The rambling brewery edged up against the Marin side of San Francisco Bay, across from the ferry terminal. Boats pulled in and left from the wide wooden docks. Ghostly, gray fog concealed the sun, and the wind blew cool and blustery. I arrived thirty minutes before I’d told Burk I’d be there. I wanted to be at the table early so I could protect any drink I might have.
The waiter stopped by and asked what I wanted to drink.
“Do you ever serve beers that are locally made?”
“All the time,” he said.
“My friends are developing a beer they call Coyote Ridge. I’ve been told it makes your mouth pucker.”
The waiter laughed. “Once they get a brew that you consider tasty, bring it by. Give us a crack at selling it.”
“I’ll pass that along, but you may have a long wait.”
“That’s okay. You can’t rush great taste,” he advised. “How about a pale ale?”
“Lemonade will be fine.”
My table by the window overlooked the main dining floor and had a perfect view of the front door. Each time it opened I held my breath. The lemonade came. I sipped it and watched the clock, and the front door. 6:45pm, 7:00pm, 7:15pm. No Burk.
The waiter stopped by again. “Would you like to order?”
I was starving. By now, I didn’t care if Burk showed up or not. I ordered fish and chips. At 7:30, happily eating with no dining companion in sight, the waiter stopped by again.
“Are you on your own tonight?”
“I guess so.”
He cleared away the other silverware. “Anyone that would stand you up is a fool,” he grinned and walked away.
That made me smile. A few years ago, my life skidded and almost came to a complete stop. I changed everything about me that I could. Things started moving again. Now life was better. Not great, but better. I glanced out of the window toward the ferry terminal. The moody sky had turned battleship gray. I watched as a tall man stood next to his bicycle and chatted with a slight man wearing a gray hoodie, holding the handle of a small bag, like carry-on luggage. No mistaking. The taller of the two was Burk. Like two mimes having an animated silent conversation, the men gestured and talked. Burk shook his head no. The other man stiffened and stepped back. He almost tripped and fell. I pulled out my phone and took a picture. Then I zoomed in on his face. So familiar, but I couldn’t place him. The shorter man leaned in from the waist and said something. Burk stayed firm, still shaking his head emphatically. The other man threw up his hands and walked away with a slight limp toward the terminal. He stopped to buy a ticket and disappeared into the waiting area. I watched as Burk pulled out his phone.
A second later, my phone pinged.
Sorry. Stuck in the city. Can’t make it.
I watched from the comfort of the brewery as he placed the phone in his pocket and walked his bike into the terminal, picked up a ticket and moved into the waiting area.
Truth be told, I didn’t want to see him either. But I did want to get back into his house. Now maybe was the best time. I called over my waiter and asked for the check.
“Everything okay? Don’t let some idiot drag you down.”
“I’m not. Not at all.” I paid the bill and headed for the door.
Parked outside Burk’s house in the pullout, I wondered what to do next. Walk around to the back? Climb over the fence? Press the button on the gate and see if anyone answered? I wanted to use the gate code and walk straight up to the front door. I had grown tired of the “Who’s there? Who’s not there?” game consuming my life.
Minutes ticked by. It didn’t make sense to announce myself. Instead, I walked down the path to the trail and the small hill covered by brush behind the house.
No one passed by. No cyclists, no dog walkers, no kids walking home bouncing a basketball in the fading light. Muted sounds of splashing and squeals signaled a pool party not far away. That’s where I wanted to be. Lounging on a floatie, sunglasses on, enjoying life. Instead, here I was, standing in underbrush spying on a house where I thought my drugger lived. How do you get yourself into this shit, Trisha? I turned to leave when I heard the front door open. I walked further to one side, squatted behind a bush, and caught a glimpse of the front door. Out walked the woman, the little boy trailing behind her and in tears. They blended into the dim shadows of the evening, but I could hear them clearly.
“I want Daddy.”
“Daddy had to go on a trip. We’ll see him soon.”
“But I want to stay here,” whined the little boy. He sat down on the front step.
“We can’t. Nobody can. We’re all moving,” said his mom.
“Uncle Burk?”
“Yes.”
“Uncle Sergei?”
“Yes, everyone.” Standing in the somber shadows, she knelt beside him and said something I couldn’t hear.
“You promise?” said the boy, standing up and taking his mother’s hand.
“Of course.” She led him to the car parked in the driveway.
“Wait, Mommy. I have to go pee.”
“Now?”
“Right now.”
She jogged back to the house and unlocked the front door. “When you’re done, be sure to wash your hands, then meet me at the car.”
The little boy dashed into the dark house. A light turned on inside.
Not long after, he skipped down the front steps and ran over to his mother leaning against the automobile. She carefully lifted him up, put him in the car, buckled him in his car seat and then slipped into the driver’s seat. The front gate slid open and they headed down the hill in the opposite direction from my car parked across the street.
I waited for about ten minutes and listened. The car didn’t return. If I heard correctly, the house was going to be deserted … if it wasn’t already. They were all leaving.
The faint shadow of deer appeared in the woods below, halfway to the reservoir. A family of four moving, almost silently, then stopping to munch on something tasty. I stayed behind the hedges and walked toward the back, parallel to the fence that surrounded the house. At one end, a wooden gate led to the backyard. I quietly lifted the latch, inched through the opening and stood with my back flat against the fence. Blackness covered the corners of the yard and heavy shadows hovered over the rest of the grass close to the house. I pulled a stone out of my pocket that I’d picked up on the trail and threw it at one of the black shaded windows. As it bounced off, I thought belatedly about alarms. Too late to take back the rock. I held my breath and listened intently. All I heard was the clink of the rock against the window and the muffled plop when it hit the grass. No alarms. So, I threw another one. Nothing. No one glanced out from behind a curtain or opened a door to check. If someone came, I’d be exposed with no place to hide. But no one did.
I hustled to the side and tried the handle to the backdoor. Locked. Each window? Secured. The story repeated itself on the other side where the bicycles were parked that first night. I made my way around to the front and took a quick look up the steps at the front door. The boy had run inside and then back out to the car. He’d shut the door but hadn’t locked it. In the mom’s hurry to pack her boy up and leave, she’d forgotten to check. Quietly, I moved up the steps, gave the door a slight push and it opened. No alarms went off. No laser beams zapped across the floor. Nothing.
What little had been there—the couch, the metal folding chairs, and the large TV on the wall—had been removed. My footsteps echoed while I walked through the vacant dining room and into the kitchen. Systematically, I opened each cupboard. Bare. Same with the drawers. Even the trash can. The doors to the three rooms off the hall stood ajar. Not a good sign. I peeked into the space that doubled as a storage center. Each carefully marked piece of tech had been removed.
I took a quick glance out of the window while moving back into the kitchen toward the door to the lower part of the house. Darkness stretched across the road and covered my Honda parked outside. Then the hill behind my car suddenly turned bright. A vehicle raced up the incline, toward the house. Instinctively, I moved a distance from the window and inhaled deeply. But the car didn’t slow down. The light grew brighter and then gradually fainter as it moved on and the road sunk into blackness again. I exhaled and my breathing settled down to normal.
I pulled out my cell phone and clicked on the flashlight. The small but bright white beam shone directly on the door in the kitchen. It opened easily. I shone the light down the steps and tried a tentative, “Hello?” in case someone was standing there, waiting for me in the dark. I inched down the steps, stopping to shine the light in all directions. The stairs creaked on the bottom two steps and I jumped sideways from the sound. My heart rate pumped into overdrive as I reached the bottom and shone the light from one side of the room to the other. More blackout curtains covered the small windows and protected the empty room. I walked over to the wall and flipped the switch. The glaring light hurt my eyes and I squinted at the worktables in front of me. Computer cables and surge protectors snaked across the floor to empty long tables. Dust marks revealed where the computers once sat. I found a few chip bags in the corner, along with fast-food cartons and empty soda cups.
“Slobs,” but I scooped up the refuse and went through it anyway, hoping for what, I couldn’t say.
The bottom floor stretched from one end of the house to the other. A corridor off the main room connected four small bedrooms to the hallway, two on one side, two on the other. The first had a queen-sized bed that took up most of the space. No space even for a dresser.
The next room must have belonged to the little boy. It had a junior-sized bed, a wooden dresser painted blue, and a bedside table. A little lamp with a cowboy riding a horse around the tan shade rested on the table. I sat down on the bed and let my hand drift along the small mattress.
If I wanted to hide something, I’d put it where most people wouldn’t think to look, like my child’s room. I reached over and lifted the mattress. Nothing there. Then I pulled up the box spring. No rips or tears. I flipped it over and found two big thick pieces of gray duct tape parallel to each other. I grabbed at the edges and began pulling the tape off, taking part of the fabric covering the springs with it. A large legal-size envelope was stuffed deep inside. Interesting filing system. I carefully pulled it out, opened it, and found two file folders; one held receipts for computer equipment and supplies, a few phone bills, and bids from a security company. A vaguely familiar set of initials, NEP, were scrawled across the bottom of each receipt. I did a search on my phone for NEP. Nothing that made sense to me. Then, NEP computer. The name Popolare popped up, and so did San Francisco. When I typed in NEPopolare, San Francisco, pages and pages of search results surfaced. I clicked on one news article from the San Francisco Tribune. And there it was. The whole story about the San Francisco shutdown and the infamous Nicholas Eroe Popolare. So the notorious computer genius had been my neighbor.
The other folder held several sheets of long yellow paper. On one was a handwritten table with a complicated set of numbers and letters and a list of small towns in California, Idaho, Arizona, and Nevada. The other sheet listed names and telephone numbers.
Were these the numbers Tyler wanted me to retrieve? I couldn’t study them, not here. I stuck everything back in the envelope and put it in my backpack. Then my phone pinged. It shouted like a fire alarm in the deserted house. I looked down at the text message. It was from Dad.
Call me NOW.
I tapped his phone number, wondering what had triggered him this time.
“Trish?”
“Yeah. What’s going on, Dad?”
“It’s Earl’s friend.”
“The guy from Oregon? Bernard?”
“Yes.”
“What about him?”
“He’s dead, Trisha. His body was found floating off Ocean Beach in San Francisco.”