The Big Boom (14 page)

There were times, stupid as it seemed, when he felt himself longing for Cleveland.

Rose’s eyes skittered over the other young men in the room, including the one with the beret, and he felt again the vague stir that had drawn him to the city to begin with. Though he hadn’t known it then, or hadn’t quite admitted it anyway. He sipped his coffee, and caught a customer across the room, playing eye tag, studying him in the window reflection—a little game Rose felt freer to play here in the city, though it still embarrassed him. Just as he was about to settle into it, the old man from the street slid in the seat across the table.

“Do you mind if I take this place?”

“No,” said Rose, though in fact he did mind. There were other tables nearby the man could have joined. No empty tables, it was true, but why me? Rose wondered. What is it about my face that makes me look like somebody you can trust?

“My name is Jake Cicero,” the old man said, and he slid a card across the table. Rose glanced at the card and saw the man claimed to be a private detective. “I wonder if you could answer a few questions.”

“About what?”

He felt alarm, but also a surge of irritation. Another San Francisco crank, with an agenda, a game to play. Misfits masking as creatives. The city was full of them. Meanwhile, a woman seated at the front window glanced in their direction, looked away. She wore her hair in ringlets, and there was something familiar …

“This concerns a couple of friends of yours,” said Cicero. “Angie Antonelli, and Bill Whitaker.”

What came to Rose’s mind then was Solano, and the mess there at the end when he’d left the company—and all the nondisclosure statements they’d made him sign. He’d heard stories about how companies pursued former engineers, harassing, intimidating.

“I don’t know what you’re up to,” he said. “But I have no interest in talking to you.”

Rose stood up. He didn’t have to put up with this. He was angry at the notion people were snooping on him, and angrier yet when he reached the front door because he realized he’d left his coffee behind. Now he would have to go around the corner to another café to escape the old man, if indeed the son of a bitch didn’t follow him.

I’ll get an attorney, he told himself, I’ll …

Outside, a stranger grabbed him by the arm. The stranger was not a big man, but he had an iron strength in his hands and pushed Rose hard into the doorwell adjacent the coffee shop. Then the old detective reappeared. They seemed to know each other, these two.

“We need to have a conversation,” said the younger one.

Rose noticed the man’s nose. He couldn’t help but notice it. The man leaned fiercely into him, sticking his face into his own. The nose was jagged and sharp, and Rose feared for a moment he meant to jab it into his eye.

“Ease up,” said the old man. “We don’t need to do it this way.”

The nose came closer. “That’s right. It might be smarter to turn him over to the goddamn police.”

“What are you talking about?” Rose asked.

“Angie Antonelli.”

Rose didn’t understand. The two men exchanged glances and there was a sudden shift. The old man intervened, put a hand on Rose’s arm.

“You don’t know?”

“He knows.”

“Knows what?” asked Rose.

“Angie’s dead,” said the one with the nose. “Murdered.”

Rose felt everything inside him go soft, but somehow he was still standing. Once again the old man intervened. “We don’t have to do it this way,” he said to his partner. “Young Mr. Rose here, he’s upset. He was friends with Angie. He needs some time to take this in.” Then he turned to Rose. “My partner, he knew Angie, too—and you gave him the wrong idea, how you ran off just now.” The other man backed away and the old one, Cicero, started talking. He sensed the two men were working him, one against the other, but the old man’s voice was soothing. “We can go down to my office. Not too far from here. Or we can go across the street to Whitaker’s place—that’s where you’re staying, isn’t it? Maybe you’d be more comfortable if we talked there.”

Rose nodded. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe because the old man had been nodding, and he’d imitated the action reflexively.

“I’d like my coffee.”

“Sure, sure,” said Cicero. “I’ll go get it for you.”

The other one stayed behind. There was something odd about him, something fierce. Rose was relieved when the old one came back, cup in hand, smiling. He put his hand on Rose’s back and
guided him across the street. In the window, the woman with the ringlets was watching. Rose was tempted to call out to her, to make some gesture, some sign. The idea of talking in Whitaker’s, in familiar territory, off the street, had sounded good a moment ago. Now Rose had the urge to bolt, but he knew he wouldn’t get far, not with the other one just behind, ready to pounce if he stepped out of line.

Rose took a last glance back. The woman in the window turned away, oblivious, but deliberately so, as if she were the one who did not want to be seen.

T
he three men were in Whitaker’s apartment now, and Cicero stood in the bay window. There wasn’t anything special about the view, or the apartment. It was the kind of bland, functional apartment that divorced men gravitated to, and there wasn’t much to suggest that Whitaker had been living the swinging life after cutting the cord with Ann Whitaker.

Cicero drifted about the place. Meanwhile, he could hear Dante going after Rose, interrogating him at the table. Rose glanced in Cicero’s direction, not wanting to be left alone, but Cicero ignored him. Cicero wanted to look the place over, and it made sense to let Dante talk to the man first, to do the softening.

Cicero took the bedrooms one at a time. It was easy to tell which was which. Rose’s was the smaller of the two, and there was little in the room except for a futon and pile of programming books. Whitaker’s room was a little more elaborate. He had a leather chair and an upscale wardrobe and a collection of jazz CDs.

From what he saw here, Ann Whitaker had gotten the better of the deal.

Cicero searched the bathroom then, opening the medicine cabinet.
It was the grim bachelor stuff. He took a long piss in the toilet, then came out to join Dante and Jimmy Rose.

Rose looked glad to see him, but Cicero averted his eyes. He frowned and glanced at the floor. It was an act. He wanted to keep the man off balance. The truth was, he and Dante were walking a line here, playing it more like cops than PIs. Rose didn’t have to talk to either of them, but he didn’t seem to realize that. Or perhaps Rose was playing a game of his own.

“I need for you to go through this one more time,” said Dante.

“I’ve already told you.”

“I just need to hear it again.”

Rose’s coffee was gone now, and the young man drummed his fingers on the table. When they’d told him Angie was dead, his face had gone pale. Cicero’s gut told him the surprise was genuine, but in matters of the gut, he knew, you sometimes went wrong.

“All right,” said Rose, and he told his story again. The gist of it was pretty simple. There’d been a falling-out between the marketing department and technology, and Rose had lost his job.

“There was this moment, we were going through the specs, and I just had to say the truth: It can’t be done. I don’t think that in itself was any surprise. The surprise was that I would say it. I mean everyone knew. Meanwhile, the marketing people are going around, telling people we have these capabilities. But as soon as anybody asks for a demo—well, there is no demo. And there’s only so far you can fake it. So, just as a matter of personal integrity, I had to say so.”

“Who was in this meeting?”

“Oh, Solano, of course. Bill Whitaker. Angie. And some people from marketing. Sales types.”

“What was their reaction?”

“Solano was cool about it. So the rest were cool about it. They
nodded their heads. Then next day—Murphy in HR tells me to get the hell out. He comes to my office with a couple of security goons, and they have me sign about fifteen pieces of paper. I’m not supposed to reveal any technical secrets. But the joke of it is—there are no secrets.

“It occurs to me this is flat-out ridiculous. Because everybody in the company knows—because who the hell are they kidding. But they just wanted to keep the truth away from the venture people, just for a little while longer.”

“Why?”

“As long as the venture people think you have something legitimate—and you can get the technical people to back you up—then they will continue to fund you. And there was another round of funding coming up. But from what I understand, all hell broke loose after I left that room. Because Whitaker—he wasn’t going to play along either.”

“Whitaker argued with Solano?”

“I mean, he knew better than anyone—and he was already looking for another job, like half the people in the company. And he didn’t want to be lying about this, because he didn’t want the stain. He has a reputation, you know. In the industry.”

“So Whitaker balked, too?”

“Yeah, except that’s a lot bigger deal than me balking. Because—you know—a lot of people look to him. We’re at the beginning of a new era, you know.”

“What era is that?” asked Cicero.

His voice was snide, but Jake couldn’t help it. People had been talking about the new this, the new that, ever since he could remember, but as far as could tell, the operating principles were the same.

Put enough money in the air, enough fever …

“So where does Angie fit into all this?” Dante asked. “Was she fired, too?”

“No,” said Rose. He hesitated now. “Her thing—with Solano, it was more personal.”

“They were lovers. We know that,” said Dante. “What was up between you two?”

“Me and Angie?

“What was up between the two of you?”

Rose shrugged. “We were friends, that’s all. We talked. We confided.”

Cicero cut in.

“Whose shaving gear is that in the bathroom?”

“Huh?”

“The Norelco. Also—the toothbrush. I noticed there was only one?”

“That’s mine.”

“So Whitaker—how long ago did he clear out?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve been working in the Valley, like I said. I just figured, you know, he went up to Tahoe. I called his wife a couple days back. Or his ex-wife, I mean. She had no idea where he was.”

“Was there anything between Whitaker and Angie?”

Rose shook his head.

“You guys, that’s all you think about. Who’s fucking who?”

“Whom,” said Cicero. “Who’s fucking whom.”

Cicero thought of Ann Whitaker and how cool she was, how diffident. The brunette had attracted Cicero, with her sharp features and her wide lips and her thin body, all bones and angles. Maybe it was her remoteness that drew him, or the vulnerability beneath the surface, but he now wondered what else she might be capable of. It could be he and Dante were chasing this whole thing in a wrong direction.

“The way I got the time line,” said Dante, “you met with Angie the night before she died. You were one of the last people to see her alive.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You called Angie’s house Friday. You asked her to meet you. We’ve got records of this. We’ve got voice mail.”

A shadow fell over Jim Rose’s face. He was unshaven—an amber-headed guy with a Midwestern pompadour up front. He wore khakis and a pressed shirt and an alligator belt. He had a little bit of the hipster about him and a little bit of the hayseed—and a little bit of the guy with the slide rule. He wore black shoes and white socks, and though there was something unstudied about him you could see the intelligence there and the fact that he wasn’t as frightened of them as he had been a little while before.

“Yes. I called her.”

“Why?”

“We had planned to get together. I was just confirming. We did that sometimes. We got together for a drink. We talked.”

“What kind of things did you talk about?”

“She was having trouble with Solano, you know. They’d had a relationship, and Angie had been pretty taken by him. Then the bloom came off—and, well, she saw him in a different light. The ethical stuff, trying to sell something that didn’t exist …”

“So she broke it off with him?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way. Solano broke off with Angie. He was the one … So I guess. I don’t know. If the fact he was putting her out, if that was what made Angie see him differently. Or if, you know, it was the other way around.”

“So that’s what you did that evening? You talked about Solano?”

Rose shook his head. “No, we’d had that conversation a number
of times. We were just getting together for drinks, down at Tosca’s. As it happened, we didn’t really talk much at all.”

Rose went on to explain. He’d gotten there late and found Angie sitting at one of the tables with a couple of people in the business. Or Rose had assumed they were in the business: a rangy looking Englishman and a young woman with her hair in a fall. They weren’t your typical types. At first he’d thought that Angie had known the pair already, but it turned it out they had struck up an acquaintance out of the blue. Max, the Englishman, seemed interested in Angie, and Angie was interested back. After a while, another man had joined the party, an older fellow, and Rose had used the opportunity to slip out.

“These three people, what did they look like?”

Rose described them the best he could. The woman with the fall was wearing pretty expensive clothes, hip, sort of, but with a corporate edge, like she’d just gotten off work. He couldn’t remember her name. Lydia maybe. The Englishman was a thick-shouldered guy, with his hair buzzed short. The third man was thinner, older. Emaciated and sleepy-eyed.

“After he joined the table, I slipped away. I whispered good-bye to Angie, and I left. Angie was having fun. The group, it was a little rough around the edges, but you know … Angie has that about her. I mean—She was attracted to that kind of thing.”

“Why did you leave?”

“Like I said, they were a little rough around the edges. And I had someplace I wanted to be.”

“Where was that?”

He hesitated. “Tommy’s place. Down in the Castro.”

“You and Angie, you were friends? You confided in one another?”