Wisecracking San Francisco PI August Riordan parlays a run-in with a machine-gun-toting cable-car brakeman into a guided tour of the city's cemeteries, hunting for ... wait for it ... Evita Peron's perfectly preserved corpse. His deadly cat-and-mouse game involves surviving both the murderous intentions of some shady members of Argentina's ruling class and the seductive advances of several beautiful Latin American women.
By Stephen Windwalker
Editor, Kindle Nation Daily
©Kindle Nation Daily 2011
©Kindle Nation Daily 2011
Do you miss the late Robert B. Parker and his Spenser novels?
Me, too. In fact, if you're like me, you may not be above going back and reading some of the best Spensers a second or third time. There's no shame in that, really.
But sooner or later we have to move on, and I'm here to propose what the helping professions sometimes call a geographical cure.
How about a trip across the country?
Fly first class, and it will only cost you $2.99 a trip. Because I'm going to introduce you to a new friend, August Riordan, a San Francisco Shamus who is every bit as funny, as august, and as tough an Everyman PI as his Boston counterpart Spenser.
Where to begin? Novelist Mark Coggins makes it easy for us by providing an action-packed 13,000-word free excerpt for us right from the beginning of The Big Wake-Up, the fifth book in the Riordan series.
If you're enough of a suspense fiction fan to begin reading the free excerpt, I'm pretty sure you'll keep going right to the end of this novel, and then it's up to you. You can go 5-4-3-2-1, or you can go 5-1-2-3-4, it doesn't matter.
But don't be surprised if by the time you finish all five you'll be asking me for Coggins' email address so you can write to him begging him to put on some speed in delivering #6....
Here's the set-up:
The odyssey of María Eva Duarte de Perón--the Argentine first lady made famous in the play and the movie Evita--was as remarkable in death as it was in life. A few years after she succumbed to cervical cancer, her specially preserved body was taken by the military dictatorship that succeeded her deposed husband Juan. Hidden for sixteen years in Italy in a crypt under a false name, she was eventually exhumed and returned to Buenos Aires to be buried in an underground tomb said to be secure enough to withstand a nuclear attack.
Or was she?
When San Francisco private eye August Riordan engages in a flirtation with a beautiful university student from Buenos Aires, he witnesses her death in a tragic shooting and is drawn into mad hunt for Evita's remains. He needs all of his wits, his network of friends and associates, and an unexpected legacy from the dead father he has never known to help him survive the deadly intrigue between powerful Argentine movers and shakers, ex-military men, and a mysterious woman named Isis who is expert in ancient techniques of mummification.
The fifth novel in the August Riordan series, The Big Wake-Up plunges everyman PI Riordan and his sidekick Chris Duckworth into their most terrifying and anguishing case ever.
Or was she?
When San Francisco private eye August Riordan engages in a flirtation with a beautiful university student from Buenos Aires, he witnesses her death in a tragic shooting and is drawn into mad hunt for Evita's remains. He needs all of his wits, his network of friends and associates, and an unexpected legacy from the dead father he has never known to help him survive the deadly intrigue between powerful Argentine movers and shakers, ex-military men, and a mysterious woman named Isis who is expert in ancient techniques of mummification.
The fifth novel in the August Riordan series, The Big Wake-Up plunges everyman PI Riordan and his sidekick Chris Duckworth into their most terrifying and anguishing case ever.
From Publisher's Weekly (Starred Review):
Text-to-Speech and Lending: Enabled
(UK CUSTOMERS: Click on the title below to download The Big Wake-up)
Six for the Kindle by Mark Coggins
6.
Free Kindle Nation Shorts - March 10, 2011 An Excerpt from The Big Wake-Up "An August Riordan Mystery" by Mark Coggins Copyright © 2011 by Mark Coggins and published here with his permission |
Cable Car CrunchARE YOU HOPING FOR A SOUVENIR or checking to see if they're your size?" The woman doing the talking was holding a towering stack of pastel-colored panties. We were the only two in the Missing Sock Laundromat. I was there because doing my own laundry in the middle of the workday seemed the best investment I could make in my flagging private eye business. She was there-apparently-because even Victoria Secret underwear models have to do the wash. There's no question I'd been staring at her. I don't usually associate tweed with sexy, but she'd shoehorned her extravagant curves into a vest and jacket made of the stuff and on her it was positively prurient. The jacket just came over her hips and then a pair of clingy jeans took charge and traveled the length of her long-stemmed legs to some pointy brown boots. Given the alternative between watching my Fantastic Four bedsheets go through the spin cycle and taking her in while she folded and stacked her unmentionables, the question of eyeball allegiance was never in doubt. I sat up straighter in the plastic lawn chair I'd been camped in. "Doesn't matter what size they are. They're not my color." A smile pulled at the corners of her mouth and she leaned down to put the stack of panties in the nylon duffel bag at her feet. When she had them situated just so, she yanked the draw string closed and swung the bag over her shoulder. She flipped back apricot blond hair, then reached into the open dryer. Mirth and green light shone in her eyes. She gestured for me to hold out my hand and pressed something warm and spongy into it. "Well, here's your souvenir, then." A fabric softener sheet. I laughed and watched as she plopped a tweed newsboy cap onto her head, collected an oversize umbrella from near the door and went out onto Hyde Street and a driving San Francisco rainstorm. She gave me a two-fingered wave through the plate glass and then jogged across the street to stand with an older woman at the cable car stop on the corner at Union in front of the Swensen's ice cream parlor. That particular Swensen's was the original-opened in 1948 by Earle Swensen himself-and the promise of a couple of scoops of Cable Car Crunch after I finished my laundry was the main reason I picked this place over the laundromat in my apartment building. The pantie girl had been an unexpected plus. Sighing, I pocketed the fabric softener sheet and let my gaze return to the bank of Speed Queens in front of me. The machine on the end was shaking violently due to my decision to throw a pair of dirty Converse Chuck Taylors in with my sheets. I moved to rebalance the load, then heard the deep, coffee grinder rumble of an approaching cable car. It pulled in front of the ice cream parlor, blocking my view of the girl and the older woman. It looked completely devoid of passengers and I thought how lucky the girl had been to catch an empty car so quickly. I've never been more wrong in my life. On sleepless nights, I can still see the next five seconds replay when I press my face into the pillow. The cable car seemed to pause on its tracks, there was a harsh unzippering noise synced to lightning flashes, and the car accelerated from the corner. By the time I thought to look to the gripman, his face was turned away from me, but I could just make out two pug-ugly Uzi machine guns dangling from leather straps that crisscrossed his chest. I yelled something inarticulate and plunged across the room to the door. It was a short, drenching sprint to the cable car stop. The girl and the woman lay in a jumble with packages and bags in the gutter, their open umbrellas twitching and rocking in the rain like things possessed. There was no question of either being alive. The 9mm slugs had stitched a slashing line across faces and chests, and although there was relatively little bleeding, the damage was horrific. The older woman, in particular, simply had no forehead. The pantie girl had less damage to her face, but the tweed fabric of her vest was chewed to shreds and bright red arterial blood welled in shallow pools across her throat, sternum and breast. Both women peered up into the downpour with unblinking eyes. The awful transformation from teasing, flirtatious girl to broken rag doll left me vapor locked. I didn't know what to do. I sat on my haunches in the street, my hair plastered to my scalp, my fingers squeezed against my kneecaps, swaying from side to side. I might still be there if an aproned teenager hadn't poked her head out the door of Swensen's and let off a strangled scream. I blinked, then blinked again. I squeegeed hair and water off my face with my palm and reached across to close the eyes of the dead women. By the time I stood up, the teenager had retreated into the store. She tried to block me from entering, but I bulled my way through to stand dripping on the tiled floor while she scampered back behind the ice cream freezer. "Go away," she squeaked. "Call 911," I said. "Tell them that a gripman on the Hyde cable car line is shooting people with machine guns." Whatever response she made to that was lost in the sound of me flinging open the door again with the little bell attached to it caroming wildly off the glass. I ran across Hyde to the alley that bordered the laundromat. I had parked my 1968 Ford Galaxie 500 halfway on the sidewalk in an illegal spot near the corner. I dove onto the bench seat, shoved the key in the ignition and cranked the starter while I worked the gas pedal. The car shook while the starter turned, but the engine didn't catch-an all too common occurrence with the Galaxie. I wrung the steering wheel in frustration, pumped the pedal some more and forced the starter into an extended series of arias. The engine still didn't join the performance. The smell of raw gasoline wafted into the car: flooded. Hissing a rosary of curses, I laid my hand flat on the dashboard in a kind of anti-blessing, pressed the gas peddle all the way to the floor and twisted the key. The Galaxie shimmied in an off-kilter rhythm, fired once, missed a beat, then fired again. Finally all the cylinders caught and the engine rumbled to life. A cloud of blue gray smoke that not even the driving rain could knock down billowed up behind me. I yanked the transmission into gear and jolted off the sidewalk in a squealing left turn onto Hyde. The maximum speed of a cable car is ten miles per hour. That was still enough for the car I was chasing to travel six blocks to Washington where the tracks turned left to go down the hill to Powell. It was just making the turn as I gave the Galaxie all the gas I dared, winding the car up to 50 miles per hour by the time I hit the depression in the roadway where Hyde roofed the Broadway tunnel. The Galaxie bottomed out, scraping up yards of asphalt and swamping the aged shocks. We bucked in a seesaw oscillation that, combined with the fogged front windshield and the wheels slipping on the slickened steel of the cable car tracks, made controlling the car an iffy proposition at best. The turn at Washington proved the point. I pressed the brakes to slow for it, but hydroplaned on the tracks. I torqued the wheel over anyway, provoking a skid that snapped the rear end wide and knocked over a scooter that was parked at the corner. I turned into the skid to regain control and side swiped two more autos. By the time I had fishtailed into the middle of Washington, the cable car had crossed Levenworth and was approaching the crest of the hill at Jones. Then came the bullets. I had hoped the gripman would be unaware of my pursuit but the orchestra of crashes accompanying my turn must have alerted him. He swung wide out of the cable car, clinging to a white pole on the side while squeezing off a long, stuttering round from one of the Uzis. The slugs tattooed the hood of the Galaxie, then flew up into the windshield, chiseling a constellation of starburts in the glass. I tried to crawl into the dashboard ashtray, but flying glass sliced my right cheek before I could take cover. The cable car rolled over the edge of the hill and the gripman lost his sight line. He swung back inside the car just as it slid from view. Up until that point, the Galaxie had had little to recommend it as a pursuit vehicle. It was old, mechanically unreliable, hard to control and not particularly fast. All of that changed now. A two-ton hunk of 1960s Detroit iron makes an excellent guided missile. I slapped the gearshift into low and tromped hard on the gas pedal. The rear wheels chirped and the car shot forward with a jolt that knocked more of the fractured glass from the windshield. In an instant, I was at the top of the hill. In another, I was sailing over it. Any worry about how the shocks would handle another hard landing was misplaced. The Galaxie pancaked onto the back of the cable car-flattening the panel with the car number and the Rice-A-Roni ad-and firmly embedding the front end at a height that didn't permit the wheels to touch the ground. My forehead punished the steering wheel, and by the time I unstuck my frontal lobe from the inside of my skull, we were barreling down Washington as a conjoined unit at a speed much greater than the nineteenth-century cable car designers had contemplated. Not that the gripman wasn't doing his damnedest to stop us. Plumes of sparks flew up from beneath the car where he'd employed the emergency break-basically a steel wedge that is crammed into the slot between the tracks-and I could smell and almost taste the acrid wood smoke coming off the old fashioned wooden track brakes. When the brakes didn't seem to be working he resorted to the Uzi. Bullets nickered overhead, but I put a stop to that by tromping even harder on the gas. We shot past Taylor and then Mason. I realized I had a death squeeze on the steering wheel even though there was no steering to be done and I was screaming at the top of my lungs. The tracks turned right abruptly at the next street-Powell-but I didn't think we would be joining them. There was a hard jolt at the intersection and I felt the cable car wrenching away from the Galaxie. My front wheels bounded onto the ground. The last thing I registered before slamming on the brakes and bracing myself for the inevitable was the cable car heeling over like a yacht-the grip beneath the car still attached to the cable, which was being pulled from its slot like a gigantic rubber band. The back end of the Galaxie spun around to the left and I skidded kitty-corner across the intersection to broadside a street lamp, and when that didn't hold, the storefront of a Chinese market. I heard the light pole crashing down, glass from the storefront shattering, and above it all, a tremendous snap and an awful whipping sound. I rattled around the interior of the car like a bean in a rumba shaker. I must have lost consciousness for a moment because the next thing I remembered was the near zen-like sound of rain water dripping through the broken windshield onto the dash. Then a whispered, "Are you okay?" Okay I was not. I sat up in the seat and immediately discovered about ten places where I hurt, including a stinger to my neck that made my left arm feel like it was on fire. Outside the driver's side window, next to a store display of ceramic figurines, was the person inquiring about my health: an old Chinese man in a sweat suit and a Cal Berkeley baseball cap. The way out to the left was blocked, so I crawled across the seat, encrusting my knees with a mosaic of broken glass and ceramics as I went, and pushed open the passenger door. I lumbered out and stood on trembling legs by the base of the felled street light, transfixed by what I saw across the way. "Hey," said the Chinese guy, no longer whispering. "You smashed my store." I didn't answer him because I had already broken into a shuffling, windmilling trot to get to the far corner. The cable car was flipped over on its side, part on the roadway and part on the sidewalk. The gripman was on his back in the street, lying parallel to the overturned car. As I got closer, I could see that he was alive and conscious, but given his injuries, I doubted he wanted to be either. This was my first good look at him. He was young, red-haired, and probably had a last name that started with O'. He had a bandanna tied around his head that matched his brown SF Municipal Railway uniform, with a special cable car division insignia embroidered over his chest. I reluctantly abandoned my theory that he was a random crackpot who hijacked the car. It was no theory that he was suffering. The skin on his face was so pale and so wet that it appeared almost translucent. His eyes were marbles of agony. He watched as I approached, then gasped, "I can't feel my feet." I wasn't going to make it easy for him. "That's because you don't have any." He nodded like I'd passed along a ball score, then closed his eyes. "The cable," he mumbled. "Yeah. The cable. But you won't need your feet for the gurney ride to the lethal injection chamber. Now shut up while I save your miserable life." I yanked off my belt and leaned down to cinch it above his left knee as a makeshift tourniquet. The first cop car showed up as I was tugging at his belt for the other leg, my fingers slippery with blood. A Universe of Stars, a Galaxie of DentsTHE GRIPMAN TURNED OUT TO BE A GUY named Darragh Finnegan, which is about as Irish a name as you can get without starting the last part with O'. He had been caught up in a sting involving undercover security guards who were put on cable cars to find crews pocketing fares from tourists. Finnegan and the conductor from his crew had been suspended for allegedly skimming over $25,000, his girlfriend had dumped him and-thanks to his high profile from press coverage-he was also under investigation by the INS for being in the country illegally. And he was pissed. On the day of the shooting he donned his Muni uniform and met his old cable car at the second stop up from the turnaround at Beach Street. He shot and killed the replacement crew and three passengers who had waited in the rain to ride a cable car on a miserable February afternoon. Two of the three were tourists from Germany and the other was the undercover security guard who caught him skimming fares. Finnegan then rode the car to the stop across from Lombard-the "crookedest street in the world"-and critically wounded another tourist from Lawrence, Kansas. The next stop was the one in front of Swensen's, where the two women waited. The pantie girl's name was Araceli Rivero. She was twenty-three, a native of Argentina, and was in the U.S. on a visa to study pharmacology at UCSF. The older woman was the organist at the New Korean Methodist Church and was known to her friends as "Snowflake." The only thing that wasn't known was where exactly Finnegan managed to get hold of the machine guns. There were dark rumors about connections to the Irish Republican Army, but since Finnegan wasn't talking the rumors came to naught. That left yours truly. The cops weren't exactly ready to pin any medals on me-I caused an estimated $100,000 worth of personal and municipal property damage for starters-but there was no denying that things would have been a whole lot worse if I hadn't shown up. The cable car was due to pass through the popular Union Square shopping district, and rain or no rain, there were plenty more people in the line of fire. Finnegan was ready for them, too. A duffel bag full of loaded magazines was found dangling from one of the control levers of the wrecked car. I got kicked loose from the Bryant Street station well after midnight. One of my few friends in the department-a lesbian beat cop-helped me sneak out the employee exit to avoid the feverish piranha school of reporters who were waiting to interview the only guy who could add a little color-if more color was needed-to tomorrow's lead story: "SF Muni Gripman Goes Postal; Hijacks Cable Car for Death Tour." I shared a cab with a released prostitute who wanted to be dropped off on Polk near California. After the driver and I both politely declined to join her in a nearby alley for reduced cost favors, we continued to my apartment at the corner of Post and Hyde, where I promptly hid under the covers of my unmade bed and remained there for three days, not answering the phone or the door buzzer, or paying attention to the TV, the radio or the transmissions from Alpha Centauri that I sometimes received from the fillings on my back molars. The thing that finally roused me was a pounding that sounded like someone using my apartment door for serve and volley practice. Theoretically it could only be a neighbor or the apartment manager since the lobby door was on a buzzer system, but the occasional wastrel had been known to make it through. I padded up to the door in my bathrobe and looked through the peep hole. I nodded to myself. It was one of the biggest wastrels I knew: Chris Duckworth. Duckworth and I had met on a case several years ago, and although it surprised me to admit it, he had probably become my best friend. It surprised me because I doubted that in a hypothetical survey of our eHarmony "29 dimensions of compatibility" we would come up with a single match. Not that Chris would be allowed to use the service in the first place since, to quote one of the many pithy expressions he used to convey his sexual preference, he was "gay as a fondue fork." I slipped off the security chain, undid the locks and pulled open the door. He stood in the hallway with two packages carefully wrapped with butcher paper and string. He was slight man-barely five foot and a half-and the packages came up nearly to his chin. But to the casual observer, details about height and what he was carrying would hardly have rated a mention. What could not have gone unremarked was the fact that he was dressed as a French maid-a very sexy and convincingly female French maid. "I didn't ring for service," I said with mock severity. "There's no service in this dump, much less a place to ring for it. I'm doing the early show at Aunt Charlie's." Aunt Charlie's Lounge had a drag queen revue where Chris sang torch songs under the stage name of Cassandra. I often played bass in the band that accompanied him. "Why are you here then?" "I'm just checking to see if you've grown out your fingernails or started collecting your urine in jars." "Fingernails take time, but I've been doing the urine thing for years. It's best to go with pickle jars because of the wide-" "Spare me." "You started it. What's in the packages?" Chris sauntered into the room and dumped the packages on the folding card table I use for dining (if consuming TV dinners and burritos could properly be referred to as dining). He pulled off a cashmere top coat, folded it carefully and set it down on the arm of my ratty sofa. After brushing a few Oreo cookie crumbs from a cushion, he perched on the edge of it and surveyed the room. "I like how you've remained true to your original artistic vision. The bowling pin lamp, for instance, is a nice touch." "Yeah, well, the lava one fell off the cinder block." I shoved the door closed and walked over to the card table. "So, what's in the packages?" "See for yourself." I yanked the cord off the top one and tore open the paper. A pair of Converse Chuck Taylors with new white laces were inside. My Chuck Taylors. The bottom one had my sheets and towels from the laundromat neatly folded and pressed. "Wow. You didn't have to do that, Chris-but thank you. How'd you even know where to find them?" He reached up to resettle the headpiece of his costume atop his blond wig. "Well, while you've been playing the Howard Hughes recluse, the rest of the world has been busy broadcasting stories about the 'Cable Car Hero'-meaning you. Most of them mentioned that you were doing your laundry when the whole thing started. I found everything in a big pile on the folding table." He looked down at his hands. "Did you really see those two women get killed?" I slumped into one of the rickety chairs that went with the table and pushed the laundry to one side. "I couldn't actually see it. The cable car was in the way. But it was certainly one of the worst experiences of my life. One second they were there, and the next they were lying on the ground. The arbitrariness of it was what got me. It reminded me of the Flitcraft story-only with a bad ending." "The Flitcraft story?" "It's a sort of parable from The Maltese Falcon. The point is that there is no master plan in the world. No karma. Your actions on this earth have no bearing on what happens to you." "Jeez, August, I didn't realize we were going to be diving into metaphysics here. Is that why you've been holed up for the past three days?" I picked at the wrapping paper from one of the packages, then forced a grin onto my face. "That, and I was waiting for the maid to bring me my damn laundry." Chris smiled back at me-more, I suspected, from relief at having the subject changed than amusement. "Well, it wasn't just your laundry you abandoned, you know. And this maid can't help you with it. You need a wrecker." "What are you talking about?" "Your car-or what's left of it. They've got it at the impound lot. Gretchen told me they're towing it to the junk yard unless you claim it by this afternoon. I didn't think you'd care, but-" I jumped up from the table. Gretchen was my admin, so they must have called my office when they didn't get hold of me here. "Did you drive?" "Y-e-s. I checked out one of those car share Priuses. Why?" "You're taking me to the impound lot. Hold on while I get changed." Chris started to say something about missing his rehearsal, but I closed the bedroom door on him before he could finish. - WE GOT TO THE IMPOUND lot just as the "Pick Your Part" tow truck was hooking up the Galaxie. I told the driver he wouldn't be picking any of my parts and sent him and the Galaxie to Cesar's Garage on Turk instead. Cesar did a brisk business in fixing German makes that were out of warranty or whose owners refused to pay full boat for dealer repair. He'd arrived in San Francisco from Ecuador in 1971, penniless with almost no friends, but thanks to a burning sense of entrepreneurship, had worked his way up from a tiny two-man car repair shop to a multi-story garage that now occupied the whole block in the admittedly seedy Tenderloin neighborhood. Since my own apartment was right on the fringes of that same neighborhood, I rented a parking spot from him and used him for the limited amount of maintenance I saw fit to underwrite on the Galaxie. It was late in the day and no one was at the customer entrance of the garage when we arrived. Chris barely managed a full stop, hustling me out of the Prius and humming the opening bars of "Falling in Love Again" under his breath before he yanked the door closed and sped off to Charlie's. The tow truck driver just chuckled as he lowered the Galaxie onto the concrete ramp. Both doors and both quarter panels on the left side were smashed, the hood was crumpled and the bumper was tied on with rope. The capper came when the front end hit the ground and the left wheel canted out thirty degrees. "Good luck, chief," said the driver, and drove off whistling an out of tune rendition of "Turkey in the Straw." I heard steps echoing down the ramp from upstairs and gradually Cesar came into view. He was dressed in the garage uniform of navy blue pants and shirt, both of which were spotless and crisply pressed in spite of the hour. His shoes were shined to a high gloss and his jet black hair was combed back, accentuating the gray wings at his temples. Give him a corn cob pipe and a few inches and he could have been the MacArthur of garage mechanics. "Your parking space is downstairs, Señor," he said. "Yeah, I know. The thing is, I'm having a little trouble making it there." He grinned at me. "Did you run out of gas? "I might have, but there seem to be contributing factors." He made a slow circuit around the car, touching dents here and there and finally stopping in front of the hood. He laid a pair of latex-gloved hands on one of the few uncumpled spots and pressed down. The car yielded only an inch or so, making a terrible grating noise as it moved. "That will be your tie rods or your axle or both." "Can you fix it?" "I've seen the news stories about the cable car, Señor. What you did was very brave." I felt heat rise in my cheeks. Cesar and I rarely exchanged words-and most of those were taken up by the good-natured jokes he and the other mechanics made about my car. I wasn't exactly comfortable incorporating hero worship into the relationship at this point. I made a show of straightening the radio antenna. It didn't straighten worth beans. "You would have done the same," I said finally. "I don't know. I think that is one of those things you can only know when it happens." He peeled off his gloves and put them in his back pocket. "The car is totaled, Señor. There is no point in repairing it. Get a new one. I have a nice Mercedes I can give you a good price on." "Totaled just means it costs more to fix than the car is worth for resale. By that measure it was probably totaled before the crash. But as much as I'd like a Mercedes, this car has sentimental value to me. I want to repair it." "Even if I fixed the front end and all the body damage, it still has a forty-year-old drive train. I've seen the exhaust rolling out of this thing. Every time you came out of the garage, you nearly gassed us to death. I'd be surprised if half the cylinders have compression." "Then rebuild the engine-and the transmission if you have to." He shook his head. "That is silly. If you really want to drive around in a 1968 Galaxie 500, you should buy one that has already been restored. It will be much cheaper." "Are you saying you won't do it even if I pay you the money?" "No, I'm saying that it doesn't make sense. Perhaps you are a little rattled from the-from the accident. Anyone would be." My hand closed around the Saint Apollonia medal I carried in my pocket and I squeezed. I strained to keep my voice level. "Look, this was my father's car. It's the only thing I have from him. I don't want to lose it." "Oh. That is different. Why didn't you say so?" "I just did." He nodded like someone trying to be reasonable when the other party wasn't. "I'll run an estimate and call you tomorrow. But I have to close now." He came up to where I was standing and reached over to touch my shoulder. "You know the girl, Araceli Rivero?" My mouth went dry. "Yes?" "She was a member of our church, Mission Dolores. There are many people from Central and South America in the congregation. They are holding a vigil for her this evening. I think you should come." NecrophobiaTHE LAST TIME I ATTENDED A VIGIL OR WAKE was when my great aunt died when I was five. They put her coffin on a big table in the darkened living room of her gingerbread bungalow, lit candles, turned the mirrors to the wall, and lifted me up over the satin-quilted maw of the box and made me kiss her goodbye. Afterwards I locked myself in the bathroom and used a bar of Boraxo I found under the sink to eradicate the pink powdery taste of her. I quit scrubbing only after my lips were skinned and bloodied-and have suffered from an irrational fear of embalmed bodies ever since. The vigil for Araceli Rivero wasn't held in a gingerbread bungalow or even a church, but in the "visitation" room of Pietro Palermo & Co. Funeral Directors. I had gone back to my apartment to change into the only black suit I owned, and by the time I pulled open the heavy, iron-bound door to the room, it was approaching 8:00 p.m. The casket was at the front in a niche lit by a pair of art deco torche lamps and two candles in tall brass holders. A life-sized crucifix yawned out from the wall above an oak and green velvet kneeler situated in front. Clumps of people sat on pews with heads bowed or stood together holding whispered conversations. There wasn't a priest, nor was there anybody I could pick out as family. But Cesar I spotted immediately. He was bent over the kneeler, his fingers moving ponderously through the beads of a rosary, his slicked back hair glistening under the light. An obvious funeral parlor employee stood by the door near a podium with a sign-in book. As I came up, he handed me a memorial card with a picture of Jesus blessing a young woman. "The family appreciates your attendance. Would you sign the mourner's register, please?" I looked down at the book. There were spaces for name, address and an unlabeled column that people had used to write things like, "God bless Araceli" and "There is hope in Christ's resurrection and glory." I felt like a fraud and intruder and wished for the hundredth time that I hadn't let Cesar guilt me into going. "I don't know-" I started. The funeral parlor guy arranged his face into a look of professional concern and held out a silver fountain pen. I sighed and took the fancy writing implement from his hand, scratching out my name and address in what I hoped would be an illegible jumble. I left the final column blank. Pietro Palermo & Co's man leaned over the book to inspect what I'd written, and frowning slightly, relieved me of the pen. "Thank you, sir. If you're not familiar with the custom, may I suggest that you take a seat in the pews until you have the opportunity to go up to the departed." I nodded like I appreciated the advice and took a seat in the pew closest to the exit, resolving to slip out the door as soon as he was distracted. To avoid catching anyone's eye in the meantime, I made a close inspection of the card he had given me. The side without Jesus had Araceli's full name and a birthday of December 2nd, twenty-three years ago. Her "heavenly birth date"-that is, the day she was killed-was printed below it. At the bottom came a short prayer titled "Eternal Rest" that I recognized from my Catholic upbringing. It was given in three languages: Latin, Spanish and English. I heard the door open again and I turned back to watch the funeral parlor employee give his spiel to a pair of young women who had to be classmates of Araceli's at UCSF. The first one had barely taken hold of the pen before her lip started trembling and she sobbed out loud. As her companion reached over to hug her, I felt a tap on my arm. "I'm glad that you came, Señor." Cesar stood in the aisle beside me wearing a black suit that probably cost twice as much as mine, but somehow didn't make him look any more dressy than his smart garage uniform. "That makes one of us," I said. He shook his head. "No, the family and Araceli will appreciate it, too. " "The family maybe-and maybe for the wrong reasons. But you're making an assumption about dead people that I can't share." "Please. Now is not the time to debate the existence of the afterlife. You must do the expected thing-if only to comfort the family. Go up and say goodbye to her, and on the off chance you are wrong about God, pray for her soul." "I don't even see anyone from-" "Please." His hand found its way around my wrist and tugged. I gave into the inevitable. I stood like a zombie and tottered down the aisle towards the niche. The memory of my great aunt sent my heartbeat past redline and my vision darkened and narrowed. My extremities tingled. Then I caught sight of Araceli over the edge of the polished mahogany and all the anxiety seemed to lift. It's going too far to say she looked angelic, but for the first time I appreciated why someone would ever leave a casket open. She lay in ivory satin in an ivory satin dress with a silver-beaded rosary clasped in her hands. Her apricot blond hair was arranged carefully on the pillow and her expression was serene and composed. She wore modest silver earrings and a plain silver bracelet. Her skin was a vibrant rose-petal pink, and there was no trace of wounds, bullets or madmen who hijack cable cars. But neither was there much of the flirtatious girl from the laundromat. She'd been transformed into a sort of virginal madonna. I stood over her, fingering the fabric softener sheet she'd given me in my pocket. I had brought it on a whim with the idea that I might return it to her, but I realized now it would be wildly inappropriate. After an awkward interlude, I sank to my knees, put my elbows on the rail and bowed my head, but I was just marking time to make it look right. Whatever small connection I had with her seemed to be lost. I had been her avenger, but I didn't really know her. And I was hardly the one to make a case for her soul if she-or any of us-had one. My eyes were closed, but through the sound of rustling fabric and little fidgeting movements, I became aware of someone standing off to the left. I stayed on the kneeler for another long minute, then stood and stepped back-and because I figured it had to be family-made a clumsy attempt at crossing myself. "Mr. Riordan?" came the expected request. It was family all right, but not the sort I expected. A taller, lither version of Araceli stood waiting: more ballerina than underwear model, but with the same hair, green eyes and cheek bones. She wore a simple black dress and plain silver jewelry that seemed to match Araceli's. "I'm August Riordan," I agreed in a too loud voice. "Melina Rivero. Araceli was my sister." I took her extended hand and managed to get something across about how sorry I was. Then, feeling the need to account for my presence, I blurted, "I hope you don't mind my attending. My friend Cesar is a member of your church, and since I was-since I was involved, he encouraged me to pay my respects." "Did you know Araceli, Mr. Riordan?" "I didn't. We had just met that day. At the laundromat." "That is what the newspaper said, but we wondered if it could be true. We are very grateful for what you did." I looked down at my feet, then forced myself to meet her gaze again. "I'm afraid what I did was more of a postscript. It doesn't change..." I gestured over to the niche. "No, it does not change that." Her eyes strayed to the coffin and she seemed to go away for a moment. Then she twitched her head sharply and brought her arms up to hug herself. "My father and brother are in the director's office. When they heard you were here, they asked that I bring you back to meet them. They want to thank you and they have a question." "A question?" "I am sorry. English is a second language. A better way to express it is they have a job. A job they wish to offer you." Cementerio de la RecoletaTHE FUNERAL DIRECTOR'S OFFICE WAS BIG, cold and Gothic-looking, and didn't exactly convey a feeling of sympathy or desire to help you through troubled times. The ceiling was vaulted with massive oak beams running beneath it, and light came from a single lancet window and a couple of heavy plaster wall sconces that you could have fried turkeys in. Melina Rivero's heels clicked across the stone floor as she led me to the corner of the room where a bald man with a Jimmy Durante nose and large, square-rimmed glasses waited behind a carved desk. To his left was a younger version of the same model-including the eggplant-shaped shnoz-but with more iron-gray hair remaining on top of his head. Given Melina and Araceli's appearance, I decided Mrs. Rivero had to be a real looker because dad was watering down the handsome genes something fierce. Both men stood, barrel-chested and stolid, and Melina introduced us. Senior was named Reynaldo and compensated for his plain looks with a grip like a crimping tool. Junior was named Orlando and reached across with his left to give me a backhanded shake. As he sat down, I noticed his right arm hung limp at his side. There was only one other chair by the desk and Rivero senior made it clear that it would just be us boys talking when he said, "Melina, I expect you are needed in the chapel." She said, "Yes, father," and pausing only to give my bicep a reassuring squeeze, turned and walked out. Rivero didn't waste any time. "Tell me how you knew Araceli," he said after he nodded me into the remaining chair. His speech was clipped and precise, and like everyone else I'd met in the family, carried a trace of that not quite familiar Latin accent. "Melina asked about that, too. We didn't know each other. We had just met at the laundromat." "I don't understand that. She had no need to wash her clothes in a public laundry, especially her intimate clothing. It seems to me that could only invite unwanted attention." I couldn't stop myself from thinking about Araceli's big stack of panties and our exchange about souvenirs. I licked my lips and hoped I didn't look like a complete pervert. "I wouldn't know about that." "Then why did you do it?" "Why did I do what?" "Why did you risk your life to stop the gunman?" I shifted in my chair. I'd been off-balance and uncomfortable since I walked in the funeral parlor, playing a part that I didn't believe, but not wanting to offend or show disrespect. I was done with all that now. "I did it for the reward," I said snidely. Rivero nodded like he expected it. "What sort of reward?" "The reward of hearing the grateful family members thank me. That was why you wanted to see me, wasn't it?" Orlando surprised me by chuckling darkly. "Él tiene razón," he said to pops, which I knew meant something like, "He's got you there." Rivero ducked his head in my direction to acknowledge the point. "I'm sorry, Mr. Riordan. Don't misunderstand me. We are actually very grateful. But if I may speak bluntly, my experience in the world has taught me to look for self-interest or the commercial motive before the altruistic one." "That's okay. But while we're celebrating blunt talk and plain spokenness, maybe you can tell me why you aren't participating in the vigil. I expected the family to be front and center and I didn't see any of you when I walked in." Rivero seemed to miss the object of my question. "But did you see Araceli? Isn't she beautiful?" "Yes," I allowed. "She is." And then, because he seemed to expect something more, "The funeral parlor did an excellent job." That lit a match under him. "The funeral parlor? I wouldn't let any of those hacks near her. We brought our own man from Buenos Aires, Dr. Serrano. He is an artist." Discussing embalmers as artists was the last thing I expected to be doing and my face must have shown it. Rivero held up his hand. "You asked why we are not at the vigil. There is a reason. You may not think it sufficient, but while we are being honest with one another, I will tell you. Araceli was estranged from the family. She is technically my step-daughter-the youngest daughter of my second wife, Ines. Ines had Melina and Araceli with her first husband. I adopted both daughters when we married, but after Ines died, Araceli rebelled and grew away from us. She moved to the U.S. to go to college, and then decided to stay to get a graduate degree in pharmacology-as if someone of her background could really spend her life dispensing little pills from behind a window." That explained the lack of family resemblance in the girls, and it also explained something else that had been bothering me. Since I'd been sitting across from them, I realized Rivero senior had to be over seventy and Orlando in his fifties. Those ages didn't fit well with daughters and sisters who were still in their twenties. I swung one leg over my knee and picked at the cuff of my trousers. I was tempted to argue with Rivero about his characterization of pharmacology as a career just for form's sake, but I realized I didn't want to prolong the conversation any longer than necessary. Their big job offer was bound to be something about ensuring Finnegan was prosecuted to the maximum extent of the law and I was sure I wasn't interested. Orlando seemed to be following my thoughts. He had been watching me with an intent expression and now he said, "Did Melina mention that we wanted to hire you?" "She did, but-" "But you're worried that we're after some kind of vigilante justice for Araceli." "I wasn't worried you'd hire me to kill him. The idea that you'd want me to gather more evidence against him crossed my mind, but that's a non-starter. The cops have him dead to rights. The only thing that could possibly save him is some sort of insanity plea. Even then, he's going to spend the rest of his life in San Quentin with no legs. That may be worse than dying." Father and son exchanged looks and Orlando said, "We agree." "You do?" "Yes, we do. Araceli's death was a terrible tragedy, but we're content to let U.S. justice take its course." "And what we want to hire you for," continued Rivero, "is something completely unrelated. We had been planning to come to the U.S. next month to find someone qualified for the task, but unhappily we had to make the trip sooner." "All right, I'll bite. What is it?" Rivero sat forward in his seat and his voice took on a passion I hadn't heard before. "I'm getting old, Mr. Riordan. I'm seventy-seven and I'm starting to plan for my own death. Part of that planning has involved the construction of a family mausoleum at the Cementerio de la Recoleta in Buenos Aires. We will ship Araceli's body there after the requiem mass. I will be buried there, and I want the bodies of my parents and my sister to be moved there." "Must be a big place." "It is. It's the custom in Argentina for influential families to build crypts with multiple levels to accommodate many generations. My father was not in the position to build a proper one before the time of his death, but I have been more successful and now I want to make up for the lack." "Okay, but I still don't see what this has to do with me." "My parents are already buried at la Recoleta so it will be a simple matter to disinter their coffins and move them to the mausoleum. The same, unfortunately, cannot be said for the body of my sister, Maria. She, like Araceli, was estranged from the family. She married young to an American of Italian decent and moved to Milan to live with him. Sadly, she got cancer and died in her early thirties. "The husband, Bruno de Magistris, believed that he was honoring her wishes by keeping the news of her death away from us, so we did not learn of it for many years. When we finally heard of it through a childhood friend of Maria's, Orlando and I went to Milan to confront de Magistris and find Maria's grave. We were too late. We could find no trace of either of them. Eventually we learned that de Magistris had moved back to the U.S., and although Maria had been buried for years in a cemetery in Milan, he took her body with him. To which city exactly we do not know." "Why in the world did he move her?" "Perhaps his motive was the same as my father's," said Orlando. He shrugged as he spoke and I noticed again how lifeless his right arm was. "Perhaps he, too, wanted his family to be buried together in the same place. But we know they had no children and that he was remarried within a year. We frankly think he did it to spite us." "Nice guy." "Yes," said Rivero. "What we finally uncovered-only within this last year-was a record of the casket being shipped to the port of Oakland. The shipment took place in 1974. But we don't know anything after that. Our assumption is that she was buried in a Bay Area cemetery, but given the history, it's unlikely that she was buried under her own name." "And all you want me to do is..." "Locate her coffin so we can take her back with us to Argentina." I felt a sudden throb of pain behind the eyeballs and brought a hand up to squeeze my temples. "I was afraid you were going to say that." Stay for the WormsI'D NEVER BEEN PARTICULARLY GOOD at finding missing persons and I suspected I'd be even worse at finding dead ones. That didn't make a difference to Rivero. He pressed a stack of hundred dollar bills into my hand and committed to double my daily rate if I started immediately. I thought about the money I was going to need to pay Cesar to fix the Galaxie, set aside my concerns about Rivero's obsession with dead bodies and multistory mausoleums, and agreed to put in at least a week searching for the earthly remains of Maria de Magistris. My first stop the next morning was a cheapo car rental place near Cesar's garage. Despite promising me a veritable "Whitman Sampler" of cars to select from when I called, upon my arrival all they could produce was the automotive equivalent of the dreaded pistachio nougat (a four-cylinder Hyundai) or the chocolate covered cherry (a jet black Cadillac Escalade). Since Rivero was paying for it, I went with the Escalade, but I didn't like riding so high, wide and pretentious. At least the sound system was good. I kept the stereo tuned to KCSM-the only remaining jazz station in the Bay Area-and wended my way across the Bay Bridge to Oakland while the KCSM DJ played a full side of John Coltrane's seminal Giant Steps on vinyl. For lack of any better plan, I was headed to Mountain View Cemetery, the largest and most prestigious cemetery in Oakland. I wasn't expecting to find Maria in the first place I tried, but I hoped I could at least pick up a few tips on the best way to organize future efforts. Mountain View was on a parcel of rolling, lung-shaped greenery at the end of Piedmont Avenue. I knew it for its "Millionaires Row," where a number of wealthy nineteenth-century industrialists-a.k.a. robber barons-were buried in a line of grandiose monuments. I'd also read somewhere that it had been designed by the guy who built Central Park. I beached the Escalade by an imposing stone building with classical Greek aspirations and backtracked across the island of the roundabout I'd circled on my way in. I was headed to the cemetery office, which was housed in a red brick gothic, trimmed in white stone. A gardener had his wheelbarrow parked near the front and was busy planting tulip bulbs in the beds on either side of the walkway. I nodded at him, went up the steps and pushed through to the lobby. It wasn't quite what I was expecting. One part tour office, one part showroom and one part mourners' waiting area, the bulk of the space was taken by a large scale model of the grounds. A group of the sort of people who are otherwise unoccupied at 10 a.m. on a weekday were studying it with maps that pinpointed the location of graves of famous people clutched in their hands. One bird-watcher type wearing an Australian bush hat exclaimed to his wife, "Look, there's Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia. We'll have to check her out." Off to one side was a room that showcased cremation urns and headstones, and off to the other was an arrangement of furniture. Perched on the edge of one of the sofas was a frail black woman in a black crepe dress, white gloves and a serious church-going hat. She dabbed a hankie under her eye while a young man next to her gripped her by the elbow and leaned in to whisper comforting words. I threaded my way past the birder and went up to a counter that separated the lobby from an office bull pen. I studied a row of state licenses for cemetery salespersons with the directive, "must be available for public inspection" printed on each license, while the receptionist behind the counter paged through a ledger-sized appointment book with the phone glued to her ear. After noting down a date for the "Columbarium," she hung up and asked what she could do for me. "I'm guessing a Columbarium doesn't serve drinks," I said. She pushed her cat eye glasses further up the bridge of her nose and swept a lock of ash blond hair behind her ear, but I could tell what she really wanted to do was bop me in the nose. "No sir. A Columbarium is a place for the respectful display of cinerary urns. I was setting up a pre-need planning appointment for a prospective client." "Right you are. So you asked how you could help me. I wanted to talk with the manager." "The general manager?" "Sure." "May I ask what it's regarding?" Much of the time I had to lie about the motives for my inquires-or "pretext" as the news coverage for a lawsuit involving corporate spying recently characterized it-but today I decided the truth would serve as well as anything. "I'm a private investigator. I've been hired by the family of young woman who may have been buried under a false name at the cemetery in the early 1970s. The family is trying locate her so that they can bring her remains back to Argentina, which is where she's from." "I see. I can let you review the burial registry. You don't need to talk to the general manager for that." "I might add that there is some suggestion of criminal activity." I might add that, but the only one suggesting it was me. So much for avoiding pretexting. The receptionist caught her upper lip between her teeth and gave it a good chewing. Criminal, she apparently decided, was not something she wanted to make the call on. "I'll check and see if he's available," she said and slid off her chair. When she returned I was told that Mr. Arrow would be happy to join me in the sales conference room in a few minutes time. She directed me to a door off the urn and headstone display area and I amused myself during the wait by examining the black and white photographs of Mountain View monuments and statuary that decorated the room. I was standing in front of a picture of a tragic-looking stone angel whose nose and wing tip had broken off when Arrow made his entrance. He wouldn't have got my vote for cemetery general manager on What's My Line. He had a florid complexion, a great bushy goatee with matching bushy hair and round glasses with more than a bit of correction, imparting a slight fish-eye look. He was dressed casually in a striped shirt and khakis, and the shirt and the several inches of gut overhanging it made me decide that he wasn't the sort of person who worried about stripes making him look fatter. He smiled easily when he spotted me and put out his hand. "Jeff Arrow." "August Riordan. Thanks for taking the time." "Not at all. It sounds intriguing." He nodded me into a chair at a conference table and took a seat across from me. "Linda said you were a private investigator. I suppose I should ask if you have something to back that up." "A license-like your salespeople. All PIs are required to carry one." I leaned over to take out my wallet, but he said, "Oh, don't bother. I wouldn't know a real one from a fake one. Just as you probably couldn't identify a funeral director credential." "You got me there." I retrieved my wallet anyway and fished out a card, which I pushed across the table. "For what it's worth." Arrow glanced at it, but left it where it lay. "Thank you. Now tell me what you're after. Linda said something about kidnapped remains from a foreign country. From the seventies yet." "That's probably making it sound a little more intriguing than it is." I relayed the whole story, exactly as I got it from Rivero. "And you've good reason to believe that she's buried at Mountain View?" "To be honest, it's more of a-" "Wait a minute. You're the guy from the cable car shoot out, aren't you?" I cleared my throat to speak, but decided just to nod my acknowledgement. I was getting entirely more attention from the incident than I wanted. "And this Maria de Magistris?" "She would have been the aunt of the girl who was shot by the gripman. Technically, step-aunt. But it's the same family." "Well, you've got yourself an interesting problem-1974 is well before my time. I can check the records, of course, but if she is buried under a false name, it will be hard to distinguish her from the other women who were buried in that year." "What about the fact that she was shipped from overseas. Wouldn't there be some record of that? Some extra red tape or bureaucracy that would leave a paper trail?" Arrow laughed. "You wouldn't believe all the red tape associated with shipping a body into or out of the country. In general you need a certified copy of the death certificate as well as burial/transit permit with a notarized statement from a doctor or medical examiner stating that the body did not die from a communicable disease. You also need a statement from the embalmer saying that the body was embalmed and disinfected and what embalming method was used. And there are special packing requirements. The casket has to go into a hermetically sealed zinc container and then into a wooden shipping crate. Then an official wax seal must be put on the top of the crate proving that everything was done right. It's quite the production." "Sounds like there's a 'but' coming in here somewhere." "There is. The problem is the cemetery is not required to keep any of those records, and we don't. All that documentation is to satisfy U.S. and state requirements. The only thing that still might be on file from 1974 is the burial/transit permit. A copy of that is supposed to be turned into the health department of the county where the body is ultimately interred. Nowadays, they are only required to keep them for a year, but it's possible some counties would have older records. Mountain View is in Alameda County, so you could check with them... but if I may make a suggestion." "Yeah, sure." Arrow smoothed the tips of his bushy mustachios and smiled. "Earlier, you didn't seem quite certain that la signora de Magistris was buried at Mountain View." "I'm not, exactly. But I know they shipped the body to Oakland, and Mountain View is the best known cemetery in the city, so it seemed like a reasonable assumption." "It would be, except that Mountain View was pretty full back in the early seventies. We've annexed additional land and built a new mausoleum since then, but in 1974, space was at a premium and what space there was, was expensive. Unless you were a member of one of the old-time families with a private mausoleum, it would have taken a significant investment on the part of the living to enable you to spend eternity here. A much more likely resting place would be one of the cemeteries in Colma." "Why Colma? That's way down on the Peninsula." "True, but there are eighteen cemeteries in that town-seventeen for humans and one for pets. The dead people outnumber the living a thousand to one, and the reason is that San Francisco passed an ordinance in the early 1900s evicting all cemeteries from the city limits. Colma was set up to handle the evicted bodies as well as all the new business. I'd estimate that about seventy percent of the people buried in the Bay Area end up there. In fact, there's a joke in the industry about what the town motto should be. Care to guess?" "Come for the quiet, but stay for the worms?" Arrow let out a chortle. "That's funny, but it's not factually accurate. Most modern caskets protect the body from worms. No, the unofficial motto is 'It's great to be alive in Colma!'" I managed a weak smile. "Good one. I'll put Colma on the list. That's in San Mateo County. Do you think they'll have retained the burial/transit permits?" "If any county would, it would be them. The other advantage with Colma is that there are a lot of genealogy sites on the web that have collected records from their cemeteries. You may be able to do some of your searching online." "Good," I said. "I know someone who can help me with that," meaning Chris. I leaned forward in my chair. "I appreciate all the suggestions you've made, but it would still be a great help if you could check your records for 1974. I might get lucky." Arrow jumped up. "Happy to. Can you narrow it down for me? Do you know what month the body arrived at the port?" "No, all I've got is 1974." Arrow nodded and headed for the conference room door. "I'll pull up all females interred during the year." He paused with his hand on the knob and laughed. "I mean, of course, that I'll pull them up on the computer." He was gone less than fifteen minutes and when he returned he had a single sheet of pin-fed paper. He slapped it down on the table in front of me and stood at my shoulder, gesturing with a pen. "There you have it. Only sixteen names and none of them is Maria de Magistris. You'll see I've crossed off all the ones that I know were buried in big family plots or mausoleums. That leaves only seven who were buried in individual plots. You'll have to do more research to figure out if any of those are probables, but I need to warn you about one thing. The family's going to need a court order to disinter anyone, and to get a court order, you're going to need iron-clad documentation to make your case. Frankly, given what little you have to go on right now, that's going to be very difficult to produce." Arrow was right. This job was shaping up to be much more difficult than I imagined, and in a way, I was relieved. I could put in a week's worth of tilting at windmills, collect my fee and hang it up without feeling guilty. I scanned the list of names. None of them called out to me. It had occurred to me that Maria might have been buried under her maiden name, but Rivero wasn't on the list. There wasn't even a Latin name among the remaining seven. I snatched up the paper and stood. "Thanks for everything," I said. "I appreciate your taking time to run the names-and to educate me on the cemetery business." Arrow beamed and looked genuinely pleased to have been of help. "You're welcome. I'll share one more tidbit of value-although this item won't exactly put a spring in your step, either. Back in the sixties and seventies, very few people were embalmed in Italy. They also used inexpensive wooden caskets, so if this person was buried for any length of time, when they exhumed the body, both body and casket would be close to disintegration. There wouldn't have been much to send to Oakland-and even less now to send on to Argentina." I thought about that for a moment and swallowed. "Swell. I guess it's a good thing I've been hired to find the body, not dig it up." "You got that right." Arrow shook my hand again and finished by saying, "Feel free to look around more if you like. The list has plot locations, so you can visit the graves if you think that might be useful." I carried the list out of the conference room to the lobby and the model of the grounds and tried to get a general sense for where each of the graves was located. They appeared to be clustered at the far northeastern border of the cemetery, which was probably the last area with space in the seventies. I decided I wasn't going to divine any special insights by visiting them and shoved the folded list into my breast pocket. I went back outside and was standing on the sidewalk in front, watching the gardener tamp down the ground around his tulip bulbs, when I heard a woman call my name. Melina Rivero waved at me through the open window of the fire engine red Honda she had piloted into the roundabout. "Buy you a cup of coffee?" True ConfessionsMELINA WAVED ME INTO THE HONDA and then sped off, looping around the circle drive and out the front gate onto Piedmont Avenue. I glanced in the back of the car as she drove and was surprised to find a three-foot high Tweety Bird, an empty fish tank and a man's suit in a plastic dry cleaner bag laid out on the seat. "There is a coffee shop on the first corner," she said. "Is that okay?" "I'm sure it will be fine," I said, but I don't think it mattered what opinion I expressed because she had already pulled into a parking space in front of Jackamo's Java House, bumping the undercarriage of the car on the sidewalk as she stopped. She looked over at me and grimaced. "Sorry. I am still not comfortable with Araceli's car." "The curb was too high anyway." I was itching to ask her how she found me and what she wanted to talk about, but I decided to wait until we sat down. "Shall we go inside?" "Yes, but I am buying." "Great. Then I'm drinking." We got out of the car and went through the rickety door of Jackamo's, which set an anemic bell tinkling. Besides an Asian kid staring intently at an Apple laptop with a pair of white earbuds screwed into his head, we were the only ones in the place. I snagged a table by the window while she went up to order the coffee. I watched as she talked to the guy with dreadlocks behind the register and you could see that the opportunity to serve her had given him a whole new appreciation for the term job satisfaction. She really was something to look at-as much from behind as the front. She had exchanged the mourning dress from the wake for a clingy wool sweater, a long wool skirt, ballet flats and a beret, but had kept the color black. As she reached over the counter to pick up the coffees, the skirt pulled tight across her posterior, the muscles in her legs and rump flexed and I wished I ordered enough to make her take two trips. Dreadlocks tracked her as she returned to the table, then met my eyes and shook his head. He threw the counter towel against the coffee urns and went into the back room. Melina put the coffee on the table and settled herself into one of Jackamo's venerable stick back chairs. She cradled her mug with both hands and looked over it to give me a curious smile. "So, August, you did not tell me or my father you were going out with Araceli." I had already taken a sip of my coffee and narrowly avoided a spit-take. "That's for the very good reason that I wasn't going out with her. I told you I just met her." "Then what was your suit doing in her apartment?" "If you found a suit in her apartment, it's not mine." "What size are you?" "48 Regular." "Then it is yours! A 48 Regular Hugo Boss. I brought it in the car to give it back to you. I have been packing most everything personal of hers to ship back to Argentina, but there are a few items like the suit that I would not want to send back." I put my coffee mug carefully down on the table and took time to square the handle just so. "Look, Melina," I said. "Hugo Boss and I are not on speaking terms-I've never owned a suit that cost more than three hundred bucks. And your sister and I weren't really on speaking terms, either. We barely said two sentences to each other. She was an attractive girl. I'm sure there were many men who wanted to have a suit in her closet, but it wasn't me." I could see doubt in her eyes, but she wasn't ready to give up. "You were her type." She held up her arms and clenched her fists in a gesture that might generously be labeled manly, or not so generously, Neanderthal. "And then there is what your secretary said when I visited your office." I knew this wasn't going to be good. "And what was that?" "When I walked in, she looked me up and down and said, 'Not another one.' I know that I am not as beautiful as my sister-" "That's not true, Melina. You are very-" "Please do not say it. You are very kind. I may not be as beautiful as Araceli, but it is clear we were sisters. Your secretary must have seen Araceli with you and recognized that I was from the same family." "Did Gretchen-did my secretary say anything else?" I wanted to be sure I'd fully lanced the boil before I dressed the wound-so to speak. Melina made a little pouty expression. "She told me where I could find you. And... oh, yes, there was one more thing. There was a funny little fat man in the front office. When I first came in, he asked me if I knew the benefits of whole life, then he tried to get my phone number. Your secretary put a stop to that." I ran a hand through my hair and looked off at the Asian kid who was still frowning into the screen of his laptop. Melina had gotten the full treatment, all right. "Well," I said, "where to begin. The funny little man is named Bonacker. I share the office with him and he was trying to sell you insurance-and maybe a few other things. Gretchen is my secretary, but we-unlike your sister and I-used to go out. Gretchen is engaged to someone else now. However, that doesn't stop her from taking an unhealthy interest in the women I do date. When she saw you, she probably assumed that..." I realized too late that I'd backed myself into a corner. "Not that I told her you and I are seeing each other, you understand. Or that I go out with that many women. But she probably jumped to the conclusion-" "I understand." Melina smiled, sipped at her coffee and relaxed back into her chair. "And you promise me you were not seeing Araceli?" "Truly. If your sister could hear this conversation, she'd be laughing at us. Now if I can change the subject, why did you want to see me?" "Many reasons. You know the first-the suit. Also, Orlando told me about the conversation at the wake. I wanted you to know that my father did not mean to insult you. That is the way he is with everyone-abrupt and mistrustful. I am glad you agreed to take the job, as strange as it must seem to you. Up until recently, father's been obsessed with getting back into politics. This interest in building the family mausoleum at la Recoleta, however morbid, seems to have replaced it, and on balance I think that is a good thing." "What's wrong with politics?" Melina traced a finger along the rim of her coffee mug. "Do you know anything about Argentine politics, August? May I call you August?" "I know as much about Argentine politics as you probably know about the San Francisco Giants. And, yes, please call me August." "You are right. I know nothing about the Giants, but I suspect they are easier to understand than Argentine politics. My father is a Peronist-as most people in politics today-but he is a Peronist of the old school. Juan Perón's original party, the Justicialist Party, has splintered into many factions that span the full political spectrum. The majority of the people in office now are left or left-center, but my father is more right-leaning. That has caused him to lose his seat in the senate in the last legislative election, and has left him isolated and frustrated." I sipped some of my coffee and thought back to the conversation with Rivero and Orlando. "Your father told me that he adopted you and Araceli when he married your mother, and that Araceli rebelled against him. What about you? Are you close to him?" Melina looked at me for a moment and then flashed the sort of dazzling smile a lonely man could live off for a week. "It is not for nothing you are a detective." I grinned. "Don't feel like you have to answer. It's really none of my business." "I do not mind. You probably thought it odd when father sent me away in the funeral director's office. The truth is we are neither close nor distant. A woman doesn't like to admit this, but I am quite a bit older than Araceli was. I already had my own life by the time my mother married Reynaldo. I was already dancing with the Ballet Estable in Buenos Aires, and later I married the conductor of the symphony." So I had gotten the ballet right, but for some reason I had assumed she was single. I couldn't stop my eyes from straying to her ring finger. "No, you will not find a ring there," she said. "We were divorced last year. I moved back into my father's house after the separation, so he and I have spent more time together the last few months than we have in many years. And, of course, when Araceli died, I had to come to the U.S. with him and Orlando. She was my closest living blood relative." Melina kept her tone light as she said this last bit, but now her eyes welled with moisture. She reached for a napkin and dabbed at the tears. "I am sorry, August, I did not intend to cry." "I'm the one who should apologize. I know this is a difficult time for you." She shook her head, dabbed at her eyes again and thenfolded the napkin into a small square, which she placed next to her coffee. "I think it is only fair to turn the tables on the detective. If you were not seeing Araceli, are you seeing anyone else?" I laughed. "No. It's been a while. My last relationship didn't turn out so well." I didn't mention that it was probably because I was involved with the daughter of a client. "What about family?" "I've never been married and never had children." "So sad. What about parents or siblings? Are you close to them?" I squirmed around in my chair. This was really boomeranging in a way that I didn't like. I never talked about my parents-not even with Chris or Gretchen. "That's kind of personal," I said. Melina either didn't pick up on my discomfort or chose to ignore it. "Come on," she pleaded. "You have to play fair." I took a deep breath and glanced around the room. The counterman was back, polishing the coffee urns by the register while he kept a jealous eye glued on our table. The Asian kid had closed up the laptop and was exploring his ear canal with a pencil eraser. I looked back at Melina and for some reason I decided-what the hell-I'm going to talk about it: possibly because wrecking the Galaxie had brought my father to mind, possibly because telling a near stranger from another country seemed easier. "My mother and father are dead now-they were both relatively old when they had me. I never really knew my father. He left before I was born and he never married my mother. I was raised in Santa Monica by my mom, who worked as a newspaper reporter on the police beat. I took Riordan for my last name since that was her name." Now Melina was the one squirming in her seat. Although a lot of people have called me a bastard, it was clear she wasn't expecting to be told I literally was one when she asked the question. She tried her best to go with it. "I see why you are a detective. Your mother wrote about them." "That's right. But it runs even deeper than that. Her father-my grandfather-was the former chief of police in Santa Monica. And although I never had anything to do with my father, she told me that he was a private detective, too. Apparently they met on a case." "But you never met him?" "No, not really. He moved to Palm Springs at some point, and one day after my mother died he called out of the blue. I hung up on him." I nudged a sugar packet across the table, embarrassed at the memory and embarrassed to be recounting it now to Melina. "A number of years later, a tow truck with a car showed up at my door in Phoenix, Arizona. The driver said he'd been paid to deliver it to me. It had California plates and the pink slip, which was in my father's name, was signed over to me. Later I went to the library and looked through the newspapers they had for Palm Springs. I found a two paragraph obituary for him." "What did you do with the car?" "I still have it. It's the one I rammed the cable car with." Melina reached her hand across the table, palm up. I hesitated, then put my hand in hers. "Freud might have something to say about a son who takes on the profession of the father he never knew," she said, "but thank you again for what you did for Araceli. And thank you for telling me about your life. Maybe it does us both a little good to share the uncomfortable burdens we carry." I liked holding her hand, but felt silly given the circumstances-especially given the way the counterman continued to scope us out. I gave her hand a little squeeze and then pulled back to my side of the table. "Speaking of inherited items, I noticed you have a three-foot high Tweety Bird now. What are your plans for that?" Melina gave me a lopsided smile and launched into a description of Araceli's stuffed animal collection. It was clear she was trying to put as much distance from the earlier moment as possible, and I appreciated the effort. She was in the middle of describing how she had donated most of the collection to a children's hospital, when my cell phone rang. I had given the number to so few people that I rarely had surprises, but when I fished the phone out of my pocket, the display showed an unfamiliar number from the 510-that is, an East Bay-area code. I flipped it open. "Mr. Riordan, this is Jeff Arrow from Mountain View. I've got some good news for you." "You do?" "Yes. I called a couple of buddies of mine who run cemeteries in Colma and asked about your Maria de Magistris. I got lucky on the second try." "Got lucky as in you found her?" "Yes. At Cypress Lawn they have a record from 1974 of her internment. If you've got something to write with, I'll give you all the particulars." I fumbled a small notebook and pen from my jacket and copied down the information Arrow dictated, including the plot number at the cemetery and the name and number of the director. He ended by telling me he'd put in a good word for me with the head guy and that they would see me today if I hustled over there. I thanked him profusely and he said, "For the cable car hero, anything." I hung up. The task had gone from impossibly hard to ridiculously easy in less than two hours. I gave Melina the good news and we agreed that she should ferry me back to my car post haste. She zipped us back onto the grounds of Mountain View and pulled up behind the Escalade, where she put the Honda in park. I thanked her and was getting out when she reached over and took my wrist. "I would like to see you again, August," she said. Better and better. I leaned back into the car and kissed her cheek. "Anytime you want." ... continued ... Want to continue reading? Click on the title below to download The Big Wake-up on Kindle for just $2.99 (UK CUSTOMERS: Click on the title below to download The Big Wake-up  ) |
Thank you for reading this free Kindle Nation feature. |
No comments:
Post a Comment