Paper Phoenix: A Mystery of San Francisco in the '70s (A Classic Cozy--with Romance!) (11 page)

This sent him nodding and waving toward the elevator. With a feeling of suffocation, I walked quickly down the hall to Richard’s office and opened the door.

It was empty. I switched on the desk lamp, put down my shopping bag, and got the combination out of my purse. The only sound was the faint rattling of the paper as it shook in my hand. The Picasso imitation swung out easily from the wall to reveal the safe.

Rushing furiously, I twirled the dial, went through the combination, and pressed the handle. It didn’t move. I closed my eyes and felt sweat breaking out all over my body. After forcing myself to breathe deeply, I tried again. I spun the dial and went through the combination, whispering the numbers under my breath. I pressed the handle. The safe opened.

Inside were stacks of documents. For the first time it occurred to me that Richard might have taken Larry’s papers out of the damn folder. I didn’t have time to go through all this stuff to look for them. I picked up a pile of what looked like reports, but couldn’t focus on the printing on the cover.

Then I saw it. Back in the back, almost hidden, was an accordion-pleated folder. At the sight, I was instantly calm. I no longer cared if anyone came in. I took the folder, replaced the stack of reports, closed the door, turned the dial. In a second, the painting was back in place. I put the folder in the shopping bag and arranged the I. Magnin bags on top.

Then, because it didn’t matter any more, I stood leafing through Richard’s leather-bound desk calendar. Whom had he been seeing since we broke up, I wondered idly. The appointments were written in his precise hand, keeping well within the little white squares: “Decorator with Diane,” “J. Malone re Golden St. Cntr,” three February days with a line drawn through them and “Dallas” written on the line. And what was this? A terse “Corelli” in January. Joseph Corelli? I flipped through the pages. Yes, here it was again, this time “J. Corelli.” In fact, according to his calendar, Richard had seen Corelli three or four times in the past two months. Wondering what business Richard would have with Larry’s blackmail victim, I turned off the desk light and left the office. I turned off the light in the outer office too, and shut the door behind me. I was in the hall, and the hall was empty. I had gotten away with it.

“Careful. There’s a bulb burned out. The stairs are dark,” Andrew said.

Not only were the stairs dark; they smelled strongly, but not unappetizingly, of salami, thanks to the Italian delicatessen on the ground floor. Clutching my shopping bag like a housewife bringing home the evening’s pot roast, I followed Andrew up and waited while he dug in his pocket for his key.

Andrew lived in North Beach not far from the intersection of Columbus and Broadway, where Carol Doda’s neon nipples blinked through the now-driving rain and barkers with their coat collars turned up lounged in the doorways of dives advertising
NUDE COLLEGE COEDS
and
ORIENTAL SEX ACTS
. The decision to open the folder at his apartment had been made on the basis of his place being closer than mine. He was obviously in a fever of curiosity. “Be it ever so humble,” he said, opening the door.

Humble was a fairly good word for it. The place didn’t look dirty, or especially threadbare, so much as simply drab. The lumpy-looking brown couch, the scarred coffee table holding a small portable television set, the paper-littered card table with a typewriter on it, all bespoke someone who didn’t spend much time thinking about his surroundings. There were two colorful objects in the room: a pale blue stained-glass butterfly hanging in a window, and a huge ginger-colored cat not so much perched on as spilling over the sill below it. When we walked in, the cat gave us a bottomless green stare.

“Maggie, meet A. J.,” Andrew said.

“A. J.?”

“His full name is A. J. Liebling, but you can call him A. J. We’re pretty chummy and informal here, aren’t we, old buddy?”

A. J. made no reply. “Nice cat,” I said.

“Most of the time. He did throw up in my typewriter once. That was hard to forgive.”

Andrew took the Mexican carryall, and I watched him toss the I. Magnin bags on the floor and pull out the folder. I still had the disconnected feeling that had come over me when I’d found the folder in Richard’s safe. I realized that I wasn’t nearly as eager as Andrew to see what was inside. I walked to the window and touched the butterfly. “How pretty.”

He glanced up. “My former girl friend gave it to me just before she took off to seek big bucks in Iran. She’s an engineer.”

I scratched A. J.’s head and felt him start to purr. Andrew was fumbling with the folder’s knotted strings as eagerly as if they had been ribbons on a long-expected present. “Come on,” he said, patting the couch. “Now we’ll see.”

I crossed and sat while he pulled papers from the folder and put them down between us. The papers weren’t in any obvious order. Some were covered with the positive handwriting I remembered from Larry’s suicide note. There were lists of names and phone numbers and what looked like hieroglyphics, photocopied documents, and a four- or five-page typescript that Larry had amended heavily with a black felt-tipped pen. One thing was certain. They were about Richard. The name “Richard Longstreet” jumped at me from almost every page. Some of the photocopies were of letters on his letterhead. Picking one up, I read it. It was addressed to Richard’s tax man. Richard was planning to become a partner in an industrial park currently being built in Dallas, and wanted the accountant to tell him what the tax ramifications would be. Innocuous enough, surely.

I put the letter down and picked up a page of handwritten notes headed “Partners in Framton Associates.” Underneath was a list of names, some with notations beside them like “cattle” and “dept. store— same name.” Circled on the list was “Redfern, Inc.” Next to this entry Larry had written, “J. Malone.” Jane Malone, of course. The Basic Development executive. But what was Framton Associates? I found the answer in another letter, from a Bill Framton to Richard, welcoming Richard into partnership in their new project in Dallas.

Now it was getting clear. Richard had invested in a Dallas industrial park, becoming partners with Jane Malone, while here in San Francisco as Redevelopment Director he was supposed to regulate and oversee Malone’s Golden State Center project. Conflict of interest. How could Richard have been so stupid?

Andrew, meanwhile, had been reading the typescript. “Wow,” he said reverentially. “Larry did a real job on this. A hell of a job.”

“How did he get this information?”

“Some of it’s a matter of public record. The rest— the letters and stuff— I don’t know. Maybe somebody who works for Richard doesn’t like him, and was willing to help Larry out.”

Richard had a new receptionist, I remembered. The former one might have succumbed to Larry’s blandishments or charms.

“Well, it was idiotic of Richard,” I said. “He should’ve been more careful about his investments.”

Andrew’s face took on a wary look. “Maggie, you don’t think Richard invested in that Dallas venture by mistake, do you?”

“Well— I guess not. Of course it’s conflict of interest. Clearly.”

Andrew put the papers down. “Let me ask you this. What does Richard make a year? Sixty thousand? Seventy?”

“Something like that.”

“According to Larry”— Andrew tapped the papers with his finger— “Richard bought into the Dallas thing to the tune of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Did Richard have that kind of money?”

I was astounded. “Of course not!” His Porsche, the trips to Europe, clothes, Candace’s schools, the house— living well had been an addiction for Richard, his way of making up for having had to work his way through college pumping gas. He could no more have amassed two hundred fifty thousand dollars than he could’ve allowed himself to wear a poorly cut overcoat.

“He might have borrowed the money,” I said weakly.

Andrew nodded. “He might’ve. If you asked him about it I expect he’d say he did. And your next question should be what he used for collateral. And after that, how’s he managing to pay the interest. And you know what you’d find out, if you got him to tell the truth? That he put up nothing, that he’s paying nothing, that he’s in this project for two hundred fifty g’s and he didn’t spend a damn dime.”

It was storming outside. A gust of wind rattled the windowpanes. A. J. jumped heavily down from his perch and padded out of the room. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“This is the scenario. The Dallas people let Richard in on their deal to the tune of two hundred fifty thousand. The plan is to build the park fast, get the tenants in, and in three years sell it. Richard gets out with his original ‘investment,’ which he never made, plus profits.”

Andrew was speaking in a well-modulated tone, but somehow I felt as if he were shouting. “I’m saying that was no loan,” he continued. “Richard was bribed.”

How ugly. What a very ugly syllable the word
bribe
was. It conjured up paper bags filled with money, sleazy back-alley meetings. But of course it didn’t have to be that. It could be industrial parks in Dallas, and large unsecured loans, and people who minded their manners and belonged to the Yacht Club. “Bribed to do what?”

“There are lots of ways Richard could help Basic Development. He could give them a five-minute head start on the Golden State Center bidding, so they could come in low. He could talk up Golden State with his cronies on the Redevelopment Commission and the Board of Supervisors so Basic would get their permits fast. He could square them with Public Works so they didn’t have any trouble with utility hookups. Richard could do plenty. He’s a guy with a lot of juice.”

I had lived with Richard, slept with him, thought him handsome, elegant, knowledgeable. Instead, he was just “a guy with a lot of juice” who was willing to sell out. I stared at the disorderly pile of papers. I felt sick.

There was another point— a point Andrew and I hadn’t yet discussed. I had found the folder in Richard’s safe. He had almost certainly taken it from Larry’s office the night Larry died. The idea that Richard might have pushed Larry out the window was no longer particularly farfetched.

“What are you thinking?”

Andrew’s hand was on my shoulder. At first, I couldn’t speak. Then I blurted out, “I was wondering if Richard killed Larry.”

“All we can say is that it looks more likely now.” Andrew’s matter-of-fact tone made me feel calmer. It wouldn’t do, after all, to fly into hysterics because I had discovered that my former husband wasn’t only an insensitive philanderer but a criminal, and possibly a murderer as well.

“You’re getting green around the gills. Want some wine? I’ll get you a nice glass of wine.” The anxious offer made little impression on me, aside from a fleeting notion that Andrew was sweet to bother. “Even better,” his voice floated from the kitchen, “we didn’t have dinner. How about”— the sound of a refrigerator door opening— “let’s see. Some scrambled eggs? A salami sandwich?” He reappeared with a water glass half full of red wine. “What do you say?”

I was almost able to smile at his strenuous efforts to resuscitate my spirits. “I love salami.”

He looked pleased. “I buy it downstairs. It’s the best. Sit right there, and it’ll be ready in a second.”

Andrew made a very good salami on rye. Washing it down with more rotgut red from the jug on the table between us, I thought how all the elements of my life had moved, changed, taken on a different configuration, like a pile of leaves swirled about by wind. Some leaves fall back, but in a different place. Some blow away forever. At this moment, it was impossible to know what I would keep and what I would lose.

Andrew finished his sandwich and leaned back. While we ate he had barely spoken, perhaps sensing that I preferred not to talk. Now he said, “I’ve got a question.”

“What is it?”

“Do you want to go on with our investigation?”

I had been asking the question of myself. We had reached a watershed. Whatever happened from here on in would be serious. Nothing, I knew, would stop Andrew from going ahead now, but this was my opportunity to bow out, to stay in the background, to be— if possible— safe.

“Yes. I want to go on.” Clearly, I couldn’t be content with discoveries half-made. I was on my way to finding out what a great deal of my life had been about.

Andrew looked relieved. “I’m glad to hear you say that. A while ago, you got a little— weird. I was afraid you’d changed your mind about Richard. Gotten sympathetic to him, or something.”

I shook my head. “I was married to Richard for twenty-two years. I haven’t gotten over letting his actions make a difference to me. But sympathetic isn’t what I felt.”

“Good. Because if you don’t mind my saying so, Maggie, you’re obviously way too good for that guy. I mean, you’re terrific even leaving him out of it. Not a very graceful compliment, but at least I’m sincere.”

I was grinning absurdly. “You have a way with words. Have you considered writing as a profession?” The energy that had deserted me came flooding back. “What’s next?”

“Next, I think we should go to the little place down the street where I always go and make photocopies of all this stuff. I’ve got envelopes and stamps. We’ll mail a couple to ourselves, and a couple of others to friends I have who sometimes keep things for me. That way, we won’t lose it again. After that, I suggest we join a political protest.”

“What kind of protest?”

“Citizens Against the Golden State Center is having a meeting tonight at eight. I’m supposed to cover it. If we hurry, I think we can make it.”

Andrew was wrong by half an hour. The cigarette smoke was already thick and voices raised by the time we got downtown to the church basement where the meeting was being held. In spite of the terrible weather, the room was packed, with most of the audience sitting on folding chairs and the rest leaning against the walls. Damp from the rain and breathless from hurrying to get there, Andrew and I stood at the back, next to a table displaying pamphlets advertising everything from methadone programs to the church’s Older Singles group.