Under a Killing Moon

UAKM — CHAPTER FIVE

I woke up after a brief twelve hours, feeling sore and unrested. Being grifted always had that effect on me. I stumbled into the shower and tried to think. The hot water pounding on the back of my neck jump-started my brain, but didn’t help me come up with any answers. The countess had obviously been phony. I hadn’t thought about it at the time, but I should’ve suspected something when her photo of the statuette was clearly a bad copy. I suppose I’d been too eager for the case to ask myself any bubble-popping questions. A clear violation of the PI Rules.

I stepped out of the shower and dried off. The effects of my shower massager started to fade, and I took a painful inventory of my wounds. My back was still sore from the landing outside the Dulce Vida, my head felt like it was hosting some kind of aneurysm tournament, and my backside was sore from the long flight home. On the brighter side, I’d smoked less than a pack over the past eight days. My lungs and sinuses were in the pink.

After I got dressed, I fired up the coffee machine and walked to the door. On the floor, under the mail slot, was about a week’s worth of mail. I’d been too tired to deal with it the night before. I gathered up the pile, crossed the warped hardwood floor, and flopped into the chair behind my cluttered desk. Pushing aside a pile of legal pads and assorted note scraps, I tapped the envelopes into order like an oversized deck of cards and started shuffling through the bills.

On top of the pile was a handwritten, practically illiterate, and nearly unintelligible note from my landlord, Nilo. In King’s English, it essentially read: Pay the rent or go find another dump to live in. This was Nilo’s official pre-eviction notice. I’d been expecting it, which is why I parked my speeder by Louie’s café and taken the back-alley route to my office. The longer Nilo didn’t know I was home, the more time I could buy before having to smell his pig-feet-and-pork-rind breath as he told me what would happen if I didn’t fork over some cash.

Of course, any reputable place would’ve booted me out weeks ago. Luckily, Nilo had a hard time holding onto tenants. Not that he was the slightest bit compassionate or flexible regarding payment arrangements. He was merciless in his pursuit of back rent and took every available opportunity to extort it from me. Countless times I’d tried to explain to him the nature of freelance work, how when it rained, it poured. I also tried to make it clear that, for the moment, I was too broke to pay attention and that he couldn’t get blood from a stone. Unfortunately, analogies were lost on Nilo. He’d stare at me stupidly, muttering a seemingly random mix of threats and obscenities, and go back to ogling his porno mags.

I decided that rent was in the lower third of my list of priorities and turned my attention back to the pieces of mail. The second item was from the Zebra Speeder Finance Corporation. I knew what they wanted. Unfortunately, I didn’t have it. With any luck, their repo man wouldn’t stop by until I’d manage to get a case that actually paid off. The third bill was from West Coast Bell. Even without any long-distance charges, the amount due seemed unreasonable. Next in line was an application for a Master Express credit card. I’d have been tempted to send it in if it weren’t for that annoying disclaimer: subject to credit approval. My credit rating had gone bad about the same time as the cartilage in my right knee and my hopes of playing first base for the Red Sox.

I continued on through an ad for a dating service, a form requesting a donation to the Humane Society, and a coupon booklet featuring discounts on dry cleaning and Et Tu Brute pizza. It wasn’t until I reached the bottom of the pile that I found anything of interest. First, there was another credit card application, this one for the Radioactive Shack. What made it different was the word Pre-approved stamped on the form. I’d never really thought much of Radioactive Shack, but they’d recently opened an outlet (no pun intended) just down the street, which made it convenient. Besides, I’d always wondered what it would be like to charge something. I decided I might give it a try and stuck the form into my desk drawer.

The final envelope wasn’t a bill or junk mail. My name and address were handwritten in block letters. There was no return address. It had been postmarked at the downtown USPS office on November 30, exactly one week earlier. I crushed the last inch of my Lucky Strike into an ashtray and tore open the letter. Inside was a blue card, the size of a standard index card. On one side, the anonymous correspondent had written BXK+A261184. I turned the card over. There was nothing written on the back. There was nothing else in the envelope.

I wouldn’t be in analyzing mode for several more hours. I set the blue card aside. There were other, more pressing things on my mind. Coffee, for one. I poured myself some instant breakfast and walked to one of the windows that looked out over majestic Chandler Avenue.

Chelsee Bando was chatting with a stocky, middle-aged gent at her newsstand. Even from three stories up, I could almost smell her perfume, and primal urges stirred within me, like a den of bears around Easter. It had been a long time since I’d performed the forbidden dance of love, but that wasn’t the only reason Chelsee made my toes curl. Of course, looking at her was like holding an AA meeting at a bar. I’d sworn off women — they were worse than alcohol. Maybe they wouldn’t kill your liver, but they’d done one hell of a job on most of my other organs.

I sipped the java and looked around the rest of the street. Things were pretty dead, as usual. The only unusual thing I saw was a police speeder parked toward the end of the block. It was unmarked, but it might as well have had C-O-P-S painted on the hood in canary yellow. There was only one guy inside, slumped in the passenger seat, eyes closed and mouth open.

The man talking to Chelsee left the newsstand and walked toward the cop speeder, holding two Styrofoam cups and a bulging bag. What were the cops doing on a stakeout in our sleepy little neighborhood? I’d been accused of taking too many things personally, and this was no exception. I moved away from the window and returned to my desk.

Over a second cup of joe, I wondered what the chances were of me being the target. I tried to think what I could possibly have done to piss of the SFPD. Except for the job in Mexico City, the most interesting thing I’d done since sobering up was experimenting with a tartar control gel. Everything before that was a bit blurry, but I couldn’t remember doing anything illegal. Despite being reasonably sure I wasn’t in trouble, I decided to keep a low profile.

My first priority was to find out who’d set me up. I’d never enjoyed being played for a sap, and I was about to get a hospital bill that I had no intention of paying. Besides, there were no messages on my vid-phone, no cases lined up, and I was determined not to fall back into a life of sloth and slobbering.

A good place to start would be the Century 22 real estate agency. I’d jotted down the number from the For Sale sign at the countess’s “bungalow.” I punched in the number on my vid-phone. After three rings, a handsome black woman with large, shiny eyes and a perfect, easy smile answered.

We chattered for several minutes about 2429 Filmore. Kaitlyn Abbot, the real estate agent, told me that the house had been owned by an older woman named Mrs.

Greenburg, but that she’d passed away some time ago. Mrs. Greenburg’s two children, both of whom lived out of state, had decided to sell the house. Mrs. Abbot went on to say that the place had been unoccupied for at least six months.

After I disconnected, I mulled over the fact that the mansion had supposedly been vacant for months. Countess Renier, if that was her real name, had certainly shown a bold streak by staging her ruse in the empty house. I had to admire the audacity.

Unfortunately, that didn’t take the sting out of being used like a Kleenex. If I’d been a realist, I might have filed the whole episode under Learning Experiences, but I’d never been accused of being a realist. Besides, I had nothing else to do. The question was, where to begin? The mansion was all I had to work with. Maybe the imposter countess had left something traceable behind. I decided to make a return trip.

A light acid rain was falling as I left the office and hurried to my speeder, carefully sidestepping the street’s minefield of oily pools. I was sporting my good Dexter wing tips and always tried to keep them safe from inclement weather and low pH puddles.

Inside the speeder, I lifted off and headed toward Pacific Heights.

I parked several houses away from 2429 and made my way to the back of the mansion without being seen. I entered the “bungalow” and spent the next hour going through the sitting room, looking for anything that might give me a lead. The high point of my search was finding a full ashtray. The cigarettes were marked with a symbol I’d never seen before.

I poured some of the cigarette butts into an envelope I found in my overcoat pocket, then left the residence and stealthily made my way back to the speeder. Maybe a tobacconist could identify the brand of cigarettes. It wasn’t the greatest lead in the world, but it might be just slightly better than nothing.

I lifted off and flew several blocks, until I reached a convenience store with pay phones out front. Jumping out of the idling speeder, I jogged through the misty downpour. At the pay phone, I inserted a dollar bill, and the directory menu appeared on-screen. I accessed the listing for tobacconist shops and decided to start at the Cigar Bar, since it had the catchiest name, as well as being the closest to my present location.

I was about to return to the warmth of my speeder when a thought struck me. I knew that tracking someone down by way of their preferred brand of cigarette is desperate at best, but I didn’t have anything else to go on. What I really needed was a crack team of investigators to go through the phony countess’s sitting room. With a staff of fully trained professionals, experienced in fingerprinting, collecting DNA samples, and analyzing microscopic fibers, maybe something would turn up. And I had connections in the San Francisco Police Department.

Unfortunately, I’d seen them at work often enough to decide they were mostly a bunch of knuckleheads. Their ringleader, Lieutenant Mac Malden, was an old acquaintance. I pulled out another dollar bill, fed it into the machine, and entered the number for the downtown precinct. Inferior help was better than no help at all. I also made a mental note to ask Mac if he knew anything about the unmarked speeder on Chandler Avenue.

Malden wasn’t in his office, so I left a brief message on his voice mail, asking him to call me at my office at his earliest convenience. I disconnected and returned to my speeder, then flew through a heavy downpour to the Cigar Bar. It turned out to be a rustic hole in the wall down by the Wharf. When I stepped inside, the smell of fresh tobacco reached out and embraced me like an old lover. The interior of the shop was long and slender and brown, appropriately enough. Sets of display cases faced each other down the length of the store. The hardwood floor was marinated in the blended aromas of cherry, vanilla and Cuban leaf.

I walked down the left side of the shop, inspecting the wares. Case after case was filled with handsome wooden boxes teeming with Cubans, Hemingways, and Ashtons. The shelves above were full of cigar cutters, vintage lighters, cigarette cases, and other smoking accouterments. I turned toward the right wall and its selection of hundreds of pipes. There was also a substantial magazine section containing every periodical published for the patrons of the disappearing art of smoking. It was heavenly. If I’d had the money, I could’ve spent the entire day here, smoking myself into a stupor.

Behind the long counter (and a cloud of smoke), a small, bony man with a bad toupee was ladling rough-cut tobacco from a large glass jar into a small plastic bag. He looked up at me, and his leathery face crinkled into a crooked grin around a neatly hand-rolled cigarette. “Afternoon.”

I pulled the pack of Luckies from my overcoat pocket and walked to the counter. The man stopped ladling and extended a lighter. I leaned over until the tip of my cigarette touched the flame, then straightened up, releasing a long stream of smoke. The leathery man looked me over approvingly.

“Baby Luckies. Don’t see many people smoking’ those these days. Not really enough.

Looks fine on you, though. Compliments the get-up nicely. You know, I gotta fedora like that. Pricey. Not really the style, but like I say, quality never goes out of fashion.

Am I right? You bet I am.”

He glanced over the counter. “Wing tips, too. Nice touch. There ya go again… quality.

These days, I dunno, businessman types wearing this new footwear — what do they call it? — active dress shoes, or something’ like that. Who are they kiddin’? Sneakers are sneakers. Now those wing tips of yers, that’s a shoe. Am I right? Sure I am.”

He took a quick drag from his smoke, then extended his hand. “Sorry if I’m talking yer ear off. Name’s Gabby. Not my real name, of course, but my friends call me that, and anyone who smokes Luckies is a friend in my book, sight unseen.”

We shook with our free hands. “My name’s Murphy. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Gabby.”

Gabby stubbed out his smoke and returned to ladling. “Murphy, eh? Good, solid name.

Suits ya. So, what can I do for ya, Murphy? Pack of Luckies?”

“Sure.”

Gabby turned and stood on his tippy toes to reach a pack of smokes. He rang it up, and I handed him a fin. He forked over my change and smiled. “Anything else I can getcha?”

“Actually, there is. Could you look at something for me?” I pulled the envelope from my coat pocket and passed it over the counter. Gabby picked it up and took out one of the cigarette butts. He looked it over carefully, then put it back into the envelope.

“Gitanes Specials. French cigarettes. Not bad… a little on the harsh side.”

I replaced the envelope in my pocket. “Do you sell a lot of these? I’m trying to find someone, and all I know about them is they smoke Gitanes Specials.”

Gabby didn’t reply for a moment and busied himself with expertly rolling another cigarette. After he’d run his tongue across the Zig-Zag paper and sealed it, he looked back up at me. “You a gumshoe?”

I nodded.

“That’s kinda what I figured. When you walked in, I thought to myself, this guy looks like he stepped right out of that Bob Mitchum movie… what’s it called… Farewell, My Lovely. Not like a costume or anything, just got the feel, if ya know what I mean.”

I was pleased and didn’t mind saying so. “I know what you mean. It’s an image thing.

Good for business. And I also happen to prefer the style. I guess I’m just old fashioned.”

Gabby lit his smoke. “Nothin’ wrong with that. No, sir. Like I say, just because it’s new don’t mean it’s better. People these days just don’t know the meanin’ of style. Now you take yer Bill Powells, yer Don Ameches — those guys knew how to dress. Yessir. Nothin’ wrong with a sharp fedora and a shiny pair of wing tips.”

He took another short drag. “But I’m getting’ off the beaten path. So, yer a PI, and yer looking’ for whoever smoked those Gitanes. Well, I can tell ya a couple of things. First, I don’t got ‘em here in my shop, and that means they ain’t real easy to find… unless you live in France, that is. I don’t stock ‘em because they don’t sell like yer Marlboros or even yer Dunhills. If I was you, I’d be looking for someone French, or someone who mighta been to France in recent memory. Sorry I can’t help ya more than that.”

I left the shop a little disappointed but not surprised. The woman I was looking for (or maybe the man who’d posed as the butler) might have been French or visited France, and that meant my list of suspects had narrowed down from hundreds of millions to tens of millions. Maybe Malden and his boys would find something at the mansion, but even in the unlikely case they did, that wouldn’t happen for awhile. I had only one other lead to pursue. Back in the speeder, I set course for Lowell Percival Enterprises.