everywhere, most of them the restaurant-and-food variety, a few music-related. Rap music played, not too loudly, from an iPod on a glass-topped table. He tuned it out.
She stood with her hands on her hips, looking him over, smiling a little. Dre Janssen had called her “funky”; it was as good a word as any. She was small and round-faced, her hair done in uneven cornrows and colored an off- red, a small gold ring looped through one nostril, rings on all her fingers, and jangly bracelets on both wrists. Some kind of patterned caftan-type garment, African probably, covered her body from her neck to her bare feet. Her toenails were painted a violent purple. If she ever walked out of the kitchen at Bon Chance looking like she did now, there’d probably be a riot.
“Brian’s in some trouble,” he told her. “Could be big trouble. That’s why I’m here.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“I’m trying to find out.”
“Well, you won’t find out much from me. I haven’t seen or talked to the man in more than two years.”
“In touch with any of his friends?”
“Nope. Only met a couple and we don’t hang in the same places.”
“You know a woman named Brandy?”
“Who? Brandy?”
“The name’s not familiar?”
“Never heard of her.”
Nobody seemed to have heard of her. Mystery woman.
His capsule description of Brandy made Verna Washington laugh. “Putting me on, right? Brian with a sister looks and acts like that?”
“Not his type?”
“No way. I can’t even picture it.”
“How was he when you dated him? Seem to have everything together financially, personally?”
“Oh yeah, pretty much. Real serious about everything. And real religious.”
“Nothing out of the ordinary about him or his life?”
“Nope,” she said, and then grinned and said, “Not on the surface.”
“How do you mean?”
“What you see ain’t always all there is.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Everybody got quirks. Underneath, you know?” she said. The grin again, and a laugh as if at some private joke.
“Look, Ms. Washington…”
“Verna. Never did like my last name, guess why.”
Runyon ignored that. “What kind of quirk does Brian have?”
“Uh-uh. Personal stuff. Doesn’t have anything to do with whatever trouble he’s in.”
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”
“Uh-uh,” she said again.
He let it go. “Other people I’ve talked to say he’s changed drastically in the past year or so. Started keeping to himself, spending large amounts of money, borrowing heavily to pay off debts, that kind of thing. Any idea what could’ve caused the change?”
“No clue. Brian I knew was Mr. Yup.”
“Or where he might’ve gotten a large sum of money?”
“How large?”
“Several thousand dollars.”
“Whoa. Not from anybody I know, that’s for sure.”
“I understand you and he weren’t together very long.”
“Not very. Just a casual thing, you know? He was never my boo.”
“Boo?”
“Boyfriend. We only did the nasty once.” She smiled again at the memory of it, a wry smile this time. “Brian wasn’t a bed animal, you know what I’m saying?”
“Is that why you stopped seeing each other?”
“One reason. Total opposites, you know? We connected at Bon Chance, that’s the restaurant where I work. Good-looking dude, real polite, bucks in his pocket… different from anybody else I’d been with. But the differences… too strong, man. No way we could’ve stayed hooked up.”
A few more questions bought him nothing useful. He tried once more to get her to talk about this “quirk” of Youngblood’s, but she stonewalled him again. Whatever it was seemed to amuse her.
What you see ain’t always all there is.
Underneath, you know?
Cryptic phrases meaning what?
B rian Youngblood’s address: no response.
Aaron Myers’s address: no response.
He didn’t like that. Something wrong in all this elusiveness; if he’d been tracking normally, he’d’ve sensed it before now. He rang the other doorbells in Myers’s building, talked to two of the other tenants-one through the intercom, one in person. Neither of them had seen Myers in the past few days. Neither of them knew him very well. What kind of neighbor was he? Quiet, friendly enough but kept pretty much to himself. Brian Youngblood? Didn’t know him, never heard the name before.
In the car, Runyon called Tamara on his cell. She didn’t have much on Aaron Myers; from all indications he was a model citizen. What she did have was the name and address of his only relative in the Bay Area, a sister living in Pacifica.
P acifica was a few miles south of the city, spread along the coast and up across the western hillside below Skyline Boulevard. It was part of the fog belt that stretched south from Ocean Beach in the city to Half Moon Bay; if there was fog anywhere in the Bay Area, Pacifica was sure to be socked in. There was fog today, thick and roiling, blowing inland on a strong sea wind. By the time Runyon came to the bottom of the long, curving section of Highway 1, the mist was so wet he had to use the windshield wipers.
Toward the middle of town, he turned down into a newish development of middle-class tract homes between the highway and the ocean. The Pacifica map he’d looked at before leaving the city indicated that the street Shari Lucas lived on was one of those nearest the highway, and he had no trouble finding it. Her house was like all the others on the block-nondescript, sea-weathered, its only distinction a front yard full of yellow and pink iceplant. There was an older-model Mitsubishi station wagon parked in the driveway.
Single mother, Tamara had told him, lived alone with her two pre-school children, worked off and on for a firm of architects in the city. Child support from her ex-husband paid most of the bills. Like her brother, she seemed to be a model citizen.
He went up and rang the bell. The fog here was numbing cold, like vapor off dry ice, and heavy with the smell of salt. He stood hunched, hands in the pockets of his suit coat, until the door opened.
She was attractive in a thin-boned way, her hair clipped short, her eyes big and liquidy brown. She said, politely enough but with an edge, “If you’re selling something, you can turn right around and walk away. I’m not interested.”
“I’m not a salesman.” He showed her his ID. “I’m here about your brother Aaron.”
Her manner changed instantly. “Oh Lord,” she said, “is he all right?”
“As far as I know.”
“Has he… done something?”
“I’m not investigating him,” Runyon said. “Could we talk inside? Pretty cold out here.”
She let him into a living room cluttered with children’s toys. Kid voices, interspersed with shrieks of laughter, rose and fell from another room at the rear. She said automatically, “I’m sorry, it’s a mess in here.” Then, “If you’re not investigating Aaron, then who…?”
“A friend of his, Brian Youngblood. Do you know him?”
“Met the man, but I don’t really know him. He seems like a nice person… What kind of trouble is he in?”
“I can’t answer that, Mrs. Lucas.”
