“He can be such a bastard,” she said with sudden vehemence. “If I’d known what he was, I never would have married him.”
Runyon said nothing. She didn’t expect a response; she was just venting.
There was a staticky hiss on the line, as if she’d exhaled sharply into the receiver on her end. “Well. You don’t want to hear about any of that,” she said. “I called for two reasons.”
“Yes?”
“I found a photograph of Sean you can have. It’s not recent, but it’s a good likeness. Do you still want to pick it up?”
“Later today, if that’s all right.”
“It’ll have to be here at Macy’s,” she said. “That’s where I’m calling from, I’m on my break. I work until six tonight, so any time before then.”
“I should be able to get there midafternoon.”
“The other thing I wanted to tell you, I-”
The rest of what she said was lost in the diesel roar of a passing Muni bus. Runyon turned into the doorway of a bookshop, put his back to the street and plugged his other ear with a fingertip. When the noise subsided he said, “Sorry, I couldn’t hear you.”
“It sounds like you’re on a busy street.”
“I am. What was it you said?”
“I remembered something. About Sean’s new job in the city.”
“Yes?”
“He never said exactly what the job is, so I don’t know if this will help. But he did say it was part-time and seasonal.”
“Seasonal?”
“That was the word he used. But it didn’t matter, he said, because it was a dream job, another dream about to come true.”
“Also his exact words?”
“Well, I think so. That’s what I remember.”
“Any idea what the ‘other dream about to come true’ was?”
“No. But it could be the someone he met, whoever she is.”
“This was in late March?”
“That’s right. The end of March.”
“And he left for the city on April first.”
“Early that morning. That was the day he was moving into his new apartment.”
“And the day he was starting his new job?”
“… No, actually. I think he said he’d have some time to get settled first.”
Runyon thanked her and rang off. Call Tamara right away or get the interview over with first? The interview was immediate agency business, the appointment time firm; Sean Ostrow was personal business, still unconfirmed and speculative. He left the doorway and threaded his way to the music shop through the neocounterculture types that crowded Haight Street.
Tamara said, “Baseball?”
“Ostrow’s a big Giants fan.”
“So you think this new job of his has something to do with the Giants?”
“Adds up that way. Baseball is seasonal, it’s part-time work for everybody but players and management. Perfect fit for a guy like Ostrow.”
“With the team itself?”
“Maybe.”
“He’s a teamster, right? Some sort of driving job?”
“That’s one possibility,” Runyon said. “But my guess is, it’s connected with the stadium.”
“Could be any one of a couple dozen jobs then.”
“He told his sister it was a dream job. For him that’d be one where he’s inside the stadium while games are being played, in a position to watch. Narrows it down. Usher, security officer, one of the roving vendors.”
“Shouldn’t be any trouble finding out that much, as long as he’s using his own name.”
“No reason for him not to be.”
“But if he is working at SBC Park, you won’t find him there this week or next. Giants are on the road.”
“I know. Can you get his address from their personnel file?”
“Tricky,” Tamara said. “If the team and the stadium were city-owned, no problem-I could probably get it through Parks and Recreation. But they’re privately owned. Limited partnership called.. San Francisco Baseball Associates, something like that.”
“There’s police presence at the games. Couldn’t your contact at SFPD turn up Ostrow’s address?”
“Longshot. Officers aren’t supplied by SFPD, they’re off-duty cops hired by the SFBA. I know that because of an insurance case we had a while back.”
“What about the rest of the park security force? Private firm?”
“Uh-uh. SFBA has their own security task force.”
“Must be some way to get that address.”
“Direct appeal to SFBA, maybe. If that doesn’t work, I’ll get creative.”
“Anything you can do.”
“Yeah, man,” she said. “You just leave it to me.”
24
KERRY
She was five minutes early for her two o’clock appointment with Dr. Pappas. Not that she had any intention of arriving early. Usually the six-block walk from Bates and Carpenter to the 450 Sutter medical building took a leisurely twenty minutes. Today she seemed to have done it in a fast fifteen. Her body trying to convince her head that it was in good shape in spite of what was growing inside it? Hey, look, I’m not a bit tired, brisk walks don’t bother me. Next year why don’t we sign up for the Bay to Breakers marathon? Sure, great idea. If we’re still here next year.
She checked in at the desk and then sat on one of the uncomfortable chairs in the nondescript waiting room and opened an old issue of People and leafed through it without seeing anything on the printed pages. She was at ease, though. Not tense at all. Funny thing was, she’d always been at ease in doctors’ offices, hospitals. Most people, like the one other person in the waiting room, a tight-lipped woman in an expensive Donna Karan suit, were time-conscious and showed little fidgety signs of nervous tension, as if they were afraid of receiving bad news. Not Kerry Wade. Always optimistic, that was her. Even now, when she knew the news she was going to be given was bad, had known it the instant Dr. Pappas’s nurse called to ask her to come in for an immediate consultation, she was more or less relaxed. As though, ho-hum, it was just another routine visit to her gynecologist.
Still optimistic, too? Not as much as she had been, or tried to be, before the nurse’s call this morning, but hopeful nonetheless. It was not in her nature to be downbeat. She was no longer even particularly upset, or resigned. What she was, she supposed, was numb. She’d passed through most of the emotional stages in the past week-fear, anger, anxiety, everything except denial. That was one of many things Cybil had taught her growing up: accept facts, face your problems, and then deal with them.
So far she’d accepted this fact, faced this problem, but she wondered again if it had been the right choice to do it alone except for Cybil. Same conclusion: Yes, even though it hadn’t been easy. She’d come close to telling Bill the truth on Friday night; would have if Jake Runyon hadn’t called when he did. She was glad then and still glad that she hadn’t. He was strong, tough, courageous, but he was also emotional and overly sensitive and inclined to pessimism. If she’d burdened him with this from the first, he’d have been a basket case by now, and coping with that on top of the rest would have turned her into one. It had been hard enough telling Cybil, coping with her reaction and with her own worst fears about Russ Dancer. Hard enough dealing with the long wait as it was. And if
