Boxing the Octopus, page 4
“I gave you the modifications,” the Doctor said blandly. “And we already picked the next village, so what’s the problem?”
He squinted through the windshield, traffic growing dense in both directions. Miles ahead, the road would expand like a snake eating a rabbit, fifty lanes wide by the time he reached Beijing.
His brow furrowed as he tried to do the math. “Okay, so how much can you make?” In the near distance, a cluster of skyscrapers cloaked in brown haze dominated an otherwise flat horizon. The closer he got to the city, the harder it would be to breathe.
But in another three hours he’d be on a private jet with an open bar.
“Then wait,” the Doctor said. “I said wait—deng hou.” He took his foot off the gas, realizing he’d been accelerating every time he raised his voice. “Say again?”
He pulled to the side of the road as a truck rumbled past. The shoulder was too narrow but driving distracted in this country was tantamount to suicide. Traffic accidents caused more deaths in China than cancer or any disease the Doctor had ever diagnosed. In countries around the world, cancer was the great equalizer, but in China it was the automobile.
“How could anyone hold you responsible for something that never happened?” He paused to let that sink in. “Just fucking deng hou. We’ll be getting more of the compound soon, and I want to supervise the modifications personally.”
The voice on the other end sounded mollified, but the Doctor knew anger often decays into fear. “I’m coming to the island.”
He hung up and checked the mirror, searching for an opening in an unbroken line of cars that stretched as far as the eye could see. He needed to get back on the road if he wanted to arrive at the airstrip before dark.
Then the Doctor would tell the pilot to fly over the horizon and land in the middle of the ocean.
12
The bacon landed in the middle of the plate, and Cape felt his heart skip a beat.
The waiter tossed the extra side of bacon on top of the pancakes with a carelessness that bordered on rude, but Cape didn’t take it personally. The waiter was probably jealous.
Cape’s only concern was that the thrill of seeing bacon, eggs, and pancakes together on one plate had triggered a massive coronary and he was already in heaven. Or that other place. He took a quick bite before the Devil could steal his fork.
Inspector Beauregard Jones succumbed to one of the seven deadly sins and studied the meal with envy. He glanced at his own small bowl of fruit with open disdain.
“You could’ve ordered the pancakes,” said Beau. “I was prepared for that.”
“I did.”
“I mean just the pancakes,” said Beau. “Like, breakfast for one, instead of picking up the slack for both of us.” He speared a strawberry and swallowed it whole.
“I ordered first,” replied Cape. “Didn’t realize you were on a diet.”
“Twenty years a cop,” said Beau, “and the biggest threat to my survival is scrambled eggs. My doctor thinks cholesterol is going to kill me.”
“Tragic.” Cape ladled syrup onto the pancakes.
“You’re a dick.”
“I break my leg, you plan to start using crutches?”
“A little empathy would be nice.”
“There’s too much cholesterol in empathy.” Cape took a slice of bacon between his thumb and forefinger and studied it like an art student painting his first nude.
Beau’s arm shot across the table like a cobra. He snatched the bacon and, before Cape could react, it had vanished behind Beau’s grinning teeth. “Beats taking a bullet.” He raised his hand to signal the waiter. “You’re buying.”
“No problem,” said Cape. “I’m on an expense account.”
Beau nodded, glanced over the railing to his right and wrinkled his nose. “Should’ve sat inside.”
The Eagle Cafe was on the second level of the pier. Its balcony overlooked the north marina, where a motley assortment of smaller boats surrounded a floating dock. The far end of the dock was the tourist magnet that pulled all the visitors across the pier like so many iron filings. That was where the sea lions played.
Over fifty sea lions regularly jostled for position on the floating dock. Each weighed at least two hundred pounds, and at this time of day they were sleeping on top of each other. Every few minutes a restless sea lion would shimmy its oblong body into a better position, until it had enough leverage to force its neighbors back into the water.
The displaced sea lion would swim around the marina, gathering momentum until it could vault onto the pier. Its impact was met by angry barking from the snoozing sea lions, who could be heard as far away as Alcatraz.
You could smell them from where Cape and Beau were sitting.
“I wanted to meet on the pier,” said Cape.
Beau nodded. “Impressions of your new client?”
“Anxious…smart…worried…cautious.” Cape paused before adding, “vulnerable…attractive.”
“Watch out for those last two, Achilles.”
“I traded my white horse in for a Mustang convertible,” said Cape. “Just making an observation.”
Beau held up his hands. “Not that I’m in a position to give advice.”
“Yeah, how was LA?”
“A day trip that lasted a lifetime,” said Beau. The waiter swung by with a meal matching Cape’s and set it down. “Denyce is graduating this year, so my ex-wife and I had to talk college.”
“Expensive?”
“Outrageous,” said Beau. “But we saved. Problem isn’t money, for a change. It’s getting Denyce and her mother to agree on where she’s going to school. Or agree on anything.”
“Like what day it is?”
“Where should we eat? Is the sky blue? Who killed JFK?” Beau rolled his head as if his neck muscles had suddenly tightened. “Pick something, anything, and please, God almighty, don’t stick me in the middle.” Beau massaged the back of his neck with both hands. “Janine’s got custody, and my life being what it is, I’m fine with it.”
“Doesn’t sound like it.”
“I’m a better cop than I was a husband,” said Beau. “But Janine and Denyce always butted heads, even when D was little. Janine’s a control freak, and my D is stubborn beyond her years.”
“Wonder where she gets that.”
“You’re just full of helpful observations today,” said Beau. “It’s like having breakfast with the Buddha.”
“Have some more bacon,” said Cape. “It’s the key to inner peace.”
“Now you’re talking.” Beau took a strip off his plate and bit it in half. “So what do you want?”
“To discuss why you and Vinnie are setting me up.”
“So that’s why you’re grumpy.” Beau feigned sorrow, but his expression looked more stern than sad. “Got you a job…you’re welcome.”
“I’m partial to cases I can actually solve.”
“She needs someone to tilt at windmills,” said Beau. “And you’re the only honest guy we know.”
“That’s because you spend too much time with criminals.”
“A cop’s dilemma,” said Beau.
Cape blew out his cheeks but didn’t say anything.
“I think you’re pissed because you want to help but know you can’t,” said Beau. “You ask me, your white horse is still hiding in your garage, taking a dump in that convertible even as we speak.”
“Did I ask you?”
“Yes,” said Beau, smiling as he cut into his pancakes. “You most certainly did.”
Cape took another bite of bacon. Then another, worried he was becoming immune to the chemical euphoria induced by breakfast. Beau watched from across the table, bemused.
“Here.” Beau reached into his jacket and produced a small rectangle, which he set on the table. A color photograph of a heavyset man in his forties. Blond hair going gray, hazel eyes, strong jaw. Wearing a blue uniform and white shirt.
“Hank?”
“Yup, the guy driving on the day.” Beau produced a matching rectangle, this photograph a younger man. Wiry, dark hair and darker eyes. “Here you have the partner, Lou, the one handling collections.”
“Both are suspects or you just want them for questioning?”
Beau shrugged. “Some witnesses claim there was a man in the truck when it sank, others aren’t so sure. All we know is both men are missing.”
“Not good.”
“We’ll find them.” Beau pressed his hands together. “We always do. Cell phones, credit cards, the usual shit. Give it another day—nobody can disappear anymore.”
“Unless they had help.”
Beau cracked his knuckles. “In which case they are most definitely suspects.”
“So that’s a waste of my time.”
“I’d say so.” Beau shifted in his chair and aimed his fork at the eggs.
Cape studied the sea lions before turning back to his friend. “I was thinking I’d work the pier.”
“Makes sense,” said Beau. “But probably a dead end. If the drivers had help, crime stats suggest it was some asshole buddy from their past—a known felon, or someone inside the armored car company. And SFPD is all over the company.”
“All the store owners got ripped off,” said Cape. “Maybe they know something.”
“Maybe you’re gonna win the lottery.”
Cape made a face. “I’m going to work the pier.”
“At least you won’t get in my way.”
“You’re not going to interview the merchants?”
“Already took statements from anyone who came forward,” said Beau. “But me and Vinnie, we’ll get more mileage from the usual suspects. Known criminals and fuckups in the vicinity.”
“Too many stores, not enough cops.”
“Exactly.” Beau half smiled. “Unless you have insider information.”
“You could ask my client—”
“—and she wouldn’t tell me shit. This we both know.”
“She approached you and Vinnie.”
“To cover her boyfriend’s ass.”
“So you find the drivers, I find the angle.”
“You are an optimist.” Beau rested his hands on the table. “But that’s what I would do.” A sea lion started barking in the distance. “Just know that you’re probably wasting your time.”
“That’s what I get paid for.”
“Your job sucks.”
Cape signaled the waiter for the check.
“Tell me something I don’t already know.”
13
“Tell me something I don’t already know about the pier.”
Cape was trying to get the interview underway but deeply regretted not bringing a gun.
“You seem tense.” Vera’s voice pulled his attention away from the seagull.
“I don’t like bullies,” said Cape.
Sitting outside on a balcony seemed like a good idea until the waitress brought a basket of chips and the seagull took notice. It stayed airborne until Cape spotted a finch sitting hopefully on the railing and tossed a chip at the tiny bird.
Before the finch could break off a single crumb, the seagull swooped in and knocked the smaller bird off the railing. Then it swooped onto their table, snagged another chip and flew off before Cape or Vera could shoo it away. The seagull was the size of a pterodactyl.
They turned back to their meal but heard a yell from two tables away. The seagull had snagged a hot dog off a young girl’s plate. The girl’s mother lunged heroically but the bird was too fast. It swallowed the hot dog before landing just out of reach on the railing. Now it shifted from one foot to another, waiting for an opening.
“I should’ve known having two meals on the pier in one day was a bad idea,” said Cape.
“Maybe bullies who die in this life are reincarnated as seagulls in the next.” Vera took a bite of her burrito while it was still in her possession.
“Nice idea,” said Cape. “I think the restaurant should add seagull tacos to the menu.”
Vera smiled, an unexpected sight. Cape was glad he’d insisted on meeting outside the store. There was a palpable sadness in the back room of her shop. He glanced across the patio to their left, where an athletic-looking woman with a baseball cap over a ponytail sat alone, nibbling on a taco salad as she flipped the pages of a novel.
Vera asked, “You sure you don’t want some lunch?”
“I should probably stick with the chips.” Cape turned back to his client as he collected his thoughts. “I had an enormous breakfast, talking to the police.”
“Oh,” said Vera.
“I wanted to ask you,” said Cape. “The girl minding your store—”
“Sharon.”
“Your only employee?”
“Sharon and another girl named Natalie work part-time. Both students, but it’s enough hours so I can coordinate my schedule around theirs.”
“This must be a busy time of year.”
“Pier traffic is fairly constant,” said Vera. “That’s why I’m here. But everybody’s rent has soared since the tech companies decided San Francisco was a better place to work and live than Silicon Valley.” She looked across the bay toward Alcatraz. “Nothing’s ever as easy as we imagine, is it?”
Cape followed her gaze. “Ever been to Alcatraz?”
“The Rock?” Vera shook her head. “Guess I’m the typical local who’s never been where the tourists go.”
“They say the hardest thing for the prisoners wasn’t the tough guards or the brutal cold. It was the acoustics. Convicts could hear laughter floating across the bay from balconies in downtown San Francisco.”
“That’s awful,” said Vera.
“Haunting,” said Cape. “Their imaginations became their punishment.” He waited until her gaze shifted back to him. “Did Sharon and Natalie both know Hank?”
“Of course.” Vera put her burrito down. “Why?”
“No reason,” said Cape. “Just asking dumb questions till I can think of a few smart ones. I talk to anyone willing to talk to me, until I find a pattern.”
“You said you talked to the police.”
“They’re confident that they’ll find Hank or his partner.”
“Lou?” Vera’s face darkened.
“You don’t like him.”
“It’s not that.” Vera took a halfhearted bite and thought a minute. “He’s fond of himself, but that’s never bothered me. He was Hank’s partner, but they weren’t friends, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Let me ask it another way,” said Cape. “Does it surprise you that he’s a suspect in a robbery?”
“Not really…but nothing surprises me anymore.” Vera shook her head as if to clear it. “What else did the police say?”
“That I was wasting my time.”
“What do you think?”
“That I’m wasting your money.”
“You’re quitting?”
“I don’t think—”
“—that Hank is innocent,” said Vera, eyes flashing.
“I think maybe—”
“—that I’m naive.”
“Maybe.”
“And you don’t want to break my heart with more bad news.”
Cape studied the woman across from him, the certainty in her eyes, the set of her jaw. She looked as confident as he wanted to feel.
“Look at this.” Vera reached into her purse and removed a photograph, then pushed it across the table. It was a color snapshot of Vera and Hank, trimmed to fit a wallet. Snowcapped mountains in the background. Vera, relaxed and smiling, hair pulled back. Hank looking tan, his collar open. Around his neck was a silver cross.
“I gave him that cross,” said Vera. “Hank was a lapsed Catholic, like me.” An edge crept back into her voice. “I told him it would keep him safe.”
Cape handed her memory back but didn’t say anything.
“That’s the face of an innocent man,” said Vera. “But whatever you find out, I want to know the truth.”
Cape nodded. “Where was that taken?”
“Up in Oregon,” replied Vera. “After an eight-hour drive, you escape to a different world of mountains, lakes, trees…”
“Any seagulls?”
“Not a one.” Vera smiled, the lines around her eyes sudden rays of hope. “So you’ll help me?”
Cape sighed. “If you’ll help me.”
“Anything.”
“I won’t find your friend faster than the police,” said Cape. “I want to ask around the pier, find out if someone saw something—or if anyone knew about the robbery.”
“Where will you start?”
“I was hoping you’d tell me.”
Vera’s mouth turned down at the corners. “That’s why you asked about the girls in my store.”
“Yes,” said Cape. “If I could interview everyone who works on the pier and interrogate every tourist from the day of the robbery, that would obviously be ideal. But that’s hundreds, maybe thousands of people, and we don’t have much time.”
“I see.” Vera looked down at her hands. “Harkness.” When she looked up, her eyes were calm. “I’d start with John Harkness.”
“Where do I find him?”
“You haven’t seen the store?”
Cape shook his head.
“The Left Hand of Harkness.” Vera held up her left hand and wiggled the fingers. “Sells anything designed for lefties—golf clubs, guitars, everything imaginable.”
“Why him?”
“He’s paranoid,” Vera said without sarcasm. “Came by my store twice last year, asking merchants to sign a petition against the restaurant owners. Something about a tax scam that he wanted the city council to investigate. He was on a rant from the minute he came into my store and didn’t shut up until I asked him to leave. Then he stopped by again a few months later, and it was the same thing all over again, as if we’d never met.”
