“The lady said not to hurt me,” Tim hissed through clenched teeth. I waited until Nina was out of earshot.
“I’m going to put this as simply as possible, sleaze ball. If I see you within twenty feet of her again, I will send you to the hospital for a very long time. Do you understand me?”
“Yeah,” he grunted and I gave him a shove that sent him sprawling and cursing.
Unsure that the warning would be sufficient, I went up to Nina’s apartment. The furniture was Mission style, the walls were painted an adobe brown and decorated with photos of redwood groves and paintings of seascapes; her houseplants were flourishing ferns and sinuous philodendrons. She’d lit a set of candles in an arch of driftwood and put on a recording of La bohème, which she loved for the heartrending romance of the story. The kettle was whistling as I came in, so I settled myself onto the sofa and enjoyed the music. Nina brought our tea from the kitchen, turned down the volume, and curled her legs under her in the way that women have to suggest flirtatious comfort.
“Now then, Riley. I appreciate your desire to protect me, but I don’t want you assaulting my neighbors. Tim isn’t dangerous, he just doesn’t recognize social norms.”
“I think he and I have an understanding of what’s an acceptable distance from you. I know you feel sorry for the guy, but we both know how his sort needs to have lines drawn to keep things from becoming dangerous.”
“Alright,” she sighed, “let’s not allow him to mess up a wonderful evening.” Our conversation drifted into more pleasant topics until Nina stretched, took me by the hand and led us down the hall. She opened the bedroom window so we could hear the rain and feel a breeze. The cool air intensified the contrasting warmth of her body.
Nina liked combining sex and nature—the soft dampness of a forest floor or the sandy heat of a beach dune. This wasn’t about exhibitionism, which would’ve struck me as deviant. She always sought private settings for these encounters. Nature connected her to the land, our bodies and her Indian roots. She explained that when her people had lived in houses shared by extended families, the woods provided the only privacy to enjoy uninhibited sex.
Although we were indoors this evening, I enjoyed the drumming of the rain as a background to our love making. After slowly readying one another, we moved to a favored position embodying our passion as loving and tender creatures to be sure but, in the end, animals. The Church wouldn’t have approved—unmarried, un-missionary, and unnatural. Unnatural, if sex is solely for procreation. But the whisper of the wind outside the window was natural, as were her gasps and final sigh.
CHAPTER 10
I woke up buried under a downy comforter and pressed against a fleshy comforter. I considered a reprise of the evening’s intimacy, but decided that a languorous back rub might be appreciated. Nina purred as I worked her lower back, and she hunched her shoulders in pleasure as I dug gently into the base of her neck.
Her skin glowed with a tawny radiance in the diffuse morning light. This sense of health contrasted with the inflammation of the Linfords skin—and with the similar blotches that returned to my forearms with the steamy heat of the shower. I’d been so focused on attributing the irritation to my weekend outing with Tommy that I’d not noticed how much it resembled the condition of the old couple. I added this connection to the questions I had for Lane.
I pulled together a breakfast of scrambled eggs, wheat toast, and strong coffee while Nina showered. As the toaster did its thing, I poured a cup of coffee and delivered the mug to the bathroom when I heard the shower door open. Timing is everything.
When Nina headed to St. Teresa’s, I cleaned up the dishes and then called Carol for the day’s schedule. She told me Dennis had solved a mysterious case at Wilson Prep, one of the city’s exclusive private schools. Students had been coming home with inflamed skin across their shoulders and necks with complaints of pinprick sensations but no observable cause. Dennis had discovered that all of the afflicted students sat in the back corner of an upstairs classroom for a European History class, which turned out to be the vital clue. Carol suggested Dennis might appreciate my presence when he met with school officials first thing this morning.
When I got to the unpretentious, Spanish colonial building filled with pretentious adolescents, I was directed to the office of the headmaster. I knocked softly and was commanded to enter by a nattily dressed man in his sixties, who was clearly not enjoying a lecture by a black man in coveralls. Dennis was explaining that last week he’d found a small colony of Mexican free-tailed bats in the attic above the afflicted classroom. He’d hung some sticky traps from the ceiling and was now eagerly showing the headmaster his catch. I leaned over for a look as Dennis pointed out the incredibly tiny red creatures that speckled the surface of the trap.
“You see,” he said, “what we got here’s not your standard bat bugs, which be like bed bugs. And they’s surely not bat ticks ’cause they’s a quarter inch long and the students would’ve known if they’d been raining down. These be something rare that it took me awhile to figure. I went through some books that Riley keeps back at the shop and no question—you got bat mites. They don’t normally bother people, but I guess the conditions in your school be just right.” Dennis glanced up at me and I nodded my approval.
I’d never seen bat mites, but the miniscule vermin adhered to the trap were most certainly mites, there were bats in the attic above the problematic classroom, and the students had some skin disorder in addition to their acne. I was impressed and stepped back as Dennis explained the process of bat removal. All the headmaster wanted was my assurance of discretion. We were not to park a vehicle with our company logo on school grounds, we were not to whisper a hint of there being bats, and we were to do all of our work after the school day. For his part, he’d move the afflicted class to another room and he’d pay a premium for our efficacy and secrecy.
Dennis headed off to get a case of boric acid for cockroaches in a housing project and I headed off to get some answers from a rich kid at a mansion.
~||~
I had to wait a half hour in front of the Linfords’ house, getting nasty looks from a woman walking her Pomeranian and a jogger who nearly fell off the curb while turning his head to memorize my license plate number. KDFC was playing Beethoven’s 3rd Symphony, the Eroica. However, “heroic” wasn’t a fitting description of myself on this grey morning that couldn’t quite bring itself to drizzle. That said, the second movement was ending with the famous and ponderous funeral march just as the rumble of a black, Ferrari 308 broke into the music. The iron gates to the estate opened automatically and Lane pulled slowly into the driveway.
After a polite but curt greeting, he directed me inside to a room adjoining the entry hall. It was like going into a museum with a collection of antique apparatuses featuring elegant glass bulbs and sinuous tubing held in place by polished brass fittings. I presumed these were once used to make herbal extracts. In the middle of the room was an oriental rug with an exotically carved coffee table supported by legs looking like trees wrapped in vines. A sideboard and three leather upholstered chairs completed the furnishings. Lane perched himself on the edge of one chair and I settled into another, feeling like I’d landed in a 19th century men’s club. I sat silently, letting the tension rise.
“What did you need to ask of me?” he began. “I have an appointment at noon, so we don’t have much time. And I don’t think I can add anything to what I’ve already told you.”
“Since we last chatted, a few matters have arisen. And these lead me to believe that perhaps you were too shaken during our first visit to give a full account of your grandparents’ affliction.” I provided him with an excuse for having omitted information as a way of making my questioning less accusatory. Beginning with a confrontational approach tends to back a suspect into a corner. It’s best to let them dig their own hole and then apply pressure.
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning your grandfather had samples of hair and skin
scrapings that included lice. But perhaps you didn’t know he’d found a cause for their symptoms.”
“He never said anything about this to me.”
“Really? I might’ve thought that his excitement with having finally established what was plaguing him and your grandmother would have prompted him to share the information with a grandson who’d been so helpful in concocting treatments.”
“I said he didn’t, Mr. Riley. Now is there anything more?” He shifted, as if readying himself to get up.
“What’s most curious to me is that the lice were not a species that infests humans.” Lane froze in place, his body language speaking volumes. “They were chicken lice that couldn’t have come from your grandparents. I don’t suppose you know how they might’ve acquired these insects, given that they hadn’t left the house in weeks.”
“I can’t imagine,” he said, cracking his knuckles and looking steadfastly at the carpet.
“What’s more, I spoke with a psychologist, which seemed to be a sensible approach to understanding your grandparents’ condition. But you never sought professional counsel. Or maybe you forgot to tell me about this in our last conversation.”
“I learned all I needed to know from reading scientific journals and technical books. There was nothing to gain from speaking to a shrink.”
“Nothing to gain other than affirmation of an amateur diagnosis of a serious condition. Nothing other than insights as to possible courses of treatment. Seems to me that a loving grandson might’ve wanted professional guidance on how to relieve the suffering of such an unusual mental condition.” Lane said nothing in reply but rolled his head from side to side to elicit an audible crack. His leg began a subtle jackhammering.
“And then there’s this,” I said, showing him the inside of my forearms. The rash was fading but still visible. “A few hours after I was in your house, I developed a skin condition rather similar to what I saw on your grandparents. Now then, I don’t have chicken lice but I have to wonder if you also have a rash.”
“I do not, Mr. Riley. And what’s more, I do not know what you’re implying with these questions,” he said, swallowing a few times and starting to rise from the chair.
“Sit down.” He paused. “I said, sit down,” and he complied. I didn’t directly threaten physical violence but the right tone with a skinny kid, even in his own mansion, makes clear that force will be used if needed. “You know what I’m after, Lane. I want the whole story.” He put his head in his hands and began rocking.
“I can’t ...” he mumbled. I ignored him and continued.
“When we parted company on Monday, we had a mutual interest in keeping your grandparents’ condition from being made public. I now understand that your interests included providing me with just enough information to insulate you from the cops. So either you come clean or I pay a visit to Lieutenant Papadopolous, tell him what I’ve learned, and let him sort out what led to your grandparents’ deaths. And believe me, he has some theories that will scandalize San Francisco’s elites.”
“What’s to keep you from going to the police with what I tell you?” he sputtered, on the verge of tears.
“Maybe nothing. Or maybe our overlapping interest in keeping this out of the papers. You have nothing to lose, given that I’m your only potential ally in this mess.”
Lane gave a deep sob. “My grandparents’ delusions started after the flea infestation. They reinforced one another’s belief that something was crawling in their skin. I read about their condition and realized they were on a downward spiral.”
“Okay, but why not get them the help they needed?”
“They had been stubbornly old-school about the family business, refusing to modernize, to develop a marketing plan, or to explore new avenues. We were losing ground to competitors, and I figured that if their mental illness was bad enough, I could have them declared legally incompetent and save the company.” He paused. I waited. “So I fostered their delusion.”
“By planting lice on them?
“Not on them, but in my grandfather’s clippings and scrapings.
“How’d you get the insects?”
“I obtained a vial of lice from someone a friend told me about.”
“A friend? How did this ‘friend’ know where to get lice?” Lane bent his fingers inward one at a time to crack each knuckle as he answered.
“The guy was into some weird stuff and knew a man named ...” he paused as if trying to recall the name, “ ... Mitch, who owned a sex shop in, uh, the Tenderloin.” Lane was an inept liar like most people, and like most people he crafted his deception from a core of truth. My challenge would be to find that core.
“Insects from a sex shop, eh? Go on.”
“This guy supplied people with any creature they wanted for whatever kinky thing turned them on, including worms, spiders and insects. Anything.”
“What was the name of this shop?”
“Pleasure something. Or maybe passion. The Passion Place, I think. Anyway, I ordered some lice, Mitch provided them, and I sprinkled a few in one the baggies my grandfather left next to his microscope.”
“Why? Weren’t your grandparents doing fine on their own sustaining their delusion?”
“He’d begun to express doubts about their being infested, so I thought that with the addition of some real evidence he’d keep going.”
“Didn’t you worry that a laboratory would identify the lice?”
“I thought the lice came from people. I figured Mitch had paid some sap to collect them from bums on the street. Besides, I knew which samples had the lice, and I was careful not to mail those out. I just threw them in the trash and sent his usual debris.”
“I’m guessing you didn’t know your grandfather kept his own reference material. That’s how I came across the specimens in his study.”
“I didn’t think of that,” he said, shaking his head and sniffling.
“And I bet you didn’t think anyone would touch their pajamas and make contact with whatever you put on the material to irritate their skin,” I said, scratching my arms. I was guessing wildly at this point, but my suspicion fit the emerging story. And if I was right, the existence of physical evidence would drive him to provide an account closer to the truth.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he blubbered, the emphasis fading with each repeat. “When I acquired the lice, I also wanted to amp up their symptoms. I used rubber gloves to collect poison oak from around Golden Gate Park. Then I rubbed the leaves on the inside of their nightclothes to make the whole thing more real to them.” He gave a gurgling sob and said, “I didn’t mean for them to die. I just wanted them out of the way so I could keep the business from going under. Once I had control, I would’ve made sure they got help. It all just blew up on me.”
“Sounds to me like you worked your way into a psycho train wreck.” Lane was looking for sympathy. I couldn’t provide any.
“Are you going to report this to the police?” He looked at me for the first time, his eyes wet, red and pleading.
“Hell, I don’t know if there’s a crime in all of this wreckage. You’re a manipulative shit who betrayed his grandparents. I suppose a prosecutor could find a way to charge you with reckless manslaughter. Beats me.”
“And so?” he said with childlike hopefulness.
“And so, I’m done with you,” I lied. I knew he was still hiding something—and that whatever he was hiding could be important if Lane ended up being interrogated and melted down under police questioning. My people and business could get drawn into a public relations disaster if I didn’t figure out the whole sordid tale and prepare for a media onslaught. Whatever the real story, it sure as hell didn’t involve a “friend” linking Lane to a guy named Mitch at The Passion Place in the Tenderloin, but somewhere in that fabrication was a lead worth following. And I knew one person who might shed some light into this darkness, if I handled the matter with delicacy, which wasn’t generally my strong suit.
I walked out of the
house and down the drive to my truck as the low, skittering clouds began spitting rain. I pondered the process of tracking down a sicko who provided animals to perverts, and I began to envy Dennis crawling around in school attics filled with bat shit and housing projects infested with cockroaches.
CHAPTER 11
On my drive back from the Linford’s, I headed through Civic Center—not typically a clever route given the congestion around the government buildings. But I had a craving for lunch at a little joint squeezed between a soulless bank and a heartless insurance office. The rotund and balding guy behind the counter at Gyro’s Welcome greeted me like Jason returning with the Golden Fleece.
Mr. Constantanides made his own pita bread from scratch, and a couple years ago he had a spectacular infestation of pita pests. The flour bins were crawling with confused flour beetles which deserve the name, given that they seem perplexed by what qualifies as food. They’ll eat almost any dry good from snuff tobacco (as I’d discovered at a tobacconist’s shop in the financial district) to poison rodent bait (as I’d learned from an embarrassing infestation in my own warehouse) to pinned insects (as I’d been warned by Scott Fortier at the Essig Museum). But the little bastards also feast on healthful vittles including dried fruits, beans, spices—and flour.
Dennis and Larry spent half a day in Mr. Constantanides’ stockroom, inspecting and bagging up every dried good with a hint of beetles, cleaning the place with a high-powered vacuum, and providing supersized sealable containers to store new ingredients. With weekly spraying of crevices for the next couple of months, we prevented any hatchlings from starting a new plague.
Mr. Constantanides figured we’d saved his business and hailed me like a conquering hero whenever I stopped by. As usual, he began slicing succulent strips of lamb from the rotisserie the moment he saw me come through the door. The zealous Greek slathered the inside of a pita with tzatziki and stuffed it with meat, tomato, onion and French fries (which he insisted were traditional in his hometown of Athens).
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