Chapter One The Last Open File by Marcia Muller First Case The big Victorian slumped between its neighbors on a steeply sloping side street in San Francisco's Bernal Heights district: tall, shabby, and strangely welcoming in spite of its sagging roofline and blistered chocolate paint. I got out of my battered red MG and studied the house for a moment, then cut across the weedy triangular park that bisected Coso Street and climbed the front steps. A line of pigeons roosted on the peak above the door; I glanced warily at them before slipping under and obeying a hand-lettered sign that told me to "Walk Right In!" It seemed an unnecessary risk to leave one's door open in this low-rent area, but when I entered I came face-to-face with a man sitting at a desk. He had fine features and a goatee, and was dressed in the flannel-shirt-and-Levi's uniform of the predominantly gay Castro district; although his dark eyes were mild and friendly, he was scrutinizing me very carefully. I presented my business card--one of the thousand I'd had printed on credit at my friends Daphne and Charlie's shop--and his expression became less guarded. "You're Sharon McCone, Hank's detective friend!" he exclaimed. I nodded, although I didn't feel much like a detective anymore. For the past few years I'd worked under the license of one of the city's large investigative firms; the day I'd received my own ticket from the state Department of Consumer Affairs, my boss had fired me for insubordination. At first I'd seen it as an opportunity to strike out on my own, but operating out of my studio apartment on Guerrero Street was far from an ideal situation; jobs were few, I was about to run out of cards, and my rent was due next Thursday. Yesterday I'd run into Hank Zahn, a former housemate from my college days at U.C. Berkeley. He'd asked me to stop by his law firm for a talk. I'd hoped the talk would be about a job, but from the looks of this place I doubted it. The man at the desk seemed to be waiting for more of a response. Inanely I said, "Yes," to reinforce the nod. He got up and stuck out his hand. "Ted Smalley--secretary, janitor, and--occasionally--court jester. Welcome to All Souls Legal Cooperative." I clasped his slender fingers, liking his smile. "Hank's in conference with a client right now," Ted went on. "Why don't you make yourself comfortable in the parlor." He motioned to his right, at a big blue room with a fireplace and a butt-sprung maroon sofa and chair. "I'll tell him you're here." I went in there, noting an old-fashioned upright piano and a profusion of books and games on the coffee table. A tall schefflera grew in the window bay; its pot was a pink toilet. I sat on the couch and immediately a coil of spring prodded my rump. Moving over, I glared at where it pushed through the upholstery. Make myself comfortable, indeed! Ted Smalley had disappeared down the long central hall off the foyer. I looked around some more, wondering what the hell Hank was doing in such a place. Hank Zahn was a Stanford grad and had been at the top of his law-school class at Berkeley's Boalt Hall. When I'd last seen him he was packing his belongings prior to turning over his room in the brown-shingled house we'd shared on Durant Street to yet another of an ongoing chain of tenants that stretched back into the early sixties and for all I knew continued unbroken to this very day. At the time, he was being courted by several prestigious law firms, as he'd joked that the salaries and benefits they offered were enough to make him sell out to the establishment. But Hank was a self-styled leftist and social reformer, a Vietnam vet weaned from the military on Berkeley's radical politics; selling out wasn't within his realm of possibility. I could envision him as a public defender or an ACLU lawyer or a loner in private practice, but what was this cooperative business? As I waited in the parlor, though, I had to admit the place had the same feel as the house we'd shared in Berkeley: laid-back and homey, brimming with companionship, humming with energy and purpose. Several people came and went, nodding pleasantly to me but appearing focused and intense. I'd come away from the Berkeley house craving solitude as strongly as when I'd left my parents rambling, sibling-crowded place in San Diego. Not so with Hank, apparently. Voices in the hallway now. Hank's and Ted Smalley's. Hank hurried into the parlor, holding out his hands to me. A tall, lean man, so loose-jointed that his limbs seemed linked by paper clips, he had a wiry Brillo pad of brown hair and thick horn-rimmed glasses that magnified the intelligence in his eyes; in the type of cords and sweaters that he'd always favored, he looked more the college teaching assistant than the attorney. He clasped my hands, pulled me to my feet, and hugged me. "I see you've already done battle with the couch," he said, gesturing at the protruding spring. "Where did you get that thing--the city dump?" "Actually, somebody left it and the matching chair and hassock on the sidewalk on Sixteenth Street. I recognized a bargain and recycled them." "And the piano?" "Ted's find. Garage sale. The same with the schefflera." "Well, you guys are nothing if not resourceful. You want to tell me about this place?" "In a minute." He steered me to the hallway. "Wait till you see the kitchen." It was at the rear of the house: a huge room equipped with ancient appliances and glass-fronted cupboards; dishes cluttered the drainboard of the sink, a stick of butter melted on its wrapper on the counter, and a long red phone cord snaked across the floor and disappeared under a round oak table by a window that gave a panoramic view of downtown. A book titled White Trash Cooking lay broken-spined on a chair. Hank motioned for me to sit, fetched coffee, and pulled up a chair opposite me. "Great, isn't it?" he said. "Sure." "You're probably wondering what's going on here." I nodded. "All Souls Legal Cooperative works like a medical plan. People who can't afford the bloated fees many of my colleagues charge buy a membership, its cost based on a scale according to their incomes. The membership gives them access to counsel and legal services all the way from small claims to the U.S. Supreme Court. Legal services plans're the coming thing, an outgrowth of the poverty law movement." "How many people're involved?" "Seventeen, right now." "You making any money?" "Does it look like we are? No. But we sure are having fun. Most of us live on the premises--offices double as sleeping quarters, and there're some bedrooms on the second floor--and that offsets the paltry salaries. We pool expenses, barter services such as cooking and taking out the trash. There're parties and potlucks and poker games. Right now a Monopoly tournament's the big thing." "Just like on Durant." "Uh-huh. You remember Anne-Marie Altman?" "Of course." She'd been an off-and-on resident at Durant, and a classmate of Hank's. "Well, she's our tax attorney, and one of the people who helped me found the co-op." "Why, Hank?" "Why a co-op? Because it's the most concrete way I can make a difference in a world that doesn't give a rat's ass about the little people. I learned at Berkeley that bombs and bricks aren't going to do a damned thing for society; maybe practicing law the way it was meant to be practiced will." He looked idealistic and earnest and--in spite of the years he had on me--very young. I said, "I hope so, Hank." He must have sensed my doubt and felt a twinge of his own, because for a moment his gaze muddied. Then he said briskly, "So, how's business?" I made a rueful face, glancing down at my ratty sweater and faded jeans. The heels on my leather boots were worn down, and the last time it had rained, water leaked through the right sole. "Bad," I admitted. "Thinking of looking for permanent employment?" "With my references?" I snorted. "`Doesn't take direction well, nonresponsive to authority figures, inflexible, and overly independent. Can be pushy, severe, and dominant.' That was my last review before the agency canned me. Forget it." "Jesus, that could describe any one of us at All Souls." "Maybe it's a generational flaw." "Maybe, but it's us. You want a job here?" "Do I want ... what? " "We're looking for a staff investigator." "Since when?" He grinned. "Since yesterday, when I ran into you in front of City Hall and started thinking about all the nonlegal work we've been heaping on our paralegals." "Such as?" "Nothing all that exciting, I'm afraid. Filing documents; tracking down witnesses; interviewing same; locating people, and serving subpoenas. Pretty dull work, when you get right down to it, but the after-hours company is good. We're all easygoing; we'd leave you alone to do your work in your own way." "Salary?" "Low. Benefits, practically nil." "I couldn't live in; I've kind of OD'd on the communal stuff." "We couldn't accommodate you, anyway. The only available space is a converted closet under the stairs--which, incidentally, would be your office. I might be able to raise the salary a little to help with your rent." "What about expenses? My car--" "Is a hunk of junk. But we'll pay mileage. Besides ..." He paused, eyes dancing wickedly. I remembered that look, from just before he'd raked in the pot at many a Durant Street poker game. "What?" "I can offer you a first case that'll intrigue the hell out of you." A steady job, bosses who would leave me alone, a first case that would intrigue the hell out of me. What more was I looking for? "You've got yourself an investigator," I told him. Hank's client, Marnie Morrison, was one of those soft, round young women who always remind me of puppy dogs--clingy and smiley and eager to please. A thinly veiled anxiety in her big blue eyes and the way most of her statements turned up as if she were asking a question told me that the puppy had been mistreated and wasn't too sure she wouldn't be mistreated again. She sat across from me at the round table and related her story--crossing and recrossing her blue-jeaned legs, twisting a curl of fluffy blond hair around her finger, glancing up at Hank for approval. Her mannerisms were so distracting that it took me a few minutes to realize I'd read about her in the paper. "His name, it was Jon Howard. I met him on the sorority ski trip to Mammoth over spring break. In the bar at the lodge where we were staying? He was there by himself and he looked nice and my roommate Terry, she kind of pushed me into going over and talking. He was kind of sweet? So we had some drinks and made a date to ski together the next day and after that we were together all the time." "Jon was staying at the lodge?" "No, this motel down the road. I thought it was kind of funny, since he told me he was a financier and sole owner of this company with holdings all over Europe and South America. I mean, the motel was cheap? But he said it was quieter there and he didn't like big crowds of people, he was a very private person. We spent a lot of time there because I was rooming with Terry at the lodge, and we did things like get takeout and drink wine?" Marnie glanced at Hank. He nodded encouragingly. "Anyway, we fell in love. And I decided not to go back to USC after break. We came to San Francisco because it's our favorite city. And Jon was finalizing a big business deal, and after that we were going to get married." The hurt-puppy look became more pronounced. "Of course, we didn't." "Back up a minute, if you would," I said. "What did you and Jon talk about while ... you were falling in love?" "Our childhoods? Mine was good--I mean, my parents are nice and we've always had enough money. But Jon's? It was awful. They were poor and he always had to work and he never finished high school. But he was self-taught and he'd built this company with all these holdings up from nothing." "What kind of company?" Frown lines appeared between her eyebrows. "Well, a financial company, you know? It owned ... well, all kinds of stuff overseas?" "Okay," I said, "you arrived here in the city when?" "Two months ago." "And did what?" "Checked into the St. Francis. We registered under my last name--Mr, and Mrs. Jon Morrison?" "Why?" "Because of Jon's business deal. He'd made some enemies, and he was afraid they'd get to him before he could wrap it up. Besides, the credit card we were using was in my name." Her mouth drooped. "The American Express card my father gave me when I went to college. I ... guess that was the real reason?" "So you registered at the St. Francis and ...?" "Jon was on the phone a lot on account of his business deal? I got my hair done and shopped. Then he hired a limo and a driver and we started looking at houses. As soon as the deal was finalized and his money was wire-transferred from Europe we were going to buy one. We found the perfect place on Vallejo Street in Pacific Heights, only it needed a lot of remodeling, we wanted to put in an indoor pool and a tennis court? So Jon wrote a postdated deposit check and hired a contractor and a decorator and then we went shopping for artwork because Jon said it was a good investment. We bought some nice paintings at a gallery on Sutter Street and they were holding them for us until the check cleared." "What then?" "There were the cars? We ordered a Mercedes for me and a Porsche for Jon. And we looked at yachts and airplanes, but he decided we'd better wait on those." "And Jon wrote postdated checks for the cars?" Marnie nodded. "And the rest went on your American Express card?" "Uh-huh." "How much did you charge?" She bit her lip and glanced at Hank. "The hotel bill was ten thousand dollars. The limo and the driver were over five. And there was a lot of other stuff? A lot." She looked down at her hands. I met Hank's eyes. He shrugged, as if to say, "I told you she was naive." "What did your parents have to say about the credit-card charges?" I asked. "They paid them, at least that's what the police said. Or else I'd be in jail now?" "Have you spoken with your parents?" She whispered something, still looking down. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that." "I said, I can't face them." "And what about Jon?" I recalled the conclusion of Marnie's tale from the newspaper account I'd read, but I wanted to hear her version. "A week ago? They came to our hotel room--the real-estate agent and the decorator and the salesman from the gallery. The checks Jon wrote? They'd all bounced, and they wanted him to make good on them. Only Jon wasn't there. I thought he'd gone downstairs for breakfast while I was in the shower, but he wasn't anyplace in the hotel, he'd packed his things and gone. All that was left was a pink carnation on my pillow." It was difficult to feel sorry for her; she had, after all, refused to recognize the blatant signs of a con job. But when she raised her head and I saw the tears slipping over her round cheeks, I could feel her pain. "So what do you want me to do, Marnie?" "Find him." "Aren't the police trying to do that?" She shook her head. "Since the checks were postdated they were only like ... promises to pay? The police say it's a civil matter, and all but one of the people Jon wrote them to have decided not to press charges. The decorator had already spent a lot of money out of pocket ordering fabric and stuff, so she hired a detective to trace Jon, but he's disappeared." I thought for a moment. "Okay, Marnie, suppose I do locate Jon Howard. What then?" "I'll go to him and get the money to pay my parents back. Then I can face them again." "It doesn't sound as if he has any money." "He must." To my astonished look she added, "All of this has been a terrible mistake. Maybe he ran away because his business rivals were after him? Maybe the big deal he was working on fell through and he was ashamed to tell me? When you find him, he'll explain everything." "You sound as though you still believe in him." "I do. I always will. I love him." "She's got to be insane!" I said to Hank. Marnie Morrison had just left for the cheap residential hotel that was all she could afford on her temporary office worker's wages. "No, she's naive and doesn't want to believe the great love of her life was a con artist. I figure meeting up with Jon Howard in his true incarnation'll cure her of that." "Then you actually want me to find him?" "Yeah. I'd like to get a look at him, find out what makes a guy like that tick." As a matter of fact, so would I. * * * The recession-hungry merchants who had been taken in by the supposedly rich young couple were now engaged in various forms of face-saving. Dealer Henry Richards of the Avant Gallery on Sutter Street: "Mr. Morrison was very knowledgeable about art. He asked all the right questions. He knew which paintings would appreciate and which would not. Had he followed through on the purchase, he would have had the beginnings of a top-flight collection. He may not have been rich, but I could tell he was well educated, and there's no concealing good breeding." Realtor Deborah Lakein of Bay Properties: "From the moment I set eyes on the Morrisons I knew something was wrong. At first I thought it was simply the silk-purse-out-of-sow's-ear effect: too much money, too little breeding. But they seemed serious and were very enthusiastic about the property--it's a gem, asking price one million three. In this market one doesn't pass up the opportunity to make such a sale. Of course, his deposit check was postdated like the others he wrote all over town, and when I finally put it through it was returned for insufficient funds. The same was true of the checks to the contractor and decorator and landscaper I recommended. Oh, I'm in hot water with them, I am!" Salesman Donald Neditch of European Motors on Van Ness Avenue's auto row: "Well, our customers come in all varieties, if you know what I mean. You don't have to be a blueblood to drive one of these babies. All you need is the cash or the credit. The two of them were well dressed--casually but expensively--and they arrived in a limo. I could tell they hadn't had money for very long, though. He asked a lot of questions, but they were the kind you'd ask if you were buying a pre-owned model. About used cars, he was knowledgeable enough to sell them, but I'd bet the Mercedes for his wife was the first new car he ever looked at." Claire Wallis, clerk in the billing office at the St. Francis Hotel: "No one questioned their charges because American Express was honoring them. There was a lot of room service, a lot of champagne and fine wines. Fresh flowers every day for the three weeks they stayed here. Generous tips added to each check, too. The personnel who had dealings with them tell me she was young and sweet; he was more rough at the edges, as you'd expect a self-made man to be, but very polite. Security had no complaints about loud partying, so I assume they were as well behaved in private as in public." Wallis referred me to an inspector in the Fraud division of the SFPD who had taken a list of calls made from the "Morrisons'" suite and had them checked out by the department before it became apparent that no criminal statutes had been violated. The copy of the list the inspector provided me showed that Jon Howard had called car dealerships from San Rafael to Walnut Creek; a yacht broker in Sausalito; aircraft dealers near SFO and Oakland Airport. The numbers for the real-estate agency and art gallery appeared frequently, as did those of contractor, decorator, and landscaper. Restaurants, theater-ticket agencies, beauty shops, and a tanning salon figured prominently. There were no calls to Marnie Morrison's parents, or to anyone who might have been a personal friend. By now I realized that Jon Howard had covered his tracks very well. I had no photograph of him, no description beyond the one Marnie provided, and that was highly romanticized at best. I didn't even know if he had used his real name. I made my way down the list of places he'd called, though, visiting the yacht broker ("He didn't know shit about boats."), the aircraft sales agencies ("I told him he'd better take flying lessons first, but he just laughed and said he had a pilot on call."), and all the auto dealerships--including Ben Rudolph Chevrolet in Walnut Creek where Howard had called nearly every day but no one had any recollection of either him or Marnie. Finally I reached Lou Petrocelli, driver for Golden West Limousine Service. "Sure, I got to know him pretty well, driving him around for almost three weeks," Petrocelli told me. "He was ... well, downhome, like a lot of the rock stars I've driven. When she came along he'd get in back with her and they'd hit the bar, watch some TV. When he was alone he'd hop up front and talk my ear off. Money, it was always money. Was this house in Pacific Heights a good investment? Did I think they oughta buy a van for the help to use for running errands? Which restaurants did the `in' people eat at? Should he get season tickets for the opera? I thought it was funny, a guy who was supposed to be so rich and smart asking me for advice. He struck me as very insecure. But hell, I liked the guy. He was kind of wide-eyed and innocent in his way, and American Express was honoring the charges." I asked Petrocelli to look over the list of establishments to which Howard had made phone calls. He confirmed he'd driven the couple to most of them, with the exception of the yacht brokers and the car dealership in Walnut Creek. They had traveled as far afield as the Napa Valley for wine tasting, and Marnie had insisted he share their hotel-catered picnic lunch. No, they'd never met with friends; Petrocelli didn't think they'd known anyone in the city except the merchants with whom they had dealings. Around the time I reached the bottom of the list, other cases began to claim my attention. I'd been ensconced long enough in the cubbyhole under the stairs that All Souls's attorneys believed I was there to stay and began heaping my desk with tasks. They ranged from filing documents with the recorder's office to serving subpoenas to interviewing a member of the San Francisco Mime Troupe about an accident he'd witnessed--no simple matter, since his replies to my questions were in pantomime. I made some effort on the Morrison case when I could, but Marnie had stopped calling for reports. The last time I spoke with her she sounded so demoralized that three days later I stopped in at her hotel to see how she was doing; her room was empty, and the manager told me she'd checked out. Checked out in the company of a handsome young man driving an old Honda. Jon Howard? When I reported this latest development to Hank, he didn't seem surprised. "I had a call earlier," he said. "Some guy looking for Marnie. I was with a client, so Ted gave him her number." "Then it probably was Howard. But how'd he know to call you?" Hank shrugged. "You've been asking around about him, leaving your card. He could've talked to the limo driver, the real-estate broker--anybody." "And of course she went away with him." "She said she still loved him." "I wonder if he plans to pull the same scam in some other city." "Doubtful; he doesn't have her American Express card to bank roll it." "What d'you suppose will happen to her?" Hank shook his head. "Let's hope her dreams come true--what ever they might be." A year later I added a follow-up note to the Marnie Morrison file: Her parents, whom Hank had contacted following her disappearance, reported that they'd begun receiving periodic money orders for a hundred dollars apiece, mailed from various Bay Area cities. They were convinced they came from Marnie, in repayment of the credit-card charges. Since they'd long before paid the bill, they wanted to give Hank a message to pass on to their daughter, should she contact him. The message was that they loved her, she was forgiven and always welcome at home. Hank never was able to tell her. A couple of years after that I appended a newspaper clipping to the file: The Morrisons had been killed in a fire that swept the southern California canyon where their home was located. The article rehashed the bizarre scam their daughter and her boyfriend had perpetrated and mentioned the money orders. A further odd footnote to the story ran awhile later: The money orders were now arriving at the office of the executor of the Morrisons' estate, earmarked "for my parents' favorite charity." When I saw this last item, I was intrigued and wished I could take the time to locate Marnie. But in those early days at All Souls my caseload was heavy, and soon I was caught up in other equally intriguing matters. The Morrison case still nagged at me, though; it was my first--and last--open file. My years at All Souls slipped by with a speed that amazed me--when I had time to think about it. On the whole, they were good years. I closed casefiles both large and small, and even got my picture in the papers. I made lifetime friends: Anne-Marie Altman, who later would become Hank's wife; Ted Smalley, who rose from part-time secretary to operations manager; Rae Kelleher, whom I hired as my assistant when the co-op finally became solvent. Along with a fluctuating cast of partners and staff members, we organized parties and potlucks and poker games, or just sat at the big round table in the kitchen sharing triumphs and sorrows. My personal life changed: I went from a tiny Mission district studio apartment to my very own house. I fell in and out of love, and each man turned out to be more significant than the previous. I lost one cherished cat but acquired two others. And I fell in love with flying and became a pilot. But there were also bad times. I was forced to shoot two men, almost killed a third, and had to learn to live with the memories. It put a distance between myself and some of my colleagues--one that could never be bridged. The situations and people I encountered turned me cynical and much less willing to accept anything at face value. And I became increasingly concerned about the violent tendencies I'd discovered within myself. But by then I'd met a man who understood, because he'd been there and felt the same impulses. He sustained me through the more difficult times, does to this day. When the All Souls partners tried to rein me in to a desk job, I knew it was the beginning of the end. I established my own agency while retaining my offices in the big Bernal Heights Victorian, but the co-op soon plunged into a spiral of acrimony and dissension, and I realized it was time to move on. Happily, Hank and Anne Marie decided to establish their own law firm and join me at my new location on a renovated waterfront pier; and we were able to take Ted and Rae along too. The All Souls years were at an end. But not before I took a final look at my last open file ... File Closed The movers had come for my office furniture. All that remained was for me to haul a few cartons to McCone Investigations' nearly new van. I hefted one and carried it down to the foyer of All Souls' big Victorian, then made three round trips for the others. Before I went downstairs for the last time I let my gaze wander around the front room that for years had been my home away from home. Empty, it looked battle-scarred and shabby: the wallpaper was peeling; the ceiling paint had blistered; the hardwood floors were scraped; there were gouges in the mantel of the nonworking fire place. A far cry from the new offices on the waterfront, I thought, but still I'd miss this room. Would miss sitting in my swivel chair in the window bay and contemplating the sagging rooflines of the Outer Mission district or the weedy triangular park below. Would miss pacing the faded Oriental carpet while talking on the phone. But most of all I would miss the familiar day-to-day sounds of the co-op that had assured me that I was among friends. Only in the end friends here had been damned few. Now none were left. Time to say goodbye. Time to move on to McCone Investigations' new offices on one of the piers off the Embarcadero, next to the equally new offices of Altman & Zahn, Attorneys-at-Law. I took the last carton downstairs. Ted's old desk still stood in the foyer, but without his personal possessions--particularly the coffee mug shaped like Gertrude Stein's head and the campy lamp fashioned from a mesh-stockinged mannequin's leg--it was a slate wiped clean of the years he'd presided there. Already he'd be arranging those treasures down at the pier. I set the box with the others and, both out of curiosity and nostalgia, went along the hall to the converted closet under the stairs that had been my first office. Rae Kelleher, its recent occupant, had already taken her belongings to McCone Investigations. With relief I saw she'd left the ratty old armchair. For a moment I stood in the door looking at each familiar crack in the walls; then I stepped inside and ran my hand over the chair's back where stuffing sprouted. How many hours had I sat there, honing my fledgling investigator's skills? A cardboard box tucked under the angle of the staircase caught my eye. I peered at it, wondering why Rae had left it behind, and saw lettering in her hand: "McCone Files." Early ones, they must be. I'd probably neglected to remove them from the cabinet when I transferred my things upstairs. I pulled the box toward me, sat down in the armchair, and lifted the lid. A dry, dusty odor wafted up. On the files' tabs I saw names: Albritton, DiCesare, Kaufmann, Morrison, Smith, Snelling, Whelan, and many more. Some I recognized immediately, others were only vaguely familiar, and about the rest I hadn't a clue. I scanned them, remembering-- Morrison! That damned case! It was the only file I hadn't been able to close in all my years at All Souls. I pulled it from the box and flipped through. Interesting case. Marnie Morrison, the naive young woman with Daddy's American Express card. Jon Howard, the "financier" who had used her to help him scam half the merchants in San Francisco. And Hank in turn had used the case's promise to lure me into taking the job here. But I hadn't been able to solve it. Could I solve it now? Well, maybe. I was a far better investigator than when I'd operated out of this tiny office. The hundreds of hours spent honing my skills had paid off; so had my life experiences, good and bad. I picked up on facts that I might not have noticed back then, could interpret them more easily, had learned to trust my gut-level instincts, no matter how far-fetched they might seem. I turned my attention to the file. Well, there was one thing right off--the daily phone calls to the car dealership in Walnut Creek. When I'd driven out there and talked with its manager, neither he nor his salesmen could remember the memorable young couple. I took a pen from my purse, made a note of the dealership's name, address, and phone number then read on. And there was something else--the conversation I'd had with the salesman at European Motors here in the city. My recent experience with buying a "preowned" van for the agency put a new light on his comments. My office phone had been disconnected the day before, and the remaining partners would frown on me placing toll calls on All Souls' line. Quickly I hauled the file box out to where my other cartons sat, threw on my jacket, and headed downhill to the Remedy Lounge on Mission Street. The Remedy had long been a favorite watering hole for the old-timers at All Souls. Brian, the owner, extended us all sorts of courtesies--excluding table service for anyone but Rae, who reminded him of his dead sister, and including running tabs and letting us use his office phone. When I got there the place was empty and the big Irishman was watching his favorite soap opera on the TV mounted above the bar. "Sure," he said in answer to my request, "use the phone all you want. Yours is turned off already?" "Right. It's moving day." Brian's fleshy face grew melancholy. He picked up a rag and began wiping down the already polished surface of the bar. "Guess I won't be seeing much of you guys anymore." "Why not? The bar's on a direct line between the new offices and the Safeway where we all shop." He shrugged. "People always say stuff like that, but in the end they drift away." "We'll prove you wrong," I told him, even though I suspected he was right. "We'll see." He pressed the button that unlocked the door to his office. At his desk I opened my notebook and dialed the number of Ben Rudolph Chevrolet in Walnut Creek. I reached their used-car department. The salesman's answer to my first question confirmed what I already suspected. His supervisor, who had worked there since the late seventies, was out to lunch, he told me, but would be back around two. Five minutes later I was in the van and on my way to the East Bay. Walnut Creek is a suburb of San Francisco, but a city in its own right, sprawling in a broad valley in the shadow of Mount Diablo. When I'd traveled there on the Morrison case more than a decade earlier, it still had a small-town flavor: few trendy shops and restaurants in the downtown district; only one office building over two stories; tracts and shopping centers, yes, but also semi-rural neighborhoods where the residents still kept horses and chickens. Now it was a hub of commerce, with tall buildings whose tinted and smoked glass glowed in the afternoon sun. There was a new cultural center, a restaurant on nearly every corner, and the tracts went on forever. Ben Rudolph Chevrolet occupied the same location on North Main Street, although its neighbors squeezed more tightly against it. As I parked in the customer lot I wondered why years ago I had neglected to call the phone number on the list the SFPD had supplied me. If I'd phoned ahead rather than just driven out here, I'd have discovered that the dealership maintained separate lines for its new and used-car departments. And I'd have known that Jon Howard's daily calls weren't made because he was hot on the trail of a snappy new Corvette. I went directly to the manager of the used-car department, a ruddy-faced, prosperous-looking man named Dave Swenson. Yes, he confirmed, he'd worked there since seventy-eight. "Only way to survive in this business is you stick with one dealership, dig in, create your own clientele." "I'm looking for someone who might've been a salesman here in the late seventies and early eighties." I showed him my ID. "Handsome man, dark hair and moustache, late twenties. Good build, below average height. His name may have been Jon Howard." "No, it wasn't." "I'm sorry?" "I know the fella you're talking about, but you got it backward. His name was Howard John." Howard John--simple transposition. The salesman at European Motors had told me he knew enough about used cars to sell them, and he'd been correct. "John's not working here anymore?" "Hell, no. He was fired over a dozen years ago. I don't recall exactly when." Swenson tapped his temple. "Sorry, the old memory's going." "But you remembered him right off." "Well, he was that kind of guy. A real screw-up, always talking big and never doing anything about it, but you couldn't help liking him." "Talking big, how?" "Ah, the usual. He was studying nights, gonna get his MBA, set up some financial company, be somebody. He'd have a big house in the city, a limo, boats and planes, hobnob with all the right people--you know. All smoke and no fire Howie was, but you had to hand it to him, he could be an entertaining fellow." "And then he was fired." "Yeah. It was stupid, it didn't have to happen. The guy was producing; he made sales when nobody else could. What Howie did, he took a vacation to Mammoth to ski. When his week was up, he started calling in, saying he was sick with some bug he caught down there. This went on for weeks, and the boss got suspicious, so he checked out Howie's apartment. The manager said he hadn't been back since he drove off with his ski gear the month before. So a few days after that, when Howie strolled in here all innocent and business-as-usual, the boss had no choice but to can him." "What happened to him? Do you know where he's working now?" Swenson stared thoughtfully at me. "You know, I meant it when I said I liked the guy." "I don't mean him any harm, Mr. Swenson." "No?" He waited. Quickly I considered several stories, rejected all of them, and told Swenson the truth. He reacted with glee, laughing loudly and slapping his hand on his desk. "Good for Howie! At least he got a few weeks of the good life before everything went down the sewer." "So will you tell me where I can find him?" "I still don't know why you want him." I hesitated, unsure myself as to why I did. No one was looking for Howard John anymore, and the organization that had assigned me to locate him had ceased to exist. Finally I said, "When you have a sale pending that you think is a sure thing and then it falls through, does it nag at you afterwards?" "Sure, for years, sometimes. I wonder what I did wrong, why it didn't fly." "I'm the same way about my cases. This is my last open file from the law firm where I used to work. Closing it will tie off the loose ends." "Well ..." Swenson considered some more. "Okay. I don't know if Howie's still there, but I saw him working another lot about three months ago--Roy's Motors, up in Concord." Concord was a city to the north. I thanked Swenson and hurried out to the van. Concord, like Walnut Creek, had developed into a metropolis since I once worked a case at its performing arts pavilion, but the windswept frontage road where Roy's Motors was located was a throwback to the early sixties. An aging shopping center with a geodesic dome-type cinema and dozens of mostly dead stores adjoined the used-car lot; both were almost devoid of customers. Faded plastic flags fluttered limply above Roy's stock, which consisted mainly of vehicles that looked as though they'd welcome a trip to the auto dismantler's; a sign proclaiming it Home of the Best Deals in Town creaked disconsolately. I could make out the figure of a man sitting inside the small sales shack, but his features were obscured by the dirty window glass. A young couple were wandering through the lot, stopping here and there to examine pickup trucks. After a few minutes they displayed more than passing interest in a canary-yellow Ford, and the man got up and came out of the shack. He was on the short side and running to paunch, with thinning dark hair, a brushy moustache, and a face that once had been handsome. Howard John? As he approached the couple, the salesman held himself more erect and sucked in his stomach; his step took on a jaunty rhythm and a charismatic smile lit up his face. He shook hands with the couple, began expounding on the truck. He laughed; they laughed. He helped the woman into the cab, urged the man in on the driver's side. The chemistry was working, the magic flowing. This, I was sure, was the man who years before had scammed the greedy merchants of San Francisco. A few short weeks of living like the high rollers, I thought, then dismissal from a good job and a series of steps down to this. How did he go on, with the memory of those weeks ever in the back of his mind? How did he come to this windswept lot every day and put himself through the paces? Well, maybe his dreams--improbable as they might seem--had survived intact. He'd done it once, his reasoning might go, and he could do it again. Maybe Howard John still believed that he was only occupying a way station on the road to the top. But what about Marnie Morrison? I found Howard John's residence by a method whose simplicity and effectiveness have never ceased to amaze me: a look-see into the phone book. The listing was in two names, and the wife's was Marnie. The shabby residential street was not far from the used-car lot: a two-block row of identical shoebox-style tract homes of the same vintage as the shopping center. The pavement was potholed and the houses on the west side backed up on a concrete viaduct, but big poplars arched over the street and, in spite of the hum of nearby freeway traffic, it had an aura of tranquility. The house I was looking for was painted mint green and surrounded by a low chain-link fence. A sign on its gate said Sunnyside Daycare Center, and in the yard beyond it sat an assortment of brightly colored playground equipment. It was close to five o'clock; for the next hour I watched a steady stream of parents arrive and depart with their offspring. Ten minutes after the last had left, a woman came out of the house and began collecting the playthings strewn in the yard. I peered through my shade-dappled windshield and recognized an older heavier version of Marnie Morrison. Clad in an oversize sweatshirt and leggings that strained over her ample thighs, she moved slowly, stopping now and then to wipe sweat from her brow. When she finished she trudged inside. So this was what Marnie had become since I'd last seen her: the overworked, prematurely aged wife of an unsuccessful used-car salesman, who operated a daycare center to make ends meet. And one of those ends was her periodic hundred-dollar atonement for the credit-card binge that had bought her a few weeks of high living and dreams. Unsure as to why I was doing it, I continued to watch the mintgreen house. I'd found Marnie. Why didn't I give up and go back to the city? There were things I should be doing at the new offices, things I should be doing at home. But I wanted an end to the story, so I stayed where I was. Half an hour later a Ford Bronco passed me and pulled into the Johns' driveway. Howard got out carrying a bouquet of pink carnations. He let himself into the yard, stopping to pick up a stuffed bear that Marnie had missed. He held the bear at arm's length, gave it a jaunty grin, and tucked it under his arm. His step was light as he moved toward the door. Before he got it open his wife appeared, now dressed in a gauzy caftan, and enveloped him in a welcoming embrace. I'd reached the end of the tale. Leaving Marnie and Howard to their surviving dreams and illusions, I drove back to All Souls for the last time. The big Victorian was mostly dark and totally silent. Only the porch light and another far back in the kitchen shone. It was after eight o'clock; none of the remaining partners lived in the building, and they rarely spent more time there than was necessary. The new corporation they'd formed had the property up for sale and would move downtown as soon as a buyer was found. Moving on, all of us. I was about to haul the cartons I'd left in the foyer down to the van when I heard a sound in the kitchen--the familiar creak of the refrigerator door. Curiosity aroused, I went back there, walking softly. The room was dim, the light coming from a single bulb in the sconce over the sink. A figure turned from the fridge, glass of wine in hand. Hank. He started, nearly dropping the glass. "Jesus, Shar!" "Sorry. I'm not up to talking to any of the new guard tonight, so I tiptoed. Why aren't you down at the pier helping everybody shove the new furniture around?" "I was, but nobody could make up their mind where it should go, and I foresaw a long and unpleasant relationship with a chiropractor in my future." "So you came here? " He shrugged. "Why not? You want some wine?" "Sure. For old times' sake." Hank went to the fridge and poured the last of the so-so jug variety that had been an All Souls staple. He handed it to me and motioned for me to sit at the round table by the window. As we took our places I realized that they were identical to those we'd occupied the first afternoon I'd come here. I said, "You still haven't told me why you're here." "You haven't told me why you're here." "I meant to be gone hours ago, but wait till you hear my news!" I explained about closing the Morrison file. He shook his head. "You do believe in tying up loose ends. So what about those two--do you think they're happy?" I hesitated. "What's happy? It's all relative. The guy still brings her flowers. She still dresses up for him. Maybe that's enough." "But after the scams they pulled, the style they lived in?" "It only lasted a few weeks. Maybe that was enough, too." "Maybe." He took a long pull at his wine, took a longer look around the kitchen. His expression grew melancholy. This room and this table had been at the core of Hank's life since leaving law school. "Don't," I said, "or you'll get me going." His eyes moved to the window, scanning the lights of downtown. After a moment they rested and his lips curved into a smile. I knew he was looking at the section of the waterfront where the law firm of Altman & Zahn had recently rented offices next to McCone Investigations on a renovated pier. "File closed," he said. We finished our wine in silence. Around us the big house creaked and groaned, as it did every evening when the day's warmth faded. I felt my eyes sting, blinked hard. Only an incurable romantic would find significance in tonight's particular creaks and groans. And I, of course, had not a romantic bone in my body. So why had that last creak sounded like "goodbye"? Hank drained his glass and stood. Carried both to the sink, where he rinsed them carefully and set them on the drainboard. "In answer to your earlier question," he said, "I'm here because I forgot something." "Oh? What?" He came over and rapped his knuckles on the table where we'd eaten and drunk, played games and talked, celebrated and commiserated, fought and made up, and--now--let go. "This table and chairs're mine. Marin County Flea Market, the week after we founded All Souls. They're going along." "To our joint conference room?" "Mind reader. Is that okay with you?" I nodded. "Then give me a hand with them, will you?" I stood, grinning. "Sure, but only if ..." "If what?" It was a stupid, sentimental decision--and one I was sure to regret. "Only if you'll give me a hand with that ratty armchair in my former office. I can't imagine why Rae forgot it." Copyright (c) 1998 Kathleen Halligan. All rights reserved.
