by Susan Dunlap
‘I wasn’t with him in Japan. He was there. I was just passing through.’
I wanted – desperately – to ask her about Leo’s time in Japan. Was that where he got the black mark that made him an outlier in the Zen world? That led to his being exiled to lead the nascent monastery in the woods up north where I’d met him? Was that the reason he was offered this modest nascent Zen center in a non-residential area of the city? Had he been involved in a scandal, a major breaking of a precept? A sin that no one talked about – not local Zen people, not Leo? Would he tell me if I asked? Probably. But I wouldn’t ask … him.
Aurelia must have taken my pondering as a silent prod. ‘I was in Japan to meet a guy and I had a couple of days to kill. I had to … I went to the temple because it was supposed to be very pretty. But, you know, it was December and Japan is just plain cold then, that kind of wet cold that seeps under your skin. Leo let me hang around in the hall after the other tourists left. He made me tea. He offered me rice and I almost ate it. Like at the very last moment I remembered the tourist talk about monks only having the rice they got from begging each day.’
I wasn’t sure that would hold true for a monk tour guide in a temple. But I nodded.
‘Leo was great. He spent time with me. I ignored everything he said, and you know what, he never once threw it in my face.’
‘It’s one of his really nice qualities. He doesn’t drag the past into the present.’
‘There was only one time he wouldn’t help me, and that was my own fault. And now,’ she caught my gaze, ‘I’m good, really good – better when things work out on the set, right? I just want to tell him.’
She looked so eager, with a dash of desperate, so like a scruffy little dog, eyes wide, tail wagging, whose day I could make by just throwing the ball. One easy toss. I couldn’t help wanting to do it. I glanced at the clock. 11:30 p.m. Not as late as I’d thought.
The first really good night’s sleep Leo’d had in days. Whatever Aurelia’s issue, it could wait. ‘I don’t want to wake Leo. You don’t want to talk to him half asleep anyway—’
Her face went flat, like all hope had been sucked out of it. I felt terrible! And annoyed at feeling terrible. And no less terrible for that. This must be, I thought, like dealing with a sick baby when you’d do anything in the world to make her better.
How had Leo handled this? Her?
I did what I’d’ve guessed most everyone did. I gave in. ‘Hang out here a minute and I’ll slip in and check on Leo. I can grab his schedule and give you an idea when he’ll be free.’
‘But if he’s awake—’
‘It’ll keep till morning, right?’
She hesitated. ‘Sure.’
Once again, I pushed myself up. My knees felt like crumpled aluminum foil. There had to be a big bruise on my back and it ached anew with the effort. Plus I was getting a headache.
I knocked softly on Leo’s door.
He didn’t answer. I really did not want to wake him. I turned the hall light off so he’d get only the gentle illumination from my room instead of a blast from the hall bulb, and quietly turned the knob. If he didn’t wake up I’d let him sleep. But it made me uneasy that he was sleeping this soundly still. He should be easing off on the night drugs by now.
I turned the handle and pushed the door quietly inward. ‘Leo?’ I whispered. This morning the smell of sickness had lingered in the room, but now it was almost gone, a good sign. ‘Leo?’
No sound.
I stepped inside. Bent closer to his futon.
Leo wasn’t there.
I flicked on his light. The blankets had been thrown back up over the mat, as if he’d just stepped out to the bathroom and would be crawling back in. As if he’d left in a hurry.
But he hadn’t rushed to the bathroom in a frenzy, grabbed for the sink and knocked off the soap dish, or retched in the toilet and yanked off a wad of toilet paper. The bathroom looked fine.
And he was gone.
I did a quick survey. Leo kept his room bare. He had only a few bits of clothing. In some more formal Zen centers the roshi’s assistant washes his clothes and mends the tears. Leo does that himself. But I help out enough to know what he’s got. I know his habits. If he’d had a burst of healing and gone out for coffee on a night he’d be dressed in jeans, with his jacket over a sweatshirt.
His jeans and jacket were on their hooks and hanger. So, he was wearing sweats.
Aurelia was at the door, peering in, bouncing foot to foot, her short brown hair bobbing in the light.
I waved her away and shut the door.
‘Hey, what’s going on in there?’
‘In a minute. Just give me a minute.’ I held up the two pairs of sweatpants on closet hooks. New and newest.
The door pushed open. ‘Darcy! What’s going on?’
‘Leo’s gone.’
‘Gone,’ she repeated, and her movements stopped. ‘Gone, like, to the movies? Like he’ll be back soon? Like we don’t have to whisper?’
‘Gone, like gone. Like I don’t know where he went, Aurelia!’
‘I thought he was … When did he go?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t been here since morning. He could have left any time.’
‘Then how do you know he’s gone?’
I held up the sweatpants. ‘He’s wearing his pajamas.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Leo owns three pairs of sweats. The newest one he keeps for times when he’s around here but someone might come by and he wants to look presentable. Then there’s the pair he wears the rest of the time. They’re fine but they’re getting thin. Maybe there’s a hole or a stain on the knee. Around-the-house sweats.’
She smiled and shook her head. ‘He’d never have done that in Japan. He was meticulous. Wore robes. Of course, I only saw him a couple days. Anyway, those pants are right here, in your hand, so he’s not wearing them. Not here, either.’
‘Exactly. He’s in the third pair, the ones he sleeps in. They never leave this floor, except to go to the laundromat. We laugh about it. He would never have gotten up, left his bed unmade and walked out of here in his pajamas and’ – I turned and scanned his closet floor – ‘hiking boots.’
‘Hiking boots?’
‘Casual ones, not trekking material, but still, if you’re going to stop for hiking boots, you don’t put them on over your pajamas.’ I slipped down onto his mat, cross-legged, as if that would somehow bring me closer to him and I’d be able to read his thoughts. ‘What does this mean? Where’d he go? Why?’
‘Maybe he left a note?’ She was still in the doorway, still vibrating side to side, looking both eager to come full in and desperate to be gone.
‘If he’d written a note it would be here.’ I looked at the low table beside the bed-head. ‘Zip.’
‘Hidden?’
I pulled off the covers. Nothing. Lifted the futon. Not even dust.
‘Who’s been here? I mean, to see him?’
‘No one, except Nezer, and he’s been coming in the morning. I’m going to call—’
‘Nezer Deutsch!’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why would he call him?’ She was staring open-mouthed.
‘He’s Leo’s doctor.’
‘That’s crazy. He’s not even licensed in this state.’
‘What makes you think he’s not licensed?’
‘Because he’s not.’ Seeing that didn’t answer my question, she added, ‘Leo told me that.’
‘So you know Nezer?’
‘I did for a while but, well, he found me too self-centered. You know, the kind of person who’d wake up a sick roshi at midnight because she wants to talk. The kind who’d ask a bruised woman about snagging her job.’ She offered me a guilty smile that was hard to resist.
But my focus was not her; it was Nezer Deutsch. ‘Leo knows him from somewhere. He insisted on him. Did he lose his license? Is there a problem? He seemed to be OK. Weird but … competent.’
‘I’m
sure he’s fine. I mean, checking on a convalescent isn’t brain surgery.’
‘But … I’m going to call him.’
‘At this hour, to ask about his license?’
Another time, I would have laughed. She, the toughie, seemed so appalled when it wasn’t even midnight. ‘To find out how dangerous it is for Leo to travel.’ I opened Leo’s top dresser drawer and pulled out his address book. ‘Nezer first, then the police.’
TWENTY
There was still twenty minutes to go before midnight in this endless day. Aurelia offered to stay with me, in that insipid way that screams: I’m only doing this from politeness, good manners or fear of the ghost of my grandmother. I thanked her and let her go. The last thing I needed was to have her here buzzing off the walls all night. I could worry about Leo on my own.
I punched in Nezer Deutsch’s number and got his voicemail. Ten minutes later he called, sounding annoyed. He’d been annoyed each time we’d spoken. ‘Leo’s assistant? Yes, I remember you. Did you find the person I warned you about?’
‘What?’
‘This morning, I specifically told you there was someone hanging around outside the, er, patient’s door. I made a point of pointing that out to you! Do you not recall? There’s no point in my treating a patient if those around him cannot provide a safe environment.’
‘Point taken,’ I said, and noted that he seemed to have missed the sarcasm. ‘I’m asking about Leo now. Have you been here since the morning? Called him?’
‘Of course not. I have to be back there seeing him in … six hours! Is there an emergency? Something the matter?’
‘He’s gone.’
The doctor’s exhalation hit the receiver. I pictured his sallow face, his mind clicking away possibilities, counter-indications. ‘If you’d paid attention to what I told you— You need a plan, a picture of how things should be. Do you have a plan? No, correct? Oh, never mind! If he’s steady on his feet, he should be all right.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Of course not! If you’d—’
‘You’re not licensed here. Why did Leo call you?’
That silenced him for so long I wondered if he’d hung up and I’d missed the click. ‘Why’d Leo call me? Maybe to give me the opportunity to get up before dawn day after day now that I’m not getting paid for doing it at a hospital. Maybe … Who the hell knows why Leo Garson does anything?’
I could have said that myself more than once.
‘Listen, Assistant, if there was something I could tell you I would. Call me if he comes back and wants to see me.’
This time I heard the click loud and clear.
Then I called SFPD to report both of my assaults, though I knew the only result would be my having to wait up for a beat cop to take my statement. I wanted them to look for Leo. But there was no way they would take a missing person’s report from a non-related female living with a man who has vacated a room in which there was no indication of violence. They’d be doing me a favor not to laugh.
Maybe they’d be right: that his absence was all innocent. Maybe Leo had gone for cough drops.
Maybe he’d had a relapse and lost his sense of, well, good sense, and he was wandering around nearby or on the other side of the city. Maybe … One thing I knew: Leo would not just leave, not in his sleeping garb, not without a note. Especially not after all that had happened this week.
Unless as his head cleared he’d realized who had attacked him and gone after him. On his own.
Of all the bad possibilities, that one frightened me the most.
And like all the others, the police would shrug it off. By the time I heard the police knock on the door I knew there was no point even mentioning these speculations.
The patrol officer, a prematurely world-weary woman with a blond ponytail, sinus issue and the name Kyul on her on uniform, knocked on the doors just as a clock somewhere on Columbus sounded midnight. She took my statement on the assaults.
‘Twice?’ she said. ‘He followed you twice?’
‘He knows where I live. He must have come around the other end of the block.’
‘Why would he do that?’
We were downstairs in the hall, outside of the dokusan room where Leo had been attacked, Officer Kyul standing with pad ready, me sitting on the fourth step. The light, meant merely to prevent disaster as one moved to the better lighted kitchen, courtyard or stairs was marginally adequate. I was shivering but I couldn’t tell if the cause was temperature or shock. ‘Why did he come after me? Why me? Revenge, maybe? Taking out someone who’d be talking about his attack on Lila this morning?’
‘Now you’re saying there were three assaults?’
Four, counting mine on him outside the strip club door. But nothing would be gained by mention of that. My brother John had regaled us with ‘tales of the witching hour crazies,’ his own and ones from the station banter. I could almost see Kyul preparing hers. I said, ‘Sendar must be an angry man. If you want my guess, he figures Lila’s his possession – his love or his cash cow—’
‘Or both?’
‘Maybe. Probably. Anyway, I got in his way when he was chasing her and he just redirected his anger.’
‘You impeded his pursuit?’
‘Probably.’
‘Probably?’
‘She made it across Broadway before he jumped me.’
‘Uh huh. You said you first spotted him coming out of an alleyway on Columbus. You were waiting for him?’
OK, so that didn’t sound good. ‘The man I was with said that was an emergency exit from the strip club.’
‘The man you were with?’
Shit. Westcoff! ‘He went to check on another exit. He wasn’t around when any of this happened.’
I had the feeling a less controlled woman might have raised an eyebrow. A less tired one might have demanded his particulars. Kyul didn’t. I said, ‘If Sendar is still around you may find him at the Tink Pitty. You know that place.’
She laughed humorlessly.
I hesitated. Never gratuitously offer an interrogator … anything. Another John Lott-ism, one with which I concurred. Usually. ‘If a woman kicked a bouncer at a sleazy club hard enough to break something—’
She looked groin-ward.
‘Sadly no. Just a nose.’
‘If?’ she prodded with a hint of a grin.
‘He probably won’t be inclined to mention how it happened. But he’s going to need a doctor for that nose, not to mention the rumble here. He’s probably in the ER right now.’ I’d been there so often I could picture him waiting. But I definitely didn’t tell her that.
‘Or not. These guys aren’t big on health maintenance. Chances are he’s got an ice pack on his nose and you on his mind. Do you have anyone who can stay here with you tonight? Your friend, maybe, the one who went to check on the, um, other exit?’
‘You’re saying he’d come back to protect me now? No, actually, I’m fine. I’ll lock the doors.’
‘And the windows? Any entry from the roof?’
‘If I panic I’ll get the roshi’s car. It’s across Broadway a few blocks.’
Kyul just shook her head.
And I silently thanked her for her silence. ‘Will you let me know if the department finds Lila? Or Sendar?’
‘Sure,’ she said resignedly. We both knew the odds of that happening.
I assured her again that I was fine, locked the doors after her and walked back upstairs, where I realized I was not fine at all. Suddenly every bit of horror and sadness, outrage and sense of violation, every bit of fury and gray-black despair I had kept at bay for days enveloped me. Leo’s room where he’d lain, the bathroom where he’d barely been able to stand, the stairs he’d had to be helped up, the hallway downstairs where his assailant stood waiting to attack him, the dokusan room, the courtyard – it all reeked of defilement.
I couldn’t stay here.
My family house was in this very city. I could be there in half an hour, eating a bowl
of beef stew even at this hour. Having a shot of the whiskey favored by the old Irishmen at the old Irish bars.
I could call a cab.
I laughed. Scoring a cab anywhere but at a hotel in this city was like getting a gin and tonic in Salt Lake City.
I could call a car.
After midnight – Friday. I could learn patience.
Or – two birds here – I could do what Leo did.
TWENTY-ONE
With the familiar smell of exhaust, the vintage white BMW announced itself to the neighborhood half an hour after I’d pulled out the business card:
Hudson Poulsson
Man of all Trades
There are a number of car providers in the city but I’d have bet that Poulsson was not affiliated with any, no matter how casual. He hoisted himself out and reached for the back door but I was already headed around the front bumper. When I pulled open the passenger door I got a surprise. The car was clean. No smell of, well, anything. I’d seen it only when Renzo and I were extracting Leo from the backseat after Leo extracted himself from San Francisco General.
‘Do you drive people much?’ I asked after I’d given him Mom’s address and let a moment pass while he realized he was going to be traversing the entire width of the city.
Unlike his last arrival, this time Hudson Poulsson had come the right way on our one-way street. As if to balance out that apparent slip into lawfulness he hung a U, drove with the lights off the half block to Montgomery, turned right into legality and switched on headlights. A couple turns later we were making a left onto Broadway. ‘Otherwise,’ he said in answer to my unspoken question, ‘we’d never be able to get to the tunnel. Trust me, honey.’
‘I’ve just trusted you with my life.’
‘Buck off your fee. Which means I owe you.’
‘No way.’
‘Take it up with Garson.’
‘I would if I knew where he was. He left today. No word. In his sleeping clothes.’
His head jerked – a whole head double-take – but heswallowed whatever he was about to say and focused on the car in front.
I had the urge to search every street within walking distance. But Leo knew how to use the bus, the street car, get on BART and go to Berkeley or the airport. Even if he was right around here, it was ten to one we’d miss him. I settled for asking Poulsson to take me to the garage where Leo keeps his car.