Snowman

by Abramson, Mark

  "Thanks for the coffee." Teresa got up from her stool and headed for the door behind Tim.

  Ruth looked pleadingly at the two of them as they deserted her. Then the phone rang behind the bar. "Good evening, Arts – Ruth speaking… oh, hello, Sam. No, no, not at all… you couldn’t have called at a better time. How are you, dear? That sounds delightful. No, I’m sure Dianne can find some other way to amuse herself for a few hours. She’s been quite resourceful, really. I’d love to see you and you can tell me all about it then."

  Chapter 12

  rtie finally—reluctantly—agreed to talk with Officer Peter Parker on Thursday afternoon. Amid dramatic A sighs and rolling of eyes he admitted, "Why yes, I was tending bar that night when the sewer backed up, but what would I know about plumbing? Nothing! That was the night my back went out… ooh… ouch."

  Artie’s back was much better now, but he pretended to be exhausted and in pain in hopes that the officer would take pity on him and cut short this grueling questioning. Peter Parker figured he was wasting his time with Artie, anyway.

  Friday morning—also on Collingwood Street—Artie ran into Officer Parker again. He was coming down the stairs as Artie was going back up with his morning Chronicle—in his bathrobe! At least Teresa had a smile on her face these days.

  Since Artie’s back was better he went back to work on Friday night and Ruth got a couple of nights off. On Friday morning she walked from Collingwood over to Tim’s place on Hancock for coffee. Even though he’d been in every night this week for dinner, she wanted to spend some time alone with her nephew. "I’m glad you came by," he told her. "All I’ve done most of this week is watch junk on television and sort through my sock drawer, surf the web, you know…"

  "Being cooped up here doesn’t sound very healthy, honey."

  "I need to get back to the gym or at least start running again. I’d love to go lay out in Dolores Park, but I need to stay out of the sun until I stop peeling. I really overdid it at Sam’s pool the other day."

  "You have to find something more productive to do than sit around here. Daytime TV will rot your brain. Don’t you have anything to read? Did you finish that one about the murderous drag queen? I wanted to borrow it."

  "I did and I gave it back to Artie already, but I told him you wanted to borrow it and he said that was fine. You can have it next. He must have forgot. I’ll bet it’s still at the restaurant."

  "I’ll ask him. I could bring you Nick’s grandmother’s new one, Designed for Death. I just finished it yesterday. It’s set in the New York fashion industry. I bet you’d like it."

  "No, I haven’t read any of her books yet." The word

  "fashion" reminded Tim of Adam and he wondered whether Sam had told Ruth yet about him being Adam’s biological father, but Tim figured Ruth would have come out with it by now. "How’s my dear cousin Dianne getting along? Sorry to abandon you the other night, but there’s only so much of her I can take. I don’t know how you put up with having her underfoot 24/7."

  "Well… Sam has come up with a plan, now that you mention it. He’s treating her to a deluxe spa session this afternoon. The only opening they had was at five, which will work out perfectly. She’s really going to get the royal treatment… body wrap, deep cleansing facial, manicure, pedicure and hot stone massage. Then she’ll have her hair done…"

  "You’re not sending her to Rene, I hope."

  "I wouldn’t think of doing that to him. She’ll have it done right there in the same place. They have some of the finest stylists and color professionals that will fuss over her like crazy.

  Sam told the manager to give her the strongest masseuse or masseur they have and tell ’em to really work her over. He wants her so worn out that she’ll sleep through the entire weekend. I told him that wasn’t necessary because Dianne can always sleep, but Sam feels guilty about stealing her mother away and this should more than make up for it."

  "What a waste of money," Tim said. "He could buy her a bottle of some fruity bubble bath and a fresh spray can of Aqua Net and she’d be just as happy."

  "It might do her good. Sam gave me a spa treatment for my birthday and I felt wonderful for days afterward. At least she won’t find anything to complain about there."

  "Are you sure?"

  "No reasonable person would," Ruth sighed and frowned. "I forget sometimes that she’s in a whole different category from reasonable. Anyway, it will give Sam and me an evening alone and most of tomorrow together. I’ve got an appointment with Rene to have my hair done today at two o’clock. I called Mai Ling yesterday and she said he had a cancellation, someone famous. Mai Ling couldn’t tell me the name, but she sounded terribly disappointed. I’ll have to scour the papers tomorrow. There was nothing in Leah Garchik this morning and she doesn’t have a column on Saturdays, but she’s more apt to cover that after the fact than beforehand. You know… a sighting. Oh my, look at the time. I’ve got to get going."

  "Where’s Sam taking you?"

  "We’re spending the night at the Claremont Hotel in the Berkeley Hills. But we don’t want anyone else to know, okay?"

  "You don’t want anyone else to know where you are or you don’t want anyone else to know that you and Sam are sleeping together?" Tim asked.

  "That’s right, dear… see you later."

  Ruth had left her car in such a good parking spot on Collingwood Street that she decided to take MUNI downtown for her hair appointment. She could also save a few dollars by not having to pay for parking in the Union Square garage. A trip to Rene’s salon was a big expense by Ruth’s Midwestern standards. Besides, she’d rather spend the money on tips for Mai Ling and the new girl, the one who washed her hair. Ruth caught the F-Line streetcar next to the Twin Peaks bar, rode down Market Street to Powell and walked uphill from the cable car turnaround the few blocks to Sutter.

  "Thanks for squeezing me in on short notice, Rene. I always feel so much better after I’ve seen you. Having you work your magic is almost as good as a massage and an hour on an analyst’s couch all rolled into one."

  "How you talk, Miss Ruth! You know I can always find time for my favorites and besides, Miss Timmy wouldn’t let me hear the end of it if I let you get too scraggly-looking."

  Ruth always laughed when she heard Rene refer to her nephew as "Miss Timmy," but that was just his way and she was getting used to it by now, just like so many other things. A couple of years ago in Minneapolis she never would have imagined that her marriage—on life-support for so many years—would finally give up the ghost. She’d tried hard to make things work out with Dan, but some painful things were meant to be. Getting through them meant coming out the other side of the ordeal with a rosier outlook and a brighter future than ever.

  She never would have imagined she’d meet a man as wonderful as Sam, either… or end up bartending on Castro Street and turning into a token mother-figure for dozens of gay men. That’s how she felt about most of her customers, too…

  well, most of the time. And she never would have dreamed she’d be sitting here in Rene’s salon off Union Square in San Francisco, listening to him talk about "Miss Timmy" while he snipped away at her split ends and turned her around and around in the chair.

  "I heard you had a cancellation… someone famous?"

  "Now where on earth would you hear a thing like that, Miss Ruth?"

  "Mai Ling told me when I called. She said you had a cancellation and she sounded so disappointed, didn’t you, Mai Ling? I thought it must have been a movie star."

  Rene let out a laugh and Mai Ling lifted the nail file from Ruth’s right foot and looked up at her with an expression that was something between a glare and a grimace. Ruth gasped and said, "Oh, no… am I speaking out of turn? I didn’t mean to get you in any trouble, Mai Ling, honestly."

  Rene shook his finger at his employee, but kept on smiling. "So much for confidentiality, Mai Ling. What have I told you about babbling away like a magpie? Shame on you!"

  "Who was it?" Ruth asked. "Now I’m
dying to know."

  "Who was it, Mai Ling?" Rene taunted. "Go ahead and tell Miss Ruth about your idol cancelling her appointment."

  Mai Ling dropped the nail file, covered her face with both hands and ran out of the room. Ruth said, "Now look what we’ve done. I feel terrible about it, Rene. I’m so sorry."

  "It serves her right for blabbing. That girl needs to learn to not go telling folks things. Sally, the new girl, the one that washed you out… she was the one that took the reservation in the first place, and I don’t want her picking up any of Mai Ling’s bad habits. You know I’m not one to gossip, Miss Ruth. If people thought their secrets weren’t safe with me, they wouldn’t feel near as comfortable coming to see me, you know."

  "But now you’ve just got to tell me her name, at least."

  "You probably don’t even remember Miss Nancy Kwan, do you?"

  "From The World of Suzie Wong? Of course I remember her. I didn’t know she was coming to town. I haven’t thought of her in years."

  "Whenever I hear her name mentioned, I think of Flower Drum Song. You know the one where she sang ‘I enjoy being a girl.’ It’s kind of a camp classic with the drag queens, or at least it used to be. And she was also known for that famous bob haircut. Miss Vidal Sassoon gave her that cut personally.

  Oh-me-oh-my! Mai Ling idolizes that woman!"

  "And don’t forget her TV commercial for Pearl Cream,"

  Ruth said.

  "Ancient Chinese secret!" Rene laughed.

  "So is Nancy Kwan a regular client of yours when she’s in San Francisco?"

  "Hell no! Like I said… Sally took the reservation and Mai Ling couldn’t read her handwriting. It was Nancy Kahn, a nice wealthy widowed lady from Pacific Heights. She comes in every few weeks and she had to change it to next Tuesday at the last minute, so I had more room for you, Miss Ruth. But don’t you fret… I would have fit you in, anyway."

  "Poor Mai Ling," Ruth said.

  "It serves her right. If anyone is going to do the gossiping around here, it’ll be moi and you know I’m not one to gossip."

  Ruth laughed, but she still felt sorry for Mai Ling and slipped her an extra five dollar bill on her way out of the salon.

  She’d saved at least that much by not parking in the Union Square garage.

  Coming home afterward, Ruth splurged on a cab ride to the corner of 18th and Castro. She still had plenty of time before Sam came by to pick her up and she needed a few things at Walgreens. She walked up Castro Street toward home with her purse in one hand and her Walgreens bag in the other and heard a woman’s voice calling out her name. "Ruth… oh, Ru-uth!"

  She didn’t see anyone at first and then noticed a lady climbing out of a cab in front of Arts with a sea of shopping bags. It was Nick’s grandmother, Amanda Musgrove. Ruth waved and looked both ways, stepped between two parked cars and jaywalked across Castro Street in the middle of the block.

  The lady driver of the #24 Divisadero bus heading south tooted her horn and waited. Ruth recognized her as a customer from Arts and waved her thanks. Soon she was shaking hands with the elderly mystery writer as her cab pulled away. "How nice to see you, Amanda. What brings you to San Francisco?"

  "I was downtown shopping and then I’d hoped to see you for a refreshing afternoon cocktail. It must be five o’clock somewhere. What are you doing out here instead of working behind the bar?"

  "It’s my night off, but Artie can make you one… or Scott."

  "That’s all right, dear," she said with a frown. "Nick’s father, my son, is doing some boring business at his lawyer’s and I finished my shopping, but I really wanted to see you. Nick told me about the events of last weekend." Amanda peered into the window of the video store next-door to the restaurant as if she were looking for clues.

  "It’s just past five o’clock. Let’s go inside and talk. I have plans with Sam this evening, but I can spare an hour or so." They went inside and Ruth reintroduced Mrs. Musgrove to Scott the bartender. "Do you want your usual, Amanda? A rye Manhattan?"

  "No, thanks… that can wait. Tell me what’s been going on around here. Have the police discovered anything yet?"

  "Nothing for me either, Scott… maybe later." Ruth turned back to Mrs. Musgrove. "If they’ve found anything, they haven’t told us about it yet. We have sort of a mole, though. My neighbor Teresa has latched on to one of the investigators on the case. She says they haven’t ruled out anything or anyone, but they suspect that the piano player might be involved. Poor Phil, just because he’s so good looking people always want to blame him for everything."

  "What do you say you and I have a look around?"

  Amanda suggested.

  "You want to look in the dumpster where they found the hand?" Ruth asked.

  "Well, you know your way around here better than I do.

  Yes, let’s start in the back of the restaurant and then I think we should have a look at that apartment building behind here. How is your nephew, by the way?"

  "Tim’s okay. It’s time for him to get back to work soon. I think he’s getting bored at home with Nick not around as much."

  Ruth led the Amanda through the kitchen, "Now this is the door to the back and there’s the dumpster where your grandson was tossing the buckets of sludge on Sunday morning. It’s been emptied since then, of course."

  "And that’s the back door of that apartment building,"

  Amanda pointed, "with a heavy padlock. Isn’t that odd? I should think the fire marshal would discourage blocking the alternate exit."

  "I’m sure he would, that is… if anyone were living there.

  I heard they were remodeling the apartments, something about turning them into condos."

  "Let’s walk down the driveway and have a look at the front."

  "I’m sure that’s locked too. I don’t see anyone working today."

  They both stopped and looked up at the side of the building. A window opened on the top floor and they could hear the sound of a faucet being turned on, then the spray of a shower and the banging of pipes in the walls. "I have an idea, Ruth. Do you know where we could find a few old newspapers or magazines?"

  "On the shelves between the rest rooms… there are the B.A.R. and Bay Times and maybe some of those smaller glossy ones," Ruth said. "They’re all free. Why do you ask?"

  Amanda reached inside her purse and pulled out two copies of Watchtower. "Can you find about a dozen papers this size?"

  Ruth went inside and came right back out with the papers. Amanda took half of them and gave Ruth the rest, placing a copy of Watchtoweron top of each stack. "Now… here, tie this scarf over your head. You look a little too nice with your hair freshly done to be a Jehovah’s Witness."

  "We’ll never get away with this. I don’t know anything about their beliefs or their practices or what to say if…"

  "You won’t have to say anything," Amanda assured her.

  "If it comes to that, you just let me do all the talking, but I doubt that will even be necessary."

  Ruth tied the black scarf over her head, picked up her stack of papers once again and followed her friend down the driveway. When they reached the front door, Amanda put a black scarf over her own head and rang all of the doorbells, one at a time. At last, the buzzer sounded to open the gate and she grabbed it, slipped a newspaper inside and let it close again on the paper. She stepped back again and rang the same bell repeatedly, the only one that had elicited any response. Someone finally opened a front window on the top floor. A man with a towel on his head hollered down, "Is that you, Eddie?

  Whatsamatta? I said six o’clock, damnit! You’re early. Hey! Who the hell are you broads? Go away! We don’t need none ’o ’yer religion crap!"

  Amanda grabbed Ruth by the elbow and pulled her up the street away from the apartment building until the man put his head back inside and closed the window. "We’re in luck," she said. "He’s the only one home and he’s on the top floor. Let’s have a look inside."

  They pulled off their scarves an
d went back to the gate that Amanda had propped open. They left both stacks of gay newspapers on the bottom step and Amanda put the Watchtower papers back in her purse. "You never know when these might come in handy."

  "Now what?" Ruth asked.

  "Did you recognize that guy?"

  "I couldn’t get a good look at him between the towel over his face and the scarf over most of mine, but I don’t think so. I didn’t recognize his voice, anyway."

  "Good, then he’s no one you know." Amanda led the way through the downstairs hallway toward the rear of the building. They were just inside the door that was padlocked from the outside. "Something smells funny down here, doesn’t it?"

  "Yes, it’s almost like a sweet, sort of chemical smell. It’s not your typical damp cellar odor of mildew and it doesn’t smell like laundry deter—"

  "Meow!" came the loud cry of a cat as it leapt down from a water heater and landed in Ruth’s arms.