The driver’s head poked out the window. “Idiot!” he yelled. “Look before you walk into traffic! Fucking cell phone!”
The girl pushed herself up, face dead white, and defiantly snapped open her phone. The driver reached for the door, hesitated, shook his head, and shot off down the hill.
“I knew what I was doing!” The girl’s voice was shaky. Karen started to reach out to her and caught herself. “I wasn’t going to get hit! You didn’t need to shove me!”
“Sorry. You okay?”
“Fine. I’m fine. I didn’t need any . . . Well, maybe you . . . Maybe I . . .”
Karen shrugged. “Never mind.”
The girl gave her a nod and hurried across the roadway and down the steps, her flip-flops slapping the pavement.
Karen watched her go, and I had the sense she was more undone than the girl.
“Are
you
okay, Karen?”
“Maybe I did overreact. Car wasn’t
that
close.”
“They come at a good clip down this road. But listen, if you’ve got to err—. Like you said yourself, things happen.”
“I—” She swallowed and for an instant I thought she was going to cry, or laugh. Instead, she stared up at the tree tops until her face shifted into the same expression she’d had looking at Washington Square. “What a great park! Smell the trees! In Alaska we waited so long for spring we hated to miss a moment of sun or scent. Is that a cedar? The tower? How tall is it?” She eyed the obelisk that commemorated the firemen who saved the city after the 1906 great earthquake and fire.
“Hundred feet.”
“More. Surely more.”
“You’re right, of course. I was thinking of a koan.”
“How do you step off the hundred-foot pole?”
“Yeah,” I said, surprised. “How’d you know? Are you a Buddhist?”
“No. I just read it somewhere. Love the idea. Maybe someday, when I have more time . . .”
The path ended at the boulevard. Cars in the up lane idled in line. In the down lane, one paused at the stop sign, then drove smugly on.
“How do you progress off a hundred-foot pole?” I’d chewed on that particular koan in my time. It was intended to be about life after
enlightenment, but for me it was just about life. I knew how to push my way up in a business where the standards were for men, how to make myself climb higher than anyone thought I could, do stunts others had failed at, how to balance on the top in the wind. I could climb the pole, but to step off, into nothingness, that was a whole ’nother thing. “So, Karen, how
do
you step off the hundred-foot pole?”
“You let go.”
“A hundred feet up?”
“You step off the pole and the rules don’t matter anymore, because you’re already dead.”
“Wow. Spoken like a roshi.”
“No, listen, I just mean—it’s logical isn’t it? Better to take your shot downfield than hang on waiting to get sacked.”
The football reference surprised me, coming from her. “But still—”
“Falling, you only break your neck.” The path ended and she started across the road. A car jerked left to avoid her. She stepped back, shrugged, and said, “You’re a stunt double. Maybe you
don’t
break your neck if you do it right. What d’you think?”
“You couldn’t pay me enough. But that’s not the Zen answer. Actually, it’s never the Zen answer.”
She let out a laugh as if the oddly unnerving interchange had never occurred. The cars backed up and she scooted around the line, skirting the stopped cars, jumping back as passengers got out to walk while their local hosts sat in the exhaust-snorting line. She was taking it all in like it glistened. She reminded me of how I’d felt at the end of long Zen sesshins, walking down the street after days of sitting zazen and seeing everything crisp and bright and wonderful.
I wondered the same thing I had half an hour ago: Who was this woman who needed a babysitter? Who was this non-Buddhist who’d
danced around this koan like it was a Maypole? I hesitated, then decided: “Karen,” I said when we got to the circle at the top, “you want to get dinner?”
She started, then a smile spread across her face. “I’d really like that. But my treat. Let’s go somewhere really nice. Somewhere”—she caught my eye and laughed—“above our element.”
“How far above do you have in mind?”
“One of those places you need to seriously bribe the maitre d’. Somewhere with a view.”
I glanced at my watch: 5:02. “I’m going to have to go get ready for my stunt. But listen, it’s at California and Market. Why don’t you come down and watch when you’re done with Gary? It’s a car gag, bouncing off a runaway cable car. A pretty big deal. Water gushing. Ambulances and fire trucks all over. They’re going to close Market Street and the Embarcadero. I’ll leave word to let you onto the set. The schedule calls for a twilight shot, but I can’t swear how long it’ll run. Come around eight. If it’s still going, you can watch the action. If it’s over, we’ll go eat.” I added, “Above our element.”
“Sure,” she said, so offhandedly it was hard not to feel dismissed.
A horn honked. I turned to glare. “Hang on, Karen, that’s my brother.”
“The missing one!”
“No, no. My oldest brother. Give me a minute, okay?”
She looked at me curiously. “Darcy . . .”
“Yes?”
“Nothing.”
“No, tell me!”
“Okay. None of my business, but . . . your missing brother. You don’t want to beat yourself up. ‘If only I’d noticed . . .’ ‘If only I hadn’t said . . .’ you know? I don’t mean to intrude, but you assume something happened
and he fell off the pole. Maybe he made a bad decision afterwards. It’s easy to jump; hard to climb back on.”
I didn’t know what to say. I wondered what Gary had told her, and why.
“None of my business. It’s just I’ve had friends . . . and . . . don’t be so hard on yourself.”
The horn beeped again. I headed toward it and when I turned back, Karen was walking toward the parapet.
John was pulling into a legal parking spot, something he rarely troubled to do. That meant he hadn’t swung around the waiting traffic, Code 3’d it up the down lane, and parked in the crosswalk, which would have saved him twenty minutes. He was dressed in a suit that fit better than any I’d seen on him. He looked good; he looked
not
like a cop. “You here on a case?” I asked, leaning into his car window.
He ignored my question—his family trademark—and opened the door, forcing me to jump back. I took that to mean Yes. He put an arm around my shoulder and walked us toward the west side of the circle. I have affectionate siblings, but John is not one of them. His arm around my shoulder historically meant I was about to hear something unlikely to improve my day.
“Amazing view, huh?”
“Yeah, John. Same as it’s been for a century.” I shifted my shoulders, but he held on tight. “You passing yourself off as a tourist? Keeping an eye on someone who can’t spot an unmarked?”
“Just here to think.”
“About annexing my shoulder?”
“About Mike.”
“You drove an unmarked car, sat in a line of exhaust-spewing cars for twenty minutes, so you could park your official vehicle in a civilian spot
in a crowded tourist attraction and not look at the view, all so you could have some thought about Mike that you haven’t considered in the twenty years since he disappeared?”
“This new lead you think you’ve got. You’re not going to find anything there.”
He squeezed my shoulder in a way he never had the entire time he was barking orders and complaining that we younger kids were out of control. Something was going on with my oldest, stiffest, most wary-making brother. I waited.
“I’ve been all over. I’ve checked every possible lead from San Diego to Seattle and beyond. I’ve had PIs on retainer.”
“And you kept them all to yourself? Did you think—”
“You want to hear about each dead end?”
I turned toward John, trying to read him. “This conversation could be about Mike, but it’s not, is it? What’s the matter, John? Are you okay?”
“Sure.” He bent near and hugged me. I was so stunned I didn’t move. Then I hugged him back, feeling like I was in the middle of a stunt and hadn’t read the script.
“Who’s your friend?”
I followed his gaze and saw Karen through John’s eyes: a slim, attractive blonde checking her phone messages as she waited for one of the telescopes to free up. She caught his eye and smiled, a sweet, longing expression. He wasn’t a bad looking guy. None of the star quality of Gary, but he was in decent shape, graying at the temples, and today sporting a lime green shirt that set off the green in his eyes, evincing a sartorial concern I’d never seen him show before. He’d sure dressed for someone. But not Karen. As for her, I felt sure she ached not for John, but for the sweet closeness she assumed we shared. John, though, was seeing something entirely
different. He was smiling back with a hesitant, vulnerable expression. His whole being screamed: vulnerable.
Be careful, big brother! You’re out of your league with her. What you need—
What he needed was to snap him back to himself. “You’ve had a PI on retainer? And he’s never found a lead to Mike? Maybe what he’s found is a patsy.”
“Patsy! You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ah, that was the John I knew.
He put his arm back around my shoulder, but this time to herd me to the walkway where he could hold forth more privately. “I don’t walk onto your movie sets and decide I can do stunts, do I? But you assume you can do missing persons better than the police. I’m the professional, I—”
“John!”
“What!”
“Your car. That’s your car! Someone’s stealing your car!”
A woman screamed and grabbed a toddler, as the car shot past. Karen Johnson was at the wheel.
3
“SHE STOLE MY CAR!” John yelled at me as the unmarked shot across the parking circle onto the exit road.
I ran after. Skidded to a stop. No way I’d catch her. The exit road had no traffic, and only one stop sign. You don’t boost a police car, then brake for stop signs.
I raced for the sidewalk, jumped the parapet into the trees and underbrush. It wasn’t a dead drop but close. I skidded tree to tree. Below was the Lombard curve where the road ended. I had to catch her there. If she beat me, she’d be out into the warren of North Beach streets, in an unmarked black car made to draw no attention.
I slammed into exposed roots, grabbed for a tree trunk, swung around it. The hill was steeper, rockier, the drop to the curve almost straight down. I shot a glance at the road. Car barreling down. A family started across, jaywalking. Car kept coming.
“Karen!” I yelled. “Karen! Stop!”
She wasn’t braking. Wasn’t slowing. She was going to hit them.
“Get back! Get your kids on the sidewalk!”
A siren shrieked. I stumbled, leapt, landed hard ten feet down on the cement.
The car shot by, siren suddenly keening. The family huddled at the edge of the macadam; the woman flat out on the cement.
I ran into the road, after the car. Karen turned left onto a side street—out of the park, into North Beach—and when I reached the street she was gone. There was only one way she could have turned, but at the next corner there were more options and more at the next after that. She was out of sight, but in the distance, the siren screamed. The siren was still on!
No problem. I stopped, gasping for breath. John would have called in the theft. By now every patrol car in North Beach would be closing in. The woman had been an idiot to steal the car, and a lucky idiot not to have killed anyone, but now, pinpointing herself with the siren, she was just a run-of-the-mill dolt.
I stood, catching my breath, listening for new sirens, for sirens converging. Instead, silence. I tried to gauge where the sound last came from. No luck. I dug out my phone and called Gary. Gary’s machine. “Gar, get ready for a call from Karen. Whatever trouble she had an hour ago, it’s nothing to what she’s in now. She stole John’s car, his unmarked police car! Hey, what the hell’s going on? Call me!”
I hurried up the path. I needed to get to my brother before backup arrived. Before a uniform scooped him up and spit him out at the scene of Karen’s arrest, wherever that would be. How was I going to explain this to John? I slowed my pace. I couldn’t explain it to myself! I liked Karen. Liked that despite whatever was going on with her, she was interested in Mike. And me.
Don’t beat yourself up!
She’d paused to say that on her way to steal the car!
I was impressed by her immediate, certain response to the hundred-foot pole koan.
You are atop a hundred-foot pole. How do you proceed?
Letting go, I knew from reading rather than experience, meant not releasing your grasp and falling in terror, but rather stepping out of the past,
out of who you are, into the next moment, whatever that moment brings. It was about walking though a door to the unknown. But was it stepping out of your life as a soon-to-be-divorced woman to drive away in a stolen police car?
What could possibly have spurred her to do such a crazy thing? Chance? The keys, obviously, had been in the ignition.
That
was going to make John look great. “Just-so John,” as he was called behind his back in the department, was now going to be just a laughingstock. Cops don’t leave the keys in the car. Civilians in San Francisco don’t leave their keys, not unless they’re hot to be pedestrians. The one small saving grace for him would be the muzzling of his biggest fun-poker—Gary would be silent, indeed.
Gary with his hush-hush client, John suddenly gone irresponsible, and . . . Karen . . . What the hell was going on here? I needed time to think. But time was the one thing I didn’t have.
A couple speaking German ambled down the steps. I veered around them and headed up. I wanted to beat the reinforcements John would have called, but not by too much.
What could have made Karen pull a crazy stunt like stealing a police car? I asked again, as if it was the koan. I was walking slowly now.