“I don’t know.”
“They must be the only people in town,” said Toomes.
“They must be the only people in the entire state. You didn’t hear out here in Palmdale about your daughter’s little rally for the Symbionese Liberation Army?”
“Oh, that. She and Angela Atwood were very close friends. I think she was just hurting after Angela died.”
“Ever heard of the Bay Area Research Collective?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“It’s your daughter and a group of other very close friends. Dedicated to publishing and disseminating left-wing revolutionary propaganda. You didn’t know about that, did you?”
“No. No, I didn’t.”
“Not your sort of reading material.” Manhardt glanced at the coffee table. Life, Time, TV Guide, Shõgun.
“No.”
“So you’d agree there are some things about your children that you don’t know?”
“Apparently so.”
Manhardt said, “We’d like to talk to your daughter about a friend of hers. Has she ever mentioned a Guy Mock?”
“Jeff’s sportswriter friend,” said Rose.
“That’s right. Very good.” Manhardt said this in a nasty way that made Rose want to spit in his eye. He continued. “How about Joan Shimada? Your daughter ever mention her?”
“Joan …?”
“Shimada. An Oriental girl. Japanese.”
“I think maybe.”
“She would have stood out, wouldn’t she?” asked Toomes. “You were a fighter pilot, weren’t you, Mr. Rorvik? Which theater?”
“Pacific,” said Howard.
“Ahhh so,” said Toomes.
“Didn’t I read about her in connection with Alice Galton? And Mock too?”
“You might have seen their names,” said Manhardt.
“Joan Shimada spent last summer with Alice Galton, we think,” said Toomes. “Shortly after your daughter Susan was pledging allegiance to the SLA in Ho Chi Minh Park, so called. Shimada spent her time in a house in Pennsylvania that was rented by your daughter’s friend Guy Mock. After that we lose her trail. Turns out she has a friend in San Francisco.”
“Not just any friend,” added Manhardt.
“No. This friend arrived from the East Coast right around when Joan Shimada’s trail vanishes. Her name is Meg Speice. And guess what? Meg Speice and Susan Anger happen to work the very same shift at the Plate of Brasse. Isn’t that an interesting coincidence?”
“What else do you expect me to make of it?” said Howard.
Rose said, “We’re not even sure Susan knows this girl, Shimada.”
“We are,” said Toomes, brightly.
“Do you want to hear something even more interesting? Your daughter’s paid a few visits to a friend in Soledad.”
“Soledad,” echoed Toomes.
“There’s a state penitentiary there,” said Manhardt. “The man she’s been to visit lives in it. He’s named Willie Clay.”
“Your daughter ever mention this man?”
Howard and Rose both shook their heads.
“Clay got busted a few years ago for running a bomb factory out of a Berkeley garage,” continued Manhardt. “He was head of a group called the Revolutionary Army.”
“Catchy,” said Toomes.
“Your daughter ever mention this outfit?”
Howard and Rose both shook their heads.
“Thing is, Clay was working with a few associates. Two were caught. The other is at large.”
“That would be Joan Shimada,” said Toomes.
“Your daughter’s friend Guy Mock’s friend. Your daughter’s colleague Meg Speice’s friend. A woman who spent two months last year with the fugitives your daughter publicly swore allegiance to. See? There’s a pattern.”
“You want to talk to your daughter and nephew, Mr. Rorvik. You want to fly up to Frisco and try and talk some sense into them.”
“How would I do that if this address is a fake?”
“Oh, someone there’s passing on the letters. A friend.”
“A fellow traveler.”
“A dupe. Who knows? Would we bumble in there with a bunch of stupid questions and scare them off? Send a note today and tell them you’ll be there on, say, Friday.”
“Look at that face,” said Toomes.
“The Bureau will pay your expenses, Mr. Rorvik.”
“You want me to pump the kids for information. Find them for you so you can follow them.”
“They’ll thank you for it later,” said Toomes.
“We’ll put you up at the Hilton. You’ll buy some sourdough bread, ride the cable cars, toss some change at a mime. Take the whole weekend. A working vacation.”
“Everybody loves Frisco.”
“Write the note today and we’ll be back tomorrow with your plane ticket. All right?”
“All right,” said Howard.
Howard couldn’t get over the dog manure. Everywhere you looked on Post Street it was Dog Dropping Heaven. Somehow he’d managed to avoid stepping in all but one ripe turd, but that was a beaut. He had to hang on to a lamppost while he scraped the sole of his shoe against the curb. He did this delicately, a little tentatively, as though in ridding himself of this ordure he might offend some sense of propriety that existed among the natives here, a blighted pride in their specific metropolitan disfigurement that they might assert, defending it against the judgmental gaze of an outsider. But they just ignored Howard, wobbled by. Definitely high on something. Howard had taught high school long enough to recognize intoxicated kids, though these weren’t kids and this clearly was not a matter of Testor’s glue in a paper bag or a few beers. This drug usage was not recreational; it was a matter of life and death. The possibility that it wasn’t dog crap underfoot briefly occurred to him.
How could the kids live like this? Susan had always been the most fastidious of children, and Roger was always so damned grateful for everything he had. Though Howard consoled himself with the thought that they weren’t really living like this at all — just picking up their mail here to avoid being located by the authorities. Swell.
He found 625 Post, a shabby storefront (what else?) under a sign that read INDUSTRIAL PHOTO PRODUCTS, INC. A smaller sign, in the window, said POST RENT-A-BOX. No products were on display in the window. Inside, the simple-looking clerk barely seemed to comprehend Howard’s request to leave a message “for some of your postal clients.” Maybe it was just indifference. Howard had written a note on hotel stationery and stuck it in a hotel envelope, and now he addressed it. He hoped to see the clerk put it in a P.O. box, a cubbyhole, some evidence of actual delivery, but the envelope remained on the counter next to the clerk as he read from a creased issue of Archie’s Pals ‘n’ Gals, lips muttering silently.
Back into the dog poop. Amazing quantities of the stuff, considering that the streets were not populated with dog walker types, exactly. In fact he’d seen no dogs since he’d strolled past Union Square. Maybe they roamed in packs, after dark?
Not until late afternoon did the phone in his room ring. It was Susan, who sounded thrilled to have heard from him and then smoothly lied about the need for the mail drop. He hadn’t even asked. It wasn’t encouraging. He arranged to meet the kids near Federal Plaza. Then he called the agent Toomes had referred him to, a man named Nietfeldt.
Hugs and handshakes. They stood in the shadow of FBI headquarters, discussing where to have dinner. He took them to a bar for a couple of beers. He stopped at a little place and bought some postcards and an ashtray with a picture of a crab in it while the kids laughed at him, the tourist, good-naturedly. The Oriental lady who sold him the things was practically an American, I mean zero accent, none at all; she was joking along with him and the kids, and it set him to thinking about this Joan Shimada, and Guy Mock, and the overcast reason for his visit here, and he carried his stuff out in a little white paper bag, feeling sorry for himself and, in the chill damp of the evening, slightly drunk. Supposedly he was up here “on business,” though this would have been plenty vague even if he weren’t a schoolteacher whose only business trips were to L.A. for occasional training. Didn’t matter anyway; they ended up at a steak house and what’s practically the first thing he does once everybody’s slid into the banquette? He tells them the FBI’s looking around for them.