Tales of the City 02 - More Tales of the City

traveling with”—he lowered his voice to a sinister basso—“a known homosexual.”
    She smiled faintly. “That too.”
    He stared at her for a moment to determine exactly how seriously she had taken him. There were times, even now, when his irony came perilously close to describing the way she felt about things. She winked at him, however, so he continued packing.
    “I love that expression,” he said, without looking up.
    “What?”
    “‘Known homosexual.’ I mean, you never hear about known Southern Baptists, do you? Or known insurance salesmen. And when you’re not a known homosexual, you’re an admitted one. ‘Mr. Farquar, an admitted stockbroker, was found stabbed to death in Golden Gate Park early this—’”
    “Mouse, you’re giving me the creeps!”
    “Sorry.”
    She reached over and squeezed his hand. “I didn’t mean to bark at you. It’s just … well, I’m still a little jumpy about dead people, that’s all.”
    He started to say “I can dig it,” but thought better of it. Instead, he held on to her hand and reassured her for the third or fourth time that week. “It’ll get better, Babycakes. It’s only been two months.”
    Her eyes became moist. “You don’t think we’re … escaping or anything?”
    “From what?”
    She brushed a tear from her eye, shrugged and suggested feebly: “The law?”
    “You haven’t broken any law, Mary Ann.”
    “I didn’t report his death.”
    He fought to be patient with her. They had hashed this out so many times before that the conversation had become ritual. “That guy,” said Michael softly, “was a certified prick. He was a child pornographer, for Christ’s sake. You didn’t push him off that cliff, Mary Ann. His death was an accident. Besides, if you had reported his death, you would have been obligated to tell the police that he was investigating Mrs. Madrigal. And we both love Mrs. Madrigal too much for that, no matter what was in that file.”
    The very mention of the file made Mary Ann shudder. “I never should have burned it, Mouse.”
    So Michael ran through that again. Burning the file, he told her, had been Mary Ann’s most intelligent move. By destroying the private eye’s dossier on Mrs. Madrigal, Mary Ann had scored a twofold triumph: She had kept herself from being privy to information she might have been obligated to pass along to the police. And she had kept the file out of the hands of the police.
    The police had turned up at 28 Barbary Lane as soon as Mrs. Madrigal had reported her tenant missing. Their investigation appeared to have been routine and short-lived. Norman Neal Williams had been a transient, they learned, an itinerant vitamin salesman with no known relatives. His involvement in the child-porn racket surfaced immediately, though Mary Ann feigned ignorance of it.
    She had “gone out with him” several times, she told police. She hadn’t known him well. He had seemed “a little weird” to her at times. And yes, it seemed possible he had moved to another town.
    When the police had gone, Mary Ann had summoned Michael to her apartment, where they pondered the real mysteries of this terrible chapter in her life.
    Did the police know that Norman Neal Williams had been a private eye?
    Did Mrs. Madrigal know that she had been the subject of Williams’ investigation?
    Would Williams’ body turn up in the bay?
    And why would anyone want to investigate a woman as warm and compassionate and … harmless as Anna Madrigal?
    Mexico, of course, was an escape, but not the sort that Mary Ann had meant. Depression and morbidity had settled into her bones like mildew. She would bake it out, she decided, reverting to her adolescent solution for almost everything.
    She tucked a bottle of Coppertone into a side pocket of her American Tourister. “You know what?” she said, her voice ringing with pep-rally optimism.
    “What?”
    “This trip is gonna work for me. I’m gonna meet somebody, Mouse. I know it.”
    “A man, you mean?”
    “Not that you aren’t the best company in the world, Mouse, but I really—”
    “Look, you don’t have to explain that one. I’ve got this dynamite plan, anyway. I spot a guy, right? Lounging out by the ship’s pool, maybe, or … whatever, and I saunter up kind of casual like, with you on my arm all tanned and gorgeous, so that he’s bound to be eating his heart out, and then I say in my very butchest Lee Majors voice, “Hi, guy, I’m Michael Tolliver and this is