by Susan Dunlap
I was not. Wally smiled, though he looked to be moving muscles counterintuitively, ‘I think she was headed to the east bay, or maybe Marin or Sonoma.’
Or one of those places old-time San Franciscans view as the greater undifferentiated hinterland.
‘Do you have her number?’
‘I’ll call her. She wants to, she can call you.’
‘It’s easier if I call her.’
‘Easier for you. Like I said, I’ll get in touch with her.’
My phone rang. I muttered thanks and raced for the door to take it outside, just about mowing down Heather on the way.
‘Thanks a lot!’ the voice on the phone said.
NINE
‘You owe me!’
‘I know, Gracie. Did Westcoff call you?’
‘He threatened to bang on the door if I didn’t pick up. You know I don’t have time for the phone.’
I pictured her pacing like a dark-haired pixie in a dry square fishbowl, smacking the glass, turning so fast it was like she’d leapt over her reaction and was double-timing to the other side of the bowl. Mike and I can lope for miles. Gary and Gracie sprint, their blue eyes locked on the finish line. Now she’d be charging through the living room, dining room, into the kitchen for something she’d have forgotten by the time she reached the counter. ‘How could you sic—’
‘Why is Mike’s car registered to you?’ I said, cutting short the issue of my questionable intentions.
‘I don’t know.’
‘How can you not know? You had to go to the DMV, sign forms, pay money. How—’
‘He asked. I did it.’
‘And?’
‘He was just back here after all those years missing. He asked. I didn’t want to poke into anything, you know?’
I nodded at the phone. None of us had wanted to poke. We’d all been walking on breakaway glass, desperate to make Mike’s re-entry into the Lott family as smooth as possible. ‘I know.’
What I knew – not in the sense that Leo meant, What do you know?, but what made sense – was that Mike couldn’t or didn’t want to register the car in his own name, so he asked the one of us most likely to be so distracted by work that she wouldn’t think to question him.
If I asked her now, she’d probably agree. But she was talking about something else. Something about cake.
‘What?’
‘Can you drop a cake off at Mom’s? It’s on order at SugarPlum. Just needs to be picked up. I paid.’
Wait! She hadn’t called about Westcoff? Ranting about him was just a preamble. She’d called about cake? ‘When does Mom need it?’
‘Four.’
‘This afternoon? Gracie, it’s already noon. Couldn’t you have given me a little more warning?’ I said that last for my own pleasure. If she’d been organized enough to give me warning, she wouldn’t need me now. If she’d been less the absent-minded epidemiologist, she wouldn’t be Gracie. The only reason she had a house to pace in was because one Christmas the family organized the entire real-estate operation – hunt, buy, and sign. We organized; she paid. The next year’s gift was furniture. When it came to children, I told her, she was on her own.
‘It’s been a bad day.’
That didn’t sound like my sister. Her style was a prickle of crises, most with five syllables. ‘How so?’
‘I’m under the weather.’
‘Why don’t you leave work early?’
‘I’m home.’
‘You never take a day off.’ This was bad. ‘How come you’re home?’
‘I was too dizzy to drive.’
‘Because?’
‘I fell.’
‘Because?’
‘I wasn’t paying attention.’
What else was new? If it wasn’t a potential epidemic, it wasn’t in her range of vision. Her fridge was more often empty than filled. She was renowned for forgetting social events. In the year I’d been back in the city, she’d overshot Mom’s house four times – the house she grew up in! Things like that, though, she didn’t classify as inattention. So this …? ‘And …?’
‘I got hit.’
‘By a car?’
‘Well, yeah.’
Ignoring that soupçon of sarcasm, I said, ‘What exactly happened?’
‘I was crossing the street—’
‘When?’
‘This morning, on the way to work.’
‘The street you live on?’
‘Well, yeah.’
‘At your regular time?’ Getting to work on time was one of the few things to which my sister did pay attention.
‘Seven twenty, like always. Car smacked me in the back. Threw me onto the curb. I hit my head.’
Omigod! ‘Did you go to Emergency?’
‘Darcy, I’m a doctor! I called in sick and iced my head. I’m fine. But I forgot about the cake.’
‘Did you see the make of the car?’
‘As I was flying into the curb?’
Point taken. I was shaking. First Mike, now her. Mike got hit a second time. ‘Don’t leave your house!’
‘I didn’t go to work.’
Another point taken. Normally she’d stagger into work even if she was dead. ‘Have someone come over.’
‘That’s what I’m asking you to do!’
I swallowed the flock of things I wanted to say – I’d see her soon enough – and went with, ‘You want me to get the cake from the bakery?’
‘Jeez,’ she grumbled. ‘Oh, and Darce, don’t mention this to Mom. Or anyone. OK?’
‘OK. Here’s the deal. I’ll handle the cake. You call a friend to stay with you … No, no, don’t protest. I’ve got all the cards here. You get a friend over to spend the night or I tell John what happened. Got it?’
The last thing I wanted was to toss my brother in this mix. If Gracie’d been in better shape she would have known that.
If she’d been in better shape she would have convinced the bakery to deliver, and never called me at all. I should be grateful to – amazingly – Westcoff. Not that I’d be telling him that.
It was Mike I needed to talk to. I needed to say, I thought it was just the car he was after, when he smacked the windshield. Just a calling card. But it wasn’t the car. It was me, right? Your family. And now Gracie.
Did you have any clue …?
But I wouldn’t have asked him that. If he’d even considered there could be danger to us, he’d’ve … something.
What would you have done? Called John?
I could call John right now.
Calling John was chancing a step into overkill. In no time there would be cronies of John stationed in Gracie’s living room, riding shotgun when she went to work. Gracie on the horn to me every hour, bitching. John dogging my steps. Cronies in Mike’s Haight apartment. All of them alerting the attacker to lie low, wait them out, and target Mike when he came back.
What I needed was to talk to Mike, have the back-and-forth as we had years ago, as we had a bit since I tracked him down and brought him back. In those couple minutes it had been … normal. I wanted to say: I was worried before, Mike, when it was just you in danger. But now … You know how to watch out for yourself. Gracie hasn’t a clue. If I told her to watch out, she’d look both ways before taking a single step. For half an hour she’d become a parody of looking out. Then she’d forget the whole game. I was worried before, but this is a whole different level of dread.
If I said all that, Mike would burst out of his nest of safety, wherever that was, race back to the city and double the danger.
More to the point, there was no way to reach him.
But I had to do something. I couldn’t surveil Gracie’s house. I wasn’t even getting anywhere watching Mike’s place.
When you don’t know what to do, do the next thing. Leo.
The cake!
I started toward the car.
Was the guy watching me? He might already know where every one of Mike’s relatives lived, but I’d be damned if I’d get i
n the car and lead him to Mom’s. I walked to the streetcar stop.
An hour and forty-five minutes later, having been on two lines that went underground and out again, I knocked on Mom’s door.
‘I can’t stay,’ I said, holding out the cake box.
I so wanted to go in, sit at the kitchen table where we all gathered to talk, plan, divvy up, and work things out. I wanted to walk on the beach with Mom and Duffy, look out at the fog sitting on the water, and pour out the things I couldn’t say. I couldn’t tell her about the threats to Mike. I couldn’t let her know about the attack on Gracie. I couldn’t say anything without withholding. Suddenly I felt more isolated than I ever had, like I was in that square fishbowl and the rest of the world outside.
I bent down and scratched Duffy behind his perky black ears. He leapt up on my unstable lap and rubbed his head against my chest. He never does anything so lap-doggy.
I gave him a thank-you squeeze, muttered, ‘Got to run,’ and did just that.
I barely made it back in time for evening zazen. Even a fast run along The Great Highway next to the beach, and catching the M car on the far side was not speedy transit. They also serve who only stand and wait could be the MUNI motto at rush hour. I jumped off at Carl and Cole, ran the couple blocks to Mike’s car, eyeballing the empty-looking house as I passed, and drove through rush hour across town. They also serve who only sit and wait.
I sat zazen. I ordered pizza, left Leo half, took mine and a bottle of water, drove to Mike’s, parked across the street. Sat and waited, eyed the growing shadows beside stairs to front doors, the garbage walkways between houses, checked all the mirrors Mike had set up in the car. If the guy was keeping watch on Mike’s now, I did not spot him.
Tom, Boots and Heather dragged themselves up the stairs before I finished the second slice. They stumbled back out halfway through my bottle of water. And while I was vacillating whether to use Mike’s bathroom, they came back. The light went on upstairs. It dimmed. It was 9.15!
Wally did not come or go.
At 9.30 I exited the car, made a run for McDonald’s bathroom line, and circled back via the park panhandle, stood shivering in the shadow of a staircase across the street for so long that I wondered if the assailant had given up.
It wasn’t till I got back to the zendo that I noticed the message from Gary. ‘Call me. No matter how late.’
It was midnight. I called.
TEN
My middle brother answered my call before I could speak. ‘Hey, Darce, you want a car for a while?’ he said, as if we were chatting at lunch. It’s a skill of his – Mr Chipper, alert, ready to handle your every legal need, regardless of the hour.
‘Thanks, Gar, but …’ I almost said I’ve got Mike’s Honda. But I didn’t want to get into anything concerning Mike. ‘I’m good as is.’
‘How about the Aston?’
‘Wow. I thought you got that baby to show off to clients.’
There was a muffled sound of him clearing his throat.
‘OK,’ I backtracked, ‘I assume you procured it to reinforce your reputation for success by letting clients see your half-a-million-dollar ride.’
‘I got it used.’
I laughed. My brother so straddled ‘hot-shot lawyer’ and ‘man of the people,’ he was lucky he didn’t split himself straight up the crotch.
‘Listen, Darce, I’m really pressed for time here. You want it or not?’
‘I said no.’
‘It’s parked across the street from my office, on the side street. I’ll leave the keys with Akbar.’
‘As I said, I don’t need it.’
‘It’s right outside. Tank nearly full.’
‘I said—’
‘Take it.’
‘Why?’
He hesitated, something he’s trained himself never to do. Indecision suggests incompetence. Gary had his aphorisms, too. I could see him in this unfamiliar state, sitting in his wooden swivel chair in the bay window overlooking Columbus Avenue, the streetlight shining over his shoulders, sitting, but his mind pacing as determinedly as Gracie.
‘There’s been a problem in my garage across the street. I’ve got to clear out the cars. Akbar’s found garages for two of them. I’m driving the Beemer. So that leaves the Aston.’
‘Problem in your garage?’
‘This is just between us?’
How had I become the repository of secrets in this family? ‘Of course.’
‘There’s grease all over the floor.’
‘Don’t you lock your garage?’
‘Long story. Point is the grease. Thick. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I just about killed myself when I stepped on it. Went sliding back out the door and into the street. Bus missed me by inches. Driver freaked, just about hit the median. You don’t expect a body to come flying at you mid-block in the dark. If there’d been passengers they’d have been flung like loose luggage. I’m telling you, I shot out of the garage like something out of a slapstick movie.’ He made a sound that might have been a forced laugh. ‘I have to get the cars out of there and get the floor dealt with. I’ve got a settlement hearing on the Converse case in the morning. I can’t spend the night trying to back cars out through the grease on to Columbus and praying no one smacks me halfway downtown.’
Could have been killed. I was barely breathing. Be careful, I yearned to say. But that’s just what he was being and it wasn’t enough. ‘Get the tires changed,’ I forced out. ‘Check under the hood, under the body. Make sure they’re clean. Get them towed.’
‘I don’t think—’
‘Towed, Gary! You’re asking me a favor. You do this for me. Clear?’
‘OK. I’ll tell Akbar. But that means he’ll be occupied when you get here. The keys will be in his right-hand drawer.’
I nodded. But Gary had already hung up. If I’d been paying him by the tenth of the hour I’d have been glad to skip the goodbyes.
ELEVEN
Wednesday
I woke up thinking: He knows where we live. He’s telling us he knows; he can come back any time. Gracie and Gary were lucky … this time. I was lucky he’d only smashed the Honda’s windshield outside here yesterday morning. Mike could have been in his apartment when it blew up. I was sweating. I felt like I was going to pop out of my skin. I had to do something.
There were no leads to follow. Nothing to do. Everywhere was a dead end.
Call John? I’d promised Mike not to; promised Gracie, promised Gary. The price for that call would be enormous. Never again would I be trusted with a secret. Or considered reliable, or competent. John would be all over me. But he’d still have time to berate Gracie and Mike for not calling him themselves, and Gary for that and for not insisting the rest of us call him. As for Mike … if he’d left me a working phone number, assuming he was not working at capacity just calling me … but I couldn’t unravel that now.
But John could have men keeping watch on Gracie, Gary’s garage, Mike’s apartment, me. Mom’s. He could … how much could he really do?
When all things are dead ends, do the next thing.
Was that a Zen koan or did I dream it? Whatever, I sat morning zazen hoping that an empty mind would lure the right answer. Then I downed an espresso at Renzo’s Caffe.
Wally had promised to call Adrienne, his tenant and Mike’s ‘landlady.’ Maybe he had. Maybe not. Maybe he’d reached her and she’d promised to call me. Maybe not. Same difference. I’d waited long enough. At 8.30 I called Wally.
‘Wally?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Darcy Lott, Mike’s sister. I was there yesterday.’
‘Yeah, so?’
‘Has Adrienne called?’
‘Nah.’
‘When did you call her?’
‘I don’t know. Sometime after you left.’
Obviously.
‘Right after?’
‘When I got to it.’
Maybe. ‘Did you tell her to call me?’
‘Listen.
You hear that racket here? It’s like that 24/7. These geeks chug those wake-up drinks, you know? They’re speeding all the time. Day, night, no difference. They’re nattering about their apps and crap. Banging pans on the stove, slamming cabinets. I’ve got a carpenter on stand-by; we’re on first names, the carpenter and me.’
‘I’ll do it,’ I said matching his irritated tone. ‘What’s Adrienne’s last name?’
‘Ferente.’
‘Her phone number?’
‘Whadaya think, I’m your personal assistant here?’
‘I think a landlord has his tenant’s phone number, so he can call her to complain.’
He coughed, but I had the feeling it was a forced sound to cover the fact that I’d hit on the truth.
‘What do you want with her?’
‘She sublet or lent her apartment to my brother. On short notice. How come? Do you know?’
‘Nah.’ He could have been a cop with that ‘we ask, you answer’ tone. ‘That it? You going to ask her anything else?’
With luck, yeah. ‘Should I?’
‘Here. Four one five—’
‘Is that her landline?’
‘Yeah, so?’
‘Give me her cell.’
‘Why would I need that when she’s right downstairs? That all?’
Before I could answer he’d hung up.
I Googled Ferente. I Whitepaged. No ‘A. Ferente’ per se in the city, though a dozen close spellings. I dialed Wally again.
‘Yeah?’
I could barely hear him over a mishmash of electronic, kitchen electric, and shouts that could have been encouragement or warning.
‘Adrienne’s last name. Ferente – F-E-R-E-N-T-E? You sure?’
‘I’m going to go deaf by morning but I’m not losing my eyesight. She signs her checks every month. I look ’em over – tenants short on cash, you never know what they’ll do. No signature. No amount. Signature on the memo line. All sorts of garbage. They—’
‘Was Adrienne short of cash?’
‘Nah, she has a good deal. She knows that.’
So why go into this riff? But I didn’t waste more time asking that. ‘So, you’re sure of the spelling.’
