The White Van

Patrick Hoffman

• Publisher: Grove Press UK
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781611855524
• eBook ISBN: 9781611859706
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Crime & Mystery Literature
• Index: Literature

Shortlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger At a dive bar in San Francisco's edgy Tenderloin district, the dishevelled Emily Rosario is drinking whiskey and looking for an escape. When she is approached by a mysterious and wealthy Russian, she thinks she has found an exit from her drifter lifestyle and drug-addict boyfriend. A week later she finds herself drugged, disoriented and wanted for robbery. On the other side of town, cop Leo Elias is broke, alcoholic and desperate. When he hears about an unsolved bank robbery, the stolen money proves too strong a temptation. Elias takes the case into his own hands, hoping to find the criminal and the money before anyone else does.With sharply drawn characters and twists that surprise until the end, The White Van introduces a strong new talent.

PART I

1

The man who had been following her stepped into the bar. Emily remembered that. At the time she didn’t know he had been following her, but she remembered the way he had stepped into the bar. She remembered the door opening. She remembered him backing into the bar and closing the door. She remembered him turning to face the bar. He was big and white and dressed like someone who had a job in an office. He hesitated at the doorway and then continued in.

Emily was sitting in the back. An old Chinese man sat toward the front. There was only the bar and fifteen stools, nothing fancy. The bartender, a woman with thick makeup, seemed happy to see the new man. She greeted him with a smile. It was a Tuesday night. There were only four people in the Kum Bak Klub.

“I’ll have a whiskey,” said the man, having already looked toward Emily’s drink and seen something brown. There was just enough light to make out the color of it. The man had an accent of some kind. An accent and a silver watch. That was a lot. She looked him over. He seemed handsome. He was a big guy with a watch in the Tenderloin. Maybe he was here for a convention or something. He sat on his stool and sipped his drink. She sized him up.

Emily was thirty-one years old. Her hair was pulled back tight in a ponytail; she had on tight blue jeans, men’s basketball shoes, and a red 49ers jacket with gold trim and snap buttons. She was pretty, but in a beat-up way. She would have been prettier in a different life. She had on black eyeliner. Her teeth were not straight, or white. Her nails were bitten down. She had a star-shaped scar on her forehead.

She sat there and watched the man’s reflection in the mirror until she got distracted by the baseball game on the television. The Giants were playing; the playoffs were coming, and it was cold outside; San Francisco weather. The bartender and the old man near the door watched the game, too. Later she tried to remember how they had started talking. He was doing something. He had been writing in a notebook.

“You writing a memo?” she’d asked.

The man said, “I know it’s rude to work in a bar.” He put the pen back into his jacket pocket.

Emily barely understood what he had said. She heard the words but only vaguely. “It’s all right,” she said. She waved her hand toward him the way people talking in bars do. “You could keep doing it.”

“Excuse me?” he said.

“Where you from? France?”

“I am from St. Petersburg, Russia. You know it?”

“Of course I know it,” Emily said, staring at the TV. She fixed her posture a little more straight.

“Would you like another drink?” he asked.

“Yeah. I’ll buy it, though.”

“Please, I insist.”

“All right, but I can only have one more,” she said.

He moved a seat closer to her, leaving an empty seat between them. The drink came and after a minute he got her another. They talked haltingly at first and then more fluidly. He told her he did real estate. He said he was staying at a hotel south of the city, near the airport. She lied and told him she was a social worker. She said she helped people with drug problems. It was cold here, he said. She agreed, it was cold.

They drank more. He switched to Hennessy, saying he had never tried it. She asked him questions and answered his with a laugh. The bartender turned on the jukebox and they listened to Chinese pop music. People came and left the bar. He kept buying drinks. The bartender looked on happily.

After a while Emily announced that he was her ace boon coon. He said that she was his milaya moya. The bartender tried to teach them one of the songs. He tried to teach them a Russian song. They were drunk and he leaned on her and she leaned on him.

“You don’t help people with drugs,” he said. “Come on?”

“I ain’t lying,” she said.

She could smell cabbage on his breath. She could see the pores on his nose. They watched a loud guy come into the bar and leave.

“Have you tried drugs?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Have you tried cocaine?” he asked.

“You a cop?” she said.

“I’m Russian,” he said. He tried to laugh it off.

“You a KGB?”

“No, I’m curious,” he said. They smiled, nodded, and shifted. Their legs touched.

“I’ve tried it,” she said, leaning her head closer to his. “Why, let me guess, you wanna try it?”

“Perhaps, I don’t know—yes,” he said. He measured every reaction she gave. He had only one intention and that was to get her back to his hotel. That was the starting point, get her to the hotel.

Emily made her own calculations. He didn’t move like a cop. Emily didn’t trust anyone, but he didn’t seem dangerous. He had money, he paid for every drink; he had a nice watch, clean shoes, clean hair, clean face, nice-looking wallet. He wasn’t grabby, he wasn’t drunk. Doing drugs with him seemed like a good idea.

“Perhaps? Yes?” she asked, looking at him with her eyebrows arched up.

“In point of fact,” said the Russian, “my friend gave me this.” He reached into his front pocket and palmed a plastic bag filled with crack rocks.

“Hell no,” she said. “Put that away, stupid!”

They left the bar, Emily feeling certain she had hustled him, the Russian feeling certain of the opposite.

The hotel was a Ramada on the east side of South San Francisco, on Airport Boulevard. It was surrounded by other hotels and dark, empty office buildings. The taxi driver took them back and forth down twisting roads until he found it. Emily, drunk, loud, and nervous, kept making the driver turn the music up. She rapped along with the radio: I wear my stunna glasses at night.

The Russian already had a room. He walked directly into a center courtyard and out through the far corner. She followed him up a flight of stairs: room 214. Lucky 214, she thought, touching her knuckles to the wooden door as she entered.

The room was empty and clean. Emily was nervous. The Russian had become quiet and businesslike.

“Nice place,” she said.

“Very nice.”

“So what’s up, stupid?”

“Excuse me,” said the Russian. He fished into his pocket and pulled out the plastic baggie: a quarter ounce of crack. He weighed it in his hand. “Relax,” he said.

“All right,” Emily said, taking off her jacket and throwing it onto a chair. “But I ain’t a prostitute.”

“Please, no. I didn’t—I am not interested in that.” He sounded English now. “I’m just here to have a good time, I assure you. Party. You know, do-duh-do-doo,” he said, making a dancing gesture with his head, hands, and shoulders.

“As long as we’re on the same page.”

“The exact same page. Don’t worry, I—I have beers in the refrigerator. Relax, please, first—it’s fine, I tell you I am not even sleeping in this room.” He waved at her like he was shutting her up and went on. “I have it, but for . . . funny reasons—you know, work—I have another room, too.” He went to the refrigerator and handed her a bottle of beer.

“They got a radio in here?”

The Russian looked around the room. “I don’t know,” he said, and then, “Just TV.” He turned on the television and opened a beer for himself. “Just TV and fun.”

Emily sipped her beer. She was drunk already, but the quietness of the room was sobering her up. “You got a pipe?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said. He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a brand-new glass pipe, and handed the bag to her. Emily examined the rocks; they looked fine. They were big and yellowish-brownish-white like parmesan cheese. She pinched off half of a rock with her thumbnail, put it into the pipe, and sat down on a tall chair that looked like a throne.

“So, you don’t mind if I?” she asked.

He handed her a green lighter. She took two hits, blew out smoke, leaned forward, her mind opening up, and handed the pipe to the Russian. He was still standing. He took the pipe awkwardly, flinching when he grabbed the wrong end. He took the lighter from her, then walked over to a chair near the desk and sat down. He seemed nervous. Emily’s own nerves had been calmed by the drug. The room had a nice warm light, and the Russian, who a few seconds earlier had looked a little scary with his big shoulders, his creviced face and big hands, now seemed friendly, maybe even pitiful. He lit the pipe, barely sucked in, and blew out a small cloud of smoke.

“Thank you,” he sai...

Table of contents

• Cover
• The White Van
• Title Page
• Imprint Page
• Dedication
• PART I
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• PART II
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgments
• Back Cover