Epitaphs Read online

  “Nothing. I ... nothing.”

  “Then why won’t you tell me what those two women do to earn their rent money?”

  “I don’t know, I tell you. I don’t know!”

  He knew, all right. The sweat on his face, the scared-rabbit look in his eyes, made a lie of his words. If I’d been a genuine city-sanctioned officer of the law I would have kept on squeezing him about Gianna Fornessi and Ashley Hansen, hard, until he cracked and the truth seeped out. As it was, I couldn’t afford to get too rough with him. He was liable to call his lawyer, or go straight to the Hall of Justice himself and holler police harassment. And then I would be in trouble, even though technically I was not guilty of impersonating a policeman. Technicalities have a way of being overlooked when cops find themselves under fire for something they didn’t do.

  “All right,” I said. “Tell me about Jack Bisconte.”

  “Who?”

  “You heard me. Jack Bisconte.”

  “I don’t know anybody by that name.”

  “Runs a florist shop on upper Grant.”

  Headshake.

  “Big guy,” I said. “Late thirties. Hair on him like fur.”

  Maybe Ferry didn’t know Bisconte’s name or profession, but he knew Bisconte: he got even paler and the lick-blink-twitch reaction grew more pronounced. “No,” he said.

  “No what? You know him.”

  “No.”

  “Is he the one who worked you over the other day?”

  “Worked me ... no! Nobody worked me over. I told you how I—”

  “Yeah. You’re clumsy and you fell down the stairs.”

  Twitch. Lick. Head bob.

  “What’s Bisconte’s relationship with Gianna Fornessi?”

  Blink. Blink.

  “Or is it Ashley Hansen he’s involved with? Which one?”

  “I don’t know anybody named Bisconte!”

  “Brent DeKuiper, then.”

  “I ... who?”

  “DeKuiper. Brent DeKuiper.”

  Headshake.

  “That name doesn’t ring any bells either, huh?”

  “No.”

  “Friend of the Fornessi girl’s. Boyfriend, maybe.”

  Headshake.

  “You’ve seen her with men, haven’t you?”

  “Sometimes, yes, but—”

  “But you don’t know anybody named DeKuiper.”

  “No.”

  “What’s her boyfriend’s name?”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “Gianna’s current boyfriend. What’s his name?”

  “I don’t know,” Ferry said. “How would I know that?”

  “You just said you’ve seen her with men.”

  “I don’t ask their names!”

  “Any man in particular lately?”

  Lick. Twitch. “I can’t remember ... no. No.”

  “You see her with a man last Friday or Saturday?”

  “No.”

  “Sure about that?”

  “I haven’t seen her since ... before I found the money.”

  “The two thousand dollars you thought she’d stolen.”

  “The mistake I made, yes.”

  “So you don’t know where she went this past weekend. Or with who.”

  “I don’t know anything about Gianna’s private life. How many times do I have to say it? I don’t know!”

  Useless. Something or somebody had him scared spitless —Bisconte maybe. So scared that he wasn’t even willing to unburden himself to a man he thought was a cop.

  I backed off from him, both physically and verbally. In softer tones I said, “I hope you’re not mixed up in anything illegal, Mr. Ferry. For your sake.”

  Twitch. Lick. “I’m not,” he said, and got a handkerchief out and swabbed his wet face. “I swear it—I’m not.”

  I went out without saying anything else to him. The three job seekers were still perched in the waiting area; the lemon-haired receptionist was again, or still, shuffling papers. None of them looked at me. None of them made a sound as I walked across to the outer door. Funeral parlor anterooms were more cheerful than this damned place.

  In the elevator I thought: Ferry might not be mixed up in anything illegal, but Gianna Fornessi? Starting to smell that way. Even if she’s not a thief, even if she didn’t steal Ferry’s money, she’s got some kind of dirt on her hands. Her and Ashley Hansen both.

  Chapter Six

  THE BISCONTE FLORIST SHOP was deserted except for an elderly Chinese woman busily rearranging some floral displays. Mr. Bisconte didn’t work on Saturdays or Tuesdays, she said. Sometimes he didn’t work on other days, four or five days in a row sometimes. She said this with no little disapproval, as if she considered his habits a violation of the normal human work ethic—maybe even an affront to God. She didn’t seem to like her boss much more than I did.

  From there I drove up to Greenwich Street, less than a dozen blocks away. The building in which Bisconte made his home was a two-flat converted Victorian on the steep part of Greenwich just below where the street begins its winding ascent to Coit Tower. Two big flats, one on top of the other—at least six rooms each. Expensive digs. Either the neighborhood flower shop business was a lot more lucrative than I realized, or Bisconte had another and possibly suspect source of income.

  There were two people on the building’s stoop, holding what looked to be an animated conversation, when I drove by; they were still there when I came back downhill on foot a couple of minutes later. Man and woman, the man wearing Western-style clothing—Levi’s jeans, boots, sheepskin jacket, a Stetson hat clutched in one hand—and the woman dressed in a sweater and slacks and a pair of scuffed, too-big slippers. She was in the doorway, hanging on to the edge of the door with one hand, looking bored and irritated at the same time. The guy had his back to the street, talking to her with his hands as well as his mouth. He wasn’t trying to be quiet about what he was saying; I could hear him plainly even before I reached the stoop.

  “Listen, damn it, I’ve got to see him. Can’t you get that through your head? It’s important!”

  “He didn’t tell me where he’d be,” the woman said. She was in her twenties, a slender brunette with the kind of mammary development that would hurl some men into fits of passionate fantasizing. Not me. Pretty face, but one without much intellect or character. The face of a mannequin, or maybe one of those pod creatures in Invasion of the Body Snatchers: not quite finished, no real stamp of individuality.

  The guy said, “You must have some idea, for chrissake.”

  “Well, I don’t. I told you.”

  “Don’t give me that. Where is he, where can I find him?”

  “Bugger off, okay?”

  She started to back up, to shove the door closed. The guy moved forward, fast, and caught her arm with one hand and used the other to hold the door open. “You’re not going anywhere,” he said, “not until you quit jerking me around.”

  “Let go, goddamn it.”

  “No. Where is he?”

  I was up the stairs and onto the landing by then. He didn’t know I was there until I took hold of his shoulder, pulled him around gently but firmly. His mouth came open; he glared at me with hot, dark eyes. He was about thirty-five, short and wiry, with thick curly black hair and eyebrows like clumps of black nettles. He might have been handsome except that he had a mean, spoiled look about him.

  “The lady asked you to let go,” I said.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “Somebody who doesn’t like to see women manhandled. Let her go.”

  Stare-down. He may have been mean but he wasn’t tough: I won in five seconds flat. He released the woman’s wrist, at the same time shrugging free of my hand so he could pretend that averting his eyes and backing off a step was his idea.

  “All right,” he said to the brunette. Nastily. “But when he comes home you tell him I was here. You tell him I need to talk to him right away.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she said.

 
; Without looking at me again he went down the stairs, stalked across the street to where a dusty blue Ford Ranger was parked. He didn’t burn rubber when he pulled away, headed downhill, but he came pretty close.

  I turned to the brunette. She said, “Thanks. But I could’ve handled him. He doesn’t hurt women in public, just in private.”

  “Nice guy, huh?”

  “Prime asshole,” she said.

  “Friend of Jack Bisconte’s, maybe?”

  “Don’t tell me you’re looking for Jack too?”

  “I am.”

  “Well, you’re out of luck. I really don’t know where he is.”

  “Or when he’ll be back?”

  “Or when he’ll be back. You want me to give him a message?”

  “No. I’ll catch him later.”

  “You and Mr. Asshole,” she said.

  When she was gone inside I took a look at the two mailboxes near the door. Bisconte had the upper flat; his was the only name on the box. Well, whoever the brunette was, she knew him pretty well. She was not only occupying his flat while he was out, she was wearing what were probably his slippers.

  So much—for now—for Jack Bisconte.

  Next up: Brent DeKuiper.

  GIANNA’S GASOLINE-BUYING FRIEND—or at least somebody named Brent DeKuiper—was listed in the city directory, with an address on Balboa. The high street number told me that it was all the way out on the northwestern rim of the city, close to the ocean and Cliff House.

  Going out there always gives me pangs of nostalgia. It’s where Playland-at-the-Beach used to be, and Playland—a ten-acre amusement park in the grand old style—was where I’d spent a good portion of my youth. Funhouses, shooting galleries, games of chance, the Big Dipper roller coaster swooping down out of the gaudily lit night, laughing girls with wind-color in their cheeks and a mischievous sparkle in their eyes ... and all of it wrapped in thick ocean fogs that added an element of mystery to the general gaiety. All gone now; closed nearly twenty years ago and then allowed to sit abandoned for several more before it was torn down; nothing left of it except bright ghost-images in the memories of graybeards like me. Condo and rental apartment buildings occupied the space these days: Beachfront Luxury Living, Spectacular Ocean Views. Yeah, sure. Luxuriously cold, gray weather and spectacular weekend views of Ocean Beach and its parking areas jammed with rowdy teenagers and beer-guzzling adult children.

  It made me sad, thinking about it. Getting old. Sure sign of it when you started lamenting the dead past everywhere you went, glorifying it as if it were some kind of flawless Valhalla, when you knew damned well it hadn’t been. Maybe so, maybe so. But nobody could convince me Beachfront Luxury Living condos were better than Playland and the Big Dipper, or that some of the dead past wasn’t a hell of a lot better than much of the half-dead present.

  I’d expected the address on Balboa to be a house or an apartment building, but it turned out to be a narrow storefront in a little neighborhood business district a couple of blocks from the Great Highway. Script lettering on its dirt-smeared front window said VORTEX PUBLICATIONS. And below that, in smaller letters, JOB PRINTING.

  Wrong address? No, I was sure I’d copied it down correctly ; and the directory I’d consulted had been Pac Bell’s most recent. Well, maybe this was DeKuiper’s business and he lived on the premises. I pushed open the door and walked in.

  Narrow space containing a counter that ran from wall to wall lengthwise. Behind the counter, a closed door and some shelving partitioned into little cubicles, a few of which held finished letterheads and envelopes and business cards waiting to be picked up. On the counter, a stack of newspapers. That was all. Nobody in sight, but from behind the closed door a printing press was making a hell of a racket.

  I stepped to the counter and whacked a big handbell with the palm of my hand. It made a loud noise, but it didn’t summon anybody; the printing press kept right on clattering away. I decided to try shouting the thing down. A couple of “Hellos!” at the top of my voice did the trick. The press shut down almost immediately, though it was a minute or so before I had company.

  While I waited I picked up one of the newspapers, casually, the way you do. Eight sheets, shopping-news size. But it didn’t look like a supermarket or neighborhood sheet; liberal or alternative press maybe. Vortex. Some name for a newspaper. Across the top half was a headline that read: SOUTH OF MARKET HOT SPOTS. Article on trendy comedy clubs or nightclubs, I thought. I was about to glance through it when mine host put in an appearance.

  He was big—pro-football big. Six and a half feet high, a solid 250, with linebacker shoulders and not much neck. Linebacker eyes too: wide and a little wild. Dirty-blond hair, full beard to match, both worn long and shaggy: Paul Bunyan in a printer’s leather apron, with hands so heavily ink-stained at the moment that they looked tattooed.

  I was more impressed with him than he was with me. Quick scan with a pair of bright blue eyes, just long enough to determine that he’d never seen me before. And: “Do for you, my man?” in a voice made for backwoods roaring.

  “Brent DeKuiper?”

  “Guilty.”

  I told him my name but not my profession. “I understand you’re a friend of Gianna Fornessi’s.”

  Nothing for a couple of beats. Then a slow half-smile, wry and not too pleasant. “Told you that?”

  “Nobody in particular. Word gets around.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “Close friends?”

  “Uh-uh,” he said.

  “How well do you know her?”

  “Uh-uh. Question, man—your question. Uh-uh to that.”

  “Meaning it’s none of my business?”

  “Meaning not the way it’s done.”

  “Not the way what’s done?”

  “You walkin in here like this. What you think I am?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, “what are you?”

  “Publisher, printer—period. Got it?”

  “We don’t seem to be connecting, Mr. DeKuiper. I’m trying to track down some information about Gianna Fornessi—”

  “Sure,” DeKuiper said, “information.” He sneered at me. “You old guys hand me big pain.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Hundred names in friggin paper, box numbers, phone numbers, but no, got to come suckin around after some chick somebody told you about. Bullshit, man.”

  I shook my head. “You’re not making sense.”

  “Think you are, pops? Get lost, I got work to do.”

  We were like two guys in alternate universes, on either side of a borderline between them, looking across at each other but unable to communicate. His habit of chopping up his sentences, leaving out articles and verbs and modifiers, only made it harder to try to understand him.

  I said, “Suppose we back up and start over. How long have you known Gianna Fornessi?”

  “Out,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Out, man. Good-bye.”

  “Not just yet. How long have you known her? How long have you been dating her? Simple questions, simple answers. Okay?”

  He opened his mouth, closed it again, and stared at me for three or four seconds—the way you’d stare at a funny-looking fish in a tank. Then he put his head back and cut loose with a booming noise that might have been an imitation of Paul Bunyan calling Babe the Blue Ox, but was probably his version of laughter. “Dating her,” he said when his primal howl was finished. “Grins, pops, that’s what you are.”

  “Well?”

  “Think she’s high school kid? I’m one? Man oh man.”

  I didn’t say anything. Just looked at him.

  His good humor melted away and I got the nasty sneer again. “That what you like, pops? High school kids? Maybe even younger, huh?”

  “I don’t—”

  “Real young. Wouldn’t be one of those?”

  “One of what?”

  “Pedophiles.”

  “Pedo—Christ!”


  “Hate pedophiles, man. Unnatural bastards.”

  “I’m not a pedophile!”

  “Just dirty old man, huh?”

  “Don’t call me that either.” Rage had crawled into my throat, dark and combustible—the kind of choking rage over which I’d had little enough control the past couple of years. “Just what the hell do you think I came here for?”

  “Old lady won’t give you any, lookin for one last fling, lookin for kinks, need young meat help you get it up ... heard it all before, man.”

  “For Christ’s sake I’m not after sex.”

  “Everybody’s after sex.”

  “Information.” I had to force the word past the constriction in my throat. “About Gianna Fornessi, goddamn you.”

  He didn’t like being cursed; his wild eyes got wilder. “Out. Now.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until you—”

  “You’re goin,” he said.

  He came up and over the counter in one quick, fluid motion, like an actor performing a bar-vault in an old Western film. But there was nothing theatrical about the way he did it; it was the action of a genuine barroom brawler. He landed a couple of feet to my right, facing me, leaning my way with his shoulders squared. I held my ground without flinching.

  “Don’t put your hands on me,” I said.

  For a second I thought he was going to do it anyway. If he had we’d have been into it and it would have been ugly. As it was, we stood motionless, matching hot-eyed glares.

  “Out,” he said again. “Or get thrown out.”

  “You could try,” I said.

  “Five seconds, pops. Better not fuck with me. Like man says, I’m your worst nightmare.”

  I wanted to hit him. Badly. Muscles twitched in my shoulder, my arm; I could feel the strain all through my body. A year ago, even six months ago, the rage might have short-circuited my reason. Today, at least, common sense prevailed. Hitting DeKuiper would be stupid for a couple of reasons. This was his place of business; technically I was an interloper. He could have me tossed in jail for aggravated assault, or sue my ass and my assets down to a nubbin. Or—just as likely, given his bulk and agility—he could beat the hell out of me, put me in the hospital.