The Ancient Rain (18 page)

“You'll get the hang of it,” the woman said. “What color eye patch would you like?”

“Color?”

“The new patches, they breathe really well. And there's quite an array.” The woman had a box full.

“Am I going to look like a pirate?”

“Don't worry. You see it in all the magazines.”

“Give her that one,” said Beatrice, “with the sequins.”

The cosmetician positioned the patch, then started examining her hair. It had been burned to the dander on one side and hacked by the emergency crew. A stylist had spent some time with it earlier, but the cosmetician wasn't satisfied. She worked at reshaping, leaving the hair relatively long on one side, cutting it short on the other.

“This look is in fashion.”

It was true, Marilyn understood—a flapper look, but more drastic, edgy, not something you saw on the street but on the runways, with high-fashion models, and even the patch some way fit in.

If you used your imagination—and ignored the mottled scalp.

The cosmetician had an answer for this as well, a way of folding the scarf and tying it under. By the end of the session, Marilyn was exhausted, but there were still the clothes. She had sent Beatrice to Dazio's, and she knew what was in those boxes. A chiffon blouse, black slacks. A carmine-colored shift. A pair of red flats.

She knew, though, even before Beatrice took them out of the boxes, that she would not be wearing the slacks. Her thighs were burned, and her abdomen, and she could not wear anything that clung.

She got out of bed, standing flat-footed on the floor, and the women helped her into the shift. Then they admired her. They went on and on. She was beautiful. She was a doll. The shift was of a thin material that let the light through, so she was a rose in the field, said Beatrice, it was impossible to take your eyes away.

It wasn't quite true, Marilyn thought.

She did not look like herself. She looked fragile and somewhat silly. The material chafed. Still, she would keep the dress on until Dante arrived. He should be here before long.

Beatrice lingered.

They talked property values, how the market was still ascending. They talked about the Columbus Day parade. They talked about how Rossi's Grocery was closing down because the Rossi kids had decided enough was enough, and they could do better selling the property.

“It's a good thing,” said Beatrice.

It was her mantra, learned from her father—the salesman's mantra—everything was good, everything an opportunity. If the market was up, this meant ascending values. If it was down, it meant a buying opportunity. There was always a light in the distance, a lining around the clouds.

The nurse entered. “Someone is here to see you. He has flowers.”

Marilyn smiled. She couldn't help herself.

“Good timing,” said Beatrice. “You look wonderful.”

Sitting on the edge of the bed, in her loose dress, belted at the waist, with her eye patch and her new lashes, Marilyn wasn't so sure. She felt nervous, like a bride. The makeup had an unnatural look, she feared. In a certain light, you could see the crosshatching from the sutures, the mottled skin. It was easily mussed and would take hours to put on.

She heard the nurse go away and then other footsteps approaching, but knew it could not be Dante because he did not make that kind of shuffling noise, but came up on you softly. And she was right. It was the other man—with his millions of dollars and his many houses.

“Flowers,” said David Lake.

“How beautiful.”

Though she gushed, and Beatrice did, too, she had no doubt David Lake had sensed her surprise at his sudden appearance. He smiled anyway, clean shaven in his white shirt, boyish, and she saw at once both his charm and his vulnerability—the manner of a man who knew the limitations of his charms but was going forth, anyway. She was, despite herself, happy to see him. Meanwhile, Beatrice Prospero watched. Marilyn could all but hear the woman's brain clicking, and in that brain, Marilyn knew, Beatrice was adding up the man's worth, putting it alongside Dante's, comparing the one against the other.

Dante would lose.

“I was just leaving,” said Beatrice.

“Not yet.”

“Yes. You've got to get ready for tomorrow. So I'll let you two visit.”

Usually visitors could stay till nine, but she had a procedure early in the morning, one last examination before the doctors signed her out. David Lake sat with the flowers between his knees.

“I am afraid I have delayed the sale of your property,” she said.

“It's not the most important thing in the world. Are you comfortable? Do you want to lean back?”

“Yes.”

He used the buttons to lower the bed into the reclining position, then helped her scoot back, so she lay faceup with her hands at her sides. She still wore the colorful shift.

“I suppose I should let you rest.”

“You can get someone else to represent the house—Beatrice would be glad to.”

“No, I signed with you. I can wait.”

“You'll miss the market.”

“Close your eyes.”

He was a goof, but she did as he said. She closed her eyes. He did not leave, and after a while the phone rang.

“Should I get that?”

“No.”

It was Dante, she guessed. Something had happened on the case; no doubt he'd been delayed. He'd been here almost every day these past weeks, but not today, not now. The phone stopped ringing. She felt guilty, but it wasn't her fault. She should open her eyes, she should say something to her guest, but she liked the quiet. It was good, just lying in this room, eyes closed, with him in the chair, those flowers in the vase by the bed.

Later, she heard him leaving.

Felt him hovering over her bed before he left. Or imagined it, at least. David Lake watching her as she slept, then brushing his lips against her cheek. She resisted the urge to kiss him back.

TWENTY-THREE

Jensen's law offices were on Larkin, in the Henderson Building—the Gray Matron, as it was known: a squat, aging edifice on the edge of the Tenderloin. They were not fancy offices, and sometimes this bothered clients—or a certain kind of client, anyway; though those who knew Jensen, and his reputation, realized it was his philosophy to focus his resources on the case itself, not appearances.

Still, it created for some, not so much an air of the social underdog—an aura Jensen cultivated—as one of desperation, of a seediness that a certain kind of client would have nothing to do with.

The man who had put forth Owens's bail, William Sprague, was supposed to be the kind of man who did not care much about appearances. Regardless, he did not appear comfortable. Or Owens did not think so. He was a white-haired man, ruddy and thin, a man who had done well over the years but nonetheless possessed at the moment a disjointed and uncomfortable air.

“Jan would have liked to have been here,” said Sprague. “She would have liked to see you, but she had to speak at a foundation meeting. Back East.”

Owens didn't believe it. Jan had no desire to be here, to see him. Rather, Sprague and his attorney had come to address again the thing that had been left unsaid at the earlier meeting, at the prison, and which still hung in the air.

“As I mentioned during our last visit, we are concerned,” said Sprague's attorney, “very concerned, about the way these terror laws are being applied here—and the manner in which these old cases are being resurrected by the government as a way to discourage future dissent. As you know, Walter is willing to help—to provide full assistance to the defense. Our only condition…,” the attorney paused then, significantly. “His only condition is that the defense be equally committed.”

The attorneys looked at each other and then at him and the thing that went unsaid remained so. Owens tried to hold his mind empty, but despite himself he pictured that dance inside the bank almost thirty years ago, the people in masks, the line of customers weaving behind the velvet ropes, the tellers backing off—and the shot ringing out. The incident had been recreated in the media, choreographed on television, using extant footage of the shootout in Los Angeles, of Leland Sanford brandishing a rifle, the real and unreal superimposed, so it did not matter if Owens had been there or not, or what had happened—it unreeled in his head like a recurring dream. He thought of the dead woman. Of Eleanor Younger moaning on the floor—and how her death was being used—and he felt anger where others might want remorse.

“No plea bargaining. No offer of information in exchange for sentences. This is about an innocent verdict—about pursuing that innocence. And if you lose,” the attorney turned toward Owens, “your wife, your kids—Mr. Sprague will stick by your family financially…”

“That's correct,” said Walter Sprague.

“One small detail,” said Sprague's attorney. “The bail Mrs. Sprague put up for Bill—we'd like to have that secured.”

“All we have,” said Owens, “is the house.”

“It's a formality.”

“I understand,” said Owens.

Owens knew it was more than that.

Sprague would hold the deed to the house. And his family would lose everything if Owens betrayed his trust.

Jensen leaned back, ran his fingers through his sideburns. Owens had seen the gesture a thousand times. The mutton chops were out of fashion, but Moe Jensen still had them, and somehow he carried it off, that and the small ponytail: radical chic, attorney of the left, patron of the poor and oppressed, though he had crossed the line, it was true, defending scumbags and opportunists, same as everyone, and had looked, at times, pondering in front of the jury, like an overweight cocaine dealer. Jensen had been divorced several times, on account of his weakness for paralegals, and Owens sometimes wondered about Jill, who'd started as an intern at the firm.

Owens felt for a moment that paranoia he'd seen in criminal cases, when the defendant becomes suspicious of his lawyers, realizing the attorney's ambitions might have little to do with his own. No doubt Jensen had been brokering with Sprague before this meeting.

Jensen leaned over, staring at him with those hazel eyes.

“What do you think?”

And Owens remembered that moment a long time ago, in that basement in the Haight, when he'd confided more than he should have. So they both understood Sprague's interest in the case. In exchange for financing the defense, he wanted a certain kind of silence.

“I appreciate Mr. Sprague's idealism,” Owens said.

“Yes,” said his attorney.

“Jan,” said Sprague. “Jan and I both—we've always been committed to the higher good.”

“As are we all.” The attorney pushed the consignment papers across the table. The places where he needed to sign were marked with a plastic arrow.

Owens signed.

TWENTY-FOUR

Late that evening, from the window of Marilyn's apartment, Dante saw a woman walk by, and he saw her again—the same woman, he thought—maybe a half hour later, lingering in the shadows on the corner. When he stepped outside, she turned away. Later he would tell himself that he had recognized her—or should have, perhaps. And it was true, for an instant he had thought of Elise Younger and remembered how they had faced each other out on Judah Street—and remembered, too, how Owens had seen her lingering in front of his house. But then, no, this woman was just a passerby, most likely, and he, himself, was spooked by all that had happened, jumpy from that business with Sorrentino, feeling out of sorts because by the time he'd reached the hospital Marilyn was asleep, and he'd been unable to see her. And at any rate, the woman was soon in her car. Her taillights brightened. The car pulled a circle and went down the hill.

Dante walked. He walked for a long time. Annette Ricci had not told him the name of the Honduran restaurant, but the truth was there were only so many places in the Mission, and he'd been to them all. He had nothing to go on, no face, no name, so he had just sat and watched the dark faces and listened to the music. He did not trust Ricci, no. Or Jensen. But he did not trust those on the other side either.

Soon it was late. The bars had closed, and a patrol car circled Washington Square, sweeping it with a floodlight. On Grant Street, meanwhile, a woman pushed her cart away from the park. Coit Tower gleamed atop Telegraph, a white spike in the fog, and no doubt there were people sleeping under the scrub pines along the terraced hill, along the steps to the WPA murals depicting the triumph of the workers.

Voices carried from the apartments above. Indecipherable voices. Somewhere along here Kaufman had gotten drunk, written his poems.

Now the cop car swung back, and Dante found himself caught in the white blaze. They held the lamp on him for a long time, then a cop got out and studied his identification.

Just routine, apparently.

Part of the new routine, the new drill.

Soon he would deliver a report to Jensen, detailing everything he had learned so far, but he had not found Nakamura either.

The cops let him go, and he went back up the hill and stood for a while looking out where the woman had been standing. Then he went back to bed. In the morning he would go pick up Marilyn. He had missed her tonight but tomorrow he would go pick her up. She would be waiting for him in her bright-colored shift with the belt cinched loosely at her waist. She would have her makeup on, and he would help her out to the car, and she would lie next to him in this bed.

Outside there was the sound of a foghorn, and a car rumbling up the hill, and then footsteps growing fainter.

He closed his eyes.

He saw himself and Marilyn together, how it would be. They'd drink dark coffee. She'd sit with him for a long time looking out at the bay. They would wander down the streets in anticipation of the parade.

TWENTY-FIVE

The festival went back to the turn of the previous century, when the flat-footed boys in their knickers and suspenders would line up along the piers, feet dangling in the water, to watch the blessing of the fleet. It was an elaborate business. Out in the harbor, three fishing skiffs floated in the shallows, decked out like galleons, and on the lead boat, leaning over the edge, that would be Columbus and his Sicilian buddies, surveying the New World. Onward they came, smelling like fish, like wine, to stumble at the bishop's feet.