by Susan Dunlap
‘I guess I was good enough.’
‘Darcy!’ Mom through the door.
‘I’m leaving!’
I kissed Janice. ‘I know I owe you.’
She just laughed. It seemed like all the effort she could make.
Mom was waiting in the hall. I said, ‘It’s not over.’
She nodded.
‘Janice probably isn’t the target. But you … Be careful, Mom.’
THIRTY-TWO
The first surprise was the sun. We don’t see it this early out here by the ocean. By the time I got downtown it would be warm and clear.
The second was car. Gary hadn’t said a word about me driving the Aston through the mud and dirt. I had chosen to assume he was giving me a pass.
Until I saw the junker.
‘My brother keeps an old car to loan to clients, or unreliable sisters.’ Heather managed to creak open the passenger door but Boots had to brace a foot against the fender to get into the back. The stuffing was erupting from the seats. I cranked down the window an inch and it fell all the way. ‘Thank god we don’t need lights.’
‘Hey Heather, you could come up with an app for that.’
‘Huh?’
‘For dealing with a car that’s falling apart,’ Boots explained.
‘If you’re driving this, you don’t know what an app is.’ End of topic!
I glanced over. She was staring ahead, blankly. She looked exhausted, though she must have had the best sleep of any night since she’d hauled herself up the stairs to Wally’s apartment. Either our small talk was more than she could process, or she was too wiped out to bother.
Still, I asked, ‘Did you ever get your luggage?’
‘Huh?’
Of course not.
‘Nah.’ Boots was leaning forward over the back of the bench seat watching me wiggle the gear stick into reverse. ‘I bought her the T-shirt so she’d have something clean to wear.’
‘Where are you staying now, Heather?’
‘Airport,’ she said.
‘I wanted to get her a hotel room, but she’s all “No Way!” So we’re camping out at SFO. My flight’s at six in the morning, so no biggie.’
‘And yours, Heather?’
‘I’ll just have time to wave him off and run.’
‘Don’t you need to get the burns on your hands checked again, Boots?’
‘We’ve got doctors in Jersey.’ He sounded desperate to be out of here.
I ended up driving them to SFO. And one look at Heather as she pushed out of the car in a short-sleeved yellow T-shirt with a dragon belching flags, just about had me pulling off my orange Polartec jacket and thrusting it at her. But she wouldn’t need it; it was almost 70 degrees here.
And then it ended – not suddenly, like it had begun on the pier, but like a morning when the land fog is so thick it curtains off the sky and you keep turning over and going back to sleep. When you finally push yourself up, you discover it’s been daylight for hours and you haven’t realized it.
Mom had called Mike and said whatever words were her secret language with him. Mom never talked about one of her children with the others, and we, protective of our special relationships with her, did not discuss private talk lest we discover ours to be no more special than a sister’s or brother’s. We are an oddly wary bunch. But whatever she said, she was in charge of Mike now. I suspected he was home safe with her, no more leaving the house on his own than Duffy. For the moment.
Saturday, I threw myself into supporting the morning schedule at the Zen Center. We are still a small group, which means that jobs rotate fast among us. We aim to focus on the tasks before us. Cooking is the most essential for a schedule that runs from six in the morning till noon. Focus on chopping celery is the same as focus on your breath.
Be that as it may, people look forward to sitting the two periods of zazen as night gives way to the light of morning, to being an indistinguishable part of the sound of chanting, to the centuries-old choreography of the breakfast service.
I bowed as I entered the zendo. Shadows from the oil lamps shimmied along the walls. I bowed to my cushion on which I would gain enlightenment, and to the room, the community of us who would support each other’s practice. And then the bell rang into silence.
After two periods of zazen, while the others were at the service, I made oatmeal, scooped out apple sauce and decanted the orange juice into pitchers. While they ate breakfast in the formal ritual in the zendo, I scrubbed the pots. Later I washed the breakfast dishes. I did the next thing. By noon I was back in bed.
By Tuesday I was edgy enough to call John and explain about my abrupt departure from the crime scene up north. I expected sparks, but he seemed fog-bound, too. ‘Do you have anything to tell them that will move the case forward?’
‘Nada!’
‘Then save them the hassle.’
‘I want to know if they traced the gun.’
‘Save yourself the hassle. If they didn’t pull up any record of it in twenty-four hours, it’s not going to happen till no one remembers why they asked.’
‘It’s as if Wally Ellis wasn’t just murdered but erased from existence.’
Gracie flung her cane out into the trash on the way to work Wednesday morning, and at eleven a.m. crashed into a desk and called me to race to her house before the garbage men arrived.
I picked up the phone to call Mike every day and put it down. I could have called Mom but I knew better.
Each passing day insisted more strongly that it was over. And yet the days felt like we were actors in front of a green screen.
Thursday the phone rang. My agent said, ‘So, your video?’
‘No hello? How are you?’
‘I know how you are. Late.’
‘Yeah,’ I admitted. ‘I’m sorry. Really. It would have been—’
‘Skip it.’
Sorry.
‘I got you an extension.’
I just stared at the phone. ‘Every stuntwoman on the west coast will have sent a video. They must be overwhelmed. How could you get them to make an exception in order to get another one?’
‘I’m good.’ He gave the most minute of chuckles. ‘I keep telling you – I’m that good.’
‘I guess! What’d you tell them?’
‘I said, “There’s Darcy Lott and then there’s everyone else. But don’t take my word. Whittle your applicants down to five and then we’ll send you Darcy’s.”’
I swallowed. ‘You’re not merely good, you are the best.’
‘I know. But still, get it to me Monday.’
‘You betcha!’
I have a file of cameramen. I could have called any of them. But I hesitated to say, ‘How desperate are you for work? I’m offering you a couple-hour gig at rock-bottom rates. Odds are you won’t get shot.’
Roman Westcoff had insisted he was a master at the end of a lens. Maybe. He’d take danger as a challenge. But the reporter might spot a lead, give chase and vanish halfway through the shoot.
So I called Mom. ‘Let me talk to Mike.’
She didn’t protest.
I didn’t question that.
‘Hi,’ Mike sounded dead.
I said, ‘This can’t go on. I’ve got a plan. There are risks like—’
‘I’m in.’
THIRTY-THREE
We set up outside Renzo’s at eight in the morning, Sunday, when the boutique architects’ and law offices were closed, tourists weren’t up, the strip clubs on Broadway a block away weren’t within twelve hours of opening, and, with luck, only vehicle on Pacific Avenue would be a snazzy old blue Studebaker Renzo’s cousin offered us.
‘Here’s the deal,’ I said to Mike, and of course Renzo, who would have sold day-old muffins rather than miss a ‘movie shoot’ outside his cafe. The ‘shoot’ being merely an audition video didn’t matter. Camera on café was camera on café. ‘I walk out the door, turn to say goodbye, trip over something—’
‘Not in my café! No one
gets injured in here. No—’
‘Sorry, Renzo! OK, so I walk out, turn to wave goodbye because I had such a wonderful experience, right? Then I trip over my own feet—’
Mike nodded. ‘Funny,’ said, barely looking at me. ‘And easy.’
‘Yeah. All skill. No props. Shows me off better.’
‘Good shot of my new sign.’
When I’m planning a gag, I’m so deep in it, it’s like I’ve slipped out of reality. Just the plan, the options, the problems, the alternatives. I heard Renzo’s comments only enough to realize that in his mind the forty-five seconds would be a RENZO’S travelogue with me as a passing distraction. ‘I catch myself before I hit the pavement, flail a bit—’
‘Don’t overdo,’ Mike said.
‘Not then. Then just a slightly exaggerated trip and catch. I right myself, step back and trip down the curb, catch—’
‘More reaction.’
‘Exactly. Trip, catch, and then just when it seems like I’m going to regain balance I fall back and splat onto the hood of a car.’
Mike was nodding as if he knew what I was talking about. I could have explained more but I hesitated to get into anything with him. He’d been waiting by Renzo’s when I walked down the street just before 8.00 a.m. Even in the dullness of the gray morning, he shone like a deep red chrysanthemum on a lanky green stalk. A mum that was within days of being dead-headed. No sparkle in his blue eyes, no life apparent in his stance. He fingered his half-empty espresso cup, staring into it as if tea leaves had leapt in to warn him of danger.
Renzo prided himself on creating a new pastry every morning – the more exotic the mix, within the boundaries of tasty, the better. His lime and prosciutto turnover had scored a mention in the Chronicle food section. Today, though, he slid us a platter of plain, barely buttered buns that required concentration to bite and swallow. No saliva to be wasted on chat. I stared downward, chewed, and was grateful.
When my brother spoke his voice was so low I almost missed it. ‘I never asked you to find me.’ He swallowed. I couldn’t tell if that motion was dealing with a lump of bun or emotion.
‘I didn’t ask you to put your life on hold, any of you.’ He looked up, at me. ‘It would have been better if you’d forgotten me back then, after the earthquake.’
‘Easy for you to say—’
‘No, dammit, not easy at all. I’m not good at this, being straight. If I was … But that’s the thing. I’m not … I know what I am, Darcy. You’ve never known.’
I wasn’t chewing, barely breathing.
‘When I was a teenager it was fun to have a secret persona. But I boxed myself in with it. I only knew how to pretend—’
At the counter, dishes rattled in Renzo’s hands.
Mike lowered his voice. ‘What you want, Darce, doesn’t exist. You, Mom, the rest of them. I can’t—’
‘Can’t or won’t?’
‘Same thing.’
‘So you’re saying we’re smothering you?’
‘I nearly got you killed! You, Janice, Gracie; maybe Gary; maybe Mom. I didn’t … I don’t know what I didn’t do. That’s the thing. I’ve survived by keeping alert and when things get bad, splitting.’
‘But—’
‘It’s not that I don’t love you all. You and me, we were like …’ he pressed his forefinger and second finger together. The second was almost a knuckle longer. They looked like us walking side by side, him a head taller. ‘It’s like I’ve gone feral.’
‘So, what? Should we put your bowl on the porch and hope if you come inside you don’t pee on the carpet?’
He did a double-take, nodded, and said, ‘Well, yeah I guess.’
‘So, there’s nothing you can do? You know, Mike, doing nothing is doing something.’
Doing nothing is doing something.
‘I never asked you to find—’
‘Fuck you!’ I picked up my cup and drained it. We’d talk later. Maybe. Now I said, ‘Is the action too much for forty-five seconds? There’s a lot and I need time for my reactions. That’s the important part.’
‘I’ll edit it down.’
Fat chance!
‘Trust me.’
I didn’t respond and those two words hung between us and then sank before I said, ‘I’m trusting your camera work. A commercial like this could be huge for my career, not to mention wallet.’
‘I’m good. Tr … Believe me.’
I did, on that. Mike was a fast learner and curious. He’d watched me set up a slip-and-fall sequence a month earlier, and by the next day he could do it himself. In the twenty years he’d lived in the shadows, I wondered how many things he’d mastered.
An overcast morning is pretty much the worst time to be setting up angles for a shoot that might begin hours later when the fog would have rolled back over the sea, and sun and shadows would stripe the shots. We had to hurry. If we didn’t get the video in the can till noon or 1:00 p.m., the whole thing would be contrast, which would mean a different set of filters, maybe lenses. The gray sameness of the street and the shops across it would blare colors. Offices would cease to be backdrop. And Renzo’s Caffe would so sparkle with old city charm that I would be no more than a bug flittering past. There was a lot to get down and I was glad of that. Mike might have thought I didn’t know him, but I could tell he was glad, too.
I started blocking my moves, shot by shot – picturing stepping out of the cafe, the wave, my shoulders remaining part of the arm movement, my hips shifting into the turn as I started to walk to the street.
My foot hit the leg of a chair at a sidewalk table Renzo would bring later.
I stopped there, reran the sequence. Blocked each of my moves in my mind. Then ran it through in rehearsal mode.
‘Angle’s wrong.’ Mike shifted position, forcing me to do the same. ‘I don’t want to chance getting street traffic in the background.’
As if to underline Mike’s point, a silver van eased down the street. Minnesota plates. The driver slowed but didn’t stop.
Across the street the sun was slicing shadows in the alleys between buildings. A man unlocked the gate to an antique shop. I saw a dark-haired woman so like Maria Perez I did a double-take, looked right and left. When I looked back she was gone. It made me wary. Why would Maria be in San Francisco? But, of course, she could have been here all along. San Francisco is a city of neighborhoods; she could have lived in the Mission or Noe Valley and never crossed paths with someone from the Sunset. She could have said she was a student at San Francisco State. People take classes there for years. No one would have questioned that. Like Mike had said about disguise, that people see what they expect to see and fill in around it. After she killed Santino, she might have gone anywhere.
We blocked the second sequence – the recovery from the trip and almost-fall on to the misstep off the curb – then the stumble, the recovery, and the stagger back on to the car hood. If I’d been setting up for a movie, that could involve a dozen takes. I would have padded the curb, painted the padding to match, the way it’s done in a stair fall. I would definitely have run a strip of padding along the hood of the Studebaker. But finding a color to match it – well, that’s why second unit directors have assistants. I’d have given special attention to any spot my hand would land on. A sprained or broken wrist can haunt you for years. As it was, the whole set-up took nearly three hours, and the run-through of it all together, another.
Mike went to pick up pizza. I changed into an orange leotard, applied the kind of make-up stunt doubles never need. I made a couple calls. The sun was bright now. Renzo’s sign sparkled like it was the entrance to heaven. When Mike got back, we ate pizza, adjusted shot plans, focused like a brace of dogs carrying a single huge bone in their mouths.
I did trust him. I trusted him to scan the street, the dark exits of alleyways between buildings, the trees that were not quite wide enough to hide a person. He’d be shooting east on Pacific, in order to get the Studebaker as it approached slowly – we’d
speed it up in ‘post-production’ – along this one-way street. But I knew every time his eyes left the camera’s eyepiece he’d be checking the traffic on Columbus as it flowed toward downtown, the freeway, the bridge.
What I did not trust him to do was to pay enough attention to get decent shots of me. For that, I had three back-ups, one in the attic/air space above Renzo’s with a good line of sight, one in an alleyway across the street, back far enough so the light didn’t reflect off his lens. Back so far it – alas – limited his shots. And Renzo had had a video cam mounted on the Studebaker’s dashboard.
I did not tell Mike any of that.
I watched my brother walk toward the camera, his gait long and easy, one I would recognize in any sized crowd, his hair the same dark red as mine, only a bit curlier. This stranger in that familiar body.
All the years I had missed him, longed to find him, I’d dreamed of having him back in the family, the way we were. Now even the dream was gone. I felt lonelier than I ever had.
I walked up to him, moving him back from the camera and hugged him long and hard.
I wasn’t surprised that the gunshot came then. Later Heather would say she’d intended to wait for the perfect moment, but seeing Mike there, the man who had driven her parents’ killer to San Francisco … seeing him embraced by his family, a family like the one that had been ripped away from her, she couldn’t keep herself from shooting.
She was a good shot. The first bullet nicked my upper arm and ripped through Mike’s ribs. If he hadn’t been so much taller than me, he’d have been dead. I shoved him down. Bullets hit his jacket, his hair. The last one cracked his humerus. All before the auxiliary cameramen a.k.a. police photographers grabbed her. Even then she managed to throw the Glock hard into Mike’s back.
I wanted to ask her, ‘Was that enough?’ But her face slowly took on the empty look of a dead dream. I could have said, ‘Once this hits the papers, your parents’ death won’t be collateral damage any more,’ but I wasn’t going to give her that either. Instead I asked about Wally.