T. Parker - Cold Pursuit

Twenty grand, thought McMichael. Lots of cash to hide in a garage.

Gifts to Rainwater, he thought. Pete addled? Pete in love?

Then, a brain thorn. But what was it? The cigar boxes? The gardener? The rats? For just a moment he let his mind wander and eddy but he couldn't come up with it. He wrote BT in his notebook and put a star beside it.

He wondered why a multimillionaire would stash twenty grand in his garage. Then he wondered why not? "What did you make of Pete's gift giving to his nurse?"

"It frosted my balls," said Patricia. "It still does. And I told him so. But it's not like I could change his mind, or fire her, or make her give the stuff back."

"Did you say anything to her?"

"I told her very calmly- calm, for me- that I thought she was a common prostitute. I threatened legal action, but we both knew Pete could do whatever he wanted. And Pete really liked her. He told me to leave her alone- he'd do what he wanted with her. That was that."

"Why didn't you tell me about the missing cash that night at Pete's?"

"I didn't connect it with a murder two hours old. And you kind of ran us out, because of Garland 's big mouth. That was an awfully bad night for me, McMike."

"Yeah, I know it was."

"Did Rainwater bother to tell you about the gifts she took?"

McMichael nodded.

"Well," said Patricia, "now that her sugar daddy's dead, she'll have to hustle along and find a new one."

"I don't think it was like that."

"What was it like?"

"I don't know yet."

"Just ask her- I'm sure she'll tell you nothing but the truth."

McMichael walked down the ramp and onto the dock. It was dark already and the waterfront lights seemed bright and cheerful now that the storm had passed. The tourists were out, bundled and strolling past the Star of India and the Berkeley and the restaurants. The brain thorn was still in there but he couldn't get a fix on it. Something Patricia had said. It hovered then vanished and then twinkled again, like a small star you only see when you look away.

He walked toward the Gaslamp Quarter and it struck him again how small and useless had been the death of Franklin McMichael, father of almost three, a lousy businessman but a willing quarter-share fisherman at the no-longer-young age of thirty-three. McMichael wondered at the commonplace desperation that had led him to the Cabrillo Star in hopes of talking Pete Braga out of a paycheck that he had coming- bum trip or not. McMichael figured- had always figured- that Pete Braga owed Franklin something for his labor and his time. It angered him that Pete had given him only a bullet, then walked. Walked, and gotten respect for killing a man. Of course it was self-defense. You cheat a man out of food for his family, get ready for self-defense. Braga was wrong. And what someone had done to his firstborn son just a year later- that was just as wrong. Maybe it was Gabriel, he thought, but maybe it wasn't. His father had sworn upon a Bible that he did not know who beat Victor senseless behind the Waterfront that night. Either way, his father had grown from a haunted boy into a ruined man. Either way, to McMichael it was all just proof of how human beings were dishonest, blind and murderous. Proof of why they needed laws. And cops. Otherwise you just got the same story over and over.

The music and drinkers at Dick's were already loud by the time McMichael walked up Fourth. Some kind of rock bluegrass, heavy on the electric fiddle. Up and down the Gaslamp streets, the restaurant hostesses were setting up their sidewalk easels and the busboys were arranging flatware on the tables outside while the dapper managers ignored them, crossed their arms and surveyed the evening.

He could see Raegan's neon sign from a block away: a cobalt blue cigar wafting tracers of pink smoke, and the pulsing orange word Libertad . He found Raegan arranging big-ring robustos in a wooden box as one of the cigar makers set them in his finishing bin. She was dressed for Friday night in a black double-breasted suit with a lacy white blouse under it. Her thick red hair was loose and, as always, her skin so pale and smooth it looked like she'd never spent an hour in the sun. She was thirty-three.

"Check this, Detective," she said, sliding one of the big cigars past his nose.

"Mmm. Smells illegal."

The cigar roller looked at him matter-of-factly.

"You can't buy a better cigar at anywhere near a hundred a box," said Raegan. "Thanks to this guy."

Enrique shrugged and went on to his next robusto . Behind him were three more rolling stations, already shut down for the day. The sound system was playing Cuban music and the lounge smelled of cured tobacco and cedar. There were already some smokers at the bar and the book nook and the magazine table, mostly downtown professionals winding down from the week. The televisions were turned to business and sports. McMichael looked at the big humidors and the glass doors of the private lounges- the Cuba Room, Teofilo's, Papa's Place.

"Can we talk?"

"Well, nice to see you too, flesh and blood."

"I saw Dad last night. He looks good."

She locked her knowing green eyes on him, then led the way to the Cuba Room. "I can tell when you've got something on your mind, Tom, because you make worthless conversation."

"It's the Pete thing," he said, holding open the heavy glass door for her.

"I heard it was the nurse," she said. "Then it wasn't."

"I ought to just let you and Dad handle this case."

"I couldn't watch the autopsies."

He took a seat on one of the low modern sofas, purple and chrome. Raegan took a swivel recliner and propped her feet up on the ottoman, which gave her a view through the glass doors and into the lounge. McMichael could see the rolling stations and the big common area and the smoke rising into the slow blades of the fans.

"What do you need?" she asked.

"The Tunaboat Foundation still having its Friday-night board meetings here?"

"A few of them get drunk and BS, if you call that a meeting. They've got this room booked from seven to nine, every Friday. Something about Pete?" she asked.

McMichael nodded. "I'd like to listen in. But I wanted to clear it with you."

"Stay cool. Anybody finds out, that would be bad for business."

"Nobody'll know."

McMichael smiled at his pretty little sister. She was a gregarious and street-smart woman who had taken to the nightlife at a young age, liberated by Gabriel's spotty attendance at home and their mother's trust. She'd taken some business classes at state, did an internship at one of the stock-brokerage offices, sold new Porsches, ran the advertising department of a radio station. Just when cigars got popular, she'd hatched the Libertad . She'd lucked into a good lease on a prime Gaslamp location, and called on a Cuban ex-boyfriend to gather up some cigar makers in Florida. She'd traveled the Caribbean and Central America in search of her filler and binder tobaccos, and relied upon the time-honored Connecticut shade leaves for wrappers. McMichael had always figured that she got some of Grandfather Franklin's jovial publican's genes. But, hopefully, not his business sense.

She had dangerous taste in men- in McMichael's judgment- fake hard guys who always tried to run the show, then got mad when they saw that she was smarter and less dependent than they were. He'd offered to introduce her to a decent young Fraud detective a couple of years ago, but she'd laughed at the idea of dating a cop. She said she saw enough of those at the Libertad , and forbade McMichael to bring any prospective suitors into her store. The Metro/Vice guys had liked Raegan's lounge, back when McMichael was working the unit. Even the chief and some of his people occasionally booked Papa's Place for some smoke, scotch and gossip. McMichael had realized the eavesdropping potential of the attic when he installed the ceiling fans.