The Sourdough Wars

remembered Peter’s discomfort when she’d barged in on us the night before the auction, how eager he was to get rid of her.
    Bob nodded. “Peter dumped her.”

Chapter Eight
    “He’s awful,” said Chris, back in the Volvo.
    “Chris, are you sure you want to go on with this?”
    “I don’t care about Sally and Peter. Not much, anyway—at least their affair argues he wasn’t gay.”
    It didn’t, I thought, but I let it go.
    “I just hate guys like that Bob Tosi, that’s all. So damned sure of himself. Calling me ‘young lady’!”
    I put the car in reverse and backed out of the parking space. “I don’t think he’s so bad. He probably grew up in a very sexist milieu. To hear Anita tell it, that’s how Italian families are.”
    “If I needed that kind of ratatool, I could have stayed in Virginia.”
    “That kind of what?”
    “Crap!”
    “It’s not like anyone’s asking you to go out with him.”
    “Go out with him! I wouldn’t go out with him if he picked me up and threw me over his shoulder.”
    “Okay, okay. What do you want to do instead?”
    “Let’s go see Tony. Maybe he’s nicer.”
    “It’s almost five o’clock—traffic on the bridge’ll be awful. Let’s try Clayton Thompson.”
    We drove to the Stanford Court, and I asked for Thompson on the house phone. He’d checked out.
    “Has he gone back to New York?” As soon as it was out of my mouth, I realized the operator couldn’t possibly know. But she surprised me: “No, ma’am. He left a forwarding address in the Eureka Valley—at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Richards.”
    The Eureka Valley is in the city’s Castro district, the city’s gay ghetto, but a few young married types who’d bought property there before the gays took over in full force still lived there. Some women said they loved it because the streets were always crowded—and not with rapists.
    Mr. and Mrs. Richards didn’t seem to be among the property owners. The address we had was an apartment building, about half a block from Castro Street itself, the center of all the action. There probably wasn’t a rapist within eight or ten blocks. Mrs. Richards must love it, but I wondered if it didn’t make her husband a bit uneasy.
    As we got out of the Volvo, we saw Clayton Thompson walking toward us with a load of groceries. A man in a leather jacket was walking toward him.
    “Clayton!” called Chris, just as the other man caught up with him. He turned, saw us, started to smile, then turned back, apparently listening to something the man was saying.
    Suddenly he shoved the groceries at the other man, hollered, “Run, y’all. He’s got a gun!” and started toward us at a gallop.
    I saw the other man go down, and then I followed orders. I turned and ran toward the safety of crowded Castro, high heels clicking, Chris at my side, and Clayton catching up fast.
    I heard the other man swear, grunt as he stood up, and then I heard his footsteps behind us. I ran faster, thinking I’d probably manifested the mugger in some mystical way, being so relaxed about rapists. It served me right for getting too sure of myself.
    We rounded the corner onto Castro, and still we heard pursuing footsteps. There seemed nothing to do but go into a bar. Clearly the streets weren’t safe. I charged into the nearest one, Chris and Clayton right behind me. Practically everyone in there was wearing jeans and a trendy haircut; everyone—and I mean, bar none—was male and looked under thirty. So you could say we caused quite a stir—two women and a middle-aged man in a business suit. Only it didn’t take the usual form of a stir. It took the form of cold, dead, unwelcoming silence.
    The place was mobbed, too. It was just the cocktail hour, and guys were practically sitting in each other’s laps. There was hardly room for the indigenous ferns. We started elbowing our way through the crowd—anything to get out of the doorway. I think I had in mind we could use the phone to call police, but basically I was on automatic pilot. I was just moving. I kept looking over my shoulder, imagining our pursuer might follow us in there—silly thought, really. What mugger would do that? Then I saw him, just coming in the door.
    I nudged Clayton. “Omigod,” he shouted. “He’s got a gun!”
    Since everyone was giving us the silent treatment, you can imagine how that went over. Yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater was good social manners by comparison. Tables turned over as