Three: Crime SuspenStory

OUR STORY SO FAR: Jimmy Vaughn has flown in to San Francisco to find out who in Leo McCarthy’s crew ripped off the Golden Duck. Oscar Rayne, enforcer and bagman for Leo, is serving as Vaughn’s driver and guide. Meanwhile, Detectives Claudia Dela Cruz and Dan March have a young stripper named Judy Collins working as their snitch in the McCarthy crew’s club, The Paradise Lounge. What the two detectives don’t know is that the girl is stringing them along due to her relationship with Leo McCarthy and the fact that she is carrying his baby. For more see parts 1-2.

Based on true events,
Collin “Murph” Murphy stood with Pat in front of Paradise Isle and smoked, lighting his own cigarette before reaching over and giving Pat the flame. They were both hung over, Murph more so with the usual red of his cheeks drained and his chubby face turned a pale yellow.
“This guy called you?” he asked again.
“No. Leo called. At eight in the fucking morning.”
Pat blew out the smoke and spat on the sidewalk.
“And said what again?”
“That the guy wanted everybody down at the club by noon.”
“It’s noon now.”
“I know.”
“Who is this guy?”
“Leo wanted to go outside for this thing, I told you.”
Murph belched, the night’s indiscriminate alcohols, whisky, tequila, various beers, Yager, all mixed and lingering there on the sidewalk. He gagged a moment, forcing a drag of smoke down his throat.
“I just don’t like being told what to do by some guy I don’t know,” he said.
Pat grimaced.
“I told you. Leo is the one who called and told me to round everybody up. Not this guy,” he said.
“But the guy told Leo right? He wanted us down here so he had Leo tell you to come down here.”
“Nobody tells Leo anything,” Pat muttered.
He threw the butt down on the sidewalk. They began to move towards the door to get out of the cold when Murph caught sight of Oscar walking towards them with another man. Pat followed his gaze, watching the man from the day before approuch them, the dark glasses in place.
“You don’t have a hit or a bump or anything?” Pat asked Murph.
“You kidding? I would have done it by now.”
Murph went inside, Pat waited in front of the door for Oscar and Vaughn to reach him.
“Everybody here?” Vaughn asked.
“Everybody I could get a hold of,” Pat replied.
“How many?”
“Most of them.”
“Is the Croat here?”
“He’s one of the guys I couldn’t get a hold of. He went home sick yesterday.”
Vaughn looked over at Oscar and Pat wondered what it meant.
“You got a back room?” Vaughn said.
“It’s an office but there’s plenty of room.”
“Have everybody get back there and we’ll talk.”
Pat began to head in but Vaughn stopped him, beckoning for him to come closer.
“You swept it?” he asked, the dark glasses less than a foot from Pat’s face.
“For bugs and shit?”
“What do you think I mean?”
“I had Cabbage and Dick sweep it yesterday morning before you came by.”
Vaughn nodded and Pat continued into the club. The stale room lights were on, revealing the old thread bare carpet for everything it had become over the years; skuff marks and stains and a dull orange color. All the men were gathered near the bar talking, Dick leading them in discussion of a bar fight he had recently been a part of. Cabbagepatch sat next to Dick in a stool, his wide frame threatening the wooden legs with implosion.
The Flores brothers, Bobby and Fran, were sitting next to each other listening to Dick. They looked like twins, the same hair cut and similar clothes, the same stupid expressions, but Bobby was a few weathered years older and sported a mustache. Vlad, the youngest there that day, sat by himself at one of the tables, punching buttons on his phone, while Murph had made his way behind the bar to help himself to a beer.
“Let’s bring it to the back,” Pat announced.
“I’m in the middle of a fucking story eh!” Dick said, his face reddening.
“Let’s do this so we can get on with our day,” Pat replied flat.
The rest of the men followed him through the door and took positions around the room, Dick bringing up the rear with a red grimace. He flopped down on the couch with his eye on Pat.
Vaughn made his entrance with Oscar coming in behind him. All the eyes followed Vaughn as he walked through the room steady, calculated. He took his position in front of the TV and removed his glasses, the blue eyes scanning over the seven men in front of him.
“I’m not here to make judgments about how you run your thing here,” he said “I’m not here to say it’s the sloppiest shit organization I’ve ever seen and that it would be the laughing stock of the whole country if anybody gave a fuck. I’m just here to find a rat.”
The men glanced around, measuring the reaction. Dick turned an even brighter red.
“Now I respect Leo. Leo has set something up in a city that’s been in a strangle hold from the Triads and the Mexicans and everybody else for a long time. Some how he keeps it going using you bunch, which must mean you’re worth a shit. I respect Leo. Leo and I go back. When I tell you something I don’t want any bullshit. It won’t happen a lot but on the rare occasion I tell you something you do it.”
Vaughn’s eyes made their away around the room as he spoke, taking each man in and exposing them to his will. When he came to the end of his speech his eyes fell on Dick. He let them linger there, cold and blue, until the Irishman gave in with sniff, letting his gaze fall to the floor.
“Who knows where the Croat is?” Vaughn asked.
Pat was as surprised as anybody, not quite getting what the question meant.
“What do you mean,” he asked.
Vaughn looked at him coldly before spreading his gaze back around the room.
“I know a lot of you consider this guy a friend and as a friend it would be best that you get me and him together as soon as possible. You understand?”
“He’s supposed to be sick,” Fran Flores said.
Vaughn looked down at the El Salvadorian, a dismissive look, barely acknowledging his existence.
“You go by his house?” Vlad asked.
Pat put his hand to his forehead, trying to soften the pounding, and said: “Maybe he’s at his mother’s?”
Vaughn looked down at him from the desk.
“Where’s that?” he asked.
Pat opened his eyes, regretting that he had spoken. He glanced at the other guys, wondering what they were thinking.
“She lives in that little shitty town. The one by the coast. Pacifica,” he said.
“Do you know where?”
“Not really.”
“Do you?” Vaughn asked turning his gaze up towards Oscar in the back of the room. Pat turned his head as well and found Oscar staring back at him with disgust.
“Yeah,” Oscar said, still looking at Pat
“Good, you’re going to go over there.” Vaughn said. “The rest of you: if the Croat contacts you or you get word of where he is you let me know with the number Charlie gave you. If you talk to the Croat you don’t mention me, just get his location and let me know.”
The men began to murmur and get up from their seats. Pat was determined to get behind the bar so he could start working on his hangover. He began to walk towards the door before Vaughn got in his way.
“You and me are going over to the place,” Vaughn said.
“What place?”
“Golden Duck.”
“Right now?”
Pat waited for an answer but Vaughn had moved off and left the room. Oscar stepped up, taking Vaughn’s place in front of Pat.
“Why’d you mention Bill’s mother?”
Oscar’s tone was thick with irritation.
“What do you mean why did I mention it?” Pat said. “I’m just trying to get this over with. Get everything back to normal. The guy just wants to talk to him.”
Oscar shook his head.
“You think Bill had shit to do with this? You really think-“
He stopped short when Vaughn came back into the room. Vaughn reached into his coat and pulled out a small silver P32, handing it over to Oscar.
“If the guy turns up, get him back to the paint store by whatever means you gotta use,” he said.
Oscar put the gun into the inside pocket of his jacket and left through the door without saying a word. Vaughn watched him go and then looked back at Pat.
“Let’s get going. We got a lot of movies to watch,” he said.

Schonberg’s office was cramped and tossed and pretty much just a straight up mess. There were files piled up all over the desk and the waist basket was full. The pen holder was jammed with pens and Claudia noticed many of them were chewed at the end from where she sat with Dan in front of the desk.
The door burst open and Schonberg himself walked in, late as usual, scrolling through his Black Berry and adjusting his tie. There were multiple stains on the tie, one barbecue and a few mustard spots as far as Claudia could tell. Schonberg nodded at them both in silent apology, sitting down in his chair. He put the Black Berry on the desk next to the files, entwining his fingers in front of him with his elbows on the desk like he was about to pray before he spoke.
“It looks like a done deal,” he said “They’re going to do raids on Catnip and Hotties, all in one night.”
Both Claudia and Dan were caught by surprise, for a moment only able to look dumbly across the desk at the Lieutenant. Dan found his voice first.
“They can’t do that! We’re building a case here,” he said.
Schonberg nodded and pressed on.
“I know that. You both have been working hard. But they got the election in the news cycle now. Ferris is going in to succeed McDougal and she doesn’t have shit to run on. She needs something solid that shows results. Your work has established that both of these clubs are places of prostitution and she needs something current. Something for the cameras that shows people the police force is being effective I guess.”
Claudia glared down at some old French fries rubbed into the carpet, unable to look at Schonberg’s face without losing her temper.
“She needs something that looks effective?” she muttered. “Jesus Christ, your talking about going in, popping a couple girls and fining the place. We’ve been building something in the last few months that could very well break up Leo McCarthy’s whole operation. A raid won’t do it. He’ll get word, duck down a little bit, and that’ll be that, back to business a week later.”
Schonberg watched her speak then looked over at Dan for a confirmation. It made Claudia’s blood boil
“It’s true,” Dan said. “We’ve got these guys scoped out for meth, stolen goods, extortion. A lot on top of the prostitution. This stuff is being operated from places outside the clubs-“
“Like the paint store?” Schonberg interrupted.
“Well…” Dan sputtered out.
“I’ve been reading your reports and I haven’t seen that paint store mentioned once. Isn’t that what got this whole thing started in the first place?”
“We think that’s because we involved another department in the surveillance,” Claudia said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means every time information of any kind is spread around in the department on this crew there’s a change in pattern and behavior on their end.”
Schonberg finally broke his hands from prayer, sitting up straighter in his chair.
“Detective, I think it is imperative that we hold back from jumping to conclusions, especially when it comes to the character of this department.”
“It’s not a matter of character Lieutenant,” Claudia said. “It’s a matter of getting results.”
“Well, that I can agree with. Where are we with the murders? I haven’t heard that mentioned once. How about the Martinez case? Anything on that?”
“We don’t have anything confirmed as of right now,” Dan answered. “But McCarthy is into it all. There is no doubt this crew threw Martinez and probably a couple other people in the Bay.”
“That’s why I tell my family when they visit: don’t eat the crab,” Schonberg cracked. His face creased into a smile that was half forced, half self deprecating, all ugly.
Dan nodded but didn’t smile, Claudia kept her scowl intact, not giving Schonberg an inch. Schonberg’s face decreased and he sighed, ready to give ground.
“Listen, these raids are going to happen regardless. There’s nothing me or anyone can do. Things are about to go in motion in the next few days.”
He watched them, trying to gauge if he was getting through. He sighed again when neither budged.
“Do you still have the girl inside?” he asked.
“Yes,” Claudia said sharply.
“Just her?”
“As of now, yes.”
Schonberg glanced around the office, looking at the mess, weighing the future in his mind.
“If you had one more inside I might be able to get them to hold off,” he said.
“For how long?” Claudia demanded.
“I’m not sure. But having another person inside would be a clear sign of the case moving forwards. They would probably want to wait on the raids until they could see results.”
“How long do we have?”
Claudia projected a fierce calm toward Schonberg, he tried to break it’s intensity by glancing down at the stains on his tie.
“Ferris wants to meet with me since the supervisor suggested the raids. That’s in two days. That’s all you got. I have to present any new developments at that meeting.”
“We’ll get somebody,” Claudia said.
Dan looked over at her, unconvinced.

Pat had tried to be patient but after thirty minutes he couldn’t take it anymore and he threw a finger up towards Tek.
“Hey! Whisky here.”
Tek nodded as he poured shots for three baby faced frat boys that had obviously stopped by Golden Duck on their way to another destination. Vaughn glanced over at Pat but stayed silent, the slight swivel of his head the only movement he had made since they had sat down at the bar.
Tek finished with the frat boys and brought over a glass with some ice and the bottle of whisky. He poured with the tight drawn face he always had.
“How much longer we gotta wait man? Charlie know we’re up here?” Pat asked him.
“He know. He be up soon,” Tek replied.
“He better,” Vaughn muttered but Tek acted like he didn’t hear and went to check on the dice game the two old Filipinos had going on the other side of the bar.
Besides the frat boys and the Filipinos the only other people inside the bar were two drunks sitting side by side a few stools down from Vaughn and Pat, swaying in the invisible breeze of drunkenness and staring out across the bar with drooping eyes like two aged hound dogs. The place was a tiny dive, just a bar and some stools, with two paintings on the wall: one of a topless female tennis player and the other of a bear swinging a San Francisco Giant’s flag in the woods. The place was unremarkable in every way.
“I don’t drink when I work,” Vaughn said with a flat voice.
Pat slurped his drink and placed the glass on the bar before he answered.
“Leo’s my uncle you know?” he said and looked over at Vaughn with a challenge.
Vaughn nodded.
“Yeah, I heard that. Makes me feel bad for the guy.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Vaughn looked amused and seemed to be making his way towards another comment when Yellow Charlie finally popped out of the passage door. Pat and Vaughn got up from their stools and Charlie waited until they got to him before leading the way down the hall to the stairs. The three men came down to the passage way and Vaughn passed Pat to walk next to Charlie.
“I saw two cameras in the bar and one outside. Is the whole place wired up?” he asked.
“All wired up,” Charlie replied “Everywhere. Camera in every room.”
“And you got feeds for all of them?”
“All go in computer. They got different fees.”
“Feeds?”
Charlie nodded and Vaughn pointed towards an elevator entrance at the end of the passageway.
“That goes to the rooms upstairs?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“This all got built over a hundred years ago,” Pat said “It used to be a dance hall upstairs and this was opium dens.”
“And you got cameras in all the rooms?” Vaughn asked Charlie.
“Not all. Just rooms we have games.”
“What about the exits?”
“Yes.”
“Not the garage,” Pat threw in.
“That true,” Charlie said “No camera at garage. We put one in tomorrow.”
He stopped and unlocked one of the doors in the passageway, leading them all into a badly lit office. Pat had only been in the room once before a few years back. He marveled at the fact that nothing had changed. The old beat up table still sat in the middle surrounded by a set of equally beat up chairs and a desk, pushed to the side with three different computer monitors lined up on top of it. The rest of the room was packed with various goods still in their boxes: TV’s, microwaves, crock pots, video game systems.
Charlie sat down at the desk and began to maneuver a mouse in front of the computer. Vaughn dragged a chair over from the table, sitting next to him.
“What are you doing?” Vaughn asked.
“Pulling up the file from the day,” Charlie said.
“November 20th?”
Charlie nodded his head firmly, not looking away from the monitor as different files began to appear on the desktop.
“Didn’t Charlie already go through all this shit? I thought he watched the tapes,” Pat said from where he was leaned up against the wall.
“Did you? What did you find?” Vaughn asked Charlie.
“Not me. Charlie, White Charlie. I’m Yellow Charlie.”
“I want to see for myself regardless,” Vaughn pulled out a small notebook from his coat and turned towards Pat. “Tell me everybody that was working that night.”
Pat looked up at the ceiling and thought back. The whisky had helped a little but the hang-over was still very present in his skull.
“Patch was working the small games. They go on in the two rooms connected upstairs,” he said with effort.
“Who’s Patch?” Vaughn asked. He scribbled on the pad.
“Cabbagepatch. The big black guy.”
“Who else?”
“Javey was working the high stakes game with Bill. Dick was there. He was keeping an eye on everything. I think he was bringing the girls in too.”
“Dick. That’s the Mick with the red face?”
“Yeah. I was hosting. Just bringing drinks over and joking around with the players. Keeping it light.”
“So you weren’t doing much of anything.”
Pat glanced dead eyed over at Vaughn. He desperately wanted to make some sort of retort, something that would show the asshole that he wasn’t just one of the other lugs to be pushed around and treated like a dog. Nothing was coming. He decided it was best to let go, let the night get over with so he could get back to the bar.
“Fran was watching the front and his brother Bobby was driving some people in. They don’t work upstairs usually. I guess that’s it. Oscar was moving the cash up and down-“
“Oscar?” Vaughn interrupted. He looked up from the pad.
“Yeah. Oscar.”
“Is that the guy driving me around?”
“Yeah.”
“And he was moving the cash down? From where to where?”
“He would just bring cash down to the safe here and if one of the players wanted to get credit from the house he would bring some cash up to the game.”
Vaughn sat silent, the pad sitting in his lap. Charlie clicked around with the mouse until twelve separate squares of video came up on two of the monitors and he finally muttered: “Vember twenty right here.”

He had just come down the hill on Highway One when it dawned on Oscar that he hadn’t eaten in over a day. He pulled over at the first place he saw in Pacifica, a little café three blocks from the beach, and ordered a sandwich and a cup of coffee. He ate the sandwich mechanically, just to keep his stomach at bay, and then he ordered a second and a third cup of coffee. He knew very well that the drinking of the coffee was simply a way to put off going to Bill’s Mother’s house. He paid his bill and left.
Mrs. Rodasavitch lived right off the highway, in a compact yellow house. As he turned onto the road Oscar thought back to when he, Pat, and Bill had stopped off there after getting back from LA. Mrs. Rodasavitch had served them eggs and sausages and had let Pat and Bill smoke in the house. She had seemed like a sweet woman. He had liked meeting her, becoming slightly jealous Bill had a mother that he knew and could visit and be loved by.
Over the course of that evening the jealousy morphed into resentment. Here was a guy who had a sweet old mother, a place to call home, and yet he lived the life that he did. They had driven down to LA together to get out of the Bay for a few days and have a vacation but they had also gone on business, bringing a girl with them that they dropped off to an Armenian in Hollywood who had then handed them a suitcase to bring back to Leo. Oscar had sat in Mrs. Rodasavtich’s house thinking about if Bill was arrested or hurt and what that would have done to the sweet old woman that was cooking for them and laughing with them and doting over them. He had looked across the table at Bill and felt a smoldering irritation.
All Bill had going for him was that he was tall. He towered over people and had big over sized Yugoslavian features. Oscar had fought him twice when they were drunk and won both times, the last time being a few days after they had got back from LA. He blackened both of Bill’s eyes and the Croat had worn sunglasses around for almost a week. Oscar had felt bad about it the next day both times because he knew Bill was soft. The Croat didn’t have what a lot of the guys around them had, or maybe it was that Bill had something that most of them didn’t, Oscar wasn’t sure which it was.
He parked a few houses down from Mrs. Rodasavitch’s, placing the gun under the seat. He approached from the opposite side of the street and spotted a car covered in a tarp in front of the yellow house. He could tell just from the shape that it was Bill’s car but he went across and looked under the tarp to make sure. The sun was starting to go down when he unlatched the little wooden fence, making his way up the cement walk way.
“Oscar isn’t it? It’s been so long.” Mrs. Rodasavitch said when she opened the door.
“Sorry to bother you Mrs. Rodasavitch. Is Bill around?”
“No. Not now. He was.”
“I saw his car out front.”
“He asked if he could leave it here and take mine. I don’t mind. I won’t need to go to the store for a few days and even when I do I can walk it you know. It’s good to walk.”
“Is he going to be back?”
She looked up at him, the crease of her smile sagging a bit.
“Why don’t you come in? Don’t stand out there on the porch. Come on in.”
Oscar nodded and pulled open the screen. She led him down the hall to the kitchen, sitting him down at the table in the breakfast nook.
“You want some coffee dear?” she asked, and Oscar shook his head.
“When did Bill come by?” he asked.
Mrs. Rodasavitch watched him from where she stood in the kitchen, then she sat down at the table opposite.
“Is everything alright dear?”
“Everything’s fine.”
“You and Bill aren’t in any trouble are you?”
“No ma'am. Everything’s fine. What makes you say that?”
She watched him from across the table, the smile all drained out.
“I don’t know. He just seemed a little, you know, a little tense or jumpy last night.”
“That’s when he came by?”
“I don’t like seeing him like that. It’s not how Billy usually is when he comes to see me. He is such a character and he makes me laugh.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“He didn’t tell me.I wish he had because at some point I’m going to need my car back. I don’t want to drive his car. Can you imagine me driving his car? Down to the market?”
“It’s a nice car. People will think you’re a movie star or something,” Oscar said.
“I don’t know about that. People would talk though. They love to talk. Have you tried calling him?”
“His phone seems to be off.”
Mrs. Rodasavitch swallowed, looking down at the table wide eyed.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Oscar said. “He probably just wants some time to himself. I get like that.”
“Maybe he went off with that girl somewhere,” Mrs. Rodasavitch said.
“What girl?”
“She’s black. He brought her over a week or so ago.”
“A black girl?”
Oscar was shifting through his mind trying to remember ever seeing Bill with a black girl. He came up with nothing.
“I was rude. I mean I was surprised. I don’t know a lot of colored people and Billy didn’t give me any warning. In walks this girl. I could have been a lot nicer. I was used to his girlfriend. What was her name?”
“Susan I think.”
“Suzie, right. And in walks this girl. I was a little, sort of, stand offish, you know? And afterwards I felt bad because I could tell Bill likes her and here I was being, I don’t know, I’m a little ashamed about how I acted.”
Oscar tried to think where Bill could have met the girl. It must have been one of the clubs. And then he brought her here to his mother? Whatever it was it seemed serious, yet Bill had said nothing as far as she was concerned which made Oscar think it must have been a dancer.
“I better get going,” he said.
“And you’re sure you don’t want coffee?”
“No, I’m fine. If Bill calls you or shows up, please have him call me right away.”
He stood up and she stood up with him.
“You promise there’s nothing going on Oscar?” she said softly.
“It’s fine. Nothing to worry about. It’s just a business opportunity I want him to get in with me on and it’s important we do it soon.”
Oscar felt the words forcing themselves out of his mouth. He could tell from the look on her face that Mrs. Rodasavitch was trying to convince herself that what he said was true.
“Okay,” she said.
Oscar went out the front door and unlatched the gate. He walked by the Croat’s car and looked back to find Mrs. Rodasavitch standing on the porch watching him go. He nodded, waving good bye in the dim light. He saw her hesitate before she waved back and went inside.

To be continued................