Chocolate Quake

by Nancy Fairbanks

  “Spider,” Sam yelled back. Zipping in and out of rush-hour traffic, we came to a very lovely park with twisted trees. It was amazing to remember that San Francisco had been built on high sand hills. All these trees must have been planted, and if they were planted in sand, wouldn’t they all fall down with the next earthquake? Not to mention the buildings. I remembered the plates and food dancing on the table at Citizen Cake and shivered. That had definitely been a tremor, even if Margaret Hanrahan had paid no attention. And surely a tremor foretold an earthquake.

  27

  Delicious Dragon

  Carolyn

  The weather was turning cool when we reached Ebisu on Sunset, and I was glad to get inside, where we squeezed into a booth—well, Sam sat beside me, so I was squeezed. His friend Paul Labadie arrived fifteen minutes later, after we’d been served a Dragon Roll and Asahi beer in giant bottles.

  Now, a Dragon Roll is a work of art, a sight to see, and even better to taste. Besides the usual rice and wasabi, the body of the dragon contained crunchy shrimp (tempura?) and, I think, cream cheese. The skin was green with overlapping slices of avocado, and the crowning glory of the roll was a line of orange salmon roe peaks running along the spine. The chef had sliced the whole into pieces and reassembled them into a sinuous, delicious dragon.

  Sam and I had finished one and ordered another by the time Paul arrived. Then dinner was one long series of surprises. Paul proved to be a tall, slender man with white-touched black hair and a slightly Asian look. His father had been a career military officer who met and married a Korean lady while he was stationed there. And Paul, who never used rough language as Sam did, was, of all things, a venture capitalist. He played the stock market, and had since his college days at Berkeley, making money even in the bear market that preceded and followed the destruction of the World Trade towers. With this money and more that he raised, he funded dot.coms that often succeeded and biogenetic companies that discovered amazing drugs. He had even made an early investment in Yasmin Atta’s Nightshades.

  At one point, during the demolition of several salmon skin rolls, we discussed the latest book by Mario Vargas Llosa, whom I loved for his hilarious novel Aunt Julia and the Script Writer, Paul admired for his style, and Sam detested because he claimed that Vargas Llosa was a fascist. During this discussion I realized that the Sam talking trash at Tres Hermanos and the Sam talking literature at Ebisu seemed to be two entirely different men. I commented on the change.

  Highly amused, Paul said, “Sam’s a chameleon. He can fit in anywhere—a locker room full of football louts, a fund-raiser for the symphony, a gay bar in the Castro.”

  “Bad metaphor, buddy. Chameleons blend into the scenery,” said Sam. “I stand out. Hard not to when you’re my size.”

  Paul shrugged. “You can talk the talk, and your size keeps people from giving you grief or brushing you off before they find out that you’re actually almost civilized and reasonably well educated, for a guy who went to a party school to play football.”

  “Who says Stanford’s a party school?” Sam demanded.

  “Were you a college football player?” I asked. Given his physique, he might well have been good. “Did you get to play much?”

  Paul hooted with laughter. “Sam was an all-American linebacker in college and an all-pro linebacker for the 49ers.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Wasn’t it rather difficult for you—with all those football players—because you’re . . . ah—”

  “Gay?” Sam grinned. “It wasn’t a problem. I didn’t want to have sex with them; I just wanted to crack heads and win games.”

  “Oh. What did you major in at Stanford?” If I had expected to hear physical education, I had another surprise coming.

  “Geology,” said Sam.

  Well, that explained his store of information on earthquakes here and abroad.

  “And literature. That was a minor. I had to put in a few summers to graduate.”

  “I majored in history,” I said lamely.

  “And Paul majored in business. Now is one of us supposed to ask you out on a date, or do you want to know our signs first?”

  “Mind your manners, Sam,” said Paul. “Did you think she’d take in the size and the Harley, see you in action at a pool hall, and conclude that you’re a Renaissance man? And why are you dragging the poor woman around on a motorcycle?”

  “Yes, why are you?” I chimed in. “Do you have a more comfortable vehicle?”

  “Well, chickie, I like the bike. Just like I liked playing football and getting an education on the side. I like to have fun.”

  “And luring a sedate professor’s wife onto a Harley strikes you as hilarious?”

  “Right on, chickie. Let’s have some green tea ice cream, unless you want another Dragon Roll.”

  “Maybe you could call me Caro if you don’t like Carolyn, because I don’t care much for chickie. I find chickie demeaning.”

  “Sexist?” Paul asked.

  “No. Well, yes, but I hadn’t thought of that. It’s that chickens are so stupid. I’m not.”

  “Good point,” said Paul, “and as for another Dragon Roll, if anyone gets another, I’m the one who should. You two started in before I got here.”

  “You insist on driving a car through rush-hour traffic, you gotta expect to be late and miss the Dragon Rolls.”

  “I wasn’t late,” Paul protested.

  “And I couldn’t eat another thing,” I added. I don’t like green tea, so I presumed that I wouldn’t like green tea ice cream. Sam ignored me and ordered for all of us.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “Paul can give you a ride home in his car if you want, and you can spend the evening waiting for your mother-in-law to call from jail or your husband to get home from a scientific evening with the boys. Or you can get back on the bike with me and see what we can find out in the Haight about Martina L. King.”

  “Actually,” I retorted, “I have an engagement at moonrise, but I think I can work in a bit more investigation.”

  “What happens at moonrise?” Paul asked.

  “The Interfaith Women at the center have offered to put me in touch with Denise or my late mother after they hold their goddess worship ceremony in the backyard,” I replied.

  Paul muttered, “Here I’ve got a great BMW, and I’m spurned for a jock on a Harley and a bunch of channel ers.”

  “They only have one channeler, but I might find something out by talking to people during the social hour.”

  “You might find out that they’re a bunch of flakes,” Sam retorted. “Did you learn anything from Bebe?”

  “She thinks Charles Desmond was in Denise’s office before he started flirting with her in the kitchen and that he left by the backdoor, so he must have been gone by the time Denise was killed. Also I learned that there are unlocked doors and windows all over the center and that the older Russian, Alexi, spends all his time in the toilet. He’s the man who walked in on Yolanda Minarez and precipitated the lawsuit.” Sam was eyeing me quizzically. “Well, no matter. Bebe said the son, Vassily, spends his time flirting with the younger clients and no time on security. What did you find out?”

  “Marcus Croker was on duty that night, but his partner said Croker takes an hour off every Thursday to have sex with his wife. I’ll have to check that out.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “By skulking in a doorway until he gets out of the squad car and then following him,” Sam replied.

  “Can I go, too?”

  “What about your husband?”

  “I don’t think he’ll want to join us.”

  “Finish your ice cream. We want to hit the shelters before they close the doors.”

  Surprisingly, the ice cream didn’t taste like tea. It was green, but creamy in flavor and texture. I’d have to ask Sam for pointers on other interesting places to eat. The man had good taste, even if he was a gay ex-football player/private eye with interests in science and literature and the lover of a Korea
n American financial genius with beautiful manners. Paul held my chair for me and helped me on with my jacket before we pushed our way through the mob of people yearning for Dragon Rolls.

  The first time I ever tasted a Dragon Roll was in a horrendously crowded restaurant in San Francisco. It was absolutely wonderful, not to mention beautiful to look at. I suppose one could fix it at home. What would you need? Crispy shrimp (tempura presumably, which you could buy at a Japanese restaurant and take home). Sticky rice, which you’d spread on a piece of wax paper with the shrimp positioned with their tails sticking out beyond the rice. Then you’d roll the wax paper so that the rice coats the two shrimp. After that, thin slices of avocado overlapping down the body of the dragon. Then salmon roe formed in little peaks along the spine, or (lacking salmon roe) little green horns of wasabi at one end from which you’d cut off a shrimp tail. If your dragon is horned rather than spiny, thin carrot tusks stuck into the head end of the dragon, and voila! A Dragon Roll! Of course, you have to cut it carefully into edible sections, and put it together on the serving plate.

  How hard can it be? Well, pretty hard in my estimation. Better to find a restaurant that serves them. I actually found one at home in El Paso. Never cook if you can find a professional to do it. That’s my advice.

  Carolyn Blue,

  “Have Fork Will Travel,” Cincinnati Herald

  28

  The Tale of Martina L. King, Jr.

  Carolyn

  As we headed for Haight-Ashbury, a breeze blew drifts of fog through the streets. I paid attention because I’d heard so much about the Haight when I was young—the hippies, the Be-In at Golden Gate Park, the Summer of Love, the long hair and beads and drugs, Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. My father disapproved of flower children, college protesters, drug users, and me, if I didn’t meet his expectations, although I was none of the aforementioned. The area didn’t look dangerous. It contained a number of shops called Planet this or that, and the people on the street were mostly young, although there were some middle-aged, hairy individuals like the man with a ponytail halfway down his back. The most sinister sight I saw was a shaven-headed youth dressed entirely in black and walking a rottweiler, but for all I knew he might have been one of those neighborhood militia types.

  At the shelter, which had windows blanked with brown paper and a worn sign, we interviewed a woman named Corky. She weighed three hundred pounds and wore shapeless black. In reply to Sam’s inquiry after Bad Girl, a.k.a. Martina L. King, Jr., Corky said, “Stay here sometime. Not tonight. This is a ridin’ night for her, best I remember. An’ she don’t use the junior.”

  Corky sat in a sagging chair of indeterminate color. On her lap rested a sign-in chart, in her hand a pen. She faced, at a distance, a small black-and-white television fronted by folding chairs in which were seated various shabby-looking people. We were invited to sit on a sofa that matched Corky’s chair.

  “Whatchu want with Bad Girl?” she asked Sam.

  “We’re investigating a murder at the Union Street Center. If she was there, we want to ask if she saw anyone.”

  “What kinda murder? Split, you cain’t nurse that baby in fronta my TV. Git on upstairs.”

  “Shit, Corky, this is my favorite program,” the young woman whined.

  “You make me git outa my chair, you outa here, girl.” Corky had a voice that carried. “Person git beat up, shot, or what?”

  “Knifed,” Sam replied. “Last Thursday night.”

  “Whoa. Bad Girl got a thing about knives.”

  “So we heard.”

  “Yeah, her daddy killed her mama with a knife. Right in front of the poor child. She about nine or ten. Mama went into the ground, daddy into jail, and Bad Girl in foster care. Never said another word ’til she start hearing her mama an’ daddy talking to her. Schizophrenic like her daddy. Not sure how she end up here. She stay in hospitals and group houses in the nort’ till she eighteen an’ get turned out by the system. Musta heard it din’ git cold here on the Bay. That’s important when you homeless.”

  Sam turned to me. “I thought you said she was a teenager.”

  “Over twenty-one,” said Corky. “She skinny an’ little cause she don’ eat right. Don’ see many fat folks in shelters an’ on the streets.”

  “Do you think she might have killed someone?” Sam asked.

  “Could be. Like I said, she gotta thing about knives. Never seen her havin’ one she didn’ draw on paper an’ keep in her pack, but if she mad at someone an’ off her pills an’ see a knife, could be. If the voices tell her to knife someone. Voice tole her daddy to kill her mama. Tha’s what she say.”

  “Was she here last Thursday night?”

  Corky paged back though the grimy, X-marked lists of people who had enjoyed her hospitality. “Nope. Like I say, Bad Girl spend her time on the bus. Get a month pass. Then ride an’ ride. Talk to her voices. Guess they likes the buses too.”

  Shades of the past in San Francisco, I thought, when tickets on the horse cars could be bought cheaper in quantity or for five cents a piece. “How can she afford a bus pass?” I asked, having read about the cost. “Does she have a job?”

  “Hard to git a job when you half the time talkin’ to folks no one kin see. Wish she’d take them pills, but she like to stay in touch, an’ she don’t hear no voices when she takin’ pills. She don’ have no trouble gittin’ her a pass. Ain’t a real one, but she knows a guy who makes ’em. Sure hope he don’ have AIDS. She get that, she dead. She never be able to keep up with all them medications.”

  “Isn’t there a hospital or group home where she could stay off the streets?” I asked, horrified at the plight of Martina L. King. If she’d killed Denise, maybe they’d put her in an institution that provided continuing treatment.

  “That girl like the streets. She don’ usually come here less she feel like talkin’ to a real person, or it be rainin’. Bad Girl more interestin’ than TV. You cryin’, Miz Blue?” Corky asked me.

  I was. I couldn’t help thinking how terrible the child’s life was and how much better it could be if she had a home, a family, and regular treatment. After all, that mathematician they made the movie about managed to get his life together and win the Nobel Prize. Poor Martina L. King would probably end up one of San Francisco’s many suicides. The city was known as the suicide capital of the country.

  “No use cryin’ for Bad Girl. She doin’ the bes’ she can, like the res’ of us. Gov’ment ain’t gonna do nothin’ for her. Got no family. So she make do. She like ridin’ the bus, conversin’ with the voices. Pro’bly the drivers and riders don’ like her, but she ain’t hurt no one I know of, so she kin keep on ridin’.”

  “Any way we could find out if she was on a bus that night?” Sam asked.

  “Well, she like them buses go up to the park an’ the golf course. Maybe she sleep up there in the trees. She bring back them golf balls an’ give ’em to me. Say they pay for her bed when she stay here.” Corky laughed robustly. “Like I got any use for golf balls. I jus’ gotta hide ’em cause my clients, they throw ’em at each other, they get holda one. Had to call in the cops one night.”

  “I wonder if Ms. King attends any center activities other than the Monday afternoon art class,” I mused. “Has she, by any chance, brought you artwork on days other than Monday, Ms. Corky?”

  “Ms. Corky. Ain’t that somethin’? By artwork you mean them pictures of knives, can be any day at all she comes in here, but they so folded an’ smudged by the time she give ’em to me, couldn’t say when she done ’em. Golf balls an’ pictures of knives. Poor girl. Kinda nice she think to bring me a present even if it ain’t something I got any use for.”

  “Perhaps she sees you as a mother figure,” I suggested. Corky, for all her tough talk, struck me as a kind-hearted woman.

  Corky scowled, shifted her considerable bulk, and plucked a whistle from the bosom of her dress. “Time to close the doors. If you all don’ figure to stay the night, you best get on n
ow.” Corky then blew a blasting shriek on her whistle and used a remote to turn off the TV. Her guests, bundles in hand, obediently rose and shambled away to their beds, shepherded by a burly Latino who emerged to direct traffic. Sam and I bade Corky goodbye, thanking her for her time and information, and went into the street, whose population had increased while we were inside.

  “She seems to run a structured operation. Are the beds clean?” I asked Sam.

  “Never been in one,” he replied. “You still want me to drop you off at the center to hang with the witches?”

  “Are Goddess worshippers necessarily witches?”

  “Probably. There’s a lot of Wicca activity here in San Francisco.”

  “Really? Do you have warlocks in the Castro?”

  “Jeez, Caro, how would I know? Do I strike you as a guy who would go in for that stuff?” We were both on the motorcycle by then and checking our helmet straps.

  “How would I know, Sammie?” I retorted. “I just learned that you were a pro football player, a geologist, and a reader of Mario Vargas Llosa.”

  “Not since he got into politics.” And off we roared toward my appointment with the Interfaith Ladies, whatever their faiths might be.

  We had been traveling ten minutes or so, zipping around cars in such an aggressive and intimidating fashion that I was becoming more nervous than usual. Suddenly the motorcycle began to bump and jiggle in a terrifying way. “Sam,” I shouted. “You have a flat.”

  He ignored me and sped up, steering through the crazy bumping. When we were once again moving with reasonable smoothness, he turned his head sideways and shouted, “That was a tremor, not a flat.”