‘You’ve got my answer. My father killed himself. He left the DNR tag for the medics. He did it. That’s what happened.’
15
A large percentage of Marcel Lanier’s working life outside of the office was spent in and around the city’s various slums and housing projects. Poverty being the wet nurse to so many crimes, this was the usual beat and homicide cops soon grew accustomed to it. Occasionally, though, the work took him on a different tour.
So while Sarah Evans was working phones at the Hall of Justice, punching the numbers that Sal Russo had written on his scraps of paper, playing connect-the-dots with the names, Lanier thought he’d grab this opportunity to take a different, more direct, approach. In spite of Glitsky’s explicit instructions Lanier forgot his tape recorder.
He knew that Danny Tosca held down the end of the bar most nights at Gino & Carlo’s. The place had been in its North Beach location forever. This was where the authentic old Italian heart of the city beat most strongly, and Danny Tosca was in some sense its unofficial pacemaker. Now in his early fifties, cue-ball bald, casually dressed in a dark sport coat, burgundy shirt, tasseled loafers, Tosca was – ostensibly – in real estate. And in fact, many of the businesses in the neighborhood made their rent checks out to his company, which brokered for the actual property owners.
Danny Tosca had never been indicted or arrested. As far as Lanier knew, he’d never even had a parking ticket, although if he had gotten one, it would have been taken care of before the ink on it had dried.
He occupied a unique niche in the sense that he did not appear to believe in physical force. He would be the first to admit that he had a knack for persuasion and negotiation, for locating the pressure point, and wasn’t averse to accepting commissions from grateful clients. He simply took a proprietary interest in his community and, like Lanier, viewed himself as one of the many checks and balances in the city by which order was maintained.
He was enjoying his inevitable demitasse of espresso when Lanier pulled up a stool and said hello.
Tosca gave every appearance of being glad to see the inspector, nodding at the bartender to set him up with whatever he’d like. Marcel had a Frangelica in a pony glass on the bar in front of him before his seat had gotten warm. The two men chatted about the beautiful night, the warm spell, the Giants, who were on television above the bar, losing to the Dodgers.
Finally, Marcel deemed the moment propitious. ‘That was a shame about Sal Russo,’ he said. ‘I guess he’d been sick a long time, though.’
Tosca sipped his espresso, waved at a couple who’d just come through the door, came back to Lanier. ‘Maybe it was better. The son, what he did.’
‘You think it was, Dan?’
A shrug. ‘That’s what the papers say.’
Lanier nodded, taking his time. ‘You see Sal recently?’
‘You know, here and there.’
‘And how’d he seem? In a lot of pain?’
‘He don’t show it, you know. Doesn’t mean it isn’t there.’
‘And what if it wasn’t about his pain? How about if it was something else?’
Lanier could see that Tosca didn’t expect this. The question slowed him. He fiddled with a sugar cube, turning it around and around on the bar. Lanier leaned in closer. ‘Somebody killed him, Dan. We don’t know why. If it wasn’t the kid, we’d like to know it before we arrest him again.’
‘You’re saying it was business?’
‘I’m saying I don’t know. Maybe somebody does. I’m wondering if there wasn’t something else in the fish.’ Meaning drugs. If the illegal fish sales – condoned as they were – were a cover, if Sal had in fact been a mule for some major dealers, there might be a motive.‘
But Tosca was shaking his head. ‘That didn’t happen,’ he said flatly. ‘He sold fish. Good fish too.’
‘A lot of it?’
Tosca eyed him carefully. ‘One day a week.’
‘Not exactly what I asked.’
The twirling had moved from the sugar cube to the cup itself. ‘I don’t think he cleared two hundred a week. What he needed to survive. There wasn’t any loan to welsh on. This was cash business – he paid when he picked up.’
‘Okay, but the suppliers? Some of them turn volume, am I right?’
Tosca thought a beat. ‘You’re asking was Sal blackmailing somebody, getting some payoff? If they didn’t pay, maybe he’d fink to Fish and Game? Why would he do that? More money? What would he need more money for?’
Lanier shrugged. ‘Suddenly he needed morphine?’
Although not particularly convincing to Tosca, this was at least an answer. He chewed his cheek for a minute, popped a sugar cube into his mouth, and chewed some more. ‘Okay, there’s one guy,’ he said. ‘I’ll see what I can find out.’
‘If you give me his name,’ Lanier said, ‘I can go see him tonight.’ At Tosca’s glare, he explained. ‘We’re on deadline here, Danny. Sooner would be better.’
The glare abated. Tosca patted Lanier’s hand on the bar. ‘I hear you, Marcel. I’ll see what I can find out.’
Sarah was almost beginning to think Sal Russo had sat in his room for hours, making up names and telephone numbers. Certainly, not one number she reached in the first hour admitted to knowing him, or had any idea what her call could be about. She reasoned that there must be a password she didn’t know, or everybody knew that Sal Russo was the subject of a murder investigation. Either way, the well was dry.
Until she got to the name Finer. Disheartened and ready to call it a day, she listened to five rings and was about to hang up when a weary voice answered. ‘Who’s this? What time is it?’
‘Mr Finer?’
A deep sigh. Exhaustion. ‘Doctor Finer. And I’m not on call. This isn’t right. I haven’t slept in two days. How’d you get this number?’
‘From Sal Russo.’
‘I don’t know any Sal Russo.’
‘Dr Finer, wait a minute. This is Sergeant Evans with San Francisco homicide. Sal Russo’s been murdered.’
She wondered if he’d hung up anyway. There was nothing but air in her ear. Then another sigh.
‘Homicide? Who’s been murdered?’
She gave him an abbreviated version and at the end of it, he seemed to have broken a bit through the fatigue. ‘Did I treat this man? I’m sorry, but I’m interning at County. It’s not like I have patients the way you’re thinking. What did he have?’
‘Cancer. A brain tumor,’ she said, ‘and Alzheimer’s.’
‘And you got my number at his house?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well, then, I might have seen him. But I’ll tell you, it wasn’t recently. I’ve been in the ER for the past six months and if he wasn’t bleeding, I didn’t treat him.’
‘He wasn’t bleeding. But it might have been before that. I don’t know when it was. I’ve got your name and phone number on an old crumpled piece of paper and that’s all I know.’
She heard, ‘I’ve got to get some sleep.’ Then, ‘What was your name again?’
‘Evans.’
‘All right, Evans, hold on. It might be a minute. Russo?’
‘Sal Russo,’ she said.
It was more like five minutes, but Sarah was content to wait. At least she had someone trying to find something related to Sal Russo. It was better than punching phone numbers and getting nothing.
Finally, he was back. ‘If he had this number, I must have seen him here.’ This didn’t mean anything to Sarah, but he was going on. ‘Salvatore Russo? He’d be near sixty now, right?’
‘That was him.’
‘All right.’ Finer was obviously reading his notes. ‘He came into the public clinic on his own and was referred to me. I was doing primary care. Said he’d gotten lost twice in the last couple of months, just suddenly couldn’t figure out where he was. He was worried he might have AD.’
‘AD?’