“I’ll take it,” Colleen said.
The by-the-week room reeked of Lysol. The bed sagged. The view from the window was a brick wall four feet across a grim light well. Downstairs she could hear some guy yelling at a woman to go out and get him his damn money.
But it was a place to live. Or, more to the point, an address Colleen could provide for address verification. Although it wasn’t assured that the Thunderbird Hotel in the Tenderloin would qualify. But the apartments she had looked at required an application, would not be available right away, and had plenty of competition. And being an ex-con would not put her at the head of the line. She needed to get a “real” address ASAP.
“Forty a week,” the manager said in a reedy voice. “In advance.”
Colleen peeled off eight twenty-dollar bills, catching the manager’s interest enough to make him quit chewing his thumbnail. “I’ll take it for the next four weeks. I’ll need a receipt.” A month would show good faith to her parole officer.
“Where’s your luggage?”
“Not here.”
The hotel manager narrowed his eyes. There were significant lines under them. A worrier. “No guests after ten.” He squinted. “And no soliciting.”
“Is that what you told the guy downstairs?”
“You can always go somewhere else.”
“I won’t be here much anyway.” If at all. She handed him the money, and then unraveled one more twenty. “And this is for you. If someone stops by to verify parole, you’ll know what to say, right?”
“So it’s like that,” he said, taking the money, slipping the last twenty into a different pocket. “My apologies about the … solicitation thing.” He held out the room key, dangling from a yellow plastic diamond.
“Maybe I should be flattered.” She took the key.
* * *
The magnetic employee in/out board at the Community Assessment Service Center on Sixth Street showed Randy Ferguson was not in the office. That was fine with Colleen.
It was late afternoon.
“Can you see that Mr. Ferguson gets this?” she said, handing over a copy of her rental receipt to a heavyset woman in a bright plum Damask colored top behind the desk. “It’s my new permanent address.”
The woman took it, read it, raised her eyebrows.
“Good luck,” she said, folding the paper, slipping it into Randy’s message slot.
Good enough. She had no intention of ditching her current setup at H&M Paint, but this would hopefully show she had found a legitimate place to live.
In the back of her mind, though, she wondered what had become of Jim Davis. She needed to check back. But she didn’t relish having to deal with Mary Davis again. She’d give it a little time. Better still, try to deal with her son, Steve, the punk rocker. He might be approachable.
Colleen drove over to Mission and Cortland where she parked in the Safeway lot. At a pay phone she dropped a dime into the slot and called the San Francisco Chronicle’s main number.
A woman with a nasal voice answered.
“Howard Broadmoor, please,” Colleen said.
“He’s out this week, I’m afraid.”
Damn. “Is there someone else who might be able to answer questions about a series of articles he wrote about a decade back?”
“Which ones, ma’am?”
“About the Margaret Copeland murder—in 1967.”
“And you are?”
“A friend of the family. Just trying to clear up some loose ends. But it is important. Isn’t there anyone I can talk to?”
“Mr. Broadmoor is probably the only one who can answer your questions. If you leave your name and number, I’ll have him call you.”
Colleen left her name and number, thanked the woman.
She went inside the Safeway and stocked up on things she couldn’t afford before she got the advance from Mr. Copeland. Real coffee. Cream. Bread, the kind you cut with a breadknife, which she also bought. Butter. A block of sharp cheddar. Fresh squeezed orange juice. All the things she did without for ten years in Denver Women’s Correctional Facility.
Near the Safeway by Cortland Avenue, she picked up a used dorm fridge at an appliance store with a hand-painted sign over the door. The Latin guy who owned the store carried it to her car. And for a moment, life was good.
She filled the Torino all the way to F at a 76, something she hadn’t done in quite a while. At sixty-five cents a gallon, it set her back more than ten bucks.
But this was money she hadn’t earned yet.
It had only been five or six hours since Steve Davis had shown Colleen the door. Too soon to go back and try again. Hopefully Jim Davis would come home soon. If Colleen had learned anything about being inside ten years, it was how to wait.
She got on 101 South, headed for the Candlestick Park exit.
An official-looking overnight letter in the steel mailbox at H&M Paint addressed to her from SF Department of Adult Probation made her fleeting good cheer sink like a rock.
She tore it open, then and there, setting the sack of groceries on the weed-grown forecourt of H&M. She had a pretty good idea what was inside.
“Revocation of parole based on conduct that occurred during the period of supervision, in violation of the Interstate Compact.”
She skipped to the bottom.
“Policy 1A-27 allows for the warrantless arrest of parolee: Colleen A. Hayes.”
She took a deep breath, picked up her sack of groceries, hauled them up the metal stairwell. Then she came down, got the fridge. She still had her strength, all those years of working out inside.