The Sourdough Wars

by Smith, Julie

  “You think Anita might still want to sell it?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Oh. Then wouldn’t it be unethical to get their hopes up?”

  “It certainly would. We wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing. But, if there is a starter and they don’t know about it, they can hardly make her an offer, can they? After all, we can’t read her mind—maybe if the price were right, she would sell.”

  “I don’t know, Rebecca. It doesn’t really sound like any of our business.”

  “But what if one of them found out about it and the other three didn’t? That person would have a very unfair advantage, don’t you think?”

  “Peter wouldn’t have liked that.”

  “And we were his lawyers. So I think we ought to tell them as our last duty as his attorneys.”

  “How come you look so much like a little kid who’s up to something?”

  “Because I am, of course. We’re going to pump them, and they’re not even going to notice.”

  “You think that’s ethical?”

  “Certainly. We’ve agreed that it’s our duty to tell them about the second starter. If we do it face to face instead of on the phone, that makes us even more conscientious. And if they want to get anything off their chests, we’ll just be good guys and listen.”

  “Gosh, we’re wonderful.”

  Chapter Seven

  I checked my watch. “Nearly three o’clock. We might be able to catch the Tosi boys at work.”

  Chris was already busy with a phone book. “Well, we can’t catch both of them unless we work fast. One’s in Colma and the other’s in Oakland.”

  “Oakland? San Francisco sourdough is made in Oakland?”

  “If you ask me, it beats Colma.” We both laughed. Oakland, across the bay to the east, is the butt of a million San Francisco jokes, but Colma, a little ways down the peninsula, is a necropolis. If there was a bakery there, that meant the town wasn’t all cemeteries, but that would be news to most people. It certainly was to Chris and me.

  “But Colma’s closer,” I said.

  “Which one’s there?”

  “Tosi. I mean the Tosi Bakery. Bob.”

  “Let’s go.”

  It was no trouble finding the Tosi Bakery—anything above ground in Colma sticks out like a pimple. The guard at the door rang Bob Tosi to ask if he’d see us, and apparently he said he would. We were issued name tags and waved on.

  Bob Tosi was better looking than I’d remembered him. I’d liked something around his eyes and I still liked it. I still liked his nice smile. His casual clothes somehow looked better in Colma than they had on Montgomery Street. I forgave him for them and glanced at the fourth finger of his left hand. No ring. He wasn’t my type, exactly, but he was attractive enough and he was rich. What was he doing on the loose? I wondered.

  The man exuded confidence. So did his office, though it wasn’t “tasteful”—at least, it wasn’t an all-of-a-piece, interior-designed, tan-and-orange wonder, like most people’s offices. It had a worn green carpet on the floor, bits of Naugahyde furniture here and there, and original paintings on the walls. Good ones. A dark green and yellow one of two swimmers caught my eye. “That’s a Mary Robertson, isn’t it?”

  Tosi looked surprised. “You’re an art buff?”

  Really, how annoying. I said what was on my mind: “You can like art without being a ‘buff,’ whatever that is.”

  Chris tried to hide a smile, but she needn’t have bothered. “Touché,” said Tosi, and laughed heartily. “I’ve just started collecting in the last couple of years. I guess I don’t really know much. Do you think Mary Robertson’s good?”

  “Certainly. Everyone does.”

  “And you, Chris?”

  “You don’t really care what I think, do you?”

  “Not in the least.” He put his feet up on his desk. “Now what can I do for you?”

  “We came,” said Chris, “because we have some good news for you. The starter’s been found.”

  “The starter’s…” He slapped his hand to his forehead, as if he’d forgotten something. “Oh, yes, Peter’s starter. But I don’t understand.”

  “They had another batch.”

  He nodded. “Of course. They would.”

  “So that’s our good news. It may come back on the market after all, though we don’t really think Anita will sell it. We thought we’d better tell all the bidders, just in case.”

  “I see. You mean there might be an auction after all?”

  “I doubt it. We just thought we should let you know the starter exists.”

  “That’s nice of you.” He looked at me, then at Chris, who looked miserable. “But I don’t think I care much. It’s just a PR gimmick, really. The Tosi Bakery doesn’t need it.”

  “But—”

  He held up a hand. “I’ve done some thinking since Peter died. About why he was killed.”

  “We’ve done a lot of thinking about it.”

  “Peter wasn’t the type to get involved in romantic triangles,” he said.

  I winced and avoided looking at Chris. She said nothing. “And if it wasn’t that, what’s left? I think someone wanted that auction stopped. Otherwise, why the threatening phone calls?”

  “Feelings were running kind of high,” said Chris.

  “And over a thing that’s just a gimmick—for Conglomerate especially. Thank God I don’t have to deal with that kind of garbage.”

  “What kind of garbage?” I asked.

  “Working for a big company that’s all image and no substance. They need that starter. I mean, who are they trying to kid? Nationally distributed frozen sourdough!”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “It’s going to be second-rate, no matter what. Good sourdough is sourdough that’s baked today. So Conglomerate needs a gimmick.” He looked disgusted. “Let them have it and welcome to it.”

  “And your brother?”

  “Same thing. He’s my brother, but let’s face it—he’s got to try harder, like Avis.”

  “You’re saying he needs a gimmick, too.”

  “Rebecca, my brother’s my brother, but we haven’t really been close for a long time. He’s made it clear nothing would make him happier than running me out of business. If he thinks that starter can do it…” He stopped for a moment and finished in a much lower voice, “I pity him.”

  “He makes a nice loaf.”

  “It’s not good enough to hurt me.” He snapped out the words. “Tony and Thompson can battle it out for all I care. I’m not going to get involved in some kind of petty puff-up that’s getting people killed.”

  “So you think Peter was killed because of the starter,” I said.

  “It sounds,” said Chris, “as if you think your own brother might have done it.”

  “My own…now you listen to me, young lady—”

  “Don’t you young-lady me, you big galumph.”

  “Galoot,” I blurted, and started laughing. Chris really had a terrible time with words.

  But I was the only one laughing. Bob was suddenly very serious. “I’m sorry, Chris. It just slipped out. But you did accuse me of accusing my own brother of murder.”

  “Not quite. I was just trying to clarify things.”

  “Okay, let me make it clear that I wasn’t accusing Tony of anything.”

  “I’m sorry.” Chris spoke in a small voice. She hated apologizing.

  I said, “Aren’t you forgetting something? There was a fourth bidder, you know.” I don’t know why I said that. I had no wish to accuse Sally Devereaux of murder. It just made me mad, the macho way he seemed to imagine the men duking it out among themselves.

  Bob leaned back in his Naugahyde chair and swiveled sideways so he wasn’t facing us. “Sally Devereaux,” he said, almost wonderingly. “Yes, I did forget.” He swiveled back. “I guess I don’t think of her as much competition, as far as business goes. But come to think of it, maybe Peter was involved in a triangle. Or something.�
��

  I spoke quickly, sensing Chris’s distress. “What do you mean?”

  “You didn’t know they’d dated?”

  “Peter and Sally?” But even as I said it, I remembered Peter’s discomfort when she’d barged in on us the night before the auction, how eager he was to get rid of her.

  Bob nodded. “Peter dumped her.”

  Chapter Eight

  “He’s awful,” said Chris, back in the Volvo.

  “Chris, are you sure you want to go on with this?”

  “I don’t care about Sally and Peter. Not much, anyway—at least their affair argues he wasn’t gay.”

  It didn’t, I thought, but I let it go.

  “I just hate guys like that Bob Tosi, that’s all. So damned sure of himself. Calling me ‘young lady’!”

  I put the car in reverse and backed out of the parking space. “I don’t think he’s so bad. He probably grew up in a very sexist milieu. To hear Anita tell it, that’s how Italian families are.”

  “If I needed that kind of ratatool, I could have stayed in Virginia.”

  “That kind of what?”

  “Crap!”

  “It’s not like anyone’s asking you to go out with him.”

  “Go out with him! I wouldn’t go out with him if he picked me up and threw me over his shoulder.”

  “Okay, okay. What do you want to do instead?”

  “Let’s go see Tony. Maybe he’s nicer.”

  “It’s almost five o’clock—traffic on the bridge’ll be awful. Let’s try Clayton Thompson.”

  We drove to the Stanford Court, and I asked for Thompson on the house phone. He’d checked out.

  “Has he gone back to New York?” As soon as it was out of my mouth, I realized the operator couldn’t possibly know. But she surprised me: “No, ma’am. He left a forwarding address in the Eureka Valley—at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Richards.”

  The Eureka Valley is in the city’s Castro district, the city’s gay ghetto, but a few young married types who’d bought property there before the gays took over in full force still lived there. Some women said they loved it because the streets were always crowded—and not with rapists.

  Mr. and Mrs. Richards didn’t seem to be among the property owners. The address we had was an apartment building, about half a block from Castro Street itself, the center of all the action. There probably wasn’t a rapist within eight or ten blocks. Mrs. Richards must love it, but I wondered if it didn’t make her husband a bit uneasy.

  As we got out of the Volvo, we saw Clayton Thompson walking toward us with a load of groceries. A man in a leather jacket was walking toward him.

  “Clayton!” called Chris, just as the other man caught up with him. He turned, saw us, started to smile, then turned back, apparently listening to something the man was saying.

  Suddenly he shoved the groceries at the other man, hollered, “Run, y’all. He’s got a gun!” and started toward us at a gallop.

  I saw the other man go down, and then I followed orders. I turned and ran toward the safety of crowded Castro, high heels clicking, Chris at my side, and Clayton catching up fast.

  I heard the other man swear, grunt as he stood up, and then I heard his footsteps behind us. I ran faster, thinking I’d probably manifested the mugger in some mystical way, being so relaxed about rapists. It served me right for getting too sure of myself.

  We rounded the corner onto Castro, and still we heard pursuing footsteps. There seemed nothing to do but go into a bar. Clearly the streets weren’t safe. I charged into the nearest one, Chris and Clayton right behind me. Practically everyone in there was wearing jeans and a trendy haircut; everyone—and I mean, bar none—was male and looked under thirty. So you could say we caused quite a stir—two women and a middle-aged man in a business suit. Only it didn’t take the usual form of a stir. It took the form of cold, dead, unwelcoming silence.

  The place was mobbed, too. It was just the cocktail hour, and guys were practically sitting in each other’s laps. There was hardly room for the indigenous ferns. We started elbowing our way through the crowd—anything to get out of the doorway. I think I had in mind we could use the phone to call police, but basically I was on automatic pilot. I was just moving. I kept looking over my shoulder, imagining our pursuer might follow us in there—silly thought, really. What mugger would do that? Then I saw him, just coming in the door.

  I nudged Clayton. “Omigod,” he shouted. “He’s got a gun!”

  Since everyone was giving us the silent treatment, you can imagine how that went over. Yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater was good social manners by comparison. Tables turned over as some guys tried to dive under them, and others got up to jump the gunman. In about half a second the scene was like a barroom brawl in a movie.

  Some guys, in their rush to get to the baddy, bashed into other guys, who responded by slugging them. Their buddies responded by slugging back. Forty or fifty different private fights seemed to have broken out at once. Someone went through the front window in an earsplitting smash of glass.

  Chris hit the floor as a chair fell against her. A guy with his fist raised stood over her. I slammed him one on the arm. “You want to hit a woman, hit me, you momser!”

  Clayton, ever the Southern gent, pulled me back, looked straight into the guy’s eyes, and said, “You’ll have to excuse my friend. She’s a little upset.”

  I was sure that was an invitation to get killed, but the guy just muttered, “Sheeit!” and turned away, arms flailing, looking for a target worthy of him.

  The bartender, wearing a white apron, came up behind Chris and started to help her up. “Everyone’s a little on edge,” he said.

  I almost laughed. On edge, indeed. Teeth were being lost left and right.

  “Come on.” The bartender herded the three of us like a brooding hen. He was far and away the most buff guy in the place. His idea was to take us out the back way, but it was blocked.

  There were only two guys standing in front of the entrance to the space behind the bar, though. They both had their fists up and they were circling like boxers. The bartender banged their heads together and stepped over their supine forms. “Back here.”

  We stepped behind the bar, stooping down for safety. The bartender went for a telephone, but sirens sounded in the distance and he abandoned the effort. Someone sailed over the bar, lay there a second, then sat up and shook his head, probably trying to clear it. You’d think the sound of the sirens might have sobered people up, but not a chance. They kept mixing it up, maybe even going at it a little harder, as if they knew their fighting time was limited.

  The bartender, apparently trying to do what he could to restore peace, again cleared the pathway between the bar and the rest of the room, and we saw that there was a tiny space to the back entrance. This time Clayton said, “Come on,” and took the lead. He pushed bodies out of his way, and we were out.

  Out of the barroom, anyway. We were in a dark passage, and, believe it or not, it was blocked by two young men necking like teenagers, kissing and feeling each other up.

  “’Scuse us,” Clayton said, but they didn’t budge.

  “Let us through, please,” Chris said. One man put his hand in the back of the other one’s jeans. I know some people are turned on by violence, but this was ridiculous. However, if it was violence they wanted, it was violence they were going to get: I kicked first one in the shin, then the other.

  “What the hell?” said the first one, and turned toward us, fists clenched. But his friend, apparently miffed at the interruption, pulled him out of the way. “Let them through.”

  And then we were really outside.

  We leaned up against the side of the building, catching our breath for a moment. “Let’s get out of here,” said Clayton. “There’s gon’ be a stampede out that back door when those cops get here.”

  We were barely ahead of the stampede. Cops chased the stampeders, but we simply stood aside and let them pass, figuring we’d probab
ly be taken for tourists who’d lost their way. It seemed to work.

  When we were alone, Clayton asked, “Y’all want a drink? Anywhere but this neighborhood. What kind of place is this? There goes a guy with two shades of eye shadow.”

  Chris and I couldn’t help laughing—it was the universal out-of-towner’s response to Castro Street. We may have been a little rude, but a laugh at his expense was a small thing, and it made me feel better. I was upset with Clayton—he might not have meant to, but he’d started a near-riot.

  We found a quiet bar in the adjoining Noe Valley, and when Chris had her bourbon and Clayton and I our white wines, I asked Clayton exactly what was going on.

  He shrugged. “I guess I kind of lost control. Guy tried to mug me—you saw it.”

  “What did he say to you?”

  “Asked for my money, that’s all. Had his hand in his jacket like he had a gun. Scared the hell out of me. I’ve been feeling a little funny in that neighborhood anyway. Can’t think why Rick and Mary live there—with a baby, too.” Chris nodded, wise with an insider’s knowledge. “That’s probably why. It’s hard for people with children to find apartments in San Francisco.”

  “Must be. That’s all I can say.”

  “Listen, Clayton,” I said. “We were coming to see you because we’ve got something to tell you.” I told him about the second starter.

  “Well, glory be. My comp’ny’s gon’ be mighty happy to hear about that.” He sighed. “I was gon’ take a few days off, stayin’ with my friends. But I guess it’ll have to wait awhile. What’s the legal procedure on that starter?”

  “The court will appoint an administrator for the estate,” said Chris. “That is, if it turns out Peter died intestate—and I suppose his apartment’s been searched by now. If there’s no will there—or anywhere—that’s the procedure.”

  “Any chance one of y’all’ll be appointed? You, Chris? You were Martinelli’s lawyer.”

  She shook her head. “No. It has to be Peter’s sister, Anita Ashton. She’s his nearest relative, so she stands to inherit.”

  “Unfortunately,” I said, “I’m afraid in a case like this—when a woman is appointed—it’s called an ‘administratrix.’ ”