The Night Bird

8

Frankie waited for her sister at Zingari, which was their traditional meeting spot twice a week. She had a glass of Russian River pinot noir in front of her, along with an order of cozze. That was her dinner. The jazz bar was loud, with a nighttime piano and saxophone duo rising in a mellow beat over the voices of the crowd. A candle flickered on her table. She leaned back into the cushioned bench and watched the reflections of faces in the mirrored wall.

Pam was late. As usual. But it didn’t matter. She sipped wine and lost herself in the noise. The garlic mussels were perfect.

She checked e-mails on her phone. Most of the messages were business related, which she could answer in a sentence or two. Follow-up on articles she’d published in scientific journals. Queries from colleagues. Conference invitations from around the world. She’d spoken on memory reconsolidation on nearly every continent over the past decade. In her field, she was widely known, but her fame had also brought controversy. Many of her peers disagreed bitterly with the ethics of her treatments, and they’d waged an academic war to discredit her.

Frankie didn’t care. What mattered to her was the outcomes for her patients.

Fame as a therapist had other strange side effects, too. Every night, when she scrolled through her e-mail, she found messages from ordinary people. Some were harmless. Some were desperate. Others were hate mail she’d learned to ignore. She clicked on one as she drank her wine:

She deleted the message, along with several others in a similar vein. She kept the e-mails from people who had read her book and wanted to share stories of how their own painful memories had taken over their lives. Many wanted help, and she could reply to those from her office in the morning.

There was one message left that she hadn’t opened. The e-mail had no subject line. When she checked the date stamp, she saw that it had come into her in-box only five minutes earlier.

Frankie opened the message, which contained one line:

There was nothing else. No signature. No attachment. She checked the return address of the sender and saw,

Frankie’s brow furrowed with puzzlement. Something about the message unnerved her more than the others. She wasn’t sure what it was. She’d received much worse from strangers. This was nothing. And yet—

She realized what was bothering her. When she checked her name, she saw that the message had come to her personal e-mail account, not the business e-mail address from her website. Her personal address was private. She gave it out only to family and friends, and to a very small number of patients whom she considered at risk of suicide. Even when she muted her phone at night, that e-mail address was programmed to ring through and alert her to a new message.

“Fan mail?”

Frankie looked up. Her favorite waiter, Virgil, hovered over her table with a bottle of wine. He had a luxuriant wave of shock-white hair that even women envied. His dark eyes were wicked, and his lips curled into a permanent smirk. He was tall and wore a tight black shirt and black pants.

She put down her phone. The battery was low, so she removed a portable charger from her purse and connected it. “Someone’s praying for my soul again.”

“Well, you and me need all the help we can get,” Virgil replied. “I figure I’m on the smite list if God gets bored. I keep looking up at the sky for a lightning bolt.”

“This is California, Virgil. When the smite comes, it’ll be an earthquake.”

Virgil spread his long arms wide. “Did you feel that? Was that a tremor?”

Frankie laughed. Virgil could always make her laugh.

“More fruit of the vine?” he asked her.

“Definitely.”

Virgil refilled her glass. His pours were generous. She was a regular, and she tipped well. The other servers at the restaurant knew that Virgil took the table whenever Frankie, Pam, and Jason came in. Frankie liked him. He was a San Francisco party child, always short of cash and crashing with gay friends. He was technically homeless, but nothing vanquished his sense of humor, which Frankie admired. He was proof that you could still live off the kindness of strangers.

“Where’s your sister tonight?” he asked.

Frankie was about to answer when a voice called from behind him: “I’m here, I’m here!”

Pam threaded her way toward the table through the Friday crowd. She had a way of parting the seas as she walked. A shopping bag from Nordstrom Rack dangled from one finger. With a toss of her long bottle-blond hair, she slid into the chair opposite Frankie and gave Virgil a grin. She slid off her sunglasses.

“What should I have tonight, V?” she asked.

“Depends. Are we looking to flirt, celebrate, or get drunk?”

“All three.”

“Sounds like a Bellini martini,” he said.

“Done.”

Virgil left, and Pam gave an exaggerated sigh as she settled herself at the table and fluffed her hair. Every motion Pam made was designed to draw attention to herself. And it worked. Around the bar, men stole glances at her. Anyone looking at the two of them could see that they were sisters, but Pam got the attention when they were together. It was partly her looks. Pam had spent some of her college money on breast implants, and she dressed to show them off. Her legs had the golden glow of time in the sun. But it was her attitude, too. Something about Pam screamed of sex.

“Where’s Jason?” Pam asked.

“He had to work late.”

Pam shook her head. “All work and no play. You should play with that boy more.”

“Life’s not all about play, Pam,” Frankie said.

Her sister rolled her eyes. Frankie couldn’t blame her. Whenever she was with Pam, she lectured her like a child. It had been that way their whole lives. When Pam needed rescuing, Frankie was there, and Frankie in turn made her feel like shit. They may as well have been jealous teenagers.

As they sat there, Frankie heard her phone ping. She had a new e-mail at her personal address. When she checked her phone, she saw that it was the same sender as before. This time he wrote,

Her sister read her frown from across the table. “What’s up?”

“Nothing.” Frankie put down the phone and put the message out of her mind. Someone was playing games with her. “Nothing at all.”

Virgil brought Pam her martini, which had an amber glow and an orchid flower draped over the rim of the glass. Pam took a sip and licked her lips with her tongue. “Perfect, Virgil. You are my savior.”

“Sorry, Frankie and I covered religion. We’re all going to hell.”

“Dibs on that,” Pam replied.

Virgil left them alone, and Pam eyed the crowd around them, taking a survey of the male faces. When someone smiled at her, she smiled back. Frankie wanted a report on Pam’s day, but she knew she’d have to drag it out of her.

“How did the job interview go?” Frankie asked.

Pam didn’t look back. “Fine. Great. I’m sure I got it.”

“Did you even show up?”

This time, Pam stared at her, and her look was deadly. “Excuse me?”

“Did you go, or did you blow it off?”

“Of course I went.”

“If I call, is that what they’ll tell me?”

“Call them,” Pam said. She took a sip of her drink and added, “It’s so refreshing that you trust me.”

Frankie shrugged. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

The truth was that Pam had never given anyone in the family a reason to trust her, but Frankie didn’t bother pointing that out.

Living with a family of type-A academics, Pam had deliberately gone in the opposite direction. She dropped out of college after a year. She bounced from job to job — dancer, waitress, model — and along the way, she developed an addiction to cocaine and went through rehab twice. Five years ago, she married a Portuguese web developer she’d met in a Mission District nightclub. He abused her. She cheated on him. When he kicked her out, she moved into Frankie’s spare bedroom, and she was still there.

Pam had money now. Their father had left them a small inheritance, but the way Pam was spending her share, Frankie didn’t think that the nest egg would last more than a few years in her pockets. Pam couldn’t think that far into the future, but Frankie did, and she’d been maneuvering to get Pam a job. Any job. The latest interview was with a PR firm that Frankie had worked with when she testified in a litigation case. Public relations was all about looking good, and Pam fit the bill.

Frankie’s phone pinged again.

Another e-mail.

She hesitated, but she picked up her phone. The message was from the same person. It read,

This time, Frankie angrily tapped out a return e-mail with her slim fingers:

She sent it before she could think twice and then slapped her phone down on the table. Pam noticed.

“What’s up?”

“Just a troll. Tell me about the interview.”

“What’s to tell?” Pam asked.

“What kind of questions did they ask?”

“I don’t know. PR questions. Are you comfortable lying to a reporter’s face? Would you sleep with a client to keep their business? That kind of thing.”

“Funny,” Frankie said.

“Come on, I’d be eye candy for them, and that’s all. You know it. I know it. They know it.”

Frankie didn’t say anything. She sipped her wine and studied her sister’s face. Pam was hiding something, but that didn’t narrow it down. She always kept secrets. She always lied. The only thing she was ever honest about was her bitter resentment of her older sister’s success.

“You didn’t go, did you?” Frankie said.

Pam sipped her martini. “No.”

“For God’s sake, Pam.”

“What? I’m not broke anymore. I’ll find a job when I am.”

“That won’t take long if you keep coming home with Nordstrom bags. Do you know the strings I pulled to get you that interview?”

“Yes, thank you for taking pity on me,” Pam snapped.

“I’m done with you. That’s it.”

“I’d like to think so, but you’re never done, Frankie. Just like Dad was never done.”

“I mean, you’re on your own,” Frankie told her.

“What, do you want me to move out of your apartment? Get my own place?”

“Is that what you want?”

Pam’s face was ice. “No.”

“Yes, a penthouse condo rent-free is pretty nice.”

“You want me to pay rent, Frankie? I’ll pay rent.”

“That’s not what this is about,” Frankie shot back.

It happened this way over and over. They couldn’t be alone without arguing. Jason was the peacekeeper between them. Without him around, the two sisters took out their knives and aimed for each other’s throats. Frankie hated it, and she knew she was just as much to blame as Pam. She’d hoped it would be different with their father gone, but they’d fallen right back into their dysfunctional routine after the accident.

Frankie let the silence drag out. Then she asked, more softly, “Pam, are you clean?”

“Excuse me?”

“Cocaine,” Frankie said.

“Wow, you were done interfering for a full five seconds. That’s a new record, even for you.”

“I just want to know. When you’ve had money before, most of it went up your nose. That’s the truth, Pam, whether you like it or not.”

Her sister looked around to see if anyone was listening. She leaned across the table. “I go to meetings. You send Jason as my watchdog, remember? Don’t worry, Frankie, I get my dose of humiliation every week.”

“The meetings aren’t intended to humiliate you. They’re to keep you alive.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t have to go to them, do you? Be a good girl and stand up in front of the losers and tell them that I’m an even bigger loser. I’m sorry we can’t all be world-class physicists and psychiatrists and neuroscientists. Some of us are just human beings.”

Pam waved her hand, which collided with her martini glass and spilled her drink across the table. Pam swore and stood up to flag Virgil to get another. Frankie sopped up the puddle from the table with a wad of napkins. She was always cleaning up Pam’s messes.

Ping.

Another e-mail. She grabbed her phone to read the message. It was the same sender:

Frankie’s head snapped up. Zingari was packed with customers shoulder to shoulder. Light was low, and she struggled to see the faces. Her eyes shot from person to person, looking for someone in the crowd who was looking back at her. Someone she knew.

There was no one. She realized that her hand was trembling, and she could barely hold her phone.

Across the table, Pam sat down again, her face tight with anger. She wouldn’t look at Frankie.

“I’m sorry,” Frankie murmured.

Pam said nothing.

“Really, I mean it, Pam. I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to run your life. I know sometimes I act like I do.”

“You’re just like Dad,” Pam retorted, knowing it was a low blow.

Frankie held her tongue, despite the temptation to start the argument all over again. “Okay, you’re right, Dad was always on your case, and I don’t want to be like that. He drove me crazy, too, just not in the same way. He was difficult.”

“Difficult?” Pam said, as if the word didn’t begin to describe him. Which was true.

“The thing is, Dad and I made some progress when we were at Point Reyes. Before the accident.”

“How nice for you, but you didn’t want me there, remember? You said all I’d do is get in the way.”

Frankie hesitated. “Of course. I just mean — I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It is what it is.”

Virgil leaned between them. His smirk, as always, was plastered on his face. He knew they were arguing. It wasn’t the first time. He’d seen worse in the year they’d been coming here. The server carried a glass of pinot noir in his hand, and Pam frowned when she saw it.

“I wanted another martini, V.”

“Don’t worry, Bellini number two is on the way,” he told Pam. “This drink is for Frankie. Courtesy of a gentleman at the bar.”

Frankie looked up. I see you.

“Who?” she asked. Customers lined up three deep at the bar, and she couldn’t pick out any familiar faces.

“Slicked-back brown hair. Beard. Very tasty.”

Frankie studied the faces again, and this time, she spotted a man staring back at her. Virgil was right. He was attractive. He was younger than she was, but he had a weak-in-the-knees smile that was like a secret weapon. His bearded chin was squared, and his nose made a sharp V, with a pronounced ridge above his lip. He was smart, too. She could always see intelligence in the eyes.

“Take the drink back,” she told Virgil, but then she grabbed the server’s wrist. “Wait, no, I’ll do it myself.”

Frankie stood up. In her heels, she was taller than the man at the bar. She let her coldness soak into her face. She approached him, and he watched her with an amused confidence. As if women always wanted him to buy them a drink. He didn’t look scary, but stalkers knew how to wear a mask. He was whistling, but he stopped as she came closer.

She stood in front of him and drilled into his face with her stare.

“Who are you, and why are you sending me e-mails? How did you get my personal address?”

His blue eyes blinked with surprise. They were attractive eyes, and they latched on to her and didn’t let go. “I’m sorry, I think you have me confused with someone else. My name is Frost Easton, Dr. Stein. I’m with the San Francisco Police. I’d like to talk to you.”