Джо Горес: Dead Man

“All right, goddam you, you’ll have your Tibetan Book of the Dead,” Sherman called after him. “At full markup!”

But he was speaking to an empty room. He hesitated, tipped over the black king with a push of his finger, shook his head sadly, and poured himself another cup of that superb coffee.

In San Francisco, Inspector is a plainclothes grade between Detective and Lieutenant, equivalent perhaps to warrant officer in the army. Inspector Randy Solomon suggested to Eddie, “Have some of our coffee. It kills the AIDS virus.”

Homicide’s coffee, brewed in a filthy percolator beside the water cooler, was so horrible that cops from as far away as San Jose and Danville dreamed up things they had to “consult” with SFPD Homicide about, just to get a cup. If they survived it, went the legend, they could return home and sweep the streets clean of criminals because obviously they were men of steel: bullets and switchblades would bounce harmlessly off them.

“Doug Sherman told me SFPD has come up empty,” said Eddie.

“How does that guy find out everything so fast?” Solomon rumbled in mild irritation.

He was in shirt sleeves, very large, very well conditioned, an African-American the color of caffe latte, easily as tall as Eddie’s scrawny six-one but ninety pounds heavier, with none of it around his beltline. His voice was basso profundo, his laughter could rattle window glass. He had met Eddie on a handball court at the Y the previous year, they now played three days a week.

“Doug knows everybody, he’s a born gossip, women like him,” said Eddie. “People tell him things. The ultimate go-between.”

“Why the hell doesn’t he just stick to selling books?”

“Censorship,” said Eddie. “Police brutality. Fie on you.”

They went into one of the interview cubicles, glassed from the waist up: voices, phones, and rattling printers made conversation in the squadroom as difficult as resurrection. Randy sat down in a chrome and black plastic chair, sausage-thick brown fingers interlaced on his gut. He sighed.

“Anyway, Close and Bill on the Ronald Grimes case — not that it ever was a case except in our Sherlock’s pigheaded—”

“You’re wrong, Randy, my case is very much open. Ronald Grimes lived far too high for our post-junk-bonds era.”

Randy squirmed around so the snubnose Policeman’s Special in his belt holster would quit digging into his hip.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t his partner hire you just to see if Grimes was skimming from their brokerage firm trustee accounts? Grimes wasn’t, right? So, end of story.”

“Start of story. Grimes had some unknown source of illicit income. When I started nosing around, he died in an apparent accident on his powerboat. In his sleep — okay. In an explosion on his boat — no way.”

Randy sighed and heaved his bulk out of the chair. “C’mon, Sherlock, let’s you buy me some lunch across the street while I explain the facts of life to you.”

They had the elevator to themselves except for a couple barely out of their teens, despairingly intertwined as if the descending cage were a spaceship capable of blasting them out of this space/time continuum. He wore black leather and hack boots and acne; she wore tearstains on her sallow cheeks.

“Got a continuance but he’s goin’ away,” muttered Randy. They faced the doors to give the couple what little privacy the elevator offered. “Why are you out doing this shit really? Beautiful wife at home who loves you, cute little kid, a good business as a computer research source. Man, I had that going for me, I’d be down to Silicon Valley makin’ beaucoup bucks...”

“Would you?” asked Eddie doubtfully. “Why are you a cop?”

Randy’s gesture encompassed his size, his blackness, the hardness of his wide ebony face. “What else?”

“Plenty else. You’re a cop because you’re good at it. Because you like it. Because it’s got you.”

They crossed the terrazzo floor and went out through heavy brass-framed doors into the bright windy May sunshine, jaywalked across Bryant Street to Boardman Place.

Eddie said, “Well, it’s got me, too. Detective work. I didn’t want to be just another microchip in the Silicon Valley game, so I started researching stuff by computer for other Cal-Tech students. After graduation we came up here and I kept going and all of a sudden I was making a living at it. Only my clients weren’t students any more — darn little pure research. They turned out to be mostly P.I.’s hired by attorneys to check out jurors, witnesses in court cases, even the lawyers’ own clients.”

They went down Boardman past storefront bailbondsmen to a taqueria with a big sign above it, ABIERTO 24 HORAS. Inside the narrow crowded room a jukebox played Mexican music filled with sad horns. A brown chunky Aztec-looking waitress brought Tecates instead of menus to their table; they ordered the special with the carelessness of long familiarity. The room smelled of hot oil and frying tortilla chips and red pepper and salsa spices.

“But,” persisted Solomon, “if you could do it faster and cheaper with the computer than they could in the field, why—”

“I got my own P.I. license to cut out the middleman — it was just good business. But then I found out fieldwork is fun, too. The computer is still the core of my operation, but it can’t ask just the right question at just the right moment. Of course once Iget an answer, I use my laptop to interface through the car phone with the data base in my big computer at home.”

The waitress returned with huge platters of enchiladas, tacos, burritos, refritos y arroz, salad to go with their second beers. Randy jabbed a forkful of beans in Eddie’s direction.

“So, Sherlock, what’s your move now on Grimes? More ‘fun’? Ring some doorbells? Go sit in your car across the street from the yacht basin with a magnifying glass and a deerstalker hat?”

“Right now, nothing — I’ve got other cases need work. Eventually, start massaging the data bases — somebody had him killed, there have to be tracks the computer can pick up.”

“You slip in that assumption about somebody having Grimes offed just so damn neat. But it was a gas leak got him.”

Eddie shook his head. “Professional hit.”

“You think the arson investigators screwed up?” demanded Randy scornfully. “The explosion was in the engine compartment, right where you’d expect it to be. Forensics, fire department, insurance company — everybody says accident except Eddie Dain.”

“Did they run a probabilities program on that particular make, model, and year of Chris-Craft to see how hull shape and engine-compartment size would affect a gas-leak explosion?”

“Why in hell should they, when everything points to—”

“I did — I developed the software program for it myself.” Eddie waved a bulging bean burrito around under Randy’s nose. “Flash point was seven-tenths of a meter from where it should have been for gas fumes, and a couple of intensity probability screenings I ran suggested C-4 plastique. Which means—”

Randy silenced him with an impatient paw.

“Wait a minute, Sherlock. If it was a hit, why pro? Why not gifted amateur?”

“Because all you professional law enforcement guys buy into it as an accident. I figure only a pro could fool everybody except the computer. After we get back from Point Reyes, Marie and I will work the data to find those footprints, then—”

“You ever think that if you’re right it might be dangerous? If somebody is out there, and you start getting close to him—”