Tales of the City 04 - Babycakes

at him for a moment, then said: “What was his name?”
“Well … that’s the unusual part. I don’t remember. He was a bricklayer … a big, strapping fellow. He must be about fifty now.” Come to think of it, I believe he did have a hairless scrotum.
The current occupant shook his head thoughtfully. “How long ago was this?”
“Sixteen years. Nineteen sixty-seven.”
A raspy chuckle. “He must be long gone. The wife and me have been here longer than the other tenants, but that’s just eight years. Sixteen years! No wonder you’ve forgotten his name!”
Michael thanked him and left, accepting the futility of the quest. It didn’t really matter. What would he have said, anyway, had he found his savior? You don’t know me, but thanks for being there first?
The sun was quite warm now and cottony clouds were scudding across the sky, so he crossed the heath again and headed for the wooded mound that locals knew as Boadicea’s tomb. No one really believed that the ancient queen was actually buried under the hillock, but the name endured nonetheless. He had gone there once at midnight, upon reading in The Times that the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids would gather at the site for their Midsummer’s Night ritual. The intrigue had vanished like ectoplasm when he saw for himself that the “Druids” were bank clerks in bedsheets and grandmothers in harlequin glasses.
As another chunk of the past slipped away from him, he sat down on the grass and tilted his face to the sun. Fifty yards below him, a large black sedan crossed the heath slowly, then came to a stop. A woman got out—blond hair, white blouse, gray skirt stopping at midcalf—a striking figure against the endless green of the landscape. She turned in every direction, apparently searching for someone.
He observed her idly for a moment, then sprang to his feet, his mind ablaze with conflicting images.
“Mona!” he shouted.
The woman’s head jerked around to find the source of his voice.
“It’s me, Mona! Mouse!”
The woman froze, then spun on her heel and climbed back into the sedan.
It sped out of sight into the trees.
    Off the Record
T HE DELUGE OF PUBLICITY THAT HIT SIMON AFTER THE broadcast made Mary Ann begin to wonder if it had been too much for him. He seemed to be all right, but he was a funny bird in many ways, and she could rarely tell what was really on his mind. The last thing she wanted was to alienate him.
When the weekend came, she waited until the time was right (Brian had gone to the laundromat) and invited the Englishman to join her on her shopping rounds in North Beach. Half an hour later, all she had to show for it was a pint carton of Molinari’s pickled mushrooms.
“This is your weekly shopping?” Simon asked. They were walking up Columbus toward Washington Square.
She laughed, abandoning the pretense altogether. “I just needed an excuse to get out of the house. I’ve been feeling … cooped up lately.”
“Shall we walk somewhere?” he asked.
“I’d love to,” she replied.
“Where? You’re the local, madam.”
She smiled. She liked it when he called her madam. “I know just the place,” she said.
She walked him up Union Street to the top of Telegraph Hill, then down Montgomery to its junction with the Filbert Steps. “The penthouse directly above us,” she explained, “is the one that Lauren Bacali had in Dark Passage. ”
He craned his muscular, patrician neck. “Really?”
“The one where Bogart has the plastic surgery that makes him look like Bogart. Remember?”
“Of course,” he replied.
“My friend DeDe used to live there.”
“Ah. Do I know about her?”
“The one who escaped from Guyana.”
“Right.”
She led him halfway down the wooden stairway, then brushed off a plank and sat down.
“This is not unlike Barbary Lane,” he remarked, joining her.
She nodded. “There are places like this all over the city. This is technically a city street.”
“The garden is magnificent.”
“The city doesn’t do that,” she told him. “A precious old lady did that—this used to be a garbage dump. She was a stunt woman in Hollywood years ago, and then she moved up here and started planting this. Everybody just calls it Grace’s Garden. She died just before Christmas. Her ashes are under that statue down there.”
He looked faintly amused. “You’re a veritable font of local color.”
“I did a story on her,” she explained.
“I see.” He was teasing her ever so subtly. “Do you do