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 16
Morning. After a late breakfast, Laura and I caravan out to Rancho Santa Rita, her in the white Mercedes, I in the Volvo. It is election day, and Laura will be on the phones at the campaign office, trying to drum up the vote. At the office, I stop to file the Xeroxes and the original prospectus in the safe, then put in a call to a buddy at the corporate division in Sacramento to get the list of directors on New Woods Ventures. He promises to call back later that day. Before leaving, I promise Laura to drop by or call later. She gives me no recriminations for the almost divorce case I’ve gotten myself into, but makes me promise to do some grocery shopping before I go home, and tells me to be careful.
In the Volvo I drive up Phoebe Road and off onto one of the side-roads up to Hayhurst, hoping to catch David Carpenter and ask him about the prospectus. I am nervous. He had asked me to follow Santini rather than his wife, though the end result, had he been right about their affair, would have been the same anyway. Stealing the valise and the prospectus inside, however, was far beyond his instructions, yet it also concerns his wife. I can’t see not telling him.
The road twists a bit in the hills, but the country is mostly open, grass and some occasional oaks. Will Iris still be there? If she is, would that prove she hadn’t been ransacking my home last night while Laura and I ate burgers in a bowling alley cafe? No matter. Someone like Iris wouldn’t ransack someplace herself anyway. She wouldn’t even know how. She’d hire it done.
I decide driving right up to the house is a bad idea so I pass the driveway then pull over onto the shoulder of the road about a quarter mile on, under a tuck of oaks. Locking the car, I walk back to the driveway. The entrance is simultaneously discrete and pompous, a pair of open, decrepit gates under two massive live oaks, and a gravel road between them. The road presses up the hill, lined by old, scraggly, dying poplars, and at the end I can see a pile of stone rubble that, as I slowly walk closer, turns into a disused fountain in the French style. At the fountain, the road turns and winds up the canyon a bit, the shrubbery, mostly manzanita, coming in close against the lane. After a long shallow bend, the road takes a sudden right, and I catch the corner of a house, something old and outdated and stucco, with many windows.
Not wishing to be spotted, I hang back, then notice that the slope to my right is fairly clear yet also protected by more oaks, so I reach up, grab a sturdy manzanita trunk, and pull myself up the embankment and onto the grassy hill. Staying in the shadows, I walk slowly from one tree trunk to the next, and as I do the branches thin just enough to look down the slope at the house. Most of it turns away from the hill, a big lumpy mansion of mock Spanish style with dun colored plaster walls and a clay tile roof with more angles than a Picasso. One room, at the far back, has great windows opening up onto the slope, and it looks from here like a ball room, with a full grand piano in an unusual burled, golden finish.
To my left, the sound of crunching gravel. I move a few trunks closer. Down below, in the loose drive in front of the house, the orange Alfa sits baking in the sun. The noise, however, is growing louder, and then I see a car pull up and park beside the Alfa. A young, thin man, wearing a pale ochre leather jacket and tight blue bell-bottomed jeans, his hair long, his face smooth and hiding partly behind shooting glasses.
The car he has left behind him is a sports car.
He stands on the stoop, fidgeting, wiping his hands on his pants, bounding on his heels a little. Then he takes up his right hand and knocks on the door. Nothing happens. He knocks again. He leans forward and puts his ear against the door, to listen, then straightens up with a start as the door swings inwards.
Iris stands at the door, looking at him. They talk for a moment, he gestures broadly, yet smoothly, not like a salesman as much as one of those women on The Price is Right. Behind door number one, we have a new television! Iris invites him in, and shuts the door behind them.
The sports car he drives is light blue.
I hustle over to the far end of the trees, to where I can see the windows of the house better, but all I can see is that damned music room and they aren’t in it. My heart pumping, I leave the security of the shade and keep walking down the hill, closer, hoping to find a way around the house to a window that looks in on the living room where no doubt she would be talking with him. I decide to go around the back way, around the music room, then I see shadows inside move and I see Iris, not thirty feet from me, walk into the room. I freeze, half of a rhododendron between myself and full view. Slowly, I step backward, and as I do I see the young man enter the room as well. A few breaths, and I round one of the many sharp corners of the house and am out of sight. Using the bulk of the house as cover I sprint back for the oaks and the shade, then approach the far end of the oaks again, to where I can see the music room windows. From this distance I can see all of the pair of them, standing, talking to each other. Iris is stable, solitary, her arms crossed in front of her, while the young man talks animatedly, his arms wild, his stance uncertain, rocking back and forth on one foot, his left one.
The young man makes another grand gesture. Iris turns half away, then saunters to the piano and fingers some of the keys, idly. I cannot hear the notes, but they’re on the low register of the keyboard. Again the young man gestures, and this time Iris looks up at him and says just one word, her lips moving just a little then not at all. The young man throws up his arms. He turns left and disappears out of the room. A moment passes then I hear an engine start up, and I move back to the start of the stand of live oaks in time to see the blue sports car make a three-point turn then disappear in a cloud of dust down the driveway.
It is a blue Opel GT. It is the same car that was in the driveway at 6860 Balsam, the house above Tunnel Road that belonged to Leonard French, mobster, drug dealer, and beater of old women.
I walk back the way I came. I get back to the Volvo, start the car, and head back to the center of the Rancho and to the office. It’s closed for election day, it’s quiet, and I don’t bother to put the lights on. I call David Carpenter’s office, but he isn’t in. Only now, I notice the light on the big plastic answering machine is blinking. Working the buttons, I find a message from my friend in Sacramento, a list of directors for New Woods Ventures. The board of three consists of Iris Woods Carpenter, and two names I’ve never heard of, with a registered agent being a big law firm in Los Angeles. As if reading my mind, my contact has looked up the names; one of the two is an executive at Federated Department Stores in Cincinnati, the other is a banker from Philadelphia. Pulling a legal pad out, I write out “FRENCH,” and under that, “GOONS.” At the center top I write “SANTINI” and below that “IRIS.” Under it all I write “MALL + ELECTION = $$$.”
I try calling David Carpenter again, but his secretary says he is out for the rest of the day. “If he calls, can you tell him I am trying to reach him? It is urgent.” I leave the number of the office. An hour later, the phone rings, and Carpenter’s secretary tells me that he will be at several election parties during the evening, but would be available to meet at the Pied Piper, in the city, at ten.
At five I grab my coat and walk over to the campaign office to check in with Laura. She’s busy with phone calls, but we take a break long enough to share a sandwich, and I tell her I am going to see David Carpenter and try and hand off the whole case to him then, and be done with it. At six I go back to the office, lock everything up, then I and the Xeroxes get into the Volvo and head back to El Cerrito. I do some shopping at the Lucky’s, put the groceries away at home, then hit the road again, Marin to San Pablo, San Pablo to University, University to 80 to the Bay Bridge. The city glowers through settling fog down below, like lanterns through gauze. Down on the city streets, I find a parking spot near the SRO hotels on Third. I’m too early, so I walk over to David Apfelbaum’s on Geary and grab a Reuben, a slice of cheesecake, and a coffee. At 9:30 I use a phone booth and call over to the campaign office, and ask for Laura.
“Things are a mess over here,” she tells me, almost without missing a beat.
“Why, what happened?”
“The county elections office says they never received the ballot boxes for one of the precincts.”
“One of the precincts from the Rancho?”
“Yes, it never arrived.”
“Did it ever leave the polling place?”
“Yes. It was out at the old Groner school. The ballot boxes left at just after eight. They should have made it to elections by now. Traffic was nice and clear, the boxes from here in town made it there forty-five minutes ago.”
“How is the vote going so far?”
“From what’s been counted? Pretty good. And frankly I don’t think the missing ballots hurt us, that end of the county is pretty against incorporation anyway. But it’s strange.”
“It is.”
“I wish you hadn’t taken a divorce case.”
“I know.”
“I still haven’t forgiven you.”
“I know that, too.” Then, “I’ll see you around midnight, at home.”
She agrees, and I hang up. Picking up my coat, I walk down Geary towards Market and then over to the Palace. Entering by a side door, I go down the short steps and then right into the Pied Piper, its dark wood sucking up all the light except for that spilled all over the big, macabre Maxfield Parrish painting of the namesake villain, stealing the children from Hamlin. The bar is half full, with no clear election parties underway. I sit at one of the high tops in the middle of the room, order a rye whiskey, and sip it slowly while waiting.
At fifteen past ten, David Carpenter walks into the room. He and his suit are at war, and though rumpled, the suit appears to be winning, with his tie loosely knotted and his coat looking for all the world like a broken straightjacket. He scans the room spots me, comes over. Sitting on the stool opposite my high top, he raises a hand towards the bar and snaps his fingers. The black barman, who appears to be adding up his receipts, doesn’t notice, so Carpenter does it again, clears his voice, and says, slightly above what is polite, “excuse me,” but it is not a question so much as a command. The bartender looks up from his receipts, his eyebrows arched. “A White Russian.” Then, Carpenter turns to me. “It’s been a long day. I just got back from the Republican Women’s Club, if you can believe it. They’re all crying over Flournoy’s loss. It’s like Ike died all over again.” The drink arrives. “You have news?”
“Your wife and Mr. Santini are involved, but not romantically.”
Carpenter looks at me and says nothing.
“They are involved in a major property deal, without you.”
“Don’t be absurd.”
The drink arrives, halting our conversation. Once the bartender walks away, I continue: “Mrs. Carpenter has hatched a scheme to create massive regional mall in Rancho Santa Rita. She is arranging financing on her own, or possibly with her father, though I haven’t found any evidence of that. To make the deal work, she needs—”
“What the hell!” Carpenter’s voice is angry but low, like a fire running in underbrush. “I hired you to follow Richard, not to dig into my wife’s life. They are having an affair, and you couldn’t even dig that up. What the hell did I hire you for?” His hand opens and contracts, opens and contracts around his glass. I half think he is going to throw it at me.
“With all due respect, Mister Carpenter, you’re a replaceable executive running a mid-level construction firm that my father would eat for breakfast, if he had a mind to. Even so I don’t tell you how to build buildings. You are not an investigator, you have no training for it, and don’t know the first thing about the business. I do. It’s why you hired me. And yet from the very beginning you’ve told me what to do, every step of the way, and every step of the way you’ve been wrong. Now you can pay me, right now, for what I owe, and I can walk away with everything I’ve found, and leave you none the wiser about the shit storm about to descend onto you, or you can shut the hell up and listen. You might learn something.”
Carpenter leans back in his bar stool a bit. Finally, “Jesus, you’re touchy. No wonder you aren’t out fucking around with tilt-up concrete. You’d never make it on a job site with that thin skin.”
“Do you actually want to know what I’ve found, or not?”
“Relax.” Carpenter puts a hand out and waves down towards the high top. “Relax. Tell me.”
“Here.” I take the envelope with the Xeroxes off my lap and put them on the table top, pushing them over at him. “Take a look at these.”
Carpenter takes a sip of his disgusting milky drink and then takes the envelope, opens it, and begins to read. He’s fast with it, only a few minutes, and then he’s turning as white as his drink. He sets the Xeroxes down. “Shit.”
“New Woods Ventures is your wife, her name is on the board. The other two are out of state. But I assume there are other, silent interests. Probably her father, and probably a man named Leonard French. Do you know who he is?”
“Not in particular.”
“A mobster. A big mobster. A drug pusher and a beater of women.”
“Why would someone like that be involved in this?”
“Muscle. Did you notice the balance sheet?”
Carpenter nods.
“Note how much more money the mall will make if the Rancho is incorporated. More population nearby, a higher rate and type of clientele, and cheaper overhead. It’s way more attractive an investment if the town incorporates. And guess what is being voted on today, out in the east end of the county?”
“Sure, but so what?”
“I talked to one of my sources earlier today. About an hour ago, in fact. The ballots from the outlying areas of the proposed city have disappeared. The boxes with the ballots never made it to Alameda County Elections. Those are ballots from an area that is almost certainly opposed to incorporation.”
“Do you know the outcome of the vote?”
“The last word is it is passing, but it can’t hurt to get rid of some no votes, can it? It makes things a bit more certain, more of a sure bet.”
“And you think that French’s guys are involved?”
“I think they’re the reason those ballots didn’t make it. Don’t you? It would be pretty simple for some goons to go hijack them, or run the courier’s car off the road, or whatever.”
“Do we know where the ballots are?”
“No.”
“But how do you know French is involved? Specifically?”
I tell him about following Santini to the house French owns on Balsam, and the visit that one of French’s men made to Iris just that morning.
“That’s not proof of anything,” Carpenter says. “You have no evidence of what went on in those meetings or why.”
“It is proof. Of a relationship between Santini, French, and your wife. These aren’t just coincidences. And the evidence is in those missing ballots, those very real ballots that never made it to the elections department.”
Carpenter fiddles with his glass. “Maybe.”
“You’re damned right, maybe.”
“But it’s still not proof. I need proof, real proof, hard evidence. This—” Carpenter pats the Xeroxes “—is a start, but it makes no mention of Richard and none of this French fellow. I might be able to initiate divorce based on Iris doing this all behind my back, but from what I can see she’s probably already planning to do that to me, or maybe to push me out of my own company and take my place. So I’d just be giving her what she wants. No, this, this is no help to me at all.”
“Sure it is. It’s warning. It’s foreknowledge. It means you know what is coming and you can plan for it. That’s invaluable. If your wife is trying to hide this from you, then it’s all the better that you know.”
Carpenter finishes his drink. “Fine. You’re right, for once. Maybe you don’t belong pouring concrete for your father after all. But listen.” Carpenter points down at the Xeroxes and drums them with his index finger so that this finger bends and, even in the darkness of the Pied Piper, turns a bright red. “I. Need. Evidence. Hard evidence. I need to know for sure what is going on.”
“I don’t know what more I can find.”
“Well if you want to be paid, you’ll find it, whatever it is.”
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, October 21st, 2024. Previous chapters can be viewed here.
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Harbour Fordyce 