by Lisa Lutz
“I’m flattered, ‘Frank,’ 3 but I’m not that kind of girl. But even if I were, I’m not worth this kind of money.”
“Ms. Spellman, I’ve seen your bank account. This money could keep you for a while.”
“What is it that you want from me?” I asked.
“Information.”
“I don’t have any information. Do you?”
“Who hired you?” “Frank” asked.
“Who hired you?”
Long, awkward silence. As previously mentioned, I’m really comfortable with that these days; therapy has been good for me.
“Is there any way I can compel you to cooperate?” Frank asked.
“Under the threat of violence, I’d sing like a canary,” I said, tossing the envelope on the seat next to Frank.
“I’m not that kind of man,” he replied.
“What kind of man are you?” I asked.
“Thank you for your time, Ms. Spellman.”
On cue, the driver opened the passenger-side door, hinting not-so-subtly for my exit. I hopped out of the car and turned back to look at “Frank” one last time, to log him into my memory.
“What just happened here?” I asked.
“Watch your step, Isabel,” was the last thing he said. The driver shut the passenger door and quickly pulled onto the road.
As I walked back to my car, I wondered just what kind of mess I had gotten myself into. An hour and fifteen minutes later, after the women had finished their fancy lunch and returned to their cars, I decided to follow Sharon home. While we both crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, my phone rang.
“Isabel! Isabel. Are you alright?” my dad said.
“Oops,” I said. I had left the message but forgot to call him back. “Sorry, Dad. I’m fine.”
“Give me the code phrase,” he said.
“No, that’s not my marijuana,” 4 I said.
“You almost gave me a heart attack. I picked up my voice mail, heard your call, and realized that it happened an hour ago. What’s going on?”
“I’m fine, Dad. I’ll call you later with some kind of explanation, if I can figure out what’s going on. Bye.”
I hung up as my dad was shouting my name. I followed Sharon to her Mill Valley home. The tony neighborhood in Marin didn’t lend itself to long-term stakeouts. I tailed Sharon to see if anyone else was tailing her. As far as I could tell, no one was. Sharon entered her home and I returned to the city.
On my return across the bridge, Milo phoned me.
“There’s a guy at the bar asking around for you. What do you want me to tell him?”
“Tell him I’ll be right there.”
THE GUY AT THE BAR
I had assumed Milo was talking about Henry. Not sure why. Imagine my disappointment when I found Rick Harkey sitting at the bar, nursing a whiskey neat. As far as I know, Harkey has only two faces: the caricature of a good-hearted fellow (who will turn on you at a moment’s notice) and the very real cruel bastard (who will turn on you at a moment’s notice). Basically, they’re both the same person; it’s just the mask that’s different.
Connor gave me a look when I entered the bar that I couldn’t quite translate, but it seemed to indicate caution. I sat down on the stool next to Harkey and summoned a superficial but cheery demeanor.
“Rick, this is my bar. You’re going to have to find one of your own.”
“Isabel,” he said, slowly turning to face me. Harkey, wearing a loosened tie, dark gray slacks, and a well-made oxford shirt rolled up to his elbows, was wearing his second mask. I hadn’t seen it firsthand, so it was a bit unnerving. I could see the tight muscles in his arms twitch and his jaw clench as he spoke to me. He looked like a wildcat ready to pounce.
“What can I do for you?” I asked, trying to control the tension with excessive friendliness.
“You can tell me what you’re up to, for starters,” Harkey said. Even in the forgiving light of the bar, Harkey looked worn, older. I took pleasure in that, imagining it was all my doing.
“This and that,” I replied with a toothy smile.
Connor approached as Harkey’s fist tightened. I could tell the Irishman was keeping a close watch. He didn’t like Harkey one bit. Who did?
“At urr ya drinkin, orgeous?” Connor asked.
I ordered a Guinness to keep Connor close by.
Harkey whispered, to keep the conversation private, “What do you know, Isabel?”
I whispered back, “According to my tenth-grade math teacher, less than nothing.” 1
“Do you want to be friends or do you want to be enemies?”
“I’m aiming for casual acquaintance.”
“Don’t fuck with me, sweetheart,” Harkey said.
Connor made a big show of pulling the slow pint; he even whistled a bit. He was growing on me.
“Listen, Rick,” I said at the same low volume, “I know you think you’re holding all the cards here, but you’re not.”
Harkey smiled to suggest I was bluffing, but the smile was a bluff in itself. Connor served my drink.
“You’re a guppy playing with sharks,” Harkey said, tossing some bills on the bar.
“Maybe,” I replied, finding the analogy particularly amusing. “I’m also a guppy with very sharp teeth.”
“Still a guppy.”
“A guppy who is tired of the guppy analogy, but, in keeping with it, can send one of those sharks to prison. And your kind of shark 2 wouldn’t do so well in the pen.”
“You think you have something on me?” Harkey asked, looking amused. Then he let out a big mess of a laugh. Since people like Harkey have no real sense of humor, their laughs always sound fake even if they believe them to be real. I interrupted the guffaws to get him to shut up.
“Are you not familiar with California Penal Code section 631-A? It makes the taping of a private communication illegal unless all parties consent.”
Harkey appeared confused until my comment registered and his color faded just a bit. I smiled. He kept his seemingly unmoved gaze on me, but I could see his insides twitching.
I reached for my beer, but Harkey grabbed my wrist and held it on the bar. His fingers tightened to just the point of pain.
“Sweetheart, I’d watch myself if I were you.”
Connor then dug his fingers into Harkey’s wrist.
“Sweetheart,” he said to Harkey, “if you wan ta keep yar hand, I’d get the fuck outta here and not come back.”
Connor looked downright scary. I wondered what kind of brawls he’d gotten into in his homeland. I was glad to have him on my side. Harkey loosened his grip, Connor loosened his, everyone held everyone’s gaze, like a Mexican standoff, and finally Harkey turned on his heels and left the bar.
Once I caught my breath, I turned to Connor and smiled as friendly a smile as he’d ever see again.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Sure ya know wat ur doin?” he asked.
“Nope,” I replied.
I left the bar and returned to my new neighborhood, hunting for close to twenty-five minutes for a parking space that was within a mile of David’s and my house. I jotted my car’s location down in my notebook and headed toward our place. Lately, I had taken to keeping a pair of travel binoculars in my bag. I scoped the perimeter
around the residence and noticed that David was in the midst of doing something resembling garage cleaning. Since it was Monday and David should have been at work, I decided to investigate.
The first thing I did was call his office from my cell phone.
“May I speak to David Spellman?” I asked.
“He’s not in.”
“When do you expect him?”
“I’m not sure. Can I take a message?”
“No, thanks.”
David’s vague receptionist made his extended absence (going on seven weeks now) all the more intriguing. Since I hadn’t played the I-was-in-the-neighborhood game for a while, I thought I’d fake a drop-by and see what was new in the world of David Spellman—and maybe solve this mystery once and for all. Besides, my only other option was finding some way to occupy myself for the next few hours until I could go home. 3
It’s probably not wise to startle someone in the middle of a balancing act.
“What on earth are you doing?” I asked David as he stood on a stepladder and pulled a box from the top shelf of his garage.
“Ouch,” he said, right before he toppled to the ground. Then when he made contact with the cement, he said, “Shit,” then “Isabel!” then “What are you doing here?”
I waited to see whether my brother had any permanent injuries. If he did, I’d probably have made a run for it, but he was fine. Maybe a bruise here or there, but nothing that would cause any more guilt than I already had for living in his home without his knowledge.
“I was in the neighborhood,” I said nonchalantly. I didn’t apologize for causing the crash landing, because I’ve discovered that if you ignore things, sometimes the other party will ignore them, too.
“Why didn’t you park in the driveway?” David asked.
(Normally if I’m in the neighborhood I park in his driveway, since parking in Russian Hill is brutal—I know, you know.)
“I found a space a few blocks away. Figured I should take it in case you were expecting company. Why aren’t you at work?”
“Why are you dropping by when you think I’m at work?”
“I was going to sit on your step and mooch off your wireless.”
“What’s wrong with a café?” David asked.
“Not thirsty. Your turn: Why aren’t you at work?”
“Taking the day off,” David said, and then he proceeded to pull everything out of a yellowed file box.
“Just the day or many days?” I asked.
“I’m using up my vacation time,” David answered.
“To clean your garage?”
The contents of the box were clearly relics of the past—a magic set from his tenth or eleventh birthday, 4 a stack of unopened baseball cards, a deflated football, and a rock collection. I have approximately ten boxes of stuff from my youth that will remain forever (or at least until the threat of destruction) in my parents’ garage. I remember some seven or eight years ago watching David sort through his life’s accumulation and reduce his early years to one box. My mother suggested his downsizing was over the top, but he insisted on simplifying his life when an interior decorator took over his home and defined his sense of style. I had a particular vendetta against this decorator since she made David give up a coffee table I gave him for his twenty-fourth birthday. 5 All this passed through my mind as David hunted desperately through the box, ignoring my question. I moved on to a more pertinent inquiry.
“What are you looking for?”
“My rabbit’s foot,” David said as if the answer was patently obvious.
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” David said, looking concerned. “I just have to find it.”
“Is something wrong with you?” I asked, and then regretted the phrasing immediately.
“Isabel,” David said with a tone of warning. “I’m having a bad day. No, I’m having a bad year. If you plan on being in my vicinity, you have to behave like a human being. Not like yourself.”
“Ouch,” I replied pleasantly.
“Got it?” David asked sternly.
“I got it,” I said without an atom of attitude. 6
Fortunately, my phone rang, which spared David the unhelpful suggestion I was currently forming into a sentence. 7
“Hello?” I said. You’re probably thinking in this day and age I should know who’s calling on my cell phone, but some people still like to block their caller ID to keep you on your toes.
“Izzy, it’s Dad.”
Some of those people I’m related to.
“Hi, Dad,” I said.
“Do you know whose car you got into today?”
“Nope. But he didn’t kill me, which makes me think fondly of him.”
“Frank Waverly.”
“He looked more like a Jimmy to me.”
“Does that ring a bell, Isabel?”
“No. But there aren’t any bells around here.”
“You don’t keep up on current events.”
“I’d like to skip over the traditional constructive criticism part of this conversation to where you tell me who he is.”
“He’s a political consultant.”
“That’s so cool,” I said. “A political consultant offered me a bribe.”
“What?!” Dad shouted. “You didn’t mention that.”
“I just did.”
“More details.”
“Okay, he asked me to get in the car. He then handed me an envelope with five thousand dollars in it and asked me for information. Since I had no idea what he was talking about, I said no, which was a mistake, because it’s more than enough money for me.”
“Isabel, we need to talk about this. Come up with a plan.”
“Dad, there’s nothing to discuss yet, since I don’t know anything.”
“Come by the house.”
“I’m busy looking for a rabbit’s foot, okay? I’ll talk to you later.”
Dad’s news was intriguing and required some follow-up investigation. None of which I could do unless I got inside my apartment, which meant I had to get David inside his.
As you may recall, I spent days searching David’s house from top to bottom. I remembered not one but two rabbit’s feet. I remember them because they seemed so out of place. A white one in the back of the junk drawer in his kitchen and an old soggy brown one in his office—third drawer on the right of his desk—that David had acquired on a Spellman camping trip (circa 1992) that all members wished to never duplicate again.
“What does it look like?” I asked.
“You don’t know what a rabbit’s foot looks like?” David rudely replied.
“You know they’re not actually feet.”
At this point, David was pretty much done with me. Like many before him, he pretended I wasn’t there. To redeem myself, I entered his house and found the two rabbit’s feet I recalled from my massive hunt.
I returned to the garage and opened the palms of my hands, presenting the offerings. David ignored the clean, white, faux foot and picked up the aged and soggy one as if it were a precious medallion.
“Thank you,” he said, in awe. “How’d you find it?”
“How do you think?” I replied, hinting at the wild goose chase he’d prompted not too long ago.
“Finally some good comes out of y
our snooping. I’ll make you dinner to celebrate,” David cheerily replied.
I followed pod-David into his house and let him cook for me. His previous mood had lifted in an odd, unnatural way. I would have loved to have gone home to do some research on the new angle on the Bancroft case, but I had some research on my brother that I needed to handle first. I’d followed too many wildly opposing leads in the past few weeks to have any real objectivity when it came to David. I tried to erase all the previous sensational theories from my head and start fresh. All I knew for sure was that he had changed, and something was going on in his life to prompt that change. I stayed for dinner, ate his food, and asked whatever questions I could get away with.
David grilled fish on the porch, and I watched him while drinking a beer. I love cooking.
“How much more vacation time do you have?”
“A few weeks.” 8
“How was your weekend with Rae?” I asked, not all that interested in the Rae part.
“It wasn’t so bad,” he replied.
“What did you do?”
I was hoping the vague question would spark the answer to my one real question: What was Maggie doing there?
“We watched some movies, ate s’mores, she studied a lot—seemed unusually concerned about a bad test score—and, um, she invited this woman over. A new friend of hers.”
“You mean Maggie?” I said. “Henry’s ex-girlfriend?”
“Yes, do you know her?” David asked.
“I do,” I replied.
“She seems nice.”
“She is nice. Why did Rae invite her over?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Strange, don’t you think?”
“Well, yes,” David said, turning his attention to the fish. Except that it seemed like he was showing me he was concentrating on the grill and not our conversation. At least that was my impression.
“What did you all talk about?” I asked.
“All sorts of things,” David replied.
