There's Nothing to Be Afraid Of

by Marcia Muller

  I had asked Hung Tran about the Vietnamese street gangs, but not about other criminal activity. Perhaps he could be of help to me after all. “What about the neighborhood characters—Brother Harry, for instance? Have you ever seen him around the hotel, acting suspicious?”

  “No. I see him up on the corner near the porno theatre every day. And sometimes at a cafeteria where I eat. But not around the hotel.” She paused, a strange expression on her face. “But thinking of Harry makes me think of the guy who runs the theatre.”

  “Otis Knox.”

  “Yes. Now he’s someone I’ve seen around the hotel. Saw him there a couple of days ago, sitting in the stairwell with the Vang girl.”

  A lot of activity seemed to center on that stairwell. I said, “Which one of the Vang daughters?”

  “Dolly, the youngest. She’s only fifteen, and I wondered about her being alone with a man like Otis Knox. I meant to speak to her about him, warn her to keep her distance. But I wanted to catch her alone so I wouldn’t embarrass her.” Sallie paused, looking thoughtfully at me. “Maybe you could talk to her? Tell her he’s not suitable company?”

  “No,” I said. “I’ll do better than that. I’ll talk to Otis Knox.”

  I.Magnin has one of the most sumptuous powder rooms in the world, and it always makes me feel slightly regal to enter it. That afternoon, however, I barely glanced at the elegant ladies draped on the luxurious chairs—and I certainly didn’t bother to examine my image in the many mirrors, because I suspected it would look haggard and unkempt. Instead, I crossed to the bank of telephones—the reason I had come up there—and looked up the number of the Sensuous Showcase Theatre.

  The woman who answered told me Mr. Knox wasn’t in. When I pressed her, claiming urgent business about an insurance policy that had lapsed, she said he was making the rounds of the other theatres and then would be going home for the day. She refused to give me either his home telephone number of the address of the ranch.

  Somewhat deflated, I got out another dime and called Carolyn Bui at her office. Sounding harried, she said she was just going to a meeting with her board of directors. They were upset about the murder at the Globe Hotel and seemed to hold her personally responsible for settling refugees in a place where they could get killed. Carolyn wanted to talk with later about how the investigation was progressing and suggested we have dinner. I told her I wasn’t sure I could make it, but would check in later.

  After I hung up the phone I stood staring at it for a minute, then turned and caught my reflection in the mirror. My slacks were rumpled, my hair streamed down in an unruly mass, and my worm suede jacket showed every one of its six years. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see one of the elegant ladies watching me, clearly wondering what I was doing in a high-toned department store powder room.

  Ordinarily it would have amused me, but right now I wanted to go over and shake her, to tell her that she had no business being so smug. After all, she’d never had to support herself, never had to work long hours at a demanding and emotionally exhausting job, never had to find a boy’s broken body in the basement of the Tenderloin hotel.

  Of course, I didn’t go over to her. Instead I retrieve my car from the parking garage, and drove across town to Bernal Heights and All Souls. It was time, I had decided to confront Hank about the future of my demanding job.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  There were no parking spaces on either side of the grassy triangular park that divided the street in front of All Souls, and a white Volvo sat in the driveway. After cruising around unsuccessfully for five minutes, I parked parallel across the drive and left a note at Ted’s desk, saying I would be in Hank’s office if the Volvo’s owner wanted me to move. Then I went down the hall, ignored the Do No Disturb sign, and knocked on Hank’s door.

  An irritated growl came from within, and I entered. My boss sat behind his cluttered desk, wearing one of the plaid woodsman’s shirts he favored these days, his Brillo pad of light brown hair looking badly in need of a trim. When he saw me, he growled some more, took off his horn-rimmed glasses, and began to polish them on the tail of his shirt. His eyes, without the thick lenses, looked like a tired little boy’s.

  I said, “Do you have a few minutes?”

  He hesitated, then gestured at one of the client’s chairs. “Where have you been for the last few days?” he asked. “I haven’t seen you around.”

  “It’s hard to see somebody when you’ve always got your door closed.”

  He ignored that, inspecting the lenses of his glasses and then putting them back on. “Are you still working on the Globe Hotel job? I saw that someone was killed there.”

  Of course he would know all about it; Hank read our two daily papers—as well as those of several other major cities—with microscopic attention to detail. And if they hadn’t told him enough, he could always have called his close friend Greg Marcus for further information.

  “Yes, I’m still on it,” I said, and filled him in on what I’d been doing.

  When I finished, Hank said, “Well, stay with it as long as the client wants you to. And keep me informed how it’s going.”

  I waited, then realized it was a dismissal. Hank was not going to speculate with me as to motive or killer; he was not going to warn me to keep up with my other duties for the co-op; he was not even going to tease me about my encounter with Greg, or throw out sly comments about the lieutenant and me getting back together someday. This was not the Hank Zahn I’d known since we were both in college, and his new manner scared me even more than the tense silence that had fallen over All Souls.

  I started to get up, but then sat back down again. Hank looked at me, and I could see both annoyance and relief in his eyes. He knew what was coming.

  I said, “Isn’t it time you told me what’s going on?”

  He began to straighten a pile of papers that lay in front of him. “What do you mean?”

  “You know very well what I mean.” I began ticking items off on my fingers. “Almost everybody’s moved out of the rooms upstairs. You’re always hiding in your office. Someone’s intimidated Ted so much that he’s afraid to do his crossword puzzles. I’m getting cranky notes about leaving my car in the driveway. Good Lord, there’s not even any food in the refrigerator!”

  Hank smiled faintly. “I can see where that would pose a problem for someone of your, er, gastronomic abilities.”

  “Hank, that’s not the point and you know it. There are no people here anymore! There’s no life! Something bad is happening at All Souls, and I have a right to know what.”

  He took off his glasses and began polishing them again, apparently forgetting he had just completed that delaying exercise. After about fifteen seconds of watching him, I got up, reached across the desk, and snatched the glasses out of his hand. He stared at me, then tried to snatch them back. I moved away where he couldn’t reach them.

  “What in God’s name has come over you?” he said.

  “I want to talk about what’s going on here.”

  “I know that, but how can I talk when I can barely see you?”

  “I’ll give you back your glasses on one condition—that you put them on your nose where they belong and quit using them as a way to avoid the issue.”

  He sighed and held out his hand.

  Hank leaned forward, his strong, lean hands laced together on top of the pile of papers. He started to speak, hesitated, and then said, “I don’t know how much longer All Souls is going to exist.”

  It jolted me. I sat back, shaken. I had expected something bad—but nothing so final as this.

  “What’s happened,” he went on, “is that we’ve developed two factions among the partners. There are the newer people who’ve joined in the last few years. And there are the old hands like me, who founded the co-op.”

  I started to remind him that he along had founded All Souls, but then stopped. It was characteristic of him to give joint credit to the others, who had lent support—and often money—during
those first hard years.

  “The new people,” Hank said, “want to take All Souls in a different direction, get rid of what they call our ‘sixties image.’ The rest of us are willing to make some changes, but not everything they’re insisting on.”

  “What kind of changes do they want to make?”

  “Do away with the sliding fee scale. Start paying competitive salaries to our attorneys. Move the offices to a better location. A few people even feel the name is outdated.”

  “But that’s changing everything!”

  “I know.” He gestured wearily.

  “Well, what are you willing to go along with?”

  “Oh, I think that we should spiff the building up, create better office space. But I can’t see moving downtown or to one of those office parks down in Daly City—as has been suggested. We located here in Bernal Heights because it was convenient for our clients. A lot of them live nearby; many are too poor to own a car and too busy to hassle with a long trip downtown on the Muni. I’ll be damned if I’m going to make it more difficult for them to reach us!”

  Two flushed spots has appeared on Hank’s cheeks. I took them as a positive sign.

  “As for abolishing the sliding fee scale,” he went on, “that’s unacceptable. This co-op was founded on the principle of providing good, low-cost legal service for people who otherwise couldn’t afford it. They pay according to their income; if you take that away, you negate the reason for All Souls’ existing. I’m not saying I wouldn’t go for an increase in the fees—that’s only reasonable, given the increases in our costs. And I’m willing to stretch the budget for higher salaries and better benefits. After all, we’ve got to live too.”

  Hank paused, obviously hearing how loud his voice had risen, then started speaking again, lower it in volume but not in intensity. “Dammit, Shar, none of the original partners joined All Souls with the idea of getting rich. We knew salaries wouldn’t be competitive. We knew benefits wouldn’t be lavish. But we joined together anyway—because we wanted to help people. We wanted to do right by our fellow man.” He laughed bitterly. “Help people. Do right. I guess we are outmoded.”

  It reminded me of the thoughts I’d had on the roof of the Globe Hotel the day before—about being out of step with the eighties. I said—“Just a bunch of aging radicals, huh?”

  “That’s us.” He smiled painfully, but there was a certain pride in his words. Hank wore three-piece suits to court now; he preferred the symphony to rock concerts; he drank good Scotch rather than Ripple wine. But he could never forget what it had been like on the battlefields of Vietnam—or on the protest lines after he had returned. He believed in those abstract concepts of helping people and doing right. And because of that I felt easier about the future of All Souls.

  I said, “By ‘us,’ do you mean people like Anne-Marie?”

  “Yes, she’s one who’s on my side. She moved out because she couldn’t both work and live in this oppressive atmosphere, but she’s still solidly behind me. So are Harold and Walt and Michele.”

  “And the other side—they’re people like Gilbert Thayer?”

  “Yes. In fact, he’s the ringleader.”

  I thought of the note Gilbert had left on my car the previous afternoon, telling me not to park in the driveway. And then I pictured Gilbert himself—a slender young man with a lounge-lizard mustache, prominent teeth, and a sour expression that made him look like a dyspeptic rabbit.

  “You should see your face.” Hank said.

  “Well, I’ve never like Gilbert. You’ve got to admit, both in looks and disposition, he’s one of your more unappetizing specimens.”

  “His ideology bothers me far more than his temperament or looks. People like Gilbert have always existed in the profession, but it’s a breed I’ll never understand. And we’re seeing more and more of them coming out of the law schools lately. They don’t see the law as a framework for protecting the individual’s rights; instead they consider it a system under which a few—primarily themselves—can benefit. And within that system, the ordinary client is little more than a revenue-producing unit.”

  He was right—and that was even more scary than the possible demise of All Souls. “Hank,” I said, “I still don’t see how people like Gilbert can just walk in here and try to take control.”

  “They’re not just walking in, Shar. They’re partners.”

  “But you and Anne-Marie and the others—you’ve been here longer. Don’t you have seniority?”

  “No. And I suppose that’s my fault. It’s ironic, too—Gilbert and his supporters are accusing me of living back in the sixties, when actually it was my attempt to bring All Souls into the eighties that put power in their hands in the first place.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “A few years ago I decided we needed to offer fuller services to our clients. Oh, we had a few specialists, like Anne-Marie on tax law, but basically we didn’t have the expertise our clients needed. So I set out to recruit people with those specialties—Gilbert on contract law, for instance. And I quickly found out that my colleagues are more money-oriented now than they were when we graduated. I couldn’t afford more established professionals, so I had to recruit them from law schools. And even with new graduates, I had to offer more than a low salary, a room on the second floor, and a lot of job satisfaction. What I ended up offering was full partnerships.”

  “You mean people like Gilbert have as much say in what happens around here as you do?”

  “That’s it.”

  Once again, he’d stunned me. And suddenly I had a horrible suspicion. “Hank,” I said, “if Gilbert’s faction has its way, what do they intend to do about my job?”

  He looked uncomfortable.

  “Hank!”

  “They want to contract with an outside agency. They claim we don’t have enough work to support an on-staff investigator.”

  I thought of the ten-and twelve-hour days I routinely put in. I thought of the witnesses I interviewed, the court cases I testified in, the documents I delivered or filed. I thought of the cases I’d solved that had put All Souls’ name on the front page of the newspapers and brought new clients to our door.

  “I know,” Hank said gently.

  “You know! Is that all you can say—you know?”

  There was a knock at the door, then it burst open so hard it banged into the wall. Gilbert Thayer—the devil we’d been speaking of—stood there, his little mustached twitching indignantly. “Sharon,” he said, “you’ve parked so I can’t get out of the driveway!”

  So that was who owned the white Volvo. “I’ll be with you in a minute, Gilbert,” I said, reaching for my keys and turning back to Hank.

  Gilbert remained standing there, breathing wheezily. I glanced back. “I said I’ll be right with you.”

  “Sharon,” he said, “I left you a note yesterday about using the driveway.”

  “I’m not in the driveway, Gilbert. I’m in the street.”

  Damned if the corners of Hank’s mouth didn’t quirk up.

  “Nonetheless,” Gilbert said stuffily, “the driveway is not for your convenience.”

  It was the same phrase he had used in his note. The driveway, according to Gilbert, was for the convenience of the attorneys only. I began to smile, wickedly.

  Hank looked puzzled.

  “Gilbert,” I said, “where do you live?”

  “At Potrero Towers. You know that.” The Towers was a luxury condominium complex, where, as Gilbert was fond of telling anyone who would listen, his father had bought him a unit.

  “I see. And whose convenience is the driveway for?”

  Now Hank began to smile, with a wickedness that matched my own.

  Gilbert, however, was so caught up in his self-righteous anger that he didn’t realize his error. “Sharon, I need to get out of here. Now, will you move your car?”

  “According to your note to me yesterday, the driveway is for the convenience of the attorneys—bit it’s really f
or the residents. I believe that’s written into the house rules. It’s never been enforced, because people realize parking is tight, and they try to get along and make one another’s lives easier.”

  “Still, it is a rule—”

  “Gilbert, you’re in violation of it, then. You’re not a resident.”

  There was a long silence behind me. When I looked over my shoulder at him, his bunny-rabbit face was absolutely still.

  “You’re not more a resident here than I am, Gilbert,” I said. “Since you do not choose to live here, the driveway is not for your convenience either.”

  An ugly red tinge began to spread over his face. His nose and mustache twitched furiously. I wished I had a carrot to feed him.

  Finally he said, “You. . . you . . .you move your car!”

  “Sorry, Gilbert.” I turned to Hank. Hank had one hand pressed against his forehead and was staring at the pile of papers in front of him. His shoulders were shaking.

  “I’ll have it towed!” Gilbert said. “I will, I will have it towed, you’re blocking a driveway, it’s illegal. I’ll have it towed.”

  Suddenly Hank snorted. I stared at him in amazement. He snorted again.

  Sometimes, in my moments of social duress, when I know I should control my mirth but can’t, I let forth with embarrassing sounds that resemble a pig rooting in its trough. I had often caused Hank discomfort by doing so, but now it appeared he finally understood the impulse.

  “Move that car!” Gilbert shouted. “You move that car right now!”

  “Sorry, Gilbert.”

  “The police, I’ll call 911!”

  “The number to call to have a car towed is 553-1631, Gilbert.”

  The door slammed as Gilbert departed.

  It took a moment for Hank to get himself under control. When he finally did, he said, “Aren’t you worried about your car?”

  “Nope. It’s nearly four o’clock, the time they start clearing the tow-away zones. It will take them at least an hour to even get a cop out here.”