There's Nothing to Be Afraid Of (17 page)

I said, “Are you a poet yourself, Jimmy?”

His elfin features crumpled, as if under a sudden weight. “Oh, I was, miss. But not for a long time now.

“But did you write poems?”

“Oh, yes, miss. Many poems. And once I had one that appeared in a magazine. A little magazine, but it was a published poem nevertheless.”

I was about to ask him to recite his poem when Greg’s unmarked car pulled up to the curb and he got out. He crossed the sidewalk and glanced at Jimmy, his lips twitching in irritation. Then he said to me, “All right, let’s get on with this,” and pushed past us into the lobby.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Greg had just finished questioning Dolly when all the lights went out.

We’d been sitting in the Vangs’ living room, with only Dolly and her parents present. Dolly had told her story in halting English, with Carolyn assisting her occasionally, and Lan and Chinh, while obviously ashamed at airing such a matter to outsiders, had supported her in a way that made me respect them all the more.

And now the power had failed. Lan gasped and then everyone was silent. After a few seconds, Greg said, “What’s with the electricity?”

I said, “It’s happened frequently; it’s one of the things I was hired to investigate.”

“Why didn’t they just call PG and E?” There was edginess in Greg’s voice that amused me; he could walk confidently into the goriest murder scene; but being in a room that had been plunged into darkness had unnerved him.

“PG and E came out,” I said. “They determined that someone is shutting off the power at the main switch.”

“Then why doesn’t someone turn it back on? Hal,” he said to Inspector Mourant, who had arrived at the hotel a short time before, “will you do down to the manager’s apartment and ask her to do something about this?”

“Right, Lieutenant.” I could hear Mourant bang into the tables as he made his way to the door.

“You’ll have to take the stairs,” Carolyn said. “The elevator doesn’t function during the blackouts.”

Mourant muttered something that sounded like “terrific” and left the apartment.

Greg said, “Well, this is an odd way to end an interview, but I thank you for your cooperation, Ms. Vang. I’ll have a statement ready for you to sign at the Hall of Justice by noon today.” Then I felt his hand on my arm. “Sharon, I think we’d better let these people get some rest.”

“We’re leaving now, when we can’t even see where we’re going?”

“Yes. Give me your flashlight.” The tone of his voice said that he didn’t want to hear any arguments; I guessed he was feeling claustrophobic.

At the word “flashlight,” Lan, who was sitting on the other side of me, made a little exclamation. She got up and rummaged in a drawer, returning moments later with a lighted candle. Its flicker illuminated a circle of tense faces—faces that quickly relaxed.

I handed Greg my flash and looked at Carolyn. “Are you coming?”

“No, I think I’ll spend the night here on the couch, if no one minds.”

I told her I’d be in touch, and Greg and I went out into the hallway. As we passed Sallie Hyde’s door, the fat woman stuck her head out. In the flashlight’s beam I could see that her hair was in big pink curlers and she wore a quilted pink housecoat. When she saw Greg and me she said, “Oh, Sharon, it’s you,” and regarded him with frank curiosity.

“We’re just leaving,” I said. “Someone’s got to throw the switch, and the lights should be on in a few minutes.”

Sallie shook her head. “First Hoa Dinh. Then poor Dolly, finding that Knox swine. Now this. And to think I told everybody there was nothing to be afraid of.” Quickly she withdrew into her apartment.

Greg said, “Who was that?”

“Sallie Hyde. She’s a murderess.”

“What?”

“Convicted, imprisoned, and paroled. She killed a child she was babysitting. It was a long time ago, and apparently she’s gone straight ever since. That’s all I know.”

“It probably has no bearing on what’s going on here, but what did you say her name was?”

“Sallie Hyde.” That meant Greg would run a check on her—and I would be sure to get the information from him.

We started down the stairs, Greg holding the flashlight so it illuminated the metal tread, our footsteps echoing loudly in the empty stairwell. When we reached the second floor, the lights came back on. “Mourant must have found the switch,” Greg said. To confirm his statement, when we got to the first floor, the inspector and Mary Zemanek emerged from the basement. Mary was babbling about the owner and his liability insurance, and when Greg stopped to talk to them, I went on through the lobby. Greg caught up with me on the sidewalk in front of the hotel.

“Mourant didn’t see anyone down there in the basement,” he said, “but he’ll stay around a while in case someone tries to pull the switch again.”

“Good,” I turned in the direction of the lot where my MG was.

“Wait,” Greg said. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

“It’s okay. Don’t trouble yourself.”

“No, I want to.”

With a sense of
déjà vu
, I let him accompany me to the parking lot, but when we arrived all was not as it had been the night before; the chain-link fence was locked, the lot deserted. Beyond it, the MG sat waiting forlornly.

“Dammit,” I said. “I should have known they’d have closed the lot by now.”

“It’s good I came down here with you,” Greg said. “I’ll drive you home, and you can pick up your car in the morning.”

“I guess I have no choice.”

“Gracious, aren’t you?”

“Sorry. I’m just tired.” To prove I had meant no offense, I took his arm companionably as we went back to where he had parked in front of the hotel.

Out of habit, Greg drove toward my old apartment building on Guerrero Street. When I realized where he was going I corrected him, giving him directions to my house on Church Street. The street was lined with cars, and one of my neighbors had parked in my driveway, as I’d told him to do when he couldn’t find a space. All the lights in the nearby houses were out, the respectable working-class folks having been in bed for hours. I wanted to go to bed too—right away, and sleep for days—but Greg seemed to have no intention of leaving. He accompanied me onto the front porch and looked expectantly when I opened the door. Shrugging, I said, “Do you want to come in for a drink?”

“I’d like that.”

I led him inside and down the tiny hall to the living room. The house had a close, shut-up feeling, and Watney didn’t even come to greet me. Probably the ferocious creature had availed himself on the new cat door Don and I had installed and was out hunting mice—or dogs and small children.

Thinking of Don made me realize I hadn’t spoken to him all day, not since he’d cooked the breakfast I hadn’t been able to eat. I went over and pressed the playback button of my answering machine—a new acquisition, since my service had recently gone bankrupt—but there was only one message, an unintelligible one from Barry the contractor, who sounded drunk. I frowned, wondering why Don hadn’t called, then turned to Greg. He was looking around the room with obvious curiosity.

“All I have is red wine,” I said, “and I have to warn you—it’s of dubious quality.”

“At three-thirty in the morning, I don’t much care about quality.”

“Me neither.” I went into the kitchen and took down two glasses, then detoured into the bathroom. The surgical tools lay on the floor, and there were nails scattered around the shower drain. Barry’s delicate operation was going slowly. I sighed, realized I would have to go next door to the Curley’s for my morning shower; they’d been awfully understanding about helping me out—and rightfully so, after they’d recommended Barry—but this couldn’t go on indefinitely . . .

When I returned to the living room with the wine, Greg was examining the little picture of the country inn Don had bought me. I set the glasses and the bottle on the coffee table, thinking how seldom Don and I used this room. We preferred to sit at the kitchen table, but somehow Greg would have seemed out of place there. I poured wine, he came to sit beside me, and we toasted one another.

“To your new house,” he said, “It’s a nice place.”

“Thank you. I’m quite happy with it.”

“No plans to take on a roommate—your boyfriend, I mean?”

“Not at the moment. We both like our privacy and, besides, his baby grand piano wouldn’t fit.”

“Oh, yes—he’s a musician as well as a disc jockey.”

“Yes.”

We fell silent, sipping wine. The silence lengthened. It wasn’t a comfortable one. Finally Greg said, “Tell me about the problems at the Globe Hotel.”

As I’d figured out earlier, he was taking at least some of my ideas seriously. “I outlined them to you last night.”

“I’d like some more detail.”

“The case has a lot of odd elements. There’s the owner who would like to unload the place, but can’t do so without first evicting the tenants. Initially I thought he might be trying to scare them away, but he turns out to be a letter-of-the-law guy who’s deathly afraid someone will slip on the stairs and sue him.”

“And the manager, Mrs. Zemanek?”

“She’s sympathetic to the tenants, but afraid of losing her job, so she backs the owner in everything.”

“From the way she was talking tonight, the owner is practically sitting at the right hand of God.”

“Practically. Then we have Sallie Hyde, the murderess.”

“Yes. I’ll check her out.”

“And then there are the Vangs and the Dinhs and the other Vietnamese residents. They all seem to be hardworking, honest people. The Vangs’ son Duc is a little strange—alienated, clings to the traditional ways. He and the first victim, Hoa Dinh, were best friends, and originally I thought Hoa’s death might be gang related. But I talked with Inspector Loo of the Gang Task Force, as well as with Duc and other people in the neighborhood. Whatever those boys are, they’re not gang members.”

Greg watched me over the rim of his glass. “But something bothers you about them. Or about Duc, anyway.”

“Yes. I can’t put my finger on it, except that Duc was very evasive about what he and his friends do in the neighborhood. Maybe I’ll talk with him again.”

Greg was silent.

“What? You don’t want me pursuing this?”

“It may not be to the Department’s advantage.”

“Greg. I’ve cooperated—”

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

“But—”

“Tomorrow.”

I knew that tone, so I dropped it. “Okay. Anyway, that’s the case of characters at the hotel. Then there are the outsiders; the man who I was talking with when you arrived tonight, he’s a little unbalanced, recites poetry all the time. There’s a street preacher who has potential streak of violence. And, of course, there’s the deceased, Otis Knox.”

“This preacher—he have any connection with that hotel?”

“None that I can uncover. But he did with Knox; he preaches in front of his theatre.”

“What else?”

I could have mentioned the umbrella lady or the man who chipped the tiles off the Taj Mahal Bar or even Knox’s young, spaced-out film projectionist, but it all seemed irrelevant, and suddenly I felt tired. “That’s about it.” As I spoke, my spirits dipped even lower. I’d been on the case for two days, and that was all I had to show for it—that, and two bodies in the morgue. And a power failure …

I frowned.

‘What now?” Greg said.

“That power failure bothers me. Why tonight? At that particular time?”

“Why not?”

“Because it was late, and there were very few tenants of that hotel who were likely to be inconvenienced. They wouldn’t be using their lights or the elevator . . .”

Greg shrugged, clearly uninterested, and sipped wine. Again we fell silent, and again the silence lengthened. When I glanced over at him, he was regarding me speculatively. With a shock I realized he was considering kissing me.

When the shock faded, I actually considered encouraging him. After all, Greg was an attractive man, and even at our worst times the physical part of our relationship had never cooled off. Then I thought of Don and set my wineglass on the table.

“It’s awfully late,” I said, “and we both got to be at work in the morning.”

Greg looked at me for a moment longer. Then he nodded and drained his glass, his face expressionless. “Thanks for the wine,” he said, standing up. “Call me sometime after noon and we’ll talk about you investigating further.”

I followed him to the door and out into the crisp night. Here, miles from the stink of the Tenderloin, the air had a fresh quality that I could savor. For a moment, standing there on my porch, I looked up at Greg and again felt the tug of physical attraction. Apparently he felt it too, because he hesitated before he went down the steps to his car, raising a hand in farewell.

I went back inside, took the bottle and glasses to the kitchen, and turned off the lights. After groping my way to the bedroom in the dark, I shed my clothes and crawled into bed.

Only someone else was already in it. A familiar, warm, muscular body.

I hadn’t seen his car, where was it? Parked far down the congested street, no doubt.

Don said, “It’s about time. For a while there, I thought the three of us were going to end up in bed together.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I got to the Globe Hotel at eight-thirty the next morning, my head aching from lack of sleep and my eyes feeling as if tiny grains of sand were trapped under their lids. I was determined, however, to ignore my wretched state and get as much accomplished as possible before noon. Greg had said we would talk then about whether I would be allowed to continue my investigation, but I suspected that his decision would be a negative one. This morning might be my last chance to help my clients.

The lobby was deserted, and a hand-lettered sign on the elevator door said:
Out of Order
. Perhaps, I thought, last night’s power failure had delivered it a
coup de grace
. My weary body aching, I climbed the stairs to the fourth floor and knocked at the Vangs’ apartment. Lan answered immediately, her face pasty, her eyes deeply shadowed. Her wan expression turned to relief when she saw me, and I realized that something was wrong here, something in addition to the events of the previous evening.