A/N: Thanks again for the reviews, for reading, and for your patience. This chapter was so hard to write for some reason and I'm not going to post a chapter unless I'm happy with it.
Ch. 11: Drowning on Dry Land
With the phone to his ear while he waited for Warrick to get on the line, he looked out the open window at the park that was across the street. He saw the trees blowing in the wind, smelt salt in the air from the ocean, and could hear the noise of cars out on the street below. He could also hear noises coming from the apartment upstairs. They had music playing and it drifted down through his open window.
Smiling as he leaned back in the chair, he listened to Louis Armstrong sing out the lyrics to "La vie en rose" as he thought about Sara out there on the streets alone. He had to trust her to do her job and he had every bit of confidence that she'd show up with something new for him.
The phone was picked up and he heard Warrick get on the line. "Hey, Grissom."
Not wasting any time, he picked up a pen as he asked, "What'd you got for me?"
"All right, check it. Lillie was giving information to Grayson. Murphy was made the go-between; said that since he could claim that Lillie was his client that anything she told him was privileged information."
He wrote that down in his notebook as he asked, "How did she become an informant?"
"I don't know. You're gonna have to ask her, and when you do, I want to be there."
That was understandable. The door opened and he watched as Sara walked in. Smiling wider, he kept his eyes on her as she took off her sunglasses. Her bag was stuffed with the flowers he'd bought for her. "All right. I was going to come up tomorrow, but I can do it tonight. Then we can go talk to her together. Have you been talking to Lillie about what we've been doing?"
"I may be new to this but I know better than that. The only thing she could have been telling him was what she's been seeing around the club."
He thought about that as another question came to mind. "Was there a cook who worked at the club by the name of Cassidy? I don't have a last name."
"Cassidy…Yeah, yeah, Cassidy. There was this girl, a cook, with that name. She got fired a few months ago. Lillie got her a position at Madame Masque's Palace."
Smiling into the phone, he wrote that down as well as he told him, "You're doing great work, Warrick."
He huffed out a laugh as he said, "Don't I know it."
Sara draped the bag over the side of a chair that was for clients and sat down. She was smiling at him with a glint in her eyes. She had something. Something good.
"I'll see you tonight." As he hung up, he told Sara, "We have a new problem. A friend of Warrick's been giving information to Grayson through Jack." He tapped the pen on the desk as he asked, "What'd you find out?"
"I found the opium plants." He stared at her in surprise. She smiled as she handed the lighter camera to him. "I think we need to get these developed."
"I also need to have Greg develop the ones on the watch as well. You can do that," he said as he took the watch off and picked up the lighter and handed them both over to her. "Now that you two are so close."
She smirked at him as she took both cameras and put them back into her bag. "Can I tell you a little bit about the plants?"
"Is this from Virgil's book?" he asked.
"Partly; I told you I like vegetation," she said before leaning back in the chair before launching off into what she knew about the opium plants. "First thing to know, heroin comes from the gum of opium poppies. These flowers aren't difficult to grow. They thrive in temperate climates. Now, as we both know, it's undeniably illegal to grow opium poppies with the intent to make opium tea, heroin or any other intoxicating substance. The processing itself is not challenging technically, though it does involve more labor. The grower must use razors to slice the bulb under the poppy plant in the morning and then wait all day for drops of thick, white opium gum to ooze out. This gum is then scraped and processed with water and solvents to extract a morphine solution. Additional chemicals are added to precipitate solid morphine out of the liquid. It's then dried, heated and processed with several other chemical additives to make heroin. Additional purification steps are needed to make white-powder heroin, which is injectable." He was staring at her with such awe that he was certain that his mouth was open. She smiled and said, "That last part was in the book Virgil gave you."
He blinked back as he said, "That's great." He then added, "This could be about heroin distribution."
"We should bring in the FBI."
He was thinking about that as he tapped his pen on the desk. "I know someone I can reach out to."
"Of course you do," she said with a smirk.
Leaning back in the chair, he told her, "Generating contacts is half of what we do. Everywhere we go, the people we meet, they could all be potential informants, operators, or clients. Did you meet anyone today who could help us later?"
She gave it very little thought before telling him, "Mei. The young lady who works at the non-travel agency."
He nearly laughed at her joke as he wrote that name down as a potential informant. "Where did you find the plants? At Tao of San Francisco?"
"No, it's at a secondary location off Green Street. Green and—"
"Powell?" he asked as he jerked his head up as he recognized the street.
She stared at him in surprise as she said, "How'd you know?"
"Because that's where I was. Grayson's investment firm is off Powell, between Vallejo and Green Street. I had the Turkish coffee at—"
"Istanbul Cafe?"
He smiled. She smiled.
Then the air in the room changed and so did the music as a new record was put on the turntable upstairs. He heard a noise and looked towards his office door as a man barged through it, startling them both and rattling the walls.
The man was angry and he was arguing with Catherine as she told him that he couldn't go into his office. The man who barged into his office was Hank Pettigrew. His eyes were angry as he demanded, "Where is she?" Hank's eyes then fell onto Sara and he saw the angry look in her ex-fiancé's eyes.
~"Now, when I was a little boy, at the age of five, I had somethin' in my pocket, keep a lot of folks alive. Now I'm a man, turnin' twenty one, you know, baby, we can have a lot of fun. I'm a man. I spell M-A-N…Man—"~
In his back pocket was his switchblade and in his shoulder holster was his gun and he prayed like hell that he wouldn't have to pull either. But there was a fire in Hank's eyes that he knew all too well. He'd seen it in many men's eyes right before they started throwing punches. Feeling his jaw flex, he tried the logical route first. Reasoning with logical human beings should have been an easy thing to do, but he found out quickly in life that a lot of people didn't think logically all the time.
From school yard bullies to his own father, no one was above impulsivity when it came to their emotions. It got worse when love was involved. Love could make the most logical person do the stupidest of things.
And right then Hank did a stupid thing. He turned from Sara and his angry eyes landed on him as he stood from his chair and rounded the desk. Hank didn't even give him time to try to reason with him before a fist hit him in the face and he stumbled back into his desk. Since he hadn't seen it coming, he was left disoriented and dizzy but he saw the second fist flying and moved his head back as he kicked out his leg to push Hank away from him.
Sara went to grab Hank to get him to stop. The wildness in Hank's eyes was enough for him to turn and start welting on her. That was when the fire in his own head ignited as he pushed off the desk and grabbed Hank's arm under his shoulder and hooked it with his arm to keep him from going after Sara.
"Back off," he yelled as he pulled him away. He tried to shove him away but Hank was bigger than him, younger than him, and a hell of a lot stronger as he spun them both around and slammed him into the wall.
It was a struggle to get Hank to calm down. Adrenaline was a hell of a drug and he could only try to hold out until the fight was out of the man. Hank tried to hit him in the face again but he moved just in time and Hank's fist slammed into the wall and put a dent in the plaster.
He jabbed him into the right side, right into his kidney, and Hank groaned as he arched up his back in pain. He may not have been the best fighter, but he knew human anatomy and a kidney shot was one of the worst. If he'd hit Hank hard enough he could make him pee blood or worse, cause internal bleeding. The kidney shot wasn't enough to stop him as Hank swung his arm around and caught him on the right side of his head, hitting his ear.
Pain shot through his head as he said, "Son-of-a—" that hurt! Turning, he slammed into Hank, sending them back into his bookcase, knocking his books to the floor and onto their heads but he didn't care. He'd pissed him off.
He hit Hank once in the face and as he drew back for the second he heard a voice and stilled.
"Stop it!"
Looking over, he saw Sara in the doorway with Catherine. That gave Hank time to recover and he grabbed him up by the waist and brought him down on top of his desk. Seeing that Hank was about to hit him again, he raised up his arms to defend himself when he heard Sara call out again.
"Hank! Stop it," she gritted out as she grabbed him, shoved him away, and then smacked him. The sound stilled everyone in the room.
Hank's wide eyes were staring at her in shock. "Sara, I—"
"If you think this is going to get me to come back to you, you're delusional. Get out!"
When Hank refused to leave as he stepped closer to Sara, he pushed off the desk to get in front of her, telling him, "This is our place of business. If you ever come back here again, I'm calling the police."
Hank glared at him as the wildness threatened to take over again but he thought better of it as he looked once more at Sara. Whatever fight he had in him turned to bitterness, into hurt and disappointment. Shaking his head at her, he walked by them toward the door. Catherine moved aside to let him pass by. He heard the door open then slam shut.
Catherine sighed as she looked at him and asked, "What is it with you and fights?"
Glancing at her, he shrugged. "Men," he quipped as he tried to ease the tension in the room.
Turning to Sara, the look on her face nearly broke his heart. He'd seen angry women before in his lifetime and it was never followed by a pleasant experience. Her jaw was locked, arms crossed over her chest as she looked at him. Then her anger morphed into guilt. "Are you okay?"
"I should be asking you that."
He hated fist-fights. His jaw throbbed, he tasted blood on his lip, felt his ear burning, and there was a pounding in his head. Other than that, he was fine. Sara wasn't fine. Her bottom lip started to quiver slightly and he saw tears in her eyes.
"Catherine, can you give us a few minutes?" he asked without taking his eyes off Sara.
She reached out and touched Sara on the shoulder with an encouraging smile before leaving the room.
"Not your fault." He reached out and touched her face as she reached up and covered his hand with hers.
"But it is my fault," she told him. "I shouldn't have broken it off with him the way I did—"
He shook his head, telling her, "You're not responsible for his actions. There's nothing you did."
"He loves me and….I hurt him. I, um, I need to get some air." She let go of his hand, grabbed her bag off the chair, and walked to the door. Stopping, she looked back at him as she said, "I'm sorry."
He sat on his desk as he watched her leave the office. A dejection settled over him and it was hard to reason it out or shake it off. That sorry almost sounded like regret.
Before he could think too much about it, the door opened once again and Jim Brass walked in. Getting up, he walked out into the lobby as he said, "What is this? Come to Grissom's Office Day?"
"I wouldn't have come here if you'd return phone calls." Brass looked at Catherine who had gone back to acting secretary as she sat behind the desk and said, "Is she why Sara looked like she's on the verge of tears? Did you fire her and get a new secretary?"
"She's not fired. She stepped out to get some air. This is Catherine, a friend of mine. She's a nurse."
"He can't afford me as his secretary," Catherine said as she grabbed the medical journal and her purse. "I have to go pick up Lindsey."
After Catherine walked out, Brass asked, "Why can't you afford her?"
He walked back into his office as he told him, "She works one day, not even eight hours, and she asks for a week's pay. At that rate, I'll be paying her $500 a week."
"She's right, you can't afford her."
"What's this about?" he asked as he turned to face Brass once they were inside his office with the door shut. Not like anyone was going to hear them.
"You don't answer your phone any more or return calls? You know they invented his phone answering machine. We got one at the police department. It's amazing. It records—"
"Jim," he said as he stopped him. Shaking his head, he said, "Should I charge you a fee for wasting my time?"
Brass stared at him as he asked, "What's gotten into you?"
"You want to know what's gotten into me? Why is R.B. Grayson a free man? You have the shell casing, the dead body, and my eye witness testimony—"
"I also have a negative match on his gun to the shell casing, no fingerprints, and it's your word against his," Brass shot back. "Oh, and he has an alibi. Two of his employees Mr. Adam Cohen and Ms. Fay Doyle says that he was in his office at the time of the shooting and he's never been to Madame Masque's Palace. Grayson said we should be looking at you for the murder."
He huffed out a laugh and shook his head, "What did Madame Heather say?"
"She's not talking."
He sighed heavily. "She can't say anything. She's being paid off not to. She's a witness to Grayson being in her establishment. She was down in the basement room with me when Grayson arrived...What if I can present evidence that proves they're lying."
"Then I say you better hand it over, otherwise, we can't book him for the murder. If you would have answered your phone, you would have known this hours ago."
They stood staring at one another for a long moment and he felt himself finally deflate as he sat down in his chair and rubbed his hands through over his head. He had the evidence on his camera watch. He had to get those to Greg. Sara had them in her bag and he didn't know where she went or when she'd be back.
"Gil, what's going on? You call Officer Stokes—"
"There are cops involved in a possible conspiracy to remove Langston from his position. They could also be involved with organized crime, and quite possibly the murder of Thomas Harcourt. I don't know who I can trust in the department."
"That's a lot of possibles to be making baseless accusations."
"When have I ever made baseless accusations?" he glared over at him. He couldn't tell Brass that they had proof of a conspiracy and a material witness ready to be put on the stand. They just needed all the evidence to back up the claims as well as all names of those involved, which they were gathering.
Brass let out a breath as he glanced at him and then rubbed his hand over the back of his neck out of anxiety, and anger. "Jesus. This is why the cold shoulder?"
He could have been making a mistake, but also needed to know right then and there if Brass really was his friend and could be trusted. "When you came over to my house to pick me up to go talk to your Captain, I got a phone call from Greg Sanders. You know I use him for pictures. I wrote down the time and place so I wouldn't forget. No one else knew about it. I got there and someone else had beaten me there. Guess who that someone was?"
Brass worked that over. After a moment, he said, "I don't know."
"Your dead guy. Trevor. That was why I was there at Madame Masque's Palace. Trevor had been in Greg's house, searching for the pictures from a camera that belongs to Grayson. Now, you tell me…Did you read that message? Did you tell anyone where I'd be at one o'clock yesterday? Did you tell anyone about Greg, Jim?"
He'd known Jim Brass for a long time, and he knew when he was lying and when he was telling the truth. It was in his eyes. Stepping over to him, Brass told him, "I didn't say anything about Sanders to anyone. I had no idea you were even meeting with him, Gil. I cooked breakfast, sat down at your kitchen table, and I ate my breakfast. Then we left together, and that was it."
There was nothing but the truth in his eyes. "You haven't talked to anyone—"
"Not a single soul about anything."
All that looked to be the truth. It could have been. He wanted to believe him. He wanted to believe the truthful look in his eyes. It was a damn good look. "Explain to me again why you checked the ballistics of the gun found in Harcourt's closet with the one from my wife's murder? Gut instinct isn't good enough."
Brass was eyeing him like a suspect now. "Where's this going?"
He honestly didn't know where this was going. He shook his head and moved over to his bookshelf. As he started to pick up the books that had fallen on the floor, he told him, "I'm thinking that I know who killed my wife. And if I'm correct, then someone else was there with him at the time of the murder. This guy, he, uh…he's a blackmailer. That's how he gets his accomplices to comply."
'You don't think—"
"I do think—"
"Where do you get off," Brass suddenly snapped at him. "I'm your friend. And, I'd have you know, I'm as clean as a baby's bottom. So, whatever you're thinking in that big brain of yours, stop thinking it; got it?"
He put all his books back as he tried to work over all that in his head. It was hard to know who to believe anymore or who to trust. He figured if he erred on the side of caution with everyone, then he wouldn't be surprised when one of them betrayed him. Thinking back to the day his family was killed, he remembered once again seeing a car that looked like Brass's old car. Green 1941 Oldsmobile coupe with white-walled tires. It'd been on the corner. "You sold your old car..when, again? Spring of 1946?"
That caught him off guard. "My old car…The Oldsmobile?"
"Yeah. It was spring, correct?"
Brass was eyeing him again; that suspicious look in his eyes as he told him, "Yea. March. I sold it to O'Riley. Anything else I can help you with?"
He gave a nod as he remembered several nights ago when he'd been put into handcuffs by Detective Shaw.
"He told you where it was, didn't he?" Shaw asked him and that was when he realized the real reason that Shaw staked out the house and had been waiting for him. He only wanted the camera.
Either Judge Cohen let Detective Shaw know that he talked to Mr. Harcourt or Mr. Harcourt actually did call Shaw after he and Sara left him yesterday. Right then he didn't know which it was, or it could have been both. It didn't matter. He didn't trust the detective. "Any evidence I obtain will be delivered to the proper—"
"Cut the bullshit, Grissom—"
"Why don't we all calm down here," O'Riley said as he held up his hands. "Officers, release them both."
Shaw glared at O'Riley and they exchanged a look. Shaw couldn't believe it but he finally stepped away from him and gave a nod to the officers. He was turned around and the handcuffs came off.
"Does O'Riley know Detective Daniel Shaw, personally or…?"
Brass shrugged. "Shaw's vice. O'Riley's homicide. I don't know whether their paths have crossed or not. Grissom, are you going to let me in on what's going on? I feel like I'm missing something here."
So did he, he thought as he rubbed his head. "I'm just thinking."
"Can you do it out loud and I might be able to help you?"
He looked at Brass as he told him, "You want to help me, find out who broke into my office and took those pictures out of my casefile. That's how you can help. Start with O'Riley." Walking around him, he headed for the door to leave.
"Where're you going?"
"Court. Lock up when you leave," he shouted back as he opened the door and walked out.
He had no idea where Sara went or if she'd even be back today. It sounded as if she and Hank had a lot to talk about. There was still a lot he had to do today. Go see Ray about that deal he'd made with Jack. He'd call Lewis and see if R.B Investments gave him a call. Then he'd go up to the motel to deliver the papers for Jack to sign.
~"I'm going down, my nose is in the sand, I'm going down, down, baby. My nose is in the sand. A cloud of dust just came over me and I think I'm drowning on dry land…"~
After he got the paperwork from Ray Langston, he called Lewis. Lewis told him to meet him at a tavern called The Old Moon Inn and that was what he was doing. He entered the bar as Albert King was singing out the bluesy song. There was a hazy layer of smoke in the air and within the already dark bar, it was hard to see anyone until he got right up on top of them.
There was a single beam of sunlight that came in through the window above the door and he saw his shadow in it before he moved away, further into the bar and the cloud of smoke. Most of the patrons were businessmen who'd just gotten off work, others were women looking to tempt a businessman into betraying their wives for one night.
There was a group of five men at a round table, most with a young lady on their knees—Secretaries or the waitresses—and they were all drinking highballs and smoking and carrying on like a bunch of laughing hyenas. Passing the table, he neared the back of the bar and spotted him in the booth by the jukebox and the hallway that led to the restrooms and back exit.
He'd grown a beard since the last time he'd seen him but his face wasn't unrecognizable. Lewis had been his college roommate at San Francisco State and they'd continued on to graduate school together until Pearl Harbor happened. He'd dropped out and joined the Navy. When the Navy learned of his auto-mechanic background, since Lewis's father had an auto repair shop and Lewis spent summers there working, he'd been sent to the US Naval Institute in Richmond, Virginia. At the institute, Lewis learned about diesel engines, which was used by the new naval landing crafts.
After his training, he got to come home on leave. That's when he'd been out with Lewis when he'd met his wife. They weren't just celebrating his birthday, but it had also been a going away party for Lewis. He left San Francisco for London where he awaited his crew to receive orders. He'd told him once that he'd experienced the air raids in London and had to seek shelter with the ordinary Londoner. Lewis and his crew on the LCT–Landing Craft Tank—539 participated in the D-Day assault on Omaha Beach.
When he'd asked him about that experience all Lewis told him was that it was raining death.
They never talked about it again.
As he approached the table, he removed his hat and tossed it on the table as he slid into the booth on the opposite side of Lewis Dawson: real estate agent, former mechanic, and uncover war hero. The man never let anyone know that he had a Bronze Star and Purple Heart, but he knew.
Behind dark brown eyes and a meticulous grin, Lewis said, "Dr. Jekyll—"
"Would you stop with that? It wasn't even that funny in college."
Lewis looked past his shoulder and waved someone over. It was the waitress. "I'll have another beer. He's buying."
He leaned back in the booth and told the tall blond with pearls around her neck and the shortest skirt he'd ever seen on woman, "I'll have the same." He didn't drink highballs. If he was going to drink whiskey, he'd drink it straight. It was too early for whiskey.
Taking out a cigarette, Lewis offered him one. He waved it away to his friend's surprise. "You finally quit–quit?"
He gave a nod. "Planning to keep it that way."
"I'd go mad if I couldn't smoke. They handed these things out to us like candy. Now, that's what they've become: candy. Completely bad for you but you have to have one."
He waited for his beer to be placed in front of him before he asked, "You said you got a call from Mr. Cohen."
"Shifty guy," Lewis said as he leaned back in the booth and took a sip of the beer as his eyes moved around the interior of the bar like a hawk.
"You could tell that from a phone call?" he asked, impressed if it were true.
"I deal with shifty guys all the time. Someone's always trying to lowball you in the real estate business." He took a drink and a drag off the smoke as his dark brown eyes landed on him. If there was anyone who could make him feel uneasy, and he even knew that he liked him, it was Lewis. There was always something in his eyes, buried and hidden but there. Ready to strike.
And after meeting R.B. Grayson, he realized what it was: war. They both still had the war inside of them. He was reminded of what he'd told Brass about time. For some, time wasn't a straight line. The past existed with the present and tainted the future. Lewis never really left Omaha Beach. Just as he never left that living room where his family's blood stained the floor.
Reaching over, he grabbed the pack of cigarettes that was on the table, tapped one out, and lit it. Looking at Lewis, he dared him to say something. He didn't. They understood one another. They'd both seen death.
"Is the business legit?"
"Oh, it's legit. They've bought plenty of real estate over the years. Particularly—"
"The International Settlement."
Lewis raised his eyes at him and blew out the smoke. "I hate it when you do that."
He smiled then took a drink of the beer.
"Get this, R.B. Investments own the land, Alex Hardy owns the buildings. I had to fabricate the location of your fake land you wanted them to buy. It wasn't a shot in the dark once I knew who I was talking to."
"How'd you mean?"
Lewis tapped off the ash from the cigarette as he leaned on the table, dropping his voice like he had to tell him a secret. Maybe he did. "Cohen…Adam Cohen. Son of Harrison Cohen. The Honorable Judge." He stared at Lewis and couldn't believe he didn't think to check for a family connection. "Judge Cohen has been trying to buy up Bayview for years."
What in the hell was in Bayview? Pacific Gas and Electric Company. It used to be home of the San Francisco shrimping industry when Chinese immigrants took over. Then the Naval Shipyard claimed it… "Doesn't the Navy own that land?"
"They only own part of the property, not all of it. They claimed it through eminent domain. It's populated by a lot of Italians now."
Italians…? That caught his interest. He's met several Italians lately.
He headed down the stairs to the basement floor under Madame Masque's Palace that opened into a long hallway that ran the length of the building. The second door on the right was the room with the hole in the wall that opened into the tunnel that led to the warehouse at the docks. When they reached the door, it was already open. There were metal stairs that led from the door down into the small brick room. At the bottom of the stairs was Heather and a young man in a black suit.
"Go watch the door, Eli," she told the young man who only took a passing glance at him before going up the stairs.
Eli. And, he knew another Italian with an address in Bayview: Robert "Bobby" Stone.
"Planet earth to Gilbert? Can you hear me?" Lewis was waving his hand in front of his face. He laughed when he saw his bemused smirk. Closing his eyes, he rubbed his head as he tried to fit the pieces together. His head was hurting. "Are you awake in there? If you think anymore, you'll give yourself an aneurysm."
What else was in Bayview that Judge Cohen would want to buy property…Opium was coming from the Chinese in Chinatown. They still had unaccounted for weapons. Maybe the weapons weren't being shipped out but being shipped in. An export, import business. Opium went out, weapons came in. It was an exchange. "The train runs through there, right? The Southern Pacific Railroad?"
Lewis thought about it as he took a long drag off the smoke and then said, "Yeah, it does."
"Train car goes out to Reno, Nevada," he was saying as he let his mind follow the export of the opium shipment out of the state, "from Port Chicago. Import comes in from…" Southern Pacific came up California from…"Los Angeles up through Bayview. Where do they intersect?" They both were thinking about it and he came up empty. "They don't."
"Unless, the shipment isn't going to Reno."
He stared over at Lewis as he let that thought intermix with all the others. "Where's it going?"
"How the hell should I know," Lewis said with a shrug. "I'm not the detective, you are," he said before finishing the beer then checked his watch. It was time to go.
Yeah, he was the detective. He finished his beer and took out his wallet to pay for the beers. "Anything else?"
"Like I said, the guy was shifty. I didn't actually have a deal to offer them so I had to say that the other buyer came through. After that—" Lewis picked up his pack of cigarettes and stuffed them into his suit jacket pocket, "the bridge I'd been building with him burned to the ground."
They left the bar together and as he stepped out into the late afternoon sun, he felt the coolness in the air, it was going to be rainy tonight and foggy, and heard cars honking and then it was like someone dunked his head under water. It all went away in a second.
Looking around the sidewalk and street, he saw life still moving around him and saw Lewis's mouth moving. Focusing on his lips, he saw him say, "It was good seeing you. I've missed you—"
He smirked as he told him, "You're doing fine without me."
A sadness filled his friend's eyes as he looked at him. There was a hand on his shoulder and he felt him give it a squeeze before he told him, slowly, "We need our friends, Gil. Who else do we have?"
He felt the tension in his throat as he looked away. He wasn't wrong. A slap hit his back and he looked over at Lewis. His friend looked tired, but so did he. They shook hands as he told him, "Thanks," as a delivery boy passed them on a bike and rang a bell so they'd move. His hearing was back; for the moment.
"You know you can call me anytime," Lewis said as he pulled out his keys and walked to his car that was parked down the street. "And, hey, If you want, I'll even get that paperwork for you to be licensed as a real estate agent. That investment offer you sold Cohen was brilliant."
He watched his friend walk away. Before he got to his car, he was already missing him. Pulling out his keys, he headed to his car as he saw the grey clouds move in over the city. He knew it. It was going to rain.
At the motel, he had Jack Murphy sign the papers for his deal with Langston. While standing in the office as Juan swept the floor, he stood staring out the window as the rain came down outside the motel with the phone pressed to his ear. He was calling his office. There was no answer.
"We going?"
After hanging up the phone, he turned to Warrick who was waiting for him by the door. It was time to go see Lillie Ivers. "Juan, estar atento."
"¿Te crees que tengo ojos en la nuca o qué?" Juan said as he kept his eyes on the floor as he swept.
He grabbed his hat off the counter as he rounded it, saying, "Get one of your kids to watch the counter. You have ten of them."
"Siete!
"My apologies. Seven. Or get one of them to go help Sofia keep an eye on the Murphys."
"¡Tu maletín!"
He glared at Juan before looking at Warrick who stood at the door, confused. "He's being argumentative. He wants to be paid." He pulled out his wallet and pulled out a twenty and handed it toward Juan. When he didn't take it, he dropped it on the floor in front of his broom.
Juan acted surprised as he bent down and picked it up, saying sarcastically, "Look what I swept up off the floor!"
"Will you please keep an eye out?" he asked again as Warrick opened the door and they went to leave as he put his hat on his head. It was pouring outside.
"Sí, sí. Don't embullarse."
He shook his head and didn't know why he put up with the old man, other than the fact that he'd been working with him for close to five years now. They ran to the car and got in. As the thumping of the rain pounded on the roof of the convertible, he pulled away from the motel and headed back to San Francisco.
With the cloud coverage and rain, by the time they got into the city it looked like it was midnight when it was only seven in the evening. Warrick directed him where to go and they arrived in the Lower Haight neighborhood.
"218, right here," Warrick said as he pointed to a tall and thin, grey, three-story building on a slanted slope. "She has the top floor apartment."
He had to put the parking brake on, and wheels turned to the left so the car wouldn't roll downhill. The rain was still coming down heavily as they got out of the car and ran up the two sets of steps and got under the awning with the building number printed on it. Warrick was pressing a button on a panel next to the front door. He saw the button was to apartment number G3: Ivers, L.
The speaker crackled to life as a voice said, "Who is this?"
"Lillie, it's Warrick, let me in."
"Rick! Where the hell have you been?" she asked before the door buzzed open and they slipped in out of the rain.
As they hurried up the stairs that wounded and twisted up to the third floor, the door on the top floor opened. Lillie stood in the doorway as they rounded the corner. Her eyes were on Warrick, a smile on her lips, but the moment she spotted him she tensed up and the smile was gone.
"What's he doing here?"
"I invited him," Warrick said as he pushed his way by her and into the apartment. He followed.
It was a nice, cozy studio apartment. There were pink draperies hanging down from the ceiling to separate the bed from the rest of the living space. There was a round table by the front windows stacked with books, a couch against the wall, and a radio/phonograph player next to it. In the middle of the room was a bigger square table but it was lower to the floor. Cushions and mats were around the table. A throw blanket was over the couch. A armoire and bureau were next to the pink draperies and while Warrick and Lillie talked, he went over to the bureau.
He told Warrick that it was okay to confront her about talking to Jack Murphy. That's exactly what he did.
"What's this I hear about you talking to a lawyer?"
"That ain't nothing," she was saying.
"It ain't nothing? Jack Murphy's singing a different tune. You're an informant now?"
"Hey, baby—"
"Don't you "hey, baby" me."
He glanced up as he heard the tone in Warrick's voice. Warrick had jerked away as Lillie tried to reach out to touch him. He wasn't having any of it. It didn't look like it was going to come to blows, except for the verbal kind, so he went back to searching around. He opened the armoire and saw a mirror on the back of the door, clothes on one side and shoes. A lot of shoes.
Opening the other side, he saw all kinds of personal items for women, including bras hanging from hooks, and other things hanging from places, and then he opened one of the drawers in the middle between the two doors. Earrings. The next one was necklaces. The other one…"Hey, Warrick."
"What's he—" Lillie was saying, "You can't be going through my stuff—"
Warrick appeared at his side. Looking at him, he said, "You know, my case has to do with opium. Opium makes heroin. I think I just found our connection to Lillie." He then gestured for him to look into the drawer. Inside the tiny drawer were tiny bags of white powder. They were bags of heroin. "You've never—"
"No," Warrick said sternly with so much restrained anger he was afraid to say anything else. "She doesn't have marks on her arms."
Glancing over at Lillie, he looked at her feet and saw they were stuffed into one of her many pairs of shoes. "Most users start by injecting it between their toes."
Warrick worked his jaw as he turned to stare at Lillie. "Let me see your feet."
Lillie had her arms crossed over her chest as she told him, "Go to hell. I'm not letting you see anything. What are you…You walk out on the band and suddenly you come in here thinking you can look through my stuff—"
"Miss Ivers," he said as he walked closer to her and took off his hat. "Why don't we relax and take a seat—"
"I don't want to take a seat. I want you out! The both of you!"
"All I want to know is what you've been telling Mr. Murphy?" She didn't say anything as she turned away and headed over to the window to look out. "You weren't the only one. It was you and Cassidy, right? Was it just information about the—"
"Cassidy was his girl. Not me," she said.
He glanced at Warrick as he asked, "Who's girl?"
"He's supplying everybody, everybody who's somebody. He's got us all. This is what he does. He makes you pay him back somehow, someway. We all owe him favors. He's got his claws in everyone. You want to know why Reggie keeps being late? He picks up the stuff. The greedy bastard gets high before he ever makes it back to the club."
"Does Dixon know?" Warrick asked her.
She shook her head. "He doesn't know. I talk to the lawyer as a form of payment since I can't afford to pay any other way. I just tell him whatever he asks. About the club, who's in it, what I see, what I hear…That's all."
Asking again, he said, "Lillie, who is "he"? Who does Cassidy belong to?"
Turning around, she wiped the tears off her face as she told him, "Grayson."
He stared at her in disbelief for a moment before he realized how Cassidy stole from Grayson. It was the only way she could have stolen from him. She'd been with him. She took his camera…He remembered the items found in the metal box in Harcourt's closet. The gun that killed his wife and money.
He'd bet anything she took more than the camera from Grayson, but the gun and some cash. Cassidy wiped the gun clean, put it in the box along with the cash and camera. Then she told Thomas about it; showed it to him.
Realizing what Cassidy had done, what they had, Thomas went to the police. A Vice cop, but only after hiding the camera. Maybe he'd planned on taking the camera to the police and thought better of it on the way and that's why he stashed it. Or, he noticed he was being followed.
It didn't matter. Thomas was dead. He had the camera and pictures. And R.B. Grayson was after every single one of them, including Cassidy.
"Lillie, you might want to consider leaving."
She huffed out a laugh as she said, "Where am I to go? I'm not going anywhere. I have a show to do tonight." She turned back around, dismissing them.
Walking into his house, he tossed the keys into the marble bowl and removed his hat. Going over to his desk, he tried calling again. He didn't know why. She wasn't there. He hung up and looked around his house. Nothing changed since this morning except it felt like everything did. Sara hadn't called or been by since she left the office. Picking up the phone again, he called Greg.
After the fifth ring, he answered, "Hello?"
"Hey, Greg, this is Grissom. Did, uh…did Sara come by earlier today?"
"Yeah, she dropped off the cameras. I'm developing the film now. I also put new rolls of film inside each one for you."
"Thanks," he hung up the phone and let out a breath. He felt somewhat better knowing that she took the cameras to Greg. She was still doing her job. That was a good thing.
Going into the kitchen, he grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator, punched some holes in it, and took a drink. What a day, he thought as he felt how tired his body was as he removed his suit jacket and gun holster and laid them over the back of his couch. Last night, Grayson had been sitting on that couch, threatening Sara, whom he'd kissed on his front porch, and now…
Grayson had been in his house. He straightened as he gave that some thought. What had Brass said? That the shell casing didn't match Grayson's gun. That meant he had two guns. One he used to kill Trevor with and dispose of and the other was his personal weapon.
But, he had been in his house. Grayson had been in his house that night after killing Trevor and he told Brass…"Grayson said we should be looking at you for the murder."
Grayson hadn't been there to just search his house.
He sat the beer can down on the kitchen counter as his eyes searched his house for anything out of place. What had he seen out of place last night?
His notepad had been moved and the note of his calendar was missing. The one about Greg's house at one o'clock. Going over to his desk, he pulled out the drawers and checked inside them and then under them. He even pulled it away from the wall and checked behind it. He then checked his piano. The music sheets had been moved. It was empty. He went into the sitting room and checked the chair, the table, the radio, and he had a lot of books but none of them were out of place.
Going down the hallway, he searched his bedroom, the bathroom, and the second bedroom. Then he checked the hall closets. He pulled off his tie and unbuttoned his shirt cuffs and the top two buttons before running down the steps to the basement and garage. His workstation was good, the storage closet and shelves were clear.
He went into the laundry room and checked around, on top of, and behind the furnace and water heater. Spotting the big sink to soak clothes in, he walked over and checked under it and then behind—
A gun.
Taped to the back of the sink was a gun.
Sweat was rolling off his head and into his eyes. Wiping it away with his sleeve, he let out a breath. This guy played way out in front. There was no doubt in his mind that the bullet that killed Trevor would match that gun. Grayson had left the shell casing on the floor for a reason.
He let out a breath as he turned around and sank to the floor. Leaning back against the wall, he caught his breath and thought how best to handle the situation. As he rested his head against the wall, eyes closed, he heard pounding that wasn't coming from his head. It was coming from upstairs.
Getting up off the floor, he headed up the steps. The sun was setting and he saw out the window over the chess table the fog was moving into the hills. Flipping the outside light on, he opened the door and let out a breath.
There she was.
Sara, and she was soaking wet from the rain.
TBC…
Disclaimer songs mentioned: "La vie en rose," performed by Louis Armstrong. "I'm a Man" by Bo Diddley. "Drowning on Dry Land" by Albert King.
