“And a friend of Beverly’s? Maybe a hell of a lot more than a friend?”
“Yeah — once. But now...”
“For now Amalia will have to do, huh?”
They were at the side door on Golden Gate. “Jesus, women!” He waved an exasperated hand. “Amalia, I’ll see you around—”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t help you, it’s just that—”
He put his arms around her and kissed her, right there on the street. After a long moment, she halfheartedly pushed him away and fished in her purse for her keys. They went into the littered hallway with the kicked-in plasterboard walls.
“Major renovation or just a pissed-off union member?”
“We’re an emotional lot. Actually, we have hopes of tearing the whole place down, so we’ve let it slip a little. The property’s zoned for eight stories commercial, so our idea is to put up an eight-story building — ground-floor stores and shops, second floor our union hall, the top six floors affordable housing for the aged. It would upgrade the neighborhood and—”
“Without money, how can you afford to tear it down?”
“It wouldn’t cost us a dime. We bought when prices were cheap and unions were flush. We’d put up the land, the money would be federal and state and local from various start-up and rebuilding and development funds.” She went over to her littered table with its battered plug-in pot. “You want some coffee?”
“Out of that thing? No.”
“That’s right, you’re the coffee freak.” She got an almost urchin look on her fine Italian face. “You stay here and I’ll go steal Jacques Daniel Marenne’s personnel file for us.”
Twenty minutes later, just as Ballard was admitting there was nothing in the file that he didn’t already know about Danny, the door flew open hard enough to bang against the wall and Sebastian stormed in.
“My God, it’s Inspector Clouseau!” cried Ballard.
Sebastian shrilled vindictively to Amalia, “Those personnel files are confidential. This is grounds for dismissal.”
“You’re welcome to try, hotshot,” she snapped.
“That’s just what I’ll do.” Sebastian snatched up Marenne’s personnel file and stormed out triumphantly.
“He ever come on to you?” Ballard asked.
“Often. I’d sooner go out with a toad.”
“That explains it. He really hates your guts.”
“I can live with that.”
“If he’ll let you. Can he get you in trouble over this?”
“Did you tell him your name this afternoon?”
Ballard shook his head. They were going down the hall toward the front of the building. She gave a low chuckle.
“Then I’ll just say you were from the Department of Labor or the National Labor Relations Board. Sebastian is scared shit of the federal regulators.”
In the otherwise deserted front office, Sebastian was behind his window huddled over his telephone, talking in rapid low tones, following their passage with enraged pig’s eyes.
“Who do you suppose he’s calling?” asked Ballard.
“Probably his mommy,” said Amalia.
Rick Kiely thanked his caller and hung up. Problems, always problems. And tomorrow he had to go up to Sacramento for a floor vote. It would be close; the Republicans had their majority right now, which made it tougher to sweet-talk those on the fringes into lining up with the Democrats. With Willie Brown gone from the speakership to become San Francisco’s mayor, they were looking more and more to Kiely to fill the gap.
Maybe he’d mishandled Morales in the limo that night; having the man show up at his office suggested that he had. A surprise, not a pleasant one. What did Morales know? What did he think he knew?
He flicked the intercom toggle. “Send him in, Maddy.”
“Yes sir, Mr. Kiely.”
“And then just lock up and go home. Or better yet, get yourself a good dinner on the corporate card. And I’ll still owe you one at Postrio’s.”
“I’ve got class tonight, but thanks for the offer.”
Maddy was in night school, boning up for the California bar. The door opened and Morales shambled in. Lazy-looking Mexican, except the eyes noted everything in the place, weighed its value, estimated its importance.
Yes, quite surely he had underestimated Mr. Morales.
Kiely came out from behind the desk. He offered a hand. Morales took it. His small soft-looking brown fingers had a surprising strength.
“What’s your pleasure?”
“Whatever you’re having,” said Morales breathily.
Giving nothing away. Kiely went to the antique oak sideboard with sliding ornately carved doors and modern wet bar.
“Twelve-year-old Bushmill’s, then.”
“Irish whiskey,” said Morales. He sat down in a cherrywood and leather chair across the desk from Kiely’s massive swivel; it creaked with his bulk. “O’B oughtta be here — likes his Irish.”
Kiely was tonging ice cubes, pouring Irish liquor. He added no water, no mix. Bushmill’s was a drink-alone. The ice was his only compromise to his American birth.
“The redheaded Irishman you work with at the repo agency?”
Morales merely nodded, looking around the room as if against the day when he got one like it. Or maybe this one. He accepted the cold drink that Kiely handed him on the way back behind the bastion of his desk.
“May you be in hiven an hour before the divil blows his icy breath up your ass. Or something,” said Morales.
Kiely laughed aloud. They drank. Kiely said, “You’re quite a lad, aren’t you, boyo?”
“For a greaser.”
Surprised again. This was no wetback; strictly home brew out of the Mission’s teeming streets. The business that had brought Morales here wasn’t the sort of thing that Kiely enjoyed. But he did what was necessary. He did the hard thing.
“So why did you drop around, Mr. Morales? To try and date Maddy? I think she’d be a tougher proposition than my maid.”
“The maid was tough enough. But neither one of ’em’s why I came, Mr. Kiely.” Kiely merely nodded, a pleasantly attentive look on his lived-in face. “I... know who hired me to take a peek around your house. I know what he was after.” He paused. “I know what happened to him because of it. I know you wanted something on me so you could pressure me into being backup in case... nothing had happened to him the first time.”
“Know? Or think you know?”
“From your viewpoint, what’s the difference?”
“There’s that.” Kiely leaned back thoughtfully. “You have some facts to go with all these ‘I knows’?”
“You’re chief counsel for Local Three — donate your time because you came out of the old bartenders’ union and you can afford the gesture and it’s good public relations. Petlaroc was president of Local Three, and there was plenty of conflict between you two in almost every committee meeting.”
“You have been busy.”
“Public records, if you know where to look. Guys in my line of work know where to look.”
“Are you saying I had a hand in Petlaroc’s death?”
“Just saying I know... know... certain things...”
“And out of this you want... certain things?” He made a circular gesture with one hand. “Fast cars? Yachts?”
“Something like your Maddy out there?” Morales made his rising inflection very close to Kiely’s melodic tenor. He shifted in his chair. “Naw, none of those things, Mr. Kiely.”
Not in this office, thought Kiely, where I could have a tape running. “Money, then?”
“Money. But as a paycheck. A big paycheck, but — still a legit paycheck.” He shrugged. “Head of security. Troubleshooter when you get to be Speaker of the Assembly... On the payroll big-time. I’ll give you lots of bang for your buck.”