You understand, pulling crybabies out of jams is one thing. I don’t mind doing that so much; in fact, probably about half of my business in San Francisco consists of clean-up work. Make sure the pictures disappear, make sure the witness doesn’t remember, make sure the society columnist is well-greased, make sure the police blotter gets misplaced, make sure the recording wire nails somebody else. It’s what society detectives do, and in five years solo I’ve carved out quite a little practice for myself. Not quite orthodox detective work, but then, I don’t do divorces or children — I got two of each and they’re not experiences I particularly want to relive. However, I’m not in the market to be somebody’s carnival sitting duck either, particularly in a foreign country undergoing a revolution.
The call from the kid’s father was not that surprising. I had just brought a couple of society chickees back from New York, where they had deluded themselves into thinking they were beatniks in love with a Commie juvenile delinquent. This little feat had drawn the attention of a host of Peninsula and City families, who were also struggling with the weird choices made by their money-addled offspring.
My office is on Market Street, down from Lotta’s Fountain and across from the old Souther Chemical Building. “The progress of mankind is measured by the advancement of science,” reads the company’s credo, etched in ten-foot letters on the limestone front. Pretty classy for an outfit founded by an alcoholic French chemist who made his fortune by accidentally mixing up the tailing samples of an abandoned silver mine in Reno with those of a played-out hole in Virginia City, leading a disillusioned miner to kill himself and the chemist to file a claim for the dead miner’s bonanza.
When Lorraine, my secretary, handed me a slip that old man Pierre Souther wanted to meet me in his executive dining room at 4 o’clock sharp, I knew it wouldn’t be for old sherry and stale walnuts. In any event, he was almost done eating when I came to discuss the job.
He waved me to a cushy leather chair in the vast room at the far end of his penthouse. Milky sunlight eased through the stained glass window behind him, illuminating the company’s coat of arms, a chemist raising a test tube next to a knight on a white steed killing a dragon, while an empty cross bearing the sign Lux floated above them both.
“Are you hungry?” He gestured at a steaming bowl of creamed spinach. “It’s about the only food I can hold down. We get it from the little old ladies at Searle’s. Best in town.”
“No, thank you, the only green I like is the kind I fold and put in my pocket.”
“So I hear.” He blew on his spoon, slurped the soup. Rail thin, with deep-set gray eyes, Souther seemed like a defrocked priest, eating seminary food to remind himself of his transgressions. “That divorce cost you a bundle, didn’t it?” he said.
“The house, the ranch, and the Cord, if you want to know. I was hoping you’d help me make it up.”
“Maybe I can,” he said. He pushed aside the half-full bowl, lit a filterless cigarette, and dropped the match in the soup. He blew out a cloud of smoke. Then: “You love your children, Mr. Blue?” He gazed at me with cold curiosity.
“Is that a trick question, Mr. Souther?” I replied. “Because if it is, nothing I say will please you.”
“I just want the truth.”
“That’s all I’m going to give you, and this is it: Sometimes I love them more than life itself; sometimes I could wring their little necks and jump for joy. But it’s always a real emotion, there’s nothing fake about my feelings for them. Don’t ask me about their mother.”
“Do you miss them?”
The twenty questions game was over. I got up, picked up my briefcase. “Since you obviously had me investigated, I don’t need to tell you that I see them twice a week and every other Sunday and it’s never long enough. Whoever it was you had on me should have told you I don’t like to waste time — mine or anybody else’s.”
“Sit down, Mr. Blue. There’s twenty thousand dollars in this for you. Half now, half on delivery.”
“Delivery of what?”
“My son. My only son. He left for Cuba six months ago for some revolution nonsense and now he’s refusing to come back. I want to see him before I go.”
“Even if he doesn’t?”
“Love knows no bounds, Mr. Blue. I was fifty when I had him. His mother died when he was little and I didn’t know what to do with him. I sent him away to boarding school. He’s always hated me for that. I can take his hatred. I just can’t take his absence.”
He put out the cigarette on a large crystal ashtray bearing the inscription, Lux et Veritas.
“Bring him back, Mr. Blue. He’s the only one I want.”
The object of old Souther’s affection now raised his head from the floor of the Chinese theater. Who knows what half-assed vision of valor was going through his head at that moment, but he decided to make a run for it. Grabbing hold of his girl by the hand, he bolted for the door at the same time that the Chinaman came out from behind his piano. I aimed, but the bullet that dropped the shooter wasn’t mine. He fell forward on his chin, the impact shattering his jaw, a couple of teeth tumbling out of his mouth like liar’s bones on the worn wooden floor. I doubt he felt anything given the gory hole the rifle bullet had opened in his back.
Presently four college student types in short-sleeved shirts bearing armbands with the letters 26-7 came in from the hall, pointing their hunting rifles at us. I threw my gun down right away. The oldest in the group, a skinny redhead Cesar Romero look-alike, waved at his cohorts to put their weapons down — but he kept his tommy gun aimed squarely at my chest all the same.
“Turistas!“ I shouted, hoping they’d buy it. “Muchos problemas de policía.”
Cesar Romero laughed.
“No shit, Jack, everybody’s got a problem with coppers down here,” he said in a thick Bronx accent. “What are you fishing for?”
Obviously, the stupid Yankee bit wasn’t going to get me far with this gent. I figured I’d take my chances.
“The kid and his girl. I gotta get ’em outta here.”
“How comefi”
“I’m a private dick. His old man paid me to get him back to San Francisco, in California. El viejo se está muriendo.”
Cesar looked hard at me, trying to decide if I was telling the truth. I was sweating, hoping he’d buy my song and dance.
Finally: “You picked a fucking fine time to get him out. You know what just happened?”
I shook my head no, even though I had a fairly good idea of why the crowds outside were shouting, “Viva Fidel!” full blast when twenty-four hours before just whispering “Castro” was enough to get you thrown in the slammer.
“Batista left at midnight. He hightailed it out of here with his buddies and ten million in cash.”
I gestured to put my hands down, take out a cigarette. He nodded, eased down the barrel of his gun.
“Congratulations,” I said, as two of Cesar’s minions brought Souther junior and his doll, kicking and heaving, back into the hall. “I assume you were no fan.”
“Are you kidding? Son of a bitch had my brother killed in one of his prison cells. Cut his balls off.”
“Sorry to hear that,” I said, lighting my thirtieth Chesterfield of the day. “No offense, but what business do you have with a Chink theater?”
Cesar’s expression changed to hurt pride and I wondered for a moment if I’d overstepped the bounds of Castilian etiquette — the kid’s skin was whiter than mine, after all. I was also gauging how fast I could wrest the gun out of his hand and clear our way to the car. Fortunately, something somewhere in his troubled Cuban psyche kicked in and he let a sly smile out.