Mean Streets Echo: A Peggy D'sousa Mystery

Contents

Chapter 1.         One Cold Night

Chapter 2.         Oil and Water

Chapter 3.         Lefty Four Eyes

Chapter 4.         Chicago

Chapter 5.         Running Scared

Chapter 6.         Hong Kong

Chapter 7.         Fighting Back

Chapter 8.         Chinatown

Chapter 9.         Strange Facts

Chapter 10.        Confrontations

Chapter 11.        Cannes

Chapter 12.        Chasing Alan

Chapter 13.        Breakthrough!

Chapter 14.        Dirty Pool

Chapter 15.        Undercover

Chapter 16.        High Noon

Chapter 17.        ‘Old Pond’

Chapter 18.        Visitors

Chapter 19.        Developments

Chapter 20.        Boiling Point

Chapter 21.        Los Angeles Makeover

Chapter 22.        Peggy Goes To Hollywood

Chapter 23.        Unilateral Strike

Chapter 24.        San Francisco Blues

Chapter 25.        Antique Heaven

Chapter 1

One Cold Night

Shadowy empty streets gave me the feeling I was the only person left in the world. Even the panhandlers had more sense than to be out on this freezing winter’s night. An exceptional blast of icy wind hit me as I turned onto Van Ness off Geary. I stopped to pull my coat collar up above my ears, zipping it.

An SFPD car cruised by on patrol, colored lights eerie in the night. Hard to believe what happened next.

A lone figure stepped into the middle of the road. Streetlights behind cast such a massive shadow they made him look like a giant. He threw back his head and let out a thunderous roar of laughter, lifted a shotgun and fired at the cop car’s windshield.

The driver didn’t stand a chance, slumping dead over the wheel. The car, clipping along, slewed across the road into the nearest light pole. Its siren began a mournful wail. Worse, flames began licking underneath.

I ran to it in panic to help the other cop, who was vainly trying to crawl from the passenger side. I think both her legs were broken. The door was so crumpled there’s no way we could get it open. I hammered on the widow to break it. Hopeless! It needed something solid. I mouthed the words your gun, through the window. The cop understood, grabbed her gun and smashed the window with the butt.

I was able to drag her through the broken glass to get her out. Despite the pain and the blood this caused, both of us were desperately conscious of the ever encroaching fire.

Above the cacophony of the dying car, the injured cop’s moans, I heard the ratchet of the monster re-arming his shotgun. I snatched the cop’s gun, fired blindly in hope.

He fell backwards onto the road. Out of the light his size diminished to that of a normal human. Behind him shadows faded as he fell. I sensed a wolf pack that retreated without its leader.

Better keep the gun out.

The car suddenly went up with a roar of sound. Feeling the sudden heat of searing flame, I tugged the injured cop further away. I could see her eyes starting to fade. Talk, Peggy, talk…

Bloody hell! First time I’ve been warm since I hit this town!

She came back to life, gave me a weak smile.

We need help, and quick!

She indicated her top pocket. I pulled out her cell phone, went to dial the Aussie emergency 000 then remembered it wouldn’t get me far in San Francisco. I hesitated. What was it? 911 is the emergency number?

Here. Weak as she was, she took the phone off me and hit an emergency button. Officer Taylor… She reported the incident in the string of gobbledegook numbers cops use. I only comprehended ‘Intersection of Geary and Van Ness.’ Then she tucked the phone away and looked around, suddenly seeing the burning car, the figure being enveloped by flames slumped over the wheel. Instinctively she tried to force herself to her feet and go to him, sobbing and gasping, Chuck…Chuck…

Cradling her, I pressed her face close to me, shielding her from the horrific sight of her partner burning to a crisp.

Chuck was dead before you hit the pole. He isn’t feeling anything.

She fell back with a low moan as the stench of burning flesh filled the air. I crouched over her with gun at the ready against who knows what, until the alarms and sirens cutting through the night drew near, then tucked the gun back into her holster.

Paramedics reached the scene first, then about ten police cars. In the mayhem, the first cop car to arrive almost ran over the Monster’s body on the road. They loaded Taylor into an ambulance, reporting to one of the cops as we stood stamping our feet in the cold.

Yes, I saw everything. Was walking back to my hotel - the Ramada on Market…

That’s as far as I got before crumpling to the ground, covered in Taylor’s blood and gore.

Chapter 2

Oil and Water

There was an inevitability about it.

The moment I looked into Charlie Deakins’ eyes, the sudden bolt of electricity that passed between us guaranteed that I would wake up naked in Charlie’s bed.

I’d only met Charlie a few hours earlier in the SFPD Police Superintendent’s office, where I’d swished in wearing my best grey wool suit. The message at the hotel had requested my presence at SFPD Headquarters at 9am. Given that the hospital had just let me go, arriving about noon at the hotel I was lucky to get there that same day.

Surprisingly, I was instantly ushered into some high level cop’s office, not an interview room.

Charlie had opened the door. Ah, Ms. Marguerite d’Sousa I presume? He winked and retreated to the shadows. Superintendent Clarke, all braid and very official snarled grumpily d’Sousa? The damn Private Eye? You’re late! He then reached into a drawer and pulled out a piece of paper.

What’s this?

Your check for one million dollars. He grated the amount out through clenched teeth. As you would know very well, there was a bounty for a million dollars on the head of Michael James Hewitt, otherwise known as The Enforcer.

Wow! I held up my hand. As I did not know Superintendent. I’ve been in this city less than a week. You’re talking about the guy I shot the other night, the Monster?

The uniformed cop gave me a look of absolute disbelief. Monster? Good name for him. After he finished twenty years in prison, he vowed to get as many police officers as possible. Charles Timms was number eight.

Charles…Chuck…the driver of the patrol car the other night?

Yeah.

And did Officer Timms leave a family?

Wife and five kids.

And what about Officer Taylor, how is she? Going to need a lot of expensive medical?

Yeah. She’ll need a lot of hospital care, but she’ll get there. She’s supporting a couple of kids…no husband.

I folded my arms. You got collections going for both these guys?

Of course.

I pulled out my personal checkbook, writing out checks for $500,000 each for the widow and the injured Thompson.

Don’t worry, I’m good for it even before I put this, I waved the reward check over my head, In my account. Now, I want to make sure that the SFPD has on record my report about the others who were there with the Enforcer that night…

We have that covered, Ms. d’Sousa. The Superintendent wasn’t going to keep a PI in the police station longer than he had to – enough that he had given me $1,000,000.

I’ll, er…see you home, grinned Charlie, grabbing my arm and steering my out of the office, laughing out loud as we hurried down the corridor.

He was all dressed up for a television shot and you were a no-show.

I was in hospital! I snarled indignantly.

I let Charlie lead me downstairs to the car park.

Your place or mine? he asked in the car.

Yours. I had already forgotten the braided superintendent, shooting covert looks at my driver.

Charlie was five feet three inches of solid muscle from the top of his head to his toes, no neck to speak of and a ruddy, weather-beaten face, topped with a wisp of sandy hair and strange, tiger-like eyes.

He looked as if he should be wearing a beret and jumping out of planes in foreign parts, not pretending to be a policeman.

That said, he was undoubtedly the most sensual man on the planet.

A couple of hours later he rolled over in bed and said: I want to make you a proposition.

I thought we were well past that scenario.

He swung out of bed, pulled on a very modern prosthetic leg before slipping into a lairy pair of silken USA flag boxer undies. He sashayed without even the suggestion of a limp across the enormous penthouse bedroom to an oversized video.

What’s so funny?

Dammit, Charlie. You look like Central Casting’s idea of a parachute major. I’m right, aren’t I?

Yeah, well, blokes who jump from planes shouldn’t land on mines, he admitted.

Very careless, I agreed.

He came and lay back beside me, hugging me in his great muscular arms, before flicking the remote and bringing the big screen in front of us to life.

I like that. No sloppy sentimentality…just noting facts about people. That’s professional. Thing is, you get hurt – you get on with it. It’s the job. So now please watch the damn screen, then we’ll talk.

Immediately evident was that it was the security vid from a massive shopping centre, this camera focussed on the busy main escalator…one of the longest I’d ever seen.

Suddenly a terrified looking woman stumbled into view, forcing her way onto the crowded moving stairs. Shoving annoyed people aside in her haste she clawed her way upwards. Stymied at last, forced to stand still, she flung one fearful glance down. A shot rang out. She dropped dead.

Charlie pressed the stop button.

"That was some dead-eye shooting… moving target, distance, split second of time to fire. We weren’t – and still are not – 100% sure it’s even the right vic.

Homeland Security has to look at all cases of ‘single shot’ murders…or in your case, self defence. Things like one-off pistol shots from an extreme distance. Seems you have a history, he said accusingly.

Do I take it you are referring to my shooting of the drug lord in Perth, 2005?

Yeah. I gather circumstances were very similar to your shooting the other night – more self-defence than anything. Even so, the Police Super is convinced you are some kind of bounty hunter. To his mind, nobody brings down a man with a million dollar bounty on his head with a lucky shot!

Cops and PI’s – oil and water.

I hit the remote. Too many unanswered questions. Why was she running? How did the gunman know where to wait? Aha, there he is. That’s why. He chased her until she hit the escalator, then coolly stood to one side, pulled out the gun, aimed it at her head and waited for a clear shot. See the shadow at the bottom of the stair? Should even show a flash from there. I re-wound and replayed the tape. It did.

Charlie swore. All the bozos who missed the obvious. So much for experts!