Downfall (2 page)

Mila crooked a smile at me. “Maybe if you find our poisoner,” she said, “I’ll throw you a big party.”

D
IANA STOOD ALONE
in her mother’s town house, trying to decide,
Do I search on her computer? Go through her mail, what? Listen to her messages?

She went to the cordless phone, neat in its cradle. She pressed the message button. Heard first her own voice calling two days ago, then the failed pitch of a telemarketer trying to upgrade Mom’s cable TV package, a friend from an art museum calling to ask if Mom would serve on a committee for a fund-raiser. A man’s voice, smoky and a bit gruff: “Janice? It’s Felix. Just calling to see if you’d like to have a drink tomorrow night at The Select after the meeting. Let me know. Okay, good night.” Then nothing.

Felix, oh yes. Mom’s new friend. A bartender down in the Haight, she’d met him once. An odd friend for Mom to have, he wasn’t exactly the corporate suit type. She wondered what meeting he meant.

A stack of mail by the computer. Diana flipped through it, feeling more and more like a thief. No letters from secret lovers, no flyers from the Cell Phone–Free Yoga Hippie Institute, either. Just bills and invitations, mostly to charity events. People wanted Mom involved. She was connected; she got things done.

And what “thing” is she doing for the next two weeks? Because it’s not yoga.

The cordless phone rang. Diana reached for it, then stopped. Let the machine pick up. Her open hand, reaching for the cordless nestled in its cradle, clenched into a fist.

Three rings, and the machine clicked on.

“Ms. Keene? This is Inez with the San Francisco Bay Cancer Center. You had canceled your meetings with Dr. Devendra to discuss your treatment options, and we wanted to see if we could reschedule. You can call me at 555-9896. Thank you.” The message ended.

Diana sat still as stone. She replayed the message.

“No,” she said while Inez repeated the words of doom. “No.”

Cancer. Treatment options.

Maybe she’d gone some place for treatment. But why lie about it?

She dialed the phone, trying to stifle the shaking in her hands.

“San Francisco Bay Cancer Center.”

“Inez in Dr. Devendra’s office, please.”

She waited and the chirpy voice came on the line.

“This is Janice Keene.” Diana closed her eyes, tried to make her voice a shade lower, like Mom’s. “Returning your call.”

“Okay, Ms. Keene, thanks, your appointment…”

“Uh, yes, I was going to be in and out of town over the next two weeks…”

“I think he very much wanted to see you before then, Ms. Keene. I have some cancellations next Monday.”

Diana felt she might shove her fist into her mouth to stifle the scream.

“I have 2:00 p.m. available.”

“Okay.”
Get tricky
, Diana thought. “Listen, can I bring my daughter with me? I want her to understand what I’m facing.”

“Of course.”

“And…” Diana decided to press her luck. “Dr. Devendra told me the technical name of my cancer, but I was forgetful, I didn’t write it down…Can you tell me?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t. I only make the appointments. E-mail Dr. Devendra if you like.”

“Yes, of course. Thank you.” Diana clicked off the phone, and then she dropped it to the floor, where it clattered and the battery cover sprung loose and skittered under the table. The grief was sudden, an earthquake to her core. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t.

If her mother was so sick, where had she gone? So sick the doctor didn’t want to wait two weeks to see her. Good Lord, Diana thought, maybe Mom was chewing on apricot seeds in Mexico or had gone to a holistic healer or something else way too alternative when she needed a doctor…

She started to dial the number for Keene Global, the giant public relations firm her mother had built from nothing. She paused. What was she going to say?
I know my mother—I mean, your CEO—has cancer; tell me where she is?
She was halfway through keying in the number when she thought, What if Mom hadn’t told the senior management at Keene Global? In trying to help, she might do more damage to Mom’s business relationships.

She clicked the phone off. The tears came—tears of shuddering grief for the mom she loved beyond all reason. She cried herself out. It took a long while.

Then she sat up, dried her face. Her mother kept a home office; she hurried down the hallway to it. An old, elegant desk, bookshelves behind. Under the shelves were drawers that disguised file cabinets.

Diana tried the cabinets. Locked. She couldn’t find a key in the desk. She found a small toolbox beneath the kitchen sink, fished out a screwdriver and a hammer. Every blow of the blunt end into the lock scored and splintered the clean cherrywood.

The doctor doesn’t want to wait two weeks.

The lock broke with a satisfying
clunk
. Diana yanked out the tray, heavy with a neat, tidy rainbow of hanging files.

She found the papers in a manila file marked
MEDICAL
. She read the records of the initial visits and the amassed tests. Breast cancer, aggressive. Spreading into lymph nodes, lungs.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked the empty room. She looked up at the walls. Framed articles about her mother as a mover and shaker in the public relations world, pictures of her mom with famous people at her New York office, her Washington office, her Los Angeles office. A perfect life, and now it might end.

She felt an odd shape, taped in the back of the heavy manila folder.

A brown envelope. Marked in her mother’s blocky handwriting
TO BE OPENED IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH BY MY DAUGHTER ONLY
.

ONLY
was underlined three times, in thick black ink.

Through the envelope, Diana could feel a cylindrical object inside. She sat back down among the stacked files on the floor and the wood splinters and the dented and broken lock.

Weighing the envelope in her hand. Open. Don’t open.

BY MY DAUGHTER ONLY
.

She tore open the envelope. If Mom complained, she could say,
Well, you didn’t tell me about the cancer, so don’t be mad I stuck my nose in your business
.

Into her hand fell a silver, ornate cylinder.

Diana stared in disbelief.

It was a lipstick case.

Why…why would Mom leave her a lipstick case?

Diana opened it.

It didn’t contain lipstick. It was a memory stick, the kind you slot into a computer port. She went to her mother’s computer and inserted it. On the screen it showed up as a drive marked
FOR DIANA ONLY
. The sole file on the drive was a video. She clicked it.

Her mother appeared on the screen. Not smiling. Looking serious.

“My darling Diana. If you are seeing this, I have died. I’ve spent my life making sure you had the best life I could give you. And now that I am gone, you must understand what I’ve done. I have to explain a difficult choice I made. I must trust you with my greatest secret…”

The neighbors were all at work or out enjoying the gorgeous day, so no one heard Diana’s loud screams of anguish, of denial, of shock. Or her soft moan of “This can’t be true.”

H
ELP ME.”

At first, over the noise of the bar I wasn’t sure I heard her correctly. I was filling in for a bartender who hadn’t bothered to show, and I was sick with missing my son, Daniel. Mila had taken him and Leonie to the airport an hour ago.

“Help me,”
she said again.

She’d hurried into the bar as if she was late for a meeting, panic bright in her eyes. Noise—conversations, the swirling beats of the chill electronica/Asian fusion music, the clink of glasses—washed over us. It was a Thursday night, when most bars like The Select got more groups and fewer quiet drinkers, the start of the weekend.

I blinked and leaned forward, turning my ear toward her to catch her words over the pluck of the electric sitar, rising violins, and thrumming drums from the speakers. Other customers weren’t crowding the young woman at the bar; most of The Select’s crowd lounged at tables scattered around the back. Most bars in the Haight are small and narrow, but mine is one of the roomier ones. Couples or small groups sat at the tables, drinking beers or cocktails or wine kept in coolers in the centers of the tables. A lot of the artistic crowd in the neighborhood, a smattering of tourists come to see the Haight hippies (but not getting too close), a few people who thought casual Friday at work meant a little bit of a hangover.

“What would you like?” I said, thinking she wanted service, not assistance.

Then her eyes widened, looking past my shoulder into the depths of the mirrored bar, and she turned and she ran, hurrying past the crowd getting drinks, past the clumps of people chatting about the post-workday.

Bars are a magnet for odd behavior. But a woman whispering a plea for help and then fleeing, that was a new one. I glanced over my right shoulder toward the entrance, where the woman’s gaze had gone, and saw two men entering, hurrying, walking with purpose, pushing past a clump of young homeless dudes sitting on the sidewalk. One was a broad-shouldered man, wearing eyeglasses, in his late thirties, short haired. Wearing a blazer and jeans. The other was a mobile mountain, heavy with muscle, head shaved bald, ice eyed, and I saw this mountain assessing the room with the same measuring gaze I would have taken back in my CIA days, evaluating where the dangers were, gauging who was a threat, finding an escape route.

Daniel was on my mind and my first thought was
I don’t want trouble
. But I couldn’t ignore the situation, so I went to deal with the threat. I stepped down the bar to the mountain, who had stepped much closer to the bar as he surveyed the room, my gaze locked on his hands. His hands would give away more than his eyes did. His stare was flat and cold.

“Drink, sir?” I asked loudly, thinking,
Look at me. Not the woman. Look me in the eyes and let me see what kind of trouble you are.

The mountain turned to glance at me. He shook his head no and then stormed out onto the floor. The young woman—pretty, African American, hair cut short, tall and dressed in a black shirt and jeans—had hidden in a corner behind a pair of chatting women and was now bolting toward the back door, under the red glow of the
EXIT
sign. She had her hand in a small, dark purse, clutching it close to her chest.

The mountain started barreling through the crowd, shoving a few people. Making a beeline for the woman.

I vaulted over the bar, surprising a woman sitting on a stool, sipping her Dos Equis. The dance pulse of the Bombay Dub Orchestra tune was loud and booming enough to cover the sound of my feet hitting the hardwood floor, so the two men did not turn around.

They hurried toward the back of the bar, free of the restraints of the crowd in the front.

The young woman screamed.

They each grabbed one of her arms, and she tried to wrench free and bolt. They manhandled her back toward the one red
EXIT
sign.

Four steps and I grabbed for the older guy’s shoulder; he looked to me like a suburban dad type. He tried to shrug free of me, but I’m stronger than I look. He sneered at me—navy suit, my normally short hair styled into a fauxhawk (being a bar owner, I thought I’d try to look a little more hip than I actually am), an inch shorter than he was.

“What’s this about?” I asked.

The woman broke away from the mountain. She stumbled into a couple who’d risen from their small table, wanting to avoid being drawn into the confrontation. They stepped back from her like she might be a wayward drunk.

“She’s a thief,” the mountain said loudly. I could hear the Russian accent in his voice.

“Then we’ll call the police—” My innocent choice of words acted like a lit fuse.

“No police,” the woman said. “None!” She held the purse up, close to her chest again.

The men turned to me, the suburban dad raising an eyebrow as if to say,
See?
I let the dad type go and the mountain said, “Back off.”

“Excuse me?” I said.

“Back off. We’re leaving your bar—we don’t want trouble—but she’s coming with us. She stole something of mine, and I just want it back.”

The woman’s gaze met mine, and the plea again: “Help me.”

I grabbed the mountain’s shoulder just as the suburban dad again closed a grip on the woman’s arm and her purse as she tried to pull away from him. “We just want it back. No one wants to hurt you. Best for you and your mom,” I heard the suburban dad say.

Instinct made me glance downward when my brain registered the flick of the mountain’s wrist. He held a blade, finely carved, the silver edge a sheen in the dim light of the bar. Now pointing at me.

Eight inches of steel. The knife lashed up toward my outstretched fingers and I dodged the upward swing. In the second he had the knife raised, I hammered a kick into the man’s knee.

I have a policy of ending fights quickly when some jerk brings a knife into one of my bars.

And I run. A lot. Sometimes over rooftops. My legs are strong. Guys like the mountain always underestimate me. This amuses me, after the fight.

The mountain didn’t crumple. He gasped but smiled at me. But it was a smile of a man who didn’t fear or flinch from the threat of pain the way ordinary people do.

“You are an idiot,” he told me in Russian.

“You are quite correct,” I answered in Russian.

It surprised him. For all of two seconds. He didn’t expect it of me and the stupidest reaction can make you pause on the verge of a fight. His moment of indecision let me launch a repeat of the kick; but that wasn’t the best move, because the mountain was ready. He blocked the kick, pivoted, and struck my throat with the flat of his hand.

Suddenly I was on my back, the ceiling’s waves of steel undulating along the wall. I heard shouts and screams, but they sounded distant, people rushing out of the building.

And then the mountain leaned over me, the knife pivoting in his grip to point downward, fingers now a fist around the polished pearl handle. I heard screaming and feet stampeding on the concrete floor.

He raised the blade and plunged it toward my chest. No hesitation, because he did not have time for me. Even as he stabbed I saw his gaze dart toward the woman; I was just a speed bump. I couldn’t die; my brain filled with thoughts of my son. I blocked the big man’s descending wrist with my forearm, the tip of the steel hovering above the lapel of my suit. For two beats, two seconds, the knife stayed still in its arc. It caught the lights from the retro disco ball moving in a lazy turn (still hanging from Wednesday’s seventies night), the bits of broken light like snow against the steel.

Surprise for those two frozen seconds. I powered a knee hard into the mountain’s groin, hooked my fingers, and jabbed his eyes. He staggered, off-balance, the knife’s edge skimming the floor as he swung downward at me in rage and missed, and I scrambled to my feet.

Then gunfire. I saw the woman. She’d fired at the suburban dad through her purse, tattering the fabric. The dad type ducked for a moment, then charged at her, grabbed the purse, aiming it upward. After another shot, a bourbon bottle shattered against the mirrored bar. The gunfire cleared a path among the terrified club goers. A river of people surged toward the front exit.

I delivered a hammer fist to the face of the mountain, twice, faster than he expected. I pressed, grabbing the knife handle. I pivoted so he and I were facing the same direction. This needed to end. I tried to wrench his arm up and across my chest, to break it. He tried to kick out my foot, failed, and instead launched us both into the wall. The air whooshed out of my lungs. But I headbutted him without a lot of momentum, and as we staggered back, the knife fell from his grip, clattering on the floor.

I wrenched free, sending him crashing into a table of abandoned cocktails.

The suburban dad dragged the woman toward the back exit, pulling on her purse. They slammed into a cart holding a plastic bin of empty beer bottles, used glasses, and wadded napkins. I saw the suburban dad’s mouth moving, whispering into the woman’s ear. She screamed again, wrenched free from him, swinging a beer bottle at his head. He ducked and staggered away from her.

The mountain lumbered up, threw himself into me, rage purpling his face.

I saw the woman grab a drink from the nearest table—an abandoned pint of lager sitting between a couple of purses. She smashed the glass hard into the mountain’s face, beer spraying, the glass cracking. Trying to help me.

It didn’t slow him.

The knife was in my hand, but his fist covered mine and the blade stayed steady between us. He caught my leg with his own, sending me crashing to the floor, trying to aim the knife toward my throat. But he lost his balance as I tugged hard on his wrist, fighting for control, and the mountain fell.

Onto the blade.

Bad luck. There are places in the chest that can survive a bad stabbing. He didn’t land that way. He collapsed, eyes fading of life, just enough to see my face and the wicked blade too close to his heart.

A man I didn’t know, who’d tried to kill me and now lay dying on my floor.

Everything going bad for me, in less than a minute. My life was supposed to be calm now. So I could be a father to my son. I wasn’t supposed to be a weapon anymore.

“Stop her!” I yelled, but nearly everyone was gone, flooding the entrance out onto the sidewalks of the Haight.