Muller, Marcia - [11] Trophies and Dead Things(v1.0)(html) (9 page)

In a few seconds I turned away
again, remembering the conversation I'd had with Hank on Saturday, when
he'd described his paranoid feeling that someone might have been
lurking around outside All Souls. "Nerves," I'd said. "Typical urban
ailment," he'd said. Right on both counts. Quickly I went to the door
of the upstairs flat and rang the bell.

Anne-Marie and Hank are one of
those couples who, once married, discovered they couldn't live
together. She's fastidious, he's just plain messy. She values a
routine, he thrives on chaos. In the end they solved the problem by
occupying separate flats in the same building—far enough apart, but
never out of reach.

The
buzzer
sounded, and
I pushed the door open and climbed the narrow flight of stairs. The air
was redolent of chili—an aroma that in the past would have made me
cringe, because Hank's secret recipe was one he should have carried
untried to the grave. But the previous winter Anne-Marie had critiqued
it in a fit of anger, I had backed up her damning judgment, and since
then Hank had made a concerted and moderately successful effort to
improve it. Not that it mattered: nobody went to Hank's for the food.
We went for the good talk and company.

I hung my coat and bag on the
hall tree and walked to the rear of the flat. Hank had reversed the
typical order of the rooms, turning the front parlor into his bedroom
and merging the remaining ones into a big space for entertaining that
opened off the kitchen. It was back there that I found him and his
three remaining dinner guests, scattered on the sectional sofa, coffee
or wine to hand.

Anne-Marie sat closest to the
door. I went over and plunked the fuchsia and card on her lap. "Happy
birthday."

"Thank you! I'm glad you could
make it." She examined the
plant, then ripped open the envelope. Since I'd last seen her, she'd
cut her long blond hair, and the pert new style enhanced the delicacy
of her elegant nose and sculpted cheekbones. The haircut was the latest
in a series of changes in her life, the most startling of which was
taking an extended leave of absence from All Souls to act as consulting
attorney to a large coalition of environmentalists. I wondered what had
prompted the move, but so far had not found the right opportunity to
ask. Anne-Marie laughed at the card—which likened our lives to the fast
lane at the
supermarket checkout—and passed it to Hank. He nodded in agreement and
handed it to Rae, who sat on the other section of the sofa. Willie
Whelan, dressed in his usual leather vest and western wear, sprawled
next to her, his head lolling against her shoulder. I noticed there was
something wrong with his face—it looked puffy. He raised a listless
hand to me, then let it drop back onto the couch.

Before I could ask what his
problem was, Hank stood, insisting I come to the kitchen for some
chili. I followed him out there, where a big pot of the stuff still
simmered on the stove. While he dished it up I went to the cupboard for
a wineglass and looked in the fridge, sighing when I found a mediocre
brand of wine-in-a-box that Hank favors because of the convenience
factor. As I pressed the rubber spigot and waited for my glass to fill,
I said, "I need to discuss the Hilderly case with you."

"Now?" 

"Tomorrow morning will do."

"I'll be in court until noon."

"Then I'll catch you afterward—"
I broke off as Rae entered the room.

Looking at my assistant tonight,
I had to admit that this new liaison with Willie was doing her wonders.
Her round, freckled face glowed and her manner was relaxed and easy.
When she'd come to work for me the previous year, she'd been a bundle
of insecurities; shedding an immature and demanding husband, some
therapy, and a new romantic relationship had made her blossom. She'd
even begun dressing better—although her everyday wardrobe still ran to
thrift-shop jeans and ratty sweaters. Tonight she had on a pair of
corduroy slacks whose color exactly matched her auburn hair, and her
shirt was a Liz Claiborne.

She noticed my admiring glance
and said, "Macy's. I charged it. Willie has convinced me of the ease of
living on credit."
 

"Just so long as he doesn't
convince you of the ease of going into bankruptcy. But, really, you
look great."

"Thanks. Listen, I started those
skip traces."

"Hank said you have something on
Heikkinen."

"Yes. I haven't gotten a response
from your friend at the DMV yet—she was swamped, and their computers
were down for part of the day. But I went by Vital Statistics and came
up with a marriage for Heikkinen—to a Glen A. Ross in nineteen
seventy-eight. I passed the married name along to your friend, and she
said she'd try to have the info by noon tomorrow."

"Good. Nothing on David Arlen
Taylor?"

"No. If the DMV files don't show
anything, do you want me to widen the search to Vital Statistics in
other counties?"

"Yes. Try Alameda, Marin, Contra
Costa, and San Mateo for openers. I know that'll mean a lot of travel
time for you, but I'll cover at the office."

"I don't think you'll need to,
much. My desk is clear, and we seem to be into a slow period. You may
have to cover for me with Willie, though."

Hank handed me my bowl of chili
and grinned evilly— because it was extra hot, or because of what Rae
had just said, I couldn't tell. "What does that mean? What's wrong with
Willie, anyway? He looks funny."

Now Rae grinned, too. "Willie had
all four wisdom teeth pulled this morning. He called me every hour on
the hour all day to whine, and I suspect he'll do the same tomorrow.
He's not talking much tonight, though; he couldn't eat his dinner, so
he drank it."

"Does that mean he's too sedated
to do his renditions of the latest Jewelry Mart commercials?"

"You got it."

"Thank God." Willie gets a bit
frenetic on the subject of his television stardom, and has frequently
been known to reenact his commercials for captive audiences.

We went back to the living room
and I took up my favorite position on the floor by the
coffee table, bowl of chili (Hank had done something unfortunate to
it—too much Tabasco, I thought) and glass of wine in front of me. I
noticed an empty espresso cup to one side, recalled that Jack Stuart,
our specialist in criminal law, was a fan of the vile brew, and asked,
"Why'd Jack leave so early?"

Hank said, "He had to go to the
Hall of Justice. That Iranian client of his got arrested again, shot at
a kid who he claims was trying to steal beer from his store.
Fortunately, he missed."

"Poor Jack. But what about Ted?
Didn't you say he was coming?"

All four faces clouded.
Anne-Marie said, "Ted couldn't make it. His friend Harry died."

"Oh, no." I set down my spoon,
what little appetite I'd had completely gone. Harry had been our
secretary's childhood friend; like Ted, he'd been gay, and he'd died of
AIDS. As always when confronted with the horror of the disease, I felt
overwhelmed with helplessness and anger. "How's Ted handling it?"

Rae said, "I had a drink with him
right after he got the news this afternoon. He's bearing up all right;
it wasn't as if it was unexpected. But still . . . You know what he
told me? He said he felt disconnected, that Harry's dying was the first
major break with his youth. He said it made him feel like he was
straddling the gap between the beginning and the end of his life."

"I know what he means," Hank
said. "This client of mine, the one whose heirs Shar's trying to
locate, makes me feel that way. Perry wasn't that close a friend, but
he was a symbol of an era to me."

"Like Abbie Hoffman," Anne-Marie
added. "I couldn't believe it when he killed himself. The clown prince
of the student revolution, ending up dead in middle age of booze and
anti depression drugs. When I heard about Abbie, I knew the sixties
were dead, too."
 

Willie mumbled wistfully, "I
missed the sixties, was in 'Nam trying to stay alive. Missed the
seventies, too, trying to stay out of jail. Come to think of it, I
might of missed the eighties."

Rae said, "I did, too—the
sixties, I mean. Unless being born then counts. Those must have been
the days, huh?"

Hank shrugged. "They were, if you
judge from all the nostalgia that's being wallowed in lately. They had
a reunion of aging militants at Stanford last May. All the folks who
sat in at the Applied Electronics Lab in nineteen sixty-nine got
together to talk over old times with current campus radicals."

"My God!" I said. "Did you go?"

"Are you kidding? In nineteen
sixty-nine—because I'd stupidly joined ROTC, thinking the war would be
over before I graduated—I was sitting around with Willie in an army
supply depot in Cam Ranh Bay. Besides, even if I'd been in on the
protests, the idea of sipping white wine and nibbling on crudites with
a bunch of affluent people worried about wrinkles and hair loss turns
my stomach."

"Where are your ideals?"

"Oh, they're still around
someplace. Trouble is, half the time I can't keep track
of
what
I'm
supposed to believe these days."

"Yeah, it's tough for an aging
leftist to remain politically correct," Anne-Marie said.

"Go ahead—be sarcastic. You're no
better than I am. You know what she did last week?" he asked the rest
of us.

"Don't you dare tell them about
the grapes!"

"We were in Bell Market looking
at the grapes, and this asshole who thinks he's the social conscience
of Noe Valley sidled up to her and warned her that grapes are still on
the boycott list. She couldn't remember whether it was just Thompson
seedless or all grapes, and was too embarrassed to ask, so we didn't
buy any. But about an hour later I saw her slinking out of the house to
go to that little produce stand two blocks away."

"I wanted grapes."

"Yeah—but that guy's produce
isn't even organic."

 "And organic," Rae said,
"is always correct. As is
oat bran, anything made out of soybeans, recycling, and taking public
transit."

"Great," Hank said. "Just when I
finally bought a decent car. I guess I'm politically hopeless: until
three months ago I was still calling Asians 'Orientals.' I was
corrected by a high-school girl, for Christ's sake. I've now got that
one licked, but I still slip up on calling blacks 'African-Americans.'"

Anne-Marie said, "High-school
woman."

"Huh?"

"Woman, not girl."

"Jesus!"

The subject of the conversation
was beginning to irritate me, as trendy things—whether on the left or
the right of the political spectrum—tend to do. "You know what all of
this is?" I asked. "Just trappings. People are finally emerging from
the selfishness of the Reagan era, and they want to act socially
responsible again, but they don't know how to go about it. And you know
what else I think? I think a lot of the people who are into being
politically correct are the same ones who took up jogging and Cajun
cooking and BMWs with a vengeance. It's something to do, and it makes
them feel less guilty about having money."

Willie said, "Nice rant, McCone."

"Thank you."

Rae said, "Well, wasn't it just
trappings back in the sixties, too? No, I guess not. The sixties were
about peace and love and freedom—"

I interrupted her. "What the
sixties were about was rage."

She stared at me, her expression
shocked.

"Think about it," I told her.
"SDS was formed because the
st
udents
were enraged by
what their elders were doing to the world, and particularly by the war
in Asia. The Weatherman bombings: rage because the revolution hadn't
come off as they'd hoped. You probably think of the Beatles as an
upbeat symbol of the sixties, but have you ever really listened to the
lyrics of songs like 'Happiness Is a Warm Gun' or 'Piggies'? Sheer rage
at the establishment."

Hank said, "Shar's right. Our generation was raised to expect the good
life. And then what did we get? The threat of annihilation by nuclear
weapons. The assassinations of the Kennedys and King. An undeclared war
whose origins were so complex that most of us had to take a history
course to understand them. And it was us who were being drafted to
fight it, while our elders feathered their nests with the proceeds of
defense contracts. No wonder people were pissed."

Rae frowned, unwilling to give up her illusions. "But what about the
Summer of Love? The hippies?"

"They were pissed, too. What better way to get back at the
Establishment than by growing your hair down to your ass, dropping
acid, and going to live in a commune?"

She was silent, her romantic visions shattered. I felt a little sorry
for her.

Apparently Hank did, too, because he said, "You know, I think I have a
copy of the Beatles' White Album around here someplace. Let's listen to
it one last time. And then let's kiss the sixties good-bye. Frankly,
I'm kind of sick of them."

He rooted through a big stack of LPs and put the two-record album on
the stereo. It was scratched and tinny-sounding, but nostalgically
familiar. For a while time rolled back for me, to the days of Rocky
Raccoon, Sexy Sadie, and Bungalow Bill. And to "Helter Skelter," the
song that had fueled Charles Manson's twisted imagination. When I
finally heard the weirdly atonal strains of "Revolution 9," I thought,
Yes, that's what it was all about—rage. I looked up. Hank was watching
me, reading my expression. He nodded in agreement, and I knew he was
also wondering what
that rage might have done to Perry Hilderly.