Brian Freeman - The Crooked Street

“What kind of jobs?”

“Hostess. Greeter. Waitress. Eye candy. She looked the part, I’ll give her that.”

“When did you last see Mr. Clark?” Frost asked.

“Tuesday. He picked her up midafternoon for a job on the boat.”

“Did he say anything about what the job was? Or did Carla?”

Tony shook his head. “Not a word. Sounded like it was one of those ‘I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you’ kind of things. All I know is, Carla showed up on Wednesday with a crap load of cash. Must have been a few thousand bucks. I can’t imagine what type of job would pay like that. I asked her about it, and she just put her finger over her lips like I should shut up.”

“And this job was last Tuesday?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you have any reason to think that Mr. Clark was involved in any illegal activity? Or did Ms. Steiff say anything about that?”

“What, like drugs?” Tony asked.

“Anything.”

“Not that I heard about, but something sure smelled funny about her coming back with that much dough.”

“Did the Berkeley police take Carla’s computer and phone with them?” Frost asked.

Tony stared at him as if that were a strange question. “You know, I didn’t see them do it, but yeah, they must have. They’re both gone now. I don’t know what else could have happened to them.”

Frost stood up, and Tabby did, too. “Well, thank you for your time, Mr. Frattalone.”

“Sure, whatever.” As Frost and Tabby headed for the door, Tony called out, “So why are the homicide cops in San Francisco so interested in Carla, anyway? I mean, she killed herself, right?”

“It’s part of another case,” Frost replied.

“Yeah, okay, but two cops in one day?”

Frost stopped and turned around. “I’m sorry, what?”

“One of your colleagues was already here a few hours ago. Same thing, homicide cop like you from San Francisco.”

“What was his name?” Frost asked.

“I don’t remember. Real tall guy, blond hair, athletic.”

Frost knew who Tony was describing. It was Trent Gorham.

Gorham had traveled to Berkeley to ask questions about Carla’s death. Frost couldn’t understand why he would do that, or why he would even have heard about a random suicide on the other side of the bay. Unless somehow he knew there was another red snake nearby.

“We’re just covering all the bases,” Frost said. “Thanks again for your help.”

He left Carla’s apartment with Tabby, and they headed downstairs into the dark parking lot. They were both quiet until they were back at his Suburban across from the park. Then, as he opened the door for her, Tabby put a hand on his arm.

“What was that all about?” she asked.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Frost replied, still thinking about Trent Gorham visiting the apartment. Then he added, “But I’m not convinced that Carla’s death was really a suicide.”

“You think she was killed? Like Denny? Why?”

“I don’t know, but I want to find out more about this cruise on Denny’s boat last Tuesday,” Frost said. “Frattalone is right. That much cash changing hands smells funny.”

He made sure Tabby was safely inside, and then he closed the door. As he made his way around the front of the truck, he glanced at the woods on the fringe of the neighborhood park. Under the glow of a streetlight, he saw a paved trail leading toward the wooden bridge. He could hear the gurgle of creek water beyond the fence. It was dark and peaceful.

Frost took a few steps down the sidewalk. He wanted to see the snake. But he stopped short of the bridge because he sensed the presence of someone else in the park, staring back at him. He squinted to see deeper into the night, and as he did, he saw a shadow move.

“Coyle?” he called. “Is that you?”

He waited, but he knew it wasn’t Coyle. There was no answer.

Instead, very clearly, he heard the thumping footsteps of someone running away through the trees.

When the man was clear of the park and sure that Frost Easton wasn’t following him, he slowed to a walk. His car was parked three blocks away on a residential street. He saw no one nearby when he reached it, but procedure said he should walk from one corner to the next to make sure there was no surveillance. He wasn’t going to take any shortcuts. One contact had ignored procedure on an operation in Lincoln Park, and word had gotten back to the boss. The contact had been found shot dead the next day.

It was a lesson in following the rules.

He checked the area, then got inside his car and removed a phone from underneath the front seat. The contact number changed every week, but he had the new number memorized. He punched in the digits and waited. The process was always the same. The voice on the other end was always the same.

“Identification,” the woman answered.

“Geary,” he said.

“Password.”

“21851.”

“Status.”

“Golden Gate.”

He’d never had to declare a different status. Golden Gate meant all was well. If something was wrong, if he was under surveillance or being coerced, then the status was Bay Bridge. Those two words sounded the alarm.

“Report,” the woman said.

Her voice had a nasal, dominating tone that broached no small talk. He had no idea who she was, or where she was, or how old she was. Even so, he found her voice oddly arousing, and he would have enjoyed being able to see her in the flesh. In his fantasies, she was young and erotically charged behind her severe ways, like a teacher who knew how to deal with naughty schoolboys. But he would never know the truth about her.

“Report,” she barked again when he didn’t reply immediately.

“Easton visited the Berkeley location.”

“Were you able to listen?”

“Yes. He’s not buying the story about the suicide. He’s zeroing in on Tuesday, too. I’m not sure the situation can be controlled much longer. We may need to take action.”

“That’s not up to you,” the woman replied.

“Fine, but next time it would be helpful to know about personal connections between my targets before you order the snakes. If I’d been informed, maybe this could have been avoided.”

He didn’t like to be nasty with the voice — it wasn’t safe — but he was the one in the field. And no one needed to lecture him about loyalty when he was taking all the risks. Geary did the dirty work.

“Have you located Mr. Jin?” she asked him, as if he hadn’t said a thing.

“Not yet.”

“That’s priority one.”

“I know that,” he replied icily. “Mr. Jin disappeared before I was brought in. It’s not my fault.”

“Regardless, it’s essential that we find him before Easton does. He’s the only one left who can talk.”

“I have a plan,” the man said. “I’ll get it done.”

“See that you do.”

“Anything else?”

“That’s all,” the woman replied.

Geary was about to hang up, but he decided to push his luck. “Make sure you tell Lombard what I said. Easton is a wild card we weren’t anticipating. As long as he’s alive, we have a problem.”

Frost awoke to the ringing of his phone. The clock on the wall told him it was already eight o’clock on Sunday morning. He’d slept late and badly. On the way back from Berkeley, he’d dropped Tabby at her car in SoMa, and then rather than going home, he’d driven out to Ocean Beach to sit by the waves crashing in from the Pacific. Tabby was still on his mind. By the time he got back to Russian Hill and fell into a restless sleep, it was almost two.

He climbed off the sofa, dislodging Shack from the small of his back. He was still wearing yesterday’s clothes. He grabbed his phone from the coffee table and saw no number on the caller ID. He tried to shake the dreams out of his head and sound conscious as he said hello.