"Watchtower" papers with her and dropped the other one.
Maybe Ed Molino was out on bail. Maybe one of the old refrigerators had already been hauled away.
Ruth leaned on a kitchen counter beside an open window while a dozen "maybes" spun through her mind. She felt dizzy and she craved a cigarette, even though she hadn’t smoked one in twenty years. "Meow," came from the airshaft beside the pantry. Her cat must be directly above her. She didn’t call him this time. Something didn’t sound right. Ruth tiptoed up the stairs to the top floor and found another pair of doors standing open.
The apartment on the north side was in worse shape than those on the first floor. This one was empty of furniture and appliances. The wallpaper was peeling and holes between rooms looked like someone went crazy with an axe. Huge streaks of bright graffiti jumped out at Ruth everywhere she looked. One room was painted black with splotches of fluorescent Day-Glo paint, someone’s LSD nightmare of a terrifying night sky sprayed across a cracked ceiling.
Ruth thought she heard the cat in the apartment on the north side, but there was no sign of him. She tried to remember details of the day she was here with Amanda. This was the apartment where the man was drying his head with the towel—Al Molino, they’d assumed—and he had yelled down to
"Eddie" that he’d come too early. Now Ruth saw a rusty teakettle on the front burner of a filthy gas stove. Its yellow finish was chipped in several places and it had a broken handle. The sink overflowed with dirty unmatched dishes, most of them cracked.
Ruth could stock a better kitchen at any thrift store in town.
Then she turned around and froze at the sound of a motor. The Kenmore avocado green side-by-side refrigerator/freezer was near enough to touch, but there was no way Ruth was going any closer.
She hurried past the dining room that held nothing but cardboard boxes and a drop-leaf table. She passed two closed doors on her left and came to the front room with a broken-down green plaid sofa and a coffee table covered with old Hustler magazines. In the bay window an overstuffed armchair had springs and stuffing poking out. Near the window a dead ficus tree stood in a clay pot full of cigarette butts.
"Bartholomew?" Ruth barely dared to whisper. "I know you’re here somewhere. Come out, boy. Where are you hiding?"
Ruth saw movement out of the corner of her eye. The doorway swung all the way open and she nearly screamed at the silhouette of a man. He was holding her cat in both his hands.
"Captain O’Sullivan! Oh my goodness… I’m so glad to see you.
I’ve been looking everywhere for my cat and you’ve found him at last. Thank you so much. What a relief! I almost didn’t recognize you out of your uniform. I don’t know why I’m so jumpy today, but I’ve been searching all through this creepy old apartment building. Say… maybe you’d know why the Molino brothers aren’t in jail. I’m sure I saw them driving off a little while ago. Wait a minute… I thought Officer Parker said you had the day off and you were home with—"
"Then I take it this is your missing cat, Miss Taylor?"
"Yes, that’s my naughty boy. He ran away again and I found him over here in this building the last time. He doesn’t care for my daughter at all. I mean… my houseguest. Come here now, Bart…"
Bartholomew jumped out of the policeman’s arms and into hers. When he did, Ruth saw what the cat had been concealing n Captain O’Sullivan’s right hand. It was a gun, a black Beretta. O’Sullivan pointed it at Ruth and nothing stood in his way this time.
Chapter 22
ianne soon discovered that there were any number of flights back to Texas if she didn’t mind going by way D of Chicago or Denver or LAX. She didn’t care about the cost, as long as she got out of San Francisco as soon as she could. She was ready to hire a private plane if need be. Her first priority would be to get back to Texas, see her doctor and find out how long before she’d have to start dialysis and/ or get a transplant. The less time she had, the sooner she’d have to travel to Boston and ingratiate herself with a bunch of strangers who were blood relation, whether she liked that fact or not. She dreaded having to be polite to a bunch of people who weren’t even Christians, but she had to do what she had to do.
Whichever flight she took, she still had a couple of hours to kill. She turned on the faucet in the bathroom and continued packing while the tub filled. The bath helped a little; Dianne didn’t feel as sticky as she did in that horrible hospital bed. To her delicate sensibilities, the clothes she wore back to Ruth’s apartment were so wrinkled and stale she was tempted to throw them away, even though this was one of her favorite summer dresses. She found a plastic garbage bag under the sink and packed up everything that hadn’t been laundered. Thank goodness her maid back home knew how to handle fine fabrics.
Dianne saw to that when she hired her, even though she was disappointed with the woman’s English.
While packing, Dianne came to two unpleasant realizations. First, she had no one to help her carry all her things out to the car. At least it was still parked on Collingwood, right where she’d left it, and hadn’t been towed. She knew there wouldn’t be any problem on the other end, whether her husband or children where around or not. She could simply call home and have one of the Mexicans bring a car to meet her.
Even at SFO, she didn’t foresee any trouble. Dianne knew the value of dressing well and flashing money around. It didn’t matter how many of her jewels were real or how much of her money she was actually going to part with. Menial laborers always snapped to attention when they thought they were getting a good tip. Dianne was known to wrap a one-dollar bill around a little green booklet full of prayers and Bible verses. By the time the suckers realized how little Dianne had given them, she was well on her way. She always got a laugh out of that trick and they could curse her all they wanted once she was gone.
Her second unpleasant realization was that she couldn’t find the keys to her rented town car. She was sure they would turn up somewhere in this mess, but as she filled her bags and the piles of things around them disappeared, her hopes dimmed.
Dianne went to the kitchen where she’d left her purse on a chair. A foghorn sounded in the distance and a siren screamed by, followed by another and another—fire trucks or ambulances going down Castro Street. She slammed the kitchen window shut to try to block out those depressing sounds. As far as she was concerned, this entire revolting neighborhood could burn to the ground. It would be an improvement.
Dianne jumped when Ruth’s wall phone rang in the kitchen, but Dianne didn’t dare answer it. Maybe it was the hospital calling Ruth to tell her that her daughter had escaped.
Dianne laughed and listened as the answering machine came on and recorded a young man’s voice leaving a message:
"Hi Ruth… this is Patrick at the E.T. hot line. I’m returning your call. You said you might know something about a friend of mine. I guess you must have meant mean Darryl. I’m home now. It’s the same number, if you get this before I reach you. I just tried to leave a message on your cell phone too, but I’m not sure if it took. I might have gotten cut off. Anyway, I hope you remembered to put up those flyers I gave you at the restaurant. Let me know if you need any more. I’ll try calling you there next. Bye…"
The contents of Dianne’s purse clattered out across the kitchen table. Those car keys had to be in here somewhere. She put each item back inside, but the only keys were the set Ruth had loaned her to the apartment on Collingwood. Then she remembered where the car keys had to be. The day she fainted in the restaurant she’d been searching through her purse for her wallet. She was trying to pay for a glass of wine before that chubby old bartender - what was his name – Marty? Barty? -
took the money that the black guy was offering. She certainly didn’t want to be indebted to him!
The car keys could have fallen on the floor during all the commotion when she fell or while the paramedics were taking her out to the ambulance. She didn’t remember any of it, but that was the only logical explanation
for what must have happened.
Whoever gathered up her things must have failed to put the keys back in her bag. Now she would have to make one more trip to that restaurant, just when she’d hoped to avoid ever setting foot on Castro Street again.
She’d planned on just sending Ruth a breezy note when she got home. Even though the woman wasn’t Dianne’s mother, she wouldn’t want Ruth to think she had no class. She might even send along a small gift to thank her for her hospitality.
Dianne had duplicates of some of her lesser-valued figurines that she used for such occasions. Sometimes they would set a person with half-way decent taste on the road to a lifetime of joy when they discovered the value of collectibles.
Dianne looked around Ruth’s kitchen again and had grave doubts about her taste. A big tacky rainbow flag hung down from one corner of the room and beneath it on the wall there was a calendar of bare-chested men, for heaven’s sake.
It looked like getting out of town wasn’t going to be as simple a break as she’d hoped, but she wouldn’t have to send anything if she said good-bye in person. Dianne decided that was the least she could do, since the woman raised her, after all.
Tim watched Nick stir the eyeballs in the dumpster with a rake. Nick’s shirt was off now, so Tim could watch the smooth muscles play across his back and shoulders and arms. The hair on Nick’s arms was already blond, but so many years of working out in the sun had bleached them white. The hair on Nick’s forearms thinned to a trace and disappeared altogether before it reached his smooth round biceps, then grew again in a slightly darker patch under each armpit. Tim wanted to reach out and touch the palms of his hands to Nick’s flesh, but when he tried he came awake… holding his hands above the bed.
Tim rolled over and punched the pillow, then fell back to sleep and into another dream. This time he was right here in his bedroom. Nick was here too… and Jason. At first Tim thought Nick and Jason were fighting over him, but they weren’t fighting. They were having sex with each other, sweat pouring off both of them while Tim was on the sidelines… ignored. Tim was hurt and at the same time he was furious at himself for feeling jealous over a dead man. Besides, he and Jason had been lovers too, at least for a while.
But they didn’t know each other while Jason was alive…
or did they? Nick’s grandparents lived in this apartment while Nick was growing up and Jason lived downstairs until he was murdered… there. Nick claimed he didn’t know Jason then, but was that possible?
Even if Nick and Jason had hooked up, it wouldn’t have been here in Nick’s grandparents’ home. It would have been downstairs in Jason’s apartment… or someplace else. Arms and legs flew everywhere. Nick and Jason were flying around the room and now so were eyeballs and severed heads and bits of ice, everything dripping with blood. Then the naked men in Tim’s dream were no longer Nick and Jason. They were strangers tearing each other apart.
The phone rang until it woke Tim. He had turned off the answering machine because in case Nick called he didn’t want to sleep through the four rings and make him leave a message.
Now he reached for the phone in a daze after eight rings.
"Hey Tim, it’s Patrick. I almost gave up on you. I hope I’m not disturbing anything."
"No, that’s okay. What’s up?"
"You sound sleepy. Did I wake you?"
"What time is it? I guess so, but that’s okay, really. I’ve got to get up and take a shower anyway. I’m going out to dinner with Nick later. I thought this might be him. I guess I was having a bad dream."
"Oh… sorry, well the reason I’m calling is because your Aunt Ruth left a message on the E.T. hotline. It’s my number, actually, but she didn’t know that. It’s the number that’s on that flyer with Darryl’s picture and stuff. Her message sounded like she might know something about him, but I called her at home and on her cell phone and I left messages on both of them. I called Arts and they haven’t seen her either, but they said Nick’s grandmother had been in there looking for her, too. I thought maybe she was at your place, but I guess not if you’re sleeping.
Do you have any idea where she is?"
"Um… Patrick…" Tim tried to stall for time to think. He was still half asleep. His Aunt Ruth had said something about a package left on her doorstep, but he’d been so busy telling her about the body parts in the bay and Nick coming to town for dinner tonight that he wasn’t paying as much attention as he should have. Now he felt guilty. He should have been worried about his Aunt Ruth, not Patrick. When she’d told him the police had already been there, Tim figured the situation was under control.
"I don’t know what to tell you, Patrick. She called earlier and said the police had come by her place, but she told me not to worry. She didn’t mention you or anything. I’m sorry I can’t be more help, but she’s not here, anyway… in answer to your question."
"Okay, Tim. Sorry to bother you."
"That’s okay…" Tim hated to think it might be Patrick’s missing friend being tossed about by the sea lions at Pier 39, but he didn’t want to repeat second-hand gossip. He wished his Aunt Ruth were there right now. She’d be better at handling a situation like this than Tim ever was.
"Hey Patrick?" The phone line had been quiet so long that Tim thought he might have hung up.
"Yeah, Tim?"
"I was talking to Arturo the other day and he wondered if you wanted some shifts at Arts. They need a fill-in waiter for vacations and I’m not sure whether I’m ready to go back to work quite yet."
"Maybe… yeah, that might be a good idea. I could use the money, but first I need to find Darryl. I’ll stop by there and talk to them. Maybe I’ll go today and see if your Aunt Ruth has shown up there, too. Thanks, Tim."
As soon as Tim hung up the phone with Patrick he called Nick and left a message:
"Hey Nick… if I’m not home when you get into town, come and meet me at Arts, okay? We need to talk."
Tim figured that the restaurant would be the most likely place for his Aunt Ruth to show up, unless she was with Sam.
He might be taking her to some fancy place to eat or to another luxury hotel. Tim thought about calling Hillsborough, but she’d already told him that Sam was coming into the city this evening, so why would she go there?
Tim’s nightmares made him even more uneasy than his conversation with Patrick. Something didn’t feel right and Tim didn’t want to sit here waiting for more phone calls, more questions, or more bad news. He took a quick shower and pulled on a T-shirt, a pair of jeans and some sneakers. He could get dressed again later for dinner with Nick if they went someplace nice. He still hadn’t thought about where he wanted to go or made any reservations.
Tim sat down at the bar and ordered a beer from Artie, who was too busy on the phone to answer any questions. "Ach!
All the reservations are for early seating. Everyone in the Castro wants to have dinner before the premiere of that new David Weissman documentary at the Castro Theatre."
"What time is the movie?"
"7:15… I don’t know why they have to make it so early."
"They’ll probably do a Q and A afterward, don’t you think?" But Artie was already reaching to answer the phone again. Tim had barely taken a sip of his beer when the door flew open and Dianne waltzed in looking none the worse for her hospital stay.
"Hello, Dianne," Artie said. "How are you feeling? I didn’t know you were out of the hospital already. Are you looking for your mother?"
"If I was looking for my mother, I’d have to be in Boston right now! I’m looking for my stupid car keys! This is the only place they could possibly be! Did anyone turn them in?"
Artie’s brow furrowed as he hung up the phone and turned toward Tim. "What’s your Aunt Ruth doing in Boston? I wish someone had told me about this. Arturo and I have tickets to the symphony tomorrow night, but if Ruth is in Boston… wait a minute. If you knew she was in Boston, why did you come in here looking for her?"
"She’s not in Boston, Artie," Tim
explained. "Aunt Ruth isn’t Dianne’s real mother."
"What? Oh, damn! There’s the phone again. Arts! Artie speaking… yes… two for six o’clock… no, Tim isn’t back at work yet, but I can make a note to put you in Jake’s section or James’?
What’s the name? Nelson, party of two at six o’clock with James… okay, we’ll see you then… Now, what did you say, Tim?"
"David Weissman might be doing a Q & A after the film."
"No, not that, you ninny! About your Aunt Ruth!?"
"She’s not Dianne’s real mother."
"What? How long have you known about this? Why the secrecy?"
"Dianne and I both just found out about it today. It’s kind of a long story, Artie, and maybe it’d be better if you asked her yourself sometime…"
"Well… Mrs. Musgrove was here looking for your Aunt Ruth too, but that was over an hour ago. She said she’d stop back in later, but so far there’s been no sign of her returning. I haven’t seen Ruth today at all and—"
"I said I was looking for my car keys, Farty!" Dianne interrupted. "Do you have a ‘lost and found’ department here or don’t you?"
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