Chapter 3 from Noir Novel Entitled “The Devil’s Turk”

 

San Francisco 1937

 

Detective Joe Doyle lit a cigarette and eyed the sidewalk. He took a slow drag and peered down at an imaginary line dividing two worlds. One of his shoes planted firmly in San Francisco, the other with apprehension in Chinatown. Two nations joined together by an initial “gold fever,” then pushed back into separate plots of dirt as the sacred vein dried.

As time marched on, these two races isolated themselves, creating a city within a city. The words of an old prospector drifted into the detective’s mind as he took his last puff, “There are strange things done in the midnight sun, by men who moil for gold.”

Detective Doyle threw his cigarette into America, then stepped into the Orient. Another homicide, the detective thought, the City never sleeps.

The heavy smell of opium filled the air. Thick swirls of smoke hung like haunting apparitions. Only dope could make you unaware of a place like this—among the waste, mold, and scurrying rodents.

The addicts lay sprawled out on decrepit cots, the black tar delivering them of their daily regrets. These hopheads went from one fog to the other, committing suicide slowly and expensively. Some were well dressed, others needed a bath in the Bay. The ones coming down from their poppy hiatus vacated quickly at the sight of a detective. Others lay oblivious to his presence, existing somewhere between a memory and a dream.

One viper lay dead. Crimson blood stained his light gray suit and leaked onto the cold concrete floor. Joe’s knee cracked as he bent down to check for a pulse. Without having a medical degree, the detective declared, “Dead as a doornail, but still warm enough to keep a chipmunk cozy.”

Joe recognized the stiff as Carlo “Coffee Can” Dinelli, an enforcer for the local crime syndicate. His cruelty was legendary—he was an absolute sadist. Coffee Can allegedly got his reputation from torturing the enemy during the Great War, morbidly acquiring body parts as mementos and storing them in an old coffee can.

Thank God he wasn’t in my outfit Joe thought. He retained his nickname in his new profession by occasionally pulling gold fillings out of degenerate gamblers.

Joe had some dealings with Coffee Can regarding his gambling habits; his badge keeping from any unnecessary dental work. There were a couple anxious weeks when Joe thought his fillings might be forged into a pinky ring.

Another forty-cniner Joe thought.  Coffee Can’s story ended on a cot, in an opium den, in Chinatown.c

Joe Doyle was the well-built type. His barrel chest and wide shoulders gave him the appearance of an ex-athlete. His usual work attire was a dark overcoat on-top a suit. His detective uniform was complemented by a gray fedora—which hid his dark brown hair.

Deep furrows formed and smoothed across Joe’s forehead as his facial expressions changed. He had a strong Roman nose that was accompanied by a perpetual two-day shadow. One side of his mouth always tilted a little higher, giving him a continual scowl.

His weathered face—smooth as stretched cowhide in places, cut with a sculptor’s knife in others—held a charming dimple at the center of his chin. His eyes were a light gray, and gave off a cold and calculating feeling. If you walked by him on the street, you’d think twice about asking for directions.

Joe was a gambler stuck on an unlucky string of bad cards and shifty women. His ex-wife, whom he dubbed “The Bitch” had run off and taken most of his money.

Joe had become familiar with Chinatown’s underground scene. He found himself drunk one night in a Fan Tan gambling house. In Fan Tan, you bet on the sequence of buttons, white or black, randomly placed in a bowl, then removed by the dealer in succession.

Joe had a knack for guessing the wrong color, and losing his shirt before his drink arrived. Joe’s bad luck indebted him to loan sharks from both the East and the West. Between the two worlds, he owed sizable sums. He kept waiting for a knock on his door, but it never came. Maybe somebody bought his marker, needed an ace up their sleeve.

Ponies he thought I’ll have better luck at the track.

Joe lit another cigarette and began his investigation. Most detectives used a notepad to write down information, but Joe had an unusual mind as his recall was incredibly strong—iron clad really.

Joe didn’t need to take notes at crime scenes. He had what a doctor from his hometown referred to as a “Film Memory.” Similar to a photographic memory, but in fluid motion.

Joe stored and was able to replay memories like reels in a movie house. Any memory could be picked and played in its vivid entirety. If Joe felt like he’d missed something—a vital piece of information that could help an investigation, he simply played the crime scene reel in his head.

Nobody knew about it but that old doctor back home. With such an extraordinary gift, Joe Doyle had the talent to become a doctor, lawyer, or any respected profession. Then the shot was heard around the world and that son of a bitch Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated—inciting the Great War.

Joe was young and naive back then, easily scooped up in America’s patriotism, enlisting at the age of seventeen. The brilliant gift of memory bestowed upon him slowly became a curse.

The clarity of the carnage, the vividness of the violence, the graphic gore of the blood-soaked war remained ever-present in his mind. What needed to be forgotten, what might have been buried in a normal mind, stayed fresh and ever-present. Joe didn’t fear Hell, he feared the trenches of memories old.

Since the war, the projector had become possessed—damaged by the fighting. It’d become a new-fangled device of looping torture. A VA doctor had diagnosed Joe with “Combat Fatigue.”

While Joe willfully played chosen memories, unwanted ones also protruded. Reels from the trenches often superimposed themselves on top of reality like a thin transparency.

Joe frequently saw dead children strewn across Market Street, strangers in a bar vomiting mustard gas; new and old mixing together like two movies playing on the same screen. A horrid dichotomy of pleasant thoughts and real nightmares. But the war also gave Joe the only trade he could tolerate; a man hunter with a badge.

Joe’s mind stayed healthy during normal moments, but when he became overstressed or agitated, the shit hit the fan and the dam regularly broke. Joe would feel the rattling of tanks approaching, see airplanes zooming overhead, hear the cries of the fallen, even smell the cigarette smoke from those God damn German infantryman.

Sometimes shells exploded right in his living room. And the faces, the hundreds and thousands of faces that belonged to the dead. He saw them in his flapjacks, the curtains, even his cigarette smoke. He saw his friends die over and over; the very nature of time bending backwards.

Drinking calmed his nerves and helped delay the reels. Joe mostly drank at night to forget, but every morning he’d remember. He was careful to not get too close to people. His greatest fear was that he would forget himself and hurt somebody, somebody he loved.

Joe turned on the movie camera and began taking mental notes of the crime scene: white male, dark hair, dark skin, approximately thirty-five to forty, about six-two, well dressed, stab wound in the left pectoral—perhaps a thin long knife that pierced his heart.

Good riddance Joe thought as he emptied the victim’s pockets and found a hotel key, a comb, half a pack of cigarettes, a crumpled-up piece of paper, and a gangster roll.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Joe mumbled as he put the cash and butts in his pocket. Being a cop had its perks. Joe uncrumpled the piece of paper and read a list with three female names.

The den owner used his own form of English—relaying that the dead man spoke in an odd way. Attempting to get the Chinaman to recreate Coffee Can’s way of speaking was comical. Joe asked for a couple more imitations, just for laughs.

That was Coffee Can, a real nitwit of a hood. The big dummy could barely say his own name, but had a hell of a right hook Joe thought as he rubbed his jaw, an unfortunate memory.

The sun was fading and Joe’s stomach began to twitch, not out of hunger, but from the intuition of a weathered detective. Joe wondered why he got the call from Brockston Meyer and not the captain? Brockston was on the force a while back, was an old drinking buddy, an acquaintance really. They chewed the fat in many a gin joint once upon a time.

Brockston had found the streets too vulgar, and traded his badge in for a law degree. He climbed the ranks, landed the District Attorney post, and had high political aspirations. It was rumored that he’d be running for mayor in the next election; his new pals in the underworld financing his push.

The thought of the ex-wife’s lawyer made Joe’s left eye twitch.

Swine, Joe reflected, all lawyers and politicians are swine, bought and paid for.

Something in the tone of Brockston’s voice worried him, “Play this one close to the vest. Only report to me. I take care of my pals.”

What the hell did the district attorney want with a dead guinea in an opium den?

Joe figured his Fan Tan habits and drink buying ways endured him to the locals, making him the sole expert on Chinatown. Joe had a certain understanding that immigrants had it tough. The locals affectionately called him “Whitey” and consistently proved to be loose lipped drinkers, if you could understand them.

Joe had a progressive habit of not seeing color or race. He didn’t care who your father was or how expensive your shoes were. Joe put people into two categories: good guys and assholes.

Joe called the precinct and discovered that Coffee Can’s murder hadn’t been reported.

This wasn’t the kind of place that reports problems to the police, Joe guessed.

Joe knew that Chinatown had its own rules, its own hierarchy, and its own justice. Some years back, Chinatown had gone through a bloody Tong war, with the Bo Sin Seer slaughtering its enemies and taking control of the gambling houses, sex dens, and numbers racket.

The gang got its reputation from its ruthless leader, a vicious man that rose through the ranks as a cold-blooded assassin. It was rumored that the assassin was ordered to cut off two of his fingers over a dispute about a prostitute. An act that Three Claw would later repay by removing his boss’s head and anointing himself emperor.   

Joe put in another call to the precinct and it was just as he figured; the first two names on the list were now popsicles in the morgue. Both bodies were incredibly bruised and strangled by what sounded like a silver back gorilla.

Coffee Can Joe thought the God damn missing evolutionary link.

Joe followed a hunch. It turned out that both girls had been brought up on various prostitution charges.

What the hell’s going on Joe asked himself. Why’s Coffee Can strangling hookers, and who killed him? Is Morelli or Coogan involved?  Who’s the last dame on this list?

Something smelled, and it wasn’t the fish shop next door.