No Footprints Page 6

  "Wow.”

  "Yeah. I just get called to work here when there’s overload and, yeah, we’re dervishing around to get things done and afterwards we’re too wiped to even go for a drink. But anybody who saw her staring at her cell phone, trying to call him that day, could figure out what was going on.”

  The cell that would have his number. The cell that, likely, was in her purse on the bottom of the bay.

  "She must’ve tried him, like, ten times before he picked up. I don’t know what the bastard said, but you ever see the air knocked out of anyone? I didn’t believe that was real, but if you’d seen her it was, like, amazing.”

  "That’s all she did?”

  "She didn’t get him till after noon, but, like, she’d try, get voicemail, look at the computer, then tell me to go get postal supplies, the kind we get delivered any other time. Then she’d call, check the computer, look at the phone like she was going to try again and then stop. She sent me out for sandwiches, told me to take my time, look around, like she wanted to talk to him alone, if she got him. But when I came back I heard her.”

  "Heard what?”

  "She was begging him to reconsider. 'Isn’t there another way?’ 'I know I promised, but there’s got to be another way.’ It wasn’t like she had much hope, you could tell, but she had to try.” She took a sip of her appalling tea. "You know, like, I’m like half her age and I can tell the guy’s a real loser. But, like, girls don’t want to hear that until, like they want to hear it, you know?”

  I looked at her with new respect.

  "Still, you must’ve felt awful for her.”

  "I really did. She looked so drained. But what could I do? I mean, I’m just her assistant here. I just wished I was still out getting lunch. She said something like 'yeah, okay, okay.’ At the end, though, she had one little burst of life. She actually smiled when she said, 'I will enjoy it. I’ll be the first lady of enjoyment. And yeah, it’s still worth it. So don’t worry about me.’”

  "Strange. So, what’d she do when she got off the phone?”

  "Turned on the computer again. It was like she forgot I was there.” She sipped her tea, and in the gloom that encompassed us I would have been glad of something warming to comfort me, even that stuff.

  But the gloom was a bond of sorts. I said, "Kristi, let me ask you, what’s your take on Tessa?”

  She looked startled. "She’s better’n this place, that’s for sure. Better’n twenty bucks an hour. And dealing with the lawyers who’re freaking out, that’s like . . . she’s great. Takes no crap. Sometimes she even spots mistakes. I mean, she’s smart. She could’ve gone to law school, or something, anything better than this.”

  I nodded knowingly, as if this was a familiar trait in the woman I’d known for years. "What’s she doing now with the rest of her time? What’s she into these days?”

  "She did that collage. She’s got a good eye, but, well, paper’s cheap. I mean she doesn’t make a fortune. But, it’s not like she’s stingy, I don’t mean that. Like, she always buys a Street Spirit, every day.”

  To give the homeless seller the buck.

  "Like, we had a mad rush a couple of months ago, huge, a mess, full of mistakes, motorcycle couriers back to the lawyer’s office three times. We ran out of paper and, well, even she was crazed. At the end the lawyer gave her a big bonus, two hundred bucks. Know what she did? She insisted on one for me, fought for it. Got me a hundred bucks.”

  I nodded. But that red jacket of hers couldn’t have been cheap even in a secondhand store. And it sure hadn’t looked worn.

  Kristi was off on another tack. She lowered her voice, though there was no one around but us—"Besides, no one’s going to hassle her on this job.”

  "How come?”

  "A few weeks ago this client comes by to pick up his order. It’s a big one, a rush, some two-sided copying, some color. The thing was a bitch, and since it was a super rush job the bill was plenty. He squawks, squawks loud—highway robbery, he’s not going to pay, does she think he’s a fool? The whole deal. He grabs his copies and charges out, just as Tessa’s boss, the guy who actually owns this business, is coming in with our checks. He’s heard the whole thing. He takes the squawker aside, talks to him, hand on his shoulder, never raises his voice. But in five minutes asshole’s back, payment in hand. Like an illustration for 'tail between his legs.’”

  "What do you think went down?”

  "Dunno. But the owner, he’s not someone to fool with, and Tessa—she’s got a pretty good relationship with him. I mean she runs everything here. All he does is bring the checks by. But once she said he’s not someone you want to cross.”

  "Who is he, the boss?”

  She stared into the cup in front of her as if she was about to read the leaves. From her wary look, they weren’t going to bring good news.

  "Kristi?”

  "Uh uh. I said too much. I’m not going there.”

  You’re afraid to mention his name? Or was she just caught up in the drama? I really wanted to know. For now, though, I needed to dial back. "So, besides the guy who prefers not to answer his cell, what does Tessa care about now?”

  "Got me.”

  "What’d you talk about, I mean, besides work?”

  "Me.” And then she laughed. "Jeez, I never realized that, before. Me! I didn’t realize . . .”

  "Lots of people never realize. You’re more perceptive than most.”

  She eyed me with a mixture of suspicion and pride, as if I was trying to flatter her, which, of course I was.

  I’d learned more about Tessa, but I was no closer to finding her. I had to take a chance. I said, "Did you know she gave away all her clothes?”

  "All her clothes?” She repeated the words like she couldn’t fathom their meaning. I didn’t blame her. She didn’t know what I did about Tessa on the bridge.

  "She doesn’t have family out here, does she?” I, her supposed friend, should have known that, but I had to ask.

  Kristi hesitated only an instant before saying, "No. None . . .”

  "None. I do know that. She had some decent job back east; then she got lured out here by some fat Silicon Valley offer and then they laid her off.”

  "When?”

  "Years ago.” She bit her lip.

  "But?”

  "But what?”

  "There’s something more to this, isn’t there? Something that makes it worse, something she said . . . ?” I was all but holding my breath, trying to draw her in, to not break the mood.

  "I don’t know.”

  "Family? You were saying she had no family? Maybe she left them back east?”

  "No. Not . . . I don’t know.”

  "I think you do.”

  "Wait a minute! Who are you to—”

  "Kristi, she tried to kill herself last night. On the bridge.”

  "You mean like . . . jump?”

  "Exactly. I pulled her back. That’s how I know her. That’s all I know about her. Except that I’ve got to find her before she tries again.”

  She was trying to mesh this news with the Tessa she knew. I could see her succeeding. She shrank back away from me. "You lied to me. You just wanted to make me talk. What’s going on? How do I know you’re telling the truth now?”

  "I’m sorry! I’m the one who pulled her back! Kristi, she could be heading back to the bridge right now! Help me! Help her!”

  She hugged her cup to her chest and for a moment I thought she was going to cry or scream. "Omigod, she really tried to kill herself? I know things were bad with her boyfriend but—Omigod! The bridge!”

  "This is important! You thought she seemed fine for a while. Did you mean that or were you just trying to blow me off?”

  "She did. Let me think.” She was pretty rattled. "One thing made her, like, insanely happy last week. Just last week.”

  "What?”

  "A Campagnolo Mirage.”

  "She got a racing bike?” Boy, was that not the answer I’d been expecting. And yet, there’d be
en a bike on the bridge that was gone after she disappeared. And she’d sure disappeared fast. "You saw it?”

  "’Course. You don’t leave a bike like that outside, even chained. It was a bitch, though, the way it took up space against the wall over there. Us trying to stack copies, move them, check them, not crash into it. Any other time, like, she’d’ve been going crazy with something impeding a rush order, but last week she just laughed. She actually said—I would’ve bet real money these words would never come from her mouth—'If it’s late, it’s late. They’ll live.’ Then she grabbed the bike for a half an hour ride, in the middle of a rush job!”

  "But why all of a sudden the bike?”

  "Didn’t say.”

  "But you think . . .?”

  "I figured it had something to do with college. She’d go on the college website, Dickinson College in some little town in Pennsylvania, and I dunno, it was like somehow the bike connected to it. Like maybe she was getting the bike to go back to school. But, you know, that’s wrong. She was caught up in the college thing, intense about it. But with the bike, she was just happy. It’d make more sense to say she was going to college in order to ride her bike.”

  "That’s so weird. It makes no sense. And it won’t until I find her.”

  "Well, I’m not her keeper. I like Tessa, but I don’t see her outside work. I sure don’t follow her home.”

  "There’s got to be something around here with her address on it? Like her pay stub.”

  "Yeah, but she didn’t leave her checks here. She stuck them in her purse like any sane person.”

  "There’s got to be something,” I said, desperately. You don’t work with a woman and not at least wonder where she lives. That’s just normal. "Oh wait, the owner, he’ll know,” I said triumphantly. "How can I find him?”

  "Are you sure—”

  "Kristi, she tried to kill herself!”

  She hesitated before pulling out a card and handing it to me.

  When I saw it I understood.

  12

  Her stomach’s clawing at her innards; it’s the feeling she had before when things went bad, when all that mattered was riding fast. Before, she’d either been starved or stuffed—in food, in life. Back then mornings had started with hangovers and Turkish coffee and ended with who-remembered? The first few miles were always hell till she’d burned through the bad. Then it’d been like sailing.

  She waits now for the end-of-the-hour feel-good story to air. She’s in the repair shop, inches from the TV, leaning forward to punch up the sound. She still can’t believe she’ll get to see it. The ceremony was at 10:00 am. She’d been invited. She’d never have gone anyway, even if she hadn’t had the world’s best reason: Tessa Jurovik regrets she must decline your kind invitation because she will be dead. Now, seeing it on TV will be perfect.

  She is about to see Ginger Rampono walk across the stage.

  The station is coming out of commercial, back to the news set. Three minutes before the hour. Now!

  But there’s no stage, no Ginger, nothing. Just a recap of the headline stories. Didn’t they get the film in time? They had an hour and a half, plenty of time even if they had to drive it back to Oakland through traffic. Maybe—

  She pulls out the phone that isn’t hers, turns it on. There’s another message. She ignores it, gets the station number, hits it in. When the receptionist answers she realizes she doesn’t know who to ask for or how to make them talk to her. "You didn’t run the Ginger Rampono story,” she blurts out. She knows she sounds frantic, crazy. She throws herself back into who she was last week, telling a man no, she wouldn’t drop everything for his order, that he could take his business elsewhere. "It was scheduled to run just before the break during the last segment. I need to know why it didn’t and when it’s been rescheduled to. I need to know now.” The authority in her tone is absolute.

  "Do you have an update?” the receptionist asks her.

  Update? That makes no sense, but she’s not about to say no. "Right. Who’s doing the story? Is it”—frantically she tries to recall the reporters’ names—"the dark-haired woman, the pretty one?”

  "Andrea? No.”

  "Let me speak to the station manager.”

  "I’ll see if she’s—”

  The phone clicks and for an instant she worries she’s been cut off. Then a voice, echoing her own authority, says briskly, "You have an update on the Rampono story?”

  "Tell me what you’ve got so far.”

  "Nothing. Canceled.”

  "Canceled? Why?”

  "The young girl, Ginger, was in an accident this morning.”

  She goes stiff. She can barely get out words. "Accident? What? Is she okay?”

  "I thought you’d be telling us that. Your update—”

  "What kind of accident?”

  "A car clipped her in a crosswalk—”

  "Was she injured?”

  "Of course. When you get knocked down, of course there’s some injury. Look, either you know something about this or not, and if—”

  She does, she knows a lot. She clicks off and stands staring at the phone, as if it’s going to tell her more.

  It is. She sees the message again and this time checks it. She recognizes the number and the voice that says, "Tonight. Do it.”

  Tonight.

  She knows all too well who the hit-and-run driver was. And she’s clear that her freedom today is an illusion. Five hours from now, she’ll be on the bridge. There’s no escaping.

  13

  The Hall of Justice was less than a mile away. I stopped outside and looked again at the card Kristi’d given me. My stomach clutched.

  The guy at the desk was a friend of my oldest brother, John. They’d been rookies together. Then Sam’d been a freckled kid with straight sandy hair he’d failed at greasing back. Even to me, barely a teenager, he’d looked not yet formed. Now he looked like he’d melted—hair gone, skin sagged, even those freckles faded. Despite infuriating an array of cops and city officials over the years, John had made detective ages ago. What had happened to Sam that he was riding the desk?

  When he smiled up at me there was a flicker of those days of hope and energy. "Hey, there, Darcy, how’s the movie business?”

  "I set up a car gag this morning. Had a street sign in fear of its life. How’re things with you?”

  "Good as they can be. Haven’t seen your brother in a while, though.” He didn’t add, "Not since John got all that publicity a while back, since he became a big hero.”

  "He’ll be glad I ran into you.” I couldn’t help but linger a moment, remembering the days when coming to the Hall of Justice to see my big brother at work had been exciting and John and his buddies had formed a blue wall of safety around me. But that was decades ago. Now I took a deep breath and said, "I need to see Declan Serrano.”

  Suddenly Sam wasn’t listening. He was staring as if a giant crater was opening in my forehead.

  "Sam?”

  "Does John know about this?”

  I shook my head.

  He shot a glance down the hall. "You sure you want to get involved with him?”

  "It’s just a quick question. No biggie.”

  When he didn’t move, I said, "But I need it now. Is he here?”

  "I’ll check.” He lifted the phone, still eyeing me like something alien. "He’s in. Down the hall, last door on the left.” Before I could thank him, he pushed up and walked over to a clerk and started talking. If I was making a bad choice he wasn’t going to be in line for the backlash.

  I hurried down the hall. Every sensation seemed heightened. Cops’ leather shoes didn’t merely hit but drummed against the floor, ringing cell phones echoed off the walls, guys barked orders like machine guns firing. Even the smallest woman looked huge in her stiff blue uniform, overlarge belt with holders and holsters protruding like pontoons. The last time I’d been down this hall it’d been to view the meager effects of a woman I’d thought would be a friend, not a corpse. I didn’t lo
ok at the door to the viewing room as I passed, or at the people on the benches. When you’re waiting in the Hall of Justice, the best you can hope for is to walk out alone, angry or bereft. From there the options go downhill.

  I stood in front of the door. Declan Serrano, it proclaimed. I’d never met him, even seen him, but I’d heard the name often enough from John, and Gary when he’d been acting as John’s attorney in a corruption mess. Declan Serrano had been up to his nostrils but he’d managed to keep breathing and doing it in a corner office. He was, John had insisted, too well connected to ever get his head pushed under. He’d outlast everyone. The cockroach of corruption, someone had called him. Now, in our house, he was just known as the cockroach.

  "Can I help you? You’re Lott’s sister, aren’t you? The stuntwoman?”

  It took me a moment to recalibrate my mental image of the cockroach to the guy popping out of his chair with hand extended to me. His head was shaved, his nose so straight and wide that it seemed like a long tube cut off above his mouth. He looked like a frat boy headed to the basketball court.

  "I’m here to see Declan Serrano.”

  "Got me! Come on in. Let me get this file out of the way.” The folder was bulky and frayed at the corners but he slipped it into a drawer as easily as if it were an envelope. The office was standard issue, but spotless. If I hadn’t seen the folder I’d’ve wondered if he worked in here at all. There were no pictures, no placards, nothing but the sign on the door to say this was his. He motioned to a substantial metal armchair. "Sit, sit.”

  I know better than to sit in the seat of the enemy, even one as enthusiastically welcoming as he, especially one as surprisingly welcoming. I propped my butt on the chair arm. "So you underwrite Skilled Copy on Cunningham.”

  "How’d you connect me?” He’d had a smile in place but for an instant it slipped. Now that cute, flat, frat boy nose looked reptilian and the eager brown eyes had narrowed momentarily, removing any hint of innocence. I could see him, as an enforcer, playing both sides, cutting deals, cutting out colleagues and stabbing them in the back. I blinked, and he was the eager friendly guy again.