Brian Freeman - The Crooked Street

The man was still a mystery, a ghost. He was Moriarty.

Frost rubbed his eyes, which were tired from staring at the brightness of the computer screen. He leaned back in his chair and studied the desk where Trent Gorham had sat. It had already been cleared off, leaving the surface stark and empty. Gorham had spent years conducting a shadow investigation of Lombard, and the only result was to get him killed.

“Easton?” a voice called to him. “You’re still here?”

Captain Hayden filled the doorway of his office. The rest of the detective floor was quiet. The graveyard shift was mostly out on the streets. Hayden waved him inside, and Frost joined him and shut the door. Cyril was there, too, standing behind the captain the way he always did.

“Why don’t you go home,” Hayden told him. “You’re not going to accomplish anything more today. And frankly, you still need to recover. You’re not one hundred percent by a long shot.”

“I’m fine,” Frost replied.

“That wasn’t a suggestion,” Hayden told him.

Frost nodded. “All right.”

“Hey, Easton,” Cyril called to him from the window. His hard-edged voice sounded apologetic. “You know, I really thought Gorham was going to shoot that kid. That’s why I fired. I sure as hell never thought Gorham saw the kid break the neck of that chef.”

“Fox fooled me, too,” Frost said. “And he wasn’t a kid.”

“Well, I’m not happy about how it went down,” Cyril went on. “I wanted you to know that.”

“Okay.”

Hayden nodded at Cyril and then gestured toward the door. “Give me a minute alone with Frost. Warm up the car. I’ll be leaving soon, too.”

“Yes, sir,” Cyril replied.

The other cop left, and the two of them were alone in the captain’s expansive office.

“I told Cyril you had suspicions about him,” Hayden said. “I hope that Fox’s confession took care of that. We’re both sorry about Gorham, but Cyril had to make a split-second call. You or I would have done the same thing. What happened on the roof was bad luck.”

“You’re right,” Frost agreed, but he also remembered what Fox had told him in the Chinatown alley. It’s not luck, man. Around here, people have my back.

“It’s important that the three of us trust each other going forward,” Hayden went on, as if he could hear the doubts in Frost’s voice.

“I understand,” Frost said.

“Lombard is still out there.”

“That’s true. Although I’m not sure where we go from here.”

“You haven’t found anything else?”

“No.”

“So what’s your next step?”

“I don’t have one,” Frost said.

“What are you saying, Easton? Are you done with Lombard? Are you walking away?”

“That depends, sir,” Frost said. “Do you want me to walk away?”

Hayden took a while to say anything more. His breath smelled of coffee and chocolate, and his teeth were wine stained. He grabbed a half-smoked cigar from an ashtray and rolled it between his fingers. “I was at a political dinner tonight. I hate those things, but they’re a necessary evil. The mayor was there. He asked about the incident at the Embarcadero.”

“What did you tell him?” Frost asked.

“I said it was about drugs,” the captain replied. “He seemed relieved to hear that.”

“I’m sure he was.”

“He also asked about Denny Clark. I told him the investigation was closed. He was pleased about that, too.”

“No doubt,” Frost said.

“What I’m saying is, nobody’s pushing for the truth. I won’t blame you if you want to let it go.”

“I appreciate that,” Frost replied, but he left the original question unanswered. He wasn’t making any promises.

Hayden waited. The silence between them drew out. “You know, Easton, you’ve still never told me who was really on that boat.”

“That’s because I can’t prove it. I have no witnesses.”

“But you know, right?”

“Does it matter now, sir? I mean, since the case is closed.”

“I guess not,” Hayden said.

“Will there be anything else, sir?” Frost asked.

“No. You can go home. We can talk more tomorrow.”

Frost left the office. He gathered up his things at his desk and took the elevator down to the street. Outside, in the darkness, the unusual early-season heat stubbornly refused to yield to the typical cool evening air. Between the downtown buildings, it was still warm enough to make him sweat. His Suburban was parked at the water on the east end of China Basin, and he walked that way alone past the glass windows of upscale condominiums. His pace was slow as he passed in and out of the glow of streetlights. The neighborhood was deserted. He could smell the bay as he got closer, and when he reached the water, the city skyline and the baseball stadium came into view on his left.

He stopped.

Directly in front of him on the other side of the street was a black Bugatti. Its ferocious engine idled. Its distinctive C-curve swooped along the roofline and bent below the driver’s door, making the machine look like the Batmobile.

Romeo Laredo leaned against the hood. “Well, hey, Inspector, how are you? We keep running into each other, don’t we? San Francisco’s a small town.”

“Looks that way,” Frost replied. He stayed where he was and slid back the flap of his jacket like a gunslinger to reveal the holster for his weapon.

“Oh, you won’t be needing that,” Romeo told him. “In fact, I’d really appreciate it if you could come over here and hand it to me.”

“Why should I do that?” Frost asked.

“Well, first of all, if you look around, you’ll see that I’m not alone, so if you’re thinking about being a hero, that’s a really bad call. Second, there’s somebody in the car who’d like to talk to you, and I sort of think you’d like to talk to him, too.”

Frost took a quick glance in every direction and confirmed Romeo’s story. Other men with guns had appeared on all sides and were closing in from the shadows. He slid his pistol slowly into his hand with two fingers and then crossed the street and deposited it in Romeo’s palm. The athletic operative grinned.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get it back,” Romeo told him.

Frost went around to the passenger side of the Bugatti. He noted that there was no license plate. The door opened on its own for him with a soft click, and he got inside. As he sank into the rich leather seat, which practically melted around him, the door closed automatically. There was almost no light inside the vehicle behind the smoked glass. The man at the wheel was very close to him, but Frost could make out few details of who he was. He wore an elegant dress fedora tilted to cover much of his face, and his eyes were hidden by owlish sunglasses. The collar of his dark raincoat was up, and his mouth and cheeks were in shadow. He was ageless and had no identity. All Frost could make out was a sheen of black hair and the outline of an unremarkable nose that he tried to capture in his memory.

“Hello, Inspector Easton,” Lombard said.

He had a much softer voice than Frost was anticipating. His tone was firm but calm, like a teacher discussing the ins and outs of Plato with a student. It wasn’t the kind of voice that would intimidate strangers, but this man’s entire world had been built around intimidation and cruelty. Frost thought about the cigarette burns on Belinda Drake’s chest and about the trail of dead bodies, and it reminded him whom he was dealing with.

“Why are we meeting?” Frost asked. “Are you planning to kill me?”

In the darkness, he saw the smallest smile creep onto Lombard’s lips. “Now, why would I do that when I’ve already won, Inspector? You’re no threat to me now.”