Scam at Old River

CHAPTER ONE

Even in the dark, Jack’s apartment on Red Rock Way was easy to navigate. It consisted of one big room, except for the bathroom. He’d arranged his furniture like he was unsure if he would stay.

Stepping over the discarded blankets and clothes, he glanced at the sleeping woman. His tongue moved across the tequila-flavored fur lining the inside of his mouth, and he grimaced. He rolled his shoulders. A fighter’s habit. He covered her, pulling the sheet and a blanket up over her ears. She snuggled down until only the top of her head was showing. Jack heard her sigh as she stretched out. 

Above the door was an aluminum clock, fifteen inches in diameter. It had glowing green dots at each hour, and the hands were orange. This was art deco in its prime. It was just after four fifteen. It was Auntie Louise who’d purchased this and the vintage doorbell that woke him, making that attention-attention tone you hear on a plane.

Jack figured it must be his cousin Freddie at the door. He was the only one who knew he was back in San Francisco. Freddie lived upstairs and would bang on the door at five forty-five, and they would jog to the gym at the SFPD Academy. 

Jack glanced around on the floor for his clothes. He couldn’t figure out which was his. A gym bag was next to the cupboard. He rummaged and came up with a pair of tracksuit pants. Dressed, he went to the door. There was a peephole in the door which he didn’t use. His tequila reasoning assured him this must be Freddie, so he opened the door. The night light in the passageway only cast a few lumens. It wasn’t Freddie. The shape was all wrong.

From his days of fighting, Jack had developed the habit of guessing the physical dimensions of his opponent. It was like he was filling in a form. Their age, weight, height, reach, muscularity, any unusual signs, such as steroid use, were all noted. The level of fitness was harder to judge. His point of reference was his own six-even, 180 pounds. This had become borderline OCD as he could and would do it without realizing, be it, men or women. 

It was a man about six-three, 230 pounds. The stranger’s black windbreaker and baggy jeans did not conceal the block-like structure underneath. Jack couldn’t make out the face, just the scraggly black hair down to the collar. In college days on the Berkeley campus, Jack’s hair was like that. Only it was blonde and tied back in a ponytail. These days he cut it himself, with clippers set to a five on top, a one at the sides. 

“Is Debbie there?”

“Sure, I’ll get her.” 

Jack’s tournament-fighting self was peeping through the alcohol as he turned, then stopped. He swiveled his head back in time to see a big boot coming his way. It looked like an industrial safety boot. Metal toe caps would be under the leather. It was a left front kick, which, if it connected, would hurt.

Spinning and stepping back, Jack used his forearm to divert the kick past him. The booze slowed him down as the edge of the boot grazed skin on his stomach. He wondered what was next. 

It was a right roundhouse punch. This was an odd combination, and most probably, he was an awkward fighter. But if any of these fully connected with 230 pounds behind them, it would present a problem. Jack took a step back, and the punch missed his face by inches. His right foot became entangled in something on the floor, but he didn’t look down.

A kick from the right leg was coming. He crossed his forearms in front of his body to absorb it and suck up the pain. He stumbled backwards with his entangled foot and started to fall like an axed tree. The dining table, an old trestle, was behind him, along with some wooden chairs. Crashing into or over them would mean coming to rest in a worse position. He crouched into a roll that almost worked. The back of his head hit the edge of the table on the way down. There was a sharp pain followed by creeping wetness. 

“Where is she?” said the stranger as he looked around. He saw the bed and turned back to Jack. “I’ll deal with you later.” 

Jack’s first thought was this was a jealous boyfriend or ex-boyfriend. Debbie was awake and sitting up, her left hand holding the sheet to her throat, the right on the side table. The stranger walked to the bed and leaned over her.

“How many warnings do you need?” he said with a voice that sounded like he’d gravel in his throat. “And did you take a copy of our files? Have you given them to anyone? Like this guy. Is he an accomplice? You don’t leave us. Remember that.”

Without giving her a chance to answer, he raised his right hand. As it swung down towards her face, Debbie’s right hand came up off the side table with a steel pin and shoved it through the incoming palm. 

Jack remembered the pin. It had held up her hair at the back of her head. Must have been six inches long. Had a crossbar at about the two-inch mark. Probably to stop it sliding as it was set diagonally through her hair. He’d asked her about it. The sounds of many voices talking and a woman on the stage singing covers of Norah Jones had filled the bar. Her reply was lost. It was the last thing she’d taken off, placing it on the side table next to the bed. Her hair had cascaded down her back and across her shoulders.

The stranger recoiled, pulling his hand off the pin, but did not make a sound. Debbie struck again, this time at his throat. The stranger ducked, and the pin entered his left cheek. He pulled his head away. The pin came out. Blood spurted, and he made no sound. He feinted with his left hand and slapped her in the face with the right. Her head snapped sideways, and her hair followed in a blonde arc. He forced the pin from her grasp, and it dropped to the floor.

Jack’s limbic system took over. This was quicker than thinking, with the world shrinking into an empty calm. The anger focused like a laser, but cold like steel on a winter’s dawn. In the background, blood dripped down his back from his scalp. Without knowing, he’d already drawn a sharp breath into his diaphragm. 

It was the PTSD from the accident that killed his parents. The psychologists had helped with controlling the outbursts of anger. The dark gray thing that came out of its cave at the base of his spine and flashed up and throughout his body. It had only one desire, to deliver hurt, to whoever triggered its release. It did not care what happened to itself. In the same way there are people called ‘functional alcoholics,’ he believed he fell into a category called ‘Functional PTSD.’ Jack kicked the tangle from his foot and flipped from his back onto his feet in one move. 

The stranger put his right knee on the bed. With his left hand, he was trying to pull Debbie’s arm from her face while his right hand rose to hit her again. 

Jack’s charge from behind the man had enough distance to get good momentum. He reached between the man’s legs with his right hand and grabbed a handful of baggy jeans and groin. His left hand got hold of the mop of hair and pushed forward. In one motion, he ran the man face-first at the wall six feet away at the head of the bed. He exhaled with his diaphragm to make the force greater. 

The stranger let go of Debbie’s arm and dropped his strike hand to get his hands in position in time to cushion the impact to his face. The trying almost worked. Jack heard nose cartilage crunching, followed by a groan from inside the stranger’s throat like he was clearing it. Jack dragged him back a few feet and then once more into the wall. The stranger made that throat noise again, and bent over with one hand on the wall and one on his nose. 

Jack had no other plan but to keep smashing him into the wall. The stranger pushed off the wall, lurched up, and spun around. Jack punched him in the throat. Not quite enough force to crush his larynx, for then he dies. The man’s right hand now went to his throat, gasping for air. Jack thought he’d dished out enough pain to make him submit, but his opponent’s left hand came for Jack’s eyes with fingers extended. 

Debbie appeared and stabbed the stranger in the deltoid with the pin and kept on doing it. She must have picked up the pin from the floor, and she was standing, naked, stabbing away.

Jack did not have time to admire as he needed to move his head back in time to escape damage to his eyes. With his left hand, he grabbed the stranger’s left wrist. He placed the two middle fingers of his right hand at the back of the man’s middle finger just above where it joined his hand and put his thumb on the pad of the finger. The two fingers acted as a fulcrum while the thumb applied pressure downward and backward, bending the man’s middle finger in the opposite of the normal direction. The finger snapped at the second joint and seemed to emit its own yelp of pain. This all happened faster than thinking, thanks to muscle memory built up through practice.

The stranger took his right hand off his throat to throw a backhand punch. Jack only partially blocked this, and it glanced across his forehead. But he grabbed the man’s wrist to repeat the finger-snapping move. 

Debbie moved her attention to the man’s forearm while Jack snapped his finger, driving the steel pin in up to the hilt. The point did not protrude out the other side.

The stranger pulled his head back. Jack sensed his intent of delivering a head-butt. Most men would have been down by now, but this one was still coming at him. Jack punched him in the throat, deeper this time, and kneed him in the groin, throwing his hip forward to get more force into it. With the wall behind him, there was no way to ride out the blows. Leaving him bent over, the stranger held his throat and groin with fingers splayed. 

But he might get up again. Jack put his hands together, making one big fist, and slammed it down onto the top of the greasy hair-covered head. Barely conscious, the man slid down the wall and slumped into a sitting position with his legs stretched out. Debbie pulled out the pin and raised her arm, looking where to strike. Jack couldn’t see her eyes, but he would have liked to. Jack held up his hand in front of her, hoping she didn’t stab him.

“Debbie. Relax. He’s out of commission.”

Debbie sat on the bed. Breathing fast and ragged. Still naked. Pin in hand. Blood on her hands and face. 

It took Jack four steps to retrieve his gym bag and pulled out his high-speed jump rope. He unclipped the rope from the swivel handles as he stepped back. This gave him eight feet of flexible, tenth-of-an-inch, nylon-coated steel. He made a loop around the stranger’s neck at the middle of the rope, then down to his wrists to secure them together. Then his knees, which Jack pulled up until they were almost off the floor. If the stranger moved, he would choke himself. 

Jack had a simple medical kit. Debbie’s breathing was slowing down. He tried to remove the pin from her hand so he could clean up the blood. She would not let it go, so he worked around it. She started to shake. It was from the adrenaline. He got his gray 49ers robe, a birthday present from Aunt Louise, and wrapped her in it. 

He patted the man down for weapons. The man stirred at this and squirmed. Debbie stabbed the pin into his leg just above the knee and pulled it to the side. The stranger jerked, the noose around his neck pulled tight. There was a noise like someone gargling water, and he stopped. 

“OK, Debbie. Just sit still. No more stabbing. He’s not going anywhere. And leave the pin in his leg. If you pull it out, there will be more blood.”

One-handed, Debbie tried to pull out the pin. Slick with blood, her hand slipped off it. She wrapped both hands around the two-inch crossbar and slid the pin out of the leg. There was more blood. The thought of patching up this guy irritated Jack. But if he didn’t, there would be blood all over the floor. He pulled out a pair of latex gloves from the medical kit, snapped them on. He rummaged in the kit for a roll of two-inch-wide clear adhesive tape, and wrapped the leg tightly five times to stop the blood flow. Tore off a three-inch strip and stuck in on the right cheek to seal the hole. If it bled on the inside of his mouth, that was not Jack’s problem. He pulled the gloves off, turning them inside out, and dropped them on the bloody hostage.

Debbie sat on the edge of the bed. Jack again patted down the stranger. 

In the jeans, there were car keys and a mobile phone with cracked glass. He flipped it onto the bed. 

On the inside of the windbreaker were two lumps, one just below each of his pecs. They did not feel like guns or knives. They turned out to be nylon pouches about the size of his hand and as thick. He flipped them onto the bed too.

He then realized the door to his apartment was still open. Jack closed and locked it. He snapped on the light switch next to the door. It emitted a glow about as powerful as the light from the moon coming through the window. That must have been for the ambiance he’d tried to create last evening. He turned the dimmer dial up to the max. Everyone in the room squinted at the assault on their eyes.

From long practice, without thinking, Jack used his diaphragm to control and slow his breathing. The coldness inside him, a feeling familiar to him since childhood, was going back to its lair. 

The stranger was concentrating on keeping his legs where he would not strangle himself, not making a sound. Jack looked at him and thought his original estimate was not wrong. He was about fifty pounds heavier and three inches taller. 

Jack glanced at Debbie. Her eyes aimed at Jack. She’d pulled the robe tighter around herself and was still shivering. He grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around her. She smiled with her eyes, thanking Jack, her mouth a straight line. The red slap-mark on her left cheek was blooming. 

“You okay?” It was a dumb question, but he’d to start somewhere.

Fight-flight-freeze had chased the tequila out of both of them. She nodded once. Short and sharp. While keeping the big man in his peripheral vision, Jack briefly studied her. Behind her eyes, he saw something like that ornamental pin, steely and sharp. Interesting, but not the time to dwell on it now. 

“Debbie, I’ve got questions, you need to give me some answers.” 

She gave that single, curt nod again. Direct, let’s-get-this-done. He liked her.

“Do you know this guy?”

“He’s a bouncer, an enforcer, works for the owner of the Fun Factory. The owner is also involved in the same business I resigned from yesterday.”

“I’d say they’re not happy with your resignation. I’ve heard of many ways to retain employees, usually a cash bonus or tickets to Disney World. What did you do there?” 

“The Fun Factory is a club. I was an accountant there at one stage but then got moved to the other business.”

“You were just an accountant?”

“Yes. They’d told me more than once I can’t resign. They said I knew too much. Said they’ll hurt me or anyone who tries to take me away.” 

She gave him a stern look then the hint of a smile on the left side of her mouth. Jack smiled back, just a little, and looked at the dark brown eyes which bordered on black. Her black eyelashes twitched. Her eyes had a slight uplift at the edges. Last night he’d assumed that one of her parents or grandparents was East Asian. She touched her puffy cheek, winced, and stopped smiling. The sight of her like this stirred the dark thing inside him. He put his mouth next to her ear. 

“I’m not making sense of this. But whatever, it needs to be sorted out.”

“Not sure you can. There are others like him in the business. Mostly cousins of the owner.” 

“Who’s the owner?”

“Tony Rizzo.”

“And this guy on the floor, here?”

“Dante Conti.”

“A cousin?”

“A cousin.”

Jack took two steps toward Conti, reached down and grabbed the fingers on Conti’s left hand. 

Conti lifted his head. It was like a large rock with the receding lower jaw and the black stubble, which in one shave would probably destroy the blade. Eyebrows like two hairy steroidal caterpillars in a stand-off, mouth ajar as blood clogged the nose. The results of many fights were evident. His nose was a flattened piece of cartilage. His face had tiny scars, like flicks of paint across a canvas. Some you win, some you lose.

He stared at Jack without blinking. Which is what rocks would do. 

“This is not making any sense. Why did you think Debbie was leaving for good?”

To make sure Conti was listening, Jack squeezed the fingers.

“It wasn’t me. It was Evelyn who noticed it as she was locking up.”

His voice sounded like it was coming through a flattened tube of toothpaste. But the fact he was talking at all, what with the pain he should have been feeling in throat, balls, and hands, suggested he was more challenging than most.

“Evelyn?” said Jack. “Debbie, who’s Evelyn?”

“She’s my boss. CEO of the business.”

“And noticed what?” said Jack, squeezing Conti’s fingers.

“She’d taken the dragon, Evelyn said.”

“What dragon?” said Jack.

“Damn,” said Debbie. “I didn’t think she’d notice.”

“What dragon? Debbie!”

“A gift from my grandmother. A bronze Feng Shui dragon. It’s in my bag. It’s small, only three inches long.”

“So?” said Jack.

“At one stage,” said Debbie, looking at Jack, “Evelyn wanted to buy the dragon. I told her why I couldn’t sell it, and that Grandmother said it must always be in my workspace and point a certain way to create the right energies. She must have thought if the dragon’s gone, then I’m gone as well. Never to return.”

Debbie turned to look at Conti as if this would focus her thoughts. She whispered as if her speculation was only for her to hear, but it was loud enough for Jack to hear too.

“Conti here would have been sent by Rizzo after Evelyn phoned him and Rizzo had spoken to Marx. Marx would have been the one to think I may have taken the files.”

“Marx? Who is Marx?”

“The owner of Magna.”

“Magna? That party where we met last night?”

“Yes, and I’m so sorry I got you involved. I don’t know how they tracked me here.”

Jack turned his attention back to Conti.

“Well. How did you track her here?”

No answer. 

Jack increased the pressure on the fingers.

No answer.

Jack twisted the fingers. 

“Okay, Okay!” 

He released the pressure on the fingers but kept a firm grip.

“I went to the party where I’d been told she went. She wasn’t there. Bought some drinks and asked around. One of her friends told me that she’d left their party to go to another one. Got the address of the bar and headed there.”

Conti stopped talking and looked back down at the floor like he’d lost interest in the conversation. Jack squeezed and twisted the fingers. There was a groan.

“Okay, Okay. Stop! When I got to the next bar, she wasn’t there either. I bought some drinks for the people there and asked about her.” 

“You sure spent a lot of money on drinks. You’re determined, aren’t you?”

“They said she’d left with someone.”

It was like mulling over a three-dimensional puzzle, trying to get the pieces to come together but not succeeding. Maybe all the pieces weren’t there. Jack tried to remember if Debbie had told anyone where she was going. He thought they’d simply slipped away. This wasn’t making sense. He put a question to Conti.

“You’re telling me you turn up at places as a stranger and people just tell you what you want to know, because, what, you’re charming?”

No response from Conti. Jack twisted the finger and waited for an answer.

“Okay, let my finger go!” 

Jack relaxed his grip. 

“There’s a transponder in the cover of her cell phone.”

“And?”

“I phoned into my guys to tell me the address where she was. I kept being one step behind.”

Jack tried to recall how many bars they’d been to. 

“So, I waited until they said the transponder was stationary for a few hours and they gave me the address.”

“And here you are,” said Jack. “What one can do with just a little technology.”

Jack held his hand out to Debbie. “Phone please.”

“It’s in my bag,” said Debbie as she looked around the room. She found it between the bed and a bed-side table. She rummaged in the bag and passed him her phone. 

He pulled off the protective cover, found the thin circular button. He considered crushing it. Decided against it. If whoever is monitoring this noticed it was no longer responding, they might just send a flock of Conti’s to the last place they got a signal–this address. More than one Conti and without the element of surprise, Jack knew it would end badly. So he dropped the transponder with the phone onto the bed. 

“Well,” said Jack, “that explains how you found your way here, but how did you get in? There’s an iron gate at the entrance to this building and a wooden door beyond that.”

The blood in Conti’s mouth and nose did not prevent the jaw from producing a smile and a chuckle which sounded like crunching tinfoil. It was the most pleasant expression Jack had seen so far. 

“Are you too stupid to realize this pain can go on for a long time?” Jack said and waited for Conti to reply. It took five seconds.

“Monitoring a transponder is not a new technology. And the technology on your gate and door. Ha!”

Jack knew he was right.

“And you’ve just created a world of trouble for yourself. I’m just one small part of a large organization. Ask her. She’ll tell you.”

“Whatever you say,” said Jack, “but now it’s time for you to leave.” 

Jack went into his bathroom and came out with his laundry bag. He emptied the contents on the floor, put it over Conti’s head and pulled the drawstring tight. It’s harder to fight when you cannot see. A lot harder. 

Jack picked up his trousers, which were in a heap next to the bed and foraged in the pockets until he found his phone, went to Favorites, and pressed the name at the top of the list. There were six rings before someone answered.

“Freddie, I’ve had a home invasion. A single large individual.” 

Jack noticed Debbie scrutinizing him, like a fawn with eyes that registered curiosity, alertness, intelligence.

“No. All OK here. Just need your guys to take him away.”

Debbie leaned forward as though straining to hear his conversation.

“OK, we’ll sit and wait.”

Debbie looked at Jack. “Who was that?”

“Freddie, my cousin, he’s with SFPD. Cops are on their way here.”

Conti wiggled at ‘SFPD’. Perhaps he’d made their acquaintance before. Debbie raised the pin high to stab him in the leg again. Jack threw his arm in front of her. 

“No more stabbing.” She lowered her arm. “And you, Conti. I suggest you stay like a statue. Debbie is on high alert here.” 

That seemed to work. 

While wondering how Conti had broken in, Jack looked at the red mark on Debbie’s face. He went to the fridge and the kitchen sink, returning with a packet of frozen peas wrapped in a tea towel. He moved her hair away, his fingers brushing her cheek. It felt like satin, looked like alabaster, glowing from within. His fingers lingered as he groped for a better word than beautiful. Exquisite would work. A smile moved over her mouth. Younger by about three years than his thirty. He placed the cold compress against the red mark and her smile faded. Debbie held it with one hand and her other reached up to place her palm on Jack’s face. Jack pulled her hand off his face, turned it over, kissed her palm, put it in her lap.

The sound of sirens approaching made him stand up and walk to the window. A six foot long by two-foot-high strip of double glaze glass encased in a dark wooden frame. Down on the street, no cop cars in sight, the siren getting closer.

The window looked across the rooftops, showing the lights on the Golden Gate Bridge and the moon on the fog-covered bay. Well, part of the Bridge, a sliver of the Bay. Diamond Heights was not that close to the bridge, but it had height. Being August, the cold fog had rolled in from the Pacific Ocean, under and over The Bridge, coming to rest in The Bay. Starting as tendrils, becoming thicker and wider. Now it was still. Waiting for the inland on the other side of the mountains to heat up. 

Two black and whites pulled up, lights flashing. The sirens stopped. Two cops got out of each vehicle, putting on their hats as they ran into the apartment building. 

Debbie pulled her mishmash of clothing around her and stood up. “I’m going to stay in the bathroom until this has been handled.”

He looked at the length of her. Last night, she’d been in high heels and her mouth was just above his shoulder. He recalled kissing her when they were standing in a bar as they were laughing about something. Only had to lean down a little to make contact. That was a crystal-clear memory.