That was the correct term. Limbaugh, Beck, the rest of them-a pack of greed-driven racist hatemongers hiding behind the cloak of patriotism. He’d been assaulted by that kind of crap all his life, on and off the radio and television. Down in El Centro when he was growing up and before and after he joined the county sheriff’s department, even up here in liberal San Francisco. Wetback, spic, greaser-he’d heard all the epithets dozens of times and been called worse to his face. Heard “close the borders,” “go back to Mexico where you belong,” “keep America safe for Americans.” Well, the Chavezes were as American as Limbaugh and Beck, every one of them born and raised in this country.
Elena, the rest of his family, didn’t understand why he listened to the trash that came spewing over the airwaves. Wallowed in it, they said. But he didn’t look at it as wallowing. Know your enemy, that was one reason he did it-what they’re saying, doing, thinking. Made it easier to deal with the results of their rhetoric when he was confronted with it, easier to keep his anger in check, easier to do his job.
The other reason was because it gave him a benign feeling of superiority. Alex Chavez and the Chavez family were good, God-fearing people who worked hard for what they had, whose hearts were full of love, not hate. They were better Christians, better role models, more honest believers in family values. Better Americans because they didn’t try to tell anybody else what to think and how to live their lives. Better human beings. Knowing that, having it verified every time he tuned in to one of the wing nut broadcasts, helped him maintain his equilibrium and his essentially cheerful outlook. Ironic, when you looked at it that way. A kind of justice in it, too. The more the haters ranted and raved and spewed their venom against minorities, the happier and prouder he was that he’d been born one himself.
Limbaugh’s diatribe today had to do with President Obama’s foreign-policy decisions and how the health-care reform law was destroying the country. The usual garbage, regurgitated. After a while Chavez only half-listened, because he’d heard it so many times before he could have recited most of it himself, word for word.
Across the street Carson appeared one last time, carrying a couple of what looked to be Tiffany table lamps, found space for them inside, then closed the Explorer’s hatch and disappeared into the house again. Otherwise nothing much happened for close to an hour. At the forty-minute mark Elmo gave out with his I Have to Go whine. Well, that figured. World’s smallest dog bladder. Chavez slid out on the passenger side, let the terrier out, kept one eye on him while he sprayed the trunk of a sidewalk tree and the other on the house. One thing you could say for Elmo: he never dallied when he was doing his business, like some dogs did. Do it and get on with the important things, like munching a Milk-Bone and then curling up and going to sleep on the backseat.
Chavez was scanning through the radio dial, looking for one or another of Limbaugh’s fellow garbagemen, when the wait came to a worthwhile end. The two women walked out of the house together, the Rottweiler with them on a leash. Not hurrying but not taking their time, either. Carson went down to open the gate while McManus prodded Thor in on the driver’s side of the SUV. While she drove out to the street, Chavez fired up the Dodge. Carson closed the gate and hopped in on the passenger side; then the Explorer rolled out of the driveway.
And the chase was on.
Not that it was much of a chase at first. McManus was a cautious driver and there wasn’t much traffic, so he hung back at a safe distance as she headed south on Third. She turned west on Cesar Chavez Street (named after a great man whose surname he was proud to share), bypassed the edge of the San Jose Guerrero neighborhood where he lived, and went on up to Church Street. Right on Church, left on Clipper, up the hill to the intersection with Market, then left across Twin Peaks and down the west side on Portola Drive. He had a pretty good idea by then where they were going, and it wasn’t to any Goodwill store.
He knew for sure he was right when the SUV turned down Sloat, then north on Nineteenth Avenue. While he waited two cars behind at a stoplight just beyond Stern Grove, he slid his cell phone into the hands-free device mounted on the dash and called Tamara to tell her McManus and Carson were on the move and likely heading for the Golden Gate Bridge.
18
My visit to Barber and Associates was unproductive. The agent in charge of the Dogpatch property lease was a middle-aged black woman named Royster; I got her to talk to me on the grounds that I was conducting a routine insurance investigation that peripherally involved R. L. McManus. Ms. Royster was unaware McManus was in the habit of subletting a room, but she didn’t seem to be particularly concerned about it. She checked the lease agreement to determine if there was a clause forbidding sublets; there wasn’t. Ms. McManus had been a model tenant, she said, always paying her rent on time, not once requesting repairs or improvements to the property, and making no complaint when the monthly nut was increased, as it had been twice in the seven years she’d lived there.
Ms. Royster knew nothing about McManus’s background or personal life, other than the fact that her references had been impeccable. Knew nothing about Jane Carson, either. Even if there had been something in the file that might have been pertinent, she probably wouldn’t have confided to me what it was. Privileged information.
The only new thing I learned from her-and it wasn’t much-was that the owners of the house, an elderly couple now residing in Burlingame, had also operated a dog-boarding service on the property. The established existence of kennels and dog run was probably what had attracted McManus to it seven years ago.
The visit to Barber and Associates may have been wasted, but a second trip to Dogpatch wasn’t. My first stop there, The Dog Hole, yielded a little info of the sort I was looking for-enough to put Tamara on the scent again.
The rail-thin elderly guy I’d spoken to the first time around occupied the same bar stool, sipping port and playing a quiet game of solitaire. Cheating at it, too: he switched a king and queen in a row of hearts as I sat down next to him. Lonely, bored, drinking just enough to maintain a mild sedative buzz-a man with nowhere else to go and nothing else to do, marking time.
He remembered me, he was grateful for the company, and my offer to stand him to another drink made him friendly and gregarious. His name was Frank Quarles, he said, and chuckled and tacked on a mild joke he’d probably told a few hundred times before: “My late wife used to say we was well named because we sure did have a lot of ’em. Quarrels, get it?”
I chuckled to let him know I’d gotten it, then told him I was still looking for the man in the photograph. He hadn’t seen Virden since last Tuesday, he said. I eased the conversation around to McManus’s roomers. Quarles couldn’t recall any of the women, but when I brought up the old man Selma Hightower had mentioned, it struck a chord in his memory.
“Oh, sure, him,” he said. “I’m seventy, but he was a real geezer. One foot in the grave and the other on a bar stool.”
“He came here regularly, did he?”
“Pretty regular for a while. Two, three months.”
“Then what happened?”
“Just stopped showing up. Figured he must’ve passed over.”
“You spend much time with him?”
“Not much, no sir. Damn near deaf, so he kept pretty much to himself. Nice old bird, though. Wasn’t above buying a round for the house now and then.”
“Sounds like he had money.”
“Must’ve. Wore this old black overcoat with a velvet collar. Made out of lamb’s wool, he said.” Quarles aimed a glance at the muscle-bound bartender, lowered his voice. “Drank good Scotch, too. Not the blended bar crap they serve here. Twelve-year-old single malt.”
“Do you remember his name?”
“Well… it’s been a while and my memory’s not what it used to be.” Up went the voice again. “Hey, Stan. You remember that old guy came in regular for a while last year? Drank single malt Scotch?”