Savage Noir

  Chapter 31 My investigation was stalled.   I had the eerie feeling that there had been a key bit of evidence I had missed somehow. Or maybe not. Maybe I had seen it but didn’t understand its connection. Back to the beginning. Back to the Murder Book. For once, Colin agreed with me. “Your hunches are often right,” he said. “But meet me later this time. Seven, seven-thirty, tonight, when Slim and Shorty won’t be around.” “How about your office this time?” “Fine.” The invitation was pleasant enough, but I would never feel comfortable in a cop shop, particularly the City’s. After all, I spent the worst night of my life in their cell. I took Muni to the Powell Street station. From there I walked up Powell and took the first right, which was Ellis. John’s Grill sat just ahead, still there after ninety-plus years. I said hello to John, who remembered me.  The bar was busy, as usual, but the bartender remembered me too. “Where you been hiding, Kelly?”          “Here and there. How are things

Chapter 30 It was a hot fall day in the Haight.  Sheena had been shopping along the notorious street for at least a half hour, yet there was nothing in her tote bag but a small purse and wallet, a switchblade knife and a can of mace.          She wiped sweat from her brow as she trudged along the last block of the western end of the district.  Tufts of blonde hair poked out from her Raiders cap, which she wore backwards, and stuck to her damp forehead.  So far she had seen no one who reminded her of Rainbow. Jason had asked her to find a young woman who “embodied” Rainbow’s spirit.           Whatever that meant.  To Sheena, Rainbow had been a naïve woman who seemed to be wandering in a perpetual daze. She was well over thirty, yet she kept saying things like “The universe will provide.” Maybe Rainbow was just plain dumb.  Who else but a dope would risk seeing a guy from the “outside” when she knew the penalty would be expulsion or death?  Sheena crossed Stanyan Street and approached th