The Magician's Tale

by William Bayer

  At noon Courtney calls me back, says she just returned to dump her books and found my message. She recalls our encounter very well and was hoping she'd see me again. Yes, she'd be happy to get together and talk about Amoretto. We agree to meet that night at Kabul, an Afghan restaurant in Berkeley.

  A little before five I walk over to the Gulch for my photo-session date with the hustler, Sho. He's so beautiful this evening I'm nearly swept away. His hair's parted to the side, his eyes glisten, he wears a black T-shirt that goes perfectly with his dark skin. We walk down to Fort Mason, where I pose him on the lawn overlooking the piers. Wind off the Bay blows his hair across his face. I'm touched by his gestures as he brushes it off. I shoot out a roll, then tell him I have to go. Walking home, thinking of Tim, I feel my eyes tear up.

  I take the cable car down to the end of Powell, there board the BART train for East Bay. The ride underwater is smooth and hushed. Emerging at the downtown Berkeley station, I walk swiftly to Telegraph Avenue, where I'm caught up in a swirl of student pedestrians, aggressive street peddlers, panhandlers and hostile handicapped people speeding around too fast in motorized wheelchairs. The smell here's the universal aroma of an off-campus street—cigarette smoke, coffee, frying grease going bad.

  First to arrive at Kabul, I take a table facing the door. The lighting's dim, the furnishings sparse, the aroma sensuous, Eastern spices and roasting lamb. Most of the other diners are students. The prices for the specials, posted on a blackboard, strike me as ridiculously cheap.

  Courtney shows up fifteen minutes later looking more like a student than on the day we met. She wears the same expensive wristwatch and Celtic cross pendant, but tonight she's shod in Nikes and dressed in a CAL sweatshirt and jeans frayed at the knees.

  "Hi!"

  She's spunkier than before, in appearance at least more innocent. We exchange backgrounds. She's from Santa Barbara, her father's an attorney, mother a psychotherapist. She went to a private day school, applied to Stanford and Yale, was pleasantly surprised to be accepted at Cal.

  "It's very competitive," she says, "but the kids are great—especially if you get along with Asian-Americans. And of course my dad is happy, since tuition's practically free."

  She's majoring in rhetoric, which she knows is useless, unless, of course, she wants to make a career in academia, which, she assures me, touching the cross around her neck, she does not. She likes sports, is a member of the women's junior varsity tennis squad, active too in the Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Students Association—which is how, she tells me, she found herself in the crowd that hangs around Hard Candy on weekends.

  She's smart, I discover, cheerful, offbeat, socially courageous and impressed by people with strong personal style. This, she explains, was why she was so attracted to Amoretto, but also, of course, because of the woman's aura of sluttishness and mystery.

  "Was it the same with you?" she asks.

  "Actually not," I say. "I was attracted to her brother."

  She smiles knowingly. "Her animus. I never met him, though I heard the talk. There're people who think he doesn't exist, that she really changes sex. Isn't that like—totally weird?"

  I agree.

  "No question she's got her macho side. 'Watch out! I'm packing!' Such a turn-on, least for me. But mostly she's quiet, barely says a word. She kinda leads you in with her eyes. In my crowd it's a rite of passage to go to bed with her."

  "Which is how you knew the studio?"

  She nods, looks at me wistfully. "I'd really like to see her again."

  "To sleep with her?"

  Courtney shrugs. "Sure, if that works out. But actually just to get to know her better. She's just so fascinating, yet so . . . you know . . . mysterious."

  "You say she doesn't talk that much?"

  "I found her secretive. When I asked how she learned to do magic she smiled like I was crazy to ask. She wouldn't tell me where she comes from, her real name, anything. She either smiled or changed the subject or did something to . . . you know, my body." Courtney grins. "She had all this incredible apparatus up there. I mean, some of that stuff was huge. I can't imagine how she moved it out."

  When I ask exactly what apparatus she's referring to, Courtney giggles.

  "You know, those stocks and that incredible wheel! God! Just seeing it made me weak in the knees!"

  I recall her little joke when we met, the one about the studio being cleaned out "lock, stock, and barrel." Now that it makes sense, I laugh along with her.

  "Was there any kind of . . . arrangement?" I ask timidly.

  "Like what?"

  "You said she provides this rite of passage. What does she get out of it?"

  Courtney gives me a quizzical look. "Pleasure, I hope!"

  "Nothing else?"

  "You mean like . . . money?" I nod. "How well do you know her, Kay?"

  I can see I've upset her, she's wary of answering more queries. Since I seem to have fallen in her estimation, I decide to tell her the truth.

  She listens intently as I describe how Amoretto's brother was a Polk Gulch hustler and how he was savagely murdered. I tell her that Tim lived in the same building as Ariane, that they were fraternal twins who as children were part of a magician's troupe. Since Tim hustled for tricks, I hope Courtney will forgive me for asking if Ariane did the same.

  "Okay, now I see. Sure, you had to wonder about that." She pauses. "I've heard she charges a lot for scenes. But I gotta tell you"—she peers into my eyes—"she didn't ask me for a cent."

  Time to wrap things up. I ask if she'll let me know if she sees Amoretto again or hears anything new about her. I explain that I want to tell her what I did with Tim's remains and talk to her about her twin brother, whom I loved.

  Courtney agrees. In front of the restaurant we embrace. Then she walks back to her dorm and I to Berkeley station.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I'm sitting in the passenger seat of Joel's vintage VW beetle. We're crossing the Bay Bridge on our way to see retired inspector Jonathan Topper Hale.

  "If he's not listed, how did you find him?" I ask Joel.

  "Professional secret." Joel's smile is smug, but it doesn't take. He's too open, too generous, at least with friends. The toughness comes out when he thinks someone's covering up.

  "Okay, kiddo, here's how. When Hale resigned a lawyer friend of his, Denis Roquelle, issued a statement. It's been fifteen years but he's still in practice . . . so I called him up."

  Joel, I remind myself, is always thorough.

  His car amuses me. Its sides are battered from years of street parking. Foam rubber dice hang from the rearview mirror. There's a picture of Ice Goddess Kirstin taped to the steering wheel. The back seat's covered with a tangle of old jogging shoes and empty soda cans. Joel calls this bug "Melvin." Generally it's a pain when a person insists on naming his car, but with Joel I'm in a forgiving mood. He's a true-blue former flower child; his hippie-days credentials are impeccable. In the aristocracy of Bay Area social movement people, Joel is nothing less than a prince.

  We follow heavy truck traffic onto 580, exit at Grand Avenue, swing around Lake Merritt. Joel hands me a map of Oakland, tells me to navigate. It takes me a couple of minutes to orient myself. Meantime, by instinct, he finds the street.

  It's straight and shady in a grid of other straight shady streets, the houses lined up, each in a different style, on identical-size lots. This is older white middle-class Oakland, a neighborhood for retired cops, teachers, civil servants. Here hedges are trimmed, lawns are well kept, each facade conceals a backyard barbecue and deck.

  "Not what I expected," Joel says, as he stops in front of 4123.

  I gaze at the house. "What did you expect?"

  He shrugs. "Maybe something Gothic with a turret."

  In fact it's a fifties-era split-level with a rusting netless basketball hoop installed over the garage. The front windows are all draped and the shades have been pulled upstairs.

  We get out, Joel pats Melvin's fender, t
hen we follow the walk to the front stoop.

  The door chimes are off key. After a while a gray-haired woman in print housedress peers at us through the sidelight. Apparently satisfied, she unlatches the door.

  "He's expecting you," she says in a monotone. "In his den."

  She leads us through several dark rooms, ritually opening and shutting the doors as we pass through. The kitchen is dark and smells of burnt toast. She opens another door, shows us the basement stairs, gestures for us to descend.

  Joel and I exchange looks and start down. The stairwell's dim. At the bottom we pass a lavatory, furnace room, malodorous laundry area, arriving finally at a wood-panel door. Joel signals me to turn on my tape recorder. He knocks. A moment passes, the door opens and we find ourselves face-to-face with Hale.

  I wouldn't have recognized him on the street. He bears little resemblance to the stocky, authoritative man whose face glared out of the Examiner fifteen years ago. In that photograph he had clear eyes, thick black hair, a bushy black mustache. The man facing us now is gaunt, his hair is white and his mustache droops on either side of his mouth. His flesh has the pasty look of a person who rarely ventures outdoors. The famous detective, at his prime when he resigned, has cruelly aged.

  "Come in." His voice is gruff, but I note wiliness in his eyes. "Glickman. Miss Farrow." No "Ms." from Inspector Hale; he's strictly a ma'am-Miss-Mrs.-type guy.

  As he and Joel feel one another out, I make a quick study of the room. At first glance it appears ordinary, a den outfitted with recycled office furniture, books, framed nostalgia photographs, clippings and awards. But after a minute I feel claustrophobic, and then it occurs to me that the room is not only windowless but also cramped. There's too much in here, too many old clippings clustered on the walls, too many books jammed into the bookcases, too many moldy boxes of files strewn upon the threadbare rug. And, too, it seems ill proportioned, depth insufficient to width. Perhaps, I think, it's a metaphor for Hale's mind.

  ". . . Kay, here, will be doing the photos," Joel is saying. Hale, seated behind his desk, examines me carefully. "Some of the places where the torsos were found as they appear today. A portrait of you too, we hope."

  Joel pauses, waiting for Hale to agree. But Hale is searching my eyes.

  "The other principals too." Joel pauses. "Including Steele, if we can find him."

  "Oh, you'll find him," Hale says. "Poke around in the garbage somewhere. Just be careful when a rattlesnake crawls out."

  If Joel's mention of the reporter who exposed Hale is meant to rile him, it works. He squints and starts to knock his knees, causing his desk to shake.

  "You're his daughter, aren't you?" Hale's eyes bore into mine.

  "My father's Jack Farrow . . . if that's what you mean." Hale nods. "Is that going to be a problem, Inspector?"

  "How is old Jack?" Then, before I can respond: "Still baking bread up on Clement?"

  "You know about that?"

  "I know a lot of things." Hale's eyes turn cunning. "I keep track of them all."

  "Who?" Joel asks.

  "Everyone connected to it."

  "It?"

  "The T case, what'd you think?"

  Joel smiles. "Roquelle says you're still interested in it."

  "Interested? Consumed is more like it."

  No obfuscation here. In a few choice words Hale has let us know why he agreed to meet.

  "So," Joel says, "after all these years, what've you found out?"

  "Maybe we'll get to that," Hale says. "First, I want to know why. What brings you to me now?"

  "It seemed a good time to do a follow-up."

  Hale shakes his head. "Follow-ups appear on anniversaries. There're no T case anniversaries coming up."

  "All right, Inspector—there's a new case," Joel confides. "I'm going to tell you about it, but I expect something in return."

  For the first time since we've met, Hale cracks a smile. "I show you mine, you show me yours—I remember how it goes." He turns to me. "Tell me something, young lady—do you think your dad's the one fumbled the evidence that night?"

  "I've no idea,"' I say. "What do you think?"

  "I think it was someone else. And I think your dad knows who."

  Nothing I can reply to that. I spread my hands, expecting more. Hale winks at me, then turns back to Joel. "Let's start by establishing some ground rules," he says.

  I listen as they hammer out an arrangement, defining "background only" and "off the record," talking of "embargoes" and "trial balloons." Hale is shrewd and his voice, at first so gruff, now takes on a more melodious tone. Perhaps he doesn't do much talking these days; his wife didn't strike me as much of a talk-and-listen type. Or perhaps he's energized by the chance to fence with a bright reporter once again. It's been years since anyone's asked his views, but he hasn't lost his press skills, the ones that led to his idolization as "San Francisco's smartest cop."

  "Okay," says Joel, "we got rules, let's play."

  Guy talk! I'm amused. Joel's the least jocklike man I know. He prides himself on not following sports, on not even knowing the names of local pro teams. But he's such a chameleon he'll say anything to build rapport.

  He tells Hale about Tim, the discovery of his limbs and head on Hemlock, his torso in Wildcat Canyon. Hale acts mildly interested, not fascinated as we'd hoped.

  Joel describes the marks: ". . . the number 'seven.' Tribal arabesques on his back, not tattooed but applied with paint. So, you see, there're similarities and differences. And of course fifteen years."

  Hale smiles. "Who's the investigating officer?" When Joel names Shanley, Hale doesn't react. "Lots of new faces downtown. You'd think the man would have gotten in touch." He shakes his head. "They've no idea what I've been up to all this time. Nobody does. Except Alice." He points upstairs.

  "Tell us, Inspector—what have you been up to?" Joel asks, trying to flatter out a revelation.

  "Investigating," Hale says. "I'll show you."

  He turns to me, winks again, the crafty wink of a man about to amaze. Then he stands, turns to the bookcase on the wall behind his desk, reaches forward and . . . behold! The bookcase parts in the middle to reveal another room of equal size behind. Now I understand why the office seemed so cramped—Hale divided the original space in half. I also understand why he insisted on dealing with us formally from behind his desk: he needed to guard his secret space.

  As he beckons us into this den-within-the-den, I try to catch Joel's eye. But he's focused on the display inside, three walls covered with a complicated chart that puts to shame my own wall display at home. This is a real detective's flowchart: drawings, photos, maps, names, documents and queries connected by a network of strings tracking various investigative lines. Listening to Hale explain, I learn that the strings are of different colors—white tracking the chronological line, yellow the methodological, blue the evidentiary and red the psychological. In addition there are hundreds of thumb-tacked cards bearing references to undisplayed material and research notes.

  Hale picks up a pointer, starts to talk. It takes him nearly an hour to bring us up to speed. His presentation is brilliant, his command of the case dazzling. I'm struck too by the fluid way he speaks, weaving each thread with the others into a fully organized design.

  "This," he concludes with a sweeping gesture, "is the case as explored by S.F.P.D. What I have shown you is everything they've got." He smiles, drops his pointer to his side. "But not everything I've got," he adds.

  It's then that I take Hale's picture. He glares at me, surprised. As I take another, I feel his anger rise, prepare to take a third and am almost disappointed when unexpectedly he grins. I think a truth he knew as a cop has suddenly come back, one my father once revealed and which I never forgot: an arrested person who tries to cover his face inevitably looks guiltier than one who faces the press with head held high.

  "Sorry," I tell him, "I couldn't resist."

  "No harm done."

  "None intended."

&
nbsp; "But please, Miss Farrow, warn me before you shoot again."

  I agree, not only because I'm a guest in his home, but because I know any pictures I may take later are unlikely to surpass what I have just caught: the retired detective, mad and smug in his secret knowledge, surrounded by a chart that perfectly expresses his obsession.

  Having done what I was brought along to do, I put my camera aside and listen. Hale, in exchange for what Joel has told him, reveals two facets of his own investigation, making sure we understand there's plenty more he's keeping to himself.

  "First, victimology. We know the identities of only two of the original victims: Gary Kendall and Robbie Sipple. Kendall's the one who had the gallbladder operation and Sipple's the one"—Hale glances at me—"rescued by your dad. Everyone knows what they had in common. Besides a certain physical look, which they shared with the other four, they'd sleep with anything in pants."

  Hale, I note, doesn't wince the way Dad did when he mentioned that all the T case victims were gay. I'm surprised since Hale's of the generation of homophobic cops whose attitudes long stigmatized S.F.P.D.

  "No one except me went the extra mile to dig up more, not just what they shared in terms of looks, age, orientation, but also what they were actually like, the way they carried themselves. Both were what's called 'cute'—not girlish necessarily, but good-looking and. . ."

  "Androgynous?" I ask.

  Hale nods. "So by extrapolation we can assume the other four were probably the same." Hale leans on his pointer. "Maybe not all that important, you say."

  Joel looks up. "We're not, saying that."

  "True . . . but others did, the ones took charge after I left. In fact it is important, because cute's a special type, and not the most common around. Macho muscle, leather, preppy, poof, bear, queen—there're all these types, of which cute is merely one. And, like any kind of tribe, each has its hangouts and dating styles. Take The Gryphon, the bar where Sipple was picked up—that's known as a cute boy's pub. While I was still lead detective we covered it pretty well. Had Kendall ever been in there? Any regulars over the years who recently stopped coming in? The handsome, thirtyish guy who picked Sipple up—anyone seen him there before? No, no and no . . . but that was just one bar. So a year after I resigned, when it was obvious the official investigation was going nowhere fast, I worked up a list of cute boy spots around the city and started checking them out one by one.