There are some days that just ought to be called off. Mondays are always hideous: The trouble starts when I dribble toothpaste all over my clothes or lock my keys in the car and doesn’t let up till I stub my toe on the bed stand at night. Tuesdays are usually when the morning paper doesn’t get delivered. Wednesdays are better, but if I get to feeling optimistic and go to aerobics class at the Y, chances are ten to one that I’ll wrench my back. Thursdays-forget it. And by five on Friday, all I want to do is crawl under the covers and hide.
You can see why I love weekends.
The day I got assigned to the Boydston case was a Tuesday.
Cautious optimism, that was what I was nursing. The paper lay folded tidily on the front steps of All Souls Legal Cooperative-where I both live and work as a private investigator. I read it and drank my coffee, not even burning my tongue. Nobody I knew had died, and there was even a cheerful story below the fold in the Metro section. By the time I’d looked at the comics and found all five strips that I bother to read were funny, I was feeling downright perky.
Well why not? I wasn’t making a lot of money, but my job was secure. The attic room I occupied was snug and comfy. I had a boyfriend, and even if the relationship was about as deep as a desert stream on the Fourth of July, he could be taken most anyplace. And to top it off, this wasn’t a bad hair day.
All that smug reflection made me feel charitable toward my fellow humans-or at least my coworkers and their clients-so I refolded the paper and carried it from the kitchen of our big Victorian to the front parlor and waiting-room so others could partake. A man was sitting on the shabby maroon sofa: bald and chubby, dressed in lime green polyester pants and a strangely patterned green, blue and yellow shirt that reminded me of drawings of sperm cells. One thing for sure, he’d never get run over by a bus while he was wearing that getup.
He looked at me as I set the paper on the coffee table and said, “How ya doin’, little lady?”
Now, there’s some contention that the word “lady” is demeaning. Frankly, it doesn’t bother me: when I hear it I know I’m looking halfway presentable and haven’t got something disgusting caught between my front teeth. No, what rankled was the work “little.” When you’re five foot three the word reminds you of things you’d just as soon not swell on-like being unable to see over people’s heads at parades, or the little-girly clothes that designers of petite sizes are always trying to foist on you. “Little,” especially at nine in the morning, doesn’t cut it.
I glared up the guy. Unfortunately, he’d gotten to his feet and I had to look up.
He didn’t notice I was annoyed; maybe he was nearsighted. “Sure looks like it’s gonna be a fine day,” he said.
Now I identified his accent-pure Texas. Another strike against him, because of Uncle Roy, but that’s another story.
“It would’ve been a nice day,” I muttered.
“Ma’am?”
That did it! The first-and last-time somebody had gotten away with calling me “Ma’am” was on my twenty-eighth birthday two weeks before, when a bag boy tried to help me out of Safeway with my two feather-light sacks of groceries. It was not a precedent I wanted followed.
Speaking more clearly, I said, “It would’ve been a nice day, except for you.”
He frowned. “What’d I do?”
“Try ‘little,’ a Texas accent, and ‘ma’am!”
“Ma’am are you all right?”
“Aaargh!” I fled the parlor and ran up the stairs to the office of my boss, Sharon McCone.
Sharon is my friend, mentor, and sometimes-heaven help me-custodian of my honesty. She’s been all those things since she hired me a few years ago to assist her at the co-op. Not that our association is always smooth sailing: She can be a stern taskmaster and she harbors a devilish sense of humor that surfaces at inconvenient times. But she is always been there for me, even during the death throes of my marriage to my pig-selfish, perpetual-student husband, Doug Grayson. And ever since I’ve stopped referring to him as “that bastard Doug,” she’s decided I’m a grown-up who can be trusted to manage her own life-within limits.
That morning she was sitting behind her desk with her chair swiveled around so she could look out the bay window at the front of the Victorian. I’ve found her in that pose hundreds of times: sunk low on her spine, long legs crossed, dark eyes brooding. The view is of dowdy houses across the triangular park that divides the street, and usually hazed by San Francisco fog, but it doesn’t matter: whatever she’s seeing is strictly inside her head, and she says she gets her best insights into her cases that way.
I stepped into the office and cleared my throat. Slowly Shar turned, looking at me as if I were a stranger. Then her eyes cleared. “Rae, hi. Nice work on closing the Anderson file so soon.”
“Thanks. I found the others you left on my desk: they’re pretty routine. You have anything else for me?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.” She smiled slyly and slid a manila folder across the desk. “Why don’t you take this client?”
I opened the folder and studied the information sheet stapled inside. All it gave was a name-Darrin Boydston-and an address on Mission Street. Under the job description Shar had noted “background check.”
“Another one?” I asked, letting my voice telegraph my disappointment.
“Uh-huh. I think you’ll find it interesting.”
“Why?”
She waved a slender hand at me. “Go! It’ll be a challenge.”
Now, that did make me suspicious. “If it’s such a challenge, how come you’re not handling it?”
For and instant her eyes sparked. She doesn’t like it when I hint that she skims the best cases for herself-although that’s exactly what she does, and I don’t blame her. “Just go see him.”
“He’ll be at this address?”
“No. He’s downstairs. I got done talking with him ten minutes ago.”
“Downstairs? Where downstairs?”
“In the parlor.”
Oh, God!
She smiled again. “Lime green, with a Texas accent.”
“So,” Darrin Boydston said, “Did y’all come back down to chew me out some more?”
“I’m sorry about that.” I handed him my card. “Ms. McCone has assigned me to your case.”
He studied it and looked me up and down. “You promise to keep a civil tongue in your head?”
“I said I was sorry.”
“Well, you damn near ruint my morning.”
How many more times was I going to have to apologize?
“Let’s get goin’, little lady.” He started for the door.
I winced and asked, “Where?”
“My place. I got somebody I want you to meet.”
Boydston’s car was a white Lincoln continental-beautiful machine, except for the bull’s horns mounted on the front grille. I stared at then in horror.
“Pretty, aren’t they?” he said, opening the passenger’s door.
“I’ll follow you in my car,” I told him.
He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
As I got into the Ramblin’Wreck-my ancient, exhaust-belching Rambler American-I looked back and saw Boydston staring at it in horror.
Boydston’s place was a storefront on Mission a few blocks down from my Safeway-an area that could do with some urban renewal and just might get it, if the upwardly mobile ethnic groups that’re moving in to the neighborhood get their way. It shared the building with a Thai restaurant and a Filipino travel agency. In its front window red neon tubing spelled out THE CASH COW, but on the bucking outline letters was a bull. I imagined Boydston trying to reach a decision: call it the Cash Cow and have a good name but a dumb graphic; call it the Cash Bull and have a dumb name and good graphic; or just say the hell with it and mix genders.
But what kind of establishment was this?
My client took the first available parking space, leaving me to fend for myself. When I finally found another and walked back two blocks he’d already gone inside.
Chivalry is dead. Sometimes I think common courtesy’s obit is about to be published too.
When I went into the store, the first thing I noticed was a huge potted barrel cactus, and the second was dozens of guitars hanging from the ceiling. A rack of worn cowboy boots completed the picture.
Texas again. The state that spawned the likes of Uncle Roy was going to keep getting in my face all day long.
The room was full of glass showcases that displayed an amazing assortment of stuff: rings, watches, guns, cameras, fishing reels, kitchen gadgets, small tools, knickknacks, silverware, even a metronome. There was a whole section of electronic equipment like TV’s and VCRs, a jumble of probably obsolete computer gear, a fleet of vacuum cleaners poised to roar to life and tidy the world, enough exercise equipment to trim down half the population, and a jukebox that just then was playing a country song by Shar’s brother-in-law Ricky Savage. Delicacy prevents me from describing what his voice does to my libido.
Darrin Boydston stood behind a high counter, tapping on a keyboard, on the wall behind him a sign warned CUSTOMERS MUST PRESENT TICKET TO CLAIM MERCHANDISE. I’m not too quick most mornings, but I did manage to figure out that the Cash Cow was a pawnshop.
“Y’all took long enough,” my client said. “You gonna charge me for the time you spent parking?”
I sighed. “Your billable hours start now.” Them I looked at my watch and made a mental note of the time.
He turned the computer off, motioned for me to come around the counter, and led me through a door into a warehouse area. Its shelves were crammed with more of the kind of stuff he had out front. Halfway down the center aisle he made a right turn and took me past small appliances: blenders, food processors, toasters, electric woks, pasta makers, even an ancient pressure cooker. It reminded me of the one the grandmother who raised me used to have, and I wrinkled my nose at it, thinking of those sweltering late-summer days when she’d make me help her with the yearly canning. No wonder I resist the womanly household arts!
Boydston said, “They buy these gizmos ‘cause they think they need ‘em. Then they find out they don’t need and can’t afford ‘em. And then it all ends up in my lap.” He sounded exceptionally cheerful about this particular brand of human folly, and I supposed he had good reason.
He led me at a fast clip toward the back of the warehouse-so fast that I had to trot to keep up with him. One of the other problems with being short is that you’re forever running along behind taller people. Since I’d already decided to hate Darrin Boydston, I also decided he was walking fast to spite me.
At the end of the next-to-last aisle we came upon a thin man in a white T-shirt and black work pants who was moving boxes from the shelves to a dolly. Although Boydston and I were making plenty of noise, he didn’t hear us come up. My client put his hand on the man’s shoulder, and he stiffened, when he turned I saw he was only a boy, no more than twelve or thirteen, with the fine features and thick black hair of a Eurasian. The look in his eyes reminded me of an abused kitten my boyfriend Willie had taken in: afraid and resigned to further terrible experiences. He glanced from me to Boydston, and when my client nodded reassuringly, the fear faded to remoteness.
Boydston said to me, “Meet Daniel.”
“Hello, Daniel.” I held out my hand he looked at it, then at Boydston. He nodded again, and Daniel touched my fingers, moving back quickly as if they were hot.
“Daniel,” Boydston said, “doesn’t speak or hear. Speech therapist I know met him, says he’s prob’ly been deaf and mute since he was born.”
The boy was watching his face intently. I said, “He reads lips or understands signing, though.”
“Does some lip reading, yeah. But no signing. For that you gotta have schooling. Far as I can tell. Daniel hasn’t. But him and me, we worked out a personal kind of language to get by.
Daniel tugged at Boydston’s sleeve and motioned at the shelves, eyebrows raised. Boydston nodded, then pointed to his watch, held up five fingers, and pointed to the front of the building. Daniel nodded and turned back to his work. Boydston said, “You see?”
“Uh-huh. You two communicate pretty well. How’d he come to work for you?”
My client began leading me back to the store-walking slower now. “The way it went, I found him all huddled up in the back doorway one morning ‘bout six weeks ago when I opened up. He was damn near froze but dressed in clean clothes and a new jacket. Was in good shape, ‘cept for some healed-over cuts on his face. And he had this laminated card-wait, I’ll show you.” He held the door for me, then rummaged through a drawer below the counter.
The card was a blue three-by-five-encased in clear plastic; on it somebody had typed I WILL WORK FOR FOOD AND A PLACE TO SLEEP. I DO NOT SPEAK OR HEAR, BUT I AM A GOOD WORKER. PLEASE HELP ME.
“So you gave him a job?”
Boydston sat down on a stool. “Yeah. He sleeps in a little room off the warehouse and cooks on a hotplate. Mostly stuff outta cans. Every week I give him cash; he brings back the change-won’t take any more than his food costs, and that’s not much.”
I turned the card over. Turned over my opinion of Darrin Boydston, too. “How d’you know his name’s Daniel?”
“I don’t. That’s just what I call him.”
“Why Daniel?”
He looked embarrassed and brushed at a speck of lint on the leg of his pants. “Had a best buddy in high school down in Amarillo. Daniel Atkins. Got killed in ‘Nam.” He paused. “Funny, me giving his name to a slope kid when they were the ones that killed him.” Another pause. “Of course, this Daniel wasn’t even born then, none of that business was his fault. And there’s something about him…I don’t know, he must reminds me of my buddy. Don’t suppose old Danny would mind none.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t.” Damn, it was getting harder and harder to hate Boydston! I decided to let go of it. “Okay,” I said, “my casefile calls for a background check. I take it you want me to find out who Daniel is.”
“Yeah. Right now he doesn’t exist-officially, I mean. He hasn’t got a birth certificate, can’t get a social security number. That means I can’t put him on the payroll, and he can’t get government help. No classes where he can learn the stuff I can’t teach him. No SSI payments or Medicare, either. My therapist friend says he’s one of the people that slip through the cracks in the system.”
The cracks are more like yawning holes, if you ask me. I said, “I’ve got to warn you, Mr. Boydston: Daniel may be in the country illegally.”
“You think I haven’t thought of that? Hell, I’m one of the people that voted for Prop One-eighty-seven. Keep those foreigners from coming here and taking jobs from decent citizens. Don’t give ‘em nothin’ and maybe they’ll go home and quit using up my tax dollar. That was before I met Daniel.” He scowled. “Damn, I hate moral dilemmas! I’ll tell you one thing, though: this is a good kid, he deserves a chance. If he’s here illegally…well, I’ll deal with it somehow.”
I liked his approach to his moral dilemma; I’d used it myself a time or ten. “Okay,” I said, “tell me everything you know about him.”
“Well, there’re the clothes he had on when I found him. They’re in this sack; take a look.” He hauled a grocery bag from under the counter and handed it to me.
I pulled the clothing out: rugby shirt in white, green, and navy; navy cords’ navy-and-tan down jacket. They were practically new, but the labels had been cut out.
“Lands’ End?” I said. “Eddie Bauer?”
“One of those, but who can tell which?”
I couldn’t, but I had a friend who could, “Can I take these?”
“Sure, but don’t let Daniel see you got them. He’s real attached to ‘em, cried when I took them away to be cleaned the first time.”
“Somebody cared about him, to dress him well and have this card made up. Laminating like that is a simple process, though; you can get it done in print shops.”
“Hell, you could get it done here. I got one of those laminating gizmos a week ago; belongs to a printer who’s having a hard time of it, checks his shop equipment in and out like this was a lending library.”
“What else can you tell me about Daniel? What’s he like?”
Boydston considered. “Well, he’s proud-the way he brings back the change from the money I give him tells me that. He’s smart; he picked up on the warehouse routine easy, and he already knew how to cook whoever his people are, they don’t have much; he knew what a hotplate was, but when I showed him a microwave it scared him. And he’s got a tic about labels-cuts ‘em out of the clothes I give him. There’s more, too.” He looked toward the door; Daniel was peeking hesitantly around its jamb. Boydston waved for him to come in and added, “I’ll let Daniel do the telling.”
The boy came into the room, eyes lowered shyly-or fearfully. Boydston looked at him till he looked back. Speaking very slowly and mouthing the words carefully, he asked, “Where are you from?”
Daniel pointed at the floor.
“San Francisco?”
Nod.
“This district?”
Frown.
“Mission district? Mis-sion?”
Nod.
“Your momma, where is she?”
Daniel bit his lip.
“Your momma?”
He raised his hand and waved.
“Gone away?” I asked Boydston.
“Gone away or dead. How long, Daniel?” When the boy didn’t respond, he repeated, “How long?”
Shrug.
“Time confuses him.” Boydston said. “Daniel, your daddy-where is he?”
The boy’s eyes narrowed and he made a violent gesture toward the door.
“Gone away?”
Curt nod.
“How long?”
Shrug.
“How long, Daniel?”
After a moment he held up two fingers.
“Days?”
Headshake.
“Weeks?”
Frown.
“Months?”
Another frown.
“Years?”
Nod.
“Thanks, Daniel.” Boydston smiled at him and motioned to the door. “You can go back to work now.” He watched the boy leave, eyes troubled, then asked me, “So what d’you think?”
“Well-he’s got good linguistic abilities; somebody bothered to teach him-probably his mother. His recollections seem scrambled. He’s fairly sure when the father left, less sure about the mother. That could mean she went away or died recently and he hasn’t found a way to mesh it with the rest of his personal history. Whatever happened, he was left to fend for himself.”
“Can you do anything for him?”
“I’m sure going to try.”
My best lead on Daniel’s identity was the clothing. There had to be a reason for the labels being cut out-and I didn’t think it was because of a tic on the boy’s part. No, somebody had wanted to conceal the origins of the duds, and when I found out where they’d come from I could pursue my investigation from that angle. I left the Cash Cow, got in the Ramblin’ Wreck, and when it finally stopped coughing, drove to the six-story building on Brannan Street south of Market where my friend Janie labors in what she calls the rag trade. Right now she works for a T-shirt manufacturer-and there’ve been years when I would’ve gone naked without her gifts of overruns-but during her career she’s touched on every area of the business; if anybody could steer me toward the manufacturer of Daniel’s clothes, she was the one. I gave them to her and she told me to call later. Then I set out on the trail of a Mission district printer who had a laminating machine.
Print and copy shops were in abundant supply there. A fair number of them did laminating work, but none recognized-or would own up to recognizing-Daniel’s three-by-five card. It took me nearly all day to canvass them, except for the half-hour when I had a beer and a burrito at La Tacqueria, and by four o’clock I was totally discouraged. So I stopped at my favorite ice cream shop, called Janie and found she was in a meeting, and to ease my frustration had a double-scoop caramel swirl in a chocolate chip cookie cone.
No wonder I’m usually carrying five spare pounds!
The shop had a section of little plastic tables and chairs, and I rested my weary feet there, planning to check in at the office and then call it a day. If turning the facts of the case over and over in my mind all evening could be considered calling it a day…
Shar warned me about that right off the bat. “If you like this business and stick with it,” she’d said, “you’ll work twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. You’ll think you’re not working because you’ll be a party or watching TV or even in bed with your husband. And then all of a sudden you’ll realize that half your mind’s thinking about your current case and searching for solution. Frankly, it doesn’t make for much of a life.”
Actually it makes for more than one life. Sometimes I think the time I spend on stakeouts or questioning people or prowling the city belongs to another Rae, one who has no connection to the Rae who goes to parties and watches TV and-now-sleeps with her boyfriend. I’m divided, but I don’t mind it. And if Rae-the-investigator intrudes on the off-duty Rae’s time, that’s okay. Because the off-duty Rae gets to watch Rae-the-investigator make her moves-fascinated and a little envious.
Schizoid? Maybe. But I can’t help but live and breathe the business. By now that’s as natural as breathing air.
So I sat on the little plastic chair savoring my caramel swirl and chocolate chips and realized that the half of my mind that wasn’t on sweets had come up with a weird little coincidence. Licking ice cream dribbles off my fingers, I went back to the phone and called Darrin Boydston. The printer who had hocked his laminating machine was named Jason Hill, he told me, and his shop was Quik Prints, on Mission near Geneva.
I’d gone there earlier this afternoon. When I showed Jason Hill the laminated card he’d looked kind of funny but claimed he didn’t do that kind of work, and there hadn’t been any equipment in evidence to brand him a liar. Actually, he wasn’t a liar; he didn’t do that kind of work anymore.
Hill was closing up when I got to Quik Prints, and he looked damned unhappy to see me again. I took the laminated card from my pocket and slapped it into his hand. “The machine you made this on is living at the Cash Cow right now,” I said. “You want to tell me about it?”
Hill-one of those bony-thin guys that you want to take home and fatten up-sighed. “You from Child Welfare or what?”
“I’m working for your pawn broker, Darrin Boydston.” I showed him the ID he hadn’t bothered to look at earlier. “Who had the card make up?”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“For the kid’s sake,” he switched the Open sign in the window to Closed and came out onto the sidewalk. “Mind if we walk to my bus stop while we talk?”
I shook my head and fell in next to him. The famous San Francisco fog was in, gray and dirty, making the gray and dirty Outer Mission even more depressing than usual. As we headed toward the intersection of Mission and Geneva, Hill told me about his story.
“I found the kid on the sidewalk about seven weeks ago. It was five in the morning-I’d come in early for a rush job-and he was dazed and banged up and bleeding. Looked like he’d been mugged. I took him into the shop and was going to call the cops, but he started crying-upset about the blood on his down jacket. I sponged it off, and by the time I got back from the restroom, he was sweeping the print-room floor. I really didn’t have time to deal with the cops, so I just let him sweep. He kind of made himself indispensable.”
“And then?”
“He cried when I tried to put him outside that night, so I got him some food and let him sleep in the shop. He had coffee ready the next morning and helped me take out the trash. I still thought I should call the cops, but I was worried: He couldn’t tell them who he was or where he lived; he’d end up in some detention center or a foster home and his folks might never find him. I grew up in foster homes myself; I know all about the system. He was a sweet kid and deserved better than that. You know?”
“I know.”
“Well, I couldn’t figure what to do with him. I couldn’t keep him at the shop much longer-the landlord’s nosy and always on the premises. And I couldn’t take him home-I live in a tiny studio with my girlfriend and three dogs. So after a week I got an idea: I’d park him someplace with a laminated card asking for a job; I knew he wouldn’t lose it or throw it away because he loved the laminated stuff and saved all of the discards.”
“Why’d you leave him at the Cash Cow?”
“Mr. Boydston has a reputation for taking care of people. He’s helped me out plenty of times.”
“How?”
“Well, when he sends out the sixty-day notices saying you should claim your stuff or it’ll be sold, as long as you go in and make a token payment, he’ll hang onto it. He sees you’re hurting he’ll give you more than the stuff’s worth. He bends over backward to make a loan.” We got to the bus stop and Hill joined the rush-hour line. “And I was right about Mr. Boydston helping the kid, too. When I took the machine in last week, there he was, sweeping the sidewalk.”
“He recognize you?”
“Didn’t see me. Before I crossed the street, Mr. Boydston sent him on some errand. The kid’s in good hands.”
Funny how every now and then when you think the whole city’s gone to hell, you discover there’re a few good people left…
Wednesday morning: cautious optimism again, but I wasn’t going to push my luck by attending an aerobics class. Today I’d put all my energy into the Boydston case.
First, a call to Janie, whom I hadn’t been able to reach at home the night before.
“The clothes were manufactured by a company called Casuals, Incorporated,” she told me. “They only sell by catalogue, and their offices and factory are on Third Street.”
“Any idea why the labels were cut out?”
“Well, at first I thought they might’ve been overstocks that were sold through one of the discounters like Ross, but that doesn’t happen often with the catalogue outfits. So I took a close look at the garments and saw they’ve got defects-nothing major, but they wouldn’t want to pass them off as first quality.”
“Where would somebody get hold of them?”
“A factory store, if the company has one. I didn’t have time to check.”
It wasn’t much of a lead, but even a little lead’s better than nothing at all. I promised Janie I’d buy her a beer sometime soon and headed for the industrial corridor along Third Street.
Casuals, Inc. didn’t have an on-site factory store, so I went into the front office to ask if there was one in another location. No, the receptionist told me, they didn’t sell garment found to be defective.
“What happens to them?”
“Usually they’re offered at a discount to employees and their families.”
That gave me an idea, and five minutes later I was talking with a Mr. Fong in personnel. “A single mother with a deaf-mute son? That would be Mae Jones. She worked here as a seamstress for…let’s see…a little under a year.”
“But she’s not employed here anymore?”
“No. We had to lay off a number of people, and those with the least seniority are the first to go.”
“Do you know where she’s working now?”
“Sorry, I don’t.”
“Mr. Fong, is Mae Jones a documented worker?”
“Green card was in order. We don’t hire illegals.”
“And you have an address for her?”
“Yes, but I’m afraid I can’t give that out.”
“I understand, but I think you’ll want to make an exception in this case. You see, Mae’s son was found wandering the Mission seven weeks ago, the victim of a mugging. I’m trying to reunite them.”
Mr. Fong didn’t hesitate to fetch Mae’s file and give me the address, on Lucky Street in the Mission. Maybe, I thought, this was my lucky break.
The house was a Victorian that had been sided with concrete block and painted a weird shade of purple. Sagging steps led to a porch where six mailboxes hung. None of the names on them was Jones. I rang all the bells and got no answer. Now what?
“Can I help you?” An Asian-accented voice said behind me. It belonged to a stooped old woman carrying a fishnet bag full of vegetables. Her eyes, surrounded by deep wrinkles, were kind.
“I’m looking for Mae Jones.” The woman had been taking out a keyring. Now she jammed it into the pocket of her loose-fitting trousers and backed up against the porch railing. Fear made her nostrils flare.
“What?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
“You are from them!”
“Them? Who?”
“I know nothing.”
“Please don’t be scared. I’m trying to help Mrs. Jones’s son.”
“Tommy? Where is Tommy?”
I explained about Jason Hill finding him and Darrin Boydston taking him in.
When I finished the woman had relaxed a little. “I am so happy one of them is safe.”
“Please, tell me about the Joneses.”
She hesitated, looking me over. Then she nodded as if I’d passed some kind of test and took me inside to a small apartment furnished with things that made the thrift-shop junk in my nest at All Souls look like Chippendale. Although I would’ve rather she tell her story quickly, she insisted on making tea. When we were finally settled with little cups like the ones I’d bought years ago at Bargain Bazaar in Chinatown, she began.
“Mae went away eight weeks ago today. I thought Tommy was with her. When she did not pay her rent, the landlord went inside the apartment. He said they left everything.”
“Has the apartment been rented to someone else?”
She nodded. “Mae and Tommy’s things are stored in the garage. Did you say it was seven weeks ago that Tommy was found?”
“Give or take a few days.”
“Poor boy. He must have stayed in the apartment waiting for his mother. He is so quiet and can take care of himself.”
“What’d you suppose he was doing on Mission Street near Geneva, then?”
“Maybe looking for her.” The woman’s face was frightened again.
“Why there?” I asked.
She stared down into her teacup. After a bit she said, “You know Mae lost her job at the sewing factory?”
I nodded.
“It was a good job, and she is a good seamstress, but times are bad and she could not find another job.”
“And then?”
“…There is a place on Geneva Avenue. It looks like an apartment house, but it is really a sewing factory. The owners advertise by word of mouth among the Asian immigrants. They say they pay high wages, give employees meals and a place to live, and do not ask questions. They hire many who are here illegally.”
“Is Mae an illegal?”
“No. she was married to an American serviceman and has her permanent green card. Tommy was born in San Francisco. But a few years ago her husband divorced her and she lost her medical benefits. She is in poor health, she has tuberculosis. Her money was running out, and she was desperate. I warned her, but she wouldn’t listen.”
“Warned her against what?’
“There is talk about that factory. The building is fenced and the fences are topped with razor wire. The windows are boarded and barred. They say that once a worker enters she is not allowed to leave. They say workers are forced to sew eighteen hours a day for very low wages. They say that the cost of food is taken out of their pay, and ten people sleep in a room large enough for two.”
“That’s slavery! Why doesn’t the city do something?”
The old woman shrugged. “The city has no proof and does not care. The workers are only immigrants. They are not important.”
I felt a real rant coming on and fought to control it. I’ve lived in San Francisco for seven years, since I graduated from Berkeley, a few miles and light years across the Bay, and I’m getting sick and tired of the so-called important people. The city is beautiful and lively and tolerant, but there’s a core of citizens who think nobody and nothing counts but them and their concerns. Someday when I’m in charge of the world (an event I fully expect to happen, especially when I’ve had a few beers) they’ll have to answer to me for their high-handed behavior.
“Okay,” I said, “tell me exactly where this place is, and we’ll see what we can do about it.”
“Slavery, plain and simple,” Shar said.
“Right.”
“Something’s got to be done about it.”
“Right.”
We were sitting in a booth at the Remedy Lounge, our favorite tavern down the hill from All Souls on Mission Street. She was drinking white wine, I was drinking beer, and it wasn’t but three in the afternoon. But McCone and I have found that some of our best ideas come to us when we tilt a couple. I’d spent the last four hours casing-oops, I’m not supposed to call it that-conducting a surveillance on the building on Geneva Avenue. Sure looked suspicious-trucks coming and going, but no workers leaving at lunchtime.
“But what can be done?” I asked. “Who do we contact?”
She considered. “Illegals? U. S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. False imprisonment? City police and district attorney’s office. Substandard working conditions? OSHA, Department of Labor, State Employment Development Division. Take your pick.”
“Which is best to start with?’
“None-yet. You’ve got no proof of what’s going on there.”
“Then we’ll just have to get proof, won’t we?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You and I both used to work in security. Ought to be a snap to get into that building.”
“Maybe.”
“All we need is access. Take some pictures. Tape a statement from one of the workers. Are you with me?”
She nodded. “I’m with you. And as backup, why don’t we take Willie?”
“My Willie? The diamond king of northern California? Shar, this is an investigation, not a date!”
“Before he opened those discount jewelry stores Willie was a professional fence, as you may recall. And although he won’t admit it, I happen to know he personally stole a lot of the items he moved. Willie has talents we can use.”
“My tennis elbow hurts! Why’re you making me do this?”
I glared at Willie. “Shh! You’ve never played tennis in your life.”
“The doc told me most people who’ve got it have never played.”
“Just be quiet and cut the wire.”
“How d’you know there isn’t an alarm?”
“Shar and I have checked. Trust us.”
“I trust you two, I’ll probably end up in San Quentin.”
“Cut!”
Willie snipped a fair segment out of the razor wire topping the chain-link fence. I climbed over first, nearly doing myself grievous personal injury as I swung over the top. Shar followed, and then the diamond king-making unseemly grunting noises. His tall frame was encased in dark sweats tonight, and they accentuated the beginnings of a beer belly.
As we each dropped to the ground, we quickly moved into the shadow of the three-story frame building and flattened against its wall. Willie wheezed and pushed his longish hair out of his eyes. I gave Shar a look that said, Some asset you invited along. She shrugged apologetically.
According to plan we began inching around the building, searching for a point of entry. We didn’t see any guards. If the factory employed them, it would be for keeping people in; it had probably never occurred to the owners that someone might actually want in.
After about three minutes Shar came to a stop and I bumped into her. She steadied me and pointed down. A foot off the ground was an opening that had been boarded up; the plywood was splintered and coming loose. I squatted and took a look at it. Some kind of duct-maybe people-size. Together we pulled the board off.
Yep. A duct. But not very big. Willie wouldn’t fit through it-which was fine by me, because I didn’t want him alerting everybody in the place with his groaning. I’d fit, but Shar would fit better still.
I motioned for her to go first.
She made an after-you gesture.
I shook my head.
It’s you case, she mouthed.
I sighed, handed her the camera loaded with infrared film that I carried, and started squeezing through.
I’ve got to admit that I have all sorts of mild phobias, I get twitchy in crowds, and I’m not fond of heights, and I hate to fly, and small places make my skin crawl. This duct was a very small space. I pushed onward, trying to keep my mind on other things-such as Tommy and Mae Jones.
When my hands reached the end of the duct I pulled hard, then moved them around till I felt a concrete floor about two feet below. I wriggled forward, felt my foot kick something and heard Shar grunt. Sorry. The room I slid down into was pitch black. I waited till Shar was crouched beside me, then whispered, “D’you have your flashlight?”
She handed me the camera, fumbled in her pocket, and then I saw streaks of light bleeding around the fingers she placed around its bulb. We waited, listening. No one stirred, no one spoke. After a moment, Shar took her hand away from the flash and began shining its beam around. A storage room full of sealed cardboard boxes, with a door at the far side. We exchanged glances and began moving through the stacked cartons.
When we got to the door I put my ear to it and listened. No sound. I turned the knob slowly. Unlocked. I eased the door open. A dimly lighted hallway. There was another door with a lighted window set into it at the far end. Shar and I moved along opposite walls and stopped on either side of the door. I went up on tiptoe and peeked through the corner of the glass.
Inside was a factory: row after row of sewing machines, all making jittery up-and-down motions and clacking away. Each was operated by an Asian woman. Each woman slumped wearily as she fed the fabric through.
It was twelve-thirty in the morning, and they still had them sewing!
I drew back and motioned for Shar to have a look. She did, then turned to me, lips tight, eyes ablaze.
Pictures? She mouthed.
I shook my head. Can’t risk being seen.
Now what?
I shrugged.
She frowned and started back the other way, slipping from door to door and trying each knob. Finally she stopped and pointed to one with a placard that said STAIRWAY. I followed her through it and we started up. The next floor was offices-locked up and dark. We went back to the stairwell, climbed another flight. On the landing I almost tripped over a small, huddled figure.
It was a tiny gray-haired woman, crouching there with a dirty thermal blanket wrapped around her. She shivered repeatedly. Sick and hiding from the foreman. I squatted beside her.
The woman started and her eyes got big with terror. She scrambled backwards toward the steps, almost falling over. I grabbed her arm and steadied her; her flesh felt as if it was burning up. “Don’t be scared,” I said.
Her eyes moved from me to Shar. Little cornered bunny-rabbit eyes, red and full of the awful knowledge that there’s no place left to hide. She babbled something in a tongue that I couldn’t understand. I put my arms around her and patted her back-universal language. After a bit she stopped trying to pull away.
I whispered, “Do you know Mae Jones?”
She drew back and blinked.
“Mae Jones?” I repeated.
Slowly she nodded and pointed to the door off the next landing.
So Tommy’s mother was here. If we could get her out, we’d have an English-speaking witness who, because she had her permanent green card, wouldn’t be afraid to go to the authorities and file charges against the owners of this place. But there was no telling who or what was beyond that door. I glanced at Shar. She shook her head.
The sick woman was watching me. I thought back to yesterday morning and the way Darrin Boydston had communicated with the boy he called Daniel. It was worth a try.
I pointed to the woman. Pointed to the door. “Mae Jones.” I pointed to the door again, then pointed to the floor.
The woman was straining to understand. I went through the routine twice more. She nodded and struggled to her feet. Trailing the ratty blanket behind her, she climbed the stairs and went through the door.
Shar and I released sighs at the same time. Then we sat down on the steps and waited.
It wasn’t five minutes before the door opened. We both ducked down, just in case. An overly thin woman of about thirty-five rushed through so quickly that she stumbled on the top step and caught herself on the railing. She would have been beautiful, but lines of worry and pain cut deep into her face; her hair had been lopped off short and stood up in dirty spike. Her eyes were jumpy, alternately glancing behind her. She hurried down the stairs.
“You want me?”
“If you are Mae Jones.” Already I was guiding her down the steps.
“I am. Who are-”
“We’re going to get you out of here, take you to Tommy.”
“Tommy! Is he-”
“He’s all right, yes.”
Her face brightened, but then was taken over by fear. “We must hurry. Lan faked a faint, but they will notice I’m gone very soon.”
We rushed down the stairs, along the hall toward the storage room. We were at its door when a man called out behind us. He was coming from the sewing room at the far end.
Mae froze. I shoved her, and then we were weaving through the stacked cartons. Shar got down on her knees, helped Mae into the duct, and dove in behind her. The door banged open.
The man was yelling in a strange language. I slid into the duct, pulling myself along on its riveted sides. Hands grabbed for my ankles and got the left one. I kicked out with my right foot. He grabbed for it and missed. I kicked upward, hard and heard a satisfying yelp of pain. His hand let go of my ankle and I wriggled forward and fell to the ground outside. Shar and Mae were already running for the fence.
But where the hell was Willie?
Then I saw him: a shadowy figure, motioning with both arms as if he were guiding an airplane up to the jetway. There was an enormous hole in the chain-link fence. Shar and Mae ducked through it.
I started running. Lights went on at the corners of the building. Men came outside, shouting. I heard a whine, then a crack.
Rifle, firing at us!
Willie and I hurled ourselves to the ground. We moved on elbows and knees through the hole in the fence and across the sidewalk to the shelter of a van parked there. Shar and Mae huddled behind it. Willie and I collapsed beside them just as sirens began to go off.
“Like ‘Nam all over again,” he said.
I stared at him in astonishment. Willie had spent most of the war hanging out in a bar in Cam Ranh Bay.
Shar said, “Thank God you cut the hole in the fence!”
Modestly he replied, “Yeah, well, you gotta do something when you’re bored out of your skull.”
Because a shot had been fired, the SFPD had probable cause to search the building. Inside they found some sixty Asian women-most of them illegals-who had been imprisoned there, some as long as five years, as well as evidence of other sweatshops the owners were running, both here and in Southern California. The INS was called in, statements were taken, and finally at around five that morning Mae Jones was permitted to go with us to be reunited with her son.
Darrin Boydston greeted us at the Cash Cow, wearing electric-blue pants and a western-style shirt with the bucking-bull emblem embroidered over its pockets. A polyester cowboy. He stood watching as Tommy and Mae hugged and kissed, wiped a sentimental tear from his eye, and offered Mae a job. She accepted, and then he drove them to the house of a friend who would put them up until they found a place of their own. I waited around the pawnshop till he returned.
When Boydston came through the door he looked down in the mouth. He pulled up a stool next to the one I sat on and said, “Sure am gonna miss that boy.”
“Well, you’ll probably be seeing a lot of him, with Mae working here.”
“Yeah.” He brightened some. “And I’m gonna help her get him into classes. Stuff like that. After she lost her Navy benefits when the skunk of a husband walked out on her, she didn’t know about all the other stuff that’s available.” He paused, then added, “So what’s the damage?”
“You mean, what do you owe us? We’ll bill you.”
“Better be an honest accounting, little lady,” he said. ‘Ma’am, I mean,” he added in his twangiest Texas accent. And smiled.
I smiled, too.