Frank and Angie were the best neighbors she’d ever had, with the exception of Tom Albano long ago. Sometimes, when Frank was out, she and Angie would leave their doors open and traipse back and forth in their nightgowns with their respective phones pulled near the doors as they drank coffee and chatted.
A little blonde brick from the Bronx, Angie had a kind of solid common sense that Angie had come to lean on. A bonus was her mother’s spaghetti gravy, calamari, and other Italian recipes that had given Annie a whole new way of looking at North Beach Italian restaurants and had even resulted in a couple of articles.
Frank was another kind of joy, a horse of a different color. Whereas Angie barely cleared five feet with a chrysanthemum burst of blonde hair and energy, Frank loomed up at 6′ 5″ and was a slow-talking, slow-moving black man from Tennessee. He was enthusiastic about computer programming, which he did for a living, the basketball he played in his spare time, both reading and writing poetry, and Angie. He was most often a quiet man, though he loved to laugh and, even more, to tickle Angie.
There was a time when he goosed her so loudly in the bathroom ventilated by an airshaft that conducted sound up and down the six stories that a note had suddenly appeared in the elevator exhorting Frank’s lady to hold down her early morning passion or to keep her business to herself.
Frank’s response concerned itself with those who ain’t getting any. Both signs were decorated with graffiti and neighbors’ votes of confidence for a day or two and then disappeared, the tempest fading away.
In addition to being the building’s tallest tenant, Frank was also its only black. Several times, little old ladies had visibly jumped at opening the elevator door to find Frank’s lanky dark form standing there. He always smiled.
Annie rang their buzzer. “Okay,” yelled Angie, “I’m coming.
“Oh, my God,” she shrieked when she saw Annie’s Dolly Parton drag.
Frank sat down on the carpet and rolled with laughter.
Then they got down to the serious business of stuffing half a dark chocolate cake with chocolate filling and whipped cream down their faces.
They were licking their fingers when Annie’s downstairs buzzer rang. It was Sam, on her way home from work.
“Great!” said Frank. They liked Sam, but didn’t see her very often.
Angie got another plate and fork, and began to make a fresh pot of coffee.
Sam was looking beautiful in a gray wool suit and purple silk blouse.
Settled at the kitchen table, she twitted Annie. “Do you think this is proper schoolmarm behavior?” she asked Frank.
“Well, I sure never had any teachers who looked like that in Memphis,” he drawled. “If I had, I’d probably have gone to school more often.”
Angie poured coffee all around and asked Sam, “You’re working on the Mt. Diablo story, aren’t you? Didn’t I see your by-line?”
“Yes. Thanks for noticing it. Boy, it’s really a killer.” They all groaned.
“Sorry. This guy Murphy who killed his parents has got me going. Very spooky. Very cool, very brilliant, and so controlled. But with enough screws loose to make a tool kit.”
“So is he the one who killed all the hikers?”
“Doesn’t look like it. No, I don’t think so.”
“Oh, shit,” said Angie.
“I know. No closer than they were a month ago.”
The conversation moved on to something much more pleasant, Angie and Frank’s upcoming wedding. With her relatives and his, it was going to require the skills of a UN protocol chief, but Angie was determined it was going to go smoothly.
“We’ll just keep shoveling food and booze down them,” she said. “They won’t even notice what’s happening. After that, the baby will be easy.”
“Baby!” Annie cried.
“No, no, not yet. First the wedding. But soon.” She grinned. “Frank can’t wait to see what an Afro-Italian named Spike is going to look like.”
“And if it’s a girl?” asked Sam.
“No difference,” Frank said, serious-faced. “And she still has to play basketball.”
“Get out of here.” Angie slapped at him.
Then they all kissed good night, and Sam and Annie went across the hall.
“The man in the Porsche called again.” Sam couldn’t wait to share her news.
“He said he didn’t show up that time at the Square because he was too shy. He felt unworthy. Seems as though I’m a shining star he should worship from a distance. Tomorrow he’s going to send me a token of his affection.”
“Did you tell him to buzz off?”
“I told him he was making me very uncomfortable and that I didn’t want him to carry on like this. I swear, I think he was breathing heavy at the discouragement.”
“The next thing you know, he’ll send you a whip from that freak shop, Hard-On Leather.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it.” She paused. “I wonder what it’s going to be?”
“Don’t ask me, dearie. You’re the one with the weird taste in playmates.”
“Ha! Who’s talking? David the Deviant isn’t exactly Laurence Olivier.”
“And how do you know what Olivier’s really like?”
“I bet he never took Vivien Leigh to dinner at the Doggie Diner.”
Annie poked at her.
The ringing phone interrupted their play.
“If it’s David, tell him the ferry leaves for Alcatraz in ten minutes.”
“Very funny.”
It was Slim. In a semi-stupor. He wanted to have a drink soon. Annie was evasive.
“Why didn’t you just tell him to buzz off?”
“Because my mother raised me to be a southern lady.”
Sam guffawed. “If you think about that a minute, you’ll get the joke.”
*
Before turning out her bedside light Annie made a list of what she had to do the next day, the day before Halloween: Talk with Quan about taking Quynh trick or treating. Costume consultation with Quynh. Finish the piece on southwestern food. Stop by for a drink with David. Answer her parents’ letter. Pick up cleaning. Call Lola Davis about lunch soon.
TWENTY-ONE
As she pulled on her favorite orchid sweats and rolled up her blue exercise mat, Annie remembered what Sam’s very active, silver-haired Aunt Catherine had said to her recently.
“You know, dear, I watch other women in my exercise class, and what fascinates me is the expression on their faces. Their eyes are all glazed, their gazes turned inward, totally absorbed with their bodies. I’m reminded of the eyes of dogs I’ve seen copulating.”
She and Sam had exploded with laughter, but the thought kept coming to mind. Is that what she looked like?
And, if so, is that the same way she looked when she did have sex? Totally absorbed with her body? That pretty much described how she felt with David. There certainly wasn’t much else happening between them.
She was headed toward him now.
“Why don’t you drop by for a drink, Annie?”
Or a “pop.”
Or a “bite.”
It all meant the same thing. Their bodies were going to spend an hour, or two, or sometimes even three together, and then one of them was going to get dressed and go home.
It certainly wasn’t unpleasant. It just wasn’t enough.
Today it certainly wasn’t. Because, as sometimes happened, he wasn’t home.
He didn’t stand her up too often. He wasn’t entirely foolhardy or mean. But occasionally something came up or their date seemed to slip his mind.
Maybe today he was just late. He had said something about some errands to run. She let herself in. They’d exchanged keys for convenience’s sake.
A stale smell hit her in the face. She flipped on the light. No wonder. Food sat on the dining table.
“Dammit!” She’d kicked over a cold cup of coffee on the floor, greasy with old cream.
How could David, a photographer who did very fine work,
live like such a pig? He seemed to be getting worse. She eyed his waterbed over in the corner, unmade, with rumpled sheets askew. She wondered how long they had been on the bed. And under whom? It didn’t do to think about.
But he was clean about his person. She always pushed him in the shower first and made sure of that.
She was thirsty. A soda or tonic would be nice. She wondered if she dared to look in the refrigerator.
She steeled herself and opened it.
Not so bad. Nothing green growing. Mostly empty, in fact. Except for film and two six-packs of beer. She opened one can and settled down in his easy chair. Might as well make herself comfortable.
She looked around for something to read.
Shuffling through a pile of papers on the floor, she found an old copy of the Bay Guardian opened to the classifieds, the personals. Some were circled in red with the china marker he used on contact sheets. She looked around the room, shifted in her chair. Was this like reading someone’s mail?
Maybe. But that certainly wasn’t going to stop her.
“Zoftig brown-eyed beauty seeks mensch,” began one.
“Asian lady looking for man of any race to celebrate fall as well as cherry blossoms.”
“Is there anyone out there who’s man enough to appreciate a petite black female lawyer?”
Was that Lola’s ad? She slapped her forehead and laughed.
So David was playing the ads too. It was just too funny.
She looked back at Lola’s ad. He certainly hadn’t read it through. As she thought, Lola specified a black man. Maybe David couldn’t read.
Uh, oh. Bitchy, bitchy, she reprimanded herself. He’s entitled. Or was he?
There were several other papers in the pile. All Guardians. She started through them and suddenly the thought hit her. She riffled through them quickly, looking for the right date. There it was. Her issue of the paper.
She flipped quickly to the back, to the end, the last column. There it was, circled.
“What I’d really like is a funny, tall…” It was her ad!
Had he written to her? She didn’t think so. But maybe she hadn’t read closely enough and had skipped over it. She couldn’t wait to get home and see.
As a matter of fact, since he was so late, she was leaving right now.
TWENTY-TWO
After a fruitless search through her pile of letters for one from David, Annie made a quick dinner of pasta with mushrooms and tucked herself into bed with a Dick Francis novel she hadn’t read. The young jockey hero had just begun to suspect who was fixing his races when Annie called it a night.
She dreamed that she was romping through a meadow in a billowy, yellow organdy dress with a ribboned straw hat in one hand. Her other hand was holding that of a tall, big-shouldered man. He picked her up and swung her around as if she were a child. They tripped and rolled down a grassy hill together, tumbling over and over, landing in a tangled mass of laughter and kisses.
She awakened with a cry. She wanted to go back to the dream. She didn’t want to leave the meadow and the man whose face she had never seen, whose name she didn’t know. But she knew that she had been his beloved.
No matter how much she wanted to pretend, however, it was her alarm clock that had awakened her, not Prince Charming. Snow White would just have to keep on dreaming. In the meantime, the reality was that it was Halloween and she still had a million things to do and had better get cracking. She looked at her list. Mission Street for typewriter ribbons. The costume shop for masks. Quynh was dressing as a cat tonight and she wanted to get her something really special—maybe she’d pick up masks for Sam and herself too. While she was in the neighborhood she might as well swing by the flower market. It would be nice to take something, maybe some calla lilies, to Quan.
She threw on a pair of jeans, and a purple-and-blue sweater Sam had given her and started out the door when she noticed the blinking red light on her answering machine. She had switched off its ring the night before.
Three calls. People had been up very late or very early. Slim’s call she would ignore. A limp apology from David. Well, he’d have to do a hell of a lot better than that, if and when she spoke with him again. Sam’s early morning not-quite-awake-but-all-business voice. What time were they picking up Quynh? Had she made a decision yet about going to Sam’s annual charity ball? Sean O’Reilly had her really worried. She still couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. A final mysterioso P.S. about the White Knight in the charging Porsche that made Annie put her bag down and call Sam right back.
“He was waiting for me when I got home. Sitting on my doorstep with a rose in his hand. A symbol, he said, of my purity.”
Annie snorted. “I think he has you confused with some other fairy-tale princess.”
Sam ignored the comment. “He looks normal enough. Dressed like anybody else: jeans, yellow shirt. He’s rather nice looking, good body, blond hair. His name is Jack Sharder and I think he’s bonkers.”
“Yeah?”
“I thanked him nicely and said ‘Okay, now this is it, I appreciate the posy, but I have a boyfriend and you have to go away now.’ He didn’t get the message. Said he doesn’t want to be a bother, but it’s his job to worship and protect me.”
“Oh, great. A regular knight. I thought those guys went out with armor and sword fighting.”
“Well, this one is still alive and kicking in San Francisco. I think I’m going to ask Sean to run a check on Sharder. Oh, crap, that reminds me.”
“What?”
“More bad news, Annie.”
It was definitely bad news. Another young woman’s body had been found—in her studio South of Market.
“Rape, strangulation, a knife. Same pattern as the other two. A sculptor. Her name was Marcia Cohen.”
TWENTY-THREE
After that Sunday afternoon meeting with Reverend Lee the boy had met once a week with the men as they sat around on their haunches smoking cigarettes, chewing, spitting, and plotting.
They weren’t as exciting squatting in their work clothes as they had been on that first night. Now they were just neighbors, young and old, he’d known forever.
But when they circled and burned in the nighttime, with the flames flickering up and down their white robes, they became strange and wonderful, powerful, magical, grand. They were the most marvelous things the boy had ever known. They made him tingle with dreams of possibilities.
If he could be one of them, he would be somebody. He wouldn’t be just one of his pa’s boys riding the bus to school, town girls like Missy Cartwright laughing at him. It wouldn’t matter that when he played basketball he didn’t wear a number and satin shorts. The chicken shit on his boots and the mended holes in his jeans wouldn’t be important when he covered them with a white robe. He would be special. He would have power.
But the power didn’t come free.
He had to earn it.
Brother Jones had spelled it out for him simple and slow one night.
“You’ve got to prove it to us, that you’re man enough to belong. You got to want it like you never wanted anything in your life. Bad enough to taste it. Bad enough to die for it.”
I do, I can, the boy thought. I’ll do anything. Just tell me what you want.
“It won’t be easy,” the Reverend had said.
Neither was jumping off the top of the barn when he was four because Lem had dared him to. Neither was walking home six miles with a broken arm after he’d fallen off a railroad trestle. Neither was picking up a rattlesnake at a healing meeting and watching it crawl across his chest, its tongue licking at his cheeks, and feeling it wrap itself around his ears. But he’d done it and it had worked. His headaches had gone away for a while.
Neither was living with his pa all his life, for that matter, but he’d done that too.
“And afterward, you have to bring back something to prove that you did it,” Reverend Jones was saying.
Eddie had rolled back his head and laughed.
>
Was that all they wanted?
Easy as falling off a log.
*
He’d followed Lucinda Washington for a couple of days, and he could see why they wanted her. She was one uppity little nigger girl.
She’d won some scholarship that the Yankees gave to smart little niggers who wanted to better themselves. Now she was getting ready to go off to college.
She’d be the first one anybody ever heard of who’d gone up north to school. Then, she said, she planned to come back home and help her people.
That’s what it looked like Lucinda Washington thought she was going to do as she sashayed her tight little butt to town with her momma, buying yards of material to make her some pretty dresses to take off to Yankeeland.
It wouldn’t take him long to put a stop to that.
*
When she stepped out her back door that night, like she always did, at about ten o’clock to put the trash in the burn barrel, he was waiting for her.
After the first soft “Uunh” when he grabbed her from behind she hadn’t made a sound. Her eyes had rolled, shining white in her black face in the dark night, and then they had bulged bigger and bigger as he had choked all the breath out of her. The knife had made a little splllt as it slipped through her skirt into her belly, and Lucinda was one still little nigger girl. Dying. Her legs had moved then, flopped apart as he dropped her beside the trash barrel. It was then that he realized the blood pounding in his ears was also pumping in his groin and he was hard.
Why not? he thought. First piece might as well be her. Sure as hell was easier than wrestling some little piece of white trash out of her drawers.
It was just as good as they’d told him it would be.
He almost forgot what Reverend Jones had said and was halfway out of the yard and her momma was yelling out the back door. “Lucinda, what’s taking you so long, girl?”
Then he remembered. He scrambled back into the yard, his heart pounding like crazy, his breath short and loud. Mrs. Washington must be able to hear him from the back porch. It was so dark he almost stumbled over Lucinda’s body. He grabbed the first thing he came to.
Impersonal Attractions Page 10