McCone and Friends

by Marcia Muller

  Boydston said, “They buy these gizmos ‘cause they think they need ‘em. Then they find out they don’t need and can’t afford ‘em. And then it all ends up in my lap.” He sounded exceptionally cheerful about this particular brand of human folly, and I supposed he had good reason.

  He led me at a fast clip toward the back of the warehouse—so fast that I had to trot to keep up with him. One of the other problems with being short is that you’re forever running along behind taller people. Since I’d already decided to hate Darrin Boydston, I also decided he was walking fast to spite me.

  At the end of the next-to-last aisle we came upon a thin man in a white T-shirt and black work pants who was moving boxes from the shelves to a dolly. Although Boydston and I were making plenty of noise, he didn’t hear us come up. My client put his hand on the man’s shoulder, and he stiffened, when he turned I saw he was only a boy, no more than twelve or thirteen, with the fine features and thick black hair of a Eurasian. The look in his eyes reminded me of an abused kitten my boyfriend Willie had taken in: afraid and resigned to further terrible experiences. He glanced from me to Boydston, and when my client nodded reassuringly, the fear faded to remoteness.

  Boydston said to me, “Meet Daniel.”

  “Hello, Daniel.” I held out my hand he looked at it, then at Boydston. He nodded again, and Daniel touched my fingers, moving back quickly as if they were hot.

  “Daniel,” Boydston said, “doesn’t speak or hear. Speech therapist I know met him, says he’s prob’ly been deaf and mute since he was born.”

  The boy was watching his face intently. I said, “He reads lips or understands signing, though.”

  “Does some lip reading, yeah. But no signing. For that you gotta have schooling. Far as I can tell. Daniel hasn’t. But him and me, we worked out a personal kind of language to get by.

  Daniel tugged at Boydston’s sleeve and motioned at the shelves, eyebrows raised. Boydston nodded, then pointed to his watch, held up five fingers, and pointed to the front of the building. Daniel nodded and turned back to his work. Boydston said, “You see?”

  “Uh-huh. You two communicate pretty well. How’d he come to work for you?”

  My client began leading me back to the store—walking slower now. “The way it went, I found him all huddled up in the back doorway one morning ‘bout six weeks ago when I opened up. He was damn near froze but dressed in clean clothes and a new jacket. Was in good shape, ‘cept for some healed-over cuts on his face. And he had this laminated card—wait, I’ll show you.” He held the door for me, then rummaged through a drawer below the counter.

  The card was a blue three-by-five—encased in clear plastic; on it somebody had typed I WILL WORK FOR FOOD AND A PLACE TO SLEEP. I DO NOT SPEAK OR HEAR, BUT I AM A GOOD WORKER. PLEASE HELP ME.

  “So you gave him a job?”

  Boydston sat down on a stool. “Yeah. He sleeps in a little room off the warehouse and cooks on a hotplate. Mostly stuff outta cans. Every week I give him cash; he brings back the change—won’t take any more than his food costs, and that’s not much.”

  I turned the card over. Turned over my opinion of Darrin Boydston, too. “How d’you know his name’s Daniel?”

  “I don’t. That’s just what I call him.”

  “Why Daniel?”

  He looked embarrassed and brushed at a speck of lint on the leg of his pants. “Had a best buddy in high school down in Amarillo. Daniel Atkins. Got killed in ‘Nam.” He paused. “Funny, me giving his name to a slope kid when they were the ones that killed him.” Another pause. “Of course, this Daniel wasn’t even born then, none of that business was his fault. And there’s something about him…I don’t know, he must reminds me of my buddy. Don’t suppose old Danny would mind none.”

  “I’m sure he wouldn’t.” Damn, it was getting harder and harder to hate Boydston! I decided to let go of it. “Okay,” I said, “my casefile calls for a background check. I take it you want me to find out who Daniel is.”

  “Yeah. Right now he doesn’t exist—officially, I mean. He hasn’t got a birth certificate, can’t get a social security number. That means I can’t put him on the payroll, and he can’t get government help. No classes where he can learn the stuff I can’t teach him. No SSI payments or Medicare, either. My therapist friend says he’s one of the people that slip through the cracks in the system.”

  The cracks are more like yawning holes, if you ask me. I said, “I’ve got to warn you, Mr. Boydston: Daniel may be in the country illegally.”

  “You think I haven’t thought of that? Hell, I’m one of the people that voted for Prop One-eighty-seven. Keep those foreigners from coming here and taking jobs from decent citizens. Don’t give ‘em nothin’ and maybe they’ll go home and quit using up my tax dollar. That was before I met Daniel.” He scowled. “Damn, I hate moral dilemmas! I’ll tell you one thing, though: this is a good kid, he deserves a chance. If he’s here illegally…well, I’ll deal with it somehow.”

  I liked his approach to his moral dilemma; I’d used it myself a time or ten. “Okay,” I said, “tell me everything you know about him.”

  “Well, there’re the clothes he had on when I found him. They’re in this sack; take a look.” He hauled a grocery bag from under the counter and handed it to me.

  I pulled the clothing out: rugby shirt in white, green, and navy; navy cords’ navy-and-tan down jacket. They were practically new, but the labels had been cut out.

  “Lands’ End?” I said. “Eddie Bauer?”

  “One of those, but who can tell which?”

  I couldn’t, but I had a friend who could, “Can I take these?”

  “Sure, but don’t let Daniel see you got them. He’s real attached to ‘em, cried when I took them away to be cleaned the first time.”

  “Somebody cared about him, to dress him well and have this card made up. Laminating like that is a simple process, though; you can get it done in print shops.”

  “Hell, you could get it done here. I got one of those laminating gizmos a week ago; belongs to a printer who’s having a hard time of it, checks his shop equipment in and out like this was a lending library.”

  “What else can you tell me about Daniel? What’s he like?”

  Boydston considered. “Well, he’s proud—the way he brings back the change from the money I give him tells me that. He’s smart; he picked up on the warehouse routine easy, and he already knew how to cook whoever his people are, they don’t have much; he knew what a hotplate was, but when I showed him a microwave it scared him. And he’s got a tic about labels—cuts ‘em out of the clothes I give him. There’s more, too.” He looked toward the door; Daniel was peeking hesitantly around its jamb. Boydston waved for him to come in and added, “I’ll let Daniel do the telling.”

  The boy came into the room, eyes lowered shyly—or fearfully. Boydston looked at him till he looked back. Speaking very slowly and mouthing the words carefully, he asked, “Where are you from?”

  Daniel pointed at the floor.

  “San Francisco?”

  Nod.

  “This district?”

  Frown.

  “Mission district? Mis-sion?”

  Nod.

  “Your momma, where is she?”

  Daniel bit his lip.

  “Your momma?”

  He raised his hand and waved.

  “Gone away?” I asked Boydston.

  “Gone away or dead. How long, Daniel?” When the boy didn’t respond, he repeated, “How long?”

  Shrug.

  “Time confuses him.” Boydston said. “Daniel, your daddy—where is he?”

  The boy’s eyes narrowed and he made a violent gesture toward the door.

  “Gone away?”

  Curt nod.

  “How long?”

  Shrug.

  “How long, Daniel?”

  After a moment he held up two fingers.

  “Days?”

  Headshake.

  “Weeks?”

 
; Frown.

  “Months?”

  Another frown.

  “Years?”

  Nod.

  “Thanks, Daniel.” Boydston smiled at him and motioned to the door. “You can go back to work now.” He watched the boy leave, eyes troubled, then asked me, “So what d’you think?”

  “Well—he’s got good linguistic abilities; somebody bothered to teach him—probably his mother. His recollections seem scrambled. He’s fairly sure when the father left, less sure about the mother. That could mean she went away or died recently and he hasn’t found a way to mesh it with the rest of his personal history. Whatever happened, he was left to fend for himself.”

  “Can you do anything for him?”

  “I’m sure going to try.”

  My best lead on Daniel’s identity was the clothing. There had to be a reason for the labels being cut out—and I didn’t think it was because of a tic on the boy’s part. No, somebody had wanted to conceal the origins of the duds, and when I found out where they’d come from I could pursue my investigation from that angle. I left the Cash Cow, got in the Ramblin’ Wreck, and when it finally stopped coughing, drove to the six-story building on Brannan Street south of Market where my friend Janie labors in what she calls the rag trade. Right now she works for a T-shirt manufacturer—and there’ve been years when I would’ve gone naked without her gifts of overruns—but during her career she’s touched on every area of the business; if anybody could steer me toward the manufacturer of Daniel’s clothes, she was the one. I gave them to her and she told me to call later. Then I set out on the trail of a Mission district printer who had a laminating machine.

  Print and copy shops were in abundant supply there. A fair number of them did laminating work, but none recognized—or would own up to recognizing—Daniel’s three-by-five card. It took me nearly all day to canvass them, except for the half-hour when I had a beer and a burrito at La Tacqueria, and by four o’clock I was totally discouraged. So I stopped at my favorite ice cream shop, called Janie and found she was in a meeting, and to ease my frustration had a double-scoop caramel swirl in a chocolate chip cookie cone.

  No wonder I’m usually carrying five spare pounds!

  The shop had a section of little plastic tables and chairs, and I rested my weary feet there, planning to check in at the office and then call it a day. If turning the facts of the case over and over in my mind all evening could be considered calling it a day…

  Shar warned me about that right off the bat. “If you like this business and stick with it,” she’d said, “you’ll work twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. You’ll think you’re not working because you’ll be a party or watching TV or even in bed with your husband. And then all of a sudden you’ll realize that half your mind’s thinking about your current case and searching for solution. Frankly, it doesn’t make for much of a life.”

  Actually it makes for more than one life. Sometimes I think the time I spend on stakeouts or questioning people or prowling the city belongs to another Rae, one who has no connection to the Rae who goes to parties and watches TV and—now—sleeps with her boyfriend. I’m divided, but I don’t mind it. And if Rae-the-investigator intrudes on the off-duty Rae’s time, that’s okay. Because the off-duty Rae gets to watch Rae-the-investigator make her moves—fascinated and a little envious.

  Schizoid? Maybe. But I can’t help but live and breathe the business. By now that’s as natural as breathing air.

  So I sat on the little plastic chair savoring my caramel swirl and chocolate chips and realized that the half of my mind that wasn’t on sweets had come up with a weird little coincidence. Licking ice cream dribbles off my fingers, I went back to the phone and called Darrin Boydston. The printer who had hocked his laminating machine was named Jason Hill, he told me, and his shop was Quik Prints, on Mission near Geneva.

  I’d gone there earlier this afternoon. When I showed Jason Hill the laminated card he’d looked kind of funny but claimed he didn’t do that kind of work, and there hadn’t been any equipment in evidence to brand him a liar. Actually, he wasn’t a liar; he didn’t do that kind of work anymore.

  Hill was closing up when I got to Quik Prints, and he looked damned unhappy to see me again. I took the laminated card from my pocket and slapped it into his hand. “The machine you made this on is living at the Cash Cow right now,” I said. “You want to tell me about it?”

  Hill—one of those bony-thin guys that you want to take home and fatten up—sighed. “You from Child Welfare or what?”

  “I’m working for your pawn broker, Darrin Boydston.” I showed him the ID he hadn’t bothered to look at earlier. “Who had the card make up?”

  “I did.”

  “Why?”

  “For the kid’s sake,” he switched the Open sign in the window to Closed and came out onto the sidewalk. “Mind if we walk to my bus stop while we talk?”

  I shook my head and fell in next to him. The famous San Francisco fog was in, gray and dirty, making the gray and dirty Outer Mission even more depressing than usual. As we headed toward the intersection of Mission and Geneva, Hill told me about his story.

  “I found the kid on the sidewalk about seven weeks ago. It was five in the morning—I’d come in early for a rush job—and he was dazed and banged up and bleeding. Looked like he’d been mugged. I took him into the shop and was going to call the cops, but he started crying—upset about the blood on his down jacket. I sponged it off, and by the time I got back from the restroom, he was sweeping the print-room floor. I really didn’t have time to deal with the cops, so I just let him sweep. He kind of made himself indispensable.”

  “And then?”

  “He cried when I tried to put him outside that night, so I got him some food and let him sleep in the shop. He had coffee ready the next morning and helped me take out the trash. I still thought I should call the cops, but I was worried: He couldn’t tell them who he was or where he lived; he’d end up in some detention center or a foster home and his folks might never find him. I grew up in foster homes myself; I know all about the system. He was a sweet kid and deserved better than that. You know?”

  “I know.”

  “Well, I couldn’t figure what to do with him. I couldn’t keep him at the shop much longer—the landlord’s nosy and always on the premises. And I couldn’t take him home—I live in a tiny studio with my girlfriend and three dogs. So after a week I got an idea: I’d park him someplace with a laminated card asking for a job; I knew he wouldn’t lose it or throw it away because he loved the laminated stuff and saved all of the discards.”

  “Why’d you leave him at the Cash Cow?”

  “Mr. Boydston has a reputation for taking care of people. He’s helped me out plenty of times.”

  “How?”

  “Well, when he sends out the sixty-day notices saying you should claim your stuff or it’ll be sold, as long as you go in and make a token payment, he’ll hang onto it. He sees you’re hurting he’ll give you more than the stuff’s worth. He bends over backward to make a loan.” We got to the bus stop and Hill joined the rush-hour line. “And I was right about Mr. Boydston helping the kid, too. When I took the machine in last week, there he was, sweeping the sidewalk.”

  “He recognize you?”

  “Didn’t see me. Before I crossed the street, Mr. Boydston sent him on some errand. The kid’s in good hands.”

  Funny how every now and then when you think the whole city’s gone to hell, you discover there’re a few good people left…

  Wednesday morning: cautious optimism again, but I wasn’t going to push my luck by attending an aerobics class. Today I’d put all my energy into the Boydston case.

  First, a call to Janie, whom I hadn’t been able to reach at home the night before.

  “The clothes were manufactured by a company called Casuals, Incorporated,” she told me. “They only sell by catalogue, and their offices and factory are on Third Street.”

  “Any idea why the labels were cut out
?”

  “Well, at first I thought they might’ve been overstocks that were sold through one of the discounters like Ross, but that doesn’t happen often with the catalogue outfits. So I took a close look at the garments and saw they’ve got defects—nothing major, but they wouldn’t want to pass them off as first quality.”

  “Where would somebody get hold of them?”

  “A factory store, if the company has one. I didn’t have time to check.”

  It wasn’t much of a lead, but even a little lead’s better than nothing at all. I promised Janie I’d buy her a beer sometime soon and headed for the industrial corridor along Third Street.

  Casuals, Inc. didn’t have an on-site factory store, so I went into the front office to ask if there was one in another location. No, the receptionist told me, they didn’t sell garment found to be defective.

  “What happens to them?”

  “Usually they’re offered at a discount to employees and their families.”

  That gave me an idea, and five minutes later I was talking with a Mr. Fong in personnel. “A single mother with a deaf-mute son? That would be Mae Jones. She worked here as a seamstress for…let’s see…a little under a year.”

  “But she’s not employed here anymore?”

  “No. We had to lay off a number of people, and those with the least seniority are the first to go.”

  “Do you know where she’s working now?”

  “Sorry, I don’t.”

  “Mr. Fong, is Mae Jones a documented worker?”

  “Green card was in order. We don’t hire illegals.”

  “And you have an address for her?”

  “Yes, but I’m afraid I can’t give that out.”

  “I understand, but I think you’ll want to make an exception in this case. You see, Mae’s son was found wandering the Mission seven weeks ago, the victim of a mugging. I’m trying to reunite them.”

  Mr. Fong didn’t hesitate to fetch Mae’s file and give me the address, on Lucky Street in the Mission. Maybe, I thought, this was my lucky break.

  The house was a Victorian that had been sided with concrete block and painted a weird shade of purple. Sagging steps led to a porch where six mailboxes hung. None of the names on them was Jones. I rang all the bells and got no answer. Now what?