The Evil That Men Do
Page 12
Hand-in-hand, we walked to the end of Market Street. We strolled along the Embarcadero, which lines the bay along the Port of San Francisco, and soaked up the sights, smells, and sounds. The terminus of the Embarcadero is the famous Fisherman’s Wharf. It sports more tourists per square foot than any other site in the city. We joined right in, walking out on the quay where seals begged and barked in the water below.
At the end of the quay is an excellent view of Alcatraz Island, the former federal prison known as The Rock, and now open to the public for tours. The Golden Gate Bridge was barely visible through the thin fog that lay on the waters of the bay.
Touristing, too, is hungry business. Alioto’s on the Wharf looked enticing and soon we were peeling shrimp, tearing sourdough, and quaffing Anchor Steam, San Francisco’s own brew.
Still tourists, we made the rounds of Ghirardelli Square. Built above what were once fish canneries, the Square is a collection of upscale shops including galleries, boutiques, cafés and my favorite, a chocolatier. The air in this shop makes you feel as though you’re afloat in a sea of chocolate. We’d thought we were full when we left Alioto’s, but for Ghirardelli chocolate, there’s always room.
We ducked in and out of shops, amazed at their variety, eccentricity, and sometimes out-and-out kitsch. A shop of old photographs, a shop of nothing but clocks, a shop selling candles in every imaginable shape, including famous sculptures like “The Kiss.” There were shops of bangles, baubles and bright shining beads, shops of weird clothes, shops of very weird clothes and shops of very, very weird clothes.
One specialty store was full of mirrors. I like mirrors because they allow me to observe others furtively, one of my favorite pastimes, a real stereotypical P.I. pastime. In a small, hand-held mirror I watched Charles watch me in a wall mirror with a look of such loving lust that my heart lurched in my rib cage. I grabbed his hand and pulled him out the door. “Charles, I’m shopped out. I could use a nap if we’re going to stay out late. Let’s catch a cable car back.”
He found that idea “most agreeable.” We caught the Powell Street cable car, a direct ride to Union Square. The two tacky blocks down Geary to the Tawdelta Fielding seemed like two miles. I let my left arm slither around Charles’s waist. His right arm encircled my shoulders. We took it “hip-to-hip, rockin’ through the wilderness,” as the B-52’s song goes.
That evening Charles made reservations at a French restaurant overlooking the bay. The Rock was lit up, a galaxy of light amid a universe of ominous waters. Ships were entering and leaving the harbor, drifting past the once-dreaded prison, their lights commingling.
Charles ordered a Pouilly Fuissé which he described as “a chardonnay with a pedigree” in place of cocktails. We sipped the wine, held hands across the table, and tried to decode the hand-written menu. It was a two-person job. My expertise was writing. In teaching myself to read upside down, I had gotten good at deciphering handwriting from any angle. Charles’s job was to interpret the French words I spelled out to him. “Food always tastes better when the menu’s in French,” deadpanned Charles.
Whether that old chestnut of a joke had any truth to it or not, the food was delicious, the wine was delicious, and Charles was delicious. We did have some kind of fun that night.
Sunday we decided to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. We shopped for a picnic lunch and bought a bottle of the same wine we’d had the night before. The lolling is reputedly superb on the other side of the bridge, with views of the harbor, the city, the bridge itself and the open sea. Lolling with Charles seemed more enticing to me than any other imaginable diversion.
I always thought the Golden Gate Bridge was something you admired if you were happy, and jumped from if you were unhappy. I never knew that the Bridge was such a melting pot of San Francisco society. Rich and poor, adult and child, yuppie and hippie, cops and drug dealers, even a cowboy and an American Indian, trekked along the mile-long walkways. Below, hardy souls windsurfed in the bay, challenged by the stiff breezes, the choppy sea, and the changing currents. Further off, The Rock, bereft of its nighttime sparkle, hunkered glum and gray in the morning light.
On the opposite side were several partially wooded grassy knolls. We ambled toward these until we found a private little copse. We spread the blanket we’d borrowed from the hotel. Charles got out his Swiss army knife corkscrew, extracted the cork from the bottle, and decanted some wine into a tumbler with the Tawdelta Fielding logo, a T inside a triangle.
We sat cross-legged facing each other, the wine between us. Charles reached out and gently clasped his hands behind my head. I put my hands on his thighs for balance. He pulled me toward him with a light but relentless pressure until our lips met. We remained this way, with intermittent wine-sipping breaks.
During one such break, Charles pointed a thumb and forefinger gun at me. “Hands up, Dagny.” I raised my hands in mock surrender. With a cat-like quickness, Charles stripped me naked to the waist. There was a time when this was not easy for me. My surgery had left angry red scars and welts, which had taken more than a year to subside. One potential lover, on seeing the scars and asymmetry, had been too repulsed to make love, and it left me painfully self-conscious. With Charles, I was already relaxed. He looked at me lovingly and analytically. Charles could do this seemingly contradictory thing.
“They did a nice job, Dagny, if I may say so as a medical doctor. The scarring is minimal, and you have a beautiful breast, a most attractive lovely…” and he moved his head down to kiss me gently.
“Under the blanket,” I said, my voice husky with desire.
No trip to San Francisco is complete without a visit to, and a meal in, Chinatown. We took the Powell Street cable car to Jackson Street. From there, Chinatown is an easy walk downhill. As we descended, delicious food odors rose to meet us, whetting our already eager appetites.
It was dumb luck that we ended up in Quang Phuc Dong’s. The inside was brash to the point of camp, what with the décor of statues, fountains, statues in fountains, fountains in statues, jade figurines in elaborately carved niches, and walls adorned with red velvet dragons. The Chinese waiter had grown up in England, and when he heard Charles speak he humbly suggested that we allow him to bring the best dishes of the house. “If you don’t like it, you don’t have to pay,” he said. When the feast ended we paid willingly and tipped handsomely.
The human being is never fully happy. Though I was sated in all ways imaginable, my thoughts turned to Lucy, and they were dark thoughts indeed. I checked my phone messages and there was nothing from her. I called the Worthingtons again. This time Ernie answered. He said Lucy had called earlier and was planning to stay a few more days in La Jolla since classes were over. “Did she leave a number?” I asked.
“She said her friends had just moved in and the phone wasn’t hooked up yet.”
“Did she say where she was?” I persisted.
“The Covenant Apartments,” said Ernie. “The only name she mentioned was David Balfour. I wrote it down because I knew you’d want to know.”
“Did she leave me a message? No, of course not, you’d tell me. Did she say anything about calling me?”
“I’m sorry, Dagny. I’ve told you everything. I didn’t want to be pushy with Lucy. You know how independent she is. Besides, a lot of kids head for Newport or Laguna or La Jolla after finals. It’s a big party scene.”
I thanked him and asked him to have her call me immediately if he heard from her again. I called La Jolla information for the rental office of the Covenant Apartments. They didn’t have a listing. Nor did they have a listing for a David Balfour. Lost in thought, I was holding the phone, trying to decide what to do next when Charles began massaging my neck.
“What did you find out?” he asked. I told him. He made me repeat the names.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Nothing I can put my finger on. Balfour is a good British name.”
We were silent while Charles’s wonderful fingers worked magic o
n my neck. Some of the tension drained from me.
“Maybe they don’t have a rental office. Or maybe their listing’s under a different name, like the company that owns them, or the agency that handles the rentals,” offered Charles.
“Maybe,” I conceded, but misgivings hung darkly over me.
In bed, I found comfort in the shelter of Charles’s arms. The memory of lovemaking under the trees pushed worries aside and soothed my soul.
Chapter 13
We rose early. The autopsy was scheduled for 10:00 a.m. in Santa Cruz, a good two hours’ drive from the hotel. We drove west across the peninsula to the coast, where we had breakfast in a diner overlooking the Pacific Ocean and with a view of the famous Cliff House restaurant.
I was on Route 1 again, this time approaching Santa Cruz from the north, and with Charles at the wheel instead of Lucy. Halfway between San Francisco and Santa Cruz is Half Moon Bay, an exotically named place that suggests the South Seas and romance. As we passed through, I snuggled closer to Charles despite the bucket seats of his Subaru.
An hour later we entered the city of Santa Cruz. Some of the buildings of the university were visible high up in the hills, those same hills amongst which was the dale of death where Troy’s life had come to an ambiguous end. I hoped this visit to the city would shed light on the mystery of his death and resolve the ambiguity of suicide or murder.
Charles consulted his neatly printed instructions. “This is straightforward,” he muttered. We got off at Route 9, and drove past the Historical Museum directly to the hospital, a gray, six-story concrete building. Unobtrusively tucked behind it was the entrance to the Santa Cruz County Morgue. The driveway behind the entrance descended steeply into an underground parking garage.
Once inside the facility, Charles identified himself to the waiting-room receptionist, who immediately paged Dr. Peters. She invited us to sit in some blue Naugahyde chairs by a squat, square table on which lay several out-of-date magazines.
“How well do you know Dr. Peters?” I asked.
“I sat next to him at a luncheon during a medical examiners’ conference last year and we hit it off over our shared interest in steroid activity. He’s keen on investigating the Nandrolex striations at the nail root. That’s why he agreed to delay Troy’s refrigeration for three days. He finds the striations suspicious, just as we do.”
“I’m kind of nervous,” I confessed. “The way you are when you’re waiting for the results of a blood test. God knows I’ve experienced that plenty.”
“I’ll let you know what’s happening as soon as I can. They won’t let you watch, you know.”
I knew. I once attended an autopsy as part of my Military Police training in the army. It’s grisly business, cutting open a body and removing its organs one by one for examination. Even the brain comes out. A surgical saw cuts off the top of the head much as one would open a pumpkin to make a jack-o-lantern. The brain is removed and carved up like a roast beef. Each slice is studied for any abnormality that might relate to the cause of death.
I had watched the entire procedure without ill effects. I remember feeling smug when two of the big guys, sergeants, had to excuse themselves. Military cops in training learn to have strong stomachs. It’s required for the job. Nor blood, nor guts, nor shit, nor puke should make a copper, or a P.I. for that matter, unable to perform his duty.
All cops have close encounters of the noxious kind with one or more of these substances. We were taught to treat them clinically, in effect, to intellectualize the malodor. But just in case my intellect failed, I also learned to breathe entirely through my mouth, not permitting a single stinking molecule to touch the smell receptors in my nose.
No amount of readiness or willingness on my part would be able to get me in to watch Troy’s autopsy. The law is clear about who may and who may not attend. As a registered medical examiner in the state of California, Charles could attend. As a spectator, which is all I would be despite my high fallutin’ P.I.’s license, I could not.
Bob Peters burst through a pair of metallic double doors, spotted us immediately, and charged up to Charles, right hand extended. He was a wiry little man about two inches shorter than me. His quick, bird-like movements made him appear brusque.
Charles introduced me. We shook hands and exchanged the usual banter, but he couldn’t disguise a look of consternation. Charles understood right away. “Dagny knows she can’t attend the autopsy,” he told Peters, who brightened at not having to turn down a request from Charles, whom he obviously respected.
“Yes, well then, Dagny—quite an unusual name—you’re welcome to wait in my office. The magazines are more current, or perhaps you like medical books.”
“Thanks, but I need to make a long distance phone call. My cell phone isn’t getting a signal in this building. Is there a pho—”
“Please, feel free to make calls from my office. No problem. Dial 9 to get out.” He was pleased to be able to help.
We followed him back through the double doors, ignoring the Employees Only sign. Two right turns put us in his office, which was not unlike Charles’s, which I remembered vividly since it was where we had first met. He pulled the telephone across his desk close by a chair where he invited me to sit. The two of them left, Peters nodding and smiling goodbye, and Charles rounding his lips into a fleeting kiss.
I tried the Worthingtons. No one answered. I punched in directory assistance for the San Diego metro area. Maybe this Balfour person had lived near La Jolla before moving there. If I could get his previous number, I might find someone who knew him. A computer answered and asked me for city and listing. I asked to speak to an operator instead. A male human came on the line. I tried my pathetic little girl voice, the one with just the barest hint of a sob. “I’m trying to locate my father, who left us when I was a teenager. His name is David Balfour—B-a-l-f-o-u-r. I heard he was in southeastern California.”
“Ma’am, there are two area codes covering territory larger than the state of West Virginia. Don’t you have a city?”
I ratcheted up the sob a notch. “Is there any way you could try?”
Lucky for me there are male operators. I doubt a female would have fallen for this. “I’ll see what the computer dredges up for us,” he said sympathetically. I could hear the key-clicks in the background. “I have three David Balfours, and three Initial-D Balfours.”
“Could you tell me what cities?” He gave me four numbers in San Diego, one in Needles, and one in Stovepipe Wells, which is in Death Valley. I pressed my luck: “Could you also check under the spellings B-a-l-f-o-r and B-a-l-f-o-r-e.”
“I thought he was your father. Don’t you know how your name is spelled?” retorted the now skeptical operator.
“He may be using a different spelling,” I countered.
“He may be using a different name…but I’ll check for you.”
“Thanks.”
“No Davids or Initial-Ds under those spellings.”
I thanked him again and hung up.
I began with the Davids. I dialed the number in Needles. A woman with a shrill voice—like Chef Julia Child’s—picked up. I asked for David Balfour and she told me he was at work. She had some kind of a British Isles accent, but not like Charles’s. She offered me his number, which I pretended to write down. That wasn’t the right one.
I tried one of the San Diego Balfours. “This is David,” said a voice. I waited to see if it was a person or a recording. “Hello?” inquired the voice.
“Hello, my name is Susan Radford and I’m a friend of Lucy Navarro’s, and she said you’d give me some information about living in La Jolla, because I’m thinking of taking a job there and I want to have some idea what it might be like to live there and how much an apartment costs and, you know, stuff like that.” Susan is the chatty one of my multiple personalities.
“Lucy who?”
“Lucy Navarro,” I said, rolling the r’s like Lucy did. “She’s a friend of yours, isn’t she?”
I hung up. I let the second San Diego David’s phone ring fifteen times, one full minute. No answer. I’d have to try that one later.
Peters’s phone bill was mounting, but hey, he had offered. I tried the Initial-D Balfours and got two non-Davids and a no-answer. So much for the Balfours. A similar effort to get a fix on the Covenant Apartments amounted to zilch. I returned the phone to its cradle and idly scanned the bookshelves for something interesting to read.
I stopped at the title Anabolic Steroids: Facts and Comparisons. It was a thin book compared to some of the fat ones on anatomy, diseases of the skin, blood chemistry, and reproduction. I withdrew it, pulling the book on its left half way out to mark its place on the shelf. The copyright was current. I sat down to read about Nandrolex, to which the book devoted a chapter.
The first thing I learned surprised me. Nandrolex is manufactured by Wellex Corporation, a pharmaceutical company headquartered in Santa Barbara. I skipped the chemical formulation and methods of synthesis. All anabolic steroids are synthetic derivatives of testosterone, the male sex hormone. The actions are simple enough: Nandrolex promotes body tissue-building processes. Its legitimate use is for treating certain kinds of cancer and some rare blood and kidney disorders. Much of the chapter described contraindications, warnings, precautions, and adverse reactions.
These health hazards included leukemia, diabetes, seizures, vomiting, diarrhea, jaundice, and death, to name a few. Death as a health hazard! I guess that’s one way to look at it.
I was thankful that my own cancer hadn’t required so powerful a drug. Nandrolex isn’t good for us girls. It makes us grow hair where we don’t want it, lose it where we want it, and enlarges our clitorises. In short, it turns us into men. We could end up wearing comfortable shoes and have cravings for Monday night football.
The drug tweaks male sexuality, too. In mature males Nandrolex is associated with testicular atrophy, chronic priapism, and impotence. Now I understood the lugubrious air of those Soviet Olympic weightlifters of the 1980s.