Читать книгу Civil Twilight - Susan Dunlap - Страница 6

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WHEN I FIRST spotted her, she was on the steps of Saints Peter and Paul Church, staring at Washington Square as if the park were the most fascinating, delightful spot imaginable. Turning, she smiled at me as if I was just what she’d been waiting for. It was an appealingly disingenuous expression and one that automatically made me suspicious. The eggshell blue linen tunic and slacks she wore looked expensive, as did the cut of her subtly streaked blond hair. Her face work was as good as I’d seen on any movie set. A first lift, as opposed to the nibble your own ear look of a third or fourth. It gave her the aura of a coddled twenty-something, one at odds with the lines already re-establishing themselves between her brows. But her hands nailed her age as over forty. Sinews in them revealed a past that involved heavy work; one pinky was twisted halfway around so the nail faced away from the other fingers. She had a salon manicure, but two nails were chipped and had been clipped short and chipped again.

“You’ve got to be Gary’s sister,” she said.

“Right.”

“I figured. You have the same walk.”

“You’re kidding.” I run miles every other day, I take aerobics, dance, kill myself on machines in the gym. Gary works his butt off, but he’s sitting on it the whole time. Only metabolism and missed meals keep him thin; his muscles have to be hanging three-toed from his bones. “That’s not exactly a compliment. His office is a block from here. Bet he didn’t walk with you, did he?”

She did a flash assessment and laughed. “Prove me wrong. He said you were a big-time jock—you’d take me running.”

“He told me to take you shopping.”

“Really?” she said, as if that added to the challenge. Then she caught my eye and laughed harder, the way my sister, Gracie, and I would over Gary’s foibles.

Who was this woman? And why did she need a babysitter? Why hadn’t Gary just told me what was going on? Now I was dying to know. Considering how he’d set it up, he was all but begging me to pry. But I was tilting toward liking Karen, didn’t want to cause her more distress than whatever she already had. Damn Gary! “Where do you want to go? Embarcadero? Marina Green? I’ve only got an hour, but I’ll see that you get back to Gary.”

“Somewhere high up with grass and big trees and shade. Where would you take a tourist who wants the best view of the city?”

Ours is a knockout city and we San Franciscans are ridiculously proud of it. Few things please us more than an appreciative tourist. “High up, trees, great view: you’re talking Coit Tower. From there, you can see the entire city, the Golden Gate, Alcatraz, Berkeley, the works. I have to warn you, though, the run up’s an extreme sport.”

“You’re on.” With that, she pushed off like a sprinter, her worn running shoes at odds with the elegant linen pants that billowed out as she cut across Washington Square Park.

Behind us evening rush hour traffic crowded Columbus Avenue, heading toward the onramp for I-80, 101, 280 and Route 1 along the Pacific. The sky was clear—unusual for July in San Francisco—the air just a bit too warm for decent running, as she’d find out when that burst of energy evaporated. I could have paced myself to follow along until that happened, but, well no, I couldn’t make myself come in second. I came abreast of her crossing Stockton and started up the gentle incline without breaking stride. “I misjudged you.”

“You’re not the first.”

“Who’re the others?”

She eyed me, and a moment later laughed. Then she picked up the pace.

“What’s Gary handling for you?”

“Divorce.”

“Gary doesn’t—”

“Doesn’t what?” she snapped.

I jolted back, then to cover my shock, skirted wide around a guy in chinos and tweed jacket arguing with himself, or sporting a Blue Tooth I couldn’t see. Gary does an odd of combo civil and criminal suits, but he steers clear of divorce cases. Unless he suddenly, for some bizarre reason, had changed.

“Sorry, Darcy,” she said when I circled back to her. “I didn’t mean to sound so abrupt. It’s just . . . well, you know, the usual. Big stuff to me, old hat to the rest of the world. I was so undone over the weekend I imagined I saw my ex, Matt, here. I just wish there was a divorce debit card I could swipe through and have the marriage deducted from our account.”

“I understand, believe me. It’s never easy. I was married for a couple years—no kids, no goods, no bad feelings, and even so it was hard.” Nothing between us, because, as my husband had explained to his attorney, my favorite brother Mike had been missing for years and there was a hole in my life no one else could fill. In fact, the guilt, the grief, the ever-present not-knowing and imagining gnawed at all my brothers and sisters—and I didn’t want to think how much it ate at Mom. “We’re not great successes at marriage in my family.”

My explanation wasn’t quite the truth, and neither was Karen’s, I was sure. Oddly, that felt like a connection.

She must have felt it, too. “Don’t blame yourself,” she said. “Things happen.”

The street was as steep as they get without being stairs, the sidewalk narrow. I hung behind, giving her time alone. Who was she? Had the divorce unhinged her? Damn Gary, why couldn’t he have told me more? My gag was at 6:30. I needed to be on the set, doing a walk through, checking under the hood, double-checking the brakes. When I flipped on the ignition it would be too late.

We crossed an alley and took the two steps up to the sidewalk. Ahead, Greenwich grew even steeper. A little red Smart Car coughed as the driver downshifted and swung into the tight turning circle that ended the block at the park. “The park,” I called out as I came up beside her and started up the red stone steps into the sudden greenness. Only pride kept me from panting. Her breath, too, was coming fast, but she wasn’t complaining, nor slowing down. Telegraph Hill Boulevard, the two-lane loop to Coit Tower, bisected the stairs. As we ran in place, cars whipped by on the straightway, but when they rounded the next curve their drivers would find themselves idling in a line, waiting for the few parking spots by the tower.

“You are in damned good shape, Karen.”

“And you.”

“I have to work out every day to keep ready for work. What’s your excuse?”

“Muscle memory.”

“From?”

“Another life.” She caught her breath, and again, and for a moment I thought she’d pass over my question. “I had a job years ago, hauling stuff up a cliff. For months. I’d see that old concrete building in my dreams. At the end of the season I looked like an anatomy text picture. Every muscle outlined. But not anymore. Then I’d’ve left you in the dust, girl.”

“Where was that impressive job?”

She tightened and then gave her head a shake, laughing the way you do when you’ve suddenly realized something that’s perfectly obvious. “Alaska. I’ve done my share of uphill employment. I was hauling fish in Sue—in Alaska. Luckily, I’ve had easier jobs since.”

“You’d have to have. But listen, don’t worry. Whatever’s going on, Gary’ll take care of you. He’s the best.”

“I know. That’s why I hired him.” She hesitated. “Darcy . . . it’s not as if we’re friends . . . ”

“Yet,” I said.

“Right. I . . . wanted to . . . ”

I glanced over, but suddenly she wasn’t there. She was in the middle of the roadway.

Brakes screeched.

“Karen!”

The car was between us.

I raced around it. “Karen!”

She was standing over a teenager in jeans and T-shirt, lying on her back on the sidewalk, clutching a phone.

The driver’s head poked out the window. “Idiot!” he yelled. “Look before you walk into traffic! Fucking cell phone!”

The girl pushed herself up, face dead white, and defiantly snapped open her phone. The driver reached for the door, hesitated, shook his head, and shot off down the hill.

“I knew what I was doing!” The girl’s voice was shaky. Karen started to reach out to her and caught herself. “I wasn’t going to get hit! You didn’t need to shove me!”

“Sorry. You okay?”

“Fine. I’m fine. I didn’t need any . . . Well, maybe you . . . Maybe I . . .”

Karen shrugged. “Never mind.”

The girl gave her a nod and hurried across the roadway and down the steps, her flip-flops slapping the pavement.

Karen watched her go, and I had the sense she was more undone than the girl.

“Are you okay, Karen?”

“Maybe I did overreact. Car wasn’t that close.”

“They come at a good clip down this road. But listen, if you’ve got to err—. Like you said yourself, things happen.”

“I—” She swallowed and for an instant I thought she was going to cry, or laugh. Instead, she stared up at the tree tops until her face shifted into the same expression she’d had looking at Washington Square. “What a great park! Smell the trees! In Alaska we waited so long for spring we hated to miss a moment of sun or scent. Is that a cedar? The tower? How tall is it?” She eyed the obelisk that commemorated the firemen who saved the city after the 1906 great earthquake and fire.

“Hundred feet.”

“More. Surely more.”

“You’re right, of course. I was thinking of a koan.”

“How do you step off the hundred-foot pole?”

“Yeah,” I said, surprised. “How’d you know? Are you a Buddhist?”

“No. I just read it somewhere. Love the idea. Maybe someday, when I have more time . . .”

The path ended at the boulevard. Cars in the up lane idled in line. In the down lane, one paused at the stop sign, then drove smugly on.

“How do you progress off a hundred-foot pole?” I’d chewed on that particular koan in my time. It was intended to be about life after enlightenment, but for me it was just about life. I knew how to push my way up in a business where the standards were for men, how to make myself climb higher than anyone thought I could, do stunts others had failed at, how to balance on the top in the wind. I could climb the pole, but to step off, into nothingness, that was a whole ’nother thing. “So, Karen, how do you step off the hundred-foot pole?”

“You let go.”

“A hundred feet up?”

“You step off the pole and the rules don’t matter anymore, because you’re already dead.”

“Wow. Spoken like a roshi.”

“No, listen, I just mean—it’s logical isn’t it? Better to take your shot downfield than hang on waiting to get sacked.”

The football reference surprised me, coming from her. “But still—”

“Falling, you only break your neck.” The path ended and she started across the road. A car jerked left to avoid her. She stepped back, shrugged, and said, “You’re a stunt double. Maybe you don’t break your neck if you do it right. What d’you think?”

“You couldn’t pay me enough. But that’s not the Zen answer. Actually, it’s never the Zen answer.”

She let out a laugh as if the oddly unnerving interchange had never occurred. The cars backed up and she scooted around the line, skirting the stopped cars, jumping back as passengers got out to walk while their local hosts sat in the exhaust-snorting line. She was taking it all in like it glistened. She reminded me of how I’d felt at the end of long Zen sesshins, walking down the street after days of sitting zazen and seeing everything crisp and bright and wonderful.

I wondered the same thing I had half an hour ago: Who was this woman who needed a babysitter? Who was this non-Buddhist who’d danced around this koan like it was a Maypole? I hesitated, then decided: “Karen,” I said when we got to the circle at the top, “you want to get dinner?”

She started, then a smile spread across her face. “I’d really like that. But my treat. Let’s go somewhere really nice. Somewhere”—she caught my eye and laughed—“above our element.”

“How far above do you have in mind?”

“One of those places you need to seriously bribe the maitre d’. Somewhere with a view.”

I glanced at my watch: 5:02. “I’m going to have to go get ready for my stunt. But listen, it’s at California and Market. Why don’t you come down and watch when you’re done with Gary? It’s a car gag, bouncing off a runaway cable car. A pretty big deal. Water gushing. Ambulances and fire trucks all over. They’re going to close Market Street and the Embarcadero. I’ll leave word to let you onto the set. The schedule calls for a twilight shot, but I can’t swear how long it’ll run. Come around eight. If it’s still going, you can watch the action. If it’s over, we’ll go eat.” I added, “Above our element.”

“Sure,” she said, so offhandedly it was hard not to feel dismissed.

A horn honked. I turned to glare. “Hang on, Karen, that’s my brother.”

“The missing one!”

“No, no. My oldest brother. Give me a minute, okay?”

She looked at me curiously. “Darcy . . .”

“Yes?”

“Nothing.”

“No, tell me!”

“Okay. None of my business, but . . . your missing brother. You don’t want to beat yourself up. ‘If only I’d noticed . . .’ ‘If only I hadn’t said . . .’ you know? I don’t mean to intrude, but you assume something happened and he fell off the pole. Maybe he made a bad decision afterwards. It’s easy to jump; hard to climb back on.”

I didn’t know what to say. I wondered what Gary had told her, and why.

“None of my business. It’s just I’ve had friends . . . and . . . don’t be so hard on yourself.”

The horn beeped again. I headed toward it and when I turned back, Karen was walking toward the parapet.

John was pulling into a legal parking spot, something he rarely troubled to do. That meant he hadn’t swung around the waiting traffic, Code 3’d it up the down lane, and parked in the crosswalk, which would have saved him twenty minutes. He was dressed in a suit that fit better than any I’d seen on him. He looked good; he looked not like a cop. “You here on a case?” I asked, leaning into his car window.

He ignored my question—his family trademark—and opened the door, forcing me to jump back. I took that to mean Yes. He put an arm around my shoulder and walked us toward the west side of the circle. I have affectionate siblings, but John is not one of them. His arm around my shoulder historically meant I was about to hear something unlikely to improve my day.

“Amazing view, huh?”

“Yeah, John. Same as it’s been for a century.” I shifted my shoulders, but he held on tight. “You passing yourself off as a tourist? Keeping an eye on someone who can’t spot an unmarked?”

“Just here to think.”

“About annexing my shoulder?”

“About Mike.”

“You drove an unmarked car, sat in a line of exhaust-spewing cars for twenty minutes, so you could park your official vehicle in a civilian spot in a crowded tourist attraction and not look at the view, all so you could have some thought about Mike that you haven’t considered in the twenty years since he disappeared?”

“This new lead you think you’ve got. You’re not going to find anything there.”

He squeezed my shoulder in a way he never had the entire time he was barking orders and complaining that we younger kids were out of control. Something was going on with my oldest, stiffest, most wary-making brother. I waited.

“I’ve been all over. I’ve checked every possible lead from San Diego to Seattle and beyond. I’ve had PIs on retainer.”

“And you kept them all to yourself? Did you think—”

“You want to hear about each dead end?”

I turned toward John, trying to read him. “This conversation could be about Mike, but it’s not, is it? What’s the matter, John? Are you okay?”

“Sure.” He bent near and hugged me. I was so stunned I didn’t move. Then I hugged him back, feeling like I was in the middle of a stunt and hadn’t read the script.

“Who’s your friend?”

I followed his gaze and saw Karen through John’s eyes: a slim, attractive blonde checking her phone messages as she waited for one of the telescopes to free up. She caught his eye and smiled, a sweet, longing expression. He wasn’t a bad looking guy. None of the star quality of Gary, but he was in decent shape, graying at the temples, and today sporting a lime green shirt that set off the green in his eyes, evincing a sartorial concern I’d never seen him show before. He’d sure dressed for someone. But not Karen. As for her, I felt sure she ached not for John, but for the sweet closeness she assumed we shared. John, though, was seeing something entirely different. He was smiling back with a hesitant, vulnerable expression. His whole being screamed: vulnerable.

Be careful, big brother! You’re out of your league with her. What you need—What he needed was to snap him back to himself. “You’ve had a PI on retainer? And he’s never found a lead to Mike? Maybe what he’s found is a patsy.”

“Patsy! You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Ah, that was the John I knew.

He put his arm back around my shoulder, but this time to herd me to the walkway where he could hold forth more privately. “I don’t walk onto your movie sets and decide I can do stunts, do I? But you assume you can do missing persons better than the police. I’m the professional, I—”

“John!”

“What!”

“Your car. That’s your car! Someone’s stealing your car!”

A woman screamed and grabbed a toddler, as the car shot past. Karen Johnson was at the wheel.