Dead Skip

Eight

“Larry’s working himself out of a job fast,” said Giselle Marc. She, O’Bannon, and Kearny were in the tiny cluttered middle clerical office at DKA, where the big radio transmitter for contacting the field units was located. On the wall behind her desk was a huge map of the city.

“I read his notes,” said Kearny. He was waiting for the water to boil in the little kitchen alcove in one corner of the room. “He’ll want to check with The Freaks before totally eliminating Chambers, but we can scratch Willets. I never liked him for it anyway. And it looks like Ryan is out of it.”

“The black Irishman?” laughed Giselle.

“I fail to see anything funny in that,” said O’Bannon with great dignity.

Patrick Michael O’Bannon was forty-three, with freckles and flaming red hair and a drinker’s leathery face. He had started as a collector for a retail jewelry firm, had switched into investigations, had come with Kearny from Walter’s Auto Detectives at the founding of DKA. Right now he was sitting on the edge of the desk that held the radio, swinging one leg. A voice blared, he pushed the Transmit button on the stand-up mike.

“No, SF-8, that isn’t funny, either.” He released the button so he was not transmitting. “This new guy, Dan, this SF-8, where did you get him from? I didn’t know it was Hire the Mentally Handicapped Week around here.”

“I like the pimp for it, myself,” said Kearny, loftily ignoring O’B. They had just finished their weekly fight about O’Bannon’s expense account, and Kearny had lost — as usual.

“Tiger?” asked Giselle.

“I put out a feeler with our police informant on him and Joyce Leonard. If she is playing for pay, the Vice Squad might have a current res add on her.”

“What about the embezzler?”

“From Castro Valley?” Kearny shook his heavy graying head. “The guy’s a dead skip, Giselle — not one damned live address in the file. Bart just had the one work address to check on a reconfirm.”

“How is Bart this morning?” O’Bannon’s lean features looked drawn, as if it had been a rough night. For O’B, it usually was.

“No change,” said Giselle. “Still in a coma.”

The intercom buzzed, she picked up, said “Yeah?” and listened. She held the phone out to Kearny. “Waterreus the BB-eyed Dutchman.”

Kearny listened, spoke, listened, nodded, said “Thanks” and hung up. “Joyce Leonard was picked up for soliciting last January, her driver’s license has been revoked for drunk driving, and they’ve got a warrant out on her for overdue parking tags. Waterreus said he’ll check the location she’s been drawing the tags and call back.” To O’Bannon he said, “Try to raise Ballard, O’B.”

“KDM 366 calling SF-6. Come in, Larry.”

“He won’t be on the street yet, Dan,” objected Giselle. “It’s only a little after nine, his note said he was going home at four this morning.”

“He’ll be working. That deadline I gave him is only forty-two hours off.”

Larry Ballard was working, all right, feeling a hell of a lot better for four hours’ sleep, a shower, a shave, and breakfast in a greasy spoon on Ninth Avenue near his Lincoln Way apartment. But he was not in his car to answer O’B’s call. He was in San Francisco Van and Storage at 791 Stanyan Street, waiting for a black mover named Chicago. Chicago, he had learned, would have moved Joyce Leonard if anyone at S.F. Van and Storage had.

Ballard was also waiting for Chicago because everyone else at S.F. Van — every single person — was drunk. Every living soul, at 9:38 on a weekday morning. Leaning against the L-shaped counter and looking through the inner door to the storage warehouse, he could see them, passing the bottle around. Apparently most of them slept there at least part of the time; several cots were set up.

A blocky round-faced man who had said he was Bonnetti, office manager, weaved his way to the door. He gripped the frame with blunt calloused fingers. He regarded Ballard owlishly. “Oojusangon,” he said. He blinked deliberately and solemnly and tried again. “Oo... you. You jus’ ang... hang on. Good ol’ Chi-town’ll be in pr’y soon. ’Kay?”

“Okay.”

“’M gonna shraiten out ’morrow. ’Kay?”

“Okay.”

Ballard waited for the crash as he turned away, but Bonnetti, office manager, was made of the stuff of heroes. He didn’t fall down.

The front door opened and a black man as black as Bart Heslip, which was very black indeed, came through at an angle so he wouldn’t take out the door frame with his shoulders. Ballard raised his gaze from the second button on the man’s blue coveralls — which was the button level with his eyes — to the massive tight-clipped head. The features made the late Sonny Liston seem like just another pretty face.

“Chicago?”

“The Windy City flash himself.” Chicago’s voice had the resonance of a hi-fi woofer with the gain all the way up. He looked past Ballard to the back room. “Those bastards all drunk again?”

“Still.”

“There’s that, ain’t there?” Chicago said pensively.

“I’m surprised any of them still have their chauffeurs’ licenses.”

“Most of ’em don’t. But you want anything moved, old Chi-town will give you his personal service. Safe as houses, silent as the fog, gentle as a kitten, Chicago will—”

“I’m trying to find a white whore named Joyce Leonard who’s shacking with a black pimp named Tiger.”

“Whoo-ee!” yelped Chicago, startled. Then he started to roar with laughter. “Sheeit, mother, you shoulda been a preacher! You do call ’em as you see ’em!”

“Am I wrong?”

“Hell no, she tried to sell me a piece in the new apartment when I got her moved in. Last Wednesday, it was.” He shook his head. “White meat don’t turn me on, I got Maybelle and four cute kids to home. Wouldn’t shoot that Joyce with your artillery, man.”

“You remembered her pretty quick,” said Ballard.

Chicago laughed again. “You’re a cop or something, ain’t you? Like private or something?” He nodded in approval. “I remember ’cause ain’t every day I get offered white meat, not even off’n a turkey like her. Likewise, a little black feller was in asking the same questions, was, let’s see—”

“Day before last?” said Ballard eagerly.

“That’s it. Little feller, wouldn’t go a hundred-sixty pounds, but moved. I mean, like a dancer.”

“Bart Heslip,” said Ballard almost fiercely to himself.

“Good friend, huh?” said Chicago. “In big trouble?”

“Big as it can get without being dead.”

“Tiger, maybe? I know that cat, mean mother. They at 545 O’Farrell, apartment... hell, can’t remember. On the second floor.”

Chicago wouldn’t even take a couple of bucks for a beer. A hell of a man, Ballard thought as he switched on the radio. As soon as it quit whining he unclipped the mike and depressed the red Transmit button. “SF-6 calling KDM 366.”

“Go ahead, Larry,” said Giselle’s voice.

“I’ve got a new res add on Joyce Leonard, en route there now — 5-4-5 O’Farrell. I think they might be it, Giselle. Bart was at the moving company two days ago.”

Kearny’s voice came on. “KDM 366 to SF-6. Forget Leonard and Tiger, Ballard. Repeat, scratch Leonard and Tiger, over.”

“But they’re right for it, Dan. Over.”

“SF-2 is picking up the Cadillac right now from a parking lot in the three-hundred block of Eddy.”

SF-2 was O’Bannon. He didn’t mind O’B picking up the car even though it was his case now, but dammit, why was Kearny so sure that Tiger was not the one who had slugged Bart?

“Where did the location on the Cadillac come from, over?”

“A police informant was running down the subject’s parking tags, and found that Tiger and the subject were involved in a fight in a Tenderloin bar at ten o’clock the night before last. Over.”

“10-4,” said Ballard. He understood, all right. Arrested at ten on the night Bart had gotten it, they wouldn’t even have been out on the street by one o’clock, let alone hitting anyone on the head.

“Tiger is in jail, the subject is in the hospital. He went for her with a razor, took out one of her eyes with it. 10-4?”

“10-4,” repeated Ballard. He reclipped the mike on the dash, said aloud, “Son of a bitch, anyway.”

Leonard and Tiger had looked so damned good for it.

Charles M. Griffin.

The JRS Garage, 150 First Street, was at first glance just a square open door in the side of a building across from the East Bay Bus Terminal. But when Ballard drove across the sidewalk and under a red sign offering parking at 35 cents per ½ hr, a huge shadowy parking garage stretched ahead for half a block. What a place to bury a car you were trying to hide! Maybe that’s what Griffin had done with his.

He drove up the narrow aisle between the parked cars until he was waved down by a round-faced black man in red coveralls with JRS and JOE stitched above the respective breast pockets.

“I’m not leaving it — just want to talk with one of the bosses.”

“There’s three partners,” said Joe. He was a large-bodied man with tight-clipped, tight-curled hair and an infectious grin. Ballard found himself grinning back. “Park in that middle stall between the two pillars. Leave the keys in case I have to move it.”

The office was a concrete box set beside the cross-piece of the H-shaped aisles. Behind the open counter a sandy-haired man named EARL, who looked like an ex-Navy chief, was clearing the cash register with the single-minded ferocity of a commuter-train conductor punching tickets.

Ballard checked his assignment sheet. “Is... um... Leo Busilloni or Danny Walker or... um... Rod Elkin around?”

“Leo’s out checking lots, Danny’s up at the Bush Street garage, and Rod’s out getting a sandwich. If you want to wait, you can go right through to the office.”

Ballard went by Earl and across the small room to a slightly larger room beyond. Pasted to the front of the bottled water dispenser was a typed notice: DUE TO INCREASED TAXATION, RISING PRICES, INFLATION, AND HIGHER WAGES, THIS WATER IS NOW TWICE AS FREE AS IT USED TO BE. The inner office had windows all around to chest-level which looked out into the garage, three wooden desks, and some straight-backed chairs just inside the door.

Ballard moved a copy of San Francisco Screw off a chair to sit down. Screw’s front page had a photo of a young couple proving that the underground newspaper was aptly named. Ballard, who would rather do it than look at it, passed up the paper for the bulky Griffin file, glad of having a few extra minutes to review it.

DKA Oakland originally had gotten it as a straight collection on February 21, when the subject was delinquent 1/17 and 2/17 in the amount of $108.64 each on a 1972 T-Bird. Contract balance had been $5,542.31 at that time, and these were the fourth and fifth payments respectively. All of the earlier payments had been at least a week late, one of them seventeen days. DKA Oakland immediately had run into a stone wall, because the subject had left his residence address of 3877 Castro Valley Boulevard, Castro Valley, a full month before he had given it to the bank as his res add when buying the car.

The case had immediately been reassigned to the SF office as a Repo on Sight from the work address.

The subject was gone from his job, also.

The March 17 payment was not received, making it a deadline deal on which the client’s ninety-day recourse would expire in one month. That meant the client would have to eat the car if recovered after April 17, so all the stops had been pulled: the file went to skip-tracing, the car went on the company hot-sheet for state-wide distribution, East Bay and SF police checks were made for warrants or parking tags, the state DMV was checked for the address to which his license tabs and most recent driver’s license renewal had been sent. Credit-checking services were utilized, his insurance broker contacted, the dealer and salesman who had sold him the car, his lawyer, friends, neighbors, his only living relative (an aunt), by phone and in person.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Dead end. Blank wall. Charles M. Griffin was a dead skip.

On April 19 DKA charges were billed to date and paid by the client, and the case was put on Contingent status. On May 8, after a routine file review, the case was assigned to Heslip for a single purpose: to recheck with the ex-employers whether they had mailed out the subject’s W-2 at the end of January, whether it had been returned, and to what address it had been mailed.

That had been on Monday. On Tuesday, with no report on the case in the file, Bart had been whapped on the head. Earlier, that afternoon, he had said to Giselle casually that “the cat from the East Bay is gonna turn out to be an embezzler.” Bringing Larry Ballard to JRS Garage on Thursday.

“You wanted to see me?”

“Oh. Yes.” He stood up, stuck out his hand. “Larry Ballard with Daniel Kearny Associates.”

“Rod Elkin.” They shook.

Elkin was a tall, lanky, good-looking man with sharp features and a big nose. He had abundant black curly hair and sideburns, and a wry quizzical expression that looked habitual. He wore corduroy slacks and a wide leather belt.

“Daniel Kearny Associates...” He was frowning. “Wasn’t one of your men in here the other day?”

“Tuesday?” asked Ballard quickly.

“I didn’t talk with him. Leo did.” He flopped into the ancient swivel behind his desk and cocked a lean leg over the edge in what was obviously a favorite position.

Ballard sat down again. “You don’t know what they talked about, do you?”

Elkin frowned. “Something about Griff’s W-2?” He nodded to himself. “That’s it. Wanted to know if we sent one out. We did.”

“Did it come back?”

“Not that I ever saw. But—”

“Sure as hell did,” snapped another voice from the doorway.

A bulky bald man in a white parking-attendant’s coat came through the doorway to stare at Ballard accusingly. The phone rang. Elkin made a wry face, said “JRS, Rod,” and started listening. He waved a hand at the bulky aggressive man, said to Ballard, “Leo Busilloni, he’s the one talked with your man,” transferred the phone from his left hand, and began writing things down on the back of an envelope.

“You from that same private-eye agency as the black guy?” demanded Busilloni aggressively. He talked, moved, reacted in the quick staccatos of a man in good condition, a younger man than his bald crown suggested. He sat down at a desk stacked high with computer print-outs.

“Yes. Did you show the W-2 to our other man?”

“He got all excited. New address from what you had in the files,” said Busilloni. Ballard started to get excited, also. The bald man opened a drawer in his desk, rummaged. After about thirty seconds he said “Shit!” explosively. “Never can find a damned... it was a Concord address, I know...” He looked up. “He must have moved there last fall, after his mother died. The P.O. forwarded the W-2 to Concord from Castro Valley, then it was sent back here. First we knew he’d moved.”

“You don’t remember the street?” asked Ballard tightly.

“California Street.” Busilloni squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, opened them. “Yeah. The house number was 1830.” The bald man hustled out again, after adding that Elkin had gotten stuck with Griffin’s job. Griffin had been the man who counted the cash.

“A license to steal,” said Elkin, hanging up the phone. “You guys are after that T-Bird?” Ballard said they were, and Elkin shook his head. “Why do the middle-aged swingers, when they start swinging, always get a T-Bird? He had a VW before his ma died.”

“What about this idea that our other field agent got about Griffin cooking the books?”

“The hell of it is, I just don’t know. What does your man say about it?”

“He’s not saying anything. He went off Twin Peaks in a repossessed vehicle the night before last.”

Elkin stood up abruptly. “I want to show you something.”

They went down a short corridor to a closed solid metal door. It was unlocked. Inside was a battered swivel chair and a table made longer by an old door laid over it. There were no windows, just a ventilating fan. On the door was an adding machine, a stack of cloth bank money bags, some untidy piles of receipts, and a squat gray-metal machine with a round shiny maw on top, set at an angle like a giant phone dial. This had a metal basket with a spout. Along the bottom of the machine were five chrome drawers.

“Coin-counter,” said Elkin. “Sorts ’em into the drawers by size — halves, quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies. Also keeps a running total which you can crank off whenever you want.”

“This is where Griffin worked?”

“Yeah. All alone. Locked himself in.” He leaned against the table and folded his arms. “His job was counting the receipts. Cash. He made the pickups from the garages each morning, checked the registers against the pickups, counted the self-park coin boxes, totaled credit-card sales, made up change for each station’s daily operations, and got the money ready for the armored car to deliver to the bank.”

Ballard nodded. “So nobody knew exactly how much money you were taking in except Griffin, right?”

“Right. The month’s receipts never balance — hell, it’s a physical impossibility. If we’re within a hundred bucks of register receipts at the end of the month, we think we’re doing great. Depending on how long he was stealing — if he was — we could be twenty, thirty thousand bucks down the tubes. I only took over three months ago, after Griff took off. I’ve got it so screwed up we’re lucky to make payroll each week.”

So there it was, Ballard thought as he slid beneath the wheel of the Ford ten minutes later. Elkin had given him a lot more background, a description of sorts. Griffin’s mother had died a year before; in the fall of last year Griffin had suddenly gone on a diet, lost thirty pounds, bought new clothes, moved out of the big old house in Castro Valley, let his balding hair grow long and raised a crop of big puffy muttonchop sideburns. When he had bought the T-Bird, Elkin had asked him about all of the blossoming-out in his life.

“He said that his mother’s will was out of probate, he’d come into some money,” said Elkin. “He was our bookkeeper for five years, steadiest employee we had — then his ma died. When he took off, he called in sick two days in a row, last time on a Friday. On Monday, no call. He never showed up again.”

Griffin could be it. If twenty, thirty thousand bucks were missing, that sure as hell was a motive sufficiently heavy for murder. The hell of it was, nobody at JRS Garages was going to be able to confirm or deny shortages until an audit was made. And none would be made until the end of the fiscal year after June 30. None of which was going to help Ballard with a deadline which was now just thirty-eight hours away.

But maybe he had another way to go. Listed in the file was the phone number of Andrew W. Murson, who was supposed to be Griffin’s lawyer.