A Way With Murder (bryson wilde) Read online

  One had the barrel body and the tanned left arm of a truck driver.

  The other was a scraggly guy.

  A memory of sneaking down there one drunken Saturday night and screwing the socks off Mary Browning flashed briefly in Wilde’s brain. He let it play for a few moments then focused on the ratty looking guy.

  “You work here?” Wilde asked.

  Yes.

  He did.

  “I’m trying to find a guy who looks like Robert Mitchum,” he said. “He was here Friday night.”

  “Don’t know him.”

  “You never saw anyone like that?”

  “I only work days.”

  “Okay,” Wilde said. “Thanks.”

  He was almost to the steps when a voice came from behind him. “There’s a night bartender who might know. Her name’s Michelle Day. She lives over on Delaware just past Colfax.”

  “Thanks.”

  “If you wake her up tell her Joey sent you,” he said.

  “I take it you’re not too fond of her.”

  “No, not really.” The man walked over and held his hand out. “That’ll be a dollar.”

  Fair enough.

  Wilde paid and headed upstairs for a phone book.

  She was there-1732 Delaware.

  He drove a 1947 MG/TC named Blondie, British Racing Green over tan leather, a two-seat roadster only made from 1946 to 1949. The English steering wheel was on the wrong side and the vehicle didn’t have bumpers or a heater or a radio or hardly any other amenities, but it did have a drop top and a Moss Magnacharger engine. It also tended to make the women spread their legs ever so slightly when they sat in the passenger seat.

  He took the top down.

  The sunshine spilled in.

  The drive to Michelle Day’s house took hardly any time. He found a slot on the street for Blondie two doors down and headed back on foot.

  The door was shut and the house was quiet.

  If he knocked, he’d wake her.

  That would be the second one today.

  “One more reason I’m going to hell,” he told himself.

  Then he knocked.

  No one answered.

  No sounds or vibrations came from inside.

  He knocked again, harder.

  No answer.

  He turned the knob just for grins and found it unlocked. He opened the door far enough to get his voice through and said, “Anyone home?”

  No answer.

  Louder, “Michelle, are you here?”

  No answer.

  He stepped inside, leaving the door open.

  The place was trashed.

  It wasn’t the kind of trashed that came from sloppy housekeeping, it was the kind that came from someone tearing the place apart.

  His pulse raced.

  A quick search of the first floor turned up more disorder but no humans.

  He headed upstairs two at a time.

  11

  Day One

  July 21, 1952

  Monday Afternoon

  The Green Dragon Oriental Massage turned out to be in the heart of Chinatown on the Street of Painted Balconies, which was an alley between Stockton and Grant. Waverly opened a metal mesh screen door and stepped into a dim red room with lots of plants, a koi pond and soft abstract music. Herbs scented the air. An Asian woman entered from the back through a barrier of hanging beads.

  She was striking, exotic, about thirty, with a tiny waist and long black hair styled with bangs that hung a little too far over her eyes. Her body was wrapped in a full length kimono. Her glance dropped to Waverly’s suitcase then back up.

  She walked over, pecked a kiss onto Waverly’s lips and said, “You’re prettier than I expected.”

  “You’re Su-Moon?”

  “I’m Su-Moon, Su-Sun, whoever you want me to be. Tilt says he’s a big-shot owner of a paper now, is that true?”

  “Mostly.”

  “That’s because of me,” Su-Moon said. “I wished him good karma. It always comes true.”

  “Why did you wish him good karma?”

  “He was a good tipper,” Su-Moon said.

  “Tilt?”

  Su-Moon nodded.

  “Shelby Tilt?”

  Right.

  Him.

  “There must be two guys with the same name.”

  Su-Moon laughed then held Waverly’s hands and looked her up and down. “Later I’ll give you acupuncture-very, very sensual. There’s a deep part of you inside that you don’t know about yet. You’ll never be the same. I’ll bring it out for you. No charge.” She picked up Waverly’s suitcase and said, “Follow me.”

  Through the beaded barrier was a long black hallway with doors painted cartoon colors. All were open except three. The moaning of a male voice came from behind one of the closed ones.

  “I assume that’s a happy ending,” Waverly asked.

  “A very happy ending,” Su-Moon said. “Happy for us too. More money that way.”

  “What about the cops?”

  “What about them?”

  “They don’t, you know, interfere?”

  Su-Moon smiled.

  “All the massage parlors are controlled by an organization,” she said. “That organization puts money in the right hands to make sure things operate smoothly.”

  “What kind of organization? Like the mafia?”

  “Basically yes,” Su-Moon said. “Except all Asian, no outsiders. I don’t own this place. The organization does. I only manage it. Right now we have three girls working. Tonight we’ll have ten.”

  At the end of the hall was a door.

  Su-Moon unlocked it then relocked it after they passed through.

  On the other side of it was a wooden stairway.

  On the second floor was an apartment.

  “This is where I live,” Su-Moon said. “And now you.”

  The place was a throwback to another land and time, filled with all things eastern, knickknacks and treasures, large and small.

  “There’s only one bed,” Su-Moon said.

  “I can sleep on the floor.”

  “It’s big enough for two,” Su-Moon said. “I don’t mind sharing if you don’t mind.”

  “Okay. Thanks again.”

  They had tea.

  Then Waverly got directions to the San Francisco Public Library and headed out.

  Time was ticking.

  12

  Day One

  July 21, 1952

  Monday Afternoon

  River got the chains and ropes and supplies situated at the graveyard and headed back across the topography under a warm Colorado sun. As his car came into sight something was wrong. The passenger door was open and some scumbag was inside ripping him off.

  He broke into a sprint, a silent sprint, not shouting, not giving a warning.

  There was nothing worth stealing.

  That wasn’t the issue.

  The issue was respect.

  Someone didn’t respect him enough to leave his stuff alone.

  That was a mistake.

  If someone wanted to screw with him, fine, but do it to his face.

  At least be a man about it.

  Don’t be a rat-faced sneak.

  Rat-faced sneaks ended up dead.

  Two choppers with narrow grips came into view at a standstill on the other side of the car. There were three figures total, a woman and two men, heavily tattooed, wearing leather vests and bandanas. The men looked strong even at a distance; the woman too, for that matter.

  One would be no problem.

  Two would be tricky but doable.

  Three was pressing his luck.

  If he was smart he’d just hang back and not give them the chance to screw up his life.

  Let them go.

  Concentrate on tonight.

  It made sense but he couldn’t get his feet to stop. He couldn’t control the fire in his brain. He slowed a little so he wouldn’t be totally winded when he got there, but he kept going.r />
  Someone was about to get hurt.

  They spotted him charging.

  One of the men grabbed a six-foot length of chain from the back of a bike and whipped it through the air.

  The man in the car pulled a knife and stepped out.

  He was already in a warrior position.

  The woman had something in her hand, too small to make out. River sensed a box-cutter. She picked a rock off the ground with her other hand.

  “Come on, asshole!”

  River stopped ten steps away.

  The men were stronger than he thought.

  They were dangerous.

  He’d seen eyes like that before.

  The man whipped the chain on the ground. Dirt exploded. They were already spreading out trying to box him in.

  He backed up.

  “Come on, asshole,” the woman said. “Don’t chicken out now.”

  13

  Day One

  July 21, 1952

  Monday Morning

  Upstairs Wilde found a naked woman laying face down in bed on the top of the sheets. She was flipped the wrong way with her head at the bottom and her feet by the pillow. Her arms were sprawled out, her right knee was up and her legs were spread. He approached slowly trying to figure out if she was sleeping or dead. Her body had no movement and no sounds of breathing came from her mouth.

  He was pretty sure she was dead even though he saw no blood or bruises.

  Who did it?

  Robert Mitchum?

  Suddenly she moved.

  Her head came up and flipped to the other side.

  There was nothing wrong with her face.

  It hadn’t been stabbed or punched.

  She hadn’t been suffocated.

  Her legs twisted around for a more comfortable position and then all movement stopped.

  She was already back asleep.

  Wilde stood coffin-quiet, breathing with an open mouth, letting her drift into an even deeper unconsciousness before he took a step. Just as he was about to tiptoe out, something bad happened. The woman rolled onto her back, raised her arms above her head and stretched. Her eyes opened but were faced the other way.

  Four steps.

  That’s how far Wilde was in the room.

  There was no way he’d get out without making a sound. The floor was wood, his shoes were leather, his body was heavy.

  He didn’t move, not a muscle.

  Go back to sleep.

  Go back to sleep.

  Go back to sleep.

  Suddenly the woman put a hand between her legs and massaged herself in a slow, steady motion. She closed her eyes and spread her knees.

  It felt good.

  Wilde was six feet away, directly behind the woman’s head. If she turned her face even a bit, or looked up at the ceiling, she’d probably pick him up in her peripheral vision.

  The tempo of her motion increased.

  Her legs stiffened and spread even farther.

  Wilde was just about to take a step back when the woman’s eyes opened and pointed at the ceiling.

  He didn’t dare move.

  Any movement would be detected.

  The woman moaned.

  14

  Day One

  July 21, 1952

  Monday Afternoon

  The San Francisco Public Library had all the past ghosts of the Chronicle on microfiche in a musty old basement corner that was three times quieter than a tomb. If Waverly died there, no one would find her for a week. It took some time and eyestrain but she eventually found a June 12, 1949 article titled Woman Falls to Death, reporting about a woman found at the base of a building in the downtown area early Saturday morning.

  The cause of the fall was unknown.

  The woman was 24-year-old Kava Every, an architect who worked at Bristol Design Group. She was an attractive blond with a white smile and a Haight Street address.

  There was no mention of a red dress.

  Shelby Tilt.

  That was the reporter’s name at the top of the article.

  Waverly hunted down a librarian, got a copy of the microfiche printed for five cents and headed out of the guts of the building into very welcome sunshine.

  The air was in the low-70s, a good 20 degrees cooler than Denver, and had a salty hang to it.

  It felt more like spring than summer.

  From the library in the Civic Center, she hopped on a red Cal Cable trolley that took her into the downtown area on the east side of the city.

  The buildings were taller than Denver.

  The buzz was louder.

  The traffic was faster.

  She found the address she was looking for, took the elevator to the third floor and got dumped in a vestibule. To the left was a copper door set in a glass cinderblock wall. Lights and movement on the other side distorted through the rounded glass bricks.

  The place was hopping.

  Above the door was red lettering.

  Bristol Design Group.

  She took a deep breath, opened the door and stepped in. The reception desk was cluttered with papers but had no human inhabitant in the chair. Waverly stood in front of it and waited.

  A minute passed, then another.

  Lots of men scurried around plus an occasional woman but no one paid her any attention.

  Then a man appeared from her left and handed her a ten-dollar bill. “Do me a favor,” he said. “Run down to Murphy’s and get me an Italian sausage with everything, plus an RC and a bag of chips.”

  He was in his mid-thirties and wore it well, in a rough, manly way.

  His eyes were wolfen-blue.

  He reminded her of a Marlboro billboard.

  She looked down to see if he was wearing a ring. He wasn’t, but his pinky finger was missing. She had a strange urge to touch the stub.

  He must have seen the expression on her face because he said, “It got shot off. If you’re temping for more than just today, I’ll tell you about it some time. Are you?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Temping tomorrow too?”

  She shrugged.

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  Then she noticed something.

  His shirt was buttoned wrong.

  She unbuttoned the top button, re-buttoned it in the proper hole and said, “Just follow my lead the rest of the way down.”

  He smiled.

  “I can’t believe nobody told me.”

  She shoved the ten in her purse and headed for the elevator. Over her shoulder she heard, “Hey, what’s your name?”

  “Waverly Paige.”

  He was Sean.

  Sean Waterfield.

  He was happy to meet her.

  15

  Day One

  July 21, 1952

  Monday Afternoon

  River didn’t want to kill the bikers but that changed when the first knife swished past his head. They tried to surround him but he darted this way and that, forever elusive, leading them deeper and deeper into the terrain. They got more desperate, trying to get him in the middle. River bided his time and waited for his move.

  Then it came.

  One of the guys tripped over a rock and went down. River kicked him in the face, wrestled the knife away and stabbed it with full force into the side of the asshole’s head.

  The woman screamed and charged.

  River backed up as if escaping then suddenly closed the gap with a leap forward and punched her in the face.

  She went down, bloody, and curled into a ball.

  Now there was one, the one with the chain, the big one.

  “You’re going to die, asshole,” he said.

  River pointed his index finger at the man and then moved it in a come-here motion.

  “Come on and do it,” he said.

  The man charged and swung the chain with so much strength that River didn’t dare grab it. He skirted it and got his footing.

  The woman was getting to her feet.

  “Stay down!”
River said.

  Her face was covered in blood.

  The only clean part was the whites of her eyes.

  She didn’t stay down.

  She couldn’t.

  She was insane with rage and charged.

  River grabbed her, wrapped his arm around her neck and held her in front of him-a human shield. “Put the chain down and I’ll let her go,” he said. “We’ll finish it fist to fist.”

  The chain didn’t drop.

  The man didn’t move.

  “Do it!” River said. “Do it or I’ll snap her neck!”

  “Screw you and screw her!”

  He charged and swung the chain.

  River dropped and forced the woman with him. The chain passed over their heads. Before the man could get it cocked again River got a hand on his arm and swung him to the ground.

  A punch landed on his face with the force of a rock.

  He tried to shake it off before another one came.

  It didn’t work.

  A second one landed, so hard that the inside of River’s head exploded in colors.

  Then a third landed.

  He was dying.

  A few more and he’d be dead.

  He made a desperate move to close the gap and get the man in a bear hug.

  It worked.

  The fists kept pounding but they were more on his back than his head and weren’t full force. River kept the man locked in position until the explosions in his head softened, then he wrapped his arm around the man’s neck.

  At that second, they locked eyes.

  The man made a desperate move, trying to twist.

  It partially worked but not enough to get away.

  River rolled and jerked with all his might.

  The man’s neck snapped, then he twitched for a few seconds and stopped moving.

  River rolled onto his stomach and closed his eyes.

  The darkness felt like water.