Paper Phoenix: A Mystery of San Francisco in the '70s (A Classic Cozy--with Romance!)

by Michaela Thompson

  “Recently.”

  “You have kids?”

  “A daughter at Stanford.”

  “She’s grown up. When you have little kids—” She broke off and got up to pour the tea. After a minute, she said, “I’m still in shock about what you’ve told me. I wish I could think of something to say, but I can’t. It’s a total surprise.”

  “I thought you should know.”

  “You’re right. I should.” She put a mug in front of me and sat down again. “It seems so strange.”

  “It does to me, too.”

  The scent of the lemon grass hung in the air. We drank in silence until she said, “I almost forgot. Did you say you were working with Andrew?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s an envelope of stuff I’d like you to give him for me. I found it in our safe-deposit box— Larry’s and mine— but it must belong at the Times, because it doesn’t mean anything to me.” She got up and went into another room, and I heard a drawer open and close. “It’s about a man named Joseph Corelli.”

  My back stiffened. This had to be the information Larry had used to blackmail Corelli. “Sure. I’ll take it,” I said.

  Susanna returned and handed me a fat manila envelope with “Corelli” written on it in Larry’s hand. “It looks like a story Larry wrote and decided not to use. An exposé about the man who owns those Luigi’s places. I thought Andrew should have it.”

  I tried not to grab the envelope too avidly. “I’ll be sure he gets it. I’m going to see him right now.” Getting up and edging toward the door, I mumbled thanks for the tea.

  “Can we talk again when I’ve thought about what you told me?” she asked as we said good-bye. Assuring her that we could, I escaped with the envelope pinned under my arm.

  Once in the car, I was torn between opening it then and there or waiting until I got back to the Times. I compromised by taking a quick peek. Among other documents, the envelope contained a sheaf of fifteen-year-old clippings from a Vermont newspaper giving a day-by-day account of the trial of a restaurant owner for criminal negligence in a case of mass food poisoning. Two people had died, and more than twenty patrons of the restaurant had been seriously ill. The owner, a man named Luchese, usually held a coat over his head when he was in camera range. One photo, however, printed under the headline GUILTY VERDICT IN POISONING CASE, showed a thinner, hairier Joseph Corelli hurrying down a flight of steps surrounded by police guards.

  It was easy to figure out now. Luchese-Corelli had served a prison term, changed his name, and come to San Francisco to reestablish himself (and continue, apparently, his careless habits of food preparation), only to find himself in danger of being exposed as a mass poisoner. Once that news got out, Luigi’s Pasta Palazzos would be finished and Corelli would be down the drain once again. I closed the envelope and started the car. Andrew was going to be excited when he saw this.

  Twenty-one

  Betsy wasn’t at her desk, and I was rushing through her office toward the newsroom, intent on showing the envelope and its contents to Andrew, when I was arrested by a voice calling, “Hey!”

  I skidded to a stop. I hadn’t noticed September Apple sitting in the far corner, bent over a small table. In front of her were several file boxes filled with three-by-five cards, and piles of cards were scattered over the table. Her pudgy face, streaked with tears and grime when I last saw her, was cleaner now, her dark hair less tousled. She frowned at me. “I know you, don’t I?”

  I hated to wait, but I was curious about how September was doing. “I’m Maggie Longstreet. I gave you a ride home, remember?”

  She looked confused. “Longstreet? A ride home?” Then comprehension dawned. “Oh, yeah. When I was strung out over Larry.” She gestured at the cards in front of her. “I’m working for Betsy. Straightening out the subscription list.”

  I suspected it was a more appropriate job for September than writing articles about the poetry scene. ‘That’s wonderful.” I backed up a step. “I’ve got to—”

  “Larry used to talk about a guy named Longstreet,” she said.

  I stopped. “He did?”

  “Sure. Richard Longstreet. He a relative of yours?”

  “My ex-husband.”

  “Oh.” That question settled, September went back to arranging the cards.

  Instead of rushing off to look for Andrew, I took a step toward her. “What did Larry say about Richard?”

  She nibbled the corner of a card, regarding me warily. “I don’t know if I should say. Larry made a big deal that anything he said to me was private. If this Richard Longstreet found out—”

  “I won’t tell him. I promise.” I’d even cross my heart, if she wanted me to.

  “Well— OK, then.” She’d been easy to convince. I sensed that talking about Larry, no matter what the excuse, was a release for her. “He never said anything very specific. For a while, he went on about how he was on Longstreet’s trail, he was going to get him. Then one day, I remember he came over and he was flying. He was higher than a kite, and I know he hadn’t done any drugs, because he never did. I remember it so well.”

  Her voice was soft, and she gazed vacantly in front of her. “He said, ‘September, I’ve got Longstreet. I’ve got him by the balls. All I have to do is squeeze.’ And the look in his eyes, you wouldn’t have believed. I’ll tell you, he was getting off on the idea of squeezing this Longstreet’s balls. I was a little spooked.”

  So was I. “Did he ever say anything else?”

  “After that he sort of quit talking about Longstreet, except for one time. He was chuckling to himself and I asked why, and he said, ‘Longstreet is running scared. The idiot is even threatening me with violence.’ Then he said something like, ‘When this story hits the street, you’ll hear him yell from here to LA.’” She shrugged. “That was about it.”

  It was plenty. Richard had threatened Larry with violence. Richard had known Larry was on to him, and he was terrified. Chilled, both at Richard’s terror and Larry’s sadism, I turned once again toward the newsroom.

  The conversation with September didn’t dampen my pleasure in seeing Andrew’s eyes widen when I said, “Susanna sent you this,” and dropped the Corelli envelope on the desk in front of him. His reaction was all I could’ve hoped. After a cursory examination of the clippings and a story outline the envelope also contained, he pounded his fist on the desk in glee. “This is it!” he exulted. “No wonder Corelli was willing to pay through the nose!” He jumped up and stuck his head out the office door. “Hey, Judith!” he yelled. “Kill all that Board of Supervisors analysis! We’re redoing the front page!”

  “Fuck yourself, Baffrey!” a female voice yelled back.

  “I’m serious!” He turned back to me, his eyes shining. “The paper comes out tomorrow, so we can get the jump on the dailies. They’re going to look sick.” He flipped back through the envelope’s contents. “Yeah. It’s all here.”

  It was like watching a six-year-old with a new set of Tinker-toys. “Shouldn’t you give it to the police?”

  “Oh yeah, yeah. After our story is written. Better make a copy.” As he dashed from the room the female voice cried, “Are you crazy, Baffrey?”

  He was back in a few minutes, clutching originals in one hand, copies in the other. He dropped them on the desk and said, “Jesus, I don’t know how we’ll ever make the deadline.” He turned toward the door and roared, “Hey, Judith! Come on!” Grasping my elbow, he said, “Maggie, this is outstanding. This story coupled with Corelli’s murder is going to be dynamite. Plus, we can get into the licensing process, how did a convicted poisoner get a license to run a restaurant in San Francisco, the Luigi’s health code violations, do we need more safeguards, all that. It’ll be great.”

  Clearly, Andrew wouldn’t want to discuss anything else until he had his story on track. I arranged to meet him at Arturo’s at seven-thirty and left him in excited consultation with the Times staff.

  I was trying to fight it, but on the d
rive home I admitted to myself that I felt melancholy and left out. Andrew had the Times to think about, and that was something positive, creative. I had only the wreck of my own and other people’s lives.

  I was passing Pacific Bakery Mall, one of Richard’s pet projects. It was a former sourdough bread bakery that, when the original firm sought lower rents in South San Francisco, was rescued from unsightly vacancy and incipient decay by being transformed into a shopping mall. I remembered that Richard had given a speech on opening day. “All this,” he had said, gazing around him at the wine bars, boutiques selling unbleached cotton clothing, and T-shirt emporia, “all this in a space that for years had only minimal utilization.” Maybe my life had had only minimal utilization, too.

  By the time I got home I was thoroughly out of sorts. I flung off my clothes and took a long hot shower. Afterward, as the steam cleared from the bathroom mirror, I looked at myself.

  I was surprised. It could have been the residue of dampness on the glass, but in fact I didn’t look too bad. Green eyes, chestnut hair, the odd wrinkle to add character. Maggie Longstreet at forty-four. It could be possible, couldn’t it, that I might still hope for more than minimal utilization? At least I was still here and still kicking. Somewhat cheered, I began thinking about what to wear to dinner.

  Black would strike the right note of severity. I donned a dress I last wore at the funeral of a member of the mayor’s staff. He had collapsed and died of a heart attack in the apartment of a notorious “sex therapist,” to the consternation of his wife and six children. Tonight was at least as solemn an occasion, I thought, attaching a diamond-sprinkled pin to my dress at the neck. I pinned my hair up in a French twist. A drop or two of perfume on the pulse points, and I was ready to go. It wouldn’t do to keep Richard waiting.

  Twenty-two

  Arturo’s was far enough from the waterfront to escape the tourist trade, but close enough to have been the site of a restaurant, or at least so the story went, since shortly after the Gold Rush. The paneled walls were lined with portraits of famous San Francisco visitors and denizens— Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Lola Montes, Robert Louis Stevenson, Alice B. Toklas, Dashiell Hammett, Enrico Caruso— all of whom were rumored to have eaten and rhapsodized over filet of sole Arturo. Whatever the truth of the matter, Arturo’s remained one of San Francisco’s most prestigious restaurants. It lived up to its legendary status by providing, in addition to excellent: food, the whitest table linen, the most lustrously polished woodwork, and the most superannuated and worldly-wise waiters in town.

  Giles, the maître d’, was among the oldest, and was certainly the most haughty, of the lot. When I arrived, he inclined his formidable nose and offered to lead me to the private dining room where, despite the fact that I was right on time, Richard was already installed.

  The posh little candy box of a room had probably been used for turn-of-the-century (and possibly more recent) dalliances as well as business deals. It was furnished with a roomy, dark-red plush sofa as well as a dining table shining with crystal and silver. A bottle of Champagne, Richard’s preferred tipple, was cooling in a bucket on a hammered brass stand. Richard stood beside the table, holding a filled glass. When I walked in he nodded cursorily and said, “Where’s Baffrey?”

  “He’ll be here.” I hoped the Corelli story wouldn’t prove so consuming that he’d forget.

  Richard helped me with my coat and poured me a glass of Champagne. We could’ve been still married, waiting for one or another of his business associates to show up with his wife or— more frequently these days— his girlfriend to make up a jolly foursome for an expensive and elegant dinner. The only difference between then and now was the dead silence between us, and come to think of it that wasn’t so different either.

  Richard cleared his throat. I could see that he was under a strain. His tennis tan had faded, leaving his face washed out and sallow. “Maggie, as long as Baffrey isn’t here, maybe I can take this opportunity”— he poured himself more Champagne, and his hands were shaking— “this opportunity to ask exactly what you’re doing and why. I know you’re getting involved with the anti-Golden State Center people—”

  “My life seems to be an open book.”

  “I didn’t have to have you followed to find that out. It’s difficult to keep these things secret if you’re going to attend a public meeting. What I want to know is, why? Is it simply to embarrass me?”

  My Champagne flute felt cool and fragile in my fingers. As cool and fragile, I thought, as the politeness between Richard and me. “It’s because I want to learn the truth about you.”

  “Learn the truth!” he said impatiently. “I loathe it when people talk that way. Who the hell do you think you are, talking about truth and being so goddamn pious?”

  I raised my eyebrows. “The evening is running true to form. Did you bring your brass knuckles?”

  He flushed and turned away. We were saved from descent into recriminations by Giles, who, with a look easily identifiable as disdain, ushered Andrew into the room.

  Despite the strained atmosphere, I had to smile at Andrew. In the midst of his Corelli scoop, he had made an effort to dress for Arturo’s, and had discarded his accustomed red nylon windbreaker and navy sweater for a creased green corduroy jacket and a tie in a floral pattern so garish that at any other moment it would have made me laugh aloud. The sartorial revolution hadn’t extended below his ankles, however. His blue running shoes were still the footgear of the day.

  Andrew seemed as tense as Richard and I, and it was with considerable awkwardness that we managed to order dinner and fill the time until it was served. After the waiter whisked out the door, leaving in front of me a plate of fried calamari I thought I’d die if I had to eat, Richard said, “All right. What do you want to talk about?”

  This was a fine moment to realize that Andrew and I hadn’t agreed on how to begin. Andrew, contemplating the grilled petrale on his plate, gave no sign of planning to speak in the next hour or two. I decided to plunge in and hope for inspiration along the way. “Richard, perhaps it would be easiest if I told you that Andrew and I know about your financial arrangements with Jane Malone. We know you were paid off to work with Basic Development on the Golden State Center. You don’t have to waste time acting outraged.”

  Richard put down his fork. “You’d better watch your mouth, Maggie. Do you realize how much harm you could do me, talking like that?”

  “You said you didn’t like to discuss truth. But what I said is the truth. Isn’t it?”

  Richard’s eyes swiveled between Andrew and me, and I could see him trying to think on his feet, work out a story that would put us off.

  Andrew said, “We know it’s true. We know about the story Larry had on you.”

  Something changed in Richard’s face. He was a pragmatist. I didn’t think he would fight for territory that was irrevocably lost, and I was right. He switched his ground, giving up the window dressing of protest. “If you have Larry’s story, then you only have Larry’s side of it.”

  “That’s right,” Andrew said.

  Nobody was eating. My throat had closed so tightly I couldn’t swallow. Although Richard seemed composed, I saw a drop of perspiration standing at his hairline. He had a look of intense concentration, as if he were playing in a chess tournament, or performing an experiment in ESP.

  “Exactly what do you have?” he asked.

  “Dallas, Framton Associates, a two-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar partnership,” Andrew answered promptly.

  “I see.” Richard patted his mouth with his napkin. He looked from me to Andrew and said, “Let me try to explain how it was. I know it will sound naive, but I actually didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late to back out.”

  He was incredible. I couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice when I said, “Surely you’re doing yourself an injustice.”

  He shot me a baleful look. “You don’t have to believe me. I’m sure you wouldn’t give credence to anything I�
��d say.”

  “I only beg you to spare us any tales of being a yokel caught out of your depth. You’ve spent your whole life making sure you’re not one.”

  He turned to Andrew. “I admit Jane Malone introduced me to Bill Framton. It was a purely social occasion. We met for drinks at the Yacht Club. After that, Bill and I played tennis a few times while he was in town. He’s a great player. Wiped up the court with me.” He made an attempt at a self-deprecating grin that was almost grotesque. Getting no response, he went on. “He was in town for a couple of weeks, and I saw quite a bit of him. He’s not your typical cowboy. Very knowledgeable fellow, knows a lot about art. Collects paintings.”

  The last was meant to appeal to me. I was supposed to say, “Oh, really? What artists does he like? What period? How fascinating.” I was twisting Arturo’s spotless napkin as if it were a dishrag.

  “His last night in town we had dinner together,” Richard resumed. “Great evening, very enjoyable. After dinner, we were drinking brandy, and he started talking about his latest project— an industrial park in Dallas. Just casual conversation, you know. I was interested, and gave him a few pointers, and before I knew it he had offered me a partnership.” Some of the lines in Richard’s face smoothed out in the remembered glow of that evening.

  “Why didn’t you tell him straight out you couldn’t afford it?” I asked.

  Richard opened his hands wide. “I did. That’s exactly what I told him. I said, ‘I’m salivating, but I don’t have that kind of cash.’ I laid it on the line.”

  “At which point he offered you a loan,” Andrew said.

  “That’s right. He offered me a loan, and I took it because it was too damn good a deal to turn down.”

  Andrew toyed with his fork. “You didn’t think it was odd when he didn’t ask for security?”

  “Yes,” said Richard tightly.

  “You didn’t wonder what was expected of you for this fabulous deal? Or didn’t you know already?” Andrew watched Richard narrowly.