Chinatown Blues Read online

  On the other hand if I helped Jimmy dispose of the body efficiently both of us were clear. That is until our unknown developer began to wonder what happened to his attack dog. At that point Jimmy would receive another visit, or worse.

  Not your problem I told myself. Yeah right.

  It was still a bit early for serious drinking and the unpleasant business facing me later that night put a damper on the festivities. I was due to meet my lady friend Nina at the bar where she holds court later that night.

  I got off at Fifteenth and Mission and started walking over to Valencia Street. A few years back the hood was territory of artists, junkies, Latino gangbangers, radical bookstores, store front organizers, rock bars, great cheap burritos, and low rents. San Francisco’s East Village West so to speak.

  And both neighborhoods have suffered the same fate over the years.

  Gentrification.

  Better known as castration.

  To be honest some of the changes are user-friendly. Such as the creation of a Parklet complete with bike racks in front of Four Barrel, an industrial-sized coffee emporium. For those who have yet to be gentrified, a Parklet is a simple wooden deck placed over two parking spaces so as to create a space where people can sit.

  This one came furnished with counters and stools, so the mass of twenty somethings might have a place to park their laptops and sip their expensive coffee outdoors. Not like those early Mission cafes with sagging couches, chessboards on the tables, shelves of books, people reading newspapers, and dollar espresso.

  For there’s the rub. The emporium starts at three bucks for the house coffee and works its way to six or seven for those wishing to indulge in exotic brews poured by hand.

  The Parklet was jammed with smug young techies so I decided to go old school. I walked a few blocks to a place called Muddy Waters, got the coffee of the day for a buck seventy-five, and took a table at the window. Back to the wall, eyes on the street. Old habits of an undercover narc. I sipped my coffee and opened my new book. As I started to read I noticed the corners of the pages were marked with red ink. It dawned on me that it wasn’t ink but blood from the recently deceased’s broken nose.

  I read for about an hour or so before I moved on. With apologies to Bill Gibson I left the novel behind unfinished.

  DNA can be a bitch.

  The bus ride, coffee, long walk: none of it dispelled the sense of foreboding floating over me like a vulture with keen eyesight. In a few hours I was going to help Jimmy Shu get rid of a body.

  Pro bono.

  Not exactly the sharpest razor in the shave kit.

  It was barely eight but Nina would have started her shift. Along the way I stopped at a Taqueria for a burrito and the obligatory beer. I also ordered a burrito to go.

  The Lone Palm has all the requisites of a good bar. It’s off the beaten path, it’s dimly lit, frequented by interesting characters, and the bartenders play good music.

  It also featured a bartender with a world-class ass. My significant lady Nina.

  At the moment Nina was royally pissed at me.

  A couple of years back I helped rescue her cousin from the motorcycle gang that had kidnapped her. I also helped rescue Nina from the same gang. In the process we became very close.

  After things settled down we took a long, lazy vacation in Mexico and became even closer. Nina even had my name tattooed on her fabulous bun.

  Problem was I had too many demons I couldn’t share.

  Nina knew I had an ex-wife but very few details. She had been patient but I made no secret of the fact that I intended to stay a bachelor.

  However Nina is Latina and her patience blew like Mount St. Helens.

  Currently she was in her glacier stage. She was talking to a young couple at the end of the bar and pretended she didn’t see me come in.

  Hoping to melt her resistance I slid the aluminum wrapped burrito across the bar. Nina’s eyes went from the burrito to my lame smile then back to her customers.

  I sat quietly waiting my turn.

  However I was working up a fair helping of outrage. It had already been a tense fucking day. And okay, I couldn’t commit fully to a relationship but how did that suddenly make me a bad guy?

  Nina’s voice punctured my indignation.

  “Hello, Max.”

  “Hi.”

  “Are you drinking tonight?”

  “Patron.”

  She poured a healthy measure of tequila and when I put a twenty on the bar she pushed it back.

  “Thanks for the burrito, Max. That was nice.”

  I gave her a manly shrug and lifted my glass. “Here’s to you, kid.”

  My Bogie toast went unnoticed. A customer at the end of the bar caught Nina’s eye and she drifted off.

  The Patron burned away some of the tension. The belt around my belly relaxed a notch and I took my first deep breath since I stepped into Jimmy’s shop. It felt so good I took another.

  Nina moved into view. “The air in here isn’t that fresh.”.”

  She was eating the burrito.

  “You’re right. How about a refill?”

  “If you promise to drink it slow.”

  I lifted my hand. “I hereby swear.”

  She gave me a long look, honey eyes searching my face, then moved away.

  Wondering what that was about I dutifully sipped my Patron.

  Except for the gruesome task looming ahead I was starting to feel better. The bar was starting to fill up with unwired hipsters who liked to have a drink and talk things over. The girls were attractive and the boys wore long pants. I watched Nina expertly mix and serve drinks and listened to the Eagles welcome me to the Hotel California. Halfway down my tequila I decided to step out for a cigarette.

  The street was quiet. I moved away from the entrance and lit up.

  After a few contemplative puffs I was pleased to see Nina come outside to join me.

  “Thought you gave it up.”

  She folded her arms as if chilled.

  “Ceremonial occasions. Spare one?”

  We stood for a few moments in the semi-darkness without speaking. Then Nina turned and gave me that searching look again.

  “Max…Max, I think we should stop seeing each other. Just for a while.”

  What the fuck?

  My elevator suddenly plunged fifty floors sucking the air from my stomach.

  “Is…there somebody else?” was all I could muster.

  She looked away. “Nothing like that. I’ve been thinking about us and maybe this is the best thing. I seem to need a lot more than you can give right now.”

  No matter how tough, cold, cool, dangerous, famous, rich, powerful, sophisticated, strong, handsome, or smart you are, once a woman gets under your skin you become just another prom date sweating inside your rented tux.

  And I was no exception.

  My throat was tight, my heart was stammering, and my emotions were howling like a lost dog.

  “Just like that?”

  “Not just like that, Max,” she said softly. “You just haven’t been listening.”

  “To what?”

  “Sorry, Max, I’ve got to go back to work.”

  I heard that.

  She dropped the cigarette and stepped on it. Now there was a metaphor.

  As I watched her go inside, I felt as lonely as the day I became a homeless, nameless fugitive. Numb, I began walking until I saw a taxi and took it back to North Beach.

  The capper to a perfect day.

  Back in the hood I checked into Specs and found a spot at the corner of the bar where I could stew in self-pity and tequila. Until I remembered the dangerous task ahead. Emotions are one thing. But that corpse was stone real.

  I compromised on a margarita and checked my watch. An hour to go before my meet with Jimmy. Time to put on my game face.

  For the next sixty minutes I nursed my drink and carefully compiled a to-do list which I jotted on a paper napkin. I ordered a coffee and went over the list ag
ain. Then I went outside for a cigarette and burned the napkin.

  Old habits.

  Mr. Bing’s is a dive bar down the street from Jack Kerouac Alley at the edge of Chinatown. The music is loud, the drinks are cheap, and the clientele is dicey. Tourists, hustlers, Chinese wise guys, strippers from the clubs nearby, transients, and people with problems…like me.

  I was early but it seemed to be a peak hour. The Boss was on the jukebox and everyone there was born to run. A white-haired dude was chatting up a pair of heavily made up ladies, two Chinese men in suits were engaged in a heated conversation, and the bartender was serving beers to three female tourists in tank tops who seemed amused by everything.

  The bartender was a short Asian man with a wide smile and quick moves who immediately came over when I sat down.

  Another drink would have dulled whatever facilities were still on duty after the hits of the day. So I compromised.

  “Patron straight with a Coca-Cola back.”

  The bartender grinned. “No Patron. How about Hornitos?”

  “Sure.”

  I didn’t intend to drink the tequila anyway. It was the Coke I needed.

  As the drinks were placed in front of me Jimmy arrived. He looked tired.

  “I’ll have the same,” he said, taking the stool beside me.

  He waited until the bartender served him and moved away before speaking.

  “Everything’s ready…I think. My first time.”

  “I made a list of things we could use tonight,” I said leaning closer. I went through the items as the music went from Sympathy For the Devil to Thriller.

  Jimmy nodded. “I’ve got all of those.” He tossed down his tequila and looked at me. “I needed that. I just tucked in my little girl for the night.”

  I gestured at my drink. “You can have this one as well.”

  He hesitated then drained the glass.

  “Ready for this?”

  I tried to sound reassuring but I had co-defendant’s remorse.

  “I’ve I made some preparations.”

  “Then let’s do it.”

  Jimmy’s preparations were impressive. The body was where we left it but there was a large cargo dolly beside it. Jimmy gave me the plastic surgical gloves I asked for and I partially unwrapped the corpse. Gingerly, lest the dried blood might somehow liquefy, I prized the man’s wallet from his jacket pocket.

  Jimmy also produced the small portable vacuum cleaner I’d requested. I used it to carefully go over the body and remove traces of the herbs in Jimmy’s store. Forensics are sophisticated these days. Just watch TV.

  As I rewrapped the body Jimmy dragged over an empty trunk and put it on the dolly. Then we lifted the corpse and placed it inside the trunk.

  That’s when Jimmy really surprised me.

  “This way,” he said rolling the dolly to an inside door.

  The door led to a long unlit tunnel that smelled of stagnant water.

  Jimmy led the way, his flashlight stabbing through the dank darkness.

  “There’s lots of these tunnels in Chinatown,” he said, “came in handy during prohibition. This one goes directly to my storeroom across the street.”

  As we walked half bent over, the low rumbling of the dolly’s castors sounded like a funeral dirge in the tight space. The tunnel was long and my back was starting to stiffen when Jimmy unlocked a door and pulled the dolly into a room stacked with barrels and crates neatly labeled in Chinese script.

  “My van is parked in front. I’ll go out and open the door.”

  So far Jimmy had earned high marks for efficiency.

  I waited until the van’s side door was open then rolled the dolly outside. We grabbed opposite ends of the trunk and lifted it into the van. It was heavy and my back started to protest in earnest.

  Jimmy put the dolly inside, slid the door shut, then went back to lock up his storeroom. As I got into the van I checked the street. Jimmy’s tiny storeroom was on Grant Street, which was virtually deserted at that hour. We had dragged the body almost a city block underground.

  Jimmy started the motor and slowly pulled away. I checked the side mirror. There was nobody around. The transfer had taken less than three minutes. We were fine unless a traffic cop found us interesting.

  “Where are we taking this guy?”

  Jimmy shook his head. “Haven’t figured that part out yet. Any suggestions?”

  I had thought about it. “Yes. Head over to 280 south.”

  “What’s there?”

  “Devil’s Slide.”

  Jimmy cocked his head as if uncertain. “Not much room. We’ll have to work fast.”

  “We will. Take the Pacifica exit.”

  Twenty minutes south of San Francisco, Pacifica is a bucolic seaside community where people fish off the pier and surfers rule the beach. On a clear day you might spot a hang glider or two circling the steel blue water.

  Pacifica is also the home of Sea Bowl, a deluxe bowling alley with a large parking lot. Jimmy pulled into the lot and stopped in a far corner. We both got into the back of the van, took the body out of the trunk, and put it near the side door.

  That done we exited Sea Bowl’s lot and slowly turned south for HalfMoon Bay. The twelve mile stretch begins as a winding mountain road through a wooded area then becomes a narrow two lane snaking around the edge of a sheer cliff.

  Two hundred yards below heavy surf crashes against some very sharp rocks and the only thing that keeps you from going over is a ridiculously low guard rail.

  Add to that the regular mud slides that accompany the rains and you get the name Devil’s Slide.

  It was a clear night and what little traffic on the road could easily be seen coming. At the moment there was none.

  “Now.”

  At my word Jimmy stopped the van and turned off the light. Like some crack pit crew we exited the vehicle, pulled open the side door, and opened the plastic curtain around the body. The blood had dried but was sticky which made it a bit like peeling off tape. The gun was still clutched in his stiff fingers. I gave the weapon a tentative tug but the dead man’s grip wouldn’t yield. So be it.

  I took him by the shoulders, Jimmy by the feet, and we hauled the body out of the van.

  “On three,” I grunted, wary of my back.

  We swung the corpse once, twice, and over the guard rail. He bounced off the rocks far below and disappeared under the booming surf. Ninety seconds later we were heading toward Half Moon Bay.

  As soon as we reached the bottom of the curved stretch we turned and drove back to the city. Along the way we disposed of our surgical gloves, the bloody shower curtail, and the trunk. We also emptied the contents of the portable vacuum.

  The last item was the wallet.

  The name on the driver’s license was Peter Ng and he used to live in Oakland.

  I wrote down the numbers on his license as well as those on his credit cards. Then I dropped the cards and the wallet down a sewer. The only thing I kept was a business card tucked behind the license.

  The company name was New World Investments, the name on the bottom was Taylor Kingston. His title was CEO. One the back of the card was a handwritten phone number with a 301 area code—Beverly Hills.

  “I think I need a drink,” Jimmy said.

  He found a parking space in Chinatown and before leaving the van I swept the back with a flashlight.

  “Looks clean,” I said. “Are you okay?”

  “Like I said, I think I need a drink.”

  We walked to Specs and found a table in the back. Part museum and all Bohemian, it is one of the last of the real San Francisco joints. Best of all it’s reasonably anonymous

  Jimmy ordered cognac. I stayed with tequila. He drained his glass. So did I.

  “I owe you, Max,” Jimmy said as we waited for another round.

  “That’s the liquor talking.”

  “No seriously,. If you hadn’t walked in…anyway I owe you big time. Or better yet—lifetime.”

&nb
sp; The waitress arrived which spared me a reply.

  Jimmy drank most of his cognac and leaned forward. “You really knew what you were doing tonight.”

  “You were fairly well-prepared yourself.”

  “Yeah well I haul stock back and forth through the tunnel, but you,” he leaned closer, “you knew about the details.”

  I shrugged. “Military training.”

  “They don’t teach forensics in the military.” He leaned even closer. “Is that why you get your mail at my place?”

  “I’m ducking an ex-wife.” It was partially true.

  Jimmy knocked back the rest of his cognac. “My address is your address, Max. Now and forever.”

  His eyes were bright and I could see the booze had rebooted his fading adrenalin. As for me it had faded, or rather plummeted, into an abyss in the middle of my chest where my heart used to be.

  I had managed to ward it off but now there was no excuse. My task finished, it was time to face my life.

  There was nothing there.

  Nina’s abrupt severance had sent me adrift from the only link I had with humanity leaving me in deep space without a helmet. And the worst thing was that when I thought it over—I had to agree with her.

  Any sane female would have cut me loose years ago. Sure I saved her life but since then I’ve kept my emotional distance. She’d never even visited the flat in North Beach, which reminded me. I had been hoping we’d go there tonight.

  “You okay, Max?”

  I looked up from my glass. Jimmy’s glazed eyes peered at me with concern.

  I smiled. “Thinking about the one that got away.”

  He nodded. “I know all about that.”

  Sorry Jimmy, I thought, you’ve got a wife, a daughter, and a business. You don’t know what it’s like in deep space. Not yet.

  “Sooner or later New World Developers is going to send out a search party,” I said, to change the subject.

  That sobered him.

  “It’s my family I’m worried about. I can take care of myself.”

  “Is there somewhere they can stay until this blows over?”

  He gave me a sad smile and shook his head. “Both my wife and I were born here. We’re paying off our condo and Christine is in school. We’re also helping out her parents and they live in Chinatown too. Got nowhere to run, Max.”