“That poor girl. What she must have gone through.”
“What poor girl? Melanie’s birth mother?”
“I’d have given the child up, too, if it were mine. Claire was a saint to take her. Do you hear me? A saint.”
“Mrs. Nyland, what happened to—”
“No, Melanie’s better off not knowing. She’s better off!”
And this time she banged the door shut, hard, like a second and final exclamation point.
Chapter Four
I STOPPED ON WEST PORTAL for a quick lunch and then drove to Russian Hill. The building in which Melanie Aldrich lived was a tall brick U-shaped apartment complex on Green near Hyde. It was old enough to have a central courtyard that you got to by way of a steep set of stone steps leading up from the street; and, of course, it had such modern conveniences as a spike-topped security gate barring access to the courtyard and, once you were through there, another security gate guarding the building entrance. The fountain in the center of the courtyard no longer worked and some of the old cobblestones surrounding it were badly cracked and weed-rimmed, and there were rusty iron benches to sit on if you felt the need for some fresh air flavored with Muni-bus exhaust fumes. None of the trees and shrubs had died yet from pollution, but one acacia and one hedge looked as though their days were numbered.
Gloomy all of a sudden, aren’t we? I thought as the second security gate buzzed and I pushed my way through into the lobby. Yes, and I had Eleanor Nyland to thank for the lowering of my spirits. The allusions to Melanie’s birth mother had sounded grim. Allusions weren’t facts, and for all I knew Mrs. Nyland had a faulty memory or an ax to grind, or had been laboring under a misconception. Still, you get intimations in my business, and the ones I’d gotten from Mrs. Nyland said that the circumstances surrounding Melanie’s birth were, in fact, unpleasant and painful. Melanie’s better off not knowing. Maybe so. But the decision was hers, not mine or Eleanor Nyland’s.
Her apartment was on the fifth floor and she was waiting with the door open when I came off the elevator. She’d changed clothes since her visit to my office; now she was wearing slacks and a loose-fitting shirt with a smudge of dirt on one pocket. “I just came up from the storage room,” she said. “There’s really not much for you to look at, I’m afraid.”
There were four boxes of stuff, on a glass-topped table in the living room. The room was bright, neat, and crowded in an agreeably haphazard way. Blond wood furniture, silver-framed gallery-opening prints, bronze and ceramic sculptures, an expensive home entertainment center flanked by a pair of four-foot-high sleek black speakers that resembled shark’s fins. Music throbbed through the speakers, something atonally modern with lots of drums in it. A bank of windows in the west wall provided an impressive view, part cityscape and part bayscape.
She invited me to sit down, offered a cup of coffee, which I refused, and went to turn down the music without my having to ask her. Then she sat on the other end of the couch to watch me in silence as I tackled the boxes.
Three of them held manila envelopes, each marked in felt-tip pen: Correspondence, Legal Documents, Tax Returns, Bank Records, School Records, Miscellaneous. The writing, I thought, was probably Melanie’s. I sifted through the contents of each envelope, paying close attention to anything that bore an early-seventies date or reference. The process took forty minutes and produced nothing useful. The only item of any interest was a copy of Melanie’s altered birth certificate, the one that said she was the daughter of Claire and Paul R. Aldrich and had been born in Los Angeles.
The last carton contained a scrapbook and four thick photograph albums. The scrapbook was entirely devoted to Melanie, a chronicle of the first seventeen or eighteen years of her life. A lock of baby hair, her baptismal certificate, a clipping about a grade-school spelling bee she’d won, report cards, her high school diploma—the usual accumulation by proud parents, and none of it enlightening. The same was true of the album that contained photos of her exclusively, hundreds of them, at all ages and in a wide range of settings, outfits, moods. Claire and Paul Aldrich may have been secretive, possibly duplicitous, in their adoption of Melanie, but there was no question that they’d loved her.
The remaining albums were filled with family photographs. One was devoted to Paul and Claire from their childhoods to the time of their wedding in 1957. A second covered their married life prior to Melanie’s entrance into the family. A third appeared to span the two decades from 1971 to Paul’s death three years ago. They’d been an attractive couple, the Aldriches—both fair, slender, athletic. Melanie had told me that Claire was the dominant partner, and you could see it reflected in the photos: the strength of will in her, particularly in her later years, and a kind of genial passivity in him.
Several of the snapshots in the third album looked to have been taken at a summer residence; Melanie confirmed that it was the cabin near Sutter Creek. Big place, surrounded by trees but with a fronting lawn that enabled the family to play badminton and croquet: a pair of nets and a scatter of pegs and wickets were perennial fixtures. A smiling, animated version of Eleanor Nyland was in a few of the photos. Half a dozen other family friends were also pictured. Two were deceased now, Melanie said, and the others were among those who claimed to know nothing about the adoption.
In the background of one outdoor shot was a wiry, sun-browned man in his late twenties, wearing old clothes and a baseball cap and leaning on a rake. I asked Melanie who he was. She said, “Mr. Jenkins. He did our gardening and handyman work.”
“Before you were born as well?”
“I think so.”
“Did you or Mr. Kleiner speak to him?”
“No. I’d forgotten all about him until just now. But if Paul and Claire didn’t confide in their friends . . .”
“Sometimes people see or hear things,” I said, “that they’re not supposed to. Do you remember his first name?”
“No . . . but it started with a J. His name was on the door of his truck—J. Jenkins.”
“Did he live in Sutter Creek?”
“I’m not sure. It might have been Jackson.”
I wrote J. Jenkins down in my notebook. It was the only entry I made; none of the other photos suggested a viable possibility.
It was after three when I left Melanie Aldrich to her music and her memories. She seemed reluctant to see me go, as if she really didn’t want to be alone. I wondered if she had a lover, someone who cared about her. I hoped so. Love is important when you’re twenty-three and hurting. And almost as necessary at that age as it is when you’re pushing sixty.
AT THE OFFICE there was a message waiting from George Agonistes. “I got hold of Tamara Corbin,” he said. “She’ll be by to talk to you at four-thirty.” A pause, and then he said, “Tamara’s a good kid, but she can be a little . . . abrasive sometimes. So do me a favor in return and cut her some slack, okay?”
Abrasive. Now what exactly did that mean?
TAMARA CORBIN was fifteen minutes late for her appointment and she didn’t bother to bring an excuse or explanation with her. She breezed into the office wearing a half-smile, carrying what looked to be a small briefcase in one hand and a purse the size of a hanging travel bag slung over her shoulder. On the other shoulder, visible almost immediately, was a big chip. That was my term for it, anyway. One man’s abrasive is another man’s chip.
“Hi,” she said, “I’m Tamara Corbin. You must be the man.”
She was a couple of inches over five feet, round without being fat, and black. Or rather, a rich mocha-chocolate color. What I could see of her hair was cropped as close as a skullcap. The rest of her head was covered by a purple and yellow tie-dyed scarf. Her body was encased in a man’s shapeless plaid shirt three sizes too large for her and a pair of rumpled and ripped orchid-colored slacks, and on her feet were green strap sandals that revealed half a dozen silver and gold toe rings.
I must have been staring, because she lost the half-smile and said in the kind of harsh, wise tone peop
le use when their negative expectations have been met, “He didn’t tell you I was African-American, right?”
“George? No, he didn’t.”
“Yeah,” she said. “And if he had, you wouldn’t have wanted to interview me. Right again?”
“Wrong. The color of your skin doesn’t matter to me.”
“Uh-huh. Matters to everybody, one way or another.”
“Not to me. It was your outfit I was staring at.”
“Grunge,” she said.
“... Pardon?”
“Grunge. The grunge look. You never heard of it?”
“No,.”
“I’m not surprised. Do-right dude like you.”
“Grunge, huh? That’s a good name for it. You always dress like that?”
“Until a look I like better comes along. Frighten away your customers, that what you’re thinking?”
“Clients.”
“Clients,” she said, and shrugged. She glanced around the office. “If this place doesn’t scare clients off, my outfit sure wouldn’t. Got kind of a funky grunge look of its own.”
“Nice of you to say so.”
“Those skylights . . . art studio once, am I right?”
“You’re right.”
She walked over to the lone window that looked south toward city hall. “Great view,” she said. She turned and came back to the desk. “Where am I supposed to sit?”
“There are two chairs right in front of you.”
“I mean on the slim chance I was to work here. Only one desk I can see. Supposed to share this one with you?”
“I’ll bring in another desk.”
“What about hardware? You going to supply it? Me, I prefer Apples, one of the desktop workstations that use UNIX software. But I’d settle for a PowerBook.”
“What’s a PowerBook?”
“Apple laptop.” She hefted the item that resembled a small briefcase. “Like this one.”
“That’s a computer?”
“Apple PowerBook, like I said.”
“Belong to you?”
“Sure it belongs to me. You think I stole it?”
“That isn’t what I meant,” I said with more patience than I was feeling. “I meant that if you own a computer, then maybe I wouldn’t have to go out and buy one. You could use that PowerBook of yours here, couldn’t you?”
“With a modem, a laser printer, and a separate phone line.”
I had no idea what a modem was. “Well, the separate phone line is no problem. There’s already one here, disconnected. My ex-partner’s.”
“Uh-huh. What kind of work you want done?”
“Information searches, mainly. Federal, state, county, and city agencies, and private databases that provide research material on individuals, groups, companies, that sort of thing. I’d also want a billing system set up and maybe bookkeeping and filing systems later on.”
“How about tapping into secret government files?”
“Not hardly.”
“Industrial espionage? You do work like that?”
“No. Nothing illegal or covert.”
“Straight arrow. That’s too bad. I always wanted to do some heavy hacking.”
“The investigative work I do is primarily skip-tracing, and insurance claims and background checks. I’m handling an adoption search at the moment—”
“Sounds boring.”
“To some people, maybe. But it’s what I do and I’m pretty good at it.”
“But you still need a hacker.”
“So I’m told. Can you handle what I need done?”
“With my eyes shut,” she said. “How much?”
“How much work? One or two days a week—”
“How much money?”
“Whatever the going rate. George can tell me what it is.”
“I can tell you. Thirty-five an hour.”
“For part-time work? That seems high.”
“My PC. PowerBooks aren’t made of iron.”
“Thirty-five still seems high.”
“You think I’m trying to rip you off?”
“Did I say that?”
“Least I’d take is twenty-five.”
“I think I could manage that much.”
“Four hours a day, that’s the most I’d work. Have to be afternoons—Monday or Thursday. I’ve got a full schedule at State the other days.”
“That sounds all right.”
“And I don’t do night work,” she said.
“I wouldn’t ask you to.”
“Or weekend work. Or anything except computer work.”
“All right.”
“Not anything else, for money or perks.”
“Meaning what, Ms. Corbin?”
“Meaning those are the ground rules.”
“Rules,” I said. “Uh-huh.” She’d succeeded not only in destroying my patience but in making me angry. “Tell me something. Do you hate Italians?”
“... What?”
“Italians. I’m one. Do you hate us as a race?”
“No. Why should I hate Italians?”
“You act like you do. Or if it’s not Italians, maybe it’s all Caucasians. How about Latinos and Asians? Everybody who’s not black? Everybody who is black but doesn’t have the same opinions as you?”
She was off balance now, uncertain of herself for the first time since she’d walked in here. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, man.”
“You know, all right. I’m talking about racism, Ms. Corbin. I’m talking about you.”
“You think I’m a racist?”
“You’ve done a good job of making me wonder.”
“Man, you’re full of shit!”
“Am I? You come in here to a legitimate job interview fifteen minutes late, no apologies, nothing except a capital-A Attitude. You insult me and my office, you all but accuse me of being a bigot, and then you issue a not-too-subtle warning against sexually harassing you. All of that goes beyond rude, in my book. It adds up to racism. Sexism, too, come to think of it.”
“Bullshit,” she said. “You don’t know me.”
“Damn right I don’t. And you don’t know me, either, and that’s the point—exactly the point. Your father’s a cop, isn’t he? In Redwood City?”
The sudden shift to her father threw her off balance again. “What’s my old man got to do with anything?”
“What would your old man do if you or somebody like you walked into his place of business, accused him without provocation of being a racist and a sexual harasser, and then told him he was full of shit?”
Nothing from her.
“Come on, what would he do?”
“You want me to say he’d kick my ass, right?”
“So you are getting the point.”
“Yeah, and you’d like to kick my black ass too.”
“Then again, maybe you’re not getting it at all. The hell with it. End of interview.”
“What?”
“Good-bye, Ms. Corbin.”
Hot-eyed glare, followed by a reappearance of the snotty half-smile. “You saying I don’t get the job?”
“And good luck,” I said. “You’re going to need it.”
She seemed to want to say something else, one last put-down or at least a cutting exit line. Evidently nothing nasty enough occurred to her. She settled for turning on her heel, stomping to the door, and not quite slamming it behind her.
My anger went with her. All I felt as I sat down again was a mild depression. Bright young woman, computer science whiz, great deal to offer the world—and loaded down with so much baggage she was crippling herself lugging it around. Well, maybe she had just cause, personal and racial both; as she’d said, I didn’t know her. But from my perspective, it was sad. And what made it even sadder was that trapped underneath the weight of her attitude were elements of humor and sensitivity that had touched a responsive chord in me, that had made me almost like her in spite of her behavior. She’d come here all aggressive-defensive becau
se she didn’t believe a supposedly conservative white ex-cop would hire a young black woman on merit alone; had convinced herself she didn’t really want the job anyway. The truth was just the opposite: Whitey wasn’t as much of a do-right deputy as his reputation might indicate, didn’t give a damn what hue she was, and would have hired her in five minutes flat if she’d been halfway civil.
People and their hang-ups. Black, white, red, yellow, brown —at the core we’re all a bunch of screwed-up hunks of clay that haven’t learned much of anything, including how to get along with each other, in ten thousand years of evolution. Makes you feel humble when you look at it that way, or ought to. Pretty damned humble.
ON THE WAY HOME I detoured through the Broadway Tunnel to North Beach and stopped at Biasucci’s, my favorite Italian delicatessen. I bought fresh linguine, a jar of fresh pesto made with extra-virgin olive oil, a loaf of sourdough French bread, and a bottle of heavy red wine—a Sonoma Valley barbera, at Nick Biasucci’s recommendation. Kerry had done the cooking over the weekend; tonight it was my turn, and I wanted our first married meal at my flat to be special.
We’d decided, without argument and after little enough discussion, not to consolidate living quarters after we tied the knot —a somewhat unconventional decision, but then we weren’t a conventional couple, as our wedding day and night attested. Kerry bought her apartment just a year ago and didn’t want to give it up, any more than I wanted to give up the rent-controlled Pacific Heights flat I’d occupied for three decades. Set in our ways, that was us; and we’d gotten along fine shuttling back and forth between her place and mine ever since we’d been together, going on ten years now. Plus there was the fact that our relationship tended to blow stormy on occasion and too much cohabitation was likely to make it even more volatile. Bottom line: When you’ve got something that works well the way it is, why try to change it?
It was a quarter past six when I let myself into the flat. I had just enough time to open the wine, slice the bread, and put water on to boil before Kerry arrived.
She came into the kitchen carrying a big Macy’s shopping bag, took one look at the dinner fixings, and groaned. “There goes what’s left of my girlish figure.”
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