Джо Горес: Dead skip

“Way out beyond Twin Peaks, up in those little streets off Ocean.”

“I’ll be 10-8 at the office, cat,” said Heslip. “Got sixteen cases to type reports on. And I got something funny on one of the files. Probably just a coincidence, but I wanta ask what you think.”

“10-4,” said Ballard.

Heslip unlocked the chain-link storage lot under the concrete abutments of the skyway adjacent to the DKA office, unhooked the Mercury, and ran it in, then swiftly made out a condition report on a printed snap-out multiple form. This covered mileage, mechanical condition, lights, glass, body, rubber, power extras such as steering, seats, windows, brakes. He also checked the glove box, trunk, under the seats, on the back ledge, and behind the visors for personal property. Each item was meticulously noted, down to a box of Kleenex.

His thoroughness was professional and habitual, and owed nothing at all to Willets’ threats. Threats were cheap in Heslip’s business. He had started as a field agent with Daniel Kearny Associates three years before, when he had realized he wasn’t going to be middleweight champ of the world after all; it was the only profession he knew which could give him the same one-on-one excitement he’d found in the ring.

After relocking the lot, Heslip let himself into the DKA basement and locked himself in. Along the left wall were the field agents’ cubicles, each with a desk, two chairs, typewriter, phone, and a set of trays holding the various forms necessary for the paper work. Along the right was a long bank of meshed cages; into one of them went the personal property he had removed from the Willets car. He patted the fender of the new Jaguar he’d picked up earlier. He’d put it in the garage instead of the lot because a car like that just seemed to attract the vandals.

When he dialed 553-1235 on the phone, a hard masculine voice came on with “Traffic Detail, Delaney.”

“I’ve got a repo for you.”

“Yeah, just a sec.” Sound of paper-shuffling. “Okay. Shoot.”

“Seventy-two Mercury Montego hardtop, blue in color, license 1-8-0, Baker-Eddie-Baker, motor number 1-9-7-2-M-3-6-9-7-0-8. Repo’d at Seventh Avenue and Cabrillo, registered owner—”

“Yeah, what time?”

“Oh.” Heslip checked his watch. “Say... thirty-five, forty minutes ago. Make it twelve-twenty. Registered owner is Harold J-as-in-Joseph Willets, 7-3-6 Seventh Avenue. Legal is California Citizens Bank, San Francisco.”

“Yeah, who’s this?”

“Kearny Associates — Heslip. Busy downtown?”

“Sitting on our cans drinking coffee. At the moment.”

“Think I’ll be a cop so I can quit work.”

“Wait until the bars close and they start running into each other. Them people probably give you the keys and buy you a beer besides.”

“Sure they do.”

The policeman laughed and repeated his name, adding his shield number, and hung up. Heslip wrote both on the face of the Willets case sheet so he could include them in his closing report. Sixteen of those mothers to write, take him damned near the rest of the night. That one case, probably just a coincidence, still... Maybe Larry would come up with an idea on it. He’d trained Ballard, two years ago; hell of a good man, had all the instincts. Except he got involved.

Reports, damn ’em. He turned to the typewriter, stopped. He’d left the case sheets folded in thirds up above his car visor; he always put them up there when they were ready for reports.

Still carrying the Willets case sheet in his hand, he let himself out into the cold night air, now wet and heavy with mist. As he started across Golden Gate toward the Plymouth, a dark shape came out of the recessed entryway from which interior stairs led up to the main-floor clerical offices.

Heslip whirled around, was bringing up his guard when he was struck sharply above the right temple with a small truncheon. It made a nasty meaty sound against his skull. He went down on his hands and knees, one foot pawing the curb clumsily in a reflex to get upright inside the count. The truncheon swung again with panicky haste, struck an inch above the place it had hit the first time.

Heslip went down hard, on his face this time, without trying to break the fall in any way. He twitched once and was still.

At 8:27 A.M. Larry Ballard parked his company Ford in front of the elementary school playground, yawned, and pulled a dozen folded case sheets from above his visor. Report-typing time. Erg.

Carrying them and the attaché case containing his Current, Hold and Contingent folders, he locked the car and started across Golden Gate Avenue. A screaming phalanx of little black kids burst from the school into the blacktopped playground. His eye caught a fluttering beneath the windshield wiper of Heslip’s Plymouth; grinning, he went back to feed his own meter. Then the grin faded. Odd that it would be parked in the same place it had been the night before, when he had come in at 1:25 and hadn’t been able to find Bart.

On impulse he checked the basement before going upstairs to Clerical. The Jaguar that Bart had picked up last night was gone. Had it been gone at 1:25? He just hadn’t noticed. Marty Rossman came out of his cubicle, tall and wavy-haired; he had never lived down once yelling “May Day! May Day!” over the car radio when four angry Samoan lads had started tipping over his car in the housing project out off Geneva Avenue.

“Bart Heslip down here, Marty?”

Rossman shook his head. “Haven’t seen him. Kearny is taking off heads this morning.”

“Hell, and I’ve got reports to write.”

Ballard slipped back outside and then in the adjacent door to climb the narrow creaking stairs to the second floor. In the 1920s this old charcoal Victorian which housed DKA (Head Office, San Francisco, Branch Offices in All Major California Cities) had been a specialty whorehouse; recently it had been designated a California Landmark by the State Historical Society. Such are the uses of fame.

At the head of the stairs he turned hard left, toward the front office which overlooked the avenue through unwashed bay windows. Two new assignments and five memos from the skip-tracers, as well as three close-outs, were in his box on Jane Goldson’s desk.

“Bart up here, Jane?”

“No. Should he be?”

Jane was the setup and switchboard girl, with a marked English accent which Kearny felt lent the place a touch of class. He might even have been right. She also had remarkably good legs under remarkably short skirts; a slight open-faced girl with brown, perfectly straight hair all the way down to the small of her back.

“He’s not downstairs and his car is outside. And the Jaguar he picked up last night is gone.”

“Maybe he’s taking it back to the dealer.” She suddenly frowned. “He picked that one up, did he? Bit odd, actually, that he didn’t leave a note on my desk about it.”

Carrying his attaché case and the In basket contents, Ballard clattered downstairs and back into the basement. The sliding mirrored door to Kearny’s cubbyhole at the far end was shut, but that didn’t mean anything; it was one-way glass so Kearny could see who wanted in. Besides, Ballard was going to have to ask him if he’d seen Bart, no matter what sort of mood he was in.

Ballard’s intercom rang before he could set down his attaché case. “Larry? Come in here right away.”

Ballard walked back, pushed the button beside Kearny’s door; when the buzzer sounded, he went in. Standing behind the desk, where she could read over Kearny’s shoulder, was Giselle Marc. She still had on her coat: a tall, wickedly lean blonde with an exquisitely boned face and the sort of brains that traditionally go with thick horn-rims, thick ankles, and a thick personality. She had only the brains.