What You Wish For

by Janet Dawson

  “I’ll see what I can find out.”

  As Max headed back to the Dunlin Building, Rod walked to Grant Street, where massive pillars bracketed the street, the gates to Chinatown, a neighborhood he’d often explored when he first came to San Francisco. That was a long time ago. Half his life. Good years, for the most part, spent on the Dunlin Corporation payroll. He’d done well, financially and professionally—promotions, raises, responsibilities, respect. Yet he hadn’t put down any roots in his private life. No wife, no children. He lived in apartments or hotels, without so much as a cat for companionship. This lack of personal ties sometimes weighed on him. He always thought that eventually he’d get married and have a family. But eventually never came.

  Regrets... Waste of time to think about that now. He’d been dealt a hand of solitaire, and he’d played his cards as well as he could. He’d come a long way and Max Brinker had set him on the path to where he was now.

  He walked up Grant to California Street and saw the cable car rumbling through the intersection, down the hill toward the bay. The bell clanged, bringing memories.

  15

  San Francisco, California, February 1974

  The gripman clanged the bell as the California Street cable car moved up the steep slope toward Nob Hill. Rod Llewellyn sipped coffee and reread his mother’s letter. His grandfather had died. The old man had lived a full life, but Rod was sorry he wouldn’t hear Granddad’s voice again, except in his head.

  His grandfather’s passing had Rod thinking about the future. Was he meant to be a rambler and rover all his life?

  He could stay in San Francisco, put down roots. He liked his one-bedroom flat above an Italian delicatessen in North Beach, a base for his exploration of the city. He read about its history and sampled its views and food. Coffee and pasta in North Beach, then up to Chinatown, where he filled up on the little dumplings called dim sum and poked through shops looking for exotic and inexpensive gifts for his family. At Fisherman’s Wharf he watched tourists as he ate crab cocktails or freshly baked sourdough bread. And he rode the cable cars, marveling at the view as the car descended toward the bay. At Ocean Beach he walked the long sandy stretch where the land ended, with San Francisco spread out at the edge of the continent and nothing to the west but the vast gray expanse of the Pacific Ocean.

  When he’d turned eighteen there were no jobs in the little mountain town where he was born and grew up. He left, moving from city to city, job to job. He’d landed in New York City first. But he wanted to see more of the country, so he caught a train to Philadelphia. From there he headed west—Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago, then Denver and Los Angeles. He was willing to do any kind of work as long as it suited him. He moved on when he got restless.

  He arrived in San Francisco in September 1973, checked into a cheap downtown hotel, and scanned the classified ads, applying for any job that looked like a good prospect. He soon found work as a security guard at the Wells Fargo Bank here in the Financial District. He’d worked security before, most recently in Los Angeles. Patrolling the bank lobby was easy and the pay was good. He wasn’t sure if this was permanent. Pleasant as the city was, he might just be a rambler and a rover.

  His coffee break was over. He tossed the cup into a nearby trash can and slipped his mother’s letter back into his pocket. The wind from the bay was damp and cool, flavored with salt and brine. He was glad it was Friday, a weekend ahead of him. At the bank entrance he held open the door for a man he recognized as a regular customer.

  “Thanks,” the man said. “Llewellyn, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Rod said, surprised. “How did you know?”

  “I make it my business to know what’s going on around me, and who’s doing it.”

  The man was older than Rod, broad-shouldered and well-dressed, with dark brown hair and a pair of hazel eyes that didn’t miss much. When he’d finished his business at the teller window, he walked toward Rod and handed him a business card. “I’m Max Brinker. How much do they pay you to watch the lobby? If you don’t mind my asking.”

  “I don’t mind.” Rod named the figure. Brinker looked like he had a proposition to make and Rod was always open to an opportunity.

  “I’ve got a job for you. It’s a bit unusual, but I think you’d be good at it. I’m prepared to offer a better salary.” Brinker glanced at his watch. “Do you go to lunch at noon? Good. Come to my office, in the Dunlin headquarters across the street.”

  The Dunlin Building at the corner of California and Montgomery rose six stories, with a façade of rosy brown brick and ornate cornices around the windows and along the roof lines. It wasn’t as tall as some of the neighboring buildings but it had an elegance those postwar skyscrapers lacked, a style harking back to the Art Moderne Twenties.

  The double front doors were edged in bronze and the marble tile on the lobby floor was shot with white and brown. Bronze also framed interior doors, display cases, and the elevators at the rear of the lobby. Rod didn’t know anything about the company or its business, but judging from the photographs displayed on the walls, it had something to do with coffee and tea.

  The counter in front of the elevators was staffed by a uniformed security guard and a woman with a headset over her gray hair. She answered the phone in a perky voice that seemed at odds with her matronly appearance. “Good afternoon, Dunlin Corporation. How may I direct your call?”

  Rod approached the guard. “Rod Llewellyn to see Mr. Brinker. He’s expecting me.”

  The guard checked Rod’s name against a list. Then he nodded, handing Rod a clipboard and a pen. Rod signed in. “Security, fifth floor. Go left when you get off the elevator.”

  The corner office had a view of the bay, looking north towards Alcatraz. After Rod sat down, the older man settled into the worn leather chair behind his desk. “Tell me about yourself. Where you’re from, where you worked before the bank.” After Rod did so, Brinker said, “You strike me as a young man who intends to get somewhere in this world. If you take this job, and do it well, there’s a good chance of something else with the company. Does that interest you?”

  “Very much,” Rod said.

  “This assignment is unusual, as I told you earlier. Hear me out before you give an answer.” Brinker described the job.

  Rod frowned. “You want me to baby-sit a bunch of college girls?”

  Brinker laughed. “That’s what I thought you’d say. I noticed you when you started working at the bank, so I’ve had my eye on you for some time now, thinking I’d bring you on board if the right assignment came along. This is it. I need someone who can blend into that Berkeley scene. You’re young enough to be a college student yourself. With some modifications in your appearance you’ll fit right in.”

  “These girls are past eighteen, old enough to look after themselves.”

  “Normally I’d agree with you,” Brinker said. “But these aren’t normal times. Berkeley’s not a normal place. You’ve heard about the Hearst kidnapping?”

  As though anyone could escape the front-page headlines in the newspapers, the lead story on local television and radio stations. First came the sensational Monday night kidnapping. Then came the dramatic message from the kidnappers, evidently the same people who’d murdered a school official in Oakland the previous November. They called themselves the Symbionese Liberation Army and referred to their captive, Patricia Hearst, as a prisoner of war.

  “George Dunlin, the man who owns this company, is a wealthy man,” Brinker said. “He’s had threats against him in the past. This Hearst kidnapping hits close to home. He’s a widower, with a daughter named Annabel. She and her cousin Claire are seniors at the university. With these crackpots kidnapping the children of wealthy people, he’s concerned that his daughter and niece might be targets. He’d like them to leave school for a while. But they graduate at the end of the semester and don’t want to interrupt their last term. However, they are spooked by this Hearst business. It happened close by and one of Annabel’s housemates
witnessed the kidnapping.”

  “Where do they live?” Rod asked. “Who owns the property?”

  “Hillegass Street, south of campus,” Brinker said. “When Annabel started college she wanted to live in Berkeley, near the campus, rather than commute from San Francisco. Mr. Dunlin bought this house with four flats. Annabel lives on the first floor, Claire on the second. As for the other two apartments, Annabel decides who lives there, but I do background checks on the renters.”

  This Dunlin fellow sounded like a man who liked to control every­one and everything, Rod thought. “He doesn’t leave anything to chance, does he?”

  “No, he doesn’t,” Brinker said. “Neither do I. Ever since Annabel and her cousin Claire started college, I’ve had two guards keeping an eye on them, from a rooming house next door. I’m doubling that to four guards, and changing the routine. The guards will continue to watch the house. They’ll also escort Annabel and Claire everywhere they go. I need people who’ll look inconspicuous in a classroom or on Telegraph Avenue. I also need someone who knows how to use a gun. Which you do, based on your job history. You had a carry permit when you worked that warehouse security job in Los Angeles.”

  “Yes, I know how to use a gun. You’ve already done a background check on me?”

  Brinker smiled. “Of course. Still interested?”

  Rod considered. Now that Brinker had explained the situation, the job made sense. Rod understood the reason for haste and the need for someone who would blend into the Berkeley scene. Brinker was focused, thorough. He knew exactly who and what he wanted. Rod liked that. Come right down to it, he liked Brinker.

  “Count me in,” Rod said. “When do I start?”

  “Now,” Brinker said. “I need you in Berkeley tomorrow. Quit the bank job, come back over here and we’ll get things started.”

  When Rod returned to the Dunlin Building later that afternoon, Brinker’s secretary had the paperwork waiting for him. He filled out the forms making him an employee of the Dunlin Corporation. His old permit had expired, so he filled out a new application to carry a concealed weapon. Then he was photographed and fingerprinted. “I’ll use some of my contacts in Sacramento to expedite this permit,” Brinker said, handing Rod his brand-new employee identification card. “Now go over to the Haight and find some clothes. And don’t shave.”

  “I look like a damned convict with stubble. And it itches.”

  Brinker chuckled. “Come back tomorrow morning. It’s Saturday but I’ll be here at eight to brief you. And come in character. I want to see how you look before you go to Berkeley.”

  Rod caught a bus to the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, east of Golden Gate Park. He ate a bowl of soup in a café, watching people. Then he prowled through the shops, buying clothes and accessories, all the while studying people on the street, how they moved and talked, then finally emulating them, trying on different roles. Like a chameleon on a wall, he took on the protective coloration of those around him.

  When he showed up at the Dunlin Building the next morning, he walked with a cocky don’t-give-a-shit slouch, as though he had a chip on his shoulder. He’d dragged his fingers through his thick black hair instead of combing it, and stubble prickled his skin. He wore faded, patched blue jeans and an old tie-dyed T-shirt. Scuffed leather boots and a soft leather jacket decorated with fringe and political buttons finished his ensemble. He looked so disreputable the security guard wouldn’t admit him to the lobby until Rod flashed his employee ID.

  “Perfect,” Brinker said when Rod walked into his office. He poured two cups of coffee from the carafe on his desk. “There are three other men on the job. Carl Axelrod, Tom Pulaski and Mike Standish. I’m teaming you with Carl. I’ve arranged for a car. Go over to Berkeley this morning, take a look at the house, and meet Carl. Here’s what you need to know.”

  Rod opened the file folder. It contained typed pages on the right and a five-by-seven-inch color photograph clipped to the left. The photo, an enlargement made from a snapshot, showed four young women, two blondes and two brunettes, standing on the deck of a sailboat, in shorts, T-shirts and tennis shoes, arms linked as they posed for the camera. On the bottom border of the photograph, someone had inked a date and sets of initials.

  “This is Annabel Dunlin.” Brinker pointed at the brunette on the right. A pretty girl, Rod thought, with brown hair combed back from her forehead and falling to her shoulders. She was medium height, about five-six, he guessed, slender, with a good figure, nipped in at the waist and curving gently where it should. She looked quiet and self-contained.

  “Claire Megarris, Annabel’s cousin.” Brinker indicated the young woman with short blond hair, head tilted to one side as she smiled. “Her mother is Mr. Dunlin’s sister, married to Mr. Dunlin’s late partner.”

  “The reports on the others are in the folder.” Brinker pointed at the woman with long sandy curls. “Gretchen Kohl, first-year graduate student in sociology, born and raised in Oakland. She moved into the house in the summer of nineteen seventy-one. A couple of arrests for protests. She almost didn’t make the cut after Mr. Dunlin saw the report, but Annabel really likes her.”

  Brinker’s finger moved to the fourth woman in the photograph, her long dark hair tied back in a ponytail, strands escaping and curling around her ears, brown eyes looking straight at the camera. “Lindsey Page, from Paso Robles, working on her Ph.D. in history. She moved into the house in June of ’seventy-two. She was on Benvenue Street Monday night and saw those thugs kidnap Miss Hearst. She got her bachelor’s and master’s down at UC Santa Barbara. They’ve had their share of radical activity on that campus. But Lindsey was too busy studying and working to get involved.”

  Suddenly Rod felt like a voyeur peeping through a keyhole. Four young women, a pleasant-looking group of friends sharing a house near the university, out for a sail on a sunny summer day when this photo was taken. Now he knew something about each of them. But they didn’t even know he existed. In a short time they would, but he’d be just a presence, outside the door, off to the side, watching.

  Rod left Brinker’s office and walked to a garage south of Market Street. He picked up a Chevy Impala, an older model with an engine that belied its beat-up exterior, and drove across the Bay Bridge to Berkeley, where his future waited.

  16

  The convalescent hospital where Annabel was in ­rehab was north of Golden Gate Park, in a mixed-use neighborhood of shops, offices and apartments. The hospital was expanding, a new wing under construction, pushing deep into the next lot to form an L. The driveway slanting down to the building’s basement level promised much-needed parking. The construction workers had finished for the day, leaving the site secured by a high chain-link fence and a locked gate.

  Gretchen dropped Lindsey off at the curb in front of the hospital and went in search of street parking. Lindsey glanced at the park’s canopy of trees. She was a few blocks and a lifetime away from Hippie Hill and the Haight. Decades had passed since Monterey and the Summer of Love.

  In June 1967, she and two friends, newly graduated from high school, crammed themselves into Lindsey’s green VW, accompanied by sleeping bags, a cooler of provisions, and the worried admonitions of Lindsey’s mother. They drove over to the coast and up the winding, cliff-hugging curl of Highway 1 to Monterey and the International Pop Festival. Excited about the lineup of bands, they’d gotten tickets soon after news of the festival went out. In Monterey they joined the throng of concertgoers, reveling in the music for three days.

  After the festival ended, Lindsey and her companions had continued their journey north, to San Francisco. Her cousin, a student at the University of San Francisco, lived on Fulton Street near Golden Gate Park. The young women camped out in his living room while they spent the next week exploring their newfound freedom and the terrain of the Summer of Love. Lindsey still had photos of that time, in a box of things she kept telling herself she should toss. A box like Annabel’s, the one Tess had delivered the day before.


  On the fifth floor, a thick sheet of clear plastic covered the fire door between the existing building and the new wing, intended to keep out construction dust and noise. The door to Annabel’s room was open. Hal sat next to the bed, holding his wife’s hand, stroking it tenderly with gentle fingers, talking to her in a low voice that only he and Annabel could hear, sharing the intimacy of a long marriage. They’d raised three children, Lindsey thought, even if Tess wasn’t Hal’s biological child. Some kind of glue held them together all these years—love or habit, perhaps, an emotional connection, certainly the children.

  Hal and Annabel had dated sporadically during the year between their meeting and their wedding. But Lindsey had never seen any sign that Annabel loved him. She’d been shocked to learn that Anna­bel was going to marry the designated suitor.

  What happened? Lindsey thought, looking at them now. Why did you marry him? Did I misread the signals? Was it because he loved you all along and wore down your resistance? Because you weren’t strong enough to reject the staid, structured life your domineering father had planned for you? Because you were pregnant and you needed a nice, presentable husband, someone who was already there, ready and waiting?

  Hal looked tired. The handsome young man was now in his sixties. His body had thickened and lines crisscrossed his face. Gray hair had overtaken brown. He greeted Lindsey. Then Gretchen bustled into the room, crowing about finding a parking place down the block. “You look exhausted,” Gretchen told him. “I hope you’re not going to the office every day.”

  “I have to be there,” he said. “The quarterly board meeting’s coming up. It’s hard to concentrate while I’m worrying about Anna­bel. I’ve got people covering for me. Max, of course.”

  “And Claire,” Gretchen said. “You can always count on her to watch your back.”

  “She’s been very supportive.” Hal smiled. “She looks after things, whether at the office or out in the field, when we’re traveling.”