Джо Горес - Gone, No Forwarding

Looking down at him, Kearny said, “You know, Giselle, you can always recognize a civil servant.”

In his own way, he had said a final goodbye to Kathy Onoda.

But death terminates only the person, not the complexities of the person’s life. Thus, Dan Kearny’s face was somber when he parked on Wednesday morning where the tow-away had ended sixty seconds earlier. He crossed Golden Gate Avenue to the narrow old charcoal-gray Victorian that had been a specialty cathouse in its gaudy youth, entered his bleak little cubbyhole office in the DKA basement, jabbed Giselle’s intercom button and lit a cigarette.

“You know what those bastards in Sacramento are up to?” he demanded as soon as she came on. “Listen to this: ‘wherefore, it is prayed that the director’ — that’s the Director of Professional and Vocational Standards — ‘hold a hearing to suspend or revoke the license of the respondent’ — that’s us — ‘or take such other action as may be deemed proper.’ I wonder what they have in mind — castration?”

Giselle was horrified. “ ‘Suspend’? ‘Revoke’? My God, Dan, which case are they—”

“Something Kathy was handling out at Oakland—” He was leafing through the Complaint. “A General Motors Acceptance Corporation deficiency judgment against a guy named Kasimir Pivarski. That ring any bells with you?”

“I vaguely remember something, Dan’l, but—”

“Dig a copy of the file out of Legal and bring it down here. And I want this under your hat, Giselle. I think the State’s just shooting marbles, but until I know for sure I don’t want word of any possible disciplinary action leaking to our clients.”

Kearny saw her twenty minutes later through his one-way glass door, a steaming cup of coffee in each hand and a manila folder clipped under one arm. She looked as if she should have dropped a couple of Dalmane the night before. Kathy had hit her hard, all right.

“Your stuff moved into the front office yet? I want you in there today.”

“All right, Dan’l,” she said in a subdued voice.

One cup she retained, the other she reached across his massive blondewood desk to set beside the ashtray in which his day’s seventh cigarette smoldered. She knew she had to move, but God, how she hated it! Even more than the wax figure in the coffin, violating Kathy’s private domain meant she was gone, dead and gone forever.

She made herself sit down and sip her coffee and open the not particularly fat folder. “On March 21, 1975, GMAC assigned a deficiency collection in the amount of $789.35. Usual split...”

“What was it on?”

“1974 Olds Toronado V-8 Custom Hardtop.”

“We repo it for them originally?”

“No. Their own fieldmen. This was part of the paper we bought from the Zippy Finance bankruptcy over in Oakland.”

“What I don’t understand,” Kearny began, then stopped and drew on his cigarette. “No. Go ahead.”

“We queried GMAC for a current status of the account a year ago June. No payments had been made. Two months later, in August, we got a reassignment of the case to us. On October first we filed a complaint for money against Pivarski in Oakland Municipal Court in the amount of $789.35 plus interest and attorney’s fees. Pivarski didn’t show up, so immediately afterward we got a writ of attachment on his wages from Padilla Drayage Company.”

Kearny came bolt upright in his padded swivel chair. “Padilla Drayage?”

Giselle’s face went slack with surprise. “Oh, wow, Dan, it went right by me.”

Padilla Drayage was an East Bay Mafia-connected concern with which DKA’d had a brush a couple of years before. Kearny leaned back. “Maybe just coincidence. But why in hell Kathy didn’t alert me when that name came up in the file...”

“It wouldn’t have meant anything to her, Dan. You kept her out of that whole mess because you were afraid her kids made her too vulnerable.”

Kearny lit a cigarette and shut his eyes momentarily. Who was running Padilla Drayage now that Padilla was dead and “Flip” Fazzino, who’d arranged his murder, had fled the country? Only he, Kearny, knew about a certain rainy night at the big quiet mansion in Pacific Heights, when he’d made the phone call that blew the whistle on Fazzino to his erstwhile organized-crime associates.

He nodded to Giselle. “Go on.”

“On October eight the sheriff of Contra Costa County collected $26.32 of Pivarski’s wages from his employer on the writ of attachment. On the eighteenth, through his attorney, Pivarski filed a demurrer to our complaint of the first. He stated—”

“Who’s his attorney?”

“Urn... a... Norbert Franks.”

“Good old Norbert.” He jabbed a finger at Giselle. “An associate in the law firm of Wayne E. Hawkley at 1942 Colfax Street in Concord. Right?”

“Dan, how did you know?”

“Franks is Hawkley’s sister’s kid...”

Wayne Hawkley. An attorney who did favors for the mob. Not that Kearny could see, at the moment, why Hawkley should be involved in the State’s move against his license. It was Hawkley he’d called when he’d blown the whistle on Flip Fazzino.

“Hawkley himself didn’t show on this? Just Franks?”

“Just Franks.”

He drummed puzzled fingers on the desktop. “Go on.”

“On November fifth Pivarski showed up at the Oakland office.” She read from Kathy’s carbon receipt. “ ‘Two hundred dollars, received on account from K. Pivarski.’ Kathy’s signature, the date, the time-stamped at five forty-six P.M.”

“Okay. Check the trust-account deposit for that day.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Item Four of the Accusation: ‘On November fifth, Pivarski and respondent’ — us again — ‘entered into an oral contract where Pivarski made a voluntary payment of two hundred dollars to respondent which’ ” — Kearny paused to emphasize the words — “ ‘ was to be held by respondent in trust awaiting the outcome of said lawsuit. Said payment was to show good will and’—”

Giselle burst out, “Kathy would never take a payment that way! Why, under state licensing laws, anything she collected would have to go into the trust account with half of it paid over to GMAC.”

“Exactly. And the receipt shows that’s what happened. But the State is alleging that” — he found his place again — “that ‘said payment was to show good will and prevent further attachment of Pivarski’s wages. Said oral contract contemplated that the payment was to be returned to Pivarski if he prevailed.’ ”

On November 12 the court which was hearing Pivarski’s demurrer entered judgment in his favor. Two weeks later he filed suit against DKA for $226.30 — the $26.30 which they had recovered by attachment, plus the $200 Pivarski had paid Kathy on November 5. On February 18, judgment was entered in favor of Pivarski for $226.30 principal, $4.48 interest and $15 costs.

“A grand total of 245.78 lousy bucks,” Kearny stormed, “and what does Kathy do about it? She sits on it! She doesn’t tell me anything about it. She doesn’t repay the money as directed by the court. She must have been a hell of a lot sicker—”

“Dan.”

“—for a hell of a lot longer—”

“Dan.”

“—than any of us realized, to pull a bonehead—”

“DAN!”

He fell abruptly silent.

“If Kathy had come to you with it,” Giselle asked, “would you have given Pivarski his money back?”

After a moment Kearny gave a sheepish laugh. He smeared out his half-smoked cigarette and shook a fresh one from the pack. “Not one goddam dime,” he said, then scaled the Summons and Complaint across the desk at her.