“So, you had something going on near here?” asked Lee as they turned south to find a ramp onto the freeway.
“Yep,” said Connors.
“Up in the Castro.
Political action committee.
”
She raised her right fist in a power salute.
“Here’s to Andrew Harper,” she said.
“Hopefully, our next governor.”
“Harper?” said Lee.
“Boy.
What an election that’s going to
be. Are you helping out in his campaign?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Connors.
“Are you kidding?
No way I’m sitting this one out.
That’s why I was there.
Gay and lesbian folks – figuring out how to harness this insane energy without turning it into Halloween night.”
“Hmmm,” said Lee.
“Yeah.
I guess I can see how it might get out of hand.”
“You’ve got that right,” said Connors.
“All we need is a few of the boys wearing those leather chaps over their bare butts.
It’s cute at Halloween but maybe not at a Harper rally.”
“Yeah.
I’m sure the Moral Majority would have something to say about that,” said Lee.
“Anyways, we’re working on all the nuts and bolts,” said Connors.
“Fundraising.
Get out the vote.
Phone banks.
You name it.
You want to help?”
Lee pondered the offer.
He viewed the gay rights movement as the latest step in equal rights.
And as someone who still remembered the occasional taunts from his youth – “gook”, “slope”, “jap”, “chink” – and older kids on the city buses who would sit behind him and laughingly mimic the sing-song cadences of Mandarin, any form of prejudice struck a raw nerve.
But, the News discouraged its reporters from openly supporting candidates or causes since it made the paper vulnerable to complaints of bias.
“Let me get back to you on that,” he told Connors. “And…uh…not to change the subject, but what’s new with the Truman case.
Did his girlfriend’s information check out?”
“Oh, right,” said Connors.
“That’s why you called me in the first place.
It did check out.
We would have figured it out eventually.
But the girlfriend cut out a lot of steps.
We verified the call with the phone records.
A 72-minute call, like she said.
And, we think he was shot in the parking garage.
They tried to clean it up but how much could they do?
They left plenty of blood behind.
So far, it all appears to be Truman’s.
“And – drum roll here – the best thing is we found a couple of hairs stuck in the mess,” she continued.
“I mean we found more.
But they were all Truman’s except for these two.
We submitted it to the national database…the DNA.
Unfortunately, they’re backlogged right now.
It will take a week – maybe more – to get the results.
Cross your fingers.”
“All right,” said Lee.
“I’ll be waiting with bated breath.”
Given what he knew about government work, he figured the lab work would take two weeks at least.
“So, I can let Sonia, his girlfriend, know that what she said helped you out?” he said.
“I think she’d like to know.”
“Oh yeah.
Big time,” said Connors.
“Another day or two, and who knows what happens.
The hair blows away.
They hose down the garage.
Even another two dozen cars driving through the scene degrades the evidence.
And thanks for the tip.
I owe you one.
If anything pops, I’ll let you know.”
Connors grinned.
“So, what was Truman up to at 3:30 in the morning in a parking garage that got him killed?” said Lee.
“It is a little strange.”
“Yep,” said Connors.
“Definitely a few questions to be answered.”
* * *
Half-ton pickups, some new and others rusted out, dominated the parking lot at the Anvil Bar on Oak Avenue outside of Manteca.
At 7 pm on a Monday, it was half-full.
Mounted deer heads with full racks decorated all the walls.
There were two pool tables in the back.
The noise level dropped noticeably after he and Connors walked in.
It was immediately clear they were out of place.
Two urban exotics – a black woman with a half-Chinese man – in a redneck bar.
Lee hesitated just inside the door but Connors walked straight through like she owned the place.
She had a no-nonsense air that pulled the woman bartender over to her immediately.
Connors flashed her badge and asked for the manager.
The bartender pointed toward the back, down the hallway.
Connors headed that way while Lee took a seat at the bar and ordered a Coke.
He felt the bar relax as the noise picked up again and everyone returned to their drinks.
Maybe it was his own mood, but Lee thought he could feel everyone getting over their tough Mondays with a few beers that would grease the rest of the work week.
He was halfway through his Coke when Connors came back shaking her head.
“Waste of time,” she said.
“Guy stopped working here a week ago.
Just stopped showing up.
Let’s go.
Too many ‘yahoos’ around here for me.”
They threaded their way through the dozen tables toward the front door.
Three men sat at a table near the entrance, each with a mug of beer in front of him.
The skinny one in the middle looked around 45, wore a black T-shirt with the sleeves cut off and a filthy red bandanna around his neck.
Lee could tell he was trouble from 20 feet away.
The guy watched them approach with a nasty sneer splashed across his face.
“Nigger cunt,” he said under his breath as Lee and Connors passed by.
Connors was in front and Lee saw her flinch but keep walking, eyes focused straight ahead.
Lee took two steps.
Then he stopped, turned slowly and walked back to the table.
He stared at the man who gazed back with the sneer unchanged.
Lee grabbed the mostly full mug of beer closest to him and slid it hard.
It ran off the table and into the fellow’s lap where he juggled it for a moment, spilling most of the contents on himself, before the mug hit the floor and shattered.
The guy jumped up, rage on his face and his hands balled up in fists.
His companions stood up as well, more surprised than angry but looking ready to jump into any action that might develop.
Lee was prepared for whatever came next.
He moved back a half step to maneuver without having the table in his way.
He expected the black T-shirt guy to come at him and he waited for him.
But the guy didn’t move.
He was frozen in place, his hands still in fists at his sides.
The sneer had softened to an angry glare and he was looking past Lee.
When he was sure the guy wasn’t coming for him, Lee looked back over his shoulder.
He saw Connors standing behind him, hand on her hip so the left side of her jacket hung open.
Her gun in its shoulder holster was plainly visible.
She had a small smile on her face.
Lee turned back to the trio, dug into his front pocket until he found a $5 bill which he tossed crumpled onto the table.
Then, he turned back toward the doorway and left the bar with Connors at his side.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Connors cracked up.
She put her hands on his shoulders from behind and steadied herself as she laughed.
“Oh my!” she finally said.
“Where did that come from?”
“Italian side,” said Lee.
“Or Scottish.
Whatever.
Guy just ticked me off.”
“I like it,” she said, still laughing so hard she leaned against Lee for support as they walked.
“I truly do.”
They were well on their way back to San Francisco before Connors’ giggling fits finally subsided.
Chapter 7
ENZO LEE CAPPED off his four-mile run with a bottle of water, a bagel and a cappuccino in Union Square.
He’d gotten up early,
jogged down the hills from North Beach and then found his rhythm going north on Sansome until he came out on the Embarcadero.
He headed north for a few blocks and took a quick loop around Pier 39 to see if the sea lions were awake.
They were, warming up for another busy day of napping and squabbling over space on the boat docks they had won by simply exercising their animal squatting rights five years earlier.
Then, Lee followed the long stretch of the Embarcadero waterfront south to the Ferry Building and Market Street.
Commuters were emerging from the underground BART and Muni stations as he turned down Market.
The coffee shops were tossing up their metal shutters.
Small lines were forming where people waited to grab their scones and lattes before entering the downtown office buildings to begin their work days.
Whenever he left his North Beach flat for a run, Lee thought more about what he would see than the miles ahead.
Grinning tourists hanging onto the cable cars.
Eager techies talking animatedly into invisible microphones.
Sidewalk merchants setting up their piles of sweatshirts, CDs and worn paperbacks.
Lee slowed to a walk a few blocks from Union Square to cool down and let the morning breeze start drying the sweat which had soaked through his black Giants sweatshirt.
The bagel and cappuccino marked the official end to his jogging regimen.
When he was finished, he cut across the square to Post, walked the block to Grant Avenue and headed up toward Chinatown.
He passed Saks, Gumps, Brooks Brothers and a dozen high-end fashion stores before he reached the first gold and red signs with Chinese characters.
Grant and the side streets were already bustling with hand trucks bringing in supplies from hastily parked delivery trucks.
The smell of cooking food, particularly the roasted duck and barbecued pork, already permeated the neighborhood.
Early shoppers were out and bickering with the merchants before they could even get all their goods displayed in their cases and on tables along the sidewalk.