Lethal Streets (A Flood and Flood Mystery Book 2) Read online

  “Exactly. Winning is everything. These lawyers are resourceful, manipulative, cunning. They put these poor witnesses on trial. They crucify them because of their backgrounds: ‘How can you accept the word of this degenerate against that of a police officer?’ – that sort of thing.”

  “The point is, of course, that witnesses of good character aren’t in the business of bribing policemen,” Sam said.

  “At any rate, there is this witness, this pickpocket, who actually saw one of Pete McDonough’s bagmen hand a police lieutenant a roll of cash. He actually saw the transaction take place. We already knew this officer was crooked, so he goes on trial and the district attorney puts the pickpocket on the stand. His name is Dobie the Dip. Real name, Persky. Stanley Doberman Persky. And this lawyer starts ripping into him. Questions his background, his veracity, his manhood – really snarling at him. So Dobie the Dip jumps up and runs right out of the courtroom. Takes off like a shot. Nobody has seen him since.”

  “You’ve checked his usual haunts, his usual acquaintances, that sort of thing?” Sam asked.

  “We haven’t personally, not yet. The State is supposed to do that, but they haven’t. They’re dragging their feet. There are lots of people in the prosecutor’s circle who are not happy with the way the force is being torn apart. They are not totally cooperative. So we are going to have to find Dobie the Dip ourselves. I wouldn’t mind if you or Thomas took this on. You might be more suitable. Thomas can be a little … abrupt … at times. A quiet, measured approach might be best.”

  Sam Flood ignored the implied rebuke at T.J.’s methods. He sighed. Once more into the seedy side of town, he told himself. “Sure,” he said aloud. “Give me whatever you’ve got.”

  Atherton took a sheet of notepaper and wrote down two addresses. “Persky’s last known address and a pool room at Polk and O’Farrell, one of his hangouts,” he said. “It’s called Binion’s. And here’s his mug shot and his rap sheet. There might be a pattern there.”

  Modus operandi, Sam told himself. He also noticed Atherton wrote with a very expensive Parker fountain pen. A tool of the trade down in Los Angeles, he wondered, or is it courtesy of the Board of Police Commissioners, too?

  “I’ll get started right away,” Sam said. “Good,” Atherton said. “I’ve got a meeting with the D.A. You’ll want a cab, I suppose.”

  Sam thought for a moment. The addresses were in the Tenderloin and he dare not take the Essex. “Yes, please,” he answered, and watched as Atherton reached for the French-style telephone and ordered transportation.

  In the taxi, Sam gave the driver Dobie the Dip’s address on Ellis Street. The cabbie turned around and looked at him. “Does a gent like you really want to go to that part of town?” he asked.

  “A gent like me really does,” Sam said. “Drive.”

  There was no answer at the grubby walkup on Ellis. Understandable, I suppose, Sam thought. When a person goes into hiding, he doesn’t usually do it in his own room. He tried a couple of neighbors and the confectionery across the street. Dobie the Dip hadn’t been seen for a few days. Sam paused on the sidewalk and ran the street map of the Tenderloin through his mind. Polk and O’Farrell was only a couple of blocks away, so he walked over.

  His arrival at Binion’s was greeted with a mixture of suspicion and amusement. “What’s your game, old-timer?” a pool player asked. “Eight ball?”

  “Better make it five ball,” someone said. “He might keel over before he got any further than that.”

  Sam knew he wasn’t his son. He knew he couldn’t be confrontational like Thomas could be in such situations. So he waited for the laughter to subside. “I’m looking for Dobie the Dip,” he said. “Do you gentlemen happen to know where he is?”

  “Who wants to know?” another player asked. “Are you a lawyer, or a cop, mebbe?”

  Sam had his answer ready. “I’m his uncle,” he said. “I have something important to discuss with him.”

  “His uncle? I always thought Dobie was hatched on a hot rock.” After more laughter, nobody could remember seeing Persky around for at least three days. Another dead end, Sam thought, as he stood on the corner. Then he was struck by a further possibility. The no-name café where Digger O’Doul hung out was also close by. Perhaps O’Doul could help.

  At the greasy spoon, he was greeted by the same surly counterman. “Whaddya want?” he rasped.

  “I want to talk to Digger,” Sam said. “Where is he, if you’d be so kind?” Further along the counter, a patron was slumped over, his head cradled between his forearms. It wasn’t O’Doul.

  “Never heard of him.”

  Sam raised his voice. “I’m Sam Flood and if Digger O’Doul is hiding, I’m going to tell Packy Shannon!”

  O’Doul’s head popped up above one of the rear booths. “Flood!” he said. “You got nothing on me this time!”

  Carefully avoiding eye contact with the counterman, Sam walked over to the booth. “Relax, Mr. O’Doul,” he said. “I’m looking for Dobie the Dip. I thought you might be able to offer some advice.”

  O’Doul sank down on the bench, some of the tension draining from his skinny frame. “The Dip? Gee, he ain’t been around for a while. You’ve tried his flophouse, I guess.”

  Sam nodded. “Empty,” he said. “Where else would he hang out, do you know?”

  O’Doul shook his head. “He doesn’t really hang out anywhere. Spends most of his time lifting chumps’ wallets. But he has a sister. Lucy … Lucille. Yeah, Lucille Persky.”

  “Do you happen to know her address, Mr. O’Doul?”

  “Nope. I heard Dobie say once, though, that she works at an after-hours dive at the foot of Stockton. Yeah, that’s what he said.”

  As Sam walked out the front door, O’Doul’s voice trailed after him. “Be sure to tell Mr. Shannon I came across real good this time …”

  ****

  The mild afternoon had worn out its welcome by the time the elder Flood reached Bush Street. He was tired. Persky’s rap sheet can wait until tomorrow, he decided. And so can his sister’ alleged whereabouts. Agnes was changing the ribbon on her typewriter and his son was supervising as he passed through the outer office and into his own. T.J. selected a client’s chair and watched Sam place the taxicab receipt in the Atherton file. “Busy day?” he asked.

  “A little,” Sam answered, “Trying to find a missing witness. Quite frustrating. Did you check over those grand jury depositions?”

  “Yep. No glaring inconsistencies. But I also got this very strange phone call.”

  Sam glanced at his son. Strange phone calls were not unusual at Flood and Flood. However, Thomas’s tone of voice indicated this one was stranger than usual. “Tell me about it,” he said.

  So T.J. did.

  Chapter 18

  “I’ve tumbled to who it was on the phone yesterday,” T.J. said. The Floods were having their morning discussion about assignments. “It was Howard the Coward.” As a rookie, Howard the Coward surrendered his nightstick and ran away when confronted by an unruly gang of loiterers. He had been assigned to clerical duties at the Hall of Justice ever since.

  Sam almost smiled. “How did you come to that conclusion? I thought his voice was disguised.”

  “They say Howard the Coward is so dumb he couldn’t walk his beat and scratch his ass at the same time,” T.J. said. “So I doubt he knew how to disguise anything. That was his normal way of talking – I sort of remember now from when I first bumped into him.”

  “But why did he call you? Why would an allegedly ‘dumb’ person go to all that trouble?”

  “A couple of years ago, right after that big riot, Howard the Coward lost his badge and I found it for him. I happened to be in the cop shop at the time and found it in the men’s crapper, lying under a sink. A copper without his buzzer is in real deep trouble, so ol’ Howie has taken a shine to me, I guess.”

  Sam shook his head. Only Howard the Coward could have such bizarre misfortune. However, time for business. T
.J. was scheduled to check out a suspected McDonough house of ill repute in the Mission District that Atherton claimed was making secret payoffs. Sam would be sticking closer to home.

  “You’ll need the Essex,” Sam said. “I’ll be conducting a rolling stakeout and I’ll be riding the cable cars mostly. Do you know Dobie the Dip?”

  T.J. rolled the name around in his memory. “Can’t say I’ve stumbled across him,” he said.

  “Dobie – real name, Persky – is a pickpocket, of course. He was a key witness at the trial of that police lieutenant who’s been all over the newspapers, when the defense attorney’s interrogation technique prompted him to bolt from the courtroom. Atherton wants him back. Persky’s arrest sheet suggests his MO is to hang around crowded cable car stops and the Ferry Building.”

  “Worth a shot,” T.J. said. “After I nail down this cathouse puzzle, I’ll come back and hold down the fort.”

  “Keep track of your mileage,” Sam ordered. “And watch your back.”

  The address supplied by Atherton was a narrow, three-story house wedged between two larger examples of post-earthquake architecture on 20th Street. Gingerbread all over the place. Its bay window gaped blindly at T.J. as he walked up the steps. The front door swung open at his touch. All three floors of the interior were empty, but with signs of recent, transitory habitation. Scraps of clothing. A pallet made from old newspapers. The date on one of them was fairly recent. Squatters, T.J. decided. Clearly, somebody – or something – had scared them off. He checked the neighbors. None had seen any signs of bustling activity – visitors, tradesmen, ladies of the evening. Only an occasional pedestrian scuttling in or out. “Vagrants,” one housefrau sniffed. Our hotshot private dick from LA has been given a bum steer, T.J. told himself. He sat at the wheel and made a few notes, then headed for the office.

  Driving north along South Van Ness, the urge for a cigarette struck him. He reached into his pocket and took out an empty pack of Old Golds. No problem, he thought, I’ll just pull in and buy some. In the middle of the next block he parked in front of a small grocery store with a radio playing on the sidewalk. There was a cigar store across the street, but T.J. also remembered he needed shaving soap, and the grocery was handier. On the radio, an announcer from the Blue Network was droning on about foreign affairs. He listened for a few seconds before going inside. The frail-looking Mom & Pop guy behind the counter was wrapping a package for a customer. “Be with you in a minute, sir,” he said.

  “No rush,” T.J. said. He looked around the cluttered space. Toward the rear, a row of shelves jutted out from the counter. Toiletries are usually in the back, T.J. knew, so he went around the far side to have a look. He was bent over, looking for shaving soap on the bottom shelf when he heard murmurs of farewell from the front of the store. Then came a louder, harsher voice. A menacing voice. A stick-up? All thoughts of shaving soap vanished. His hand crept behind his back where the Detective Special was snuggled in its holster, and he slowly raised his head above the level of the shelf.

  It was a cop. A fat cop. His belly hung over his uniform belt and his jowls almost obscured his collar. T.J. watched as the proprietor took three dollar bills out of the till and handed them to the patrolman. It wasn’t a holdup; it was a shakedown.

  The younger Flood watched the fat cop leave. He stood in the door while the blue uniform waddled across the middle of the street and entered a barber shop. “Gimme a pack of Old Golds,” he said. “That flatfoot’s shaking you down, isn’t he?”

  The owner shook his head. “It’s private business,” he mumbled.

  “No, it ain’t, pal. It’s public business,” T.J. said. “He’s crooked. Look, I’m connected to the Police Commision and maybe I can do something about it. Spill the beans. Lemme hear what you’ve got to say.”

  The owner looked like he was trying to shrink into himself. Finally, he said, “It’s … it’s the radio. Officer Marr says it’s disturbing the neighbors, but it doesn’t. They like it. They stop and listen and sometimes they come in and buy something. You should see the crowd every day when Little Orphan Annie cones on.”

  “So he touches you up for a few bucks to keep quiet.”

  “Yes, sir. He said he’d tell the bylaw people if we didn’t come to an arrangement.”

  “How often does Fatso come around to collect?”

  “Once a week, every Tuesday.”

  “Does he rip off everyone else on his beat, too?”

  Another nod – more decisive this time. “We tried to complain, but nobody at the precinct station would listen to us.”

  T.J. wasn’t surprised. In a closed, corrupt society such as the San Francisco Police Department, the mob mentality was strictly enforced. Outsiders wouldn’t get any help if one of their own was involved. “Does he come around at the same time?” he asked. The owner nodded. T.J. pulled out his watch. Just past noon. He listened to the radio on the sidewalk as Officer Marr canvassed every business on the block before moving on up the street. Walking to his car, T.J. tore open the top corner of the Old Gold pack and started thinking. Hard.

  ****

  Sam Flood absorbed the skimpy information supplied by Atherton on Dobie the Dip. The particulars that accompanied his mug shot said he was five-nine and skinny. He wore casual clothing and favored a cloth cap rather than a fedora. The sites where he was actually caught picking somebody’s pocket included the California Street cable car terminus in the financial district, the turntables at each end of the two Powell Street cable car lines, and the streetcar roundabout in front of the Ferry Building.

  Sam swiveled around in his chair and gazed out at Bush Street. If I were a pickpocket, he thought, I’d follow the crowds. People tend to bunch up at transit stops – especially on the way home in late afternoon. If Dobie the Dip adhered to his pattern, that’s where he should be. If he was still in San Francisco, and Sam believed there was no reason to leave town. By bolting from the courtroom, Persky was simply removing himself from a stressful situation. He was not a wanted man, just a fearful one. That is why he hasn’t returned to his room or his old haunts. Avoidance. Well, Sam thought, Dobie the Dip is bedded down somewhere and the odds suggest he will continue plying his shady trade.

  Sam consulted his timepiece. Time for lunch. He’d eat and then go to work. “I’ll be gone all afternoon,” he informed Agnes Wilkins. “Thomas should be returning soon.” Over his light meal, Sam thought about Margaret. I must go down and see her very soon, he thought. It has been several days. She won’t know who I am, most probably, but I still must be with her. She is my wife and she deserves my support. How long, he thought, how long will it be until? – and wrenched his thoughts away to the assignment at hand. A quick reconnaissance of California Street’s downtown cable car terminal, he decided, and then the Ferry Building and the clusters of people waiting outside for their streetcars.

  The turntable at California and Drumm had several riders waiting for the next cable car, but they were more or less lined up. Bad news for a pickpocket, Sam surmised. He was sure Dobie the Dip would prefer a knot of humanity which he could sift through quietly, fingers probing unguarded pockets. Trying to lift a wallet or a billfold from someone standing in a line was an invitation to detection and apprehension. Sam watched for a while, alert for any slender males wearing cloth caps, then headed down Market toward the Ferry Building.

  He crossed the Embarcadero on the pedestrian overpass and descended to the harbor level. He checked the left-hand ferry slips first. Hustle and bustle. Passengers coming and going. Sam knew ferries arrived and departed every few minutes, so he wasn’t surprised. A traveler could catch a ferry to almost anywhere across the bay – Oakland, Alameda, Richmond, Vallejo, Sausalito, and more – and several thousand of them did so every day. Not only were there the regular Southern Pacific train ferries to the Oakland Mole, but also connections to several streetcar lines on the other side. Clumps of people would form and swell until the incoming ferry disgorged its load, then quickly disperse. Pr
ime hunting ground for a dip. Sam patrolled the long extension for several minutes. He could not spot anyone matching Persky’s description, nor the tell-tale ripple of a professional working his way through a crowd. The same pattern unfolded on the other side of the main hall. Once again, still no Dobie the Dip.

  Outside, on the Embarcadero, more passengers waited for their streetcars. More groups forming. More tantalizing wallets waiting to be plucked. No Dobie the Dip, however. Sam expended several more minutes watching the ebb and flow without success. Maybe Stanley Doberman Persky isn’t working today. Or maybe he’s working some crowds far, far away from here. Or maybe my timing is bad – and he’s come and gone. I’ll make one more circuit of this roundabout, he thought, and then try the Powell Street cable car turntable. If that proves barren. I’ll try again tomorrow.

  He turned around – and came face to face with Dobie the Dip. They did not make eye contact. Nevertheless, Sam turned away abruptly, and then back again as the pickpocket hurried past him. He’s made a score, Sam thought, and now he’s going somewhere. Toward another mark, or …? I’ll just tag along. It soon became apparent that Dobie the Dip was catching a streetcar. The one going up Market Street, to be precise. Sam let a few bodies intrude between himself and his target, and boarded the same car.

  Travelling along Market, Sam remained especially alert should his quarry exit when they reached the vicinity of the Tenderloin. Dobie the Dip remained aboard, however, for the long ride up Market. Finally, he jumped off at Castro Street, with Sam Flood not far behind. Sam loitered on the corner while the pickpocket walked up the short hill on Castro. There was little concealment in this part of town and Sam was resigned to following the target while in plain sight. If he turned around …

  Thankfully, Dobie the Dip solved the problem by turning in at what appeared to be a block of flats. Sam edged close enough to see the building’s street number, then retired to an inconspicuous spot on the corner of Market. He watched for a while. Dobie the Dip did not emerge, so Sam concluded this was his new home address. His sister’s place? It did not matter. Sam had an address to turn over to Atherton. He called it a day and headed for the streetcar stop.