“Not that I know about.”
“Your brother and an illegal?”
“No. I told you before-Frank got along with everyone and so does Tom. Neither of them had any enemies here.”
“Hanauer had one somewhere,’” I said.
“Well, it wasn’t Tom.”
“Big turnover rate among the illegals, is there?”
“They come and go.”
“But some stay on. Some have been here a while.”
“We always try to keep good workers.”
“Rafael Vega one of them?”
“Rafael? He isn’t an illegal.”
“But he is in charge of hiring them?”
“… Yes.”
“You give him carte blanche on who and when and how many?”
“Mostly. He’s the shop foreman. And he knows those people; he lives among them.”
Those people. “So maybe he also knows something you don’t-something that’ll help clear your brother.”
“He doesn’t,” Coleman said. “If he did he would’ve come forward by now.”
“Unless he doesn’t know he knows it,” Eberhardt said. “Maybe nobody asked him the right questions. How about if you send for him and we’ll see what kind of answers he gives us.”
“He isn’t here.”
“Off work today, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Called in sick?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
“Uh-huh. Lot of people off work today. Your brother, Vega, Pendarves.”
“Coincidence. You can’t make anything out of that.”
“Maybe not. Tell us about Vega.”
“Tell you what? He’s an excellent worker, very dependable.”
“Except for today.”
Coleman didn’t say anything.
“How long’s he been working for you?”
“Seven years.”
“How does he get along with the undocumented workers?”
“Very well. How many times do I have to tell you that we’ve never had any trouble here at the factory?”
“Just one big happy family,” Eberhardt said sardonically. “You wouldn’t mind letting us have Vega’s home address, would you?”
Coleman crushed out what was left of his second cancer stick, nibbled at his lower lip like a rabbit working on a piece of celery. “I’ll tell Ms. Melendez to give it to you,” he said, and reached for the telephone, and then paused with his hand on the receiver. “Is that all? If there’s nothing else, I have work to do.”
“Another good worker,” Eberhardt said. “No, there’s nothing else. Not right now, anyway.”
We got on our feet. Coleman said,“You don’t intend to report us to the INS, do you? I mean, it would do Tom more harm than good….”
“That all depends, Mr. Lujack.”
“On what?”
“On what we find out about Frank Hanauer’s death. But by then it might not matter. By then Pendarves may have already turned you in.”
Out front, Ms. Melendez stopped doing nothing much long enough to provide Rafael Vega’s home address. That was all she gave us; no smile, no good-bye. None of the other office staff did any smiling, either. Working at Containers, Inc., was a bundle of fun, all right.
On the way through the misty rain to the car, Eberhardt said, “Coleman’s some piece of work.”
“Yeah. He grows on you-like mold.”
“I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. Could be he wasn’t as chummy with Hanauer as he’d like us to think. Could be he had a reason to want Hanauer dead.”
“It’s buried deep, if so.”
Eberhardt grunted. “Kind of a bust, talking to him. But at least we know Thomas is all right.”
“Not necessarily in the clear, though. Family alibis aren’t worth a damn. Let’s see if Glickman’s made contact with him yet.”
We got into the car. While I was punching out Glickman’s number on the mobile phone, Eb said thoughtfully, “Funny that both Pendarves and Rafael Vega didn’t show up for work today. Might be a coincidence, like Coleman said. Might also be some connection between those two, huh?”
“We’ll go over to the Mission and ask Vega. Or one of us will if Glickman and Thomas are ready to talk.”
They were, it turned out. Eb and I tossed a coin to see which of us would go where. He got the Mission, I got Glickman’s office downtown.
* * * *
Chapter 5
Back in the Barbary Coast days, before and for a while after the 1906 quake, the block of Pacific Avenue between Kearny and Montgomery was known as Terrific Street. There were twenty-four saloons and dance halls in that one block, among them the Criterion, the So-Different, the Golden City, and Spider Kelly’s notorious watering hole on the first floor of the Seattle Hotel. On Terrific Street in those days you could buy just about anything in the way of sinful pleasure, from opium dreams to “specialty” prostitutes from the four corners of the globe.
The saloons and dance halls are generations gone, victims of the Red Light Abatement Act of 1914, but most of the original squat brick buildings are still standing today-survivors of the ‘89 quake as well. Their outward appearance hasn’t changed much since the post-1906 reconstruction. Despite the cars in the street and the high rises towering on all sides, you can almost feel their history-a sense of what it must have been like on the Barbary Coast a century ago.
Nowadays, the Terrific Street buildings house offices, many of which are vacant. There is an overabundance of downtown office space, particularly in the modern Financial District to the immediate north, and as a result the owners of these venerables have been reluctant to make improvements or lease concessions demanded by current and prospective tenants. Some of the owners were being forced into making repairs because of structural weakening after the recent quake; but the buildings’ age and brick construction still make them undesirable now that everyone’s earthquake consciousness has been raised. If it weren’t for the fact that they’re a part of the Jackson Square Historic District, they might have been sold long ago and razed in favor of high rises. One of the country’s most flamboyant criminal attorneys, Melvin Belli, still has his offices in one of them and makes a practice of sitting in his window and sneering at tourists who come to gawk. Less well known, if no less competent, attorneys- criminal and otherwise-also have their offices on Terrific Street. Paul Glickman is one of them.
I entered his building, across the street and down the block from Belli’s, at three twenty. Glickman and his partner, Elston Crandall, occupied the entire second floor. Their reception room was far more sedate than Belli’s, which I had had occasion to visit once; in fact, about the only thing they had in common were high ceilings, windows facing Pacific, and outside window boxes full of flowers. I gave my name to the male receptionist and was shown into Glickman’s private sanctum right away.
He was alone when I entered, seated behind a broad walnut desk that faced his own row of windows overlooking Terrific Street. Thomas Lujack wasn’t due until a quarter of four. I’d wanted a few minutes alone with Glickman first; he had had a client with him when I called from Containers, Inc., and we had spoken just briefly. He stood to shake my hand, then waved me to a chair upholstered in tan cloth. Tan and walnut-brown were the dominant colors here-all very tasteful and dignified, so as to inspire confidence in his clients, no doubt. He inspired confidence too: in his early fifties, trim, with salt-and-pepper hair, calm eyes that looked at you steadily from beneath bushy brows, and a quiet take-charge manner. If I ever had the misfortune to find myself charged with a felony, he was the man I would want to defend me.
He had a habit of steepling his fingers when he talked from a seated position; he did that now. Without preamble he said, “It appears Nick Pendarves was in error last night. Mr. Lujack claims he was at his brother’s home in Burlingame until nine o’clock.”
“Coleman confirms it,” I said. “Eberhardt and I talked to him an hour ago.”
“So. If Pendarves was wrong once in making a ‘positive’ identification, he could just as easily be wrong twice.”