No Footprints Read online

  "Tessa?” I asked.

  "Out.”

  Had he given Serrano the same answer? "I’ll wait,” I mouthed and stepped forward. He moved reflexively and I was in the living room before he had time to reconsider. "This your—” the bagpipe suddenly went dead; I was shouting into silence but he barely seemed to notice. Behind him discarded clothes draped the sofa and cascaded over the floor. Tables held empty food cartons and quart-sized soda glasses. "This must be your room, right?”

  "Not really. I mean, it’s the shared space. Tessa, she could use it. But she’s got her own stuff. I mean, I know it’s a mess. My mom comes by with the rent and she tells me. Says I’m lucky to get anyone to share. Talks rats, health department, you know the spiel.”

  "When’s Tessa coming back?”

  He shrugged.

  "Did she say anything about a vacation?”

  "We don’t cross much. I’m in school and—”

  "Which school?”

  "State.”

  "San Francisco State? You could hardly live farther away and still be in the city.”

  "Yeah, bummer.”

  Afresh bagpipe wail cut through me. I felt like my intestines were being yanked out. It stopped. But for how long? "How long?”

  "Does he practice? Long as he wants. That’s the deal. Rock bottom rent; never complain.”

  "How do you”—I shouted over the latest burst—"stand—”

  "At school. Girlfriend. Hang out.”

  "Tessa, how does she?”

  "Dunno.” He fingered his headphones.

  "Her boyfriend, does he come here?”

  "No one comes here, not if they don’t have to.”

  "No one comes to see her here?”

  "Why would they?” He seemed anxious to block out noise, in this case me.

  "She told me to wait in her room for her.”

  He jerked his head toward the hall.

  The walls were covered with acoustic tiles, in the hall and—I pushed open her door—in her room. Which just meant that the noise came through the inadequate carpeting. I’d been expecting this room to be the size of the living room—Tessa’s half of the apartment—but if it’d held a king-size bed, I’d have had to edge around it. It didn’t. No bed at all. There was a desk, a serious metal file cabinet, the kind that has folders left to right rather than back to front. Neat, tall stacks of papers on top, bigger, more irregular piles against another wall. And on the carpet, dirt streaks from two narrow tires. No landline. No computer, damn! I pulled open the closet and almost fell over a rolled mat. Her bed? How could she live here? Much less work here? Maybe she was deaf? No, of course not—she’d heard Mike’s horn; she’d talked to Kristi and the woman at the resale shop. How could anyone with normal hearing endure this? Why?

  The pipes screeched and kept at it. I could barely keep from running out, but made myself look through the closet. Of course it was empty, but for a pair of bike shorts. On the floor was a pile of blankets, sheets, pillow. I turned back to the room, hesitated, and picked up the pillow and shook it. Just a pillow. The sheets under it were just sheets. But under that—voilà!—was a laptop.

  I shifted the nearest pile from the top of the file cabinet to make space. It was made up of college catalogs: Allegheny in Pennsylvania, Bucknell University, Lehigh, Lafayette, Muhlenberg, Susquehanna, all in Pennsylvania. The next stack held schools in Virginia, and there were ones for Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey, and, finally, Ohio. What was this fascination with East Coast colleges?

  A new screech made me slam my hand over my ears. Papers on the bulletin board shook. If there were an earthquake I wouldn’t notice. If the building were attacked by terrorists I’d be dead before I realized it.

  I moved the computer so I could see the door and turned it on. Please don’t use a password! I prayed to the balance-in-the-universe gods, the ones who arrange for you to whip through town on all green lights—that after a day of all reds. And damned if they didn’t come through—bagpipe payback? —not only to a screen but, after one click, right to Google. I had only to click on History to see a list of colleges that went on for pages. Websites showed one homey place for eager happy students after another. One after another students hurried or strolled though sun and snow, among pines and oaks. But never palms.

  I checked the list more carefully. No state universities, no Ivy League schools, but, if the ones I recognized were examples, small liberal arts schools. Not one of them was in California.

  Odd.

  The noise stopped. The silence was piercing.

  How long had I been here, in this stranger’s room? I just hoped if she came back I’d hear her lugging her bike up the stairs. Quickly I skimmed down the history, now ignoring the colleges until I came to Bank of America. I clicked on the website, but of course a password was necessary.

  I glanced nervously toward the hall. No one was there. I clicked on Documents, Self. Everyone knows better, but please be one of the people who do it anyway! And she was. There was a file titled passwords. Halfway down, under modem was "bank: R$mp$n$–g5ng5r.” I’d owe the gods big time for this.

  I was in! I could see her account history for the entire year. It told me nothing I couldn’t have guessed. Slowly, and surely painfully, she’d made deposits of two to three hundred dollars swelling the balance till it reached $6,753.93. There’d been monthly checks of $200.00 to the Ginger Rampono Fund but no withdrawals until two weeks ago when she’d written a check to Central Cyclery for $6,532.99 and another, dated Monday, to Rampono Fund for $220.00.

  The Ginger Rampono Fund?

  I Googled. "Ginger Rampono was orphaned four years ago at the age of eleven. She was a passenger in the car when her mother was killed in one of the city’s most dangerous intersections. Without relatives, Ginger has been placed in foster care. This fund has been set up to help with the kind of expenses foster care does not cover and to offer her a better future.” The image accompanying it was a picture of a thin, brown-haired child in jeans and a sweatshirt. The look on her face said: You’re making me do this, but you can’t make me like it. She was all but sticking out her tongue.

  It did make me like her.

  I got out my phone and tapped in the number. The message recording was in a woman’s voice, a soft voice, but breaking up. I moved to the window hoping the problem was dead spots in this building, hit redial, and waited, using the time to check the layout outside—garbage cans, fence, grimy stucco building beyond. "You’ve reached the office of Jessica Silverman, manager. I’m in the office Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, from—”

  The blow came out of nowhere.

  16

  I’ve had worse hits when stunts have gone bad. They say a knockout interferes with the circuitry so that the memory is never recorded in the brain. Maybe. But I remembered the crack on my skull, the sharp thwack and the muffled mess of noise, the green wave of incredible pain. I remembered lurching forward, grabbing for something to hold me up, and watching my hands slide down the window till I crumbled to the floor and hit my head again.

  The blow had come out of nowhere—

  Well, hardly. It had come from someone watching till I turned my back to the doorway, someone who knew where to stand and keep me in sight.

  Now, seconds? Minutes later? The bagpipes still blasted. My head throbbed, and a mishmash of colors swirled. I felt the carpet underneath my hand, my head. I was on the floor! Automatically I jumped up and stood tall. Injured? Not me! I’m ready for the next gag! Keep me on the payroll!

  The room was empty, the door open. I started to run down the hall. By the second step I was using all my concentration just to stay upright. Hands against the walls, I lunged forward. Blasts of bagpipe burst against my skull. I felt like I was in a war zone. "Hello!” I tried to focus, peering into the mire of the living room. Was he on the floor, out cold? Dead? "Hello!” I could barely remember what the guy looked like.

  I steadied myself then lunged for the sofa and balancing against its si
de stepped around to the back, expecting to find a body crumbled behind. Nothing there! "Hey!” The noise stopped. I shouted into the silence. "You! Byron!”

  "What?” he called from another room.

  "Are you okay?”

  "Yeah. Why?” He was in the doorway, holding what appeared to be a half-eaten peanut butter sandwich. He looked just fine, like nothing had happened. He stared at me. "Jesus, you’re all bloody. Did you fall?”

  "Yeah, I fell—after whoever you let in hit me!”

  "I didn’t let anyone—”

  "I’m not making up this blood. So, either you answered the door and—”

  "Door’s open.”

  I turned. It was. "And you didn’t find that alarming?”

  He shrugged. "We leave it that way. Otherwise . . . I forgot to open it this morning. Almost didn’t hear you ringing the bell. Before—a couple weeks ago—UPS tried three times and I never heard them. And that was about a computer I was waiting for.”

  I braced myself against the couch. Had I misjudged this guy? I had to make him believe I could still kick ass if I had to, but it was taking everything in me to do it. "Look, there are two of us, alone here, and someone hit me.”

  "Why would I—”

  "Why would anyone?” The bagpipes let up. The sudden lack of noise buffetted my ears.

  Why would anyone attack me? Who knew I was here?

  Oh, shit!

  I couldn’t call the cops. I sure couldn’t admit this to anyone in my family. In for a lamb, in for mutton stew.

  Don’t assume, Leo was always telling me. Odds were on Declan Serrano, but Tessa’s roommate was right here. Still, why would he attack me? We were strangers; our only connection was her.

  Maybe I wasn’t the target at all. "Did anyone ever threaten Tessa?”

  "Nah. Why would they?”

  "People get threatened.”

  "Yeah, but like dealers or pimps or smugglers.”

  "There are stalkers.

  He laughed, actually laughed. "Listen, no one’s going to go after Tessa. Guys aren’t fighting over her; they don’t know she’s there. She could be hot, but, trust me, she’s not. Makes no effort.”

  I was having trouble listening. I’d started feeling queasy.

  "She doesn’t get out enough to piss anyone off. Like, her cell never rings. Living with her is the closest thing to living alone. Days go by without me even seeing her.”

  I let myself slump onto the couch proper and lean, thankfully, against the back. "Did she say anything about the guy she worked for?”

  "We don’t talk much.”

  "You live together.”

  He glanced at the room. "Not really. I mean we both have to live here, so we do. We’re polite. But shoot the breeze? No. There are times I’ve passed her on the street and she hasn’t bothered to say hello. Why should she? We’re both in the kitchen here and we don’t say hello.”

  I was watching for signs of unease or one of those odd tics liars have, but there was something else in his manner. "You don’t talk much. Talk some, though, right? She said something a bit odd, right? Maybe a guy less perceptive would’ve missed it, but it made you what? Suspicious? Uneasy?”

  "Don’t fucking patronize me, like not keeping my eye on her means there’s something wrong with me.” He flung the rest of his sandwich toward a trash can, watched it wobble on the edge and fall to the floor.

  "Come on!” I pressed harder. "There was.”

  "Okay, yeah. She called me.”

  "She had your cell number?”

  "And I had hers. You know, like just in case. Like I could check to see if she’d be home when the UPS guy came. I mean, even with the door open they don’t go sticking boxes inside. A couple times I ordered a pizza on the way home and needed her to pay for it.”

  "Convenient for you.”

  "That’s what my girlfriend said. And yeah, it’s true. But I paid her back and she didn’t complain.”

  "But once she did call you.”

  "Yeah, and it was odd in itself. It’s the only time.”

  "When was that?”

  "Three days ago. She called. I didn’t pick up. I was at my girlfriend’s and I forgot the phone. So I didn’t check messages until I got back here.”

  "What’d she say?”

  "Nothing. I mean, nothing that mattered. 'Call me.’ Something like that. But here’s the odd thing. She didn’t use her own phone. I didn’t recognize the number and I knew hers because, you know, I’d called it a few times. Well, more than a few. But this was a different number.”

  "What’d she say when you called back? You did, didn’t you?”

  "Yeah, I did.” He sighed. "I would’ve right away if I hadn’t forgotten the phone. But I called as soon as I got the message.”

  "And?”

  "She didn’t answer. But here’s the weird thing—the number she called from was at the Mark Hopkins.”

  "The Mark Hopkins Hotel?” The Mark Hopkins Hotel on Nob Hill? "She was having a drink there?”

  "No. She was staying there. Room 1701. She spent the night there.”

  "She lives here and she spent the night at one of the priciest hotels in the city?” She’d emptied her bank account to buy the bike. How could she pay for a hotel room? "Had she ever stayed in a hotel before?”

  "No way.”

  "Spent the night somewhere, just to get away from the noise?”

  "If she could afford a night in a hotel she wouldn’t have to live here.”

  "Point taken. So what’d she say when she came home?”

  "She didn’t. I mean come home. At least I haven’t seen her. Not since then.”

  "Weren’t you even curious?”

  "You’re thinking she was shaking up with some high roller?” He shook his head. "I don’t know Tessa well, but I do know this: whatever she was doing there, there was a good reason, a good but tedious reason for it.”

  "But—”

  "Believe me.”

  I pushed myself up and walked, still unsteadily, my head aching down the hall. Standing in her doorway, I kept trying to make sense of what happened here. Just before the attack I’d been looking at her bank account. Then I’d been looking out the window at the blank wall next door, trying to make out the Ginger Rampono Fund woman’s message. But now . . . now, the computer was gone!

  I walked back into the living room. "What do you know about Ginger Rampono?”

  "Some kind of Thai food?”

  "Tessa was interested in a girl with that name.”

  "Really?”

  "Never mind.”

  I was halfway out the door, figuring which route I’d take to the Mark Hopkins, when I had a thought about what I should have asked first thing. "Where’s her bike? Did she keep it in her room?”

  "She had a bike? Damn, there are times I could’ve used that.”

  I’ll bet, I thought. As a roommate you’re as much use as a gerbil. And probably less curious. Did she live here in spite of that or because of it?

  17

  She’s across the street, behind a Land Cruiser, leaning on the bike, keeping out of sight and watching the doorway to the building where she’s spent so many ear-assaulting hours. Why was there an inverse relation between talent and volume?

  For the first time since she got the word about the attack on Ginger, she thinks about the phone message. After she’d hung up on the Channel 4 person, she’d swung onto the bike and ridden. Just ridden. She hadn’t intend to come here, she’d just ridden hard for downtown like she’d done before, leaning low over the bar, moving through the burn, choosing busy streets, weaving around buses, between cars, going too fast for thoughts to catch up. Five hours of life left; she hadn’t wanted to waste it thinking what ifs. When she’d found herself in the Outer Mission, blocks from here, she’d thought of her old sweater. It wouldn’t be as clean as that red jacket last night, but that wasn’t her problem. It’d be freezing out there on the bridge.

  But now she’s thinking about the phone, t
he message from the airline, that tells her she was scheduled to fly to Miami Sunday morning. Maybe she’s in the Bahamas, or Cuba, or the Caymans by now. Tessa Jurovik has flown off.

  She clicks on the phone and puts in the number she recognized earlier. When it’s picked up, she says, "Things are different now. Quite different. You may think you’ve shown you can get to me any time you want, but I can get to you tonight. We need to talk.”

  She expects screaming, threats, but the whole conversation is businesslike. As they both understand, the power has flipped. Now they’re both on to the next move. "Where?”

  She needs a place that’s secluded, but not too secluded. She’s not a fool. "Ferry Building, outside, by the north end wall. Five o’clock.” She’s terrified she’s leaving too much time, time to do something to Ginger. Maybe she should—

  "Can’t then. Make it seven.”

  Seven—after sunset when the bridge walkway is closed. Too late to jump. She’s going to be all right. She’s going to be able to live! She can barely get the word out: "Okay.”

  She clicks off and leans back against the van. She’s barely feeling anything now, not heat or cold, or hearing sound. She’s exhausted, exhilarated, wary, very wary, and now that she’s going to live, ravenous.

  18

  As I walked down the stairs to the sidewalk I could understand why Tessa’s roommate, Byron, had leapt at the idea of an available bike—and why Tessa, doubtless, had never let him see hers. From the apartment it was a hike to the 24th Street BART station, farther to the J Church streetcar. There had to be buses but I didn’t know them. If I’d thought there was the remotest chance of using Tessa’s Campagnolo, I’d’ve made myself a pain in the butt over it, too.

  A horn honked at the curb. "We’re on!”

  It took me a second to realize the man was calling to me, another to see it was Macomber Dale, the embodiment of self-satisfaction sitting in his Mercedes.