Not Exactly a Brahmin

by Susan Dunlap

  I straightened up my desk, and from habit checked my IN box—nothing that couldn’t wait—and from new habit Howard’s—nothing, period. I headed to Ay Caramba, the Mexican restaurant across University Avenue.

  Ay Caramba was decorated like brightly colored Mexican pottery. A line of students waited to give their orders and take a plate of huevos rancheros (even at dinner) or tostada suprema to a table. It was already quarter after seven when I fell in behind two undergraduates in down jackets. “Governments believe what they want to believe,” the tall one said.

  The other—shorter, darker—nodded.

  “Look at the Germans in World War Two. I mean, they decided to march through Belgium.”

  The shorter one nodded.

  “Because they felt Belgium was rightfully theirs. And because they figured, as a matter of course, that all the other governments would understand that.”

  The companion nodded.

  “And when they slaughtered the Belgians, they figured everyone would understand because they—the Belgians, I mean—shouldn’t have been preventing the Germans from reclaiming what was rightfully theirs. See?”

  Again, the nod.

  “Now you look at our government. They think …”

  Their dishes were on the counter. The silent companion grabbed for his. I moved forward, and in less than a minute my own taco special was before me. I carried it and a Coke to a table by the window, emptied my tray, and sat down, stacking the tray atop a pile on the next table.

  There was a gentle tap on the window.

  I turned.

  No one was there.

  It took me a moment to realize that the tapping was raindrops. “Damn,” I said aloud. Of course, I didn’t have an umbrella. As far as I knew, rain hadn’t even been forecast for today.

  I took off my jacket and draped it over my shoulders. Picking up the taco, I watched the rain. My thoughts turned back to Carol Grogan, but I caught myself. No. I was off duty. I had to leave my work at work. The Palmerston case was important, but now that I was in Homicide every case would be important. If I allowed myself to become absorbed in them, I wouldn’t have any life at all outside work.

  Instead I thought of Howard. What could that man be planning to wear to his Halloween party? It had to be something significant, timely. Something to do with the city, with the year? Clayton Jackson and his wife were coming in their Raiders shirts (“Oakland Raiders,” Clay had explained, “not those L.A. turncoats. There’s nowhere but a costume party we’d be seen in those shirts now.”) Howard liked football and basketball, but not enough to buy a team jersey. He played volleyball in the park occasionally, but what he and his ever-changing group of teammates wore for those sessions was closer to the rags in the free boxes than any coordinated uniform.

  What else? He liked to read about the Second World War. He could have joined in on that monologue about the Germans, citing generals, battles, and field strategy. He could have told them Churchill’s reactions. Churchill? Hardly. For six-foot-six Howard to pass himself off as the short, portly prime minister would take some disguise. If he could do that, he deserved to keep his parking space.

  I took a bite of the taco. The tortilla was crisp, the cheese was sharp, and the salsa was hot enough to make me fling open my mouth to let my tongue cool.

  Hitler? I couldn’t imagine Howard wanting to spend all evening as Adolf Hitler.

  De Gaulle? Ah, de Gaulle. Now there was someone Howard’s size. I could see Howard as le Grand Charles.

  I put the remains of the taco carefully on my plate, resting it against the side so it wouldn’t fall apart. Then I swallowed some Coke. But where would Howard come up with a de Gaulle uniform? There hadn’t been anything that resembled that in the costume store today, and besides, I knew he hadn’t gotten his costume there. The San Francisco costume store? I’d have to call them. The French Consulate in San Francisco?

  “Of course,” I muttered to my taco. The consulate might know where to get them. There was a phone in the back of the restaurant.

  I jammed the rest of the taco into my mouth and got up.

  I was halfway across the room before I realized that the remaining piece of taco was too big for my mouth; I could barely close my lips over it, and the attempt to chew sent salsa down my chin, and—I knew even before I looked down—onto my good blouse.

  In the bathroom I sponged at the stain on the beige blouse. The water diluted the red salsa to a salmon-colored oval above my left breast. It looked acceptable only to someone who had seen the original red. Maybe if I left my jacket on …

  The French Consulate was even more discouraging. No one answered. Presumably the staff had decided that visiting Parisiens could fend for themselves at night. After all, San Francisco was not Teheran.

  And it was ten to eight, too late to go home and change, even if I had had a clean blouse in my closet. I put on my jacket. It covered the stain—if I didn’t move my arm. If I didn’t move my arm. How tame a date was I expecting?

  CHAPTER 17

  CAP DANZIGER WAS NOT in the showroom when I arrived at Trent Cadillac. A man with curly gray hair, who looked more like a business executive than a car salesman, told me he was in the shop.

  Thanking him, I followed the path I had taken last night when I’d been headed to see Misco.

  The shop was like any other auto repair area—cars lined up in invisible stalls, tubes hanging from the ceiling, man-sized portable diagnostic computers next to several infirm Cadillacs, oil spots and grease. A rear garage door was closed, but through the window a small car lot was visible. Surrounding it was a hurricane fence, ten feet tall, with particularly nasty-looking barbed wire on top. The lot was well lighted. It was not a lot an amateur could break into. Even a professional would have had to devote more time than was practical to broaching the fence.

  At the far end of the shop a mechanic was looking under the hood of a silver sedan. Only his white, overalled back and legs were visible. For an instant I wondered if he were Sam Nguyen, but he was too big—and when he stood up—too fair-haired to be the small Vietnamese.

  In the near end of the shop a horn tooted. Cap Danziger was leaning in the driver’s door of a maroon sedan. “Want to climb in and see how the other half drives?” he called.

  “I think I’m better off not knowing,” I said, walking toward him.

  He stood up and shut the door. It made a solid clunk. He was wearing a light brown tweed suit with a pale blue shirt. He looked as if he’d sauntered out of Brideshead Revisited.

  I pulled my jacket closed over the salsa spot.

  “You ready for that drink?” he asked, heading toward the street.

  “I suppose.”

  “You don’t sound very enthusiastic.”

  “I am. It’s just that I thought for a moment that mechanic was Sam Nguyen and I needed to ask him something.” So much for my big resolve not to think about the case on my own time.

  “What could he know that he hasn’t already been asked? Your friend who deals with cars—”

  “Misco.”

  “Misco, spent hours with him. Sam didn’t come in till noon the next day. And Jake Trent had to eat it.”

  We were on the street now. He paused, then putting a hand on my elbow, headed toward my car. “You didn’t answer my question. What more could you want to ask Sam?”

  “It wasn’t about that. It’s just that Ralph Palmerston was furious with him earlier and I need to know what happened.”

  “Well, you are a lucky lady. I was there.”

  “You were?” I opened the driver’s door, got in, and reached for the lock on the passenger’s door.

  “Right,” he said, climbing in. “Palmerston was waiting for his car to be brought around. I stopped to chat a moment. It’s good business to remind the customers who you are. Palmerston spotted Sam as he was headed out the far door. He called. Sam didn’t answer; he just kept walking. And Palmerston was fit to be tied. He looked like a head waiter had just poured soup
on his lap. I’ll tell you, Jill, it took Jake Trent himself a good fifteen minutes to get the old boy calmed down.”

  “Why didn’t Sam Nguyen say anything?”

  “Got me. I didn’t mention it to him. Sam’s got a sharp temper. It’s not the type of situation he would want to be reminded of.”

  I started the engine. “Is he deaf?”

  “Could be some. He was in Saigon during the war. There were plenty of explosions and gunfire then.”

  I pulled into traffic. “The seat belt’s behind the door.”

  “I’ll pass.”

  “I’ll feel more comfortable when you have it on. After all, my professional reputation rests on my passengers’ safety.” When he didn’t move I said, “Humor me.”

  He shrugged, tacitly indicating that he was indeed humoring me in what he found to be ridiculous caution. I felt like Mrs. Kershon trying to protect Billy from germs.

  “This isn’t a Cadillac,” I said. “They say these seats will eject in a bad crash.”

  “Then they’ll mash us into the seat belts.”

  He had a point.

  We rode in silence broken only by his directions. The bar he had in mind was located on The Arlington in Kensington. The Arlington is a road that begins at the Marin traffic circle, where Ralph Palmerston had died. It rises more slowly than Marin Avenue, north into the Berkeley Hills, passing through Berkeley, Kensington, El Cerrito, and Richmond to end near the San Pablo Reservoir. For me, it was even more questionable than Marin Avenue. That, I knew I’d never climb, but with The Arlington, there was a possibility. And with Cap Danziger in the car, I didn’t want to admit that my Volkswagen couldn’t make a hill that he thought nothing of. It was tantamount to showing him my salsa stain.

  So I drove in silence, listening to the engine, judging how long to let it labor before shifting down, wondering why it was that we were in my car when Cap Danziger worked at a place whose lowliest model was worth thousands more, and wondering what it was about this man that made me hesitate to ask, and that made me feel I had to prove myself to him, had to prove my car was as good as his.

  But if Cap Danziger noticed my underlying competitiveness, he didn’t acknowledge it. Half a mile before the block-long shopping area of Kensington, I downshifted to first gear. He didn’t comment.

  “Not exactly a Cadillac,” I admitted.

  “I’ll take your word. I’m almost totally innocent of mechanical knowledge. An engine is an engine as long as it runs.” He motioned me to a parking spot.

  Gratefully I pulled in and turned off the ignition, got out, and followed him down an alleyway to a plain wooden door that led into a small, square, oak-paneled room. In one corner a woman played a viola. We settled at a table at the far side of the room.

  After we ordered, I said, “I thought that someone who sold cars would have to know everything there was about engines. Don’t your customers ask?”

  He laughed. “I’m relieved to hear you say that. That’s exactly what I assumed when I asked about the job. I have a cousin who gave me a crash course—no pun intended—on carburetors, power steering, and RPMs so I could sound automobile-literate when I was interviewed for the position. But I never needed it. Marv Belkowski—he owned the dealership before Jake Trent; everyone there except Sam is new within the last couple of years—didn’t waste time on fan belts or EPA ratios. He knew that Cadillac buyers aren’t going to ask about that. You see, Jill,” he said, resting his fingers on my arm, “anyone who buys a Cadillac isn’t doing it for the engine; they’ve got their own reasons.”

  “Such as?”

  “Fulfillment of a dream; indication that they’ve made it. Snob appeal. A Cadillac’s not just a good car, it’s a Cadillac. It’s not like deciding between a Nissan and a Toyota.”

  “So what do you sell your customers on then?”

  He smiled again. “I grace them with my patrician upbringing. I speak to them in my refined accent. I drop a few key words about performance, just for form’s sake—they never ask for specifics. If they did, I’d take them to Sam Nguyen. But they don’t. I am like the very correct British gentleman’s gentleman. Customers are not about to expose their ignorance in front of me. It’s all part of the snob appeal.”

  “But surely some—”

  “Not in the five years I’ve been there. Even the drug dealers—I suppose I should say gentlemen I assume to be drug dealers—don’t ask what’s under the hood.”

  Our drinks arrived. I sipped my Cinzano, and asked, “What do your reputed drug dealers care about?”

  He stared down into his glass, as if giving my offhand question serious thought. In the candlelight his sandy hair glistened. There were lines across his forehead and by the sides of his mouth, lines I hadn’t noticed in the sunlight, but rather than making him appear older, they seemed to accentuate the consideration he was showing my question. “Some drug dealers do ask about pickup. Having a fast engine can increase their margin of profit, I understand.”

  “And their longevity.”

  “Others, of course, focus on the exterior, the paint. Opera windows were big a few years ago. Landau roofs are still drawing cards. And for those with more money, the draw is Sam Nguyen.”

  “Sam Nguyen! Is he involved in drugs?”

  “No, no. Anything but. Sam is more firmly opposed to drugs than the strictest conservatives. He blames the drug trade for the downfall of his country. No, Sam’s attraction is that he is simply the best automotive modifier around. He can make any change in a car, no matter how absurd it sounds. He prides himself on never being stymied.”

  “I’ve heard high praise of Sam Nguyen myself.”

  “Oh, he’s the best. No question. Jake Trent keeps close tabs on his mechanics. With our customers, if anything’s out of place there’s hell to pay. But Sam—well, Sam doesn’t consider himself in the same class as the other mechanics. He’s an artisan. He doesn’t deal with the mechanics at all, except when he needs to have one of them lift a fender or hold a cable out of the way. He struts in in the morning like he owns the service bay. When the union guys break for coffee, Sam keeps on working. At noon, the union guys stop for lunch; Sam works. But then, at one on the dot, he puts down his tools and drives to the Bien Hoa Vietnamese Restaurant in Oakland. I went there with him once.” He smiled as if to say that he had passed Nguyen’s strict muster. “At the restaurant they treat him like a king. When he arrives, a masseuse is at the door. She gives him twenty minutes. And when she’s done, his lunch is waiting, all five courses. The waiters hover, the owner grovels. Sam compliments them. The other Vietnamese smile. And then Sam’s car is brought around and he leaves. By the time he gets back to the shop it’s two-thirty or quarter to three.”

  “And your boss doesn’t mind?”

  “Sam could come back at six and it would be okay with Jake Trent. Trent’s no dummy. He’s pleased to have Sam as long as Sam will stay.”

  I finished my drink.

  Cap signaled the waiter, with the same aplomb that I imagined of Sam Nguyen.

  “So you sell the cars to drug dealers for their opera windows and Sam Nguyen. For everyone else it’s just snob appeal?”

  The viola stopped. It had been so soft that it was a moment before the twelve or so of us patrons applauded. Cap cocked his head slightly, as if he were pondering a quizzical situation. “I’m afraid you credit the drug dealers too highly, Jill. They’re as much into snob appeal as the next guy. They love being the men with the cash; it flatters them to have someone with a cultured accent pulling out the ashtrays and opening the hoods for them.” He sighed. “Snob appeal is one of the few constants in life—it cuts through all social strata. Even in ‘Society,’ where I am accepted because of my very proper forebears, there’s as much clawing to get to the very top. You’re judged by who you know, how much money you have, and what family you are connected to. Lucky for me.” He laughed. “Because I am a New England Danziger I can be invited places no ordinary car salesman would be permitted.”<
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  “Sounds like the Danziger breeding is to your friends what opera windows are to the dealers.”

  “Exactly. Only in Society the rules are stricter. If they knew I laughed at them like this …”

  “Or was drinking with a common cop?”

  “Once would be okay. I could even bring you, in all your ‘commonness’ ”—he favored me with a grin—“to a charity ball. But if they found out that I had abused the code … if I did it again … Well, twice is just not acceptable.”

  I had promised myself I wouldn’t think about the case tonight. But I couldn’t resist asking. “I’m dealing with a woman—very attractive, an actress, who met her husband at one of these Society affairs. As far as I know she had no family connections. How do you think she managed to be accepted?”

  The waitress leaned over the table, picking up the ashtray and replacing it with a fresh one, even though the original was unused. She glanced at our glasses then moved on.

  “One of the advantages of having social connections, other than in business—I do sell a few cars to men I’ve met at those affairs. Jake Trent isn’t above appreciating their patronage. He gets to be a snob to the other Cadillac dealers. But the amusing advantage is having its odd customs to talk about. It keeps people from finding me too dull.”

  “So how did this woman make her way into the magic circle?”

  “Well, she might have met her man on her first try before anyone discovered she was not sterling but silver plate. Or as an actress, well, actresses are in a class by themselves. But most likely, if she wasn’t offensive, was decorative, and did and said the right things and—and this is important—sincerely believed in the overriding importance of Society, she could hang on for a while as a not-quite-respectable fringe member. But it would be easier if her family had a name, and money.” He lifted his glass and took a swallow. “But enough chatter about me and my peculiar connections. What about you? Do you have a line on your murderer yet? It is a murder, I assume, since you’re a Homicide officer.”