There's Something in a Sunday Page 7

  Vicky came back clutching two big balloon wineglasses full of a pale pink liquid. “No white, we’re out,” she said. “Hope you don’t mind a blush. It’s something quite good, but I can’t tell you what. Gerry could.” She set mine down on the glass-topped table in front of the couch. I noticed smears around the lip of the goblet-probably those “unsightly spots” the dishwasher detergent commercials are always lamenting.

  “Actually, I like blush,” I said, “but it’s a new term, and it always embarrasses me to ask for it.” The pun was unintentional-as most of my best ones are. It didn’t matter; it went right over Vicky’s head. I suspected that, like many intense social reformers, she didn’t have much of a sense of humor.

  “I know what you mean,” she said seriously, settling at the other end of the couch. I’d noticed before that when she was being earnest a deep set of wrinkles appeared between her eyebrows, and she screwed up her mouth so it resembled a withered rosebud. With her Alice-in-Wonderland hair and rounded, fuller face, it had seemed appropriate and charming; now with this straggly, greasy perm and new gauntness, she looked as if she were trying terribly hard to understand something but not succeeding all that well.

  I sipped my wine. As she’d said, it was very good.

  Vicky went on, “All these new things. New styles. Blush wine. The music-my kids play it. I don’t even know who the singers are. Or why anybody would bother to listen to it. California cuisine. Is pasta salad still in, or has it gone out? Running? Eastern religions? The new sobriety-God, I just got used to cocaine. I don’t know, I don’t get out much anymore. At least not in what Gerry calls the right circles. And when we do, I don’t know how to talk to those people. I mean, I’m trying to keep the corporations and that damned university from eating my neighborhood alive, and they’re discussing exotic varieties of lettuce, for God’s sake. Or is designer lettuce out too, now? Maybe that was last year….”

  I knew how she felt. But unlike her, I didn’t give a damn what was in or out, nor did I hang around with people who did.

  Vicky set her glass down and reached for a carved ivory box on the table. She extracted a joint and said, “Do you smoke?”

  “Not anymore. I guess my drug’s alcohol.”

  “But you don’t mind if I do?”

  “Why should I?”

  She nodded, giving me her terribly earnest look again, and lit up. “That’s nice,” she said, after inhaling and releasing the smoke slowly. “Nowadays everybody seems to mind-regardless of what it is you do. I can’t help it, that’s what I tell Gerry, with all this stuff going on and all the responsibility, I get so tense. There’s this woman who works for me, she says I should take up a hobby, something peaceful that would give me a chance to be alone with my thoughts. But my thoughts-my God, if I think about everything that’s going on, I just get so nervous.”

  She was making me nervous. I wondered if she’d always been like this, or if something had gone wrong in her life since I’d last seen her. At the All Souls functions she’d seemed hyper, but no more so than most of the people on our staff. She certainly hadn’t seemed this jittery and ready to fly out of control.

  I decided to ask my questions and get out of there. “Vicky,” I said, “I need your help.”

  She let out smoke in a long breath. “Yes, sure. What is it?”

  I explained in the way I’d planned: about Rudy Goldring’s murder, the woman who had fled the scene, the license plate number of the car, and how I wanted to make sure the woman was all right. Vicky listened, nodding and sucking on her joint. When I’d finished, she’d finished it and dropped the roach in an ashtray.

  “Sharon,” she said, her voice more mellow now, “what can I tell you except what I told the cops? It’s my car, and my license plate number, but I had a meeting of my steering committee for this thing against UC going right here in my living room the whole time. And the car was parked in the driveway.”

  I glanced through the glass wall; there was no driveway or car visible. “I don’t understand how you could see it from here.”

  “I couldn’t, but the garage is inside the compound, and cars can only enter or leave by the gate next to it. It’s controlled by electronic openers, and only Gerry and I have them.”

  The woman I’d encountered at Rudy Goldring’s hadn’t looked like the criminal type, but I asked, “What if someone had come over the wall and used the opener-”

  “No way. The wall is wired, the whole place is. Gerry insisted on a very good alarm system, and it’s on all the time. He’s very security conscious, Gerry. He even made me learn to shoot. We have a .22 in our bedroom; I hate it. But that’s all because of the trouble we had with those damned squatters. Do you know they kept trying to sneak back in here for two years after we’d moved in-”

  “Mom, we’re back! Can we-”

  “Betsy, honey!” Vicky twisted around toward the entryway, a look of pleasure wiping the earnest creases from her brow.

  I turned, too. A girl of about ten stood there. She was tall for her age, but chunky. Her hair was blond and straight as Vicky’s had been before she got her awful perm, but lopped off bluntly at her shoulders; her turned-up nose and heavily lashed eyes were Vicky’s, too, but her jaw was strong and square-Gerry’s? Yes, like Gerry’s.

  “Mom, listen,” she said, “can Rina and Lindy and I make some popcorn?”

  Vicky glanced toward the kitchen, as if she were afraid her daughter and her friends might mess it up. That, I thought, was probably impossible; given the state this room was in, Lord knew what chaos lurked behind that archway.

  Vicky said, “Not right now, honey. I have company.”

  “But, Mom…”

  “I said, not right now, honey.”

  “Mom, please-”

  “No, dammit!” The vehemence of her reply surprised me. “No, you may not! I want you to go to your playroom, or the swings, or Rina’s, or wherever, but just let me alone. I have a friend here, and I’m relaxing for once, and I don’t want to be disturbed-by any of you. You make sure you tell Rina that. Am I making myself clear?”

  Vicky had twisted all the way around and was looking intensely at Betsy. The little girl crossed her arms over her T-shirted chest and clutched her elbows.

  “Am I making myself clear?” Vicky repeated.

  “Yes ma’am.” Betsy turned and ran out, slamming the door emphatically.

  Vicky’s face was flushed and she was breathing heavily. She twisted back to her former position, drew her legs up, and covered her eyes with her hands, elbows on her knees. “Jesus,” she muttered, “what the fuck am I doing to my kids?”

  I was framing a reply-one that would involve the concept of this merely being an off day-when the phone rang. Vicky glared at it, then stalked over to answer. Her curt “Yes?” mellowed to an “Oh, hi,” and she dug in a carved wooden box on the table next to her, extracted another joint, and lit it. Did she have little stash boxes all over the place? I wondered.

  “You what?” she asked. Dragged deeply on the joint. “Oh yes. I forgot. I see. No, it’s okay-”

  There was a long pause.

  “I’m not, Gerry,” she finally said. “I’m just relaxing with a friend. What’s wrong with that? Can’t I have friends, too?” There was a childish whine in her voice, and I decided this encounter was getting too embarrassing-for both of us. I’d come for information, not to pry into what was obviously a difficult domestic situation. I got to my feet.

  Vicky motioned for me to stay, but I mouthed the words, “I’ll call you,” and hurried to the door.

  Outside, the day had gone pinky gold and dusky-a further harbinger of autumn. Somewhere in the eucalyptus grove I heard the caw of a crow. For a number of reasons-the obvious and the purely personal-I always associate that type of bird with death. I listened to it as the trees; leaves shivered and flashed silver in the early evening breeze.

  Don’t be silly, I told myself. This may be a troubled household, but they’ll work it out.


  Then I looked at my watch. It was close to six-thirty, and tonight Rae had promised-with her Girl Scout salute and an offer of a stack of Bibles-that she would for sure be at the Remedy Lounge by seven. I dismissed Vicky, Gerry, the hapless Betsy, and even the threat my alma mater’s medical center was posing to Haight-Ashbury, and retraced my earlier route to the Mission District.

  EIGHT

  “Sharon, I understand why you’re not pleased with my work, I really do. It’s just that Doug is so needy right now.” It was the fourth time Rae had said that-or at least some variant on it. She was reasonably drunk; I suspected she’d fortified herself with something from the All Souls refrigerator before making the trek downhill to the Remedy Lounge.

  I said, as I also had three times before, “I’m not unhappy with your work-when you do it.”

  She moved her glass around on the gouged formica tabletop, making wet circlets with the beer that had slopped around its base. “But that’s what I’m trying to explain. It’s a real bad time for Doug. He’s got to declare his intention to go for the doctorate or take a terminal M.A. Terminal M.A. Wow, it sounds like you die if you do that!”

  I had to admit they could have found a better term for it, but it was a tangential issue that I didn’t want to get off on. I sipped wine, giving myself time to think. Finally I said, “Rae, what do you want to do with your life?”

  “With my…what?”

  “With your life. Do you have a dream?”

  “Me? Oh yeah, of course.”

  “What is it?”

  “Well, I guess I want to be like you.”

  It took me aback; I’d never been a role model before. When I didn’t reply, Rae flashed me a mildly reproachful look and finished her beer. She looked over at the bar, and Brian, the bartender, gave her a thumbs-up sign and began drawing another Bud. It annoyed me vaguely; the Remedy doesn’t have a waitress, but Brian had been bringing Rae’s beers to our table as if it were a common practice. In all the years I’d been coming here, he’d never taken so much as one step out of his way for me-or any other customer.

  I studied Rae: her untended auburn curls, lack of makeup, mangy coat, and moth-eaten sweater. She looked like hell most of the time, and even on her good days she dragged around half dead. Yet she had so much to offer-so much intelligence and good humor and guts-that it had even caught the eye of Brian, who probably hadn’t really seen any of the remedy’s clientele since 1952. It seemed a shame that she was willing to throw away her life for the sake of “needy” Doug.

  I said, “By being like me, I take it you mean you want your license and a good job that affords you a certain amount of freedom and flexibility.”

  She nodded, taking the beer from Brian.

  “What about Doug? Does he want that for you?”

  “…I guess.”

  I tried another tack. “Does Doug also have a dream?”

  As soon as I spoke, there was a change in her: her face grew animated, and she even sat up straighter. “Yes-he’s a wonderful writer. He wants to sell short stories to magazines like The New Yorker.”

  Inwardly I winced. I knew a couple of short-story writers; what they mainly did was not make much money at it.

  Rae went on, “That’s one of the reasons Doug is thinking of taking the terminal M.A. He’s in the English lit program right now, but he doesn’t like it. He really wants to switch to creative writing.”

  I thought back to a conversation I’d had with Rae a couple of months ago. She’d told me that before Doug had entered the English program at SF State, he’d been studying filmmaking at UCLA. And two years before that, when they’d first been married, he’d been working on a graduate journalism degree at Berkeley.

  My silence told Rae what I was thinking. She said, “If he goes ahead with it, this will be absolutely the last change. He’s finally found himself. I really believe that.”

  She did, too. I could see that in her eyes, hear it in her voice. And maybe she was right; after all, she knew Doug better than anyone. But it bothered me that she was so committed to living his dream rather than her own.

  That, however, was a philosophical point we could argue all night, and I had more practical issues to attend to. I said, “Rae, how much do you make a month?”

  “A thousand. You know that.”

  “And out of it you pay what for rent?”

  “Six hundred, and then there’s the other stuff.”

  “Which leaves you…?”

  “Well, nothing, on account of the car and the cost of food and utilities- Do you know my damn landlord wants to start charging us for garbage and water? I think that’s illegal, and I’m going to ask Hank-”

  “Rae, do you want to always live hand-to-mouth?”

  “Well, of course not!”

  “And do you want to work as a gofer at All Souls for the rest of your career?”

  Her fingers clenched on the glass, and her freckles stood out against her sudden pallor. “Are you firing me?”

  “Lord no! Just answer the question.”

  “Well, of course I don’t. I want to get my investigator’s license. I meant it when I said I want to be like you.”

  “Getting that license is predicated on you doing a good job for me.”

  “Oh God, Sharon…”

  “Don’t whimper. I can’t take whimpering.” Her furrowed brow and trembling mouth were both heart-wrenching and annoying. I thought, If she were a man, she wouldn’t dare pull that crap on me. And then I thought, But if she were a man, we wouldn’t have a situation like this on our hands because very few men would cater to their wives the way she does to Doug. It’s a bind that our upbringing puts us women in, and one that’s not all that easy to break free of.

  “Listen,” I said, “I’m going to give you another chance. I think we’ve been going about this wrong.”

  She nodded, looking hopeful and releasing her stranglehold on the glass.

  “I realize,” I said, “that I’ve been loading you down with scutwork and not taking time to teach you the things you need to know. So what I’m going to do is-in addition to the routine work-let you take on some special projects.” When she started to speak, I held up my hand. “I know it sounds good, but you’ve got to remember this: they’ll take extra time-cause you to work long hours, odd hours. You may have to neglect Doug, so you’d better talk it out with him first.”

  “I’ll talk to him as soon as I get home tonight.”

  “Good. And after you’ve completed a few projects, we’ll talk again, to evaluate your work and decide if you’re really suited to this business.” Good Lord, I thought, I sound like a genuine supervisor. I could see myself years hence, directing a full staff of operatives, generously dispensing the wisdom gleaned through years of experience.

  “What’s the first project?” Rae asked.

  The vision of my managerial future faded. “Uh, I don’t know yet. When something comes up, I’ll brief you. In the meantime, do you think you could try to get to work on time tomorrow?”

  I sensed she was disappointed by my lack of a definite project, and I hoped my somewhat wheedling tone hadn’t undermined my authority. As it worked out, however, I didn’t have to worry about her arriving at All Souls on time the next morning. I decided I needed to get some food into her before she drove home, so we went back to the co-op, and I threw together a pot of spaghetti, like Hank used to do in the old days. Jack and a couple of the other inmates of the second floor joined us, we drank more beer and wine, and before I knew it, Rae had passed out on the waiting room couch. I covered her with Jack’s spare blanket and went to call Doug-taking an unreasonably sadistic pleasure in telling him Rae wouldn’t be home until after work the next day.

  The deep blue Friday morning sky promised a day as splendid as the one before. I took my coffee and newspaper out onto my back deck, studiously ignoring the Brussels sprout plants, bulbs, soil, and fertilizers I’d bought on Sunday and left on the steps that led to my weedy, overgrown backyard. (The cr
assula and baboon flower resided in the living room.) Watney, who had not mended his wandering ways for very long, came bounding out of the shrubbery; when he saw I had nothing for him to eat, he darted off again. I settled down with the Chronicle, and after a while, on an inside page, found a half-column item headed SEARCH FOR MURDER SUSPECT CENTERS ON PARK.

  The story said that Robert Choteau, wanted for questioning in the murder of clothier Rudolf Goldring, had been seen by several witnesses in Golden Gate Park, and the SFPD was now concentrating its search there. It didn’t surprise me. In recent years the park has become a refuge for many of the city’s homeless, estimates of how many make it their permanent abode soar as high as a hundred.

  Of course, the park has always sheltered its share of hermits; one of the witnesses who had reported seeing Bob was a self-styled “forager” named John, who claimed to have lived there a dozen years and had told reporters he didn’t want “criminal elements destroying the ecology of my home.” According to park officials, John may have a point. The problem is more serious these days than at any time since the hippies took to camping out there in the late sixties. Many of these new inhabitants have serious alcohol and drug problems, others are simply destructive, and there’s not much that can be done about them. If they’re run off or arrested, they simply return later.

  As a park administrator whom I’d met at an All Souls party had told me, the situation there wasn’t going to get better until society itself improved. My reply to him had been an ironic “good luck.”

  I set the paper to one side, got myself more coffee, and thought about Bob Choteau. My gut-level instincts-which I wouldn’t have mentioned to Ben Gallagher to save my life-said that Bob hadn’t killed Goldring. There had been too much genuine affection between the men-as shown in the way Bob had addressed Goldring as “Captain,” for one example. More important, Bob had not stood to gain anything by the murder. With Rudy alive, he had a supply of beer, probably a small amount of pocket money, a stoop to sit on, and thus what-to him-must have been a certain standing in the derelict community. Without Rudy, Bob was just another bum on the street, a nobody.