Trophies And Dead Things

Taylor actually smiled-a brief upturning of the corners of his mouth. 'They probably decided you looked as if you could take care of yourself. And they know I'm not really violent, just bizarre and unpredictable. I insist to Harley and Jake that I actually own Hog Island. They're convinced I believe that. I've always had a perverse streak when it comes to my cousins. Stupidity brings it out.'

'Are they stupid?'

'Moderately. My father's side of the family never had too much going for it. Their capacity to choose smart, strong women is all that's allowed them to survive.' Again the small smile flickered. 'Listen to me. I claim to be so smart, but what have I ever done right but marry Mia? And now I'm destroying her, little bit by little bit.'

I decided to let that issue go for now. 'You're well educated. Where did you go to school?'

'U.C. Berkeley-in its Golden Age.' His wry expression made me think of Hank's when we'd spoken of those days.

'I went there myself, but several years later. Was that where you met Perry Hilderly and Jenny Ruhl?'

He nodded.

'Libby, too?'

'Yes.'

'But you still don't remember Tom Grant.'

He considered. 'No, not even now, and I'm much more clear-headed than when you came out here.'

'Let me describe him: he's a tall man, well built. Thick gray hair, but it would probably have been brown back then. Handsome, but he has a scar on his left cheek. I told Libby it looks like something he got in a duel-'

Taylor's face went very pale, then flushed. His eyes came alive, fires rekindling in those previously dead pits. He put his hand on my forearm, grasping it hard enough to create five small epicenters of pain.

He said, 'Right man!'

I grabbed his fingers, trying to ease their pressure. 'What?'

'Right man!'

'Who was the right man?'

'The right man,' he said for the third time. He laughed bitterly, the sound harsh, as if his vocal cords had not been used for any kind of laughter in years. 'The right man was the wrong man.'

'I don't understand.'

Abruptly he let go of my arm and slumped forward, staring down at the brackish water of the oyster beds. 'Neither do I,' he said.

'Who was the right man?' I asked again.

He didn't reply, his breath came fast and ragged.

I touched his arm. 'D.A.?'

He remained silent for several minutes, his breathing gradually returning to normal. When he raised his head and looked at me, his eyes were as dead as before.

Formally he said, 'Thank you for coming. Please give my regards to Libby.' Then he returned his gaze to the distant island.

'Yes.'

Eleven

Taylor had withdrawn behind an impenetrable psychic wall, so I left him and made my way back toward the restaurant. Neither his children nor his cousins were in evidence; the dogs still lay on the path, and they still ignored me. The red pickup and the camper with Oregon plates were gone; my car looked to be the only one in the lot that was actually capable of running.

I went up to the restaurant and stepped inside. It was one big room with smeary, salt-caked windows overlooking another sagging dock. Four tables stood by the windows, and more were aligned between them and the door; their oilcloth coverings didn't look any too clean, and a large black cat slept on one. A bar ran along the right-hand wall, and the mustached cousin sat behind it, reading a racing form. A skinny red-haired waitress slumped on one of the barstools, drinking beer from the bottle. Neither appeared to notice me.

I slipped onto the stool in front of the man. He didn't look up, but asked, 'You find D.A.?'

'You see why we worry about him?'

'He didn't seem that bad.'

He raised his head, frowning. 'You don't know. You didn't know him before.' He laughed cynically. 'Big intellectual, head of his class, college scholarship, when the rest of us didn't even get to finish high school. Now look at him-all fucked up.'

'What happened to him?'

'I think we'll keep that a family secret.'

'Suit yourself.' I took one of my cards from my bag. 'Are you Jake or Harley?'

He seemed taken aback that I knew names. 'Harley,' he said after a moment.

'When's Mia due back?'

'Whenever my wife gets done having her baby.'

'Your wife's having a baby, and you're not with her?'

He shrugged. 'Chrissy's had three others, she can manage without me.'

My earlier sympathy for the newborn, I decided, was fully justified. I pushed the card across the sticky surface of the bar and said, 'When Mia gets back, ask her to call me- collect-please.'

Harley glanced at it, his eyes narrowing slightly. 'What's your business with D.A. and Mia?'

'I told you before, it's private.'

'And I told you before, they're family.'

'If either of them wants you to know, they'll tell you.'

He picked up the card and tore it in half. 'You don't tell me, Mia don't call you.'

I reined in my rising anger, took another card from my bag, and placed it on the bar. 'If Mia doesn't call me, you'll never know what I want with them, now will you?'

Harley pushed his jaw out belligerently and glanced indecisively at the card. Then he went back to his racing form, leaving the card untouched where I'd put it.

As I went out, the waitress winked at me and made a circle with her thumb and forefinger.

The drive back to the city seemed endless-possibly because the list of questions running through my mind was also endless. Something had happened a long time ago, probably in the sixties at Berkeley, that had welded Hilderly, Ross, Taylor, and Ruhl together-the chains that linked them transcending years, distance, and even death. Something to do with the Free Speech Movement, I supposed. Jess Goodhue had told me her mother had gotten into trouble over something associated with the protests shortly before she killed herself. What? Had it also involved Hilderly, Taylor, or Ross? That didn't seem right; Ruhl had died in 1969, and Hilderly was probably in Vietnam by then. And what had Grant to do with it all-a man whom both Ross and Taylor seemed to recognize but would not own up to knowing? And what was this about the right man? Right man for what?

As I approached the Golden Gate Bridge, the traffic coming from the city slowed to a near standstill. Then the traffic on my side of the freeway slowed, too-due partly to the rush-hour closure of two lanes and partly to a stall just south of the Waldo Tunnel. I left off my reflections and concentrated on not rear-ending anyone. By the time I'd passed through the toll plaza and sped up on Doyle Drive, I was regretting not having a car phone so I could check in for messages. A friend who had one had recently convinced me of their merits, but when I'd broached the subject of getting one to Hank, he'd told me I was fortunate just to have an All Souls telephone credit card.

Traffic was heavy within the city as well, and I fumed all the way crosstown to Bernal Heights. When I arrived at the co-op, it was after five, and Ted was no longer at his desk. I checked the chalkboard for urgent messages, then went up to my office and looked in my In box for the routine ones. Nothing.

I'd hoped for one from Jess Goodhue giving me the name of the investigator who had looked into her mother's background, so I called KSTS-TV. Goodhue came on the line, sounding rushed. No, she said, she hadn't yet had the