Having never arranged a cremation before, I call Sullivan's, the mortuary that took care of my mother. I speak to Randy Sullivan, grandson of the founder, explain the situation and the fact that Timothy Lovsey's body is in pieces. Randy, grasping the problem, instructs me how to get the parts released. He quotes me a price with an additional option of a boat trip to scatter the ashes at sea.
"Will you want some kind of service?" he asks.
I tell him no, nothing formal, that most likely some friends will gather, say a few words, and leave it at that.
"Sounds like just what the deceased would have wished for," Randy says.
After I hang up I wonder why he put it that way, since he obviously has no knowledge of the deceased or his preferences.
I phone Shanley. He listens politely as I tell him I've contacted David deGeoffroy in New York, that Sullivan's will be taking care of the body and that I want to wind up Tim's affairs, including termination of his lease and removal of personal effects from his studio.
Shanley's helpful. Clearly he prefers me as supplicant to the angry shutter-happy female he's been dealing with. I even detect a smidgen of warmth in his voice as he asks how I'm holding up.
"Pretty good," I tell him, "considering the circumstances."
"Glad to hear it. Hilly and I were talking about you just this morning. We think you've been great. Let me know if there's anything I can do, not just on this—on anything at the Hall of Justice. I don't claim to swing a lot of weight, but there're plenty of folks here owe me favors."
Is this the kiss-off Hilly told me about? Is this how cops handle it these days, so nice, polite, eager to assist? If I get a Health Department citation for improper disposal of photochemicals, will Shanley get it fixed?
Dad's busy time starts at four in the morning and tapers off after ten. These are the hours when he and his Russian émigré helpers bake the loaves, deliver them to stores and restaurants and sell the main part of the day's production to walk-ins. Dad has one of those numbered-tag dispensers on the counter so customers know whose turn it is. He likes calling out the numbers, looking the customer in the eye, fulfilling the order with dispatch. Fine bread is his joy, good service is his pride. City Stone Ground, he wants you to know, is no kind of hippie joint.
I arrive at eleven, watch him through the window. As always, in his white apron he appears the Happy Baker. I don't know where this tendency of mine comes from, this need to turn people into archetypes. The Solemn Judge, the Happy Baker, and now the Enigmatic Magician.
"Dad!"
"Hey, darlin'!"
He grasps me in his arms, enveloping me in a cloud of flour and yeast. As a girl I could never get enough of his hugs. To this day they take me back to a time when I knew I'd always be protected by his strength.
"Got the info for you," he whispers. He holds me back. "Bull's-eye, I think."
Arm across my shoulder, he leads me into his office off the baking floor. From his desk, neatly stacked with folders, bills, purchase orders, receipts, he extracts a slip of paper.
"Rusty ran the plate. When he called this morning he sounded impressed." He hands me the slip. "Take a look."
The first digits of the plate number and the car make and model are matched with a name: Marcus P. Crane. Something familiar there; I've read about this person but can't remember where or who he is.
"Address mean anything to you?" Dad asks.
It's in the twenty-six hundred block on Broadway, one of the fancy parts of Pacific Heights.
"Marcus Crane. Think about it," he coaxes.
"I'm thinking. Give me a hint."
"Read the society columns?"
"Not if I can help
"If you did you'd know Crane is husband of a local legend."
"Sarah Lashaw?"
Dad winks. "You got it, darlin'! She of the fabulous parties and the violet eyes."
I don't have to remind him I can't see violet. He knows my weakness better than anyone. But for years, like most everyone in town, I have heard about Mrs. Lashaw's eyes, their haunting beauty.
"She married Crane ten years ago," Dad says. "He's hubby number three . . . or is it four?" I'm surprised Dad knows this; evidently he does follow society. "Crane's a dud like the others. The difference is he's got better manners. Old San Francisco family. Holds down some kind of half-ass job in finance. Does what she tells him, holds her chair, hitches the clasp on those egg-sized emeralds she wears."
Now it starts coming back: Sarah Lashaw's violet eyes and the deep green emerald necklace she wears to complement them. The stones may not actually be egg-sized. More like quail eggs, I think.
"Is Crane bald?"
Dad shrugs. "Don't know. But from what I hear, Lashaw is one very tough lady. Best not to mess with 'em, darlin'—not unless you got 'em by the hairs."
At the Main Library I use the microfilm reader to look up references to Marcus Crane. The photos show him with a full head of hair, but his features match those of Baldy. There're many mentions but little of substance. Seems aside from being Sarah Lashaw's husband, he's known more for affability than accomplishments.
Mrs. Lashaw is another story. Reading about her one would conclude she's some kind of social goddess: grand-scale entertainments, masquerade balls on behalf of this or that worthy cause, impeccable taste, meticulously decorated homes, an apparently limitless fortune. But as I read more, what comes through is a portrait of a demanding woman, spoiled and suffused with a sense of her own entitlement.
Using the periodical index, I retrieve articles from back issues of House & Garden, Town & Country, and Architectural Digest. Mrs. Lashaw, I discover, is indeed a handsome middle-aged woman whose natural good looks are bolstered by her lavish surroundings. Vases of fresh-cut flowers fill her rooms. Fine contemporary art adorns her walls. Studying pictures of the calculated interiors of her various homes, I note a horror of empty space . . . as if the filling of the rooms, their overflowing, will somehow mollify the emptiness within.
She is, moreover, an accomplished equestrian. Astride her favorite gelding, Folly, in helmet, jodhpurs and hacking jacket, she beams at the camera, a long thin dressage whip dangling carelessly from her hand. Another spread shows her and Crane picnicking with friends on the vast expanse of lawn before their Napa Valley house. The goodies (recipes courteously provided) are packed in English wicker baskets, while the picnickers recline on Oriental carpets spread upon the grass.
Do I sound envious? I hope not, for everything in Mrs. Lashaw's ethos is the opposite of mine. She embraces the ornate while I'm drawn to the austere; she fancies gilt while I prefer black; she likes couture while I slop around in jeans. But, I remind myself, it's not she who is the object of my scrutiny, rather her suave and stylish husband whom I've seen cruising the Gulch attempting to rent underage male flesh.
From the Main Library I walk to Pacific Heights, our poshest quarter, though there are those who would argue for the enclaves at the tops of Nob and Russian hills. Stately mansions, meticulously renovated Victorians, vast art deco apartment houses. Personally I find this neighborhood boring: few contrasts, everything smooth and groomed, svelte women, perfectly behaved children, nannies with European accents pushing heirloom baby carriages. The foreign consulates are here, as well as numerous small apartment buildings with molded escutcheons above the doors. Hedge walls, lookouts, tile and slate roofs. I pass the baroque marble palace of a famous romance novelist whose diamonds are said to rival Lashaw's emeralds.
Mounting the greensward of Alta Plaza, I break a sweat. A pair of fortyish in-shape women in fashionable togs are battling it out on one of the tennis courts. Long rallies and cutting strokes—from a distance theirs appears a friendly match. But up close I hear pants and grunts, glimpse the steely eyes of fierce competitors.
From the crest of the hill I can see the whole southern portion of the city. The huge antenna on North Peak breaks the pewter sky. There are sunbathers on the slopes, people training dogs, kids playing ball. To the north is Cow Hollow and the mercurial Bay. The sun beats down; the branches are serene. A perfect afternoon in our golden City by the Bay.
Crossing Divisadero I ask myself what I'm doing here, what I expect to find. I uncap my Contax, preparing for action . . . though I expect to do nothing more than quickly view Lashaw & Crane's San Francisco home.
The houses here are huge. There is an area of mansions with grounds, not the stuck-together townhouses of eastern Pacific Heights. Two turreted Victorians, a Mediterranean villa, a timbered Tudor, a mansard-roofed Norman—the 2600 block of Broadway is a wonderland of retro architectural fantasies.
The Lashaw house lies behind an iron fence of sharp pointed bars and flamboyant double-swing gates. Surrounded by shrubs and trees, it's not easy to make out its style. It's probably my achromatopsia that's got me confused, causing shapes and textures to blend, which, to a vision normal, would be differentiated by color.
I walk along the fence, gazing through the bars not the least concerned whether I'm observed. I catch sight of an Asian gardener working with clippers on hands and knees. Though only fifty feet away, he's so intent on his work he doesn't see me.
I press up against the grate; poke my camera through, snap off three or four shots. Because my Contax is a viewfinder model and not a reflex, it throws off little sound. Through it I can make out large leaded windows and a great wooden door set back within a recessed entrance. I move a few feet, peer through my viewfinder again; see that the entrance ceiling is actually a groin vault. Then, noticing that the tops of the windows are arched, I recognize the architectural style. The Lashaw house, faux ecclesiastic, is built like a rectory, a manse suitable for a prince of the church.
I walk to the end of the property, take another shot, then slowly pace back, peering in all the while. Just as I pass the main gate, I hear a mechanical sound. The gate doors begin to swing out. Then I hear a familiar growl.
Varoom! Varoom!
As I turn to the street, I bring my camera to my eye. A Mercedes 600 SL is hovering just twenty feet away, convertible top down, driver sporting full head of air-blown hair.
Varoom! Varoom!
Mr. Crane is impatient; the gates are opening too slowly for one so important as himself.
Without thinking I start taking his picture, walking backward along the side of his car. I can smell the oily heat of the engine, the finely painted metal hood baking beneath the sun. Whap!Whap!Whap!Whap! I'm out in the street now, taking three-quarter back views, and although the gates are now fully open, Mr. Crane is not driving in, rather he is turning in his seat giving me the eye as I move around the back of his vehicle, through the cloud of its exhaust, and approach him again from the driver's side.
Whap!Whap!Whap!Whap!
This is fun! Reveling in my outrageous conduct, I feel the same surge as when I throw down an attacker in aikido class.
"Excuse me! Miss!" Finally the chicken hawk squawks! He whips off his dark glasses, perhaps expecting me to do the same. I disappoint him. Then I'm surprised. He's beaming, showing me the face of a bon vivant.
"Ah, sorry paparazzo at work! Or should I say 'paparazza'?" He grins.
"You got it!" I stick my camera in for a close-up. Whap! I notice faint adolescent acne scars on his cheeks.
"Why me?" His voice is calm, polite.
"Why not you, Mr. Crane?"
He nods, amused, guns his engine. Varoom!Varoom! Then he tilts his head to expose his profile. He's preening for me! I can't believe it.
"My best side," he says, grinning again.
"Thanks. I need good clear shots."
"I had no idea people find me so handsome."
I'm impressed by his sangfroid. This, I realize, is one slick dude. I lower my Contax, peer directly into his eyes. "The ones I took on Polk weren't all that clear. And of course you weren't wearing that pretty wig."
He holds the grin; then, for a second, the mask starts to crack. A glimmer of confusion, perhaps humiliation. Does he wonder who I am? A blackmailer out to expose his secret life?
Whap! I take a final shot, then step back. That'll be the good one if I caught him right. He studies me, then blinks, as if etching my features on his memory. Varoom!Varoom! The car lurches into the safe interior courtyard of his manse, leaving black skid marks on the pavement at my feet.
In the echoing lobby of the Hall of Justice I pick up the envelope Shanley has left for me at the reception desk. No note inside, just the key to Tim's studio. From there it's not much of a walk to his building on Mission.
I feel sad as I mount the steps. The cat-piss and roach-spray smells are the same. This time an aria from Tosca wafts sensuously down the stairwell from an upper floor.
On the landing I look around. The fire extinguisher is in place. As my eyes rise to the molding above, I consider leaping up to see if there's anything there. Quickly I dismiss the idea. I'm too short, and besides, I already had Crawf fetch Tim's spare key, the one I later gave to Shanley, the one I'm now holding in my hand.
There's police tape on the door. I cut it neatly, using the edge of the key, let myself in, softly close the door behind. From Hilly's description, I'm expecting a mess. But that's not what I find. Yes, the room looks different, the floor is covered with loose down from Tim's slit-up sleeping bag, the stuffing of his futon is strewn about. But his clothing and possessions have not been randomly tossed. Rather I detect a certain rigor in their arrangement—underwear in one pile, jeans in another, sweaters in a third. There's something about this sorting that touches and confuses me, something caring, perhaps even loving, I think.
I go to the kitchen, search beneath the sink, find a box of garbage bags, tote several back to the living room and start cleaning up. I throw in the torn futon and bedroll, the perishable food in the refrigerator and all the stuff in the bath—toothbrush, razor, shampoo. When I'm done with that I pitch Tim's clothes into two large nylon duffel bags and a backpack I find on the closet shelf.
Back out on the landing the Tosca recording seems even louder. I haul the garbage bags downstairs, stick them in one of the trash cans in back, discover some discarded cardboard boxes, carry two of them back up. These I fill with Tim's Walkman, shoes, boots, and books. Then I carefully remove my photographs from the wall.
Something's wrong. One of them is missing, the Angel Island shot. Someone, it appears, has carefully removed it. I see marks where the tape previously adhered.
Now everything's packed except the Body Heat poster, kitchen utensils, a couple of plates, glasses, a frying pan and the paltry furnishings. Since these items have little value, I decide to leave them for the next tenant. I haul the duffels, backpack, and boxes out to the landing, and prepare to relock the door.
I hesitate. I know the cops have searched the studio; I also know they're pros. But still . . . I look up at the molding again.
I go back inside, take Tim's wobbly desk chair, place it against the wall, climb onto it, start running my fingers around the molding that rings the room. This exercise takes a while; after each sweep of my hand I step down, move the chair a few feet, then step up again. I'm about to give it up when my fingers brush against something metallic. I stand on tiptoe, reach up, bring the object down. A key. To what? It's far too big for Tim's box at Mail From Home, it's clearly not a bank safety-deposit-box key and it doesn't match the key to his room. But interestingly, it's the same size and make. I pocket it and leave.
This time no music in the stairwell as I carry the duffels and boxes down. I hear a door open on an upper floor, then shut after a few seconds as if the person changed his/ her mind about going out. It takes me three trips to get everything down to the front hall. I leave the stuff there while I go out to find a phone.
The Tool Box is a gloomy bar. A couple of guys in black T-shirts are playing pool. They and the bartender, a bear in tank top sporting grotesque tattoos, glance up when I walk in. Determining my gender, they smile to hide their disappointment.
I use the pay phone by the lav to call for a taxi, then start back toward the tenement. A few steps out of The Tool Box I freeze. At the end of the block a person is turning the corner. For an instant I'm certain it's Tim. The hair, bearing, walk, seem the same . . . yet something too, I know, is wrong. Perhaps it's his height, I think, as I rush up to Grace Street to check. Turning the corner myself, I'm suddenly blinded; the late-afternoon sun slams into my eyes. I blink, turn, examine the afterimage before it fades. It's not Tim, it's someone shorter, but then of course it has to be since Tim is dead. I recall how, in the months after my mother's death, I occasionally thought I saw her on the street. It took me a while to understand that I made this mistake because I wanted to see her so very much.
Waiting for my taxi I think about afterimages, a byproduct of achromatopsia. Since they're a coping mechanism, achromats who wear shades from an early age generally don't experience them.
What happens, according to studies I've read, is that very bright light immediately saturates my rods, but the moment I close my eyes the light level fades to a point where my retinas are able to pick up and retain an image of what I "saw." The emergence of an afterimage is similar to the emergence of a photographic image on a sheet of exposed paper when placed in developer. But unlike the photographic variety, an afterimage is transitory, lasting only a few seconds, just long enough for me to examine and identify people or objects invisible when I try to see them with open eyes.
When my cab arrives, I load everything in, drive to my building, haul the duffels and boxes into the elevator. I have little storage space in my apartment but Tim's possessions are so meager I find room for them in the back of a closet.
I phone Tim's landlord, Murray Paulus, tell him I've cleaned out the studio, that he's free now to rerent it. When he mutters something about not being given the customary thirty days' notice, I point out that homicide victims generally don't know their fates in advance.
Paulus is caught short. "Hadn't thought of that," he says. "Guess you're right. Kinda different when the tenant's mortally sick." His voice brightens. "I got a deposit, so the hell with it!" He hangs up.
Lord praise you, Mr. Paulus!
Attorney J. F. Judd is not so kind. He still wants his $1,250.
"Tim died penniless," I tell him. "You can't get blood out of a stone."
"No, but I can go to small claims court and make trouble for his executrix."
"That's not me," I tell him. "I'm just a friend. He didn't leave a will."
"Intestate and no assets—I've heard that one. Still, someone's gotta pay. I don't work for nothing, not when it's cleaning up after someone's dirty deeds."
"Just what dirty deed did Tim do?" I ask.
"Took money from an undercover vice cop. The guy hired him to take a blow job."
"How'd you get him off?"
"Entrapment pure and simple."
"Well, Mr. Judd," I tell him without much regret, "seems this time you're going to have to eat your fee."
A little after six I phone Hilly at home.
"Hi ya," she says cheerily. "I was going to call you tonight. I got goodies!"
"Great!"
"Not the stuff on your dad—that's going to take a while. But I got a complete set of crime scene photos. Not bad, huh?"
I'm impressed. I really wanted those pictures.
"What can I do for you?" I ask.
In the short silence that follows, I imagine the gears meshing within her brain.
"I know a little about you, Kay."
"Such as?"
"Such as . . . you used to work for that free rag, Bay Area News."
"That's right. Years ago. I was staff photographer."
"Still connected there?"
"What's on your mind?"
Another pause, more grinding of the gears. When she speaks again, her voice is a purr.
"I want a reporter I can trust, someone ambitious, who'll protect me as a source. I want someone, preferably female, who wants to win the fuckin' Pulitzer prize. I want—"
"I know exactly what you want, Hilly. You want what Shanley's got, a reporter in your pocket."
"You're smart, Kay. You got me figured. So—do you know someone fits the bill?"
"Actually I do. It's a 'he.' Joel Glickman. You won't find better. And he's already got a Pulitzer."
I hear the sharp, sudden intake of her breath. "Wow! Can you introduce me?"
"Maybe," I say coolly. "I'll lay the groundwork. Meanwhile see what you can turn up on my dad."
The sky's inky now, moonlight touches the roofs. I peer out my window and fiercely resolve I will never stare out and see, as so many do here, a thousand points of. . .slight.
I feel jumpy, don't know why. Perhaps I'm still spooked by that apparition on the street. Also, I feel lonely, wish I were sitting someplace busy with a group of friends, a restaurant or bar full of young people drinking, talking, laughing. I miss that kind of fun—which I used to have so often in my twenties. What I miss most, of course, is a lover, someone to hold me and to hold, to hug and lick and kiss. Wistfully I look across the valley. Then I pull on sneakers, grab my Contax and go out.
The night air is warm, surprising in November. A TV weatherperson says we're enjoying Indian summer. The trees cast sensual velvety lunar shadows on the sidewalk.
The Hyde Street cable rumbles steadily beneath the street. I cross Hyde, pause at the corner, trying to decide which way to go. Down the eastern slope into North Beach, where I can lose myself in the joyful anonymous crowds, or down the western side to the Gulch to walk among the wounded and dispossessed?
Tonight it will be the Gulch. But why I am drawn to haunt that street of damnation is a mystery I cannot solve.
I pass the Alice Marble Tennis Courts. The surrounding high steel fence cuts the moonlight into squares. I hear a dog wail in the distance. Looking to the Bay, I see a great cruise ship, decks and portholes lit, slipping between Hyde Street Pier and Alcatraz.
Walking on the gravel alley between the trees and benches of Sterling Park, I hear the snapping of a branch. I pause, listen. "Bug . . ."
A thick voice moans my street name.
I turn. Just then someone leaps at me from the shrubbery, pushing me so hard I reel into the trunk of a tree. Another, perhaps the one who called to me, straight-arms my shoulder. I fall. Then they are upon me, three of them I think, three silent males dressed in black, two turning me onto my stomach, holding me down, grinding my face into the dirt, while the third climbs onto my back, pulls some kind of fabric sack over my head, then starts beating at the sides of my face with his fists.
I hear their breathing, sense their gloat, smell their excitement, their bodies, their foul breaths. My camera is trapped beneath me. The metal bites into my breast. I squirm and scream. The fists rain on my ears and cheeks. The gravel of the walkway crushes against my mouth. I taste blood. The beating doesn't last long, perhaps fifteen or twenty seconds, but to me it seems an eternity.
They get off me. One of them kicks me. The point of his sneaker catches my flank. "Nosy fuckin' bitch!" I squirm to protect myself. "Hurt the bitch, make her howl," orders the thick voice that called to me before. Another kick. I try to howl but can't. The breath's been knocked out of me. I gasp for air.
Then they are on me again, turning me onto my back. I try to look at them but, head bagged, can see nothing through the cloth.
One of them grasps at my camera, rips it away. Then they run off down the path. I roll and shake and cry. Tearing the bag off my head, a pillowcase, I hear the pat-pat-pat of their receding steps. Silence. I growl, hug myself, snort out my pain. "Help! Help me!" I cry, but I don't recognize my voice.
He is holding me, a young man, carefully wiping the dirt and blood from my face with a moist cloth. He sits on a park bench; I lie on it with my head in his lap. I look at him and know immediately who he is: the strange homeless youth with the long hair and beard who has been living in the park for months.
"Hospital," I whisper. My throat is raw.
His huge eyes stare into mine. Perhaps he doesn't understand.
"Get me to . . . hospital," I whisper again. There's dirt in my mouth. I choke, then try to spit it out.
"Police."
Fear in his eyes as he shakes his head.
"Doctor." He nods. "Hospital." He shrugs. "St. Francis. Hyde Street. Close."
Then I pass out.
The handsome black-haired resident standing above me smiles down, the ironic smile of a cynic. There's no pity in his face but lots of curiosity. I'm a case. He's had me X-rayed and scanned. He's seen my insides. His skin is dark, his eyes liquid, lustrous.
"They sure did a job on you," he says. He speaks with the accent of an Oxford don.
I peer about. The E.R. walls are white. Medical equipment gleams. The gurney I'm on is narrow and hard. Phones ring. Nurses stride briskly past. Every so often I hear soft chimes followed by softly uttered cryptic announcements on the hospital P.A.
I look back up at the resident. He is Indian. A stethoscope is nicely draped about his neck. I read his name off the little bar pinned to his white coat: Dr. C. Patel. "They call me Sasha," he says. Sasha Patel. Nice name, multicultural. I smile. He smiles. He likes me. He tells me I'll be fine.
"Two black eyes, cut and swollen ears and cheeks, contusions, abrasions, two ribs very tender but not quite cracked. They're going to hurt, those ribs. I wouldn't laugh too much if I were you. Try not to cough either. Better still, don't yawn. You're on morphine now. The Tylox I'll give you may cause a headache. I don't think there's a concussion, but if you feel dizzy or strange, come back right away. Understand?"
"You're not keeping me?"
He smiles, shakes his head. "I'm sending you home."
"How did I get here?"
"By taxi. The driver told the nurse some bum bundled you in."
"That bum, as you call him, cleaned me up. He saved my ass."
"No," Dr. Patel says, taking my hand. "I cleaned you, I saved your ass."
I look up at him. I wouldn't mind kissing him. The most I can offer now is a grin.
"See, that didn't hurt so much." He turns serious. "'Who did this to you?"
"Three men."
"Not a spouse?"
"I don't have a spouse."
"What did they want?"
"My camera."
He's a skeptic, Dr. Patel is. "A beating like this just for that?"
"Well, it was a very fine camera," I tell him, "'and I think there was something else."
"What?"
"A message, a warning—to stay away."
"Good God! Why not send a letter?"
"A beating's more emphatic, I think."
He raises his eyebrows. He's an ironist, I can tell. He's also solicitous. The hospital, he informs me, must report the incident to the cops. He plies me with painkillers, three kinds, two for fallback in case the side effects of the Tylox are too severe. He tells me I have a good supple body which helped prevent more serious injuries. He tells me I'll feel pain for a few days, but that the more I move about, the better. Finally he asks me for a date on one of his evenings off. I gently decline. The nurse who escorts me to a cab tells me Dr. Patel is a ladies' man. "And we love him for it," she adds, "this town being . . . well, you know how it is."
Back in the sweet cocoon I call home, I take my sore body to bed. I'm lucky. Bones could have been broken, I could have been raped and sodomized. And that may yet happen, I think, for I have no intention of heeding such a tastelessly delivered message. From this point I shall be on guard; I shall not be taken again by surprise. My greatest concern is my camera. I have several spares but my Contax and I were as one. Well, you win a few, lose a few, better to lose a camera than to end up in traction. Perhaps one day soon I'll buy myself a new one. Till then I'll manage with what I've got.
It takes me four full days to recuperate, and even then, in the mirror my face looks like shit. Like a boxer's after a brutal fight, I think, but of course I wasn't in a boxing match. I was attacked from behind.
I go out a couple of times, slowly walk a block, then return home. The rest of the time I spend in the darkroom, or on the phone, or despairing over my soreness and marveling over my luck.
What, I ask myself, is the worst thing that could happen to me short of premature death? The answer's simple: to lose my vision. Without my eyes, defective though they are, my life would be an empty torment.
My snaps of Marcus Crane are great. I'm thrilled I took the time to unload the roll; better to have lost my camera than these precious images. It's the full sequence that makes them work, me and my camera circling him while he twists to keep me in view, at first unperturbed, debonair, finally breaking as he understands I'm a threat. This, for me, is the beauty of black-and-white vision and photography—the way it can distill the essence of an individual, cut through the mask, reveal the person's core. I see much evil in my final image of Marcus Crane. I shall print the entire sequence in Exposures: "Cornered Chicken Hawk."
Was it Crane who had me beaten? I think so, though it could also have been Knob acting on his own. Anyhow, I know Crane and Knob are pals, that Knob brokers Crane's chicken dinners. I also know Knob hates me, and I'm almost certain he was the one who called out "Bug. . ." to make me turn. Later, instructing the others to "hurt the bitch, make her howl," Knob's particular intonation came through. Yes, it was his show, perhaps just payback for dumping him in front of his boys. If Crane was involved it was strictly as paymaster. If so, I think, he probably wasn't Tim's killer, since in that event, he'd most likely have ordered me killed.
David deGeoffroy is due in tomorrow. We're to meet at his hotel. Sullivan's has everything arranged for a Friday scattering of the ashes. It's up to me to get some of Tim's friends to come along.
Before I do that, however, there's someone I want to find, the strange boy who lives in Sterling Park. Walking with trepidation into the Greenwich Street cul-de-sac, I start searching for the place where I was mauled.
It isn't hard to find. The alley of trees is gorgeous as ever, the gravel has been freshly raked, the resin aroma of Monterey pine perfumes the warm autumn air.
I caress the side of the tree against which I was thrown, then kneel in the dirt. How miserable I was, yet exhilarated too, all my senses alert. During those painful seconds, I believe, my thought processes went dead. It was pure feeling that suffused me: helplessness and terror.
Carefully I lie down in the position in which I was held, then twist and turn allowing the sensations to flow back. I feel weird doing this, but believe it's necessary for my recovery. When I stand up again, I feel purged. Nietzsche, I believe, had it right: what does not kill me can only make me stronger.
The youth is standing before me now, not twenty feet away. He has appeared silently out of the shrubbery. He stands still as a statue, his beard so wild it hangs down like a tangle of vines. His huge eyes meet mine, not sharply, but in wonderment. He sends me a signal that he has come in peace but that he will feel more comfortable if I don't approach.
"Hi," I say shyly.
He nods. From our last meeting I know he's not exactly talkative.
"I came here to find you—to thank you," I tell him. "You took good care of me. Thanks for putting me in that cab."
"You were asleep," he says, voice sonorous. I smile; these are the first words I've heard him speak.
"I guess I passed out. You were kind to me. I live close by. I've seen you many times."
He nods again, as if to say he has seen me too. I wonder: Has he observed me standing naked in my bedroom window at night staring out at the Golden Gate?
"Can I bring you something? Food?" He shakes his head. "Drink?" Again he declines. I was wrong about him; I thought he'd ask for whiskey. "Are you sure? Nothing at all?"
He smiles again, sweetly shakes his head, then withdraws back into the shrubbery like a ghost.
At nine p.m. I prepare to go out. My ribs are still sore, my cheekbones are still bruised, my eyes are still black, but I don't put on makeup to cover my marks. I also make a point of carrying a camera, the old Nikon Dad gave me when I first took up photography. I want this trek up the Gulch to be a statement.
I cheat a little, take the bus as far as Sacramento Street. Since walking's still painful, there's no point in strutting if no one's around. Dismounting, I peer about. I don't see anyone I know . . . which is fine since I felt less than stylish stepping off the bus.
On the next corner, California, I run into Slick and Remo. They look closely at me, but don't say anything about my bruises. Still, it's clear they've heard what happened. News has spread by Gulch telegraph. Now word will spread that Bug is back, undaunted by her ordeal ... with a different camera too, a big black one, twice as big as the old one.
Soon others surround me: Doreen and Alyson, Scott, Silky, Fizz, Toad and Wrench. I tell them about the scattering of Tim's ashes, invite them all to come along. They nod but I doubt any of them will show. It's one thing to regret the murder of a friend, another to engage in public mourning.
"Where's Knob?"' I ask innocently, looking around. Eyes are lowered. Slick says he saw him in The Werewolf.
"Well, remember," I announce, "I'm still working on my book. So you'll still be seeing me around."
"You're always welcome here, Bug," Doreen says.
A chorus of approving nods. Heart thoroughly warmed, I thank them and continue on my way.
Outside The Werewolf, I question my sanity. Yes, I want to show these people class, but I've been injured and am in no condition for a fight. I don't think Knob will pick one in public, but I can't be sure. Still, I know, I must complete my mission, so I straighten up and shoulder my way inside.
The Werewolf's a shadowy place, far more frightening to me than The Tool Box. Combination meat rack, gay bar, piss stop for the street, it's a place to trash out, choose a piece of chicken, or just shoot up in the toilets. There're females in here, some of indeterminate genitalia, preops, postops, a few girls looking to become boys. This is also a place where elegant pervs and goths come on weekends to slum.
I push my way through the crowd. Brushing against people does no wonders for my bruised ribs. Trying not to wince, I put on a stoic face. I spot Knob over by the wall, hanging out with the acolytes who witnessed his humiliation at my hands. Did they join him in the ambush? If so, are they proud to have gone three-on-one against a woman?
"Knob."
"Bug."
Our greetings are strained. I nod slightly to the acolytes. They smirk.
"Been looking for you, Knob."
"Here I am."
"We're going to have a little ceremony for Tim. Thought maybe you'd like to show, being one of the leaders on the Gulch."
Knob grins, then guffaws. The acolytes follow suit. Yet the eyes of all three appear uneasy; they don't know what to make of me, what I intend.
An unctuous grin. "Looks like someone roughed you, Bug."
"Yeah, someone tried to, three of them in fact. Jumped me from behind. Brave boys, very brave."
"Too bad." He lowers his eyes to my Nikon. "Camera's not so nice. Lost the other one, did you?"
I meet his eyes. "It's s not the camera that's important, Knob. It's the film inside. You know—the evidence." I raise Dad's Nikon, trip the shutter. Whap! Knob is stunned. Whap!Whap!Whap! Finally the steely eyes blink before my gaze.
Enough! I tell myself. Cut it off.
And so I do, turning my back, casually shouldering my way out through the smoke to the street. I leave high-pitched squeals of laughter behind, but I don't think they're directed at me.