Fever nd-33 Read online

  By Friday, when Tamara handed him the pro bono case, he had the rest of the load well in hand. A one o’clock interview in Hayward to finish up the employee background check was all for the afternoon; he said he’d be back in the city no later than four. So Tamara set up an appointment for him to meet with the new client, Rose Youngblood, at five at her home in Visitacion Valley.

  It was a worried mother job: son or daughter gets into a hassle that can’t or won’t be taken to the police, so mom goes the private route. The agency seldom handled that kind unless the client was well-heeled, and then with reluctance, but recently they’d started taking on selected cases involving African-Americans, Latinos, and other minorities who needed investigative services but couldn’t afford them.

  Tamara’s idea. Give a little something back to the community, now that the agency was solidly in the black. It was all right with Runyon. Clients were clients, corporate or individual, rich or poor.

  Rose Youngblood was a black woman in her fifties, widowed and living alone in the home she’d bought with her husband thirty years ago. Employed in the admissions office at City College of San Francisco. Active in community service and church work. She hadn’t contacted the agency directly; she’d been referred by Tamara’s sister, Claudia, a lawyer who did some pro bono work of her own in the African-American community.

  The problem was Rose Youngblood’s twenty-six-year-old son, Brian. Whatever trouble he was in evidently wasn’t the usual sort the twenty-something set got into these days. Stable young man with a well-paying job as a freelance computer consultant, she’d told Tamara; never gave her a moment’s worry until now. Raised as a God-fearing Christian, good head on his shoulders, worked hard, had a bright future-all the proud maternal platitudes. Except that recently somebody had assaulted him, for a reason he refused to talk about, and she was fearful that his life was in jeopardy.

  That was as much as Runyon knew when he parked in front of her small, wood-and-stucco home near the Crocker-Amazon Playground. One of the city’s older residential neighborhoods-lower income, single-family homes, primarily owned by blacks now. On the fringe of the crime-ridden projects and driven downscale by the infestation of drugs and gangs. Drive-by shootings, burglaries, and muggings were common enough to force many residents to put up fences and security gates and bars on their windows. Rose Youngblood wasn’t one of them. Living in a high-crime area, but not living in fear.

  He was right on time, and she’d been watching for him; she opened the door even before he rang the bell. Tall, thin woman with gray in her close-cropped hair and stern features that conveyed determination and a strong will. Unsmiling and a little stiff at first. The first thing she said to him after he identified himself was, “Don’t take this wrong, but I was hoping for a black investigator.”

  “We don’t have one on staff for field work,” Runyon said. “But the agency does have a pretty good racial mix-black, white, Latino, and Italian. I’m the token WASP.”

  She almost smiled. “I didn’t mean to be insensitive. It’s just that I don’t have any idea of what’s going on with my son. You understand?”

  “You don’t have to worry about my being able to handle it if it’s racially sensitive. I was a police officer in Seattle for several years and my partner and best friend for most of them was a black man.”

  “I see.” She opened the door for him. “Come in. It’s cold out there.”

  Warm inside. Electric fire burning in a small living room packed with old, comfortable furniture. Two walls adorned with framed religious pictures and a brass sculpture of two hands clutching a cross. Books filled an old glass-fronted bookcase on another wall. Rose Youngblood told him to sit where he liked, took a covered rocking chair for herself, and got straight to business. No unnecessary amenities, no nonsense.

  No unnecessary or repetitive information, either; she assumed what she’d told Tamara had been passed on to him and began by providing details. She wouldn’t have known anything was wrong with Brian, she said, if she hadn’t stopped by his flat unannounced a few days ago, after work. She hadn’t heard from him in more than two weeks, which was unusual, and she’d wanted to make sure he was all right. A friend of his, Aaron Myers, had answered the door and told her Brian was ill and tried to keep her out. She’d gone in anyway and found her son on the couch, naked to the waist, his ribs taped-one of them had been cracked-and bruises all over his sides and lower back.

  “Whoever beat him up must’ve hit him a dozen times,” she said. “He couldn’t control his bladder for two days afterward.”

  “But he wouldn’t tell you who did it.”

  “Mugged, he said, but it wasn’t the truth. I can always tell when Brian is lying. But he wouldn’t budge from that story. Just said I shouldn’t worry, it wouldn’t happen again.”

  “You didn’t believe him about that, either?”

  “No. He sounded scared, not like himself at all. I know my son, Mr. Runyon. He’s not a fearful person. It would take something bad, very bad, to put him in such a state.”

  She might’ve exaggerated the violence and Brian’s state of mind; Runyon had known it to happen to other parents, even ones who claimed to “know” their kids. Nobody knew anybody, when you got right down to it. Not even themselves most of the time. Still, she wasn’t the panicky, emotional type. Levelheaded. If she was concerned enough to want an investigation, there was probable cause.

  He said, “Before that day, how was your son? His usual self?”

  “No. Not the last few times I saw him.”

  “How was he different?”

  “Worried about something. Upset and secretive.”

  “So whatever his trouble is, it’s been going on for some time.”

  “More than a month now.”

  “Could it have something to do with his work?”

  “I don’t see how it could. He’s been in computer work for five years and he’s very good at it, never had any problems with the people he works for.”

  “Something to do with a woman?”

  She frowned at the question, ran blunt fingers through her skullcap hair. “I don’t see how that can be, either.”

  “Brian’s not married, is that right?”

  “He was engaged to a girl named Ginny Lawson last year, but she broke it off a month before the wedding.”

  “For what reason?”

  “Cold feet, Brian said. The commitment and all. But it seemed sudden and out of character to me.”

  “As if she’d found someone else?”

  “Possibly. I don’t know.”

  “How did your son handle the breakup?”

  “Not well at first. He really loved that girl.”

  “Angry?”

  “Hurt, mostly.”

  “Brood about it?”

  “No. He’s not a man to fret over lost causes.”

  “Is he seeing anyone now?”

  “Not that I know about.”

  “Tell me about his activities, what he does for recreation.”

  “Computers. They’ve been his passion ever since he was thirteen.” Pride in the words. “When he’s not working, he spends most of his time on the Internet.”

  “Chat rooms, that kind of thing?”

  “I don’t think so. No. He plays chess, computer chess.”

  “How about clubs, sports?”

  “Just church activities. He met Ginny Lawson at a church dance.”

  Runyon said gently, “Vices, Mrs. Youngblood?”

  Long, stern look. Then she said, “I suppose you have to ask that. The answer is no.”

  “Never any problems with liquor or drugs?”

  “Never. I’d know if he’d ever been into anything like that.”

  Sure you would. “This friend you mentioned, Aaron Myers. Did you ask him about the beating? Away from Brian, I mean.”

  “Yes. He said he doesn’t know what happened.”

  “Telling the truth or covering up?”

  “I’m not sure.”<
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  “Are he and Brian close friends?”

  “I don’t know how close they are. They haven’t known each other long, I’m pretty sure of that.”

  “What is it they have in common? Computers?”

  “Yes.”

  “What does Aaron do for a living?”

  “He works for a frozen food distributor, but I’m not sure which one.”

  “Can you tell me where he lives?”

  “Somewhere near Brian. I don’t have the address.”

  “What’s your opinion of him?”

  “Polite, friendly-a decent young man.”

  “Is there anyone else Brian is close to? Anyone who might have an idea of what led to the beating?”

  She thought about it. “Well, there’s Dre Janssen. They went to school together. He’s one of Brian’s chess opponents.”

  Runyon asked a few more questions, wrote down a few details in his notebook. Brian’s home address and phone number. The name and address of the video store that Dre Janssen managed in the Marina. The facts that Ginny Lawson lived in San Rafael and was employed at a Wells Fargo branch in Sausalito. That was enough to start on.

  “When will you start your investigation, Mr. Runyon?”

  Low-priority case; he’d have to sandwich it in during the week. No purpose in telling her that. Five-thirty now, too late to do much today, but he had the weekend to fill. If he got lucky, he might get it done quick. He said, “Tomorrow, probably.”

  She seemed surprised. “You work Saturdays?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “What will you do first? Talk to Brian?”

  “I’m not sure yet. If I do talk to him, agency policy is not to reveal our clients’ names.”

  “That’s all right. He’ll know it was me. Brian doesn’t have anyone else who cares as much as I do.”

  She showed him to the door, shook his hand solemnly. He said he’d be in touch as soon as he had something to report; she said, “I’ll pray for him”-not quite a non sequitur. As soon as he was outside, she retreated into the world she occupied behind closed doors-devout Christian world, black woman’s world, mother’s world.

  T he Ford needed gas; he stopped at a service station at the top of Twin Peaks to fill the tank. His body needed food; he stopped at a Chinese restaurant on West Portal to fill his belly. One more time killer before he wrapped himself inside his empty apartment for the rest of the night-a stop at the Safeway on Taraval. He seldom ate in the apartment, kept little enough on hand, but one thing he did do regularly was brew a pot of tea. He was almost out of the Darjeeling blend Colleen had liked.

  The store was Friday-night crowded. He was in the coffee and tea aisle, taking his time, reading labels, when a woman said, “Excuse me.” The way she said it, as if the words had come out of only one side of her mouth, made him glance at her as he stepped back and she pushed by with her cart.

  The first thing he focused on was the scarf. Tied funny under a Scottish style cap: down across the left side of her face, covering it entirely, and knotted under her chin. Only half of her mouth was visible. The right side of her face was oval, high-cheekboned, a thick-haired eyebrow bent in the middle like a snapped twig. Thirty-something. Attractive. Ash-blond hair showing beneath the cap. Body tightly encased in a black-and-white checked coat. That was all he registered before she was past him, without a glance in his direction. He watched her push the cart toward the check-stands up front, wondering a little about that scarf.

  He picked out a package of tea, took it up to the quick-check. Misnomer tonight; there was a line and the checker was slow. Three stands over, the blond woman got through with her purchases before he did and was gone by the time he left the store.

  His car was parked on Taraval, near Nineteenth Avenue. He headed that way, feeling twinges in his bad leg; cold had that effect sometimes. There was a small, covered parking lot on that side of Safeway, and he was just starting past it when he heard the voices.

  Man saying, “Come on, lady, show my buddy here.”

  Woman saying, “Leave me alone.”

  Another man saying, “Just one look, I never seen somebody with half a face before.”

  Runyon paused to look over there. The blond woman in the scarf. The two males had her backed up against one of the slant-parked cars, crowding her. Late teens-he could see them plainly in the floodlights. She was holding her grocery sacks up high in front of her chest, like shields. He heard her say, “Please, just leave me-” before the bigger of the two suddenly reached up and tore the scarf away from her face.

  She cried out, dropped one of the sacks-it broke apart on the concrete, scattering the contents-and tried to pull away, her free hand pawing at the scarf. The entire left side of her face had a frozen, twisted look; her mouth might have been split in half, one side normal, the other bent and the lip curled up over her teeth. One of the kids said, “Hey, man, didn’t I tell you?” and the other one laughed like a hyena, and by then Runyon was on them.

  He caught the big one by the shoulder of his denim jacket and yanked him aside, at the same time giving the other a hard push in the chest. That freed the woman; he heard her heels beating on the pavement as she ran out of harm’s way. His attention was on the two teenagers.

  One of them said, “What the fuck’s the idea?” Spiked hair, pimples, straggly chin whiskers. The bigger one-buzz cut and longer whiskers-just glared. Runyon knew the type. Bullies. Tough on the outside, mush on the inside. Not dangerous unless they were cornered or thought they had the upper hand.

  “I could ask you the same question.”

  “You want a piece of us, man?” the other one said.

  “You want a piece of a jail cell?”

  “Huh?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Christ, Curt, he’s a cop.”

  The shorter one put his hands up, palms outward. “Hey, man, we weren’t doing anything. Just having a little fun, that’s all.”

  “If hassling a woman is your idea of fun, you’re pretty damn stupid. Go on, get out of here. But I’ll remember both of you. I hear about you hanging around here hassling anybody again, you won’t like what happens.”

  They went. Looking back over their shoulders at him, muttering to one another. He watched them out of sight, uphill on Taraval, before he looked for the woman.

  She’d gone to the far end of the parking area, up against the shrub-topped retaining wall on the Eighteenth Avenue side. Now, hesitantly, she came back toward him, still carrying the one grocery sack. The scarf, he saw, had been retied to cover the left side of her face. When she stopped near him, she stood in a half-turned posture, her right side toward him.

  “You okay, miss?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “Kids these days. No sense of decency.”

  “I’m used to it,” she said flatly.

  “Used to it?”

  No answer to that. Instead she bent and began picking up the spilled groceries one-handed. Runyon said, “Here, let me help,” and took the second sack and refilled it, crawling halfway under one of the parked cars to retrieve a can of soup. “Looks like that’s everything.”

  “Thank you again.”

  “Your car in here?”

  “I can manage.”

  “I don’t mind. Heavy cans in this bag.”

  She hesitated, shrugged. “At the back wall.”

  He followed her to where one of those small, box-shaped Scions that look like recycled postal delivery vans was slanted. Chocolate-colored, which made it even uglier. She keyed open the trunk, set the one sack inside, waited while he put the other one beside it. When he straightened he was close to her, close to the uncovered side of her face. And what he saw in that one eye, clearly visible in the trunk light and floodlights, shocked him.

  He was looking at pain.

  He’d seen pain in another woman’s eyes not long ago, a woman who resembled Colleen, but it was nothing like this. This was raw and naked, the kind that goes marrow-deep,
soul-deep. The kind that had stared back at him from his mirror throughout Colleen’s illness and in all the days since her death.

  “If you’re done staring,” she said, “I’d like to leave now.”

  “I’m sorry, I…”

  “Don’t be. I told you, I’m used to it.”

  She slammed the trunk lid, and without looking at him again she got into the car and backed it up and left him standing there alone, the glimpses he’d had of her face and her pain still sharp in his mind.

  4

  The kinds of things women will talk about to each other, casually, in public places and in front of men, never cease to amaze me. There doesn’t seem to be any subject matter too personal, too outrageous for discussion.

  Cosmetic surgery, for instance.

  Intimate cosmetic surgery.

  Nip and tuck the likes of which I couldn’t have dreamed up in my wildest fantasies.

  Friday night I found out far more than I ever wanted to know about this topic. And in the unlikeliest of places-over dinner in a moderately expensive, sedate Italian restaurant in Ghirardelli Square.

  The two women in question were Kerry and Tamara. Since my semiretirement, and even more since her struggles with breast cancer, Kerry and I had been spending a lot more time together. She was cancer-free again, after months of radiation therapy, but she was still taking medication and still working through the psychological effects, and she would need regular six-month checkups for the rest of her life because there was always the chance that cancerous cells could recur. Time had become a major factor in both our lives. A cancer scare coupled with advancing age makes you aware of how little time you may have left and how important it is to make every minute you have together count. So we did family things with Emily, and on at least one weekend day or night the two of us went to restaurants, movies, plays, the symphony at Davies Hall, the new de Young Museum, a 49ers game at the ’stick.

  It had been Kerry’s idea to invite Tamara to join us for dinner at Bella Mia. Tamara hadn’t been getting out much since her long-time, cello-playing boyfriend, Horace, who had moved east for a year’s gig with the Philadelphia Philharmonic, decided to play permanent bedroom music with another woman. There was nobody new in her life. By her admission and complaint, she hadn’t gotten laid since Horace left ten months ago-a tragedy of large proportions for a hormone-rich twenty-six-year-old. Added to all this was the fact that her best friend, Vonda, had turned up pregnant and was about to be married. She’d become a little reclusive away from the agency, and sometimes moody and mopey and grumbly at work. Kerry thought an evening with us might cheer her up, which I considered a dubious notion. I expected Tamara to decline the invitation, but she jumped at it. Good sign. Maybe it meant she was tired of the shell she’d crawled into and was ready to break out. Why else would she want to hang with a couple old enough to be her parents, if not her grandparents?