“Ask him to call me? And let me know yourself if everything’s all right with him? I really am starting to worry.” She sighed heavily, and the lines of weary resignation in her face seemed deeper as she said, “Poor Sean, nothing ever seems to work out for him. I had so much hope this time… so much hope for one of us…”
Avondale Electric was open on Saturday. Runyon talked to a woman in the office and a man in the warehouse; both had good things to say about Sean Ostrow’s job performance, but nothing at all to tell him about Ostrow’s present whereabouts or the new job in the city. If he’d used Avondale as a reference, his new employer hadn’t seen fit to follow up.
The residential section where Ostrow had lived in Santa Rosa, between the county fairgrounds and Luther Burbank Park, was close by. Runyon drove over there, even though he knew it would be wasted effort. And it was. He spent an hour at the apartment building and in the neighborhood looking for somebody who’d known Ostrow, and couldn’t even find one person who remembered him.
Half the day still lay ahead of him. He drove around Santa Rosa for a time, then took Highway 101 to the small towns that lay to the north. Windsor was a newish collection of tract houses and shopping malls, Healdsburg an old tourist-laden wine-country town built around a square, Geyserville a wine-country village without the tourists or the square. He didn’t stay long in any of them, just enough time to mark and memorize the territory. From Geyserville he went west through a long valley filled with vineyards, small wineries, and droves of early summer tourists, then up around Lake Sonoma, then south through a different part of Dry Creek Valley and back to Santa Rosa.
Still only four o’clock. He could hang around up here and if Ostrow’s sister called and had a photograph, he could go pick it up. No. He’d had enough of the North Bay and its backroads for one day, and there was still Sunday to get through. He drove back down 101 to the city.
When he came through the toll plaza on the bridge, he took Lincoln Boulevard down through the Presidio. Even before he reached Sea Cliff and Twenty-fifth Avenue, he knew where he was going without thinking about it.
Risa Niland lived a block off Geary and another block from Washington High School. He turned up Thirtieth Avenue past the school’s athletic fields. In big letters strung across the front of the stadium entrance on that side were the words OF ALL VICTORIES THE FIRST AND GREATEST IS FOR MAN TO CONQUER HIMSELF-PLATO. Nice sentiment, but how many students paid attention to it, took it to heart? Safe bet that it wasn’t many. For that matter how many people could look back on their lives from any age and say honestly that they’d conquered themselves? Not him, for damn sure.
The three-story building at the corner of Anza and Twenty-ninth was peach-colored stucco with a tile roof and an old-fashioned canopy over the entrance. Two apartments per floor, from the size of it. He saw all of that as he approached the corner; he didn’t see her until he braked at the stop sign.
Even at a distance he recognized her-the resemblance to Colleen was like a beacon. She was standing just outside the canopy, dressed in jeans and a red pullover, her red-gold hair bound up in a roll, talking to a young, fair-haired, linebacker type in jogging sweats. The guy said something to her that made her reach out and touch his arm. Friends, maybe more than friends. Maybe even the ex-husband.
Runyon might have stopped if she’d been alone. As it was, he made the turn and drove on by. Neither Risa nor the man glanced his way, and he didn’t look back at them in the rearview mirror. None of his business. Her personal life had nothing to do with him.
Automatic pilot again. Through the park, east on Lincoln to Stanyan, down Seventeenth to the Castro district and up to Hartford Street just off Twentieth, past the Stick Victorian where Joshua lived with his faithless boyfriend, Kenneth. Nobody on the sidewalk here, no sign of his son, and what if there had been? Four months since he’d seen or had any contact with him. Joshua had had plenty to say in March, when the pair of gay-bashers beat up Kenneth and put him in the hospital; he’d needed his father then, to help find the men responsible, and he’d permitted an uneasy truce. But once the need had been filled and the gay-bashers put out of commission-silence. The old hatreds instilled by his mother had rebuilt the wall between them thicker and higher than ever.
So what was the sense coming here? Or in the drive-by at Risa Niland’s building? No sense. He got out of the Castro, backtracked over Twin Peaks and down to Nineteenth Avenue. Ate a tasteless dinner at a coffee shop-he had no appetite for Chinese food tonight. And went from there to his apartment, because it was nearly eight and he was tired and because he had nowhere else to go. And as soon as he walked into that cold, impersonal space a sudden wave of feeling came from somewhere inside him, so intense it made him catch his breath. It didn’t last long; he didn’t let it last long. But the memory of it lingered like a bitter taste in his mouth.
Alone.
And lonely.
20
TAMARA
Saturday night she almost got laid.
Almost: The Sad, Pathetic Story of Tamara Corbin’s Love Life.
Almost messed up and almost pregnant by one of a succession of losers in high school. Almost permanent relationship with the almost love of her life. Almost sex with a man she almost hadn’t gone out with in the first place. And the reason for Saturday night’s almost Lord!
Man wasn’t a pickup, he was an actual date. First date she’d had with anybody except Horace since her first semester at S.F. State. Blind date, which was the reason she almost hadn’t gone out with him. Vonda was responsible. She got together with the girlfriend for a drink after work on Friday, poured out her tale of Horace woe, and the first thing Vonda said was, “Only way to forget a man is to find yourself another one quick.” Then she’d gone and done something about it, quick; Vonda never wasted any time when it came to men. By nine o’clock Friday night, the blind date was all arranged.
His name was Clement Rawls, he was a stockbroker with the same company Vonda’s boyfriend, Ben Sherman, worked for. Ben was white-and Jewish, leave it to Vonda-and if Clement had been either or both of the same she would probably have said no. Not that she had anything in principle against dating white guys or Jewish guys, but she’d never done it and this wasn’t the time to start. But no, Clement was African-American. A hunk, Vonda said, and to her surprise he’d turned out to be just that. Few years older than her, nice smile, sexy eyes, the Denzel type. Cool, easy to talk to, funny, didn’t come on too strong. Only thing wrong with him-the only thing, anyway, until the kink he revealed to her when they were alone together-was that he was hung up on his appearance and pretty fond of himself. Metrosexuals didn’t appeal to her; Mr. Clement Rawls would’ve eventually tied her patience in a knot. But he was no more interested in a long-term relationship than she was, and for one night it didn’t really matter.
He picked her up at her apartment-he drove a Beamer, what else? — and they went out to dinner and then club-crawling in SoMa with Vonda and Ben. About an hour with him was all it took to break down her resolve against any more casual sex. Love and respect and all that were fine, but when your hormones were running wild everything else took second place to scratching the itch. He was a terrific dancer and a terrific kisser, a combination that told her he’d be good in bed and got her even more hotted up. When he finally took her home she hadn’t had any last-minute hesitations about inviting him in.
Should’ve figured he was too good to be true. Should’ve had a clue when he dragged his briefcase out of the backseat and brought it in with him, but she figured as self-confident as he was, he expected to spend the night and the briefcase contained his toothbrush and a change of underwear. Wrong. Wrong big time.
Everything went along fine for a while. They drank some more wine and made out on the couch, both of them getting their temperatures raised-man really did know how to kiss. So then she said, “Come on in the bedroom, Clement,” and they got up and swapped some more spit and she started leading him into the other room.
And then it all fell apart. He unlocked their lips and whispered in her ear, “Before we go to bed, there’s something I’d like you to do. Something, well, special to please me.”
Uh-oh. “What kind of special?”
“It’s nothing, really. You won’t mind.”
“If you want to tie me up-”
