The Man on the Washing Machine (8 page)

I swallowed hard and told them that the women's group home was a fait accompli. Suddenly the factions united—Fabian Gardens was Poland and the shelter was a Panzer Division. I'm surprised a single soul in the room had any vocal cords left at the end of an exhausting and ultimately pointless shouting match. Our vice president tossed her stiff blond ponytail and said we should hire her cousin the attorney to put the fear of God into the owner of the building and the shelter people. Somebody mentioned that the Catholic Church was backing the shelter. “Screw the Catholic Church,” she snarled. “We need to do something; if it isn't already too late,” she added with a toothy smile. Her cousin charged $600 an hour, she said, but he was worth every penny.

It was clear from the immediate lack of eye contact around the room that, while no one wanted to admit to putting their personal finances ahead of the association's best interests, no one was rushing to pick up that particular torch, either. In the pause that followed, Kurt suddenly said: “I have some records stored in that attic and the police have been preventing me from retrieving them.”

I wondered what kind of records he could be storing in an unsecured attic. Not medical records, surely? Everyone supported his complaint with enormous relief. “I've got stuff in the building, too,” someone said. “No one told me the place was leased for this shelter. The property manager said my mother's furniture would be safe.”

The grumbling and yelling went on until it sounded as if everyone at Fabian Gardens had junk stored at number twenty-three.

I told them the police had freed up the attic and they had to move their belongings by Saturday. Then I started a sign-up sheet for Inspector Lichlyter. That gave them all something else to get steamed up about. I felt as if I were drowning. I looked over at Nat. His lips were twitching and he avoided catching my eye.

I opened a note addressed to the association which I hadn't had time to read earlier. As secretary I get a lot of random mail and it's usually uncontroversial. I hoped it would give everyone a breather and calm them down a little. Thank God I glanced at it first. It was from the director of the new group home. At first it sounded harmless enough. It said polite things about hoping to be a credit to the neighborhood he'd heard so much about. I read the signature and realized for the first time that my nonsmoker, no-pets, works-for-a-nonprofit, moving-in-today, old friend-of-a-friend of Nicole's, new tenant Bramwell Turlough was also the shelter director. Telling them I'd allowed the Trojan horse within the gates would have been like dropping an ice cube into boiling oil—it would have frothed up and covered me before I could catch a breath. I cravenly stuffed his note back in its envelope, grabbed my jacket, and fled as soon as the meeting broke up.

If I'd gone straight home, three indignant people would have overtaken me before I got there, so I avoided my usual route across the darkened garden and took the street route, ducking into Coconut Harry's to give the meeting attendees time to drift away. Harry's is the kind of neighborhood bar strangers aren't inclined to walk into but we all use it pretty much as our personal clubhouse. It has red Christmas tree lights hanging from the ceiling and a general air of having been last painted in 1947. The strong smell of very old cigarette smoke and beer is tinged with the faint aroma of disinfectant. No one is permitted to smoke in San Francisco bars nowadays, but that doesn't stop a few of Harry's older patrons. I sat at the bar, nodded to Joe the bartender, and ordered a gin and tonic. Each booth has a bamboo-and-rattan sign with the name of a tropical island. I sipped my drink and mindlessly read them backward in the gold-veined mirror behind the bar, and accidentally caught the eye of the man in Haiti. What a choice, when there was Bora Bora, not to mention Fiji. I looked away, but not without noticing powerful shoulders in a black leather jacket, a rough profile, and a gold earring. In San Francisco, the earring and the leather could mean literally anything—Hell's Angel; gay; leather fetishist; or I suppose even gay Hell's Angel leather fetishist. I wasn't in the mood to translate. I stared up at the reflection of the Christmas lights in the gold-veined mirror but I could still see him. He looked me over in a too-explicit way as he picked up his glass and brought it over to the bar. I straightened my back and projected mental images of third-degree black belts.

“Ms. Bogart?”

I gave Joe a filthy look when he delivered the gin and tonic, assuming he'd spilled the beans. He gave me a wide-eyed shrug, wiped a damp cloth across the bar, and leaned within earshot, pretending to read the
Sporting Green.

Without any encouragement, the stranger went on: “My name is Bramwell Turlough.” He slid onto the stool next to mine. Great. My new tenant. Director of the shelter. My personal Trojan horse.

I took a mouthful of my gin and tonic. “How did you know who I was?”

“Someone told me tall, red hair, standoffish expression.”

Score one for the guy in the black leather jacket. “How do you do, Mr. Turlough,” I said primly. “I hope the studio is satisfactory.”

“I haven't seen it yet,” he said. “I flew in this morning from D.C. and went straight to the group home.”

There was a long pause, which surprised me a little. My limited experience of social worker types is a never-ending stream of self-righteous, activist chatter. He drank his beer and I took another uncomfortable sip of my drink, feeling extremely standoffish.

The bar mirror reflected us both surrounded by the eerie glow of the Christmas lights. I looked tired, which I was. And I needed a haircut or something. He had a small scar over one eyebrow that looked like a built-in frown. He lifted his head suddenly and saw me checking him out. My reflection looked disconcerted. I've always been an easy blusher.

“We want to be a good neighbor, Ms. Bogart. How did the letter go over?”

“We didn't discuss it fully.” No need to expose our skirmishes to a stranger.

“Maybe I could come to one of your meetings to field questions. Not that there's anything you all can do; our first resident moved in this morning.”

I turned to him. “I heard.”

“And three more this afternoon with their kids. They're having fun helping to finish the painting—” He paused. “You heard about the accident?”

I nodded and somehow didn't say that I had seen Tim fall.

He shook his head. “At least the kids are having a blast. The women, not so much. One of them grabbed her ten-year-old and ran when her husband wanted to sell him for sex. Another is fresh out of a drug rehab program and wants to stay clean so her kids won't have to go back to selling drugs for their uncle. You can understand I don't much care if the people around here are uncomfortable.” He drained his glass and signaled to Joe for another beer. I couldn't think of anything to say that wasn't inadequate.

“Thanks for renting me the apartment,” he said, a little less forcefully.

“It's okay,” I said. I could take credit for it, even if I had no idea at the time that's what I was doing. Besides, I'd told all my neighbors I was in favor of the group home; maybe they'd see my blunder as putting my money where my mouth was.

“Considering how your neighbors probably feel, it was a brave thing to do. Can I buy you a drink?” I shook my head. “By the way—” He reached into the pocket of his jeans, pulled out a wallet, and slid a ten-dollar bill toward Joe.

“Yes?”

“There's some boxes and furniture the property managers say belongs to people renting storage space. No one's paid anything for some time, and the stuff's in the way, so—”

“They've been told to get it out by Saturday.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“There is one thing,” I said, and he paused. “I don't know much about how to run a women's shelter, but aren't the locations usually secret?”

“It's more like a transitional group home, although we inevitably have women there who need a safe haven. The guy who rented us the building thought he was helping us by enlisting the locals on our side. You can see how well that idea worked out. First our cover's blown, then our painter falls out a window. What was the name of the captain of the
Titanic
?” He rubbed one hand over his jaw. “I guess I shouldn't make light of it. I ought to get in touch with the painter's family. Do you know him?”

“He didn't have any family,” I said. “I can ask everyone to keep the group home secret.”

He shook his head once in a decided negative. “It never works. There's always someone who can't resist mentioning it at work or over dinner. We have a couple of weeks at most to find a more secure location for our most critical cases. Some of these women are in fear for their lives. They're all from other cities in California, but homicidal husbands can be very determined.”

I felt myself go very still. It's odd how often things come up that remind me of that fact.

He looked a question at me, and when I didn't respond he finished the rest of his beer in one swallow. I was saved from further conversation by Nat's appearance. He was still on a high from the entertainment value of the association meeting.

“Figured I'd find you here,” he said with a smile. He reached out a hand and untucked the hair from behind one of my ears and fluffed it up gently. “That's better. Have another to keep me company.”

“I need one,” I said truthfully, tucking the hair back behind my ear.

Turlough watched the byplay and I was about to introduce the two men when he said good night to me and left. Nat raised one eyebrow at me. “Good-lookin' guy,” he remarked.

“You think so?”

“Mmm-hmmm.”

“Short, don't you think?”

“Not especially, you giraffe. He's my height. Well-built,” he added appreciatively. “The guy seemed interested. Hair's a real turn-on for straight men; would it kill you to let it loose? You know him?”

“Interested? No, he's my new tenant. I found out tonight he's the one putting together the group home or whatever it is in number twenty-three.”

“Theo, no!” Nat hooted with laughter.

“All right for you,” I said rudely. “But they're going to skin me. Ah, what am I worried about? By the time they finish with that property manager—”

When we left Coconut Harry's nearly an hour later I was the worse for three gin and tonics on an empty stomach. Determinedly not hearing the slight roaring in my head, I said good-bye to Nat and headed in the direction of Mr. Choy's grocery store on the corner. By this time it was nearly eleven. Mr. Choy was reading his newspaper with his glasses propped on his forehead.

“Ah? Good evening. Can I help you?” he said to me, the same as always.

“Milk-Bones,” I said, already halfway there.

“Aisle three, next to baby formula,” Mr. Choy said automatically, and returned to his paper. He announces the locations because nothing in the store makes any sense. He occasionally mentions his fortune-teller, and I think this fortune-teller is the marketing whiz who tells him to put tins of sardines and laundry detergent on the same shelf. His cash desk faces away from the door because the fortune-teller told him it was the most auspicious direction when he opened the store eighteen years ago. He sits on a stool surrounded by hanging displays of lightbulbs and huge tins of canned peaches. The rest of the canned fruit is next to the toilet paper and the Hamburger Helper. In among the baby formula, brass polish, and Pepto-Bismol he has Chinese patent medicines with dragons and peach blossoms on the packets. The patent medicines reminded me of Derek's mission to grow his hair. I went to the counter with my box of Milk-Bones. “Do you know much about traditional Chinese medicine, Mr. Choy?”

He put down his paper and reached for the cash register. “My late father used to deal in Chinese medicines from his pharmacy in Chinatown. Four employees. Very successful. I studied, but some things I didn't want to sell, so I go into Milk-Bone business instead,” he said as he handed me my change.

“Sexual things?” I hazarded, otherwise at a loss to explain his embarrassment.

“Sometimes,” he said, and wouldn't be pressed further, all of which heightened my interest in Chinese medicine.

I went home to take Lucy out for her bedtime walk in the garden. I wasn't sure why, but for the first time in a very long time, I was sorry to be going home alone.

 

CHAPTER EIGHT

The street was shiny with mist, the streetlights haloed. The foghorns on the bridge moaned softly and an occasional car swished past but otherwise everything was quiet. I shifted the box of dog biscuits under my arm and shivered a little inside my jacket as I automatically put a little more effort into my stride coming up the hill. The city is like a gigantic, undulating staircase, following the hills to the ocean in one direction and San Francisco Bay in the other. I sometimes wonder what it will be like to be old, pulling a wheeled shopping basket behind me up these slopes. By the time they're seventy, the old ladies around here must have legs like marathon runners.

I walked past the window of Aromas to my front door. I was careful, as always, to have the keys in my hand, to avoid making myself a dithering target for any would-be assassin who might be lurking in the shadows. The ex-policeman who ran my defensive violence class taught us things like that. Because of him, I was in the habit of gripping my keys with the points protruding through the fingers of my hand, like a set of brass knuckles. Even so, I wasn't sure I could work up the nerve to gouge out someone's eyes with my house keys. He also suggested we carry a three-inch length of galvanized pipe in our dominant hand to add some strength to our punches. I suppose I could wear body armor and a helmet, too, but you have to draw a line somewhere, even in a country where it's legal to carry loaded rifles into Walmart. I'd made peace with the keys but they were as far as I was willing to go along that road. I ran up the stairs calling to Lucy after locking and chaining the front door carefully behind me. Lucy jumped off the mattress (I heard her rotund little body hit the bedroom floor with a squishy thump) and swaggered down the hallway to greet me, yawning hugely. Having waited for me to scratch under her chin, she turned around and went back to bed.