slope of Telegraph Hill there were few places for children to play.
The black lacquered door was opened by a man who looked to be in his middle thirties. He was dressed in tight-fitting designer jeans and a tight-fitting T-shirt. The jeans displayed the considerable bulge of his genitals; the T-shirt displayed the well-developed bulges of a weight lifter’s torso. The face went with the body: self-indulgent and narcissistic, but handsomely proportioned. It was a face that belonged in the uncertain shadows of a singles’ bar, where its deficiencies would be softened. The eyes were small and unfriendly, animated only by a dull, sullen suspicion as he silently stared at me.
“I’m Lieutenant Frank Hastings,” I said, showing him my plastic identification badge. “Mrs. Kramer is expecting me.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Grudgingly, he stepped back, gesturing for me to precede him up a short flight of carpeted stairs that led to the second of the house’s three levels. From the small entryway I could see into a large living room where a woman sat. The room was a white-and-glass room: white walls, white rug, white sofa and chairs combined with glass tables, cut glass decorations, and plate glass windows that framed the view. Huge, colorful daub-and-drip modern paintings were displayed on two walls; bookshelves covered the third wall. The fourth wall was almost entirely glass.
Marie Kramer was sitting in one of the white leather armchairs. As I came toward her, she rose to her feet. Her resemblance to her father was remarkable: Her body was tall and slim, her face was lean, with a wide forehead, a thin, patrician nose, a decisively sculpted mouth and jawline, the face of a willful, arrogant aristocrat. But it was flawed, somehow.
She wore low-cut sheepskin boots, tapered trousers, and an expensive handwoven sweater. Her thick, dark hair was carelessly combed, falling in a ponytail well below her shoulders. Her makeup, too, was careless: lipstick that was smearing, eyeshadow that was smudging. Her body movements and her hand gestures were broad and exaggerated, but slightly out of sync, as if she were in the process of memorizing a character she hoped to play on the stage, but hadn’t yet learned to coordinate her mannerisms with her lines. Her voice was slightly exaggerated, too: a little too broadly accented, like a mediocre imitation of a finishing school patois. The mannerisms and the voice conveyed a kind of faded forcefulness, and odd combination of aggression and bemusement.
“Where’s John?” she demanded. “Did you bring him? Is he all right? Are you Lieutenant Hastings?”
“Yes, I’m Lieutenant Hastings. And John’s fine. Your father picked him up this morning. As far as I know, he’s sleeping.”
“Picked him up? Where?”
“At the Youth Guidance Center,” I answered reluctantly.
“The Youth Guidance Center?” Her voice rose indignantly. Briefly, her eyes blazed. “That’s for delinquents. Hoodlums .”
“That’s true. But when a child comes into police custody, he’s got to go to the Youth Guidance Center until his parents can come for him. Don’t worry. He was well taken care of. He had a private room, and a counselor slept with him until this morning, when your father sent someone for him.”
“A private room.” She snorted contemptuously and turned abruptly back to her chair, at the same time gesturing for me to sit in a facing chair. There was an outsize coffee mug on the glass-topped table beside her chair. She reached for the mug and drank from it: two long, hard gulps. From the way she did it, from the way she looked away from me while she drank, I knew that the mug contained liquor. During the last two years of my marriage, and for three years afterwards, I’d fought a long, losing battle with the bottle. I knew exactly what she was doing—and exactly why.
She set the mug on the glass table with an awkward clatter, then sat silently for a moment, frowning as she stared out at the
The black lacquered door was opened by a man who looked to be in his middle thirties. He was dressed in tight-fitting designer jeans and a tight-fitting T-shirt. The jeans displayed the considerable bulge of his genitals; the T-shirt displayed the well-developed bulges of a weight lifter’s torso. The face went with the body: self-indulgent and narcissistic, but handsomely proportioned. It was a face that belonged in the uncertain shadows of a singles’ bar, where its deficiencies would be softened. The eyes were small and unfriendly, animated only by a dull, sullen suspicion as he silently stared at me.
“I’m Lieutenant Frank Hastings,” I said, showing him my plastic identification badge. “Mrs. Kramer is expecting me.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Grudgingly, he stepped back, gesturing for me to precede him up a short flight of carpeted stairs that led to the second of the house’s three levels. From the small entryway I could see into a large living room where a woman sat. The room was a white-and-glass room: white walls, white rug, white sofa and chairs combined with glass tables, cut glass decorations, and plate glass windows that framed the view. Huge, colorful daub-and-drip modern paintings were displayed on two walls; bookshelves covered the third wall. The fourth wall was almost entirely glass.
Marie Kramer was sitting in one of the white leather armchairs. As I came toward her, she rose to her feet. Her resemblance to her father was remarkable: Her body was tall and slim, her face was lean, with a wide forehead, a thin, patrician nose, a decisively sculpted mouth and jawline, the face of a willful, arrogant aristocrat. But it was flawed, somehow.
She wore low-cut sheepskin boots, tapered trousers, and an expensive handwoven sweater. Her thick, dark hair was carelessly combed, falling in a ponytail well below her shoulders. Her makeup, too, was careless: lipstick that was smearing, eyeshadow that was smudging. Her body movements and her hand gestures were broad and exaggerated, but slightly out of sync, as if she were in the process of memorizing a character she hoped to play on the stage, but hadn’t yet learned to coordinate her mannerisms with her lines. Her voice was slightly exaggerated, too: a little too broadly accented, like a mediocre imitation of a finishing school patois. The mannerisms and the voice conveyed a kind of faded forcefulness, and odd combination of aggression and bemusement.
“Where’s John?” she demanded. “Did you bring him? Is he all right? Are you Lieutenant Hastings?”
“Yes, I’m Lieutenant Hastings. And John’s fine. Your father picked him up this morning. As far as I know, he’s sleeping.”
“Picked him up? Where?”
“At the Youth Guidance Center,” I answered reluctantly.
“The Youth Guidance Center?” Her voice rose indignantly. Briefly, her eyes blazed. “That’s for delinquents. Hoodlums .”
“That’s true. But when a child comes into police custody, he’s got to go to the Youth Guidance Center until his parents can come for him. Don’t worry. He was well taken care of. He had a private room, and a counselor slept with him until this morning, when your father sent someone for him.”
“A private room.” She snorted contemptuously and turned abruptly back to her chair, at the same time gesturing for me to sit in a facing chair. There was an outsize coffee mug on the glass-topped table beside her chair. She reached for the mug and drank from it: two long, hard gulps. From the way she did it, from the way she looked away from me while she drank, I knew that the mug contained liquor. During the last two years of my marriage, and for three years afterwards, I’d fought a long, losing battle with the bottle. I knew exactly what she was doing—and exactly why.
She set the mug on the glass table with an awkward clatter, then sat silently for a moment, frowning as she stared out at the
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