No One You Know Part 13

THE FOLLOWING MORNING AT GOLDEN Gate Coffee, Dora wasn't sitting in her usual place at the front desk. The cupping room was also empty. I pulled on the required paper cap and opened the door to the warehouse, where Reggie was feeding a batch of beans into the roaster. I had to shout to be heard over the noise of the machine. "Where is everybody?"

Reggie pointed over his shoulder.

"What's going on?"

He grinned and shrugged.

In the holding room, Jennifer Wilson and the warehouse foreman, Bobby Love, were standing in a circle with Mike and Dora. The group was talking animatedly with someone else whose back was to me. "Ellie, look who's here!" Dora said.

He turned around and smiled. He looked good, as always. Jeans, black sweater, unusual boots, messy hair.

"Hey, girl," Henry said. "Long time no see."

"Hi," I said, and then, because it had barely been audible the first time, I repeated too loudly and cheerfully, "Hi!"

I moved into the group. Henry pulled me into a bear hug. I squeezed back.

Since the night Henry disappeared in Guatemala three years before, there had been many times when I'd imagined our reunion. But I'd never envisioned it like this, with a small audience of our friends. I never imagined I'd be dressed in jeans and a formless sweater, wearing a stupid paper hat.

Dora caught my eye and pointed at her tooth, the universal indicator that I had lipstick on mine. I rubbed my teeth with a finger.

"A little deja vu?" Mike said. Everyone knew the story of how Henry and I met, right here in this warehouse seven years before. That day, he'd been interviewing for a job, and Mike had taken him around to meet everyone. Then, as now, I'd been wearing the paper hat. It wasn't the kind of first impression I wanted to make. Moments after introducing us, Mike had been called to the office. As soon as Henry and I were alone together, he said, "The hat's a good look for you. Emphasizes your dimples."

"If you're saying that so I'll put in a good word with the boss," I said, "I should warn you I have absolutely no pull around here."

"I don't care. Want to see Graham Parker with me this weekend at the Great American Music Hall?"

I already had plans, but I knew at that moment I was going to cancel them. When I finished showing Henry around the warehouse, Mike still hadn't come back, so we walked outside into the sunlight.

I pulled off my hat. "I like that look even better," Henry had said.

That afternoon, I told Mike he'd be a fool not to hire Henry.

At the Great American Music Hall, during a break between sets, Henry told me the story of Francisco de Melho Palheta, the Portuguese Brazilian official who was called upon to mediate a border dispute between French and Dutch Guiana in 1727. Although Palheta was thought to be a neutral party, in truth he wanted desperately to get his hands on Guiana's coveted coffee seeds, which could not be legally exported.

"So how did he do it?" I asked. My hand lay on the table between us.

"He seduced the French governor's wife," Henry said, touching the tips of my fingers lightly with his own. "When he left, she gave him a bouquet of flowers in which she had hidden a few coffee cherries. They ended up in Brazil." He moved his hand so that it covered mine completely. "Have you ever heard Rumi's poem about coffee?"

"Don't tell me you're going to start reciting poetry."

"'When the black spirits pour inside us,'" Henry said, speaking so softly I had to lean forward to hear him, "'Then the spirit of G.o.d and air/ And all that is wondrous within/ Moves us through the night, never-ending.'"

If it had been anyone else, I might have laughed in his face. But that was Henry. He had a gift for delivery.

Now he was back, and I didn't know how to act around him anymore. This was the man with whom I had hoped to make a life, with whom I'd thought I would have a child. Standing beside him in the warehouse, hearing his voice and breathing in the sand-and-pinecones scent of his skin, I was reminded once again that my feelings for him were not merely nostalgic.

In my addled state, I picked up enough of the ensuing conversation to understand that he'd just moved back to San Francisco from the East Coast, and that he was starting his own cafe. He wanted to buy his beans from us.

Mike excused himself for a meeting, clasping Henry firmly on the shoulders. "We're glad to have you back," he said. "I never did think you'd last long in New York. Blizzards, deli-style sandwiches, who needs that stuff?"

"We'll see."

"I'm going to leave Ellie in charge of you," Mike said. "There's some great coffee coming out of Nicaragua. She'll tell you all about it." The others excused themselves, too, leaving me and Henry alone together.

"You haven't changed," Henry said.

"Neither have you." My mouth was dry. I had that old feeling I'd always had with him, like I wanted to get closer. Even during those last few months together, when we were fighting so much, the need to touch his skin and feel his hands on me never diminished.

"I'm actually heading out," he said. "I have to go sign the lease on the new place. Want to have dinner on Friday?"

I couldn't believe he would ask so casually, as if he'd never left. As if the last three years hadn't happened.

"I'd love to, but I already have plans," I said. And it was true. Ben Fong-Torres had called. He'd found the tape Billy Boudreaux gave him in 1999. He thought I might like to hear it.

We walked outside. The fog hung low over the buildings, and the world felt cool and quiet. There was a car parked just outside the door, a silver Prius.

"This is me," Henry said, putting a hand on top of the car.

"You've gone green."

"It's a good city car," he said, "pretty zippy. I still couldn't bring myself to give up the Jeep, though. It's sitting on the street outside my place as we speak. I have to move it every couple of days so I won't get a ticket."

"I loved that Jeep."

"We were in an accident about a year ago in upstate New York," he said. "The Jeep behaved like a dream. I was actually in the hospital for a couple of weeks. I'd probably be dead if I'd been driving this little thing."

My first thought was, What would I have done if I'd received news that Henry was dead? And my second thought was, Why is he using the plural p.r.o.noun?

For three years I'd wondered what had happened to him, what exactly had gone wrong. Dozens of times, I'd replayed that final fight in my mind, and had admonished myself for going out instead of staying in the hotel room with him to work it out. I wanted to ask him what had happened, why he had left, whether he had simply stopped loving me. And if so, when? But I couldn't ask. Instead, we were talking about cars.

I looked at his left hand. He wasn't wearing a ring. And then I said it, because I couldn't stop myself. "Who's we?"

"Come again?"

"You said we were in an accident." Now I wished I hadn't asked, but it was too late to back out.

"The Jeep," he said, grinning. "I meant me and the Jeep."

Twenty-nine.

AT HOME THAT NIGHT, I TURNED MY ATTENTIONS to Strachman. I began with the article from the Chronicle, "The Most Efficient Man in SF." Then I read an interview in Marin magazine, in which he talked about his two kids, his love of deep-sea fis.h.i.+ng, his affection for Frank Sinatra, and a cafe near his office, Crossroads, where he bought his coffee every morning. In the interview, he seemed like a normal, nice guy. But twenty years had pa.s.sed since he took home the Hilbert Prize. Was it possible for people to change? Given enough time and favorable circ.u.mstances, could a violent criminal transform himself into a productive, even likable, member of society?

The next morning, I went to Crossroads in South Beach. I was there at six forty-five but a sign in the window said the cafe opened at seven, so I went for a walk to kill time. There had been a Giants game the previous night, and the sidewalks were littered with pennants and commemorative plastic cups. I pa.s.sed a man in a bathrobe and sneakers, hosing vomit off the sidewalk in front of his multimillion-dollar loft. I pa.s.sed a schoolgirl in a plaid skirt and saddle shoes waiting for the bus, alternately puffing on a cigarette and glaring at it as if it had done something to p.i.s.s her off.

When I got back to Crossroads, it was open. I ordered a Sumatra and browsed the bookshelves. The place had an interesting, eclectic selection of fiction and biographies. A handwritten note on one of the shelves said that the month's theme was fog. The books on display included Footsteps in the Fog: Alfred Hitchc.o.c.k's San Francisco; Moon Palace, by Paul Auster; and A Dream in Polar Fog, by Yuri Rytkheu, among others. On the bottom shelf I spotted a novel that I'd read recently, a sort of literary mystery about a kidnapping set in San Francisco. The book had been interesting, if somewhat drawn out. Halfway through I started skipping long pa.s.sages on memory and guilt just to get to the meat of the story. As I was reading it I found myself thinking that, sometimes, a story just needs a beginning, middle, and end. Maybe that was what made Thorpe's books so popular. He never dillydallied with esoteric matters. He drew the characters early in the book and quickly, almost methodically, got on with the plot. If I could look at his work objectively-which was almost impossible to do under the circ.u.mstances-then I could see that he knew how to get into a story, pull you along, and bring the whole thing to a satisfying conclusion just a few pages before you were ready for the book to end; he left you wanting more.

"A lot of writers think popularity is the literary kiss of death," he told me once, months before I knew anything about his plans to write about Lila. "If too many people enjoy their books, they think they've sold out. But if and when I ever publish a book, knock on wood, I want people to read it. Lots and lots of people."

I'd been struck, at the time, by the nakedness of Thorpe's ambition. I'd wondered if I'd ever feel such a surge of ambition myself. I was the kind of literature major who wanted to read books, not write them. I had no idea what I'd do with my degree when I finished college. Unlike Lila, whose path was set for her the moment she opened her first math textbook in grade school, I was clueless about my future. Ultimately, it had been chance, not ambition, that led me to a career in coffee. Chance was exactly the kind of thing that Lila had no use for.

By now, people had begun filtering into Crossroads. I studied their faces, looking for Steve Strachman. According to the article, he came in for a double latte and newspaper every weekday morning. His routine was to read the newspaper at the cafe before walking to his office a few blocks away. I was certain I would recognize him from the photo in Marin magazine.

By a quarter to eight, Strachman still hadn't shown. I'd finished my second cup of coffee, had perused all of the bookshelves and skimmed the New York Times, and I was beginning to feel anxious.

Eight o'clock. Still no Strachman. I considered just walking over to his office, but somehow that seemed more likely to scare him off than if I b.u.mped into him at the coffee shop. I wondered what a private investigator would do. Or Thorpe. How had Thorpe gotten all those people to talk to him?

At ten past eight, he walked in. At first I didn't recognize him, because he'd lost a lot of weight, and his face was much thinner than in the photograph. He wore khaki pants, steel-toed boots, and a denim s.h.i.+rt. Despite the casualness of his attire, he exuded money. You could tell that his clothes came from some outrageously pricey store, the kind of place where customers might drop hundreds of dollars on a s.h.i.+rt designed to project a kind of rugged appeal. His stylishly floppy hair was beginning to gray, and his dimples had turned into permanent creases. He was Northern California handsome, which is to say his good looks had more to do with pricey organic food and weekends in Tahoe than with any obvious genetic gifts.

He picked up a newspaper. Over the din of the espresso machine, I heard him talking to the girl behind the counter.

"Morning, Isabelle. I'll take a plain bagel, no tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, please. Double latte."

He turned from the counter, juggling his bagel, newspaper, and coffee, and looked around the crowded room for a spot. When he glanced over in my direction, I smiled and said, "This seat's free."

"Lucky me. I know it's going to be a good day when a nice young woman invites me to share her table." He opened his paper and said, "Did I just say that? Forgive me, I was thinking aloud."

The funny thing was, he seemed genuine. As if the words really had just slipped. I was waiting for that moment when he would look at my face and see Lila's features staring back at him.

"You're Steve Strachman," I said.

He raised an eyebrow. "How'd you know that?"

"I use the Yerba Buena on-ramp. Pretty impressive what you did."

He shrugged. "It's my job. The only reason people got excited about it is that things like that usually move so slowly around here." He dusted bagel crumbs off his paper. He didn't appear to recognize me at all. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Ellie," I said. "Ellie Enderlin."

He reached his hand across the table to shake. As our skin made contact, I saw something cross his face. He withdrew his hand quickly and took a gulp of coffee.

"Is something wrong?"

"I once knew someone named Enderlin. It was a long time ago." He paused and looked down at his paper, but he wasn't reading. After a few seconds he looked up again. He seemed to be studying my face. "Her name was Lila," he said. "She had a sister." He continued to stare. I could tell he was trying to put the pieces together.

"I know," I said finally.

"That's a coincidence," he said. "It is a coincidence, right?"

On the one hand were his nice clothes, his dimpled smile, his kind eyes. You could tell he was the kind of guy who carried pictures of his kids in his wallet, the kind of guy who surprised his wife with flowers for no reason. He knew the girl behind the counter by name, had asked how she was doing. He was nothing like the portrait Thorpe had painted of an arrogant, secretive person. On the other hand, he'd clearly been taken aback. My presence made him very uncomfortable.

"Are you still working on the famous problem?" I asked.

"Pardon?"

"The Hodge Conjecture."

He waved his hand in the air as if shooing away a fly. "That was a different life. I gave up math a long time ago."

"Why?"

He made a move as if to go, but again, he stayed. I hoped he wouldn't leave. I had no Plan B.

"I just wasn't that good."

"You must have been," I said. "You won the Hilbert Prize."

He frowned. "Only by default. It was Lila's. Everyone knew that."

"Still." I didn't know what to say. I was simply stalling. This was nothing like talking to Delia Wheeler. In that situation, there had been a kind of logic, a way of approaching the subject. But with Strachman, I had nothing.

"Truth be told, she's probably why I quit," Strachman said. "I knew I would never be as good as your sister. Not just her. There were others who by their very presence made me feel like a fraud. Lila's friend, McConnell, for one. It wasn't enough that this beautiful, incredibly smart girl was in love with him-he also happened to be brilliant."

My throat felt dry. "Did you know about them? Back then, before everything happened?"

"Yes."

"But how? I thought they'd kept it a secret from everyone."

"Almost everyone. I saw them together once, in the office of the Stanford Journal of Mathematics. I walked in and they were-" He scratched his neck, looked away.

"They were what?"

"Involved." He took a sip of his coffee.

"How involved?"

"Very."

"That's not possible," I said. "Not there."

"It was shocking to me, too," he said. "She'd always been so shy. I figured it must have something to do with McConnell's charisma. He had a lot of it, you know. Good-looking, charming. For some reason, girls fall for that sort of thing."

Was it just my imagination, or was there an edge of jealousy in Strachman's voice?

"I walked away. Never mentioned it to anyone." He paused, looking at me as though something was just dawning on him. "You're still trying to figure it out, aren't you? After all these years." He hesitated for a second, as if he was making a quick calculation, extrapolation, trying to figure out whether he would've been doing the same thing if the roles had been reversed. "All right," he said, "I can respect that.

"Anyway, what I was getting at was that there was an awful lot of talent in that math department. Your sister's was the most obvious, but there were others. At twenty-six, I was already losing my edge. I suspected the Hilbert was as far as I would go, and I only got that far because of Lila's-" He paused, looked away. "Her misfortune," he said finally. "It didn't help that I wasn't much liked in the department. Back then, I had a rather overbearing personality. The prize didn't bring me any joy. I felt ashamed. I was certain everyone hated me for taking what was rightfully hers. If I'd continued, maybe I could have been good, but I knew I'd never be great." He shrugged. "So I quit. I've never regretted it."

"Did you read Andrew Thorpe's book?" I asked.