The Sourdough Wars (12 page)

“Nowhere special.” She sounded slightly sheepish. “I just went out for a drink.”

“Alone? Chris, I know you feel bad about Peter, but I really think—”

She stopped me. “No, not alone. Not a flower of Southern womanhood such as myself.”

“Well? Who with, then?”

“Bob Tosi.”

The entire Schwartz family, rescuing its black sheep from jail, stared at me from Page One the next morning. You’d think that would have made me cross, and you’d have been right. But the mood passed when it suddenly hit me how lucky it was that Mom wasn’t wearing her mink coat.

She looked just right in her well-cut black wool underneath the tear-streaked face of a mother whose child has been wronged by the very system she works every day of her life to uphold. As for me, I thought I looked rather brave, and quite nicely surrounded by supporters.

Quite a good picture, actually, and the second pleasant surprise of the morning. The first occurred when I looked in the mirror and didn’t see a purple plum instead of a cheek on the right half of my face. By some miracle, I had only a minor bruise, which would hardly show at all once I called in reinforcements from the Revlon bottle.

Rob’s story was accurate, if not complete. It told how he and I had surprised a burglar in the act, but it neglected to mention that we’d whirligigged about the city at 90 MPH for half an hour after that. The average reader could easily have gotten the idea we’d found Larson tied up the very second we scared off the sourdough thief. The story went on to describe that, finding the starter missing (actually, this was the lead paragraph; he just got back to it when it came up in the narrative), Larson drawing his gun, and Rob escaping.

After that, it quoted the police as saying only that Larson had been booked for assault and illegal use of a firearm and that I’d been booked for assault and resisting arrest.

Then, if you can believe it, it quoted me. Even though I hadn’t said a single word for publication. “ “I saw Mr. Jones raise the gun to fire,’ said Schwartz, ‘and I tried to stop him. If that’s assault, I’m guilty as hell.’ ”

Guilty as hell! Not only had Rob caused me to disgrace my family in front of the entire subscription list of the
Chronicle
; now he had me swearing in public as well—I’d never get another client again. I was so busy thinking up brand-new revenges, I hardly even noticed that the telephone had rung and I’d answered.

“Still mad?” said the voice of Rob Burns. I hung up.

The phone rang again, but I didn’t answer. I just went into the bathroom and put on the four pounds of make-up it took to make me look respectable. Then I put on a little mascara to divert attention from the combat zone. By that time, I’d say the phone had rung maybe forty times, and it was getting to the fish. I picked it up.

“Your daily
Chronicle
is dead wrong,” he said.

“You’re telling
me
, you schmuck!”

“The starter isn’t missing, after all.”

“What?”

“I knew I could get your attention.
Still
mad?”

“As fifty hatters. State your business, please.”

“Rebecca, I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

I didn’t answer. Not because I was trying to be mean; I just couldn’t think of a thing to say.

“Okay,” said Rob. “Later, maybe. I just thought you’d want to know the company moved the starter. Fail-Safe, I mean. The manager called from home this morning.”

“Could you go a little slower, please?”

“That’s how journalism can backfire on you, see? I mean, we saw with our own four eyes that the starter wasn’t there, so of course there was no need to confirm it. But you know what? We should have realized the burglar couldn’t have gotten it—he was empty-handed, remember?”

“Rob, could you get to the point?”

“Well, once the Fail-Safe folks discovered the first starter’d been taken, they naturally checked on the second one, and it was perfectly fine. But plenty of employees and other people knew there was a second warehouse and that’s where it was bound to be. They figured anybody could have found that out, and sure enough, we did, and so did the burglar. So they took the precaution of secretly moving the second starter back to the original vault.”

“I see.”

“Listen, could we talk? How about lunch?”

“Thanks very much for calling.” I hung up. I was glad to know about the starter, but so mad at Rob I had to question his motives for telling me. Maybe he was telling me because he wanted to be nice and wanted me to know, but maybe he was using the information as a bribe, to get back in my good graces. The point was, I didn’t want to talk to him, and when you got right down to it, I couldn’t.

I put on a brick-red dress—the closest thing I had to a spring outfit—and drove the old gray Volvo to the office, looking forward to a comforting chat with Chris. Instead, I got “Jailhouse Rock.”

I kid you not. When I opened the door to my office and walked in that fine Friday morning, I heard Elvis crooning his lungs out.

Kruzick was sitting at his desk, hands folded angelically, smile beatific, eyes Mephistophelian. “You’ve had two phone calls,” he said. “One from the United Prisoners Union and one—”

“Alan, you’re dead! You are marked, you are condemned, your days are
numbered
, do you understand? I made some very nasty contacts in that jail, and I am now going to walk into my office and pick up the phone and arrange the contract you’ve been asking for ever since I’ve known you.”

“What’s the matter, don’t you like The King? Hey, I made this tape especially for you.” He did something to the little black box on his desk that caused Johnny Cash to start describing conditions in Folsom Prison.

In the old days, women fought off their attackers with their purses. Now we are professionals, and we carry the same weapons as men. I raised my briefcase.

Alan raised his arms, looking hurt. “Hey, listen Rebecca, jail’s a learning experience, you know? Gives you time to contemplate your navel.” He did something else to the tape and Sam Cooke shared with me what his navel had yielded: something about sound effects on a chain gang.

I slammed my office door on “gang” and deeply regretted leaving the paper at home—I wanted to scan the classifieds for a new secretary.

No appointments were scheduled that morning, as I hadn’t been sure how long the divorce case was going to take to argue. As it happened, we’d wrapped it up the day before and it was under submission—in other words, we lawyers had done our parts and now it was up to the judge. So I had the morning free, unless you counted writs I ought to write, suits I ought to file, and clients I ought to reassure. But all that could wait till afternoon—I had a free morning, and my office felt like a prison (I ought to know) and it was a nice day, and I was going to go to I. Magnin and buy myself a pink outfit for spring. One cup of Alan’s hideous coffee and I’d hit the trail.

But the phone rang. “Darling, how are you feeling?”

“Fine, Mom. You can hardly see my bruise.”

“You should see a doctor about it.”

“Do you know any single ones?” I meant it as a joke, to get her mind off the bruise, but it was a big mistake.

“Darling, I’m so glad you feel that way. That Rob is nothing but trouble.”

“I was just kidding, Mom.”

But she’d got her mind on what she’d got her mind on, and she couldn’t hear me. “Your father and I have never felt he was good enough for our Rebecca, and I’m just sorry it took your getting chucked in jail like a street thug to make you open your eyes.”

“Mom, just because he’s only half-Jewish is no reason to condemn him.”

What a thing to say to a Marin County liberal. “Rebecca, how can you hurt me like that! After the way you’ve been raised, how could you think a thing like that could possibly enter into my feelings?”

“I don’t know, Mom. It just crossed my mind there for a second.”

“Well, I think you should apologize.” She was crying.

“Oh, I do! Listen, I’m really sorry, Mom. Don’t cry, okay? I didn’t mean anything.”

“Rebecca, how could you say that to me?”

“I didn’t mean to, Mom. I’m sorry.”

“You practically called me a bigot.”

“Well, Mom, I don’t think I really did, but, like I said, I’m really sorry.”

“What would
make
you say a thing like that?”

“Mom, I really don’t know. It was just one of those things.”

“Maybe you should see a shrink.”

“Good idea, Mom. I’ve got to go now—have to make the appointment.”

“I just don’t see how you could do a thing like that.”

“I’m not myself, Mom. I think I have raging hormones. Oops—Alan says I’ve got another call.”

“Give Alan my love.”

I really did have another call. It was Dad. “Darling, I’ve got your case all worked out. Jones won’t press charges against you if you won’t press any against him.”

“Dad, he hit me. And he fired at Rob.”

“Now, darling, don’t get all upset. No way is the DA going to drop the gun charge. But the other thing is like any other misdemeanor assault with no witnesses. You say one thing and Jones says another—it’s not worth pursuing.”

“But, Daddy, I’m the one with the bruise.”

“Sometimes we just have to compromise.”

I sighed. It wasn’t the compromise I minded so much—it was the feeling of losing control of my life. I was nearly thirty years old, and here I was saddled with a problem secretary chosen by my mom, who was now trying to choose my boyfriends for me, and furthermore, my dad was fighting my battles. But I am nothing if not a good daughter. I resigned myself to my fate and put it out of my mind—I was going to go out and buy something pink for spring and think about it tomorrow. Like Scarlett O’Hara.

I said, “Okay, Dad. Whatever you say.”

“It’s really for the best, darling. Sometimes these things just happen.”

“I know, Dad. I said okay. I want you to know I’m very grateful for what you’ve done for me.”

“You don’t sound very grateful.”

“I’m grateful, Dad. Really.”

“Beck, you got a bad blow on the head last night. Maybe you should see a doctor.”

“I’ll think about it. Dad. A shrink, maybe. Right now, I’ve got to get some coffee.”

“Coffee really isn’t the answer, you know.”

The top of my head was going to fly off if I didn’t get off the phone, but I couldn’t hang up on my own father. I started counting to ten, silently.

“Beck, are you still there?”

“I’m thinking about what you said, Dad.”

“That’s my girl. I wish we could talk some more, but I’ve got a client.”

“Gee, I wish we could, too, Dad. ’Bye now.”

’Bye and whew! Now for that coffee and then I. Magnin. But Kruzick came in with a long white box from Podesta-Baldocchi. “Roses are red and so are Commies; stay out of bed and you won’t be a mommy.”

“Alan, you shouldn’t have.”

“Boss, oh, boss, with bruise so fine, won’t you be my valentine?”

I looked at my watch, which tells the date as well as the time. It really was Valentine’s Day, and I’d forgotten all about it. “Not,” I said, “in a million years.” And I took the box and opened it.

It contained a dozen long-stemmed white roses. “Somebody thinks you’re dead,” said Alan. The card said,
Couldn’t find a white flag
.
How about these
? It was signed,
R
.

I was about to dump the whole schmeer in the circular file, but Alan was too fast for me. He took back the box and said, “I suppose you’d think it demeanin’ to my masculinity to ask me to find a vase for them, but I knows my duty, Miz Boss. I sho’ly do.” I think he felt guilty about the tape.

I picked up my cup and started to walk toward the coffeepot, which was in the minuscule reception area, when the door opened for Inspectors Martinez and Curry.

“Morning, Miss Schwartz. Heard you got in a little trouble last night.”

“How sweet of you to drop by. I had a nice tour of the sixth floor, thanks. I should have let you know I was coming. You could have baked a cake with a file in it.”

Curry looked blank. Martinez said, “We heard you stopped a burglary in progress.”

“Oh, Inspector, I should have realized—you’ve come to give me a medal.”

“Could you just tell us what you saw, please?”

“A guy trying to break in the back window.”

“You’re sure it was a guy?”

“No question about it.”

“Race?”

I shook my head. “Never got close enough to see.”

“Height and weight?”

“Tall. Maybe a hundred eighty pounds.”

“About what time was this?”

“About nine o’clock, I guess.”

“Nine o’clock.” He paused. “We didn’t get the call from Jones until nine-forty-five.”

I shrugged. “I meant nine, give or take.”

“What happened between nine and nine-forty-five?”

“The moon came up, I think. Some mothers put their kids to bed, and others helped with the homework. One or two guys scored in singles bars, and, oh, I guess a lot of folks watched ‘Simon and Simon.’ ”

Curry smiled, but Martinez quashed him with a look. “This is homicide, Miss Schwartz.”

“You mean Larson died? I just beat him up a teeny-tiny little bit.”

“Miss Schwartz, I’m trying to investigate a homicide and you are interfering with my investigation.”

I thought of saying, “I’m trying to have a cup of coffee and go buy a pink dress, so I can forget I ever heard the word
homicide
, and you are interfering with my desire to repress just about everything I ever heard of.” But I was afraid he’d tell me to go see a shrink. So I started the count-to-ten routine again. Chris came in from court before I’d made it to three.

“Rebecca, baby, let’s see your poor face.” She came and examined my bruise. “Oh, you pitiful, pitiful peach blossom. It’s going to turn green, I think. Maybe a little Erace.”

“Chris, you remember Inspectors Martinez and Curry.”

“Of course I do.” She gave them her warmest smile. “Coffee, gentlemen?”

Martinez fixed me with an icepick eye. “We’ll be going. See you on the sixth floor, Miss Schwartz.”

Now that hurt my feelings. I guess I must have shown it, because Chris sat me down as soon as they’d left and got coffee for me. “Hard morning?”