“Janice is a gambler. A compulsive gambler. That’s why she sells her body-to pay for her habit and her debts.”
“A pity. But what connection does this have to me?”
“Do you gamble while you’re in San Francisco?”
“Seldom,” Quilmes said. “Not at all on this visit.”
“Do you know any gamblers here?”
Another slight hesitation before he said, “I do not.” Territory he didn’t want to be breached. He finished his drink, placed his hands flat on the table. The planes of his face had a solidified look, like skin molded too tight over bone. “I did not meet Janice at a gambling establishment. I had never seen her before Saturday night, as I told you. I know nothing of her life or her disappearance. Are you satisfied now?”
“Unless you have anything more to tell me.”
He said with a kind of harsh dignity, “I have allowed myself to be stripped naked in front of a stranger. There is nothing more for you to see or know.”
“I hope not, Senor Quilmes. Thanks for your time.” The black eyes followed me as I got to my feet, moved away. I could feel them on my back, the cold hate in them, all the way out of the lounge.
I t was nearly five by the time I got back to the agency. Tamara was alone in her office, involved with somebody on the phone. I closed the connecting door between our offices, sat down at my desk. Time to check in with Mitchell Krochek.
He must have been draped over his phone; he answered in the middle of the first ring. He sounded less frantic than he had when I’d left him earlier. Booze was the calming influence; he didn’t exactly slur his words, but they had a kind of liquidy glide. Yes, he’d followed my instructions, stayed home all day. For nothing. He hadn’t heard from Janice or anybody else; no calls, no visitors.
“I talked to some of the neighbors,” he said. “Made up a story to explain why I was asking. None of them saw Janice or anybody else around here on Tuesday. I even called her sister in Bakersfield. They’re not close, but I thought maybe… you know. Ellen hasn’t heard from her in months.”
“Did your wife ever mention a company called QCL, Incorporated?”
He repeated the name. “I don’t think so. No, never heard of it. What kind of company is it?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Then why’re you asking me about it?”
“Carl Lassiter either works for QCL or owns it.” That was as much as I was going to tell him at this juncture. If he needed to know about his wife’s prostitution, I’d give him the information when the time came.
“You talk to this man Lassiter?” Krochek asked.
“Not yet.”
“Crissake, why not? He must be the one who beat her up-”
“Not necessarily. And he doesn’t necessarily have to have anything to do with what happened in your kitchen.”
“Who the hell else then?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to find out,” I said. “I’ve asked you this before, but are you sure you don’t know any of her gambling associates? Any local poker club or casino where she was a regular?”
“Positive,” Krochek said. “She never talked about it. Hell, I didn’t want to know any of those people or places. Why should I? I couldn’t make them stop her from throwing my money away.”
“Would any of her friends know? The nongambling variety, I mean.”
“I doubt it. She cut them off, what few she had, when she caught that goddamn fever of hers.”
“Call them, see if they can tell you anything. Anything at all that might help.”
“All right.”
“One more question. You and your wife made trips to Las Vegas together. Do you know if she went there alone after she got hooked?”
“Yeah. Once, at least, a couple of years ago. Supposed to be visiting an aunt in Seattle for a few days, but she went to Vegas instead. I found the used airline ticket in the trash.”
After we rang off, I opened the connecting door and poked my head into Tamara’s office. She was off the phone and she had a few things to tell me.
“No QCL, Inc. registered in California,” she said. “No address, either, except for Carl Lassiter’s on the Cadillac registration. Could be just a dummy name he uses. Or else he’s a local rep for an out-of-state company.”
“Try Nevada. Las Vegas, specifically.”
“Why Las Vegas?”
I told her about my conversation with Quilmes. “He goes to Vegas regularly and I got the impression he knows Lassiter and QCL, Inc. And Janice Krochek spent some time in Vegas.”
“Some sort of gambling outfit?”
“Connected to gambling in some way. I’d bet on it.”
She laughed. “Dangerously close to a pun there,” she said.
“What is? Oh.”
“There’s another gambling connection, too. Ginger Benn’s husband, Jason Benn. Compulsive gambler for years. Owned a big auto body shop, got in so deep he lost it and went bankrupt in ninety-nine.”
That explained her bitter hatred of gambling. “You didn’t say ex-husband. Still married?”
“Separated.”
“How long?”
“Two years. Man ran up a new bunch of debts and she walked.”
“Where’d he get the money to keep betting? From Ginger?”
“Could be.”
“If she has been supporting his habit, or helping him pay off his debts, or both, it has to be from hooking. She can’t make much at that waitressing job of hers.”
“Another reason they’re separated, maybe.”
“Where’s he living, did you find out?”
“Daly City,” Tamara said. “Works for an auto body shop on San Jose Avenue in the Outer Mission.”
I took down both addresses. Could be he knew something about QCL, Inc. that I’d be able to pry out of him. The outfit, whatever it was and whoever was behind it, not only had a gambling connection but judging from what I’d learned from Quilmes, one to prostitution as well. No surprise if it was Vegas-based; the two vices go hand in hand down there. And yet, there was so much of both running wide open in the Nevada desert, there didn’t seem to be much need for a shadowy operation like this one seemed to be. More to it than gambling and prostitution, possibly. Drugs, smuggling of goods or humans-all sorts of possibilities.
But the one thing I couldn’t figure was how and why this QCL was operating in San Francisco, and apparently in the person of just one man. Carl Lassiter had the answers, but I didn’t have enough information or enough leverage to try bracing him. Or, for that matter, enough probable cause that he was responsible for those kitchen blood smears and Janice Krochek’s latest disappearance.
12
JAKE RUNYON
The scarf woman’s name was Bryn Darby.
He found that out Tuesday night, on his second canvass of the Taraval neighborhood, from a garrulous woman who ran an arts and crafts store near the Parkside branch library. “Oh, yes,” she said, “Mrs. Darby. Her first name is Bryn, B-r-y-n, isn’t that an odd name? Poor woman. So much tragedy in her life.”
“What sort of tragedy?”
“Well, her deformity. And her husband leaving her. She didn’t tell me that, but it’s what I heard.”
“What sort of deformity?”
“Well, I don’t know. Something to do with the right side of her face. I’ve never seen it and she won’t talk about it, not that I blame her a bit even if she has become a bit standoffish since it happened.”
“When was that?”
“Oh, it must have been about a year ago. Until then she was attractive and very friendly, we had some lovely chats about art. She’s an artist, you know. Watercolors and charcoal sketches. I’ve seen some of them, she’s quite talented.”
When he got to the apartment he booted up his laptop and ran a quick check on Bryn Darby. Her address was 2511 Moraga Street, just a few blocks away. Age 33. Born Bryn Christine Cordell in Marin County. Married in 1995 to Robert Darby, an attorney with offices on West Portal. Divorce filed by her husband, March of this year. One child, a boy, Robert Jr., age 9. Primary custody granted to the father.