Ripper

  Before the family meeting, sick and tired of supporting their younger brother’s feckless ways, Mark and Lucille had agreed to put the screws on Alan—their parents had been invited along simply to make up numbers—but their resolve faded when they saw his sorry state. He was pale, unkempt, and with bags under his eyes worthy of Dracula.

  “What the hell is the matter with you?” Mark barked at him. “Are you sick?”

  “I’ve got hepatitis,” said Alan, for something to say, and because he felt terrible.

  “Great!” said his sister, throwing up her hands. “That’s all we need!”

  But Alan’s brother and sister were not utterly heartless, and had only to glance at one other, raising an eyebrow—a Keller family tic—to agree to tone down their strategy a little. The conclave was humiliating for Alan; it could hardly have been otherwise. Mark began by venting his feelings, accusing his brother of being a parasite, a playboy, a freeloader living on handouts, with no work ethic and no dignity, and went on to warn him that the family had come to the end of their patience and their resources. “We’ve had enough,” he said peremptorily, and with a meaningful slap on the folders laid out in front of him. His recriminations, interspersed here and there with comments from Lucille, had lasted twenty minutes, during which time Alan realized that in the files was an account of every cent squandered, every loan received, every disastrous business deal in his name, laid out in chronological order and duly notarized. For decades Alan had been signing promissory notes, assuming that this was mere formality and Mark would forget about them as easily as Alan wiped them from his own memory. He had underestimated his brother.

  In the second part of the meeting, Mark Keller laid out the modified conditions he and Lucille had silently agreed on, one eyebrow raised. Rather than insisting that Alan sell his vineyard to pay off his creditors, as they had originally planned, he conceded that the value of the property had plummeted drastically since the crash of 2008 and consequently this was the worst possible time to sell. On the other hand, he insisted the vineyard become collateral should they bail Alan out this last time. The most important thing, he said, was that Alan pay off his debts to the IRS, which might otherwise land him in jail, a scandal which the Keller family was not prepared to tolerate. Then Mark announced his intention to sell the Woodside property, something that so shocked Philip and Flora Keller that they could not protest. Mark explained that a finance company was keen to build two apartment blocks on the site, and given the disastrous state of the housing market, they could not afford to reject such a generous offer. Alan, who had tried for years to offload the decrepit old mansion so he could pocket his share, stood by the window listening, staring at the panoramic views of the bay with studied indifference.

  The black sheep of the family could clearly feel the contempt and deep-seated resentment his siblings felt for him, and also the extent of his punishment: in a novel and unexpected development, he was to be excluded from the family. He was to be stripped of his position and his financial security, his connections and his privileges; with a forceful shove they were relegating him to the lower rungs of the social hierarchy. That morning, in less than an hour and without the intervention of some catastrophe—a world war, or a meteor collision—he had lost what he considered to be his birthright.

  Alan was surprised to note that, rather than being furious with his siblings or worried about his future, he felt only a certain curiosity. What would it be like to join the teeming multitudes of what Geneviève van Houte referred to as “ugly people”? He remembered a quote he had used in one of his articles to describe an aspiring artist with vaulting ambition but little talent: “At some point everyone stoops to his own particular level of incompetence.” It occurred to him as he left his brother’s office that from now on he would have to manage on his own; he would land facedown in his own incompetence.

  In short, he was ruined. The sale of Woodside might take a little while, but it hardly mattered, since he would not see a penny—his family would set his share against the monies they had given him in the course of his life, what he had called “advances on his inheritance,” but what the rest of the Keller family considered loans. He had never kept track of these debts, but they were immortalized in the files that even now Mark was squashing with his fat, pasty hand. He assumed he could survive for a while on the sale of his artworks, though it was difficult to know for how long, since he never kept track of his expenses either. With a bit of luck he might make a million and a half on the Boteros after the gallery took its commission—Latin American painters were fashionable just now—but it was never a good idea to be in a hurry to sell, as he was. He owed a lot of money to banks—the vineyard had been an expensive whim—and to other minor creditors, from his dentist to a couple of antiquarians, to say nothing of his credit cards. How much did it all come to? He had no idea. Mark made it clear that he would have to vacate Woodside immediately, and the house, which an hour ago Alan had cordially loathed, now inspired in him a certain nostalgia. Wearily, he thought that at least he would not have to ask others for a place to live; he could move to the vineyard in Napa for a couple of months until Mark seized that too.

  Alan kissed his mother and his sister Lucille on the cheek and clapped his father and his brother on the shoulder. Stepping from the lift and out into the street, Keller saw that at this turning point in his life, winter had fled, and San Francisco glittered in sunshine come from distant climes. He headed to the Clock Bar at the Westin St. Francis for a whiskey, the first since he had fallen ill, and which just then he craved; the shot lifted his spirits, dispelled his doubts and fears. He ran his fingers through his curls, happy to have such a good head of hair, straightened up, and felt a great weight lifted from his shoulders. He no longer depended on his siblings; he was done with juggling credit cards, with the obsessive need to keep up appearances and the duty to uphold the honor of the family name. His house of cards had collapsed, and he lay among the ruins—but he was free. He felt euphoric, weightless, years younger. The only thing he missed was Indiana, but she too belonged to the past; she too had been carried off by the wind.

  Thursday, 16

  Sometime around midmorning, Blake Jackson got a call at the drugstore from his granddaughter. He set aside what he was doing—counting pills for a prescription; the tone of Amanda’s voice was worrying.

  “Shouldn’t you be in class right now?” he asked with some concern.

  “I’m calling from the restroom,” she said, and he could tell she was making a valiant effort not to cry. “It’s about Bradley. . . .”

  “What’s up?”

  “Oh, Pops, he’s got a girlfriend!” She began to sob.

  “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. . . . How did you find out?”

  “He posted it on Facebook. Bad enough that he betrays me, he has to mock me publicly. He posted a photo of her—she looks like she’s captain of the swim team just like him, shoulders like a guy and an evil face. Oh, Pops, what am I going to do?”

  “I don’t know, Amanda.”

  “I guess nothing like this ever happened to you?”

  “I don’t remember. It’s the kind of thing people forget—”

  “Forget! I’ll never forgive Bradley! I sent a message to remind him that we were going to get married, but he never replied.” Amanda was crying now. “He’s probably trying to think up some excuse to palm me off. Guys are all cheats, just like my dad and Alan Keller. You can’t trust any of them.”

  “I’m not like that, Amanda.”

  “Yeah, but you’re old!”

  “Of course there are guys you can trust—most of us are decent men. Your father is a free agent—I mean, he’s divorced, he’s not being unfaithful to anyone.”

  “Are you trying to tell me that Bradley is a free agent, that he didn’t have to be faithful to me, even though we were supposed to get married?”

  “This whole thing about you guys getting married . . . I don’t think it was ever settled. Maybe Bradle
y didn’t know that you were thinking of marrying him.”

  “I’m not talking about the past, I’m talking about now. Just wait till I go to MIT, I’ll wipe that girl off the face of the earth.”

  “That’s the spirit, Amanda.”

  His granddaughter went on crying for a minute or two, while he held the phone, not knowing how to console her.

  Finally he heard her blow her nose noisily.

  “I should get back to class.” Amanda sighed.

  “I guess this isn’t a good time to talk about autopsies,” said Blake. “I’ll call you tonight.”

  “What autopsy?”

  “Rachel Rosen. The ME believes she was drugged, using a syringe. She found a small puncture mark on the left thigh. She was muzzled, then strangled—actually, it would be more accurate to say she was garroted, using fishing wire and a tourniquet—and only afterward strung up from the ceiling fan.”

  “It all sounds kind of convoluted, Kabel, don’t you think?”

  “I sure do. The tox screen identified the drug, something called Versed—it has a lot of medical uses, including sedating a patient before an operation. Given the dose, Rosen would have been unconscious in a matter of minutes.”

  “That’s interesting,” said Amanda, sounding somewhat recovered from her broken heart.

  “Get back to class, honey. D’you love me?”

  “No.”

  “Me neither.”

  Friday, 17

  For her penultimate patient of the week, Indiana had prepared by dabbing a drop of oil of lemon on her wrists—which helped focus her mind—and lighting a stick of incense to the goddess Shakti in a prayer for patience. It had been one of those weeks when Gary Brunswick needed two sessions, and she’d had to reschedule other patients to fit in with his timetable. Once upon a time she could cheer herself up after a difficult session with two or three dark chocolate truffles, but since she’d finished with Alan Keller, the truffles had lost their restorative powers, and life’s irritations—like Gary—left her feeling helpless. She needed something stronger than chocolate.

  Gary had not come to her consulting room that first time with any ulterior motive, unlike the men who turned up with imaginary ailments, hoping to try their luck with her. Indiana had had her share of jokers who strutted around naked, hoping to impress her, until she found some way to get rid of them before they could become a threat; from time to time she’d had to ask Matheus Pereira for help. The artist had rigged up an alarm button under the massage table so that she could call him whenever things got out of hand. Now and again these jerks would come back shamefaced and ask her for a second chance, but she always refused; in order to heal, she had to concentrate, which was difficult when the patient had a boner under the sheet. Gary wasn’t like that; he’d been referred to her by Yumiko Sato, who trusted her miraculous acupuncture needles to treat almost any complaint but, having failed to cure Brunswick of his persistent migraines, sent him down the hall to Treatment Room 8.

  Gary had never seen Indiana, so he was surprised when she opened the door and he found himself staring at a Valkyrie dressed as a nurse, not at all what he had been expecting. In fact, he had not even expected a woman, assuming Indiana to be a man’s name, like in the Indiana Jones movies he’d seen as a teenager. Even before their first session was over, he was overcome by a surge of new feelings he found difficult to deal with. He prided himself on being a dispassionate man completely in control of his actions, but Indiana’s warm, caring, feminine presence, along with the pressure of her firm hands and the heady mixture of scents in the treatment room, disarmed him, and during that hour-long session he felt like he was in heaven. This was why he came back, like a supplicant, not so much to be cured of his migraines as simply to see her, hoping to reexperience the same bliss; but he never recaptured the intensity of that first session. Like an addict, he needed a stronger dose every time.

  His shyness and awkwardness made it impossible for him to declare his feelings to Indiana, but his hints had dangerously increased in frequency. Indiana would have sent any other man packing without a second thought, but Gary seemed so fragile, despite his combat boots and his macho jacket, that she was afraid she might fatally wound him. She had mentioned this to Ryan, who had seen Gary once or twice. “Why don’t you just ditch the pathetic little weasel?” was his reaction. But this was precisely why she couldn’t. He was pathetic.

  The session went better than she had expected. Indiana noticed that Gary was nervous at first, but he relaxed as soon as she began the massage and dozed off during the twenty minutes of Reiki. When she finished, she had to shake him gently to wake him up. She left him to put his clothes on and waited in the little reception area. The stick of incense had burned away by now, though the room still smelled like a Hindu temple. She opened the door to the hallway to let in a breath of air just as Matheus Pereira showed up, spattered with paint, carrying a pot plant as a gift for her. Matheus spent his days between long marijuana-induced siestas and bursts of artistic creativity, which in no way affected his powers of observation: nothing that happened in North Beach escaped his attention, especially at the Holistic Clinic, which he considered his home. Originally, his contract with the Chinese owner of the building had consisted of keeping him informed of the tenants’ comings and goings in exchange for a small stipend and the chance to live rent-free in the attic, but since nothing much of note ever happened, the agreement had lapsed somewhat. Through his routine of making the rounds of the building, putting letters into mailboxes, dealing with complaints, and overhearing secrets, he had eventually built friendships with the tenants—his only family—and especially with Indiana and Yumiko, who treated his sciatica with massage and acupuncture.

  Matheus noticed that the Japanese florist no longer came by on Mondays to deliver the ikebana arrangement, and assumed something had happened between Indiana and her lover. A real shame, he thought, since Keller was a sophisticated guy who knew a lot about art; any day now he might have bought one of Pereira’s canvases, maybe one of the big ones, like the painting of the slaughterhouse inspired by Chaim Soutine’s animal carcasses, which Matheus considered his masterpiece. Of course, on the other hand, if Keller was out of the picture, he could invite Indiana up to his attic once in a while to smoke a little weed, make a little love—that wouldn’t compromise his creativity as long as it didn’t become a habit. Frankly, platonic love was boring. Indiana thanked him for the plant with a chaste peck on the cheek and quickly sent him on his way; her patient, now fully clothed, had suddenly appeared.

  Matheus shuffled down the hall while Gary paid for the two sessions he’d had that week—in cash, as always, and without accepting a receipt.

  “You should keep that plant away from your clients, Indiana—that’s a grass plant. Does that guy work here? I’ve seen him around a couple of times.”

  “He’s an artist, he lives up on the top floor. The paintings in the lobby are by him.”

  “They’re pretty creepy, if you ask me, but I don’t know much about art,” said Gary. Then, staring down at his shoes, he stammered, “Hey, at Café Rossini tomorrow they’re making cinghiale. . . . I thought, I don’t know, maybe we could go. I mean, if you like. . . .”

  Cinghiale never appeared on the menu of the Café Rossini. From time to time, the owner of Café Rossini went hunting up in Monterey and came back with a wild boar carcass. He would butcher it in his own kitchen—a grisly process—to create, among other delicacies, the finest wild boar sausages in the world, the crucial ingredient in his cinghiale. The dish was served only to those regular customers who were in on the secret. That this now included Gary was proof of his persistence: he had already managed to become accepted in North Beach, an acceptance that sometimes took others decades to win.

  Some weeks earlier Indiana had made the mistake of agreeing to have dinner with Gary and had spent two seemingly interminable hours struggling to stay awake while he lectured her on the geological formations of the San Andreas fau
lt. She had no intention of repeating the experience.

  “Thanks, Gary, but no. I’ll be spending the weekend with my family—we have a lot to celebrate. Amanda’s been accepted to MIT, and they’ve offered her a scholarship to cover half the tuition.”

  “Must be a genius, your daughter.”

  “She is, but you still beat her at chess,” said Indiana kindly.

  “She’s beaten me often enough.”

  “You mean you’ve seen her again?” Indiana said, alarmed.

  “We play online sometimes. She’s going to teach me how to play Go—it’s harder than chess. It’s this two-thousand-year-old Chinese game—”

  “I know what Go is, Gary,” Indiana interrupted, making no attempt to hide her annoyance. The man was becoming a nuisance.

  “You sound angry. Is something wrong?”

  “I don’t allow my daughter to have anything to do with my patients. I’d be grateful if you didn’t get in touch with her again.”

  “Why? I’m not some pervert!”

  “I never said you were, Gary.” Indiana retreated, startled to see this timid little man raising his voice.

  “I understand that, as a mother, you have to protect your daughter, but you don’t have to be afraid of me.”

  “Of course not, but all the same—”

  “I can’t just stop seeing Amanda with no explanation,” Gary interrupted. “I’ve got to at least talk to her. Actually, if it’s okay with you I’d like to do something for her. Didn’t you tell me she’s always wanted a cat?”

  “That’s very sweet, Gary, but Amanda already has a kitten. It’s called Save-the-Tuna. She was given it by a friend of mine, Carol Underwater—you’ve probably seen her around.”

  “Then I’ll have to think of something else to give Amanda.”

  “No, Gary, I can’t allow it. From now on our relationship has to be confined to the four walls of this consulting room. Please don’t be offended—it’s nothing personal.”