“Yes,” I answered.
“You’re on,” said a voice. “Where? When?”
“The back room at the Doghouse,” I said. “Eleven o’clock.”
“Who all’s gonna be there?” the guy asked.
“Chief Rankin and myself,” I answered. “That’s all. Just the two of us. How about you?”
“If there’s two of you, then there’s two of us. We be six altogether.”
“You’re calling for everybody?”
“That’s right, man. RSVPing, as they say. You got a problem with that?”
I just didn’t expect the gangs to be quite that well organized. “No. No problem at all. We’ll be there by ten-thirty or so. That way, we won’t all show up at once. That might make quite a stir.”
“You gots that right. Just us being there will cause a stir as you call it. If somebody notices the chief of police, all those television stations will send out their Minicams, turn it into a media event.”
“I wouldn’t want that to happen,” I said, “and neither would the chief.”
“Not my chiefs, neither,” he answered. “We all play it real cool. Right?”
“Right.” We all do.
The idea of sitting down in the same room with the ad hoc leadership committee of several warring street gangs didn’t sound cool to me. Chilling was a lot more like it. Already I could feel the rank-smelling, fear-drenched sweat gathering in my armpits. I picked up the phone and dialed up to the chief’s-my chief’s-office. He answered before the end of the first ring.
“What is it?”
“An appointment. We go to the Doghouse early, at ten-thirty. The others come later. I’m going to go home, grab a shower, and pick up my car. It’s probably best if we don’t show up in a city-owned vehicle.”
“Yep. You’re right about that.”
“Are you going to go home first, or do you want me to come back here to pick you up?”
“Here,” he said. “I’d rather wait here.”
I got to the house about nine-thirty. I hoped Curtis Bell would be long gone. I was in no mood to talk to him, and I was right.
“You’re home early,” Ralph commented.
“Not to stay. I’m going to shower and leave again. Did you and Curtis get everything ironed out?”
“No. Not really. He left right after you called, but I think we may want to do something about single-premium life policies for your kids. It’s a way of passing them a substantial amount of money without them having to pay inheritance or gift taxes.”
“I thought you said I’d have to pay a rating.”
“Only if we buy insurance on you. If we buy it on your children, then it’s no problem.”
“Right now, I’m going to shower, then I’ve got a hot date.”
“Really.”
“It’s hot all right, a regular Who’s Who of street gangs in Seattle.”
“Sounds fascinating,” Ralph said, sounding for the world like everyone’s favorite Vulcan, good old Mr. Spock from Star Trek.
“Fascinating?” I echoed. “I just hope it won’t be fatal.”
CHAPTER 18
Chief Rankin was not the least bit happy. While I had been busy writing reports and taking a shower, he had been reading tear sheets from newspapers and magazines all over the country regarding the Seattle Police Department’s handling of the Ben Weston murders. To hear him tell it, most of the accounts were written by a bunch of bleeding-heart liberals who laced what they wrote with an undertone of implied bigotry. The assumption was that the (predominantly white) officers of Seattle PD were doing precious little to solve the tragic murders of this now highly visible African-American family.
Rankin’s grousing about the slanted stories surprised me. I know what comes out in newspaper stories usually grates on my nerves-most reporters are a bunch of bleeding-heart liberals-but I always assumed the brass had tougher hides than us mere mortals, that they, as political animals, could take all that media crap with a grain of salt. Evidently not.
Once the chief finished complaining about the media, he went on to look a gift ride in the mouth and gripe about my Porsche. According to Rankin, his personal car is a two-year-old Buick Riviera. Without knowing any of my history, he seemed offended by the very existence of my aging and much repaired guard red Porsche, and I wasn’t inclined to enlighten him. By the time we got to the Doghouse parking lot, I was wishing I’d left him to walk, but that was only the beginning. It got worse.
I opened the front door of the restaurant to let him go first. He stepped inside, then turned back to me. “My God, it’s so smoky in there how can anybody see?”
The Doghouse, smoke and all, is a Seattle institution, but Rankin, as a relatively recent transplant, had clearly never set foot inside the place. Diana, the hostess, came up to me smiling her usual welcome. “Hi, Beau. You’re in the back room tonight?”
I nodded, and she led the way past the usual line of hopefuls waiting to do their bit for the state coffers and buy their weekly collection of lottery tickets.
“There’d better be a nonsmoking section,” Chief Rankin was saying under his breath.
I almost choked, and not because of the smoke either. If you want to sit in a nonsmoking section, don’t bother going to the Doghouse. Period. Because they are mandated by law, there are two designated nonsmoking tables in the middle dining room, but the entire rest of the restaurant is so totally permeated with residual smoke that it doesn’t make much difference.
The back dining room, with seating for a maximum of fifteen, is used primarily as a day-to-day club room for ham radio operators whose faded collection of QSL cards, showing contacts and call signs from around the world, decorates the equally faded walls. Here, too, stale cigarette smoke lingered heavily in the air. On the far side of the room is the only window in the entire restaurant that actually opens. Rankin hurried over and yanked it open, allowing in a whiff of fresh air. Chilly fresh air.
“How many will there be?” Diana asked me.
“Eight altogether.”
She deposited a set of menus on the table and retreated, leaving Chief Rankin and me alone. Moments later Lucille, one of the nighttime waitresses, popped her head into the room. “Chili burger, Beau?” I nodded. “Want me to take your order, or wait for the others?”
“We’ll eat now,” I said. “There may not be time later.”
“How about you?” she said to Chief Rankin, who had picked up a menu and was regarding it with obvious distaste.
“What do you recommend, Detective Beaumont?” he asked. “You must know your way around the menu. You seem to be on a first-name basis with everyone in the place.”
It was bad enough being the chief’s guide dog here to begin with. I wasn’t about to stumble into the trap of suggesting anything. “It’s all about the same,” I told him.
Rankin scratched his head. “I guess I’ll try the salmon,” he said grudgingly, “if it’s not too greasy.”
In the Doghouse, at that hour of the night, them’s fightin‘ words. Lucille peered at me over her glasses as if to say, “Where’d you find this live one?” “You bet,” she said aloud, and disappeared.
The back room isn’t big, so Rankin paced back and forth in front of the open window. “Do you think they’ll show?” he asked.
“They’ll be here.”
“I wouldn’t do this in Oakland in a million years,” he continued, “not without a whole squad of sharpshooters to back us up. Coming here by ourselves is irresponsible, crazy. I never should have let Freeman talk me into it.”
Lucille came in to deliver Rankin’s dinner salad. She set the bowl of semi-wilted lettuce on the table. He looked at it but didn’t sit down. “Are there sulfites on that salad?” he asked.
Lucille smiled at him with a benevolent, sixtysomething, peroxide-blonde smile. “Honey, I couldn’t tell you. They only pay me to deliver this food. I never see what goes into it before the cook hands it over.”
I’d never seen Lucille put on her dumb-blonde act before. She’s a savvy lady who can work her way through a racing form in ten minutes flat. Rankin didn’t have sense enough to quit while he was ahead.