Tales of the City 01 - Tales of the City

…”
    “No. I can feel her. You think it’s a girl, huh?”
    “Yes.”
    “So do I. Have you picked out a name yet?”
    “No. Not yet.”
    “Name her Anna, will you?”
    “Anna?”
    “I’ve … always liked the name.”
    Smiling again, he kept his hand pressed against the warm new life. “Hello, Anna,” he said. “How the hell are you?”

The Golden Gate
    B UNDLED UP AGAINST THE WIND, MARY ANN AND Michael set out across the bridge on New Year’s Day. “I’ve never done this,” she said. “I can’t believe it,” he grinned. “There’s something you’ve never done?”
    “Lay off, Michael!”
    He squeezed her arm. “You’ve had a busy year, Lucrezia.”
    “Michael, look! You can joke about it with me, but we’ve got to be very, very careful about …”
    “You think I don’t know what being an accomplice means?”
    “I’m still so freaked out about it I could die!” Michael leaned against the rail. “Show me where it happened.”
    She looked faintly annoyed, then nodded toward the cliffs. “Over there. See where that buoy is? Right behind it.” He pointed at the buoy. “ That one?”
    “Don’t point, Michael!”
    “Why?”
    “Somebody’ll see you.”
    “Oh, please! The body hasn’t even turned up yet.”
    “But it could. It could turn up at any time.”
    “So?”
    “Well, it’s possible that the police could think it was … foul play. And it’s possible that some witness somewhere could identify me as the person who was with him at the museum. And … there are lots of things that could implicate me in …”
    “I still don’t see why the hell you just didn’t report the accident. It was an accident, wasn’t it?”
    “Yes!”
    He grinned. “Just checking.”
    “Michael … if I tell you something, will you swear on a stack of Bibles that you’ll never, ever tell another living soul?”
    “You think I’d cross you, baby? I’ve seen what you do to your enemies!”
    “Forget it.”
    “No, please! I promise! C’mon, tell me.”
    She studied him sternly, then said, “Norman wasn’t just a pornographer, Michael.”
    “Huh?”
    “He was a private eye.”
    “Jesus! How do you know?”
    “He told me. Right before he fell. He also told me he was working on a big case that was going to make him a lot of money. It made me start to wonder about why he came to Barbary Lane in the first place and why he would question me about … certain things.”
    “Wow! Go on!”
    “Well … when I got back to the house after … you know … I got his spare key out of the basement again and went through his room again. And this time the child porn didn’t stop me!”
    Michael whistled. “Nancy Drew, eat your heart out!”
    “He had a huge file, Michael. And do you know what he was investigating?”
    “What?”
    “Mrs. Madrigal!”
    “What!”
    “I couldn’t believe it, either.”
    “Well, what did it say?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Now wait a minute!”
    “I burned it, Michael. I took it back to my room and burned it in a trash can. Why do you think I was late for the party?”
    Down the Peninsula at Cypress Lawn Cemetery, a woman in a paisley turban climbed out of a battered automobile and trudged up the hillside to a new grave.
    She stood there for a moment, humming to herself, then removed a joint from a tortoise-shell cigarette case and laid it gently on the grave.
    “Have fun,” she smiled. “It’s Colombian.”

Afterword by the Author
    When a novel has survived for twenty years, it’s virtually on its own. It goes gallivanting all over the place without so much as a postcard home to its bewildered parent. Royalty sheets can offer some clues as to its whereabouts, but not the sort of vivid personal details the author really cares about. That’s why I relish the stories readers pass along about Tales of the City, it’s enormously gratifying to have anecdotal evidence about the travels of my firstborn.
    I’ve been told, for instance, that somewhere in a German zoo there’s an African elephant who was christened Mouse by a trainer who’d fallen in love with Michael Tolliver. (I’ve never met this elephant, but I’ve seen pictures, so I dote on him like a family pet). Likewise, I hear there’s an alley in London recently named Madrigal after the doyenne of 28 Barbary Lane. And just last week I learned of the existence of Madrigal House, yet another tribute to the landlady, this one a homeless shelter in Brooklyn for gay and lesbian youth.
    Here in