Only four of us attend the scattering of Tim's ashes, Doreen and Alyson in full drag, David deGeoffroy and myself. It's a sour morning, the sea fog hangs like a canopy above the Bay. Once through the Golden Gate and in open sea the water turns rough, we shiver beneath the metallic sky, the boat isn't large, we're all uncomfortable and Alyson looks as if she'll maybe puke.
We do the job quickly, David holding out the urn, allowing the ashes to be caught by the wind . . . which blows them north toward the Marin headlands. Chrysopylae was the original name given to these straits in 1846, Greek for "Golden Gate," an attempt to mirror Chrysoceras or Golden Horn, the Byzantine name for the harbor of Constantinople. Chrysopylae: I love the sound of that word, mutter it several times to myself as the ashes spin into the air. Once they're gone, we return to San Francisco, David pays off the captain, we find a cab at the wharf, drop the girls at the Hampshire Arms, then drive on to my building on Russian Hill.
The purpose is for David to pick up Tim's belongings, but upstairs he looks so sad I play good hostess and offer him a glass of Chardonnay.
"Beautiful place you got here, Kay," he says, despite the fact that fog obscures the views. "And I like your black and white decor. Austere." He peers at me. "A bit like you."
I haul out Tim's stuff. We sit on the floor and sort through it. David smiles at the clothes. "Hard to imagine him so tall." He holds up Tim's Walkman. "I wonder—is this the one I bought him in Japan?"
There's something maudlin about him today. The dandified clothing's the same, but the manner is not. He's moody, disturbed. The mawkishness, I decide, is a cover-up.
Casually I pick up my camera, start taking pictures. David performs for me, makes a few faces, then, giving up control, resumes his examination of Tim's things. He thinks, quite wrongly, that I'll stop. He can't imagine I'd want to continue photographing him unposed. How poorly he understands. I want to find the vulnerable person hiding behind the double subterfuge, the imperious magician and the grief-stricken "uncle." I want the truth.
"Quite the little shutterbug, aren't we, dear?" he enunciates in a brittle, irritated tone. Then, when I make no motion to stop: "Click-click-click! You know, dear, it does get boring after a while."
I pause. He looks up at me. Whap!Whap!
"Will you please fucking stop it!"
"I won't," I tell him. "This is how I see."
He spreads his arms, relents. "Sorry, Kay. Just edgy today, I guess."
"Not because of Tim. You've known for a week he's dead. There's something else. What?"
"It's her," he says. "She's nearby. I feel it."
"Ariane?"
He nods.
"They could have split up. He never told me about her, didn't mention her to you in his note."
He looks at the array of possessions. "Something missing here. Where's his passport, his address book?" David's right.
"Maybe the cops have it. I'll check."
He listens as I call Shanley. After I shrug and hang up, he shakes his head. "I still think she's around."
"For all you know, she's married with kids in Kalamazoo. Or beating the bushes as an itinerant magician."
"She's definitely not doing professional magic. That I've already checked."
I study him as he sits on my floor surrounded by Tim's jeans, shirts, boots. "She was the one you loved," I say.
"I loved them both."
"But her most." I take another shot. Whap! "There's more to it, isn't there?"
He lowers his eyes. He can't bring himself to confess.
"They didn't just up and leave because you were sending them off to school. Did they, David? There was something else."
He stands. He wants to leave. I've no intention of letting him go. If there's more, I mean to find out what it is.
"Better tell me, David. You'll feel a lot better if you do."
He sits down again amidst the scattered clothing. "Please, no more pictures," he begs.
I set down my camera. He's silent. I sit beside him, prepared to listen.
"Yes, I loved her," he admits. "Very much. I—" He shakes his head. "She felt my desire. She was so powerful, seductive. She came on to me. I couldn't resist." He pauses. "I'm still ashamed."
"How long did this go on?"
"Couple of months. We started just before the end."
"Did Tim know?"
"Probably. They confided everything. Also, they planned their escape so well. The stealing, fraud—later when I learned the dates, I realized they started on it shortly after she and I—" He shuts his eyes. "They probably figured that gave them the right, and . . . well . . . maybe it did. I never brought charges. It never occurred to me. I thought I'd wait them out, be patient, and sooner or later they'd come back. I made it easy for them, returned to New York, opened a mail-order magic house, took out ads in all the magic journals and magazines. A couple of years ago I started running a personal ad: 'Info Wanted on Zamantha Illusion.' I figured since magic was in their blood, eventually they'd see it, then they'd call or write. And so finally Tim did. Too late. He never got my reply."
David interpreted Tim's note as a test to determine if David was searching for them to get his money back. They had to know that much before they risked a call. And Tim, being less emotionally involved, was the logical one to make the overture. The bland tone of his note was effective and sly.
"'Working as a waiter, trying to make ends meet'—his way of telling me the money was long gone and he was working at an honest job. The hundred dollars I sent back was my way of telling him money wouldn't be an issue. I figured we'd write back and forth for a time, send each other these kinds of messages. Eventually, I hoped, he'd trust me enough to call. Then, perhaps, he'd allow me to see him, see them both."
He shrugs, not, I understand, to dismiss the possibility, but the way a man might shrug when a great opportunity has been lost.
"She's here. I'm certain. She may have seen us yesterday while we walked."
"If that's true why didn't she contact the cops, take responsibility for his body?"
Again David shrugs, turns his palms to the ceiling. "I just don't know," he says.
He takes only Tim's Walkman, leaves the rest of the stuff with me to give away. After he goes, to check out of his hotel and catch his plane, I ask myself why I didn't tell him that Tim had spoken to me about a girl he knew, whom, for reasons never explained, I would very much want to photograph. Or the apparition I saw near the corner of Mission and Grace the day I cleaned out his studio. Or the mysterious person who entered with a key and tossed the studio between Crawf's and my visit and Shanley's. Or the fifty thousand dollars Tim claimed he'd saved. Or about Tim's dream of retiring to San Miguel de Allende—since the postcard from the twins had been mailed from Mexico City.
Why did I deprive him of so many clues which might have given him hope? Should I call him tomorrow, confide? Having been so candid with me, hasn't he earned my confidence?
The truth, I decide, is that I still don't trust him, feel there's more to his story, yet another layer he didn't reveal. And, too, I'm out for bigger game than a reunion with a girl whose life David so radically bent. I want to complete Exposures, and to do that I must discover who killed my friend.
The Bay Area News, being an alternative newspaper, is appropriately situated in a cutting-edge neighborhood—on Folsom in SoMa, surrounded by other alternative enterprises: a used record store called Psychosis, an erotic boutique called Marquis de Suede, a dance club called ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms) famous for its orgiastic fetish wear blowouts where the dress code is strictly enforced. There are stores that specialize in furniture of the 1950s, photographers' studios, numerous pubs including the infamous adjoining BoyBar and GirlBar (never the twain shall meet!), and a half-dozen basement and storefront avant-garde theaters.
The News takes up the top floor of a four-story warehouse. There are only two ways up, freight elevator or fire stairs. I take the stairs.
I came to work here straight out of the Art Institute willing to shoot most anything in return for pay. The wages were lousy, barely enough to get me by. I ended up sharing a ratty Edwardian on Cole Street with three News colleagues. But the work was fun, we were young, high-spirited, priding ourselves on breaking stories the mainstream press wouldn't touch. Even more we enjoyed smashing taboos, inserting obscene words into articles, praising alternative rock bands with names like Genitorture, and, for the hell of it, kicking the Establishment in the butt.
Memories flood back as I mount the stairs. The stairwell walls are embellished with graffiti—a scrawled one-liner, Camille Paglia is smarter than Gloria Steinem, an obscene reference to Kierkegaard, a Dykes On Bikes poster adorning the landing. The blended pizza-and-pot aroma is also the same. I remember attacking these stairs with unprocessed film, trying to beat impossible deadlines. "Kay! Get over to the Clift. Mick Jagger's checking out." "Joey! Drive Kay round to the back of the Hall of Justice, we need a shot of the Trailside Killer in manacles."
Most of my old newsroom colleagues have long since moved on. Because the News is the sort of place that burns you out, it's nearly impossible to work here past the age of thirty. But there're a few who've made the paper their home. One is Joel Glickman. He originally came out from Brooklyn for the Summer of Love, lived on the Haight, balled and grooved. He joined the News at its founding years before I arrived, and is still here a dozen after I left. In the meantime he's won a Pulitzer for his exposé of corruption in the city assessor's office. Since then he's received numerous offers, including one to be San Francisco bureau chief for Time. But Joel is happy at the News. Here he can do what he wants. He's even paid a decent middle-class wage, probably the only reporter on the paper who is.
The spiky-haired receptionist peers at me. "How may I help you?" she asks.
"Kay Farrow to see Joel Glickman."
Her squint grows intense. "Is Joel expecting you?"
I nod. In my day they weren't nearly so protective.
Joel's office is a cubicle, but he's got a window. Even if the glass is streaked, that's a sign of status. His desk is piled with papers, his walls covered with old cartoons. His Pulitzer certificate, cheaply framed, hangs cockeyed to show how little he expects you to be impressed. Joel, now balding, drooping mustache and goatee tinged with gray, beams up at me through what look to be the same steel-frame grannies he was wearing when we met.
"Hey, kiddo! You look great!"
I pull off my shades, flaunt my shiners. "Little beaten-up, that's all."
His forehead furrows. "Serious?"
"Not as bad as it looks."
I tell him I was jumped, and that the reason's probably connected to the purpose of my visit.
"So what's the reason, kiddo?"
I shrug the question off. "Still got good sources in the cops?"
"A few," he says. "Most are afraid to talk to me."
"Afraid you won't protect them?"
He smiles. "They figure I'm being watched."
"Are you, Joel?"
He laughs. "Imagine how much it would cost and how paltry the pickings?"
He's right. It would be exceedingly unprofitable, not to mention illegal, to keep Joel under permanent surveillance.
"I may have a new cop source for you," I tell him. "She's working on something hot and ready to leak."
"Interesting. What does she want?"
"Her name in lights—when it's over."
"Corruption?" Joel licks his lips.
"No, so don't salivate. But it's a good story. I'm working on it myself."
We go around the corner to the Transcendental Cafe, where, in my youth, I wasted more hours than I like to recall. The walls here have been laboriously papered with old tarot cards. The resident swami sits at the window table staring goggle-eyed into his crystal ball.
We order herbal tea, then I tell Joel my story. I leave out the background stuff I got from David, but am frank about my own interest and Dad's involvement in the old T case.
"I remember Torsos," he says when I finish. "Particularly that wacko inspector, what's-his-name, Hale—the one wrote all those lovely letters of self-praise. City's 'Top Cop' they called him. But there was something rotten in the cotton."
Joel's smart. He knows there's more to the equation.
"Okay, you're setting me up with Hilly. So tell me, kiddo—what do you get out of all of this?"
"She's getting me some information out of police files."
"That's illegal." I nod. "She must want this bad."
"She does. Because she's a woman, because she's a lesbian, and because the guy she works with treats her like shit. Her partner's got his own reporter, by the way."
"Who?"
"Lubow at the Examiner."
"Good man."
"But no Joel Glickman."
"No." Joel grins. "Surely not." He studies me. His eyes grow serious. He turns slightly so the light glints off his grannies. "This information—it wouldn't be personnel information, would it?" I nod. "About your dad?" I nod again. "Want to tell me more?"
I hesitate . . . then decide to spill. Joel, after all, is like family. "Remember, years ago, I told you how my mom shot herself?" He nods. "That was the same year Dad took abuse for the lost T case evidence. I have this feeling there's a connection there."
"Fine, suppose there is—why go back to all that pain?"
"I've got to know where I came from, Joel."
He measures me, nods. "Just wanted to see how much you care."
He says he thinks the story's worth pursuing whether it connects to the original T case or not.
"Just the idea," Joel says, "that there's this kid living that way up on Polk Gulch, then he gets killed and nobody cares, and there're forty, fifty other kids doing the same thing, taking the same risk—that's important in itself. I also like the subplot, that there're all these closeted rich guys—lawyers, stockbrokers, whatever—who swoop down in their cars from Pacific Heights and Marin basically to plunder young bodies." He nods. "Yeah, I like it a lot."
We agree to divide it up—he'll pursue it as an investigative piece for the News while I'll make it the subject of my book. Meantime we'll pool our information, credit one another in our respective work, and I'll supply Gulch photographs for his piece.
He thinks my calling Hilly at home is a mistake.
"Once I start asking indelicate questions around the Hall of Justice, the big shots'll figure there's a leak. Hilly'll be suspect. They'll start watching her, maybe even tap her phone."
"Aren't you being a little paranoid, Joel?"
He shakes his head. "Uh-uh, kiddo. I've been through this too many times. People who blow whistles tend to get burned. We need a contact code, for her protection as well as ours."
When he describes what he has in mind the intrigue excites me: calls from phone booths, alternate safe meeting places designated A and B; chalk marks on a mailbox in the Castro when we want to meet with Hilly or she with us.
"I also want you to buy a micro tape recorder. From now on, tape all important conversations. In a story like this there're always disputes. If you can produce a tape, ninety percent of the time you're off the hook."
"I'm glad I brought this to you," I tell him. "I feel like I've been floundering."
"I'm glad you brought it to me too," he says. "Just like old times, kiddo, right?"
I walk him back to his office. He shows me pictures of his new live-in love, Kirstin, the Scandinavian Ice Goddess, showing off in a bikini on Stinson Beach. Also photos of his daughters, one enrolled in a post grad marine biology program at Scripps, the other majoring in English lit at Cal.
Joel, I suddenly realize, is nearly fifty years old. Before I leave I photograph him at his desk, the mishung Pulitzer above his head. Whap!Whap! Another archetype for my collection: the Intrepid Investigative Journalist.
Sasha Patel is not to be denied, his proprietary interest possibly explained by his having viewed my insides via X-rays and scans, not to mention his hands-on acquaintance with my anatomy. I always thought doctors were detached, that clinical fleshly contacts had no power to arouse. Such, apparently, is not the case. After considerable prodding on the phone, I agree to meet him at the Buena Vista tonight after his shift. But I make it clear this will be a one-off, that I'm not in a dating mode.
I turn up after lunch at Marina Aikido, wary of combat but determined to get a workout. I show Rita my bruises. She agrees I shouldn't spar.
"Just go through the motions today and the rest of the week," she instructs. "Keep it slow. Concentrate on form."
I appreciate that she doesn't ask whether I've been battered by a lover. After class I describe the attack, and how, once on the ground, with my attacker on my back, I was powerless against his fists.
Rita demonstrates some random moves I might have made. "Create a whirlwind," she says. But once thrown, she agrees, I could do little but take the beating. Except, of course, if my legs were free below the knee, in which case I could have kicked back against the base of my attacker's spine.
Right! Why didn't I think of that? But then I remember: there were three of them, the second holding down my legs, the third my arms. In fact, I should never have fallen, and think the only reason I did was out of fear of damage to my camera . . . which they took anyway.
"Next time don't try and protect it," Rita advises. "Use it as a weapon, a ball and chain. Merge with it. Let your energy flow into it. Remember, Kay, a camera can be replaced." She lightly touches a bruise on my cheek. "Shattered bones take time to mend."
Walking home, on Union Street, I'm attracted by a poster in the window of a children's bookstore. RAINBOWS! it proclaims, and then: COLOR!COLOR!COLOR! Numerous books for kids are on display, all having the word "color" in their titles. Colors; Naming Colors; Know the Colors; Colors Everywhere . . .
I study the window for a time, then enter the store. A friendly smile from the proprietress. I pick up one of the color books, leaf through. There are photographs of farm animals and swatches in the margins, which I assume match the colors of the animals.
A second book contains plastic overlays enabling a child to create secondary colors by mixing primaries. Familiar words leap from the pages: "yellow," "magenta," "cyan" . . . all Greek to me.
A third book also bears color swatches, along with exotic words: plum, mint, crimson, poppy, absinthe, azure, robin's-egg blue, aquamarine. The names of the colors dazzle me: hyacinth, lilac, quince, saffron. I savor the sounds: salmon, indigo, mocha, flax, ocher, Pompeian red, burnt sienna.
There's a vast world here of which I have no optical knowledge. But I can dream, extrapolate, for there are words listed for the shades I do know and see. The whites, for instance, composed of all other colors: antimony, bismuth, oyster, ivory, zinc, Dutch, Chinese. The grays: charcoal, dove, gunmetal, mouse, pearl, plumbago. And, my favorites, the blacks or achromatics: bone, aniline, ink, japan, raven, soot, and slate.
So yes, I decide, though there is an unknown universe here, there is also one I can distinguish quite well. The spectrum I know, the one of tones light and dark, is to me exquisite. I may not see the rainbow or know autumnal colors, but let no one say I cannot revel in the beauties of the world.
Hilly loves Joel's contact code: "Secret codes, secret rings—brings back my tomboy days."
We're sitting in a corner of The Duchess. Hilly's idea; she figures no cop will follow her into a dyke bar. It's smoky and noisy, but this time I don't mind. Now that we're acquainted there's no special need for quiet.
"In my family," she reminds me, "I was the only girl, born between two boys. My brothers were my buddies. We'd fight and scrap. Now one's a T-man, one's a G-man and I'm a city dick. So see, Kay, the contest still goes on. I wanna zoom past them. I wanna be family champ."
There's a special pungency in the air here, women oozing desire. I notice Hilly twitching. This hothouse atmosphere turns her on.
"Check her out." She gestures toward a short-haired brunette standing at the bar. Her biceps are ringed by a coiled snake tattoo, her midriff is bare, she wears nothing but clingy Lycra shorts and a black leather halter bra. ''Hot, huh!''
I shrug.
"Gimme a break, Kay! Girl goes to the trouble of making herself yummy like that, you can't just not respond."
I shrug again. "What can I do, Hilly? I'm just a vanilla square."
"Hey, the culture's queer! Get with it, babe!"
"Yeah . . . now about that stuff you brought me."
She nods, unfurls her copy of the Bay Area News, extracts a sheaf of photocopy paper. "I couldn't get your dad's personnel file. That's held too close. And since he's retired it's over in dead records anyway, which means it's basically in a vault." She taps the papers. "What I do have is the confidential I.A.D. report on the Sipple fiasco—Waincroft, Hayes, Puccio, Vasquez and, of course, your pop."
I hold out my hand. She passes the bundle.
"Not pretty reading, Kay."
"Life's not pretty either." I thank her, tell her to expect a call from Joel. "You'll like him," I tell her. "He's a '67-vintage hippie turned serious."
She grins. "Sure you don't wanna stay, meet some of my buds?"
"Thanks anyway, Hilly, but I've got a date with a man."
"Ouch!" she says. And then, an afterthought: "Woof!"
The Buena Vista is one of my favorite drinking holes, even if it's too often thronged with tourists. Something about the joint at the bottom of Hyde and Beach, where the Hyde Street cable car ends, that brings back happy memories of Art Institute days, meeting friends here on Sunday mornings, throwing back Irish coffees while arguing about sex and art. I like the neon sign outside, the way the letters are formed, the long bar with its tiled base, the bottles arrayed before the long beveled mirror. I like the ceiling fans and the earthy waitresses and the handsome bartender dressed in crisp white mess jacket. Best of all I like the alcoholic coffee.
Sasha is waiting for me, occupying a round wood table by the window. I haven't seen him since the night he took care of me at St. Francis Memorial, when I was morphined up.
Checking him out, I decide he still looks good, with his dark skin, brilliant black hair and large lustrous liquid eyes. A ladies' man, the nurses called him. It's pretty obvious why. It's his alluring smile, so charming and seductive. Also, I assume, so false.
"You're looking good, Kay," he comments as I sit down. He reaches over, removes my shades, peers at the bruises around my eyes. He touches one lightly.
"What do you want me to do next?" I ask. "Open my mouth and say 'Aaahhh'?"
"Not unless you're prepared to strip to the waist," he warns. "I want to check your rib cage." Again he touches me. "Tender?"
"A little."
He grins. "I'll be tender too."
Quite the jocular fellow is Dr. C. Patel, though I must say I like his accent.
"You talk like a Brit. How come?"
"Because I am," he says. "Born and raised over there. My parents came from India, but I'm a British subject ... though most true-blue Brits consider me a wog."
"What's that?"
"A person of color. What you Americans call a nigger. Or 'one of our little brown brothers' when you want to show how sensitive you are."
"Are you bitter, Sasha?"
"Actually, no. I love it here. Home of the Free, Land of the Brave. I especially like American women." He shows me a grin so charming it could light the world. "And of course, you Yanks have the best medical practice in the world."
I find it difficult not to like him. He's polished, smart, has a fast mouth . . . and always those gorgeous liquid eyes toward which any girl in her right mind would crawl through splintered glass.
"Tell me something," he says suddenly. "Who is Kay Farrow?"
I laugh. "My life story?"
"A few high points will do."
I offer him a few high points. While I do he gazes into my eyes as if smitten by every word.
"Enough about me," I say. "Your turn now. You can start by explaining your interesting first name."
"My actual name's Clarence. They started calling me Sasha in school."
"How come?"
He smiles. "Because I wanted them to. I was reading Russian novels at the time and fell in love with the name. Something moody about it, also romantic." He gazes at me. "Tell me, Kay—do you like to dance?"
"I'm a crummy dancer," I say.
"I'm sure you could improve."
"Under your tutelage?"
"Why not?"
"I think I'll wait until my rib cage heals." I smile at him. "There's something you don't know about me yet."
"Tell me."
"I don't own a single dress."
He laughs. "Jeans girl! Terrific! You do own shorts?"
"Numerous pairs."
"I love shorts and slacks, close-fitting garb." He wets his lips.
"You know, Sasha—I just realized something."
"What's that?"
"We're flirting, both of us. And flirting's against my principles."
"Mercy!" he says.
"This is fun, but I gotta go." I stand. "Please let me pay my share."
"Absolutely not. And I'm very sorry you're leaving—just as we were starting to get on."
I wait while he takes care of the check, then permit him to escort me up the hill. Hyde Street is steep between Bay and Chestnut. By the time we reach the top of crooked Lombard, we're both slightly out of breath.
He makes his move just inside the front alcove of my building. As we kiss, I feel like a college girl getting smooched in the doorway of her dorm. He tastes good. Must be the Irish coffee. Then I hear myself sigh. He presses upon me. I feel his hardness . . . and then myself becoming wet. He presses harder until I'm flat against the granite portal wall, brings his mouth to my ear, licks it, whispers, "I want to make love to you, Kay."
I move my hands so that they embrace his butt, pull him closer. "I'd like that too," I whisper dreamily.
The night passes quickly. Sasha is tender. I relinquish my aggressive manner, lie back, yield, let him fill me, have his way. I'd have thought he'd be a selfish lover. He surprises me. Unlike a prototypal ladies' man, he's caring, solicitous, attentive to my every pleasure and need.
I love his dark silken skin, the fine texture of it, its taste. I ravish him with my mouth, lick him everywhere. Then he licks me and I explode. Sweet explosion!
Always with a new lover I pray that colors will show themselves, little splinters, sparks, showering off the fireworks of my rapture. Tonight they come, not the colors the rest of the world sees so easily, but colors of my imagination, colors of singers, painters, poets: cinnabar, wine-dark vermilion, carnelian, aerugo, chrome primrose, bistre, jonquil, jouvence, piccolopasso, tartrazine, solferino, roccellin. The colors of Veronese, Matisse, Vincent van Gogh (who may have been dyschromatopsic). The colors of the passionate unfurling flower of my labia. The colors of orgasm. The colors of love. All the secret colors of my inner penetrated self . . . for though we are all born color blind, we each have within us the ability to someday see the hues.
He leaves me shortly after three-thirty a.m. He must, he tells me, get back to his room at the hospital, for he is on call beginning at four. After he dresses, he leans over me, then kneels to kiss my breasts.
"Wonderful to be with you, Kay. I hope this isn't going to be a one-off like you said."
I look up at him. "I don't understand you, Sasha. You're Don Juan. One-offs are your stock and trade."
He laughs. "How sorely you've misjudged me!"
"I did have fun," I admit.
"Can I see you again tonight?"
I groan. "Let's wait a couple days. But don't worry, I doubt my ardor will cool."
I awaken late. The sun's burning in. I put on shades, go to the window, wave naked to the goggle-eyed house-painter working on the building across the street. I think of something the artist Willem de Kooning once said: that he dreamed of creating a painting that would contain all the colors of the world. Such too is a dream of mine: to partake of an act of love so vivid with colors I will never afterward miss them in my daily life.
In the bathroom I inspect my body. My bruises are fading. The smudges are fainter. If I could see colors, I would note that they're turning from blue to beige. This morning there are new marks on me, strawberry-shaped love bites. They decorate the front of one shoulder, and there are two big ones on my collarbone.
I stretch, feel luxurious, tensions relieved. Sex is great and I've forsworn it too long. Last night I relearned something I seemed to have forgotten along the way—that there are other men besides the Judge who can make my body sing.
I take a shower, put on my robe, sit down to read the papers I got from Hilly. The Internal Affairs Division report on the Robbie Sipple attack echoes every smear I found in back issues of the Chronicle and the Examiner.
Dad was right: clearly the report was leaked. Inept, incompetent—the only pejoratives lacking are the ad hominems: dummies, dunces, dolts, chumps, buffoons. But the report is all the more scathing for the absence of insults, calling into question the professionalism of the officers involved. Sergeant Lucius Waincroft takes particular abuse for "the shocking breakdown in the command structure that led to this debacle." And patrolman Jack Farrow, as the officer first on the scene, is held accountable for his "abysmal failure to collect and preserve vital evidence which, even at cursory viewing, was clearly relevant to a widely known ongoing investigation of a series of capital crimes."
Poor Dad! But there are ambiguities in the report which escaped the newspapers, hints and phrases that make me take notice. The possibility, for instance, of a conspiracy among the incompetents, dismissed as being improbable, yet considered nonetheless:
". . . despite these conclusions, the Division Committee cannot wholly exclude several other potential explanations of the debacle: (a) one or more officers sought to conceal the mishandling of evidence by themselves and/or their colleagues, by deliberately destroying and/or mislaying the discovered materials; (b) one or more of the officers returned to the crime scene after it was clear, and deliberately removed the discovered materials for reasons of their own."
Translation: A screwup and then a cover-up, or worse, the evidence was deliberately lost because it implicated someone inside S.F.P.D.
Another ambiguity concerns the behavior of Inspector Jonathan Topper Hale in his meeting with the patrolmen and sergeant prior to the assignment of the matter to I.A.D.:
". . . Hale's abuse intimidated the officers, leaving them with little choice but to remain silent lest their careers in the Department be further jeopardized. In accordance with good management practice, Hale should have cajoled these officers into remembering clearly what transpired, rather than berating them for compromising his own opportunities to solve the case. In this matter, at least, Hale appears to have overstepped, showing more concern for personal aggrandizement than the recovery of the missing evidence. The Committee points out that this is just the sort of abuse of command authority that can occur when an investigator becomes too closely identified with a high-profile case. . . ."
Translation: Hale scared the shit out of everyone, making them disinclined to help lest in return they be hung out to dry.
I also note the committee's confidential personal evaluations of the officers:
"Waincroft: out of his depth, has no business holding a supervisory position. Recommend immediate demotion with incentives to retire.
"Hayes: less than middling officer long past his prime. Retirement to be actively encouraged.
"Puccio: sloppiest of the bunch, apparently ignorant of police norms and procedures. Recommend dismissal.
"Vasquez: sharp, helpful, contrite, the officer we deem least likely to have been responsible. Recommend mild punishment. This officer should be allowed a future with the Department.
"Farrow: a decent, experienced officer who, perhaps by chance, has had a less than stellar career. Since Waincroft was in command, we remain mystified by his insistence on taking responsibility for the loss. Because he seems less than fully committed to police work, retirement to be actively encouraged."
I walk down the slope to Polk, purchase a micro tape recorder and cartridges at Radio Shack, then stop at a gourmet store to buy a variety of organic fruits and vegetables and a loaf of City Stone Ground bread. I carry my bag of groceries back up to the walkway on the Larkin side of Sterling Park, ostentatiously leave it on the same bench where I left the beribboned Styrofoam box two days ago. As before I pirouette, knowing my savior, Drake, is watching from somewhere in the bush.
At home I eat an apple, then go to work, taking down every print, clipping, appointment slip and note pinned to my cork office wall. With the cork clean, I proceed to pin up photographs relevant to Tim's death, seeking some sort of order that will clarify the complexities by which I'm feeling overwhelmed.
A cluster of pictures of Tim go up first, casual shots I took of him on the Gulch, plus the nude of him doing the handstand, and my favorite, the glamour shot on Angel Island.
Following these I lay out my two main sequences, the one on Willow Alley where his head and limbs were found, the other the ground in Wildcat Canyon.
Above and below these sequences I place several of the police crime-scene photos Hilly supplied, and at the end of the row, a shot I took on the boat when we let Tim's ashes go.
I stand back for an overview. There he is, I think, in all the startling beauty and vitality of his life, and savage uncomeliness and stillness of his death.
On a separate section of cork I arrange a sequence that profiles the Gulch, street shots and portraits of several of the regulars—Crawf, Slick, Remo, Alyson, Doreen, a few others, and the one of Knob and his acolytes I took in The Werewolf. Above them I post shots I surreptitiously took of various unidentified prowling johns, and, connected to these but in a cluster all its own, the sequence of Marcus Crane at the gate of his and Sarah Lashaw's home.
In still another area I pin up pictures of the detectives, Shanley and Hilly Lentz, as well as my new comrade-in-arms, Joel Glickman. Nearby I arrange a sequence on the original T case, centered around the photo I took of Dad in front of City Stone Ground, surrounded by pictures I photocopied off of library microfilm of the other Sipple cops, plus the excellent press photo of Inspector Jonathan Topper Hale leaving the Hall of Justice the day of his disgrace.
On the opposite wall I pin up parallel sequences of Tim's studio when Crawf and I first visited it, and its chaotic state when I later returned to pack up his stuff. Back near the idyllic portraits, I tack up one of David deGeoffroy, one of the facade of Tim's mail drop and also (the only nonphoto in my show) the unidentified key I found tucked in the molding of Tim's flat.
Above the shot of Dad, I place one I made of Mom when I was at the Art Institute and fist took up photography. Finally, for no reason I can think of, I add one of the detached self-portraits I shot of myself last week. Then I stand back again to see what I have wrought.
Things are connected, that much is clear, but no overarching pattern emerges, no theme that ties everything together.
Two torso cases fifteen years apart, similar in some respects, different in others: the recent victim (I'm trying to think of Tim objectively now) has a history in which cutting played a part.
I move closer to the wall, examine my before-and-after shots of his studio. I am, I realize, the only person with such pictures; except for me and Crawf, no one, including the cops, knows what the place looked like before it was tossed. I search the photos for crucial differences, objects which might have been removed. The big Angel Island print of Tim is gone; I noticed that before. Also, the curious sorting of the clothing. But where is his address book, assuming he had one—and what street hustler doesn't? Where are the personal things—family photos, letters, passport, birth certificate? Where, for that matter, are items I know he possessed, such as the decks of cards he used for his card tricks and the balls he carried in his backpack which he juggled on the ferry to Sausalito?
I don't see any of this stuff in either set of photos, but then such items would most likely have been stowed away. When Crawf and I were there we didn't make a search, and since, according to Shanley, such items didn't turn up, it seems safe to assume whoever tossed the place carried them off. But why?
There's something else that occurs to me as I study these photographs—the fact that the person who did the tossing entered with a key. So . . . someone had a key to Tim's studio, and, I note, my eyes falling upon the key I found, he had a key to someone else's flat as well.
Too great a leap? I don't think so. The key hidden in his molding didn't fit his door, but it matches his door key in design. A key to another apartment, perhaps one in the same building? The apparition I saw the day I moved his stuff—was that Ariane, having just left the building, heading off for a stroll?
I'm excited. Laying out my pictures, seeking visual connections, has led me to this fascinating thought. And, I realize, I would never have come up with it if I hadn't intercepted David's letter and heard his Magician's Tale.
I pull out a blank white sheet of processed photographic printing paper, one of several I use for focusing when I make a print. With a grease pencil I inscribe the word ARIANE, then pin the sheet up between my photos of David and of Tim. She, I decide, is the missing piece . . . and there are other pieces missing as well: the link between the two cases, if indeed there is one, and the links between Marcus Crane and Knob and Tim.
Sasha calls me from the hospital. In the background I hear the sounds of the E.R., including those implausibly placid public address announcements by which surgeons are summoned to patch up horrendous wounds.
"I'm thinking about you," Sasha says.
"Nice thoughts?"
"Better than nice." He lowers his voice. "Highly desiring."
"Yes, I hear you're quite the ladies' man," I tell him.
"I used to be. Not anymore."
"Is this a recent change, Sasha?"
"Since last night."
"You're sure it's not just lust?"
"Oh, Kay—why so cynical?"
"All right." I relent. "You can come over tonight. Truth is I'm highly desiring myself."
I walk over to Van Ness, but the sunlight's so brilliant I decide to take a bus down to Market. From there I walk to Tim's building on Mission, enter the lobby, inspect the names on the register:
Perkins; Nakamura; Pannella/Rosenfeld; Lovsey; Swink; Yaegger; Sowards; two blanks—a typical San Francisco mix. Deciding to bring the number of vacancies to three, I pry out the black plastic strip for Lovsey.
On a hunch, I ring the buzzers opposite the blanks, apartments 303 and 500. No responses back. I climb the stairs, find the door to 303, knock, then try the key from Tim's molding. It slips into the keyhole but doesn't turn and is difficult to extract. But in the door to 500, at the very top of the stairs, the key turns easily and opens the lock.
I enter. Suddenly, I'm lost in a snowstorm. The apartment, with its dazzling white walls and gleaming white floor, is so harshly lit, such a stark container of blazing light, that the rods in my retinas are instantly saturated.
I shut my eyes lest I go blind, fumble for my darkest shades, put them on. Then, slowly, I open my eyes. But even with the shades I'm lost in a blizzard. I shut down again, feel my way to the windows, grope for the venetian blinds, pull them closed. This time, though the room's still treacherously alive, I can see enough to understand that it's not light from the windows that's been blinding me but from a skylight that tents the room. I spot a pair of hanging ropes secured to a cleat on the wall, go to the cleat, untie the ropes, haul as hard as I can. Slowly a large drape rises to cover the glass. When I'm finished, ropes again secured, the room, though still well lit, is bearable at last.
It's a fine space, bigger than Tim's and, with its high slanted ceiling and skylight, perfect for an artist. But it would be the worst possible studio for me. So much light would kill my vision.
I pace about. I'm impressed by the condition of the place, the way everything's freshly painted, kitchen appliances shiny and perfectly flush with counters and cabinets, and the new white tiles in the bathroom joined by immaculate white grout. Hard to believe I'm in the same grungy building, not in some new high-rise near Opera Plaza. Someone's renovated this flat, and I can't believe it's landlord Murray Paulus, so annoyed Tim didn't give him notice prior to being killed. Yes, someone spent a lot of money fixing this place up, someone who either is about to move in or has recently moved out.
The buzzer sounds. At first I'm nonplussed. I'm a trespasser, have no right to be here. But in fact, I realize, since the place is empty I can't be accused of being a robber. I can claim I was looking for an apartment, noted the vacancy on the lobby register, climbed the stairs and found the door unlocked.
Better, I decide, to answer than have someone come up and find me hiding. I go to the wall, press the responder, then open the door a crack.
Footsteps in the stairwell. A woman's heeled shoes and gait. I've never found the stairwell so quiet, then recall that on other visits I heard operatic arias echoing down.
The steps approach. The person is one floor below. I tense as an attractive young woman comes into view. She's beautifully dressed in cashmere sweater and skirt, wears earrings and a necklace with a Celtic cross as pendant. She sees me too, approaches, smiles.
"Hi!" she says.
"Hi yourself."
"I was looking for. . ." Her voice falters.
"Yes?"
"For her, you know, but, like—hello!—I see she isn't here." She peers about, wide-eyed, taking in the emptiness. "Least not anymore," she adds.
I shrug to indicate I find the former resident's absence obvious.
"When was the last time you saw her?" I inquire.
"Oh, well, you know . . ." She smiles again, embarrassed. "Not too long ago, I guess." She ponders. "Maybe, four, five weeks, something like that."
She's young, nineteen or twenty, and her jewelry and Rolex tell me she's well-off. But there's something about her that belies the upper-middle-class suburban look. I check out her shoes. They're high-style fetishistic—black-and-chrome ankle-bondage straps, embedded steel tips and modified-for-daywear stiletto heels.
"How 'bout you?" she asks. "I mean—were you looking for her too?" I nod. "How long since you've seen her?"
I shrug again. "A while, I guess."
"Well. . ."
"Yes, well. . ."
She puts out her hand. "I'm Courtney Hill."
I put out mine. "Kay Farrow." We shake.
She squints at me. "Kay? Have I seen you around?"
"Maybe," I say. And then: "Since she's moved I guess there's no point standing here." I look at her. "Shall we escort each other down?"
I close the door. It clicks shut. When I try it again, it's locked.
"Looks like she really cleaned out," Courtney observes as we descend. She giggles. "Lock, stock, and barrel."
I giggle too, though I don't quite get the joke . . . unless Courtney means to mock the cliché.
"How did you meet her?" she asks.
I shrug. "Just around, I guess."
"Yeah," she nods, "like so many. I met her at Hard Candy. Of course I'd heard about her. Everyone has. Then one night someone pointed her out. I took one look, said to myself: 'What an incredible slut!'" Courtney glances at me. I smile and nod. "I'd never seen anything like her. Way she moved, came on. And the response she got! Like she was God's gift to us, you know." I nod again. "Like—wow!"
In the lobby I point out that there's a blank space opposite the buzzer for apartment 500.
"She kept it blank, least when I met her," Courtney says. Then she giggles. "I mean, what was she going to put in there anyway? 'Love Goddess'? 'Amoretto'?"
Amoretto. The word sears my brain. I feel my cheeks flush, my hands burn, as Courtney and I part on the sidewalk. The Amazing Amoretto: the name David deGeoffroy devised for Ariane when he contemplated devoting himself full-time to her career.
Apartment 500, I now know, was occupied by Ariane Lovsey. David was right, she was close. In fact, I realize, I may have only just missed her.