She shrugged. “Let’s see. The art gallery, the two schools, the development company, the theater, the moving company, the Sunset Battalion…”
“Sunset Battalion sounds like a bunch of commandos.”
“No. It’s more like an urban Peace Corps. Mostly older guys, some of the girls, people who’ve been in the program awhile.”
“So what do they do?”
Another shrug. “Pretty much whatever needs to be done. Tutoring, handing out pamphlets, bringing back the strays, working the neighborhoods. They’re kind of the boots-on-the-ground people.”
His understanding limited at best, Mickey nodded.
“Well, then, with this other stuff, what’s the actual Sunset Youth Project do?”
“Sunset itself? It’s the… I don’t know what you’d call it. The umbrella. The administrative side.”
They kept walking, and she must have noticed another question playing around on Mickey’s face, because she said, “What?”
“I’m just trying to get my arms around this whole thing. I mean, if Dominic was only running one program, what’s with the car?”
“Well, the one program has maybe two dozen sites in the city, maybe more. The main office and K through eight down on Ortega, the residential treatment center in Potrero, the outpatient center for adults by City College. Then the high school…” She stopped the litany. “You get the idea. I could get you the whole list if you need it, but the point is that Sunset’s a huge organization. Huge.”
“What’s its budget? Do you know?”
“Total?” She thought a moment. “Fifty million a year, give or take.”
Mickey stopped in his tracks. “No. Really.”
“Really. I’m pretty sure it’s somewhere in that neighborhood. It’s in the annual report. You could check.”
“Fifty million dollars?”
“Somewhere in there, I’m pretty sure. With everything, I mean all the programs, Sunset’s probably serving five thousand people a day, all told, citywide. It adds up.”
“I’ll say. So where’s all that money come from?”
“Everywhere, Mickey, are you kidding me? Individual philanthropists, foundations, tuition and other income from the schools, moving company fees and the sale of the redeveloped buildings. I mean, a lot of these things are profit centers in themselves. But also there’s a ton of public health money from the city…”
“This city? I thought we were in a budget crunch.”
She nodded. “Always. But even if they cut way back, the Health Services Department is going to stay the single biggest agency in the city.”
“Is that true? The biggest?”
Alicia shook her head. “I’m sure that’s right. I think they’re in for five million to us, just Sunset. But then there’s also AmeriCorps, which is federal and funds the Battalion, for another several mil. And then there’s all the just day-to-day regular fund-raising.”
“That gets you to fifty million?”
“Pretty close, most years.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s impressive.”
“So, I’ve got to ask this, what was Dominic making running this thing? Does anybody know that?”
“Sure. It’s public record again. You could look it up in twenty minutes.” She broke a small smile. “But you don’t have to because I already know. His salary was six hundred forty-eight thousand dollars.”
“Every year?”
“Last year, anyway. And at least close to that the year before, and before that.” She shrugged. “It’s a major executive job, Mickey. He earned what he made. He deserved it.”
“Still,” Mickey said. “Six hundred and fifty grand. Makes me think I might want to go into charity work myself.”
“I thought you wanted to be a chef.”
“I do. But I’m flexible. For that kind of money I believe I could be tempted.”
“No.” She touched his arm again. “You don’t do it for the money. You do it for the work. It’s great helping people, it really is. Way better than standing in a restaurant saying hello with your smile on all day.
That’s why I got into my own volunteering. Although now with Dominic gone…” She stopped and visibly gathered herself as she threatened to tear up. “Sorry,” she said. “I keep doing this.” But wiping her hands over her eyes, she got herself back under control. “So I guess we’re to that now. My relationship with Dominic.”
“We can be if you’re comfortable with it.”
“I’m fine with it.” The words confident enough that they carried with them almost the hint of a threat. “I’ve done nothing I’m ashamed of.”
“Although the other day you said that maybe you and Mr. Como were too close. What did you mean by that?”
“I meant that there was some chemistry, physical chemistry, that we both acknowledged. But he was a married man and he wasn’t going there. And neither was I. We’d even talked about me quitting so we wouldn’t be around one another so much, but that just seemed like a needless hardship on both of us. And why did we want that? We liked being together. We joked and had little secret things we did that made everything fun. I mean it, in the middle of all this serious stuff he did, every day was fun. He was just a great guy doing great work. And that was the other side of it.”
“Of what?”
“The job. The actual job.”
“What about the job?”
She bit her lower lip. “This is the part where you laugh at me.”
“I don’t think so. Try me.”
As they started walking again, she took a breath of air. “I kind of want to go into politics and change the world. At least try to make it a better place.”
“That’s not a bad thing. The politics, maybe, but not the general idea.”
“No, I know. But here I am with my little degree in political science, and I’m a hostess at Morton’s. You know what I’m saying?”
“Sure. You wanted to do something more important.”
She nodded. “And now you’re thinking, ‘So she gets a job driving a limo?’ ”
“I’m not thinking that. I’m listening.”
“Okay. So the thing about this job with Dominic isn’t so much about driving him around. It’s about moving into another world where there’s power and money and good things can happen.” She was getting into it now and her voice came to life. “You know what happened to the last three of Dominic’s morning drivers? This is in, like, the last two or three years.” She held up one finger. “Jon Royce, now administrative assistant to guess who? Alice Tallent, city supervisor. Two, Terry McGrath, EMT school and fast- tracked to the Fire Department. Three, DeShawn Ellis, scout for the San Francisco Giants who got Dominic and me the best tickets I’ve ever seen last Opening Day.”
“Connections,” Mickey said.
She nodded. “I know it might sound crass and self-serving, and then, of course, it maybe looks like I’m using the relationship with Dominic to get a leg up on a career. But I’d already done a lot of volunteer time at Sunset when Ian was there, just to be near my brother. So it wasn’t like I just glommed on to this opportunity to get ahead. And then this driving job came up, and I was kind of next in line, and I truly didn’t know how I was going to feel about Dominic once I got to know him.”
On the way back, by now chilled to the bone, they found themselves on either end of the back couch at the Little Shamrock, drinking Irish coffees. The place, late on a Sunday afternoon, had only two other customers playing a nearly silent and intense game of darts.
Alicia came back from the bar and put their second round down on the small table in front of them. Sitting back, she crossed one leg over the other and flashed a quick glance in Mickey’s direction. “Here we’ve been doing
