Where Echoes Live (24 page)

Back in the kitchen, I shooed the cats outside, poured myself a cup of coffee, and took all three volumes of the city phone directory to the table. There was no listing for geologists under Professional Associations in the Yellow Pages, but in the State of California section of the White Pages I found a Sacramento number for the Board of Registration for Geologists and Geophysicists.

I called the number, explained that my firm was considering hiring Alvin K. Knight for a consulting job, and asked if they could supply any information about him. The man who had answered said the employee who could help me with that would not be in until afternoon; could she return my call? I left All Souls' number.

After that I dialed Lionel Ong's home; as I'd expected, the phone rang repeatedly. I called Transpacific Corporation and was put through to his secretary; she said Ong hadn't come in yet. When I explained I was a journalist working on a partially completed interview for the Sino-American Alliance's magazine and urgently needed to speak with Mr. Ong, she was vague about the time he would arrive in the office. I thought I heard an undertone of confusion and tension in the woman's voice.

Finally I called the Erickson condominium in Barbary Park. A brief recorded message in a male voice told me that Mick and Margot were unavailable at the moment but would get back to me as soon as possible.

I hung up before the beep, certain Margot wouldn't return a call, but the voice—which had to be Mick's—haunted me. After a moment I took my coffee outside to the deck and wandered aimlessly, contemplating the tangle of rosebushes next to it. Their late bloom was nearly over; what blossoms remained were stunted and shriveled. Once again I heard Mick Erickson saying “unavailable” and “as soon as possible.”

Permanently unavailable, I thought, and what had seemed possible when he'd made the recording was now and for all time beyond his grasp. Perhaps someday my own taped voice would outlive me, speak to my friends and relatives as if from the grave….

It was unwise to dwell on such thoughts, even in the bright morning sunlight. I went back inside, glancing impatiently at the kitchen clock. Ten-seventeen. Why the hell hadn't Rae called yet? She'd said she'd go to City Hall and check the ownership of the Telegraph Hill building first thing.

My briefcase and the recorder containing the tape of the Ong interview were still in the car. I went down to the garage and fetched them, then replayed the tape. Nothing there that had any real bearing on my investigation; I'd only gotten to the questions I'd added to the prepared interview when Ong's phone rang. Next I went through my notes on the case, scribbled at random in the small loose-leaf notebook I keep in my purse. Facts, impressions, suppositions, theories. Some I starred or underlined; others I drew big Xs through. But this was just busywork. What I really wanted was to hear from Rae.

After fifteen more minutes I called All Souls, thinking she might have forgotten I'd said to call here if I wasn't in the office. No message from her, but there were two others: from Marcy Cheung, asking how the interview had gone, and from Kristen Lark in Mono County, inquiring as to my progress with the case.

“Hank also wants to talk with you about …” Ted paused. I could hear him riffling through message slips. “About that business you discussed with him late yesterday afternoon. He's taking a deposition now, will be free around noon.”

“Tell him I'll check in there later.”

I broke the connection and called the Sino-American Alliance. Cheung's line was busy. The receptionist put me on hold, came back a few minutes later. “Still busy.”

“Are you sure she hasn't just taken it off the hook?”

A sigh. “I
did
hear some cursing back there a while ago.”

“Would you mind checking? I really need to speak with her.”

“Hold, please.”

About half a minute later Cheung's voice said, “Sharon— sorry. The idiot printer … but you don't want to hear about that. How did it go with Ong?”

“He cut the interview short, but I think I've got enough that you can run it.”

“You get what you needed, too?”

“Not exactly. Look, are you going to be there over the noon hour? I'd like to drop the tape off and ask you a few additional questions.”

“I'll probably be here the rest of my life, the way things are going. Why don't you pick up a couple of sandwiches and come by around twelve-thirty? There's some Tsing Tsao beer in the office fridge, left over from one of our receptions.”

“Will do. See you then.”

Now the question was what to do about Kristen Lark's call. I didn't really want to talk with the deputy until I had a firmer handle on what was going on. Meaning a better idea of what had happened to Lionel Ong … and why Alvin Knight was so nervous about talking with me without Ong's okay … and what Ripinsky's connection with both men was … and why he and Knight assumed Ong would eventually turn up in Mono County … and who had beaten up Margot Erickson….

I decided to ignore Lark's message for now.

When Rae called, it was close to eleven-thirty, and I'd scoured the kitchen sink and accomplished the distasteful task of cleaning out the vegetable drawer. “What have you got for me?” I demanded before she could engage in any pleasantries.

“The building on Tel Hill belongs to Transpacific Corporation.”

I'd suspected as much, and it dovetailed with something Marcy Cheung had told me—that Ong kept a Caucasian mistress in a company-owned condominium on Telegraph Hill. But Margot Erickson, the wife of his business associate? The woman I'd rated as a truth-teller, who had claimed she and her husband had not known Ong well, had seen him socially only a few times in the past five years? My abilities at sizing up people really seemed to be slipping.

“Shar?”

“Rae, thanks. Have you been able to get a line on Hopwood's daughter?”

“I'm on my way to Vital Statistics now.”

“Now? Why were you so late getting down there?”

A silence. Then she said a trifle testily, “I overslept this morning. I was up late last night entertaining your mother while you were off God knows where, and she's not an easy lady to keep pace with. Holds her liquor far better than I do.”

“Well, I didn't ask you to entertain her—or to drink yourself into a hangover. And the ‘God knows where' that I was off to was a stakeout.”

Another long pause. “I didn't mind entertaining her, Shar. We had fun. It's called having a life. Maybe you should try that sometime.” And then she hung up on me.

I blinked in surprise and just sat there, the receiver still pressed to my ear. Throughout our worst times Rae had never spoken to me like that, much less hung up on me. Our relationship, both professional and personal, had broken down completely, and I wasn't sure what I should do about it.

The dial tone bored into my eardrum. I set the receiver down. A clearing of the air between my assistant and me had become necessary, and I knew it had better happen soon. But first I had to set out on my self-appointed rounds.

Said rounds began at Ong's house, still silent and deserted in the noonday sun. At Barbary Park I couldn't get past the security guard in the lobby. When I called up to the Erickson town house, the Filipino maid answered and said her employer had gone out of town, but I doubted that, since there had been a notice in the morning paper of a memorial service to be held for Mick tomorrow afternoon. I left a message for Margot to call me as soon as she returned, then drove over to Telegraph Hill. No one answered my ring at any of the three apartments in the Transpacific-owned building.

I arrived at the Sino-American Alliance half an hour late but bearing two pastrami-and-cheese sandwiches, two enormous garlic dills, and a small container of potato salad. Cheung was hunched over the light table examining a batch of color slides; her mouth dropped open when she saw the injuries to my face.

“Not Ong,” I said quickly. “I had a run-in with a reluctant witness.”

She picked up on the finality of my tone and tactfully didn't press me for details. After she'd enthusiastically pawed through the contents of the lunch sack, she went to fetch the promised beers, and as before, we settled down on the floor of the office. I'd felt so rotten that morning that I'd been certain I wouldn't eat all day; now my appetite had returned to its normal ravenous level.

I expected Cheung to play the cassette of the interview, but she merely tossed it on her desk and attacked her sandwich. When I asked if she didn't want to listen to the tape, she waved the suggestion aside. “Whatever you've got, I'll use it. It's the son of a bitch's own fault that he ducked out before you were finished.”

I toyed with my pickle, wondering how far I could trust Cheung. She watched me with keen reporter's eyes, again picking up on a nuance but not prying. After a moment I opted for confiding in her; after all, she'd trusted me enough to allow me to do something that could have gotten her into serious trouble with her employer. I said, “Ong didn't exactly duck out, and I'm not sure he went voluntarily.”

She raised her eyebrows, mouth full of pastrami.

After swearing her to secrecy, I recounted what had happened at Ong's house.

“Damnedest thing,” she said when I finished. “What do you suppose happened to him?”

“I don't know what to think. My boss theorizes that I was set up—that Ong wanted a witness to a staged disappearance. But another person connected with the case—the murder victim—also arranged something along those lines, and I'm not sure I can buy two such incidents.”

“So maybe he was kidnapped.”

“Maybe. But then why no ransom demands?”

“You don't know but what they've already been made. It's not something the police or FBI would issue a press release on.”

“True. I wish I could find out.”

“Let's see if I can help you.” Cheung reached for the phone cord and hauled the instrument toward her from where it sat under her desk. “I know Lionel's secretary fairly well. I'll call and say I need to check some facts with him for the interview piece. Even if she won't tell me anything, I can get a feel for the situation.” She dialed, asked for Ong's office. And waited.

“Funny,” she said, cupping her hand over the mouthpiece. “Lynn hardly ever goes out to lunch, but they're switching me to the message center.”

“Leave one and see if she returns the call.”

She did, then went back to her lunch. “So what do you plan to do?” she asked. “Go to the police?”

“If there is a ransom demand and the authorities are called in, I'll have to tell them what I know. But my boss has advised me to keep out of it otherwise. He's afraid of a suit against me and the co-op if I'm wrong about what happened.”

“Lawyers. They all ought to be shot.”

“Sometimes I agree with you—and yet most of my good friends are lawyers.”

“Well, some of them have their human side, and the ones at All Souls are the best of the lot. Look at Koslowski—he's trying to save the world with his protein drink.”

“Yes, and he'll probably end up poisoning us all.” I finished my pickle and began to pick the sandwich apart, eating only the cheese and pastrami. “Marcy, I need to know more about Lionel Ong. The other day you mentioned a couple of mistresses, one in Sausalito and the other on Telegraph Hill. Do you know anything more about either of them?”

“Not much. The one in Sausalito I've only heard rumors of—something about the two of them liking to sail together and him buying her a boat. The other I could probably find out about; I've got a friend who's been to the condo and met her.”

“Would you? I need an address, a name. A description of her, if nothing else.”

“Sure.” She checked her watch. “He won't be in the office now—he's one of these fellows who's either lunching with the mayor or sitting conspicuously at the next table to remind him he owes him a favor—but I'll catch him later on and get back to you.”

“Thanks.” I gave up on the sandwich and folded its wrappings around the ruins. “It amazes me how close-knit the Chinese community is; you seem to know everybody.”

She shrugged. “We're very interdependent; it stems from our traditional reliance on the extended family. And we've had to be that way: our people have taken a lot of shit in this country. Remember the Exclusion Act of eighteen eighty-two? The ‘heathen Chinee' are the only ethnic group in history to be specifically denied entry to the U.S.”

“I remember. But in a way don't you think that all the discrimination helped sustain your ethnic identity? Look at me, for instance: I'm seven-eighths Scotch-Irish plus one-eighth Shoshone, and I don't identify with any group.”

“So what? You want to be one of those idiot liberals that even the Indians can't stand, running around in a headdress and campaigning for Native American rights?”

I grimaced. “No.”

“Good, because then you'd be just another phony jerk, and I wouldn't want to know you.”

I smiled and sipped my beer.

Cheung finished her sandwich and collected the debris from the floor around us. I rummaged through my bag for my cards, thinking to write my home number on the back of one for her, and encountered the scrap of paper on which I'd copied the words from the bottom of the painting in Lionel Ong's office.

“By the way,” I said, holding it out, “can you tell me what this means?”

She glanced at it. “Gum San. It's a colloquialism that roughly translates to ‘Land of the Golden Hills.' ”

Golden Hills. That was what both Ong and Alvin Knight had called the Stone Valley mining project. “Where is it?”

“California as a whole. It's what the Chinese who came here to work in the goldfieids back in the eighteen forties named it. Where did you run across that?”