Martinis and Mayhem (11 page)

There was a pay phone on a wall next to a house phone that sat on a marble shelf. A woman was on the house phone. As I approached, she slammed down the receiver and spun around. The anger on her face mirrored what she’d done to the phone.

I stopped to wait for her to walk away. But she didn’t. She remained there, mumbling to herself, her face twisted in rage, her hand still gripping the receiver.

I decided to avoid her and to look for another pay phone. As I headed for a long, sweeping hallway off the lobby, a loud female voice from behind stopped me in my tracks. “Mrs.
Fletcher!”

I turned to see the same woman who’d vented her anger on the telephone walking toward me. Her eyes were open wide, her lips squeezed tightly together. Every vein in her neck had swelled. She was a big woman with a big bosom, and with a mop of brown, frizzy hair topping off her frame. Everything about her was large, including her vocal cords.

She growled my name again, punctuating it this time with a question mark. She stopped a few feet away, shifted her weight to one leg, and crossed her arms over her chest. We held our standoff until she again said my name. This time it was punctuated with a strong exclamation point.

She seemed to be summoning me to come to her, a school principal beckoning a naughty student. I spun around with the intention of getting away from her. She was either a crazed fan, or a woman who should have stopped using drugs years ago. Either way, the morning’s bizarre attempt on my life had sharpened my instincts, to say nothing of my sense of self-preservation. I headed for the front desk.

I faced her again. She’d come up directly behind me; she was within strangling distance, and breathing hard, eyes screaming. Then, she said in a much lower voice that trembled, “I am Nancy Antonio. Ellie’s godmother.”

“Oh.”

I looked around. A clerk at the desk had come to where I stood. “Can I help you, Mrs. Fletcher?” he asked.

“No. I—Look, Ms. Antonio, I want you to know that I am
truly
sorry for making that phone call.”

“As well you should be.” She spoke slowly, deliberately, every word enunciated.

She uncrossed her arms. “Is there something you want to say to me, Mrs. Fletcher, now that we’re face-to-face?” She was calm now. Maybe she had mercury for blood.

“No,” I said. “I should not have tried to call your goddaughter. It’s just that—”

“That’s right, Mrs. Fletcher. You should not have tried to talk to my goddaughter. And if you ever try again, I’ll make you wish you were never born.”

With that threat hanging in the air, she turned away and walked heavily, but quickly, through the lobby and out the revolving door.

“Whew!” I said, resting my elbows on the front desk. The clerk asked, “Is everything all right, Mrs. Fletcher?”

“Yes, everything is fine. Thank you for asking. I was about to use the pay phone over there and—”

“No need to do that, Mrs. Fletcher. Use the hotel phone right here.”

He reached for it, but I said, “Thank you, but that’s not necessary.” I wanted privacy when I reached George Sutherland. I was no longer cavalier about whether he had other plans for the evening. I wanted his plans to include me, and hoped I’d reach him before he’d made another commitment. His comforting manner, to say nothing of a calming drink, were very much on my agenda.

I retraced my steps in the direction of the pay phone next to the marble shelf with the intention of calling George. At first, I didn’t notice the small black leather purse next to the house phone. When I did, my heart tripped. Had it been left by the large, combative woman I’d just encountered? I looked around. I hadn’t seen anyone use that phone except for Nancy Antonio, although I’d been distracted by her and wasn’t keeping tabs.

I approached the purse as though it might be hot. A ticking bomb. My initial thought was to bring it to the front desk for delivery to lost and found. But I suddenly had a vision of not making it to the desk, of Ellie’s godmother realizing she’d left her purse behind and returning for it, seeing me with it in my hands, and physically attacking me.

I decided to leave it next to the phone where I’d found it. I wanted nothing more to do with this woman, or her goddaughter. I would continue to investigate Kimberly’s innocence, but would keep Ellie and the formidable Ms. Antonio out of it. At least for the moment.

But as I started to walk away, my eye went to a small piece of paper peeking out from beneath the purse. I glanced left and right. Confident that I wasn’t being observed, I slipped it out and read:
“She’s staying at the Westin St. Francis. We’ve got to warn her off, make it clear that her snooping is not welcome.”

I looked across the lobby and saw Nancy Antonio return through the revolving doors and head my way. I crumpled the note in my hand and quickly stepped behind a column that shielded me from her view, but that allowed me to observe her. She picked up her purse. A quizzical expression crossed her face as her eyes scanned the marble shelf, and then the floor. I held my breath. Would she extend the area of her search for the slip of paper to where I stood?

I was able to breathe again a few seconds later when she walked away and left the hotel.

They say that everything in life is timing. That day, my timing had been at once splendid and at once dreadful.

On the dreadful side, I’d chosen a bad time to take a walk on the Golden Gate Bridge, and to be looking for a pay phone in the lobby of the St. Francis.

On the splendid side, my call to George Sutherland at the Mark Hopkins caught him for the few minutes he was in his room between seminar commitments. “Are you free this evening?” I asked.

“Yes and no, Jessica. I’m hosting a cocktail party in twenty minutes. It seems we have more cocktail parties than working sessions, but I suppose that should come as no surprise.”

“And after that?” I asked. “Free for dinner?”

“With you? Of course. You sound upset.”

“Do I? I’m trying not to. But yes, I am upset. I need to talk to you.”

“I’ll pick you up in two hours. I’d come sooner, but this angersome party has me—”

“I’m leaving the hotel, George. I’ll meet you at yours. Upstairs. At the Top of the Mark.”

“Right on, Jessica. I’ll be there as soon as I’ve discharged my obligations.”

Under ordinary circumstances, I would have been delighted to be given a table with an unobstructed view of the Golden Gate. But after what had happened to me that morning, I found the sight of it off-putting. No, eerie was more apt.

Again, my timing was good and bad. I arrived at the Top of the Mark at the optimum time for witnessing the arrival of the city’s fabled fog, that long-running theatrical event that is as much a tourist attraction in San Francisco as the cable cars and Alcatraz. By the time I was seated, the fog had obscured half the bridge, and was heading in my direction, swallowing buildings as it relentlessly made its predictable path across the city. As symbolic as it was of my horrifying experience on the bridge that morning, it was also mesmerizing. I stared at it until it had gulped the Top of the Mark, and me. And then, just as the fog had rolled in, so did George. He made his way quickly to my table, apologized for being late, and took the second chair. I had a half-finished perfect Manhattan in front of me. “Wonderful to see you, George,” I said. “Let’s find the waitress.”

“Not for me,” he said. “I’ve had enough to drink at the party. Hungry?”

“Yes.”

“Then, let’s get ourselves some dinner, someplace quiet where you can tell me what’s upset you today.”

 

Once a year—never more than that—I have a craving for sushi. I’d only had it twice before. The first time was in Tokyo, the second in New York. It will never rank on my list of favorite foods. But, as I say, I have this annual craving. And this was the night. Maybe stress and fear release some chemical in our bodies that activates a special taste gland. Maybe not. All I know is that George, dear man that he is, agreed to indulge my special need that evening, and took me to what is considered one of San Francisco’s finest sushi restaurants, Restaurant Isuzu, in Japantown.

“You’re a real friend, and a trooper, to come here, George,” I said as we were seated in a pretty small room at the rear of the restaurant.

“For you, Jessica, I will do anything. Even sushi. I rather like the place. Charming. Besides, it will broaden my horizons, but not my waistline. When you think about it, you don’t see many fat Japanese men or women.”

“Sumo wrestlers?” I offered.

“There’s an exception to everything.”

“Thanks for stealing time for me, George. I know you’re terribly busy and—”

He held up his hand. “Enough of that,” he said. “Now, tell me what has upset you this fine day.”

“Someone tried to kill me this morning.”

“I would say that warrants a bit of upset. Where did this happen?”

“On the Golden Gate Bridge. I took that walk on the bridge I told you I was considering. Lovely morning. Lots of people doing the same thing. I stopped at mid-span to take in the views, and—well, someone tried to push me over the edge.”

“What a horrible experience. You obviously managed to fight off the
bleck.”

“The what?”

“The
bleck.
The scoundrel. Go on. Who was it?”

“I don’t know. I never saw him. Or her. When I fought back, the person backed off and disappeared into the crowd. I suppose if I’d turned around immediately I might have seen—the
bleck
—but I was too shaken.”

A petite, pretty Japanese girl handed us warm towels to cleanse our hands, placed menus in front of us, and asked for our drink order. “Nothing for me, thank you,” I said. “Just some club soda.” George ordered a Japanese beer.

“What did you do after it happened?” he asked.

“I came back into town and went to the police. A Detective Josephs interviewed me. He says he knows you.”

“Josephs? Yes, I vaguely recall someone with that name. Was he helpful?”

“Yes. And no. He’s writing a novel and gave it to me to read.”

“How inappropriate.”

“Not really. We struck a deal. I read his novel in exchange for the opportunity to review the Kimberly Steffer files.”

He sat back and slowly shook his head. “You amaze me, Jessica. Someone tries to kill you, yet you forge ahead trying to solve a murder that happened years ago, in order to save a woman you barely know.”

“Just an old fubdub, I suppose.”

“Fubdub?”

“My turn to be colloquial. From Maine. Fubdub. A compulsive person. At any rate, that’s what I did.”

“Is his novel any good?”

“I don’t know because I haven’t read it yet. That’s on my agenda for later tonight. Maybe we’d better order.”

We perused the menus. Everything sounded wonderful to me. I checked George’s expression. He looked pleased. “Find something you like?” I asked.

“Yes. They have tempura. Fried food always gets my vote. You?”

“The Futomaki sushi sounds good to me. A little bit of everything, including octopus.”

George’s expression changed to displeasure. I suppose considering where he’s from, sushi doesn’t appear on many pub menus. British food, including in Scotland where I’ve never been able to muster the courage to try
haggis,
has suffered for too long as offering up bad food. That was years ago. Some of my finest meals have been in the British Isles, especially a wonderful little pub George took me to one day for its famed shepherd’s pie. The owner swears he’s actually converted die-hard vegetarians to meat lovers. I didn’t argue with him after tasting it.

George ordered his tempura, and I chose the sushi. I bit my lip when he requested that his tempura be well-done. He noticed my discomfort and said, “I like my fried food to be burned, Jess. The way my mother always cooked it.” Our waitress, who I’m certain didn’t understand him anyway, smiled and bowed.

“Jessica, why didn’t you ring me up immediately to tell me what happened?”

“I’m not sure. It wasn’t that I intended to keep it from you. I just preferred to tell you in person.”

We talked of other things during dinner. It was over tea, and orange slices garnished with cherries, that I mentioned my confrontation with Ellie Steffer’s godmother in the lobby of the St. Francis.

“That settles it,” he said.

“Settles what?”

“You’re moving
tonight
to the Mark Hopkins. I’ll arrange for a room on my floor. You mustn’t be in a hotel alone, not with the enemies you seem to have developed here in San Francisco.” He spoke with finality, as if what he’d said wasn’t open to discussion, and finished his beer.

“George,” I said, “I appreciate your concern. Believe me, the moment I feel I’m in jeopardy, I’ll move. Right next door to you. In the meantime, I prefer to stay put. They’ve given me the most magnificent suite. The staff is bending over backward to make my stay comfortable. Unless there’s some dramatic reason for leaving, I prefer to stay put.”

“Almost being pushed off the Golden Gate doesn’t qualify as a dramatic reason?”

“Enough so to keep me off the bridge. But my suite and the hotel are perfectly safe.”

“Then, I’ll move to
your
hotel.”

“You can’t do that. You have the conference to consider. No, we’ll leave things just as they are. For the moment.”

“You’re a dour woman, Jessica Fletcher.”

“Dour? I don’t consider myself morose.”

“You aren’t. You’re dour. A misconception about the Scottish language. Dour. Stubborn.”

“That I can accept.”

“Care for an after-dinner drink before I see you safely back to your hotel? Some silki perhaps?”

I smiled. “It’s saki, George. Saki. Not silki. And no thank you. I’ve had quite enough to drink for one day.”