Interface (Crime Masterworks) Read online

  He lowered the receiver so he could look to his left. The pay phone was in the narrow first-floor hall of the flophouse, just a few feet from the office door. The office itself was a square cell with a waist-high glass-front cage much like a theater ticket-taker’s case. Chicken wire was embedded in the glass, which had a round hole cut through it at head-height for talking. The glass could be slid up from inside for the passage of money across the counter.

  ‘Hey you!’ yelled Kolinski. ‘Aunt Jemima!’

  Behind the hole in the glass appeared the face of a beady-eyed black girl in her early twenties. She had short frizzled black hair that gleamed wetly under the office’s single strong unshaded bulb. It was a round, rather pushed-down face with very thick lips covered with incongruous coral-red lipstick. It was a young face which already could have been surprised by nothing except kindness.

  ‘Yes, sir, Mr Kolinski?’

  ‘Go downstairs and check the mail.’

  ‘But Mr Kolinski, mail was delivered an hour ago! Ain’t gonna be no more mail in that box now jes’ cause—’

  ‘Get to fuck down there!’ yelled Kolinski.

  A pink tongue came out over the fat coral lips. The face disappeared, to reappear in a few moments after the heavy hardwood door beside the glass cage had opened. This had been accompanied by the rattling of withdrawn deadbolts. The girl waddled out. She had on a short skirt that showed fat black thighs above dimpled knees. Under the dirty pink sweater were bulbous breasts as firm as cows’ udders.

  ‘I goin’, Mist’ Kolinski.’ In her nervousness, her speech regressed to North Carolina or perhaps Georgia.

  Kolinski stood stock-still with the receiver in his hand as she waddled by. She went down the narrow stairwell. Kolinski watched her retreat in the round fly-specked mirror set at an angle above the turn of the stairs. He watched her all the way down to street level. Watched her pull open the street door and go out.

  He lifted the receiver, resumed his staccato delivery as if there had been no interruption.

  ‘Just getting rid of the nigger. And besides, you may be protected but I’m hanging out in the wind with my dick flopping. I’ve worked like a fucking dog getting a street distribution system set up—’

  ‘Nobody could have worked harder, Alex,’ said Hariss’ voice smoothly.

  ‘It’s what I’m telling you. My half of this one-seven-five, placed with our Mexican distributor for more merchandise, would have been worth nearly a mil on the street, and I—’

  ‘You talk as if that money is gone.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m at the Bush Street garage, I took the liberty of telling Blaney to set your street people into operation before I saw Fargo. They’re covering the depots. Of course if Docker has a car—’

  ‘Fargo will find that out soon enough – if Fargo is playing straight with us.’

  ‘As we’re playing straight with Fargo?’ Hariss chuckled at his own remark. Kolinski ignored it; his face had gotten thoughtful. Intelligence gleamed in his deep-set eyes.

  ‘But if he had a car, he wouldn’t have had to take a fucking bus away from Bryant Street, would he? No, Walt, goddammit, I think he’s holed up somewhere! Shit, that much … merchandise, he can only dispose of it here or in LA or in Seattle. He couldn’t find buyers with enough bread anywhere else.’

  ‘If he stays on the coast.’

  ‘They’d eat him alive back East, and I think he’s smart enough to know it. Shit, he was smart enough to knock us over.’

  ‘Exactly what I’ve been telling you, Alex. I think we’ve a very good chance of recouping. I’ll expect you at Bush Street in a few minutes to direct operations.’

  4

  Kolinski went back down the narrow hall in long strides. The walls were grey, peeling paint, the rug grey with pink flowers and getting threadbare in the center, patterned in a design which was like animal guts dumped on a slaughter-house floor. At the last room, just before the fifteen-watt red bulb marking the alley firestairs, Kolinski turned in.

  He crossed the girl’s room in his long strides, swept up his overcoat from the chair, thrust his arms into the sleeves. As he swung back toward the door, she scrambled off the bed. She was white-faced.

  ‘Alex!’ she cried. ‘Please! You promised—’

  ‘I don’t have the time, bitch—’

  She threw thin arms around his neck, clung to him with the strength of desperation. ‘I … wasn’t I good this morning?’

  He pushed her back against the wall, then paused momentarily. Seeing the indecision in his face, she returned to him like a struck dog to its master, fawning but undaunted. Her mouth was ingratiating, her voice determinedly seductive.

  ‘Wasn’t I, Alex?’

  ‘You were good, Robin,’ he said finally. ‘A good little sow, lapping it up. Here.’ His hand brought three small glassine envelopes out of his inner suit jacket pocket. He dropped them on the bed. He watched the girl scrabble frantically at them with an oddly erotic look on his face. ‘They’ll keep you until tomorrow.’

  The girl was between him and the door again. Her face, her voice, her emaciated body pleaded her cause.

  ‘Alex, can’t you … Please.’

  ‘Jesus!’ he burst out in a softly angry voice.

  ‘You know how I hate to shoot myself up, Alex.’

  ‘Look, I’ve got problems, I’ve got …’

  He stopped there. A thoughtful look had entered his eyes. He stood still watching her shake heroin into the spoon, add water from the ancient single-tap sink in the corner.

  She moved the spoon carefully over the candle flame until the water and drug had gone into solution. Despite her desperate need, the girl’s movements were efficient, swift, sure. Kolinski watched the process as if mesmerized. She filled the syringe and handed it to him needle-up like a nurse in a TV medical show.

  The girl returned to the bed, lay back against the pillows. He sat down beside her. She was working on her veins again. Kolinski watched her, avidly now. He had another erection.

  ‘You really love it, don’t you?’ he asked her.

  Her huge dark eyes, intent on her hands, answered his question. Then her need overcame her, she seized the short sleeve of her nightdress with her right hand and twisted it so the tight edge of the sleeve bit cruelly into the thin upper arm. This finally brought up the vein.

  ‘Little Robin,’ said Kolinski softly. ‘The early bird who eats the worm.’ He laughed. He slid the needle into her arm. ‘My worm. Whenever I want you to.’

  ‘Oh, yes, Alex, whenever you want me to …’

  Kolinski depressed the plunger a couple of centimeters, then drew it back. The milky solution in the syringe turned pink as blood was drawn into it. He had made the vein on the first try.

  His thumb moved, shoving heroin into her bloodstream. He said, mockingly, ‘Jesus, baby, if your old man could see you now! I’d love to see your old man’s face.’

  The girl’s own face had gotten very intent and serious, like that of a student trying to catch every word of a difficult and involved lecture. She drew in a deep breath as the flash hit her, and the pupils of her eyes changed.

  She exclaimed, ‘Hit me with the rest of it, lover. Let me feel it. Oh!’

  Kolinski withdrew the needle, sat with the hypo on his hands. It was empty except for a faintly pink residue in the bottom of the syringe.

  ‘Jesus, a hype who hates to shoot herself up!’ He shook his head in wonder. The change in the girl was almost miraculous. Her voice was light, almost coquettish.

  ‘There’s a lot of us hate to do it ourselves, Alex!’

  ‘All of them women.’

  She pouted. ‘We just don’t like the needle.’

  ‘You like the dick. In the mouth.’ He laughed heavily, tossed the syringe on the bed beside her and stood up. ‘I notice you’re quick enough to shoot yourself up when nobody else is around.’

  Robin made a moue with her beautifully-shaped mouth. She looked her real age,
a malnutritioned thirty-one or -two, instead of the raddled fifty she had looked a few minutes before. She smiled. Her eyes sparkled.

  Kolinski’s erection had subsided. He said, ‘Listen, I got to get back to Bush Street but I want you to do something for me.’

  ‘Anything,’ she said simply. She drew up her legs under the worn nightdress and clasped her arms around them. She rested her chin on her knees in a listening attitude.

  ‘There’s a guy in town, has been here a couple, three weeks, anyway long enough to have maybe needed a woman. We want him bad. Goes by the name of Docker. He’s a big guy with …’

  He stopped there because the girl’s face had changed, utterly. She had swung her legs off the bed and had suddenly stood up. Her voice was very excited.

  ‘You said Docker? A big guy, six feet, six-one? Horn-rim glasses and long blond—’

  Kolinski had her by the upper arms, was squeezing them so hard that she looked momentarily faint.

  ‘You know him? Has a limp—’

  ‘One of the girls. He was with one of the girls a couple of nights ago. She said he was a son of a bitch, used a belt on her until she screamed. He told her it was the only way he could be sure she was really interested.’

  ‘How are you sure of the name?’

  ‘She snooped his wallet after he’d fallen asleep. She said he had a lot of money in there but she was afraid to take any. She said when he woke up he checked.’

  ‘Who was it? Which girl?’

  Robin opened her mouth, then frowned and shut it. She shook her head. ‘I can’t remember, we were all having coffee down on the corner and …’ Her face brightened. ‘I’ll find out today for you, Alex. I’ll find out everything she remembers that might help. I know he took her to his apartment because he wanted her all night. I can get the address, anyway.’

  He had her by the arms again. His face was elated, but his voice was solemn. ‘Robin, you turn that son of a bitch for me and I’ll put you in a hype’s paradise. I mean it! As much as you want, as often as you want it.’

  Kolinski went back down the hall to the front desk, but he still did not leave, even though it had been nearly fifteen minutes since Hariss had said he was expecting him immediately. Instead, he stopped by the telephone and called, ‘Hey, Aunt Jemima!’

  The office door opened and the chubby black girl appeared. If she resented either his words or his tone, it didn’t show on her face. Kolinski smiled at her.

  ‘Was there any mail downstairs?’

  ‘No, sir, Mr Kolinski.’

  Kolinski crowded her back against the wall. His right hand came up between their bodies, with a lover’s gentleness cupped as much of one of the immense breasts as his fingers could span.

  ‘This is important, Aunt Jemima. You didn’t take any phone calls from Mr Hariss for me this morning, did you?’

  The girl was staring intently up into his face, wide-eyed, her ebony features shiny with dread. She shook her head quickly. ‘No, sir, Mr Kolinski, I most surely didn’t!’

  ‘Surely didn’t what?’

  ‘Take any phone calls from Mr Har—’

  As she spoke the name, Kolinski’s fingers twisted viciously like someone turning up time on a parking meter. The girl screamed once before she was able to get the back of one hand up to her face. She bit down hard on it to cut off any further sounds. Her eyes never left Kolinski’s face. No doors opened to her cry.

  Kolinski, still smiling, let his hand slide down her body and stepped back. The girl was shuddering against the wall, but made no move to touch her brutalized breast. The physical stench of her fear was palpable between them.

  ‘Surely didn’t what?’ repeated Kolinski.

  ‘I … There was no phone calls for you this morning, Mr Kolinski.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘You weren’t here this morning, sir.’

  Kolinski smiled delightedly. He laid a finger gently against the black girl’s fat carmined lips. He said, ‘I’ll bet you give a mean blowjob with a mouth like that, honey.’

  ‘Ye … yes, sir, Mr Kolinski.’

  He said thoughtfully, ‘Maybe one of these days …’

  ‘Yes, sir, Mr Kolinski.’ She paused. ‘Thank you, Mr Kolinski.’

  Back in her room, Robin had remained standing beside the bed, exactly as Kolinski had left her, for a full thirty seconds. Then she crossed swiftly to the door, pulled it open a foot and cautiously thrust her head out. Past his waiting back, at the far end of the hall, she could see the black girl just emerging from the office.

  Robin shut the door, twisted the key in the lock, then went to the bureau for a clean handkerchief. Her movements, with the craving temporarily stilled within her, were unconsciously graceful and fluid. Her habit was heavy enough that five cc’s of the street-strength solution were merely sufficient to restore her to a normal behavioral state, not enough to put her on the nod. She was humming to herself. Her eyes danced with a fierce joy that was like anger.

  With the handkerchief around her fingers, and using a feather touch, she picked up the syringe from the bed where Kolinski had tossed it. Her fingers gripped it with the clean linen just at the very base of the barrel, where the needle fitted over it. She turned the syringe this way and that under the unshaded bulb hanging by its bare cord from the converted gas fixture in the ceiling.

  Whatever the light showed her made Robin smile in satisfaction. She carried the syringe over to the bureau, opened a drawer, nested the syringe lovingly in the handkerchief. She was just shutting the drawer when the black girl’s scream came up the hall to freeze her movements.

  She waited. The cry was not repeated. She hurriedly blew out the candle, but did not remove it. She went to the wash basin, took up toothpaste and brush from the stained and yellowed enamel, began to brush her teeth very methodically, as if she could never get the inside of her mouth clean.

  Only then did Robin cross to the door, unlock it, look out again. The hallway was deserted. On bare silent feet, leaving her door wide behind her, she padded down to the office. The black girl was sitting behind the tiny desk, her immense breasts, bared, flowing halfway across its littered surface. She was crying bitterly.

  ‘Daphne,’ called the white girl softly.

  Daphne raised her head with a stricken, guilty look. Seeing who it was, she knuckled her reddened eyes like a hurt child, grunted to her feet to reach across and open the door. She didn’t bother to pull her sweater back down.

  ‘I heard you scream,’ said Robin. ‘What …’

  ‘That motherfucker Kolinski! He hurt me. See? He took an’ twisted my tit, wasn’t no call that motherfucker do that.’

  ‘Did he hurt you badly?’

  ‘I’ll live.’ The fat lips writhed. ‘But someday I’m gonna cut that motherfucker’s motherfucking nuts off, I swear. Someday …’

  ‘Not someday, Daphne. Now.’

  ‘Now?’ Daphne’s face had changed. Fear and greed had entered it, were fighting their age-old battle on her essentially guileless features.’

  ‘It’s today, Daphne.’

  ‘Miss Robin, I know what we done talk about, but—’

  Robin came quickly into the office. She shut the door behind her, put an arm around the black girl’s meaty shoulders as a mother might. ‘It’s more than talk, Daphne. It’s today. This afternoon.’

  Daphne licked the fat red lips. ‘An’ the money, Miss Robin. It’s truly what you said? Five th …’ Her voice lost the figure when she tried to say it. ‘Five thousand dollars? Just for—’

  ‘Just for the phone call at exactly the time I told you.’ The white girl’s thin patrician features were expressionless. ‘That, and sticking to your story afterwards. That’s as important as the phone call. Sticking to it even in court.’

  ‘An’ you’ll back up my story?’

  Robin smiled as at a secret joke. ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘That motherfucker get out on bail, get hold of my black ass—’

  ‘He won’t, Daphne. My
… testimony will keep him in jail.’

  The black girl looked at her distrustfully, gave her own fear one more chance before succumbing to greed and hatred. ‘Where your kinda dope fiend get that kinda money, Miss Robin? You out on the street turning tricks when that motherfucker don’t give you your fix, where you gonna get—’

  ‘I’ll have it, Daphne. I’ll put five thousand dollars on the corner of my dresser. After the phone call, come down and get it.’ Her eyes and voice changed. ‘I’ll be on the nod. I won’t see you take it, but don’t try to change your story afterwards. If you do …’

  ‘I know,’ said Daphne glumly. ‘You got friends. Every motherfucker in this world got friends, ’cept Daphne.’

  ‘By tonight you’ll have five thousand friends, Daphne.’

  The black girl’s eyes suddenly glittered. ‘Yeah!’ she exclaimed softly. ‘Five thousand bucks! I fix that motherfucker. I fix that motherfucker’s honky ass good!’

  The white girl went back down the hall to her room. She shut but did not lock the door. She looked at the cheap alarm clock on top of the dresser, lay down on the bed on her back. It was a bit past ten o’clock. The heroin was still at work in her. She lay there quietly, a junkie whore named Robin on a whore’s sprung bed in a cheap junkie whore’s slovenly room.

  She waited.

  5

  As Robin waited, the search for Docker was spreading across San Francisco. Not the San Francisco famous to tourists for the 49-Mile Drive, the bright flower stall on the Bank of America’s sprawling dark plaza, the St Francis Hotel’s dizzying exterior elevators to the tower. Not even the San Francisco of the rich condominiums of Russian and Nob Hills, or of the rows of boxy tracts which had stilled the once-restless sands of the Sunset District.

  But San Francisco all the same, a real city as valid as the one they shoot movies in, and give awards to the restaurants of, and write books about.

  An underbelly San Francisco, in which Alex Kolinski was on his way to the Bush Street parking garage where Walter Hariss waited, smoking an impatient cigar. In which Pamela Gardner was on the phone, skiptracing the big blond man named Docker. Neil Fargo was just parking his Fairlane in the Fifth and Mission garage. And a uniformed prowlie named Edmunds had feigned sudden illness and had, on behalf of his monthly pay-off from Walter Hariss, tracked down the driver of the 25 Bryant bus which had carried Docker to Army Street. There the big blond-haired, limping man with the attaché case had debussed, and there the trail had ended.