by Susan Dunlap
‘Like Adrienne had it.’
‘Tidy?’
‘Coulda been worse.’
Considering the room we just left, that comparison meant nothing. As he unlocked Adrienne’s door, I said, ‘Wally, is it dangerous here?’
‘Danger’s what you make it.’
‘Hey, it’s too late for philosophy.’
He looked at me, laughed, and shut the door behind us. Feet clattered down the steps, the front door opened and banged shut. Wally shrugged, as if one of his renters leaving in the middle of the night underlined his point.
I put a hand on his arm. ‘Seriously. There was a gun in her lingerie drawer.’
I thought he’d be grabbing at me for details. What kind of gun? What kind of bra? Cotton? Lace? Titless?
But suddenly he was all landlord. ‘A gun! I don’t allow weapons on the premises. He knows that. Why’d he do a dumb thing like that?’
He? ‘What makes you think it’s his?’
‘You mean she had it? Here? In this house for months?’
‘I mean, I don’t know. But you assumed Mike brought it. Why?’
Wally slunk back half a step, shoulders arching forward as if to protect his assumption. As if I was about to snatch a fact out of his gut. ‘It’s something he’d do.’
I don’t think so! Mike’s never had a gun! I froze, desperate to hide any reaction that could give Wally a clue and allow him to lead me down a path away from what he was protecting. I waited, letting the silence unnerve him.
Finally he said, ‘People have a bad view of the neighborhood. Outsiders. But you live here, you know how it is.’
‘Which is?’
‘A neighborhood.’ He stood a moment before pushing open the door. ‘Adrienne’s lived in this apartment for years. Now, all of a sudden, she needs firepower? She didn’t mention it to me and, let me tell you, when there’s anything she imagines in her strangest dreams to be wrong with this place, she’s on the horn to me. She was carrying on about the people across the street – they’re making a racket, she said. Saturday night yet! Music playing. What does she expect me to do about it? She knows the cops’ll figure they’re working overtime just to take down the address.’
‘Still …’ I said, hoping to squeeze a drop of illogic from his sensible reply. ‘So why would Mike offer her the gun?’
‘Maybe he didn’t.’
‘Let’s say.’
‘OK, maybe he wanted to get it here without carrying it himself.’
‘It’s not like you do pat-downs at the door here.’
‘Listen, no guns—’
‘Guns?’ Heather was halfway in the door. She jumped back, smacking into Boots.
‘No guns! Jeez!’
‘Sorry. I can’t be around guns since my parents were killed. I just … I can’t.’ She was still standing in the doorway leaning against Boots. He snapped his arms around her shoulders like he’d been offered a prize.
‘Tom,’ Boots said in the awkwardness, ‘just got a big deal call and split.’
Ah, the stair clatter and door banging. ‘At this hour?’ I said.
He shook his head in condescension, and gave Heather’s shoulder a squeeze. ‘What kind of gun?’
‘Glock. Nine millimeter.’
‘Reliable.’
‘You know guns, Boots?’
‘Some. After my parents were killed—’
‘Your parents died, too?’ I said, amazed, then added, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Not a big deal.’
Really?
‘That always throws people when I say that. But they were guru groupies. They’d be off to India so much, to this great master or that one, that in the end it was like they just stayed at one of the ashrams, you know. They always stored me at my aunt and uncle’s. So, you know, nothing changed for me. My parents, the last time they were home, it was like they were visitors. Wackos in Indian cotton in December. Complained about everything. America was awful, but in India it was all wonderful, not materialistic like Jersey.’ His voice had been speeding up, his round pale face pinking. And his hand, I noted, had tightened on Heather’s shoulder.
‘I was better off with my uncle. We shot at beer cans in the backyard. I could hit the B at thirty feet. It gave me this great idea for an app.’ He glanced behind him, as if competitors might have materialized just inside the door. ‘I’m from Jersey. Roads are jammed there. Drivers go at it with one hand on the horn and the other on the top of the wheel so they’re ready to flip the bird. So, I’m thinking, what about an app, dash mounted, pulling in video of the cars ahead, and a big-bang gun to take them out?’ He grinned, then sent a wary glance behind him again and ended up looking sheepish.
Heather had been shrinking away from him and now shook free. He looked over at his arm hanging in air and seemed surprised. And let down.
Even Wally was edging back toward the door. ‘Nerds!’ he mumbled.
I didn’t know what to feel. I walked to the window, pulled it open to let in the night air.
Which was how I came to see a dark figure standing back up as if he’d just checked under Mike’s car. Or put something there. He started to walk toward Haight.
The streetlights were bright enough. It was the same guy who had been eyeing the car yesterday. I recognized him by his walk.
I grabbed my pack and raced out.
THIRTEEN
I should have checked the car.
I’d worry about that later.
Famous last words.
But the guy, the one who I had spotted hanging around the car before (I recognized his stance, the way he moved; stunt doubles notice that kind of thing), was already at the end of the street, turning the corner on Haight. In a minute – less! – he could be squatting against the wall, head drooped, just another addict. Or in a bar. Or yuppie-ing his way down the aisle at Whole Foods.
I raced up the street after him, caught the edge of the corner building and swung myself onto Haight. Stopped dead. Went fuzz-focus, blurring people into background, eyeing the scene only for movement. Colors melted into each other, shadowy, dark. Auto lights became streams of white and red. Traffic lights eased back against the dark of the park in the distance. Wind whipped in from the sea, pricking my neck, my face, its vaguely briny smell cutting the stench of sidewalks never scrubbed, coats and blankets that never could be washed. A tree branch shimmied, snapped leaves down and up. Cars braked, engines roared up and eased into a slurry of city-noise. And then, like cherries and blueberries tossed into a blender, they meshed and I watched, waiting for one fleck, one movement, one man who couldn’t be still long to brace or jerk. To reveal himself.
Low on the wall, a shifting lump. A man easing closer to a dark pile.
The pile moved.
A dog.
Across the street by the McDonald’s, standing bright, bouncy-house-ish behind its apron of green grass, its short metal picket fence … Could my guy have gotten that far before I made it to Haight? Don’t think. Just look. Something flowed around the corner of the edge of the fence into darkness.
The light at Haight and Stanyan turned green. Engines growled. I shot across the street in front, expecting horns and shouts, but none came, as if no one expected denizens to bother with crosswalks here.
The sidewalk was cluttered with people going nowhere, as if they were dark wads of crumpled paper. This last block of Haight, by Golden Gate Park, was like a visit to 1970. Nineteen seventy, with its mirrored dresses rusted and grayed, peacock feathers fallen to dust. No one moved. Even the golden arches seemed tarnished.
Inside McDonald’s, people perched on the plastic ‘don’t sit here forever’ chairs by the window tables were looking down. For them the dark night curtained the glass. The side door had been locked at nine and now, in less than half an hour, at eleven, the Haight Street door would close. Which meant customers had twenty minutes to snag a burger or, more vitally for many, wait in the slow and desperate line for the bathroom.
Across the
street, in the park, sat the police station. You’d think … You’d be wrong. Reports of drug sales continue. Buyers slumped nearby as if waiting to be evidence.
I rounded the fence onto Stanyan. The scene, the year, changed. Ahead were Victorians, four-plexes, city housing in a neighborhood on its way up fast. Streetlighted, dim. A tall, thin man, tall plump woman, walking easily, his arm across her shoulder, her hand in his back pocket. To my right now, on the far side of the street, the park loomed dark. A thousand acres of places to hide. Cars waited, headlights quivering, their light not making it across Stanyan to my sidewalk.
Suddenly nothing was moving. Had I lost him? So soon? I wanted to run all out, to catch up. But which way in the unmoving darkness?
The McDonald’s? Had he laundered himself from a culprit into a customer? I’d seen him only in shadows; would I recognize him in color? I took one stride toward the entrance and caught myself. Better to wait.
I hate to wait.
Breathe, Garson-roshi’s told me. More than once. You think nothing’s happened, but there’s a world within your exhalation, a world you don’t even know is there. Breathe.
I breathed. I kept my eyes on the franchise door and breathed.
Running is single-focused – move! Fast! Faster! Focus! Block out the inessential. Standing is unfocused, letting the inessential boil off. Brakes grinding. Tires squealing. Paper clattering in the wind. The wind, cold on my neck, my sweaty shoulders. Bile in the back of my mouth. Murky smell of muddy garbage. Dog nails on the sidewalk. Man in dreads slumped against the fence, wriggling to find comfort against the iron rods. Body lumped under sleeping bag, snoring, dog shifting to get more bag room. My breath coming fast. Not so fast. Perfume behind me. Pot. Sweat all around. Sweat steaming up from my armpits.
The door opening.
I leapt back against the wall.
‘Watch it, broad!’
‘Sorry,’ I muttered, eyes on the man coming out of the store door. Carrying a four-burger brown bag. Was he going to run with that? Was he the same guy? Don’t assume. I’d assumed all over the place about him. Was he even my guy? His walk, was it the same? His stance?
‘Hey, broad, outa my space!’
The guy with the bag turned halfway – not far enough. But my cover was blown. I started toward him. ‘Hey!’
He stopped. My height, shaved head, pale brown skin, round glasses. ‘What?’
‘Sorry, I thought you were someone else.’
‘I could be.’ He grinned.
Behind us cloth rustled, rubber soles hit pavement.
‘Another time. Gotta go!’ I whirled around in time to see a figure – the right guy – racing across Stanyan and into the park.
I started into Stanyan, but he – tall, lanky, loose – had whipped across before the light changed. Me? No way. Stepping into traffic now would be suicide. I waited, forcing myself to go into blur mode again. But the park’s all blur, or near to it. All he needed to do was lie down under a bush or in among trees and I’d never find him.
And yet, he was after something. He’d been there the first night, hovering by the car outside Mike’s apartment. Later, when I’d parked by the old Kezar Stadium, he’d tailed me back there. Same man? Probably. How many times had I spotted him near the car? Haunting the car.
Or haunting me?
Bottom line! After all that, he wasn’t going to give up or go away.
Now, here, he was in the dark. I was under the streetlight.
His move.
The light changed. I could have crossed. I didn’t. It changed back.
Eleven o’clock passed. I could tell by the sharp pronouncements of closing hour, the loud grumble of complaints from McDonald’s. The light changed and changed back. The sidewalk filled, as if a huge ball of grumble had rolled on to it. I was tempted to move. Instead I stood still, allowed myself to be jostled by bodies that could have been more stable, could have smelled fresher. I wondered how long—
Something slammed me hard. I grappled for balance. A hand grabbed my jean’s pocket. The guy was big, broad, long matted blond hair. He grabbed me around the waist, pulled me toward him, digging for my wallet.
I could have poked his eye. My hands were free, I could have sliced the side of his neck, pushed him off, caught him behind the calf and pushed him to the ground. I could have handled him. But I didn’t.
Not till I heard brakes squeal, feet slap fast coming toward me. My target, abandoning his cover and running back toward me. I was reeling him in. I could have grinned.
Instead, I braced my teeth, banged my head back into the mugger’s jaw, and lit out after my target.
FOURTEEN
I checked the light, shot across Haight – not the direction I wanted – and tried to blend in before the light changed again and I could shoot across Stanyan.
Of course my target was not in sight. I’d have expected no less. He wasn’t going to be cooling his heels right outside Park Station.
There was a flurry of nervous indecision around the police station from those hoping for the apron of its protection and those wanting to make tracks pronto. But move on a few yards into the park and you’re in the dark.
My target could be needle-in-haystack-ing here in Golden Gate Park. It’s a thousand acres of grass and shrubs, trees so tall and old they’re in danger of falling over. It has a lake with an island, a conservatory, art museum, aquarium, two windmills and a herd of bison. It’s like a whole city of hiding places intermingled with spots to leap off and pounce on lone women. Was I hanging on to the end of an invisible leash, trailing him, as I assumed, or could the collar be around my neck?
Or was it the other way around? Did he just assume he was luring me? That the collar was not around his own neck? Which one of us had the business end of the leash? I’d been to the park plenty as a kid. Been to Kezar Stadium long after the 49ers moved to Candlestick, way long before they moved to the suburbs of another city. I’d run in high-school track meets in Kezar, then loped across the park and home. Mike and I’d found our dog here after she’d been lost three days.
I walked on past the police station. The smell of pine mixed with the suddenly stronger brine from the wind off the ocean. Suddenly colder. It rustled my jacket, snapped my hair against my face.
‘Wanna party, Red?’ The man came out of nowhere. It was that kind of area. Tall. In clothes that fit him forty pounds ago. Light brown hair that might have started as dreads but were now just matted. Coat suitable to Nome.
I shook my head.
‘Buy a bag?’
Right, like I’m going to buy an illegal substance in the cop’s backyard. ‘Not now.’
He shrugged and shifted away. I caught his arm. ‘Hang on. I’m hunting a tall, lanky white guy. He just ran in here from across Stanyan? You see him?’
‘Nah.’
My target could have trotted over his stomach and this guy wouldn’t have noticed. I still had him by the arm, a thick wad of hardened wool around a stick of an arm. How old was he? It’s hard to tell with the wasted. Forty? Thirty hard years? Life a stretch of laconic desperation, interspersed with sudden bad decisions and not much to lose?
And I was trotting into the dark empty park with him! ‘Walk with me, OK?’
‘Sure. Yeah.’ He brightened. ‘You reconsidering?’
‘You certain you didn’t see him?’
He glanced around, checking for cops? For buddies? Competitors? But the area was still as a painting. It looked empty. Empty enough that he eyed my backpack.
‘Don’t even think about it!’
‘I was just—’
‘Don’t! You saw something; help me and I’ll pay. Go for my pack and, trust me, you’ll regret it.’
We were on the path by Kezar Road. I’d run along here last night, racing for the car. Then headlights were unnerving. Now they were white moments of safety. He didn’t respond. The man was weighing his options. Was it worth it to assault me this close to the police station? On a traveled road
? In sight of park regulars who might rescue me and turn him in? Or who might hyena me, the lot of them.
‘Fifty.’
I forced a laugh.
‘Forty.’
‘Twenty-five and you put his hand in mine.’
‘Thir—’
I stopped under a streetlight. ‘Twenty-five and that’s it.’
‘No point in getting out of bed for twenty-five!’
I just stared.
‘OK, OK. Over there. Across the road.’
‘Behind the bushes?’
‘Hey, Sugar, it’s all behind them.’ He shook off my hand, shifted, reached for my arm. I let him take it. Let him lead me across the road, him holding up a hand like a crossing guard. Cars barely slowing.
His hand slipped on to my shoulder.
I let it stay. ‘Point the way.’
‘Straight ahead. Like I said, behind that bush, the one with the flowers.’
‘Point.’
‘Huh?’
‘Just fucking do it!’
‘Jeez, you don’t have to get all foul-mouthed!’
I almost laughed. ‘Would you please point?’
He pointed to the bush with the flowers. White flowers, like the bushes in the freeway dividers.
The bush didn’t move.
But twenty feet to the right, the limb of a low tree shifted in wind that wasn’t blowing that way.
I took off running.
‘Hey, Sugar, my twenty!’
‘Later.’ I dove through the branches, breast-stroking them out of my way. Cut sharp left, then right along the path someone else wouldn’t see. Wind whipped the branches; fog-shrouded moonlight flashed and was gone.
Suddenly I was furious. I yelled, ‘I hate being used!’
A downed log blocked the way. I leapt it. ‘You’re going to pay!’ My shoe landed in mud.
‘You led me through mud! You miserable untrustworthy piece of scum.’
I stopped. But I wasn’t blur-looking now. Wasn’t listening for a telltale sound. I was shaking.
There was no point in going on any farther.
I wanted to scream as loud as my voice would carry, ‘I hate you!’ But pride kept me silent.