Tales of the City 02 - More Tales of the City

news.”
    “Don’t play games, Mona. I know he’s your landlord. I know about the sex change, and I know that you know about it.”
    Mona held firm. “I repeat. Why are you here?”
    “Because I have a bloody right to be! He deserted me, Mona! He left me with a child to support! He walked out of my life without leaving so much as a note, and now he thinks he can waltz right back and lay claim to the child he never even—”
    “I am not a child and nobody’s laid claim to me, Betty. I didn’t even know that he—that she was my father until two weeks ago.”
    Betty glared at her in disgust. “And now you’re living with him!”
    “Her.”
    “Did he tell you—oh, pardon me, she —did she, by any chance, tell you what she did with the private detective I hired?”
    “The what?”
    “Mona, darling, this is so much more complicated than you could ever—”
    “Just tell me what you’re talking about.”
    Betty held her daughter’s hand. “Last summer, when you sent me that photograph of your landlady, I saw the similarities immediately, so I hired a private detective to help me find out if it was true.”
    Mona stared in amazement.
    “And,” continued Betty, “he never reported back.”
    “What?”
    “I never heard another word from him. He was living in your house, Mona. At 28 Barbary Lane.”
    “Mr. Williams? That guy on the roof?”
    Betty nodded, holding tight to Mona’s hand. “We stayed in touch by telephone. He called me at least once a week. He said he thought Andy had become … Anna Madrigal, and he told me that Anna Madrigal was an anagram for something. Then he just disappeared.” She let go of Mona’s hand and took a sip of her drink. “Did you know him, Mona?”
    Stunned, Mona shook her head. “Not at all. He was … weird.”
    “I know. He was the best I could round up on short notice. The point is, what happened to him?”
    Mona took a sip of Betty’s gin. “We wondered that too.”
    “We?”
    “Everybody. Including Mrs. Madrigal. She even called the police about it.”
    “I want to see her, Mona. Will you arrange it?”
    A look of wretched resignation came over Mona’s face. “You’ll do it anyway,” she sighed.
    “You’re right,” said Betty. “I will.”

The Rose Incarnate
    I N KEEPING WITH HER NEW STRATEGY, MARY ANN SAID nothing to Burke about the Pacific Union Club. Or about her transubstantiation findings. She kept quiet all through breakfast and all through a leisurely morning walk across Russian Hill.
    Finally, at noon, she excused herself.
    “Jon’s at his office,” she explained. “I promised him I’d keep Mouse company for a while.”
    When she entered Michael’s apartment, the invalid was pacing the room in his wheelchair, his eyes flickering with excitement. “You know what?” he said without preliminaries. “We didn’t even consider the red rose business in our discussion last night.”
    “I got the feeling you guys were OD’ing.”
    Michael smiled. “Not me, Babycakes. I’m hooked. Look, it all comes back to the man with the transplant, doesn’t it?”
    “Maybe. Burke only thinks that the transplant man recognized him.”
    “Assuming he did, then what do we have?”
    “He could be a member of the PU Club, I guess.”
    Michael shook his head. “I suggested that to Jon. He says the PU Club would never admit a hospital florist. Maybe Burke worked as a waiter or something at the PU Club.”
    “It’s hard to picture,” said Mary Ann.
    “OK, then maybe we’re on the wrong track altogether. You know, the Mountain of the Flood could mean just Nob Hill in general.”
    “So what else is there?”
    “Plenty. The Mark, the Huntington, the Fairmont.”
    “Great. A hotel cult.”
    Michael grinned. “You’re stuck in that cult rut, aren’t you?”
    “I don’t know,” groaned Mary Ann. “Sometimes I feel like I made the whole thing up.”
    Michael laughed. “It’s possible. I was looking through some of my old high school lit books this morning—you know, Silas Marner and The Great Gatsby and all that—and I just about cracked up because I had written ‘symbolism’ in the margin on every other page. Christ! In The Great Gatsby I had underlined the word ‘yellow’ every time it appeared.”
    “God!” smiled Mary Ann. “I remember those awful papers, but I don’t get it, Mouse. What does that have to do with all this?”
    “Well, maybe we’re looking for too much symbolism. Everything doesn’t have to mean