Enter his character, stage left. Ah, he sees them, the damsel and her sleazy swain. Quickly he darts behind the pillar—or the palm. The rinky-tink piano music swells. This, then, is the hero, palm fronds parted before his darkly handsome face.
But there, abruptly, the image faded, the plot fell apart.
Because he wasn’t the hero of this tacky drama. His was a bit part. The emperor commanded, the lackey obeyed, a court drama. If the emperor was a dunce, then the barons wore dunce caps.
Accounting for his presence here, at the 450 Sutter Medical Building. Now, at a little after eleven. Skulking. It was the only word: skulking.
Tuesdays at ten-thirty, this must be her regular weekly appointment time, her third successive Tuesday visit to Albert Price, psychiatrist, offices on the eleventh floor.
Three weeks ago, playing another role, the private eye, driving a rental car, every contingency anticipated, he’d parked around the corner from her condo. At ten o’clock, give or take, the garage door had come up. As if he’d done it for years, a pro, he’d followed her. Driving carefully, as she always did, Meredith had gone downtown, driven into the garage beneath the 450 Sutter Building.
Instantly, his first private eye’s test, he’d realized that if he also turned into the garage, she might see him. So, never mind the expense, he pulled into a yellow loading zone.
The emperor, after all, would pay.
He’d locked the car and cautiously entered the building’s lobby. The building was large, more than twenty stories tall. But the lobby was small, with no place to hide. No place but the adjoining pharmacy, with a show window opening on the lobby. Making a quick decision, he’d gone into the drugstore, concealing himself behind a rack of sunglasses. He hadn’t been a moment too soon; almost immediately she’d appeared in the lobby, walked to a waiting elevator with several people already inside. The elevator door had slid closed. Leaving him furious, frustrated.
The only solution, he’d thought bitterly, would have been to disguise himself, enter the same elevator, hope she wouldn’t recognize him: the courtier wearing a false beard and wig.
Enter Herbert Dancer, Ltd., private investigators. Their report: Meredith was seeing a psychiatrist. Albert Price. Suite 1107.
The puzzle, then, had been solved; mission accomplished.
But then, predictably, the questions began: Why was she seeing Albert Price? Could sex be the reason, the story of her life? Did they spend an hour screwing, she and Dr. Price?
Or was the liaison innocent, exactly what it seemed?
Yet innocence implied safety, security, harmlessness.
Belying the stark, chilling reality, the utter certainty that if Meredith said too much—to anyone—the emperor could fall.
The emperor, and his principal courtier.
All fall down.
11:10 A.M. Dr. Holland shook his head dolefully. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Mr. Hastings. But I’m afraid you need reading glasses. I imagine you knew that when you made the appointment, though, didn’t you?”
Resigned, Hastings nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
“Otherwise,” the doctor said, “your eyes are fine. No sign of glaucoma, no astigmatism. What kind of work do you do?”
“I’m a policeman.”
“You are?” Registering mild surprise, the doctor gave him a nonprofessional second look. “Are you—you must be—” Uncertain how to phrase the question, he broke off.
“I’m a lieutenant. I spend about half the time at my desk. The rest of the time I’m out in the field.”
“Ah—” the doctor nodded. “Well, you can probably go one of two ways. Either reading glasses that you take off and put on or else bifocals with plain glass on top.”
Bifocals …
Privately Hastings sighed. Along with arthritis and clogged arteries, bifocals defined the aging process. Football injuries and job-related bruises were part of the game, win some, lose some. But in the aging game, there were no winners.
“You don’t have to decide now, of course.” The doctor handed over a slip of paper. “That’s your prescription. Think about it, then see what an optometrist says.” Rising, he extended his hand. “Nice to have met you, Lieutenant. What, ah, part of the police department are you in?”
“I’m in Homicide.”
“Is that so?” It was a predictable layman’s response, one that required no reply.
11:25 A.M. Hastings pressed the DOWN button and stepped back from the elevator. He’d promised himself that, since he was downtown, he would shop for socks and underwear and two shirts and then have lunch before he returned to the Hall of Justice. As he made sure the ophthalmologist’s prescription was safe in an inside pocket, he was aware that, of the three women and one man waiting for an elevator, one of the women was looking at him directly. She was dressed fashionably but not elaborately, expensively but not ostentatiously. Everything was handmade or hand-woven: saddle leather handbag and shoes, a hammered silver-and-turquoise medallion pin that secured a dramatic scarf. Beneath the thick, winter-weight wool skirt and jacket, the line of her body was muted but exciting: full breasted, long legged, narrow waisted. Her thick, tawny-blond hair fell naturally to her shoulders.
Her face was unforgettable: a face that could make a man promise anything.
As their eyes met and held, he saw her lips upcurve in a small, tentative smile of recognition and invitation that could only be meant for him.
Had his trip to the eye doctor suddenly become an adventure?
He knew he was also smiling. But should he speak?
He heard a chime. In his peripheral vision he saw a Lucite bar above one of the elevators glow red. Two of the women and the man were stepping expectantly toward the elevator. But the beautiful blonde wearing the expensive handmade clothing hadn’t responded to the elevator’s chime. Instead, she came a step closer, just as, unconsciously, he’d moved a step closer to her.
And in that instant, realization dawned: This wasn’t the beginning of temptation. This was a memory test.
Because, long ago, he’d known this woman. In another place, another time, long before she’d discovered haute couture, he’d known her.
And a single word confirmed it.
“Frank?”
“That’s right …” His smile widened. They were standing close enough to touch now. “I’m sorry. I know that—”
“Meredith Powell.” She let a beat pass, giving him time. Then: “Kevin’s sister. From Thirty-ninth Avenue.”
Meredith Powell …
The images came in a rush: Kevin Powell’s sister, the little blond girl who was always around, just a little kid, always so quiet, so shy—always tagging along. When he and Kevin had gone to high school, she’d still been in grammar school, hardly more than nine or ten years old, therefore far beneath their lordly adolescent male notice. When he’d graduated from high school, she’d still been in grammar school, perhaps the sixth grade, all freckles and awkward arms and legs.
But when his mother had died, more than twenty years ago, and she’d gone to the funeral, she’d been a teenager, a breathtaking natural blond beauty.
The same beauty whose shoulders he now held in both hands, drawing her close.
“Meredith. For God’s sake.”
He sensed her involuntary reluctance as he began to hug her. But the images from long ago were pure, innocent of desire. Therefore, liberated from the conventions of the mating game, he could hug her briefly, kiss her soundly on the cheek, then move her back, for a long look. He held her at arm’s length—bifocal length, his little secret.
“How’d you ever know me?” As he asked the question, an elevator door opened; another closed. With a hand on her elbow, he moved her away from the elevators.
“I saw you on TV, Frank. Just a month or two ago. I couldn’t believe it. There you were, on the eleven o’clock news.”
He nodded diffidently. “It’s part of the job. I run the Homicide detail with another lieutenant. But
he’s the inside man. So whenever there’s something worth sending a TV crew out for, I’m usually the one on the scene. Listen—” As more people arrived on the eleventh floor and more left, he glanced at his watch. “Listen, it’s almost eleven-thirty. How about an early lunch? Have you got time?”
“Well …” With the single hesitant word, more images returned. At the funeral, she’d been so painfully shy, so incredibly ill at ease. Even though she was so beautiful, so overpoweringly desirable, she’d seemed constantly poised for flight: a frightened, fragile bird. And now, even after so many years, even though she wore her designer clothes with the assurance of a beautiful woman, he could still hear the old uncertainty in her voice, still see the vulnerability in her eyes. “Well, I’m supposed to—”
“Come on.” He put an arm around her shoulders, friend-to-friend, and drew her toward the elevator. “No excuses.”
11:40 A.M. As they followed the waitress to a table, Hastings was conscious of the attention they attracted: men and women following them with their eyes, the women assessing Meredith’s clothes, the men imagining the body beneath the clothes. And, yes, he was conscious of his own reaction: the dominant male, a little larger than himself, displaying his prize.
“Something to drink?” he asked, after they’d been seated.
“Are you having anything?”
It was the classic AA opening: a chance to matter-of-factly confess. So he shook his head, saying “No. I had to quit. Years ago.” As he said it, he remembered her father: a big, burly braggart who drank too much. And in high school, Kevin, too, had made a fool of himself, drinking.
“You mean you—” Disbelieving, she shook her head.
He nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I mean. I was as surprised as you are.” He smiled. “Do you want the whole story—the Frank Hastings story since Thirty-ninth Avenue?”
She returned the smile. “Of course. Isn’t that why we’re here?”
“But then it’s your turn. Agreed?”
“Yes. Agreed.”
But, as she said it, the smile lost conviction. Behind her eyes, a shadow fell. Meredith wasn’t eager to take her turn.
“Well,” he said, “when I got out of high school, I got a football scholarship to Stanford. And after Stanford I got drafted by the Detroit Lions. But I only played for two seasons before I got my knee screwed up. And if I’d’ve come back here, to San Francisco, and done something else—anything else—there probably would’ve been a happy ending. But instead I married an heiress. Her name was Carolyn Ralston, and her father made radiators for General Motors. He was very rich, and Carolyn was very—” He hesitated, searching for the word. “She was very stylish. Every once in a while we’d get our pictures on the society pages. I was a novelty, I guess—a football player who could talk in sentences. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like it.
“But then I got hurt, and the Lions dropped me. It was no problem, though—at least not for my wife and her father. He set me up with a nice corner office and a nice brunette secretary—and told me I was part of his public relations department. Which meant, I discovered, that I met visiting big shots at the airport and got them settled—and then drank with them. It was one big party, especially if the big shots were football fans. But then—” He shook his head. “But then one day when I asked one of the VIPs how he wanted to amuse himself, he said he wanted a girl. I stalled him, and he didn’t like it. And neither did my father-in-law, as it turned out. And that’s when the problems started. Because there’s a name, you know, for men who get women for other men.”
“But you—”
“And then,” he cut in, driven by some strange confessional compulsion to tell the whole story to this sister of Kevin Powell, a neighborhood kid he’d never really liked. “And then, surprise, I discovered that I couldn’t get through the day without drinking—a lot.” Watching her, he let a last grim beat pass before he finished it: “And then, surprise, I got served with divorce papers. So—” He shrugged. “So I got out of town, came back to San Francisco. A friend of mine got me into the Police Academy. I was the oldest rookie in my class. But I made it. Barely.”
“And you quit drinking.”
“The line is, I’m a ‘recovering alcoholic.’ I’ve been recovering for about thirteen years.”
The waitress returned, took their orders, bustled away.
“Do you have children?” Meredith asked the question tentatively, reluctantly—as if she didn’t really want to hear the answer.
“Two. They’re teenagers now. Great kids.” He smiled. “The next time we do this, I’ll bring pictures.”
“Yes …” Dutifully she nodded, wistfully smiled.
“What about you? Kids?”
“No—no kids. I was married. But no kids.” Plainly she regretted not having children. And she was in her middle thirties; the biological clock was ticking.
To lighten the mood, signifying that his story was ended, he smiled, spread his hands. “So now I’m a TV personality.”
Spontaneously she returned his smile. The effect was electric, triggering an inevitable response, simple sexual arithmetic: one beautiful female body plus one attentive male. But then the smile faded, the eyes came down. Watching her, he appreciatively studied her face and head: thick, lustrous dark-blond hair worn loose, broad forehead, classically patrician nose and chin, a mouth that curved as if the lips were parting to murmur some special endearment. The bones of the cheeks were high, the cheeks slightly hollowed, subtly joining the strong line of the jaw. And, beneath the curve of the eyebrows, her violet eyes were vivid.
“My turn?” she asked.
“Your turn,” he answered. “But before you start, tell me about Kevin. I heard he died. An accident.”
With her eyes lowered, she nodded. “Yes …”
“How’d it happen?”
“He was driving too fast.” She let a beat pass. Then, with an obvious effort, she raised her eyes to his. “He was drunk, and he was driving too fast. It was a one-car accident.”
He nodded, held her eyes in silence, then asked, “How long ago did it happen?”
“About five years ago.”
“Was he married? Any children?”
“No children. He was married once, but it only lasted for a year or two.”
“What’d he do? What kind of work?”
“He was a sheet metal worker, in Sacramento. He made good money—when he worked.”
“So he was a drinker. That’s what you’re saying.”
“Yes,” she answered, “that’s what I’m saying.”
In memory of Kevin Powell, a kid who probably never had a chance, he let a moment of silence pass. Then: “What about your parents?”
“My mother died—” She paused, to calculate. “It was about fifteen years ago. I’d just started as a flight attendant at United. I was twenty-one.”
Twenty-one plus fifteen—Meredith was thirty-six years old. Still so beautiful, so unconsciously sensual.
As she lapsed into another silence, once more lowering her eyes, he tried to recall images of her family. Her mother, he remembered, was a thin, washed-out woman who seldom went out of the house except to shop for groceries. Wearing a faded housedress, trundling a wire shopping cart filled with brown paper bags, head down, she made her dogged trip to the store, her daily burden. Meredith’s father was a plumber: a big, beefy, blustering man with a red face and small, baleful eyes—a loud-talking bully, and a drunk. And Kevin, sadly, grew into a pallid imitation of his father. In high school he’d had few friends.
Her mother and brother, dead …
There was only one question left.
He waited until the waitress had served their lunch and filled their coffee cups. Then: “And your father?”
She shook her head. As if she were confessing to something shameful, she said, “I don’t know where he is, Frank. I lost track of him. My mother waited until I got out of high school, then she divorced him.”
He hesitated
, then decided to say “There were always rumors that he beat her.”
“Every Saturday night, almost.” Her voice was hardly more than a whisper. Her eyes were furtive.
He let a moment pass, then said, “He’s still alive, then.”
“I guess he is, but I don’t know. He didn’t come to my brother’s funeral, and I never heard from him, after that.” She shook her head. “In a way, I wish he was dead. At least I’d know. It—it’s worse, not knowing.” Anxiously she raised her eyes to his. “That must sound terrible.”
“It doesn’t sound terrible at all, Meredith.” He smiled. “It sounds like you’re in touch with your feelings. Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to work—the trendy thing to do?”
She tried to acknowledge his attempt at humor but could summon only a small, sad smile.
“Okay—” He gestured firmly. “Your turn.”
She drew a deep breath and began. “I guess it’s easier to start at the beginning,” she said. “After I graduated from high school, the first thing I wanted to do was get out of the house. My mother and I always got along, but my father—” Jaw set, she grimly shook her head. “His drinking—I just couldn’t stand it anymore. So I got a place with three other girls, out near the ocean, and I started nursing school at City College, working my way. But after a year and a half, I realized that I’d never be a nurse. I—I just wasn’t tough enough to take it. By that time my folks were divorced. My father was down south somewhere, and my mother had gotten an apartment and was working. We never did own our own home. Maybe you knew that.”
He shrugged. “I never kept track. Our parents did, I know—kept track of who owned and who rented. I can remember my folks talking about it. My father was in real estate.”
“I don’t remember your father very well.” She said it apologetically. “But I seem to remember him driving big cars and smoking cigars. And always wearing a tie, very sophisticated.”
“Except that he never got those cars paid off.” He hesitated. Then, still driven by the urge to share something special with her, he said, “He had a one-man real estate office. One man, and a ‘Girl Friday,’ as he called her. When I was fourteen, I came home from frosh football practice one day. There was an envelope on the kitchen table. It wasn’t sealed, and nothing was written on the outside. So I opened it. My father had gone to Texas with his Girl Friday.”
The Pariah (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries) Page 24