Slam! Sound of sliding deadbolt. And nobody home at either of the other two houses. Sometimes it went that way.
Go get some lunch, scattering corn behind him so he could find his way back again. Then just keep checking the address until Tim Bland showed up. Or, abysmal thought, didn’t show up.
O’B climbed wide wooden stairs to Houlihan’s restaurant on Bridgeway, and sipped nonalcoholic O’Doul’s in the bar while waiting for his table. Until 1937, Sausalito was a sleepy little Portagee fishing village with only the ferries connecting it to San Francisco across the Bay. Then the Golden Gate Bridge went and ruined everything by making it accessible by auto.
A voice at his elbow eerily echoed his thoughts.
“Things descend to awful goddam hell.”
Zack Zanopheros was a private eye who organized court cases for prominent defense attorneys. He was a grinning bearded compact man O’B’s own age, whose bright, zestful eyes crinkled up at the corners when he smiled. He wore a cashmere sports jacket, dark slacks, and shiny black loafers with tassels. He plunked his half-emptied bottle of Beck’s down on the polished mahogany.
“Let me buy you a beer.”
O’B returned his grin. “Sure. How’s tricks, Reverend?”
“I let the computers do the work and I play a lot of tennis. How’s the repo business?”
“We still get to go out and thug cars.”
Zack nodded sadly. “You can’t do that by computer.” A half-hour later he was still toasting “the good old days,” when the loudspeaker intoned, “Zack, party of one.”
“Let’s make it a party of two,” Zack said quickly.
Only when the maître d’ led them to one of the front-window tables that faced the far gleaming tumble of San Francisco across the Bay did O’B realize that Zack had been buying him full-bore Beck’s instead of O’Doul’s.
Aw, shucks! What was a fellow to do?
Staley Zlachi strolled with other midday patrons through the turnstile at the San Francisco Zoo — still called by old-timers the Fleishacker Zoo — and paused at the top of the concrete steps. He watched glowing pink flamingos dip black scimitar beaks into the wading pool. The hot grease from the concession stands smelled good to him, as did the clean, rank animal smells. From the primate house came the booming hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo of a howler monkey. He moved on to the orangutan habitat, where the dominant male, hulking and dish-faced, was out on the ramp leading to their concrete house.
“Magnificent, isn’t he?” asked an accented voice.
The man was bulky but very fit, early 60s, dressed with European punctiliousness in a dark solid-color suit, somber tie, white shirt, and highly polished black shoes. He had a large square head and ashy hair slightly thinning over the forehead. His blue eyes were sad and piercing and merry all at once.
“Orangs were mentioned in the Linnaeus classification texts of 1766, but the first individual was not brought to Europe until the nineteenth century. Now they are extremely rare in the wild, even though extremely intelligent.” He sighed. “Habitat destruction is making them extinct.”
Only then did Staley turn so they could shake hands. As he did, a woman and three small children bundled up against the chill ocean breeze came up to the railing near them. The two men immediately switched to Romani.
“How are you, Willem? What is this I hear about Rita?”
Willem chuckled. “It is true. In the fall she will marry a gadjo, a fine Italian lad. I know, I know, you do not approve. But remember...” The bundled-up family moved on. The two men returned to English. “I am didákái — half-gadjo — myself. All gadjo by blood, but by upbringing—”
“The story is legendary,” said Staley. “You were an orphan, six years old, on the open roads of Holland during the war. Mami Celie scooped you up and made you part of the vitsa.”
“Grandma Celie.” Willem shook his head fondly. “How I loved that woman! She taught me how to live with one foot in the Rom world and the other in the gadjo world. She dealt in the G.I. black market at Porte Portese so I could go to school. But I forget my manners. How are you, Staley? And Lulu?”
“We’re fine.” He paused sadly. “Well, we got a situation. One of our kumpania killed her husband in cold blood. We think there’s a lot of money involved.”
Willem crossed himself while shaking his head. “Money is good but murder is bad, very bad, bad for all Romi everywhere.”
“We gotta deal with it. To do that we gotta find her first. Trouble is, she’s living in the gadjo world and knows how to avoid us. She’s very smart.”
“You need some gadje to help you look.”
Staley’s eyes suddenly flashed. “Hey! Maybe you got something there! I know this guy...” He paused. “But hey! What about my manners? You’re here for our help with a recovery problem of your own.”
They ate cheeseburgers and fries and drank coffee at one of the little round tables near the concession stands. The hot grease not only smelled good, but tasted good to Staley, too. Willem told him all about Robin Brantley in Hong Kong, and Victor Marr, and the Yakuza gangster named Kahawa.
“What could Robin do? The Yakuza threatened his life.”
“And now Marr has it here in California.”
“At a fortified mountaintop facility near Big Sur.” He told Staley all he had learned about Xanadu. “Brantley says he is willing to help. But will he stand fast and not falter, not go to Marr through his fear of physical violence?”
“We gotta bigger problem,” said Staley. “The way you describe this Xanadu, my people just don’t have the sort of training and expertise ya need to get into a place like that.”
“Ah, Staley, there is always a way,” said Willem gently.
And sure enough, there was. Another hour of talk between these two sly men, and they had it. A crazy way. A brilliant way. A Gypsy way.
Ballard meant to go right back to the office after dropping off the Corvette, he really did. But he’d been at the dojo again until 2:00 A.M. the previous night, practicing for his first-degree black belt, then had been up early to check out Big John Wiley’s neighborhood. The day had snowballed from there.
So he decided to go home to his two-room studio apartment facing Golden Gate Park across Lincoln Way, make himself a pot of his signature coffee, grab a shower and shave and change of clothes. Then he could pull an all-nighter if he got any hot leads.
As he started up the hall wrapped in a cloud of steam and a big shaggy towel, Midori Tagawa came in the street door behind him. For two years he had shared the shower and bath with this porcelain-doll Japanese exchange student who rented the tiny back apartment. During those same two years he intermittently waged a gently unsuccessful seduction campaign against her.
“Hello, Larry, no see you, long time.” In her high little voice, soft as eiderdown, it was more like, “Herro, Rarry.”
He bowed elaborately. “Ah so, long time. How’s school?”
“Cost a lot. I got part-time job now.”
He had lent Midori a semester’s tuition, hoping she’d maybe pay him back in exquisite golden flesh. But her bookkeeping was scrupulous and her body remained inviolate. A few months ago they came close. He caught her coming from the shower wrapped in just a towel, which slid down her body just as she disappeared into her apartment. Accident? Deliberate? He’d been involved elsewhere at the time, so he’d never tried to find out.