The 6th Target - James Patterson [12]
Now he drove us to a crappy block on the fringes of the Tenderloin.
We looked up the address Ike Quintana had given me, a two-story building with a storefront church on the ground floor and a couple of apartments on top.
I rang the doorbell, and a buzzer sounded. I pulled at the dull metal door handle, and Jacobi and I entered a dark foyer. We climbed creaking stairs into a carpeted hallway smelling of mildew.
There was a single door on each side of the hallway.
I rapped on the one marked 2R, and a long half minute later, it squeaked open.
Ike Quintana was a white male, midthirties. He had black hair sticking up at angles and he was oddly dressed in layers. An undershirt showed in the V of his flannel shirt, a knitted vest was buttoned over that, and an open, rust-colored cardigan hung down to his hips.
He wore blue-striped pajama bottoms and brown felt slippers, and he had a kind of sweet, gappy smile. He stuck out his hand, shook each of ours, and asked us to come in.
Jacobi stepped forward, and I followed both men into a teetering tunnel of newspapers and clear plastic garbage bags filled with soda bottles that lined the hallway from floor to ceiling. In the parlor, cardboard boxes spilled over with coins and empty detergent boxes and ballpoint pens.
“I guess you’re prepared for anything,” Jacobi muttered.
“That’s the idea,” said Quintana.
When we reached the kitchen, I saw pots and pans on every surface, and the table was a layered archive of news-paper clippings covered by a tablecloth, then more newspaper layers and a tablecloth over that, again and again making an archeological mound a foot high.
“I’ve been following the Giants for most of my life,” Quintana said shyly. He offered us coffee, which Jacobi and I declined.
Still, Quintana lit a flame on the gas stove and put a pot of water on to boil.
“You have a picture to show us?” I asked.
Quintana lifted an old wooden soapbox from the floor and put it on the pillowy table. He pawed through piles of photographs and menus and assorted memorabilia that I couldn’t make out, his hands flying over the papers.
“Here,” he said, lifting out a faded five-by-seven photo. “I think this was taken around ’88.”
Five teenagers — two girls and three boys — were watching television in an institutional-looking common room.
“That’s me,” said Quintana, pointing to a younger version of himself slouched in an orange armchair. Even then, he had layered his clothing.
“And see this guy sitting on the window seat?”
I peered at the picture. The boy was thin, had long hair and an attempt at a beard. His face was in profile. It could be the shooter. It could be anyone.
“See how he’s pulling at the hairs on his arm?” Quintana said.
I nodded.
“That’s why I think it could be him. He used to do that for hours. I loved that guy. Called him Fred-a-lito-lindo. After a song he used to sing.”
“What’s his real name?” I asked.
“He was very depressed,” Quintana said. “That’s why he checked into Napa. Committed, you know. There was an accident. His little sister died. Something with a sailboat, I think.”
Quintana turned off the stove, walked away. I had a fleeting thought: What miracle has prevented this building from burning to the ground?
“Mr. Quintana, don’t make us ask you again, okay?” Jacobi growled. “What’s the man’s name?”
Quintana returned to the table with his chipped coffee cup in hand, wearing his hoarder’s garb and the confidence of a rich man to the manor born.
“His name is Fred. Alfred Brinkley. But I really don’t see how he could have killed those people,” Quintana said. “Fred is the sweetest guy in the world.”
Chapter 16
I CALLED RICH CONKLIN from the car, gave him Brinkley’s name to run through NCIC as Jacobi drove back to Bryant Street.
Chi and McNeil were waiting for us inside MacBain’s Beers O’ the World Pub, a dark saloon sandwiched between two bail-bond shacks across from the Hall.
Jacobi and I joined them and ordered Foster’s on tap, and I asked Chi