No Footprints (12 page)

Pointing that out would get me nowhere. ‟You're right. I screwed up.”

Silence.

I still had a chance. ‟About the stunt driving lessons you've just okayed. Mac's not looking to improve his parallel parking. He's after celluloid time. When he does, he'll be part of the crew.”
Your crew.
I laid out the words in as neutral a tone as humanly possible while sitting in the leather bucket seat of the subject, but I wasn't fooling anyone. Macomber chuckled. The negotiation, backing me into a corner,
buying
me, it was all part of the game. But my shock, that was a little lagniappe. He revved the engine and shot away from the curb.

‟I trust you,” Jed said. His words were as flat as mine. He wasn't taking the easy path of stretching my blame to include this. He was covering, but what? ‟We got the Marina.”

‟How did you manage that?”

‟Macomber got us a deal.”

‟It'll bring us in under budget. San Fran's going to think twice before they close me down again.”

‟It's a flat road. We'll clear the parked cars, get dummies. Worst can happen he hits a tree.”

Worst that can happen?
Words like that should never be spoken aloud. Silence buzzed on the line.

Mac cut left—too close—in front of an SUV. Too close, but not dangerously so, unless the driver was armed. A horn blared.

I tilted the phone so Jed could hear it. Mac grinned. Dammit, he knew he'd won.

But there were spoils to go around here. I grinned back at him and said into the phone, ‟And you're offering me . . . ?”

The phone clunked. Did he drop it?

‟Jed?”

‟Okay. Stunt Coordinator credit on the roll.”

Stunt
Coordinator
. . . Darcy Lott.
I could see it in the middle of the screen, right under Jed's name, before the crowded columns of stunt doubles and other fine-print entries. More to the point, directors would see it. It could be a big step for me, way more than merely scouting locations. I wanted to scream, ‟Yes!” But I said, ‟And pay?”

‟Yeah, okay, stunt coordinator's scale. For the Berkeley shoot.”

I turned to Mac to give him the update, but he was already so smug I knew he'd never questioned the outcome.

‟Oh, and Darcy,” Jed said, ‟Dale is inviting you to a charity thing for the movers and shakers in the city. Some of the up-and-comers'll be there. Can't hurt you to meet them.”

‟I'll do you proud.” I clicked off and said to Mac, ‟This reception, formal or not?”

‟Not.”

‟Okay. When?”

‟Tonight.” He shot through the intersection on the last instant of yellow. ‟So we can fit in a couple hours of driving before.”

My head gave an extra hard throb. ‟Twenty minutes. You can drive me to the zendo.”

‟I'm not a chauffeur. I expect—”

‟Rule one: don't expect.” Don't expect, i.e., don't assume! ‟So, I still need to know how you knew where to find me.”

He grinned. ‟I have my ways.”

‟Which are?”

‟No time for questions; you're only giving me twenty minutes.”

‟Answer and you get twenty-one.”

He grinned smugly.

I don't give up; I postpone, briefly.

I pulled up every bit of energy and concentration I could muster through the pain waves in my head. ‟Alert? Good. That's what driving is, being alert. It's knowing your vehicle so well there's no you and no it. ‛No horse, no rider,' they call it in Zen lore. You've got to feel it.”

‟Not a problem. This”—he tapped the dash—‟ is my baby.”

‟Fine. But the road, the parked cars, the weather, the traffic light, the kid who's about to run out between cars, the woman talking on her cell, starting across against the light: They've all got to be your baby.”

‟But that—”

‟It's one baby, Mac. That's the secret.” That was Zen, too. But maybe he needed a different metaphor. ‟All this, it's all your team. When Joe Montana took the snap he ‛saw' the whole field. Didn't move his head, just was aware. That's how he knew where to throw the ball. All of this is your field: You ignore any part, and you're punting.”

‟Sure, but—”

‟But even he had to learn, to practice. So, slow down; go with the traffic. Become
part
of the traffic. You already see the car in front; you're checking the rearview. Okay, what could come at you from the right?”

‟Nothing, it's—”

‟Parked car with driver up there. Guy with the dolly there, see? See? Now, across the street, what are you alert to?”

His forehead was scrunched with trying. His face was twitching. He wanted to succeed, to win. ‟No kids, no bikes, no one on cell phone—”

‟You check for Blu-ray?”

‟How can you possibly—”

‟Posture, gait. See the guy in the green jacket? He's all ears—He's got tunnel vision because he's caught up in his call. If he could walk with his eyes closed he would.”

‟How can you drive and—”

‟Practice. And silence. When you're stunt driving, you can't do anything else, not talk, not ponder, not even feel anything but the car. You had a punk meal and it's exploding in your gut—tough! Push it aside. You can drive or not drive. All or zip.”

His shoulders rose, his face twitching like mad. He looked ready to let me have it. But he didn't. Didn't say anything. Just eyed the coffee house across the street.

I wanted to pounce. I postponed. ‟So, what's the combination of things that sends up a red flag?”

He continued to stare in the same direction.

‟No! You've got to watch the road. You can't look out the window like a passenger.”

‟Don't do this! Don't do that! What the hell do you expect me—”

‟Stop the car!”

He slammed his frustration into the pedal. Brakes screeched. If I hadn't been braced I'd've hit the windshield. Behind us more brakes squealed.

‟How'd you find me?”

‟I followed the cop car.”

Across the street the bus swung toward the curb. A woman raced in front of us toward it, holding up a hand in Stop position.

‟She didn't see you, didn't hear the horns. You're not even in her universe.”

His hands tightened on the wheel. ‟
Fine
. I get it. But—”

‟I wasn't in the cop's car.”

‟I could've picked you up when you slammed out of it, but you kept going in the same direction. I followed the car till it stopped—”

‟Where?”

‟Same place you did.”

‟Did he go in?”

‟He followed a biker.”

‟A woman on a bike?”

‟Yeah.”

‟Followed? Rode like she was leading him somewhere? Or tailed? Were they together?”

Mac shrugged. ‟She left, he left. You were my target.”

‟But you must've seen enough to get an idea.”

‟Why's it matter?”

I couldn't begin to tell him.

Horns blared. Mac jolted the car forward, nearly stalling out. He downshifted, hit the gas, and shot daggers in my direction. ‟What's all this have to do with stunt driving? We'll have a blocked-off road in the Marina. No one's going to be running for a bus unless we pay them to.”

I laughed. ‟This is Berkeley we're talking about. ‛No entry' translates into ‛Sez who?'”

‟Yeah, but—”

‟You're right about limited access. You don't have to watch two sidewalks and traffic in the slow lane, but you also won't be tooling along at twenty miles per hour on a smooth surface. No one pays ticket money to watch that. And those potholes. You think they're big now? We're going to be ramping up the sides. You'll have to angle into them, hit the edges hard. Then every minute you've ever driven is going to be commanding you to hold the wheel steady. Wrong! You've got to spin back—not
let it spin
but control it so it looks like it's gone haywire, so the chassis bounces the way
you
want it to. And do it one pothole after another, bang, bang, bang.”

‟But—”

‟Meanwhile, hoping that passing pigeons, gulls, squirrels, and family dogs are obeying our signs.”

He swung right following the curve of Mission Street into South of Market.

‟Plus, you're not going to be driving your baby. Smooth handling? Think again. You know what they call the kind of car you'll be driving? ‛More bounce to the ounce.'”

‟Hey, I'm not here on a learner's permit.”

‟You are with me. Take it or leave it.”

His face was tense, the cords bulging in his neck. I'd pushed him to the edge—I'd
enjoyed
it—but I'd left him no face to save. Chances were very, very good I'd pay later.
My
name was going to be on the credit roll. My screw-up gave him this chance. If he blew it, it was going to ricochet all over me.

‟Turn left.” We were at the Fifth Street mess under the freeway. It took all his concentration to cut through the line of cars hanging heavy
lefts across traffic to the on-ramp, and do it before the light turned. There was a lot of no-man's-land here. But he was behind his own wheel and he was alert. ‟Focus in turmoil, that's what stunt driving is,” I said for encouragement. Meanwhile, the intersection was buying me time while I figured where to get out.

The light changed. Cars poured off the freeway. On the cross street brakes squealed. I started, looked in time to see a bicyclist shoot through traffic with inches to spare as she cut left toward Market.

Dark hair, white T-shirt, black pants.

Tessa?

Or any of two thousand other women on bikes?

Just a T-shirt in November?

One thousand cyclists.

It was a .001 percent chance. But I had to take it.

‟See that bike? Catch it!”

Mac looked at me. He eyed the cars in the lane to his right, the oncoming vehicles, the pedestrians on the sidewalk, and slowly eased the gas pedal down, gliding along with the traffic till it stopped dead twenty feet ahead.

I jumped out and ran.

‟This place is like ‛Call Me Central,'” I grumbled to Leo as I put down the landline phone. ‟My family . . . ”

‟Don't they know your cell?”

‟They believe there's a better chance of getting a return on a call here. They believe you'll prod me to call.”

Leo smiled, as if to say not yes, not no. He was sitting cross-legged on his futon, books lined up in front of him on a long rectangular
furoshiki,
one of the Japanese cloths used as bags, folded to cover gifts, boxes, and in this case books. Empty spaces in the bookcase revealed where the texts had been and now the
furoshiki
suggested they'd be wrapped and traveling elsewhere, though maybe only downstairs for lecture next Saturday. As his jisha, I'd be piling them in the center of the
furoshiki
, folding over both its ends and carrying them to a table next to his rectangular black
zabutan
in the zendo.

‟My brothers believe,” I admitted, ‟that I don't want to look irresponsible in front of you.”

He swung himself around to face the wall in a surprisingly graceful manner, leaving me talking to his back.

I laughed. ‟But, Leo, I've got so much to do before I—”

‟Before?”

‟Right.” I bowed to his back and stepped across the hall to my room. Time is an illusion; the future is a dream. And yet . . . I called my sister Gracie and reassured her about the rhubarb pie. It was already Monday night and I hadn't ordered one. There wasn't time now. First thing tomorrow I'd do it. Definitely, first thing.

I tried to get Jessica Silverman from the Ginger Rampono Fund, caught her only long enough to hear she was just rushing out the door and would be unavailable till tomorrow night, if then. ‟Busy week,” she'd said with a sigh.

I called Jed to . . . It wasn't till I got his message that I realized what I really wanted to do was talk about how twitchy and volatile Macomber Dale was and what a bad mix he and I were right now. Just as well I didn't get through.

I got an earful from John about not returning his call, and then I played Gary's message and phoned to let him know his warning about John had come too late.

Only Mike hadn't been in contact, and after Declan Serrano's comments I was glad. I'd worry about Mike later.

Right now, my big coup was half an hour for a nap before the event with Dale tonight.

The first person I spotted here amidst the movers and shakers was Declan Serrano, himself. Was there no cockroach-free zone in this city?

The reception was in City Hall rotunda, a spot best known nationally as the site of long lines of eager wedding parties during the brief periods when gay marriages were legal. Now, despite orange bunting and long tables of mild refreshment, the overwhelming sense was of chill, particularly for those of us flashily but inadequately dressed. Heels clicked on the marble floor and voices seemed to rise, swirl inside the dome, and bounce back down as a mélange of sound.

Mac handed me a glass of wine.

‟Thanks.”

‟So, did you catch your cyclist?”

‟Not hardly. If you can't beat a pedestrian, you shouldn't be on wheels.”

‟So, we could've had another hour practice time.”

I nodded, not that it registered with him. He was busy doing the cocktail party scan. That suited me fine. In my heels I was just able to do my own over his shoulder, keeping Serrano in sight but at the same time maintaining my distance. He, though, was busy with a tall gray-haired woman in a silver suit, so intently focused he didn't seem to be scanning at all.