Scorpio Rising by Alan Annand
“Nice shoes,” Starrett said as they got into the car. Cantata’s Nikes had a brilliant yellow stripe along the sole and over the back of the heel.
“Air Zooms.” Cantata put his foot on the transmission hump so Starrett could have a better look. The black leather upper featured a stunning yellow lasering in an intricate design. “Originally designed for Kobe Bryant but you can order your own design on the web. Boys on the street see these, they know I’m one cool hombré.”
“Never any doubt,” Starrett said.
Cantata keyed the ignition and the engine rumbled. They wheeled out of the lot and thundered up 101 a few miles, took the Terra Linda exit and entered a strip mall just off Northgate. A Safeway, Kinko’s and Starbucks anchored the mall while a bunch of other little shops clung like remora to the body of the sharks.
They entered the Sonoma Taco Shop and ordered the daily special, chicken enchiladas, while commiserating over their love lives. Cantata was going out with a hot Jewish girl from Mill Valley but the prospects for being accepted by her family were poor, his being an uncircumcised spic undercover narcotics cop and all.
They were sucking back the last of their Doctor Peppers when a shifty-looking Hispanic kid in baggy pants and oversize sweatshirt, cap on sideways and shoelaces dragging tattered, came in and ordered a beef burrito and Coke to go. Cantata and Starrett went outside and sat in the Mustang. The kid came out a minute later. Cantata popped the door and hunched his seat forward so the kid could slide in back.
The kid’s name was Gato and he looked like a cat too, the homeless kind that rips open garbage bags searching for table scraps. It took only a few minutes to determine that he was a lying piece of shit who hadn’t seen or heard anything except some second-hand speculation about the Diablos killing the Merguez brothers, and all he wanted was some informant cash or other considerations, like a free hand dealing weed out of the nearby Northgate Mall. Cantata got out to open the door and when Gato emerged, cuffed him in the back of the head and sent his cap flying.
“Sorry for wasting your time,” Cantata told Starrett as they headed back to town. “I shoulda pumped him a little more over the phone.”
“Shit happens,” Starrett said. “But I had to have lunch anyway and that was a good enchilada.”
~~~
That afternoon Starrett spoke on the phone to three different parole officers – in Sausalito, San Rafael and Novato – under whose jurisdiction fell certain known associates of the Diablos. He went through the roster of names, determining current addresses, whether employed and where, how regularly they checked in, whether they frequented locations habituated by other known felons…
He’d just finished his last call when Hutchins entered with two cans of iced tea. Starrett leaned back in his swivel chair and caught the can that Hutchins tossed.
“Anything new on our friend?”
Hutchins shrugged. “He visited a funeral home over at Mount Tamalpais Cemetery, spent an hour there. Had lunch with a couple of friends at that new seafood restaurant in Corte Madera. A bottle of white, a few laughs, all very light and lively. Spent the rest of the afternoon bowling.”
“Balling with his friends? Instead of grieving?”
Hutchins laughed. “Bowling. At the local place over by Pickleweed Park.”
“When’s Lang’s funeral?”
“Newspaper says, day after tomorrow.”
“That’s it, huh?”
“Yep. Didn’t strike me as a guy in mourning. He’s back home now, probably soakin’ in the hot tub with a chilled bottle of Napa on the side.” He sipped his iced tea. “Doesn’t seem fair, does it?”
“You know what’s not fair? Some weekend sailor with a boat bigger’n mine.”
“What about a tranny with a dick bigger’n yours?”
Starrett laughed. “Unthinkable.”
Hutchins lowered himself into his chair. “Anything on your end?”
“Feds called. No hits on the face recognition database.” Starrett told Hutchins about resubmitting the video clip to Quantico under the Captain’s signature. “And I haven’t heard squat from TRAK, so I guess no one on patrol’s seen our mystery man.” He briefed Hutchins on the Merguez brothers case.
Hutchins wasn’t much interested in it. Far as he was concerned every second Saturday should be set aside for drug dealers to meet in vacant parking lots and kill each other off. It was a dog-eat-dog world and they were welcome to gnaw on each other’s bones. But the death of an upstanding citizen like Bernie Lang was something he wouldn’t let go of. “What are we going to do about Munson?”
“Damned if I know,” Starrett sighed. “He’s got a compelling motive but he was nine hundred miles away at the time. And with no ID to make this guy on the Larkspur video, we’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell of establishing a link to Munson. Based on evidence in hand, it looks pretty hopeless. Only thing keeps me intrigued is his obvious fabrication about Lang’s sexual preferences, and that missing sixty grand.”
“Maybe Lang had another friend Munson didn’t know about. Maybe Lang put up the money for a sex-change operation. The dollar amount sounds about right, doesn’t it?”
“But Lang’s already got a tranny in Bobbi Chang.”
“You can never have too many friends. Maybe he’s grooming someone else for a dance partner.”
“Maybe. But there’s no law against footing someone’s sex change. Why would Lang pay cash?”
“Maybe that’s how the doctor wanted it.”
“No! And cheat the IRS?”
“Hard to believe, but it happens.”
Starrett reviewed his conversation last night. “Maybe I should have asked Bobbi for the name of her doctor.”
“A professional lapse in interrogation technique?” Hutchins winked. “Or maybe you’d just like an excuse to go back again tonight, squeeze her a little harder…?”
Starrett grimaced. “Days like this, you start to wonder if you shouldn’t transfer to someplace else where gender bending doesn’t make life so complicated.”
Hutchins drained his iced tea and pitched the empty into the trash can. “I’m going to pack it in for the day. Let’s sleep on it and tomorrow morning we can decide whether to hold ’em or fold ’em.”
Chapter 54
San Francisco
Axel Crowe’s flight landed at San Francisco International Airport at eleven-thirty PM. He walked through the departure lounge with Miranda Flanagan. It was many hours past his bedtime back east but he’d napped after dinner and taken a homeopathic jet-lag remedy, so he felt as good as could be expected. Crowe and Miranda said goodbye at the baggage claim area, having already exchanged business cards on the plane.
“Now I mean it,” Miranda said. “If you find yourself with a few days to spare, come for a visit. Make it a working vacation if you like. I had my chart done about ten years ago but I wasn’t too impressed. I’d like to see what you can do with the Vedic system. And if I endorse you, I know a dozen friends who’ll want to see you too.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Truth was, doing personal charts to satisfy people’s curiosity didn’t interest Crowe like it used to. People asked for advice in personal matters but they seldom took it. Over the years he’d discovered it was better to work with business clients. His sizable fees made clients take him seriously, and his batting average generated referrals in proportion to results.
But Miranda Flanagan was an interesting woman and Crowe had enjoyed her company on the plane, so he was gracious. He gave her a hug and a kiss on either cheek before they parted ways.
Crowe took a taxi downtown to the Hyatt Regency. At the front desk a handsome black man whose name tag said Maxim greeted Crowe and began the registration process.
“A friend of mine was here earlier this week, said he had a great room. Can you put me into the same one? My friend’s name was Stockwell.”
Maxim studied his computer screen. “That was one of our Regency Suites. And you’re lucky it’s not the weeke
Crowe gave him a credit card.
The suite was on the 18th floor: bedroom with king-size bed, parlor with sofa, rooms decorated in hues of gold, blue and russet. There was a television in each room, a workstation and a 30-foot balcony with a bay view. Crowe dropped his travel bag and opened the balcony door. He looked down at the boulevard lights along the Embarcadero. Somewhere out in the fog a ship’s horn blasted long and low. He inhaled deeply of the ocean air. After the dry air of the flight cabin it was tonic to his lungs.
Leaving the balcony door open, he changed from suit to sweat pants and T-shirt. He used the complimentary iron to press his suit pants and hung them with his jacket. Then he spent fifteen minutes doing yoga.
Afterwards, as he lay resting on the carpet, he looked under the sofa. On hands and knees he went around the room, looking under tables and chairs, beneath cushions of sofa and armchairs. He looked under the bed and checked the drawers of the bedside cabinets and workstation. Among the complimentary hotel stationery and envelopes, he discovered something – a small triangular piece of paper.
He laid it on the desktop. It was an inch on each side with a serrated edge along the diagonal. On one side was printed ‘Monday April 18’ and on the other side, ‘Tuesday April 19.’ It was a rip-off corner tab from someone’s daily agenda.
What interested Crowe was the date – Tuesday April 19th – the day Janis Stockwell had died in New York while her husband was in this very room. Tuesday was the day of ‘Tiw’, a Teutonic deity regarded by ancient mystery religions as equal to Mars the Roman god of war. In the world of astrology Mars was associated with violence, either endorsed via the police and military, or illicit in the form of criminal activities. This little scrap of paper and its implicit symbolism meant more to Crowe than anyone else who might have discovered it.
Meaning is in the eye of the beholder, Guruji used to say.
Crowe examined more closely the contents of the drawer. Setting aside the hotel’s Directory of Services and its stationery printed in russet tones, itself a muted color of Mars, he examined a handful of tourist brochures.
One opened into a detailed street map of San Francisco which he spread on the desk. In the corner was a smaller map of the greater Bay Area. He placed the rip-off tab upon this smaller map, its apex on the North Beach where the hotel was, and looked to the other corners of the equilateral triangle. One touched Berkeley. Crowe was bemused by the power of an intuition enlivened by years of practice and trust. Stockwell had studied at Berkeley, sailed out of the Berkeley Marina and met Janis Blaikie there in the final year of his MBA.
The other corner of the triangle touched land near San Rafael on the North Bay. Crowe wasn’t sure how this fit together but felt confident that parts of what he needed to learn about Jeb Stockwell would be found around the apices of this triangle – San Francisco, Berkeley and San Rafael.
Tonight he’d sleep on it, trusting that tomorrow his logic would pick up where his intuition had left off. Tomorrow he’d find something that made sense of a killing three thousand miles away.
Chapter 55
Albuquerque
In the evening Carrie Cassidy drove her new BMW to Albuquerque. Exiting I-25 at Central Avenue, she drove up past the university to the strip of coffee shops, bars and restaurants popular with students and locals. She parked behind a place called Murphy’s Law with a big terrace and a lively college crowd.
Carrie found a table on the terrace, turned her chair west to catch the setting sun and caught the attention of a waitress.
“Need a food menu?” the waitress said.
Carrie shook her head. “A pint of Kilkenny and a shot of Bushmills.”
She surveyed the crowd. At the next table were four college boys built like football players. One of them, a tall blond with rippling biceps, glanced over at her. Carrie returned his stare, holding it until he shifted his glance, letting him know who was calling the shots.
The waitress brought her drinks. Carrie lit a cigarillo, downed the shot of whiskey and saluted the football players with her empty glass. They laughed and raised their mugs in return.
She sipped her Kilkenny and closed her eyes a moment, feeling the last warm rays of the sun on her eyelids.
~~~
The fullback for the University of New Mexico Lobos was twenty-four years old and had just finished writing the last of his fourth-year finals towards a degree in Kinesiology. He knew pretty much everything about the human body, including the fact that after eight mugs of beer in less than three hours, he was at 0.12% blood alcohol and very susceptible to suggestion, even if she was almost old enough to be his mother.
On the other side of Murphy’s parking lot was the Route 66 Motel. Its flashing neon sign promised daily and hourly rates, an attractive proposition for those who sought horizontal comfort with a newfound friend or needed to sleep off a little booze.
Carrie and the fullback wobbled across the nearly-vacant lot to the motel office. Carrie paid for a room and led the way to the end unit, him pawing her all the way.
Once inside the room, she was on him like a cougar. The poor boy barely had a chance to get his pants down before she had her mouth all over him.
On the wall over the bed was a framed movie poster, Route 66 Runaway, depicting a teenage girl hitching a ride from two cowboys in a pickup.
Carrie straddled the fullback and got down to business.
~~~
Carrie awoke in the middle of the night hearing someone whistling outside. She pulled on the fullback’s football jersey and opened the door. Two men stood ten yards away, leaning against a pickup truck. One came forward until she recognized him.
It was Zeke Zabriskie dressed in military camouflage, field cap tipped low on his forehead. He held out his hand. “Spare change for a veteran?”
“Who’s your friend?”
The fat man came stumbling forward, ragged clothes flapping, face and hands as blackened as if he’d fallen into a fire. It was Walt. “Why?” he said. “Why?”
~~~
Carrie woke from the dream with a start, shivering with the draught of the air conditioner on her wet skin. She sat up and hugged her arms around herself.
Beside her, the fullback lay sprawled and snoring. She’d originally planned on doing him again in the morning but, now that she was awake and disturbed by the dream that had woken her, she couldn’t stay.
She dressed by the intermittent flashes of light from the motel sign outside. She took a last look at sleeping beauty. He had a great ass, even with the claw marks she’d left on it. She opened the door and stepped outside.
FRIDAY
Chapter 56
San Francisco
Axel Crowe awoke at three AM, a dream still flickering in the shadows of his consciousness. A young woman in a black-pajama karate outfit stood poised on a dojo mat, ready to attack. Crowe assumed a posture of readiness. The woman held up a blood-red palm. Crowe said, Did you hurt yourself? The woman stuck out a black tongue and said, It’s not my blood. Then she hurtled across the mat, never landing a blow, but circling Crowe like a demonic dancer with arms and legs in a violent flurry.
Crowe shook off the dream and got up. He went to the bathroom, drank some water and crawled back into bed. It was too early to start the day so he closed his eyes again.
The dream had caused a rush of adrenaline. Who was that woman? No one he recognized but the black tongue and the bloody hand made him think of Kali, the Tantrik goddess. Did she have anything to do with the Stockwell case? Kali was a complex figure, both maternal and malevolent, and her frenzied dance was thought capable of causing the world to unravel.
With a full day ahead Crowe wanted to sleep another hour or two. He folded his hands on his chest and focused on his breathing – in through the left nostril, out through the right. The left nostril was associated with ida, the lunar nadi, the channel of nerves that ran down the left side of the body. The right
He awoke again at six and got up completely rested. He showered and phoned room service, then meditated for half an hour. He’d just finished stretching his stiff legs when a bellboy arrived with a Japanese breakfast from the hotel menu, consisting of a small omelet, steamed rice, grilled salmon, miso soup with nori seaweed, and a pot of green tea.
Having eaten the breakfast of a samurai, he went down to the lobby and booked a rental car. The agent gave him a map and used a highlighter to mark the route to Berkeley. Within a few minutes, he was on I-80 East heading toward the Bay Bridge.
~~~
Berkeley, California
Crowe parked the car on Telegraph Avenue, a street of coffee shops, music stores, used bookstores and boutiques a short walk from the Berkeley campus. Although not sure where this would lead, he trusted the clue he’d seen in Stockwell’s chart. College friends, the more disreputable the better, would lead him to the heart of the matter.
The Doe Library had a red tile roof and large columns spanning the breadth of its main entrance. He spoke to someone at the information desk and was sent to the second floor reference center where a Japanese librarian pointed him to the stacks on the opposite wall. Crowe located three Berkeley yearbooks – 1992, 1993, and 1994. He carried them into the North Reading Room, a cathedral-like space with massive skylights and rows of reading tables fitted with network connections for student laptops.
He sat at a table and flipped through the most recent of the yearbooks. It didn’t take long to find the 1994 MBA Graduating Class, a group photo of a hundred students, but no caption for their names. On the following few pages, however, were headshots with names of the grads in alphabetical order. He found and studied the photo of Jeb Stockwell, blandly handsome, with his blond hair long and a ring in his left ear.