The Emerald Cat Killer (9 page)

He gestured angrily. “Come on!” Chocron steered Lindsey toward a bar called La Puerta Amarilla. He led the way through the bright yellow door.

The place was still half empty. Lindsey figured that it would fill up soon with workers coming home from their jobs.

Chocron hoisted himself onto a barstool and gestured to one next to it. Lindsey joined him there.

Chocron held out his hand. “All right. The three hundred. And I'm going to want the other two.”

“When you earn it.” For now, Lindsey handed over five twenties. “What was that about a motorcycle?” he asked.

“La motocicleta?
Wow, your Spanish is improving by bounds and leaps. You must be absorbing it through your pores just from being around the barrio.”

“Very funny.”

“Sí, amigo. Muy cómico.”

The bartender approached and Chocron held up two fingers of one hand and pointed with the other. The bartender opened two Negra Modelos and set them in front of Chocron and Lindsey.

Chocron nodded and said,
“Pagele.”

Lindsey found a bill in his wallet and dropped it on the dark wood.

Chocron laughed and actually slapped Lindsey on the back. “See that? Keep it up, you'll be talking like a native.” He stopped and looked around theatrically, as if expecting to be confronted by enemies. “But if you do,” he resumed, “you'll have to watch out for
la migra
or you'll find yourself in a bus headed back for Mexico.” He pronounced it,
May-hee-co.

Lindsey said, “You want to go beyond that three hundred, Rigo?”

“You know it.” The jocularity had disappeared.

“I still need that computer. Now, what's this about a motorcycle?”

“Crista sold the laptop to a guy who wanted to buy a motorcycle.”

“That doesn't make sense.”

“The guy's was transferring from Laney—I knew him there—to Sacramento State. He was going to commute weekends.”

“From where?”

“Sacramento. I told you, he's going to Sacramento State. You see, even Mexicans know the value of education.”

Lindsey fought down an impulse to say,
Get the chip off your shoulder, Rigoberto, I'm not your enemy.
Instead he said, “So this student is using the laptop for college work? That's what you used it for, isn't it? When you met Rachael Gottlieb?”

“Yeah.”

“How does the laptop connect with the motorcycle?”

“Don't you see? If he was going to come home every weekend and go back to Sacramento every week for classes, he needed to bring the laptop with him.”

Progress, progress. Every link in the chain led to the next link. Eventually, Lindsey thought, he'd reach the end of the chain. The laptop. Or at least, he hoped as much.

“Give me a name.”

“The price is going up.”

“Yes.”

Lindsey watched Chocron take a sip of Negra Modelo. There was a TV set mounted above the bar. It was tuned to a soap opera, that much was obvious. The sound was turned off but the commercials featured on-screen messages in Spanish. Somebody had dropped a coin in an old-style jukebox and the bar was filled with loud salsa music.

“Carlos Montoya.”

“Do you know him?”

“A little.”

“You know where he lives?”

“Sure, but he wouldn't be there. He's probably in Sacramento.”

“And the laptop would be there?”

“Don't you think so?”

The bartender had furnished a pair of glasses along with the bottles of Negra Modelo. Lindsey hadn't touched his beer until now. He poured it into the glass and took a sip.

“Would he have a phone there?”

“Probably. I wouldn't know the number.”

Was that it then? Had Lindsey run into a wall?

“He lives with his parents when he's in Oakland.”

Good! Chocron was looking to earn some more twenties, that was obvious.

“Would they be home now?”

“One way to find out.” Chocron finished his Negra Modelo and climbed off the barstool.

The Montoya family lived on the lower floor of a cream-colored 1940s-style stucco house a few blocks from La Puerta Amarilla. Rigoberto Chocron led the way. You had to climb a short flight of stairs to reach the front door.

When Chocron rang the bell a curtain was drawn back, then allowed to fall into place again. The front door opened a crack. A gray-haired woman peered through the opening. Lindsey could see a man of the same age a few paces behind her. The woman said,
“Sí?”

Rigoberto Chocron let out a stream in Spanish, gestured toward Lindsey, smiled, and nodded at the old couple.

The woman stood aside and let them in.

The living room was like a setting out of a
Three Mesquiteers
movie. Overstuffed furniture, doilies on the tables and antimacassars on the chairs, family pictures on the mantel and crucifixes on the walls, a brilliant
serape
over the mantelpiece. Lindsey expected to see Duncan Renaldo ride up on his pony at any moment, or Bob Steele, or maybe even an impossibly young John Wayne.

There were portraits on the walls. Lindsey recognized a Black Madonna,
Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe.
Where in the world had he picked up that bit of information? There was a print of a stern, mustachioed Emiliano Zapata, and one of a grinning, optimistic César Chávez.

Señora Montoya smiled and spoke to Lindsey in Spanish.

Rigoberto Chocron said, “She wants to know if you'd like a cup of tea. Tell her yes.”

Lindsey smiled back and said,
“Sí, gracias.”

Señora Montoya went into a transport of delight when Lindsey spoke Spanish, however little and however poorly.

Chocron shot him an approving glance. He started a conversation with Señor Montoya. Lindsey heard Carlos Montoya's name a few times, and Sacramento, and references to
suprema
.

Señora Montoya reappeared with a tray and set it down on a table. They all shared tea and lemon cookies. Rigoberto Chocron and Lindsey thanked the Montoyas and took their leave.

Outside, walking slowly back toward Calle Catorce, Lindsey asked, “What was that about
suprema
?”

“Suprema? Suprema?” Chocron burst into laughter. “No, she wasn't saying
suprema.
She was saying,
su prima. Dos palabras.
Two words, Mr. Lindsey.
Su prima
is
his cousin.
The
A
tells you she's a girl cousin. Carlos doesn't have the laptop anymore. He upgraded. He gave the old one to his cousin, Jade.”

“Jade,” Lindsey repeated. He managed to duplicate Chocron's pronunciation pretty well, he thought.
Jade.
Pronounced,
Ha-day.

Rigoberto Chocron said, “
Muy bien,
amigo. Same as your English word
Jade
, only we pronounce it differently. That beautiful green stone, you know?”

Lindsey felt complimented. He said, “So this person, what, Carlos Montoya's cousin Jade—
Ha-day
—she has Wallace Thompson's laptop now.”

Chocron shrugged. “I don't even know Jade. I think Carlos may have mentioned her once or twice. I think she works for a musical instrument store in Berkeley when she's not at Cal. Carlos's dad gave me her phone number.”

Lindsey said, “All right. Let's go see her.”

Chocron shook his head. “Not so fast, amigo. I'll have to call her first and set something up. And you need to cross my palm with some more silver. You like that, cross my palm with silver? I picked that up in poetry class. Gypsies used to say that.”

Lindsey extracted another hundred dollars from the ATM on Calle Catorce. The same uniformed guard was standing outside the bank eyeballing customers as they used the machine. This time he looked twice as hard at Lindsey and Chocron, asked Lindsey again if everything was all right, and studied them as they walked away.

Chocron pulled Lindsey into the shadowed entry of a
tienda de ropas
and borrowed his cell phone to call Jade Montoya. He chattered away in Spanish, then closed the phone and handed it back to Lindsey. He said:

“Jade is willing to talk to you. She says she has a late first class tomorrow morning; she's going to work for a couple of hours before. She wants you to come by the place where she works first. Eight o'clock. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, you know that expression, amigo?”

Lindsey slipped his cell phone back into his pocket. “All right. What's her address?”

Chocron held out his hand.
“Tienes que cruzar mi palma con plata, amigo.”

Lindsey didn't need a translation. He sighed and started back toward the bank. By now he felt like old buddies with the uniformed guard.

*   *   *

Back at his hotel room, Lindsey booted up his own laptop and keyed in a report to Richelieu. He mentioned the cash payments to Chocron and warned Richelieu that there would be more expenses before this case was settled.

He checked his pocket organizer and tapped Eric Coffman's office number in Walnut Creek into his cell phone. It was after closing time but Lindsey knew that Eric often worked late. Even if he hadn't there might be voice mail. Lindsey got a recorded message saying that Coffman's number in Walnut Creek has been disconnected.

He did a little surfing and found what looked like a home listing for Eric Coffman in Emeryville. How convenient!

He punched in the number and was greeted by a halfway familiar voice.

He asked, “Is this Miriam?”

“No, this is her daughter, Rebecca. Who's calling, please? Were you trying to reach my mother?”

Good God, they did grow up, didn't they? Eric and Miriam's daughters, two little hellions in cow-ears and overalls.… “Yes, this is Hobart Lindsey and—”

“Just a minute, I'll get my mom.”

“No, I'm calling for—I mean, yes, I'm calling for your father, for Eric Coffman. Is he there?”

A minute later he was saying, “Eric, I thought that was Miriam.”

Coffman picked up the conversation as if there hadn't been a fifteen-year break. “Miriam is fine, Bart. The girls were over for dinner tonight. Sarah has to get back to Seattle in the morning but Rebecca lives in Oakland. We don't see them as often as we'd like. But never mind that. How are you? Where have you been hiding since the lunatics impeached Clinton? What are you up to?”

How to explain? No, there was no way. “Just laying low, Eric. I got downsized out of I.S. I guess I was lucky at that; they twisted my arm to take early retirement. They could just have laid me off. Anyway, Ducky Richelieu called me the other day—”

“Check, check, Bart. Marston and Morse versus Gordian House, Publishers, regarding the matter of
The Emerald Cat
.”

“Right, I think we should—”

“Look, come by the office tomorrow. I'm not in Walnut Creek anymore. After the girls moved out we couldn't take it in that big house anymore so we're in a condo at Watergate—you know Watergate?—talk about historical connections … and, wait a minute. Miriam is here and she wants you to come for dinner tomorrow. Yes. Right. Okay, I've got a little office in Berkeley, up in Northside. One o'clock okay? Good.”

He gave Lindsey the address and hung up.

Lindsey called room service for a sandwich and a bowl of soup. He knew the soup would arrive cold but what the devil did he care whether a bowl of soup was hot or cold?

He watched some news while he ate his meal. Then he muted the TV and called Marvia Plum. This time he got through to her. She asked if he was making any progress and he said he had gotten on the trail of the late Gordon Simmons's missing laptop.

“You really think you've got it?”

No, he told her. The thing had been traded more often than a left-handed relief pitcher. But he was working on it. And what about Marvia?

She had some things to tell him, too. Maybe they could get together. How did his schedule look for tomorrow?

He made a mental note to keep his appointments with Jade Montoya at the music shop and with Eric Coffman at his office. How did late afternoon sound?

Marvia approved. BPD headquarters on Martin Luther King, four o'clock.

He'd been trudging around Berkeley and Oakland all day and his feet were sore. He finally got around to taking his shoes off. Man, that felt good! A little later, showered and in his fanciest pajamas, he climbed into bed with the TV remote in his hand. He found a movie that he really enjoyed.
Fast Company,
with Melvyn Douglas and Florence Rice as a husband and wife team of rare book dealers turned amateur sleuths. The great Louis Calhern was in it as a superbly villainous Eli Bannerman.

He flipped through his mental Rolodex. Oh, yes, screenplay by Harry Kurnitz from the novel by Marco Page, a pseudonym of Harry Kurnitz. Joel Sloane was played by Douglas, whose real name was Melvyn Edouard Hasselberg. Bannerman was Calhern, who was actually Carl Henry Vogt.

Wallace Thompson was really Gordon Simmons. Steve Damon was really Rigoberto Chocron. Troy Percheron was really Tony Clydesdale. Helena Cairo was really Selena Thebes. And who or what was the Emerald Cat?

Nobody was who he really was, and nothing was what it seemed to be. Nothing was real.

SEVEN

It was cold under the thin quilt but Red managed to get her shakes under control by snuggling against Bobby, rubbing her cheek against the rough hair on his abdomen. A jolt would have been better than this but this was better than nothing.

She could smell the stuff he was smoking, cheap hash, which wasn't anything that interested her much. He shook a little himself, sometimes, and he didn't smell as nice to her as he used to. She slid down, closed her eyes, and pushed her forehead against his leg. She could feel the tendons through his flesh. He wasn't as thin as she was, but he was getting there.