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“Why do you suppose I did not get her name in my calendar?”
“I don’t know,” Rivera said.
“I should probably get the Proust book for you, then.”
“I would let you collect it, but I’m afraid I may have already set things out of order by falling behind on my calendar.”
“I understand,” Baptiste said. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
Rivera waited, closed his eyes, and just felt the chill wind biting through his light, worsted wool suit. In a few minutes Baptiste came back out of the front door, moving quite a bit more quickly than he had gone in.
“It’s gone,” he said.
“Did you check all the drawers?”
“I checked and I asked the shift nurse, who said that Helen had her check on it this morning. It was there then, she said.”
“Did Helen see anything?” Rivera asked.
Baptiste just looked at him.
“Sorry. Did she hear anything?”
“Rats. She complained of the sound of rats scurrying in the room. She rang for the nurse after we came out here.”
“Rats?”
“Her hearing is very good.”
They just looked at each other and there was a lull between gusts of wind when the leaves that were skittering around in the street slid to a stop. A woman’s voice whispered, “Meeeeeeeeat.” A woman’s voice that seemed to be coming from under an Audi wagon parked on the curb across the street. They both looked and did a slow, synchronized deep knee bend until they could see under the car, where there appeared to be nothing but leaves and a candy wrapper.
“Did you hear that?” Baptiste asked.
“Did you?” asked Rivera.
“No,” said Baptiste.
“Me either,” said Rivera.
11
Crocodile Tears
Lily let herself into the empty storefront that had once been Asher’s Secondhand and later the location of Pizazz, the pizza and jazz place she and M had opened. The sight of the sign, leaning in the corner, and the idea that she’d let the Mint One talk her into that name made her want to start cutting herself again, something she’d indulged briefly when she was fifteen but had quickly stopped because it hurt. The space filled the entire ground floor of a four-story building at the corner of Mason and Vallejo streets, where the North Beach, Chinatown, and Russian Hill neighborhoods met like slices of an international pie.
All the booths and tables were gone, as well as most of the restaurant equipment. Only the oak bar and a great, brick, wood-burning pizza oven remained. There was still a storeroom with a staircase that led up to Charlie Asher’s old apartment (now Jane and Cassie’s), but now it contained only a walk-in refrigerator and a few bar stools and chairs instead of the collection of knickknacks that had filled it when it had been Charlie’s store.
Lily dragged some stools out to the bar and sat down to wait in the diffused daylight from the papered-over windows. This would be weird, but she found she was excited at the idea of seeing Charlie again, even if he was a wretched little carrion creature now.
Soon there was the silhouette at the door of a woman who apparently had a crescent-moon-shaped head and Lily hurried to the door to let her in. Oh yeah, this was going to be weird.
Audrey, wearing yoga pants, a sweater, and sneakers, stood on the sidewalk holding a cat carrier shaped like a Quonset hut. It was made from heavy nylon embroidered in blue and orange swirls, heavy mesh halfway down on either end.
?
??Hi,” Lily said, stepping out of the way so Audrey could come in. They’d met once before the debacle, when Lily had been the one with the postmodern hair. “Where’s Asher?”
Audrey lifted the cat carrier.
