Courting Disaster Part 16

"Fish carriers?" she suggested.

"I think you know less about fishing than I do."

They waited for nearly an hour. Kaitlyn was again sleeping peacefully, curled against Stan's chest. His neck and shoulders ached from her weight.

Angie ached as well, from crouching low behind the woodpile. Sore, she finally sat on the ground. Her clothes were as ruined as her night's sleep. She shifted, unsuccessfully trying to get comfortable, when she saw a wharf rat looking at her out of one beady black eye. She froze, too scared to even say a word to Stan. Its body was fat, gray, and swollen, its teeth enormous, but the worst was its long, hairless tail.

"Ouch, my leg is stiff," Stan whispered. He started to shift, moving his hand toward the beam where the rat lurked.

"No!" Angie cried, pushing him back.

Stan's arms went around Kaitlyn as he and Angie fell in one direction, while the rat ran in the other.

Stan and Angie clutched each other, expecting Leer and Zeno to swoop down on them at any second.

They didn't.

"You go home," Stan said after a while as he flipped his cell phone to vibrate mode, then took off the Snugli and Kaitlyn and handed them to Angie. "Call me if Hannah comes back. I'm going to stay here and watch."

"Are you sure?" she asked, more than glad to leave. The baby immediately began to fuss.

"I'm sure." He helped her hoist the diaper bag onto her shoulder.

As Angie tottered down the side street to the rat-free safety of her car, carrying the now-crying baby and all her baggage, she realized that for the first time in her life she actually felt sorry for Stan and what he was going through. Would wonders never cease?

Chapter 18.

With the baby screaming in the car seat, Angie drove straight to her sister Bianca's house. Bianca was the best person she knew with babies. She handed over Kaitlyn, then went home and collapsed in bed.

The first thing she did when she awoke was phone Paavo. "Are you going to be at your desk for a while?" she asked.

"Yes, why?" he asked.

"I've got a long story to tell."

Although he didn't actually say it, she could hear the uh-oh in his voice.

An hour later, she sat at the side of his desk and relayed the story of Hannah's disappearance. She decided it would be best to leave out the part about her and Stan spying on the Athina. It hadn't amounted to anything, and Paavo tended to get testy when she did something he considered potentially dangerous. His attention grew even stronger when she mentioned that Hannah knew Sh.e.l.ly Farms.

"Let's see what I can find out about Hannah Dzanic." He scanned the arrest and accident records for the past two days to see if a Dzanic, Jones, or anyone matching Hannah's description had been picked up. No one had.

He ran a check against DMV records and found only one Hannah Dzanic in the state. Age twenty-three, brown hair and eyes, five-foot-eight, 120 pounds. Her address was 481 Broadway. "Looks like she was living near the strip clubs," he said, copying down the address.

"Hopefully, she's gone back there for some reason." Angie stood, purse in hand. "Let's go find out."

"That's police work, Angie," Paavo said. "What we find there might be pretty ugly."

Her gaze remained steady. "And your point is?"

Without Angie to talk to, Stan soon decided to sit on the ground...then to rest his head back against the wall...then to shut his eyes a moment.

He felt the shoulder of his jacket being lifted and woke with a start.

Michael Zeno was pulling him to his feet. "What are you doing back there?"

"Doing? Uh...?"

Zeno grabbed his lapels and pulled Stan nose to nose. "You're spying on us, aren't you?"

"I'm not a spy. I never spy. I was waiting for the restaurant to open. It's a little early, and I guess I fell asleep." Stan was so scared his teeth chattered.

Zeno let him go. "It's Hannah, isn't it? You're looking for her."

"Who?" Stan asked.

"Don't lie. You keep away from her." Zeno breathed down on Stan. "If I catch you around her again, I'll kill you."

He turned and strode into the restaurant.

Stan sank back against the wall. He knew he couldn't go anywhere until his heart stopped pounding and his knees stopped shaking.

The section of Broadway Street that separated North Beach from Chinatown had a number of run down apartments and rooms over the topless nightclubs that had flourished in the sixties and seventies-places like the Condor, where Carol Doda was the first topless dancer to achieve fame through ma.s.sive amounts of silicone. The last rumors Paavo had heard about her had the liquid that created her 44-DDs traveling to strange and mysterious places. Today, the clubs were still there, and sleazier than ever.

Paavo escorted Angie past a barker promising "girls like you've never seen them" to get to the main door of Hannah's apartment building.

"No wonder she didn't want to bring her baby here," Angie said. Paavo had been thinking the same thing.

"Don't say a word," he cautioned. "They'll think you're a detective, too"-he looked down at her: pet.i.te, not a hair out of place, and dressed in designer clothes-"sort of. Stay back and let me do the talking. All the talking."

"Okay." She looked so wide-eyed and thrilled to be there that he had a sudden ghastly vision of her turning in an application for the police academy.

The main door to the apartments was unlocked. When they entered, the first thing that hit them was the stench-a mixture of urine, rancid oil, and cooking smells of cheap mutton and fish stew.

They walked up two flights to Apartment 15.

Paavo knocked on the door several times. When no one answered, he began to knock on other doors nearby. Finally, an elderly man peered into the corridor.

Paavo showed his badge as he introduced himself. "I'm looking for Hannah Dzanic. Have you seen her recently?"

"Hannah, you say?" The old man shouted. He wore a stained undershirt and pants that nearly fell off his b.u.t.t, and smelled like cheap whiskey. "You're looking for Hannah?"

"That's right. Have you seen her?"

"Me? No." He shook so badly he could hardly talk. "Can't say as I have."

"Is there a manager in the building?" Paavo shouted.

"Apartment One. You got any money you can spare?" He held out a thin, quivering palm.

Paavo gave him five bucks. A boozer in as bad shape as this old fellow could die from DTs if he was cut off from alcohol altogether.

"Thanks, mister."

Paavo put his hand on Angie's back and walked closer to her than he ever would if she were another detective. He wondered what he was thinking, bringing her to a place filled with this wreckage of humanity.

He had her stand to the side as he knocked on the manager's door. A middle-aged blonde answered, gave him the once-over, and leaned seductively against the door. Her light cotton bathrobe was tightly cinched at the waist, and the front gaped open. "And what can I do for you?" she asked, her voice sultry.

Angie peeked around Paavo, clearly curious to see what was attached to a voice like that. The woman didn't seem to notice her.

"Inspector Smith, SFPD. I'm looking for Hannah Dzanic." He showed his badge. "Are you the manager here?"

The woman's name was Martha Bra.s.s. Paavo asked her basic identifying questions for his records, then continued. "No one answered Dzanic's door when I knocked. Apparently she hasn't shown up for work for a few days."

"Did you try the hospital?" Bra.s.s asked. Her eye caught Angie's, and her hand went to her neckline, closing the gap a little. "She was due anytime. Maybe she's there?"

"We've checked. When did you last see her?"

"I can't remember. She worked at some dive down the wharf. That's all I know."

"Did she come home most nights after work?"

"I don't run a Sunday school here, mister," she said with an aptly bra.s.sy laugh. "But I'll say that when she first moved in, she was hardly around. Once she got herself knocked up, she was here most nights. I've seen that before, let me tell you."

"Did she talk much about the baby's father?" he asked.

"She never talked to me, period-other than to pay the rent and complain about the noise when the people next door got in an argument. Kind of stuck up, though I don't see why. She had nothing going for her that I could see."

"Any idea where we could find her other friends?"

Angie made a "Mmph" sound. He ignored her.

"She didn't have any other friends that I could tell," Bra.s.s said. "Maybe she had the kid and took off. She seemed pretty unhappy most of the time."

Angie tugged at his sleeve. She looked ready to explode. He couldn't take it. "Okay," he told her.

"Did she talk to anyone else in the building?" Angie asked. "She must have been friends with one of the neighbors. Didn't anyone notice she hadn't been home for a few days?"

Bra.s.s looked at Paavo. "Is she for real?" Then to Angie. "Miss, this ain't the kind of place where the neighbors hold Tupperware parties, if you get my drift. They probably don't know she's missing, and they sure as h.e.l.l don't care."

"Oh." Angie shrank back into the woodwork.

"I'd like to make sure she isn't in her apartment," Paavo said. "Maybe she's sick in there. Or worse."

Bra.s.s's eyes went round and bulging. "Good G.o.d! Let me get my keys."

They followed Bra.s.s up the stairs. Angie half expected her to dislocate her hips the way she swung them as she walked, her hands stuffed in her pockets in a way that made the robe cling to her huge, obviously silicone-enhanced b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Angie couldn't help but wonder if she hadn't once worked in one of the places below them. Or if she still did. With that body, most of the patrons probably didn't care that her face looked like Father Time.

Martha unlocked the door to Hannah's apartment and stood back, letting Paavo enter first, Angie next.

The apartment was bare except for what probably came with it-a double bed with no head-board, a bureau, sofa, table, and two chairs.

Even seeing the bareness of the place, Angie was still troubled that Hannah had made no provisions for her baby. No baby clothes or furniture, not even diapers or receiving blankets. It wasn't natural. No matter how poor, women had a nesting instinct when pregnant and found a way to provide no matter what it took.

This made no sense at all to her.

"Here's her hairbrush," Martha said, lifting it from the dresser top. "Do you want it? You can pick up DNA from hair, and this has lots of hair in it. I saw that on CSI."

"Thanks," Paavo said, his expression strained. "We'll keep it in mind. Hopefully, we won't need it." He handed her a card. "Here's my phone number. If Hannah returns, or you see or hear anything at all about her, give me a call. Anything at all," he repeated.

"I will," she said, reading the card. "Paavo. That's an odd name. What kind of name is it?"

"Odd? I didn't know that," he said, then gave Angie a time-to-get-out-of-here nod.

She saw it but was so busy studying the apartment it didn't register. How could a person live in a place like this? she wondered. It was so sad, so depressing. She'd want to at least put some flowers in it. Or bright curtains. Anything to take away the dinginess, not to mention the stuffy, moldy smell that permeated the room. She wondered if they'd let her open a window.

Paavo nodded at her again.

She nodded back. On the dresser she saw a card for "Dianne Randle, Department of Social Services, City and County of San Francisco." Angie vaguely remembered Stan saying something about Hannah going to county welfare.

If so, would it give Hannah enough money to get her out of this apartment? Maybe Hannah had gone to this Randle for help. Or to find a place to hide, perhaps?

Angie had to believe Hannah would come back-and that Stan could do something to help her. One solution would be for him to marry Hannah and take care of her child. That wasn't such a far-fetched idea. Hannah looked at him with something akin to hero worship, and he was clearly in love with her. In fact, the more Angie thought about it, Hannah would be perfect for Stan.

She'd make him settle down and develop a sense of responsibility. Not only would such a marriage benefit Hannah and Kaitlyn, but Stan as well.

On the other hand, Angie remembered what happened not so long ago when she tried to help Connie with her love life. She shuddered at the memory. Maybe it would be best to stay out of Stan's romantic affairs.

But on yet another hand-had she just come up with three hands?-someone had to do something about Hannah and Kaitlyn. If not Stan, then who?

Speaking of hands, she suddenly felt Paavo's grip her arm. Her feet scarcely touched the ground as he led her out the door.

"Did I miss something?" she asked.

Chapter 19.