Past Tense Read online

  “And I don’t care.”

  I laughed. “What if someone special came along?”

  “They haven’t for a long time.”

  “But what if?”

  “I’m not sure special would even show up on my radar anymore. I think maybe I’m too old for an important relationship.”

  “How old are you?”

  I expected a dodge but didn’t get one. “Forty-four.”

  “That’s not too old for anything.”

  She looked at me and smiled. “Are we talking about me or are we talking about you?”

  I matched her grin. “Both, I hope.”

  “Okay, if someone special showed up, I’d probably pursue it. Despite all the horror stories I hear at the office, I’d still rather be in love than out of it.”

  “And what if they weren’t all that special? What if they were just okay?”

  “A mediocre relationship. Is that what you’re asking? Would I settle for one of those just for the sake of … what?”

  “Companionship. Engaging repartee. Sexual satisfaction. More than one but less than all of the above.”

  “But it’s never that simple, is it? For one thing, if you’re not in love with the person, it becomes very hard to forgive them.”

  “Forgive them for what?”

  “For everything they do that irritates us.” She walked to the liquor cabinet and opened it. “Brandy?”

  “Sure.”

  She poured a healthy dose of VSOP into two snifters and we went into the parlor to sip them. She flipped a switch and filled the air with Mozart and Bartoli, then turned a knob and filled the fireplace with flames. Soon there was the pop and snap of a real wood fire, courtesy of the logs on the grate.

  Danielle sat on the chair and I took the sofa. She flipped on a small table lamp that bathed her in a soft light that turned her into something luxurious, a gently sculpted marble bust, something out of reach of men like me. I knew there was nothing in it for me long-term, and I didn’t think I cared, but the short term was beginning to look promising provided I didn’t blow it.

  She kicked off her shoes for comfort; I made do with rolling up my sleeves. Then I lifted my snifter. “To the charm and skill of my hostess.”

  She aped the gesture. “To the silent strength of my guest.”

  We drank deeply, then looked at each other over the puddles of brandy. The firelight made a collage of her features, highlighting one and then another in random and exotic sequence. A small smile was the only hint she gave of what was on her mind, but the rise and fall of her chest was more rapid than normal and the flesh on her face was flushed. My own symptoms were at least as obvious.

  “I don’t do this very often,” I said.

  “Do what?”

  “Enjoy an elegant dinner with an elegant woman.”

  “Well, I don’t do this often either.”

  “I hope you’re not accusing me of being elegant.”

  “What I meant was, I’m not often around people who are comfortable with silence. It was a pleasure not to be babbling all evening.”

  “I doubt that you’ve babbled since you were fifteen.”

  “You must not have been listening to Mr. Allison at the CMI. Psychobabble is my stock-in-trade.”

  “If it was, Charley Sleet would never have let you near Tafoya.”

  She closed her eyes and sighed. “Can we not talk about that anymore tonight?”

  “Fine.”

  “So if not evenings like this,” she inquired dreamily, “what do you do on Saturday nights?”

  “Watch TV. Go to a ball game. Drink too much scotch at Guido’s.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “North Beach.” I named the restaurant.

  “I’ve been there. I didn’t know it had a bar.”

  “It’s in back. Admission is sort of by invitation only. I’ll take you some night if you want.”

  She shrugged off the offer. “You don’t date?”

  “Not regularly. I’ve had a girlfriend on occasion, though not on this one as it happens.”

  “When was the last time?”

  “Betty. Schoolteacher. We broke it off a couple of years ago.”

  “Why?”

  “She wanted kids and I didn’t. Which turned out to be rather ironic.”

  “How so?”

  I didn’t want to get into Eleanor and how she came to occupy my life. “It’s not important. What about you? Why isn’t there a line of men outside your door? Or are they down at the deli taking a number?”

  She laughed. “Hardly. For one thing, I don’t have a context—I don’t meet many men in my work, I’m not a joiner, and I don’t hang out in taverns, so opportunities rarely present themselves. My last serious relationship was five years ago. He was a psychiatrist.”

  “Too bad.”

  She laughed. “That’s putting it mildly.”

  “Aren’t you lonely?” I asked, more candidly than I intended.

  “Sure I am. Aren’t you?”

  “Yep.”

  “What do you do about it?”

  “Less and less. I seem to be deciding that dating is too much trouble even though I don’t like the idea of living the rest of my life this way.”

  “Why not?”

  “What if I get sick? What if I end up a shut-in? What if I—”

  She bristled. “You want a nurse, is that it? Well, guess what? You can rent them by the hour. You don’t have to marry them.”

  My face was red and my chuckle was uneasy. “What about you? I find it hard to believe that you’re content to live out your life as a spinster.”

  “I don’t think about it much and I certainly don’t use that word to describe my status. When I do think about it, I decide it wouldn’t be so bad, all things considered. I mean every man I’ve ever been with has tried to change me in some way. I’ve worked hard to become who I am—I’m not about to give it up.”

  “Not even for love?”

  “Not even for that. Whatever that is.”

  “How can you call yourself a therapist and not know what love is?”

  Now she was the one who blushed. “You can be a bit of a bastard, you know that?”

  “Being a bit of a bastard is my stock-in-trade.”

  We sipped in silence for several minutes. The fire burned down, leaving the room deeper in shadow and its occupants deeper in a stew of memory and speculation.

  “What?” she asked after she switched the CD from Bartoli to Sarah Vaughan and refilled the snifters with brandy.

  “What what?”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Just the usual.”

  “What’s the usual?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Try me.”

  “I was just thinking how attractive you are. And wondering what you’d look like without clothes. And how you like men to make love to you.” I paused. “I know. Just another sex-crazed male. More grist for the mill at the office.”

  “Feminists aren’t against sex, you know.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  “And most women enjoy it when men consider them attractive. They just don’t often enjoy what comes next.”

  “Understandable.”

  “Is it?”

  “Sure. On the other hand, if nothing ever came next, where would we be?”

  She grinned. “For one thing, I’d be out of business.”

  “Me, too.”

  We toasted our brief confederation.

  “What do you think should come next with us?” she asked, swirling the brandy, sniffing the bouquet, curling her legs underneath her, and looking at me with daunting directness.

  “What should happen? Or what I wish would happen?”

  “Either.”

  “Should is probably I thank you for a wonderful evening, offer to wash the dishes, then clear out when you tell me you’ll handle it.”

  “And the wish part?”

  “I imagine yo
u can guess.”

  “What if I wanted that to happen, too?”

  “You’d have to give me a sign.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t take rejection well and because I’d guess you’re a pro at it.”

  “What kind of sign would you need?”

  “Whatever. I’m a pretty good interpreter.”

  “Would you be able to tell that the sign was only good for one night? That it expired at midnight and wasn’t renewable?”

  “I think I’ve seen that one already.”

  “Good.”

  She pursed her lips in a sexy pout, then ran her tongue along their thick red rims. “Is that too blatant?”

  “There’s no such a thing as too blatant.”

  She laughed and drained her snifter. By the time she was done, I was standing over her. “Do you have a preference where this happens?”

  “How about right here?”

  “Here is fine. But don’t you want to put down a towel or something? In case there’s some runoff?”

  “If you do it right, there won’t be.” She was naked in twenty seconds. “Do you want me front or back?”

  “Your choice.”

  “I think like this.”

  She slid to the floor, then crouched on her knees, her rear end presented to me, her breasts pressed flat by the seat of the chair. “It works best if your thighs are between mine.”

  “I take it we don’t bother with preliminaries.”

  “The only preliminary you need is a condom.”

  I laughed. “Do I get to do anything but follow instructions?”

  “Not this time,” she said.

  CHAPTER

  27

  IT WAS AFTER TWO WHEN I GOT HOME AND THEY WERE waiting for me. Three of them, piling out of a green Pathfinder as I drove up my street, surrounding my car while my mind was on the delights I shared with Danielle, looking as though they did this kind of thing on a regular basis. By the time I appreciated what they were up to, the car door was open and there was a gun in my neck and a hand on my shoulder: Never drive around town with your door unlocked.

  “Out,” the big one ordered, his Glock a hot thumb taking the pulse of my carotid artery.

  I looked into the murky confines of the garage. “Let me park it first. It’s in the way as it is.”

  “So are you, asshole,” he growled, then dragged me out of the car as easily as he would have removed a sixpack. With another curse, he shoved me against the front fender. When he patted me down for weapons, he didn’t bother to be delicate—an ounce more effort behind the slap at my groin would have put me on the floor in a fetal curl, which was probably what he had in mind.

  There were three of them all told, small, medium, and large in size, dressed the way I was, in Levi’s and flannel shirts with the additional accessories of black ski masks and brown boots. They were assassins out of Eddie Bauer, thugs out of L.L. Bean, generic and competent and scary.

  Despite the masks and the mufti, I was certain I knew who they were—the big guy had worn the same shirt when he’d joined Wally Briscoe at the ball game. Which meant they were cops, at ease outside the law, rogues out to do damage and save their skins, as casually corrupt as lifelong mafiosi. They were trained to kill and probably had done so both lawfully and not—the only issue at the moment was what they wanted and how far would they go to get it.

  I opted to stay dumb for as long as I could. “Take it easy, pal. My wallet’s in my pants. There’s only a few bucks but you can have it all. I don’t have a cash card, so there’s no use—”

  The big one was still boss. “Shut up. When we want something, we’ll tell you what it is.”

  “If this is a kidnap, I have to tell you that no one I know can afford a ransom of more than three figures. And most of them wouldn’t pay that.”

  “Figure this, asshole.” He slammed his pistol against my left temple. I spun around, then embraced the fender to keep from falling to the concrete floor. Welcome to law enforcement—they’ve been doing it that way since the Romans were roughing up the Christians. It’s counterproductive in the long run—just ask Marcia Clark—but that never seems a sufficient deterrent.

  I indulged my instincts. “You fucking oaf. What do you think you’re doing, mugging me in my own home? The landlady’s a light sleeper; there’ll be cops here in two minutes.”

  He couldn’t resist deserting his cover. “Sooner than that, asshole.”

  Since he had stopped playing, I could stop, too. “Plainclothes or uniform?” I asked. “And how was the game, by the way?”

  “Fuck you. I said keep quiet.”

  With one hand once again pressing the Glock to my neck, he herded me out of the garage and in the direction of the Pathfinder. When we got there, he opened a door and shoved me in the rear seat. Along the way, there was time to confirm that Wally Briscoe wasn’t one of them—none of the three came close to duplicating his pudgy features. I wasn’t comforted by his absence.

  The other two got in on either side of me in back and the big man sat behind the wheel. The smaller of my seatmates was armed, with a sleek little Colt Double Eagle. The worst weapon wielded by the other guy was a case of halitosis.

  The Pathfinder surged to life and wound down Telegraph Hill, then swung left on Broadway and right on the Embarcadero and whizzed along the eastern edge of the city and the western edge of the bay. No one said anything, even in response to my quips.

  Twenty minutes later, we were deep into fantasyland, a semi-resurgent but still mostly industrial area composed of bright new condos on one side of the road and the hulks of abandoned shipping terminals on the other. By the time we passed the Delancey Street Restaurant, crossed the Lefty O’Doul Bridge, and the Embarcadero became Third Street, I decided they were taking me someplace to kill me.

  We drove along the tattered fringe of the city, a strip along the bay shore that had not yet been revitalized. In appearance, the area was like a drain that was clogged with the flotsam and jetsam that had washed ashore in a storm. A community of transients ensconced in dilapidated buses and campers shared space with several dry docks and piers that were rotting from disuse. A few businesses had held on, though, mostly marine shops and small cafes that had survived the closure of the shipyards. It was all rather nostalgic and anthropologic, but then we took a left on Twentieth Street and entered the world of the Road Warrior.

  Abandoned vehicles stretched as far as the eye could see, rusting hulks secured behind an inadequate cyclone fence and bearing little plastic numbers propped on their tops that implied someone somewhere would want them for something. Despite the dark of night, the vehicles seemed alive somehow, a nest of wasps gathering strength for flight in the morning, a cave of bears lumbering out of hibernation, a gang of thieves coming awake in their secret lair. But even though the Potrero police station was less than three blocks away, and even though the worthless vehicles were officially lodged in the police impoundment lot, rescue was not going to happen. They had brought me there precisely because it was their turf.

  They got out of the car and dragged me with them. The only light leaked from a distant lamppost; the only smells were of decay and putrefaction and spilled fuels. The traffic up on Illinois Street looked to be on missions as lethal as our own. I ran through a list of options—flight, resistance, bluff, and bluster—but didn’t find any I liked. These guys were pros, and pros don’t spook with words unless they come backed by some heavy hardware.

  The biggest one stuck a hand on my collar and yanked me down an asphalt path that led through a hole in the fence and deep into the cluster of vehicles, to a point that put us out of sight of the road. They all seemed familiar with the place—I wondered how many men they’d dragooned the same way and if any had survived the experience. Given the amount of rusty metal in the vicinity, it seemed as possible as anything else that I’d eventually die of lockjaw.

  The big guy tugged me to a stop in front of a VW minibus that seemed a relic fro
m some futile uprising, and a suitable backdrop to a firing squad. By the time I regained my balance and surveyed the situation, all three of them had weapons in their hands and the weapons were trained on me. No gun control plan in existence takes the guns away from cops.

  The big guy still took the lead. “We need to know one thing. You tell us without a fuss, we all go home happy.”

  I borrowed a line from Rockford: “Does your mother know you do this kind of thing for a living?”

  He slugged me in the stomach. I lurched forward, grasping my guts to keep them sufficiently aligned to allow them to function. My breath whistled in my ears; my eyes watered in sympathy with my pain. By the time I straightened up, we all knew it wasn’t the end of things, we knew it was just the beginning.

  “A smart mouth won’t get you anything but grief, motherfucker,” the big one said, then spit a gob the size of a golf ball onto my left shoe.

  By the time I was breathing normally, the big guy had a rope in his hands. Not a thick rope but more like twine, or maybe baling wire, each end wound around a piece of wood, leaving an effective length of three feet. Two seconds later, the rope was draped around my neck and the pieces of wood were allowing him to tighten it without losing his purchase.

  “Talk,” he instructed.

  “About what?”

  “Sleet.”

  “Well, he’s about five-ten, two-thirty, with a neck like a chimney and arms the size of—”

  “Fuck that shit. Where is he?”

  “Who?”

  “Sleet, asshole.”

  The rope became as snug as a necktie. “I don’t know,” I said.

  “The fuck you don’t. You’re his asshole buddy. He don’t fart you don’t light him a match.”

  “I don’t know where he is,” I repeated. “I’ve been looking for him myself. Ask Wally Briscoe if you don’t believe me.”

  “Leave Wally out of it,” the middle-sized one said. I wondered what Wally had done to earn his largess. I guessed all cops are in debt to all other cops, which is why it’s so easy to corrupt them.

  “Why?” the big one demanded.

  “Why what?”

  “Why you looking for him?”

  “So I can talk him into giving himself up before someone like you hunts him down and kills him.”