Ellipsis (10 page)

“As I mentioned before, my house has the most elaborate security system money can buy. I choose to believe that
it
can perform as advertised.”

I ignored the implicit insult but I was getting a little tired of her Evita routine. “Your choice,” I groused.

“Oh, yes, Mr. Tanner. It's always my choice. Be early tomorrow, so you can have the studio secured before my arrival.”

“Will do,” I said, feeling the way I used to when my mother made me clean my room, which was that I wanted to make it messier.

Since I'd obviously been dismissed, I headed for the door. Before I could make my escape, Lark McLaren caught up to me. “I'm getting worried,” she said.

“So am I,” I admitted.

“There was something very real about that one.”

“I agree.”

“And very hateful.”

“Yes.”

“So what should we do?”

“Fly to Paris and wait it out in the bowels of the Ritz. But since that's not likely to happen, just try to be careful.”

“I can only be as careful as Chandelier lets me. She's a brave woman, unfortunately. Foolhardy at times.”

“One other thing.”

“What?”

“This doesn't sound like a nutcase to me. It sounds like Ms. Wells is up to something the note writer wants her to stop. Get together with Chandelier and try to figure out what that is.”

She nodded. “If she'll let me, we'll do it tonight. She has some telephone interviews, though, and a chat session on her Web site, then a photo shoot for a spread in
Bay Area Homestyles
. And Amber and Sally are coming to go over some last-minute changes in her tour. But I'll try to fit it in. Definitely.”

I laughed at the evening's schedule Lark had described, which was more laden with effort and entanglements than my schedule for the rest of the month. “Just another evening at the Wells house?”

“Actually, this is a slow night. You can't imagine what it's like when she really gets rolling. When we're out on tour, I'm on the phone ten hours a day.”

“When does she have any fun?”

“Never. She doesn't relax while she's touring, all she does on tour is hustle. She'll sign a book in the hotel john if they let her. I always have half a dozen copies in my backpack in case she meets a hot prospect en route to the loo.”

“I'm beginning to sense why you don't want to be a writer anymore.”

“I thought you might.”

I waved good-bye and headed down the street toward the Lincoln. When he saw me coming, Jed Filson rolled down the window on the big car.

“One thing,” I said.

“Shoot.”

“If she goes anywhere but home tonight, or anywhere but to the TV studio in the morning, let me know as soon as possible.”

“Right.”

“She been hanging out in any strange places lately?”

Filson's stubble made room for a grin. “Hanging out in dives is her hobby. She prowls this city like a derelict, let me tell you. I been chasing bad guys around the bay for twenty years and she knows joints I never heard of, let alone been inside. Last week she spent a couple hours in some toilet out in the Potrero I wouldn't go in without a rifle platoon.”

“You let her check out these places alone?”

“Only because she insists on it.”

“What's she like when she comes out?”

“Like she's just had great sex.” Filson shook his head. “The woman gets off on lowlife like I get off on the nags.”

Chapter 10

I live in a four-unit apartment building on the south slope of Telegraph Hill. Broadway is below me to the south; North Beach below me to the west. It's my favorite part of the city and I've lived there almost twenty years, in apartment 3, top floor front; I've got a view and a parking place and I can walk home from the bar if I have to. During all that time, my neighbor down below has been a woman named Pearl Gibson. Pearl is eighty-four and she's a pistol.

Over the years I've learned a thing or two about Pearl even though we've never talked for more than five minutes at a stretch. She's been a widow since she was fifty. She had a son named Alvin, who died driving drunk up at Tahoe, and a daughter named Myra, who died in infancy from a viral infection that was never fully diagnosed. She doesn't seem to be wealthy but she has enough money to pay her rent and to order Chinese food delivered five nights a week from a joint on Grant Street that doesn't deliver to anyone else.

Pearl likes the Giants and 49ers, though not as much as she used to before everyone on the rosters was rich. She has a glass of wine at dinner, usually fumé blanc, and another an hour before bedtime, usually brandy—she thinks chardonnay is overrated, red wine keeps her awake, and hard liquor felled her father so she steers clear of spirits. She doesn't take a pill except aspirin for arthritis, feels physically fit as a fiddle, and hasn't seen a doctor since she broke her ankle eight years ago doing something she knew better than to be doing at her age, which was changing a lightbulb while standing on a rickety chair. She likes it when I bring her baked goods, especially cinnamon twists. I feel bad if I don't do it once a week.

And that's about it, the sum total of my knowledge of my neighbor Pearl Gibson, up to the point when I arrived home from Jimbo's at six-thirty that evening, still puzzling over the turn of events at the launch party. As I was climbing the stairway toward my place on the second floor, I heard a door grind open at my back.

“Mr. Tanner?”

I smiled before I turned around; talking with Pearl was always a trip. “Hi, Pearl. No pastry today, I'm afraid.”

“That's all right. Suzie across the street brought me an angel food cake this morning. Old people like me are the only ones who still eat angel food cake, have you noticed that, Mr. Tanner? Why do you think that is?”

“Because angel food is too white and white isn't cool. And I really wish you'd call me Marsh.”

“I've told you before—that would be forward of me and I wasn't brought up to be forward.”

I grinned. “I've seen less forward women leaning against lampposts on Hayes Street. How are you feeling this evening?”

“I'm fine as always except for the arthritis. I trust you're the same?”

“I am, as a matter of fact.”

Her look morphed into a combination of Joel Grey and Yoda. “Is that attractive young woman still coming to call on you of an evening?”

I blushed as if I'd been discovered in flagrante delicto. “Have you been spying on me, Pearl?”

She drew herself to full height, which was on the downside of sixty inches. “I most certainly have not. But there are certain sounds whose origins are unmistakable even to one of my age and impaired recollection. If you get my drift, Mr. Tanner.”

Her drift was more like a tsunami. In the twinkle of her devilish eyes, my blush became a range fire. “I'm sorry we bothered you. I'll try to hold it down next time.”

“Who said I was bothered? Quite the contrary, I assure you. I used to get rather noisy myself in the old days, or so I've been told. Oh, my. Now you're discombobulated just when I need to ask you a favor.”

I pretended I didn't resemble a walking tomato. Pearl always got me talking about things you shouldn't talk about with women her age. Which is probably why I liked her. “How can I help you, Pearl?”

She pointed back toward the front door. “The mailman left a bundle down by my box and it's far too heavy for me to lift. I wonder if you'd be kind enough to bring it up to me.”

“Glad to be of service.”

I trotted back down the stairs and looked toward the row of mailboxes that was set into the east wall. Below the four rectangular brass doors was indeed a hefty bundle, double-wrapped in twine. It looked to be mostly magazines, a dozen of them or more, along with some junk mail and catalogs and flyers and the like.

I grabbed the bundle at the knot and toted it down the hall. “Where do you want it?” I asked when I got to Pearl's door.

She backed into her apartment and pointed. When I looked to see where she wanted me to put it, I had to work to keep my mouth shut.

What I saw was the sort of fortress a child would build, a wall three feet high and even higher in spots, entirely surrounding her couch and occasional table but for a narrow opening that served as an entrance to the embattled sitting area. I thought of
WKRP in Cincinnati
and the invisible walls one of the characters had insisted were defining his office, but this wall wasn't invisible, it was just unusual, mostly because of its raw materials. Pearl's wall wasn't built of board or brick or Sheetrock, Pearl's wall was built of magazines.

Hundreds of them, glossy and thick and sturdy, piled neatly so the stacks wouldn't topple, a laminated fortification that hadn't been in evidence the last time I'd been in Pearl's place, which had been more than a year ago when I was recovering from a gunshot wound and Pearl had invited me down to give her the gory details while she made me some split pea soup.

After I placed the fresh bundle at the base of the wall, I wanted to say something pertinent but couldn't think what that would be. “That's a lot of reading material,” I mumbled finally.

“Oh, I don't
read
them,” Pearl scoffed as if I'd accused her of using them for napkins. She picked up a couple of copies off the nearest pile. “What would I want with
Road & Track
, for heaven's sake? Or
PC World
, whatever
that
is?”

“Computers.”

“There. You see? I don't know anything about computers and I don't
want
to know anything about them. As far as I can tell, they make quality obsolete and quantity the measure of everything. If that's not enough, it takes longer in line at the supermarket than it ever did with cash registers.”

Usually, a diatribe like that would have gotten me intellectually involved, in this instance by seconding Pearl's notion about the seditious onset of technology, but I was still staring at the wall of magazines the way I stare at the apes in the zoo, as if they have something to teach me. “If you don't read them, why do you have them?” I asked out of actual ignorance. “The subscriptions must have cost a fortune.”

Pearl waved a hand with unconcern. “It's not that expensive, really, in light of the bigger picture. And besides, I don't have any choice.”

“Why not?”

She squinted at me with sudden suspicion, as though I'd asked her age or her PIN. “All in due time, Mr. Tanner. All in due time. As soon as I'm back from Vancouver, I'll have news that will satisfy both you
and
Mr. Larson, that Nosy Parker.”

“Who's Mr. Larson?”

“The
mailman
, silly. Surely you know Mr. Larson.”

“We've met,” I said, though I wasn't sure if we had or not.

Pearl looked at the clock that was ticking away at the far wall and threatening to disgorge a cuckoo. “I'm afraid I must ask you to take your leave, Mr. Tanner. I have to start packing. The plane leaves quite early in the morning, and the little blue bus will be here even earlier.”

“What's in Vancouver?” I asked absently, still wondering about the periodicals.

“In due time, Mr. Tanner,” Pearl repeated mysteriously. “In due time.”

I shrugged and started backing toward the door. “Have a nice trip.”

“Oh, I shall. It's cut-and-dried this time. Last time they tricked me, but this time I read the rules six times. Now if you'll excuse me, we'll have a nice chat when I get back. If you see Suzie, tell her the angel food was scrumptious.”

As far as I knew, I had never seen Suzie in my life.

I bid Pearl a quick good-bye and lumbered up to my apartment, which was sufficiently drab to make me consider a change of decor every time I came home, especially in light of the inevitable comparisons between Jill Coppelia's place and mine. Mine always came in a poor second even when I was doing the measuring.

I fixed myself a drink, glanced through
Newsweek
and
Harper's
, and speculated idly if I had enough unread magazines around to build a fort myself. Then I heated a can of Healthy Choice soup after adding salt and Parmesan to make it a little less healthy, ate a banana while I waited for the soup to cool, and finished off my dinner with five or six Oreos. Or maybe nine or ten. By the time I'd finished my second drink I was ready to make the call.

The phone rang a long time, which was a hint I should have taken, especially when the answering machine didn't click on. Which most likely meant Jill was working and I shouldn't have been trying to horn in.

I had decided to hang up when she answered with a bleat of irritation, “Coppelia.”

“You're home now, counselor. It's allowable to be polite.”

“I don't feel polite.”

“Don't sound it, either.”

“How'd it go with your celebrity?”

“Great. I'm really good at this bodyguard business.”

“That sounds sarcastic.”

“She got a death threat while I was standing ten feet away.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“How could that happen?”

“I'll let you know when I find out.”

The evasion stoked her anger. “Fine. Great. So what do you want with me?”

“That's a bit gruff, isn't it?”

“I
feel
gruff, I told you. Gruff, gruff.”

“Well, Fido, the reason I'm calling is to get your comment on the story in the
Examiner
this evening that says the local grand jury's look into cop corruption is foundering badly. Or maybe that's
floundering
, I'm never sure there's a difference.”

“My comment is, a flounder's a fish and a founder isn't.”

“Then what's a founder?”

“Like Leland Stanford. He founded Stanford University. Or Steve Jobs. He founded Apple.”