Courting Disaster

by Joanne Pence

  Sometimes, though, his frustration was so bad he thought he should leave her. End the marriage. Find someone who appreciated him for what he was and not as the father of children they’d never have. But he loved her and couldn’t go.

  It was a cruel torture to them both.

  If he left, the maddening part was that he knew how easy it would be for her to forget him, especially once she found a man who could give her what she wanted most.

  Despite her disappointment, she swore she loved him and wanted their marriage to last no matter what. As much as he tried to believed her, he also knew that dissatisfaction with her life grew every day.

  He’d thought finding a baby broker had been a gift from the gods, but now it seemed he’d been wrong.

  Already he’d paid a deposit of twenty thousand dollars for the kid. Maybe it was foolish on his part, but he’d do anything for Frieda. Money was nothing compared to their marriage and her happiness.

  He was going to find out where their baby was. Now. Tonight. He’d already paid for it—girl or boy, they didn’t care. No one played him for a sucker and got away with it.

  He’d get his child. One way or the other.

  He waited, silently watching, wondering when his search would be over.

  The apartment building across the street was both tall and quite large. Too large. The kind where neighbors talked to each other and the night doorman would be on the alert. He’d rather not do anything that could cause him to be trapped in there.

  Instead, he would wait until she was outside. Take her and run. Everything would be settled, and he could live his life again. No—he could live it better than ever.

  A movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. He stood in a doorway. Small, expensive one-and two-story homes lined the block. Someone was in the next doorway over.

  How could that be? No others were watching the building for the same reason as he…were they?

  No! That would be absurd. He was the only one interested in the place. His nerves were getting the better of him, that’s all. Too much had happened already, and yet the most important task remained undone.

  The Amalfi woman lived up there….

  He felt the stranger’s eyes turn his way. He’d been noticed!

  Nonchalantly, he turned his collar up, head down, and pulled his car keys from his pocket as if he’d only been hesitating in the doorway to find them. Then, his back to the watcher, he got into his Saturn.

  As he drove away from the parking space he glanced in the rearview mirror…and nearly ran into a telephone pole.

  Chapter 17

  Angie was glad when her public TV stint ended. Tonight’s three hours of reruns of two chubby British women slathering butter and cream over everything they ate made her a little woozy. Besides that, although two of the evening’s four restaurateurs were old friends, not one of them knew of her party. Where in the world had Serefina chosen? It was making her crazy.

  Paavo drove her to and from the station, but he didn’t spend the night because he had to be in court early the next day to testify. From the time he picked her up, however, he’d acted strangely, and even searched her apartment as if he expected some bogeyman to jump out of the closet. He wouldn’t tell her why.

  He did tell her that they found Peter Leong’s cab parked near a BART station. Whoever took it apparently wore gloves, because the fingerprint tests yielded nothing. So far, they’d reached a dead end. Angie wondered if Paavo was concerned about the fake taxi driver as he checked through her apartment. He said no, but he was obviously worried about something.

  When they returned later that evening, he made another sweep through all the rooms. As he left, he told her to lock the door and not open it to any stranger, man or woman, because there’d been some burglaries in the area.

  If that had happened, she was sure she’d have heard. As much as she pressed, he wouldn’t give her any more information. She put the deadbolt on the door.

  Angie finished her last crossword, solved the anagram—NEVER SAY DIE—and was about to shut her bedside lamp when she heard a knock.

  She froze, then quietly tiptoed to the door and looked through the peephole.

  Stan! And he hadn’t given his usual “shave-and-a-haircut” knock, which meant something was desperately wrong. She pulled open the door. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. His clothes were spotted and unironed—he usually used a dry cleaners for everything, even his casual shirts—and he had Kaitlyn in the Snugli around his neck.

  “It’s Hannah,” he said, his eyes hollow. “She went for a walk this afternoon and never came back. I don’t know what to do. I’m sick with worry.”

  Angie couldn’t remember ever before hearing Stan talk about being worried about another person, and he usually only got sick from eating too much of other people’s cooking. “Okay. Don’t panic,” she said, on the verge of panicking herself. “I’ll be right over.”

  She was already troubled by Paavo’s search of her apartment and the attack on her cabdriver, and now this. They couldn’t be connected, could they?

  Quickly she dressed, and when she left, she locked the door behind her even though she was only going across the hall. She hated feeling so paranoid.

  In Stan’s once-meticulous apartment, with the stacks of folded diapers, half-eaten TV dinner trays, unread newspapers, and pieces of the stroller Angie had bought all over the floor, it took a while to find the phone. Once they did, they called hospitals and Central Station, the police precinct for their area. When Hannah wasn’t found, they also called the neighboring Northern, Southern and Mission stations.

  Stan suggested they use both Hannah Dzanic and Hannah Jones in their inquiries, but nothing turned up under either name.

  “Do you think we should try to locate the people at the Athina?” Angie asked, ticking names off on her fingers. “There are the Leers, Tyler Marsh, Michael Zeno, Eleni Pappas, and her crazy daughter Olympia. Maybe she’s with one of them.”

  “I don’t think we should let them know she was here or that she’s missing,” Stan said. “She didn’t want them to know she had the baby. I think she was afraid of them—all of them, not just Tyler. Now I’m wondering if she didn’t have good reason.”

  Angie shuddered. “A couple was looking for her when I was at the Athina. The husband was kind of creepy. Their name was…Vandermeer? Yes, that’s it. Did she ever mention them?”

  He shook his head. “Never.”

  “What about a girlfriend or a relative?”

  He quickly told her Hannah’s foster home background. “The only person she ever mentioned liking was some homeless guy, Shelly Farms. She also has a social worker—Dianne Randle, I think her name is. Hannah hoped for welfare money to help her get back on her feet. She said she’d never return to the Athina.”

  “Shelly Farms was murdered,” Angie said, her eyes suddenly big and round. “Paavo’s working on the case and they haven’t found the killer yet.”

  Stan’s stricken expression matched Angie’s. “I read about it in the newspaper. So that’s why his name sounded familiar when she said it. My God—there couldn’t be a connection, could there? I mean, she said Shelly Farms was a friend, but nothing more.” He turned so pale Angie was afraid he’d pass out.

  “Shelly Farms hung out at Fisherman’s Wharf,” Angie said. “And died not too far from the Athina, according to the papers.”

  “The problem, whatever it is, is centered at that restaurant,” Stan said. “Can you watch Kaitlyn while I borrow your car? Maybe Hannah’s there.”

  “You aren’t going to go knocking on the door of a place that might be dangerous, are you?” Angie asked, horrified.

  “Of course not. If there’s lights and activity, I’ll call the police and have them knock.”

  Angie had ridden with Stan once. There was a reason he didn’t have a car—his driving veered between near-stuporous paranoia and doubling for Evel Knievel. And the thought of watching Kaitlyn had her recoiling. He
r ears still rang from holding the baby while Stan fixed her a bottle.

  “I’ll go with you. Two can search better than one.”

  “You’d do that?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes.” Angie bundled the baby in warm blankets and a knit bonnet. While Stan put together her diaper bag and bottles, Angie told him about the strange things that had happened to her on the cab rides. They decided there was no way those occurrences were related to Hannah’s disappearance. Yet she couldn’t help but wonder if it wasn’t wishful thinking.

  A little after two A.M., Angie turned onto Jefferson Street. She found parking directly across from the narrow side road that led to the Athina, giving them a clear view of the restaurant and the wharf beyond. She’d never found a parking space so close to it before. Now she knew: Want to park near a restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf? Get there before dawn.

  The night was chilly. She approached the restaurant. About three steps behind her, trying to keep up, was Stan with Kaitlyn content in the Snugli against his stomach and a huge diaper bag filled with formula, changing paraphernalia, extra clothes, and blankets over his shoulder and hanging down his back.

  All the restaurant’s lights were out.

  Angie stopped, but Stan continued up to the front door and knocked loudly.

  “What are you doing?” she cried in a distraught whisper. “You said you wouldn’t do that!”

  “I said I wouldn’t do it if the lights were on, but they aren’t,” he whispered back. “Maybe Hannah’s hiding in there.”

  “Hiding! What if someone else answers? You’re crazy!”

  “I’ll say you left your wallet somewhere and I’m helping you search for it.”

  “At three A.M.? With a baby?” She was beside herself.

  “You couldn’t sleep.”

  She shivered in the cold night air. “Well, at least that part’s true.”

  When no one answered, he and Angie tried to get inside. The doors and windows were locked tight. Stan tried sliding a credit card like they do in movies, but all he got was a bent American Express.

  They returned to Angie’s car and waited.

  One feeding and two diaper changes later, they saw a boat approach. They left the car and crept toward the wharf, staying close to the buildings. As soon as they had a clear view of the docks, they ducked behind a pile of wood that looked like it’d been lying there since some building was demolished around the time of the big earthquake—the one in 1906, not 1989. Stan brought the diaper bag with him, and as soon as Kaitlyn began to squawk, took out a bottle and stuck it in her mouth. Angie had to admit he’d turned into quite a good little nurse.

  From their vantage point, they could see the boat slow down to almost nothing, carried by currents. The engine revved as it was thrown into reverse and then slowly backed toward the dock closest to the Athina. A man stood on the stern and looped a rope over a mooring as they passed it. The boat glided gently back to the ladder that led up to the wharf.

  “Maybe it’s their daily catch of fish,” Stan suggested.

  “Isn’t this the time of day most fishermen go out to fish?” Angie asked.

  “I’m the wrong person to ask, Angie.”

  Angie and Stan watched, expecting to see someone come out with some fish.

  Instead, a tall man with curly black hair climbed up the ladder from the boat to the wharf, carrying a strange object.

  “Isn’t he the cook?” Angie asked.

  “That’s right—Michael Zeno.” Stan squinted, trying to see if anyone else was approaching. “Hannah told me a little about him. Him and one of the waitresses, an older woman named Eleni, are the only things Greek about the place. He was the original owner, but nearly went bankrupt. Eugene Leer bought him out, and kept him on as the cook. I saw him watching Hannah once when I was in the restaurant. The way he looked at her, I think he’s in love with her himself.”

  “He seems a little old for her; in his forties, I’d say. But he is a good-looking man.”

  “He is?” Stan did a double-take. “I’ll never understand women.”

  How many times had Angie heard that before?

  “What in the world is he carrying?” Stan asked.

  “It looks like a baby cradle.” Angie rubbed her eyes. “Could he be getting it for Kaitlyn? Could Hannah be with him after all?”

  “She went to Zeno, then.” Stan sounded completely dejected. “She’s gone to him.”

  “Wait!” Angie pointed. Eugene Leer also got off the boat, following Zeno with a similar cradle-type case. “Maybe they aren’t cradles at all, but something else.”

  “What else?” Stan asked.

  “Fish carriers?” she suggested.

  “I think you know less about fishing than I do.”

  They waited for nearly an hour. Kaitlyn was again sleeping peacefully, curled against Stan’s chest. His neck and shoulders ached from her weight.

  Angie ached as well, from crouching low behind the woodpile. Sore, she finally sat on the ground. Her clothes were as ruined as her night’s sleep. She shifted, unsuccessfully trying to get comfortable, when she saw a wharf rat looking at her out of one beady black eye. She froze, too scared to even say a word to Stan. Its body was fat, gray, and swollen, its teeth enormous, but the worst was its long, hairless tail.

  “Ouch, my leg is stiff,” Stan whispered. He started to shift, moving his hand toward the beam where the rat lurked.

  “No!” Angie cried, pushing him back.

  Stan’s arms went around Kaitlyn as he and Angie fell in one direction, while the rat ran in the other.

  Stan and Angie clutched each other, expecting Leer and Zeno to swoop down on them at any second.

  They didn’t.

  “You go home,” Stan said after a while as he flipped his cell phone to vibrate mode, then took off the Snugli and Kaitlyn and handed them to Angie. “Call me if Hannah comes back. I’m going to stay here and watch.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked, more than glad to leave. The baby immediately began to fuss.

  “I’m sure.” He helped her hoist the diaper bag onto her shoulder.

  As Angie tottered down the side street to the rat-free safety of her car, carrying the now-crying baby and all her baggage, she realized that for the first time in her life she actually felt sorry for Stan and what he was going through. Would wonders never cease?

  Chapter 18

  With the baby screaming in the car seat, Angie drove straight to her sister Bianca’s house. Bianca was the best person she knew with babies. She handed over Kaitlyn, then went home and collapsed in bed.

  The first thing she did when she awoke was phone Paavo. “Are you going to be at your desk for a while?” she asked.

  “Yes, why?” he asked.

  “I’ve got a long story to tell.”

  Although he didn’t actually say it, she could hear the uh-oh in his voice.

  An hour later, she sat at the side of his desk and relayed the story of Hannah’s disappearance. She decided it would be best to leave out the part about her and Stan spying on the Athina. It hadn’t amounted to anything, and Paavo tended to get testy when she did something he considered potentially dangerous. His attention grew even stronger when she mentioned that Hannah knew Shelly Farms.

  “Let’s see what I can find out about Hannah Dzanic.” He scanned the arrest and accident records for the past two days to see if a Dzanic, Jones, or anyone matching Hannah’s description had been picked up. No one had.

  He ran a check against DMV records and found only one Hannah Dzanic in the state. Age twenty-three, brown hair and eyes, five-foot-eight, 120 pounds. Her address was 481 Broadway. “Looks like she was living near the strip clubs,” he said, copying down the address.

  “Hopefully, she’s gone back there for some reason.” Angie stood, purse in hand. “Let’s go find out.”

  “That’s police work, Angie,” Paavo said. “What we find there might be pretty ugly.”

  Her gaze remained steady. “And your p
oint is?”

  Without Angie to talk to, Stan soon decided to sit on the ground…then to rest his head back against the wall…then to shut his eyes a moment.

  He felt the shoulder of his jacket being lifted and woke with a start.

  Michael Zeno was pulling him to his feet. “What are you doing back there?”

  “Doing? Uh…?”

  Zeno grabbed his lapels and pulled Stan nose to nose. “You’re spying on us, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not a spy. I never spy. I was waiting for the restaurant to open. It’s a little early, and I guess I fell asleep.” Stan was so scared his teeth chattered.

  Zeno let him go. “It’s Hannah, isn’t it? You’re looking for her.”

  “Who?” Stan asked.

  “Don’t lie. You keep away from her.” Zeno breathed down on Stan. “If I catch you around her again, I’ll kill you.”

  He turned and strode into the restaurant.

  Stan sank back against the wall. He knew he couldn’t go anywhere until his heart stopped pounding and his knees stopped shaking.

  The section of Broadway Street that separated North Beach from Chinatown had a number of run down apartments and rooms over the topless nightclubs that had flourished in the sixties and seventies—places like the Condor, where Carol Doda was the first topless dancer to achieve fame through massive amounts of silicone. The last rumors Paavo had heard about her had the liquid that created her 44-DDs traveling to strange and mysterious places. Today, the clubs were still there, and sleazier than ever.

  Paavo escorted Angie past a barker promising “girls like you’ve never seen them” to get to the main door of Hannah’s apartment building.

  “No wonder she didn’t want to bring her baby here,” Angie said. Paavo had been thinking the same thing.