No Footprints

by Susan Dunlap

  I stared into the glass as Tessa herself might well have done and tried to imagine myself in her skin. But there were too many unanswered questions for me to make that leap. Who the hell was this woman who nearly jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, who was a responsible employee at a bland job, saved her money, and spent it all on an expensive racing bike and a little girl she didn’t know? And copped a woman’s credit card for a night in the Mark Hopkins? The night before she was to jump.

  I knew I should sip this martini. Instead, I took a good-sized swallow. I didn’t expect it to clear my head but it did.

  The one lead I had to Tessa was her hotel room here.

  Maybe.

  If the maid had missed something . . .

  If no one had checked in later . . .

  If, if, if. Not much of a lead, but it was all I had.

  Or might have if I could only figure out how to get into the room.

  A shadow moved over my table. I didn’t look up, didn’t even want to deal with the waiter. Too much time had passed since I’d pulled Tessa back from the edge, too long without her turning up anywhere. Maybe I would never find her, never know, the way it had been for so long with Mike. She could be deciding to go back to the bridge tomorrow.

  I could not let that happen.

  The shadow shifted. Irritably I glanced up, and gasped. Actually—embarrassingly—gasped. "What are you doing here?”

  23

  Declan Serrano slid into the chair across from me. In his suit and tie he looked only slightly out of place here—as if he’d mistake his knife for a shiv. But perhaps that was overkill.

  The waiter arrived with my soup.

  "That all you’re eating? That’s no dinner,” he said, exactly as my brother John would have. Unnervingly so, in fact. He gave the menu the swift scan of someone used to being called to a crime scene before he could finish his meal. He made his choice—an exotic-sounding crab dish—without questions or alterations. He ordered it for two. For himself he added a martini with a vodka I’d never heard of. It arrived in under a minute and he took the kind of swallow that said it had been a long day.

  The past is illusion, the future a dream: be this moment. What could I get out of this supposed friendly meal? I glanced at his glass. "That was fast. Your reputation must precede you.”

  "I’ve done some work here.”

  "What kind?”

  "The discreet kind. Crime’s bad for business. If it happens management wants it handled double-Q: quick and quiet.”

  An in with management! "Your reputation does precede you then.”

  "Yeah. They’re going to add cucaracha con queso to the menu.”

  "You’d be served with cheese?”

  "I’m served with whatever I want.”

  I held the smile and forced myself to wait for a few beats before taking a warm bite of chowder. "So, what brings you here, Roach?”

  "Another meal with you.”

  "Am I buying you dinner, too? No wonder men fear to be in your debt.”

  "Nah. This is on the house. Your debt’s a whole lot more.”

  "In your dreams!”

  Before he could react, a skyscraper of crabmeat arrived, surrounded by a forest of greens and bright yellow chanterelle mushrooms—faster than I’d ever seen food this side of take-out.

  We Lotts take our eating seriously, and mere apprehension doesn’t impede appetite. Serrano attacked the meat, but on the edge of the great mound—for presentation, only, I guessed—were legs. I sucked the flesh out of them, one after another.

  As Leo’d said, taking the wrong road doesn’t get you there faster. Consciously I didn’t weigh the open roads, I kept my mind as clear as possible—the empty vessel can be filled etc. I was aware of Serrano shooting his gaze over my breasts as automatically as he passed the bread. He finished his martini and signaled the waiter without turning to see that his move was noted, but his grip was just a bit too tight on his glass. The drink arrived with the impressive speed of its predecessor.

  "Tell me—” We’d both spoken at once.

  "Go ahead, Declan. What esoteric secret have I uncovered that your antennae missed?”

  He forked a bite of mushroom. "What was with that date of yours?”

  "My date? Are you reporting back to my big brother?”

  "Not likely.” He grinned. "Your secrets are safe with me.”

  Was he actually flirting? "Macomber Dale? Got me.”

  "Why’d he attack Adamé?”

  "You were standing right there with them. What do you think?”

  "I’m asking.” He put his fork down and leaned toward me. "What was with him and Adamé before that?”

  I almost mentioned financing our production, but if the cockroach didn’t know about that I sure wasn’t going to be the one to tell him. "How should I know? Mac seemed to be trolling for backing—”

  "Why would he do that? He’s the producer; he’s already ponied up, right? He’s been run through an insurance check, right?”

  "Look, backing’s always iffy. The United States government almost defaulted. You can’t have too much in reserve.”

  "But—”

  "Listen, I’m going to be straight with you.” I waited till he gave the slightest of nods to indicate this would make it into the register of our encounters. "I was just there to make nice. But he was there to make his own contacts. And not just Adamé. That older woman with them, she’s got money, too, right?”

  "Your guy was having quite a go at her.”

  "At some point he was telling her about me on the bridge, right?”

  I hadn’t been sure about that till Serrano nodded.

  "The guy’s a loose cannon. I live here. I’ve got a reputation to maintain, too.” I paused. "Now you? What’d you see? Was he heavy-handing that woman?”

  Serrano nodded sadly. "Yeah, I almost had to give her a hand with him.”

  "Really?” It was so unroachlike.

  "Yeah, really!” He let a beat pass and said, "I know what you think of me, what everyone thinks. Do you suppose 'the cockroach’ is accidental? The Mission’s my turf and no one crosses me. No one! You know why? So you can walk down the street at night and not get—That’s why Tessa could work any hours she wanted, why she could ride that racing bike and not have it boosted out from under her. It’s why there aren’t shoot-outs in the streets like there are across the bay.” He picked up his drink, took a small sip, but the movement shielded his face and I couldn’t tell if he was really announcing the truth or giving me a cover story he’d created for himself. One he’d come to believe. "So, yeah, I could tell your date to get out of Harriet Knebel’s face.”

  I ignored the Dale business this time. "But you didn’t. You waited to see what’d happen. Because?”

  "What do you think?”

  "You wanted to see what happened to Adamé, right? How come? He’s not in your turf?”

  "He’s in this turf.” He tapped his head. "His laundering, that screws with my turf and”—he leaned closer—"he’s doing deals the brass figure are above my head. When—not if—when I get him, heads’ll roll like they’re in a bowling alley. I’ve been onto Adamé ever since he and his wife moved here—over five years come January. Almost nailed the fucker twice but somehow each time he squeezed free and popped up looking cleaner than ever with me the one covered in shit. There’s not going to be any third time.”

  "When you make the collar, you’ll take the kind of step up like my becoming stunt coordinator?”

  For a moment I thought that had just reminded him of our set yesterday and the hassle Mac’s horn-blowing idiocy had created for him. The guy really took his image seriously! Now I realized that to him his move would be akin to my becoming not merely stunt coordinator, or second unit director. To equal his promotion I’d have to become Scorsese.

  Then he produced a smile. The Mission was tough turf, as perilous as it got in this town, but for the conqueror the spoils could be huge.

  Still, that was his busines
s. Mine was Tessa. "Tell me about Ginger Rampono and the bike accident. Tessa was the cyclist, right?”

  I expected him to protest or flat refuse—I didn’t doubt for an instant that he’d have all the facts about his employee—but he didn’t hesitate. "Right. Been on the job two weeks—”

  "The job?”

  "Bike messenger.”

  "A bike messenger,” I repeated. Thinking of her whipping through downtown streets, racing up stairs to clients, grabbing deliveries, and running for her bike—it made me like her all over again. Made the horror of causing the little girl’s accident all too easy to imagine. "After that, manning a copy machine . . . ”

  He nodded. "The accident flipped her, literally and figuratively. Over the handlebars. Landed on her head—cracked patella, severed tendon, and broken tibia. Had double vision for months.”

  "Oh God!” That was too close to home. "And the accident itself?”

  "Standard bike-car meet-up. No clear guilt. No one charged. That’s the official word. A witness said later that Tessa cut in front of the car. It caught her back wheel and sent her flying. But the witness also said the driver wasn’t watching the road, talking to the little girl. When she hit the bike, she panicked, lost control . . . was killed. The kid was in the hospital for weeks.” His delivery was a little off, as if he was trying for rote and failing.

  Or maybe I just wanted to believe there was a little bit of "caring” in him. "And Tessa, how long was she hospitalized?”

  "SF General overnight. No insurance. Signed herself out. Outpatient clinics for months.”

  "She couldn’t work. How’d she live? Welfare? Unemployment?”

  "She did what she’d done before she came here.”

  "Which was?”

  "Shoplifting.”

  "Really?” He hadn’t been specific before. "Minor offense” could have been check kiting or DUI. But shoplifting enough to support herself, that was a whole different animal. Particularly for a woman with a cracked knee and a broken leg. It would have been an all-day-every-day job. If that was true, copping Varine Adamé’s credit card would have been a snap. And having the nerve to spend the night here with it—a breeze.

  But what about the Tessa Jurovik who sent two hundred dollars—all her extra money—to Ginger Rampono? "People do hit-and-runs all the time. They don’t mortgage themselves for the victim. Why’d she care so much about this kid?”

  "She didn’t say.” He looked down at his plate for a bit, then seemed to decide to go on. "Her father walked out; her mother fell apart; and she ended up with a juvie record. She knew what this kid could be in for. It really got to her.”

  "But when you told her the driver wasn’t paying attention—”

  "I never mentioned that.”

  What? "You didn’t tell her she didn’t cause the accident?”

  "She did cause it.” Mr. Logical Black-and-White!

  "But if she’d known the driver wasn’t paying—”

  "I didn’t mention the accident,” he reiterated in a case-closed tone that infuriated me. You had to know how guilty she felt. How could you not tell her? You . . . cockroach!

  He tore off a piece of the bread.

  The past is illusion, the future a dream: be this moment. I watched him . . . watched him chewing. Just chewing.

  I realized why he hadn’t told her.

  Then I had to steel myself to keep from yelling: "That’s how you met her, huh? In the cop shop. The coffeehouse bit was a lie, right? Of course you didn’t tell her it wasn’t her fault. You saw her record; you owned her. You set her up in a high-stress business that paid shit. No wonder she tried to kill herself.”

  He looked annoyed and replied in that infuriating logical-man voice. "You really get off on thinking the worst of me. So, let me tell you what happened. She propositioned me, businesswise. She’d been at the job a month. Said she knew the place was a front, knew drug deals were going down outside, and the dealers knew the place was a front, which made the whole arrangement useless.”

  "Except for the pleasure the dealers got laughing at you.” Good for them, you louse!

  "Yeah, right. I knew that, too. It was a problem I had to address. She came up with the answer: me bankrolling her in the specialty copy service.”

  I nodded, still suspicious. "So it’d be legit and you could still use it.”

  "Right. It’d take time for memories to fade. But even so, it was win-win.”

  "And you’d get to eyeball all those legal copies.”

  "Of course not. Do you think I spend my days looking for ways to break the law?”

  Luckily I didn’t have to answer that. I sipped my drink, hunting for another angle into his arrangement. But there wasn’t one. Still there was something about him and what he was giving me that seemed not so much untrue as incomplete. What was I missing? The suddenly ubiquitous Mrs. Adamé, perhaps. If both Warren Llekko and Jessica Silverman had opinions about her, surely Serrano would, too. "Tell me about Varine Adamé.”

  "Is that what you said to the desk clerk downstairs?”

  Of course, he’d asked them what I was after. "Did they also let you know that Tessa spent the night here on Varine Adamé’s credit card?”

  I almost laughed at his reaction. The guy was astonished, then insulted, and finally embarrassed. Then he looked as if he was seeing a section of a jigsaw puzzle clearly for the first time while shifting pieces like mad.

  "Varine?” I prompted before he could get it all nailed down in his head. "Jessica Silverman said she supported some girls’ charities, regularly, small amounts, low-key.”

  "And what a good impression she’s made with that.”

  You really do hate Adamé. You could go snarl to snide with Warren Llekko.

  I caught myself. No past, no future, just this. Pay attention! I said, "What do you know—”

  "I don’t,” he said too quickly. "Adamé just uses her!” He spit the words with such outrage I almost laughed. This, from the guy who’d slapped me mere hours ago!

  "She shows up at his events when she has to, but that’s it. She could have a second life for all the free time she’s not using.”

  "Does she?”

  "No record of it.”

  "Record? Like jail? Fifty-one-fifty?”

  He shrugged. For civilians a shrug is one of many choices; for a police officer it’s not going on the record.

  "A mental condition?” I asked in astonishment. "Why would you even—”

  "Look, being married to a guy like that: it’s a prison of its own. It can drive a smart woman crazy.”

  I lifted my glass and then put it down. Was he just projecting his own frustration with Adamé? Or was it possible he was concerned about her? Was he cockroach with a conscience?

  Or did he just figure she was an easy back door to Adamé, one he could never open?

  But none of this was getting me any closer to finding Tessa. "Why her? Varine Adamé? Why’d Tessa take her credit card? Where would she even—oh, shit! You! You’re the connection. How did—why—?”

  "Why would I do that? What’s the benefit to me?”

  "I don’t—”

  "Even for a cockroach, it’s not just evil for evil’s sake.”

  "Prove it!”

  He leaned forward. "How?”

  "You’ve done some quick and quiet work here. Get me into her room.”

  He considered for a second or two and then said, "Okay. What’s the number?”

  I could barely believe it! "Room 1701.”

  He laughed.

  I waited.

  "Room 1701, that’s the Presidential Suite.”

  24

  I’d assumed Serrano would hit up a contact in Security. What I didn’t dream was that we’d arrive to find the door to the Presidential Suite already propped open.

  If things went south there’d be nothing to incriminate the contact. Serrano could wriggle out of it. And I’d be out on the limb while he was sawing.

  Me, trust the cockroach? Not ha
rdly.

  I walked in.

  He shut the door.

  "The President’d better have lots of friends,” I said taking in the living room. A dining table stood to one side, doors on both sides of the room led to bedrooms, but it was the view that left me gaping. "Be hard to concentrate on the recession or Afghanistan here.”

  Serrano was looking down into the streets as if he owned them. But when he turned back to me there was a tightness in his face. "If you’re hunting for secrets,” he said, "here’s a tip. Check the lesser bedroom. No one thinks to look there. If Tessa’s smart, that’s what she’ll’ve figured.”

  Why would she have cared about hiding anything?

  "And make it quick.”

  Uh hah! But I didn’t have time to ponder the limits of his power. If there was any lead to Tessa here . . .

  The second bedroom had two doubles, both turned down, both looking fresh and eager. The bathroom—pristine. I hurried back through the parlor—large, comfortable, with its killer view, but still—surprisingly—just a room. I would have thought—

  A phone rang! His cell.

  "Yeah,” Serrano grunted. "Hey, Scatto, we had an arrange—” I heard a couple more monosyllables and a final click off. "Gotta go!” he called to me.

  "Okay. Thanks.”

  "I mean we gotta go.”

  "What? Your contact’s changed his mind?”

  "Cold feet. Up and over the balls.”

  "I need a couple more minutes—”

  "No can do. I gotta—”

  "If I leave now, this is a wash.”

  "I have to—”

  "Declan, if Tessa jumps tomorrow because we missed a lead to her here—”

  He hesitated.

  "Go! I’ll take my chances.”

  He sighed. "If you end up in jail I don’t know you.”

  Big surprise!

  The door all but clanked behind him, leaving me, essentially, a burglar with no clear idea what I was after.

  Still, no one’s more romantic than a San Franciscan. And me, who’d been exiled for well over a decade before coming home this year, I couldn’t resist turning off the lights and walking to the window. From here, the highest point downtown, I could see the bay, the Bay Bridge, Oakland, Berkeley, and beyond to the hills. Lights glowed from high rises, sparkled off the cables between the bridge towers, flowed from headlights and burbled from taillights, and disappeared as cars slowed then vanished into tunnels. I felt overflowing, overwhelmed, as if the magnificence of the view was more than one person could handle. I wanted to call all my friends to come. I wished I still had a lover to melt against as we looked from the black water to the sparkling lights.