The Man Who Wouldn't Die

by A. B. Jewell

  But he was a real softie too, Terry. He was an accountant, worked at home, but when I met him, he was earning grad school money working for Lickety Sit, the babysitting service where you could hire a sitter in increments of five minutes so that the children didn’t have to spend even a second entertaining themselves. Kids would climb on Terry like a hairy jungle gym until he flung them off in laughter (theirs, mostly).

  “Good, you’re home,” he said. He stood in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs, wearing an apron, holding a spatula with some yellow goop on it in one hand, and a rifle in the other. “After your text, thought you might’ve been an intruder.”

  “The Winchester?”

  “Messy but effective. If my soufflé falls, I’ll use it on you. Come into the kitchen and explain your hysterical texts.”

  “I said to keep an eye out.”

  “My point.” He turned and headed back to the kitchen, my cue to follow.

  We lived in the upper Castro, halfway to Noe Valley, in an attached Victorian, sparsely decorated but for Terry’s collection of international beer steins and domestic album covers. I conceded an appreciation for the latter as I walked past a framed limited edition of The Doors, and then an actual door, leading to the living room, and then a gold-framed Born to Run. Terry must have been procrastinating; the maroon runner covering the hallway floor looked vacuumed, and he was cooking.

  We had neighbors . . . boy, did we have neighbors. To the left, we were attached to two women, the Perry-Pines, with two sets of twins, Piper and Polly, and the other two, Pippa and Dave. On the opposite side, a straight couple, Sandy and Sandee; I could never remember which was which and there was some tiny difference in pronunciation that was imperceptible to me, so I’d not used their names for years for fear of getting it wrong. They didn’t have kids yet but had an adoption agency, egg donor, sperm clinic, a precious spot on the ten-year waiting list at the prestigious Bong Bong Nursery School, and had put $4,000 retainers on not one, but two, of the most-sought-after doulas in case Sandy or Sandee conceived and delivered.

  The couple could afford it. One of them, I can’t remember which, had started a booming company aimed at cutting down on driver distraction. It was called Real Fun Drive (trademarked). The technology projected onto an automobile’s dashboard screen an image of what was actually going on all around the car. The driver then was not only allowed to look at the screen but was encouraged to do so, to use the steering wheel to navigate objects on the screen, and use the actual brake and accelerator to make the video car speed up and slow down, as if playing a video game. The idea was to try to “win” by getting home safely and not hurting anyone else. In fact, though, the person was actually piloting the car through the Real Driving Experience (trademarked), which was projected onto the screen. This, theoretically, solved two problems: keeping the driver attentive to the road while also allowing him to play a video game, which research evidently showed is much more fun than actual driving, even if the driver is aware that the game is a version of real life. They were working with their doulas to create a version of the software for childbirth and rearing. So one of them told me at a neighborhood mixer.

  The soufflé smelled out of this world. I stood at the cooking island, sipping water, and explained to Terry about the Tarantulas and he raised an eyebrow but seemed generally unfazed. Law-and-order type that he was, a part of Terry had just been waiting to exercise his right to shoot a trespasser on our property. I had canceled the Chronicle, fearing for the paperboy.

  I was about to launch into the rest of it when my phone rang. Private number.

  “Fitch,” I answered.

  “I got another message.” The voice sounded frantic. Terry gave me the who-is-it glance and I put up a finger, one sec. Tess Donogue sputtered on—something about someone named Gene and a monkey—but it was hard to hear with a clack-clack noise, then yelling, in the background. “Ms. Donogue . . .”

  “Mrs. I’m not [garbled] divorced.”

  “I’m having trouble hearing you.”

  “I’m . . . construction . . . so they . . .”

  “Can you go somewhere less loud?”

  “Call . . . ack.”

  Click.

  Terry raised an eyebrow and I shrugged my shoulders, which passed for conversation in our house. He got that I meant I’d tell him later. “Make it home for dinner?” he asked.

  “Expect to. Don’t shoot anyone who doesn’t deserve it.”

  “Kneecap anyone who does,” he encouraged.

  I walked out of the kitchen, feeling like I’d told him what I needed to, about the Tarantulas, and made sure he was okay. I was at the front door when the phone rang again, this one showing up on my caller ID with the name Lester Wollop.

  “Fitch.”

  “It’s me again.”

  “Mrs. Donogue?”

  I walked out the door and discovered that, uh-oh, Sandy or Sandee was standing beside my truck, glancing up at me, like he wanted to say something neighborly. I nodded. I clenched my teeth at the possible encounter, because I didn’t know which name to say, but I had my headphones on, so maybe I could get out of it.

  “Mrs. Donogue,” I said.

  “Sandee,” said the man. “Aha, you don’t know my name? I thought so—”

  “No, I know. I’m on the phone.” I pointed to the headset.

  “I got another message,” said Tess Donogue.

  “Can you spare a second?” said the guy at the car . . . shit, I’d already forgotten the name—Sandee or Sandy. They sounded so similar.

  “Who is Lester Wollop?” I asked.

  “What?” said Tess Donogue and Sandy or Sandee at the same time.

  “I’m on the phone,” I said.

  Again, a double: “What?”

  “I’ll call you right back,” I said. I hung up on Tess.

  The man standing next to my car, arms crossed, dark jeans, sneakers without laces, untucked flannel shirt, sleeves rolled up, lean face, light smile, looked deliberately casual, too casual. I asked myself: Does that seem more like a Sandy or a Sandee? In any case, he wanted something.

  “Hey, Terry, can I have a word?”

  “No, I’m . . .”

  “I know, Fitch, Willie Fitzgerald. You don’t think we know our neighbors’ names?” He chortled. He was so onto me. “You have a sec?”

  I exhaled and nodded.

  “We got some terrific news,” he said. “We got into Bong Bong, the nursery school. I’m sure you’ve heard of it.”

  Even those of us without kids had heard of it. It was the Stanford of nursery schools, an almost 100 percent matriculation rate into the kindergarten of choice, all the instructors have at least master’s degrees in “free play.” Given the waiting list, some people started signing up after a first date that seemed promising, hoping to time their procreation for when a spot opened up.

  I looked for the right response. “Congratulations. I’ve really got to call . . .”

  “Of course. I don’t want to bug you. Maybe I could get some time later.”

  “Sure.”

  “In a nutshell,” he started. Apparently this qualified as later. “We were way down on the list, at least five years off. But a spot opened up for a family with both parents’ first names starting with S, one of whom has a quarter Republican heritage. Demographic they’re looking for to round things out. But to hold the spot we need proof of embryo and we’re not quite there.”

  “I . . .” My phone rang. Desperate to get out of this encounter, I looked at the caller ID: Lester Wollop.

  “I realize,” my neighbor said, putting his hands palm down and pushing, to add emphasis, “I fully realize this isn’t your thing. You’re doing really important work.” Patronizing all the way. “At some point, I’d just like to ask if you might, well, frankly, help us find any loopholes.”

  I picked up the phone. “Hold on, Mrs. Donogue.”

  “This is Lester. Who is this?”

  In the background: “Les
ter, get off the phone!”

  “This is my house too!”

  “Estate!”

  “You cheated! You tramp! Who is this guy you’re calling?”

  I pulled out my earbuds.

  “Loopholes?”

  “Sometimes there are work-arounds,” said Sandy or Sandee. “Ways of putting pressure on organizations, if you take my meaning.”

  No clue what he was talking about.

  “Looks like you’re swamped. Let’s talk later. I’ll just leave it at this: I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t super important. The world is an insane place these days and it’s just plain irresponsible to attempt to bring a baby into it without giving it a reasonable chance of getting an immersive multilingual education in a free-play environment with conflict resolution as a core value.” I wasn’t clear what it referred to: the world, the baby. He swallowed. Misty-eyed. “Not to insult you, but I can afford to pay you for your time. I know you’re the best.”

  He smiled, then took two steps toward me, thrusting forward a fist. I managed to force a fist bump, unsure what I’d just committed to by so doing.

  Off went Sandy or Sandee and I put in an earbud, unsure who I would be speaking to. “This is Fitch.”

  “I’m sorry about that, all of it.” Mrs. Donogue’s voice.

  She continued: “That was Lester. My husband, sort of. We’re separated but he continues to live on the property and his name still appears on the caller ID, which is a major sticking point and something, frankly, that we’ve been talking about for a while in counseling. Part of our marital discord to begin with—whose name is on the landline. Just typical stuff. But you don’t want me to get into all that nonsense. And I need to tell you about the message.”

  “Slow down, Mrs. Donogue.”

  “And sorry about the noise earlier. I can explain . . .”

  “It’s okay. The message.” I opened the door to the truck, climbed in, closed the door, and instinctively looked around—curious to see if there were any lingering Tarantulas. Nothing evident. Hard to see much from my vantage point, given the sharp inclines of the streets here, up and down in every direction, like an Escher painting. After about a block in each direction, the horizon disappeared.

  “This one came on Snipchap, not Twipper,” she said.

  “Okay.”

  “It included a photo. It was a hand, beside a picture or several pictures.”

  “Was?”

  “As you know, Snipchap messages disappear after nine seconds. I can’t remember all of it, but I think there was a monkey and a bird and the name of someone, maybe Gene.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I have no idea what it means but I’m certain it was from Daddy.”

  “Why is that?”

  “His hand—it was holding the thing, the image or whatever, the one with the monkey.”

  “But it disappeared.”

  “It’s Snipchap,” she said, sounding irritated. “That’s the point. It’s a superior business model, solves the very real issue that people don’t want to have their information live forever. Even once they’re . . .”

  She had started crying.

  “Gone,” she whispered. “Gone-ish.”

  It sounded beyond suspicious. She had to be making it up.

  “It just disappeared,” I said.

  “It’s Snipchap! It protects people’s privacy by automatically deleting information. What, you don’t think people who are recently deceased-ish want their privacy? Have some compassion.”

  “Hang on.” I could already see the next aggrieved group, the Recently Not Dead.

  She cleared her throat. “Four thousand. I’m upping your signing fee. But you have to come down here, at least talk to Danny. I know he’s at Froom tonight. They’re hosting an invite-only event. I’m not invited, obviously, since we’re currently estranged, but I can get you in. He knew Daddy as well as anybody. He was Daddy’s little guy, the future of the family, Captain Don said.” Then, “Please.”

  It sounded genuinely plaintive and covered with a film of sexual innuendo. What had Lester called her? Tramp? She was barking up the wrong large man.

  But four thousand bucks. To go to a Silicon Valley invite-only party.

  Close call.

  I went back inside to tell Terry to have the soufflé without me. I didn’t have to. He intuited the situation from the moment I walked back in the door, and met me halfway down the hall with a to-go container. Gave me a nod. I wanted to tell him to be careful, but he might use the shotgun on me for overdoing it.

  I nodded back.

  At least there’s one serene place on earth. And I was leaving it. To go straight down the 101 and into the maw of the beast.

  Seven

  I DIDN’T GET FAR, not fast. Quarter mile before Van Ness, I was slowed to a veritable standstill by what looked, at a distance, to be a group of protesters. The march was headed my direction, signs and placards, chants I couldn’t quite make out. They were still a long city block away.

  I rolled down my window and caught the attention of a parking attendant at Lunza, a four-star restaurant off Gough, and asked what was up.

  “Realtors,” he said. “They’ve finally had enough.”

  “Of?”

  “Hold on,” he said. He reached into his uniform pocket and pulled out a phone. From the speaker: “Sunday Bloody Sunday.”

  “My ringer’s working,” he said happily. In the process of declaring this, he seemed to have forgotten all about me.

  The crowd neared, swarming in and around the cars. I could hear the chants.

  “What do we want?”

  “Inventory!”

  “When do we want it?”

  “Before interest rates go up!”

  First the Phippies, now the Realtors. Injustice everywhere.

  I opened my truck door, trying to get the attention of a woman knocking along next to it to get her out of the way. She carried a placard that read Make Down Payments, Not War.

  The woman, wearing a flowing black dress and pearls, broke into a smile. “Are you looking to sell your place? I will pay for staging.”

  “I want to move,” I said.

  “You’re looking to buy!”

  “Move my car.”

  “Willful ignorance,” the guy next to her said. “No compassion.”

  “Edward,” the woman says. “He’s mine. I saw him first.”

  Edward, khakis and button-down, said: “No, I mean, no.” Totally exasperated. He eyed me. “How can you be a citizen of this country, this once beautiful city, and not know that there is a huge shortage of real estate inventory?”

  “For people to live in?” I played along.

  “To sell. How are Realtors supposed to even eat—at Lunza? God, do you even read Instacharm?”

  “I read the newspaper.”

  He looked at the woman, incredulous, as if I’d just said I didn’t care about war babies.

  “Look at me,” he yelled. “It has been nine months, nine months, since I’ve had a decent listing.”

  “Not including the one on Magellan,” the woman said.

  “And the one in St. Francis Woods,” he noted. “A flip. A fluke. I’ve got two mortgages just to feed myself.”

  The cars in front of me started to move. I hit the accelerator and then paused when I saw a police officer on the edge of the protest. He had one of those black boxes that Lieutenant Gaberson had carried around. Then he disappeared behind the crowd. “Hey, Realtors,” I said. “Isn’t this just, y’know, an ebb and flow in market conditions? What do you expect anyone to do about it?”

  “You racist!” Edward screamed. This prompted people in the crowd to take an interest and surge forward. In the movement, I could see the policeman with the black box. He was on the sidewalk, holding up the box, pointing it in our general direction. I could see a little cone extending from it and then I totally lost him in the sea of furious Realtors.

  “Move,” I said to the horde, trying to keep a
n eye on the cop and his odd contraption.

  A few protesters broke into song: “This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is Our Land. This Land Is Developable!”

  Followed by: “We Shall Overcome Historically Low Inventory.”

  I slipped into an opening and zipped along, trying to look back over my shoulder at the cop with the black box. I couldn’t find him, but lo and behold, I caught another one—cop—in the third story of a commercial building at the corner of Van Ness, holding another black box.

  Odd for sure.

  HONK!

  I was holding up the line of furious commuters already detained by the line of the march.

  I focused on the road, serpentining among a few more protesters, hit relatively open road, and soon I was zooming at ten miles an hour in commute traffic.

  An hour later, I was still on the 101, still twenty minutes out from Froom, tapping the steering wheel to the rhythm of the thoughts in my head. First off, no way—no way—Donogue was carrying on from the afterlife. Defied all reason. But that didn’t mean something else wasn’t going on. Murder? Maybe. Financial foul play? Likely. Some family squabble? Most definitely. Involving money. My dad once told me that dough was the only thing people actually ever really fight about. I’d rarely had a case that didn’t prove him right.

  So that made our persons of possible interest in this otherworldly affair Tess Donogue; her estranged son, Danny; Lester Wollop; maybe dead Captain Don’s business partner, Alan Klipper.

  Separately, I thought, what to make of these odd black boxes the cops were holding, and seemingly pointing at protesters? Some new law enforcement device, I presumed. Easily enough solved. I’d ask Lieutenant Gaberson. He’d always been a straight shooter. But it was odd he hadn’t mentioned anything earlier.

  Still, I figured, why waste any time worrying about stuff I don’t even know is a problem yet?

  My eyes were drawn to a billboard, blinking neon: Text #SAFETYFIRST If You’re Focused on the Road. For a Chance to Win.

  Then another billboard with a picture of the Dalai Lama that read Make Peace. Make Anything. With Macrasoft (making things since 1985).