his office had been violated and he was now leveling accusations right and left and threatening major, groundbreaking lawsuits. He was going to start with the United States Government, then the Federal Marshal’s Office, then the brothers Frame and Pope Johnson, then the two private investigators in their employment, John “Doc” Christmas, and San Francisco’s own Katy O’Shea. He dismissed the rumor that my own office had been ransacked the night before his as an outright lie. Ms. O’Shea, the daughter of the late and notorious Lieutenant Devon O’Shea of the San Francisco Police Department, was merely utilizing one of her father’s favorite tricks, accusing the accusers. What could one expect from the daughter of such a notorious officer? After all was not the name O’Shea synonymous with police brutality?

I ordered another vodka and chased it with the editorial on the next page. The opinion expressed represented the view of the management of the afternoon paper. It would seem to them that the recent actions of certain private investigators warranted a closer look at the nature of this seedy and loathsome profession. As a rule private investigators operated on the peripheral of society. They searched the streets for missing children, peeked over transoms at unfaithful spouses, and exposed insurance frauds. There was in fact a necessity for their existence as the police were just too damned occupied with the business of maintaining law and order to follow through with the myriad other social problems confronting the citizens of any major metropolis. While the private investigator might be a decent and hard working individual, the fact remained that he or she went about their business unfettered by the constitution or by the diverse demands of the people they served. The private investigator bore few sanctioned responsibilities, therefore few restrictions. He or she was a civilian licensed but largely neglected by the state, and whose primary occupation is to delve into the personal lives of law abiding individuals on behalf of their clients. The private investigator does not need probable cause let alone a warrant to conduct an investigation, only a retainer…

“Etcetera, etcetera,” John Christmas said after I had read more than enough. “And there’s more to follow, Katy. An entire series beginning next week devoted to the fast and loose ways of the modern and sexy independent operator. It does make our profession seem awfully romantic now, does it not?”

“Not,” I said.

He laughed and the laugh turned into a cough, which he stifled with his handkerchief and the rest of his vodka.

“Look on the bright side,” he said, once he caught his breath, “in the preceding article your name is mentioned more often than my own. That alone should be worth the price of admission.”

“I don’t need to be famous.”

“Nonsense. Everybody needs to be famous. Some of us just more than others. What else is there?”

I counted them off on my fingers: “There’s a child I want to see returned to her mother, there’s Maxie Gray threatening to sue us, and the Claxton and McDonald brothers have been talking about shooting you on sight. How’s that for starters?”

“For starters, I’m sure they must have their reasons. However, I seriously doubt if any of them will ever be drunk enough to follow through on such a lofty ambition.”

“Not Billy Claxton?”

Christmas smiled. “Perhaps Billy,” he shrugged. “Perhaps from behind. But I have little faith in his or his brother’s abilities. Their father, Newton Claxton, possessed all the talent in that clan. The boys take more after their mother, Evelyn.”

“I’ve seen her,” I said.

“Then you know she’s frightening?”

I replayed her counseling her neighbors on the virtues of silence: the tire iron poking holes in their front door. “Very,” I said.

“She certainly scares me,” Doc said. “Now any threat of hers I would indeed take seriously. But Dwight and Billy? They’re all talk and far too much of that to worry over.”

“And the McDonalds?”

“Tom,” he said without hesitation. “He’s game. His brother Frank is more laid back, however, almost likable. But they’re all small fish, the Claxtons and McDonalds. William Graham is far more intriguing. He inherited the operation by default after Newton’s demise. There was no one else to assume the leadership role. He’s not as skilled or as smart as the old man was, but he’s the one to keep an eye on.”

“And John Ringold?” I asked.

“John Ringold is William’s only friend. He is far too moody to run anything besides a tab.”

“And since we may be mentioned together in a law suit, where exactly do you stand, if I may ask?”

“Special Unit Investigation. I am employed by the insurance companies to investigate the stolen car business. That’s how I linked up with Frame. Except he works for the government. We’ve covered much of the same ground over the years. We exchange notes, that sort of thing.”

“I see.” I noticed that he did not bring up the story about saving Frame’s life in Kansas.

“And you are currently retained by the young Mrs. Claxton?” He took a small notebook from his side pocket and flipped through pages, until he found the one he was looking for. “Ivy Claxton and the child’s name is Eve…”

“After Dwight’s mother, Evelyn.”

He looked at me and laughed. “That, my dear, can only be a curse.”

“Well, Ivy was awfully young at the time.”

“And obviously a poor judge of character.”

“Naïve,” I said.

“Surely,” he said. “And exactly why I asked you to meet me here this afternoon. Frame informed me that you expressed an interest in any plans Mr. Dwight might be entertaining concerning a sudden departure from the bay area?”

“I asked him to let me know if he heard anything on that subject, yes.”

“Well, he has not. However, I must confess that I am the one with the illegal wire tap.”

I leaned across the table and fingering my empty shot glass whispered: “How illegal?”

He leaned towards me, also whispering: “Illegal enough. No court would accept it as evidence and I would probably lose my license and then be sued.”

“Does Frame Know?”

“No. He has a narrow mind. He’s a great believer in our imperfect system of justice.”

“And you aren’t?”

“Not entirely. I’m more like you.”

“So tell me, what am I like?”

“Well, according to the fourth estate,” he said, tapping a finger against the edge of the paper, “you’re a lot like your father.”
CHAPTER THIRTY

Like my father I possessed a natural inclination to take the bad with the worse. A war was being waged through the local media between Frame Johnson and Maxie Gray. The morning edition against that of the evening. Once again my name was cropping up in the bad news sections, along with the old stories and rumors concerning my father, Devon O’Shea, one of San Franciscan’s finest men in blue. Fearless crime fighter or psycho cop? You be the judge. Derek Flynn told me to look on the bright side, with the proper guidance I could ride dad’s name right onto the board of supervisors. I didn’t look very long though, and Derek lost interest in my political career a little after I did. Still I suppose I was doing better than Junior. He was caught in the middle too. Not only was his name being mentioned in reference to Maxie Gray’s, but certain gossip columns kept bringing up the fact that his former girlfriend was now keeping company with Deputy Marshal Frame Johnson. The alternative press, The Bay Weekly, had even noted that it was strongly rumored that Junior was even stalking the blond ballerina, and that his stalking was getting on the nerves of all the concerned parties. All concerned parties not only being Michelle Hammer and Frame Johnson, but also a few select members of the police department and city hall.

“According to sources within the San Francisco Police Department,” Brian Ward of the Bay Weekly gleefully noted, “the two law enforcers are not on speaking terms even though they are pledged through interagency guidelines to cooperate with each other while they conduct parallel investigations. They almost came to blows just the other night on the sidewalk in front of the Oriental, the bar and grill owned by Johnson’s older brother. Witnesses of the fracas said it had to do with Lieutenant Donahue’s former fiancée, Michelle Hammer, who was also there. But at least two witnesses heard the name of a certain successful criminal lawyer mentioned three times. It was a concern to the small crowd watching that both law enforcers were armed with service pistols at the time of their altercation.”

Brian Ward also disclosed that along with Frame Johnson and Ms. Hammer, Derek Flynn, the political consultant who successfully ran the last two mayoral campaigns, was also there. As were two of Marshal Johnson’s brothers, Homer, a County Sheriff, and Pope, an officer with the San Francisco Police Department. For our intrepid alternative journalist this was clearly grounds enough for at least one conspiracy. Mr. Ward wrote that such acrimony existing between the two different law enforcement agencies could only jeopardize the safety of the public. He then called for a special investigation into the conflict between Lieutenant Donahue and Deputy Marshal Frame Johnson. Only a public airing of their alleged grievances could successfully put an end to their hostilities, hopefully before any innocent bystanders could be hurt.

I read this article in my jeep while confirming Dwight Claxton’s present whereabouts. He was still staying at the house off Twentieth Street. Doc Christmas informed me that Dwight was quite anxious to get away from the bay area. Operations as such at Oakley’s Garage had shut down for the duration, and they sure weren’t going to make any money by repairing cars. There was just too much heat at the moment—what with U.S. Marshals, private investigators, and the city itself in an uproar over the death of Officer White, and the security guard during the attempted robbery of the armored vehicle, both only a few days ago. Nor did Dwight expect his custody hearing to pan out the way he hoped. Apparently he spent a great deal of his time on the phone complaining to his mother about how unfairly the court was treating him. Judge Freedman wanted him to produce the child, for Christ’s sake, and he wasn’t about to risk doing something as dumb as that—no way, no how. It was clear to him that Freedman had no intention of giving custody of his only child to him simply because he was a man. A real man. And he felt pretty confident that the judge was some kind of lesbian and probably had her eye on Ivy. That’s how these things worked unless you had lots of money, which he didn’t because that Goddamned Graham didn’t have the guts to keep the business running.

Money, or nearer to the point, the absence of it, seemed to be source of Dwight’s current difficulties. That was what was missing in his life, what kept him rooted to San Francisco when he knew that now was exactly the right time to take his child and find refugee in some hassle-free state, even if that state was merely a state of mind. One of those back wood territories was where Doc said Dwight was seriously considering carving out a new life. He thought he could fit in well with the militiaman lifestyle. Him, the child, some weapons. If I had bothered to notice, Dwight was already sporting camouflage pants and matching bandanna. All he really needed to turn his dream into reality was forty or fifty thousand dollars for the real estate, bunker, and six months supplies of food and drugs. Then he would be home free.

Just after dark Dwight parked in front of the house. He was driving a relatively new Cadillac convertible, with the top down, and the CD player pounding out Black Sabbath. His head bobbed back and forth with the music, his hands kept time against the steering wheel. The biker Madonna watched him from the front window, then from the front door. She didn’t look all that happy to see him. She was all dolled up in her own sort of way, like she was anticipating a night out on the town. But the way she kept tapping her foot and glancing at her watch made me think she might be more than a little angry. Little Eve stood behind her, clutching the material of the woman’s black skirt. Dwight shook his head ominously at them as he climbed out, over the door, of the Cadillac. They were fighting before he reached the porch.

It was one of those domestic squabbles that only the police or his mother could have resolved. His girlfriend was all over him like a screaming eagle. He pushed past her and little Eve and stormed into the house. I was parked a block away and I could still hear the screaming. Little Eve sank to the front steps and covered her ears. Lights inside the house went on one after another, from bottom to top. Something solid flew through a window—a bottle—and smashed against the street. A moment later Dwight was charging back outside, dragging the woman, clinging to his arm, along. She caught hold of the porch railing and did her best to slow him down. But her best only made things worse for her as he spun around and slapped her repeatedly across her face until she was curled up on the steps, and cowering behind her hands and arms.

Dwight paused to examine his work. He looked quite pleased with himself. He pointed a finger at her and started shouting. From where I sat I could hear him clearly. So could the entire neighborhood. It was all her fault, he told her, everything. If she didn’t want to deal with the consequences of her actions then she should learn not to hassle him. He wasn’t some young pussy-whipped punk she could order around as she so pleased. He was almost old enough to be her father. At least in a few more years he would be. And as long as he was shacking up with her then she would just have to knock that shit off. Did she understand him?

“WELL?”

He folded his thick arms over his chest and waited for an answer. It was painful to watch—almost as painful as doing nothing. I reminded myself that I was there only for the child. But I still felt ashamed. Then Dwight asked her again if she understood him. He was just being cruel now, and the Madonna nodded submissively. When he raised his hand to her she immediately found her voice.

“YES, GODDAMNIT,” She shouted back at him. “I UNDERSTAND YOU!”

“GODDAMN RIGHT YOU DO!”

Dwight stomped down the steps towards his car shouting commands over his shoulder like some petty despot: He would be home later. He didn’t know when. He had man’s work to do. Her job was to shut up and feed the child. And then before she knew it he was in his car and gone without even a backward glance, the wheels of the Cadillac squealing around the corner. If it hadn’t been for the traffic, which was heavy on Seventeenth Street between Guerrero and Castro, I wouldn’t have been able to follow him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

I loved following Dwight. He was straight out some fifties teen movie, all hair and sunglasses, and born to lose. He stopped once at a corner market to purchase a pint of alcohol and a six pack of beer. He drank and smoked and drove across town, changing lanes every few seconds, and searching his rearview mirrors as though he expected to be followed. At first I thought he had made me, then I realized he hadn’t, he was merely paranoid like any petty thief. Once or twice I caught him in his mirror laughing, once he slapped at some imaginary target in the air, and I imagined he was replaying his fight with the little woman.

He drove out Geary towards the beach. It was dark now and the traffic thinned out. By Twenty Fifth Avenue there were only a few cars headed towards Sutro Park and the Cliff House. By Fortieth there was just us and I fell way behind and followed his taillights to Lands End where he turned right onto El Camino Del Mar. I gave him thirty seconds to change his mind, then switched off my headlamps, and cruised in behind him. On this side of Lands End El Camino Del Mar dead ends, and widens into a parking lot with a view of the Golden Gate. There are a few trails that lead along the cliffs, skirting the golf course, and up towards the Palace of the Legion of Honor. One or two of the trails lead downwards to the narrow beaches at the bottom of the cliffs. I didn’t like being there at night by myself but there were some street lamps and I when I saw Dwight’s Cadillac parked at the far end, with him out of it and leaning against its front hood, I felt, oddly enough, a little more comfortable. I parked in the shadows on the edge of the road before the parking lot and hoped that I was close enough to see what he was up to.

I sat there for fifteen minutes watching Dwight smoke cigarettes and drink. He had the CD on and was listening to Led Zeppelin. He kept time with his head, up, down, and sideways, but he had no rhythm, and looked more like a puppet being jerked around by a loose string. I was just beginning to doubt that he had any particular reason to be out there, other than just for the solitude. It was a beautiful, starlit night, with the steady and comforting sound of waves breaking against the cliffs below. But he didn’t strike me as the type who might find much pleasure in the contemplation of nature. Sure enough somebody else joined him. A man emerged from the dark edge of trees to the right of where Dwight was parked. They sized each other up for a moment and then Frame Johnson stepped out of the shadows and refused the hand Dwight offered him.

I watched them through my small binoculars. Their exchange lasted for about twenty minutes. Dwight talked while Frame listened, then Frame talked while Dwight listened. At one point Frame made a call on his cellular phone, and as he talked Dwight polished off two beers and most of his pint. He offered some of both to Frame but Frame shook his head no, and then handed Dwight the phone, and Dwight spoke into it. Afterwards Dwight looked pretty pleased with himself. Once again he offered his hand to Frame who once again refused it. Not that Dwight took any offense. He just wiped his hand on his jeans and laughed and climbed back into his car. Frame watched him pull out of the space and turn the car around and drive back out towards Geary Avenue. Dwight drove right past me without even seeing me. Frame didn’t see me either. Nor did his brother, Homer, who, holstering his pistol, joined him from the shadows.

The two of them stood there at the edge of the parking lot staring at each other. Neither of them looked too satisfied about this clandestine meeting with their enemy. In fact, from what I could see of the pair through my binoculars, they looked far more troubled. Particularly Homer who started to say something only to have Frame cut him off with a look of stern resolution and, if I had read his lips correctly, some famous last words: “Trust me.” The expression on Homer’s face wasn’t exactly one of trust, but he said nothing as he followed his younger brother into the darkness beyond the trees.

I played word games on the way to the Clover Club. I tried to fit square words into round holes. Snitch, bribery, corruption, and betrayal were some of the words that didn’t quite fit properly into the scheme of things. I played back Dwight’s rendezvous with the law and order brothers. Nothing fit exactly. And at the very least the expression on Homer’s face told me he didn’t care much for it either. He had been under cover the entire time, with his pistol in his hand. But so far as I could tell Dwight had come alone and unarmed. I backed the words up and repeated them out loud slowly. I played with the first one during a red light. Snitch. It fit Dwight like a glove. It was good, honest work where he came from.

Derek Flynn bought me a cup of coffee I didn’t need. We sat at his table in the back of the club. He grinned like a terrorist as he regaled me with outrageous tales about City Hall. He knew everybody who was anybody in this little town and most of their dirty little secrets. To hear him say it he was responsible for just about every good thing in the city and knew exactly who to blame for all that was wrong, from MUNI to the Homeless. We had a lot in common, he told me. We were both insiders who kept to the outside. For this is where the real action was. You could get elected or appointed to any number of positions but once you assumed your role you were dead meat. From then on you were nothing more than a servant. The worst career move a politician could make in this country was to believe he actually possessed any genuine power.

“Big mistake.” Derek Flynn recited on his fingers. “The only thing a politician can do is take orders. Like a waiter or a cook. If you can take orders then it’s a good job. But if you start giving them then you’re in trouble. And it’s time to go. Take the mayor for instance…”

I let him talk. He went on for an hour. In that time he downed four drinks. He was one of those guys who never got drunk. And the entire time he sat there he watched me like a hawk. He was out to get the mayor. Just run the son of a bitch out of town. He was going to dismantle the entire administration. Shred every memory of him into little pieces. Even if he had to run for office himself. He could do it. He could make them and he could break them. He could be a one-term mayor, get things into working order, then back off. It crossed his mind from time to time.

“But could you take orders?” I asked.

“But who would I be taking them from, Katy,” he said with a nine millimeter grin. “If not myself?”

After the hour was up he changed the subject to me. The number of times my name appeared in the papers since this morning to be exact. Derek Flynn kept track of little things like that. His way of keeping his finger on the pulse of the American people. I wanted out of the spotlight and I hoped he could help me. But he saw publicity, even bad publicity, as a necessary component to getting through the day, and seemed honestly bewildered that others might not.

“Others,” I said. “Like Frame Johnson for instance?”

Flynn nodded thoughtfully.

“For instance, sure,” he said. “Marshal Johnson is ambivalent about fame. I suspect that all he really wants is just to be a good cop. But he’s seen his name in the paper often enough to feel like he should be more ambitious. That it’s expected of him. Next thing you know, he’s running around with shady characters like yours truly, and speculating about running for office. But the fact is he doesn’t truly enjoy seeing his name in print. And neither does he enjoy those things so near and dear to politicians like fundraising, kissing butt-ugly babies, and compromising not only his own principles, but everyone else’s too. I’ll tell you what I told him. I can get him into office, however, if he wants to keep it, then he’s going to have to cooperate. If he plays this the right way then he can write his own ticket in this town.”

I replayed Frame meeting with Dwight in a nearly empty parking lot out by the ocean. Them together talking, passing the cellular phone between them. Homer in the dark watching. I wondered what could possibly be conceived as the ‘right way’ in that picture. Nothing came to mind.

“So what does a guy like Frame have to do to write his own ticket?”

Derek counted on two fingers: “He could start by clearing up this armored car thing and then by distancing himself from John Christmas.”

“Capture Leonard and Crane and Head,” I asked. “And ditch his best friend?”

“That’s what I would do,” Flynn said. “If I were him.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The suspected robbers, Leonard, Crane and Head were killed that night at a small store on the outskirts of Reno, Nevada. A mom and pop place. Pop did the killing and Mom dialed 911. Mom didn’t much care for the looks of either of the suspects. She was watching from the window when they drove up in a pickup truck. For some reason it occurred to her that the truck, a brand new deep, glossy, purple Ford with lavender lines and lots of gleaming chrome, was probably stolen. It looked too new and fancy, in a trashy sort of way, for the likes of them. She asked Pop for a second opinion and he confirmed her suspicions. Those boys just didn’t look like the type who would waste money on easy low-interest monthly payments. Especially with all those tattoos and the nervous way they looked things over as they approached the front door, like they had something on their minds other than the routine purchase of simple necessities such as cigarettes or beer.

“No,” Mom told the police later that night, “They weren’t coming into our establishment to wish us well. Not with those three-fifty-sevens magnums in their hands.”

Pop killed them as soon as they walked in. Gave them a barrel each of ten gauge, and sent them back the way the came, right out the front door. And that was the way the police found them, in the dirt by their truck, about as dead as dead gets.

“We were robbed once back in the early seventies,” Pop was quoted in the paper. “And by God we didn’t care for it one bit. So this time when they showed up we were both ready. Mom by the phone and me with the shotgun.”

Mom and Pop were local heroes in the Reno, Nevada area. The police who investigated the attempted robbery were quoted as saying the homicides had been purely defensive and therefore would most likely be deemed as justified under the law.

In another, related article Lieutenant Frank Donahue stated that despite the deaths of the suspects, Leonard, Crane and Head the investigation into the attempted robbery of the armored vehicle, along with the murder of its guard, was still open. According to eyewitnesses there was at least one robber still at large. There was indeed a suspect, whose name he could not release at this moment, who was presently under investigation.

Maxie Gray on the other hand did not hesitate to call a spade a spade. He divulged to a handful of his favorite journalists that the reason Lieutenant Donahue chose not to reveal the name of the suspect was because the suspect, one John H. Christmas, also known as ‘Doc’, was a close friend and associate of Deputy U.S. Marshal Frame Johnson. According to Gray, Johnson, his brothers, and Christmas have all been accused in recent media reports of various forms of corruption, including conspiracy to cover up crimes they, themselves, have either committed, or benefited from, and of falsely accusing innocent people of said crimes. In Gray’s opinion, the circumstances surrounding the deaths of two of his clients, Leonard and Crane, obviously warranted closer scrutiny. The deceased, as he knew them in life, had been gentlemen, generous to a fault, and ever ready to lend assistance to their fellow man. Both had overcome tremendous difficulties in their lives, and while they had in their youths their share of troubles with the law, each man ultimately had come to stand as living testimonials to the ability inherent in all of us to change for the better. Gray strongly suspected that the police in Nevada might have been a little too quick to dismiss such a violent and tragic act as justifiable homicide. For, as we have all learned from the extreme actions of the police in recent years, the trust we, the citizens of this nation, have invested in them has more often than not been subject to abuse. It is after all the responsibility of justice to be blind, he pointed out, but not that of her servants.

And those were the exact, same sentiments Dwight Claxton harbored. When the tragic news concerning his old buddies broke, he started going off the deep end. When I saw his name in the morning papers I knew things were really getting out of hand. As an acquaintance to the deceased he was interviewed by both morning and afternoon editions, along with the local news shows. The interviews took place at Oakley’s Garage. He donned dirty blue overalls and standing in front of his tow truck did his best to appear mournful, even at one point wiping a tear from his eye with a greasy red rag, as he told of the shock and dismay he felt at the loss of his friends. He of course echoed his lawyer’s accusations, almost verbatim. Until he got to Frame Johnson and his temper took a turn for the worse. At that point it became obvious that he had been drinking. Steadily. The morning paper skipped that part of his interview, but the afternoon paper covered it in full. Most of the news shows cut his tirade short, but a few went ahead with it, broadcasting his reactions without sound due to his profanity as the anchormen and women described his tirade for the viewing public.

It was like Dwight’s first day in divorce court, except for the lack of order. Instead of a judge who could hold him in contempt and threaten him with jail should his outburst continue the reporters surrounding him had no intention of slowing him down. They just kept their cameras rolling while he kept his mouth moving. I sat there on my couch watching him unravel on television before my very eyes, wondering if Judge Freedman was also catching his act. If so then there was no way she could allow him to maintain custody of Eve. Especially after he started threatening the lives of Frame and Homer Johnson, Doc Christmas, and whomever else might be snooping around his private affairs. I presumed I came under the category of whomever else. And that was close enough for me.

Ivy called me an hour after her husband’s television debut first aired. She had taped him and apparently she was watching him act like an asshole over and over again. By the tenth or eleventh time she was pretty worked up.

“See? I told you,” she said. “He’s a lunatic and he has my child and I say we go get little Eve right now. Tonight. I just can’t let her stay with that psycho another day.”

I wanted to agree with her. But I also wanted Darrell to have a word with Judge Freedman first, tomorrow morning, to see what the alternatives were. Ivy didn’t care for that at all and I had to raise my voice-like a parent-before she calmed down.

“If you want to keep your child,” I said. “Then the best course at this point is to let Judge Freedman handle the case.”

There was a short, bitter, pause followed by an exasperated sigh. “Miss O’Shea, Dwight ain’t going to appear in front of any more judges. Didn’t you see him on TV? He’s beyond all that law and order crap…”

“Tomorrow,” I said. “If Freedman can’t help us, then we’ll get Eve back ourselves.”

I called Darrell the moment she hung up. He was at home, waiting to hear from me. He told me he saw Claxton on TV, he told me that Claxton was star material, the husband every divorce lawyer dreams of.

“I doubt if he has that much money,” I told him.

Darrell laughed. “I didn’t say he was perfect,” he told me. “But he’s good enough. I’ll have a word with Judge Freedman in the morning.”

Just as soon as I hung up the phone, it was ringing again. It was Eugene this time, ordering me-not as a cop, but as my Godfather-to drop the case. Things were getting too weird for him. He had read both papers, and then caught Dwight Claxton’s act on Channel Five and it was all a little more then he personally wanted to handle.

“This Claxton guy’s insane,” Eugene said. “He looks just like Charlie Manson.”

“No, he doesn’t,” I said. “Charlie had an x carved on his forehead. Dwight only has his mouth. There’s a big difference.”

“Not big enough,” he said. “He was on TV threatening to kill a U.S. Marshal, and a couple of his friends. I take it you’re one of the friends?”

“I hardly know him,” I said.

“But you know Maxie Gray,” he said. “And you know what these jokers are capable of, don’t you?”

“It’ll all be over soon,” I told him. “Tomorrow morning Darrell is going to ask the court to remove the child from Dwight Claxton’s custody. After today there’s nothing Maxie Gray can do to prevent that from happening. And once that’s done my part in this will be through.”

There was a short, skeptical, pause from Eugene’s end of the conversation, followed by a whistle. “Maxie Gray enjoys keeping company with criminals, but that’s just show, the fact is he’s one smart lawyer, smarter than the company he keeps, and when this is all through I would be willing to wager that he’ll be the one member of his gang not going to jail.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Dwight Claxton was on a roll. He loved his fifteen minutes of fame dearly. The evening was filled with sightings: Dwight on his motorcycle like a dark knight cruising up and down the streets, the biker-Madonna perched on the seat behind him. Dwight at his favorite spots, drinking and strutting his stuff, but always threatening the lives of the Johnson brothers, one at a time, or all together. Dwight finally losing his temper and charging out into the night to find one or more of the Johnson’s, and “that puke-sick friend of theirs, that son of a bitch, Doc Christmas.”

He cruised by the Oriental several times. But he didn’t stop. Twice I heard a motorcycle pass by my apartment on Second Avenue, but by the time I reached the window whoever it may have been was long gone. He made a single appearance at the Clover Club, one that was guaranteed to catch the attention of all the hard core regulars. He burst through the door biker-style, all boots and leather and wild hair, and shoved his way to the bar where, in the presence of Derek Flynn, he threw back several double bourbons while expressing his profoundly deep regret that the “scum-sucking pig” he was looking for wasn’t there.

“Can’t be found nowhere,” Dwight lamented ruefully. “Must be hiding. Son of a bitch telling lies about me to my friends. You tell that bastard he can get hurt for something like that. You let him know what I said, hear?”

And then he was gone. Without paying, he didn’t even leave a tip, just toed the butt of his cigarette into the carpet and split.

“Some fool called Claxton seems to be pretty upset with Marshal Johnson over something. I’m not quite sure what about, but as an interested party, I am somewhat curious,” Derek Flynn told me over the phone. He called me because he didn’t know where Johnson was or what he was doing, and he didn’t want to call the police just yet. At least not until he knew exactly what spin to put on it. “If you do see Frame, however, you could let him know that this Claxton character has been inquiring about his health. And, by the way, he appeared to be armed.”

Dwight’s anger carried him far into night. At some point he gave up on finding Frame Johnson and started after Christmas. Mary Christmas, he called him. He made all the backroom games between North Beach and South of Market, letting it be known that he would drop the sick little bastard on sight.

“What I’d really love to be,” he declared towards midnight, standing in the shifting dance of light and shadow cast by the single yellow lamp suspended over a table covered with cards and poker chips, “is the last thing Doc Christmas ever sees on earth.”

What Dwight had no idea of knowing was that he was about to lose that loving feeling.

Doc’s significant other—I never quite grasped the exact nature of their relationship—got me into the act. Her voice came over my answering machine at home just as I was getting ready for bed. I couldn’t tell if she sounded urgent or not, for most of her message was obscured by her thick Hungarian accent. But she asked me to pick up the phone, that there was little time to waste, and like a fool I did.

“There might be trouble,” she warned me. Her name was Kate, like mine. Kate Fischer. She told me Doc was a little crazy, a little, how do you say it, unpredictable. “He might kill somebody again,” she said.

They had been spending a quiet evening together at her place in North Beach, having a few drinks and working on their poker, when several acquaintances of Doc’s called to inform him that Dwight Claxton was looking for him. Her impression was that Dwight intended to kill Doc. At least that was the gist of what she’d overheard. She initially wrote Dwight’s threats off as drunken bravado. However, the problem was that Doc had been also been drinking. A little bit. Since this morning and on top of that he’d done quite well at the tables this afternoon. He’d won several thousand dollars and was feeling cocky. You know, like a man. He’s lucky that way. Except for his lungs, the illness, which is causing in him a certain malaise. It’s killing him, she sighed, and sometimes he just wishes it were over and done with. So he went out to find Dwight. One of Doc’s acquaintances informed him of where he could find him. This low life dive in the Haight. He went alone. She called me because Doc had told her that I might be one of the trustworthy few. And because she didn’t want to call Frame Johnson. She told me the name of the place where I would find them and I repeated it: Georgina’s Night Owl Cafe. I knew it by reputation. She told me I should hurry, before Doc did something crazy.

It was after one p.m. when I finally found a parking spot on Clayton. Despite the hour Haight Street was still active with people and cars. I passed up giving away spare change a half dozen times before I reached Georgina’s. I paused at the door and looked the place over before I entered. Dwight was there at the bar, the Madonna beside him on a stool. They were both drinking shots of something or another with beer chasers. Dwight was doing all the talking, and I could hear him fairly well over the jukebox. He was talking about what he was going to do the very next time he ran into Frame Johnson or Mary Christmas. He called it a simple matter of principle. Or ‘biker-justice.’

“Because when the pigs break the law, there is no law.”

He got a pretty good laugh from that. Georgina refilled their glasses. Dwight and his girl tossed them down. The place was packed, but Dwight looked like the only biker. Most of the crowd looked grungy, but non-lethal. Most of them looked too young to be drinking; some of them looked too young to be out this late. Georgina looked too weird to be out at all. There was no sign of Christmas and if I was lucky I wouldn’t see him all, so I slid in and found a seat at the far end of the bar, opposite of where Dwight stood with his back to me.

It took about a minute for Georgina to spot me. Paranoia was written all over her, from the sparkle in her late sixties gold la’me hot pants to the top of her electric purple wig. I could tell by the way that she looked at me that she thought I belonged somewhere else. Which was true enough. I was obviously far too straight to be getting off on the rare ambience the Night Owl offered. Which meant I was either some idiot tourist far off the beaten path or there for a reason. She chose the reason part of the equation and sashayed over to my end of the bar and inquired as to what a woman my age might be doing in place like hers. That I might be waiting for a friend struck her as a highly unlikely. On the other hand I didn’t look enough like a cop to scare her. When I ordered a lite-beer she shook her head disgustedly and told me she didn’t carry the stuff.

“Whatever’s on tap,” I said.

“Piss green ale,” she said, and took her time getting it.

Georgina had to rejoin Dwight first and then smoke a cigarette. She made certain to blow the smoke in my direction. Dwight kept talking. After awhile she forgot all about me. Not that I cared. I didn’t want a drink anyway; I wanted to go home. And besides that’s when Doc Christmas made his appearance.

I caught him in the mirror behind the bar first. About the same time Dwight saw him. I could see that much in Dwight’s face by the way his mouth stopped moving. When Dwight shut up it was like all sound in the tacky little dive stopped. But it hadn’t, the jukebox was still playing hard rock: Black Sabbath, very loudly. Yet suddenly everything seemed very tight like the air had been somehow sucked out of the place. People started looking over their shoulders to see what the problem could be. Georgina stared at Doc, who was standing in the door, for a moment, then at me to see if there was a connection. She very obviously did not care for how this was playing out. This scarecrow-like figure just now pushing himself in from the door and the crowd in her small place automatically parting for him, as though he were some streetwise prophet, making a path that came to an abrupt and ominous end in front of one of her favorite customers: Dwight Claxton.

And none of this was lost on simple-minded Dwight, who watched Doc with a cold dread that seemed to reach far down into his pants and rattle his knees. I watched him in the mirror: his eyes immediately shifting into an escape and evasion pattern, sweeping the premises for the nearest exit. But on his side of the bar there was none, only the way he had entered, and that opening, distorted as it was in the grimy mirror, was growing narrower with each step Doc took in his direction. He eyeballed the door behind the bar that opened into what was probably the storage area. His eyes blinked at the chances of a door being located back there, somewhere, that might lead to safety, and he laid one hand on top of the bar, as though he were considering a daring frog-leap over it and a mad dash for freedom.

But Doc moved swiftly for an invalid. In two easy strides he had reached the bar, effectively eliminating the possibility of Dwight taking advantage of any sudden departure. He did this all in one quick movement that forced everyone there to involuntarily gasp and take one step back. Even the jukebox seemed to go dead when he slapped the bottle from Dwight’s other hand. And then in that unnatural silence, as Dwight paused to watch the bottle take flight from his grasp, Doc slapped his face three or four times in rapid succession, the slaps crackling in the air like bullets, in the time it took for the bottle to hit the wall.

I had stopped watching these events unfold in the mirror and had spun around on my stool. All toughness faded from Georgina’s features. She stood motionless like everyone else, her mouth open, and her eyes wide. Dwight backed way, shoving stools aside, as Doc closed in on him. The Madonna scrambled through stunned bodies for the door, her long black hair trailing in her wake. She bumped into Pope Johnson who was just entering the bar, cursing at him to get the fuck out of the way, as she frantically struggled to get around his solid form, and grabbing the door frame with both hands she finally managed to catapult herself outside. After that everyone started leaving. But by then Dwight was more or less cornered.

He stood with his back against the bar, his hands up in the air defensively. “I ain’t armed,” he squealed.

“Then get armed,” Doc shouted at him. “You’ve been talking about me and my friends all goddamned night. Now here’s your chance to do something about it!”

“I don’t want to fight!” Dwight shouted back. “I’m just drinking, that’s all, I don’t need no trouble!”

“Well, you’ve got it, you rat-prick, son of a bitch.” Doc turned towards Pope. “Give this man a gun!”

Pope shook his head. “Doc,” he said quietly. “I think we should get out of here.”

A knife appeared in Doc’s hand like magic, an industrial strength switch blade, which he stuck into the top of the bar, then in his other hand, his pistol, which he slid across the bar to Dwight.

“Pick it up and start shooting,” he said. “I’ll use the knife.”

Dwight looked at Doc like he was crazy. I guess we all did. But he made no move for the pistol. He didn’t even look at it; he just kept his hands empty and up in the air.

“I don’t want your gun,” he whined. “I got no reason to fight you.”

Doc grinned Cheshire-like and, picking up the pistol, closed in on Dwight until they were almost nose to nose and pressed the pistol firmly into his hands. “Sure you do,” Doc said so softly I almost didn’t hear him. “I was the one who gut-shot your old man down there in Mexico…”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

If looks could kill then Dwight would have been born dead. He was obviously in deep shock. He mouth moved but he couldn’t get anything out of it. He forced the pistol back into Doc’s hands and backed off, knocking over bar stools in his haste to get out. The contrast between the two men was stunning: one big and scared, the other frail and menacing. But only one of them was a killer. And he was the one I liked best.

“You’re crazy,” Dwight managed at last, edging towards the door. “You’re out of your fucking mind.”

Doc shrugged. “Do you want to fight or not?”

Dwight reached the door. He pointed a finger at Doc, then at Pope. “Next time,” he said. “You won’t have no cop backing you up and you’ll be shit out of luck.”

“I’m already shit out of luck, cowboy.”

But Dwight was gone. Out the door. A moment later he kick- started his chopper and he tore off down the Haight. I looked out the nearest window after him: a lone figure on a huge motorcycle, whipping through every stop on the street, followed by a dozen angry horns.

I turned back towards Doc who looked at me and winked. He asked Georgina for a shot of bourbon and she was all over herself in a hurry to pour him one. Apparently she was drawn to the sensitive, demonstrative type. She was calling him sir and ginning like she was in love for the first time. She poured a double of her best into a clean glass and told him it was on the house. Doc smiled pleasantly at her and told her she was a peach. But before their relationship could blossom fully he was overcome by a coughing fit. He buried his face in his handkerchief and choked up blood. Perspiration dampened his face and clothes. He fell to one knee, gasping for breath, and forced the bourbon down his throat. Georgina and I stood there uselessly, but Pope grabbed him by his shoulders and dragged him over to a table and chair.

“Doc, take it easy,” Pope murmured. There seemed genuine concern in his voice. “Just sit here. I’ll get my car.”

“What I need is a drink,” Doc said.

“I want to get you over to emergency.”

“Nonsense. Besides the emergency is over.” To prove his point he sat up in his chair and lit a cigarette. He inhaled deeply and blew a smoke ring across the room. “See? I’m fine. You know, you’re beginning to remind me of your brother.”

Pope stood up and rattled his keys. “Which one?”

“All of them. Except for James who doesn’t like me.”

“James doesn’t like anybody.”

“Then it would seem that James and I have much in common.”

“I’ll get my car,” Pope said.

“You do that.”

I sat down at the table across from him. Georgina brought him another drink, which he insisted on paying for. Whatever was wrong with him scared her; she no longer seemed to find him so attractive. Diseases can have that effect on people. Especially those that might be contagious. She stood at arm’s length and left his money where he placed it on the table.

“It’s two AM,” she said, cautiously, to me. “We’re closing. We have to, it’s the law.”

Doc coughed and she hurried back to the bar, keeping a cold eye on him as though she expected him to keel over at any moment and die. And judging from his appearance that seemed like it could very well be a reasonable expectation. He frowned at her, then he frowned at me. He chased his frown away with the rest of his drink and then reached inside his coat for his flask.

“Last call,” he said, looking at his watch. “I really should be in bed by now.”

“You should be in a hospital,” I said.

“There would be no point,” he said. “I have managed to get the one incurable strain available.”

I nodded. Pope double-parked outside in his car. He got out and looked around. Haight was still busy with people and cars. Someone pulled up behind him and leaned on his horn, Pope flashed his badge. The car went around him. This was something that was not lost on Georgina. We exchanged glances; hers was a kind of I-should-have- known look, while I kept mine more on the neutral side.

“What you told Dwight about his father…” I started to ask.

Doc looked at me. “About shooting him?”

“Yes.”

A smile came to his lips. “Well, you might mark that down to the heat of the moment and perhaps a tad too much in the way of libations. The truth is no one knows exactly what transpired down there. Mexico is one of those countries where you never want anything to go wrong. Yet it is a place where wrong is very keen on happening.”

“Doc,” Pope called from the door. “Are you ready.”

“Yes.”

Doc used my arm to stand up. He stifled a cough with his flask.

“I wanted to scare Dwight,” he said, before starting for the door. “I wanted to make it clear to him that he was the only one in the game playing for table stakes. I calculate that right at this very moment he’s home, filled with wanderlust, and packing his bags. With a little luck none of us will ever see him again. He isn’t a very brave man, you know.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

No, Dwight wasn’t a very brave man. But unfortunately Doc Christmas had miscalculated somewhat; he hadn’t added the idiot factor to the equation. Only that could explain Dwight’s subsequent actions. From Georgina’s Night Owl he went to the nearest source of liquor. Home probably, because of the hour, where he also picked up a weapon, a cheap nine-millimeter semiautomatic. He then drove around the Mission District for about forty-five minutes. Up Mission, down Mission, occasionally letting loose with an outlaw-rebel yell, his bike roaring like a banshee. Finally he screwed up enough courage to stop by The Oriental on Valencia Street.

It was past two in the morning; the place was closed. The lights were out. It looked empty. Dwight sat on his bike and finished off whatever he was drinking and smashed the empty bottle against the front of the building. Dissatisfied with that small act of defiance, he decided to express his truer feelings in a more personal manner by urinating on the front door. Of course, with Dwight’s usual luck, the door opened. Homer and James Johnson stepped outside. They took one look at Dwight and shook their heads in disgust. Homer told him to go home and sober up. Dwight pulled his pistol from the back of his pants and told them both to go to hell. In one deft movement Homer took the pistol away from him, and knocked him upside against his head with it, and then put him under arrest.

The charges were carrying an unauthorized firearm within city limits and drunk and disorderly conduct. Dwight’s attorney, Maxie Gray, posted his bail early that morning.

The first thing Dwight did after regaining his freedom was to drop by the Kangaroo Court and have several drinks to relieve his headache. He made it pretty clear there, only two blocks away from the city jail, that he was sick and tired of being harassed by the Johnson brothers. That all he needed was just “four square feet of ground” to make his stand. Anywhere, anytime, anyone of those sorry sons of bitches felt like going up against a real man, all they had to do was call him, because fighting was his game.

“YOU CAN TELL ALL THE JOHNSON’S THAT I SAID SO!” Dwight declared several times from the bar for all to hear.

And at least two people did just that.

Frank and Tom McDonald picked Dwight up around noon. They all had several drinks before leaving, giving Dwight plenty of time to run once more through his long litany of complaints. They were all worked up over Frame Johnson and his brothers by the time they left. One of the McDonalds was overheard telling Dwight on their way out that he knew where he could find a new cheap gun. Some dude he was acquainted with who resided only a stone’s throw from Oakley’s Garage.

The three of them ran into Deputy Marshal Frame Johnson in the parking lot. It remained unclear as to whether he was there looking for them or not. However, words were exchanged between the four of them, and in the heat of the moment Tom McDonald threatened to kick the deputy’s ass. Johnson told him that would be quite unnecessary, as he fully intended to mind his own business. Tom McDonald told him it was too late to mind anything but the beating he was about to receive, at which point he shoved the deputy. That seemed to work. Johnson decked him. Frank McDonald helped his brother to his feet, while telling Johnson that the badge he wore couldn’t didn’t give him the right to physically abuse innocent people. Dwight chimed in from behind the brothers, “You got a fight coming, you son of a bitch!”

The individual who related this piece of information to the proper authorities was a reporter for the morning edition. The proper authorities being San Francisco Police Lieutenant Frank Donahue and County Sheriff Homer Johnson.

I heard it from by my Godfather, Eugene Cipriani, who was having lunch at the Kangaroo Court with several of his cop friends. He caught the entire act from a booth in the main dining room. When he realized who exactly Dwight was and which Johnson’s he was referring to, he immediately started worrying. He called me just moments after Dwight Claxton and the McDonald brothers left the restaurant. He told me now was a great time to start minding my own business.

I lied to him and told him I would. But then Darrell called and informed me that Dwight had not only failed to produce his daughter, Eve, for Judge Freedman, but had himself failed to make an appearance in her court. Judge Freedman was extremely unhappy over the situation; it was becoming increasingly clear to the court that the child’s best interests were not being served. Maxie Gray explained to the good judge that his client, Mr. Claxton, had suffered grievous wrongs only the night before at the hands of certain U.S. Marshals and therefore was unable to attend court in person. As for Mr. Claxon’s daughter, she was nowhere to be found. Maxie suggested in the strongest possible terms that the girl’s mother, an extremely immature and irresponsible individual, had most likely kidnapped her.

Ivy Claxon’s reaction was loud and clear: her husband with whom she was in the process of divorcing, and his attorney, Maxie Gray, were both full of shit.

Judge Freedman demanded order in her courtroom. She cocked a cool and appraising eye from Gray to Ivy and then back again. She looked for a long moment towards the empty chair where Dwight should have been sitting, and then turned her full attention back to Gray, who, stalwart member of the bar that he was, visibly buckled beneath her glowering visage.

“She gave him three hours to have the child in court,” Darrell told me over the phone. It’s eleven-thirty now. She expects to see little Eve at one-thirty or else.”

“Good luck,” I said.

“You do know where she is, don’t you?” Darrell asked tentatively. “It might expedite things for the court if Freedman knew where Eve could be found.”

“Unless she’s been moved in the past twenty-four hours,” I said.

Darrell wrote down the address, the place off Twentieth Street, where I had last seen the girl. I told him I would keep the house under surveillance for the next few hours, just to be on the safe side. He told me to be careful. I told him not to worry. Of course, I should have known better.

I found a parking place across the street and one half block down from the house. Dwight’s old lady, the motorcycle Madonna, was stacking cardboard boxes and pieces of furniture on the porch. A van was parked in front and another woman was loading the boxes into the back of the van. It looked like somebody was moving. Both women were dressed in the same shade of denim black, both had the requisite number of tattoos covering their thin white arms, and both were wearing sunglasses. They could have been twins. I sat there watching them in my rear view mirror. There was no sight of Dwight or Eve Claxton. The second story window was open, but there was no child, only music, seventies rock, loud and clear. It took them twenty minutes to load the van and another fifteen minutes to sit down on the porch and share a joint and a beer before the other woman climbed into the van, cranked up the tape deck, and drove off. I glanced at my watch; it was one PM. I figured I had wasted enough time already and decided to find out where Ivy Claxton’s daughter was the easy way. By asking.

The motorcycle Madonna looked at me stupidly. A week’s worth of marijuana clouded her vision. She smiled lazily at me and when I said hi she seemed stuck for answer. A giggle brought tears to her eyes and was followed by laughter. After a moment I was laughing too. When we got through that part of it I told her my name was Katy O’Shea and I was there for the girl, Eve Claxton.

A smile spread like sunshine across her face. She stood there grinning at me for about a minute. I was beginning to wonder what I was missing. Finally she opened her mouth but all she said was: “Wow…”

“Eve was supposed to appear in court today,” I said, hitting while the iron was hot. “She was suppose to undergo an evaluation to determine her wellbeing. Judge Freedman ordered her father, Dwight Claxton, to bring her forward this morning. He failed to do so. I understand that it wasn’t his fault, that he had some difficulties last night that prevented him from following the judge’s order…”

“Last night Dwight was all fucked up,” she managed to say with a smoke-induced giggle.

It went that way for awhile. Finally I nodded, as though I understood her.

“He was arrested,” she continued. “But that was later. After some dude tried to kill him.”

“Over in the Haight,” I ventured.

She shook her head vigorously, shuddering at the memory. “Some skinny asshole. Dude was one cold motherfucker.”

“Do you know where Eve is now,” I asked.

“No, I don’t think so.” She looked over her shoulder, towards the open front door, and into the house. “She ain’t here. I know that much.”

“How about Dwight, where can I find him?”

“At the garage, man,” she said, cocking her head to one side suspiciously, as she shaded her eyes with the edge of her hand to get a better look at me. “Are you a cop?”

“No,” I said. “I am not a cop.”

“That’s cool,” she said.

“And I can find Dwight at Oakley’s Garage?”

“Yeah,” she mumbled. “I think his daughters’ down there too.”