Five-Eighty is a novel about a private detective working in the suburbs of the Bay Area of California in the early 1970s. Each Saturday morning a new installment appears. As the events of this novel take place during the election season of 1974, the story will be released during this, the election season of 2024. May it prove an entertaining distraction from the news of the day. Please enjoy, and as always, comments are welcome!
—HF
Chapter 4
Given Carpenter’s reluctance to give me anything to work on, I drive over to Oakland to visit the main library and do a little digging. Santini, Richard. Born 1923, son of a small-time contractor in San Francisco’s North Beach. Navy during the war, he entered as Ricardo, but came back as Richard, and in forty-six married Aemilia Francesconi at Saints Peter and Paul, the same church where Marilyn Monroe married Mickey Mantle, the same one where Laura and I were wed. Went to work for his dad, and about twenty years ago inherited the firm, doing work as a subcontractor for Del Webb, building everything from office parks to Las Vegas casinos. Throughout the fifties, though, he remained a small player in bigger projects, never the lead, never the face, never the boss. There seems always to have been the possibility of straight razors in the darkness, a situation that changed only after he took on Carpenter as a partner in fifty-eight. Younger, hungrier, and (perhaps more importantly) more Protestant, Carpenter became the face of the partnership, the first name on the door despite his youth, a charmer who went to the right parties and knew which fork to use to open the oyster, if by oyster you meant the pocketbooks of respectable money. When Pat Brown rolled out his big education push, Carpenter and Santini got the contracts to build several community college campuses. When the Port of Oakland began to convert old railroad piers into a modern harbor, the concrete docks were built by Carpenter and Santini. And when they laid out the BART line past the Kaiser-built tunnel under the Oakland Hills, it was Carpenter and Santini that built the stations at Orinda and Walnut Creek and Concord. So much concrete, so much so that I wonder if he had done any work with my father down in Irvine.
Despite what I learned, there is nothing in the microfilmed newspapers and old trade magazine at the library that helps me any with Santini’s other haunts. I look at my watch. It’s near seven. Gathering my notes I go outside, and find a payphone out front. Given how close I am, I pick up the phone, pop in a coin, and dial up Nick. The phone rings once, twice, three times, but no answer. After five, I set the phone back into the cradle and try to get my money back out of the machine, but to no avail: My dime is gone for good.
The next morning, I pick up the Xeroxes of Santini’s calendar from the construction offices in the big Kaiser Building in Oakland, just off Lake Merritt, and then go sit in the Volvo by the lake and peruse the papers. The copies came from a large format daybook, the handwriting in it neat and consistent, but the entries are often scratched out in favor of other time slots, so that there are diagonal lines through many entries. Between all of these, there are leading lines and arrows, so that the entire daybook looks like an old Jay Ward title sequence more than an intelligible document. Santini is changeable, never keeping his promised schedule. Poor Matilda! In several places, her frustration shows in the wildness and haste of the scratched-out appointments.
I untgangle that Santini has three appointments today. The first two are in the city, regarding a bid for a future phase of Embarcadero Center. The third is much later, in the early evening, at an industrial park project in San Leandro. Between there are five hours. What is to happen between these appointments is unclear. Will he go back to the office in Oakland? Will he go home to Saint Francis Wood? Will he go meet Iris Carpenter somewhere for a screw? In David Carpenter’s mind this is all easy. Just follow Santini, dammit. But follow how? From his meeting with the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency? I go find a payphone and call up a city beat reporter I know over at the Examiner, and ask if he knows of any meetings going on for Embarcadero Center.
“No, should I? What do you know that I don’t?”
“I can’t give you details.”
“C’mon, bud! This is my work!”
“Someone I’m trying to keep tabs on is bidding on a later phase. I’m trying to see if I can slip into his meeting without being detected.”
No dice. No public meetings. Whatever it is, it is of the martinis and steak in the backroom variety. I thank my informant and hang up on him before he can bitch at me some more about life being a two-way street. Standing in the phone booth, I shut my eyes and envision sitting in the redevelopment agency lobby with some excuse—I represent the estate of a deceased property owner where the disposal of the estate is under contest, and where the property was sold to the agency, something of that sort—and bluff my way into waiting all day while the receptionist glares at me like a newly discovered corn on her toe. No, that isn’t going to work. I can park out front until I see Santini leave, but what if he leaves from a different entrance? Too thin an option. Staking out the office is pointless since if he returns there then Carpenter (or Matilda at least) would know that and my confirmation would be unneeded. And I have no idea where he would meet Iris Carpenter. These guys who think an investigator can just follow someone around everywhere are nuts. Most of the job relies on information, on people you can ask who know the rumors and gossip and can reduce your possibilities radically. The rest is spent in a public records hall somewhere, digging. It’s not Bullit. I’ve never been in a car chase in my life.
I dig in my jacket pocket and find my roll of dimes, pop off a couple and put in a long-distance call to Los Angeles. A voice on the other end—high pitched, fast-paced, eternally annoyed—answers “Chisholm Construction, How may I place your call?”
“Bill Chisolm, please.”
“Who’s calling?”
“Avon.”
“Please hold, Mr. Avon.”
I sigh. After a minute or two, the voice comes back. “I’m sorry, Mr. Chisholm is at lunch, but he should be back shortly. May I take a message?”
I give her the number of the pay phone, tell her I will be there another half hour, and tell her my actual name.
“I’m sorry, I thought you said you were Mr. Avon?”
“It was a joke. I’m sorry.”
“But you name is?”
“Ken Chisholm.”
“I thought you said you were calling for Bill Chisholm, we don’t have a Ken Chisholm.”
“No, I am Ken Chisholm. I am calling for Bill Chisholm.”
“What are the odds!”
“Pretty good, since he’s my dad.”
“Ohhhhh. Please hold.”
The line goes dead again. No Muzak. Music doesn’t pour concrete is how my dad would probably say it. Ugh. Then eternity of silence finally ends.
“Kenneth! What are you doing on this number? This one you gave Sophia isn’t your home or your office.”
“I’m at a pay phone.”
“Why are you at a pay phone?”
Why is my life reduceable to a series of pointless questions? I only think this, though. Instead: “Work. I need some help.”
“Are finances tight again?”
“Relax, Dad, it’s not like that. I’m looking for some information, and I thought you might know something.”
“Oh.” Tension deflates, audibly. “How’s Laura?”
“Laura is fine. Better than fine. Business is starting to pick up now that a couple of those tract developments are coming together. Anyway, I only have so many dimes. So I have a question.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“What do you know about Richard Santini? I figure since you are in concrete and he’s done a lot of concrete construction, maybe you know something about him.”
“Santini? Hummm…. Well, he’s up your way, Bay. He doesn’t really do anything down here.”
“Sure, but you still must know some stuff. Mutual acquaintances. That sort of thing.”
“Are you mixed up with him on something?” The question is light, forced casual, like when your mother asks so do you like this girl?
“No, no. Nothing serious. Not directly. I just want to know some context. He’s involved in some projects I might do some work for, I want to know more before I get involved.”
“Well, depends on what the project is. He’s a mid-level contractor. He’s done work for BART, and the city up there, and some other things along those lines. Mid-level public projects. He has done a few industrial parks with tilt-up concrete, but we’ve never worked the same projects, and he doesn’t have any stake in Irvine. Just be careful.”
“Careful why?”
Through the phone, I can hear him chewing on the end of the cigar that, for my entire time on this planet, I have never seen him light. It always struck me as hilarious, a Groucho Marx gag, but it was actually Dad’s defense, his ability to elegantly decline both drinks and cigarettes, neither of which he imbibed. Finally, “Santini is alright. Mostly. But his dad was a bit traditional in the Italian way, and he still has a lot of friends who own cemeteries filled with still-registered Democratic voters. I always wonder if he might backslide a little if he got crossed.”
“Do you know anyone who might know him better? Someone I could talk to, quietly?”
“Hummmm.” Chew, chew. “Yes, I can think of a few mutual acquaintances, but I wouldn’t want to send you to anybody too casually. You in any trouble, because of this stuff?”
“No trouble. And if I can learn enough, I can keep it that way.”
“I really wish you’d just go in house security somewhere. Throw in the towel. Come be one of my foremen.”
“I’m not a concrete man.”
“The paychecks would change your mind about that.”
“So, mutual acquaintances?”
“Hang on.” I can hear dad set the receiver down on his desk, then the muffled sounds of a drawer opening and some paper being pushed about. “Okay,” he says, “got a pen?”
“Check.”
He reads me out a number. “Harold Crocker. Harry. Yes, those Crockers. We were in the Army Corp together, and he’s still involved in development up there. Bechtel. Give him a call, drop my name. He’ll make time for you and he’ll keep it to himself.”
I thank Dad, answer the requisite “I don’t know” to every question he poses about my brother Nick, promise to call home on the weekend, and hang up. Then I call out to Crocker’s office number, get his secretary. I tell her my name, drop Dad’s name, ask if I can get time with Crocker today, tell her I’ll call again in an hour to check back as I’m out on the road. I go back to the Volvo, get in, and point myself towards the Bay Bridge. In Chinatown I grab a cheap meal, then call in to Crocker’s office to find he’ll meet me at two for a late lunch at Tadich’s. I roll over there and get to the door at exactly two, and get shown to a small booth on the left side towards the back. Waiting there is a gray, balding man in a thin gray suit, his nose rounded and a little red, his eyes behind thick black-framed spectacles. He stands to greet me and shake my hand, and he only comes up to my chin. He’s one part Mickey Rooney, one part Nikita Khrushchev, but his voice (when it comes) is a bit gravelly from smoking and drinking, but flat and calm and hushed. It is the voice of an Exeter, or a Kent.
“I called your father,” he begins, “and he explained a bit. Let’s order before we start though.” He hands me a menu. I scan it, put it down, and Crocker waves over a surly waiter. “Old fashioned. Hangtown fry.” He nods at me, and I put in an order for a shrimp cocktail and a rum-and-coke. He doesn’t ask if that’s all I want, as dad would have. He doesn’t offer me the charity of picking up the tab. He simply nods to the waiter, and then we are alone again. Reaching out, Crocker undoes the rope holding the curtains back, and lets it fall so that we are mostly enclosed. “Now, while we wait for the food and drinks, why don’t you tell me something about your work. I understand you are an investigator.”
“Yes. I mostly do property recovery for construction firms. I also do a bit of financial work. Legal searches. Title investigation.”
“Audits? Title searches?”
“Sort of. Usually informal inquiries by potential investors. Sometimes you get land ownership locked in a trust, which is itself a part of another trust or estate. Or you get many layers of corporate ownership, so it’s hard to determine who ultimately calls the shots on a property. That’s becoming increasingly common these days.”
“So how does this all fit in with…”
The curtain moves slightly, then it parts from a waiter’s hand. Our drinks arrive.
Crocker clears his throat. “So how does Santini fit in?”
“I’m working a case that isn’t the norm. It’s domestic.”
“As in divorce?”
“Maybe. It’s too early. I wouldn’t usually take the job, but the client is in the construction and development field, and the job was referred to me by a good friend. So I’d like to help them.”
“Sure.” He took a sip of his drink. “Until the food arrives, let’s talk about something else, and I’ll think a bit. How’s your old man, anyway?”
We kibbitz for fifteen minutes or so about my dad, about my marriage and Laura’s real estate business, about the prospects for new housing starts in the Tri Valley and the possibility of more urban residential towers in the city, and then our food arrives. Crocker asks the waiter to make sure we aren’t disturbed. The curtain falls. Crocker digs into his eggs and oysters, making a good size excavation out of them before he puts down his fork. “I wish I could still eat like I could when I was in the army with your dad,” he says. “As it is, I’ve cut down to just four drinks a day and half the food I used to eat. Sometimes I think my world lives off rich food and alcohol, and I can’t keep up. I’ve always been able to take it or leave it, unlike a lot of the guys in my building. Or my field.”
“Including San…”
Crocker holds up a hand. “Let’s call him Dick.” He picks up the fork again, pokes at his omelet, then sets it back down. “You know the story of this dish? No? Well it was supposedly invented in the eighteen-forties. Some placer miner up on the American goes into town—town being Sacramento, probably—and he’s just loaded down by gold. It’s like leave on a Saturday night in the war. Money to burn, time to do something other than work, and every possible hunger a man can experience. It’s fun but it isn’t pretty. So this placer miner goes into town, as I said, and he goes to a restaurant and he asks for the most expensive thing the cook can think of. Well in those days, bacon was fought over and oysters were the stuff of kings’ lunch-pails. So this cook dumps them both in some eggs and, presto bingo, the Hangtown Fry, an omelet filled with the most expensive things money could then buy. I’m sure it was followed by a night in the saloon and later in one of the saloon’s dancing girls. Or two. Or more. That was my great-great-grandfather’s time—I come down from Edwin, the judge, Charley’s older brother. What’s funny is it hasn’t really changed, just that after the last blow-up the money isn’t in digging gold out of the river or the hills, it’s in putting rock and cement and concrete and steel back into them. But the arr-and-arr is pretty much the same. Maybe a bit more elaborate, but it’s still men who feel far from home even if they aren’t, men using their lettuce to buy a night on the town.”
“So that’s the normal.”
“So that’s the normal.”
“And that’s Dick?”
Crocker shakes his head. “No. He’s never been much for it. He’s a compulsive worker, driven. He shows up at the usual parties but he begs off before they get too wild. I was at a conference with him once, a shindig for the BART project. We engineered it you know. So for whatever reason we fall in together as part of a small group of engineers and contractors. We’re all around the same age. We all went through the war together. We all know the world similar. We all know how to use our arr-and-arr time to the fullest. Hell, Dick was Navy, their shore leave antics made us Army boys look like angels. But the day turns to night and the business part is over and the gang is looking to go get in trouble, and we go up to Dick’s room to get him to come along and he’s in there with a typewriter and a pack of cigarettes, working. And he begs off because he says he’s feeling he’s coming down with something. That’s a story everybody has got. Dick’s always getting headaches or the flu, or has an early morning the next day and needs sleep. But he’s also always up, always awake. He’s always got a drink in his hand but he’s never drunk. He’s always catching the eye of some lady, but he’s never got one on his arm.”
“Is he just not… interested in women?”
Crocker leans back and smiles slightly. “It’s not gay if you’re underway. An old Army joke about the Navy. But no. It’s not that. He’s obsessed with his work. He’s always bidding on something, always working on some new project. He’s driven like nobody else I know, and constantly frustrated that the world doesn’t work as fast as it should. He did some work on some stations for us and he got them done fast. No haste, either, no misplaced bolts or cut corners. But he was also a royal pain in the keister, because he was always demanding something from us we weren’t ready to give, whether it was a set of drawings or a sign off on an invoice. He works at a different speed than we mortals. Nothing makes him waiver.”
“So you wouldn’t call him a ladies’ man?”
“He’d have to have time for that.”
“If he did fall for someone, who do you think it would be?”
“Fall for someone? He’s married now. I don’t think it’s Grace Kelley and Prince Rainier—but then his wife is no Grace Kelley—but I think that’s enough for him. He’s a good Catholic. He is expected to marry and have kids. He’s done both. They have a nice house. They are well taken care of. Check, check, check on the list of good citizenship in his family’s world. I think that’s the extent of his idea of romance. I don’t know he has any romance in him. He didn’t grow up reading Ivanhoe, far as I can tell.”
“So what sort of vices might he have?”
Crocker picks at his food again, pulls a piece of bacon out of the wreckage, eats it, then pushes the plate away. “Pride. Ambition. Those are obvious. If someone was in the way of him getting something he wanted, he’d trample them without thought. He’s a steamroller. I think he wants all the things that his father never had, all the power and position that wasn’t possible for a wop grocer’s son even in the Catholic days of James Rolph. I think he wants, needs, a kind of nod from people like me, people who can trace back to the Floods and the Fairs and the Stanfords and that sort. He wants to be old money, or at least respect from old money. He wants to be on the inside.”
“That’s what his partnership with Carpenter is about.”
Crocker nods. “Carpenter’s all show and no pony, but he’s related to the right people, went to the right schools, and he can talk like a Mills girl. He can probably balance a book on his head while he walks, too. And Carpenter sure can cut a rug, you’d think he had been in the Navy. But that’s expected of his sort. Like owning race horses or breakfasting off champagne. Morally wrong, fashionably right.”
“So if Dick did cat around? If he did have a wild side?”
“Then he’s kept it damned secret. It would be far away, with no witnesses. And it would be scheduled well in advance.”
More each Saturday!
Enjoy this installment of Five-Eighty? Watch for future installments every Saturday morning during Fall, 2024. The next intallment will post on Saturday, September 16th, 2024. Previous chapters can be viewed here.
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Harbour Fordyce 