Muller, Marcia - [McCone 02] - Ask the Cards a Question 3S(v1)(html) (7 page)

Mr. Moe and Jeffrey Neverman stood on the sidewalk in front of the Albatross Superette, under the sign supplied by our local Seven-Up distributor. A blue van bearing the Sunrise Blind Center’s name was parked at the curb. Neverman must be making a delivery too clumsy for Sebastian and Gus.

I pulled the MG into the bus stop across the street and idled there, smiling at the contrast between the two men. Mr. Moe was as dapper as it was possible to be in a long white apron, his hair carefully slicked back, his brown slacks in a knifelike crease. Neverman, on the other hand, wore scruffy faded Levi’s and a workshirt whose tattered tails hung out. In daylight, his gray-flecked hair was even shaggier than it had looked last night in the dark of the old church.

A wine distributor’s truck pulled up. The driver hopped out and began unloading crates onto the sidewalk. Mr. Moe spoke briefly with him, and then he and Neverman went inside the store.

Early afternoon seemed a bad time to hold a private conversation with my corner grocer. I considered for a moment and, prompted by the horn of a bus that roared up behind me, decided to try to track Sebastian down again. If he wasn’t at the Center, I could always take Clemente up on his offer of a tour.

When I got there, though, I realized Clemente might not appreciate my barging in on his residents without permission.

It seemed prudent to check with him first. The door of the rectory—a long, low building of the same style as the church—stood open. I went into a lobby that shone with ceramic tiles, chose one of the three dark-wood doors that opened off there, and knocked. Clemente’s voice issued an invitation to enter.

The room had gleaming parquet floors, and the bright Mexican rugs Linnea had mentioned hung on the adobe walls. The director sat at a desk in the center, one long leg thrown across its corner. He was eating a cup of yogurt, and he gestured with his spoon when he looked up.

“Sharon! You’ve come for that tour.”

“I had the afternoon off, so I thought I’d let you show me around,” I said, assuming Sebastian would show up on the tour.

“Great! Have a seat while I finish my lunch.” He motioned at a wicker chair on the other side of the desk.

“You like that stuff?” I asked, pointing at the yogurt.

“It keeps the weight down.” He patted the beginnings of a paunch. “Hey, I really like your friend Linnea.”

“I’m sure it’s mutual. She was telling me what a fabulous place you have here.”

He grinned. “I don’t mind it, although it still seems strange, living in a house intended for a priest. I’m sure I have a better time in it than the priests ever did.”

“I’ll bet,” I said, thinking of the waterbed.

Clemente set his spoon in an ashtray and tossed the half-full cup of yogurt in the wastebasket. “God, that makes an awful lunch! I’d have been better off taking Linnea out for Mexican food, which I plan to do as soon as I can get free. She claims the Mexican food in San Diego is unbeatable, but there’s this little place I found…” His eyes grew serious. “You and she have been friends a long time, haven’t you?”

“Since grade school.”

“What’s her story, anyway? She said something last night about going to the fortune teller because she was willing to try anything. But later she didn’t want to talk about it.”

“It’s nothing so unusual. She was divorced a few months ago and it’s a difficult adjustment.”

He nodded slowly. “She mentioned her little girls were staying with their grandmother. She came to visit you to get away from it all?”

“And to do some thinking.”

“She seems very fond of you.”

“Well, we’ve been friends most of our lives.”

“And she seems quite taken with your profession.”

“It’s natural. She’s thought a lot about jobs lately, since she has to decide what she wants to do.”

“Would you recommend the life of a private eye?”

“No, not for anyone with a family. The hours are too long and the rewards too uncertain.”

“Still, she seems fascinated. You talk to her about your cases?”

Clemente’s probing made me uncomfortable. “No. Working for a law firm, most of what I do is confidential. How about that tour now?”

He stood up and, with a deep bow, motioned me toward the door.

“Let me tell you a little about the Center and what we’re trying to do here,” he said as we walked toward the former convent. “And forgive me if I start to sound like a Gray Line guide. I take friends and relatives of the residents through here several times a week, to say nothing of all sorts of government officials, so my speech can get a little dry and pat.” Even as he made his apologies there was a weariness in his tone that told me he’d made this excuse many times before.

“Go ahead. I enjoy a good lecture.”

“Great. We’ve got a philosophy here at the Center that blind people can do almost anything sighted people can, given the proper training. And that’s our goal for each resident: to help him become as independent as possible, learn a trade, and eventually move back into the community. All the people here have been blinded recently, so they have a lot of adjustments to make. We attempt to ease them, without coddling or being overprotective.”

“How does that approach seem to work?”

“So far, we’ve had remarkable luck. Of course, we never have more than forty-five residents at a given time, and with a staff of ten counselors, we’re able to give each very personalized attention.” He stopped at the door of the convent. Bottle-brush bloomed thickly on either side.

“Let me tell you what made me revamp the Center’s program in the first place,” he went on. “When I first came on board as director, the Center was housed in an old hospital in the Haight-Ashbury. The program was about as innovative as your old-time grammar school. There were rigid rules, limited vocational training, and even a system of bells to tell the residents when to get up, when to eat, when to go to bed.”

“And it’s not that way now?”

“Damn right it’s not.”

“When did you change it?”

“Two years ago, after what you might call an electrifying experience.” Clemente chuckled, but even that sounded part of a routine. “You see, there was a power failure one night that put the electronically operated bells out. And when the staff came on the next morning, they discovered some of the residents had sat up all night in their chairs because the bells hadn’t told them to go to bed.”

“Good Lord!”

“You can imagine my shock: We’d squashed all the initiative out of the very people we were supposed to help. I set to redesigning the program immediately. Part of it was to get the hell out of that hospital environment. Fortunately for us, Saint Luke’s had caught fire, and given the dwindling number of sisters in the order and the poor shape of the facilities, they decided not to rebuild. So here we are.”

It was a fascinating anecdote, but Clemente’s flat delivery took the shine from it. I sensed the director was much less than enthusiastic about his work.

“What was your background before you came here?” I asked.

“I worked with ex-cons.”

“Doing what?”

“First as director of a halfway house. That closed. Budget cuts. Most of my charges are now back in prison. Next I ran a counseling program for parolees.” His lips twisted bitterly. “When they scrapped that, one of my most promising men shot himself, his wife and two kids.”

“I’m sorry.” I’d seen social-service personnel like Clemente before—former liberals turned cynics by the system.

“You do what you can.” He opened the door of the convent and we went into an entry similar to that of the rectory. Archways led to large rooms on either side, with a wide staircase straight ahead.

Clemente gestured to the left. “This is the dining hall. It’s the focal point of social life at the Center.”

The room was filled with square tables covered with white cloths, already laid for dinner with sparkling glass and silverware.

“We’ve tried to create a homey atmosphere, with small tables and family-style service,” Clemente explained. “Our people need to learn to relate to others normally again. The feeling of being an outcast or, in some cases, abhorrence of one’s condition, can be diminished by developing friendships with others in the same boat.”

He turned to the other archway. “This room will be a lounge when we fix the roof in the church. Right now, it’s our workshop, where we make the brushes. We’ll move the workshop to the church when it’s ready.”

The room contained benches—sheets of plywood on saw-horses. On stools around them sat men and women of all ages and races. They cut, twisted, and tied brushes in various stages of completion. Had I not known they were blind, I would have been fooled by the accuracy of their movements.

“Blind people are very well suited to this kind of work,” Clemente said. “Their sense of touch is highly developed. We get the materials wholesale, on a procurement contract arranged by the state. Each resident spends three hours a day in the workshop, and the rest of his time is devoted to vocational training.”

“What about the other stuff?”

“What stuff?”

“Like the shoelaces and dishwashing gloves Sebastian peddles. Did the state arrange for those too?”

Clemente stared thoughtfully at the worker nearest the door, then stepped forward and peered over his shoulder. “That’s good work, Paul.” He patted the man’s arm and turned back to me. “So Sebastian’s been peddling things on the side again, has he?”

“Isn’t he supposed to? I’m sorry. I don’t want to get him in trouble.”

“Oh, it’s perfectly okay. He knows his first duty is to keep those racks stocked. And, frankly, I don’t care how he sells the stuff as long as it’s sold. The revenues help keep this place afloat, since our grants never quite cover expenses.” Still, Clemente looked disturbed.

“Will the new merchandise be on the racks soon?” I asked.

“When we get ones that can hold it properly. Sebastian just can’t wait—the man’s a born entrepreneur.”

“I’m interested in Sebastian. What’s his background?”

Clemente started toward the staircase. “That’s for him to tell you, if he sees fit. I will say that he’s been with us since I became director and that he’s one of our most able and enthusiastic workers.”

“Can you tell me how he was blinded? An explosion, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t remember every case history,” Clemente replied curtly. “We have forty-five people through here every year. I believe it was an explosion at an oil refinery, but I can’t be sure.”

“Seems I heard something like that too.” I followed Clemente upstairs and along the hall, past vocational training and counseling rooms, and then to the third floor where cell-like rooms seemed little changed since the days nuns knelt at their devotions. The convent was stuffy in the afternoon heat, and I was glad when we went back outside after a final tour of the stainless-steel kitchen.

The director accompanied me to the gate on Twenty-fourth Street, chattering about his program’s potential and telling me to say hello to Linnea. “I’ll call her about that Mexican food. Maybe you and a friend would like to join us?”

“Maybe.” I thought briefly about Greg and wondered how he and Clemente would get along. Thanking Herb for the tour, I started off toward my car. When the director had disappeared down the path, however, I slipped back through the gate. He had omitted the former church from his itinerary, and I wanted to look it over in daylight.

The church was locked. I started down the path to the side door. Suddenly it opened. I ducked behind a bottlebrush bush.

Neverman came out, in a rush. He crossed the lawn to the rectory and disappeared inside. I waited a minute before I came out of hiding.

The basement was cold, with a dank smell of dry rot that I hadn’t noticed the night before. I went along, glancing into the storerooms that opened off the hallway. They were stacked with raw materials for the brushes: plastic and wooden handles, rolls of wire, straw and nylon bristles. The last room, closest to the stairway to the vestibule, was crammed with cardboard cartons. I checked an open box near the door. Shoelaces, like the ones Sebastian had shown me yesterday.

I thought back to Clemente’s agitation when I had told him Sebastian was peddling these. Was it possible Sebastian had taken the items without Clemente’s permission and pocketed the money? It didn’t strike me as likely, but then, I didn’t know the brush man very well.

I went on upstairs. The walls of the vestibule were water-stained and flaking away in big chunks. Inside the church, the elements had taken a similar toll: The pews closest to the gaping hole in the roof were in bad condition, and the parquet floor buckled. I stood, caught by the kaleidoscopic pattern of the round stained-glass window above the altar.

Why had Clemente let the church deteriorate so? It would take more talent than Neverman possessed to make it habitable now. I took a last look around and started back to the basement. A sound arrested me on the landing, and I froze.

Sebastian came out of the first storeroom, a shopping bag in his hand. It was heaped with shoelaces, dishwashing gloves, sponges and wooden spoons. The brush man had expanded his line in a big way. I wondered how he’d explain it when Clemente confronted him.

With his white cane, Sebastian expertly tapped away toward the side door. I remained still until I heard it shut. By the time I got there and peeked out, Sebastian had crossed the lawn toward the rectory. Instead of going in, however, he skirted it, keeping close to the bottlebrush bushes. Suddenly he paused and cocked his head. I watched, safe in the shadows of the basement.

Sebastian was under Clemente’s office window. Deliberately he set his shopping bag down, stooping to push it under a bush. He then crept forward, still in a crouch, his cane preceding him, until he was hidden by the foliage under the window. The bushes quivered and then were still.

Clemente had remarked that blind people’s sense of touch was heightened, and I remembered reading that loss of sight had a similar effect on their hearing. Sebastian’s keen ears had obviously picked up an interesting conversation in Clemente’s office, something that made an excursion into the shrubbery worthwhile. Well, two could play.

I darted across the lawn and crept under the bushes at the far end of the window, trying to move as quietly as possible. The leaves rustled, and Sebastian started. I crouched, holding my breath. In seconds, he relaxed.

Clemente’s voice came from within the rectory. “… calm down, Jeff, and let’s go over exactly what she said again.”

“Again? She said she had
proof
, that’s what!” Neverman’s tone was agitated and high-pitched.

“But what kind of proof?” Clemente asked patiently.

“How should I know? She wouldn’t tell me. All she said was she had proof, and if I didn’t come back and live with her, she’d take it to the cops. She’ll do it, too.”

“You’re being paranoid, Jeff. Take it easy and sit down. You’ve been pacing for ten minutes now. It won’t help…” The peal of the telephone interrupted him. “Herb Clemente speaking.”

In the short silence that followed, Neverman uttered an unintelligible curse. There was a thump, as if he had hit his fist against the wall.

“Look, take it a little slower,” Clemente said to the phone. “Who did this to you?”

A pause.

“No, wait! Don’t hang up. I
do
care.”

In moments, the receiver slammed down.

“Must be my day to be besieged by hysterical people,” Clemente muttered.

“What?” Neverman asked distractedly.

“That was a girl I met last night. She’s crying and carrying on, and I can’t understand a word she says. So she accuses me of not caring about her and hangs up.”

Oh, my God! I thought. She’s gotten worse again!

“Sounds like a wonderful little woman,” Neverman said.

“Thing is, she’s cute, and I’ll bet a pretty good lay. But if she’s that unstable, forget it.”

I stiffened with anger at his shabby treatment of my friend and momentarily lost track of the conversation. I couldn’t really blame Clemente for being wary of any involvement with Linnea, but I didn’t want her hurt.

Clemente was saying, “How long did Anya give you to make up your mind?”

“She said I better show up there tonight, bag and baggage, or she’d go to the cops first thing tomorrow.” He paused. “Maybe I could buy her off?” Neverman sounded slyly hopeful.

“Forget it, Jeff. No loan. Cash is tight right now, as you know. I’m making good on the fifty thousand tomorrow.”

“So what do I do?”

“Well, Jeff.” Clemente’s voice held an undertone of amusement. “I see only one solution.”

“What?”

“Pack your stuff, roll up your sleeping bag, and go home.”

“Very funny.”

“I mean it.”

“There’s got to be another way!”

Clemente replied, but evidently he had moved away from the window, for his words came out muffled.

“Goddamn it!” Neverman’s voice rose. “
You
try living with her!”

“Fortunately I’m not the one she’s crazy about. Now, I’ve wasted enough time on this problem. You’d better get your stuff together so you don’t keep Anya waiting.”

“Goddamned if I will!
Goddamned
if I will!” Neverman’s voice escalated to a wail. “I’ll see her dead before I’ll live with her! Not you or the cops or anybody else can make me go back to her!”

The door slammed. I peered through the bushes at Neverman’s departing back. He strode furiously toward the street, fists clenched at his sides.

Through the open window, I heard Clemente mutter, “Jesus y Maria!”

I glanced at Sebastian. He relaxed his listening pose and crept from under the bushes, locating his shopping bag with his cane. I waited until he’d disappeared around the rectory before I emerged from hiding myself.

Neverman was far up the block on Twenty-fourth Street, crossing toward a small sidewalk cafe. Indifferent to traffic, he forced two cars to stop for him. A motorcycle roared around them, horn blaring, its driver shouting imprecations. Neverman gestured with his middle finger and kept on going. He entered the railed-off cafe and took a chair at a table with a red-and-white striped umbrella. I hurried up the street.

Neverman hunched over his table, drumming his fingers. I stopped in front of him, and he looked up with an anger-contorted face.

“Hi, Jeffrey,” I said.

“What the hell are you doing? Following me? Herb told me you’re a private cop. Did Anya hire you to keep tabs on me?”

“Of course not.” I sat down uninvited. “Is something wrong?”

With an effort, he controlled his enraged expression. “Naw. I’m just getting some lunch. Can’t take that swill at the Center any more.”

I glanced at my watch. “Three o’clock’s late for lunch.”

“I been busy. Didn’t have time to eat before.”

The weary-looking waitress came, and Neverman ordered a hamburger and fries. I asked for a Coke. When the food came, Neverman lubricated everything with catsup and dove in.

“So,” he said, his mouth full, “you decide to take me up on my offer after all?”

“What offer?”

“Jesus!” He rolled his eyes exaggeratedly. “I make a pass and you forget it. What in hell did I ever see in you anyway?”

“You were pretty stoned last night.”

“That must’ve been it.”

“So the food at the Blind Center’s bad?” I asked, to keep the conversation rolling.

“Yeah. You’d think they’d try to make it good. Those loonies over there don’t have many other pleasures.”

“Loonies like Sebastian, you mean.”

He squeezed more catsup onto his plate. “Yeah, like Sebastian.”

“What do you think of him, anyway?”

He glanced up briefly. “Like I said last night, he’s like something out of the Addams Family. But most of them are. I guess if you can’t see, you got a right to be crazy.”

“Well, Herb Clemente is sane, at least,” I said. “I hear you’ve known him a long time.”

“Right,” he said guardedly.

“Since he counseled you when you got out of prison.”

He paused, hamburger halfway to his mouth. “Anya
did
tell you,” he said flatly. “Herb wouldn’t. It had to be her.”

I shrugged. “What does it matter who told me?”

“Ah, that bitch. She can’t keep her yap shut. Always got to tell people what rotten old Jeffrey did to her. ‘Jeffrey went and got arrested on me. I waited for him all the time he was in jail, and then he left me. Rotten, horrible Jeffrey.’ ” Again, his harsh whine sounded remarkably like his wife.

“Do you blame her?” I asked.

“I blame me for getting mixed up with her in the first place.”

“And for getting arrested?”

He heaved a sigh. “You sure are one-track. So I took a few things. Overloads. I’d short a customer now and then. Everybody does it. They’ve even got a name for it in the business—truckers’ shortages. They expect it, it’s built into their cost. Why should I be the one to get caught?”

“Just unlucky, I guess.”

He shoved his plate away. “Look, Ms. Private Eye, don’t sit there so smug. I took a fall for a lot of guys. Plenty of them were selling their overloads. We had regular setups with fences, regular prices. But who gets caught? Me. No trucking line would even hire me to sweep their loading dock now.”

“Clemente hired you.”

“Herb was upset that his counseling didn’t work. I just can’t get it together any more, and that’s a blow to Herb’s professional pride, so he took me in and made me his trained monkey. I got no illusions about Herb’s reasons.” Neverman stood up, pulling a couple of dollar bills from his jeans and tossing them on the table. One settled on his catsup-smeared plate. “Got to go.” He turned and strode out of the cafe.

I rescued the bill from the pool of catsup and looked at the check. Neverman hadn’t left enough to cover his meal. Sighing, I took the additional amount, plus the price of my Coke, from my bag. Call it a business expense, Sharon.

And now make it your business to find out more about the Sunrise Blind Center. There’s something going on there that even your twenty-twenty vision can’t see.