The Gunfight at Oakley's Garage

CHAPTER ONE

What I first noticed about Ivy Claxton was that she was probably a little too blond for her own good. And that she was forty-five minutes early. She was waiting for me outside my office door and we had the length of the hall to size each other up. She was a few inches shorter than I was and a lot younger, eighteen, maybe, nineteen at the max. She was wearing a motorcycle jacket, a tee shirt, tight black jeans, and red cowboy boots. A small diamond stud pierced the right side of her nose. She was good looking in a tough sort of way and the closer I got to her the more she looked like she probably did need the services of a private detective. Her green eyes were red from crying and lack of sleep and she looked awfully thin inside her jacket. Since I wasn’t sufficiently awake yet to act like I was glad to see her I just told her who I was—Katy O’Shea, ace detective—and opened the door. She followed me in silently and stood patiently in the center of the room as I made coffee for both us. When it was ready I handed her a cup and asked her to sit down. She thanked me and then apologized for being so early, but she was in a hurry to get started, she confided, because hers, of course, was a long story.

Ivy met Dwight Claxton when she was in high school. She was sixteen but she looked older. On a good day, when she was all dolled-up, she could pass for twenty-one. Dwight was twenty-seven. Or so she thought. It turned out he had more than one birth certificate and she didn’t know how many driver licenses. He needed them for his career. At least that’s what he told her. He was a professional driver. Tow trucks, mostly. But he could drive just about anything with wheels—anything he could cross wires on, she said. She now guessed his real age when they first met at somewhere over thirty. Thirty-one maybe, maybe thirty-two.

The picture she showed me was taken on their wedding day. Dwight was the guy in the powder blue tuxedo straddling the hog and pouring champagne over his friend’s head. His friend was Buddy Claymore. And the two guys standing directly behind Dwight were his supervisors from work, William Graham and Jon Ringold. They were all good friends. They all worked for Dwight’s father, Newton Claxton, at the garage. Graham was called Curly because of his hair, which was dark and curly and fell just short of his shoulders. And Ringold was usually just called sir, or sometimes behind his back, “the reverend,” because it was rumored that he had once studied for the ministry. Dwight said it was just best to avoid the bastard, if you could, but to Ivy, Mr. Ringold had always been the perfect gentleman.

In fact the one and only time Dwight had ever hit her was at one of the company picnics, on the fourth of July, in Golden Gate Park, and it was Jon who came to her defense. Dwight had had a little too much to drink and became somewhat doubting of his younger wife. He accused her of wanton and licentious behavior after she had what he considered to be a much too amiable chat with Curly. When Ivy protested he slapped her hard enough to bloody her nose. That’s when Jon pulled out his pistol, jammed its barrel into Dwight’s mouth, and told him in no uncertain terms that if he ever lifted a hand against his wife again he would blow his fucking brains out.

Ivy snapped her fingers. Just like that, she said, almost proudly. It had been something to see.

Their honeymoon lasted about three months. Or until she became pregnant. Whichever came first. After that Dwight started staying away from home on a more regular basis. He said he was working longer hours because of the child, because they would need more money—he wanted his son to have everything he never had, like a happy childhood. One filled with gifts and loving parents. But more often than not Dwight simply came home drunk and reeking of cheap perfume.

Dwight’s mom said her son deserved a little downtime, now and then, because he worked so hard. Ivy rolled her eyes. Downtime. She shook her head in disgust.

Dwight’s mom was a big part of the problem. Even after they named their daughter after her, Evelyn. But mother Evelyn just wasn’t interested. She told Ivy that she didn’t even believe Dwight was the father. She told Dwight that too. She said it right in front of Ivy and her baby. Dwight didn’t say a word. He just thought about it; a few days later he believed it.

That’s when things really got weird. He started following her, sneaking up on her, searching through her things. Ivy realized that she and her daughter Eve couldn’t continue to live in the same trailer with her husband. But a separation was unlikely, a divorce impossible. Evelyn made it very clear that while she would personally welcome any disappearance on Ivy’s part, the brat would have to stay.

That’s when Ivy started stealing money from Dwight. A little bit every night. Whenever he came home drunk. Whatever she could find in his pockets. Sometimes he would have a lot of money, so much she could easily take a hundred dollars from him without him even missing a dime of it; sometimes nothing. She calculated that she would need at least five thousand dollars to make a clean break from the Claxtons. This part of her life lasted five years.

Then last year Dwight’s father, Newton, and some of the boys from the garage went down to Mexico on some sort of business and were accidentally killed by the police. Mexican police—police you just couldn’t sue to make things right. Ivy wasn’t too sure what happened down there. But it didn’t do Evelyn or Dwight much good. William Graham took over as the CEO of the business. Ringold became the general manager. And Dwight kept his tow truck.

After that Dwight became completely impossible. Ivy made plans. One morning after Dwight went to work she packed her bags, just enough clothes to get her and little Eve through the first few days. She had over three thousand dollars in cash. A friend was going to pick her up. Then Dwight showed up, once again, unexpectedly. One of his younger brothers probably ratted her out, Billy or Bart, maybe even their little sister, Lucy.

The proverbial shit hit the fan. Evelyn Claxton watched it from her lawn chair on the back porch, a bottle of gin sitting like a dog at her feet. Dwight started with the trailer door, ripping it right off its hinges, and from there he tore through the rest of their small, narrow home like testosterone unleashed. He broke every dish, plate and glass he could lay his hands on, he smashed every picture he could see, save that of the television screen, and he kicked everything in sight until not one thing was left standing and the thin metal walls of their home were hopelessly bent out of shape.

Throughout the duration of his tantrum Dwight did not touch Ivy once. Apparently his fear of his supervisor, Jon Ringold, was greater than his desire to inflict physical pain upon his wife. He settled instead for destroying everything she owned and held dear with a tire iron. Finally, when he was done and there was virtually nothing left for him to ruin, and Ivy was reduced to a hysterical wreck, sunk low in a far corner of the trailer—trapped as it were, between him and the narrow promise of the door—he pointed the tire iron at her like a thick cold finger and laid down the law: he would not stand by and allow any lying bitch to cruelly separate his only daughter from her father's love. For the bond between father and daughter, like that between mother and son, was as though ordained and once broken could never be repaired.

Or words to that effect.

And that's when the police arrived.
CHAPTER TWO

"They busted Dwight right on the spot," Ivy Claxton said. "A neighbor probably called them because of all the noise and screaming. I know I was pretty upset and little Eve was just bonkers."

I looked at the pictures of little Eve on my desk. Lots of blond curls and a heartbreaking smile. Her mother was twenty-three and her father was psychotic. The math was easy. Ivy was sixteen when she gave birth to the girl she had just described as now being bonkers.

"And the police arrested Mr. Claxton," I said.

"After they checked out the car," Ivy said. "That's what saved me good."

"Car?"

When Ivy nodded her hair bounced around her shoulders in a sort of carefree way that told of long hours spent during childhood studying the Brady Bunch. "A Corvette. He was in the middle of impounding it when whoever called him called him. All the Claxtons have cellular phones. Except for me. We didn't even have a phone in the trailer; Dwight tore it out when he decided he couldn't trust me anymore."

"What about the car?"

"Dwight's so stupid, he towed the wrong car." She rolled her eyes again. "They saw the truck, and the car hanging from the back, and ran the numbers through their computers and somebody had mistakenly reported the car stolen."

"So they arrested Dwight for grand theft auto?"

"Yeah, but it was all a misunderstanding. William and John put up bail and he was free the next day. By then I was out of there. I stayed with a friend of a friend in Stockton for a week, then another friend of a friend in Bakersfield. No one in the Bay Area knew where I was."

"Not even your mother?"

"Especially my mother. She's not the type to take sides in a thing like this. I mean I love her and everything but she figures for better or for worse. She's got the Christ bad and she doesn't know Dwight as well as I do."

"And you took Eve with you?"

Ivy went misty at the mention of her daughter's name. I pulled a box of tissues from my desk and passed them to her. She took a handful and blew into them. "From Bakersfield we moved to Oceanside. I knew this boy from high school. He joined the Marines and was stationed at Camp Pendleton. He and some of his friends share an apartment off base and they let me stay there. I got a job in this restaurant down by the beach. I didn't know what I was going to do next, but I enrolled little Eve in school. I planned on staying there for a while, at least until I figured something out."

Dwight Claxton figured that out for her. Somehow he tracked her down. One morning on her way to work she saw him, in his tow truck, waiting for a light on Pacific Coast Highway. Apparently he was working because he had impounded a car. She was pretty sure he saw her. "Because, you know, he was staring right at me as I crossed the intersection. I tried to ignore him but when he started honking his horn and screaming at me I just took off. I ran as fast as I could and kept on running until I got to work. And when I got there I quit. I took a cab home and packed everything we had in the back of my car and I hurried over to the school but Dwight got there first."

"And he had Eve?" I said.

Ivy nodded and finished off the tissues, making sounds like a very young and frightened elephant.

"Dwight got there first," she repeated. "He identified himself as Eve’s father and told the principal of the school that there was an emergency. And that I had been killed in an accident--that I had been run over by a tow truck--and that he wanted to take little Eve to his mother's place while he went to the morgue to identify my corpse."

"Did you notify the police in Oceanside?"

Ivy shook her head and avoided my gaze by studying the wadded up tissues in her hands.

"I was afraid to," she said. "Our separation wasn't legal. Besides I knew once Dwight had little Eve he would come straight home. He's got this whole big family and they'll keep her and hide her until she doesn’t even remember me anymore."

She started crying again. I found another box of tissues for her in the bathroom. While she sobbed I studied the pictures of her missing daughter. Little Eve, as her mother called her, looked just like any other moderately well adjusted child to me, chubby and happy, and far too young to understand how weird her circumstances actually were.

With her tears behind her Ivy got down to business. She stacked money in front of me. Three thousand dollars of Dwight Claxton's hard-earned money, along with five hundred dollars put together by her marine buddies down in Oceanside. She shoved it across the desk and looked expectantly at me with big round eyes, as though all I had to do was take her money to get her daughter back. Instead of offering her hope I told her I would look into it. She said that would be good enough. Before taking any of her money I asked her to fill out a simple contract. I even helped her with it. I took five hundred dollars from her as a retainer and gave her a receipt.

I then referred her to a lawyer who might be able to help her understand the child custody laws. Ivy didn't seem too enthusiastic over the prospect. She told me she didn't like lawyers; she only wanted little Eve back. I told her it didn't work that way. Besides I was willing to wager that her husband, Dwight, possessed at least a rudimentary knowledge of how the law worked and how he might be able to manipulate it to his benefit. That much made sense to her. I pushed the rest of her money back towards her and watched it disappear inside her purse.

"So," I asked. "Where do I start?"

Ivy didn't really know. There were lots of Claxtons. Up and down the state and scattered throughout most of the southwest. She gave me his mother's address in Daly City. Someone, a mutual acquaintance, told her that Dwight was staying at some place in the Mission District, but she wasn't sure where.

"You could try where he works," she said helpfully.

"And where's that?"

"Oakley's Garage," she said.
CHAPTER THREE

There was no Oakley at Oakley's Garage. I found out that much over the phone. Oakley died back, during the nineties. A combination of acid, Jack Daniel's, and far too much fog to successfully negotiate one of the more evil curves on Devil's slide. “He was a dumbfuck,” the voice on the phone cheerfully informed me. “Oakley went right through the guardrail and straight down three hundred feet until he bottomed out. Took three days to haul his sorry wet ass out of those waters. A little meth would have kept him on the road.”

The voice was deep and smoky and went unidentified. In the background I could hear the sounds of a garage: hydraulic lifts, a drill, some hammering, and a chorus of male camaraderie. I told a story about needing my car worked on and having seen the garage from the street and I was wondering if I could drop the car off. I listened to some laughter before the voice told me Oakley's wasn't that sort of garage. It was more of a body shop and they worked exclusively for used car lots in the Bay Area. What they did was take some old piece of shit and make it look good with some cheap paint and a pound of sawdust jammed into the transmission to cool the knocks long enough to sell it to the first rube dumb enough to walk in off the street. I got off the phone with a number for a first rate garage specializing in jeeps and a date I had no intention of keeping for a drink later that evening.

Oakley's Garage was located South of Market on Allen Street, between Third and Fourth Streets. It was in the middle of the block, set back inside an alley, in between a motorcycle repair shop and a photographer's studio called Glide's. In front of the repair shop sat a dozen industrial strength motorcycles--the sort of bikes that not only demanded respect, but also give dire warning. Harley Davidson's and Triumph's, Easy Rider machinery, not a single Vespa among them. There was even a sign in the window stating implicitly that no scooters were allowed. The alley itself ran past the garage and connected with another alley. The next street down was Harrison. Across the street stood a butcher shop, some residential apartment buildings, three bars, and a small lunchroom.

I parked around the corner on Fourth Street and walked inside the lunchroom. It was a small place with a counter and a handful of tables. Behind the counter a swinging door revealed glimpses of the kitchen: a man in his late sixties cooking something on a grill, and a younger man, in his fifties, washing dishes. A woman in a clean white apron worked the counter. She was past retirement and called me honey. The only other customers were two men sitting at a table at the back of the room. One of them was just getting up as I walked in and had his back to me. They were both blond and mustached and at first I thought they were brothers, but when the one standing turned to leave I could see that they bore no other resemblance. He was in his mid-thirties and was of medium height and dressed casually in jeans and a work shirt. We met at the door and he waited politely for me to enter before he stepped outside. His friend who remained sitting at the table smiled briefly when our eyes met. But our eyes met only for a moment and when the moment passed he turned his attention to a deck of cards he shuffled nimbly and then dealt to the empty chairs at his table. I ordered a lettuce and tomato sandwich and an ice tea and studied Oakley's from the counter next to the window. It looked like a busy day to me. There were several cars parked on blocks in front of the garage and several guys working on them. Inside, an intense glow emanated from some industrial strength lamps. I figured the lamps were for drying paint. In that weird light I could make out the forms of several other men working. I matched faces against the photographs Ivy gave me, but none of them looked like Dwight Claxton.

To the right of the garage area was an office, an addition to the original structure. The walls were of a corrugated metal of some sort or another. Tin or aluminum. The roof was made of the same stuff. A single window had been located to the right of the screen door. Both window and screen door were broken. The window was covered with a piece of cardboard and the screen door hung uselessly from the top hinge. Five or six tires leaned against the front wall; a portable hydraulic jack rested in front of the tires. The man standing inside the door appeared to be in his early thirties. He was on the tall side with long, dark curly hair and a mustache. He was smiling and talking and the guys by the garage were laughing with him. Unlike the others he was wearing a suit and didn't look like he spent much time working on cars. The suit was a dark blue and the only other thing I noticed about him was that he was wearing cowboy boots. I recalled Ivy mentioning Dwight's supervisor's, William Graham and John Ringold. I presumed he that he was either one or the other.

I sat there for a half-hour sipping ice tea and pretending to read the paper, while across the street the auto experts went about their business. The waitress disappeared inside the kitchen and I could hear her and the cook and dishwasher discussing politics. One of them hated the president, one of them didn't, and the third had no opinion at all. The gentleman at the table behind me shuffled and dealt cards to imaginary players, occasionally stifling a cough that rose from somewhere deep within his chest. When I looked over my shoulder he appeared to be completely absorbed in his game. At Oakley's three bikers thundered into the small lot and parked in front of the office. They wore denim jackets with the sleeves cut off and club insignias on their backs and funny helmets. I had no idea what motorcycle club they belonged to, but Dwight was the one wearing the World War Two Nazi helmet.

The picture Ivy gave me didn't do him justice. He was shorter and heavier than I would have guessed. Nor did his beard improve upon the lack of intelligence caught so clearly by the camera. Rather than IQ, he seemed to be depending more on some base set of instincts, probably inbred genetically through generations of Claxtons. Even from across the street I could see his eyes narrowed suspiciously as he shot glances over his shoulders, sensing somehow that he was indeed being watched and apparently not caring for it at all. For a long moment he surveyed the neighborhood, shading his eyes with a thick paw, his head panning camera-like from one end of the street to the other until his gaze fell, as though attracted by my own, to the window I was sitting behind.

Business, however, took precedence over Dwight's paranoia. A tow truck turned onto Allen from Third and pulled into the garage with a Mercedes Benz. The guys in overalls broke from their assignments. They had the car down and inside the garage and the garage doors closed behind them within seconds. I barely had enough time to jot down the license plate on the Mercedes before it was gone. The man in the suit conferred with Dwight; they studied something on a clipboard together and then glanced at their watches. It looked to me like Dwight was complaining about something, the time, perhaps, but a moment later he was behind the wheel of the tow truck and backing out onto the street. The suit returned to his office. Fifteen minutes later another tow truck arrived, hauling behind it a Porsche convertible, that was treated just like the Mercedes. They had the sleek little thing inside that garage in under a minute.

Forty-five minutes later Dwight was back. He brought two vehicles with him. The first was a standard black BMW sedan, a pretty common sight around the city, which oddly enough didn't go into the garage. After conferring with the suit, one of the boys in overalls jumped behind the wheel and sped off down the alley and turned onto Harrison. The suit and Dwight watched him go. Dwight seemed inordinately pleased and even more so after the suit handed him an envelope thick with money.

It was a lot of money, too. Through my small binoculars I glimpsed nothing but Ben Franklin’s. Dwight's tongue practically fell out of his head. Several of the bikers gravitated towards the envelope. The suit laughed and slapped Dwight on his back. At that point another man stepped out of the office with a quart bottle of something or another. He was tall and fair, with a receding hairline, long sideburns and a mustache. Like his partner he was wearing a suit and cowboy boots. The boots, like the pistol in his waistband, caught my attention. They were Alligator and polished to a fine sheen and looked a great deal more expensive than the suit that even from across the street looked suspiciously like polyester. I recalled Ivy telling me about John Ringold pulling his pistol on Dwight at Stern Grove. I zeroed in on the pistol, a semi-automatic, with white grips. Pearl or Ivory. Whoever he was he toasted his coworkers with a swig from his bottle, then tossed it to the man nearest him, who after drinking deeply from it passed it along, until the last man, who happened to be Dwight, finished it off.

After the bottle came the dope. The group of men huddled together in the lot beside the tow truck passing joints back and forth until all their talking and laughing gradually degenerated into what appeared to be a profoundly serious and abiding interest in deep space. They stood like that, in quiet contemplation, for some time. It was fascinating in a weird way watching them go through what, I assumed, had to be some sort of end of the work day ritual, getting good and stoned for the commute home.

The guys I took to be William Graham and John Ringold snapped out of it first, followed by the others. Dwight, last. One of the guys in overalls fished a small container from one of his pockets. A small square thing with a lid that popped up. He passed it around until they were all swallowing pills. I figured pick-me-ups. Graham and Ringold then went about the business of closing down shop, while, one after another, their coworkers climbed onto their motorcycles and, calling it a day, headed for home.

Graham, Ringold and Dwight were the last to leave. Graham by motorcycle, a large black sleek, machine that he kick-started smoothly into running order. In his helmet and sunglasses he bore an almost uncanny resemblance to the Lone Ranger. He bid farewell to his partners with an understanding nod and cruised up and out of the alley. Dwight followed him on his bike, sitting low in the seat, with his hands high, almost above his head, on the handlebars. Ringold pulled the chain link fence across the entrance to the garage and secured it with a thick chain and lock to the post next to the repair shop. He buttoned his jacket over his pistol and headed off on foot, towards Fourth, his alligator boots gleaming in the late afternoon sun.

I stuck around for another moment or two trying to sort out everything that was wrong with this picture. Then I remembered the second vehicle Dwight has brought back with him on his return trip with the BMW. A vintage girl's Schwinn Stingray bicycle, complete with training wheels, strapped to the side of the tow truck as though it had been impounded--as Ivy would say--for being parked in an illegal zone. Like somebody's garage or backyard. The bike was a cool electric blue and on it's banana shaped seat sat a smaller version of Dwight's Nazi helmet. The bright pink ribbon and bow wrapped round its handlebars suggested it was intended as a gift, undoubtedly for someone very young and dear to Dwight Claxton.
CHAPTER FOUR

I spent a half-hour more at the lunchroom to make sure Oakley's Garage was closed for the day. I passed the time studying the notes I had on little Eve. The notes were printed on index cards, three of them at this stage. The first card listed her vital statistics: age, date of birth, and physical description, along with three recent snapshots of her pasted on the back. The other two cards contained the addresses and phone numbers of various Claxtons around the state where, according to Ivy, Dwight might have their daughter stashed. I figured the bike strapped to the tow truck was meant for her, since her seventh birthday had been just days ago, and if so then it might indicate that she was still somewhere in the bay area.

I thought about Dwight's mother, Evelyn Claxton, and her homestead in Daly City. I figured Dwight's foray into fatherhood would be limited to mere possession—child custody as a way of getting even with his wife. I imagined the actual raising of little Eve would be something he would expect someone else to see to. That is if he had bothered at all to even consider the welfare of his only child. I thought on the way home, after dark, I would stop off in Daly City and see if there were any toys lying around Mrs. Claxton's front yard.

Coughing interrupted my thoughts. Severe coughing. The card player sounded like he was dying. He covered his mouth with a handkerchief and choked violently on whatever ailed him until he was breathless. I rose to help him but he waved me back with his free hand. His face was pale and damp with perspiration. The handkerchief he had pressed against his mouth came away stained with blood. I cast a helpless glance at the elderly waitress standing behind the counter, but she just shrugged and shook her head sadly as though it were a shame and went back to her duties. A long steady drink from a silver flask stifled his attack. He closed his eyes and slumped back in his chair, rubbing the flask across his forehead. Once he caught his breath he swallowed more of whatever medicine his flask contained, then nodded apologetically in my direction.

"Forgive me," he said in a voice you could follow all the way back to Georgia. "I had no intention of interrupting your bird watching. The season has been spectacular so far, don't you think?"

"So far it's been great." I gathered up my things and edged towards the door.

"This is now the migratory period for predators. Buteos, accipiters, falcos. They come from the northern regions, down, soaring across the Golden Gate, on their way to the warmer, southern climates. From that very stool, where you were just sitting, minding your own business, I have observed any number of birds belonging to the family cathartidae…"

I said: "What?"

He said: "Vultures."

"Yes," I said. "Vultures. I'm always surprised when I see them hovering over the city."

"As I am also."

He stood up, letting his weight rest against a cane. A weight I couldn't help noticing that appeared to be considerably less than my own. "But then," he said. "San Francisco offers your professional bird of prey a near perfect sanctuary; the climate here is moderate, and there is certainly no shortage of pigeons, now is there?"

"No," I said. "There's always pigeons."

"A pity."

He hobbled up to me and smiled. His medicine was apparently eighty-proof and of the single malt variety. He dabbed at his face with a fresh handkerchief. Somewhere behind his condition—which looked pretty grave to me--he looked to be in his mid thirties. His hair, though graying, was blond, and combed back, and his eyes were a cool pale-blue. He looked as though he could be an easy person to like; but then again he didn't, for there was something lurking just behind his smile, a barely concealed suggestion of contempt, or, more likely, the expectation that the present object of his attention would unfailingly prove to be more than a little disappointing.

"Well," he said, as he pushed open the door and stepped outside. "I've enjoyed our little talk. Perhaps our paths will soon cross again. It does appear to be a small world. Happy birding."

He was gone before I could say a word. He crossed Allen Street and entered Glide's Photography Studio. I sized him up as being more than just an interested party, and regretted zeroing in on Oakley's with my binoculars. I tried to be discreet, camouflaging my spying with the afternoon paper, but he had spotted me anyway. By tomorrow morning I figured the entire management and staff of Oakley's Garage would know that some redhead had spent most of the afternoon checking them out. I didn't think they would be all that flattered.

I paid my bill and pumped the old waitress as innocently as I could about her sickly patron. I commented on his accent and she told me he was indeed from Georgia. When I told her I thought he was cute she told me she believed he already had a wife, although she couldn't be entirely sure if they were actually married or not. But they were close, she could tell, because they fought quite a bit. I asked her if his name was Glide and she said no. His name was John Christmas. Like the holiday. But he was usually called Doctor or Doc. He rented the room behind Glide's photography studio. She didn't know exactly what it was he did for a living. But she liked him. He was such a gentleman. When I told her I was under the impression that he worked at Oakley's Garage the old woman laughed. They sometimes play cards on occasion, during the afternoon, right there at the table where he was sitting. Him and Graham and Ringold and Dwight. But they weren't friends.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Mr. Christmas always wins," the old waitress said.

"That can irk some people," I said.

She nodded sagely. "But that young man's no cheat," She said. "He's just a whole lot smarter than the other three bums."

"That can irk people, too," I said.

By the time I left, the elderly waitress and I were friends. We had a lot in common. I liked asking questions and she liked answering them. Her name was Nellie and she had owned and operated the little lunchroom for nearly forty-five years. She was young and beautiful then, a redhead like me, and during the war--the big war, not the long one--she had worked in a coffee refinery over on First Street. After the war she lost her job when all the soldiers came home, but she had saved enough money working to get her place started. She had been married three times to three different bums and she didn't miss a single one of them. The only men she knew these days were either customers or old enough to know better. As for Oakley's Garage, she knew trash when she saw it. That gang was strictly from nowhere. Except for Jon Ringold, who she thought of as a good boy--when he wasn't drinking. And, yes, she was very aware of the pistol Jon boy carried concealed under his coat, thank you very much.

"He's from San Jose," Nellie said. "He's the only one of the bunch who's been to college. Once when he was drunk he told me he had studied for the cloth."

"He wanted to be a minister?"

She nodded confidentially. "Episcopalian. But his father killed himself and John was there when it happened. Apparently it was an accident. They were moving to another neighborhood and his father was carrying a shotgun to the truck and it was loaded and he dropped it and it went off and that was the end of John's clerical ambitions."

I winced at the story--guns in the hands of fools. "But still," I said. "It's quite a fall to Oakley's Garage."

"Not when William Graham is your friend," Nellie said.

"He's the manager, I take it?"

"You can call him that. Ring leader would be more like it."

"Leader of what?"

Nellie leaned across the counter and, nodding to the garage across the street, spoke cautiously in hushed tones. "Thieves and drug dealers, I suspect. They have quite a business across the street there, painting cars. After Oakley got himself killed in an accident Dwight's father, Newton, ran the place. Now he was a piece of work."

"I heard Newton was killed in Mexico," I said. "By Federales."

"You must be a friend of the family," Nellie said, suspiciously. She stepped back from the counter and, folding her arms across her bosom, stopped pretending I was only passing the time of day.

"Dwight's wife, Ivy, told me."

"She's a cute girl, rather young, though, if you ask me, to be married to him."

"She seems to regret it, but right now she’s a littler more concerned about her daughter."

"I heard they were separated. Dwight was in here a few days ago complaining about her. With their daughter…"

"Eve."

"Yes, Eve. It was her birthday. Dwight was going on about how Ivy had deserted them and how she was just no good and couldn't be trusted. Right there in front of the child." Nellie went misty on me and dabbed at her eyes with the hem of her apron. "I couldn't believe my own ears."

"I don't think Ivy had much choice," I said, confidentially. "Dwight's probably not the easiest person to get along with."

"No, he's not," Nellie said, leaning across the counter towards me. "And if you're going to help Ivy get her daughter back then there's something you should know."

"What's that?"

"You aren't exactly the first person to come in here today asking questions about Oakley's Garage."

I leaned across the counter like a close friend. "And who would be that person be?"

"Mr. Christmas's friend," she whispered. "Frame Johnson. He was the fellow leaving when you came in.”
CHAPTER FIVE

Evelyn Claxon’s house was a small squat home located at the end of a cul-de-sac. Not one street lamp in the neighborhood was working, each having been broken by some sort of projectile, the handiwork, no doubt, of the local neighborhood watch group. Only a few of the homes had porch lights and the Claxton residence was not one of them. At one time the neighborhood might have been considered working class but those days were long gone. Nobody was working around there anymore. The entire length of street resembled a set from some end-of-life-as-we-know-it movie. Every yard came with its own car on blocks, and overflowing garbage cans stood like guards at the entrance to each driveway. Some of the garbage cans looked as though they had been deliberately knocked over and their contents intentionally scattered about the street. The air was heavy with a warm fog and smelled disagreeably of toxic waste, but what was worse was the music, seventies style rock, blasting away from one of the houses, as though some huge party was completely out of control. Only there was no party and the sole purpose of the music was to mask the fighting. Angry voices burst through the heavy metal like weapons. Objects made of glass smashed against walls and floors. Screaming came from at least two different voices inside the domicile, and from somewhere else deep within those troubled walls I could hear the worn and exhausted sound of children crying.

I did what I could to ignore the state of affairs in this rueful haunt and parked behind a van three houses up from Evelyn Claxton’s place. I was in the jeep with the top up and no windows. I was the only person, so far as I could tell, braving the elements that night. I studied Mrs. Claxton's humble abode through my binos and came up with a nineteen fifties style tract house that seemed to be on the verge of collapse. The entire front porch appeared to be sinking into the front yard. I couldn't tell in the dark if there was actually a lawn on not beneath the litter, but near the center of the yard, at the base of a leafless tree, there was a hole of some sort. It looked as though the earth had caved in at that one spot. Perhaps some shaft abandoned long ago gave way during one of our more recent earthquakes. It was too dark to tell exactly why it was there or what lay at its bottom, but for a moment, with the rise of a sudden sharp breeze, I could have sworn that dark recess to be the source from which the toxic odor permeated the neighborhood.

The trailer that had been the home of Dwight and Ivy Claxton sat on the driveway in front of the garage. It looked abandoned and crude in the fog, surrounded by litter. A single suitcase lay open on the asphalt beneath a shattered window, containing the remains of what appeared to be at one time woman's underclothing. That is before the underclothing had been set afire. A perfect empty six pack of beer sat beside the suitcase, along with a pile of cigarette butts. The suitcase, the empty six pack, and the butts all looked like they been left sitting there for a very long time. In a weird sort of way everything seemed to fit into place. I couldn't imagine anyone who lived there ever cleaning anything up. Certainly not Evelyn Claxton who chose this moment to open her front door and stagger out onto the porch, drink in hand, while screaming with great intensity at the source of her annoyance. She clearly wanted her neighbors to turn down the volume on their stereo and to “just shut the fuck up…”

Evelyn struck me as a no nonsense sort of person. She stood on the porch waiting for the sound of her voice to penetrate the wall of sound and take effect. She waited in vain, growing angrier by the moment, for this obviously wasn't the sort of block where its occupants gave much thought, let alone consideration, to their neighbors. Silhouetted by the light from within her home she didn't particularly appear to be the motherly type. In fact she didn't look much over forty. Like her daughter-in-law, I presumed she had married young, perhaps at fifteen or sixteen years of age. But mother she was, whether she liked it or not, for through the large picture window, revealing a living room in a state of total disarray, I was able to count the heads bobbing in front of a giant TV screen. Four of them, altogether—by name, age, and attitude, Ivy had run them down for me. The twenty-something was Billy Claxton and according to Ivy he was the one you wanted to keep your eye on. Dwight looked mean and he could be, but he was never in any great hurry to risk having his ass kicked, whereas Billy was a little different in that area. He also towed cars for a living, also for Oakley’s. The other three were just kids. Lucy, the youngest, was eight or nine, Sally, fourteen, and Bart sixteen. They weren't the brightest candles on the cake, but seldom did they allow themselves to get caught at anything greater than a misdemeanor, and in their own way, mostly through shoplifting, they collectively made a sizable contribution to the household.

Evelyn finished her drink and shouted something over her shoulder and the youngest child, Lucy, hurried through the house to the porch. Evelyn handed Lucy her empty glass and the child disappeared inside the house. A moment later she was back with another drink and a pre-lit cigarette. Evelyn took both without a word and continued her vigil on the house up the street. Lucy returned to her station in front of the TV.

I calculated I had seen enough. There was no sign of little Eve and I felt confident she was not staying with grandma. Tomorrow I would concentrate on Dwight. By then I hoped Ivy might be on her way to resolving custody in court. All I wanted now was to call it a night and I was just waiting for Evelyn to lose interest in the local domestic squabble and go back to her TV so I could slip out of the neighborhood unnoticed. But, apparently, she was determined to establish peace in her time. She polished off her drink and tossed the glass into the hole in her front yard. From behind the front door she grabbed what appeared to be, in the fragmented light and shadow of her porch, a tire iron or metal pipe of some sort, and started down across her lawn and up the street towards the source of her immediate frustration.

She walked right past me without even casting a single curious glance in my direction. I sank as low as I could into the front seat and looked straight ahead, and just to play it safe I kept my hand on the ignition. When she passed, she left a scent of some very expensive perfume and a more than a touch of gin. Her features tightened angrily with purpose and I observed that the object she carried with her like a baton was indeed a small tire iron. She stopped in the street in front of the house and muttered obscenely under her breath something about how all she only ever wanted out of her one life was just a little peace and quiet. With that sentiment out of the way she tread forcefully across the lawn towards her neighbor's house and rapped gently upon their door with the business end of the tire iron.

She rapped three times and three times she left holes in the door. Light streamed through the holes. No one in the house appreciated her neighborly concern. The already loud voices within increased in volume. A few neighbors glanced cautiously out from their windows and doors and apparently seeing nothing unusual returned to their evening routines.

Eventually a man opened the door. A woman stood behind him. A small dog ran between their legs and stopped on the porch in front of Evelyn—a small rodent-like animal so nervous you could keep time to it. The man and the woman stood there stupidly taking in the new holes in their front door, obviously stunned by their sudden and noisy appearance. The man even poked a finger through one of the holes, as though taking its measure against the effort it might take to repair it someday. The woman leaned against him, her hand resting against his shoulder for support, to get a better look. They were an odd couple. He was pushing more than forty and no longer had any business being shirtless. She was dressed in tight shorts and a halter-top and sported a sagging imitation of the frosty blond shag haircut that was popular twenty-five years ago. I couldn't tell if they were married or not, but they both looked very familiar with screwing up.

After the happy couple finished examining the holes they got down to business. I couldn't really hear what they were saying, but while they were obviously pissed they were also wary of the crazy neighbor woman with the tire iron standing on their porch in front of them. Evelyn initially let them do all they talking, turning her attention from one to the other, as she drummed the tire iron lightly against the palm of her left hand. After a while they were through talking. The couple looked at each other as though pausing to check their score and about the time they realized they hadn't done all that well Evelyn took over. She did this by kicking their dog out of the way and putting another hole in the door with the tire iron only an inch or two away from the man's head. Once she was sure she had their complete and undivided attention she started talking. She spoke so softly the couple had to lean in towards her to get her every word. It was one of the few moments in my life when I truly wanted to hear what someone else had to say. Whatever it was they seemed to agree with her. The woman backed away from the door and a moment later the heavy metal was turned way down. Evelyn waited for the woman's return to finish up her business with them. By the time she left everything seemed to be settled. There were even smiles on the faces of the couple as they closed the door behind her.

Evelyn strolled back, across her neighbor's lawns, tire iron in hand, and towards her own home. Lucy, Sally and Bart watched her approach through the living room window. When she reached the porch Bart slunk away. I hung around to watch. Through the binos I saw Billy surf through the television channels like a pro, pausing at some porno channel, which he kept on, even after his mom reentered the house. Sally had a drink and a cigarette waiting for her. A good child knows how to tend to his or her parent's needs. Evelyn tossed the tire iron into a corner and plopped herself down in the easy chair. The girls shared the couch. Bart had gone out the back way and came around the side of the house. He carried a skateboard in one hand and a joint in the other. The thick scent of marijuana followed him up the street. At the corner he jumped on his skateboard and scooted off into the night. No one in his home appeared to miss him. In its own weird way, framed by the large window, the Claxton residence resembled some demented version of a Norman Rockwell portrait of the American dream: the serene mother in repose, with drink and cigarette, surrounded by her doting children, with an intoxicated smile plastered across her face that stated, purely and simply, that all was indeed well with the world.
CHAPTER SIX

Ivy Claxton liked her new lawyer. He was her kind of people. Except for his trust fund, Darrell Maguire was a down-home sort of guy. In his standard uniform of faded black jeans and corduroy sports coat he could have passed easily for your basic, unreformed Berkeley sixties styled radical that he in fact was. He was always pissed about something or another and routinely used his law degree as a license to get even with what he nostalgically referred to as the establishment. Personally I thought he had a messiah complex, but he was one of the few people I knew I could trust, no matter what, even when I disagreed with him. Which was a great deal of the time. Eugene was first on that short list, and this joker I knew down in Costa Rica, Jack Monroe, was third. What Ivy liked best about Darrell was that he immediately took her side.

Darrell believed without a doubt that the child should stay with the mother. In most cases, unless the mother was totally unhinged and the father was the one who could provide a stable and emotionally secure environment, which he doubted Dwight Claxton could do, those men, generally, who wanted custody of their children usually had ulterior motives. The guy who got dumped was the one who wanted the kids. A revenge thing, because, obviously, the ex is having too much fun screwing around to fulfill her motherly duties. If the husband was the one doing the dumping then it was just the opposite. Guys just don't want a bunch of kids hanging around as a rule. Especially when it's party time.

I figured Darrell should know. On his desk was a picture of two kids, a boy and a girl, about the ages of eight or nine when the picture was taken, about ten years ago. I met the wife once at a party right after they broke up. I forgot exactly who did the dumping in that one. But she got the kids. I flipped through my rollerdex-like memory and came up with a name: Carol. Carol McGuire. She lived in Berkeley. The kids were Patrick and Denise and they were in college now. The girl was studying law, just like her dad. Carol was an activist, a militant feminist, I believe. It occurred to me now that perhaps neither of them did the dumping. Chances were they had never truly been married.

Both of them had new relationships. According to Darrell his former soul mate, Carol, was seeing some overly sensitive asshole she'd met at some demonstration. "Some guy who isn’t afraid to cry," he had said, contemptuously.

Darrell, who was also known to shed a tear on occasion himself, was seeing—I should say, living with—a former client, who now, as we spoke, was currently working for him as his legal aide. Her name was Mary Lockhart. She was the sensitive type too.

"I know what you're thinking," Darrell said.

"No you don't," I shot back.

"What about me?" Ivy Claxton demanded. "What about little Eve?"

Darrell and I looked at her. She was almost an entirely different person. Mary, of all people, had straightened her out, at least as far as her appearance would go before the court. The young tough was gone and in her place sat a young woman who looked like she was ready for her first corporate interview. She was wearing a dark blue dress-suit and black shoes. Her hair was neatly trimmed and broke cheerfully at her shoulders. Her smile was nervous but genuine and she looked as though she was more than prepared to throw herself on the mercy of the court. What I liked best about her at the moment was there was now just a tiny hole in her nose where there once had been a diamond.

"Dwight won't contest the divorce," Darrell attempted to explain to her. "But his claim is that you betrayed him sexually, that you deserted your family, and therefore he wants the court to grant him custody of your daughter."

"Well, he can't…" Ivy stopped him.

"His lawyer…" Darrell continued.

And Ivy was up and whining. I watched her from where I stood in the corner of Darrell's office by the window. She leaned on small fists across his desk. "I don't give a fuck about his lawyer!"

"You should," Darrell said calmly. "He's Maxie Gray."
.
"No shit," I said.

Ivy looked at me, then at Darrell. She didn't see what the big deal was. "I know him," she said. "That last time Dwight was accidentally arrested Maxie got him out of jail."

Darrell looked at me, then he looked at her. "You don't say," was all he said.

"Yeah, we're old friends," Ivy explained. "He's a scumbag. Dwight's in jail and Maxie hitting on me. I couldn't believe it. He's old enough to be my father."

"And he doesn't play fair, either," I said.

"What do you mean?"

Darrell coughed and folded his hands together in front of him on his desk. He looked like he was practicing to be a father who knew best. He explained to Ivy how divorce courts and custody hearings worked and how lawyers like Maxie Gray operated. He told her all those jokes she heard about lawyers started with him. Or somebody just like him, but no one worse. He told her how the more positive aspects of her character, those principles that come from what she had learned from the various trials and tribulations of her young life, stood a very good chance, in the hands of counselor Maxie Gray, of being irrevocably destroyed in court.

"Your name, your reputation, your virtue will all be called into question," Darrell stated. "Your entire life will be laid bare and examined by strangers. Gray will ask you about your education, your employment, your income. He will examine you about your habits. How many cigarettes you smoke each day, how much liquor you consume, how many drugs you use."

"I don't use drugs," Ivy declared, indignantly. "Dwight's the one who's always stoned. He's ripped almost everyday. He won't even look at his truck unless he's got a six pack of beer and three joints. I don't know how he gets anything done."

"The point," Darrell said. "Is that Maxie Gray will ask the questions. He'll ask them in such a way that will make you look suspect no matter what the truth is."

"Can't you drag Dwight's name through the mud?" Ivy asked. "Can't you ruin his reputation?"

"We can certainly try," Darrell said. "But we have to leave some space for Eve. The welfare of the child is at stake. Part of my strategy will be in presenting you as the kinder, gentler person, a nurturer, someone who can provide a warm and loving home for a young girl to grow up in. To get drawn into a mudsling with Maxie Gray is to get dragged down to their level. By avoiding that I intend to make the greater impression on the court. As it stands now they're going in with certain advantages."

Ivy leaned forward in her seat, her eyes narrowing to points. "Such as?"

"The differences between your ages, income, and property. These things represent stability. The court will appraise them accordingly. On the other hand there seems to be some concern on our part as to the exact nature of Mr. Claxton's employment, his income, and therefore his ability to provide a secure and beneficial environment for your child."

It took some time for Ivy to put that together. At one point I thought she might laugh. Her mouth opened, then closed, her head spun towards me, then back to Darrell. Then she nodded as though a door had just opened for her.

"Dwight tows cars for the city," she said, without much conviction. "You know, cars parked illegally or abandoned or whatever, doesn't he?"

Darrell shrugged and glanced in my direction; Ivy followed his glance to mine.

"I have my doubts," I said. "I watched Oakley's Garage for a few hours and definitely got the impression that whatever is going on there isn't kosher."

Kosher was a new word for her, so I explained: "I think they're stealing cars. That's what I suspect. And apparently, someone else suspects that, also."

"You mean the police?"

"That would be my guess."

"We have to get little Eve away from that man."

CHAPTER SEVEN

That man, Ivy's husband, Dwight Claxton, looked a little too good in court to be true. His hair had been trimmed and pulled back behind his head in a short ponytail, he was clean-shaven and reeking of cologne, and his boots were a highly polished gunmetal gray. Between his boots and his sunglasses he wore a stylish dark blue, double-breasted silk suit. The sunglasses utterly failed to conceal the contempt he felt for his surroundings. He appeared to be on nodding if not exactly speaking terms with just about everyone there, from the bailiff right down to the recorder. His grin, which was largely crooked, vanished at the request of his attorney, Maxie Gray, as did his shades. At least without them he seemed somewhat disarmed if not altogether reasonable.

Maxie Gray was another story altogether. His reputation preceded him and most of the eyes in the gallery were on him. He looked just like a man comfortable with his notoriety. The media loved him and the cops hated him. He took great pride in getting the guilty off; he bragged that keeping outlaws out of jail was one of the few true revolutionary acts. Personally, I suspected he was more rebel than revolutionary. Most days he could be seen arriving at court on his super white Harley Davidson Sportster, wearing what had to be the largest Cowboy hat ever made. And when not in court he could be found, as often as not, at the bar and grill known as the Kangaroo Court, up on Sixth Street, rubbing elbows with just about anyone who could get his name in the papers.

When Darrell and Ivy entered the courtroom Gray pointed a finger at Darrell like a pistol and pulled the imaginary trigger. Darrell gave him a thumbs-up and directed Ivy towards their table. The two lawyers grinned at each other like the old friends they definitely were not, then went about their business, ignoring each other, and conferring with their clients. Ivy did her best to ignore her husband, but she looked scared to me. The one time she glanced towards Dwight he was already glaring at her, his lips forming silent obscenities like some schoolyard bully. She paled and looked away, and for a moment I thought she was going to bolt for the door.

I hung back and sat in the last row of the gallery, disguised by a thick pair of horn-rimmed glasses and a scarf pulled over my hair. I didn't know Dwight or Gray or any of their cohorts, although I did recognize a face or two from Oakley's Garage. I could tell by the way they were giggling that they were there to give their pal moral support, for when Dwight did break his cruel stare away from Ivy, and saw them sitting there, obviously stoned out of their minds and munching on popcorn, he shook his head and grinned at them appreciably. A moment later he was back to business, leveling his coldest gaze against his young wife.

The wheels of Divorce court moved slowly and methodically. I knew the judge from the previous testimonies I had given on behalf of past clients. When she saw me sitting in the back of her court she almost smiled. Her name was Beatrice Freedman and she was somewhere in her fifties. She ruled her court wearily, rarely taking sides, and with little patience for theatrics. I watched her sizing up the lawyers in front of her, first Maxie Gray, then Darrell. She didn't appear overjoyed to see either one of them, and after she stopped looking at Darrell she shot one final glance in my direction before casting a neutral eye towards Ivy. Ivy looked like she was still in high school compared to Dwight, who, even in his best suit, was beginning to look more and more like a cradle robber.

Judge Freedman took her time getting things started. She poured water into a glass and sipped from the glass as she examined and signed a series of court documents. Occasionally she paused to peer in a somewhat puzzled manner over her reading glasses at Ivy or Dwight as though she were having a difficult time matching their appearances with the complaints they were leveling against each other. Dwight's buddies found all this quite amusing and twice their laughter broke up the monotonous quiet of the courtroom, and twice Freedman admonished them to be quiet, reminding them that they were in a court of law, and subject to that law should they fail to conduct themselves accordingly. Contempt of court was a serious matter and one not to be taken lightly. They could find themselves fined and even possibly sentenced with time in jail should they continue in this vein.

Maxie Gray apologized to the court. Judge Freedman sighed. Dwight's pals struggled against laughing. I thought they both might choke on their shirttails. They were witnesses for his client, Gray explained. They had testimony that would confirm Ivy Claxton's inability to properly care for her child. He guaranteed their conduct. Freedman shook her head skeptically, and replied that she would guarantee his. Ivy swiveled in her chair and looked back across the gallery at the two men. At first she was confused, and then she was pissed.

Ivy knew them of course. I could see her putting it together. She turned to Darrell and started whispering quickly, and I read every word: Lying sons of bitches--Freedman cast a dubious eye towards Darrell who silenced Ivy with a finger.

The judge drank more water and motioned for the counselors to begin. Darrell opened first with an account of Ivy's departure from the Claxton home as being not a matter of desertion but clearly a matter of necessity, motivated by fear and concern not only for her own welfare but that of her child. He pointed out that Ivy did not merely move to another area and go on welfare, but sought out hard, honest labor, while seeing to her daughter's education by enrolling little Eve in a public school. Ivy took her wedding vows very seriously. Indeed, she did not choose to be here now. It was entirely the actions of her husband, the father of her child, who drove her not only out of her small home, but out of the city to a small, obscure locale in another part of the state, where, even five hundred miles away, she was still unsafe from the reach of her husband: Dwight Claxton. The same Dwight Claxton who followed his wife down to that small beach-side community where he abducted their daughter, Eve, from the very school in which she was enrolled, and who, so far, has successfully managed to keep the child cruelly separated from her mother to this day.

Maxie Gray interpreted Ivy's flight from her warm and caring husband as simply a straight, forward case of desertion--and child stealing. A desertion motivated by her extreme youth and immaturity. There she was a wife and a mother, a mother of a seven-year old daughter, at twenty-three years of age, and a woman, who rather than feeling liberated through the gifts of maternal responsibilities felt trapped. While her peers were out enjoying themselves, living the good life, as she would selfishly see it, she was trapped at home with the honest labor of childcare and homemaking. Trapped, indentured, enslaved. So, while her husband was at work, working as he did each day, nearly everyday, six sometimes seven days a week, often throughout the night, Ivy planned and executed what she thought would be the perfect getaway. And so she abandoned her husband, taking their only child, little Eve, with her to Oceanside, California, where she took up residence with an old boyfriend of hers, an enlisted member in the Marine Corps. “And that's where she ran away to,” Maxie declared, pointing a thick finger at Ivy, “with her husband's only child, into the arms of her lover.”

Ivy’s mouth fell open. Darrell objected. Everyone in court heard Ivy call Maxie Gray a liar. Judge Freedman admonished Ivy to be quiet. Gray stated that he intended to prove to the court Ivy's infidelity. Darrel stated flatly that any and all accusations made by Dwight Claxton through his legal representation against his client would prove only to be fabrications of a purely malicious nature and therefore subject to those laws pertaining to perjury in the State of California and the County of San Francisco. Gray stated that he had no intention of allowing his client to commit perjury and that he was outraged by such an accusation, especially as it came from a colleague of the bar. Judge Freedman overruled Darrell's objection and stated that all accusations leveled in her court now or in the future would have to be substantiated and that she was, thank you, very much, Mr. McGuire, thoroughly aware of the statutes concerning perjury.

Then suddenly Ivy spoke up, pleading with Judge Freedman for a word with the court. Before Darrell could rein her in she was wringing her heart out. She stated tearfully that not once had she ever been unfaithful to her husband. And that it hurt her to hear it suggested otherwise. She loved Dwight when she first married him and maybe she even loved him now. But she just couldn't live with him anymore because of his mean ways. She just never knew what to expect from him. He was crazy most of the time. Jealous crazy. Maybe it was from the stress that came from stealing all those cars. But he was just getting worse and here he was now sitting in court getting ready to spin all those lies about her cheating on him. Maybe if he'd just get a real job during the daytime instead of at night…

As Dwight listened to her he seemed to stop breathing. His face lost all color and his mouth started working overtime for air. With one hand he clutched his heart, and with his other, Maxie Gray's shoulder. For a moment there I nearly believed he wasn't going to make it, but then he caught his breath. Sucked it in actually, as though through a crushed straw, so that the air wheezed narrowly into his lungs, and then upon release broke with a death-like rattle from between his lips that caused spines to tingle and hair to stand on end. And then, before lawyer Gray could raise a single objection to Ivy's sudden and potentially hazardous appeal to the court for honesty, Dwight started swearing.

At Ivy.

It was something to see, right there in the middle of the courtroom. I could hardly believe my eyes, let alone my ears. Ivy just stood there and took it like a trooper as Dwight went off the deep end. His outburst lasted close to a full minute. One of those well-rounded slow motion minutes that seem to stretch out forever. Occasionally Ivy would try to say something but she really couldn't get a word in edgewise. Within seconds she was reduced to just rolling her eyes, and shrugging as she cast embarrassed glances towards Judge Freedman.

Finally her Honor, in a move taken straight from one of the great texts of law, pounded her gavel, and demanded that there be order in the court. This took some time and several more poundings and a finding of contempt and the threat of jail. And even then the silence that followed was due more to Dwight's limited vocabulary than any threat uttered against him by a court of law. He just ran out of four letter words. He sat there frowning, his eyebrows knit together, as he searched in vain for the final word.

Unfortunately his wife, Ivy, possessed that word. "You see, your Honor," she said, so softly that even the judge had to cup her ears. "Dwight really isn't mature enough to cope with the responsibility that comes with having a family. Can I have my child back now?"

Maxie Gray wasted no time objecting. He instantly jumped to his feet and pointing a finger at Darrell, accused his colleague of employing highly unethical methods to undermine his client's case. Gray went on to state that Mr. Claxton should not be held responsible for the behavior he displayed just moments earlier, as his outburst was due to the side effects of a certain medication prescribed for him by his doctor. As Mr. Claxton suffers from chronic pain--due to an injury he received while serving his country--he is often perceived as been irritable and impatient with others. The medication, while alleviating a certain amount of the pain he is forced to endure, leaves him psychologically unprepared to deal constructively with the sudden surprises or shocks that would have little or no effect whatsoever on a normally healthy individual. This condition, of course, as well as the side effects of his medication, would be well known to his wife, who obviously felt no compunction about using them against him, as her Honor had in fact just witnessed.
 CHAPTER EIGHT

Judge Freedman surrendered to the inevitable. She asked Lawyer Gray to produce proof of Mr. Claxton's illness, along with copies of his prescriptions for the court to study. When Maxie gleefully obliged her Honor by immediately producing from his brief case a thick envelope, that he stated contained all of his client's medical records for the past seventeen years, including prescriptions, and receipts for said prescriptions, along with the various medical reasons why his client could not maintain steady employment, Judge Freedman cocked her head wearily from Gray to Dwight, from Dwight to Ivy, from Ivy to Darrell, then back to Gray whom she considered for a painfully long moment before commenting not only on the fastidious of his preparation but of his extreme and rare dedication to his calling. When he thanked her for her generous words, she informed him that his gratitude was quite unnecessary. She then recessed until she could study Mr. Claxton's medical history and determine for herself whether or not he should be held in contempt for his outburst. She set a date for exactly one week later and adjourned her court.

I left before any of the bad guys could notice me. I planned on connecting with Darrell later for an early dinner at Ferdinand's, a Mexican place close to his office on Twenty Fourth Street. In the meantime I thought since I was in the neighborhood I would stop by and say hello to my Godfather, Eugene Cipriani, a police captain, whose office was on the fifth floor. Instead I ran into John ‘Doc’ Christmas standing with another man by the elevators. He saw through my meager disguise and pointed a thin finger at me.

"And how is the bird watching?" He asked. "I'm sure you were able to count any number of species in these parts. I do believe in these halls you may find roosting at a given moment a narrow but nonetheless colorful variety of the species known as gallus domesticus, common to the denser populated urban areas."

"Yes," I said. "I've counted quite a few already."

"Splendid," he said, stifling a cough with his fist. "I understand they are quite adaptable and tend to thrive under captivity."

The man with him winced at the sound of his cough and impatiently jabbed the down button for the elevator even though it had already been pushed. He was tall, an inch or so over six feet, and on the slender side, and looked to be about thirty-five. He had a walrus mustache and I remembered him as the man I had seen with Christmas at Nellie's. I sized him up as some sort of cop or another. The pistol, a Colt .45, he wore on his belt, under his jacket, confirmed my suspicion. Christmas introduced him to me as an old friend, Frame Johnson. Frame nodded politely and jabbed the button again.

"Christ," he said. "This is one slow elevator."

"Oh, what's the hurry, Frame?" John Christmas asked. "It's not like I have a job to be at."

Frame Johnson glanced first at me, suspiciously, then at Christmas, impatiently, and then he sighed. "You just shouldn't be here, Doc, that's all."

Christmas shrugged and winked at me. "This is as good a place as any; I have always found wandering the halls of justice extremely satisfying and great solace in knowing their doors will always be open to me."

"Oh for Christ's sake," Frame Johnson muttered, as he looked over my shoulder.

I turned and saw Dwight Claxton, his Attorney, Maxie Gray, and Dwight’s two friends approaching the elevator. Maxie Gray was doing the talking and Dwight's friends the laughing. Dwight looked a wee bit glum, as though he'd just lost his wife or something. Curiously, Frame Johnson did a slow fade, by edging sideways from Christmas and pushing the up button. But I did pretty much the same, keeping my back to Claxton, and hoping Gray didn't know me--for we were both fairly well known in this part of town. Christmas watched us all in a bemused fashion, rubbing his chin, and greeting Dwight with the point of his cane like an old friend. Which, apparently, was not a sentiment Dwight shared.

Dwight took one look at Christmas, choked up some phlegm, and seeing no convenient container to deposit it in, spat anyway. "Well, fuck you, Christmas. What the hell are you doing down here?"

"My civic duty, Dwight."

"Your civic duty, shit..."

"Yes, you see, I was ticketed for parking in a handicapped zone, which of course, as anyone can see, I am, and so the matter was settled easily enough--after awhile. But I do have to get one of those blue things for the car."

"That old Caddy of yours?" Dwight snorted. "You ought to just lose that piece that shit and let the city take care of it."

"But it's going to be a classic someday."

Gray eyed Christmas coolly, casting only a disinterested glance first in my direction, then at Frame. "A friend of yours?" Gray asked Dwight suspiciously.

Dwight shook his head. "Christmas? Fuck no. We just play cards occasionally, across the street, at Nellie's. Ain't that right, professor?"

"I play cards," Christmas said. "And you write bad checks."

"Fuck you."

Dwight's two buddies snickered. They were a pair of squirrels if ever I saw any, young and stupid and covered with jailhouse tattoos. They were both wearing Oakley Garage shirts and nametags--Claymore and Cruz. Claymore was the scarier of the two. The smile on his face was thin and cruel, as were his eyes: a pair of dark beady squints, made falsely warm by a face-full of freckles beneath a shock of red hair. Hair redder than my own. Cruz on the other hand was very definitely not a member of Mensa. He had the dull, empty eyes of an idiot and the telltale grin of a dupe. They buzzed around Dwight, Gray, and Christmas like a pair of flies waiting for something to die. But Christmas ignored them as he would insects. And it was Cruz who zeroed in on Frame Johnson.

"Hey, I know you, dude" Cruz said. "You're a cop."

Dwight and Gray forgot about Christmas to check out Frame, who glared back at them from the corner of his eye.

"Johnson," Gray recited. "Fed—Deputy Marshall. You're from Kansas or is it Illinois?"

"Who cares?" Dwight asked.

"Kansas," Gray said. "Very definitely Kansas. You and your brothers, right?"

Frame turned towards Gray, getting larger somehow as he faced them. Dwight, Claymore and Cruz each stepped back. Gray, however, stood his ground. Christmas watched, a small smile playing against his lips.

"Kansas," Frame said. "Then Arizona. Last year. Down by the border."

Gray smiled professionally. I glanced at him briefly and saw him thinking like a lawyer. His eyes blinked digital print. "You son of a bitch," he said.

Frame winked one blue eye at him.

The air around the two of them became very still. Dwight and his buddies didn't like it. They backed off a few feet nervously as though to keep out of harms way should anything suddenly start happening. Christmas leaned against the wall watching, in a bemused manner, his eyes darting from Frame to Gray, from Gray to Dwight, From Dwight to Claymore and Cruz, and occasionally to me. He held his cane in one hand, lightly slapping it against an open palm. I had no idea what was being communicated between Maxie Gray and Frame Johnson for it seemed to be passed subliminally, as though on another frequency, but I knew Christmas was tuned into it. I could tell that much from just the way his eyes sparkled.

The dull tone of the elevator cut their game short. I sighed in relief and when the doors finally opened I was the first one on board. Christmas followed me and took a space by my side. He smelled of Bay Rum and bourbon, and stifled a cough with a handkerchief. Gray and Dwight, and Claymore and Cruz squeezed in behind us. Frame waited for the next elevator, the one going up, and when I last saw him that afternoon he was standing with his hands on his hips, the weapon on his belt exposed, and staring at Gray with a gaze as hard as steel.


CHAPTER NINE

The moment the elevator doors closed and we started down Dwight voiced his opinion on Frame Johnson: “If that son of a bitch wants to play games then he ought to come down to my playground. I’ll kick his ass into the middle of next week.”

Claymore concurred: "Dude's a hard ass down here at Sixth and Bryant, but you take that badge off him he's just one more chump."

Cruz said: "Fucking A."

Christmas offered his personal appraisal of Frame Johnson in a lilting voice: "If you ask me, he seemed to be a perfectly decent sort of individual—that is, for a representative of the law. I sort of liked him."

Gray said: "Nobody asked you."

They didn’t seem to notice or care that I was there, standing just behind them, and they spoke freely, pausing only when the elevator came to a halt before a floor and its doors slid open. They positioned themselves, like teenage toughs, in the front of the compartment, effectively blocking anyone else from getting on. And they certainly weren't getting off until they hit bottom. Dwight, Claymore and Cruz seemed to take an abnormal delight in intimidating others. After each floor they would look at each other and crack up. But Gray was obviously unnerved by having seen Frame Johnson. I could see him thinking things over and a moment later the light bulb going on over his head. He took Dwight by his arm and pulled him to his side.

"Johnson's a U.S. Marshal," Gray whispered urgently.

"Yeah," Dwight said, "so?"

"So?" whispered Gray, "Did you happen to hear where the son of a bitch said he was working last year?"

Dwight thought for a moment, then shrugged. "No," he said.

"He said he was working Arizona. Down by the border. He was looking right at you when he said it."

"Yeah, well, what about it?"

Gray sighed and looked away, and in frustration rubbed a hand over his face, like Moe of the Three Stooges. "Jesus fucking Christ," he said. "What the hell happened down there last year, anyway?”

"Down where?"

"In Mexico."

“Mexico?” Dwight made thinking look like a painful process. His brow furrowed, his eyes narrowed into tight little slits, and he took hold of his crotch with one hand, but the thoughts were just a wee bit beyond his grasp.

Christmas helped him along. "You must be referring to that terrible incident in Skeleton Canyon?"

Dwight did a slow burn. I watched the back of his ears turn a bright red. “Goddamn,” he said softly to himself. And then he yelled. “THAT SON OF A BITCH!”

Claymore and Cruz immediately made themselves small and scrambled for space at the back of the elevator, pinning me against the wall. They smelled of alcohol, grass, cigarettes and sweat. Cruz had a woman’s name tattooed in thick blue ink on the back of his neck, Jorgina Martinez. Oddly enough, they still didn’t appear to be aware of my presence, which was fine with me. I didn’t want any of these guys even looking at me. Gray, however, followed his eyes over his shoulder until they reached Christmas. They were like a hard pair of dark green marbles. "And what do you know about Skeleton Canyon?"

"Only what I read in the papers," Christmas said, innocently. "The authorities down there in Mexico--that God forsaken country--ambushed Dwight's father and some of his friends in Skeleton Canyon and killed them dead. Over some vehicles, wasn't it Dwight? Stolen Vehicles, I believe."

Dwight screwed his face tight. He looked liked someone who couldn't tell if the joke was on him or not.

"Or was it drugs your old man was smuggling?” Christmas asked, scratching his head. “I remember reading about it at the time, but unfortunately I seem to forget exactly which it was.”

"Cars," Dwight said lamely. "Sports cars."

"At any rate," Christmas said, "it was a tragedy and you have my condolences."

"Whoever you are," Gray said, just as the elevator ground to a halt, "you are definitely full of shit."

Dwight was the first one out and in his hurry he collided with a couple waiting to get on. Claymore and Cruz followed him, and Claymore deliberately ran into the man from his other side, and when he saw there was a woman with the man he gave the man an added little shove just to make the right impression. And then they were gone, the four of them, Maxie Gray in the lead, his mouth moving as fast as his feet.

I watched them through the windows by the lobby doors as they crossed Bryant Street, where they parted company, Gray up Sixth Street towards the Kangaroo Court and Dwight and his buddies climbing into an old white Van parked in the alley across the street. Cruz drove, pulling into traffic without looking to see where he was going. A bus nearly hit them, but the driver avoided collision by swerving into the left lane. There was a lot of horn work over that one and a lot of profanity, but Cruz plowed on, pushing his thirty year old van far ahead of its time, and leaving in his wake a trail of exhaust, dark and thick enough to choke an oilman.

A voice interrupted my thoughts.

"Those boys are bound for an unhappy ending," John Christmas declared, obviously pleased that he had been able to sneak up on me. Apparently the top part of his cane was a flask and he was just screwing the top back on when I turned around. In the florescent glare of the Justice Building he looked worse than he had at Nellie's. He was a ghostly pale, with dark circles under his eyes, but close up I now noticed how well he was dressed, in a very expensive tan tropical wool suit—a little too well, I thought, for someone who rented a room behind a photography studio South of Market.

"Who's Frame Johnson?" I asked.

"Not a friend of theirs," he said.

"And you?"

"A friend of Frame's."

"And you're being here is just a coincidence?"

"No more than you being here." He nodded at my thin disguise, sunglasses and scarf. "Why one so charming would choose to conceal her beauty from the world is simply beyond my ken."

I didn't thank him for the compliment; I wasn't even sure if it was one. "I'm working for Ivy Claxton," I said. "Dwight Claxton's wife."

Christmas nodded. "I've seen her around."

"They've separated; they're divorcing. But Dwight has their only child and Ivy wants custody of her."

Christmas suddenly covered his mouth with his hand and began coughing violently. For a moment I thought he might just die, right there and then. He spun away from me and sank into the nearest corner, where, coughing still, he unscrewed the top of his cane and removed a pint sized vial, the shape of a test tube, filled with a dark and obviously potent medicine that he swallowed as though it was water. It smelled like bourbon and the smell this early in the day caused me to shudder, but it worked and a moment later Christmas was through coughing and had struggled back to his feet.

"I beg your pardon," he uttered hoarsely into his fist.

I told him not to mention it, which he didn't, and we politely chose to ignore his illness, and continued with our conversation.

"Anyway," I said, "that's why they were all here today, to begin custody proceedings. But you knew that, didn't you?"

A Cheshire cat like smile spread across his gaunt features. His coughing fit had worn him out; perspiration dampened his face and his breath was labored. "I admit, Ms. O'Shea, that I have you at a disadvantage."

"I bet you do, You and Frame Johnson. You're both marshals, aren't you?"

"Frame is a U.S. Marshal," he said, "and I am, due to my precarious state, self-employed. Whatever my contribution has been to upholding the law has been entirely involuntary and, I assure you, at odds with my general disposition."

"So what are you," I inquired. "A detective, bounty hunter, informant?"

"At the moment I am a little bit drunk," he said. "But I will tell you this much: I have been watching Claxtons for quite some time now and I can’t say that I care much for them."

CHAPTER TEN

“They’re brothers. Four of them,” my Godfather, Captain Eugene Cipriani, explained. “A family act. Three of them are in law enforcement. The other is a bartender. Maybe he even owns the bar.” Eugene wasn't sure which. A small place in the Mission, with an Asian name. Two of the Johnson’s were heavyweights. One was local. The youngest, Eugene believed, was the local; he rode a police horse or something in the park. Frame Johnson was a Federal marshal and Homer Johnson was a county sheriff. They were from somewhere in the Midwest. But to Eugene most of the country was the Midwest, up to and including most of New York. He didn't know the youngest Johnson's name, or the names of any of their friends. He had never heard of John Christmas, also known as "Doc."

Eugene told me what he knew in the same tone of voice that he would have used to inform a suspect of his rights. He didn’t particularly approve of my chosen profession. He was old fashioned that way—being a private eye, after all, wasn’t very ladylike. Besides he and his wife, my Godmother, Wyonna, had raised me after my father’s death, and I supposed their expectations had been marginally different from my own. His disposition during working hours was to treat me professionally, and the rest of the time, like a daughter. Sometimes the difference wasn’t all that great. But he was Italian and I was Irish and sometimes the twain didn’t meet. We were in his office, drinking his bad coffee. Tepid, light brown stuff, that he made in one of those makers you plug into the wall. I didn't believe he liked it anymore than I did; I believed he made it only to serve to unwanted guests. When he asked me if I wanted another cup, I said, "Sure."

They—the Johnson brothers—were apparently a mixed bag. They came equipped with reputations as tough, no nonsense sort of guys, who spent a lot of time undercover. And wherever they went they left behind them a trail of rumors and innuendoes. Within law enforcement circles they were either held above suspicion—or beneath it. "Sort of like your father was," Eugene said. "But more political. My impression is that they like San Francisco and they'd like even more to run it."

When I asked Eugene what he knew about a place called Skeleton Canyon located in either Arizona or Mexico, he asked me if I was dating any of the Johnson's. I told him no.

"That's good, Katy, because all the one's I've met are married."

"It's a divorce and child custody case I'm working on. I think the husband is being investigated by Frame Johnson."

"For what?"

"Stolen cars," I said.

Eugene studied me over his coffee. "What happened last year in Skeleton Canyon," he said, "had something to do with stolen cars. If I remember correctly, there was also something about an armored car being held up in Nogales, Mexico. Some federales were killed. Something amounting to forty thousand dollars was stolen."

"Was a Newton Claxton involved in any of this?"

Eugene shrugged; he'd never heard of Newton Claxton. "But the Mexicans were pretty upset. Then they heard from the American side that the suspects who robbed the armored car would be moving some stolen cars through the canyon by night."

"It was a joint operation, then?"

"That's was the story a year ago. I didn't pay much attention; it had nothing to do with the city. But the Mexicans went in there to get even and apparently they killed seven or eight U.S. citizens. All of them career criminals. Except for one, the son of some businessman in Arizona. A successful businessman. The kid was killed and his father raised all sorts of hell. The kid was guilty, but his old man hired some expensive lawyers anyway, to clear the family name. And that's how Frame Johnson and his brothers happened to be transferred out here."

"My client's father-in-law was one of the men killed in Skeleton Canyon," I said.

"Then it's probably not over," Eugene said. "Let me have some names.”

I filled him in to date. He whistled when I told him Maxie Gray was handling Dwight's divorce. He almost called Gray a son of a bitch, then he remembered he was talking to his Goddaughter, so instead he said Gray was one of the lawyers the dead kid’s father had hired. He glanced through his address book and then called one of his colleagues on his phone. They chatted briefly, exchanging greetings like old friends, before he made his request.

"That was Bill Norwood," Eugene said, hanging up the phone. "He's been working auto; he's going to call me back in few minutes."

We spent those few minutes critiquing my personal life. I was getting too old to be wasting my time going through people's dirty laundry. I was well over thirty, single, and drifting through life. I should be thinking about settling down, getting married, and planning for the future. I was an attractive woman and had a lot going for me. I even knew how to type; secretaries did pretty well in San Francisco, and working in a big company was a good way to meet men.

With all that on the table again I was very happy when the goddamned phone rang.

Eugene picked it up and took answers; he made a few notes and then studied them. When he looked at me he had pretty much the whole story.

"Newton Claxton was an old time car thief. He'd been stealing cars since the sixties. Every make imaginable, as long as they were expensive. Worked with a gang; he was the boss. Usually guys younger than him, punks who would look up to a seasoned pro. Boys he met in prison. He and his gang stole cars from all over the country. He had some sort of chop shop in Ventura County. They would steal the cars, strip them, paint them, whatever, and run them down into Mexico and from there, ports unknown."

"I take it this was a major operation," I said. "Stealing cars and selling them overseas?"

Eugene nodded. "Everybody in the world wants to own an expensive car. Even people who don’t like driving."

"What happened in Ventura? How did the Claxtons end up here?"

"The law closed down their business. Newton got away. Some of his younger associates did time. Newton started up in Arizona and worked out of Phoenix, then Tucson, and then somewhere named Sierra Vista, down by the border. Word was Newton's wife chose the Bay Area because she has family here and because she wanted to distance herself from her husband's criminal activities."

I replayed Evelyn Claxton armed with a crowbar as she quieted down her neighborhood. "That's what figured," I said.

"Then came Skeleton Canyon," Eugene said. "Newton was among those killed. Since then the Claxtons have been clean."

I replayed Oakley's Garage: ratty looking tow trucks towing in top of the line sports cars, Dwight Claxton behind the wheel of one. "You said clean," I asked. "I take that to mean the Claxtons here in the Bay Area were investigated at some point?"

Eugene glanced at his notes. "Extensively, so far as anyone knows they’ve gone straight." He smiled sardonically at me. "An old friend of yours led the investigation.”

“What old friend?”

“Frank Donahue, Junior."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Frank Donahue Junior was five years younger than I was. We had some sort of deal. I always called him junior and he always called me bitch, or worse, but usually behind my back. He hated me because his father hated my father and his father hated my father because my father had been the better cop. While my father may have been dead Frank's father was still a mediocre cop. And Frank Junior was following in his footsteps. On the other hand, career wise, the Donahue’s were far more successful cops. Frank—both of them, father and son—were always the favorites among the more self-serving local politicians. What they excelled at was largely pleasing the mayor and his cronies or by assisting only those persons who could most likely assist them later on. What I couldn't figure out though was how Junior had been able to conduct an investigation into a ring of professional car thieves and come up empty handed, when, after only a few hours I was able to observe enough suspicious activity to arouse the curiosity of even the slowest of cops.

Eugene put it this way: "Donahue sat on his butt and did nothing but fill out an empty report because he didn't want to do any work for the Feds. Especially any work they might get the credit for."

That I could believe.

I left Eugene with a promise that I would have dinner with him and my Godmother, Wyonna, before too long. He mentioned this Sunday; I postponed it until the following Sunday. This case would be settled by then, I told him, and I would have plenty of spare time afterwards. He shook his head and returned to his police work. An hour later I was in the Mission, at a place called Ferdinand's.

Darrell and I sat in the booth at the back of the place drinking Corona's and enjoying a dinner of enchiladas, beans and fresh tortillas. Mexican love songs played from a radio, and the owner of the establishment, Gilda Montoya, was busy polishing a long thin sword. The sword was usually displayed on the wall over the matador's hat and cape, where it appeared to be little more than some harmless decoration, but in her hands it looked deadly. The former bullfighter was a dark beauty of around fifty and we were, over a period of many years, just now becoming nodding acquaintances. She loved Darrell of course, but then a lot of people loved Darrell. His office was over her restaurant and every year he did her taxes and every year she got money back.

It was a slow weekday night. The only other patrons were some young poets in the booth in front of ours, and some guy and his girlfriend sitting at the counter. The guy looked like a gangster in an overlarge plaid wool shirt that hung low over his baggy pants, while his girlfriend mostly looked proud and extremely pregnant. The poets guzzled wine from a tall carafe and talked about Paris in the twenties, Pound and Joyce and Stein; the young couple ate tacos and spoke quietly in their native language about money. Gilda worked on her sword, occasionally holding it up to the light, so that it gleamed like silver, as she inspected its metal for flaws.

Darrell talked about children, about the odds against them growing up successfully, about the responsibilities of parenthood, and of the slim chances that lay before them in the future. I suspected he was really talking about little Eve, about her having, on top of everything else, to witness and endure such intense conflict between her parents. His own childhood experience had been, according to him, highly favorable. His loving mother had doted on him and his father, who, like himself, had been a radical lawyer, had instructed him in the manly art of jurisprudence. It was tragic that so many kids go through life without the benefit of familial guidance. You could see for yourself the results crowding the streets. When he started getting a little too sappy about the gift of motherhood I changed the subject.

"Knock it off," I said. "Ivy's young. Eventually she'll grow up. Eve could do worse; it’s her father who’s the problem."

Darrell nodded. "You saw his act today. There’s no way Judge Freedman won't affix custody to a psycho like him."

I pushed my plate away and took my Corona in both hands. It was half full. But the fact of the matter is a half-full bottle of beer is always half empty. "I don't think Dwight is too concerned with who actually gets custody."

"He'll be bound by law to comply with the decision of the court."

"Unless he doesn't feel like it and moves to some other state."

That prospect chilled Darrell to the bone. He put down his knife and fork and rested his chin over a steeple of fingers. "Would he do such a thing?"

"Sure he would," I said. "He's an criminal. It runs in the family. Last year the police killed his father down in Mexico. The senior Claxton was transporting stolen cars and ran them through some ambush jointly organized by U.S. and Mexican authorities. Apparently the Federales were out for revenge and started shooting first. Earlier today in the Hall of Justice I saw one of the U.S. Marshals who participated in the ambush. Frame Johnson. Dwight saw him too; so did Maxie Gray. On the elevator down they figured out that seeing him here in the city was probably not a coincidence."

"Once Claxton's gone," Darrell said, "he could prove extremely difficult to trace."

"I doubt if he uses a social security number."

"Or credit cards."

"Not his, at least."

“Now might be a good time for you to locate Eve.”


Yeah, sure, I thought, now as always would be perfect. "If I can," I said.

It was with that in mind that I found myself an hour later parked beneath a non-working street lamp on Allen Street one block south from Oakley's garage. The front gate was closed but there were lights on inside both the office and garage. Through the binos I observed Claymore standing in the yard smoking a cigarette. He was wearing a dirty blue jumpsuit and had a small air mask hanging around his neck. Behind him I could see Cruz, inside the garage, silhouetted against a stand of heat lamps. He appeared to be painting something. A car door, perhaps, or a hood. Across the street, Nellie's lunchroom was open and busy. I walked over there to get a cup of coffee and a better look at the garage. As I crossed the street a squad car suddenly turned the corner and cruised slowly by. I caught a glimpse of the cop, an older man, by the gray in his mustache, giving Oakley's the once over. He parked a block north, and as I approached Nellie's I could see him studying the street behind him in his rearview mirror.

Nellie recognized me as soon as I opened the door. She pointed to a chair at the counter and I sat down. The place was absolutely hopping. Mostly old people, men and women, though I counted two guys in their late twenties sitting at the counter by the window. They were eating hamburgers and drinking coffee and talking loudly enough for me to hear them. They looked like brothers and were dressed in biker apparel; sleeveless Levi jackets, greasy jeans, and boots. Nellie poured coffee in the cup in front of me and told me the oldies were mostly from the neighborhood. She offered daily specials, one each night for a select clientele. Tonight was seniors, tomorrow the homeless, on Monday’s troubled youth. She wanted everyone to feel welcome.

I sipped my coffee and tried to keep an eye on Oakley's, but the brothers had the best seat in the house, so I watched them instead. They were interesting because after a while I realized they were watching the cop.

One of the brothers referred to the officer by his name, which was White. The second referred to him as a rat-bastard. The first brother said, White's getting out of the squad car now. The second shook his head and said something about being here all goddamned night. The first brother said they would leave before too long; then he said he just saw Graham. The second brother leaned across the counter and placed his hand over his eyes to get a better look through the window. He said Graham looked fucked up. They both laughed. The second one said, Oh shit, Graham is fucked up; White, the prick, sees him too. The first brother asked the second about Ringold, but neither of them could see him. Then the second brother said, shit, would you look at that? The son of a bitch, he's got the gun-

A moment later I heard the gun go off.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I didn't see a thing, but the brothers did—the McDonald brothers, Frank and Tom—from where they were sitting, at the window in Nellie's. They both said the gun went off only after Officer White dropped it. It was the officer's gun. They had seen him draw it from his holster. Yes, there were three shots fired. Just about everyone agreed on that number. Everyone being everyone inside Nellie's, although about one third of Nellie's clientele that night didn't hear any shots fired at all, as their hearing aids were turned down low or off or just not working. Buddy Claymore was the only other witness outside of Nellie's, and he was able to corroborate the version of events presented by the McDonald brothers. And the main point the three of them agreed upon was that the gun belonged to Officer White, who had been acting way out of line. And that it had been Officer White who fired, for no good reason, the first two shots up into the air, over William Graham's head. No one had any idea why Officer White might commit such an illegal and reckless act—unless that is he was simply abusing his authority, as cops are occasionally wont to do. You do, of course, remember Rodney King? Claymore didn't, but he had more than a fair grasp on the concept. Graham wasn't doing a damn thing wrong but minding his own business when the copper started rousting him. But then the officer dropped his gun and that's when the tragedy came to pass. It would seem that Officer White was killed through the accidental discharge of his own pistol. All Graham was guilty of was picking the weapon up, like any honest citizen might do, with the intention of seeing that no further harm came from it. And that's when he got clobbered from behind by that son of a bitch Frame Johnson, who arrived on the scene about a minute too late.

There had been, of course, no threat or assault made against U.S. Deputy Marshal Johnson. That was something that four of the five eyewitnesses absolutely agreed upon. Nobody really knew who Johnson was, anyway, only that he had been the first to arrive on the scene, and that he had knocked Graham senseless with the barrel of his pistol as Graham was attempting to administer first aid to the dying officer. There was a great deal of confusion at that point. Dwight and his younger brother, Billy, were among the first to appear after Marshal Johnson, and they were somewhat disconcerted by what they saw—some asshole with a gun in his hand standing over two bodies in the street. One a badly wounded cop and the other, William Graham who, of course, was not only their supervisor at the garage, where they worked, but one of their closest friends. Of course the Claxton brothers were upset and not a little suspicious. Who wouldn't be? They had no intention of challenging the authority of a duly appointed U.S. Marshal. They were merely there to see for themselves what the fuss was all about, and to lend a helping hand, if they could, to whoever was in need of assistance. That Dwight's helping hand had been filled with a tire iron was purely coincidental, as he had been hard at work, in Oakley's Garage, when Officer White went berserk and started shooting up the neighborhood. Simply put, he had in all innocence forgotten in the excitement to put the tool, so essential to his labor, down.

The suspects who needed investigating, according to the four eyewitnesses, were Frame Johnson and his brothers, who just happened to be in the neighborhood, along with that goddamned John "Doc" Christmas. And that bitch, whoever she was—the redhead.

I was the redhead.

Frank Donahue Junior introduced me to the gang.

He arrived about thirty minutes later. By then Officer White was dead. Junior showed up in a BMW, with his girlfriend, some blond thing, who watched appreciably every move he made through large blue eyes. He flashed his badge at a uniform and cruised right in and parked in the driveway at Oakley's. What I saw then cheered me up immeasurably, Dwight and his brother, Billy, grinning at Junior like they were old friends. Junior ignored them while he conferred with the officers-in-charge. As he listened to their report he eyeballed the scene: Frame Johnson, his brothers and Christmas on one side, and on the other, the boys from Oakley's Garage. I stood somewhere in the middle. Close to forty or fifty people, Allen Street residents, milled around the perimeter of the crime scene, along with about a dozen photographers. In the back of a squad car sat a dazed and bruised William Graham, his hands cuffed behind him. Maxie Gray cruised up on his Harley-Davidson, siding naturally with Dwight. When Junior spied me, he shook his head in disgust, and told his subordinates to keep a close eye on me.

"That is the woman," Junior declared loudly. "Who gave Joseph Kincaid a stroke."

And with that a half dozen flashbulbs went off in my face. For five minutes all I could see were stars and all I could hear was Junior's laughter and then through his laughter a child's voice.

"Daddy?"

I rubbed my eyes and came up with a face: Eve standing behind the cyclone fence in front of the garage. She looked like a dwarf in a motorcycle jacket and boots, and more than a little frightened with her fingers curled round the links of fence as she attempted in vain to get her father's attention. But she could see there was no use; Dwight was busy telling his version of events to Maxie Gray and anybody else willing to listen.

She paid little attention to me when I wandered over by her. I supposed I was just one more adult in a very strange and disturbing situation. She appraised my arrival with a wariness beyond her seven years; her eyes drifting from her father to me, and seeing neither friend nor foe in my presence, drifting back to him. When I knelt down in front of her she worked hard to ignore me. I wondered if she had been instructed to be cautious around strangers or if that had been something she had learned on her own. When I spoke her name she regarded me with a little more interest, squinting to get a better look, but letting go of the fence between us, just in case, and taking a single, tentative step backwards.

"Eve," I said gently. "My name is Katy. I'm a friend of your mother's."

Eve shook her head sadly across her shoulders. "My mother's dead,” she said. “She was run over by a drunk driver. You can ask my father. Anyway, it was her fault."

Before I could say a word she turned and ran just as fast as she could into the garage. I started after her but Junior stopped me. He pressed a short finger against my shoulder and asked me what the hell I was doing. I pressed one back and told him it wasn't any of his business. He said he didn't care anyway. He already had his hands full with a dead officer and Federal Marshals. It would take all night to sort this shit out. So far William Graham looked like the victim to him. But Junior was no longer speaking to me; he was speaking to Frame Johnson.

"My understanding, Deputy Marshal," Junior said coolly. "Is that four eyewitnesses observed Officer White threaten to kill Mr. Graham. The same four eyewitnesses observed Officer White fire his weapon twice into the air, over Graham's head, at then drop his weapon, precipitating the accidental discharge in which the officer fatally wounded himself."

"The officer was one of your men," Johnson said.

"I resent that," Junior said.

"Your eyewitnesses threatened to kill me," Johnson said.

"I believe you're exaggerating the situation," Junior said.

"I saw that part of it," I said. They both looked at me. Junior with obvious irritation, and Johnson curiously. "I was in Nellie's diner. After the shooting, I was one of the first people out. Dwight Claxton-"

"You're acquainted with Dwight Claxton?"

"Only by reputation, Junior."

"I’ve told you not to call me that," Junior said.

I ignored him and went on. "I saw Dwight Claxton, with a tire iron, threaten Marshal Johnson—Claxton, his brother, and two of their friends, Claymore and Cruz. Those men." I pointed a finger towards Claymore and Cruz, who stood at the edge of the garage in a small ring completed by the Claxtons and Gray. "They told Marshal Johnson that they would kill him, right then and there, if he didn't release William Graham. They would have too, if it hadn't been for Mr. Christmas."

Junior stared at me thoughtfully. I could see what he was thinking. I knew too many names to be a casual acquaintance. "What the hell are you doing here, anyway?"

"Minding my own business," I said.

"Don't bullshit me, O'Shea," Junior said. "You're working on something. What is it?"

Marshal Johnson stepped between us. "She was having dinner, Donahue, across the street at Nellie's, and personally I'm glad she was."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I gave my official statement in Donahue's office the following morning. I sat in an uncomfortable hardwood chair surrounded by men. Junior, and two of his favorite sycophants; two Federal Marshals, one by the name of Dodge, the other, Homer Johnson; a stenographer, and my lawyer. The marshals and Darrell were standing. The chair I was sitting in was broken, so that the seat continuously shifted awkwardly from one side to the other with my weight. After a while I gave it up and stood beside Darrell against the wall.

Donahue watched me from his more comfortable seat, rubbing his hands together over his belly. His eyes stayed mostly on mine but occasionally darted to the Marshals or to Darrell to gage their reactions. Reactions were important to him. I was willing to wager there wasn't a single person in the room he genuinely liked--not even his toadies.

I recited the same story I told the police the previous evening. I knew Junior didn't believe me, but I could also tell that he didn’t want to. We went through it several times. I watched him as much as he watched me and I didn't give a damn what he thought. This was an old game between the two of us and once again I was winning. Anyway, the marshals were on my side; I was after all defending one of their own.

After the third telling I realized that neither Junior nor either of the marshals had asked me about "Doc" John Christmas or Billy Claxton. That the two men had faced off each other last night with large caliber semiautomatic pistols had apparently been lost somehow to the investigating teams. Just thinking about it, I shuddered inwardly. Dwight had had his tire iron raised high over his head, ready to strike, and Frame Johnson's Colt .45 in his face. I had just rushed out of Nellie's, only to find the situation growing worse by the second. Billy Claxton showed up right about the same time, followed by Claymore and Cruz. There was a lot of shouting at that point. They demanded that Johnson put his weapon down, on the ground, and back off, or they were going to hit him all once. Claymore was urging Graham to get to his feet, but Graham was stunned stupid. Billy had come up right behind his brother and in a voice cold enough to give most people second thoughts told Johnson he was dead meat. Johnson identified himself as a Marshal and told them all to shut up and calm down, that there had been enough trouble for one evening.

I sized Claymore and Cruz up as followers. They weren't about to take the initiative. And Dwight had the look of a man staring into the abyss; the abyss being the large caliber bore of Johnson's pistol. His little brother was another story altogether, and the gleam in his eye told me everything I needed to know about him: that he was a boy who loved thrills. Death defying stuff. Had he been just a tad smarter he might have been a mountain climber or a skydiver, but since he wasn’t he embraced trouble as the preferred method to acquire the rush he needed so much. So when Billy saw that his older brother appeared to be at a loss, he hauled out his own pistol, a dark foreign looking semiautomatic of the nine millimeter variety, and, employing his brother's shoulder as an armrest, leveled it against Frame Johnson's chest.

Frame didn't bat an eye. He just kept his pistol on Dwight and spoke calmly. "Dwight, tell your psycho brother that this is neither the time nor the place—if he screws up you’re dead."

Dwight nodded quickly in agreement. "You heard him, Billy. Why don't you just put your gun away and go on home and I'll catch up with you later, soon as we're done here."

Billy shook his head. "Uhuh. Not until that cocksucker is dead."

Things then grew very still. All I could really see were the pistols. Especially the one held by Billy. He looked like the poster boy for gun control, stoned out of his mind, and angry for reasons only he could possibly understand. The whole episode was straight out of some bad movie. No one seemed sure of what to do next. I guess we were waiting for the inevitable. For the wrong word or move to force the idiot's hand. I thought I saw it coming when the front door to Glide's Photography Studio opened and John Christmas appeared, drink in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and coughing uncontrollably. He coughed for at least a minute, until he was finally able to put it out with whatever it was he was drinking. The seven of us watched him and he was quite a sight in his rumpled silk suit and slouch hat. He in turn looked us over in a bemused manner and left his glass on the windowsill in front of the studio. How he could smoke with whatever pulmonary disease plagued him was a mystery to me. Yet smoke he did, as he stepped out into the street and moseyed over to where Johnson and the Claxtons stood and casually announced to them that his much-needed rest had not only been disturbed, but irrevocably lost to their infantile ranting.

Dwight and Billy looked at Christmas in disbelief. So did Claymore and Cruz, but only those two did something about it--they quietly backed off, sensing, as I did, the very real possibility of at least one and most likely two of the guns going off in next few nanoseconds. Frame Johnson kept his eyes on Billy, who, of course, appeared determined beyond reason to force the confrontation to an unhappy conclusion.

"Christmas," Billy snarled. "Fuck off and die."

Christmas shook his head and stifled a cough with a handkerchief. "I'm sorry you said that Billy, because I thought we were friends."

"We ain’t," Billy said.

"Well then," Christmas said cheerfully. "I'm just going to have to ask you for the money you owe me. The money you lost playing cards."

"What the fuck?" Billy asked stupidly. "You're a Goddamned cheat!"

"That Billy," Christmas said, pausing to catch my eye, whereupon he winked. "Is neither here nor there. The point is: you lost—and now it's time for you to act honorably."

"Go to hell," Billy said.

"But you don't understand, Billy, I need that money; all three hundred dollars. There's a pair of shoes I am looking forward to purchasing for my wife."

Billy finally had enough. I saw it in his eyes, the way they rolled upwards impatiently, as though imploring the powers that be to spare him the indignity of having to suffer this fool. He sighed and shaking his head wearily, shifted the weight of his arm away from Dwight's shoulder, with the obvious intention of shooting John Christmas.

Dwight dropped his tire iron and sank to his knees. He scrambled on all fours as fast as he could for safety. Frame Johnson turned his pistol on Billy and looked as though he was about to fire, but then Christmas, moving very deftly for a sick man, managed somehow to parry Billy's arm downwards, as a pistol suddenly, almost magically, filled his own hand. It was a smaller nickel-plated semiautomatic, which he shoved violently into the boy’s left ear. Billy screamed and let go of his pistol, which Christmas caught in his free hand and ever so casually directed towards Claymore and Cruz to ensure their impartiality.

It happened so quickly that I had no idea it was over until the police arrived, some twenty minutes later. By that time everyone had returned to his or her designated sides. I hardly moved an inch until Donahue showed up. Nellie appeared at my side, towel in hand, and shook her head sadly at the whole ugly affair: blood spreading from around Officer White's body, glistening beneath the street lights; Frame Johnson yanking William Graham to his feet and shoving him roughly against a car as he read him his rights and cuffed him; the Claxtons—Billy with his finger in his bruised ear, along with Claymore and Cruz—glaring bitterly at Johnson, then being joined noisily by the McDonald brothers, who let it be known that they had witnessed the entire incident from the safe haven of Nellie's diner; then two sturdy looking men pushing their way through the swelling crowd, one with a shotgun in his hands, who I later learned to be two of Frame Johnson's brothers, Homer and Pope; and finally Christmas, who stood guard at Johnson's back, and who, with the bare suggestion of a shrug, stated laconically to his friend: "Well, Frame, it would seem that if it wasn't already in the open, then it certainly is now..."

Marshal Dodge and Sheriff Johnson listened to me quietly and with great interest. Dodge was a distinguished gentleman in his mid-fifties, with dark, attentive eyes and with apparently nothing to smile about. Johnson looked to be in his early forties, maybe five years older than his brother; there was no mistaking the family resemblance, the blond hair and steely blue eyes; eyes that moved continuously hawk-like about the room, taking everything in, and missing nothing. When I was through telling and retelling my version of the affair, it was Dodge who spoke first.

"So, what do we have?" He asked Junior.

"Nothing I can take to the District Attorney."

Neither Dodge nor Johnson appeared surprised. Johnson folded his arms across his chest, and bent his knee, pressing his foot against the wall. His smile was Midwestern and probably a little too friendly to be genuine.

"You don't say?" He asked rhetorically.

Junior exchanged big city glances with his boys who sat on either side of his desk. The three of them looked like quite a team, in their designer suits and expensive haircuts. But they didn't look like cops. When they were done smirking, Junior counted the witnesses on his fingers.

"On one hand," he recited authoritatively. "We have two Claxtons, two McDonalds, and two of their buddies, all swearing that Officer White caused his own death through the accidental discharge of his own weapon. On the other, we have a shitload of oldies who can't agree on who did what to whom and when. A deputy marshal who not only arrived on the scene without backup, but just a little too late to be of any use. And a private detective of questionable repute, who by her own admission didn't see a goddamned thing."

The marshal and the sheriff exchanged skeptical glances; then Dodge shook his head wearily. "I heard Officer White was a good cop," he said.

Junior took that as the insult it was. "I heard that too," he said, angrily. "I also heard that Frame Johnson's totally out of control and that he's the one who screwed up in Nogales."

Homer Johnson pushed himself away from the wall and grabbed both sides of Junior's desk. When they were nose to nose Johnson growled, "This is what I heard, asshole, you and Maxie Gray were roommates at San Francisco State and that he taught you how to lose at cards."

Junior didn't look too comfortable being so close to someone that big, but at least he didn't fall out of his chair. When he caught his breath he said, "This isn't Mexico, Dodge, so get your boy out of my office before he wrecks what's left of his short-term career."

All Dodge had to say was "Homer, let's go," and they were gone, their footsteps tapping cheerfully down the corridor, Dodge whistling—Sting’s song, “Every Move You Make—” leaving poor Junior staring bitterly after them, as his toadies exchanged nervous glances. And when Junior was certain that the lawmen were completely out of hearing he said: “I hate those guys…”

"I don't blame you," Darrell said.

"You do all the work," I said, with probably more enthusiasm than was absolutely necessary, "and those bastards get all the credit."

Junior just looked at me with complete and utter contempt. On our way out I paused to look at the small silver frame on his desk. The last time I'd been in his office it had held a picture of his wife, but at this point I guess their divorce was final. There was even a rumor going around that he was petitioning the church for an annulment and that the former Mrs. Donahue and their one evil child were none too happy about it. The picture now was of the same young woman I saw with him last night: all blond and blue eyes and the body of a dancer. What struck me most about her last night, however, was the way she had kept looking at Frame Johnson.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

At the time of his death Officer Frank White was forty-two years old, married and the father of two children, both in their teens. His reputation was spotless and the sergeant stripes he wore on his uniform were hard earned and respected. His beat was South of Market and he was well thought of by the business people and residents alike. He left people alone for the most part and when duty called he responded professionally with courtesy, compassion and a relentless will. His death was deemed a loss by the city. Flags were lowered to half-mast and a scholarship fund established for his kids.

On Allen Street, Nellie placed a large picture of Officer White, wreathed by a dozen American beauties, in the window of her diner. In honor of his passing she fed the homeless. It was her way of working it out, she told a reporter. She had known the officer well and thought of him as a friend. He was trusted within the community and it was a shame that the department wasn’t taking a greater interest in what she termed as his murder. I was beginning to believe the woman was a saint.

Lieutenant Donahue was quoted in the papers as saying that so far the evidence indicated that the cause of death was due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The statements taken from all available eyewitnesses supported this conclusion. And while Officer White was at the time of his death in possession of an excellent service record, the Office of Internal Affairs was currently investigating his occupational and personal histories to assure that the officer's conduct had indeed measured up to departmental standards.

In the same article it was noted that one William Graham had been detained by a Federal Marshal, who initially mistook him for an assailant, when Mr. Graham, in his rush to administer first aid to the dying officer, innocently retrieved the officer's pistol from the street, where it had fallen. A fair number of witnesses came forward to testify on Mr. Graham's behalf, and he was subsequently released. Since the incident several of the City's supervisors have agreed that Mr. Graham might qualify as a suitable recipient of the Civilian Medal of Valor for his attempt to save Officer White's life.

William Graham was unable to be interviewed at this time as he was being treated at San Francisco General Hospital for a concussion he suffered when a Federal Marshal mistakenly assaulted him. Maxie Gray, the lawyer for Graham, was quoted as saying that his client had no desire to initiate a lawsuit against the Federal, State and City governments for the injury he received during the incident or for being falsely accused of murder. "Mr. Graham understands fully," Maxie Gray stated in the morning edition, "that the injury he suffered at the hands of the Federal Marshal stemmed solely from incompetence rather than from any deliberate intention on the marshal's part to inflict harm upon his person or reputation. Mr. Graham hopes that we can all put this unfortunate incident behind us, so that the rest of the nation can see that San Francisco is still the city that knows how.”

After that, I went straight to the comics. I grabbed a cup of coffee and squeezed in at the counter by the window. The homeless guys ignored me; they were busy eating, and exchanging conspiracy theories. Over the funnies I kept an eye on Oakley's. I had the same view the McDonald brothers had last night. Except that it was morning and instead of a body lying in the middle of the street, there was a chalk outline of one. Oakley's was closed but there was a light on in the office and a pitbull patrolling the enclosed property. It was a fierce little thing and strutted like a killer, pausing every now and then to sniff at the air or roll its ugly little head around its thick shoulders, this way and that, before continuing on its rounds.

In one hour three different squad cars cruised by. Each time, they slowed to a crawl as they passed the piece of street where their fellow officer had died. The third car stopped and one of the officers got out of the car and set up a display of flowers on the sidewalk in front of Oakley's. He looked like the youngest of the Johnson brothers, Pope, but I couldn't be certain; I had only seen him once and that had been during the trouble last night. An hour later there were dozens of flowers on the sidewalk, and the pitbull was barking like hell at all the police activity, and the light in the office went off.

At noon the garage opened for business. Claymore and Cruz arrived on choppers, looking worse for wear, and rubbing their bloodstained eyes at all the flowers. Claymore unlocked the front gate while Cruz tackled the pitbull. He did this by kicking the poor thing back towards the garage. The more I saw of these guys the less I liked them. John Ringold stepped out from the office and leaned against the side of the building. He surveyed the lot and the street and lit a cigarette and greeted Claymore and Cruz. They passed a few minutes together and from the looks on their faces it was pretty easy to guess they were talking about last night. When they were through talking, Ringold finished his cigarette and, grinding it out beneath his heel, started across the street for the diner.

Nellie did her best to ignore him when he entered her establishment. Her features were tight and angry and she busied herself with a number of small chores that she had already completed an hour earlier. She wiped the counter and made a fresh pot of coffee and restocked condiments. Ringold remained by the door, watching her sadly. He was about six feet and lean, and looked to be in his early thirties. What was left of his hair was a reddish color circling the sides and back of his head, with a few golden strands pushed to one side. His mustache made up for the rest, but his eyes were what counted. They were a hurt pale blue and constantly on the watch. You could just tell he had you sized up the moment he stepped inside. I downshifted to no eye contact and pretended to mind my own business. He waited by the door gauging his welcome. When Nellie didn't ask him to leave, he accepted that as a sign that he wasn't altogether unwelcome; but when he approached the counter she disappeared inside her kitchen.

He stood there for a full minute waiting for her to return and when she didn't he went over to the stand with the coffee and helped himself to a cup. Most of the seats and tables were taken so he remained standing, blowing steam from his mug. No one but me paid him much attention and most of that was spent on his reflection in the window. When a homeless person finally got up from the counter and dragged himself out Ringold eased onto the stool.

Outside a cab pulled up and John Christmas and a woman climbed out from the back seat. She was thirty-something and hung onto him like they were old and dear friends, her hair was light brown and fell in waves around her shoulders, and she was laughing and looked quite happy. He peeled off some cash from a roll and paid the driver and then walked out into the middle of the street to inspect the shrine of flowers. The sun was out now and warming up, but I could see Christmas coughing and covering his mouth with a handkerchief. His friend held him close to her and patted his back, while he unscrewed the top of his walking stick, removed its flask, and took a long pull of his medicine. A moment later he looked a lot better. Cruz and Claymore watched them from the entrance to the garage. There were no words exchanged, but Christmas pointed a chummy finger at them, then turned on his heel and, with the lady on his arm, walked with the elaborate grace of a person who's had far too much to drink towards his room behind the photography studio.

After a while the diner emptied of people. Except for Ringold and myself. The dishwasher came out and cleared and wiped the tables. A ball game was playing over a radio in the kitchen and over that I could hear the cook on the phone placing bets. Nellie ventured back out and refilled the condiments. She hummed some show tune as she worked and ignored us. Ringold finished his coffee and left the cup, along with a five-dollar bill, on the counter. Before he left, he paused in front of Nellie and waited for her to look at him. When she finally did, he said something in a voice too low for me to hear. Whatever he was selling she didn't buy it. She shook her head sadly and stared at him with extreme disappointment. I watched her lips move but only caught a few of her words. "How could you have prevented it?" When he didn't come up with an answer she went back to work. He stood there for another full minute looking crushed before he quietly stepped outside.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The rest of the day led nowhere. Neither Dwight nor his daughter, Eve, made an appearance. I moved from Nellie's to a bus stop to my jeep. I watched more police cars cruise by, and the small shrine of flowers grow into a large one. I watched Claymore and Cruz as they wasted time, talking and smoking cigarettes. Occasionally I watched the pitbull, which was only slightly more interesting than Claymore and Cruz. But mostly I just waited.

When I was through waiting there, I started thinking of other places I could wait. After seeing her last night at the garage, I was at least hoping to establish Eve's possible whereabouts. But that wasn't happening. Around one o'clock William Graham showed up for work. He parked his car, a maroon Jaguar convertible, in front of the garage and ignoring Claymore and Cruz hurried into his office. From what I saw of him he looked sick or hungover and he did his best to conceal whatever ailed him behind a thick pair of sunglasses. Instead of his cowboy hat, he sported a bandage, like a bandanna, wrapped tightly around his head, which he rubbed gently with his fingers. He was only in his office for about ten minutes when the door opened and I saw him standing there with a bottle of Heradura tequila in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and arguing with John Ringold. I couldn't tell if they were mad at each other or just arguing. When Ringold took the tequila and started drinking I figured they were still friends. Graham tossed his cigarette away and went back to his car. Ringold looking neither sad nor happy remained by the office door, bottle at his lips, watching him leave.

I gave Graham a block and a half head start. It was an easy car to follow for he was a good driver; he obeyed the rules of the road, like a pro, staying within the speed limits and stopping completely at all stop signs and red lights. I followed him through a maze of streets, across the Mission District, to Guerrero, then up Guerrero to Twentieth Street, where he turned left, then right on a narrow little street made narrower by all the parked cars, and filled with run-down Victorians. He parked in a driveway in front of a shabby looking structure and leaned on his horn. I had stopped at the corner and watched him from there. Dwight came scooting down the steps as though he'd been waiting and joined him in the car. Seconds later they were headed back down Gurrero and across Market and then up Filmore.

I paused long enough to get the address and scope it out for kids. I thought the girl's blue Schwinn Stingray chained to the wrought iron fence in front of the house was a good sign. And the telltale light of a television set through the front window told me young Eve was probably inside at this very moment improving her small mind with daytime TV. I just prayed it wasn't too late to save her.

Graham drove up Filmore, all the way to the Marina District. He turned left on Chestnut and then right on the next street. He turned a couple of more times and then parked on the street in front of a large Mediterranean styled house. I drove past the house and parked on the right side of the street in front of a van and watched Graham and Claxton approach the house from my side mirror. I liked what I saw, Maxie Gray opening the front door to his house and welcoming his two favorite clients inside.

I found a bench to keep warm facing the Palace of Fine Arts. The sun was breaking through the fog and the park was filled with people. I sat on one side of the bench and ate the small lunch I had brought with me as I kept an eye on Gray's humble adobe. It was three earthy stories, with eight windows facing the park. The upper windows had balconies, and from each of those balconies, on a clear day, you could probably see most of the Golden Gate Bridge. Above the windows a stretch of red tile suggested a roof, but the sheen of glass behind the tile revealed a skylight. From what I could see there also appeared to be something of a rooftop garden. To one side was a garage, separate from the house that had either been added later, or converted from a smaller dwelling. The BMW parked in the driveway I recognized as belonging to Frank Donahue who, along with his girlfriend, was just now leaving the house of Gray.

Junior and his girl appeared to be in quite a hurry. At least he was in a hurry. She was laughing and tossing her long blond hair back over her shoulders and doing her best to slow him down as he charged towards his car, pulling her with him. I could see he looked irritated and nervous, as though he feared being spotted in the company of possible cop killers and car thieves. I was sorry I didn't have my camera with me. He looked this way and that to make sure the coast was clear and finally managed to get his car door open and climbed inside and had the car started before he realized his girlfriend was still standing outside. He started yelling at this point but in a nice way because she wasn't the kind of girl a guy could yell at much without regretting it. She just stood there shaking her head and laughing at him as he leaned across the seat and unlocked the passenger door for her. She just looked at him like he was some poor clown and finally he caught on and with a certain reluctance he climbed back out and hurried around and opened the door for her like a gentleman.

The best part though was when Junior spotted me. I was there in his rearview mirror the entire time watching him from a park bench with a sandwich in my hand. He was just backing out when our eyes met. He slammed on his brakes and twisted around in his seat to get a better look at me. So did his girlfriend. He pulled all the way out into the street and glared at me over her shoulder.

"Nice car," I said, trying to make conversation.

"Goddamn you, O'Shea!" he shouted at me.

"Junior," I said, pointing an adult finger at him, "behave yourself!"

The girl with him just looked puzzled for a brief moment, until she probably figured out whom it was I meant by Junior, and that he and I weren't exactly pals. And then she shrugged and laughed and said something to him, to get him going, and then they were gone, wheels squealing, and her long blond hair blowing in the wind like a flag.

I sat there for another quarter of an hour thinking about Junior and his girlfriend, and about Claxton and Graham, and seeing them altogether at Maxie Gray's home in the Marina. I felt disappointed about seeing him there. Junior and I went way back, and as much I disliked him, I was more comfortable with as a regular sort of asshole rather than a crooked one. He was always good for a laugh. So I ran down all the legitimate reasons I could think of on why he and his girlfriend would be at Gray's home during a weekday. It was possible that they were just friends. He did leave just as soon as Claxton and Graham arrived, visibly nervous over being seen in the company of felons. Yet somehow I had a difficult time getting around the fact that Junior had not only headed the investigation into Newton Claxton's extracurricular activities, but that he was now scurrying around town in a brand new BMW.

That was about as far as I got, when Gray, Graham and Claxton stepped outside. They stood on Gray's porch shaking hands and lighting cigarettes. The three of them together probably explained a lot of things. After a few minutes Claxton and Graham got back into their car and drove off. Gray used his remote control to open his garage door and five minutes later he was on his chopper and speeding towards Lombard. I followed him just for the hell of it.