To Play the Fool

Wednesday?”

“Of course not. He leaves here on Tuesday and is back on Saturday. Although usually he doesn’t come to the Park until Sunday morning, when he conducts services, which is the excuse those idiots used to cremate John right away. They said he’d stink,- personally, I think the weather’s been too cold.”

“Good. Well, thank you for your help, Ms. Jankowski. We’ll need to talk with you again in a day or so. Where can we find you?”

“Ah. Now that’s a good question. On Friday night I am usually at a coffeehouse on Haight Street, a place called Sentient Beans. Some very nice young people run it. They allow me to use their washing machine in exchange for drawings.”

“Drawings?”

“I’m an artist. Or I was an artist—I never know which to say. My nerves went, but my hand is still steady enough. I do portraits of the customers sometimes while my clothes are being cleaned—I do so enjoy the luxury of clean clothes, I will admit. And a bath—I use the one upstairs at the coffeehouse on Fridays, and occasionally during the first part of the week the man who runs the jewelers on the next street lets me use his shower—if he doesn’t have any customers. But I’m never far from that area if you want to find me. It’s my home, and the people know me. It’s safer that way, you know.”

“Yes,” agreed Hawkin thoughtfully. “Unlike some of the gentlemen in this case, you are certainly no fool.”

“I told you,” she said with a degree of impatience, “they are not fools. But then,” she reflected sadly, “neither am I. I’m afraid I haven’t enough strength of character.”

¦

FOUR

¦

And as he stared at the word “fool” written in

luminous letters before him, the word itself began to

shine and change.

When Beatrice Jankowski had gone, Kate and Al sat for a long minute, staring at each other across his desk.

“Al,” said Kate, “did that woman have a short in the system or was she just speaking another language?”

“I feel half-drunk,” he said in wonder, and rubbed his stub-bled face vigorously. “I need some air. Come on.”

Kate scrabbled her notes together into her shoulder bag, snatched up her coat, and caught up with Al at the elevators, where he stood with his foot in the door, irritating the other passengers, who included three high-priced lawyers and an assistant DA. The door closed and they began to descend. The four suits resumed their discussion, which seemed to involve a plea bargain, and suddenly Hawkin held his hand up.

“Fool!” he exclaimed. The lawyer in front of him, who in a bad year earned five times Hawkin’s salary, started to bristle, but Al wasn’t seeing him,- he turned to Kate intently. “The way she used the word fool,” he said. “It meant something to her, other than just an insulting term.”

Kate thought back over the woman’s words. “You’re right. It’s as if she thought of the word as being capitalized.”

“Damn. Oh well, we can find her Friday night at the coffee place, if we want.” The doors opened onto the ground floor and Kate followed him outside, where he stood breathing in great lungfuls of the pollution from the freeway overhead. Kate tried to breathe shallowly, if at all, and was suddenly very aware of the trials of the long day.

“You’ll go to Berkeley tomorrow morning, then,” said Al. “I’ve been in touch with the department there, letting them know you’ll be waltzing across their turf. If you need to make an arrest, call them for backup. I doubt that you will, though,” he added. “Erasmus sounds a peaceable sort. Better take a departmental car, though. You do know where this Holy Hill is?”

“If it’s the same place, it’s what they call the area above the Cal campus, where there’s a bunch of seminaries and church schools.”

“Sounds like a reasonable shot. I’ll take the postmortem, and we’ll talk when you get back.”

Right.“ It was a good time to leave, but she lingered, enjoying the sensation of being back in her own world. The nightmare of the last year was not about to fade under two weeks’ worth of cold reality, but she did feel she had achieved some small distance. It was a good feeling. ”Al,“ she said on impulse, ”come home for a drink. Or coffee, or dinner. Or even just a breath of real air.“

“No, I can’t. You haven’t warned Lee.”

“Oh hell, a little surprise will do her good. Unless—do you have something planned for tonight?”

“Not tonight.”

“Still seeing Jani?”

“Still seeing Jani.”

“She’s a fine person, Al.”

“She is. She was happy to hear you’re back in harness, sent her greeting. Invited you for dinner, as soon as Lee’s up to the drive.”

“She might enjoy that. Ask her yourself, tonight.”

“You’re sure?” I’m sure.

“Okay. One drink and a brief conversation with Lee, and if that damned houseboy of yours is cooking a barbecue, I’ll break his neck.”

¦

Hawkin did not stay to dinner, and as Jon was experimenting with lentils, he escaped with his neck intact. After Hawkin left, Kate settled Lee at the table, which was set for two, and went into the kitchen. She peered past Jon’s shoulder at the pot on the stove, plucked a piece of sausage out, receiving a slap from the wooden spoon, and put the meat in her mouth.

“Are you not eating, or am I?” she asked Jon.

“Since you’re here, I’m going out.”

“You’re leaving me phone numbers?”

He turned to look at her. “Why on earth do you need phone numbers? You’re not a teenaged baby- sitter.”

“Jon,” she said with exaggerated patience, “I am back on active duty. I explained to you last month what this would mean. I am no longer shuffling papers from eight to five. I may be called out at any time, and I do not want Lee left alone forq hours and hours. I need all of your phone numbers.”

“But I don’t know them,” he cried. “I mean, what if I decide to go somewhere?”

“Report in. Damn it Jon, you know it isn’t good for her to be alone for any length of time.”

“All right, all right, all right. I’ll give you phone numbers. But don’t you think it’s time we entered the twentieth century and got me a beeper?”

“Good idea. Get one tomorrow.”

“How chic. Everyone will think I’m a doctor. I think I’ll be an obstetrician. Terribly exotic, and it’ll save me from having to look at strange growths and aches on strangers that I’d rather not know about. Now for heaven’s sake, quit jabbering and take those plates in. I have to go do my hair.”

Kate obediently took the plates, served herself and Lee, and then bent her head and wolfed the lentil-and- sausage cassoulet. Whatever Jon’s shortcomings (and she’d had her doubts from the very beginning, even before the day they had passed in the hallway and he had paused to say, “Look, dearie, it isn’t every man gets to change his shrink’s diapers. I mean, what would Papa Sigmund say? Too Freudian”), the man could cook.

Kate helped herself to a second serving and started in more slowly.

“Did you eat today?” Lee asked.

“I think so. There were sandwiches at some point, but it was a while ago. Jon, this is gorgeous,” she said as he came in from the recently converted basement apartment. “Will you marry me?”

“You just want me to work for nothing, I know you macho types,” he said with an exaggerated simper and held out a piece of paper. “Here is my every possible phone number, plus a few unlikelies. And I’ve also put down