The Color of Fear Page 6

  He smiled and began naming quite a list, labeling them B, L, or N: bigot, liberal, or neutral.

  “For somebody who doesn’t get out a lot, you know a lot about quite a few of your neighbors,” I said.

  “Oh yeah. I’m the local celebrity. Women bring me pies and casseroles. Men want to talk ‘real football’ with me. Frankly, I wish the guys would stay in front of their TVs and the women would romance me.”

  McManus was a talented athlete who’d had his shot at fame, but would never play again. And he wasn’t bitter. Sad a lot of the time, I suspected, but he’d put what happened in perspective. Given his poise, good looks, and deep voice, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him on TV doing commentary on the NFL games one of these days.

  3:25 p.m.

  I started with the L’s on McManus’s list. Members of the liberal community were more likely to be comfortable with the nature of my inquiry. McManus had starred a few names, and one—Yvonne Grace—lived on the second floor of his building. When I pushed her doorbell, a husky voice called out, “Come on in!”

  Trusting woman, in a building with so little security.

  The walls of the narrow hallway I entered were hung with masks: some looked to be African, others Asian; some were ceramic, some papier-mâché. As I passed between them toward the source of the woman’s voice, they all seemed to view me dourly.

  The woman herself appeared in a spotlight-filled room at the end of the hall. She was tall, with pale-blonde hair wrapped in a braid that was supposed to curl around the top of her head; unfortunately, the plait had slipped and was in danger of resting atop her left ear. Black paint and clay-stained sweats completed her ensemble.

  “Oh, don’t mind them,” she said, gesturing at the masks, “they glare at me all the time too.”

  “Then why do you keep them?”

  “I don’t—for very long. They’re my livelihood, and I sell ’em as fast as I can. Don’t know why people want such evil creatures. Maybe to remind them of their own evildoing?”

  “Or maybe to remind them of the evil that’s been done to them.” I held out one of my cards. “I’m—”

  “Sharon McCone. Tray called to say you’d probably be around.” She led me into the light-filled room, where the floor was covered with a tarp and a rose-colored sofa was encased in plastic.

  “May I offer you something?” she asked. “Coffee or tea?”

  “No, thanks. I’m good for now.”

  “That’s a relief. My pantry’s not good; I think I used the last teabag twice.” She flopped down on the other end of the sofa. “I’m working on this huge commission for a Cinco de Mayo celebration down in LA. Dozens of individually crafted masks, and you wouldn’t expect that it would take me until May to deliver, but I’m barely on schedule as is.”

  “I’ll try not to take up much of your time.”

  “You won’t. Uncle Tray—he’s not really my uncle, but that’s what everybody calls him—told me what you’re after. I was working late in the studio when the attack happened”—she motioned toward a portion of the room that was partitioned off by plywood—“and didn’t see or hear a thing. However, I do sense that something’s going down in this area that’s not good.”

  “What kind of something?”

  “It’s hard to pin down, just a feeling I have.”

  “Other assaults?”

  “Well, there was a Native American named Thomas Muniz who was attacked not long ago—”

  “Yes, I know about that. It may or may not be related.”

  “Well, maybe I’m just imagining things. I’ve always been hypersensitive to my environment.”

  I showed her the list Traynor had given me. “You know any of these people?”

  She studied it. “Some. What’s this coding mean—L, N, and B?”

  “Liberal, neutral, and bigoted.”

  “Uncle Tray’s creation, I suppose. Well, he’s got it down right. I’d put this one”—she picked up a pen from a side table and made a check mark—“into the neutral category. And this one”—another check—“is as bigoted as they get. But you know, Sharon, people aren’t just going to reveal their prejudices to you. You’re going to have to play the ‘my poor daddy’ card.”

  “Oh, I will. You bet I will.”

  4:01 p.m.

  Yvonne and I had gone over the list of names, ordering them by priority. Of course, I wanted to go up against the worst of the bigots first, but I accepted her insider’s wisdom and decided to start with the L’s.

  I sat down on the building’s steps and checked with SFG. Elwood’s condition was stable, a positive sign even though he still hadn’t regained consciousness. Then I connected with Saskia and Robin, who were keeping their vigil at the hospital. Hy’s phone was turned off—a situation that always makes me twitchy.

  Since it was late in the afternoon, I headed back to the office. Traffic was wicked as usual, with jams in unpredictable places and a crash that blocked my freeway exit and sent me out of my way. I was thoroughly out of sorts when I arrived.

  I grew even more agitated when I saw a crowd on the sidewalk blocking access to the main entry. Media people with cameras and microphones, and a TV van that was interfering with traffic. What on earth were they doing here?

  I slipped around the TV van and drove into our underground parking lot. From there I took the stairs to the lobby. One of our security guards, Ken Rand, was standing at his post, beefy arms folded across his chest.

  “Ms. McCone,” he exclaimed, “am I glad you’re here! They seem to be looking for you. I locked the doors, but they won’t go away.”

  “Isn’t there anything we can do about them?”

  “I’ve tried. Really tried. But they’re on a public sidewalk.”

  “And creating a public nuisance. If they get out of hand, call the cops.”

  Upstairs, Ted greeted me, looking upset. “I think we’d better sit down someplace private.”

  With rising apprehension I led him back to my office. “What?” I asked.

  “A story about you being Elwood’s daughter broke on the early news. This place has been a madhouse ever since.”

  “Damn! How did they find out?”

  “You know the media—they just keep digging and digging until they come up with something. We’ve been frantic, shooing reporters away. They’re making a big deal of it.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe it’s a slow news day?” He smiled when he spoke, but his face was grave.

  “Where’s Ripinsky?”

  “Off in some other world, as far as I can tell. He’s in his office with that look on his face—you know the one I mean—as if he were catatonic.”

  Oh yes—I knew that look. It meant he was struggling with a problem, working at a solution. I’d watched him many a time: he’d sit like stone, then the muscles of his face would begin to move. A tic by one eye; a twitch of his lips; an “Uh-huh” deep in his throat. His eyes would blink and he’d say, “I’ve got it, McCone.” And usually he had.

  “Don’t disturb him,” I told Ted, even though he didn’t need to be reminded. “Alert me when he returns to planet Earth.”

  Minutes later a high-pitched shriek came from somewhere in the suite, loud enough to penetrate the closed door to my office. I jumped up, ran down the hall; other people were gathering in front of a closet where we kept cleaning supplies. Ted had apparently gotten there first, and he was picking up from the floor a small, quivering person in a gray uniform whom I recognized as one of our regular cleaning staff. I pushed through the others and went to her.

  When she realized I was there she said, “Oh, Sharon, it was awful! He was hiding in there, and when I opened the door he took my picture.”

  “Who?”

  “A guy I saw with those reporters Ted’s been running off. He must’ve hid in the closet.”

  I turned to Ted. “You know who he is?”

  Ted asked the housekeeper, “Can you describe him?”

  “He was sort o
f funny looking. Short and round with a bald head and thick glasses.”

  “Dean Abbot,” Ted said. “One of the prominent members of our lunatic fringe.”

  Well, that figured. “Did he hurt you?” I asked the woman.

  “No. Just scared the hell out of me.”

  “Where did he go?”

  She shrugged. “Don’t know.”

  “Okay, I think you should go home for the rest of the day, take it easy.”

  She gave me a little smile and went down the hallway to the coat closet. I noticed that she opened the door gingerly and peeked inside before she got her jacket.

  Dean Abbot—the name was familiar. I asked Ted, “How do you know him?”

  “I thought everybody did. He’s a high-end techie called King of the Blogs. He’s got about a dozen of them.”

  “What does he write about?”

  “Whatever. Today, one of them, it was all about toothbrushes.”

  “What the hell can you say about toothbrushes?”

  “Damned if I know. I didn’t read it.”

  “Can you—”

  “Get some more info on him? Yes, I can.”

  “What do you suppose he was doing here?”

  “Probably trying to get a look at our computer system. What I didn’t get around to telling you yet—Dean Abbot is known as one of the best hackers in the West.”

  “Better than Mick?”

  “Hey, baby—nobody’s better than Mick.”

  I hoped.

  5:10 p.m.

  Our security staff had investigated and found that Dean Abbot was nowhere on the premises. I called our attorney to ask about legal remedies, but the firm’s offices were closed until after the holiday. Then I did paperwork until Hy appeared in my office about the time I decided to call it a day. There was more paperwork to tend to, documents and checks to sign, but I’d about had it by then.

  “Was a mess out there, right?” he said.

  “Yeah. For a few minutes I felt as if I’d been thrown to the lions.”

  “Has Elwood regained consciousness yet?”

  “Not yet. The hospital would have let me know if he had.”

  “The sooner he does the better. I have a lot of questions to ask him.”

  “What questions?”

  “His impressions of the attack. The old five senses, you know: visual images, odors, what he felt other than pain, what he heard. Did he fight back, maybe mark one of them? Did he realize what direction they were coming from? What, if anything, made them stop beating him?”

  “You really expect him to have noticed anything in the middle of a vicious assault?”

  “Yes, I do. Because I have.”

  “Ripinsky, he’s an old man—”

  “A shrewd old man who’s finely tuned into the world. Aren’t you the one who always deplores the way our country infantilizes older people?”

  “Okay, I was guilty of faulty thinking. But he’s my father.”

  “All the more reason to trust whatever recollections he might have. You didn’t get all your intuition from your mother.”

  “Certainly not. Saskia deals in facts, solid evidence.”

  “But it takes intuition to piece them all together. You got your gift from both sides.”

  “So what’s this so-called gift supposed to be telling me now? You’re the one who’s spent his day in quiet contemplation.”

  “What we need to find out first of all: is it only a hate crime against Indians, or other minority groups as well?”

  “Other Indians have been crime victims recently.” I relayed what I’d learned about Muniz and Killdeer. “Muniz has died, and Killdeer moved away, no forwarding. There’s sure a lot of hate going around these days. And it’s not all coming from Caucasians. Everybody’s got an agenda, and the hate is usually directed at some group that we think has a hate on for us.”

  “Everybody? Sure. Who do you hate?” Hy said.

  I thought for a moment. “Violent criminals, people who prey on children, people who take advantage of the elderly, scammers of all kinds, insurance companies and their inflated rates, Big Pharma that soaks people who need their medicines to survive, drug pushers and addicts, sexual predators of all types, animal abusers, most politicians—”

  “You see? Hate is a common commodity. Do you know the word appeared in two front-page headlines in the Chron today?”

  “Yeah, I saw it. So is what was done to Elwood a simple hate crime? If so, are the perps—I’m assuming more than one because one person couldn’t have administered so much damage—an organized group? White, Hispanic, black, Islamic? Are there cells of such people in the city? Or are they only bad boys who were out on the town and spotted somebody who they thought didn’t belong? Have they done this before? Were they simply drunks from the bars and, if so, what set them off?”

  “That’s a lot of questions covering a lot of territory.”

  “I suggest we find out about organized groups in the area. I can put Mick and Derek on that. Roberta can cover the bars, ask if any rowdy bunch was in late that night.”

  “And you and I?”

  “Later on tonight, we’ll walk the streets of the Marina, have something to eat, see what we can pick up on.”

  9:10 p.m.

  The evening was very dark when Hy and I went for our walk. No one was out and about on Avila Street, and we saw few people except for fanatical joggers as we made our way to Chestnut, the main—and very chic—shopping area for the district. We’d debated how to dress for our outing: wear our usual clothing, or opt for downscale, as Elwood had? Finally we’d decided we’d be less conspicuous and possibly learn more if we looked as if we belonged. Both of us were armed: Hy with his .45, me with my .38. We walked closely together without entwining arms or hands, spoke sparingly and in low voices.

  I said, “That’s the jewelry store where Elwood was found. Jesus, I can still see blood spots in the doorway.”

  “No, you can’t. There’s not enough light.”

  “Okay, so I’m imagining it.”

  We stepped up to the store to look through the display window. “Those aquamarine earrings,” I said. “He knows I love that color.”

  “And the watches—the day he arrived, he commented on how shabby mine was. Asked if it was reliable.”

  “So he was looking for presents for us. That makes me feel really terrible.”

  “Not your fault that your father cares for us.”

  “Still…”

  “I know.”

  We turned away from the window and walked on. There were more people on the sidewalks here, window-shopping or going in and out of the area’s many restaurants. They chattered in groups, blocking other pedestrians, walked without looking where they were going. An obviously drunken man was singing “Here Comes Sanna Claus”; his companions were trying without success to shut him up.

  My cell vibrated and I stepped into a doorway to answer it. Roberta Cruz, our newest operative.

  “Shar, I’m in a bar called the Twenty-Second Century on Chestnut near Scott Street. The bartender says there was a pretty unpleasant group in here the night Mr. Farmer was attacked, voicing racist sentiments.”

  I looked around, spotted the bar half a block from us. “Be there shortly. Keep him talking.”

  We hurried over there. Roberta was hunched over on a barstool, talking with a bald-headed man with thick, black-framed glasses. She smiled when she saw us, her rather homely, elongated face lighting up. When Roberta smiled, it could brighten even the dingiest room.

  The Twenty-Second Century was your standard neighborhood hangout: a long bar with stools; six booths upholstered in red plastic; retro checkerboard black-and-white tiles. It wasn’t as chic as most other drinking establishments in the Marina, but it had a welcoming ambiance that many of them didn’t. The few customers looked up and smiled as Hy and I came in.

  Roberta motioned us over. “This is Mr. Charley Willingham, the owner and bartender,” she said, and gave him our nam
es.

  We sat down and ordered drinks. I asked him if I could record our conversation, and he agreed. But before we got around to discussing what Mr. Willingham had to tell us, he said, “The place is for sale. At a good price too. I inherited it two years ago from my uncle, and I’ve been trying to sell it ever since. Don’t have the temperament to run a business. But the bar’s profitable, the location’s good, the regular clientele are nice. You’d think, given the prices people’re getting for absolute dumps in this city, that someone would’ve made an offer by now.”

  Willingham was not a person who could easily be held to a subject. However, you can also learn unexpected things from people who ramble.

  “About the group who came in…,” I said.

  “Oh yeah. It was about forty-five minutes before closing on the night—well, actually the morning—the old man was attacked.” He nodded to me. “Five of them, and they’d been having a high time, but I didn’t think it was enough of one to refuse service. A bartender has to exercise discretion, you know. Moderately high, okay. No tension among them, nobody being loud—that’s okay too. Language, well, that’s discretionary. Me, I don’t like the f-bomb, but it’s pretty common these days, even with women. If you ask me, broads have filthier mouths than the guys sometimes.”

  He winked at me and plunged onward. “What happened was, they took that booth over there”—he motioned to my right—“and for a while everything was fine. But then I was clearing out the booth next to them, and I heard what they were talking about.” He shook his head. “Some of the ugliest talk ever.”

  “What did they say?” I asked.

  “Racist stuff. You know: nigger, wop, Injun, slant, Jewboy—you name it, they used it. I don’t usually interfere with the customers’ conversations, but I did ask them to turn down the volume. They lowered it for a while. Then they got loud again and one of them said, ‘Hey, there’s the old man now. Let’s go get him.’ That’s when they left—trying not to pay their tab. I nailed one of them, and he forked over.”

  “‘Let’s go get him.’ Who? Somebody they knew?”

  “Sounded like they’d seen him before. Maybe were waiting for him.”

  I took a deep breath before asking, “Can you describe them?”