Out of Nowhere Read online

  But there was a text. From my agent. Two production companies had new contracts with analgesic makers. ‘Send your new video. Pain patches are hot (or cold!)! They need dashes, crashes and crutches! 45 secs.’

  I texted back: i.e. break a leg?… Will do.

  Send by end of week.

  Sure thing.

  Could resurrect your career.

  Resurrect!

  Got it.

  At any time doing a commercial is huge. But now, since my last gig, a movie for which I’d been the stunt coordinator on a disaster of a stunt sequence, no director would want to see Darcy Lott on the back of a stunt coordinator’s chair, on a casting list of stunt doubles, on the roll of the final credits. I had about as much chance of finding stunt work as did a vat of cottage cheese.

  Other stunt doubles might need a commercial, but no one needed it as much as I did.

  Video by the end of the week … Forty-five seconds is an eternity when every one of them is a shot of you. The prep alone … I’d need a camera crew. Maybe one really good guy could handle it. Mike had already done the wire videos. Could I use one of them? Nope. Too short. Not right. But Mike? Yeah, Mike.

  If Mike was here.

  If he could be safe here.

  If I could find the guy attacking him.

  I checked the phone again. Zip. But I’d told Mike to leave his number on the zendo landline. The line, I now remembered, with the unreliable message service. Leo and I had intended to get it fixed. Deferred maintenance, electronic style.

  I looked around for Mike’s grumpy neighbor. Not in sight. It amazed me no one had called the fire department. Even the neighbor. Maybe they figured once the gas was turned off … Who knew? The onlookers across the street were already gone and I was standing alone in front of a house still too gassy to go back into for another half-hour at least.

  The smell of tomato and garlic wafted down the street. Half an hour to kill – easy choice.

  The Haight was a district I hadn’t visited much. When I was a kid, it was already over the hill. Going there was like wearing your mother’s clothes. Or your mother’s memories. I’d heard Mom light up talking about it ‘in the day’ when it was all free love and music.

  Before I could order my pizza slice, my phone rang. John, the cop. I let him go to message as I downed the last of my slice of anchovy and black olive, then checked. ‘Darcy, it’s almost ten. Why aren’t you home? I called your landline. Call me.’

  As if!

  Text from Gary: Beware! John – ants in pants. Wants to bitch about me.

  I smiled. Mike excepted, life was normal in the Lott family.

  FOUR

  All lights were out in Mike’s apartment when I got back. The windows were open. But no one was lowering my brother’s belongings to the street. So, all to the good. I walked into the building, eased up the few steps to Mike’s door and pushed it open. Had I left it unlocked? Possible when I ran out of the gassy place. Had the guy upstairs? Or someone else …

  Slithering an arm around, as if I were embracing the door jamb, I flicked on the light, jumped back, waited, and felt a welcome rush of foolish-feeling as the door clattered against the wall. Mike’s upstairs neighbor hadn’t been alarmed when someone broke in and nearly blew up the building. He wasn’t likely to notice me now.

  The windows were open but the place still held the odor of gas. I’d been so caught up by the smell here earlier that I’d overlooked the shambles. The place had been tossed. Tan corduroy sofa cushions littered the floor. Drawers had spit out their contents – white undershirts, blue briefs. A red rag oval rug had been pulled up and tossed to the side so it lay against the couch. A framed picture had ended up face down on the floor, bare nail marking its spot on the wall.

  Mike’s a jeans and T-shirt guy, though he does have at least one nice suit and a couple of sweaters like any guy with three sisters and a mother. He cleans up well.

  But the clutter was not homogenous. There were jeans – newish jeans, jeans worn at the knee, ones ripped at the knee, at the butt. A herd of socks. Sweaters, sweatshirts. Men’s clothes, women’s clothes.

  Did Mike have a roommate? Or was the regular tenant a woman? Cross-dresser? What do you know? I couldn’t know that, not now.

  And it looked like the burglar hadn’t either. But that hadn’t slowed him down.

  He’d plowed through, tossing detritus to the sides as he searched for … what?

  I stood, back to the door, trying to eyeball the place as he had. What had he been after?

  If that thing was big, he would have spotted it right off.

  If it was the type of object kept in a specific place, he’d have gone straight there.

  If it belonged in a drawer, that’s what would have been opened. He’d have grabbed it and left. Or shoved the drawer in to check a lower one. He would not have closed those drawers carefully, completely. He would have left them askew, just as they were now.

  The interior wall sported a built-in hutch with a china cabinet on top and three drawers beneath. I pulled the top drawer the rest of the way open and found a round plastic container, which might once have held hummus, but now was home to three quarters, a bunch of pennies, a zipper pull – I was guessing a no-longer-closing jacket or pair of pants was on the floor somewhere. A parking receipt that told me someone parked in an unmentioned location for forty-eight minutes the day before yesterday. A tiny notepad with edges that had seen cleaner, uncurled days held something written by an iffy ballpoint pen. Deep lines at the top marked where the writer had tried, with middling success, to get the ink flowing. I couldn’t tell how close to success he’d come. Seren *5 Gate.

  Seren S5 Gaté? Seren K5 Gaté?

  I’d worry about that later. Next to it there was a small abalone shell, the kind that had once been tourist ashtrays before ashtrays held death, a grocery receipt, and a ratty Giants baseball ticket. If the tenant had had a garbage can, this drawer would have been empty.

  The tenant? Because … Mike would never save a zipper pull. He wouldn’t fool himself that he’d get a zipper repaired. He’d toss the jacket and replenish.

  I pocketed the lot, including the abalone shell, which strained the seams of my jacket, and moved on to the second drawer. Socks. A phone book – virtually a museum item! I scanned the front and back cover for jotted phone numbers. Copied down both, though neither was familiar. Two framed posters of the Golden Gate Bridge.

  I reached for the bottom drawer.

  The outside door banged open. Clatter filled the hallway. Men’s voices reverberated. Fists rattled the apartment door.

  ‘Yes?’ I called, not opening it.

  ‘We just got here. Sorry. Sorry.’ High-pitched voice. Border state rasp. Western Pennsylvania? West Virginia?

  ‘My plane got held up. Some problem over Utah. I shoulda been here hours ago. Airlines! Hey, they got one job, ya know? Fly from A to B, ya know? How hard—’ Him I figured for Jersey or New York.

  Western Penn mumbled something. Jersey laughed.

  I pulled the door open.

  The two, both locked-in-the-basement white – one tall, fat, with wiry brown halo, his cohort short, thin, bald and quivering – reached behind for their rolling duffle bag handles and started forward.

  ‘Hey, hold up! I haven’t invited you in.’

  The big guy flapped a letter at me.

  ‘Reservations. Paid.’

  ‘For here?’ For a place someone tried to blow up just hours ago? ‘I don’t think so.’

  If there were a Geek Boutique on Haight, these two would have been prime customers. The big one sported a bigger-yet shirt, size many-X, in faded blue and yellow plaid. Army green chinos. Birkenstocks with socks. The little one wore a blue shirt, dark blue pants, blue windbreaker, all ironed. He could have worked for the post office.

  I was peering under the big guy’s arm, around the great orb of his gut, to see his friend. It was like conversing with a mastiff and a Pekinese.

  ‘Look!�
� The letter was flapping like a bird against the wind.

  Still blocking the door, I looked. I pointed to the address. ‘Upstairs.’

  The mastiff grunted.

  I caught him before he could reverse his duffle. ‘That apartment, is it Airbnb?’

  ‘Hacker hotel.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tech Meet.’

  ‘Greek for Geeks.’

  ‘What?’ I grabbed his arm. ‘Explain.’

  ‘We booked spaces. We heard “come early, get best spot”. Anyone else here?’

  I remembered the man I’d warned about the gas. ‘One.’

  ‘Well, that’s OK. The ad said there’s one bedroom, bunk, and single. Guess we’ll have to bunk. The guys who roll in tomorrow’ll get the couch and blow-up in the living room. You end up doing your interfacing there—’

  ‘On their couch and blow-up?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess.’

  ‘And it’s legal?’

  He shrugged. ‘We paid.’

  The front door opened again. A woman stepped in and stared at me like I was in the wrong cage in the zoo.

  ‘And you?’ I said to her. ‘Are you here for the hackers hotel, too?’

  ‘Huh?’ She was still staring. The two men turned and checked her out. ‘Bad flight?’ the small man asked. ‘Did you get caught in the delay?’

  ‘Yeah. Right.’

  ‘You need help with your luggage?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Did your luggage make it?’

  ‘No.’ She gave her head a shake. ‘Sorry. I’m really out of it. It was a lousy flight. My bags are probably still sitting in Dallas. I’m spaced. And starved. Is anything open around here?’

  She looked out of it. Long tangle of brown hair, tight T-shirt half out of her jeans, one of those many-pocketed tan cotton vests that used to hold fishing gear but are now more likely to sport phone, wallet and keys. She had the potential to be pretty, but now she just looked wiped out.

  ‘They said there’d be food in the apartment. I’m Tom,’ the small man said.

  ‘Heather.’

  The other guy didn’t offer a name.

  ‘You need to borrow my toothbrush, Heather?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Good night,’ I said, reaching for the door.

  ‘Yeow, you get tossed?’ Heather snaked around the big guy to stare into the mess of the room. ‘I heard about home invasions here. That come down on you?’ She stuck her head in, brushing my face with her hair. ‘You live alone here?’

  I laughed. After the events of the day, laughing felt real good, like a visit to ‘normal.’ ‘No. I’m just collecting some stuff for my brother here.’

  ‘Where’s your brother?’

  ‘Out of town.’

  ‘How long will he be gone?’

  ‘Couple days.’

  ‘Where’d he go? I mean, it’s hardly worth leaving home for a couple days.’

  ‘You’re doing that.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She pulled up a smile. ‘Guess you’re right.’

  In another city, another age, they might have wondered why I’d chosen near midnight to root through the belongings of my untidy sibling, but none of them did. I put a hand on Heather’s shoulder and eased her back out of the doorway. ‘There’ve been some problems here. Gas leak. If you guys notice anything odd, give me a call, OK?’ I gave them my number; they keyed it in.

  ‘OK, goodnight, Heather, Tom, um. Sorry, I didn’t get your name?’

  ‘Boots.’

  ‘Boots?’

  ‘For Subhuti.’

  ‘As in the Diamond Sutra?’

  ‘Yeah, that one.’ And the mastiff named for the Buddha’s Diamond Sutra disciple stomped up to the hacker hotel.

  I wondered about Subhuti. What unwelcome names had his parents bestowed on his siblings? Or had raising one infant exhausted their whimsy? Or … or … or was this just a chance to see my own whimsy of thoughts as passing bubbles in a stream that momentarily seemed to be myself?

  Mike’s apartment; I should …

  With sudden finality I knew it was too late, in too long a day, to discern any pattern in this clutter. Tomorrow, in the light, I’d check out the surely empty closet. I locked up, walked out, looked around for the car, and remembered it was half a mile away in Golden Gate Park.

  ‘Seemed like a good idea at the time,’ I muttered to myself as I slogged up the block and turned west on Haight.

  The street still had life, but it had a used feeling, like red wine in a nearly empty glass with old lipstick smudges around the rim. Or like a guy in a cheap 49ers jacket, heaped against a store wall, asking for a denomination he could no longer pronounce. In the park the homeless would be checking spots in the bushes, eyeing new ones if the cops – or bigger, tougher, younger homeless – had rousted them from their last nests. They’d be sleeping with one eye on the next chance, hoping it wouldn’t be them.

  I picked up my pace, hoping it wouldn’t be me. It was late to go into the park but the hour wasn’t going to get earlier. If I left the Honda till morning I might as well not bother.

  Cars sped by, heading back toward downtown. Headlights startled my eyes and were gone.

  Footsteps slapped the macadam walkway behind me.

  They weren’t behind me a minute ago.

  I picked up my pace, almost loping now. I didn’t want to run. Not yet.

  He – surely, he – matched my pace.

  The car was a block’s worth ahead. I unslung my pack, felt inside it as I ran. Keys hung from a clasp. I pulled them outside but did not unclasp.

  Headlights shone on the empty path, flickered off the bushes, the trees. Snatches of song splattered and were gone. The wind off the Pacific blew wet in my face. It’s cold this close to the ocean.

  The car was on a side road. Dark. Empty. No reason for traffic. I held my breath, listened hard. He was still behind me. Matching my pace. Which meant he was in better shape than the average homeless guy. If he caught me he’d have something left in the tank.

  The footsteps were louder, heavier, suddenly slower. I thought I heard panting but I wasn’t about to slow down to find out.

  I shot into a sprint, running all out for the car, keys jangling in my hand.

  My foot hit something – macadam bulge? I lurched. Caught myself, shot forward.

  The car was in view, low, white. I jostled the keys to get the door key in position. I could feel my pace slowing. Hear his feet coming fast. Damn, Mike’s car, so old it still had keys. A newer model and I could have beeped and been—

  But I wasn’t! Focus! This moment!

  I skidded to a stop, jammed the key in the lock, turned it, pulled it free and yanked open the door and flung myself inside. I clicked the lock closed.

  Then, only then, I stared out the side window, expecting to see a face glaring in at me. But there was nothing. Just bushes, trees and dark. Flash of headlights in the distance through the trees.

  I almost wondered if I had made it all up.

  But I hadn’t.

  What do you know?

  For some reason someone had followed me, and someone had stopped. But that someone now knew what I was driving. Or sitting in.

  Warily, I turned the key in the ignition and pressed in the clutch. If the engine had been dead I wouldn’t have been surprised. If it had blown up? But it turned over as easily as if it had been sitting happily in a warm garage.

  I sighed. All I wanted now was to turn on the heater, drive downtown to my room above the zendo and wriggle into bed.

  After I had checked the zendo landline for Mike’s message.

  FIVE

  I can’t swear if anyone was tailing me, but by the time I got home he sure wasn’t. I’ve rolled junkers, done a transfer from the back of a hog to a convertible. I’ve handled spin-outs on canyon roads. If I couldn’t lose a tail in city traffic, I shouldn’t be calling myself a stunt driver.

  I did eyeball the shadows before I hoisted myself out of the car in front of the zend
o. Pacific Avenue was empty. Then, as close to quietly as I could manage, I eased past the little brass plaque announcing ‘The Barbary Coast Zen Center’ and into the building. The set-up here is meditation hall, dokusan (formal interview) room and kitchen on the first floor; two rooms and bath upstairs on either side of the landing, each big enough for a futon, dresser and one other piece of furniture, in Leo’s case a writing desk. In mine a trunk holding my ‘set bag’ so, should I get a last-minute gig, I can grab and run.

  It can be cold in San Francisco in April when the wind is off the water, which is pretty much always. Particularly in this building, which has no hope of warmth other than from space heaters. I peeled off my jacket, pushed out of my shoes, and whipped into my sleeping bag.

  Tuesday

  At 6.55 a.m., I slipped into the bathroom, still warm from Leo’s shower, peeled the clothes I’d slept in directly into the hamper and leapt in the shower.

  By 7.20 I was in the courtyard, hitting the wooden clappers three times. Fifteen minutes to zazen! It gives students a little leeway to make it inside the zendo and settle on their zafus before the abbot enters.

  At 7.35, Garson-roshi stepped into the morning-dim zendo. The timekeeper rang a bell as Leo bowed to the altar and then took his seat to the left. Sitting on a cushion, facing the wall, I heard the bells, the soft groan of the floorboards under Leo’s feet, the swish as he tucked the bottom of his silk okesa under the robes beneath it. There are times, plenty of them, when sitting without moving, seeing thoughts without getting caught in them is hard. This morning, though, it was like coming home. I sat, felt my breath moving, heard the buses, the trucks on Columbus Avenue half a block away, the muted tinkle of glass, the birds doing their morning mad-chirp-and-dead-stop.

  When the final bell rang I stood, bowed to my zafu and to the room, thus connecting my silent meditation with life in the world, and walked out.

  It’s been said that when the water in a pond is still, you can see clearly to the bottom. Seren*5 Gate.

  The Book of Serenity? If that little pad had been in Leo’s room, or even mine, it would make perfect sense. Book of Serenity, case 5. Koan 5. Why would Mike, or the regular tenant, refer to a Buddhist teaching paradox? The Book of Serenity was a collection of koans, not easy reading. Not the kind of thing you page through on the checkout line. Hey, Mike, did you get interested in Zen and neglect to mention it to me?