“Well, for openers, there’s Josh and Zach. And, in my limited experience, war-torn nations rarely need tax lawyers.”
“A point in their favor,” said Quentin. “And that’s exactly the issue. You want all your domestic bliss—and excitement, too.”
I didn’t respond. Quentin knew far too much about my dueling desires for domesticity and thrills.
He continued, “Life is choices, my dear. So make yours, and as you say to one and all, don’t kvetch.”
“You shouldn’t pronounce both the k and the v with equal weight,” I said. “On second thought, you just may be too WASPy to even use that word, Quentin.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” he replied dryly.
“Okay, I’m sorry,” I said. “Last week there was a partners’ dinner at Michael’s firm, a bar association cocktail party, and I had to make cupcakes for Josh’s class. I’m just feeling a little too wife and mommy-ish.”
“You made cupcakes? You hate to bake.”
“Well, actually Michael made them. But I had to frost them. Truly, I will stop kvetching. Tell me what you’ve got that’s coming up. I’ll even do a ‘In Search of the Perfect Chocolate Truffle’ story for Valentine’s Day.”
“Spare me,” said Quentin. “Actually, it’s quite peculiar, you raising this issue about stretching your usual repertoire. That’s exactly what I’ve got in mind. Tell me,” he paused, “what do you know about the Cock of the Walk?”
I snorted. “It’s how my boys behave when they think they’ve pulled a fast one on me.”
“Mothers,” muttered Quentin. “Imagine how uninterested I am in the little darlings’ psychology. So you don’t know anything about the Cock of the Walk?”
I sighed, “Come on, Quentin, let’s not play Twenty Questions.”
“Usually you like games,” he said.
I didn’t want to encourage further discussion along those lines either. “Okay, okay,” I said. “Sounds like a restaurant on Polk Street.” Polk Street, which predated the Castro district as San Francisco’s most notable gay neighborhood, featured restaurants, bars, and boutiques with relentlessly cute names that mined predictable veins—a local spirits store named Sukkers Likkers, for example.
“You’re not far off the mark. It is a restaurant.”
“Hey,” I protested. “I thought this was going to be different.”
“Patience, my pet. It is a restaurant, although not on Polk Street. It’s in the Frog Pond.”
The Frog Pond was the latest in a series of gentrified revivals of old buildings, à la Boston’s Fanueil Hall and San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Square.
“A review? You want me to do a review? What about Lisbet?” Lisbet Traumer was Small Town’s regular restaurant reviewer, a woman who thought capital punishment was an under-reaction to overcooked vegetables and indifferent service.
“Don’t worry about Lisbet. She’ll do the review in good time. My interest in the Cock of the Walk has nothing to do with the food there. I think we have the opportunity to run a good story—and right a few wrongs along the way.”
“How moral,” I said. “How surprising.”
“Yes, isn’t it?” said Quentin. “It could ruin my reputation as a self-absorbed son of a bitch.”
“That’s not exactly what I meant,” I protested.
Quentin laughed. “Certainly it is. Now, here’s what we need to do to get you out of your wife-and-mommy funk. Shed that dreary little wraparound khaki skirt I know you have on.” I looked down. It was denim, not khaki. “Put on something splendid, come to the city, and I’ll take you to lunch and we’ll talk about this piece.”
“Can I wear a hat?”
Quentin was the only man of my acquaintance who actually liked women in hats. This, of course, irritated Michael, who found it further evidence that Quentin was “not his kind of guy.” He wasn’t, but for reasons Michael had yet to fathom.
“Certainly,” said Quentin. “The little brown derby with the veil, I think. The one that makes you act like Myrna Loy.”
“I’ll run by the office just before noon?”
“No, come by my flat. I’m working at home this morning. We’ll go somewhere in the neighborhood and eat decadent things.”
2
Across the Bay
No one needs to issue lunch invitations twice to Maggie Fiori. Not to mention dangling a big, serious, and—okay—moral story.
By eleven thirty, with visions of a congratulatory letter from the Pulitzer Committee and a really good meal as motivation, I had knocked out a first draft of the lox piece, given instructions to Anya about starting dinner and retrieving the boys at school, and cleared up the worst of the kitchen clutter.
Quentin prompted a woman to rise to the occasion. The denim skirt was gone, replaced by a gabardine suit, silk shirt, pearls, and the little brown derby he liked so well. I surveyed myself in the mirror. “Maggie,” I said, rearranging an undisciplined red curl under the derby, “you may feel like a suburban matron, but you put together a damn fine masquerade.”
The feeling of fashion-forward well-being lasted until I opened the garage. The Fiori family owns matching turbocharged Volvo station wagons. So I had my choice of station wagon or station wagon, red or blue, but that was it. Today, Michael had left me the blue one, looking wholesome and cheerful underneath its battle scars of dents and grime.
Oh well, I thought, at least these things can move, and putting suede pump pedal to the metal, I whisked down MacArthur, onto the freeway, across the Bay Bridge, and into the city. Out Broadway, past the strip joints, past Chinatown, and then into the Broadway Tunnel and beyond, sweeping across Van Ness and up the hill into Pacific Heights. My favorite view in San Francisco comes at the corner of Broadway and Fillmore. Just past the block of exclusive private schools that educate the children of the privileged into a lifetime of noblesse oblige, the view waits. From the corner of Fillmore and Broadway you see: a precipitous descent into the Marina and the Bay, with boats snuggled close to the St. Francis Yacht Club, and the Bridge—the one and only, graceful and gleaming—the Golden Gate linking San Francisco with Marin County.
Quentin’s no fool, I thought for the hundredth time, living here. For his flat, one of two in a meticulously restored Victorian, commanded that same view.
But the neighborhood has its drawbacks. Parking within three blocks of Quentin’s flat could drive a person to desperation. Fully half my annual quota of parking tickets (a cost of living in the Greater Bay Area) came from throwing in the vehicular towel and, after countless circles around Quentin’s block, parking in whatever illegal spot I could find. Driveways, fire hydrants, bus zones; you name it. I am pleased to report, however, that I always steer clear of disabled parking spaces. It’s a bad example to set for the boys, and I didn’t want it coming up in their “it’s all my mother’s fault” therapy fifteen years hence.
It was twelve fifteen and I was late. Quentin considered lateness in the same light he considered social diseases—an unforgivable lapse in manners. Still, I was getting my excuses in order. Quentin had promised on the phone to put his aged-but-perfect little Audi in his perfect little garage and leave me his driveway space. He must have forgotten, I thought. There sat his car in the driveway.
Live dangerously, I thought, as I trotted up the steps to the tiny porch in front of the doorways to the two flats. Life passes the conservative and cautious right on by. I’d acted on that philosophy. Since Quentin had so thoughtlessly co-opted his own driveway, I decided to go ahead and block him. Of course, the police had been known to put people away for eight to ten to punish lesser offenses, but I trusted Quentin, and I felt confident that I’d be in and out of his flat and on the way to lunch before any of San Francisco’s finest discovered my transgression.
Two rings on the bell. No answer. Some raps on the door. No answer. “Quentin,” I called. “It’s Maggie.” No answer.
He’s gone, I thought. This is what happens when you’re late to lunch with Quenti
n. “Quentin!” I tried again. “It’s Maggie. Come on, I’m just fifteen minutes late and it’s not even my fault,” I could hear the whine in my voice, and stamped my foot in frustration. Very adult.
“He’s not there, Maggie dear. Don’t yell. It just wastes your instrument.”
I whirled, embarrassed to be caught mid-tantrum. Quentin’s downstairs neighbor was standing in her doorway.
“My instrument?” I asked the kimono-ed figure who confronted me.
“Your voice, darling, your voice,” she explained patiently. “It’s terrible to shriek. You mustn’t, mustn’t do it.”
Madame DeBurgos (or DeBurger, as Michael likes to say in recognition of her generous proportions) was a retired operatic star. A minor diva, to be sure, but she had, in her time, sung roles in many of the major opera houses in Europe. We’d heard about “her time” each and every year at Quentin’s Christmas party, which Madame DeBurgos always attended in one bejeweled extravaganza or another. She and Quentin and Claire had been neighbors for more than fifteen years.
“What do you mean, Quentin’s gone? Did you see him go out? We had a lunch date.”
“No, cherie, I didn’t see him go out. But I heard him. My, my, I heard him.” She broke off, looking smug and mysterious, patting the elaborate concoction into which she’d spun her improbably colored hair that morning.
I was getting impatient. “What do you mean? You heard him leave?”
“Well, I can’t be certain,” she hesitated.
“Oh, Madame, try.” She looked as if she might waver. “If you know something, you should tell me. I’m really feeling cranky with Quentin right now.”
“Well,” she began with obvious relish. “You know, Quentin is such a considerate neighbor. I hardly hear a peep out of him. But this morning—such a noise. First, his stereo was turned up—my dear, I thought I might be deafened. Such a noise! And such music! It must have been—whatever is that strange young man’s name?”
“Stuart Levesque,” I supplied, beginning to feel nervous. I had an all-too-clear mental picture of Quentin popping out onto their shared porch any moment, finding me deep in speculation about his private life with Madame DeBurger.
“Yes, Stuart, that’s it. Anyway, this dreadful noise was shaking the building. It stopped a little later, and I assumed Quentin had returned from walking Nuke and ordered Stuart to cease and desist that racket.” She fluttered her hand in the air; half a papal wave, half an imperial order.
Nuke was Quentin’s terrier mutt, a preternaturally ugly little creature he had named for what he assumed would happen to our species if a nuclear device were exploded at the corner of Broadway and Laguna. “We’d all end up looking like Nuke,” he’d said. Despite Nuke’s lack of visual appeal, Quentin was devoted to the dog and faithfully walked him each morning and evening.
“So you heard him go out after that?” I asked.
“Goodness, no,” she said. “Then I heard—well, I heard the most awful quarrel. Such shouting and noises!”
“What was it about?”
“Maggie, dear!” She looked shocked. “Would I eavesdrop? However would I know what it was about?”
“I’m sorry. Of course not,” I muttered.
“Then I heard the door slam, and that was that.”
“Perhaps Stuart went out,” I suggested.
“No, my dear. It must have been Quentin. Because shortly after the door slammed, that dreadful music began again. Now, you know Quentin wouldn’t put that on.”
“Well,” I said, peering into the etched-glass panel on the door. “Then Stuart must be home.”
“I should think so,” said Madame. “I haven’t heard music for a bit, but I haven’t heard the door slam, either.”
I rapped again. “Stuart,” I called. “It’s Maggie. Open up.”
No answer. “I’ll just leave Quentin a note,” I said, rummaging in my bag. The only paper that came to hand was a book of deposit slips. I noted that Zach had already decorated them with rockets and monsters. “Madame, could I possibly borrow a piece of note paper?” I asked.
“Of course, my dear. I’ll run and get you something.” With that, Madame gathered her Cio Cio San–themed kimono around her and disappeared inside the door to her flat. I stood at Quentin’s door. Damn Quentin! Damn lunch! And damn climbing into these clothes for nothing!
As I fumed, I reached out to give Quentin’s doorknob an angry rattle.
It didn’t rattle; it turned. Careless man. First, he forgets lunch dates, then he leaves the door unlocked. I pushed open the door and called, “Quentin? Stuart?”
The door opened onto a staircase that led into a tiled entryway. I climbed the stairs, expecting Quentin or Stuart to appear any moment. Not a sound. Just Quentin’s pristine flat: all white walls, Berber carpets, netsuke, books, Japanese brush paintings. Michael always said, “If it gets any more serene in here, Quentin can sublet to Zen monks.”
And that’s the first thing I noticed that fall morning, with Madame DeBurgos caroling at me from the doorway. “Maggie, I’ve fetched you some note paper!”
What I noticed was this: Quentin’s apartment wasn’t so pristine any more. And, though I still couldn’t hear a sound but Madame’s labored breath as she puffed up Quentin’s stairs, it wasn’t so serene either.
A dead body in the living room cuts into your serenity something fierce.
3
Bright Meets JIP
“Ms. Fiori?”
“Yes?” I turned, shivering in Madame’s doorway, to see a tall, slender, Asian man with salt-and-pepper hair. He was dressed in a decidedly unrumpled trench coat and followed by two uniformed police officers. He held out his hand. I looked at it blankly, then remembered the social amenities. Introductions. Handshakes. Things like that. I extended my hand and wondered why he looked familiar.
“I’m sorry, I’m not very good at this. Yes, I’m Maggie Fiori. I’m the one who called you.”
“John Moon. Homicide. Don’t worry about not being good at—” He waved toward Quentin’s doorway. “This. Most people aren’t. It’s a bad enough vocation. I don’t recommend finding bodies for an avocation.”
We shook hands. Mine was icy.
He gestured at Quentin’s doorway. “In there?”
I nodded.
“Go ahead and get started,” he said to the two uniformed officers, and they headed up the stairway into Quentin’s flat.
“Do I know you?” I blurted. “I’m so addled, I just can’t figure it out, but you look—”
He interrupted. “You’re Michael Fiori’s wife. I should have recognized the name. We met after one of the ‘Geezrs on Ice’ matches.”
Some memory swam up to the surface. “Oh, of course. Senior hockey. I didn’t recognize you without.…” I gestured vaguely, up and down.
“Pads. Uniforms,” he said.
“Right. And—you’re a cop? I didn’t know that. But then, I wouldn’t need to.…” I knew I was babbling and didn’t know how to stop. “I’ll shut up,” I said. “What do you need to know?”
“Why don’t you begin at the beginning?”
“I was supposed to have lunch with…” I gestured at the door again, “…Quentin, and he didn’t answer the door. I wanted to leave him a note, but my checks had rocket ships on them. Zach, my son, draws all over them when we go out for pizza. So. Quentin’s downstairs neighbor—the lady who lives here, Madame DeBurgos—went to get me some paper. But the door was open, which isn’t like Quentin, so I came in—and there he was.”
I couldn’t bear to think about looking again. I closed my eyes. It didn’t help. Open or shut, I could still see Quentin as I’d found him: seated at his writing table, face down, the back of his patrician head a mess of matted hair and blood. I’d forced myself to feel his throat for a pulse. Nothing. The nausea washed over me—and I had just enough time to get to the bathroom before losing my breakfast. When I’d rinsed my mouth and splashed my face with cold water, I dug my cell phone out of my
purse and dialed 911. The dispatcher ordered me out of the house, in case the “perpetrator was still on the premises,” as she said. I hadn’t thought of that. I raced down the stairs and locked myself (and Madame) into her flat. Then, too restless to sit there among Madame’s overstuffed furniture and memorabilia, I’d gone down to the tiny front porch to await the police.
I tried to concentrate. Moon was speaking again. “And Madame DeBurgos?”
“She’s in her kitchen. Restoring herself, I think.”
“Restoring herself?”
“With a little Pernod. She’s not very good at this either.” From the end of the hallway, I heard a throaty wail.
“Maggie, what’s going on? Come tell me.”
Moon put his hand on my arm and steered me into Madame’s entryway. “Let’s stand in here for a minute.”
He pulled the door nearly closed and began, “Why don’t you—” when footsteps sounded on the front steps that led up to Quentin and Madame’s apartments.
“Quentin? Quent? Did you get picked up for bothering little boys? There’s a bunch of fuzzmobiles out in your driveway.”
Moon pulled Madame’s door open and called, “We’re in here. Come in, please.”
A young man stopped between the two front doors, puzzled. “Who’re you? Where’s Quentin? What’s going on?”
“Inspector Moon, homicide. Ms. Fiori, a friend of Mr. Hart.”
“Homicide? Quentin doing a story? Where is he anyway? We’re supposed to have lunch.”
The porch grew very quiet for a moment. The young black man was beautiful. Early thirties, dressed in artfully, expensively casual clothes—leather boots, pleated pants, oversized sweater, plaid shirt and cashmere scarf.
Moon spoke. “He’s in the living room in his apartment. And, I’m afraid lunch is… off.”
“He’s dead,” I quavered. “Quentin’s dead. Somebody killed him.”
The young man looked from Moon to me and back again. “Quentin? Dead? Holy Christ.”
Edited to Death Page 2