Wolf in the Shadows

by Marcia Muller

  I frowned and glanced through the barred window at the parking lot. Vic noticed my discomfort and muttered, “I’d like to bust Pete’s face!”

  “We’ll let my brother take care of him,” I said. “In the meantime, can I ask a favor of you?”

  “I figure I owe you one. What d’you need?”

  “A ride to the Avis rental car office downtown.”

  “No problema. And I know how to do it so if anybody’s watching, they’ll never suspect a thing. I’ll just have my stock boy take you out of here like a sack of potatoes in my delivery van.”

  I wasn’t sure I cared for the comparison, but I went along without complaint.

  * * *

  While I was waiting for my latest rental car to be brought around, I called Ron Chan’s number from a pay phone in the office. No answer. Next I dropped more coins in the slot and punched out the number I’d found earlier in the directory. Professor Emeritus Harold Haslett of U.C. San Diego wasn’t at his Point Loma residence, but a pleasant-voiced woman who said she was his housekeeper told me I could find him down at the harbor. When I asked where, she replied vaguely, “Oh, anywhere near the G Street Mole.” G Street Mole is what old-timers call the area that’s been renamed Tuna Harbor, and as I hung up I wondered why Professor Haslett—a friend of Melvin Hunt, whom I’d met at the buffet supper he and my mother had given on Christmas Eve—was spending his Saturday in what was basically a tourist trap.

  My transportation, a perky white Toyota Tercel that I rented with a cash deposit, arrived just then. After I got in and familiarized myself with it, I set off to follow the lead that had seemed so promising the night before.

  San Diego Bay once harbored the nation’s largest tuna fleet, as well as many other types of commercial fishing vessels. I can remember going to the piers as a child to see my uncle Ed, whose frequent gifts of the daily catch helped to make the McCone food budget more manageable. Back then the waterfront was a bustling, exciting place lined with seamen’s cafÉs and taverns, surplus stores, tattoo parlors, marine outfitters, rescue missions, cheap hotels and rooming houses, and the inevitable pawnshops. Packs of sailors roamed the area at all hours, congregating in front of poolrooms and hiring halls, drinking beer or fresh-roasted coffee, checking out the pretty girls. Vessels of all types and sizes surged gently beside the docks. I was particularly fascinated by the purse seiners, their nets piled on the pier alongside the boats while crewmen, who by and large still spoke the Portuguese and Italian of their forebears, mended them.

  Today the waterfront has lost most of its flavor. The tuna trade is all but extinct, due to the closing of the city’s two remaining canneries in the early eighties. Although some fish are still trucked up the coast to a cannery near L.A., very few seiners put into port at San Diego, and most commercial fishing is done by pole from smaller bait boats. The old tuna piers sit blocked off and decaying. The tattoo parlors and taverns have been razed to make way for steel-and-glass high-rises that dwarf the older structures. Ships containing museums—the Star of India and the steamer Berkeley—draw tourists; restaurants have proliferated. Farther south, Seaport Village offers theme-park dining and shopping.

  Still, it’s a pretty harbor, one of the prettiest in the world, and after I parked and began strolling along the Embarcadero, I felt a pang of regret for having left my native city. I found that if I looked toward the bay, I could call up some of the feel of childhood. The smells were right—fish and creosote and brine—and so was the warmth of the sun and brush of sea air against my skin. I ignored the throng of other strollers, tuned out their voices, and for a moment pretended I could hear the lilting Portuguese and Italian of the fishermen as they bent over their nets. But then a kid with an ice-cream cone slammed into me, nearly leaving a slick of chocolate on my jeans, and I was right back in the present.

  By then I’d reached the area known as Tuna Harbor. A huge restaurant complex and parking lot sat at the edge of the water, and then the land curved inward, sheltering what was left of the fleet—bait boats berthed in their slips. There were benches along the sidewalk, many of them occupied by derelicts. I slowed, looking around for Professor Haslett. When I spotted him on the southernmost bench, I felt something of a shock; he barely resembled the distinguished, impeccably attired gentleman I’d conversed with at the Christmas Eve gathering.

  Today the professor looked like one of those eccentric characters you often see along waterfronts: white-bearded, his thick mane protected by a shabby seaman’s cap, wearing old khaki pants and a threadbare blue-and-white striped shirt. An old-fashioned black lunch box, like the one I remembered my uncle Ed carrying, sat open beside him, and he’d set out a little picnic: sandwich, chips, bottle of Guinness stout. His keen blue eyes surveyed the boats with a touch of bewilderment, as if he wondered how our tuna fleet had come to this.

  I went up to him and said, “Professor Haslett, do you remember me? Sharon McCone. We met last Christmas Eve.”

  He looked up, squinting into the sun. “Of course, you’re Kay McCone’s girl.”

  “Yes.” It still sounded strange to hear my mother called Kay. When she met Melvin—while doing her wash in one of the self-service laundries he owned, of all things—she’d introduced herself by the diminutive of Kathryn that she favored, rather than as Katie, which was what my father had always called her. Most of the people in her new life knew her only as Kay, and sometimes hearing the new name made me feel—quite irrationally—that in choosing it she’d rejected everything that had gone before, including me and my siblings. Hearing the professor speak it now brought to my mind a fragment of an old song—something about being out of step, out of time—and in keeping with my resolve to let go of things past, I shook off the last of my resentment. If my mother wanted to be called Kay, that was her business; it had nothing at all to do with me.

  Professor Haslett was studying me. “You look different. Is it that you’ve cut your hair?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very becoming.” He motioned for me to share his bench, offered half of the sandwich. I accepted the former, declined the latter. “Strange,” he added. “I spoke with Melvin last night and he didn’t mention you were visiting.”

  “I’m not. This is a business trip, and I haven’t called them because time is short and my mother would be disappointed that we can’t have a real visit.”

  “And of course she would worry. Kay frets because your work is so dangerous.”

  “Normally it isn’t; she magnifies the danger. Actually, Professor Haslett, I was hoping you could give me some information. I called your home, and your housekeeper told me I could find you here.”

  His smile became edged with melancholy. “I suppose you find my behavior strange, perhaps even pathetic. An old man who should possess more dignity, aping the attire of his boyhood heroes, sitting on a bench beside his beloved harbor and mourning the past.”

  Haslett was a historian who had written a definitive history of San Diego Bay; if he mourned the past, he had more right than most of us because he knew it so intimately. I said, “I see a man who’s wearing the clothes he’s comfortable in and enjoying a place that’s still lovely. I wish I could spend my Saturday that way.”

  “If you can enjoy merely sitting quietly and looking at the harbor, you’re as unusual a young woman as your mother claims,” he told me. “People today don’t possess the capacity for contemplation; they want to be entertained. And they don’t honor the past, quite frankly don’t have any interest in it. My former students are good examples: most of them elected to take history merely to satisfy a requirement; they wanted to be fed the facts and have them interpreted for them, so they could spit them back during their exams and scratch off yet another item on their educational shopping list. I was quite happy to retire from active scholarship.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Five years now. Not that I’ve retired mentally, mind you. I may appear to be merely another eccentric old man taking the sun, but actuall
y I am conducting research for what will be my final long work—an analysis of the reasons for our port’s decline.”

  “I’ll look forward to it.”

  “Not with bated breath, I hope.” He winked. “I am approaching seventy-eight and find myself enjoying the research far more than the writing.”

  I smiled and for a moment we watched a fisherman struggling along the dock with a heavy bucket. Then I said, “It’s your expertise on maritime matters that I hope to tap into. What can you tell me about a Mexican tuna fishing fleet owner named Gilbert Fontes?”

  Haslett pursed his lips—more belligerently than thoughtfully. “Fontes is a good example of the forces that have destroyed our port. The Corona Fleet was once the largest in our harbor. Fontes bought it in ’seventy-two. His first act was to reregister the vessels in Mexico—his method of evading the U.S. inspections mandated by the new Marine Mammal Protection Act. When they found out, local environmentalists … I believe you’re an environmentalist? Didn’t we talk at Christmas of that dreadful business you were involved in up at Tufa Lake?”

  I nodded. “I don’t belong to any of the organizations, although I contribute money when I can. Organizations and I don’t get on too well.”

  “I’m not a fan of them myself. To get back to Fontes, in the mid-seventies local environmentalists staged protests at his home on Point Loma. The situation got out of hand. Fontes had … what shall I call them? Bodyguards?”

  “I know a man who calls them his ‘people.’ The right word is ‘thugs.’ ”

  “Yes. Fontes had thugs, and they beat some of the protesters quite badly. The violence escalated. A neighborhood group got up in arms—not against the protesters, but against Fontes. Do you know what his response was?”

  I shook my head.

  “He moved the fleet to Ensenada, nearly bankrupting one of our canneries. And he closed up the house on Point Loma and moved his household to Baja. He still owns the place, but never uses it himself; strange people come and go there, however, making the neighbors—myself included—extremely nervous. A few years ago a number of us got together and made an offer on it, but Fontes turned it down. It’s his way of striking back.”

  “Where does Fontes live now, Ensenada?”

  “No, in a village on the coast, where the local authorities will protect him from protests. The Mexican environmentalists are thoroughly sick of his business practices, too. As you probably know, Mexico was signatory to last year’s international accord to reduce the dolphin kill by eighty percent, but that hasn’t stopped Fontes.”

  “Fontes has a brother who’s an environmentalist, right?”

  “Yes. The two don’t speak, and the brother, Emanuel, bought out Gilbert’s share of the family business—some sort of manufacturing concern—many years ago. Still, Emanuel has never dared use his connections to mount a protest against Gilbert.” The professor’s smile was pained. “Freedom of speech and assembly are not held in high regard by the Mexican Federal Police.”

  “Where in Baja is this village?”

  “South of Ensenada. It’s called El Sueño—‘the dream,’ it translates. Many wealthy people, both Mexican and American, have homes there.”

  “And the house on Point Loma?”

  “On Sunset Cliffs Boulevard.” Professor Haslett glanced curiously at me. “You seem very much interested in Gilbert Fontes. Is he part of the business that brings you here?”

  “He may be. Since you’re knowledgeable about environmental organizations, what do you know of a group called Terramarine?”

  He made a disgusted sound with his lips. “They’re extremists and fools who put the movement to shame. They remind me of small children huddling in a cardboard-box clubhouse in a vacant lot, making their war plans. They light matches and talk of how they’ll set the world on fire, but in the end all that gets burned is the box, with them inside. Unfortunately, innocent bystanders often get hurt as well.”

  “Let me ask you this: Can you imagine them pulling off a successful act of terrorism? Say, a kidnapping where they collected a large ransom?”

  He considered. “They would bungle it—deplorably. And I would pity their victim, because he or she would not survive.”

  Now his gaze became assessing, concerned. I avoided his eyes by looking at the harbor. The air had grown hot and turgid; my forehead and scalp were damp.

  “Sharon,” the professor said after a moment, “I feel I should stress that even though the Terramarine people are fools, their very foolishness makes them dangerous.”

  I nodded.

  “I’m beginning to believe that your mother is right to worry about you. Are you in some sort of trouble? Is there any way I can help?”

  I pressed my lips together, oddly reminded of my last visit to the confessional: Father Halloran’s kind, concerned voice offering the solace of faith; my refusal to accept it because deep down I didn’t believe anymore—and that made my sins unpardonable, my soul irredeemable in his eyes. I hadn’t been Catholic for many years, but now I felt an inbred urge to make a confession of sorts. For a long time I hadn’t believed anyone else could shoulder my burdens, but now I wanted to lay them at this old man’s feet.

  But the old man was practically a stranger, and I couldn’t involve him, anyway. I said, “No, I’m not in trouble. And I thank you for the information. May I ask you not to mention you’ve seen me to either Melvin or my mother?”

  He nodded with obvious reluctance, brow furrowed, eyes still concerned.

  I got up, said an awkward good-bye, and moved quickly along the waterfront to the parking lot where I’d left the car. Once, I looked back; Professor Haslett was watching me, and he raised his hand in farewell.

  Twenty

  When I arrived at Sunset Cliffs Boulevard on Point Loma, I stopped a man who was walking his beagle along the sidewalk and asked him if he knew where the Fontes house was. He gave me a suspicious once-over, then apparently decided I looked okay and motioned to an imposing Mediterranean-style structure half a block away. I thanked him and drove down there, pulling over to the curb and shutting off the car’s engine.

  The house was well kept up, the lawn well barbered, but there was a touch of loneliness about it, in spite of its proximity to its neighbors. Loneliness and abandonment, a sense that nobody lived there anymore and hadn’t for a long time. A caretaker might check it periodically; Fontes’s friends might be in and out; the gardeners might come and go; automatic timers might turn on lights; automatic sprinklers might play on the lawn. But only a shadow of life went on here, and to me the house seemed more desolate than if it had been allowed to fall into ruins.

  The man with the beagle passed my car, giving me another wary look. I smiled at him and got out. “It’s in good shape for a place that’s not owner-occupied,” I said, gesturing at the house. “Roof looks like it could pass inspection. Of course, you don’t know about termite damage; that can be the killer. Still, I’ve got a client who would make an all-cash deal and waive inspections, providing I can get hold of the owner.”

  The man’s wary look faded. “Oh, you’re a real-estate agent.”

  “Broker. Rae Kelleher, Century Twenty-one.” I offered my hand.

  He shook it enthusiastically. The beagle began sniffing my shoes. “Owen Berry,” he said. “I live down the block, and I’d be thrilled if that place sold.”

  “Why? It’s not rented to undesirables, is it?”

  “Used by undesirables is more like it.”

  The beagle moved from the toes of my shoes to the heels. Its leash began to wind around my calves. In the interest of preserving my newfound rapport with Mr. Berry, I ignored it.

  “Now, that worries me,” I said—meaning the so-called undesirables rather than the dog. “Will you explain?”

  “Fontes is a beaner,” Owen Berry said. “Very well off, but still a beaner, if you get my drift. He’s got a grudge against the neighbors—something that happened before my wife and I moved here—and he takes it out on them
by letting all sorts of lowlifes use the place. He keeps it up, so they can’t cite him for creating a nuisance; can’t condemn it, either. But you should see what goes in and out of there.”

  The leash was wrapped tight around my calves now; the beagle was energetically snuffling my jeans. I thought, If he pees on me or sniffs my crotch, I’ll smack his inquisitive little nose—rapport with his owner be damned. “What does go in and out of there?” I asked.

  “Beaners. Probably drug dealers. Women with skirts up to their asses and hair out to here.” The hand that wasn’t holding the leash described a big perm. “Probably call girls. The only thing he hasn’t loaned the place to is a faggot, but I hear that in Mexico they don’t like fags any more than we do.”

  Now it was Berry whom I wanted to smack. The dog didn’t know his behavior was disgusting. Come to think of it, Berry probably didn’t, either. I curbed the impulse to tell him what I thought of him and instead said, “Well, maybe my client and I can solve the problem. Do you have Fontes’s address in Mexico, or know anyone who does?”

  “I don’t have it, but my next-door neighbor might. He tried to buy the place about a year ago, had some correspondence with Fontes.”

  “Would you ask him for it?”

  “I’d be happy to.” Berry yanked on the dog’s leash. It cut into my calves. The animal made a gagging sound and staggered backwards on its hind legs, leash unpeeling from me like the skin of an apple. Now my sympathies were fully on the beagle’s side; if there was any justice, someday he’d rip his owner’s vocal cords out.

  Berry began dragging the hapless dog along the sidewalk. “You coming?” he asked me.

  I’d had all of him I could take. “I don’t want to intrude on your neighbor. I’ll wait here, if you don’t mind.”