The Eighty-eighth Key
Part III
Chapter 18
____________________________________
In the days and weeks after the Bennett assassinations, the City of San Francisco was living along the edge of a very sharp knife. Tourists stopped coming to see the sights, hotels emptied and flights into and out of SFO flew with most their seats unsold. Criminal enterprises - from 'mom & pop robberies' to more organized rackets fell off the radar too, because the police department's patrol division was on a total rampage. Traffic stops escalated into life and death affairs, so much and so frequently that people began obeying speed limits and using their turn signals - both being completely unheard of in and around the city.
Sam Bennett took extended family leave and was rarely heard from. Frank Bullitt was heard talking about taking early retirement, leaving Delgetti and Stanton rudderless and adrift. Al Bressler went back to vice and, just after An Linh's funeral, Lloyd Callahan left for the Orient. Jim Parish left for a new posting in Hawaii - but only after he was sure his friend's deteriorating mental state didn't need a more rigorous intervention. He watched Callahan for a few days, not quite sure what to make of the false bravado on constant display.
Or was it false?
Was Callahan a psychopath - unable to assimilate An Linh's murder? The more questions he asked the more uncertain he became until, in the end, he felt like he was peeling away the layers of an onion - and not at all liking what he found.
After a few days of this he forced Harry to take four weeks of vacation, and after Parish left for Hawaii Harry literally sat at his piano for hours on end. His first night alone he played dark creations interspersed with off the wall television classics - themes from shows like Peter Gunn and 77 Sunset Strip - before he fell away into his beloved Gershwin, and somewhere in the middle of Summertime he lost it completely - falling to the floor and crying for hours.
He found himself the next day walking the city, taking An Linh to all the places he wanted to share with her - before he realized the ghostly nature of the shadow by his side.
The next night he pulled his favorite chair up to the window and propped his feet on the sill, and for hours he watched the regular hard-core drinkers file in and out of the bars the lined both sides of the street below. Occasionally he could hear the half-hearted efforts of a really bad pianist playing at the nearest dive, a real bloodbath that belonged to the Threlkis syndicate, and so for some reason, he walked over and stepped inside.
An altogether unimpressive looking kid sat at the keyboard stumbling his way through Green Dolphin Street and Harry watched until he couldn't take it anymore - then he walked up to the bar.
"Whaddayahavin'," the bar-keep muttered.
"Club soda, lime," Callahan replied.
"Sure thing."
"Who runs this place?"
"Who's askin'?"
"Just wonderin', really, but is that the best you can do?" Callahan said, nodding towards the piano player.
"Kid's connected. Not much I can do about it."
"Connected?" Harry asked.
"One of the Threlkis kids, or so I hear."
"Protection?"
The barkeeper nodded through his frown, and when the kid started butchering some kind of Stevie Wonder song they both grimaced.
"Sounds kind of like he's choking a cat," Callahan said through gritted teeth - but then without another word said he walked over to the piano and looked at the kid while he finished up the tune. "You play any Gershwin?"
The kid shook his head.
"You ever take lessons?"
The kid looked up on hearing that. "Fuck-off, faggot. Not interested."
Callahan sneered, then growled: "The name of the song you're butchering is 'Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing,' right?"
"I ain't butcherin' nothin', faggot."
"Move over," Callahan said - and the tone in his voice was all the kid needed to hear. He slid down and Harry sat and without pause banged out the song, then stood and went back to the bar.
The kid followed. Kind of like a puppy, Callahan thought.
"You a teacher or somethin'?" the kid asked.
"Nope."
"Jack, buy the faggot another drink, and I'll have a tequila sunrise."
Callahan's jaw was working overtime now, his teeth clenched tight.
The drinks came and Callahan downed his water, then he turned to leave - but then the kid went too far.
"Come on, faggot...wanna go out back and get on your knees?"
Callahan turned and faced the kid - but still Callahan kept his mouth shut - letting his eyes do the talking for now...
Only now the kid had just enough sense to keep his mouth shut, and Callahan simply stared at him, decided to let the kid make the first move...
Which came by way of an easy dry-gulch, a knee-to-the-groin that Callahan deflected with ease, followed by a floppy-wristed attempt at a right cross...
...and then Callahan grabbed the kid's fist in mid-strike and slammed it down on the bar, next he drove an ice-pick through the kid's hand - and with that part of his plan complete he turned and walked from the bar. Heading through an early morning fog down to the wharf he felt the adrenaline coursing through his veins, his anger still at an intense peak. A few minutes passed before he began to come down, yet still he walked around the gently bobbing boats. He took in fishermen loading ice and pumping diesel into holds and tanks - and for a while he wondered what a life at sea would feel like - before he figured enough time had passed. He sighed and turned back for his apartment.
'Why do I always walk down to the sea?' he reflected. "And in a fog...?"
He was almost home when he saw a girl in the shadows - a hooker - and he thought about using her in his little plan - as she stepped into the light as he drew near.
"Hey man, wanna party?"
"No thanks, darlin'," Harry said, trying but not quite succeeding to smile, "I'm tryin' to quit."
She laughed. "Never heard that one before. You live around here?"
"Yup."
"I'm kinda cold. Could you fix me up with some coffee?"
"Sure, if you don't mind some home-brew."
She fell in beside Callahan and followed him to his apartment. He went into his little kitchen and put on the kettle, then set up his carafe with a filter and coffee, and he made enough for two.
"Have a seat," he said as he finished up, and after he gave her a cup he walked over to the window and looked down at the bar.
There was a patrol car parked out front now, and the ambulance was still there too, and he shook his head as he watched two patrolmen walking up the hill towards his building. And yeah, soon enough they were out front; when they buzzed his number he let them in, then went to the door.
"Callahan?" one officer said when he opened his door. "You nail that kid?"
"You know who the fuck his old man is, man?" the other said.
"What are you talking about?" Harry said. "I've been here with this young lady all night."
The first cop peered in and leered at the hooker before he nodded. "Nice, quick alibi, Callahan. I salute you."
Callahan shut the door and watched them leave from the window, and from the way they were acting he figured both of 'em were on the Threlkis payroll.
"You a cop?" the girl asked.
"Yup. Homicide."
"You gonna arrest me, or what?"
"For what? Being cold?"
"Mind if I finish this? It's pretty good."
"From Jamaica. It ought to be."
"Where's that?"
"Caribbean."
"Oh. Like the ride."
"Mind if I ask how old you are?"
"Why?"
"You run away?"
She looked away, answering that question with a well-oiled screen of silence.
"Now, just one more question: If you wanted to go home right now, what would stop you?"
"I don't want to go home, man."
"That wasn't the question."
She shook her head. "You don't wanna know, man. You really don't."
"What makes you say that?"
"Look man, they got no problem takin' out a cop. You, like, hearin' me?"
He nodded his head while he watched the cops walking back to the bar, and he watched as a couple of men got out of a Lincoln and walked up to meet them. The cops nodded and pointed in the direction of his apartment, and one of the men handed each cop an envelope.
"You're working a Threlkis street, so that makes you for one of theirs." He looked at the developing situation, watched it unfold just as he knew it would. "Your pimp. What kind of car does he drive?"
"A black Lincoln. Why?"
He watched the two men get sawed-off shotguns from the Lincoln's trunk before he turned to the girl. "You better finish your coffee..." he said as he helped her to the door. "Better head out the back door."
She saw the men walking up the street...and didn't need to be told twice.
He went to the bedroom and double-checked that all his important papers were in the top dresser drawer, then he went to the living room and sat down.
And he waited.
And waited.
At one point he thought he heard something fall in the stairwell, but then his little world grew silent and still once again.
Then...a gentle knock on the door...and this he did not expect.
He stood and went for the door, and as planned - unarmed, and he didn't bother to look out the peep-hole.
"It's open," was all he said.
He watched the knob turning and stepped back, wondering what it would feel like. Pain, probably, then cold awareness before...
But when the door opened Avi Rosenthal walked in, followed by several heavily armed men in black uniforms, their faces blacked-out and glistening with sweat.
"You trying to kill yourself, Harald, isn't going to make my job any easier, ya know?"
Callahan went to the landing and looked down at the Threlkis men - now thoroughly dead - being stuffed into black nylon body-bags. Then he felt a scalding pinch on his left arm - before a gentle warmth washed over his falling body.
_________________________________
He was, he said, a colonel in the Waffen SS, and not to be trifled with - yet he seemed cautiously courteous. Almost unctuously so. He did not introduce himself, yet he made sure Imogen understood that he knew everything worthwhile there was to know about her, and he repeated time and time again her vulnerability while she was his guest in Theresienstadt. And to drive the point home he walked up to her and took her left breast in hand and fondled it aggressively - in full view of the clearly frightened children huddled on the floor.
"If I want to take you, I will take you. If it amuses me to have a dozen guards sodomize you in the middle of the street, it will happen. If you challenge any rule I will debase you in ways you have never imagined." He moved his gloved hand from her breast to between her legs, and he lingered there. "Am I being clear?"
"Yes, perfectly clear."
"You have no protector here, no clever scientist to look after your interests. Do you understand what that means?"
"I understand."
"We will see. I understand you play the piano quite well. Do you know Wagner?"
"Yes, of course."
