“You think Erickson is dangerous?”
“He’s seventy-three. Although he did win a gold medal in archery in the Pan Am Games, so if he pulls a bow on you…”
That was Church’s idea of a joke.
“And you made fun of my punch lines?”
“Touché. So, can you do this for me?”
I slowly petted Ghost’s head.
“Fine,” I said. “Happy to be a team player, as always.”
“Good. An Inspector Chang is on his way to pick you up at Marina Green.”
“What, here? You called the SFPD and told them I was in before you called to ask me?”
“I had a hunch,” Church said. “If there’s weird shit going down in San Francisco, the mayor said Chang is our guy. Chang is aware of Ghost. I’m getting DMS people out there for this. Gather what info you can and hand it over when they arrive. Let me know if you find anything.”
He hung up.
I sat there, taking in the amazing view, gently petting Ghost. Ghost was loving it, his eyes narrowed both from the light breeze off the bay and from the attention.
“Well, pal, looks like we have to put in some work. You mind?”
Ghost’s eyes widened to their normal, thousand-yard-stare width. He whuffed once and stood, slowly, favoring his wounded leg.
Marina Green was once a landing strip, I’d learned. Long, rectangular, and — obviously—green, it had a parking lot along one side and a footpath on the other, separating it from the water. No more than thirty or forty seconds after the call with Church, I heard the honk of a car horn.
An Asian man wearing a brown sport coat stepped out of a shit-brown Buick. He waved at me. Heavy black hair, about thirty pounds too many.
I walked across the grass to the car, Ghost at my side.
“Howdy do,” the man said in a Chicago accent so thick I wouldn’t have been surprised to find a bratwurst stuffed in his coat pocket. “One giant-sized white canine, check. One badass-looking mofo with all the charm of someone who just had a homeless guy drop a corned-up chocolate dragon in his Cheerios, check. Agent Ledger and Ghost, I assume?”
“And you must be Inspector Chang,” I said, shaking his offered hand.
“Call me Pookie. Everyone does.”
“I’m Joe.”
“Joe, what the fuck happened to your face?”
I’d forgotten about that. Before I killed Veder, he’d done a number on me: blackened left eye, purple bruises on my chin and throat, a knot on my forehead that looked like half a golf ball surgically implanted beneath yellow-purple skin.
“It was just a scuffle.”
“Let me guess,” Chang said. “I should see the other guy.”
I shrugged. “Sure. If anyone ever finds him.”
Chang nodded slowly. “I think I’m done asking questions. Let’s go.”
He opened the passenger door — not to let me in, but to clean up a stack of overstuffed manila folders so old and reused they shed tan dander all over the place. He moved the folders to the floor of the rear seat, then cleared off more of the same to make room in the back for Ghost. Chang held the door open.
“Hop in, pup.”
Ghost didn’t move.
I flicked a finger to the car. Ghost leaped in.
“Nice,” Chang said. “My buddy has a dog. Not quite as well behaved.”
“Yeah, Ghost is a real cream puff. Just do me a favor and keep your hands away from his mouth.”
Chang half laughed, as if I were joking, then realized I wasn’t.
“How about I just avoid getting anywhere near the cuddly little feller?”
I nodded. “That’s probably for the best.”
We drove out of Marina Green, then through tree-lined streets full of three-story buildings, most of which sported San Francisco’s famous three-sided bay window architecture. I’d walked these same streets in the past few days, assuming most apartments held tech rich kids paying at least twice as much for seven hundred square feet as I did for my entire house.
“Chief Robertson told me to help you out,” Chang said. “He said in no uncertain terms that you were some VIP big shot or what have you. I speak politician, so allow me to paraphrase what he said: ‘Chang, if Ledger wants a Flint Crankshaft with a complimentary Rhode Island Reach-Around, then you give him a Flint Crankshaft with a complimentary Rhode Island Reach-Around.’”
Chang talked too much. Every police force has at least a few of him, though. Law enforcement is a difficult, often thankless gig, which means morale is just as important as target practice. Guys like Chang make a shitty job a little less shitty.
“Do I even want to know what a Flint Crankshaft is?”
“Depends,” he said. “You the kind of guy who frequents swinger parties and has a lifetime subscription to Naughty America?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t want to know. On the serious tip — mind telling me why I’m taking you to see Erickson?”
“He’s a person of interest in a case my department is working on.”
“Yeah, about that department. This alphabet soup gets so confusing. PMS? PBS? Say yes to the dress? What was it again?”
I don’t mind a little lightheartedness, but Chang’s flippancy was starting to annoy me.
“DMS,” I said.
“And why interrupt your doggie vacay instead of having one of us follow up on this for you? I’d be happy to take it off your plate. It is my town and all.”
He seemed a little too eager for that solution. Territorial pissing? All too common in police work. Maybe he smelled involvement in a federal case, something that would look good on his annual review.
“Two undercover DEA agents were murdered,” I said. “Erickson might be related to the killers. Listen, I was a cop once. I know playing taxi driver is annoying as hell, so I suggest we get this over with as quickly as possible. Then we’ll all go on our merry way.”
Chang changed lanes for no reason, cutting off a silver Mercedes that honked angrily.
“Asshole,” Chang said. “Roads are full of ’em.”
“Apparently.”
“Listen, Joe-Joe, I can save you some trouble. I’ve talked to Erickson before. He’s nobody. Not worth your time.”
Yes, I had been a cop once, and now those cop instincts rose up like lava under high pressure. The very guy sent to escort me around town was hiding something. My bullshit alarm jumped straight to DEFCON 2.
“Let’s cut to the chase,” I said. “Take me to Erickson’s house, or I go by myself and inform my boss — who apparently knows your boss — that you were less than helpful. Your choice.”
Chang let out a low whistle.
“Well, that adds up, doesn’t it? And you can fuck your math teacher, but you can’t fuck math.”
We drove in silence for the next ten minutes. Maybe that was a mistake on my part, because silence gave me time to think.
Grace was gone. I knew that, accepted it, yet the realization kept hitting me over and over, the pain fresh and abrasive each time. I’d killed the man who had killed her. That hadn’t brought her back, just added one more body to the endless train of death that was my life.
San Francisco is a city with amazing architecture. Ghost and I had spent two days walking the streets and hills, seeing the sights, taking in the views. More Victorian homes than you could shake a stick at. Most of them were long since converted to bed-and-breakfasts or divided up for apartments.
Not so with Jebediah Erickson’s place.
The onetime Pan Am Games gold medalist and institutionalized vigilante killer lived at 2007 Franklin Street, a gray Victorian that sat so close to the three-lane one-way it almost leaned over the road the way a cat leans over a wounded mouse.