Last Chants Page 3

  I swept some clutter off the couch and invited Arthur to sit. I went back into the kitchen.

  I stood over the dripping coffee cone for a few minutes. Maybe Arthur could have explained away the gun incident and maybe he couldn’t. Maybe I’d done the right thing in “rescuing” him. Maybe I’d handled this wrong.

  I worried about it. I left Arthur alone in my living room, and I nursed a cup of coffee. I let a hundred worries bloom.

  Finally, I decided to phone work. I would offer an unspecified personal emergency as an excuse. If they fired me, they fired me. Waiting wouldn’t change that.

  I found Arthur reading the newspaper, which he’d stacked into a tidy pile beside him. He didn’t look up.

  I walked over to the phone, which was on a director’s chair. My decor, a friend had pointed out, was basic freshman. I’d tried, on occasion, to become interested in my surroundings. But that meant too much cleaning and shopping, and not enough reading and aimless walking.

  I started to dial Curtis & Huston. I chickened out. I told myself I should allay my parents’ fears first; that I could practice my excuse-making on them.

  My father picked up on the first ring. “Willa!” he said in response to my greeting. “Where are you?”

  “Home.” I watched Arthur jerk back as if startled by a headline on the state news page. “It’s kind of a long story . . .”

  “Oh my, I wonder if we can still catch your mother?”

  “Catch her? Doing what?”

  “Going to the—You’ve got to put this in context, Willa.” His voice was ambassadorial. In recent years, he’d taken to mediating between me and my mother, trying to make my practicality less alien to her and her politics less ridiculous to me.

  “Put what in context? Is she in trouble? What’s she done now?” I felt the strength drain out of me. I’d warned her till I was weary; I thought I’d made my point. “She’s not getting herself arrested?”

  “No. No. It’s you, she’s been worrying about you.”

  I ran through a list of worst-case possibilities. In any context involving me, could she be picketing anyone? Trespassing? Calling a news conference? “And?”

  “Because she knew how happy you were about getting this job, you know.”

  “So what did she do?”

  “She phoned you all morning, then she went by your place.” He was hedging, soothing.

  Arthur was making strangling noises. I glanced at him. He didn’t seem to be choking on anything. I put a hand over my free ear to block out the sounds.

  “Cut to the chase, Daddy, would you? She’s not in trouble?”

  “No. But she thinks you are.”

  I still didn’t get it. Why was he so reluctant? “Oh, my God!” It hit me. “She’s gone—”

  “Well, because she was so worried. And he’s the only policeman she really knows.”

  “Oh, no. Please.”

  Arthur’s head lolled against the futon cushion, newspaper fluttering to his feet. He looked glassy-eyed. I hoped he wasn’t about to fall asleep. If I understood my father, we would have to get the hell out of here very soon.

  “She went to Don Surgelato.” I waited for my father to contradict me. “Did she?”

  “She was worried. She thought he’d have, you know, injury reports and the like.”

  I had fallen in love with San Francisco’s Homicide Lieutenant once, stupidly and inappropriately. By the time I’d screwed up my courage to make a total fool of myself over him, he’d reconciled with his ex-wife. You haven’t quite hit bottom until you’ve trekked to a man’s house to declare your love and had an ex-wife in a bathrobe open the door.

  I could have gone the entire rest of my life without hearing the name Don Surgelato again. “She really went there?”

  “Again, Baby, context. She knew how much you wanted this job, and yet you didn’t— Why didn’t you go to work today? Why are you still home? You know, we called several times, but—”

  “Arthur Kenna. He was about to get arrested, and the only thing I could think of to get him out of it was pretend to be his hostage.” I never bothered lying to my father. He was shrewd and nonjudgmental, so there was no point.

  “What?”

  I was troubled by Arthur’s posture. I hoped he wasn’t having a heart attack.

  “The police think he took a hostage, only they don’t know it’s him, they don’t know it’s Arthur. He’s going to think the hostage was me.”

  “Surgelato will?”

  “Yes. Mother’s going to tell him I never made it to work, and he’ll have heard the description of a short blond hostage in a blue suit, and he’s going to know it was me.”

  “Why would you want to pretend you were Arthur’s hostage? Am I hearing this correctly?”

  “I’ve got to get Arthur out of here. If the police come to check on me—” It took me but a second to ponder this. “I don’t want the police to see us together; we match the description of the gunman and his hostage—at least, I assume we do, since it was us. God, leave it to mother to clown everything up.”

  “But she was only trying—”

  “Is that ever the truth! I need to get Arthur away from here. And I’d better go with him.” I didn’t trust him not to go to the cops, but I didn’t want to say so in front of him. “I don’t have an explanation for being late—I’ll get all flustered. I always act weird around Don, anyway.”

  “What happened with Arthur?”

  “The cop thought he was holding someone at gunpoint. I had no idea what was really going on, so I pretended I was a hostage to get him—us—out of there.”

  “Does he know about Billy’s sea wheat?”

  “His what?”

  “Billy Seawuit.” He spelled the surname.

  “Who’s that?”

  I noticed Arthur’s eyes were shut tight. His shoulders were shaking.

  “His assistant was murdered. I saw it on the Internet news this morning.”

  “Oh, no. I think he just found out.”

  I felt caught in an avalanche. I felt immobilized, everything around me collapsing.

  “Your mother might not have found Surgelato in his office. I’ll go right down there and see if I can stop her.” A brief pause. “Willa, you’re safe?”

  I was startled. Did he believe Arthur had harmed his assistant? “Unless Mother has her way. Hurry up, okay?” An afterthought: “But Daddy, don’t tell her about me and Arthur. She’ll blab it, you know she will. She won’t mean to, but she will.”

  “What can I tell her?”

  I closed my eyes. I’d wanted this new job, I really had. “I can’t think of anything. Maybe finding myself? Hint that I went off on some kind of midlife thing.”

  “She won’t believe it. You’re so responsible.” He spoke the word almost apologetically.

  “Tell her I broke under the pressure or something. If she believes it, maybe the cops will.”

  “Surgelato? Do you really think so?”

  If Don had no further feelings for me, any reasonable explanation of my truancy would suffice.

  I was surprised to hear myself say, “No. He won’t believe I’m okay until he sees me.”

  “Maybe you’d better see him, then.”

  “I can’t now, not with Arthur here. And I wouldn’t want to”—I dropped my voice—“leave Arthur yet. Especially since . . . that other matter.”

  “Billy Seawuit? What a tragedy.”

  “Do you have any details?”

  “Apparently he was shot Saturday. They found the body yesterday afternoon.”

  And I’d had a gun in my briefcase this morning. “Did they find it?”

  “The body? Of course. It was down in—”

  “No.”

  “Oh, the gun. No, they didn’t.”

  Thank goodness I’d wiped the prints off before chucking it. “I’ve got to go. Don’t worry.” As I was hanging up, I added, “But put a muzzle on Mother!”

  His snort reflected what everyone who�
��d met her knew: That was no easy task.

  I crossed to Arthur. He was crying.

  “I’m sorry, Arthur, but we’ve got to go right now,” I told him urgently. “Right this very second.”

  He looked up at me. “Billy, my—”

  “I know. My father just told me. He also told me”—I decided to make a long story short—“that the police are on their way over here.”

  “We’ve got to talk to them, Willa. I’ve got to find out about Billy—”

  “Later. Right now, I’m telling you, I do not want us to get busted for what we did this morning, much less for other things we didn’t do!”

  He seemed prepared to argue further. I cut him off.

  “I spent the two very worst months of my life in jail, Arthur, and I am not going back, not for a minute. So you have got to get up and come with me.”

  “Willa, no, I can’t. I have to find out about Billy. We can simply explain—”

  “I’ll never forgive you if I end up back in jail, Arthur! You’ve got to come.”

  Whatever he’d been about to say died on his lips. Tears still glinting on his creased cheeks, he rose from the chair like a gentleman.

  I dashed into my bedroom, grabbing some jeans and a coat. Arthur followed me into the kitchen, where I turned off the coffee and ran water over the carafe to cool it.

  I let us out the back door, locking it behind me.

  All the way down the back steps, I considered our next move. Get my car out of the garage and drive somewhere? Or would Surgelato put out an all-points with my license number?

  When we reached the breezeway door separating my landlord’s yard from the street, I heard a car pull up. I imagined Surgelato in his big American car, my mother in the passenger seat.

  “Come on,” I said to Arthur, pulling him through the yard.

  I led us over a flattened portion of my neighbors’ fence. We’d leave through their breezeway.

  I waited a few minutes before pushing through the neighbors’ gate to the street. Maybe I was making too much of this. Maybe my mother hadn’t reached Surgelato, after all. It would certainly be more convenient to take my car than not.

  But when I peeked around the gate, I did indeed see Surgelato’s monstrous purple sedan. He’d done my mother the courtesy—or been sufficiently worried by the hostage description—to come in person. In different circumstances, it might have gladdened my girlish heart.

  I didn’t see Don or my mother in the car. They must already be on the porch. I seized the moment to hustle Arthur onto the sidewalk and around a corner.

  I yanked him into a dark little donut shop with a rear door. We were back to playing hide-and-seek.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Somewhere between the donut shop and the corner of Haight and Ashbury, I had an unwelcome realization. Don Surgelato might have shown my picture to the Financial District cop. By the time Arthur and I reached the Panhandle, I’d had another: Billy Seawuit’s murder might put Arthur’s photograph in the news. I could only hope the cop had a terrible memory for faces.

  In case he didn’t, I wanted to get us out of the city, somewhere far enough to establish Arthur’s alibi for this morning’s incident. And I needed a place I could stay for a while, long enough for the cop we’d hoodwinked to blur my mental image into Anyblonde. A change of hairstyle had fooled him in the bank lobby. If he didn’t see me soon, he’d grow uncertain of his photo ID. In the meantime, I’d work on my own “alibi.”

  Unfortunately, I needed a place I could stay for free. If I used my bank card or my credit card, Surgelato would find me. If Arthur used his, we couldn’t claim he’d been elsewhere this morning.

  We spent our pooled cash on BART tickets to Daly City, then bus tickets south. (I’d been afraid to take the Greyhound from San Francisco; afraid the cops were watching the depot.)

  Arthur had suggested going to Santa Cruz, two hours away. I’d agreed at once. I had a friend—of sorts—there. He didn’t usually care to admit it, but he owed me a favor. And I didn’t usually care to admit it, but I trusted him.

  So dinnertime found us, like thoughtless guests, on the doorstep of Edward Hershey.

  It was a shabby doorstep on a hilltop of small Queen Annes with flaked paint and scraggly lawns. Edward’s closed curtains sagged slightly. But his old Jeep gleamed in the streetlight and a kayak leaning against it dripped as if recently hosed down. The smell of chili engulfed us.

  I knocked. I heard Edward shout, “Come in,” and I knocked again. If someone was inside with him, I didn’t relish a round-robin of introductions.

  A moment later, Edward flung the door open. He was drying his hands on a half-burnt dishtowel, looking happy in sweat-clothes and bare feet.

  The sight of me wiped the pleasure right off his face. His thick brows went up, he took a backward step. “Willa,” he said.

  “Are you alone?” I asked him.

  “Yes.” His tone was guarded, if not downright suspicious. “Are you here . . . ?” He glanced at Arthur. “Is this a . . . ?”

  “A visit? Yes.” I took Arthur’s arm, guiding him past Edward into a room that looked more like someone’s garage than a living room. The wood floor had probably once been varnished, but it currently resembled a country bar’s, minus the sawdust. Big rubber boots dripped in a corner near fishing gear. The sofas were covered with afghans that didn’t quite disguise collapsed springs.

  I heard Edward sigh as he closed the door. I didn’t blame him.

  The last time I’d arrived unannounced at his house, I’d reviled him thoroughly for involving me in a domestic dispute. I’d been particularly incensed that it involved his former girlfriend, a woman from whom he’d contracted herpes many years earlier. Unfortunately, I’d fallen hard for Edward around the time of their affair. Because of that, herpes was a problem we’d long shared. And I’d been very slow to forgive.

  I had definitely brought it up a few times.

  “Edward, I need a favor.” I turned in time to see him look relieved. He was a private eye now; I’d asked him to track down an anonymous letter writer for me several months ago. “Okay?”

  “Let me turn off dinner.” He’d retained his macho good looks: fit, not quite handsome, slightly undergroomed. “Unless you’d like some fish chili?”

  “Yes.” Of that I was sure. “We haven’t eaten today.”

  Edward’s brows went up. He tilted his head, squinting at Arthur. Then his expression changed. “You’re Arthur Kenna.”

  Arthur looked flustered, almost as if he wasn’t sure.

  Edward stepped up and began pumping Arthur’s hand. “I read a couple of your books in college. I caught your TV programs.” He flushed slightly. “I’m Edward Hershey.”

  “Oh, yes?” Arthur looked weary, distracted. All afternoon he’d wiped away tears, to the chagrin of our fellow Greyhound passengers.

  When Edward turned back to me, he was considerably more gracious. “I’ve got plenty of chili. Come on in the kitchen so I don’t burn it.”

  We followed him into a room larger than the living room and twice as cluttered. A Formica table was spread with newspapers, documents, and fishing lures. An ancient claw-foot stove had bubbling pots on two burners.

  Glancing frequently at Arthur, whom I guided to a wooden chair, Edward poured the contents of the one pot into another.

  “We’re in trouble, basically,” I informed him. “We need a place to . . . ” Lie low sounded a little melodramatic, but there it was.

  “What kind of trouble?”

  I hesitated. I had no choice but to trust Edward, but it didn’t come easily. I’d spent a dozen bitter years not even speaking to him, followed by a few years of sporadic fighting with him.

  As briefly as I could, I told him what had happened. He watched me intently, smiling only when I explained my mother’s role in our flight.

  “Okay,” was his matter-of-fact response. “I’ve got a place up in Boulder Creek—bitty little cabin, but it’s stocked. It’s yours
as long as you need it.”

  For the first time all day, I felt my shoulders relax.

  I should have known it was just too easy.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It turned out Edward hadn’t oversold the cabin. It was bitty, all right. But his idea of “stocked” turned out to mean that it had bottled water, a couple of sleeping bags that stank of mold and wet animal, some canned soup, a freezer full of fish, and a naked light bulb suspended from the ceiling. It looked like someone had built a tool shed in the middle of nowhere and then forgotten to add the house.

  It took over half an hour on winding mountain roads to reach it, though; at least we weren’t in danger of accidental discovery. I’d let Arthur ride up front with Edward, and I’d stretched across the back seat, vaguely listening to Edward ask about Arthur’s work. His voice quiet with fatigue, Arthur rambled about longhouses, dug-out canoes, and totem poles. Neither man mentioned Arthur’s odd morning or murdered assistant.

  I was surprised, when we pulled into the long gravel road to Edward’s cabin, to hear Arthur say, “It’s fitting we came here.”

  “Really?” Edward sounded surprised. “I’d have thought the opposite.”

  “Fitting” in terms of what, I couldn’t imagine.

  When we went inside, I noticed a hamper of unfolded, but seemingly clean, sweatclothes. I asked to borrow some, then headed for the bath.

  As I closed the door, I heard Edward return to “the problem of being here right now.”

  But I was more interested in the problem of not having had a moment alone all day. I stood in Edward’s rustic shower examining mildew patterns and trying not to think. I stayed there, cherishing the solitude, until the water ran cold.

  When I came out, Edward was putting away a pocket notebook and pen. Arthur sat in a rickety wooden chair, shoulders drooping, staring at his knees.

  “Why don’t I make you guys some tea or something?” Edward sounded troubled. I knew the feeling.

  He stayed with us another half hour or so. He made tea, swept the place out, unrolled sleeping bags, broke up some nasty spider webs, and showed me where everything was—the last taking maybe thirty seconds. He seemed inordinately proud of the fish carcasses in his freezer.