Final Notice

Nine

Chandra.

Since the old dancer was the focal point of the whole problem, whatever that problem was going to be, Kearny took her himself. Besides, he wanted to get to hell out of the office on that Monday morning.

Before leaving, he called the sales manager of Curtiss Cadillac, in an old ornate building left over from the days when Van Ness Avenue had proudly called itself Auto Row.

“Lou? Dan Kearny here. Who do you like at Candlestick on Sunday?”

“Forty-niners.”

“You’ve got ten bucks at six-to-four, okay?” Before Cassavette could respond, he asked, “What can you tell me about a Chandra, that’s C-h-a-n-d-r-a, no first name, no initial, who bought a new convertible a couple of months back?”

“Old gray-haired broad runs a dance studio?” he asked, obviously around his cigar.

“That’s the one. She make the down by cash or check?”

“Second. I’ll look.” Cassavette had recently switched to Curtiss from Crescent Lincoln-Mercury; Kearny wasn’t sure he’d made the right move. He came back. “Check. We wouldn’t give her delivery until it cleared...”

“Bad credit?”

“No credit. Rent, phone, utilities — what the hell’s that?”

“Yeah, what bank?”

Cassavette told him, adding that it was the North Beach branch at Columbus and Green. “Somebody got miseries on her now?”

“Naw. She pimpled a parked car up in Pacific Heights, insurance company is trying to deal because the car she hit was supposed to be garaged in Marin where the rates are lower.”

Ten minutes later he parked the wagon at the top of the hill in front of Mike’s Grocery. Chandra’s studio was a short half-block away, where Edith Alley cut off the odd-number, downhill side of Grant. Just beyond, Grant itself swooped down toward the Embarcadero. Kearny had once questioned a girl in a flat on Edith. He grinned at the memory. It had been one of Ballard’s first cases, and he’d wanted to paste Kearny in the mouth for making the sweet young thing cry.

Chandra’s studio was in a three-story apartment house which had been built when bays were still in but Victorian curlicues were out. The frame building had been battleship-gray in some distant past, with white trim; now it was peeling to show the wood beneath. The big front window and narrow yellow door of the studio faced directly on the sidewalk. The glass in each had been painted over on the inside. CHANDRA arced across the window in foot-high amateur lettering, with the dance in yellow script beneath. No hours were shown.

The yellow door was locked. Above it were screwed the metal numbers 1719, painted a smeary red, next to a painted-over but still visible LIPTON’S TEA. Old grocery store? Mike on the corner would probably know.

The bright-eyed, burly merchant was talking in rapid-fire Italian with an old woman dressed in black. Kearny bought an Eskimo Pie.

“What time’s the dance studio open up?”

“Chandra’s?” Mike laid a thick hairy hand on the minute counter behind which he passed his days, leaned forward as if to look down toward the studio. He gave a heavy laugh. “Whenever she feels like it. That old girl ain’t afraid of work — shell lay down alongside it any time.”

“She had the place long?”

“Six years, maybe. I used to have a grocery store in there.”

Kearny got the name and address of the building owner. Leaving, he drove by 574 Greenwich, half a block away, where Chandra lived. A single-unit dwelling, fairly rare on Telegraph Hill, built back from and well above the steeply slanting street. The gray-concrete retaining wall was flush with the sidewalk, twenty feet high on the uphill side, thirty on the downhill, crumbling in places to show rusted reinforcing rod.

Kearny stared at it through the open window and drummed thoughtful fingers on the steering wheel. Going up between hunched concrete shoulders was a set of steep narrow stairs. These ended in a narrow walk to the front door through the vast profusion of waist-high bushes and shrubs which covered the sloping yard. Foliage dripped down over the lip of the retaining wall like melted wax from a candle.

Where could the original point of contact possibly be between this — Chandra — and a heavy who would hire a beating and pressure a banker at a mere phone call? More important, who was he? Talking some facts about Chandra’s finances out of her bank might help...

Friday again. Kearny was explaining to the others why he had taken a chance and posed as a state banking commission investigator to Chandra’s bank, rather than getting information through channels.

“Sure, DKA does work for their head office, but bankers tend to drink from the same bottle. Word might have filtered back to whoever is involved at Golden Gate Trust. This way, the branch people are playing industrial spy and keeping their mouths shut.”

“It’s still a felony if you get caught,” Ballard pointed out.

“Misdemeanor in this state. Okay: Chandra has lived at 574 Greenwich since 1938. The old Italian landlord charges her a hundred a month and could be getting two-fifty, but she still has trouble making the rent. Chinese landlord of the dance studio has threatened eviction for non-payment twice in the six years she’s been there. She grosses between five and six bills a month from the studio; no other apparent sources of income.”

“And driving a new Cadillac,” said Heslip. “That’s beautiful.”

“It gets better. On July thirtieth she deposited five thousand dollars in cash in her checking account, bringing the balance to $5,027.38. Between then and August eleventh, checks totaling $1,994.12 passed through the account, written to Grant Avenue and Union Street boutiques, and a sizable one to an athletic-supply house for new exercise bars for the studio. On August eleventh she wrote a check to Curtiss Cadillac for $3,094.45 to cover down, tax and license on the Caddy. She got a good deal because it was the end of the model year.”

“She also got overdrawn,” said Giselle.

“Would have if she hadn’t made her regular deposit from the dance-studio receipts. As it was, the check cleared. No further large deposits, but last week she used five one-hundred-dollar bills to pay off the auto delinquency. Reactions?”

“Blackmail,” said Giselle and Heslip together. Heslip went on, “Five thou initial bite, when things got tight another nip for five hundred more.”

Kearny nodded. “What we need is somebody — Pete Gilmartin, maybe — who knows what she has on him. Whoever him is.”

Heslip winked at Giselle. “Not Gilmartin. He’s clean.”

“You’re sure?” Kearny demanded.

“Hell, Dan, the guy lives in a tract house. Two mortgages, first to the seller and second to Golden Gate Trust. One car—”

“No other real property?”

“Not in any Bay Area county. One car, he owes on it. Standard homeowner’s and life insurance through one of the big Montgomery Street brokerage firms — Levinson Brothers in the Russ Building. Giselle ran a credit check on him. Paying on a color TV, washer-dryer. Good pay. Master-charge with a $500 limit, owed $275 at the time checked. Wife, two kids, Little League...”

“Okay, I buy it,” said Kearny, then made a liar of himself by asking, “Long-distance calls?”

“One a month to his folks back in Toledo. Two calls to an aunt in Cleveland — the wife’s folks are local. I called the aunt myself — old-buddy-from-the-service routine. I could smell the apple pie.”

“Why are you so thorough on Pete?” demanded Giselle.

“We need his help in getting a make on Nucci. How about some coffee, Giselle?”

They relaxed and chatted for ten minutes, then got back to it. Ballard ran through what he had already told Kearny about Padilla Trucking, and Kearny explained the significance of it and the fact that it smelled of Mafia. Then Ballard started on Nucci.

“Some of this I got; most of it Giselle got. He moved into the house on San Buenaventura in St. Francis Woods three years ago last month. But he doesn’t own it.”

Kearny sat up with a jerk. “Who the hell does?”

“An outfit calling itself Fraisa, Inc., are owner of record.”

“Remember that name,” said Giselle. “It’s important.”

“But Nucci pays the taxes,” Ballard went on. “Purchase price was $175,000. First mortgage held by—”

“Golden Gate Trust?” asked Heslip.

“That’s it,” said Giselle. “I kept away from Golden Gate, Dan, so we don’t know if the loan is legitimate—”

Kearny said, “It’ll be legitimate. That isn’t Nucci’s division.”

“We had a title company in South Lake Tahoe make a title search of the property in the Skyland development,” said Ballard. “Fraisa, Inc., is also owner of record up there — little $65,000 ‘summer cottage.’ They pay the taxes.”

“I put that kid out of Truckee on it,” Giselle put in, her clear blue eyes sparkling with excitement. “The place is used by a number of different groups, mainly businessmen with women the caretaker doubts are wives. Caretaker’s year-round, retired Army, his wife does the cooking. They’ve got a detached bungalow.”

“Is there a mortgage?” asked Kearny.

“Yeah,” said Ballard. “Held by Padilla Trucking.”

“Now we’re getting someplace.” Kearny went out to the postage-stamp kitchen for more coffee, came back making a face over it. “It’s shaping up. Giselle, what have we got on Padilla Trucking?”

“You just think it’s shaping up.” She began consulting her typed notes. “California State Division of Corporations referred me to the San Francisco Regional Office, which came up with the stockholders of record. Fraisa, Inc., and Marcello Supply Company of New York.”

“Ring-around-the-rosy,” muttered Kearny. “Of course, Marcello Supply will be the eastern money that funded the original deal.”

“I wonder what they supply?” asked Ballard.

“Hoods out of New York,” said Heslip.

“And the officers of Padilla?”

“The original board of directors was Frank Padilla, his wife Louisa, Nicolas DeSimone — the general manager of the trucking company — and... Jerry Garofolo.”

The man who had hit Ed Dorsey. It reflected in all their faces. Kearny spoke first.

“DeSimone was probably the one who got away, then. And we can be pretty sure that they weren’t moonlighting for anybody. It was organization business.” He frowned, thinking deeply. “What’s the stock split between Marcello Supply and Fraisa, Inc.?”

“Fifty-five/forty-five.”

“Who owns the Fraisa stock?” asked Heslip.

“Up until three years ago, Frank and Louisa Padilla. That’s where the name comes from: F-r-a from Frank, i-s-a from Louisa.”

“Three years,” said Kearny quickly. “It was three years ago that Art Nucci—”

“Closed the deal on his house. Right. And on the same day, Art Nucci got ten percent of Fraisa’s stock.”

“Jackpot!” exclaimed Ballard.

“What we have to find out is what Nucci did to get it,” said Kearny. “That’s why we need Gilmartin’s cooperation.” He grinned. “Anyway, we have our connection. It’s obvious that Frank Padilla is the one who ordered—”

“No,” said Giselle. “N-o, no.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“On the fifth of this month Frank Padilla’s stock was transferred to a Mr. Philip Fazzino.” She savored her moment of triumph. “Frank Padilla was killed in a car wreck on July twenty-second. Which was a week before Chandra got the five thousand dollars.”