Saam Ji pointed east. “In the Haight.”
“Show me the way and we’ll share whatever ninety-nine-cent stuff they got on special.”
Saam Ji smiled. “Thanks. I haven’t had a burger in months.”
Donnally made a show of inspecting the bill and smiled back.
“Let’s call it my last supper.”
A half hour later, Donnally and Saam Ji were sitting at a metal table outside the McDonald’s across the street bordering the east end of the park. Saam Ji’s grocery cart was parked on the sidewalk ten feet away under a streetlamp.
The teenager behind the counter had packed their orders for takeout without their asking.
The five dollars and another fifty cents Donnally pulled from his coat pocket went further than he expected. Four burgers and a small bag of French fries.
“Why’d you come to the park?” Saam Ji asked, sticking a fry in his mouth. “You got a car. You can stay wherever you want. Police are always hassling us around here. You go into the bushes to take a shit and when you come back, a city crew has hauled your stuff away.”
“I was staying over in Berkeley by the marina for the last month,” Donnally said, “but there are too many psychos around.”
Saam Ji grinned. “You mean worse than the guys that robbed you?”
“Not worse. Just unpredictable. Hard to get a good night’s sleep. And I used to know a guy who lived up in the Frontier.” Donnally pointed toward the most isolated and jungled area of the park where the hard-core homeless lived.
“I thought maybe I’d look him up.” Donnally smiled. “He’s a little unpredictable, too, but I’m friends with his brother.”
“What’s his name?”
“Charles, but people used to call him Rover.”
“Rover… Rover…” Saam Ji squinted into the distance, then looked back at Donnally. “A black guy?”
“Yeah. About six feet. Fifty years old or so.”
“I think I know who he is but he hasn’t been around for at least a year, maybe two.” Saam Ji smiled, his teeth yellowed and caked with French fry residue. “It’s hard to tell time when you’re not punching a clock.”
“Any idea where he went?”
Saam Ji wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket.
“He couldn’t make it in the Frontier. Couldn’t stand being alone. He was always looking for attention.” Saam Ji’s eyes narrowed, then he squeezed them shut. “Let me think… let me think…” He opened his eyes again. “Noe Valley. That’s it. Noe Valley. I saw him over on Twenty-fourth Street by the bakery. Must’ve been a couple of months ago.”
“Expensive territory.” Donnally chuckled. “He come into an inheritance?”
Saam Ji shook his head. “He’s what they call a mascot around here. A guy yuppie people in the neighborhood feel sorry for. They give him money and food.” Saam Ji’s face turned grim. “I couldn’t live like that. It’s humiliating, and you always have to be ready to fight anybody who tries to move in on your block.”
“Was he doing okay?”
“Hard to tell. You know he’s crazy, right?”
“Off and on.”
“He’s mostly on. If you catch up with him, look at his hands. He punches things. Trees. Newspaper racks. All scarred and scabbed up. And paranoid as shit.” Saam Ji laughed. “I think that’s why all them white women are always giving him things. He acts like a scared puppy.”
Saam Ji looked around, then stood up.
“Thanks for the dinner. I better get to my spot in the park before somebody else moves in.”
“I’ll walk back with you.”
“Better not. It’s not good to be seen in the park with a cop.”
“Cop?”
“Or something like it.” Saam Ji winked. “You could’ve taken those two skinheads in a heartbeat.”
“Then why’d you talk to me?”
“First just to see what you were up to. And now that I know it’s about Rover, I’m glad I did. He’s really gonna hurt somebody someday. Probably a woman. It’s just a matter of time. And it’s not because he’s crazy.” Saam Ji gestured toward the park. “Lots of crazy people out there. Almost all of them are harmless. But Rover sometimes looks at women a certain way. Gives me the willies. I was glad when he left the park ’cause I would’ve felt guilty if he did something. Shit, if I wanted to be responsible for other people, I wouldn’t be living on the street.”
“Has he done anything so far?”
“I seen him in the bushes with some women, ones like him, but I never saw him hurt anybody.” Saam Ji shrugged. “I figured if they’re all crazy, it’s kinda no harm, no foul.”
Chapter 12
D onnally looked over at San Francisco Homicide Lieutenant Ramon Navarro sitting in the driver’s seat of the Mercury Marquis. They had been parked for a couple of hours in front of Jules’ Jewels at Twenty-fourth Street and Castro, surveilling the Noe Valley Bakery across the street and watching the Saturday morning breakfast crowd lining up for sugar and caffeine.
“You’re starting to look like a Mexican Buddha,” Donnally said, pointing at Navarro’s stomach stretching tight against a yellow button-down shirt and a brown sports coat.
Navarro laughed, then ran his hand through his thinning hair. “Actually, I’ve been going for the Friar Tuck look.”
Donnally tapped his thumb against his chest. “And I take it I’m supposed to be Robin Hood?”
“I’m not sure you’d look all that good in tights.”
Donnally smiled. “You’re not likely to find out.”
They fell silent as they surveyed the street and the sidewalks, now overpopulated with mothers pushing strollers, wandering coffee drinkers in North Face parkas, couture-clad children of privilege, and red bandana-necked golden retrievers with their earnest noses sniffing the air.
“Sometimes this feels more like Aspen than a big-city neighborhood,” Donnally said.
Navarro waved his hands toward the surrounding hills. “Or an enormous set constructed to shoot Eddie Bauer commercials.”
Donnally watched two women walk by, holding hands. “You think these folks realize how lucky they are?”
Navarro stared ahead at the women for a moment, then said, “I suspect they mostly just feel deserving.”
Donnally nodded toward a bearded man wearing three layers of coats and carrying a cloth sleeping bag. He was walking toward the bakery, eyes fixed on the sidewalk in front of him.
“Until somebody like Charles Brown shows up,” Donnally said.
Navarro held up a decades-old mugshot, then glanced back and forth between it and the man. “Maybe those folks are right who say that the mentally ill don’t age like the rest of us.”
“I’ll cross the street and come up from behind,” Donnally said, opening the passenger door.
“You sure you don’t want me to call some uniforms?”
“I’m sure.” Donnally climbed out. “I don’t want to spook him and I don’t want anybody reading him his rights until I have a chance to talk to him.”
Navarro leaned over and looked up at Donnally. “I don’t know, man. It’s sort of a gray area.”
“Not the way we’re doing it.”
B y the time Donnally had made the circuit down the block and across the street, Rover was sitting with his back against the low, black-tile facade of the bakery.
Rover paid no attention as Donnally walked up since his jeans and windbreaker made him unremarkable among the men standing around chatting and drinking their coffee with copies of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal tucked under their arms.
Donnally pretended to read the take-out menu taped inside the bakery window until Navarro positioned himself near the news racks on the opposite side to block Rover’s escape. He then lowered himself to one knee and bent down close to Rover. The aromas of blueberry muffins and cinnamon rolls swirling around them couldn’t mask the stench enveloping Rover’s body.
“Are you Charles Brown?” Donnally asked, adopting a sympathetic expression.