Out of Nowhere

by Susan Dunlap

  Or did you sublet from someone I’ve heard of, or met?

  What was case 5? I could run upstairs and find out.

  Or I could get my morning espresso and then run and find out. I headed out the door across the courtyard to the sidewalk and turned toward Renzo’s Caffe.

  If a sliver of sun had not pierced the fog, I would have passed right by the Honda and into Renzo’s. I would not have spotted the crack in the windshield – not till later, anyway.

  I veered across the street to eye the damage. The windshield had been fine last night when I left it.

  ‘Wow! You sure pissed off someone!’

  I jumped.

  Behind me, pressing in toward the windshield, as if I was merely an impediment to his scoop, was Roman Westcoff. The reporter might not have been the last person I wanted to see, but he rated high. The guy was tall, thin in the way people who view food as mere fodder, and are muscle-avoidant. Now his head hung over my shoulder like the shade on a goose-necked lamp. Even his nose thrust forward, and the little knob on the end all but twitched.

  ‘Getting this fixed is going to set you back three or four hundred easy.’

  ‘True.’ The least of my problems.

  ‘Who’d do that to you?’

  To me! ‘Why think it was a person doing it, not an accident?’

  ‘See that circle there in the middle. Mallet-head’ll fit it perfect.’

  ‘Perfectly,’ I said, because the chance to correct a reporter’s grammar doesn’t come every day. And because I needed to divert him. ‘What are you doing here? Hoping we’d start zazen an hour late?’ Westcoff had once spent what looked like the most uncomfortable forty minutes cross-legged on a cushion in the history of Buddhism.

  ‘So …?’ He was still eyeing the windshield.

  ‘So, Westcoff, what brings you here before breakfast? I don’t see you as a morning person.’

  He pulled his phone out of a sagging pocket in his tweed jacket. ‘Your brother …’

  Oh shit!

  ‘… the cop …’

  Whew!

  ‘I need to get a hold of him.’

  ‘Because?’ Not that I was planning to stand in Westcoff’s way. John had battled the police brass, and irritated pretty much every sworn officer in the city at one time or another. He was a master of stonewalling. In Westcoff’s eyes, stonewalling was a sign of guilt, and his mission was to discover the source of that guilt. He was desperate for that one scoop that would catapult him onto the staff at the Chronicle. Westcoff vs. John: both used to firing the questions; both loath to give up a hint, much less a lead. I could sell tickets to that.

  Minimally it would keep them both out of my hair. Was that what John was calling about last night?

  ‘I’ve got a couple questions.’

  I moved away from the car and made a come motion. ‘Questions about …?’

  ‘His, uh, associates.’

  John’s cop buddies? Friends? ‘Who are …?’ This could be fun.

  ‘Hey, I’m already giving you more than you need. Where is he?’

  ‘You don’t have his address? You an investigative reporter?’

  ‘Not there.’

  ‘He’s not home or not opening the door to you?’

  ‘Not there. Trust me.’

  ‘Not at Mom’s?’

  ‘Mom’s?’

  Damn!

  Westcoff grinned. As well he should have.

  I gave in. If Westcoff drove out to Mom’s she’d invite him in, give him coffee, and make him feel welcome every time he was out by the ocean. By the end of the month he’d be living there. ‘I’ll call John.’

  ‘Westcoff,’ I said when John picked up. ‘He was waiting for me when I got out of zazen.’

  ‘If you’d called me back last night—’

  ‘Call him!’

  ‘Ask him what he wants.’

  ‘Call him or he’ll be at Mom’s door.’

  To Westcoff, I said, ‘John’ll call you in an hour.’

  That was my second mistake.

  A reporter with an hour to kill is like a bunch of ants with a new entry hole.

  I hadn’t intended to go back into the zendo building, but hurried across the courtyard, opened the door and said to Westcoff, ‘See you!’

  ‘Hang on. Is Mr Garson here?’

  Mr Garson! ‘I’ll check. Wait here.’

  I checked. Leo is glad to talk dharma with anyone; not that that was likely to be Westcoff’s focus. Leo would be perfect to divert Westcoff from the windshield, from discovering that the car belonged to Mike, to splattering me with questions about Mike, to becoming a nuisance, a hindrance, a serious danger to me and to finding the culprit.

  Not that it mattered, because Leo was out.

  I dawdled in the bathroom, trying to create a plan, but Westcoff hovering outside stifled that. What I needed was in Mike’s apartment. What I needed before that was to get rid of Westcoff. I grabbed my pack and headed downstairs. ‘Not here. But you’re welcome to wait in the courtyard.’

  ‘Nah. I’ll tag along with you.’

  ‘I’m in a hurry.’

  ‘Where to?’

  I might as well have been spreading sugar by the ant hole. ‘Sweatshop. You want to come work out. It’s hip-hop day. I can get you a spot in the middle of the line so you can follow the steps.’

  He suspected the truth, but hated the idea of hustling to the last place he wanted to enter, and then having to haul himself back because he’d have left his car here.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Let your body rot. Muscles go to ash. Skin hang off your bones like wet laundry. You know what they say: “Lose your tone, lose your bone.” Class doesn’t start for fifteen minutes. If we hustle we can still make it. You in?’

  He tapped a finger on pen. Considering. He knew, really knew, I was lying, but he didn’t know why. He could tag along nagging me. But the cost … ‘I’ll have an espresso and catch you later, Lott.’

  ‘A month ago you didn’t know my friend Renzo existed. Now you’re parking yourself in his café?’

  ‘Hey, he sees me as a source.’

  ‘Ditto, right?’ Westcoff was no fool. Genial Renzo was the proud collector of all things San Francisco. He was born less than a mile from this spot and never lived farther away. He knew everyone and what everyone else said about them. He was the Google of names, the Amazon.com of whatever you needed, and who could get it for you. He’d take whatever Westcoff said and slot it into his collection.

  I laughed.

  The last laugh though was on me, sort of. Westcoff wasn’t going to give up entirely. He’d saunter to his car and prowl the path to the Sweatshop. If he didn’t spot me racing up the hill to the gym, he’d wonder why I was so intent on losing him. What was I hiding? So I headed across Columbus, through Chinatown, up Nob Hill to the studio, just as he was chugging his Fiat up the panting-hard-in-first-gear street.

  I was tempted to flip him off as I headed inside. I restrained. I waited until he was out of sight, then whipped out, through an alley, down the next street, and into another alley lest he circle back. Much as he might have wanted to, driving right back up the first-gear hill is asking a lot of a little car. I waited though, back to the wall in the alley, eyeing the street, planning my wide, zigzagged loop back past the zendo to the spot where I’d left Mike’s car.

  Most likely Westcoff’s turning up today was a bad sign. For John, if the reporter was eyeing him, even as an auxiliary source on some police story, no good would come from this. Or for me. If Westcoff was not nose-to-the-scent already, then he had time on his hands. It wouldn’t take much for him to sniff the new, intriguing scent of The Brother Found, as the papers had called Mike, and be on my heels and in my hair.

  After a full, ten minutes, I ran downhill into the edge of Chinatown, cut right toward downtown where ‘motion in stillness’ traffic precludes tailing any pedestrian, cut down a flight of steps that substituted for a sidewalk, back through the tunnel into Chinatown, over a
pedestrian walk and into the Barbary Coast.

  All that, just to find Roman Westcoff standing by the Honda’s windshield just where I’d left him.

  SIX

  ‘Is this your brother’s car?’ Westcoff sounded so outraged I had to laugh.

  ‘No.’ I could have told him the truth, but Westcoff with any connection to Mike could only mean: bad. I unlocked the driver’s door and slid in.

  ‘White Honda. The car your brother Gary bought for Mike when he came home?’

  True, but I didn’t admit that either.

  A couple years after Mike vanished, Gary was the plaintiff’s attorney suing a Cadillac-driving coffee magnate who ran over a puppy and left the scene. Any first-year law student could have won that case, but Gary managed ‘the kind of settlement that would teach this guy how to drive.’ When he got the check, Gary took it directly to the Honda dealer and bought the Civic ‘for Mike when he gets back.’

  At the time it was a sweet grand gesture.

  The Honda sat in Mom’s driveway waiting for the big day.

  Reminding Mom that Mike was still missing.

  After a year, someone moved it into the garage.

  When Mom’s car, displaced into the driveway and battered by the briny ocean winds, sported new patches of rust, when it needed to be jump-started, it reminded her of Mike.

  After a while the Honda became a spare ride for Gary, then Gracie and John. When I came to town for a visit, we drove it and told Mike stories.

  None of that would I share with Westcoff, and via him the rest of the news-reading public. I stuck the key in the ignition and started the engine.

  Westcoff was on the far side of the car, bending over the windshield, pointing frantically at something in the corner.

  ‘What?’ I mouthed.

  He said something.

  I wasn’t about to get out of the car.

  He pointed to the windshield, then to the door. ‘Open the window!’

  That, I heard. I leaned over and rolled down the handle.

  He reached in and opened the door. ‘You can’t drive with the windshield like that.’

  I just stared at him. ‘It’s a crack. It’s not going to break. The biggest danger is you poking at it.’

  ‘What would your brother say?’

  ‘He’d say get out of his sister’s car.’

  Westcoff sat, settled his feet on the floor, and pulled the door shut after him. ‘Your car?’

  ‘Get out!’

  He grinned. It was like having a skunk in the car. I could pull out all my driving tricks, spin him in wheelies fast enough to make him throw up, but he’d be doing it in my car. ‘Tell me, Lott, is this Mike’s car?’

  ‘I’m not telling you anything.’

  He popped the glove compartment and started riffling through.

  ‘Get out of there!’

  He grinned, and kept rooting.

  I assumed Mike would have tossed in pens and maps and scraps of paper, but the box was nearly empty. Not even sunglasses. One folder. Westcoff was fingering through it, his face in pre-ah-hah! position.

  In a minute he’d have the registration.

  In another minute he’d be reading Mike’s address.

  In an hour he’d be over there discovering that Mike didn’t live there any more.

  By noon he’d be at Mike’s apartment in the Haight, gumming up the works.

  Which meant I had three hours to get over there, search the apartment and go where that led me.

  ‘You weren’t lying.’ Westcoff sounded shocked. I was shocked. He was wagging the registration at me.

  I raised an eyebrow.

  ‘His sister’s car. I thought you were just blowing me off. But, dammit, this is his sister’s car. Dr Grace Lott; your sister, right?’

  The car was registered to Gracie? Why would that be? I said, matter-of-factly, ‘Yes.’

  ‘She’s the epidemiologist, right?’

  Among other things. She’s also a notoriously distracted driver, the absent-minded professor of epidemics. When she works she’s all work. Gracie’s scandalously unreliable about social commitments. No one leaves her a message and truly expects a call back, not in the same week anyway. And, she has her own vehicle. Of all of us Lotts, she is the last one in whose name anyone would register their car. ‘Yes, the doctor.’

  ‘So, who would be bashing in her windshield? How come?’

  ‘You know – and I know that you know – I lived out of state for almost the whole time Mike was missing. I didn’t have much contact with the family. So, there’s a lot of stuff that passed me by, particularly small stuff between siblings. With Gary I missed one of his wives entirely. What I’m saying is, I’m not the best person to ask.’

  He shrugged, a little smile on his eager face. ‘I’ll ask her.’

  I hesitated only momentarily. But you can have a lot of thoughts in a moment. I love Gracie. We’ve had each other’s back; we’ve had good times. John excepted, I wouldn’t choose to sic Westcoff on any of my siblings. But no one’s cleaner than Gracie. Other than parking tickets for all the times she’s gotten caught up in meetings, distracted by calls, or just decided to walk around the block and ponder, there is no black mark. No dirt.

  I could call and warn her. If she picked up her messages. But, even so, she’s not focused enough to be a consistent liar. No, better to just let this play out. I turned to Westcoff and said, ‘Knock yourself out.’

  He was barely on the curb when I shot into the street and was gone. He’d be looking up Gracie’s number, waiting while it rang, being put on hold by her assistant, listening to phone music, listening to Carmela’s explanation of why Dr Lott was not available at this time and would barely be for the rest of the day, and finally he’d be telling her to have Gracie call him back.

  By then I’d be in Mike’s apartment.

  SEVEN

  Google saved me. I should have checked the Book of Serenity before I left the zendo. I would have, had it not been for Westcoff and the cracked windshield (which was holding up just fine, thank you very much!)

  At not quite ten-thirty, I wriggled Mike’s Civic into a space about two inches longer than the car, at the end of Mike’s block. It took me seven tries and a wee ride over the SUV bumper in front, but in a district where many eyelids were just now flickering open, no one was going to complain.

  I pulled out my phone, did a search, and found Book of Serenity, One Hundred Zen Dialogues. Case 5: A monk asked Qingyuan, ‘What is the meaning of Buddhism?’ Qingyuan said, ‘What is the price of rice in Luling?’

  Traditionally a student is given a koan to hold loosely in her mind. Ponder is too direct a term because the strength of the koan is that it forces the student to break through the wall of thought to understanding. We Zen types like to ponder, to discuss, ruminate. Letting go of thought is like letting go of skin. We fight, fight, and only when we’re overwhelmed do we let go.

  What is the meaning of Buddhism? we all want to know.

  I could imagine asking Garson-roshi in dokusan.

  Leo, in his black robes, sitting on his cushion in the formal interview room, facing me on my own cushion and saying, ‘What is the meaning of life? What is the Truth? We want to know that, too, right?’

  Me, sheepishly nodding.

  Him saying: ‘And what will the Dow be at the closing tomorrow?’

  Me: ‘If we knew that, we’d be rich.’

  Him smiling. ‘Traders devote their lives to predicting—’

  Me: ‘But they can’t know.’

  Leo snapping his fingers.

  Now! Just this!

  Don’t delude yourself.

  Fine and good for Leo and me. For Zen students who haul themselves to the zendo before work in the morning and sit facing a blank wall. What is the meaning of Buddhism?

  Mike? Mike might give a passing thought to a koan, but why would he note it down? If he did give thought to a koan, it would be to one of the better-known ones like the sound of one h
and clapping, or the tree falling in the forest. This one, though, would be an odd choice. Faced with, What is the price of rice in Luling? he’d probably decide to go out for Chinese food.

  A pickup drove slowly by, driver eyeing me questioningly. I shook my head. He hit the gas, nearly stalled out, and roared off.

  I stared out the window. The sun shone but the street wasn’t really awake yet. A woman hurried uphill as if late to get to the streetcar stop. Two thirty-somethings strode by, eyes straight ahead, hands gesturing, leaving a trail of annoyance. ‘Neighborhood! Weekend rents! Oughta … law.’

  The façade of Mike’s building was not enhanced by sunlight. The sort-of-white paint was tinted with dirt. Shoes had scuffed the outside steps down to wood and the memory of paint was visible only on the risers. The building was on a slope, the stairs on the upside, a drop to a garage downhill beside it. A clutter of trash had taken up residence in front of the garage door.

  I stepped inside. Last night the entry hall had been silent, but now footfalls from above hit the floor like a hailstorm. Voices grumbled. The techies upstairs were here to mingle. They might be dragging themselves up after a long night, or night could still be going on for them.

  I unlocked Mike’s door … and gasped.

  Under a pile of blankets on the sofa was a body.

  My chest went cold. All the time Mike had been missing, I’d refused to think him dead. When reports of disasters, tall young men killed in accidents, shoot-outs, from freak medical anomalies, I’d gritted my teeth and turned my back. The specter of death was always with me, fear at the ready. I wanted to turn and run now, before I could see what I couldn’t bear to see.

  The blankets quivered.

  The body pushed herself up, looking equally startled.

  I was so ridiculously relieved – she looked nothing like Mike – I nearly laughed. Then, I was just pissed. ‘Heather? This isn’t part of the hacker deal. This is a private apartment.’ Or maybe it wasn’t.