He waved a fat hand at the only other chair. “Sure, sure, sit.” And I when I was on the chair, “So what about this guy Lassiter?”
“He works for QCL. Quick Cash Loans. It’s a Vegas outfit.”
“Vegas?”
“With branch reps in half a dozen other cities, including S.F. High-interest loans to gamblers and prostitution on the side.”
“The hell you say.”
“So this is all news to you.”
“Yeah, news. Tell me more about this outfit.”
I told him all I knew. He soaked it up; you could almost see the wheels turning in his head.
“Sounds like a smart operation,” he said. “Low pressure, no overhead. Big profits, huh?”
“Probably.”
“But they only work the gambling trade. That don’t cut much into my profits, not the way they work it. No real competition.”
“But you’re glad to know about them.”
“Oh, yeah. Always glad to know about the competition.”
“And maybe if you put out the word, you could find out a little more.”
“Maybe. That what you’re after, more info on this QCL?”
“One of the reasons I’m here, yeah.”
“What’s the other one?”
“Different case. One of your customers.”
“Yeah? Who?”
“Brian Youngblood.”
“Names,” Kinsella said. “I got a lot of customers, I’m no good with names.”
“Black guy in his twenties, works in computers, lives on Duncan Street. Five-figure borrow.”
His face showed me nothing. He leaned back in his chair, clasped his sausage fingers behind his neck. “Maybe I know him, maybe I don’t. How come you’re so interested?”
“He’s in over his head. We’re trying to find out how deep.”
“Working for him?”
“No.”
“Who, then?”
“Confidential, Nick.”
“Better not be if it’s got something to do with me.”
I hesitated. But you couldn’t pry information out of Kinsella by holding out on him. “All right,” I said. “His mother.”
Kinsella’s lips twitched. Don’t laugh, you bastard, I thought. He didn’t; he sat forward again. “I don’t like to talk about my customers. Bad for business.”
“Only if word gets out. I’m a businessman, too, Nick. You know I know how to keep my mouth shut.”
“Just a couple of business types schmoozing, huh?”
“That’s right.”
“No hassles?”
“Not from me. Just trying to help a client, that’s all.”
He thought about it, shrugged, and said, “Okay. So what you want to know?”
“Amount of the initial borrow, if he came back for more, how much he’s into you for now. And whether something can be worked out in the way of accident insurance.”
“Kid already have an accident, did he?”
“Just last week. Bruises and a broken rib. Laid him up for a couple of days.”
“That’s too bad,” Kinsella said. “But you got to expect something like that when you don’t pay attention to your debts.”
The fat son of a bitch was enjoying himself, playing this little game. Maybe someday I’d have a chance to play a different kind of game with him; it was a good thought and I held onto it. “The original nut,” I said. “How much?”
“I’d have to check my records.”
“Would you do that?”
He grinned at me. There was a computer on his desk: Nick Kinsella, the ultra-modern bloodsucker. He fired it up, looked over at me-I turned my head the other way-and then did some tapping on the keyboard. Pretty soon he said, “Five figures, right. Ten K.”
“That’s a big nut. What’d he use for collateral?”
“Personal property and income records. I had one of my people take a look, I was satisfied.”
“What does he owe you now, with the vig and the missed payments? Thirteen, fourteen K?”
“Five.”
“… Wait a minute-five thousand? How’d he get it down that far?”
Kinsella’s smug grin flashed again. “Your boy walked in here couple of days ago, laid eighty-five hundred on me. Cash. He’s a good boy, your boy. Teach him a lesson, he learns real quick. He don’t need any accident insurance, not for a while anyhow.”
“Where’d he get the eighty-five hundred?”
“Who knows? He don’t say, I don’t ask.”
Not from another shark, I thought, not given the size of the original nut from Nick and the fact that Kinsella had had to send out an enforcer to collect overdue payments. Loan sharks are like their saltwater relatives: when one spills some bad blood, the rest smell it and keep their distance.
“What about the five-thousand balance?” I asked.
“What about it?”
“If his source is dry, he’ll start missing payments again. Then he will need that insurance.”
“Not if he shows up next week with the full five K plus the week’s interest.”
“He told you he was going to do that?”
“Guaranteed it.” Kinsella laughed. “Swore it, in fact. You want to know what he swore it on?”
“No.”
He told me anyway. “His mother. Your boy swore it on his love for his sweet old mama.”
18
The Rickrack Lounge was on the corner of Columbus and Vallejo, only a few blocks from Benjy’s Seven, but that was about all they had in common. Neighborhood watering hole, the Rickrack, reminiscent in its old-fashioned ambiance, if not in its clientele, of the Washington Square Bar and Grill a couple blocks in the other direction. No loud music, no topless dancers, no sad-eyed voyeurs, no shill or bouncer. No local celebrities like Washington Square attracted, just a few quiet afternoon drinkers, two of whom were playing chess on a small magnetic board. The place had once been an Italian tavern, probably owned and frequented by the ever-diminishing Italian population of North Beach; one of the walls still sported a faded Venice mural and the handful of booths had upswept gondola-style backs.
Carol Brixon was on duty, working the plank alone-a heavyset redhead with a pleasantly homely face and a no-nonsense manner. She didn’t have much to say to me, fending off my questions about Ginger Benn and QCL and Carl Lassiter, until I told her Jason Benn was worried that his wife had started hooking again. That made her angry and she opened up a little.
“That bastard,” she said. “If it wasn’t for him and his gambling, she wouldn’t’ve been screwing for money in the first place.”
“To pay off his debts to QCL.”
“Fucking bloodsuckers. They forced her into it. Jason was in so deep he’d never’ve got out otherwise.”
“She could have just walked away from him.”
“You think I didn’t tell her that? Hell, I begged her. But she’s loyal and she loves him. She’d rather sleep with strangers than divorce a prick.”
“He seems to’ve gotten his act together. Working steady now, not betting anymore.”
“Yeah, maybe. For Ginger’s sake, I hope so. We been friends a long time, her and me. I couldn’t stand to see her go back to peddling her ass.”
“So she’s not hooking again.”
“Not that I know about.”
“Do you know if she’s seen Lassiter recently?”
“Better not have. Slick as a snake, that one, and just as cold.”
“Sounds like you know him.”
“No, and I don’t want to. Only met him once, at Benjy’s. I went there to meet Ginger and he was slithering around. Once was enough.”
“Violent, would you say?”
“If you backed him into a corner.”
“But not otherwise? No physical stuff to keep women like Ginger in line?”
“Not him. Just his mouth, that’s all he uses-all he needs.”
“And it’s just him running the show here, no people working for him?”
“Just him.”
“Any violent types among the customers?”
She gave me one of those looks old-time San Franciscans reserve for visitors from red-state backwaters. “We work in the bar trade, mister. There’s always some macho asshole around flexing his muscles.”
“I meant among the johns Lassiter pimps for. Any of them ever get rough with Ginger?”