Wolf in the Shadows - Marcia Muller [19]
I dialed the San Francisco number. A man answered. Again I asked for Gage Renshaw. He took my name and put me on hold. Thirty seconds later he was back, asking what the call pertained to.
“Hy Ripinsky,” I said.
There was a slight pause. “One moment, please.”
The next voice that came on the line was strong and resonant—and very guarded. “Gage Renshaw here. What can I do for you, Ms. McCone?”
“I’d like to schedule an appointment to talk with you about Hy Ripinsky.”
“Ripinsky …?” In spite of his attempt to imply lack of recognition, I caught an undertone of interest.
“Mr. Renshaw, you know him.”
“… Yes. What’s your connection with him?”
“Friend.”
“I see.”
“I’d like to meet with you.”
There was an odd sound on the line; Renshaw was probably recording the call. “All right, Ms. McCone, I have a light schedule today. Can you be here by ten-thirty?”
“Certainly.”
“And you have our address?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll see you within the hour.”
I set down the receiver and went into the bathroom, where I dabbed on a minimum of makeup and twisted my hair into a knot, which I secured with a tortoiseshell comb. Then I regarded my jeans and sweater in the full-length mirror, saw the frown lines between my eyebrows, and laughed wryly. One thing for sure, nobody at RKI would care about the inelegance of my wardrobe. They, and I, had more vital matters to concern us.
* * *
The block of Green Street that I wanted was just off the Embarcadero between Battery and Front. From its foot I could see the piers across the wide shoreline boulevard; behind me rose the sheer rocky cliff of Telegraph Hill. The area contains an interesting mix of buildings and businesses: manufacturers’ showrooms and reclaimed warehouses; trendy restaurants and antique shops; television stations and that venerable San Francisco used-furniture institution, Busvan for Bargains. I squeezed the MG into a mostly illegal parking space on Front and walked to RKI’s address.
It was one of the smaller renovated warehouses—old brickwork and high arched windows, augmented by new skylights and iron trim. Liquid amber saplings grew in brick-faced planters on the sidewalk, and a plate-glass window afforded a view of the building’s rather stark lobby. A man with a movie star’s profile, wearing a plain gray business suit, greeted me at the reception desk; his keenly assessing gaze told me he was a guard, and a bulge under his jacket indicated he was armed. He checked a clipboard for my name, gave me a plastic-coated visitor’s badge, and directed me up a curving wrought-iron staircase to his right.
There was a fire door at the top of the staircase. I pushed through it and immediately confronted another guard station, staffed by a woman this time. Careful people, Renshaw and Kessell. Careful to the point of paranoia.
The woman also checked a list when I gave my name, then buzzed someone on her intercom. While I waited, I looked around. Three rows of cubicles covered in a gray carpetlike material, offices around the perimeter. No plants, artwork, or chairs where visitors could sit. In about a minute a youngish man emerged from the aisle to my left, introduced himself as Mr. Renshaw’s assistant, and asked that I follow him.
The cubicles we passed were occupied by men and women performing routine tasks. They stared at computer screens, typed, studied reports, spoke on the phone. In spite of the activity, the area was very quiet; when I commented on it, my escort said, “White noise—it keeps one person’s conversation from interfering with another’s.”
High-tech people, too, I thought. A bland, sterile workplace like this would depress the hell out of me. I pictured my own office at All Souls—the small Victorian fireplace, the bay window, my salmon-pink chaise longue and Oriental rug, the Tiffany lamp and other mementos of past cases—and offered a silent prayer that the co-op would never blunder this far into the twenty-first century. If that happened, it would be no place for a person like me.
Renshaw’s assistant stopped in front of a corner office and