Illusions

5

It wasn’t Tamara who got the line on Janice Durian Erskine; it was me. And it wasn’t because the missing woman had begun painting on canvas again, or taken to exhibiting any of her work old or new in a San Francisco gallery. Rather, it was a case of luck and coincidence combined in equal parts — the sort of thing a detective runs into more often than you might think, even on a cold trail, and that can make all the difference between a successful trace and a dead-end one.

The place where I picked up the lead was The Artful Vision, a small but high-class gallery on Pine on the downtown side of Nob Hill. The last one on my list for the day. My watch said a quarter of five when I walked in, and Tamara and I had agreed to meet back at the office at five-thirty to compare notes. I was tired, my feet hurt from all the pavement-pounding and hill-climbing, and I felt put upon and grumpy. In addition to headshakes and verbal negatives, I’d been subjected to down-the-nose sneers and a genteel form of the bum’s rush from more than one overdressed, haughty gallery owner or hired help. One glance was enough to tell these snooty types that I probably couldn’t afford one of the frames in which their paintings hung, let alone the art itself, and therefore I was not there to buy or even to browse discerningly. When I told them my profession, it pushed their noses further out of joint. A private investigator, to that sort of mind, is a cut above a homeless panhandler, and not a prime cut at that.

There was no one in evidence, haughty or otherwise, when I entered The Artful Vision. But a bell tinkled over the door, so somebody was bound to appear pretty soon. While I waited I looked around at the smallish number of artworks on display — a dozen or so paintings, mostly oils and water-colors of various sizes and subject matters, a few ceramic jars and urns and some metal, stone, and marble sculptures on pedestals. The largest of the sculptures, free-standing, looked to my untrained eye like a go-cart that had hit a wall at forty miles an hour. A brass plate on its base said Divinity, which would be enough to scare hell out of you if you thought about it very long. The price, no doubt, would scare hell out of me immediately, though I didn’t need to worry about that; The Artful Vision’s artful vision was such that it did not insult its clientele by the gauche display of a price tag.

I was peering up at a ten-foot-wide canvas composed of asymmetrical triangles interspersed with blobs, smears, and streaks of off-yellow and pale green, trying to decide if I were just a lowbrow or if it really did look as though the artist had upchucked a plate of succotash, when the woman bustled into view from somewhere at the rear. She was in her forties, stylishly dressed and coiffed, wearing a bright professional smile and a hopeful glint in her eye. The smile slipped a little when she got a good look at me, but she didn’t lose it or shift it into a sneer; and the glint also stayed put. I could almost read her mind: I didn’t look like a patron of the arts, but you couldn’t always tell and I might just be one of those eccentric millionaires who take pride in dressing like the common man. You had to keep the faith, after all.

She said, “Hello, I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Ms. Weissman. That’s lovely, isn’t it?”

“What is? Oh, the painting.”

“Perrault’s most impressive work, a genuine triumph.”

“Very nice.” If you liked secondhand succotash.

“Does it interest you?”

“Actually, I’m not here as a prospective customer.”

Her smile slipped a little more at that, and all but vanished when I showed her the photostat of my investigator’s license and explained that I was trying to locate a missing woman who had once been a successful artist. The glint dulled and finally winked out. What replaced it was neither coldness nor aloofness, but a kind of resigned neutrality. The kind that permits cooperation, but only up to a point.

“If I can help,” she said. “The woman’s name?”

“Janice Durian Erskine.” I let her have the now well-thumbed set of four photos. “The first two are of her, the last two of her work.”

“Her face isn’t familiar.” Then Ms. Weissman frowned and said, “Erskine, did you say?”

“Janice Durian Erskine.”

“You know, that name is familiar...” She shuffled the snaps and studied the likenesses of the old church and the wrinkled Native American patriarch. “Of course. Silver, black, and white. Southwestern subjects. Janice Erskine.”

“You know her?”

“Not her, no. Her work.”

“From where?”

“The Salishan Gallery in Santa Fe. As it happens, I was employed there for several months before I moved to San Francisco.”

“When was that?”

“Almost two years ago. Twenty-two months, to be exact. I sold one of her paintings while I was at the Salishan — a small acrylic of an Indian pueblo in a rainstorm, if I remember correctly. She had such a wonderfully original style. Utter absence of color, you know, in all of her work.”

“So I understand. Were you aware that she dropped out of sight about three years ago?”

“Well, yes, it seems to me I heard something about that. But I don’t recall the details.”

“They’re not important. What is important is that her former husband is eager to locate her because of their young son. The boy is gravely ill.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. But I really haven’t any idea where she is now.”

“There’s a chance it may be the Bay Area, which is why I was hired. Tell me this, Ms. Weissman. Have you seen any of her work since you’ve been out here?”

“Her oils and acrylics? No. No, the only place I’ve ever seen them is at the Salishan.”

The way she phrased that, the question and her inflection, prompted me to ask, “If not oils and acrylics, some other kind of painting that might be hers? Or one that reminded you of her work?”

“Well... yes, as a matter of fact. But not a painting. Not art at all, really.”

“What, then?”

“A wine label.”

“...You said wine label?”

“That’s correct. I know it sounds odd, but my husband and I were at a dinner party several weeks ago and one of the premium wines the hostess served... well, the style of the label reminded me of Janice Erskine’s work. At the time, and even more so now that I’ve looked at these photos.”

“A strong similarity?”

“Yes and no. The label was done in silver, black, and white, with lines and angles sharply defined, as in her oils and acrylics. But there was color in the design as well as in the lettering. Vivid blues and greens.”

“Even so, in your judgment it could’ve been done by Janice Erskine. Is that right?”

“I won’t swear to it, of course, but yes... yes, it could have been.”

“What was the name of the winery?”

“Oh, Lord, I don’t remember.”

“Please try, Ms. Weissman.”

She tried. And, “I’m sorry, I simply can’t remember. Wines... well, I don’t know much about them, I’m afraid. All I can tell you is that it was local.”

“Local? You mean a California wine?”

“Yes. Napa Valley? That may be it. The woman who hosted the dinner party makes a point of never serving any but local wines. Nothing foreign, you know.”

“Would you mind calling her, asking if she can identify the winery?”

She said she wouldn’t mind but she couldn’t; the woman and her husband were away on a Caribbean cruise.

Minor setback. I thanked her for her help and went out with more energy than I’d had when I walked in.

One of the city’s oldest and most exclusive wine shops, the kind that doesn’t just sell vineyard produce but offers such other services to the connoisseur as cellar appraisals and wine storage, was a few blocks from The Artful Vision on Sutter Street. A white-haired clerk who might have been a retired sommelier listened to my general description of the label in question, nodded his head judicially, and said, “Silver Creek Cellars. Quite a striking label. Several of our customers have commented on it.”

“ ‘Silver Creek Cellars’. That’s the name of the winery?”

“Yes. Rather new, three years or so, but already beginning to make a name for itself.”

“Napa Valley?”

“No, no. Alexander Valley. Their estate-bottled cabernet sauvignon and zinfandel are excellent, as robust as any premium reds from that region. The ‘94 cab should be superb when it fully matures in six to eight years. Aged thirty months in sixty-gallon French oak barrels. Elegant balance, and firm tannic structures in perfect counterpoint to the richness of the oak. The ‘95 century vines zinfandel is quite good and moderately priced, if that is a consideration.” His tone indicated he thought it might well be in my case. “The zin was Gourmet Magazine’s pick-of-the-month not long ago. Supple, texturally distinctive, assertive.”

“I’ll try a bottle of the zinfandel.”

“Certainly, sir.”

He went and got me one. “Moderately priced” turned out to be twenty-four dollars; I managed not to wince. Kerry had a taste for better-quality wine, though not quite to the twenty-four-buck degree, and I wouldn’t know a supple and texturally distinctive zinfandel from a jug of good Dago red no matter how aggressively it asserted itself. Well, you’re never too old to learn to enjoy some of the finer things in life.

I gave my attention to the label. And the similiarity between its styling and that of the paintings by Janice Erskine was apparent even to my untrained eye. Narrowly ovoid in shape, outlined boldly in silver, it depicted a sparkling creek winding out of a dark line of trees, the trees black silhouettes with daubs of vivid green for contrast. Above the design was a silver crest incorporating gnarly old vines and clusters of grapes. Below, in descending rows: Silver Creek Cellars 1995 Century Vines Zinfandel • Woolfox Family Reserve • Alexander Valley • Estate Bottled. Silver, black, and white. Sharply delineated lines and angles. No shading. The only real differences were in the spartan use of white and the added colors: the green in the trees and “Silver Creek Cellars” in a deep blue edged in silver and black. I squinted at it up close, to see if there was an artist’s signature. There wasn’t.

I asked the clerk, “Would you have any idea who designed the label?”

“I’m afraid not, sir. Is it important?”

“It might be very important.”

“Then I suggest you contact Mr. Woolfox at the winery.”

“He’s the owner?”

“James Woolfox. The name is quite well known in the wine-making industry. Mr. Woolfox’s father founded the Oak Barn label in the Sonoma Valley. Oak Barn remained in the family for several years after the elder Woolfox died, under his son’s direction, before Mr. Woolfox divested to European interests.” Meaning, I thought, the European interests had made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. “Then he moved to the Alexander Valley and founded Silver Creek Cellars.”

“Large or small operation?”

“Oh, quite small. I don’t believe Silver Creek’s annual production exceeds a thousand cases of any of its wines, and only a few hundred cases of each of its signature reds.”

So arranging an audience with James Woolfox, or someone who could tell me what I wanted to know, ought not to be too difficult. It meant a drive up to the Alexander Valley — handling it by phone was too iffy — but I didn’t mind that; my schedule for tomorrow was free. Tonight, though, I still had a couple of things to do before I could go home to Kerry, the first being a stop at the office to tell my opportunistic assistant that she would have to wait a while longer for a raise in her weekly salary.

The building on Valencia a few doors west of Eighteenth Street was an old, scabrous, two-story pseudo-Victorian with chipped plaster cornices and a once-white paint job that fog and rain and city dirt had turned a peppery gray. Wedged in tight against its neighbors, as were most of the buildings along here. The entire downstairs housed a busy tacqueria; upstairs, behind lightless and unmarked windows, there’d be two or more small offices or maybe a combination of office and living space.

I found a parking spot a few doors beyond and sat watching night settle on the litter-edged street. This was the Mission District, near the heart of it — one of the city’s older and poorer neighborhoods, once populated mostly by Irish immigrants, now mostly by Latinos. If you had an adventurous turn of mind, or if you were young and carefree and fearless, you could find more or less healthy amusements in the Mission: swing-jazz nightclubs, hipster-trendy tapas clubs, sixties-style cafés that offer espresso and cappuccino and the latest hybrid in avant-garde poetry. But there is a much darker side to the neighborhood. Latino gangs have a strong hold there; drive-by and sidewalk shootings are not uncommon. Drug dealers flourish in the four-block radius around Sixteenth and Mission known to law enforcement as the Devil’s Quadrangle, and muggers prowl both inside and outside the Quad. Unless you live or work there, it’s not a good idea to leave your car unattended or to go wandering on the side streets after dark.

There was no mystery as to why Eberhardt had located his one-man agency here. The rents on Valencia are still fairly affordable, by city standards; and it’s a short two-mile drive uphill from there to his house in Noe Valley. Still, the address had been a poor business decision. To anyone familiar with San Francisco, it branded his operation as small, undercapitalized, probably second-rate, and — unfairly — on the shady side. Corporate clients, unless they were like Barney Rivera and Great Western Insurance and had a working history with Eberhardt, would automatically have gone elsewhere. And he wouldn’t have gotten many of the small-business and private-individual trade that are a necessary portion of an investigator’s client list. Not after one good look at that building back there.

I sat for the better part of ten minutes, during which time a homeless panhandler got into a shouting match with a reluctant passerby, a drunk staggered into a dark doorway and sat or passed out with one leg jutting from the shadows as if severed, and what might have been a casual drug buy went down — all this, and it wasn’t even seven o’clock. I itched to start the car, drive straight up to Diamond Heights and Kerry. But I’d talked myself out of coming last night, and I had no justification for backing out a second night. I’d promised Cliff Hoyt I would have this sifting among the bones of Eberhardt’s life finished by the first of next week, and for my own sake as well as Bobbie Jean’s I’d better be as good as my word.

I got out and locked the car, turned my collar up against the cold wind, and walked back to the building. The tacqueria was doing a brisk early-evening business; the aromas of cooked chiles and fried chorizo and tortillas crisping in lard stirred my gastric juices. Heart-attack country in there, but if I’d allowed myself I could have easily choked down a burrito, a couple of tacos, maybe a chile relleno. Instead I stepped into the darkened doorway next to the restaurant’s entrance and used my pen flash to read the nameplates on the three mailboxes.

Eberhardt Investigative Services — #3. On the ring of keys Cliff Hoyt had given me was one for the mailbox; I used it and fished out a thin cluster of envelopes. Not much after more than a week’s worth of deliveries: half a dozen pieces, at least the one on top junk mail. I put the envelopes into my pocket without looking through them, found the key that fit the entrance door, and let myself in.

Narrow stairwell and a fairly steep flight of unlighted stairs that creaked and groaned under my weight. On one side, wallpaper had begun to peel off in flaky strips like diseased skin. I could smell mildew and dry rot and the lingering odors generated by faulty sewer piping. Worse in here than I’d thought. Not only a bad business address but a firetrap and a probable deathtrap if and when the next 7.0 earthquake hit the city.

Upstairs, a hallway bisected the building’s width, one large office or suite of offices that took up the entire front half — the sign on the door said in both English and Spanish that it was a family counseling service — and two small offices at the rear. The far one’s door wore a placard with “Eberhardt Investigative Services” lettered on it. A different key opened the door. I stepped inside, groped the wall for a light switch.

Christ.

It was like walking into a prison cell. First impression, and one that stayed with me the entire time I was there. Twelve-by-fourteen box, bare wood floor, walls bare except for two small glass-framed hangings. The simulated oak desk and battered swivel chair he’d bought when we first became partners. But the rest of his old office furniture — two clumsy file cabinets made of particle board, typewriter and typewriter stand, an old-fashioned porcelain water cooler — was missing. In one corner stood a stubby, cheap-looking, two-drawer metal file case, and on a pair of pull-out desk boards on either side of the chair were a computer and a printer. That was all. The office was completely empty otherwise.

I open my own agency, I’m my own boss. Angry words flung at me not long before he ended the partnership. Prove to you and everybody else my way’s just as good as yours, maybe better.

His way. This way.

For no particular reason I went and looked at the wall hangings first. One was his investigator’s certificate, issued by the State Board of Licenses; the other was a twelve-by-fifteen photograph of him and a dozen other cops in uniform at some sort of SFPD function. The photo was so old and so badly framed that it had begun to yellow and buckle at the edges. It wasn’t familiar to me and there was nothing on it to identify when or where it had been taken. I wondered where it had come from, but not why he’d hung it here. Reality and illusion were difficult to separate now, but one thing I did know for sure about Eberhardt: The only thing he’d ever wanted to be was a cop and the only period in his life he’d been truly happy was during his time on the force.

I turned to the file cabinet. The cooking odors from the tacqueria were almost as strong up here, wafting through the floor, but they no longer made me hungry; now there was a faint sick feeling in my belly. I took a couple of deep breaths, kept on breathing through my mouth as I poked through the two drawers. One held paper files: hard-copy printouts of reports and research data, copies of invoices, business correspondence, paid bills, bank statements, and cancelled checks. It was only about three-quarters full. The other drawer contained computer diskettes, each one labeled. I left both drawers open and moved to the desk.

Its scarred top held nothing more than a rack with three of the stubby briar pipes he’d favored, a humidor, and a combination telephone and answering machine, the inexpensive kind made by Radio Shack. The computer and printer were both Tandys, also of Radio Shack manufacture. The message light on the answering machine blinked steadily; I punched the rewind and then the play button. Four messages, none more recent than the Friday before his death — three from Barney Rivera, saying only his name and “Call me” on the first two, and “Come on, Eb, we need to talk” on the last; and the fourth from PG&E’s billing department, reminding Mr. Eberhardt that he had not paid his March statement and that his electricity would be shut off if he didn’t bring his account current by the tenth of May.

I opened the kneehole drawer. Envelopes, a thin stack of contract forms similar to the kind I used, pens and paper clips and a book of stamps, and a thin file folder marked CURRENT and containing a couple of pieces of stationery headed “O’Hanlon Bros., Distributors.” Left-side drawers: unused diskettes, paper for the printer, a small carton of white plastic garbage bags. The bags puzzled me for a few seconds, until I realized there would be no janitorial service in a building like this and Eberhardt would have had to bus his own trash. Top right-side drawer: address book and appointment calendar. I took those out, set them on the desktop. Lower right-hand drawer—

A fifth of Four Roses, half empty, and two dirty glasses.

It was such a cliché — bottle of bourbon in the bottom drawer of the private eye’s desk — that it might’ve been funny in different circumstances. Not here, not in these circumstances. So Eberhardt hadn’t confined his boozing to home or neighborhood saloons; he’d been drinking on the job, too. But there was no surprise in the discovery. If I’d thought about it hard enough, I could’ve guessed it would be like this, just like this.

Nothing more for me here. Time to get the hell out, away from the crisping tortillas and frying chorizo, away from the miasma of decay that seemed to emanate like an invisible gas from the walls and floor and ceiling. I stuffed all the paper files and used diskettes into one of the garbage bags, added the address book and appointment calendar. I would go through the files later, with Kerry’s help in screening the diskettes on her PC, and then I’d destroy everything to ensure confidentiality to Eberhardt’s clients. The rest of the items in the office could go to Goodwill or the Salvation Army or one of the Mission’s ethnic charities. Cliff Hoyt could take care of arranging that, or hire somebody to do it. Once I walked out of this cell, I would never come back.

But before I did that I stood in the doorway and took one last look at the place where Eberhardt had spent most of his days over the past four years. And I wondered if Barney Rivera or Bobbie Jean or anyone other than Eberhardt had set foot in here before tonight, or if he’d spent all those long days and maybe a few nights sitting here alone, drinking Four Roses and waiting for the phone to ring. And wondering that, I could feel his pain the way I’d felt Ira Erskine’s on Monday. Feel it and understand a little more clearly why he’d decided dying was preferable to living.

“Now this is interesting,” Kerry said when I walked into the condo. “A full garbage bag in one hand and a jug of wine in the other. What’s the occasion?”

“No occasion. No connection either. I went to Eberhardt’s office; this one bag is what I came away with. I’ll sort through it tomorrow, the next day — not tonight.”

“And the wine?”

I explained about that.

She said, “It looks expensive.”

“Nope. Moderately priced.”

Kerry took a closer look, and I was glad I’d peeled off the price tag. “Estate-bottled zinfandel? It must’ve cost at least fifteen dollars.”

“Nothing’s too good for you, my sweet. I’ll have you know this was Gourmet magazine’s pick of the month not long ago. Supple, texturally distinctive, assertive. Firm tannic structures, too.”

She gave me one of her looks.

“Besides,” I said, “by drinking the entire bottle before dinner you can get a nice buzz on. You and me together.”

“Must’ve been bad at Eberhardt’s office.”

“Bad enough. Shall we open the wine and let it assert itself?”

“I’ll get the corkscrew,” she said.