by Lynne Murray
I went back to my desk and stared at my computer screen. Around me, co-workers told each other how shocked they were over Caine’s collapse. I ignored them. They were used to that. Promptly at 5:00, I closed out the computer and got up to go. The best thing about the dismal job was that it never involved overtime.
Chapter 2
Underwear Model Man was leaning against the building waiting for me when I went out the front door. He’d taken off his tie and it was hard not to look at the tanned skin and a curl of golden chest hair showing where the top button of his shirt was open.
“Hi, I’m Chad Falconer.”
At least I didn’t have to keep calling him Underwear Model Man. Automatically, I responded, “Angie Faust.” I instantly regretted that. Now he knew my name.
I needed to get away fast. Men like him don’t follow women like me home from work without some agenda. Whatever his reason it didn’t involve flowers, dinner dates and happy endings. Maybe he sensed how desperately I missed my aunt. Predators can read body language and track wounded animals.
“Whatever it is you’re selling, I can’t afford it.”
He grinned as if I’d said something terribly witty. “Fair enough,” he said, falling into an easy pace beside me. “You read me right. I was born to sell and I have sold many things in my lifetime. But I promise you I am not talking about selling anything to you. Now—or ever.”
I headed down Market toward Davis to catch the Geary Express bus. I planned to go to the public library branch on Ninth Avenue to return the books in my backpack. They weren’t due, but I’d read them. Changing them for new ones and chatting with one of the librarians was the closest I came to having friends.
Chad persisted, walking closer and tilting his head down to get my attention.
“You looked all alone in there and I can’t just let this go without talking to you.” His tone was hard to resist. He made it sound like he cared about me. Impossible. He didn’t know me.
“Whoever you are and whatever you want, I don’t trust you,” I said.
“The only reason you should listen to me at all is that you and I seem to be the only two people who understood what was going on this morning.”
I stopped so fast he almost ran into me.
“My boss had a stroke or heart attack while he was yelling at me. He was an old man. He had a strenuous day of verbally abusing people. His heart just gave out.”
“It doesn’t usually happen that way though, does it?” Chad said. “I don’t know about you, but the people I want to see die usually go on to live a disgustingly healthy life of making everyone miserable and die peacefully in bed at 95.”
“I never touched the man.” I wish I hadn’t used the word “touched.” Chad stood too close for comfort. I sidestepped. “You can’t blame me for what happened,” I concluded, my voice wavering a little.
He seemed to understand because he stepped away a foot or so. “Believe me, Angie, blame is the last word I would use to describe you or anything you do.” He stepped in front of me to stop for a moment but he held out his hands out with palms up. “Would you do me a favor?”
“Maybe. Will you let me alone if I do?”
“Absolutely. The only thing I ask is that you come with me to a coffee shop and meet someone who understands your great gift.”
“Gift?” I snorted a small burst of laughter at that thought.
“Seriously, it’s a public place, a café not far from here. No pressure.”
I stared at him. I never admitted that I was responsible for the violent things that happened around me. My aunt and I rarely spoke about it. “Where is this place?”
“It’s an easy walk. Come on, it will only take half an hour of your time.”
I admit I was curious and absurdly relieved that he didn’t seem to be selling anything or whipping out a chloroformed rag and forcing me into a car. But mainly I agreed because of a vain hope that there might actually be a way to cope with whatever the hell it was that I had been fighting my whole life.
He led the way south of Market past the mirror-fronted skyscrapers to a two-story, grubby red brick building on Harrison Street that must have been a storefront before the tide of Silicon Valley money swept in and washed away most of the mom and pop businesses on a tide of outrageously high rents.
The sign out front read “Magic Pastry and Coffee” in thick old style black letters inscribed on a window made of frosted wire mesh security glass. It was hard to see what was inside. The door had an old-fashioned shop door chime that rang as we stepped in. A counter ran the length of the room with a glass display case for pastries. A workspace behind the counter held an array of espresso machines, ovens and sinks with a menu hanging tilted above so it could easily be read in the soft lighting. A few tables with matching wooden folding chairs and yellow tablecloths were scattered around. Brightly painted shelves along the opposite wall were stacked with bags of bread, rolls and cookies. The place smelled of coffee, cinnamon and fresh-baked bread.
I counted five customers at the tables. An African-American man bent over an iPhone, his suit jacket hung over the back of his chair, his hair in tight, short braids. A young Asian couple in office clothes leaned their heads together tracking something on a tablet. A weather-beaten, gray-haired man in sweatshirt and jeans thumbed through the handout newspapers stacked along the windowsill for the taking.
Basically the anti-Starbucks, SF version.
A short, thin woman came around from behind the counter. Her skin was just slightly lighter than her huge brown eyes. Her frizzy, black hair was artfully scooped up in a rubber band and frothing its way around her face as it escaped. She wore a thick, ivory sweater over a long, red, blue and purple batik skirt and somehow made it look like high fashion.
“This is my woman, Sophie,” Chad said with the awe usually reserved for presenting major royalty. “Sophie, this is Angie. As you can tell, she’s a woman of power like yourself.”
Sophie smiled and stood on tiptoe to kiss Chad on the lips.
She held out her hand for me to shake. She seemed to be expecting me. I got the distinct feeling that he had talked to Sophie after he witnessed my boss’s death. Clearly, Chad was thrilled to have brought Sophie something to make her happy. That something was me. No idea why meeting me should make her day.
That should have bothered me, but I was too busy being amused. Even after a few seconds in Sophie’s presence, I understood why he wanted to please her. The tranquility beaming from Sophie’s eyes made me feel at ease. No, it was stronger than that. I felt as if I had known her forever and sensed that everyone she met was going to feel that too.
“Chad is given to dramatic statements.” Her low-pitched voice hinted at a Southern accent. Texas? Louisiana? “Seriously he’s a good guy. Not as much of a hound as he seems.”
Chad blinked happily
“Let’s go sit in the back,” she gestured to a door behind the counter marked Employees Only. “Can you cover the counter, Chad?” she looked back over her shoulder.
“Sure thing, babe.”
Chad stepped behind the counter hung up his jacket and grabbed an apron off a hook.
Sophie opened the door. She motioned me to sit in an armchair that looked out of place pulled up to a card table with a couple of cardboard cups of cold coffee on it. She cleared off the table, dumping the coffee in the big industrial sized sink next to an ordinary refrigerator.
“Would you like some coffee or tea or cocoa?” she asked.
“No thanks.” I glanced at the door in case I needed to get up and make a quick exit.
Sophie left the sink and pulled up a folding chair, not across from me but closer, just across the corner of the table.
“Chad told me how that old man died this afternoon where you work.” Clearly a cut-to-the-chase woman.
“He must have seen it. I saw him standing outside the conference room when my boss collapsed.”
“When your boss attacked you, and you responded.” He
r voice rang with quiet conviction.
“He was an old rageaholic, it caught up with him,” I corrected her.
“Something caught up with him,” Sophie said.
I felt a burst of anger at myself for coming here. This was the kind of conversation that took place in the principal’s office several times in my childhood. “She must have done something” was a phrase that I heard a lot. No one ever proved anything, but people look at me differently after those incidents. When the whispers started, my aunt and I left town as soon as we could without attracting more attention.
“He must have had a stroke or something.”
Sophie said nothing and waited.
“It’s not like I had anything to do with it.” I froze. Stupid Angie. Don’t connect the dots for them. Let them believe a harmless girl couldn’t kill. I didn’t want to believe it either.
“Things like this have happened before.” Sophie suggested gently. It wasn’t really a question.
“No. Maybe. I’m not sure what you mean.”
She just nodded as if I’d answered the question. “Have you ever wished someone would die and then they did?” Her infinitely gentle tone nearly broke my heart. No one had talked to me like that except my aunt. Missing Aunt Bess cut through me like a knife.
This was the time to ridicule the very idea. But I didn’t have the heart to lie to Sophie.
“I never touch anyone. I have to be in the same room when someone attacks me,” I stammered. “Nobody ever blamed me for it—exactly. My aunt, who raised me, never said she thought I was responsible even when a bully who attacked me collapsed in a fit or fell and hurt himself. But people noticed something wrong with me. We moved a lot.” I took a deep breath. Never had I confided this much in anyone.
“But you had a deeper worry, didn’t you?”
“I think maybe my aunt was afraid I would get mad at her and kill her. I would never do that.”
“Show me your arms,” she said.
I wasn’t even surprised that she would ask that. It seemed like she could almost read my mind. I wear long sleeves buttoned at the wrist. For the last five months, I never show my arms to anyone. I found myself unbuttoning the wrist buttons and rolling up my sleeves. Sophie examined the scars from the month after my aunt left town.
“You weren’t completely committed,” Sophie said. She pushed the sleeves of her sweater up so I could see the gray raised cloudy scars carved all the way up the walnut-brown skin of her arms.”
“Guess not because I’m, still here,” I said. There were thicker blotches interrupting the cut marks. “What are those?” I asked.
“Those were tattoos.” Her voice was low pitched and she spoke so softly that I had to lean close to hear what she was saying. “Getting them hurt. Getting them removed was a lot more painful, but it needed to be done.”
“Oh.” I wanted to ask more but I didn’t dare.
“When you have a lot of power and a lot of pain inside, you need to learn how to use it so it doesn’t destroy you. I learned. You can too.”
“You had experiences like mine?”
“Similar. But different. My gift involves drawing people to me, but I didn’t know how to handle them when they got close. Some of the men I attracted used me for bad things. I didn’t know how to control them or myself. I learned how. I want to introduce you to the group that taught me how to be helpful rather than damaging.”
“What? Some kind of 12-Step program for psychic killers?”
Sophie smiled. “I know this sounds corny but I learned how to use my powers for good.”
“How?”
“There’s a group of us. We help each other.”
“Is this, um some kind of cult or something?”
Sophie threw back her head and laughed, a rich contagious sound that had me laughing too for no known reason.
“Good question,” she said when she caught her breath. “No, it’s not a cult. It’s more like a force for good. People with specialized skills are valued there. I don’t mean to be too vague, but some parts of it have to be seen in person. Some of us have knowledge that isn’t commonly available.”
“Um,” I said to give myself a moment to think. But damn, she had me hooked and she knew it. I have always been a sucker for knowledge. It seemed to be my only hope.
“It’s surprisingly effective,” she said.
“You don’t do anything, uh, harmful to people, do you—or does Chad?” I glanced at the door to the front room where Chad was serving customers.
“We’re all different.” Sophie leaned forward and lowered her voice as if someone might overhear her. “The kind of power you have can be used in a positive way, but there’s a lot to learn. Controlling your power is at the top of the list.”
If she was trying to con me, this would be where she set the hook. “I’m not a joiner.”
“It’s not something available to the general public. Just give us a chance. We need to get you assessed and protected so this doesn’t happen again. Will you come with us?”
“When?”
“Tonight. We can go as soon as we close the café. We’ll take you there. It’s in the Sunset.”
“I live on Fulton,” I said.
“So do we. It sounds like we’re neighbors.”
“Don’t worry. Trust me, you’ll like Mr. Kirby. He usually has a way to make things better. He’ll be able to help you right away.”
“Okay.” I surprised myself by agreeing so quickly.
“Let’s celebrate with pastries and coffee. My treat.”
“I shouldn’t.”
“Is there some health reason why you shouldn’t?
“Well,” I gestured to my ample form. “I’m not like you—I would kill to be thin like you—” I stopped, realizing that might be the wrong thing to say.
Sophie laughed again, that deep, delighted sound. “You’d be surprised how similar we are.” Chad swung the door open to catch a glimpse of Sophie. He grinned. I looked past him to see every face in the front room staring. They had heard Sophie laughing and somehow the whole room felt lighter.
“Don’t punish yourself, Angie,” she said. “You need to feed your body and soul.
I had espresso and a chocolate croissant.
Chapter 3
Chad managed to keep his arm around Sophie or at least hold her hand all the way to Market Street where we caught the 5 Fulton bus. I kept expecting it to be annoying, but their happiness was so giddy and real that I enjoyed it.
I did feel a stab of regret at giving up my plan for the evening, stopping by the library. I loved to climb three tiers of shallow steps to the pedestal where the red-tile-roofed box of a building sat between two goofy palm trees that thrived even in the foggy Richmond District, flanking the sat regarding the world through three vaulted windows.
The two poles of comfort in my life were the library at Ninth Avenue and the urban forest of Golden Gate Park across the street from our apartment. The stress of work faded as I walked the five blocks to my place on Fulton, with new books in my backpack and the wall of green trees at marked the northern edge of the park looming up ahead.
But meeting Chad and Sophie had taken my free time. They got out one stop before me on Fulton. She pointed out their place on the corner. I gave them my address and agreed to meet there in an hour to go see meet the mysterious Mr. Kirby. I saw them climbing the steps of a building with three flats.
Unlocking the door to my first-floor apartment, I greeted Larry on his way home from work. He’d inherited the weathered, beige building from his mother.
“Hi, Angie.” Larry opened the door and vanished up the carpeted staircase that led to his second story flat.
Larry was tall with the kind of thin build that didn’t take well to muscles no matter how much time he spent in the gym.
The closest thing to an inheritance my aunt had to give me was the rent-controlled apartment. Larry’s mother had mourned with us when my grandfather died. A few years later my aunt and I
were sitting with Larry to console him after his mother died. We carried in casseroles, washed all the dishes from other people who had brought food after the funeral. We petted his angora rabbit, Bunnasaurus Rex. My aunt literally held his hand and both of us listened to some of his poetry.
Less than an hour after I got off the bus, I looked out the front window to see Larry heading out for the evening. The clink of his chains on the front steps was a dead giveaway. Larry’s black leather outfits had come out of the closet after his mom died. While she was still alive, Larry went out for the evening in a black trench coat and jeans. He carried the black duffel bag so maybe he changed into his leathers when he got where he was going. Now he headed out into the evening in full fetish gear with handcuffs clipped to his belt. He carried a gleaming new black leather case, the contents of which I did not want to know.
After ten years in San Francisco, I know better than to assume anything about someone’s gender preferences based on their appearance or wardrobe. But it was a stretch for me to imagine the man who was so gentle with his pet angora rabbit spent his evenings tying someone up and retrieving some torture gear from his black bag for purposes of pain play. Maybe it was all a ploy and he was carrying a hefty sheaf of his blank verse in the bag. The handcuffs wouldn’t come off until the victim had heard all the poems read aloud.
I tried to keep on Larry’s good side. I was praying that sentiment would keep me in my place. As the building owner, he could wreck my life if he decided to turn the ground floor into a dungeon and kicked me out of the rent-controlled apartment. Under San Francisco rent control ordinance, it would have been illegal to kick me out simply to double or triple the rent for a new tenant. But if he decided to take over the whole place for his own use, that would be perfectly legal.
I couldn’t afford to find a new place in San Francisco. Besides, I hadn’t given up hope that my aunt would return. I never reported her as a missing person. Larry never asked about her. He was wrapped up in his day job, his leather lifestyle nightlife and taking care of his bunny. Maybe he hadn’t noticed she had been gone for six months.
