At four-fifteen he quit trying to work and packed the Sanderson tax account into his briefcase. He’d get his head into the figures at home later, with the aid of Kenton and Dizzy Gillespie.
“Leaving early, Jimmy?”
He looked up. Phil Engstrom. Fellow wage slave; slot or two higher than his but also not going anywhere. Thin, bald, and determinedly optimistic. His best friend in the office.
“Might as well,” he said. “I can’t seem to concentrate this afternoon.”
“Anything wrong?”
“No. Just one of those days.”
“You need a vacation, son. Still have two weeks, right?”
“Right. End of October.”
“Made up your mind yet where you’re going?”
“Not yet, no. Hawaii, maybe — if I can afford it.”
“Good choice. Plenty of eligible women in the islands. And I don’t just mean one-night stands.”
“Sure.”
“Speaking of which,” Phil said, “what’re you doing tomorrow night?”
“Friday?”
“Friday. Start of the weekend. Any plans?”
“No, no plans. Why?”
“How’d you like to go to a party with Jeanne and me?”
“Oh, hell, Phil...”
“Now don’t say no until you’ve heard the particulars. Jeanne’s brother, Tom, is an artist, remember? Well, he just sold one of his paintings through the Fenner Gallery for eight thousand bucks — his first big sale. So he’s throwing a party to celebrate. His studio in North Beach. The place is a cavern — it’ll hold more than a hundred. That’s how many he’s invited, more than a hundred.”
“He didn’t invite me,” Messenger said. “I don’t know him.”
“No problem. You’ll be Jeanne’s and my guest. It’s a good chance to meet people, Jimmy. Artists, writers. And there’s sure to be more than one unattached female.”
Phil was always trying to socialize him, fix him up with dates and opportunities to meet single women. He’d given in a few times, without enthusiasm and without much success. Had a brief fling with a divorced social worker in her twenties, but it had died of inertia: all they ever talked about were her clients. (“I had this one Latino couple, my God, what a pair they were! He got himself arrested one day for exposing himself to three teenage girls from Mercy High School. And you know what her reaction was? ‘Nobody’s supposed to see that thing but me.’ That’s what she said, I swear to God. She wasn’t outraged that he’d committed a perversion, she was outraged he’d whip it out in front of anybody but her...”)
“I’m not much for parties, Phil,” he said, “you know that. Crowds make me uncomfortable.”
“Sure, I know. But you don’t have to stay if you’re not having a good time. Just come for an hour, have a couple of drinks, check out the action.”
“Well... maybe. See how I feel tomorrow after work.”
“No kidding, I think it’ll be worth your while.”
“Sure,” he said. “Sure, you’re probably right.”
Two sips of the bourbon and water he made for himself convinced him that he didn’t want a drink after all. He put on a Stan Kenton CD and tried to work. That was no good either. Still couldn’t concentrate. And the apartment felt stuffy, almost oppressive.
At six-thirty he put on his topcoat and walked over to the Harmony Café. Crowded, as usual. Familiar faces — and total anonymity. When he scanned the menu, his gaze held on the “Lite Meals” listing for hamburger patty, cottage cheese, fruit cup. He ordered the meat loaf special. But when it came he found he had no appetite. He picked at the food, finally pushed the plate away. He paid the cashier and went back into the cold wind from the ocean.
Mrs. Fong was not pleased to see him again. She frowned over a pair of reading glasses, holding the foyer door open a scant few inches. “What you want now? More questions?”
“Not exactly, no. I came about Janet Mitchell’s belongings.”
“Belongings?”
“Clothes, personal effects. Inspector Del Carlo told me you have it all here.”
“Boxes in the basement. Not much.”
“Yes, that’s what he said.”
“No jewelry, no valuables. Cheap clothes.”
“Would you mind if I look through them?”
“What for?”
“I’d like to know more about her.”
“Nothing there to tell you. Police already looked.”
“I know. But I just... would you mind?”
“Better not,” Mrs. Fong said.
“I won’t take anything, I just want to look. You can stand by and watch—”
“Better not. Police wouldn’t like it.”
But she didn’t shut the door. She stood peering at him over the rims of her glasses — a waiting pose.
Oh, Christ, he thought. He said, “The police don’t have to know. Suppose I pay you to let me look?”
“How much?” she said immediately.
“Twenty dollars.”
“No. Not twenty.”
“You name a price, then.”
“Fifty dollars.”
“Forty.” He took two twenties from his wallet, held them up for her to see. “Cash. All right?”
She said, “All right,” and opened the door wide.
There were three cardboard cartons, one large and two small, a small overnight case, and a larger suitcase. That was all. Mrs. Fong left him alone with it all, in one corner of her dusty basement; now that she’d been paid, she didn’t seem to care if he walked off with anything. Or maybe she just didn’t want to know.
He stood looking at the meager pile, feeling irritated at himself and vaguely foolish. Forty dollars to paw through a dead stranger’s belongings. What was the point? The chance of his finding anything enlightening was slim to none. Jerking himself around, that was all he was doing. Why couldn’t he simply let go of her, forget that their paths had ever crossed?
He knelt and opened the largest of the cartons.
Clothing. Underwear mostly. Two sweaters, both of which he recognized from the Harmony Café. A Western-style shirt with fake-pearl snap fasteners in place of buttons. Three blouses. A stained suede jacket.
The second carton yielded half a dozen tattered paperback books, a skimpy collection of cosmetics (but no perfume or toilet water), a street map of San Francisco, a half-full box of saltine crackers (inexplicable that Mrs. Fong would have put stale crackers into the carton), an old-fashioned, inexpensive pocket watch with a scratched cover and an imitation gold chain flecked with greenish oxidation, and a torn and dusty child’s panda bear minus one of its shoe-button eyes.
The third carton: A pair of worn and badly scuffed boots that bore a scrolled cowboy design. A pair of sandals and a pair of flat-heeled shoes. Two skirts, one pair of slacks, one pair of Levi’s jeans.
The small overnight bag was empty. The larger suitcase contained the thin cloth coat Mrs. Lonesome had worn to the Harmony most evenings, and nothing else.
Pathetic lot. Remarkably so for a woman who’d had fourteen thousand dollars in cash in a safe deposit box. Looking at it spread out on the basement floor made him feel sad, depressed. The only personal items, really, were the pocket watch and the bear.
He picked up the watch, worked the stem. The hands moved but the winding mechanism was broken. He slid a thumbnail under the dust cover and flipped it up. Words had been inexpertly etched on the casing inside, as if with a homemade engraving tool. Letters and portions of letters were worn away, but the full inscription was still distinguishable when he held the casing up to catch the light from a naked bulb overhead.
To Davey from Pop.