Gunfight at Oaklye's Garage Chapter 56 - Vendetta

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX


I awoke before dawn and made my way downstairs to the kitchen, where I made a small pot of espresso. Richard was already up. Showered in the soft glow of a lamp, he watched me from a large chair in the living room, a crime novel open in his lap. He turned down my offer of coffee and to avoid any further conversation he put his book away and went about his rounds, checking the doors and windows. I spent the next half-hour at the kitchen table, letting the caffeine work its wonders. By sunrise I was feeling better and rearing to go. Richard didn’t care much for me taking a morning run but he couldn’t stop me.

I followed the road out back, a dirt road that divided a vineyard and cut a path between the hills all the way to Sonoma. I ran five miles one way, then five miles back. I saw three raccoons, one skunk and a fox, and silhouetted against the early sun a single turkey vulture soaring leisurely over the countryside. By the time I reached the cottage I felt almost awake.

Jane met me at the door, clearly peeved by my absence. She was dressed in a Pendleton and jeans and hiking boots and her blond hair was still wet from her morning shower. Her breath formed small mists in the air. She cast a searching glance around the yard before she hurried me inside and shut and locked the door behind us.

“Richard should not have let you out,” she stated curtly. “You should not be taking this sort of risk.”

“I’m in good hands,” I said. “You, Richard, Dodge, my Godfather; no one else knows I’m here, right?”

“You can’t count on that,” she said, “those assholes aren’t as dumb as they look.”

“Dwight Claxton is,” I said.

“GODDAMNIT!” She shouted. “CAN’T YOU JUST LET US DO OUR JOB?”

Her outburst shattered the crisp morning air between us and brought Richard, pistol in hand, into the kitchen. I looked at them like they were both significantly younger than I was, which they were, and it worked. Jane blushed and lowering her eyes to the floor she swallowed her words through a quiet apology. I did pretty much the same, but I don’t think it made either of one us feel any better. And that’s when I realized they knew something I didn’t. I was just going to ask them what it was when a phone rang.

Richard answered it—the cellular phone he carried in his back pants pocket—and proceeded to do a great deal of listening. His eyes darted urgently from Jane to me as he backed out of the kitchen. I received a strong impression he didn’t like what he was hearing. Since there was no door to close between us he turned away and moved to the center of the living room. I followed him as far as discretion allowed, doing my best to eavesdrop. Unfortunately, it wasn’t good enough.

However, I did overhear him mention some names. One of them was mine, stated in relation to my current health. I heard him say that I was all right, although I was turning into something of a pain in the ass—and no, I had not yet been informed. Those were things I think he wanted me to hear. The other names he mentioned were to be expected: Stillwell, Claxton, Cruz and Claymore. Frame Johnson’s name, of course, came up more than once.

Jane pulled me away, back into the kitchen. We stood by the refrigerator, well away from the window over the sink. “There was a shooting incident last night,” she said. “In Oakland.”

Oakland. The train station flashed across my mind. Frame Johnson shipping his dead brother home. “Who?” I asked.

“Detective Stillwell,” Jane said. “They found his body late last night at the train station, on a platform. He’d been shot and killed.”

“Stillwell! What the hell was he doing there?”

Jane didn’t know. A conductor found him. But there had been others too. “Witnesses saw men fitting the descriptions of Dwight Claxton, Raymond Cruz and Dick Claymore, loitering around the station.”

“They were there to ambush Frame.”

“Yes, he was also there. So was his friend.”

“Christmas.”

“Yes.”

“So who did what to whom?” I asked.

“Were not sure yet,” Jane said. “No one saw it. We only heard that much while you were out running.”

“Christ,” I said.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

Whoever killed Stillwell wanted him killed forever. He was shot so many times that it made determining the exact cause of his death difficult. Two ten gauge shotgun blasts to his midriff, which under normal circumstances should have sufficed, were followed by eighteen .45 caliber rounds. Not that the Medical Examiner bothered counting all the holes—she merely applied to her report the simple but effective phrase, “that the victim’s death was due to multiple gunshot wounds.” But eighteen was the number corresponding to the shell casings found on and around the train platform, and as the lead-investigating officer dryly observed, “from the looks of the victim it would appear that the shooter did not miss a single shot.” It was easy to see why there had been no witnesses.

Eighteen shell casings and not a single print between them. And that much I had to find out for myself. Jane and Richard dummied up after sacrificing only what information they felt they had to. Neither of them had any intention of comparing notes with a private detective concerning the possible role a fellow Deputy U.S. Marshal may or may not have played in the killing of a San Francisco Police Officer. No matter which side I was on, or that the enemies of that same marshal were also my enemies. They agreed to this tact with a quick meaningful glance at each other and an almost imperceptible nod of their chins as they resumed their official duties.

They were, so far as I was concerned, behaving a little too much like Archie and Veronica for my taste; in fact they were getting on my nerves.

We parted company at noon. I retired to my room with a bowl of popcorn I had zapped in the microwave, and a bottle of good wine I had located in the cellar during a routine search of the premises. As usual I had to watch TV to get the wrong story. Junior was being interviewed on three channels at once. He was of course at his diplomatic best, downplaying his relationship with his late subordinate. He referred to Stillwell only as the “deceased,” without admitting to being his superior officer. And then steered clear of any reason as to why Stillwell just happened to be at the Oakland Train Station at exactly the same time Frame Johnson was there with his family, and close associate, John H. Christmas.

I kept one eye on the tube and one hand on the phone. From his end Eugene filled me in on what he knew. Apparently Stillwell had intended to leave the country. They had found his car parked in the lot across the street from the station, a ’97 Corvette. In the trunk they found a small suitcase with a change of underwear, a pair of swimming trunks, twenty-five thousand dollars in cash, a fifth of vodka and a quarter pound of cocaine. At the time of his demise he was carrying on his person a fake passport, a one way ticket to Mexico City, and a pistol—a nine-millimeter Baretta, that had been reported stolen from a lesbian minister nines months earlier. The pistol had his prints on it and was found lying on the platform beside his body.

Stillwell was seen earlier in the parking lot and then later at a diner down the street. He was identified by the parking lot attendant and by the waitress who served him at the diner. They both claimed to have seen him in the company of three other men.

“Nobody who saw them forgot them,” Eugene told me. “They were drunk, the three of them, and obnoxious. They kept talking about seeing people off, acquaintances of theirs, at the train station. They used foul language and were short with the attendant and then later with the waitress. The witnesses all had good cause to remember them.”

The three men the witnesses described closely resembled Dwight Claxton, Raymond Cruz and Billy Claymore. Police had put an all points bulletin out on them, but as of yet they had not been found,

Maxie Gray was as usual a little more to the point than Junior. He understood the power of the spoken word, he understood Television, and he knew what to say in front of the cameras. I can’t say I was surprised but I watched him anyway. According to him, Frame Johnson murdered San Francisco Police Detective Frank Stillwell. He did so because they were obviously in league together and had a falling out. Which explained the passport in Stillwell’s pocket, the stolen gun conveniently located beside his corpse, the twenty-five thousand dollars and the cocaine found in the trunk of Stillwell’s car—not to mention this most recent epidemic of violence.

Frame Johnson murdered San Francisco Police Detective Frank Stillwell to silence him. Stillwell had been under investigation for corruption at his time of death. Johnson was afraid that Stillwell would implicate him as his cohort.

“It was,” Maxie Gray intoned righteously, “just that simple.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

“Only the truth is that simple,” Doc said. “If you don’t believe me, you can always ask the late great Detective Stillwell—it certainly set him free.”

“And how exactly was his premature liberation achieved?” I asked.

Doc was calling from San Francisco, from his wife’s place in North Beach. Frame was with Michelle, somewhere in Marin County. He and Frame had been questioned extensively by the local authorities throughout last night and most of this morning. He had been asleep when I first called earlier. His voice was raspy from coughing and cigarettes and alcohol and more cigarettes and more coughing. He was smoking now—I heard him strike a match and inhale as deeply as he could, which wasn’t very deeply at all, and then stifle the cough that would naturally follow such an assault on his diseased lungs with a long and desperate drink.

“Excuse me,” he managed after a minute. “I would have to say that the honorable Detective Stillwell was very likely killed by his own friends. This is the hypothesis I came up with at four o’clock this morning while being interrogated by the local authorities. I believe Frame came to a similar theory, although we were both questioned separately. But this seemed to make the most sense—to us, at least. You see the best time for one to get away with something is before one gets caught. But Stillwell had been caught. He was going to jail. The only recourse left to him was in bargaining for leniency. His advantage lay in what information he might be able to provide his arresting officers; what information might lead to further arrests, particularly of those elements within the police department most like himself. He would have to betray his partners in crime, as it were, if he ever again wanted to enjoy the simple pleasures of freedom.”

“That, of course, was something his friends might suspect,” I said

“Of course,” Doc said. “It’s exactly what any or all of them would do, given the opportunity. That is, if they couldn’t get out of town quickly enough.”

“He was under surveillance by Internal Affairs, is it possible he was at the station with the intention of leaving the Bay Area?”

“No, he was lured there by his good friends with the promise of freedom—of money and freedom. He believed they would see to it that he would get plenty of both."

“If?”

“If he assassinated Frame Johnson.”

“Wouldn’t it have been simpler just to get him out of town?”

“No. They would want him to commit an act that would leave plea bargaining out of the question.”

“But you said his friends killed him.”

“I am speaking hypothetically, Katy, without advantage of genuine insight into any of their little minds or petty motives. They would want him dead—not free. And if they could pin his murder on their nemesis then all the better.”

“And is it that simple?” I asked.

I heard Doc sighing over the phone, the ice rattling softly in his glass, another cigarette being lit. “That’s the story I’ve sworn to,” he said, just before he broke into another soul rending fit of coughing.

But others were swearing differently.

By the following afternoon Dwight Claxton had given his version of events to the team investigating Stillwell’s death. He had arrived at the District Attorney’s office in Oakland late that morning with his lawyer, Maxie Gray, and accompanied by three of his best ironclad alibis: his mother, Evelyn Claxton, his former supervisor at Oakley’s Garage, William Graham, and his fellow coworker, John Ringold. They all swore they had spent the previous evening watching videos together at Mrs. Claxton’s home in Daly City.

“And celebrating,” Evelyn Claxton stated gleefully, “the recent run of bad luck suffered by the goddamned Johnson’s…the murdering bastards.”

“The killers,” William Graham said.

“Who hide behind the law,” Ringold said.

“This is all because of my wife,” Dwight Claxton said.

“That little bitch was never no good,” his mother explained. “Not for any son of mine.”

That three different witnesses picked out Dwight from a lineup gave him, or his lawyer, no more than a little pause. Witnesses could be bought and sold, but the simple fact was there was no one on God’s green earth who could place him inside the train station.

“The conductor who found the late Detective Stillwell’s body,” Maxie Gray recited, “did not see my client, Dwight Claxton in the immediate vicinity. Nor did any passengers on the train bear witness to having seen my client, Dwight Claxton, on the train platform, let alone within killing range of the late Detective Stillwell. Not even those who have accused my client, Dwight Claxton, of stalking them with the intention of committing against one or both of them great and dire physical harm, have claimed to have seen him there at that time in the station where the murder took place. Simply by the process of elimination one can only deduce that my client, Dwight Claxton was in fact not present when the late Detective Stillwell was brutally murdered in the fair city of Oakland.”

“Well, he was somewhere,” Doc said, in between coughing fits, and just before he hung up, “although, it might be difficult to prove otherwise. But this much I do know: Stillwell possessed no good reason on earth to be at that train station last night. Nor was he there alone. His death proves that much. And however he met his fate it was a fate well past postponement.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

I played it safe in Sonoma for the next three days. I almost enjoyed it except for the nagging fact that time was running out for me. At least in terms of money—since I wasn’t making any. I wasn’t even sure who was paying for my well being. Eugene, I supposed. The cottage belonged to some well to do friend of his, along with all the wine I had been drinking to get through the mediocre selection of videos Richard rented as a means of reminding me that it was only my safety that came first. He and Jane—my bodyguards—were, of course, compliments of Frame Johnson and the Justice Department, but even they had their limits and their intention was just to see me through the immediate crisis.

Nobody expected it to last for more than a few days. By then the local authorities would have everything under control. That’s what they kept telling me. The bad guys would either be in jail or too leery to try anything else.

Not that I believed a word of it.

Only Eugene and Frame and Doc told me the truth. One after another, like a band of shrewd angels, they advised me strongly to consider getting out of town. And for good. Because stuff like this never really ends. And these guys, these bikers, were probably too mean and petty not to hold a grudge.

So on the fourth morning, during the morning news, I just sort of quit.

That was the sort of news it was.

I was curled up on the couch in the living room with a cup of espresso traversing the tube, doing what little I could to avoid the daytime talk shows. Jane and Richard were in the dining room sitting across from each other at the table, working on their schedule. Or at least Jane was—Richard was busy screwing around with his cell phone, playing with it, testing it out against each ear, studying all the extras, pushing buttons, talking into it, and, generally speaking, just annoying the hell out of me. I had just completed my third revolution on the cable when Channel five broke the story: a body had been found in San Francisco, out around Potrero Hill, earlier that morning. He had been shot twice, once in the back of his leg and once, in the front, through his heart. His name was Raymond Cruz and at the time of his death he had been wanted for questioning by the Oakland Police in connection with the still unsolved murder of Detective Frank Stillwell.

The three of us did a double take on that and when Richard’s cell-phone went off in his hands a moment later he nearly dropped it. It was Dodge and as Richard listened to his boss he kept his eyes on me.

Jane moved over to the couch and took in the news. There wasn’t much to it. There were no witnesses; no one knew what happened or why. The anchorwoman offered no scenario and it was too early in the day for Maxie Gray to be up. I kept my opinion to myself. We flipped through the channels searching for something more but found nothing. Richard finished up his conversation with Dodge and went into the kitchen with his cell phone, where he made two phone calls, each time speaking in a low, hushed voice.

Jane didn’t say anything to me about Cruz’s death. She just stood up from the couch and folding her arms across her bosom went into the kitchen and leaned against the counter beside Richard. They discussed this latest event quietly, glancing only occasionally in my direction to make sure I couldn’t hear what they were saying. But I can’t say I felt the need to eavesdrop on this one.

It was all to clear in my mind what was going on. And it was scaring me. One look at Jane and Richard told me that they felt the same way. The moment I caught a glimpse of Maxie Gray as I spun through the channels I switched the damn thing off and went upstairs and started packing the few things I had with me. I wasn’t exactly clear on what I was doing, but I couldn’t stand it anymore, being cooped up like this. Everything was passing me by, and besides I missed my cat.

Jane and Richard took it personally, like some form of rejection. They both looked at me with equal parts of resentment and disappointment. They were U.S. Marshals and they weren’t supposed to get humped and dumped by lowlife private detectives. We argued about it for forty-five minutes. Finally I just walked out the door with my overnighter and a spare bottle of wine and just kept on walking. I followed the dirt road I took during my morning runs. It was about five miles to Sonoma and when Jane showed up behind me in their car I accepted the ride.

“I talked to Dodge,” she said as I was buckling up, “About you leaving. He told me that Frame Johnson told him to expect as much.”

I didn’t feel like talking about me, so I changed the subject. “Who do you think killed Raymond Cruz?” I asked.

She ignored my question. “Dodge told me you were only here because of your Godfather.”

“Do you think it might have been the same person who shot Stillwell eighteen times?”

“Are you sure you want to leave?”

“I’m sure.”

“Then we can’t help you.”

We drove in silence the rest of the way into town. It was an awkward silence and I spent most of that time staring out the window at the surrounding hills and the rows of barren grapevines covering them. It was a cold, windy day, and the wind buffeted the car and pounded against the side windows. The heater was on and the flow of warm air felt good against my legs. I felt even better when we turned off the dirt road onto the highway and drove the short distance into town.

Jane pulled into a parking place across the street from the bus station, letting the engine idle, and sat there with her hands on the wheel, looking out at the windshield at the rear of the car parked in front us.

“I don’t know who killed Raymond Cruz,” she said after a moment. “Anymore than I know who killed Detective Stillwell.”

I looked at her but I didn’t say anything. She was still looking out the windshield, and gripping the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles had turned white.

“I know it wasn’t Marshal Johnson,” she said suddenly, as I was getting out of the car. The way she said it was more like a question than a declaration of faith. A question I knew the answer of which had to scare her as much as it did me.

I grabbed my bag from the back seat and looked at her once more before I shut the door.

“I don’t really believe it myself,” I said.
CHAPTER SIXTY

This is how you leave protective custody: You take the bus home by yourself. That seemed to be the way it worked. I sat towards the rear, next to the window, with a bottle of mountain spring water and a newspaper and did my best to ignore the slob sitting next to me. He must have thought I enjoyed being hit on by strangers, but after awhile he realized he was wrong. After several hours I was back in the city. I got off at Lombard and connected with the 43 Masonic and after waiting a half-hour for the One California I walked the rest of the way home. It was still early by the time I got there. The cat was downstairs with my neighbor and I believe that in his own way he was glad to see me. After I fed him, and he found a comfortable place to sleep in a square of sun on the rug, I showered and sat down with a cup of tea and listened to my messages. There were a lot of them. Half of them were just silent and could have been from any number of phone solicitors. Three of them were obscene and I swore one of them had to have belonged to the Late Raymond Cruz. I could tell by the rodent-like giggle that he used to punctuate his obscenities. Two were from Nellie—one from the day after Stillwell was killed and the second one was from this afternoon, the day after Cruz was killed. The latest was from Eugene. And he was pissed.

Figuring I would let Eugene slide for the rest of the week, I called Nellie first. One of the old guys who worked in her kitchen answered. He knew who I was and wasted little time getting Nellie. I could hear café sounds in the background: the rattling of dishes and tableware under running water; people talking; Nellie hurrying across the floor, shouting at me to hold on. She was almost out of breath when she picked up the phone, but she was extremely relieved to hear from me. She had been scared, she told me, because of the continuing violence: Homer and Pope Johnson; Frank Stillwell and Raymond Cruz; people she knew were still getting hurt, people were still dying. She had tried calling me several times, at my home and at my office. But I was no where to be found and no one appeared to know how or where to reach me.

I met Nellie at her home, an old one-story not quite arts and crafts bungalow just about walking distance from her coffee shop. It was nestled in between two warehouses and had a view of the plumbing supply shop across the street. I didn’t even see it the first time I drove by. She’d lived there about a million years. That’s what she told me. I figured the truth was closer to fifty. It was funny, she said, for years she had wanted to sell the damned place and get something a little nicer, but couldn’t because of the neighborhood. Now with the housing crunch she stood to make a decent profit, but she no longer wanted to move. She was used to living there, and besides, the place was filled memories, good and bad alike, and she didn’t want to leave any of them behind.

We sat at the plain wood table in her dining room. A small chandelier hung over us and scattered light across the walls, revealing several watercolors depicting San Francisco during the thirties. Union stuff mostly, strikers and cops, with the cops on horses, and their clubs raised, wading through the strikers, looking like they were winning but not really. Nellie offered me a cup of coffee and when I turned it down, a glass of wine, and when I turned that down she brought out the brandy.

“You might want some later,” she said.

“Is it that bad?” I asked.

“It’s worse.” She poured some brandy into both glasses. “You know about Raymond Cruz, don’t you?”

“I saw it on the news this morning.”

“I heard about it from his girlfriend.”

“His girlfriend?”

“Teresita. She was waiting for me this morning at my place. She was upset, she was crying. Apparently I was the only person she could think of she might be able to trust.”

I didn’t say anything; I waited for her to continue—I didn’t have to wait very long.

“Teresita’s here illegally,” Nellie whispered as though the walls might have ears. “I help these people out when I can. Part-time work, connecting them with certain public services, sometimes with money. Most of these people are from Central America. Guatemala, Salvador, Nicaragua; places they might not be able to go back to safely.”

“And where’s Teresita from?”

“Guatemala.”

“Was Cruz from there too?”

“No, he was born right here in the Mission.”

“With that accent?”

Nellie shrugged and sipped some brandy. “His gang activities kept him from going to school,” she said. “I kind of knew him since he was a kid. I mean I saw him around a lot. The neighborhood was his world. Personally, I’d be surprised if he’d ever made it outside the city limits. I told Teresita a year ago to stay away from him, that he was trouble…”

“But she didn’t listen to you.”

“Just enough to get the wrong idea.”

“Is there a kid?”

“No. At least, not yet.”

I reached for the brandy. It was the color of amber and had an old, rich and woody texture that went down smoothly and made asking my next question easier: “Why was Teresita crying?”

Nellie took a deep breath and before she started her story she refilled my glass. “Because she was there when Raymond was killed.”

“She witnessed his death?”

“Not exactly. She overheard it”

“She overheard it?”

“She heard Raymond come home, late last night, around three or three-thirty. He parked out in the street and walked around the house towards the back. He spent some time in the garage. She doesn’t know what he was up to but he had the radio on, Mexican radio, and he was drinking. A few minutes later she heard another car drive up. At that point she got up to look. Whoever was driving the car had pulled into the driveway and left the engine running. Three men got out. And there was one more, the man who was driving, still in the car. She couldn’t see who they were because of the dark. She didn’t think she knew them. They were either members of the police or a gang. They went around the back. Teresita didn’t like the looks of things so she went back into the house, into the bedroom, and sat down against the wall and started praying. Then the trouble started. She heard Raymond swear at the men. She thought he must have tried to get away from them because she heard the sound of someone running and one of the men shouting at him to stop and then the sound of a gun and then Raymond screaming.”

“And after the gun went off,” I asked, “did anyone—anyone in the neighborhood—think to call the police?”

“Nobody in that neighborhood,” Nellie said, “would ever call the police.”

Which was probably true enough. “What else did Teresita hear?”

“The men questioning Raymond. One of them asked the questions in English and another translated them into Spanish. The man asking the questions wanted to know about what happened to his brother.”

“And Raymond knew, of course.”

“Of course.” Nellie refilled our glasses. As warm as the brandy was it wasn’t warm enough to fight off the cold that suddenly seemed to fill the room as though from the inside out. “Teresita didn’t know what they were talking about. She heard Raymond say that he didn’t have anything to do with it, that he only stood watch, that the others did the shooting.”

“What others?”

“Teresita wasn’t sure. The names didn’t mean anything to her. And she was very scared. I had to help her; I may have helped her too much. But she said Ringo, or Ringold, might have been one of the names mentioned. As was Curly—which is William Graham’s nickname. And she felt reasonably certain that the last name Raymond gave before the men killed him sounded very much like Claxton.”


CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

It took another glass of brandy to get through the rest of Nellie’s story. One for each of us. I was just sorry Teresita wasn’t there to fill in the gaps. But she was long gone, on her way to Chicago, where she hoped to locate a cousin or two. There was just no way she was going to stick around for the police and a one way ticket back to Guatemala.

But what a story she told. One that not only could be appreciated by all as rumor, but one that was destined to go a long way in the small but stirring anthology of local, barrio legends. Already most of the Mission knew exactly what had occurred late last night in the dead quiet of one of their back streets.

And they also knew his name.

Frame Johnson. And his friend, Doc Christmas—the one who was ill, the one who spoke Spanish and who translated the questions and answers given to and received from Raymond Cruz.

Teresita had heard it all and she would carry it in her heart forever.

“How much did they pay you,” Frame Johnson had asked gently, even sadly, in a low but clear voice, “for standing guard while they murdered my brother?”

Doc translated. This took a moment because of his coughing. Finally Raymond Cruz muttered something rapidly in Spanish.

A thousand dollars was the answer.

Frame Johnson then said: “Give him his pistol.”

Raymond said in English: “I don’t want it.”

Frame Johnson raised his voice angrily. “Take it, goddamnit,” he said, “and listen.”

Through her tears Teresita heard every last, cold word as they were translated into her language.

“We both have pistols. Doc, here, will count to five. You can start shooting at any time you choose. But I will wait until the number five is reached.”

Doc counted slowly: “Ono…dos…tres…”

Raymond started crying, begging for Frame Johnson’s forgiveness, for Doc’s, for anyone’s.

When Doc reached the number four—“quatro”—a pistol was fired. Raymond was crying and cursing and trying to shoot Frame Johnson all at once. Again the pistol was fired. The explosions were deafening. Teresita screamed.

Doc said: “Cinco.”

Then Frame Johnson fired his pistol once and Raymond Cruz died in own backyard.

Nellie put the cork back in the bottle.

“Anyway, that’s what Teresita told me,” she said. “I don’t know whether I should believe it or not.”

I didn’t say anything, I was afraid the brandy might do the talking.

“What am I suppose to do with that?” Nellie asked. “Who, besides you, am I suppose to tell?”

Our eyes met tentatively across the table. There was fear in hers; I couldn’t tell you what she saw in mine.

“I don’t suppose it’s really much of a secret at this point,” I said.

“The police?” She asked. “Should I go to them with this?”

I thought of Junior and didn’t like the idea. “I know someone,” I said. “Eugene Cipriani. He’s a good cop, he’s my Godfather.” I wrote his name and number down on the back of one my business cards. “You can call him now at his home or at his office in the morning. That’s up to you. Tell him I advised you to call him.”

She took the card and stared at it for a long time. “I won’t be able to sleep until I do this,” she said wearily. “I may never be able to sleep again.”

“Just tell Eugene what you told me,” I said. “But you know he’s going to want to hear this from Teresita herself, he’s going want to find her. If he can.”

“I understand that,” she said.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

When I left, Nellie was on the phone. It was ten-thirty. The night air was cold and crowded with music from a half dozen different nightclubs, but there were only a few people on the street, moving like shadows from one club to the next. I had parked beneath a streetlight at the end of the block. I had just put the key in the ignition when from behind me came the wail of a large motorcycle. It passed in a blur and from the corner of my eye I caught the helmeted figure glancing curiously in my direction, then slowing down to get a better look from over his shoulder. A guy checking out at a woman, late at night, on a dark street south of Market. It was enough to make me nervous, especially when at the intersection he stopped for a red light and I could clearly see him studying me from the rearview mirror on the handlebar of his bike.

Then it hit me: this was one of the guys who had been rumbling through my neighborhood, way after hours, just two months ago when things were just starting to go terribly wrong. In fact this was the same guy who had parked beneath a streetlight at three o’clock in the morning and casually smoked a cigarette as he contemplated my apartment.

He circled around and parked in the space right in front of my jeep and shut off the engine to his bike, maintaining his balance with one cowboy boot against the asphalt. Up close it was the biggest motorcycle I had ever seen, all gleaming chrome and a deep glossy black, with fifties-style flames shooting across the gas tank. I slid my hand inside my purse and thumbed the hammer back on my pistol. He watched me through the mirrored visor of his helmet, looking like some dark and demented knight straight out of the comic books. The smile told me how much he was enjoying my discomfort. I ran down names from Oakley’s Garage and narrowed him down to either William Graham or John Ringold.

“Katy O’Shea, right?”

It was Ringold. He slid the visor up, over his helmet and lit a cigarette. The smoke curled up in front of his face; the smoke was the same color as his eyes.

“I wasn’t sure it was you,” he said, “until I saw your piece of shit jeep here.”

“It runs better than it looks,” I said.

He gave my jeep the once-over. “I hope so,” he said. “You should drop by the garage sometime and I’ll look at it. Maybe tune it up. Get it running smoothly.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll try to remember. So what brings you out here this time of night?”

“Nellie,” he said. “She’s just too trusting and there are just too many people who would take advantage of her trust. I would hate to see her get hurt—by anyone. I’m sort of like the neighborhood watch; I drive by here every night.”

“You get around, don’t you?”

A smile slowly crept across his face, but it didn’t get very far. “I try to keep an eye out for my friends.”

“How about your enemies, do you keep an eye on them too?”

“No. Those are your friends.”

“But you and your friends cruised my apartment a few times.”

He tossed his cigarette into the gutter and laughed. “Nobody knew who the hell you were. You just kept showing up. Someone said you were a private eye and that your old man had been some sort of renegade cop and some gangsters killed him and because of that we figured you were working for the marshals; fuck, we had no idea you were working for Dwight’s old lady. We thought we would just scare you off.”

“You did scare me,” I said. “You still do.”

“Well, good,” he said, folding his arms across his chest. “You deserve it. You killed my dog.”

“I killed your dog?”

“During that fracas at the garage. Little Alleister, my pitbull. He was pedigreed, a prizewinner; he was almost housebroken. Dwight told me you were the one who shot him—in cold blood.”

The look he gave me stopped me from laughing. His eyes had all the brilliance of stars reflected in a shallow cold pool and gave clear warning to the very real possibility of sudden and remorseless violence. But what I disliked most about him was that he was obviously aware of the effect he had on me—as though being merely stronger wasn’t enough, he had to be a bully too.

“Dwight’s lying.”

“Do you expect me to believe you?”

“Do you know Dwight very well?”

“Well enough.”

“Do you really believe he stuck around long enough to see who shot who?”

I had him there. He was a smart guy, it didn’t take him very long to figure it out for himself: when the going got tough Dwight got going.

“Nobody knows who really shot your dog,” I said. “It could have been anyone there.”

“Anyone there?” He asked bitterly. “You mean like Frame or Homer or Pope Johnson? Or perhaps that sick little fuck, Christmas?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of “Billy Claxton,” I said, “or Tom or Frank McDonald.”

“My understanding,” he said, “is that they were all unarmed.”

“No,” I said, “they were all armed.”

“Like Cruz?”

“Or Homer or Pope Johnson?”

“Oh, fuck them.” He straightened himself up over his bike and with one quick, fluid movement kick-started it. The roar of the engine was unbearably loud and I wanted to cover my ears but I didn’t because that was what he wanted. He pulled back on the gas and wheeled along side me. “MISS O’SHEA,” he shouted over the roar, “WOULD YOU CARE TO KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I LIKE BEST ABOUT THIS ENTIRE SITUATION?”

I shouted back: “NO!”

But I had the feeling he was going to tell me anyway.

“IT’S NOT OVER YET!” CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

But that was something everybody already knew.

In the meantime Frame Johnson was the focus of an internal inquiry. He reported to the marshal’s office the following morning and turned in his badge and weapon, as stipulated by regulations, and was reassigned to administrative duties pending either exoneration or an indictment. In Oakland the DA was asking for a grand jury investigation into the killing of Detective Stillwell. Junior, on the other hand, was maintaining a low profile, because Internal Affairs was also taking a keen interest in him, and their interest alone was great enough to put a kink in his next career move. And Maxie Gray was giving so many interviews I was beginning to believe he had his own daytime talk show. William Graham, John Ringold, Dwight Claxton and Dick Claymore—all wanted for questioning by the Justice Department and the San Francisco and Oakland Police Departments—were as usual nowhere to be found. Rumor had it that they had moved south for their health. Recent sightings placed them in Santa Cruz, Monterey and Big Sur. Some said they were on their way down to old Mexico.

Unfortunately, I knew better; I had spoken with Jon Ringold only the night before. And I passed that much onto Doc Christmas. He thanked me for this tidbit of information over lunch at a small restaurant specializing in southwestern cuisine on Sacramento Street, not far from where I lived. Each time I saw him he looked worse. It was hard to believe he could have actually lost any more weight but he most definitely had. He couldn’t have weighed much over a hundred pounds now and his dark suit hung so loosely from his shoulders that I was afraid a good wind would blow him right over. We both ordered the chili rellenos, which he only picked at, preferring the slight nutrition he found in the Mexican beer, and what little resolution he could from his flask. I did my best to ignore his condition and refrained from giving him any free medical advice, while he did pretty much the same in spite of his persistent coughing. I have to say, though, he seemed far more chipper about his health than I was.

“Protective custody doesn’t appear to have agreed with you,” he observed. “I would have thought you would have enjoyed the simple comforts of sanctuary, especially one in such an ideal location. I once knew a man who, in a similar situation as the one you’re in now, found himself squirreled away from threat in a small town in the Midwest. A nice enough spot really. Plenty of moderate weather, friendly people, plain food and endless television. He was as safe as a bug in rug. Most people would have been grateful for the opportunity. But finally he was done in by the tedium.”

I felt a kindred spirit. “Did he take off?” I asked.

Doc shrugged and smiled over his glass. “In his own way. He shot himself. If I remember correctly, he committed his final act with a pistol belonging to one of his protectors.”

“Then it’s a good thing I left when I did.”

“Very prudent, I’m sure.”

“As prudent as Raymond Cruz?”

“I believe Raymond was a far more impulsive individual.”

“It seems he would have made a perfect candidate for witness protection.”

“Perhaps; perhaps not.” Doc pushed his nearly full plate away, to the side of the small table, and looked at me through cool blue eyes. “Raymond should have turned himself in while he had the opportunity. Had he wished, he could have easily turned state’s evidence, I’m sure he had plenty to say. But it’s very difficult to turn against one’s only friends. I’m sure that’s why he was killed.”

“Did you know there was a witness,” I said, catching Doc’s immediate attention; he looked surprised and quite unsure of how to react to what I had just told him. “His girlfriend was home that night, in their bedroom. The bedroom faces the backyard, where Raymond was killed. She told an extraordinary story.”

“She told it to whom?” He asked, innocently, stifling a cough with cupped fingers.

“Nellie.”

“I see,” he said sadly. “And undoubtedly Nellie believed this girl’s tale?”

“Undoubtedly,” I said. “And I believe Nellie also went to the police with it.”

“And this girl, did she accompany Nellie on her mission?”

“No. She’s an illegal, from Guatemala, and she doesn’t want to go back. So she went to Chicago instead. Apparently she has some family there. It’s unlikely she ever be seen again in this part of the world.”

“Still, it’s what Nellie believes that matters; I wouldn’t want her to think ill of me.”

“It would probably depend upon whether your version of what happened to Raymond Cruz differs much from the one she heard from his girlfriend.”

“Believe me,” he said. “Frame Johnson and I are far more innocent in the untimely and sudden passing of poor Raymond Cruz than Cruz was himself. As for the girl, well, I would hope that someday she might appreciate the fact that she is much better off in the absence of his company.”

That much was probably true enough.

Doc paid the bill and I walked him to his car. He coughed most of the way there and when we got there he was out of breath and leaned heavily on his cane as he struggled to regain the little strength left to him. I felt bad watching him but that was something I was sure he himself didn’t want to acknowledge. He opened the car door and before getting in, steadied himself with one hand against the roof.

“Unfortunately, Katy,” he said. “Our mutual friend, Jon, is absolutely right: it’s not over.”

“You can call it quits,” I said. “You and Frame. You could leave the Bay Area, you could leave California.”

“I suppose I could,” he said. “But I don’t think Frame could; he’s hasn’t been taking to loss very well.”

“It’s not worth it,” I said.

And Doc laughed.

He laughed so hard the next thing I knew he was doubled up, coughing blood into his handkerchief. I ran to his side and helped him into the car. He sat there for ten minutes, with his eyes closed, gasping for breath. He was clammy and his hair, sticky and matted against his head. And there was nothing I could do but hope that his suffering wasn’t unendurable. Finally he regained some of his composure and opened his eyes, but when he saw me leaning over him he just started laughing again.

“Katy O’Shea,” he said, in a dry and raspy voice, “you’re might just be the death of me.”

“I hope not.”

“I hope not too. Someone has to take care of poor Frame.”

“He can take care of himself

Doc shook his head sadly.

“No,” he said. “He only thinks he can.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

“Your boyfriend called.”

“My boyfriend?”

“The one down in Mexico.”

“Costa Rica.”

“Costa Rica, then. He called me. He wanted to know if he should come up here.”

“Why?”

“So he could act like a man, get in the way, screw things up. You know, do his best to impress you.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“I told him to stay where he was and tell you to join him.”

I was sitting in the hot seat—the one beside Eugene’s desk. We were drinking his bad coffee and doing our best to avoid the argument that we both knew was coming. I knew he was pissed at my splitting from protective custody, but I also knew he shouldn’t have been very surprised. Still he turned that look of his against me—the one that after all these years still went straight to the felonious heart of the matter and demanded not just confession but also contrition. It was the gaze I had learned how to lie under, although I had certain doubts as to how successfully. Under his supervision I could never be quite certain of how much I had actually gotten away with in my untamed youth or how much he had just let slide.

His role in all this was mostly as my Godfather. While he was at least acquainted with most of the people involved, he had no official role in any of the investigations, past or present, having to do with either car thieves or Federal Marshals. In an odd way he seemed to enjoy being on the sidelines. I believed this was because his opinion of the more active participants, excluding myself, was fairly low. Even though he wouldn’t admit it, I could see he was also taking a certain pleasure in Junior’s game of cat and mouse with Internal Affairs. Eugene and Junior’s father went way back and there was no love lost between them. Some of that had to do with my father who had been Eugene’s partner. But it had just as much to do with Junior’s father, whose ambition within the department was nearly as great as his incompetence. Apparently, it ran in the family.

But at the moment we weren’t talking about Junior; we were talking about the bodies that were piling up.

“Frame Johnson resigned this afternoon,” Eugene said. He had swiveled away in his chair and was facing the door to his office, which was open, and watching the cops in the outer bay at work. “Dodge told me.”

“What else did Dodge tell you?”

“That there wasn’t enough evidence to charge Johnson as the perpetrator in either the Stillwell or Cruz homicides. And apparently the only witness high-tailed it to Chicago and if per chance she should ever show up here again it won’t make a bit of difference because she’ll never testify against a cop. But you knew that already didn’t you?”

“I guessed as much,” I said.

He spun around in his chair and looked hard at me.

“Johnson is going to testify before the Grand Jury in Oakland,” he said. “He’s one shrewd boy. Unless he admits to something, there won’t be any indictments.”

I returned his gaze evenly, a genetic gift from my father, something that, if nothing else, at least could still bring a smile to my Godfather’s face.

“What about the others?” I asked. “The guy’s who killed one of his brothers and crippled the other?”

“Hell, half of them are dead. The other half are in hiding. Maybe out of the country by now. Down in Mexico.”

“Not all of them. I saw Jon Ringold last night. And if he’s here, then his partner, William Graham, the last person to see Officer White alive, can’t be too far behind.”

“We’d like to talk to the both of them. So would the police in Oakland, not to mention the Fed’s. But unfortunately they aren’t cooperating. The only person doing any talking is Maxie Gray and he’s talking too much. Besides, what difference does it make anyway? At this point all Johnson’s resignation does is turn it into a gang war.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“Everyone’s afraid of that. We don’t want anymore shootouts, anymore killings, anymore vendettas being played out on these streets. I don’t know why the hell you’re even here. Why don’t you pay your boyfriend a visit down there in Honduras or wherever he is.”

“Costa Rica.”

“Costa Rica, then.”

“Because I can’t. Because it won’t matter, because if they really want to hurt me then they won’t mind waiting.”

“Then you’re teaming up with Johnson and his friend, what’s his name, the sick one, Christmas?”

“I’m not much of a team player.”

“Neither are they,” he said angrily. “So it makes perfect sense that the three of you should get together and make things worse.”

“It’s not going to be like that,” I said.

“Katy, wake up, it already is like that.” He sighed; he looked away from me, then back again. “Listen to me. This is way out of hand. We’ve got half the force working overtime. Everybody’s pissed, from here to Washington. This is going to be in the news for the next six months. Careers are going to be ruined by the fallout alone. This is how bad it is—even the bad guys don’t like it. And you’re right smack in the middle of it. Personally, I don’t want to see you dead, hurt or in jail, but no good can come out of this, you do understand that don’t you?”

I nodded. “Perfectly,” I said.

But Eugene didn’t believe me. I could see it in his eyes.

“The hell you do,” he said.



CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

By ten that night I was sitting behind the wheel of a rental car, half a block up and across the street from Nellie’s bungalow. For cover I had parked directly in front of a large dumpster overflowing with discarded construction materials, and from there I kept an eye on the street through the passenger-side rearview mirror. I was waiting for a Harley-Davidson, a big one, ridden by a psychopath who cared a lot about a little old lady.

I wasn’t quite sure how that worked. Maybe Nellie reminded Ringold of his mother. Or maybe she was just the only person who ever saw a glimmer of good in him. The few surreptitious glimpses I caught of him at her coffee shop revealed a quiet, well-mannered, even melancholic, individual who just happened to be carrying, concealed, a large caliber pistol. The two other times I saw him, however, I saw a biker, of the more menacing variety, who thought nothing of intimidating a woman. I can’t say I cared much for either of his personas.

But he was reliable, and right on time. He had told me last night that he was sort of like the neighborhood watch. The digital clock on the dashboard read: ten-thirty PM. There wasn’t much traffic and he was easy to spot. There was just the single oncoming headlamp in the mirror, followed by the high and low pitch of his engine as he whipped past me and then suddenly downshifted so that he could get a better look at Nellie’s home before carrying on with his nightly patrol. I gave him a block and a half lead then pulled out after him. He was easier to follow than I expected, fortunately he appeared to be in no great hurry now that his good deed was done.

He cruised south on Brannan and turned onto Eighth Street and then onto Carolina. I switched off my headlamps and followed him around the corner, and parked behind a small truck. From there I watched him as he pulled up to the entrance of a warehouse. He kicked the metal door with his boot and when it slid open he drove his bike inside. Weird hot light streamed out into the night, and William Graham stepped outside with it and surveyed the street suspiciously before stepping back inside and pulling the door shut.

I stayed where I was for fifteen minutes. The warehouse was constructed of sheet metal. There were no windows, at least none that I could see, but light crept beneath the door in front and through cracks where the metal had torn or given way over the years. The light was heavy and more forceful than illuminating and where it appeared heat rose from it in waves. It was the sort of light used to dry paint.

After the fifteen minutes were up, I waited fifteen more—then I got out to take a look around. I approached the warehouse cautiously, darting from shadow to shadow. Carolina was a small, dark street and I was the only one on it. From inside the warehouse came the sound of seventie’s rock and roll—Grand Funk Railroad, We’re an American Band —all but drowned out by the steady reverberation of a generator. A high cyclone fence topped by rolls of barbed wire prevented entry to the junkyard in back. To the far side of the front door were half a dozen large plastic garbage cans. Small rays of light shot out from holes in the wall behind them. The cans were overflowing and stinky, but situated about a foot and half away from the wall they would afford some cover as I tried to get a look-see inside.

I had to get on my hands and knees to peek through the holes. The asphalt was wet and greasy and the entire area smelled of…well, garbage. Old garbage. Garbage set upon by insects and rodents and other disgusting creatures armed with teeth and appetites. Just being there made my skin crawl. And I felt more than just a little stupid; not only was I grossed out but I couldn’t see a damned thing through any of the holes, just a pure white light that somehow seemed appropriate with the music and the generator blasting from behind it. I was just about to give it up when a car pulled into the driveway and started honking.

Headlamps flooded the front of the building and my only cover were the shadows cast by the garbage cans. I was beginning to feel trapped and I started thinking about getting the hell out of there. I was thinking about it quite a bit when whoever was behind the wheel of the car let up on the horn. It took awhile for the sound to dissolve into thin air and just as soon as it was gone the silence was once again broken up, but this time by a single angry voice.

And she was pissed.

“Goddamned sons of bitches,” Mrs. Evelyn Claxton shouted from the driver’s seat. “You worthless rat-prick bastard Motherfuckers, open the Goddamned door!”

But no one opened the doors. The lights went out inside, along with the music and the generator. From where I was kneeling I could hear some low, muffled voices, followed by a quick nervous giggle.

Mrs. Claxton swore loud enough to shut up a pack of dogs. Apparently she was talking to her son, Dwight. He climbed out of the passenger side of the car and like a humiliated boy walked up to the door of the warehouse and kicked it few times.

“Hey, it’s me,” he shouted, “Dwight. My old lady’s with me. Open the fucking door for Christ’s sake!”

If he didn’t see me it was only because he was too stoned to look. He stood there with his nose almost to the door. For a moment I thought he might have forgotten why he was there and then his mom leaned on the horn again and he almost jumped out of his skin. I would have laughed if I had been anywhere else. Instead I made myself as small as possible, and I believe I may even have stopped breathing. After what struck me as being a very long time someone from inside spoke up.

“Password?”

Dwight cocked his head. “Password?” He asked.

“That’s right, motherfucker: password.”

Dwight stood there stupidly. He scratched his ass through his jeans, and then he scratched his head.

“I don’t know the password,” he finally said.

There was some laughter from inside. And then another voice was heard from.

“Swordfish,” Ringold said.

“Swordfish?” Dwight repeated.

“That’s the password,” the first voice said.

And then the door slid open. Three guys stepped out and stood at the edge of the garbage cans, right in front of me. All they had to do to ruin my day was look down and spot me. Ringold, Graham, and someone I didn’t know—but whoever he was he was the one holding the sawed-off shotgun. A paint mask hung loosely around his neck and he was wearing dirty blue coveralls. He smelled of paint and had the stretched-thin paranoid look of a hardcore amphetamine user. He was the one standing closest to me. I figured he must have come with the warehouse. Graham called him Steve.

Steve said: “Turn off the fucking lights, asshole.”

Dwight said: “What?”

“The car lights, man, the car lights. Cut them off. And the horn, none of that, not now. We don’t need the goddamned man around here. We don’t need that shit at all.”

Steve smacked his lips before, between, and after each word. The head on his shoulders stayed in constant movement, as though trying to catch up with his eyes. There was absolutely nothing calm about him, especially not the shotgun, which bobbed wildly in hands.

“What?” Dwight asked again. He was obviously too stoned to follow Steve’s train of thought. In fact, he looked like he had missed the train altogether.

Graham looked from Steve to Dwight then to Evelyn Claxton. He smiled at her like an old friend.

“Mrs. Claxton,” he shouted. “Would you be kind enough to turn off your headlamps? Steve here is a little nervous; he’s afraid of the attention it might draw.”

“I’m afraid of the fucking police is what I’m afraid of,” Steve whined. “I ain’t going back to jail and I’m telling you all that right here, right now. I go down, we all go down. That’s my code; the code I live by.”

Evelyn Claxton cut off the lights and got out of her car. With the lights off I felt a lot better. But not better enough.

“Anything you say, honey,” she called back.

She joined their little group, standing close enough beside Ringold to make me think there was something more between them than just crime. The thought alone was almost enough to make me gag. She lit a cigarette and blew smoke at Steve.

“Boy, you wouldn’t be shit without that shotgun,” she said.

Steve grinned, baring rotten teeth. “Ma’am,” he said, “that’s why I’m never without it. Now let’s talk some shit.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

They talked about guns. Guns they were buying from Steve. Full automatics. AK-47’s, five of them. Just off the boat—same boat as the latest shipment of dope. They stood in the dark, smoking cigarettes, discussing the price. Evelyn Claxton was the one with the money. She made it very clear that she wanted all the rat bastards—the men who killed her husband and son—dead. The Ak-47’s were expensive weapons, Steve told her; they were definitely not the Chinese Communist variety of semiautomatic that you could have purchased over the counter for a few hundred dollars only ten years ago. These puppies were the real things; they came all the way from Russia or Cuba or Angola or from one of those shit-holes the communists had endeavored to liberate during the late great cold war.

“You can buy anything from the Russians,” Steve said. “Nothing worse than a reformed communist.”

“Show me the guns,” Evelyn Claxton said.

Steve grinned. “Show me the money,” he said.

Evelyn pulled a thick wad of money from her purse and fanned it like cards right in front of his eyes. “It’s all there,” she said. “You don’t even have to count it.”

“Of course I have to count it,” he said. “I always count the fucking money. I learned that much in Criminal Law.”

“Then you can count it while we look at the guns,” she said.

“They’re inside,” Steve said. “Help yourself.”

Evelyn Claxton looked past Steve through the door. It was dark. Graham and Dwight were already inside, searching for a light switch. They found one against a post. A florescent glow poured from the ceiling and spilled outside. Once again I prayed no one saw me.

“Ringold, show her the guns.”

“Evelyn.” Ringold led her inside by her elbow. “You’re going to love these beauties.”

She stopped him at the door. Warehouse light silhouetted their faces. She touched his cheek and spoke softly; her voice hung in the air as though disembodied, as though a ventriloquist was doing the talking and all she was doing was moving her lips.

“I don’t care about loving anymore,” I heard her say. “I only care about getting even. I’m an old woman. I just want to see them boys dead.”

Ringold pulled her to him; they embraced. He placed a kiss on her forehead. “They’re dead,” he said.

“Their families too,” she said.

“Everyone of them,” he said.

They went inside. I waited. Adrenaline shook me to the marrow; it took everything I had to stay put. I pressed an eye against one of the holes and this time I could see.

They were gathered around a workbench, only a few feet away from me, on the other side of the thin metal wall, removing the AK-47’s from a footlocker. Graham and Dwight inspected them, in a quasi-soldierly fashion, pulling back bolts, holding them butt-up against the light and peeking up the barrels. Ringold, his arm around Evelyn Claxton’s shoulders, watched approvingly; she snuggled against him. None of them appeared to know much about the weapons. Steve said something about them being easy to operate, but that they should probably play with the damn things a little before they got down to business. Graham said they had to figure them out tonight because their business was tomorrow. A quart of rum made its appearance and mingled among them like an old friend. Steve stuffed the money down the front of his pants. He heaved several metal containers containing bullets and banana-shaped magazines onto the bench; he passed around the magazines and verbal instructions on how to load them. Dwight lit a joint, drew heavily from it and then passed it around. They all smoked. Graham ate the roach. In awhile they were all giggling.

Giggling and playing with assault weapons. It staggered the imagination: Graham making machine gun noises, shooting at imaginary armies; Dwight talking about Rambo, how he wanted some bandoleers, and a bandana, and one of those cool motherfucking knives; Steve hitting the rum hard, inserting rounds into thirty round magazines, while counseling his customers on the best methods of ambush—Nam style, while lamenting the fact that he’d been too young to personally participate in that gloriously protracted conflict; Evelyn reciting the long list of wrongs committed against her by the various representatives of the Federal Government and how they had, at long last, forced her to retaliate.

Only Ringold took the time and the place seriously. He lifted one of the weapons gently into his hands and balanced it across his open palms, appraising its weight and feel. Moments later he had it disassembled and its parts lying on the bench in front of him. He examined each part carefully, grasping, intuitively, how they all fit and worked together within its larger design. This took all of ten minutes and by the time he had slammed a magazine into the weapon’s breech, and locked and loaded a round into its chamber, the other four were watching him with rapt attention.

Graham giggled, then whistled. “Will you look at that,” he said. “By God, you could have been a master of arms or a drill sergeant, Jon, if you weren’t a criminal.”

“I wanted to be a minister,” he said. “Once. A long time ago.”

“Minister of last rites,” Graham said.

And they all laughed—that is, except for Ringold. A smile tugged unsuccessfully at his mouth, but he killed it with some rum.

“Fucking Russians,” he said.

“I’m telling you,” Steve said, “they’re all crazy. You should see these sons of bitches out there in the Richmond District.”

“No,” Ringold said. “I’m talking about the weapon. Designed and manufactured by and for a peasant army. Simple, straightforward, utilitarian—like the plow—something invented through necessity. And perfect for the third world, a weapon a child could use.”

“Jon, no one cares about that crap,” Graham said. “We only want them for the one job and after that we’re getting rid of them.”

“I’d like to keep mine,” Dwight said.

“They’re going in the bay,” Graham said.

“After you kill some Johnson’s,” Evelyn said.

Graham lifted a rifle to his shoulder and took aim at an imagined enemy. “Lady, our old friend, Frame Johnson, is up there right now, in the Valley of the Moon, just waiting to die.”

Evelyn looked at him eagerly. Even through this small hole I could see the blood in her eyes. “You know this for a fact?” She asked.

“Straight from the horse’s mouth. Johnson’s hid out at some place called Hooker’s Winery.”

“What else did Gray tell you?”

“He told me to keep my mouth shut. This could cost him plenty; he has no intention of getting his hands too dirty.”

“He got that from that pig?”

“He got it from somewhere. But what’s important is that Ringold here moves our dope down to Santa Cruz tomorrow morning. Because we’re going to need that money after me and your boy here, Dwight, and a few of our buddies neutralize old deputy dawg.”

She screwed her face up angrily and pressed a finger hard against Graham’s chest. “I don’t want him walking away like his brother did,” she said. “And I don’t want no more fuck-ups like at the train station.”

Graham laughed and shook his head. “Dwight,” he said. “Talk to your mother, calm her nerves.”

Dwight turned to his mother and placed a hand on her shoulder. This was the first time I actually saw them together. There was a definite resemblance between them, hair color, eyes, the perpetual frown—however tainted the bloodline, he was most certainly her son.

“Mom,” he whined. “You don’t have to worry about a thing.”

She looked at him—her own son—like he was an idiot. And then in a sudden and heart warming display of motherly affection she slapped him so hard Dwight had to wait a minute for the smart to catch up.

“Of course I have to worry,” she said. “I’m your mother.”