Leave a Message for Willie Read online

  Leave A Message For Willie

  By Marcia Muller

  For Mary DeYoe and Terry Milne

  Copyright 1984 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust

  Ebook@2011 by AudioGO. All rights reserved.

  ISBN 978-1-60998-613-1

  42 Whitecap Drive

  North Kingstown, RI 02852

  Visit us online at www.audiogo.com

  1.

  “You want any of those paintbrushes, they’re all half price.”

  The vendor, in cut-off jeans and a baseball cap, loomed over me as I squatted, considering his wares. I rocked back on my heels and looked up at him. “Business is slow, huh?”

  “Nah, I’m generous, is all. Half price, and you buy ten brushes, I’ll knock off another dollar.”

  “What on earth would I do with ten of them?”

  He grinned, his suntanned face creasing into deep lines. “Open your own stall. That’s how I got started in the flea market business.”

  “I’ll take two.” I stood up and fumbled in my bag for change.

  The man shook his head. “Some people wouldn’t know a bargain if it bit them on the ass.”

  I waggled the brushes at him and started down the crowded aisle, looking for my friend Don.

  The Saltflats Flea Market was spread over several acres sandwiched between the Bayshore Freeway and the frontage road, near the little town of Brisbane. During the week, it was nothing but a barren, rock-strewn plain; but on Saturdays and Sundays, the vendors streamed in. They erected booths with colorful canopies or sold their goods from blankets on the ground. Balloons flew, banners waved, and music – from dozens of radios, most tuned to country-and-western stations – filled the air.

  I weaved down the aisle, avoiding baby strollers and a kid on a bicycle, and spotted Don at a stand featuring stereo equipment. He was closing in on a bunch of speakers with an ardent disc-jockey gleam in his eye, and I quickened my pace, knowing I’d better get him out of there, fast. By the time I reached him, he was crawling on his hands and knees, examining the connections at the back of one speaker. I nudged his foot with mine and he looked up, his expression blank for a moment.

  “It’s me, Sharon. Remember?”

  “Oh, yeah. We’ve met someplace. Give me a minute and I’ll figure out where.” Then he looked back at the speaker, a shade wistfully. “These are a terrific deal.”

  “Of course they are. They’re probably hot.”

  Don straightened up to his full six foot two, brushing dirt off his hands. He raised one dark eyebrow and waited.

  “A lot of the stuff they sell here is,” I went on. “Some of the vendors are legitimate business people and craftsmen, but quite a bit of fencing goes on too.”

  Don continued to wait, stroking his shaggy black mustache, his hazel eyes interested. At the beginning of our relationship I’d taken this quiet interest to be boredom – mainly because he’d struck me as such a motormouth when we’d first met. But, as we’d become closer and more comfortable with one another, I’d realized he only chattered when he was nervous or felt he needed to be on stage. Don Del Boccio, star disc jockey of a mid-coastal radio show, conserved his words in his private life as much as he squandered them on air.

  “This particular flea market,” I said, “has a reputation for tolerating illegal activity. I myself just bought what are probably hot paintbrushes to use on the trim in the living room.”

  Don put an arm around me and began steering me through the crowd. “You bought hot merchandise when you’re here on a mission of law and order?”

  “I wouldn’t label meeting with a prospective client as ‘a mission of law and order.’ But I did promise my boss I’d look the guy up, so I guess I’d better quit wandering around and try to locate him; supposedly he has a stall here.”

  “Why not ask one of the other vendors? Maybe the guy at the snow-cone stand can tell you. I’ll treat you to a cone.”

  “Okay. A rainbow one, please.”

  The snow-cone vendor was a tall black man in a satin shirt and silver-studded jeans. I wondered how he could stand the noontime heat in that getup, but he looked as cool as the ice he was shaping into cones. When Don asked for two, the Man took them and deftly began adding syrup from the big plastic dispensers.

  “First you put on some blue,” he said in what was probably a standard spiel. “For the sky. The add yellow. For sunshine. And now” – he flourished the cones dramatically – “red. For excitement!” With a bow he handed them to us. “There you are, folks.”

  The three kinds of syrup had begun to run together. I tasted mine and felt a sudden, sharp pang of nostalgia for my childhood. When I looked at Don, he had red ice stuck in his swooping mustache.

  I laughed and said, “Hold this for a second, will you?” When he took the cone I reached into my bag and got out the card that my boss, Hank Zahn of All Souls Legal Cooperative, had given me the previous afternoon. Printed in black on gold metallic stock, it read:

  Need stuff for Flea Markets?

  Call 755-4200

  Leave a Message for Willie

  I handed the card to the snow-cone vendor. “Do you know where I can find Willie Whelan?”

  “Everybody knows Willie.” He gave the card back without looking at it. “Go to the end there, turn left, and take the third aisle. He’ll be midway down on the right, set up in front of a brand-new red pickup truck.”

  “Thanks.” I retrieved my snow cone from Don, and we started off in the direction the man had pointed.

  The cone was melting fast, and I tilted the paper cup clumsily, smearing the sticky liquid on my face and hands. Don, used to my minor mishaps by now, merely rolled his eyes as I fished out a Kleenex. “Well, it’s melting faster than it should,” I said, scrubbing at my chin.

  “I know.” He squeezed my shoulder and continued eating his own cone, which seemed to be surviving just fine.

  It was a hot day for May. We’d had an early spring and already the hills above Brisbane, a village only miles south of San Francisco, were turning brown. The wild grasses around the perimeter of the flea market were baked to a wheat color and the bay, beyond the cars that whizzed by on the freeway, looked like a desert mirage. I pulled my cotton blouse free from my damp back, wishing I’d worn something cooler.

  “Hey, babe,” Don said, “there’s something that’s absolutely you.”

  I looked where he pointed. It was a pair of roller skates with bright green vinyl shoes. They stood among an assortment of rumpled used clothing, some in cardboard boxes, some merely heaped on the ground. I started to laugh, then looked guiltily around for the seller. He was curled up on the ground under a scabrous old van, as limp as the clothing and totally oblivious to us.

  We continued along past stands offering assorted junk, houseplants, hand-thrown pottery, dried fruit, nuts, olives, and honey. There were fake oriental rugs, real live rabbits, books, posters, and bright red popcorn. A sign on a box of records read THESE ALBUMS 25¢, (NOT ALL ARE SHITTY). One stall advertised a “crazy sale” – any post-season quilted Easter basket, complete with green celluloid grass, for a dollar. Behind a glass case full of hunting knives, a smiling fat man sat under a miniature beach umbrella that attached to his head like a halo in a child’s Christmas play. I glanced at his sinister-looking wares, grimaced, and moved on.

  A beat-up Chevy piled high with junk edged along the crowded aisle, beeping its horn, and some of the kids jumped on its bumper. The driver began to inch into an empty space to the accompaniment of good-natured jeers and catcalls. As we waited for the car to move out of our way, I spied the red pickup truck pulled up in a large space on the right. There were no vehicles within ten or twelve feet on either side of it, as i
f its shiny newness deserved more room than others. Pointing to it, I grabbed Don’s hand and we squeezed around the slow-moving Chevy.

  Willie Whelan’s concession was of the assorted-junk variety – but a much higher quality of junk than we’d seen up to now. Several shabby Oriental rugs were spread on the ground in front of the truck, and on them was arranged a truly fascinating accumulation of objects. There were three old pedestal-type sinks and a claw-footed bathtub; four or five newel posts than had been converted to plant stands; illuminated beer signs, Depression glassware, and a whole stack of drip coffeemakers still in the manufacturer’s packaging; old mantel clocks, new clock radios, and a cello. Near the truck stood a player piano. At the very front was a huge birdcage, complete with parrot.

  I glanced from the beady-eyed bird to the truck and spotted a man sitting on its tailgate. He was in his late thirties, wearing Levi’s, a leather vest, and a cowboy hat. When he saw Don and me, he unfolded his tall, lanky frame and ambled over. His clean-shaved face was open and amiable, his eyes, above a slightly hooked nose, a startling shade of blue.

  “Help you folks?” It was the same voice I’d heard on the phone the night before.

  “You’re Willie Whelan?”

  “That’s the name.” He held out a hand and I grasped it briefly.

  “I’m Sharon McCone. And this – “I turned to introduce Don, but he had gone over to inspect the claw-footed bathtub, probably with the idea it might do for my new house. “That,” I said, “is my friend Don Del Boccio.”

  Willie took off his cowboy hat and smoothed down his curly brown hair before carefully resettling the hat. “He a detective, too?”

  “No, a houseguest.”

  He nodded. “Well, he looks like he can amuse himself. Why don’t you come back to the truck? We’ll talk, have a beer.”

  I followed him and seated myself on the tailgate while he took beers out of a cooler. He gave me one, crossed over to Don and handed him one, then returned and sat next to me.

  “Zahn said he’d send me a lady detective, but he didn’t say she’d be such a pretty one.”

  “Well, thanks for the compliment.”

  “It’s no compliment, just the truth.” He swigged beer and looked appraisingly at me.

  “Have you been a client of Hank’s long?”

  “Years, ever since we started the co-op. I knew him in ‘Nam. He was an officer, I was an ordinary grunt. But Zahn always treated everybody like regular human beings. Rank didn’t matter to him.”

  “Still doesn’t. He even treats me like a human being.”

  “Shouldn’t be so hard to do.” He winked one of those incredibly blue eyes at me and drank more beer. “What did he tell you about my problem?”

  “Nothing. Just said to call you.”

  “Yeah, and thanks for waiting until I could get back to you.”

  “Where was it I left the message anyway? The guy who answered said something about an oasis, but I didn’t catch the rest. There was a lot of background noise.”

  “The Oasis Bar and Grill, on Irving Street. They take my messages.”

  “I see.”

  “To get to my problem: Somebody’s been following me, and I want it stopped.”

  “Following you.”

  “Yeah. Watching my stall here at the flea market. And my house, where I’ve got this permanent garage sale. He isn’t watching my people yet, but that’s probably next.”

  “Your people?”

  “The runners I send out to the other area flea markets. There are three of them.”

  I took out a pencil and notepad. “How long has this been going on?”

  “About three weeks.”

  “How many people? One? More?”

  “I’ve only noticed one.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  He took off the cowboy hat and ran a hand through his curly hair. “He’s weird.”

  “Weird?”

  “Not one of the usual types.”

  “What usual types?”

  “You know, the cops?”

  I gave him a puzzled look.

  “The cops. They’re always after me.”

  “Why?”

  Now he looked confused. “Didn’t Hank tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “I’m a fence.”

  I stared at him, then glanced over at the coffeemakers and clock radios. “You mean you deal in stolen goods?”

  “Sure. I don’t broadcast it usually, but Zahn said I could trust you. I just figured he’d spelled it out.”

  Disturbed, I set the pencil and notepad down. While all my clients weren’t necessarily on the right side of the law, I didn’t hold much brief for fences. A couple of years ago I’d unmasked a ring of them operating in my former neighborhood, with tragic consequences. Fences, while not thieves themselves, encourage thievery. And I’d often seen the heartbreak it could case.

  In my contract with All Souls I had the option of turning down jobs, providing the investigation wasn’t related to a case we were handling. Knowing me as he did, Hank would have realized I would have reservations about working for a fence. So why hadn’t he briefed me on Willie’s occupation, as he normally would have on any sensitive detail about a client?

  “And you say Hank’s aware of what you do?”

  “Of course; he’s my lawyer.”

  I was amazed. The statement revealed a totally new aspect of my boss’s character. Or did it? No matter how irrational they might seem on the surface, Hank usually had good reasons for his actions. If he’d sent me to see Willie, neglecting to mention his profession, there was more to this than was readily apparent.

  Willie leaned toward me, frowning, as if he were worried that he had made a social blunder. “You’re not shocked or anything?”

  “Well…not really. It doesn’t matter.” But I would have to talk to Hank before I agreed to take Willie on as a client.

  “Damn straight!” There was a touch of relief in the way he crumpled his beer can and tossed it under the truck. “I look at it this way: I may be a fence, but I’ve got rights just like the next guy. And I want this following business stopped.”

  I decided I might as well take down the preliminary information, so I picked up the notebook again. “Okay, describe the person.”

  “Weird, like I said. Little skinny guy. Wears glasses. Wears a suit.”

  “A suit, here at the flea market?”

  “Yeah. It’s no wonder I noticed him, huh?”

  “I guess. Anything else?”

  “A funny hat.”

  “How is it funny?” Carefully I avoided looking at Willie’s leather cowboy hat with its braid and bright red feather.

  “Sort of round – it fits close to the crown of the head. Like a beanie.”

  Quite improbably, it sounded like a Jewish yarmulke. “Anything else?”

  He screwed up his face in concentration. “Not that I recall.”

  “Do you know anyone who might have reason to follow you? An enemy, for instance.”

  “I deal tough, and sometimes it makes people mad at me, but I don’t really make enemies.”

  “What about your merchandise – do you handle valuable items?”

  “Well, some command high prices, but there’s nothing like art goods or jewelry, if that’s what you mean.”

  “And you don’t deal in drugs?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “You owe any money? Gambling debts, perhaps?”

  “Nope. I operate on a strictly cash basic, and I stay away from the tables and the track.”

  “Could it have any connection with a romantic relationship? A former girlfriend, for instance? Or an ex-wife?”

  “Not that I can imagine. I got an ex-wife, but she’s remarried twice now. Lives in another state. And my other women, I’ve always treated them right.”

  “Are you currently involved with someone?”

  “Yeah, a little gal called Alida Edwards. She runs a handcrafted jewelry
concession here.”

  “What does she think about this person who’s been watching you?”

  “She’s as puzzled as I am.”

  “If you’re so puzzled, why don’t you go up and ask him what he’s doing? You look as if you can take care of yourself.”

  He hesitated. “Look, I’m a fence. I’m in a vulnerable position. I don’t want to do anything that might attract attention to me.”

  “Has the guy been around today?”

  “No, but he might be waiting near the house when I get back. That’s happened before.”

  “What time will that be?”

  “Today I’ll leave here around three. I’ve got a couple of truckers coming, wanting to peddle me some goods they’ve boosted.”

  “How about if I meet you there?” Until I could talk with Hank about Willie, I might as well follow up on his problem. And, for professional reasons, it might be helpful to watch a fence operate.

  “Sure.” He gave me his address, in San Francisco’s inner Sunset district, near Golden Gate Park and Kezar Stadium.

  I finished my beer and then rejoined Don. He was regarding the bathtub critically. “The enamel’s shot. You’d do better at a junkyard if you want one of these things.”

  “Probably. But I’m not sure I do want one.”

  He reached out and smoothed down my hair. “For a new homeowner, you’re pretty cavalier about getting the place in shape.”

  “Yes, I am, aren’t I?” Much as I loved my new home, there were a great many things that interested me more – including Willie Whelan’s problem.

  2.

  I dropped Don off at my house and then drove across town to the address Willie had given me. It was on the section of Arguello Boulevard that stretches between Kezar Stadium and the University of California Medical Center, on the fringes of Golden Gate Park. The neighborhood serves as a home for an odd mixture of middle-class professionals, students from the Med Center, and bohemian types who spill over from the nearby Haight-Ashbury. While most of the buildings seem well-maintained, the mouldering shell of long-abandoned Polytechnic High School and the crumbling stadium cast a seedy pall over the area.

  I parked and got out of the car, looking for signs of the man Willie had described, but saw no one remotely resembling him on the street. Then I crossed toward my prospective client’s house, a stucco-and-beam Edwardian that had probably been built around the turn of the century. It was three stories, with the main floor several steps up from the sidewalk, and a garage underneath. As I approached, I saw that the garage door was up, and I glimpsed Willie standing just inside of it. He waved and motioned for me to come in.