by Lind, Hailey
“There’s one more thing. His son has been in rehab twice for methamphetamine addiction. Looks like Carlos took out a home-equity loan to pay for his treatment.”
Poor Juan, I thought. And poor Carlos.
“At least tell me why you’re interested in the guy, Annie.”
I hesitated, not wanting to slander Carlos but worried that if I didn’t tell Pedro the whole story he might come across something crucial without realizing it. “I think he may be connected to the recent theft of a painting at the Brock Museum.”
“No shit? Maybe he’s smuggling the paintings into Mexico to fence them, huh?”
“Yeah, I think there’s a bar in Tijuana that specializes in that sort of thing.” Pedro’s image of Mexico seemed to be the Wild West with a dash of Casablanca. “Thanks for the research, my friend. I’m pretty sure the man’s not running drugs, but it never hurts to keep an open mind. Oh and, Pedro?”
“Yeah?”
“You and I are going to take a little vacation to Mexico, you got that? You’re going to love it and rediscover your heritage.”
“I know my heritage just fine. Can you say the same?”
“Roger that, my friend. Mine keeps biting me on the butt, remember?”
We disconnected, and I wondered what my next step should be. Would I have to accuse Carlos of theft to save Bryan? Or had the stories of ransom notes and Nazis put an end to Bryan’s problems with the Brock? What Carlos had done was wrong, but did I want to be the one to finger him?
Wait—that sounded wrong.
I decided to speak with Carlos one more time. I called his home number but got a machine, so I tried the Brock only to be told that he had taken some personal time. It was not clear when he would return to work.
I scuffed down the hall to the kitchen, put water on for coffee, and checked my phone messages. My mother had called to report that she was back in Asco, safe and sound. Pete had called twice to check on my welfare. Bryan phoned three times to see if I had gotten home. Michael left a message confirming he would pick me up at my apartment tonight at seven o’clock. Lastly, Josh had called “just to say hi.” He was so sweet, with no discernible ulterior motives. Other than wanting to see me naked, but that was a motive I could get behind.
Humming to myself, I took the whistling kettle from the stove and poured boiling water over a coneful of freshly ground Peet’s French roast coffee. It was fun to have gentlemen callers. True, one was gay, one was like a brother, and one was a no-good art thief. But still. I bet this was what Blanche Dubois felt like. Just call me the Femme Fatale of Faux Finishes. The Siren of San Francisco. The Chick of China Basin. The . . . Ogre of Oakland? Oaf of Oakland? How come nothing flattering started with an O?
The phone shrilled and I jumped, spilling coffee down my white T-shirt. I slammed the half-empty mug on the table, plucked the shirt away from my skin, grabbed a towel, and snatched up the phone. “What?”
“Good morning. Is there some problem with the alarm in your studio?” Frank DeBenton asked in his stuffiest landlord voice.
“Not that I know of.”
“You do understand the concept of disarming and rearming the alarm in your studio, all in a coordinated fashion, upon entering or leaving?”
“Let me take a wild guess, Frank. Did the alarm go off again?”
“Yes. Yes it did.”
“When?”
“About ten minutes ago.”
“So why are you calling me? Maybe you should be looking for a burglar.”
“We’ve already secured the premises and the guard is on alert. Since you are not the culprit, I am inclined to think that one of your many friends or acquaintances tripped the alarm,” he said. “Perhaps you would be good enough to share with your many friends and acquaintances the fact that the studio has an alarm, and that said alarm will go off if the window is jimmied and/or the door rattled vigorously.”
“‘And/or’?” I teased, but my landlord was in tight-ass mode and did not reply. “Okay, Frank. I’ll remind my ‘many friends and acquaintances’ that when they come to the studio they are not to break in the windows, jimmy the locks, pound on the door, or rappel from the roof.”
“Why would anyone rappel from the roof?”
“You’d be surprised,” I murmured, and hung up.
I took a moment to savor what remained of my coffee and gazed out the window. The kitchen’s dormers were framed by large green leaves from the ancient mulberry trees lining the street. Each fall the trees dropped hard, round seedpods, and last year I had gathered a handful, dipped them in paint, and rolled them on a large canvas. It created an intriguing design that I’d dubbed Autumn Solstice and sold for a hefty sum during the Open Studios art show.
That was back when I did things like paint and earn a living. The past few days I had mostly spent chasing rumors and ghosts.
Take last night’s gruesome discovery. First McGraw’s body, then his missing fingers—how had I managed to find both? Assuming those were McGraw’s fingers, that is. But if they were, how had they ended up in one of Pascal’s sculptures? Was Francine Maggio correct in suggesting that Pascal was a homicidal sculptor who murdered his rivals? If so, he had taken his own sweet time about it. More than three decades separated the deaths of Eugene Forrester and Seamus McGraw.
But even if Pascal had murdered McGraw, why would he entomb his fingers in a sculpture? Maybe it was a matter of expediency—it beat stuffing them down the garbage disposal, I supposed—but then why hang McGraw’s body in a high-profile art show? That sounded more like someone was making a statement. I wondered whether Annette Crawford had learned anything more at Pascal’s last night.
One thing was clear: I was accomplishing nothing sitting in my kitchen in a damp T-shirt. I went to the bedroom and started to pull on my painting overalls when I remembered the morning’s agenda. Even I wouldn’t go clothes shopping in scruffy overalls. Rats. I opted for a dark blue linen wrap-around skirt and a light-blue sweater, and laced up my comfy boots. I hated shopping, but at least this time, with Michael’s money burning a hole in my pocket, I could afford something nice.
I picked up a middle-aged man from the casual carpool, zipped past the bottleneck at the Bay Bridge toll plaza, and screeched to a halt at the mouth of the Yerba Buena Island tunnel. The commute was rarely this bad, so I switched on the radio for a traffic update. Sarah and No Name, of the Alice radio station, reported gleefully that a truckload of Porta Potties had spilled their brimming contents on the western span of the bridge and proposed a “Name That Traffic Jam!” contest. I laughed out loud at the increasingly scatological suggestions. My favorite was “When the Shit Hits the Span,” though my passenger hid behind his Wall Street Journal and ignored the Alice morning show and me. It took forty minutes to inch across the bridge, drop my boring carpooler at the corner of Howard and Fremont, and speed to the DeBenton Building, where I squeezed into a space next to Frank’s gleaming Jaguar. I raced up the stairs, and when I opened the door to my studio the lovely aroma of dark roast coffee perfumed the air.
“Pete?” I called out, dropping my backpack on a crowded worktable.
His broad, friendly face peered around the partition separating the kitchenette from the chaos of my studio. “Annie! I called you twice yesterday! Your mother, she is here?”
“She had to get back home,” I said, flinging open the windows to allow the fresh air from the bay to fill the studio. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you back.”
“The bondage between mother and child is most special,” Pete said sagely and emerged with a tray bearing three cappuccinos, three spoons, and the sugar bowl. With surprising grace he lowered the tray onto the wicker coffee table near the sofa. “One day you must join my family for Sunday dinner. Mama’s cevapcici were to decease for, as you say, and the bosanski lonac, well, what is Sunday dinner without it?”
“Sounds yummy. So, who’s joining us?” I asked, glancing at the third cup and hoping to steer the conversation away from food. If
Pete became inspired to make his signature cabbage rolls we would all be sorry.
“Morning, all.” As if on cue, Samantha glided in, sat next to Pete on the velvet couch, and availed herself of the third cappuccino. “So Annie, love, are you ready to worship at the shrine of the capitalist fashionistas?”
I had to laugh. Mary and I privately called Sam, a jewelry designer, and her husband Reggie, a social worker, Natural Born Capitalists. Twenty years ago they had bought a rundown building in a dicey downtown neighborhood and renovated it with an artistic eye and plenty of sweat equity. Their investments now brought in enough income to enable them to support progressive political causes, send their son and daughter to private colleges, and take care of their elderly parents in Jamaica.
“You bet!” I sang out with false cheer. “You know how much I like to go shopping!” Fancy pants department stores scared the bejabbers out of me. On our last expedition I’d started hyperventilating from a combination of the exorbitant prices, the size of my hips, and the climate-controlled air.
“Take a couple of deep breaths, now, you’ll be fine,” Sam crooned. “I must say, Annie, you give a whole new meaning to the phrase shop till you drop.”
“Hey there!” Mary called out as she breezed in. “What’s up?”
“Shhh,” Sam said. “Annie’s just breathing.”
“Uh-oh. Where are we going?” Mary asked in a hushed voice.
“Neiman Marcus.”
Mary gave a soft whistle. “C’mon, Annie. It’ll be fun. Sam and I will protect you.”
“Very funny, you two. I’m fine.” I squared my shoulders and led the way down the exterior stairs, but when we reached the parking lot I realized we had a transportation problem. Mary biked everywhere and Sam refused to drive in the City. Public transportation in China Basin was sketchy, and a taxi would cost a fortune. That left my small truck. Mary won a round of “rock, paper, scissors” and slid triumphantly into the center of the bench seat, where shifting into reverse would provide her with an interesting diversion.
Neiman Marcus commanded one corner of Union Square, some of the City’s priciest commercial real estate. A long bank of brass and glass doors beckoned the well heeled to enter the shrine, whose grand entry soared five stories and was topped with a magnificent stained-glass skylight. Sparkling glass counters filled the floor space and boasted tasteful jewelry, expensive perfumes, and custom-blended makeup from around the world. The counters were staffed by men and women in elegant dress eager to please the store’s elegant clientele.
I glanced at my not-so-elegant outfit and had another crisis of confidence. I was happy in a Mexican bazaar, overjoyed in a Turkish marketplace, and at home at Paris’ Marché des Puces. But drop me in an upscale American department store and I tended to use the restroom, spritz myself with perfume, and head straight for the exit.
Mary lagged behind at the makeup counters while Sam marched me to the elevator. We whooshed to the fourth floor, where the doors slid open with a muted ping to reveal the Designer Dresses department. She herded me toward an alcove to our left that offered a multitude of Little Black Dresses in silks, satins, and supple blends.
“How do you know about this place?” I whispered, poking halfheartedly through a rack of dresses.
“Oh, Mia loves this store.” Mia was Sam’s beautiful, accomplished daughter, now a freshman at Stanford. “I suppose it’s sort of a rebellion against my natural fabrics and batik prints. Still, it’s hard not to admire the quality, though it would drive me insane to pay the dry-cleaning bill.”
A woman glided over, slender, chic, and impeccably well mannered in the way of all Neiman Marcus sales associates. She was attired in a tasteful charcoal pantsuit, her pale blond hair drawn into a sleek bun at the nape of her swanlike neck.
“Good morning, ladies. My name is Teri. May I be of assistance?” She sized me up, her tone polite but guarded.
“Good morning, Teri,” Sam replied with an air of haughtiness, and Teri relaxed, reassured that Sam spoke the Code. She spared me not a glance, since it was clear I was not a Code Talker.
“We’re looking for just the right thing for my friend here to wear to a cocktail party in Hillsborough,” Sam said, flipping through a selection of high-priced ensembles.
“Ah?” Teri hitched her shoulders slightly and smiled. “What fun!”
Sam and Teri put their heads together in an intense discussion before falling silent and strafing me with their eyes. I smiled weakly. As if on cue, they broke the huddle and scattered. The Hunt had begun in earnest.
Twenty minutes later—just as I was considering slipping behind a bank of voluminous ball gowns for a catnap—Teri appeared and escorted me to a large changing room decorated in melting shades of bisque, cream, and peach. I sank onto an upholstered brocade bench and glared at the eight chic dresses that lined the wall with the precision and warmth of a firing squad. I fought a sudden urge for a cigarette, which was odd since I didn’t smoke.
“In for a penny, in for a hundred thousand pounds,” my grandfather used to say, so I left my comfortable clothes in a sad heap on the bench and stepped into the first dress, a black fitted number I could not get past my hips. I drop-kicked the offending garment into a corner and slipped on a sweet burgundy number with a swishy skirt. The good news was I could get the dress on. The bad news was I looked ready for a sock hop.
Go daddy-o.
Sam and Teri knocked on the louvered door.
“How’s it going in there, ma’am?” Teri chirped.
“How do they look, love?”
“I haven’t found the, uh, perfect thing yet,” I said, chucking the sock hop dress and struggling into a frothy purple concoction with large white polka dots.
“Try this one,” Teri said, thrusting a garment over the top of the door. “And this would be great with your coloring,” she added, tossing in another. I scurried around, picking up piles of froufrou fabric and ducking when Teri lobbed in a pair of high heels to try on with the dresses.
“Let’s see you, love.”
I emerged, half zipped. Teri and Sam stared for a moment and returned to the Hunt without saying a word.
“Hey!” I called after them. “A little encouragement would be appreciated!”
Several demoralizing changes of clothes later I found an outfit that looked halfway decent on me. And, miracle of miracles, it seemed a little large. I could probably go a size smaller, if they had one. I slipped on the heels and tottered out of the dressing room, determined to prove to Teri and Sam that I could look hot. I finally found them huddled near the spring velvets. “What about this one?”
The women cocked their heads.
“Not bad. Not bad at all,” Samantha said, her head tilted to the right.
“It’s the right style,” Teri confirmed, her head tilted to the left. “I’m not convinced it’s perfect, though. And it is a little big. Oh! I know!”
She was leading us towards a clutch of disturbingly spangled gowns when I became aware of a strong odor. I looked to see if anyone else had noticed. Sam’s nostrils were quivering, and Teri looked distressed.
“What is that?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” Teri replied, her eyes squinting and a manicured hand held up to her nose.
“Gaack.” I spied Mary rounding the corner.
“How’s it going?” she called out, her face plastered in so many layers of makeup that she looked ready for Mardi Gras.
“What perfume is that?” I gagged as Sam coughed and took a step backwards.
“It’s my signature scent. Whaddya think? I tried a few others first, you know, Chanel and Ralph Lauren and all the big names. I’m not sure how well they mixed with the botanicals, though.”
“What’s with the clown face?” I asked.
“New chick at the Marquesa Cosmetics counter.” She grinned. “I kept telling her, ‘More, more!’ until the floor manager said I was scaring the other customers and asked me to leave. Cool, huh?”
&nb
sp; By now our overloaded olfactory systems had shut down, and Sam and I started to laugh. Teri looked appalled. Mary lingered, making snide comments about the dresses, before growing bored and wandering off.
Sometime later Sam held up a black velvet dress and announced in triumph, “I found it!”
It was sleeveless and almost backless, with a modified halter top capped by a beaded band like a choker. Radiating from the neckband were long strings of beads that pointed toward where my cleavage would be. Spaghetti straps crisscrossed in back, which would allow my skin to play peekaboo above the invisible zipper. It was very pretty. Very stylish. It just wasn’t me.
“There’s not much to it, is there?” I said.
“Teri didn’t like it either. Neither of you has any imagination. Just try it on, please?”
The aroma of inadvisably mixed chemicals preceded Mary’s appearance by a good ten seconds.
“Guess what!” she crowed. “I’m getting my own personal shopper!”
We stared at her.
“They have this service where you tell them the sorts of things you like, they take your measurements, and when you need something, you call her up and she selects stuff for you. My personal shopper is LaTanya. Can you beat that? She’s great. She’s a Pisces, which is just perfect for me. . . .” She drifted off again.
Sam waved the dress at me. “Well?”
“Okay, I’ll try it on.” I returned to the dressing room and closed the door, but continued talking. “You’ll have to find some kind of wrap to go with it, though, because I can’t be hanging out all over the place. Not with this guy.”
“Ooh, do tell,” I heard Teri squeal. “Who is he?”
“He’s one of those guys. You know the kind. Gorgeous, funny, interesting, smart. Gracious when he wants to be.”
“And the problem is?” Sam asked.
“He’s also a jerk. Totally unreliable. Probably has hundreds of girlfriends.”
“But sexy,” Teri said.
“Incredibly.”
