“You just ask Mist’ Kearny to put you on somethin’ else. Ain’t like none of the other men couldn’t handle—”
“Hgno!” exclaimed Ken sharply.
She understood why he couldn’t do that. When you were fat and black and old, or when you were handicapped some way, you made do in the regular world by sheer will alone. You didn’t back off. You didn’t make no easy compromises. You couldn’t.
“You jus’ let the Lord work on this. We just put it in His hands and go get ourse’ves somethin’ to eat.”
She came back into the room rouged and lipsticked, her black shiny hair piled on top of her head, wearing a red satiny dress. He made a slow swirling motion with one hand, and she pirouetted in front of him.
“Hmm-mmm,” he said, shaking his head in admiration, then added, “Hndrink firs.”
She gave her deep-throated belly laugh. “Okay, fancy man, drinks first. So where you takin’ me?”
“Hmude Ihndahgo,” said Ken Warren.
“They was a great old song by that name,” said Maybelle.
At that time of night, Fulton, running along the north edge of the park, was their quickest way in-town. Ballard’s face underlit by the dash and intermittently illuminated by streetlights, was tight. Twice she caught him frowning.
“Okay, Mr. Private Eye, I want to know everything you found out in Danny’s apartment. Every single thing.”
He looked over at her in surprise, as if she had brought him back from a distance, then started laying it out for her.
“Mainly, we confirmed what we already knew. That Danny is missing and we don’t know where he is. But,” he added cheerfully, “neither does the opposition.”
He turned left at Masonic, which with a couple of jogs fed into Presidio Ave., picked up one-way Bush inbound. The streets were nearly deserted.
“Maybe they kidnapped him.”
“Somebody trying to snatch Danny would get a big surprise. He’s a black belt in two or three disciplines.”
“They could have had guns.”
“No blood. I checked. Also his shaving kit was gone from the bathroom, some of his socks and underwear, some jeans and shirts, his leather jacket. His sweats and running gear. His bike is missing from the garage. And if they had him, why would they have to make a search?”
“So what were they looking for?”
“Information. Something written down they thought he had. Did you notice, everything paper was gone through — newspapers, files, books, magazines — the books, page by page. The couch upturned but not vandalized; looking for resewn seams. Same with the pillows and mattress. In the kitchen, the garbage bags were checked, but not the garbage.”
“The top was off the toilet. Don’t people stash dope—”
“Everybody looks in the toilet tank, so it’s always a lousy idea. But you notice none of the medicine cabinet tubes were squeezed, none of the jars or plastic containers were opened.”
Amalia was finally starting to understand.
“Take the hard drive and floppies, but not the printer.”
Ballard pulled a left into one-way Gough, which would take them to Union and thence up across Russian Hill to Telegraph. San Francisco is a city of hills with unexpectedly cut-off streets on them, so the straight shot is seldom the best route.
“Yeah. The printer wouldn’t have anything useful in it.”
“What are you going to tell your old friend Beverly?”
“That he was okay when he left the apartment. All I can do is just keep looking, that I know he’s one tough little bastard, that I’m betting he’s okay.”
“Are you really?”
“Yeah. One other thing — no mail in his box.”
“Maybe the landlady’s been collecting it for him.”
“Boy, there’s a positive attitude.”
Amalia lived on one-block Castle up on a shoulder of Telegraph; the buildings rose flat-faced right from the sidewalk. Ballard stopped in front of her number.
“Parking is a bitch around here, Larry,” she said. “That’s one of the reasons I don’t own a car.” Looking at his face, she burst out laughing. “You’d better go find a parking place while I make some coffee — and you’d better say it’s good!”
When he went upstairs twenty minutes later, she was at the head of the stairs in a lovely blue robe with frills and lace around the throat and wrists and a darker blue silk sash around her waist. She had the big urchin grin on her face he found himself wanting to evoke all the time, and a steaming cup of coffee in her left hand.
Ballard took the cup, sipped. It was Italian, it was strong, it was perfect. “Amalia, it’s just about the best I’ve ever had.”
“That’s not all that’s the best you’re ever going to get,” she promised him without really believing it, but with a wicked look in her eyes just the same.
And opened the robe. Larry Ballard drew his breath in sharply and lunged to set the cup on the sideboard.
Thirty minutes later, when for the first time he reared above her on her bed like a stallion, and clenched his buttocks and came and came and came in her, whispering her name hoarsely, Amalia, clinging to him with her arms and her legs and her breasts and her belly and her whole being, as if riding out some great storm, cried softly, “Yes, yes, yes, now now now.”
And knew she wouldn’t be letting out-of-work bartenders she felt sorry for into her bed for a long time to come. If ever.
Chapter Nineteen
Kearny checked the last of the ground-floor windows in the back of the Rochemont mansion. The kitchen had tile floors and two huge ovens where you could roast a lamb, maybe a young steer, also a walk-in freezer a barbershop quartet could have sung in. Two corpses, neatly folded before rigor set in, could have fit into the refrigerator.
He retraced his way through the maze of rooms to the living room where the security post was set up. Giselle was waiting with a thermos and a tray of sandwiches.
“Doped coffee?” he asked.
“Clown around,” she said as she poured.
And then unobtrusively waited before drinking hers until he had raised the exquisitely thin Meissen cup to his lips. He took a sip, nodded his head in appreciation, set it back down on its saucer, suddenly slumped sideways over the arm of his chair.
“Dan’l!”
Kearny sat up and grinned at her. She subsided angrily.
“I didn’t ask ’em to, but the police checked your thermos from this morning,” he said. “The coffee in it wasn’t doped.”
“Then somebody switched it after the attack. Opened the window Nugent got in by.”
“She’s one great little blond schemer, she is.”
“Bottle blond schemer,” sniffed Giselle with a grin.
Kearny settled down with the sports page, rattled the paper, and cleared his throat. “Think you can keep awake for two hours until our next rounds?” he asked innocently.
Turning from the backbar with a bottle of Jim Beam, Bart Heslip caught a stranger’s passing reflection. Hulking dude with a shaved head and no mustache and a ring in his nose, wearing a bright short-sleeved sport shirt to show off his muscular chest and arms. Shades even here in the dim bar.
The composite of Nemesis the cops had brought around last night didn’t fit him worth a damn now. He was going to come out of this all right. Just had to stay still and keep cool. Except for the nose ring, he sorta liked the look. Maybe after this undercover gig was all over...
Man, what was Corinne going to say when she saw him?