city closed Playland down in the late sixties, allowed it to sit abandoned for a few years, and then demolished it on Labor Day weekend of 1972. Condos and rental apartment buildings took over those ten acres and more besides: Beachfront Luxury Living, Spectacular Views. Yeah, sure. Luxuriously cold gray weather and spectacular weekend views of Ocean Beach and its parking areas jammed with rowdy teenagers and beer-guzzling adult children.
It made me sad, looking at those characterless buildings, thinking about Playland. Getting old. Sure sign of it when you started lamenting the long-dead past, glorifying it as if it were some kind of Utopia when you knew damned well it hadn’t been. Maybe so, maybe so. But nobody could convince me Beachfront Luxury Living condos were better than Laughing Sal, the Big Dipper, and Knotty Peek, or that some of the dead past wasn’t a hell of a lot more desirable than most of the screwed-up present.
There were two desks inside the Patterson Realty Company offices, each of them occupied when I walked in. The man was long and lean, forty or so, wearing a brown suit that didn’t fit him very well, owner of a gap-toothed smile and greedy eyes that locked onto yours and hung on as if they couldn’t bear to let go. The woman was a few years younger, with short hair dyed henna red, a thin red mouth, and too much makeup on her narrow face; her choice of clothing wasn’t too appealing, either, a pale green pantsuit and yellow blouse that clashed with her hair. Allan and Doris Patterson. First impression: real estate bottom-feeders. Just the kind you’d expect to find in the front row at a city-held tax auction.
They were glad-hand friendly until I told them who I was and that I was investigating the harassment of Margaret Abbott. No more smiles, then. Allan Patterson’s gaze quit hanging on to mine and never quite came back again. Off with the sheep’s clothing and out jumped the wolves with fangs bared.
“That Alvarez woman hired you, I suppose,” Patterson said with more than a little nastiness.
“My client’s name is privileged information.”
“Oh, sure. Privileged. Damn her, she’s out to get us.”
“Why would Helen Alvarez be out to get you?”
He said, “She’s an old busybody who ought to mind her own business,” as if that answered the question.
“The point is, Mrs. Abbott is being harassed and I’m trying to get to the bottom of it.”
“Well, my God,” Doris Patterson said, “why come to us about that? We don’t have anything to do with it.”
“We’re not vandals,” he added. “Do we look like vandals?”
Loaded question. I didn’t answer it.
His wife said, “What earthly good would it do us to subject the Abbott woman to petty vandalism? We’ve already lost her property, thanks to that bleeding-heart judge.”
“I’m not here to accuse you of anything,” I said. “I just want to ask you a few questions.”
“We don’t have anything to say to you. We don’t know anything; we don’t want to know anything.”
“And furthermore, you don’t give a damn.”
“You said that, I didn’t. Anyway, why should we?”
“Because an old woman in trouble deserves a little compassion?”
“Not that crazy old woman. Or her even crazier friend. Not after all we’ve been put through, all the legal fees they cost us.”
Patterson said, “If you or the Alvarez woman try to imply that we’re involved, or that we’re in any way exploiters of the chronologically gifted, we’ll sue for defamation of character. I mean that-we’ll sue.”
“Exploiters of the what?” I said.
“You heard me. The chronologically gifted.”
Christ, I thought. Old people hadn’t been old people-or elderly people-for some time, but I hadn’t realized they were no longer even senior citizens. Now they were the “chronologically gifted”-the most asinine example of newspeak I had yet encountered. The ungifted agency types who coined such euphemisms ought to be excessed, transitioned, outsourced, offered voluntary severance, or provided with immedate career-change opportunities. Or better yet, subjected to permanent chronological interruption.
So much for the Pattersons. A waste of time coming here; you couldn’t get them to admit to anything even remotely illegal or unethical, no matter what you said or did. All the interview had accomplished was to confirm Helen Alvarez’s low opinion of the pair. I’d be satisfied if it turned out they had something to do with the vandalism and scare tactics, but hell, where was their motive? Opportunistic assholes, yes; childishly vindictive tormenters, no. And unfortunately there is no law against being an asshole in today’s society. If there was, 10 percent of the population would be in jail and another 10 percent would be on the cusp.
Charley Doyle, Mrs. Abbott’s nephew, worked for a glass-service outfit in Daly City. I called to see if he was in, and he wasn’t: out on a job and not expected to return until late afternoon.
I spent the rest of the morning checking in with Helen Alvarez-no further incidents at the Abbott home-and then interviewing several of Mrs. Abbott’s neighbors. None of them had anything enlightening to tell me. A few had opinions, though, as to who was responsible for the vandalism; the Pattersons topped the list, followed by Everett Belasco’s “bums or street punks.”
I had no appetite, so I skipped lunch and drove downtown to the agency. Tamara had promised to do some background checking on the principals in the case and I thought there might be something in the data to give me a direction to move in. But she wasn’t there; Jake Runyon was holding down the fort. The background info wasn’t there, either. Usually she prints out Internet material, my computer skills being what they aren’t, and leaves the papers on my desk. No papers today. And no note of explanation.
I asked Runyon, “Tamara say when she’d be back from lunch?”
“No. Just to lock up if she wasn’t here by the time I was ready to leave. Everything okay with her?”
“Why do you ask?”
“She doesn’t seem herself lately. Took a bite out of me this morning for a mistake in my Bower case report that wasn’t a mistake.”
“I’ve noticed it, too,” I said. “Distracted. Worked up about something personal she doesn’t want to talk about, probably. She didn’t do background checks I asked for yesterday-and that’s a first for her.”
Runyon had nothing to say to that. He was reticent when it came to personal matters himself. The best field investigator I’d ever worked with, but a private man, inwardly focused much of the time, weighed down with grief over the lingering cancer death of his second wife a couple of years ago. But lately it seemed as if he was finally starting to let go of his grief. He was more relaxed, less determined to wrap himself cocoonlike in his work. Reason for the change: Bryn Darby, the graphic designer and artist he’d met a couple of months ago. Their relationship seemed to be developing legs; for his sake, I hoped so.
Runyon went off to interview somebody on the bail-jump case he was working for Abe Melikian, and I went back into my office to take care of some routine business. But I wasn’t alone for long. Ten minutes later, Tamara banged in.
“Banged” is the right word. She shouldered open the door, slammed it shut behind her, and stomped into her office. I got up to look in through the open connecting door. She was shedding her coat; instead of hanging it up, she pitched it onto the client’s chair; and when it slid off onto the floor, she left it there. Good Tamara was on vacation again, Bad Tamara once more the temp in residence.
“Hey,” I said, “what’s up, kiddo?”
“Nothing,” she said. She sounded frustrated as well as grumpy. “Waiting’s a bitch.”
“Waiting for what?”
“Just waiting, that’s all.”
“If you want to talk-”
“I don’t. Just want to get back to work.”
“On those background checks I asked for yesterday?”
“What? Oh… yeah. Meant to do them this morning, but I got sidetracked.”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d do them now. Unless you’ve got more pressing business.”
“No. Get right on it.”
I felt that I ought to say something more to her, try to draw her out a little, but you can’t get through to Bad Tamara. Reason, subtle probing, the fatherly or mentor approach… none of it works. All you can do is ride out the
