Contract Null & Void

Chapter Six

“I wouldn’t, not for love nor money,” she said. “Georgie took the presidency away from me, he was ruthless and ambitious, but I never looked at him as anything worse than a massive pain in the butt. And I’m all alibied up for last night anyway. I was... with somebody.”

“That’s not what I meant. As a union official—”

“What would make me kill? You mean like for personal jealousy or in some power struggle? You’d have to be talking money. Big money.”

“That’s it,” said Ballard quickly. “What could you do illegally, under the table, in the union, to get rich? Strip the pension fund the way the Teamsters did years ago? Or maybe—”

“Pension, health, welfare?” She shook her head. “Today you have to be squeaky-clean in the administration of that money. I’m a trustee on our fund, but we’ve got to have two lawyers and two outside consultants who cost us a bundle, just because the feds always have us under a microscope.”

“How about investing the funds in some sort of phony mutual fund or construction job that—”

“Same problem. If a fund investment is flaky...”

“Okay, then who profits from the local going out on strike against the St. Mark?”

“In money? Nobody.” She was quick and definitive. “In power, one man — Georgie Petrock.”

“And he’s dead. Hey! You guys are AFL–CIO, aren’t you? So how about trouble between him and the International?”

“We had a lot of tension there, yes, but kill a man over that sort of thing? No way.”

“The cops might think differently. You’re the international organizer—”

“Sure, but I agree with Georgie about the need to strike the St. Mark. Hell, union officials are extremely political.” She mused, “To keep your job you’ve got to get reelected. I suppose that theoretically a hotel or restaurant chain could dump money into a candidate for president of the union so he’d be beholden to them for a sweetheart contract or something, but—”

“Did it happen in the last election?”

“Not to me. My war chest was about twelve dollars.”

“How about Petrock?”

“Not that I heard. And he sure never acted like he owed anybody anything — or had any more money than I did.”

Dead end. So far. But she was smart. And beautiful. Maybe she’d like to come along to meet with Bart Heslip tonight. No. Bart had said alone. In a very strange tone of voice.

“Is there any way a local political or a state senator or somebody like that could be mixed up in union affairs?”

“Again, very damned difficult.”

“But not impossible?” He was pushing hard now, hearing hesitation in her voice. “What if a guy came out of this union and became a politician?”

“That’s happened a couple of times. John Burton was a bartender and I think is still a union member. Assemblyman Rick Kiely is still a member.”

“Could he throw his weight around in the union?”

She said doubtfully, “Well... you have to have money to run a political campaign, of course, but...”

“Put it this way. Does the union support certain political candidates?”

“Sure. We can do all the nitty-gritty political work for a candidate we want — get involved in his field operations, get out the vote, help run his campaign... but that’s all volunteer action. No money involved. You can’t take money from union dues or the general fund for political contributions. There’s just a whole lot of law around that stuff.”

“What if somebody is diverting funds illegally to some politician and then is covering it up with clever bookkeeping?”

“Not in a union like ours, with a lot of members and an outside accounting firm, and what the hell does any of this have to do with Danny Marenne being missing?”

He gave her another one of those dynamite grins. “Probably nothing — I’m just poking around, trying to stir up trouble.”

“You’re doing a good job.” She looked at her watch, made a face. “Shit, I’ve got to go count votes.”

Ballard paid and they started back up the hill toward the hiring hall. The clouds were breaking up, scudding away, spring sunshine slanted across their faces, warmed their cheeks. They paused on the corner below the hiring hall. Members were streaming out after the voting. Ballard gave her a DKA card.

“I’m going to keep snooping around, Amalia. If you run across someone in the union who was a special friend of Danny’s...”

She took the card. “I’ll call if I do.”

“And if I want to get in touch with you...”

“Just call the local.”

“And after hours?”

She laughed, put a hand on his arm. Enough for now. Be hard to get. “Look for me on the St. Mark picket line.”

As she strode up the street toward the hiring hall, she looked at the card. Daniel Kearny Associates. And he’s said that with Petrock murdered he wouldn’t be doing his job if he didn’t ask around the union about Danny being missing. Maybe she’d better find out just what and who Kearny Associates were, and what they did. On the other hand, he wouldn’t have given her the card if he was worried about what she might uncover.

Not really worth the trouble. She’d probably never see him again. But he sure was cute.

Out at the Rochemont estate to announce DKA would be taking the security job, Giselle already was wondering why she had been so determined to get it. She had explained the terms of the contract to Bernardine, she had signed immediately, then Ken had said he wanted to check perimeter security.

But as he’d gotten into an old olive-green jeep that looked left over from World War II, Bernardine had gotten in beside him.

“Hngio!” he said in a sort of fierce panic. “Ngalogne!”

“Don’t be silly,” said Bernardine in a voice Giselle labeled vinegar — as opposed to honey when she spoke to or about her son. “Of course I’m going with you.”

Ken cast a despairing look over his shoulder at Giselle as they started off together, Bernardine figuratively like a teacher dragging a reluctant child off to the principal by one ear.

And now this.

“Isn’t it boss?” demanded Paul. “Isn’t it really boss?”

“It” was a miniature golf course spread over a cleared acre of land in the woods behind the house and the garden and the fairways, greens and sand traps, even a miniature water hazard. Paul handed her a putter.

She looked around the course with a sort of despair. She hated golf, and this wasn’t even real golf. Besides, she was dressed for work, not play, in a business suit and panty hose and semi-high heels and in her purse a .32-caliber snub-nose nickel-plated Colt with a shrouded hammer.

Kearny had dug it out from under a stack of old contingent files in his bottom drawer and with a straight face had insisted she carry it since she was guarding bodies. He’d done it only to bug her, of course; she’d never fired a gun in her life.

“You just... hit the ball, don’t you?” she asked weakly.

Bogart was back. “You said it, sweetheart.”

Her ball dribbled down the hill and came to rest against one of the wooden boundary fences. The fence immediately gave off an electronic spronging! sound like a pinball machine and an amplified voice yelled. “Tilt.”

Laughing immoderately. Paul stroked. Right in. of course.

“Did you speculate to the police or the D.A. about who shot up your car?” she asked him as they walked.

“Mrs. Spade didn’t raise any children dippy enough to make guesses in front of a district attorney.”

Giselle trudged gloomily on, thinking that it was going to be a long week.

How had Scan Groner let Kearny talk him into going into the field as if he were a private eye himself? Well, sure, it was really his problem because the woman was Barbara’s friend, but Kearny should have been willing to do it for him. But no. The only way Kearny was going to help find the missing boyfriend was it Scan went with him. And since it was for free, he couldn’t insist that Kearny do it alone.

The address she had given them was on one-block Pfeiffer Alley, above Bay on the lower slope of Telegraph Hill facing Alcatraz. Out by the old federal prison a white finger of midafternoon fog was feeling its way into the Bay. The four-unit apartment house was sec slightly back from the street; an old woman with a trowel was on her knees in a strip of Hower garden beside the six-foot concrete walkway to the front vestibule.

“Your case, your interrogation,” said Kearny.

Stan crossed the sidewalk racking his brain for an approach from the thousands of reports he had read over the years.

Followed to given address, contacted the landlady...

He squatted awkwardly beside the old woman, not wanting to get dirt on his suit pants. She wore a heavy blue-green sweater, and chinos with loamy knees, and a black mesh gimme cap with an American flag on it above the legend THESE COLORS DON’T RUN.

“Ah... tuberous begoias?” Stan asked her in a voice as bright and bogus as a tin dime.

“Private property.”

The old woman jabbed her trowel into the soil between the flowering plants, used it as a brace to support herself as she turned to glare at him like an old turtle peering around a rock.

“Ah, I’m uh, trying to get in touch with my brother Eddie. He used to live—”

“He tryna kid me, mister?”

Behind him, Kearny said, “How much did Eddie burn you for?”

The old woman, grunting, got one foot under her, pushed harder on the trowel, got her bottom up, got the other foot parallel to the first, straightened up red of face.

“Two months rent.”

Stan said eagerly, “His fiancée, Karen Marshall, said—”

“Oh, I don’t tell her nothing. Give her the time of day and she tries to sell you life insurance. What does a woman my age need with life insurance?” She turned to Kearny. “Eddie hangs around that place they call The Muscle Emporium down on Bay. Works out all the time. I’d go after him myself, but I don’t get around much anymore.” She gave a sudden tinkly laugh that suggested fun and games in her youth. “Maybe I oughtta sign up, get in shape.”

“Hell, you don’t need it,” said Kearny. He took her hand, and to Stan’s amazement kissed its vein-roped back. Maybe, Stan thought, the DKA people earned all that time and mileage they ran up during their field investigations.

Which was just what Kearny wanted him to be thinking.

O’B, way up there in Eureka, was thinking about earning some time and mileage of his own. At 3:30 P.M. he finally had managed to keep down breakfast: dry toast and a Bloody Mary to clear his eyes and jump-start his heart. The celery used to stir the drink was loaded with vitamins, as was the V-8 juice. Once a man hit 50, he had to watch out for his health. O’B was feeling virtuous because in similar circumstances on previous occasions he had always washed down his belated breakfasts with two Bloody Marys. At least.

Tony d’Angelo’s north coast DKA office was in the garage beside his house. A deep redwood planter box where the overhead door once had been was full of pansies, protected from the deer by green plastic mesh. Inside, plasterboard walls and ceiling, two overhead lights, a maroon nylon wall-to-wall — obviously, from the slight wrinkles in it here and there, laid by Tony himself. One swivel chair, one straight-back, a desk against one wall, two locked filing cabinets, one letter-size, one legal.

What with Tony’s injuries, O’B could be stuck up here in mildew country for half the damn month! Made a man want a drink. He checked for faxes instead. Four new assignments:

Contact and collect two payments plus late charges plus expenses on a Chevy S10 Blazer. A reopen, address right here in Eureka. Phone that one in.

A hardware store’s office equipment, five payments down. Such equipment would be considered creditor assets by bankruptcy court if the store went belly-up. Between the lines: beat the sheriff to the stuff in case the guy took Chapter 11.

REPO ON SIGHT on a Dodge Dakota pickup out in the boonies. O’B knew it was in the boonies because the RFD street address had a high five figures: 98392 Fallen Tree Road. The phone was disconnected. There went half a day, out and back, to check whether the disconnect was for nonpayment or because the guy had skipped out.

And a REPO ON SIGHT for a rock band’s musical instruments and amps.

A rock band? How the hell was he supposed to do that? Especially a rock band called Blow Me Baby. More especially when the Special Instructions said: CLIENT WENT TO RAINBOW DANCEHALL TO ASK FOR PAYMENT. WAS ASSAULTED AND ROUGHED UP BY PATRONS EGGED ON BY BAND MEMBERS. Assaulted and roughed up. Just great.

Final straw, Dan Kearny’s sarcastic voice on the phone machine: “The client wants some action on those truck tires, O’B. So do I. He could shove a lot of business our way. Get your nose out of the bottle and your butt into your car, and repo those skins before the subject wears ’em down to baldies!”

Not one goddam word about poor Tony d’Angelo, in traction because of those same truck tires. Not one goddam word about the similar vast dangers bravely faced by Patrick Michael O’Bannon. Pissed off, O’B punched the DKA head office phone number. One ring, he had Jane Goldson’s British accent in his ear.

“Daniel Kearny Associates.”

“Yeah, this is O’B. Gimme the Great White Father now.”

“Out of the office, Mr. O’Bannon. But he said to tell you, should you call in, to get busy on those truck tires—”

O’B slammed down the receiver. Even by proxy he didn’t want to hear about it.