by Alan Cook
Chapter 31
There was nothing like walking the hills of San
Francisco to clear the head. When all your
energy is required just to get to the top of
a hill where the cars parked perpendicular to
the street tilt so much that the slightest touch
will tip them over you don't have any energy
left for negative thoughts.
Such as what would happen if I lost the bet and
actually had to go to work for James. That
thought had come to me during the night and
I was trying to expel it now.
I finally sat down in a small park to rest, fearful
that I would exhaust myself so much I wouldn't
be at my best at the blackjack table. I watched
two hummingbirds play tag in the air and
reviewed the last few weeks.
The day my peaceful world had turned upside down
was the day my father had come to me for help.
That was the day Ned had been murdered. Since
then, I had been told by my father and others not
to try to solve the murder. But here I was doing
just that, more to save my own skin than
anything else.
If I knew James had ordered Ned's murder,
somehow I thought that would free me of
any obligation to James, such as the money
I owed him or my agreement to obtain Elma's
proxy. Even if I couldn't prove it in a court of
law. But it was naive of me to think that James
would actually tell the truth, even if I won
the bet.
So what else could I do? There was at least
one string that hadn't been explored, I was
sure, by the police. That was the mysterious
Chinese lady who had Ned's gun in her possession.
She and Ned must have been old friends. Or were
they more than friends?
It occurred to me that the woman with James at
Ned's funeral could have been Chinese. I hadn't
gotten a good look at her, but she definitely had
Asian features. Was this another case of James
and Ned sharing a woman? There was certainly
precedent for it.
Suddenly, I wanted to find and talk to this
woman. But how? I remembered that I had
passed an Internet cafe a few blocks back.
Sip cappuccino and check stocks and email.
I got up and headed in that direction.
# # # #
I bought an iced tea at the counter and headed
for an available personal computer. It took me
only a few seconds to access the Tartan
corporate website. I looked at the site index.
There were pages listed with the information
you would expect: financial reports, recent
acquisitions, profiles of James and other
corporate officers. What wasn't there was what
I was looking for: a sub-index with names and
addresses of clients and other people and
organizations important to Tartan and James.
Of course this was confidential information
and wouldn't be made available to the world.
But I knew it was on the website because
the night Ned was murdered James had
accessed the telephone numbers of Ned's hotel
and the police from it. I had been looking over
his shoulder when he did it.
Then he had made another phone call he had
later denied making. Was that call to the
Chinese lady? From James' side of the
conversation I had gathered that the caller
had seen Ned that evening. My recollection
was that James didn't look up her phone
number on the website; he knew it by heart.
But still, it could be there.
What had James done to get to the private part
of the website? He had gone to a certain page
and entered a password. That page wouldn't be
in the index but now I could remember James
entering the Tartan URL and the word "private."
I typed in the Tartan URL followed by a slash
and "private." The page I remembered seeing
came up, containing a place to enter a
password. What was the password? Of course
the password had appeared as x's on the screen
when James had entered it, but maybe I could
reconstruct it.
I didn't have a computer program like you see in
the movies that tries every possible combination
of characters until it finds the correct password.
The technology wouldn't allow me to do that,
anyway. That was fiction. But most passwords
were made simple so they would be easy to
remember. And apparently all Tartan staff members
knew it.
Now what? I could actually see James type in the
password. I'm a nosy guy and I had watched him.
And James wasn't a fast typist so it was possible
to follow the keys he struck. I remembered at the
time thinking that the password was an actual word
and too obvious.
Except I couldn't remember what word it was. Six
characters, I thought. I tried "tartan" and
received an error message. Those weren't the
keys James had pressed, anyway. He had
started with the forefinger of his left hand,
but not the "t." I checked the keyboard.
That finger is used to type seven different
letters. Great.
What words started with those letters? I drew
a blank on all of them until I got to "c." "Casino."
Of course. I typed "casino" and clicked Enter.
Another error message. Damn.
The more I recalled the night of Ned's murder
the more I was sure that "casino" was correct.
So why was I getting an error message?
Persnickety computer. I tried "casino" again.
Same result. Think, Patterson. I thought about
smashing the computer, which was not logical.
And computers are logical, if nothing else.
I typed in "casino" again but didn't click Enter.
Why wasn't this correct? It seemed so right.
But of course memories can be self-fulfilling. I
stared at the word and noticed that there was
still a space remaining in the password box.
Another character was needed.
I typed in a "1" after "casino" and clicked Enter.
Error.
I poured ice from the bottom of my glass into my
mouth, crunched on it and froze my mouth.
Then it came to me; I remembered how awkward
it had been for James to type an "s" because the
tip of the fourth finger on his left hand was missing.
And he'd had to use that finger twice when entering
the password.
"I typed in "casinos" and clicked Enter. No error
message. The index page of organizations and
people that I had seen James refer to appeared,
in alphabetical order. It was many screens long.
I scrolled down and scanned the names, looking
for Chinese-sounding names.
I wrote one down and kept going. I came to my
own name, "Patterson, Karl." I clicked on it and
went to my page. It contained my address,
telephone number, email address and the fact
that I was Richard Patterson's son. It noted that
I drank iced tea and that I was a card counter. So
James did care about that, even though he
pretended indifference.
I continued down the list and wrote another name.
I finished the list, went back and clicked on the first
of the two names. A personal page appeared. The
woman lived in Paso Robles, well south of San
Francisco.
I clicked on the other name, Flora Sung. Her
address was San Francisco, but I didn't
recognize the street, so I looked it up on my
map. It was just two blocks from Grant Avenue
and less than a block from where Ned had
parked his car. And close to the spot where
he had been murdered.
# # # #
I walked up a few steps to the front door of the
row house, into a sheltered entryway. There
were two buttons beside the intercom. Evidently,
the house contained two apartments. I matched
one of the buttons to the street address I had
and pressed it.
The house had been here for a while, but it was
freshly painted and well cared for. A green plant
grew out of a pot on the landing.
"Who is it?" a female voice asked. I detected
a slight accent, probably Chinese, even
through the questionable sound quality of
the intercom.
"My name is Karl Patterson," I said. "I'm a friend
of James Buchanan."
"What do you want?"
That could be the stopper. However, I had
nothing to lose. "I...I'd like to talk to you about
Ned Mackay."
Silence. It appeared that I had struck out. Then,
"Are you from the police?"
"No, ma'am. I am...I was a friend of Ned's." Better
not say anything more.
Finally, the welcome sound of a click and the
voice saying, "Come up the stairs."
I opened the door and found the stairs directly
in front of me. They creaked as I ascended them.
The dark brown color of the wooden stairs and
paneled walls didn't lighten the gloom. Nor did
several dim lights mounted on a wall.
The door at the top of the stairs opened, letting
out welcome light from the room beyond. In the
doorway stood a small woman with short, dark
hair and bangs, wearing a skirt and blouse. I
couldn't see her face clearly because her back
was to the light, but it was round and could be
Asian. The sound of opera emanated from
beyond the doorway, featuring a man and
woman dueling with their exquisite voices.
"How did you find me?" the woman asked as I
climbed the steps toward her.
"Uh, it's a long story," I said, "but James didn't
give me your name, if that's what you're
thinking."
"I wouldn't expect him to," the woman said,
holding the door open so I could precede her
inside. "He wouldn't want to identify anyone
who could bring him into this."
That was an interesting statement. I walked into
a beautifully decorated room, with expensive
furniture and trappings. The voices of the opera
singers filled the parts of the room not occupied
by furniture.
"I'll turn that down," the woman said, going over
to a cabinet and twisting a button on an amplifier.
"Would you like some tea, Mr. umm..."
"Patterson. Yes, if it's no trouble. And you are
Flora Sung?"
"I am she." She gave me a smile that lit up her
face and then disappeared into the next room.
Her small size tempted one to describe her as
cute, a word that is overused, but in her case
it fit. I guessed that her age placed her in the
same generation with Ned and James.
When she returned she caught me looking at a
somewhat abstract painting on the wall.
"That's a Joan Miro original," she said. "I bought it
one time when I was feeling giddy."
She ushered me to a seat on a large sofa, sat down
beside me and poured tea into china cups.
"So, do the police know about me?" she asked.
"No...that is, I don't think so."
"Are you going to tell them?"
That was a stumper. "I...don't expect to," I said,
hedging a little.
"Well, you're a nice looking boy so I hope I can
trust you. Tell me how you knew Ned." Her
voice had a musical sound now that she had
accepted me.
"He worked with my father, Richard Patterson."
"Oh, that Patterson. I thought your name sounded
familiar." She looked at my face with her dark
eyes. "Yes, you do resemble your father."
"So you know him."
"I've met him a couple of times. And I own some
stock in Dionysus. Tell me, has he recovered
from his stroke?"
"Er, yes," I said, caught off guard. "He's back
at work. Ms. Sung, I wanted to ask you about
the night Ned died. I heard that he might have
come here before he was shot, to get a gun."
"My, you're just a fountain of information, aren't
you?" Ms. Sung said, looking at me with surprise.
"Tell me what else you know."
"That's all."
"That's a relief. For a minute there I thought you
were going to tell me my life story. The gun
actually belonged to Ned. He insisted that I keep
it to defend myself because I live alone. But I
can't picture myself ever shooting anyone."
Ms. Sung stopped talking and sipped her tea. I didn't
say anything, hoping she'd continue.
"I don't think Ned intended to take the gun when
he first arrived," she said, and then apparently
rethinking the way that sounded, continued,
"I've known Ned almost forever. James, too.
Anyway, the phone rang and I answered it.
It was a woman who said she had a message
for Ned from James, or Mr. Buchanan, as she
called him. I thought that was strange because,
as you know if you know James at all, he
surrounds himself with young, good-looking men
like yourself."
"But he does have a woman receptionist."
"Anyway, I gave the phone to Ned. He talked for
a minute, then hung up and asked me for the
gun. Naturally, I was concerned so I asked him
why he wanted it. He said James wanted to meet
him in a questionable part of town so he felt safer
carrying the gun. He said he would return it later
in the evening." Her voice faltered when she said
the last.
"But you didn't see him again."
"No." Softly.
"Do you know what time that was?"
"A little before nine, I think."
"Did Ned say why he was meeting James?"
"They had been talking together about a possible
takeover of Dionysus by Tartan, James'
company. Ned would have become CEO of
Dionysus. Your father would have been out but
he would have been left financially well off so I
didn't feel too sorry for him. But then Ned had a
change of heart and decided he didn't want to
team up with James again. I think he was going
to tell James this."
"You know more about what Ned was doing than
his wife," I blurted.
"I've known him longer than his wife--at least in this
country," Ms. Sung said, an inscrutable look in
her eyes.
She had been honest with me, as far as I could
tell. Should I ask the definitive question? Why
not? "Do you think James had Ned killed?"
Her dark eyes studied me. "No, James isn't a killer.
What I do think is this. I think Ned may have
taken the gun to give him the guts to tell James
off. Not that he would have ever used it against
James."
"But then, was the telephone message from James
legitimate or not? I don't think James left his
house all evening." A fact easily verified.
"James told me the message did not come from
him. I believe him."
Then who did it come from?"
Ms. Sung smiled, sadly. "If you can answer that
question you can probably find the killer."
"Shouldn't you go to the police and tell them what
you know?"
"I don't know anything that would help. It is too
late to trace the telephone call and I don't
believe James did it so I am not going to
implicate him."
"But it was you that James called when he was
looking for--or pretended to be looking for--Ned."
"Yes."
"So he knew Ned had been here."
"But that was no surprise. Ned visited me every
time he came to San Francisco. And James, bless
his sexually mixed-up little heart, knew that."
I tried not to show a reaction. "What about the
cocaine?"
She shrugged. "Ned was as clean as a newly
diapered baby. I don't know anything about
the cocaine."
I couldn't think of any more questions. I said, "Ms.
Sung, thank you for your time." I stood up.
"What are you going to do now?" she asked, also
standing. "Are you going to tell the police
about me?"
"No. Although...I would like to reserve the right
to do so if I can find out who made the phone
call--so that you can verify that the phone call
was actually made."
"If it will clear James I will testify. But I don't think
my testimony would make Ned's wife very happy."
"Probably not. But I guess that's a chance we'd
have to take."
Aces and Knaves copyright ©2002 Alan L. Cook
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