“In territory like this, everybody knows what’s going on.”
“Not everybody. Not by a long shot.”
We arrived in San Francisco at around seven that evening. The cats, Ralph and Allie, were happy to see us, and while Hy was ordering a pizza, Michelle Curley, the teenager next door who tended to them and the house when we were away, came over to give us a report and an arrangement of pyracantha berries from her mother’s garden.
’Chelle was an amazing young woman: all-A student; star basketball player; budding entrepreneur. She’d told me only a month before that her dad had volunteered to match the funds she had saved to rehab a wreck of a house in the next block; the purchase had been sealed, and Curley & Curley were in business. I wasn’t to be concerned about losing her as a house-and-cat-sitter, she’d reassured me, because projects like this first one always went over budget and she’d need the cash flow.
Real-estate mogul in the making-purple hair, tiger-striped fingernails, multiple piercings and all.
’Chelle’s report was good: the cats were eating well, the ficus in our bedroom had responded to the new food she’d been giving it, the chimney sweeper had come out and cleaned both fireplaces. We invited her to share the pizza, but she declined, admitting shyly to having a date.
That night we slept peacefully in the new bedroom suite we’d had constructed on the lower level behind the garage. Just before we drifted off I said to Hy, “I can fix these things with Mick and the agency. With you guarding my back, I can fix anything.”
Sunday
Wrong again, McCone.
The phone woke us before eight that morning. Ricky, saying Mick had been involved in a motorcycle accident and was in critical condition at SF General’s trauma center.
I didn’t ask for details, simply said we’d be there as soon as possible. As I drove, white-knuckled, to the hospital, Hy said, “This is not your fault. You know that.”
“I’ve been up at the ranch wallowing in me, me, me. If I’d been here it wouldn’t’ve happened.”
“Maybe, maybe not. You’re not that powerful.”
I glared at him, and he shrugged, looked out the side window.
The waiting room at the trauma center was quiet at almost nine; presumably most of the victims of a San Francisco Saturday night had been cared for and released or admitted, and their loved ones-if any-sent home. Rae and Ricky sat on a sofa, holding hands. Her face was pale beneath its freckles. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair unkempt; given that and the beard he was growing for a film role he’d accepted, you’d have thought him a derelict who had come in to escape the fog, rather than a country-music superstar.
We all hugged, and I sat down on the sofa with them while Hy went outside to use his phone.
“You hear anything yet?” I asked.
“He’s still in surgery,” Rae said. “Broken bones, ruptured spleen, all sorts of injuries.”
“Damn kid,” Ricky muttered. “Charlene and I never should have let him talk us into that moped.”
Ancient history. When he was in his teens Mick had run away at Christmastime because Ricky and my sister had refused him the scooter; as my luck would have it, he’d come to the city and my Christmas Eve job was to find him. And later, as overly well-off and permissive parents will do, my sister and Ricky granted him his wish. A string of more and more powerful bikes had followed.
“He’d have pursued his passion anyway,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s what the Savage men do-pursue their passions. I should’ve set a better example-”
“Stop it, Ricky,” Rae said. “You’ve been a good father to him.”
“Have I?”
“Yes.” She stood. “I’m going to try Charlene again.”
Ricky watched her leave the waiting room, then said to me, “This is about Keim, isn’t it?”
Charlotte Keim, the operative I’d lured away from Hy’s firm years ago, only to have to ask him to lure her back when she broke up her relationship with Mick. “Probably.”
“A passing driver found him under his bike on the shoulder of Highway 1 at five this morning, reeking of alcohol. What the hell was he doing there?”
I didn’t voice the thought. “Apparently he’s been in a pretty self-destructive mode lately.”
“You knew this? And you didn’t warn us?”
“I only found out yesterday. It was one of the reasons I came down.”
He nodded, grasped my hand. I followed his gaze as a doctor in scrubs approached us. The doctor looked too young to be so tired; he smiled reassuringly at Ricky.
“Your son’s a lucky man, Mr. Savage. He’ll be in casts for a while-left arm and leg-but he’s young and he should heal completely. He’ll need physical therapy, and I’d also recommend counseling. Has he been drinking heavily for long?”
Ricky looked at me, shrugged. “I haven’t seen much of him lately.”
I said, “I think his drinking may have been escalating since last winter, when his woman friend broke up with him.”
The doctor looked questioningly at me. Ricky introduced me as Mick’s aunt and employer.
“Well,” he said after we’d exchanged greetings, “he’s still in recovery, but you should be able to visit with him soon for a few minutes. One of the nurses will take you to him.”
Then he was gone and Rae was back, saying Charlene and her husband Vic were on their way up from Los Angeles. Hy followed her in, asked about Mick’s condition; Ricky reported what the doctor had told us. At that point Charlotte Keim rushed through the entrance.
“What’s
“I called her,” Hy said.
“Why the hell did you do that?”
“She has a right to know. And he has a right to see her if he wants to. It may even help him.”
“Get her out of here.”
Hy kept silent, his gaze level with Ricky’s. After a moment, Ricky looked away. “Ah, what the hell. Just keep her away from me.”
Hy went over to Keim, who was pale, her brown curls disheveled, and guided her to the opposite side of the room.
Rae said to Ricky, “You can’t blame Charlotte. Mick did this to himself.”
“… I know that. Like I did a lot of things to myself. And like me, I suppose he’ll try to blame it on everybody else.”
“I don’t think so. Over the past few years you’ve set a good example for him.”
“Whatever. I just want to see him.”
I moved away, went over to Hy and Keim. She looked at me, eyes moist. I put my arm around her and said, as Hy had to me earlier, “This is not your fault. It’s good of you to come.”
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t care for him.”
“I know.” I looked at Hy. “Why don’t you guys get some coffee? I’m going to drive over to the pier for a while.”
The pier was always occupied, even on a Sunday. This morning, two cars belonging to the architects in the second-story suite opposite ours were parked in their spaces on the floor. I went up the stairs to the catwalk, and ripped down the GENIUS ROOM sign from Mick and Derek’s door, before I continued to my office. I shuffled through the papers in my inbox till I found the Port Commission’s rental-increase notice.
They had to be crazy.
No way we could afford this. And even if that hadn’t been the case, I’d feel I was being extorted every time I walked through the door.
But where the hell would we find comparable space?
Maybe it was confirmation that I’d be better off out of this business. But maybe not…
