Muller, Marcia - [10] The Shape of Dread (v1.0) (html) (12 page)

I looked for the bread knife so I could start cutting slices of
sourdough, and saw Rae leaning against the stove, talking to a chubby
man whom I thought held some position in the mayor's office. She had
upgraded her fashion image tonight with a silk blouse and black skirt
splashed with red things that
were probably supposed to be cherries. I smiled affectionately as I
noted that there already was a wine spot on the blouse, and her shoes—a
pair of those spike-heeled, open-toed sandals that always look
tarty—were at least seven years out of date. When she saw me, she
motioned for me to come over, and the man excused himself.

"You look great!" she said.

"You too." She did—for Rae. "Did you get the room finished?"

"Sort of. It's not painted, and I've still got to do something about
carpet and a door, but I can start sleeping there tonight."

"Good for you."

Behind me Jack yelled for someone to get a move on with the bread.
Rae went over to the cutting board of the Hoosier cabinet, and I
followed.

"Listen," she said, "your friend from the DMV stopped by for a few
minutes a while ago. She had another party and said to tell you she's
sorry she missed you. But she brought the data I requested on Kostakos,
and I put it on your desk."

"You got her records pulled already?"

"I started the skip trace yesterday. Things were slow, so your
friend was able to speed it up."

"Anything there?"

"I didn't have the time to look."

"Well, thanks for getting to it so quickly." I'd been absolutely
right about not needing to make a list for Rae; she was turning into a
first-rate assistant. "I've got another person for you to trace, but
I'll go into it on Monday. If you're planning to work—it's a legal
holiday."

"I'd as soon work as anything else. By then I'll have done all I can
on the room, until I get some money."

"Good. Have you seen Hank and Anne-Marie tonight?"

A funny look came onto her face. "Hank's in his office."

"Where's Anne-Marie?"

"Home."

"Uh-oh. I better go talk with him." As I left the kitchen, however,
a loud whoop resounded at the far end of the hall. A tall, lanky man in
Levis, a leather vest, and cowboy boots charged at me, grabbed me by
the waist, and swung me high off the ground. Jack, who had been
following me with the plate of cold cuts, looked startled, then
chagrined.

It was Willie Whelan, a longtime client. Willie had once been a
fence, operating out of local flea markets, but he'd since gone legit,
as he put it. Now he owned a chain of cut-rate jewelry stores, the kind
that extend credit to anybody and charge usurious interest rates for
the favor. He even did his own commercials, and for a couple of years
now, I'd been accustomed to seeing him leering at me on late-night TV,
asking, "Need credit? Come to Willie's Jewelry Mart…" He set me down,
planted a big kiss on my forehead, and backed off to look me over. Jack
scowled and tried to edge around us, with no success.

"McCone, you look great!" Willie exclaimed. "Jesus, what's it
been—two years? Three? Got no call for your services now that I've gone
legit."

"You look great, too. But I've seen a lot of you lately."

"Yeah? How do you like those commercials? Clever, huh? The way that
happened, one day my ad man comes to me and says, 'Willie, there's not
a thing I can do for you that you can't do for yourself. You're a
walking advertisement for the Jewelry Mart'—this was when I only had
the one store—'and what I want to do is put you on TV.' Well, I thought
about it. This fellow owns the Diamond Center has had a lot of success
with it. So I said, 'What the hell, let's try it.' And we did, and it
worked, and now I've got seven stores all over the Bay Area."

"Excuse me," Jack said plaintively.

"And you know why it works?" Willie went on. "Sincerity. I love my
customers, every one of them. That comes through in the ads. They come
in, they got no credit, lousy credit, and I help them. Those
commercials? I write them myself. None of this speech writer crap like
the politicians. I just say what I feel, and the customers keep pouring
in." He winked at me. "And so does the money."

"Excuse me," Jack said again.

"Say, where can I get a drink around here?" Willie asked.

"Front room." I pointed.

"Think I'll go grab one. We got to sit down and talk later. I want
to know all about what's going on with you."

As Willie ambled back down the hall, Jack sighed in relief. I
stepped aside so he could deliver the platter, then went to Hank's
office and knocked on the half-shut door.

Hank sat tipped back in the chair in front of his roll top desk; the
room was illuminated only by his green glass lamp; his coat hung over
the head of his emaciated-looking cigar-store Indian. Recently he had
begun spiffing up the office, buying the desk and the Indian. It should
have been a good sign, indicating he was becoming less slovenly and
taking more pride in his surroundings, but I viewed it with alarm. The
improvements were a result of his spending more time there than at the
flat he and Anne-Marie owned in Noe Valley. He was also spending more
time at the Remedy Lounge on Mission Street, playing pinball and
drinking too much.

Now I saw the scotch bottle on the desk and the glazed look that not
even his thick horn-rimmed glasses could hide, and realized he was
quite drunk. I came into the room, shut the door, and sat in the
client's chair.

"Happy New Year," Hank said. He gestured at the bottle. "Want a
drink?"

"You know I don't drink scotch."

He shrugged and poured himself some.

"What're you doing in here?" I asked. "Why don't you join the party?"

"Don't care to. How're you? I hardly ever see you anymore."

It was on the tip of my tongue to reply that he hardly ever saw me
because I didn't spend my every waking hour at the Remedy, but I
restrained myself. "I know. We'll have to rectify that."

"What're you working on these days?"

"The Foster case, for Jack."

"Jack. Jack's a good man. He's hung up on you, you know."

"Jack's at the stage where he'd be hung up on any woman who was nice
to him."

"You could do worse. Have done worse." He paused to drink. "Greg's
here. Have you seen him?"

"Not yet."

"He broke up with What's-her-name."

"So he told me."

"You been seeing him?"

"Occasionally. But there's nothing between—"

"Greg's hung up on you. Always has been."

"According to you, the whole world's hung up on me."

He waggled his finger at me. The motion almost tipped the chair
over. He righted it with exaggerated dignity. "You'd do well to heed my
advice."

"Why are you always trying to fix my love life?"

"Somebody's got to. You need a man of sh… substance. Solid, like
Greg or Jack. Look at you."

"What's wrong with me?"

"That's a man-hunting dress if I ever saw one."

"So?"

"So if I don't take you in hand and advishe… advise you, you'll go
and fall for some yoyo like that disc jockey you just got rid of. God
knows what it'll be next. Another surfer,
probly."

I'd come in here to discuss his troubled marriage, and he'd managed
to turn it into a dissection of my romantic history. "The surfer was
way back in high school. Hank, where's Anne-Marie?"

"Home. Fuck her."

That shocked me so profoundly that I couldn't think of a reply.

"She wants to stay home, entertain the assholes upstairs, let her.
This is where I belong. Celebrate New Year's with my friends, like
always. So fuck her."

"I realize you two are having problems—"

"Problems?" He laughed bitterly.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No."

"Will you at least come out and join the party?"

"No."

"Hank—"

"You go out and join the party. Trample on Jack's feelings. Snub
Greg. Find a surfer and take him home and screw him, for all I care.
Just leave me alone."

I had long before learned not to try to reason with a belligerent
drunk. I went.

The party was in full swing now. Voices babbled and laughed, glasses
clinked, and ice rattled. I went to the living room, got some punch,
and looked around for Greg. He was over by the Christmas tree, talking
to a tall redhead whose expression said she was captivated by his
gray-blond good looks. I felt a flash of irritation, which quickly
faded when he saw me, smiled, excused himself, and made his way through
the crush.

He put his hand on my shoulder and kissed my cheek. "Hi. You look
great."

"Thanks. But so many people have said that in such tones of wonder
that I'm beginning to suspect I look terrible the rest of
the time. How're you?"

"Not too bad. Overworked as usual. I really had to do some finagling
to get off tonight." Someone jostled him from behind and his punch
sloshed dangerously. "Why don't we go out in the hall where it's not so
crowded?"

We weaved through the crowd, found the hallway jammed, too. Greg
motioned at the stairs, and we went halfway up and sat.

"So what's new with you?" he asked when we were settled.

"Not a great deal. I finally got the house refinanced and they're
going to start work on the new bedroom next week."

"It's about time. What's your next project?"

"I may actually be done." I paused, wondering how to broach the
subject of the Foster case.

"You seeing anybody?" he asked.

"No. You?"

"No."

The silence that followed was not a comfortable one. Greg watched me
speculatively. I looked away, saw Willie Whelan performing one of his
commercials for Rae's benefit. She was laughing uproariously. Maybe
they— No, that was too unlikely a combination.

"Greg," I said.

He raised his dark eyebrows, looking hopeful.

"Greg, there's something I need your help with."

The eyebrows pulled together in a frown. "Uh-huh. Here it comes."

"Hear me out. You remember the Bobby Foster case?"

"… Kid who kidnapped and killed the Kostakos girl, right? Gallagher
headed up the investigation."

"Right. Jack Stuart's handling the appeal."

"And he believes those cockeyed rumors about Kostakos not being
dead."

"I think there might be something to them. That investigation was
full
of holes."

"Look, Gallagher wasn't one of the department's brightest, but—"

"I'd really like to take a look at the case file."

"Why do you always have to ask me for things like this?"

"It's been a long time since I asked for a favor."

The speculative look was back on his face. "What'll you do in
return?"

"Well, not that!" The words popped out before I could consider them.

Greg threw his head back and laughed so loudly that several people
looked at us.

My face got very hot. "Hush," I said, tugging on his sleeve. "I
didn't mean—"

"You meant exactly what you said, but don't worry—it wasn't what I
had in mind. Although I have to warn you, I'm not counting us out just
yet."

It was the first time he'd so much as hinted that he would like to
get back together, and it silenced me.

He added, "What you can do is buy me dinner one night next week. Why
don't you come down to the hall tomorrow morning? I'm on duty, and
things will be quiet."

"Thanks. I really appreciate it."

"No problem. If there really are holes in the investigation, I want
to know." He stood up, reached for my glass. "I'll get us another
drink."

Halfway to the punch bowl, however, he was buttonholed by one of the
city's watchdog activists, and I could see he would be a long time
fielding her criticisms of the department's policies. Finally I got my
own drink and wandered about, talking with friends and renewing old
acquaintances. And waiting for the time when we could all sing that
such things should be forgot, and then go home.

The party had begun to depress me. Every time I turned around Jack
was there, looking wistful and staring at my cleavage.
Hank never emerged from his office, and I was afraid he had passed out
in there, but didn't want to appear to be checking up on him. Greg's
speculative gaze kept following me around the room, and I sensed he
would make some move before the evening was out. My soul mate had
failed to materialize, and I didn't so much as spot a surfer. Finally,
at half past eleven, I slipped upstairs for my coat, shoved the
envelope from the DMV into my bag, and went home to usher in the New
Year alone.

I had a bottle of champagne on ice—perhaps I'd subconsciously
expected I'd leave the party early—and I opened it, then turned the
TV to the replay of the Times Square celebration. Even that was
depressing. The big red apple that had been installed there some years
before in an ill-advised burst of civic pride had finally been
supplanted by the more traditional golden ball that I remembered from
my childhood, but it now looked tacky to me. The drunken revelers
seemed asinine, and I kept looking for pickpockets in the crowd. It was
a relief when the ball dropped and I made my solitary toast to new
beginnings.

And then the phone rang.

I looked at it, afraid it might be Jack or Greg or somebody else
wanting me to come back to the party. Or a maudlin, drunken Hank. Or my
mother, whom I love but didn't particularly want to speak with just
then. Or worst of all, a wrong number. But it also might be something
important, so on the fourth ring I answered.

"Happy New Year," George Kostakos's voice said.

I felt a surge of warmth. "Happy New Year to you, too."

"I wasn't sure I should call, but I wanted to share the moment with
someone—and who could be better than a fellow personality-group member?"

"I'm glad you did call. I can't think of anyone I'd rather share it
with."