Treasure Hunt

13

Tamara opened her eyes before the alarm went off, while it was still dark out, and for a moment could not exactly place herself, although she had slept in the same Murphy bed that she’d been using for the past six months. She turned to look at the digital clock on the windowsill and saw that it was 4:42.

At 5:01, and wide awake, she tossed the blankets off and sat up. She’d been sleeping in plaid flannel pajamas that had once been Mickey’s, and they swam on her, even with the string on the pants pulled as tight as it would go. Quickly she made the bed, then lifted it, gently folding it up into the wall so it wouldn’t wake anyone.

After a quick trip to the bathroom, she looked in at where Mickey slept and felt a surge of relief and love when she saw his gangly form splayed out on top of his bed. Closing the door softly, she went into the kitchen, turned on the one light, and set up the Mr. Coffee for eight cups. While the coffee gurgled and dripped, she rummaged in the refrigerator, pulling out a plate covered with strips of leftover lamb, then some polenta, butter, a carton of eggs.

Five minutes later, she poured her first cup of coffee, added heavy cream and-what the hell-three sugars, then scooped her three-egg concoction onto her plate, smothering it with ketchup.

The first bite was so delicious that it brought tears to her eyes.

The Hunt Club’s office was over a Chinese gift shop on Grant Avenue. The door was around the corner on Sacramento and at 8:10, twenty minutes early because they were excited about the possibility of more leads coming in by phone, Mickey and Tamara were just getting to that door when, coming from the other direction, they almost literally ran into the two women who were about to turn into the same doorway. And upon recognition-it was Gina Roake and another, younger attorney from her office, Amy Wu-the exclamations and hugging commenced.

“We heard from Wyatt you were back!”

“We’re so glad it’s true!”

“We’ve missed you so much.”

“I missed both of you too.”

Mickey, standing to one side, said, “Me too,” ambiguously, and Wu came over and gave him a conciliatory buss on the cheek and about half a hug. “We would have missed you, too, Mickey,” she said, “except you just wouldn’t go away.”

Hunt showed up early, too, but it was still after everyone had gone upstairs and gotten the office opened up, the coffeemaker going, the shutters open. The three employees were acutely aware of the number “ 7” blinking at Tamara’s phone, but waited until Roake and Wu left to go back to their own offices before they encircled the desk while Tamara pressed the playback button.

“Hi, the Hunt Club. This is Cecil Rand, three eight one, two two eight four. I believe I’ve seen something that might have to do with the Dominic Como murder. I’m not sure if it’s anything and I don’t want to have the police think I’m just trying to waste their time, so maybe you could call me back. Thanks.” He repeated his number, and hung up.

“Hello.” A tentative woman’s voice. “Is anybody…? Hello? My name is… well, never mind. I guess I’ll just call back when you’re there.”

“Oh, super,” Mick said. “Unless you die in the meantime.”

Next was another woman, no greeting. “This is Nancy Neshek. I’m the executive director of the Sanctuary House. My name may be familiar because my organization has also put up twenty- five thousand dollars for the reward, so I won’t be calling to claim any part of that, but I did have a question if one of you could please call me back, either at home or my office, sometime tomorrow. It’s somewhat important.” She then left both of her numbers, said thank you and good-bye, and rang off.

“Hey. I’m Damien Jones, over here at the Mission Street Coalition, and uh… well, there’s just some stuff goin’ on here that ain’t right. I mean, they say we getting all this foundation money s’posed to pay for room and board and food and stuff and then they take it out our pay. I don’t know how Como did it over there at his place, you know, Sunset, but if I can get moved over there, I’m applying.”

Next: “My name is Eric Canard with the San Francisco Palace Duck Coalition and I just wanted to inform you that I’ll be going to the media myself in the next day or two to expose this obviously fraudulent murder you’ve got everybody talking about, and the even more blatant attempt to deflect attention from the situation with the displaced ducks from the Palace Lagoon, which is now, as I’m sure you know, just about completely empty. I don’t know who’s putting up all this supposed reward money, but I think I can prove that there is both no dead man and no money that will actually be paid for any reward. If the Hunt Club is even in fact your real name.”

After that hang-up, Hunt’s mouth twitched. “Well, Mick, that’s at least one for you.”

The penultimate message was from a real client, another of Roake’s junior associates calling about scheduling a deposition for the first two days of the following week, and would Wyatt call to verify his availability.

Finally, the tentative woman again, maddeningly repeating her first message almost verbatim-she’d call back later, when they were there.

“Leave a message!” Mickey actually yelled at the telephone. “Leave a goddamn message. What’s the matter with you?” He looked at his sister. “What’s the matter with her? She afraid somebody’s going to jump through the phone and bite her?”

But Tamara could only shrug and turn to her boss. “How do you want to divide these up?” she asked.

Hunt decided that calls number one and three-Nancy Neshek and Cecil Rand-were worth his time and energy, and that Mickey would take the other ones, leaving Eric Canard to Mickey’s own judgment as an obvious flake and publicity hound, but one who in fact had probably spent a significant amount of time in and around the lagoon and might have seen something, and who would never, ever, under any circumstances, talk to the police.

For his own part, Hunt first called Nancy Neshek’s home number and left a message. Then, still before nine A.M., he called Sanctuary House, which had apparently not yet opened its main office for the day. Leaving another message there, he next called Cecil Rand, who picked up on the first ring and told Hunt he’d meet him at Johnny Rockets Diner on Chestnut Street in the Marina District. Rand told Hunt he was old and black and run-down-looking; “you’ll think I’m a bum, but I’m not.” And he would be wearing an almost-new Raiders jacket. Hunt said he’d be in his Cooper if Rand was outside waiting.

Hunt made it down there in about fifteen minutes and saw a man fitting that description standing in the doorway to Johnny Rockets. He was rolling down his window to say hello and ask if he was Cecil Rand when the man pointed at him, said, “Hunt?” and got a nod in return. He jaywalked, stopping the traffic, through the opposite lane, passed in front of the car, over to the passenger door, and got in.

“Cool car,” he said, fastening his seat belt. “I’ve always wanted to ride in one of these. Bigger than it looks, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I love it,” Hunt said. “Plus, you wouldn’t know to look at it, but it’s a rocket ship. The thing hauls.” He looked across at his passenger, who came exactly as advertised. “So where we going?”

“Hang a right. The lagoon.”

Hunt gave him another quick glance. His clothes were worn but clean, and he exuded a kind of raw confidence that made Hunt glad he’d included Cecil as among the legitimate tipsters. And his saying that they ought to go to the lagoon was promising. It was, after all, if not the scene of the crime itself, then, nevertheless, a venue of significant interest.

They’d just turned off Chestnut when Rand volunteered that he almost hadn’t called, probably wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been about Dominic. “Although if it turns out I get some of the reward, you know, that wouldn’t hurt none either. But even then, if it wasn’t Dominic, I don’t know if I’d have bothered. But whoever killed him, they got to get caught.”

“You knew Mr. Como?”

“Yeah. The guy saved my life.”

The phrase struck Hunt, since he’d heard so many other people use it in recent days. “How’s that?” he asked.

“I did some time growing up. Down at Corcoran. You know that’s a prison.”

“I’ve heard of it.”

“Lot of folks haven’t, you’d be surprised. Well, you get out of prison, it’s hard to find work, maybe you’ve heard that too.” His unshaven face wrinkled. He obviously thought he’d uttered some kind of witticism.

“So I got nowhere to go when I get here, back to the city I mean, and I’m in town maybe two weeks, standing in line outside the Divisadero kitchen, the money they give me out of the joint just about all gone, and I’m thinking, ‘Shit, what now?’ And suddenly up comes this limo and pulls in and this guy-it turns out it’s Dominic but I don’t know it then-he’s dressed up like a banker, better’n a banker, he gets out and he’s smiling, talking to people, right at home with brothers, all like that.

“So by the time I’m inside, he’s there, too, his jacket’s off, and he’s actually serving up food on my tray and I’m thinking this is some strange dude, and I don’t know why but I stop there in front of him and the Lord speaks to me and tells me to ask him if he knows where an ex-con like me can get myself a job. And he just stands there lookin’ at me a minute and then says don’t let him leave without snagging him again.

“So I don’t take my eyes off him, and then he’s putting on his jacket and I get up and he actually comes over to me and asks me what I want to do and when can I start. And I tell him anything and right now. And I can see he likes that ’cause he says come on out with him and he drives me in his limo out to this house they’re rebuilding over on Fell and next thing I know I’m carrying drywall and learning how to put it up. Got pretty good at it too.”

“I bet you did.”

Rand nodded, satisfied. “So there it was. Steady work with his rehab people until I learned what I was doing and then Dominic caught me onto a regular crew, I mean real construction work. Saved my life. Here, pull over here.”

They’d come all the way up to the north end of the lagoon, near where Mickey had found Como’s body. By now, the only water left was visible as little more than a sinuous puddle that ran down the middle of the mud slick that used to be the bottom of the pond.

“Now, before we get to it, maybe I should have said this first.” Rand put a quick hand on Hunt’s arm, stopping him from getting out. “I want to keep it that my name don’t get out in front of the police on this thing. If it turns out it’s somethin’, then it’s what it is, is all. But I don’t want anybody telling the police who got you here and how’d I see it when nobody else did. Good?”

Hunt didn’t like to make promises he wasn’t sure he could keep, but he didn’t want to shut Rand down either. So he nodded ambiguously and let him continue.

“’Cause you know,” Rand went on, “they get somebody like me done time, next thing it’s how’d he know where to look? He must have been part of it. You understand what I’m sayin’?”

“I do.”

A brusque nod. “Least not till they doin’ the reward, when it’s over.”

“I hear you.”

“Okay, then.” And they both reached for the door openers.

As soon as they got out of the car, Hunt could smell rotting vegetation and gas. And he noticed that all along the opposite shore, the degraded shoreline had been fenced off, no doubt in preparation for the improvements, the new rock-and-concrete wall.

Cecil Rand came around and led him across the street, then down across the grassy lawn to the old retaining wall. They were still quite a ways from the water-hugging trees that marked the exact site where Como had been found, but Rand didn’t seem to know or care about that, and stopped perhaps fifty yards short of it, and on the street side.

“Okay, now,” Rand said as they stood looking out over the mud. The sky today was heavily overcast and the gray morning light flat and without glare. “Now, I ain’t saying this is absolutely somethin’, it’s just what it is.”

“All right,” Hunt said. “What are we looking at?”

Rand moved in closer next to Hunt and pointed slightly off to his right. “I was walking by here last night before dark and stopped right here. Seen it and started thinkin’ on the reward. Put my stogie out here to mark the spot, so I’d get it right.”

Hunt looked down and saw the carbon X on the low wall. Then his eyes came up, following where Rand was pointing.

“Just this side of the last of the water,” Rand said. “It’s still there.”

“What, though?” And then Hunt squinted. Maybe ninety feet away from where he stood, and still ten feet on this side of the puddle, the smooth flat surface of the mud yielded an instantly recognizable shape, out of place among the smattering of roots and bottles and rotting algae. It looked like two sticks crossed at perfect right angles, but Hunt knew what it was even as he said, “I see it. You mean the tire iron?”

Rand was nodding and nodding, the corners of his mouth turned up in satisfaction. “I’m seein’ that ol’ thing in the mud last night and thinkin’ I be lookin’ at what got used on Dominic.”