The Internet was just coming into common use when I retired, and I never got to take full advantage of all the things it offered private investigators. I knew, though, that the investigations side of my old company used it extensively, and they had access to databases that I didn’t. The office was manned twenty-four hours a day, so I fired off an e-mail asking them to run a check for me. I was on my third brandy when they wrote back saying they couldn’t find anything either.
So much for the easy way.
My breakfast the next morning consisted of one poached egg, two cups of coffee, and four aspirin. The aspirin was the price I paid for drinking more than one brandy the night before.
I had no confidence in my ability to accomplish what Charlie asked, but I knew that I had to try, so I made a call to Sergeant Al Bruun, a friend of mine on the SDPD. We were the same age and had hit the streets of San Diego at about the same time. The two of us had been trading favors for years.
“Damn, Pry,” he said, “I had no idea Charlie was even sick.”
“Yeah, it came on fast.” Without mentioning Charlie’s involvement, I told him about the homicide thirty-five years earlier. He said he would have to send someone to the warehouse to scrounge around for the file, but with any luck, he could have a copy to me by the end of the day.
“Do you still have the same fax number?” Al asked. I told him I did, and we said good-bye.
After one more coffee and a fast shower, I climbed on my bike and rode into San Diego. The city had changed a lot since Charlie was a young man. In those days Broadway was lined with strip bars and clip joints. Slick guys in shiny suits would stand in front of the businesses hawking whatever scam they were trying to work on the sailors. The city fathers had cleaned that up in the ’70s and ’80s, and, as in all major U.S. cities, they had redirected their efforts to a more sophisticated kind of scam — the kind they worked on the tourists.
I rode up Broadway, and the farther east I got, the seedier things were. The city had dumped millions into cleaning up downtown, but the fringes were apparently invisible to the big-money boys, and these areas had not aged well.
Before I had left Charlie the night before, he had given me a little more information. There was still a bar where the killing had taken place. It was located in the middle of the block, and I whipped a quick U-turn and backed the rear wheel of my bike into the curb. The place was called the Silk Hat Lounge, and there was the unlit neon outline of a top hat above the front door — tacky, maybe, but still the bright spot in an even tackier neighborhood. The place wasn’t opened yet, but I could see through the window that there was a woman behind the bar counting bottles and making notations on a piece of paper.
I rapped on the window to get her attention, and she called out, “We open at eleven.”
“I’d like to ask you a few questions. It won’t take but a minute.”
She was a redhead who looked to be in her early sixties. She had melonlike breasts that threatened the stitching of her nylon blouse. She had obviously seen me pull up on my chopped Harley-Davidson. “I don’t like bikers,” she said. She flipped a backhand through the air as though shooing a fly. “Beat it.”
I dug into the pocket of my jeans and pulled out some bills. I peeled off a twenty and held it flush to the plate glass. I expect ol’ Andy Jackson had been an accomplished public speaker in his day, which was only fitting since his picture these days spoke with such eloquence. She stared at it for a moment, snuffed her cigarette, and stepped around the bar.
She wore tight, hot-pink slacks and had a surprisingly tiny waist. “One minute’s what you asked for,” she said as she opened the door, “and by a strange coincidence, that’s just what you get for a twenty.”
She reached for the bill, but I pulled it back. “This’ll be yours in sixty seconds,” I said, “assuming you’ve got something to sell.”
“What are you in the market for, biker?” She said “biker” with a sour tone.
“Information,” I said. “Do you own this place?”
She seemed wary. “Yeah, what’s it to you?”
“How long’ve you had it?”
“‘Bout fifteen years. I waited tables here for eight years before that.”
I could tell that at some point in her distant past this woman had been very attractive. Now, though, she had the kind of face that harsh morning light did not improve.
I asked who she had bought the bar from, and she said a name but added, “He only had it a couple of years. I got the place at a bargain ’cause he was forced to sell.” She gave a smile that multiplied her wrinkles by a factor of three. “He suffered from a common problem in the bar business.”
“Yeah, what’s that?” I asked.
“He drank his profits.” She dug into her front pocket and pulled out a semicrushed pack of Winstons. She lit one with a disposable lighter that was encased in a chrome holder trimmed with plastic jade. “He’d bought the bar from Parker Heath. Parker owned the place for close to thirty years. He built it right after he got back from Korea.”
Her eyes cut to the twenty.
“Now, now,” I said, “don’t get greedy. You have fifteen seconds to go. Is Mr. Heath still around?”
“That depends.”
“Let me guess. It depends on why I want to know, right?”
“You’re a real smart boy, aren’t you?” She gave me a look that communicated she might be inclined to set aside her prejudice against bikers after all. I suspected it was a look she had tossed at more than a few men over the years. When I didn’t respond, she shrugged and said, “I worked for Parker a long time. I don’t think it would be very nice of me to help just anybody hunt him down.”
“All I want is a few answers.”
She dragged deep from her smoke and exhaled through her nose. “Twenty bucks,” she pointed out, “buys a few answers, but addresses cost extra.”
I could hear Charlie’s clock ticking, and I didn’t have time to haggle. I dug out another twenty and handed her both bills. She tucked them into the pocket with her Winstons, lifted the two fingers that held her cigarette, and pointed at a spot over my left shoulder. I turned around. Across the street was a ratty apartment building, and peering down at us from a second-story window was an old man munching on a sandwich.
Parker Heath’s rooms smelled of fried baloney. When he let me in, his sandwich was half gone, and in an apparent defiance of gravity, a dollop of mayonnaise clung to the stubble on his chin. I explained that I did not want much of his time, but I needed to visit with him about something that had taken place thirty-five years before. When I said that, the width of his smile suggested he was a man who enjoyed discussing the past.
I followed him through his living room and into a small kitchen. Waggling his sandwich at one of the two vinyl-covered aluminum chairs beside the table, he said, “Have a seat.” I pulled the chair out and sat down. “You’re a lucky one,” he said as he looked through the fly-spotted window next to the table. He had a perfect view of the bar on the other side of Broadway. “Ain’t many fellas able to escape Arlene with their pants still on.” He cackled a high-pitched, old man’s laugh, and I couldn’t help but smile.
“She looks like she might’ve been a tiger in her day,” I allowed.
“In her day, hell. The sun set on her day years ago, and she’s still a tiger. I could tell you some tales about Arlene, I could.” He took a big gulp of milk from a tumbler beside his plate. “Care for some cow juice?” he asked.
“No, thanks.” I jerked my thumb toward the street. “Arlene says you used to own the bar.”