The Breakers

by Marcia Muller

  “Hey,” Al said, “that booth in back there just opened up. Let’s grab it—easier to talk.”

  They led me to a booth as far from the jukebox as possible. A waitress appeared and took our orders: Chardonnay for me, Jack Daniel’s neat with bottles of Anchor Steam as a chaser for them.

  When she returned, she set Al’s and my drinks down on the table. Ollie said, “Hey, girl, where’s my order?”

  The waitress produced it from behind her back.

  “Damn broad thinks she’s a comedian.” His voice was curiously uninflected.

  She pulled his baseball cap down over one ear and went away grinning.

  “Smart women give me the red ass.” Ollie turned to me. “I suppose you think you’re smart too?”

  “Not particularly.”

  He regarded me with peculiar pale-blue eyes. Their expression was as animated as a dead man’s.

  “You’re lying. Smart women, they give me the—”

  “Ol,” Al said, “Danny asked us to talk with her.”

  He made a growling sound, but otherwise remained silent.

  “Do you have any idea where Chelle is, why she disappeared so suddenly?” I asked Al.

  He shook his head. “Neither of us has a clue. There one day, gone the next, and not a word since.”

  Ollie’s mouth turned downward and he squeezed his eyes shut. “Chelle. Poor little Chelle.”

  Please don’t get maudlin!

  Apparently Al harbored the same fear. He pushed Ollie out of the booth, said to me, “Excuse us for a few minutes,” and guided his friend to a door leading to the restrooms.

  The waitress came back to the booth. “Hi, I’m Pamela Redfin, Danny’s daughter. He told me about your conversation this afternoon.”

  She was twenty-one or -two, with long dark hair worn in blunt cut and brushed back off her face.

  “Sorry about Ollie’s freak-out,” she added. “We get a lot of the walking wounded in here; Dad’s a veteran and he welcomes his brothers and sisters in combat. Ollie, for one—he suffers from PTSD.”

  Post-traumatic stress disorder. That explained the blank gaze and lack of inflection.

  “He’s been like that since he came back from Afghanistan. Al will get him settled down and be right back.”

  It was a good ten minutes before Al reappeared. “Thanks for waiting so long,” he said. “I had more trouble getting Ollie settled down than usual. Danny keeps air mattresses and blankets in a storage room in back for people who shouldn’t be put out on the streets. Ol’s kind of a regular customer.”

  He paused, obviously considering how much more he should tell me. “You see, you gotta understand Ollie. He don’t look different from other people, but way down deep, he’s kind of ruined.”

  “The war?”

  “Yeah. Afghanistan. The things he saw and did there just fried all his circuits. Most days he functions okay, but others…” He shrugged.

  “So you all look out for him.”

  “As much as we can. Chelle was especially nice to him—just talking, keeping him calm, bringing him the kind of candy he likes, that sort of thing. He told me when I was taking him out back that he hopes you find Chelle soon. Maybe you could…”

  I knew what he was about to suggest—that I counsel and comfort Ollie—but I couldn’t commit to it. I have a half brother, Darcy Blackhawk, currently in care at a psychiatric institution near Provo, Utah; his condition is severe, and after dealing with that, I have very little TLC left over.

  “Chelle seems to have a lot of friends around here,” I said.

  “She’s friendly, and it’s a friendly neighborhood.”

  “Her friendship didn’t work out so well with Damon…I forget his last name.”

  Al’s lip curled. “Delahanty. Damon Delahanty. He’s a real prick. Chelle split with him after she found out he was telling lies about Ollie and me stealing from her.”

  “Why’d he do that?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe he wanted to take over the job, bring in people of his own. The true story got around to Chelle, and right away Damon was down the road.”

  “Is he still in the city, do you know?”

  “No idea. But I better not catch him around here again.”

  “So you don’t have an address or phone number for him.”

  “Hell no. If Ol and I knew where to find him, Damon’d be black and blue all over by now.”

  8:46 p.m.

  Armed with what little information I’d gleaned, I went to our offices in the M&R—McCone & Ripinsky—Building to make use of my resources there.

  The building, I’m sorry to say, is the least distinctive on New Montgomery Street between Market and Howard Streets in the city’s Financial district. Four stories of dull red brick with very little ornamentation, it squats among such architectural marvels as the Palace Hotel and the art deco Pacific Bell Building (now home of Yelp). However, the building—whose bottom floor we rent out to various businesses—has its charms: namely, Angie’s Deli and the New Sports Attire on street level, and a lovely roof garden that we reserve for ourselves. The other floors also belong to M&R and have been tastefully but not ostentatiously decorated by our office manager, Ted Smalley.

  A while back, there had been a bit of controversy about the building’s façade: We’d commissioned internationally known artist Flavio St. John to create a sculpture to crown the main entrance. Unfortunately what the artiste had produced looked like a pair of clamshells—one gilded and one concrete, both ugly. I was sure no respectable clam would have taken up residence in either. St. John had fled the country along with our check for the work, but we’d put a stop on it in time. And, strangely enough, the sculpture—which Hy had proclaimed “as ugly as my aunt Stella Sue’s butt”—crashed to the ground one early morning when no one was around, fragmenting into thousands of pieces. It might have been a structural flaw or an accident, but was neither. Some people—including those close to me—just purely hate bad art.

  And that is all I will ever reveal about the Affair of the Clamshells.

  Although M&R is a 24-7 operation, most of the staff perform their weekend work from home, by either phone or computer. Tonight, however, I was surprised to hear voices in one of the offices halfway down the hallway from my own.

  Patrick Neilan and Julia Rafael, office mates who were working together on a case involving retail theft, had apparently come in to write their joint report. Right now they’d left off discussing the case to talk over some problem they were having with their children. Both were single parents, Patrick with two preteen boys and Julia with a son of about eight. They often discussed child-rearing issues and shared both rides to school and the babysitting services of Julia’s sister, who lived with her and Tonio. I kept waiting for a romance to bud, but it seemed neither of them wanted any entanglements—at least for now.

  I went into their office and said, “Who wants to work?”

  Deadpan, Patrick said, “We’re already on overtime. Try doubling it.”

  “You wish.” I pulled the ledger Cap’n Bobby had given me from my briefcase and set it between them. “Names,” I said. “Lots of names. Find out anything you can about them.”

  Julia frowned. “On Saturday night?”

  “The Internet never sleeps.” As I left them, I called back, “I’ll take your suggestion about doubling the rate under advisement, Pat.”

  I am such a pushover.

  At my desk I logged on to the computer and ran a couple of checks on Damon Delahanty. No phone number, address, or other easily accessible information. It struck me as unusual, in this age when keeping connected is the be-all and end-all. Tomorrow I’d turn one of my more experienced research staff members loose on locating him. No, not tomorrow. As soon as possible.

  I called my “symbolic cousin,” Will Camphouse.

  Maybe Will is a blood relative, maybe not, but it doesn’t matter because we share our Shoshone heritage in the way tribal members all over the nation do: with good f
ellowship and conviviality and also a sense of trust and willingness to be there for one another when needed.

  I’d met Will, a creative director at a Tucson ad agency, on the Flathead Reservation in Montana a few years ago, when he was visiting to celebrate his grandmother’s birthday and I was trying to track down my Indian roots. He’d introduced me to dozens of people who might or might not have been my relatives, some of whom became lifetime friends. Last year, he’d relocated to San Francisco and taken up residence in one of the condominium towers that seem to spring up monthly in SoMa. He’d started his own business as a consultant to ad agencies on major campaigns—that had been his specialty in Arizona—but during the lean months before the company took hold and started earning a profit, he’d done some work for me, and he was adept at computer searches. I asked him if he wanted to join me for a drink at our favorite Marina district bar, Jasmine’s.

  9:10 p.m.

  Jasmine’s is what I like to think of as the last of the fern bars. In the 1980s the city’s drinking establishments had been overwhelmed with fronds hanging from ceilings, draping over bars, tangling in patrons’ hair, and getting between one’s lips and drink. Gradually they disappeared—too much trouble watering the plants, too many dead leaves fluttering down—only to be replaced with fake ferns. Fake plants—whether plastic or silk—wear out quickly from excessive handling by customers who constantly finger them to see if they’re real. Now most of the fern bars have gone out of business or shifted to other motifs, but Jasmine’s has persisted. And her ferns are real.

  Will, well dressed and handsome with his black hair and Shoshone features, turned quite a few heads at the bar. He came back to my table and hugged me. Now we turned a few more heads.

  “They’re probably wondering what a guy like you is doing with an old broad like me,” I told him.

  “Nope, they’re wondering how I got so lucky.”

  We exchanged some small talk until our drinks came, and then I filled him in on Chelle’s disappearance and what I’d learned so far.

  He said, “I take it you want me to locate this Delahanty guy. And also find out more about what’s-his-name—Tyler Pincus.”

  “Yes, but there’s more. As I recall, Chelle took a driving trip early last spring and visited rehabbers and other friends across the country. I didn’t think to ask her parents about it when we spoke earlier, but maybe you can find out who she saw and where she went.”

  “I’ll call the Curleys and find out about it, talk with the people she visited. Also I’ll see what I can find out about the other people you mentioned—Al Majewski, Ollie Morse, Danny Redfin, and Cap’n Bobby O’Hair.”

  “Do you have time for all that?”

  “I’ve got all the time in the world when it comes to you and any friends of yours.” He took out his iPhone and began making notes while I provided details.

  While we were talking, my phone vibrated. Chelle’s mother, Trish Curley. Well, I’d have to talk to her sooner or later, and it might as well be here and now. Fortunately Jasmine’s is a quiet, laid-back place, and nobody minds cell phone use if you don’t talk loudly.

  “Have you found out anything about Chelle?” she asked as soon as she heard my voice.

  “Not yet, but I have some promising leads.”

  “Nothing but leads! I can’t understand how our daughter can just disappear—”

  There were noises that indicated Jim was wresting the phone from her. “Shar,” he said, “you do what you have to. We trust you, and so does Chelle.”

  “Where are you?” I asked. “Still in Costa Rica?”

  “Right. We couldn’t get a flight out—summer vacations, you know. Actually, I’d rather we stay here—we’d go nuts at home, and we know you’re there helping.”

  I hope so. I do hope so.

  I said, “While I’ve got you on the line, let me ask you about a few people.”

  Cap’n Bobby O’Hair? Chelle had mentioned him and his fish taco place, but that was all. Of course he knew of Zack Kaplan; Zack was the man who had told them of Chelle’s disappearance. Tyler Pincus? Just that he was a tenant she was trying to evict from the building she was rehabbing. Danny Redfin? Jim didn’t recognize the name. Ollie Morse? No. Al Majewski? Sounded vaguely familiar, but no… “What about the road trip she took to visit other rehabbers?”

  “She seemed to have had a good time on it, but we didn’t get into the details. We were saving them for a time when we could get together with both Sean and her.”

  “Has Sean heard from her?” Chelle’s brother was currently in Cebu, the Philippines, taking guitar-making lessons.

  “Not a word. He’s worried too.”

  Before we ended the call, I urged Jim to persuade Trish to stay for the rest of their vacation. He wasn’t sure he could. I asked to speak to her. She was running a bath—and probably crying.

  Family members can be very comforting—and equally alarming when you fear you’re about to lose one.

  I turned to Will. “That was the missing woman’s parents. I think they’ll stay down there. But you never know; Trish, like her daughter, is a very headstrong person.”

  “Well, maybe we’ll be able to wrap things up before they can book a flight. I’ll get started right away.” He hugged me again and made his way through the crowd at the bar, which had grown larger.

  As I was finishing my wine my cell rang again. My night for phone calls, this one from Zack Kaplan at the Breakers. “Can you come out here right away?” he said in an excited voice.

  “That depends. Why?”

  “Something important to show you and to tell you. Right away, okay?” He disconnected before I could say anything else.

  10:27 p.m.

  My car was boxed into its parking place by a Twenty-Four-Hour Pickup Service truck, and it took a good deal of horn blowing to get the driver to move it. Then I drove quickly to Jardin Street and parked behind Zack’s beat-up olive-drab Jeep.

  No lights showed in the old building, which seemed odd after our call. I took my big flash out of the glove box. The fog was blowing strong and wet out here by the ocean, the offshore horns moaning in a demented chorus. Again I pulled up the hood of my jacket and hurried down the street toward the door where Zack and I had entered earlier.

  The door was locked. I searched in vain for a bell, then pounded on the weathered wood. The sounds created hollow echoes, but no one responded. After a couple more tries, I took out my cell and called the numbers for Zack’s mobile and landline. No reply, although I could hear the landline ringing through the door.

  Oh, hell, what next? It hadn’t been all that long since I’d talked with Zack. So why couldn’t I get into the place?

  I needed to get out of this inclement weather. Maybe there was another entrance…Yes, there must be. Zack had said something as we stood in the lobby earlier about wanting to whisper when he came into this part of the building. But where else did he enter, then?

  I pictured what I’d seen while inside the Breakers. Maybe a back door to the first story? The second was closed up tight except for the trapdoors, as far as I knew. A way in that led up to the third floor, where the “ladies of the evening” had resided? That was a good possibility. I could imagine the patrons using multiple means of ingress and egress.

  I started around the old building, shining my light on it. The houses to either side, Zack had told me, were untenanted, and the thick shrubbery to the rear obscured it from the sight of neighbors on the next block. It was tough going, though. The ground was uneven; twice I had to grab on to sapling trees before I found footholds. Behind the building I was shielded from the blowing fog and could make a more careful inspection.

  The flash beam revealed a set of old-fashioned cellar doors at the base of the wall—the slanted double kind that flop outward to either side when you pull them open. Strange, since cellars aren’t frequently found in the city—or in California in general—particularly in loose, sandy ground like this.

  These doors wer
en’t locked. I grabbed one of them and threw it back on a creaking hinge, the clattering noise it made muffled by the fog. I leaned forward, shining the flashlight’s beam on what lay below three close-set steps. Not a cellar, but a neatly shored-up tunnel that angled upward to the first floor above. I stepped carefully through the opening.

  The opening was large enough for one person. The steps and the wood that braced its sides looked and smelled new, and the nails that held the pieces together were shiny. They hadn’t been there long.

  Who had constructed this entry? Zack? He’d implied he didn’t like to enter by the lobby. Chelle? God knew she was handy with tools and building materials, but she wouldn’t have dreamed of creating a tunnel to sneak into a place she owned. Or asked Al and Ollie to do so. If she encountered an intruder, Chelle’s style was more a beat-them-off-with-a-baseball-bat approach.

  I walked down the three steps onto bare earth. The dirt-walled space was about six feet high and five feet wide; at the upper end were more steps leading up to another trapdoor.

  I went up the other steps and pushed on the trapdoor, dislodging a thin shower of dirt and dried leaves and other debris. This one was also hinged and stayed open. Before I climbed up through it I finger-combed as much of the debris as I could from my hair.

  The room above looked to be an industrial-size kitchen, probably from the days when the elite met at the Breakers to fill up on—what had Cap’n Bobby O’Hair said? Oh, yes: coq au vin, mussels à la marinière, sole Veronique. And something about kidneys. God, I loathed kidneys!

  Lights. The electricity had been operating this afternoon, when I’d told Zack that the agency would take over paying the bills. I felt around the wall next to me and found an old push-button switch, and an overhead light came on faintly.

  Definitely an industrial-size kitchen, one in which a talented and fast-moving chef could produce—and presumably had produced—hundreds of excellent meals. No evidence of recent use, however; both the refrigerator and the stove were disconnected.

  I crossed and peered into the next room. Unfurnished, it probably had once been the dining room. The other public rooms had been cleared out too—presumably on Chelle’s orders. The only sign that anything was about to happen here was a collection of tools and building supplies in the front hallway.