by Rex Bolt
“Monica does, on a semi-regular basis,” Allison said. “I tried it once, when I first moved in, but it didn’t work for me.”
“Oh.”
“You have a guitar?”
“I do, as a matter of fact.”
“Can I play a couple of songs for you, originals? Then you can take me home. I’d love to know what you think.”
He told her be my guest, and they turned down Broderick, crossed Bay, and when they got to his building there was Joyce again, waiting on the bench in the alcove.
12 - Coffee Table
“You have to be kidding me,” Christian said.
“Chris, I just need to speak to you briefly,” Joyce said, giving Allison a weak smile.
Christian introduced them. “Tell you what,” he said, pointing upstairs. “I’m going to set her up and I’ll be down in a couple minutes.”
“So who’s Joyce?” Allison said in the apartment.
“Joyce is someone I used to work with,” he said. “She’s really pissing me off.”
“And you’re hooked up with her?”
“We were at one time. Not any more.
“She’s attractive. She takes care of herself.”
Christian did have to admit Joyce looked pretty good tonight, her hair a little different, and wearing a skirt, suede.
“Okay, let me handle this real quick,” he said. “The guitar’s hanging on the wall in the bedroom, and there’s not a lot in the kitchen, but whatever you can find . . . I’ll be right back.”
“No problem,” she said. “It’s nice here.”
Back downstairs, Joyce said, “I’m really sorry to keep showing up unannounced. But you didn’t call me back all weekend. Can we talk somewhere private, just for a second?”
They went in the garage. There was only one car there, his, no one around.
“Chris, the police talked to me yesterday morning at the Walk-a-Thon.”
“They did?”
“I mean, they talked to all of us, whatever faculty and administrators were there, so I know it was just routine. But I lied to them, which scares the shit out of me.”
“What do you mean, lied?”
“They asked me could I think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt Donny, and I said I couldn’t.”
“That’s perfect then. And that’s the truth.”
“It’s not,” she said. “And something else.”
“What?”
“I’ve been horny for you. I can’t get beyond it . . . Ever since what I think you might have had something to do with.”
“You’re out of your goddamn mind, you know that?”
“I’m not wearing any underwear at the moment,” she said.
Fuck.
A few minutes later, her back up against the side of the car, she said, “Didn’t know doctors’ secretaries . . . had nose rings these days.”
He thought about correcting her, but figured what was the harm.
+++
“Everything good?” Allison said, when he was back.
“I’m very sorry about that,” Christian said. “There was an accident involving a former student, up where she teaches. She’s having trouble rationalizing it.”
Allison was sitting cross-legged on the couch strumming the guitar, a cup of tea steaming on the coffee table.
“Well,” she said, “do you want to make love first, or should we go through the songs?”
Jesus Christ Almighty.
He said why not try the songs.
She had a good voice. Not a trained voice, but expressive, with plenty of range. She ran through three songs. They were pretty much folk, with a little pop-hip-hop element thrown in. The lyrics were off, corny, with too many words, but the melodies weren't bad.
When she finished, she laid down the guitar and waited for his reaction.
“For me, the second was the weakest,” he said. “It sounded too much like something else, that I can’t place. But the other two were good. Not great yet, they need a little help, but both pretty catchy actually.”
“Wow, that means a lot,” she said. “Thank you.”
They talked music for a while. She told him she’d been going to open mics, and that a friend who had Pro Tools was helping her put together a demo. Christian said he was in a couple of bands back in college but rarely picked up an instrument these days, and that is was nice to feel her energy.
“Welp,” she said. “This turned out to be one of the best evenings I had since I moved here. You sure you don’t mind driving me?”
“Of course not,” he lied. “That’s the idea.”
When he dropped her, she said, “You're a pretty nice guy. Maybe you can come to one of my little gigs.”
“Well, yeah, you never know,” he said.
13 – Bucket
It was 3:30 in the morning when he got back to the city, and he realized he was ravenous, so he went to Mel’s on Geary and ordered a Reuben sandwich and a strawberry shake.
Should he be concerned about Joyce? Not the second thing so much, but the first, the police. She seemed shaken up. Why? She had to be as glad as anyone about what happened. He’d have to keep an eye on her, unfortunately.
One idea that struck him was could you kill someone and implicate one of the others in the same deal? For instance, could you give the police an anonymous tip that Ike’s neighbor killed Donny? Or would they check it out, and if the guy had an alibi, then figure out who gave them that tip, and come after you?
He went home, decided why bother going to sleep, and took his run early. The sun coming up, the foghorns, the smell of the ocean—things could be worse, he supposed.
After breakfast he returned Ray’s call from Saturday.
“Ray, Chris Seely. I think you called me? I couldn’t understand you though.”
“I phoned you to tell you you’re an ugly motherfucker, just like you was back then,” Ray said. “I'm not losing sleep over it or nothing, but I remember what happened that time by the park . . . It shouldn’t have happened.”
Wow.
“Oh, so now you going silent.”
Christian took a minute.
“Actually, no Ray, you got me thinking a little different here. Would you want to . . . get a drink . . . or have lunch or something?”
“Man, you is one strange white boy. Why not? If I can squeeze you into my schedule.”
They left it he would pick Ray up tomorrow at noon.
Christian found Steiner’s office number, thought about it, said screw it and dialed.
“Dr. William Steiner’s office, Bethany speaking, how may I help you?”
“Not sure how you can help me on the phone, but would you want to go to LA this weekend?”
A pause.
“Chris? It’s you, right?
“Yep.”
“It’s busy in the office. I’ll have to call you back.” She hung up.
Then he called that son-of-a-bitch Maierhaffer and asked him if he wanted to hit some balls this afternoon.
+++
Julius Kahn playground was tucked inside the Presidio at the bottom of Pacific Avenue. They had four courts, nicely set in a cypress grove, even some bay views thrown in, and Christian was always surprised they weren’t more crowded.
He had taken up tennis several years ago and found it relaxing, but the one thing he hated was losing to this guy. Maierhaffer was one of those New Yorkers with a chip on his shoulder. He came from Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, where they played one-wall handball and paddle ball and paddle tennis and everyone put money on stuff, and the whole scene was in-your-face competitive. Maierhaffer usually played Christian with no shirt on, and he switched hands with the racquet, hitting a left-handed forehand from the backhand side.
Maierhaffer’s line calls were terrible, and Christian saw him as a pathological cheater. The worst part was he was in his mid-fifties, a good fifteen years older than Christian, and he usually won their matches.
Today Christian couldn’t find the cou
rt and Maierhaffer hammered him 6-2, 6-0. They played an extra set that was just as bad. Christian had no feel for the ball off the racquet. His forearms still hadn’t recovered properly from when he swung that bat, plus he was distracted.
Now he had to sit there and watch this prick do his post-match stretching and pushups and situps, sipping every two seconds from a dumb water bottle.
“Chris, when you get to be my age,” Maierhaffer said, “you can’t let it go even one day.”
“Who you trying to impress though?” Christian said.
“Well, my lovely Birgitte, for starters. You met her once, right? And there’s always other fish in the pond, if you get me.” He winked at Christian.
“That’s something I wanted to talk to you about, Steve . . . I did meet your wife here that once, and I also ran into her another time at Cala Foods. The nicest lady in the world. She seems to have a touch of an accent, was she born here?”
“Denmark. They came over when she was fifteen.”
Christian looked around. There was one other court in use, an Asian kid and his dad on it, the kid hitting repetitive groundstrokes with the dad feeding balls out of a bucket. The playground behind the courts was full of scrambling little kids being trailed by nannies.
“Thing is,” Christian said, “I’ve been playing you for a couple years now, and you talk more about your conquests than Birgitte.”
“Chris, you know how it is. We have a great relationship, the best. But we're all alive, here. Sometimes a man’s got to do what he has to do.”
“Well you do it again, I’ll kill you.”
“Come again?”
“Don’t screw around on your wife anymore. She doesn’t deserve it.”
“Did I hear you right? . . . You’re telling me how to conduct my life?”
“Yeah.”
“You know what, you cocksucker, stand up right now and I’ll kick your fucking ass! Where I come from, pal, nobody talks to me like that! I know people, son . . . You don’t know anything about me, do you? . . . I was you I’d be keeping a tight eye on my backside from here on out, you cunt-bastard.”
Christian watched him finish his tantrum, jamming his racquet into his bag and spitting in Christian’s direction. When he was at the gate, Christian said, “Steve?”
Maierhaffer kept going.
“I wasn’t joking.”
14 - Discipline Style
Ray struggled a little getting in and out of the car, but it worked out. They were in Weatherby’s, not the exact table but right next to the one he and Allison had the other night.
“This is the kind of joint,” Ray said, looking around, “I’d never walk into in a million years.”
“I hear what you’re saying,” Christian said, “but you get comfortable with a place. They know you, start you off with a smile, no surprises. That’s worth something.”
“It is,” Ray said. “I had one like that on Turk Street, Monte’s, but they let it go. You didn’t trust the cuisine no more.”
They ordered drinks. Christian got a beer, Ray had scotch on the rocks. Shep wasn’t bartending today at lunch, it was Eloise, a plump redheaded woman with a hearty laugh.
“You okay drinking that hard stuff?” Christian said. “You’re on kidney treatment, right?”
“Hemodialysis,” Ray said. “I was going three days a week. They got a whole unit at SF General just for us, so we can take a piss. Then they do a big study, how four days filters you better than three. That’s where I’m at now. I got Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday off . . . Answer your question, we supposed to avoid alcohol.”
“Where’d you live, when you and Charles and Williams jumped me back then?”
“On Sacramento.”
“Jeez, I always figured you lived down past Geary. The projects.”
“I can tell you getting ready to reminisce about Marina Junior High School now. Mr. Gullickson, the PE teacher. Man, that dude kicked my ass for three years.”
“No kidding. Remember how he’d come up to guys and slap you if he thought you weren’t paying attention? I heard one time a kid was looking into the girls' gym, so Gullickson made him put on one of their uniforms."
"That blue shit?"
"Yeah, the one-piece jobs. Then he sent him in there for the period."
Ray was laughing now, his shoulders moving, the first time he’d smiled.
“I wonder how his discipline style would go over today,” Christian said.
“It wouldn’t,” Ray said, “but it wasn’t the worst thing. Kids’s too soft now . . . That’s not why we here though, is it?”
“No,” Christian said, leaning in, lowering his voice. “Any idea how I’d get a gun that couldn’t be traced?”
Ray scrunched up his face. “Seely,” he said, “you a more fucked up motherfucker than I even thought. What you want to go messing with something like that for?”
“If I ended up . . . hurting somebody, . . . which I’m not sure about, but if it happened, wouldn’t that be one way to handle it? A gun they couldn’t track?”
“Sound like you playing Cops and Robbers with me now.”
“No, there’s a situation, a legitimate one, not around here but there’s a possibility.”
Ray gave him a long look.
“What would it be, something like twenty-five years ago we messed you up?”
“Twenty-eight. It was ’89.”
“You been carrying it around with you?”
“Yeah.”
“Let me work on it. And I wouldn’t mind a refill.”
15 – Donation
Bethany returned his call at 10 o’clock that night.
“Dang,” Christian said. “A day and half to call me back. What if it was an emergency?”
“Very funny,” she said. “Anyway, if I heard you accurately, I don’t think so.”
“I’m driving down there Friday evening . . . Manhattan Beach, a taste of spring in southern California. What would it hurt?”
“You’re trying innovative ways to get me to sleep with you, aren’t you?”
“Well I wouldn’t mind, yeah.”
“Chris, it’s not going to happen that way.”
“It’s not?”
“There’s some stuff. It’s complicated.”
“Do you mean the Dead Man Walking aspect of things?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“Ah.”
“Look, I’m having some people over tomorrow night for dinner. You want to come?”
“I’m not sure. What are you making?”
“Just stop being difficult and come. Around six.”
+++
There was an Albert Reggio listed as the one and only name under the “Our Advisors” link on the website for Good Fund Financials, LLC. The office was in Hermosa Beach, it said. A “Chip” Reggio was mentioned in the local Manhattan Beach weekly on August 18th of last year, for having donated five cases of wine to a charity auction that was part of the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Classic.
Christian was in the Funston Library. He couldn’t find a home address for the guy, and he wondered if the office in Hermosa might be a mail drop, but it did confirm his preliminary research, that this good-citizen crook was down there somewhere.
For the heck of it, he googled Birgitte Maierhaffer. Not much there, except she was on the faculty of the UC Berkeley adult extension and taught a course in art appreciation. In her short faculty bio it said she had once modeled in New York before turning her attention to art, her life passion. He pictured her in Cala Foods that time, mostly gray, no obvious plastic surgery, but, yeah, the high cheekbones and pretty face, and he could see it.
Before he got out of there, he thought of googling Bethany, but decided to leave it alone for now.
+++
He arrived at six, like he was told, and he was too early. Bethany had her hair in a towel and said to make himself comfortable. It was a flat on Cole Street in a hilly neighborhood, a few blocks off the Panhandle. The flat was minima
lly furnished and not particularly cozy, but it was good sized.
“What does this place set you back?” he said, when she re-appeared. “I didn’t realize Billy was such a generous employer.”
“Oh, it’s a sublet,” Bethany said. “A husband and wife, both nature writers, they received a grant to go to New Zealand for eighteen months. I got a really good deal.”
The doorbell rang and Phyllis arrived, followed shortly by John. Then Steve, then Gloria, finally Jeff.
“Everyone, this is Chris,” Bethany said. They all said nice to meet you.
“This isn’t, like a pyramid scheme meeting or something, is it?” Christian said.
They laughed. “We play squash together,” Bethany said. “At the Bay Club.”
Christian had tried squash once in Santa Barbara. “There’s plenty of fitness involved, right? And a good bit of technique too, as I remember.”
“We’re not very good,” Phyllis said. “We’re 3.0 players. It is a lot of fun though.”
“We’re all on the same team,” Bethany said. “It’s a co-ed league, which just ended last night, so we’re having a little thing.”
When they sat down and started eating Christian got asked about himself and what he did, and he could see Bethany shift around slightly.
“What I enjoyed the most so far,” Christian was saying, “was being a sportswriter. You were around all that action.”
John asked, “Did you ever become friendly with any of the big-name players, I mean separate from your job?”
“A few. I knew Barry Bonds a little bit and I spent some time with Randy Cross, from the 49ers. You’d see a lot of other guys in the bars on Union Street back then . . . But you tried not to have too much to do with them, because it could affect what you wrote.”
“And the women sportswriters,” Steve said, “how did that work in the locker room?”
“Every venue set up a closed-off interview area for that reason. But it never worked, because the female writers waiting there were getting trumped by the male writers who were inside the locker room getting the fresh quotes. So everybody went wherever they wanted, basically.”
