Flood Warning Read online

  “At the beach,” T.J. answered without elaboration. It was as Sam had suspected. One year ago, his son’s bride had gone for a swim on their honeymoon. She had waded out into the Pacific and never returned. So young Tom’s mood was understandable, as long as it didn’t get in the way of any business.

  The father-son relationship between the two principals of Flood and Flood, Private Investigations, was a wary one. Familial affection had long been diluted by outside pressures and competing personalities. Sam, the senior partner, liked to run things his way and kept a firm hand on operations. T.J. was irreverent and disdainful of authority — even that of his father, sometimes. He firmly believed the accident of rank or title or privilege did not necessarily make any person better than he. Trust and respect had to be earned, not ladled out from above.

  It was this attitude that had helped form Flood and Flood. T.J. had been a deputy sheriff in Southern California the night a drunken rich kid in a hopped-up roadster forced him off the road. T.J. arrested the punk, cuffed him around a little and threw him in the cooler, only to be told no charges were being laid because the kid’s daddy was a big wheel in the county. Not only that, but T.J. was severely reprimanded for manhandling the little twerp. So he had slugged the toadying sheriff and quit. T.J. was 31 and out of a job just as the Depression was showing its teeth.

  As far as the elder Flood was concerned, T.J.’s unemployed status was good timing. Sam, at the age of sixty, had just been dumped by Southern Pacific after fifteen years as a railroad dick, so he proposed that the two Floods go into business for themselves. That was three years ago and the partnership of Flood and Flood (motto: ‘Discretion and Honesty’) was still in business.

  It hadn’t been easy. Sometimes Sam accepted clients who were less than savory. The Benny the Bundle caper had been one of those operations Burns or Continental or Pinkerton’s would shy away from. Sam took it on, though, even if he did have a few misgivings. The money was good — above their daily rate of twenty-five bucks plus expenses — and the assignment had been straightforward: find The Greek. That’s what private eyes did — find people. That the client was a Frisco gang boss who wanted to track down an underworld rival so he could presumably do him harm bothered Sam for only a little while. Of course, he hadn’t figured on Benny the Bundle being summarily dispatched while on Flood and Flood’s premises.

  Chapter 3

  The Hall of Justice at the corner of Kearny and Washington was a fancy description for what was essentially a cop shop. A survivor of the 1906 earthquake, the Hall now found itself perched uncertainly on the fringe of Chinatown, a short distance from the raucous North Beach district and on the edge of what used to be called the Barbary Coast at the turn of the century.

  T.J. Flood, as usual, was a few minutes late for his meeting with Jimbo Bracken. The lieutenant didn’t find Flood’s tardiness worth discussing, however, because the two glandular specimens from vice hadn’t showed up, either. When they did, Bracken’s small office got very crowded very quickly.

  T.J. passed out copies of the sanitized log detailing Benny the Bundle’s final odyssey. “The times are approximate,” T.J. said. “I wasn’t stopping to take notes as I went along.”

  “Still, you could almost set your clock by Benny showing up to pick up the take,” Bracken said. “Or you could expect to intercept him somewhere along the way, because his route was so predictable.”

  “Which is maybe what happened when he stopped at 230 California,” Mike said. “By the way, your log ends there, and pretty abruptly, I’d say.”

  “It ends there because Benny did what we were waiting for him to do, so I dropped him right there,” T.J. said.

  “He also didn’t go anywhere near California the first week,” Mike said, quickly scanning the log entries. “Nor the Ferry Building,” he added after a moment’s scrutiny.

  “The Ferry Building, where does it say that?” Pat asked, peering intently at his copy. “Oh, yeah. Think it means anything?”

  “Damn right it does. How long was he in there, Flood?”

  “Three, maybe four minutes tops,” T.J. said. “I was on the other side of the Embarcadero and by the time I’d got across, he came out again.”

  “So there are two places where he varied his routine,” Mike said. “California Street and the Ferry Building. Ol’ Benny the Bundle was worrying about more than numbers slips, I’d say.”

  “Yeah, yeah, we all know Benny was a tricky little customer,” Bracken interjected. “But this is still a homicide investigation. The question is, somebody cooled Benny and they cooled him in the dead of night at Flood and Flood — why didn’t they do it somewhere along his route?”

  T.J. had a pretty good idea that the answer involved The Greek and Packy Shannon, but he kept silent behind his mask of polite interest.

  “So you’re tagging Benny and he turns around and starts tagging you and follows you back to your place, and someone else is tagging him and...” Pat’s voice faded into uncertainty.

  “Except a day and a half elapsed after I kissed Benny goodbye on California Street and he shows up in my office,” T.J. said. What a dumb cop, he thought to himself.

  “Let’s talk about that for a minute,” Bracken said. “How did Benny know you were there at four a.m. on a Sunday? It sounds like maybe he got tipped off.”

  “Um, I guess I should have mentioned the other morning that there was a phone call a little while before Benny showed up,” Flood said. “I went out to Agnes’s desk to answer it, but all I got was silence.”

  “Why wouldja forget to mention it?” Pat asked.

  “Because I’d just been hit on the head and things were a little fuzzy, you big stupid ape,” T.J. rasped. “I’m sure you can relate to that.”

  “Okay boys, calm down,” Bracken ordered. “Benny probably called that fleabag you live in, then tried your office.” T.J. had a bedroom and bath at a respectable residential hotel on Geary, but he let Jimbo’s gibe slide.

  “Which leaves us with Benny running into your office, closely followed by somebody who promptly dispatches him with a .22,” Bracken continued. “I think I pretty well had that figured out, already.”

  T.J. shrugged. “You asked us to tell you what Benny was up to the last couple of weeks, and Flood and Flood was happy to oblige. We value our relationship with San Francisco’s finest highly.” He was sure he heard a soft snort of derision from Mike.

  “And we value our relationship with Flood and Flood, Thomas my lad,” Bracken said. “We’ll check out all these addresses that you so thoughtfully supplied us, of course we will. Perhaps someone saw something or remembers something. And we’ll take a good look at that address on California. Anything to add, Michael my boy?”

  “California might yield something, but as far as vice is concerned, I kinda like the Ferry Building. You’re looking for a killer but we’re looking for a connection.”

  As the two vice cops left Bracken’s office, T.J. overheard Pat ask plaintively, “Did he say I have fuzzy brains?”

  *

  Sam Flood and Solomon Silverman ate lunch at a little establishment tucked into a cul-de-sac off O’Farrell Street. Silverman had discovered it a few years before, just around the corner from his shop on Powell, and it became the regular rendezvous for their luncheon dates.

  Although the big clock on the wall indicated 12:30, the obvious belt-tightening in nearby offices was hurting the restaurant business and there were lots of vacant tables. Flood had thought more than once about brown-bagging his lunch, but decided his image and authority would suffer. Let Agnes Wilkins bring her sandwiches to work. For the rest of the Flood and Flood staff, a decent lunch at a decent establishment was still the preferred option. He had no idea where T.J. ate, but was fairly certain whatever he had was not out of a bag.

  Silverman ordered a salad and Sam chose the fish chowder. The two old friends ate comfortably, occasionally remarking about the chancy weather, the economy or the political situation. It was after Sam
had fired up his pipe and Silverman a big cigar that they caught up on each other’s lives.

  “So, Solly, how’s business?” Sam asked, his investigator’s gaze probing his friend’s sallow face for signs of stress. Silverman was in the hat trade. “Can’t complain,” he shrugged. “Sales are slow. The gents aren’t buying as often as they used to. Holding onto their hats a little longer. Can’t say I blame them. But I haven’t laid anybody off yet, although I’ve cut back on their hours.”

  He glanced at the hat stand near the door. “I’ve got a nice selection of snap-brim fedoras just in from New York. Very clean lines, very classy. Soft, combed felt. Very nice brims. Can I suggest it’s time to retire that old soldier you’ve got hanging up over there? I can make you a nice deal, a nice discount.”

  Sam chuckled. “I’ll think about it, Solly,” he said. “Not to change the subject or anything, but how’s that big family of yours? The wife? The kids? The grandkids? Any great-grandkids in sight yet?”

  “Not that they’ve told old Grandpa about,” Silverman laughed. “Beulah is fine; everybody’s fine. These are hard times but the family is sticking together. Oh, young Sharon, Esther’s girl? She’s fifteen now and she’s just informed everybody she wants to be a missionary in Africa. Can you imagine, a female Jewish missionary among the Hottentots!”

  Together, they chortled companionably about the idealism of youth. Then Silverman became serious. “And Margaret, she is well?”

  Sam paused for a moment to formulate a polite, upbeat response. There was no need to burden his friend with any negative news about the wife. “Oh, well, she’s getting on fine. Meg’s in her seventies now, you know. Aches and pains, aches and pains. Her cousin Amy is helping out.”

  Silverman let it drop. “How’s the boy?” he asked. ‘The boy’ was T.J., now 34, but still a youngster to Solly, who went back a long way with Sam.

  “Oh, T.J.’s about the same. Moody. He got slugged the other night, big bump on his head. His bride has been gone a year now, and that’s not helping.”

  “Such a loss,” Silverman said. “Just like his mother. But you’ve never told him, have you.” It was a statement rather than a question.

  “You know I haven’t,” Sam answered. “How can I?” Sam’s first wife, Mary, had died giving birth to T.J. in a Chicago hospital while Sam and Solly were up in Waukegan on a harebrained scheme to make money. Sam had never forgiven himself for not being with Mary when their son was born. If he had been there, giving his support, perhaps she would have lived. But how to tell a motherless boy that sort of thing while he was growing up? Over the years, Sam’s secret had retreated deep into the darkest places of his memory, where for more than 30 years it had colored his relationship with T.J.

  “A little bit of guilt, coming from you might make him easier to get along with,” Solly observed. “And you, too, you cranky old goat,” he added, making a joke out of it.

  “Anything you say, Doctor Silverman,” Sam said equably as they headed for the cashier with separate checks.

  *

  A pleasant surprise awaited Sam when he returned to the office. It was in the shape of a plain brown envelope which, Agnes said, had been delivered a few minutes earlier. “Little guy, cloth cap, sort of grey clothes?” Sam asked.

  Agnes’s eyes turned round with wonder. “How did you know?” she gasped.

  “He got out of the elevator just as I was coming into the lobby,” Sam said. “I know who he works for, too.” Packy Shannon, he told himself as he took the envelope into his office. Inside was Shannon’s prompt payment of Flood and Flood’s bill for shadowing Benny the Bundle. In cash.

  Sam was counting it when the phone rang. “Someone from the Turk Street Social Club wishes to speak with you,” Agnes said.

  “Put ‘em on.”

  “You got the envelope?” The caller didn’t identify himself, but Sam knew it was Shannon.

  “Yes, indeed I did.”

  “Good. Then our business is concluded. Most satisfactory.” Shannon hung up.

  Satisfactory, indeed, the elder Flood thought, noting that the payoff included a fifty- dollar bonus. Perhaps he could afford a new fedora from Solly, after all — as well as a new suit. Sam took the envelope out to Agnes. “For deposit, please,” he said. “Mark the Turk Street account paid in full.” And, he concluded optimistically, we can wash our hands of Benny the Bundle.

  Chapter 4

  Sam expressed the same opinion out loud to T.J. when he arrived to discuss the meeting with Bracken. T.J. just grunted. He wasn’t so sure Benny wouldn’t yet come back to haunt Flood and Flood.

  “So, anything interesting transpire over on Kearney Street?” he asked.

  “One little thing,” T.J. said. “Those two hairy apes from vice were there. Pat and Mike were really interested in the California address and the Ferry Building. Mike, I think it was, really liked the Ferry Building angle. He picked up on the discrepancy in Benny’s travel pattern right off the bat. Bracken didn’t get his knickers in too much of a twist, though. He’s homicide, not vice, and one stop on Benny’s route was much the same as another to him.”

  “And they were satisfied?” Sam asked.

  “Not exactly satisfied. But like you said, now they have something to work on. But I just don’t get these two Pat and Mike clowns. They’re not your normal vice cops or detectives, yet. Mike is reasonably intelligent, but Pat is a disaster. They should be back in harness on the docks, especially with the situation down there the way it is these days.”

  “Let the Hall of Justice worry about allocating their manpower,” Sam said curtly. “I would suggest the Turk Street file is closed, so we can move on. I’m taking a few days off next week to sort some business out about Margaret. You and Agnes can handle things while I’m gone. You can always reach me through Amy at home.”

  T.J. had an approximate idea of what that business was. Margaret had been feeling poorly for some time and he knew Sam was wrestling with the problem of providing adequate care for her. Actually, T.J. didn’t give a tinker’s damn. Margaret wasn’t his mother, and Sam had confused and alienated his son by marrying again when T.J. was eight. Margaret had tried to show affection and understanding when she came to live in Sam’s house, but the boy’s heart ached for the mother he never knew. By the time T.J. reached his early teens, their relationship had cooled to a polite hostility. Margaret was also ten years older than his father, a discrepancy young Flood would find difficult to grasp.

  *

  “Okay, I’m in charge here,” T.J. informed his empty office. It was the third day of Sam’s absence. Carefully, T.J. leaned back in his swivel chair and put his feet up on the desk. He contemplated its tidy expanse, with the In and Out baskets, the telephone and the ashtray neatly arranged.

  “An empty desk is an empty mind,” T.J. said to the trays, which were devoid of any traffic, either incoming or outgoing. He considered having a cigarette, but decided to wait a while. Old Gold tailor-mades were not exactly cheap and he was thinking of cutting down or maybe switching to roll-your-owns.

  T.J. had abandoned his desk and was watching the rain falling softly on the window, when Agnes tapped lightly on his door and entered, bearing a diversion. It was a 6 a.m. Extra edition of the Examiner. “Aha,” T.J. said. “News!”

  “The rain’s supposed to clear up later,” Agnes said as T.J. reached for the paper. “In case you have to go out anywhere.” Agnes was quite fond of T.J. and although she was his own age, yearned to mother him. The loss of his wife, she knew, had hardened T.J.’s blithe irreverence and sometimes the steely emptiness of his eyes scared her. She wasn’t frightened of T.J. like she was of Mr. Sam, who only had to poke his sharp nose toward her to trigger a feeling of fluttering wariness. With T.J., the fear was that he might do something rash and violent.

  T.J. was studying the front page as Agnes softly closed the door behind her. There was an alleged shootout on the bay involving strikebreakers. Britain’s repudiation of its war debt was draw
ing angry mutterings in Washington. A former state governor, Jim Rolph, was laid to rest. Eventually, T.J. flipped to the sports section and checked the major league box scores. He noted that the Cubs had dropped out of second place. His father, who was a Chicago fan, wouldn’t be pleased with that. The season was still young, but it was beginning to look like the Cubbies wouldn’t do it this year.

  The rest of the paper didn’t offer much. T.J. folded it neatly and laid it in the precise center of his desk. In a moment, he’d take it out to Agnes, but in the meantime he just sat there, staring at the headlines but not seeing them. Something’s bothering me, he admitted, and that something is Benny the Bundle. The scenario doesn’t ring true and it’s got me as restless as the breeze on Telegraph Hill. He didn’t care about Benny being dead. But it burned him having somebody knocked off just outside his office door. What kind of respect was that? Who did they think they were? Bush Street wasn’t the Tenderloin. It was a respectable neighborhood. T.J. knew Sam was content to let the matter rest with the homicide cops, but he couldn’t. I want to catch these bastards, he told himself.

  T.J. took the Examiner out and laid it on Agnes’s desk. She was rapidly typing one of Sam’s form letters advising potential business clients that Flood and Flood were discreet, available and affordable. In a city with more than one heavy-hitting private eye outfit, it didn’t hurt to blow your own horn now and then.

  Looking down at the approximate spot where the late Benny departed, T.J. tried to remember exactly how he was lying. Right arm outflung, left arm tucked under his body, and facing — which way? Toward his office, or Sam’s? T.J. couldn’t remember. A little bit in between, maybe. Somehow, the matter seemed important. He went over and hefted the city directory from the shelf behind Agnes.