If Angels Fall

TEN

The distant horn of a tug echoed from the bay as Tom Reed walked across the Starparking lot. Cool Pacific breezes carried the stench of diesel and exhaust fromthe freeway overhead. The green ’77 Comet he had bought after Ann left waitedlike a lonely, faithful mutt.

Reed lost his awe for San Francisco- the lights ofCoit Tower, the financial district, the pyramid, the hills, the bridges, theBay.

He ran a red light entering Sea Park, a community ofuphill mansions whose views rivaled Russian Hill and Pacific Heights. Itbordered a small park dotted by stone tables topped with permanent chessboards.Old European men brought their own worn pieces here to play friendly games andreminisce. Beyond the houses were rows of condos. A sedate community. GleamingJaguars, BMW’s and Mercedes lined the streets. Precision clipped shrubs andhedges hid the pong of tennis balls, the splash of a private pool, andthe occasional whispered investment tip.

Reed parked near the three-story Edwardian house wherehe lived with five other men. The owner, Lila Onescu, was a Rumanian grand damewith gypsy blood who lived in a condo two blocks away. After Ann left withZach, Reed couldn’t bear living alone in their house. A buddy told him of LilaOnescu’s place, a jewel in Sea Park, well kept, quiet. A hundred bucks a weekfor a room on the second floor where he would share a bathroom and kitchen withtwo tenants. This was his home.

Reed creaked up the staircase, welcomed by the typednote taped to the door. “Where is the rent? L. Onescu.” He was two weeksbehind. He would give her a check tomorrow he promised, fumbling for his key.

His room had three bay windows overlooking the MarinaDistrict and the Pacific. A dorm-style single bed with rumpled sheets wasagainst one wall. A mirrored dresser stood against another near an ornamentalfireplace. A small desk sat opposite the bed, and a tattered, comfortable sofachair was in the middle of the room, which had hardwood floors and faded greenflower print wallpaper. Reed’s framed degree, his two awards, a Starfront page, and silver-framed pictures of Ann and Zach, were leaning on thefireplace mantel, hastily placed in the hope they would be collected at amoment’s notice. A stack of newspapers tottered a few feet from the floor nextto the dresser. It had started growing the day he moved in-three weeks afterAnn moved out of their bungalow in Sunset. When she left, their house hadbecome a mausoleum for their marriage. He had to leave, or be entombed. Theyagreed to rent their house.

Reed went down the hall to the kitchen for ice. In hisroom, he poured some Jack Daniel’s, striped off his clothes, casting them ontothe pig-sized heap in the corner, slipped into jogging shorts. He opened thebay windows and watched the twinkling lights of the Golden Gate.

All he ever wanted in this world was to be a reporter.The dream of a kid from Big Sky Country. His dad used to bring him a newspapersix days a week, The Great Falls Tribune. He’d spread it open on theliving room floor and read the news to his mother. When he was eleven, hestarted his first Trib route. Trudging through the snow, shivering inthe rain, or sweating under the prairie sun with that canvas bag, nearly blackwith newsprint, slung over his shoulder like a harness. Dad had knotted thestrap so the bag hung just so, like an extension of himself. He would read thepaper as he delivered it, dreaming of seeing his stories in print. He had fortycustomers and every day, by the time he emptied his bag, he’d have read theday’s entire edition.

Life’s daily dramas enthralled him. He became a newsaddict and an expert on current affairs. In high school, he graduated from newspaperboy to cub reporter, writing stories for the school paper. He was accepted intoJ-School at the University of Missouri, where he met Ann, a business major withbig brown eyes and a smile that knocked him out. She was from Berkeley andwanted children and her own shop to sell the children’s clothes she woulddesign and make herself. That was a secret, she told him.

He wanted a family, too, but he wanted to establishhis career first and maybe write books, the last part was a secret. If you talkabout writing books, you’d never do it.

They were married after graduation. A few weeks later,he got a job with AP in San Francisco. Ann was happy to move back to the BayArea, where she would be near her mother. And Reed was determined to provehimself in San Francisco. He hustled for AP, breaking a story about the RussianMafia. He was short listed for a Pulitzer, but lost out. The San FranciscoStar then offered him a job as a crime reporter at twice his salary.

Ann got an administrative post at one of SanFrancisco’s hospitals, at night, she worked on her business plan and clothingdesigns. He traveled constantly, worked long hours and was rarely home. Theyears passed. Starting a family seemed impossible.

Then boom. Ann was pregnant. He was stunned.Unprepared. She had forgotten her pills when they vacationed in Las Vegas. Hehinted that she’d done it purposely. Not true, she said. They didn’t want toargue. In the following months, they retreated, withdrew into themselves. Annwelcomed the coming of a baby, Reed braced for it.

When he witnessed the birth of their son, he felt adegree of love he never know existed. But soon, he grappled with his ownmortality. It frightened him, overwhelmed him with the realization that he hadlittle time in his life for accomplishments. He was a father. He feared hewould fail fatherhood. He compensated the only way he knew: by striving throughhis job to leave Zach a legacy as a man who had made his mark. Someone Zachcould be proud of. Consequently, the Star became his mistress andfamily. It seemed Ann and Zach became people he appreciated only when needed.They shared the groceries and the furniture. On the surface, he was like anyother young husband and father. In truth, he only gave of himself when it wasconvenient. It was cute how Zach imitated him and wanted to be a reporter, justlike his daddy. It was reassuring how Ann understood that he never had time forthem. But something was crumbling, little by little, day by day. Reed was blindto what had happened, oblivious to Ann’s achievement of single-handedly gettingher small shop of the ground while raising Zach alone. He had become a strangerforcing them to survive without him.

His fuckup last year on Tanita Marie Donner’s murderbrought it all to the surface. He had deceived himself about priorities. Whathe invested every day in the pursuit of vainglory could be had by anyone forfifty cents. But the price exacted from his family and himself wasincalculable. Now he was alone in his room with everything he had thoughtvaluable: his awards, his jobs, himself, and a pile of newspapers threateningto spill across the floor.

How could he have been so stupid?

What had he done to Ann? To Zach? He was so sorry. Hehad to call them. Had to tell them. Right now. He heard the chink of glass ashe rose to go to the phone and nearly fell down. It was three-thirty in themorning. He was drunk. Forget it. Staggering to bed, he noticed the MetroUniversity envelope sticking from his jacket pocket. Scanning the latter aboutDr. Martin’s bereavement research, he scoffed and tossed it. Then he sawanother envelope in his jacket, from the photo department. The borrowedsnapshot of Danny Raphael Becker. Someone had slipped it in his pocket with anote suggesting he return it to the Beckers in person. He looked at it for along time. Well, this was one story he wouldn’t be fucking up. Tenderly, hepropped up Danny’s picture on the mantel next to the little framed photographof his son, Zach.