Steven Gore - Power Blind

“ Statute of limitations,” Gage said.

“Yeah. Statute.”

Two generations of police detectives in San Francisco knew Sang, his grandfather, his father, his five brothers, and their sister-and the Phams made sure they knew each of their enemies. The family was a form of organized crime: gambling, extortion, fraud, prostitution. Gage’s last contact with them was ten years earlier, in connection with a year-long series of Silicon Valley high-tech burglaries in which Sang’s role was to deliver the stolen microprocessors to off-brand server manufacturers.

Sang was the youngest and the lightweight among the siblings, less a danger to society than a burden on it.

“What exactly did you do?” Gage asked.

Sang stared at Gage, then smiled the subservient grin Gage suspected he reserved for white people to whom he was giving plumbing estimates.

“Oops.”

Gage pulled the Sang Ngoc Pham Plumbing and Rooting business card out of his shirt pocket.

“How’d you get a plumbing license?” Gage asked.

“Felonies okay. Really.” He shrugged “Bonding, maybe not.”

“The card says licensed and bonded.”

“Good intentions.”

Gage pointed toward the concrete front steps of the lime green stucco house. They walked over and sat down.

Sang spread his hands, grinning. “What do you think? Really.”

“About what?”

“My rental house.”

“Who chose the color?”

“Nobody. It was on sale. It’s good in Vietnam.” Sang surveyed the earth-toned houses bracketing his. “Here, maybe not.” He lowered his hands and let his grin fade. “But you didn’t come to talk real estate investment.”

“I wanted to ask you about Charlie Palmer.”

“Who?”

Gage cast him a sour look.

“I don’t know a Charlie Palmer, really. He deal in computer chips? I’ve been out of that business a long time, since I got out of prison. Really.”

Sang seemed convincing. With or without all the “reallys.”

Sang cocked his head and squinted toward the sky.

“Palmer… Palmer. I did a Palmer.” He looked at Gage. “A woman with a Mexican name. Senora or something.”

“Socorro.”

“That’s it. She had a clogged drain in the kitchen. And I cleaned out some roots in the line near the street.”

Gage gave him another sour look.

“She needed it. Really. I didn’t cheat her.”

“Did anyone come to the house while you were there? Maybe an older guy, heavyset?”

Sang scrunched up his face in thought, and then shook his head and said, “There was just a young guy in a golf shirt who came down from upstairs. I remember because he wanted to use the sink to get a drink of water. I don’t know if he was still there when I left.”

“What was he like?”

Sang gave a limp wrist wave, then grinned.

“Like that.”

Jeffrey Stark wasn’t at all like that. He was all black leather, except his butt cheeks, which were pink and hairy, and he was a hard man for Gage to find, even with the DMV photo Spike had given him. Gage spent the evening searching for a twenty-five-year-old in a golf shirt, not realizing it was theme night at the Bootstrap on Folsom Street.

Gage wore slacks and a button-down blue shirt, trying to look like a closeted middle-aged suburban husband on the prowl. He was leaning against his car three spaces down from the club when Jeffrey walked out, led by a shirtless eighteen-year-old in a black vest and leather pants. The combination was absurd even by San Francisco standards and too early for Halloween. The kid looked like an elf leading a wolf.

Gage pushed himself off the car and stepped in their path as they approached.

“Mind if I hold the leash?” Gage said.

A heavy chrome chain hooked to a spiked leather collar around Jeffrey’s neck terminated in Elf’s left hand.

Elf’s eyes registered the ten-inch rise between his eyes and Gage’s. It caused him to a come to a stop one step sooner than Jeffrey, who bumped into his back.

Gage took the chain out of Elf’s hand and pointed at the Bootstrap.

“Maybe you should go back inside for a couple of minutes.”

Jeffrey’s eyes were red and his face was bleary from too much dancing, too much beer, and too much giving and receiving inside the jail cell arena, the service stalls, and the glory holes.

“I want to ask you about a client,” Gage said.

Gage’s presence registered.

Jeffrey struggled to put some words together. “I… I can’t talk about clients… because of… because of HIPAA. Confidentiality and all that.”

Gage glared down at Elf. “I asked you nicely.”

Elf looked up at Jeffrey, who shrugged and said, “Go. I’ll meet you when I’m done.”

They watched Elf walk to the entrance and glance back. The opening door released a thumping blast of music and a flood of light as he stepped inside.

Gage gave the chain a tug.

“Hey man, that’s not a-”

Gage smiled. “A leash?”

Jeffrey’s eyes flared. “You know what I mean.”

“I’m not asking about anybody’s medical condition. I just want to know what happened at Charlie Palmer’s house during the two days before he died.”

“Who are you?”

“Graham Gage. I’m a private investigator.”

“For who?”

“His wife.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Just what I said.” Gage tilted his head toward the club. “Didn’t you get enough dancing inside?”

Jeffrey bit at his thumbnail. “Nothing happened during the last two days.”

“The sun came up, the sun set… what do you mean nothing happened?”

“I mean nothing important.”

“You remember a plumber coming by the day before Charlie died?”

“Yeah, that happened.”

“How long was he there?”

“A couple of hours. He left before I did.”

“Anything else happen?”

A transvestite wearing a pink empire halter dress came clicking down the sidewalk in high heels. She stopped next to them and smiled at Gage holding the leash.

“Mm’mm. Room for a third?”

Gage shook his head. “Sorry. We’re monogamous.”

She shrugged and moved on.

Gage looked back at Jeffrey. “I was asking what else happened that day.”

“I don’t remember anything.”

“What about the day he died?”

“I didn’t even go inside the room. There was nothing for me to do. He was already dead when I showed up.”

Jeffrey put on a satisfied expression, like he was off the hook.

Gage circled back. “You remember anyone coming to visit Charlie?”

Jeffrey paused and then seemed to drift off.

Gage tugged the leash.

“Hey. I’m thinking… Yeah, a guy came by the day before he died. A Polish name nobody can pronounce. He claimed Charlie called him so I let him in.”

“What did he look like?”

“White guy, big. Sorta stooped over. Had a comb-over. Silliest thing I ever saw. I don’t know who he thought he was kidding.”

“You sure it was the day before?”

Jeffrey nodded. “Positive.”

The comb-over was missing.

“What happened?” Gage asked, as the deputy removed John Porzolkiewski’s handcuffs at the doorway to the visiting room on the seventh floor of the Hall of Justice. Porzolkiewski’s hair was clipped short all around and the saddle-shaped patch of skin on the top of his head was pale and bald.

Porzolkiewski settled into a chair across from Gage as the windowed metal door slammed shut.

“I got a look at myself in a mirror in the psych ward. It seemed kind of ridiculous all of a sudden.”

“Staring at the death penalty can suck the vanity out of anyone.”