Cook's Night Out (19 page)

Next, he phoned Lieutenant Hollins. “This is Smith. We're at Peewee Clayton's—”

“What! I told you—”

“He's dead. Shot. His mother was killed, too.”

“Shit! Are any of the boys from IA around? Maybe they saw something.”

“They aren't here. But Chief, there's something else you need to do. Somebody needs a warrant to check on a janitor who works at the Hall named Ruiz Buyat. He didn't show up for work last night, and his neighbor hasn't seen him since yesterday.” He gave Hollins the address and more information about Buyat. “It's just a
hunch,” Paavo said, “but somebody needs to get inside that house. I hope I'm wrong, but I've got a bad feeling about him.”

 

It was late by the time Paavo arrived home. Exhausted, he pulled his mail out of the box and unlocked the door to his house. When he flicked on the lights, his big yellow tabby, Hercules, bounded off his usual spot on the easy chair to follow Paavo into the kitchen, complaining loudly the whole time.

“You think you've had a rough day?” Paavo said as he wearily opened a can of Kitty Queen Liver Dinner. Hercules had probably spent the day hunting vermin, mice and miscellaneous rodents, in between tormenting the German shepherd that lived down the street. As he dumped the liver into Hercules's bowl it occurred to Paavo that, except for the German shepherd, their days were more similar than he had ever realized.

It was odd how the two pieces of this puzzle had finally come together in the guise of a Hall of Justice janitor. From Buyat he could follow a squiggly trail right back to Axel Klaw. Klaw, his nemesis. Klaw, the man who, years ago, had first caused him to think about joining the police department—to right the wrong done to his family. As he got older Paavo had realized he'd been wrong about the power of a policeman, yet the interest in the job stayed with him, and eventually he did join.

Now the revenge he'd yearned for years ago was within reach. Now he had to find a way to bring Klaw down. A way to rid the world of the cancer that was Klaw. A cold, black rage burned in him, deadly as dry ice. He would see this through and end it one way or the other.

Curiosity about the charity auction had been growing within him ever since Klaw mentioned it at the supper club. Klaw never paid attention to anything unless there was a reason. Paavo wanted to know the reason, especially since Angie was planning to be there. He needed to talk to her about it soon—face-to-face.

He flipped through his mail and stopped at a large plain envelope—unaddressed. He put down the bills and advertisements and tore open the envelope.

Inside was a black-and-white photograph. As he pulled it out, time seemed to stand still. He knew he must have continued to breathe, his heart continued to beat, but he was aware of nothing but the slight quiver in his hands, the deadly silence of the room.

He sat down on the sofa, his gaze never leaving the picture. He'd never seen this particular one before. It reminded him once again of how beautiful she had been, and how full of life. Her mouth was full and smiling, her nose small and lightly rounded at the tip. Her eyes were heavily made up in the style of the times, but that made their color, almost the exact same shade of blue as his own, even more startling and vibrant against her flawless skin. Her brows were wide and winged, her cheekbones high—another family characteristic. Where that bone structure made him look stern, it gave her face an elegant beauty. But the resemblance was marked.

Her hair, though, was very different from his soft, wavy brown strands. Their hair was the most obvious evidence that different men had fathered them. Hers was black and thick. She used to spend hours with all kinds of conditioners and gels, trying to make it smooth and elegant.

There was only one person he could think of who might have sent this photo to him: Axel Klaw. He'd done it to torment him.

Paavo smiled coldly. Once again, Klaw had underestimated him. Instead of making him crumble, to Paavo the photo was a gift. Although it brought back the agony of his loss, it helped him target the full measure of his hatred and of his revenge.

Angie was waiting outside
Everyone's Fancy when Connie arrived at work the next morning. Angie had no time to waste—the auction was tomorrow. She bought a statue of a winged angel in flowing robes, her hands devoutly clasped and her head slightly tilted as if listening to people's prayers.

The day before, on the way home from the mission, she had visited a party supply store, and they had put her in contact with a manufacturer of Mylar balloons.

Now, using the statue as a model, she whipped up an enormous batch of white chocolate fudge. Treating it like clay, she sculpted it into the general form of the statue, making her angel about a foot tall. Once the fudge hardened, she carefully spread melted Lindt Blancor white chocolate over it to give it a smooth, almost translucent appearance. The angel blurred into a soft, abstract shape, creamy and beautiful.

“Perfect,” Angie said. But it wasn't unique yet, and her angelina needed to be special.

She made a circular wooden “fence” of twenty-inch-tall shish kebab sticks loosely tied together and then dropped the high fence over the angel, being careful of the wings. While she was working on the chocolate angel, the balloon she had had custom-made had been delivered. The balloon was deflated when she received it. It had an enormous mouth that could stretch around the stick fence; when inflated, the balloon would be almost two feet in diameter. When she thought big, she thought
really
big.

Working carefully, she eased the Mylar balloon over the stick fence. Using an air pump, she filled the balloon until it was round and solid, then tied the mouth shut.

Next came the part she was worried about. She laid strips of white chocolate over the balloon in a lattice pattern, making the chocolate thick enough that it would stand on its own, yet thin enough that it looked delicate and not chunky. She waited until the chocolate was hard and then stuck a pin in the Mylar, making a small hole for the air to seep out.

As the air left, she practically held her breath as she watched the Mylar pull away from the chocolate, leaving the angel encased in a delicate lattice design. Lifting the chocolate ball just a bit off the table she was working on, she carefully slid her stick fence, stick by stick, out the bottom of the ball, and then used a razor to slash the Mylar so that it, too, came off the angel and out the bottom of the lattice ball.

As the finishing touch, she turned a wooden box upside-down, spread thick white chocolate fudge over it to form a base, then carefully placed the angel and the ball that surrounded it onto the base. As the chocolate on the base hardened, it looked like it all became one piece—a large winged angel inside a seamless ball sitting on a square pedestal. An angel in a globe instead of
a ship in a bottle.
Thank you, Stan and Lili
. The whole thing was so clever, she did the macarena around the kitchen a couple of times.

It had been a hell of a way to spend a day, though.

 

Even though she was tired from doing the careful, detailed work with chocolate all day, she had to tell the reverend about her angelic centerpiece. If he didn't like it, he'd have to settle for a floral bouquet. There was no time for anything else.

She stuck her head into the mission. The last people she wanted to encounter were Klaw, Warren, and Lili. When she didn't see any of them, she ran down the hall to Reverend Hodge's office. “I've got it!” she cried, bursting in on him.

“You've got what?”

“The centerpiece. Klaw—I mean, Clausen—isn't around, is he? I don't want to see that man!”

He looked around his office. “No, I don't—”

“Anyway, it's a white chocolate angel inside a latticework ball. It's meaningful—angels being helpful, charitable, and all—and pretty, if I say so myself.” She looked over her shoulder at the open office door. “What about Van Warren? Have you seen him?”

“The centerpiece sounds good. But why are you asking about those two?”

“Reverend Hodge.” She dragged the spare chair to his side. “They aren't what they seem. You've got to get away from them. They're dangerous men.”

“We've been through this before—” he began.

“Please listen to me.”

“I won't. I can't.” Hodge jumped up and moved away from her. “Mr. Clausen is the one paying for all this. I need him. The mission needs him. Maybe after the auction, things will change. But not before. Afterward, if
he's gone…if I'm gone…I know that people like Sheila Chatsworth, Mary Ellen Hitchcock, and others will run the mission and make it prosper. Have no worries about that.”

“What do you mean, if you're gone?”

“Nothing, Miss Amalfi. Nothing at all.” He checked his watch. “Oh, dear, it's getting late. I've got to see about the movers who'll be packing all the goods to be auctioned off.”

Angie stood up to leave. “And I want to get out of here before Clausen and his pals return. Since you like the chocolate angel centerpiece—my
angel
-ina, angelina, get it?—I think I'll hire someone to deliver the centerpiece to the Palace of the Legion of Honor for me. Maybe I can trust someone who usually transports nitroglycerine.”

“I wouldn't want to be there if they dropped it,” Hodge said.

“No one would,” Angie agreed. “Anyway, I'm going to go over to the Palace to figure out exactly where I want it placed, along with all the catered food. I was told we could set up the tables this evening. That way it'll be easier tomorrow when the food starts arriving.”

“Good, good. That's one less thing to worry about, at least. Maybe, somehow, this will all come together. If it does, it's going to be a big night for all of us. A very big night.”

“I can hardly wait,” she said. “See you tomorrow!”

“Good-bye,” he said, then murmured to himself, “finally—the big night is almost here.”

 

Paavo stood in Ruiz Buyat's kitchen. Mail, bills, and receipts were piled up on a counter. He slipped on gloves and began going through them, looking for mate
rial that might breathe any hint of a connection between Buyat and Klaw.

Paavo's bad feeling about Buyat's disappearance had proved prophetic. Not until that morning had the police reached Buyat's landlord and obtained entry to the house. They found him dead, shot once in the back of the head. Another professional-looking hit, just like the dead numbers runners, just like Peewee.

The on-call homicide team, Benson and Calderon, had contacted Hollins, who sent Paavo to the scene.

Paavo quickly explained to them the connection between Buyat and Lili Charmaine. Looking at Buyat's body, he remembered talking to the man while he was investigating the handling of evidence at the Hall of Justice. Buyat had been evasive, but then, a lot of people had that reaction to police questions.

Now, as he leafed through the papers, he found a deposit slip from the Bank of America branch near his home. He lifted it out and could scarcely believe what he saw. Dated the day after he and Angie went to the Isle of Capri restaurant, it showed a deposit of five thousand dollars into his account.

It made sense, he realized. No one would question Buyat's access to the fourth floor or to the Homicide Bureau. After all, he was the janitorial supervisor. Paavo, like a lot of others in the bureau, often brought personal paperwork into the office. He would read his mail there, and pay bills, especially during the on-call week, when he spent more time at work than at home. Buyat could have easily learned little details such as his bank account number just by going through the trash. Paavo had never thought about destroying the carbons from credit card charges and so on, in an office surrounded by cops.

There wasn't anything more for him to learn at Buyat's place. Leaving the homicide investigation in
capable hands, he returned to the Hall and met with Yosh to fill him in on the situation. They each sat at their desks, across a narrow aisle from each other. Each sat on a swivel chair, tilted way back, and talked.

“We need evidence,” Paavo said, “but I think I know what's happening.”

“I'm glad somebody does.” Yosh tapped his pencil against his desktop.

“Since Klaw's been here, everyone on the street's been talking about a new banker moving in, trying to take over the numbers racket in the city. I'm sure he's using his girlfriend to collect receipts from the runners, and I suspect the empty apartment is his counting house—his bank. But he's losing control.”

“Talk to me,” Yosh said.

Paavo thought a moment before putting his suspicions into words. “The first few men he killed—Devlin, O'Leary, probably even Sayir—wouldn't go along with him as banker. He got rid of them. Peewee worked for him as a runner. But then IA contacted Peewee, made him work for them. Peewee was scared, but I think it was because of Klaw and Warren, not IA. Peewee was afraid that once he wore a wire for IA, Klaw wouldn't trust him anymore. He was right.”

“You think Klaw killed Peewee, or had him killed.”

“Exactly. Same with Buyat. We were on to him. We asked questions at his house, at his job, so Klaw got rid of him, too.”

“Makes sense.”

Paavo pressed his fingertips together. “We can't give Klaw any more warning than he's already been given, though. We can't move in on Warren yet. Hit men are a dime a dozen anyway. We arrest Warren, and Klaw will have someone else working for him before the day's out. Instead, we've got to watch and wait. But not too long. Klaw's involved in the auction that Hodge is
holding. I don't know how, or what it means, but it's got to be a key part of Klaw's scheme. At the same time, I don't want to tip our hand too early. I want to find out what Klaw is up to and stop him completely, not just postpone his plans.”

Yosh took a deep breath as he pondered Paavo's words. “Okay, Paavo,” he said finally. “So we've got to be ready to move on, or right after, the auction.”

“That's right. Let's just hope we stop him before anybody else is killed.”

 

Back at his desk, Paavo had a message on his answering machine. “
This is Angie. I finished my centerpiece. My angelina. Wait till you see it! I'm going to the mission—hope I don't run into Klaw, the creep. I'll be home tonight. Can you come over? If not, don't forget the auction tomorrow night. It starts at eight-thirty, food and cocktails at seven. Love you. Bye
.”

Paavo couldn't help shaking his head at the message. He had asked her time and again to keep away from Klaw. Now he was going to have to find a way to talk her out of going to that auction. He knew he'd have to handle it in person, though. He'd visit her as soon as he checked out a loose end one more time.

He and Yosh had tried a number of times to reach Klaw's mysterious girlfriend, Gretchen, with no luck. There were four apartments in which no one ever answered the door or the phone. For all he knew the apartments were empty, or the renters were on vacation, or maybe they were occupied by paranoids who never faced the outside world. He decided to try one more time.

He knocked on the door of one of the apartments.

A young brown-haired woman looked at him, then her eyes went wide with recognition. “Inspector!” She tried to shut the door in his face.

“Gretchen, that's no way to act.” He stuck out his arm, stopping the door from shutting.

“Get away from me!” She spun around, grabbed her coat and purse from a chair beside the door, and pushed past him, pulling the door shut as she left.

Much as he tried to remember who she was, he couldn't. He didn't think he'd ever seen her before. “Wait.” He grabbed her arm. “How do you know me?”

“You can't touch me! I know my rights.” She pulled free.

“You do?” He held his hands out to show he wasn't about to touch her or hurt her. “Good, then you know you need to answer when I tell you I want to question you about Axel Klaw.”

She looked at his hands. She was tall, but he was taller, bigger, stronger. “Who?”

“Alex Clausen—Axel Klaw, whatever he calls himself around you.”

She paled. “I don't have to answer.”

“Maybe not now, but you will eventually.” She stepped back. He didn't like strong-arming her, but that seemed to be the only way to get her to listen. “Let me see some ID,” he said.

She stared a moment, but as his words penetrated, she quickly pulled out her wallet and badge identification from her purse and handed them to him. Gretchen Ballard, police dispatcher, SFPD, Richmond station.

He stared at the badge, then at the young woman, and the pieces quickly slipped into place. “You do regular dispatcher duties at the station, I take it?”

She lifted her chin. “Of course.”

“You send officers out on calls, including Rosenberg and Kellogg.”

Her hands tightened on the strap of her purse. “They're good men, good at their jobs. I don't see that this is your business.”

He handed her wallet and badge back to her. “Sometimes you get a little help, don't you, Gretchen? You hear that something will happen at a certain time and that you need to make sure Rosenberg and Kellogg are there.”

“It's not illegal.” Her hands shook as she stuffed her belongings back into her purse. “I never did anything wrong.”

“Didn't you, Gretchen?” he asked rhetorically. “And what about rumors—telling stories about things that happened, stories about the Isle of Capri? Do you like to spread rumors, Gretchen?”

“I never meant to hurt you, Inspector Smith.” Crying, she covered her face with her hands. “I never meant to!”

 

Paavo returned to the Hall after calming Gretchen down and having a long talk with her. He'd get Yosh to go out and take a formal statement. Maybe she was right, and what she did wasn't actually illegal. But it was probably a job-ending offense.