“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.