SIX
The Bentley turned right off Beach into Hyde Street, then paused at the curb.
A cable car, packed with poncho-draped tourists outbound from Fisherman’s Wharf, clanged and rumbled past as it departed its turnaround in Aquatic Park. Neither vehicle had been deterred from its mission by the pelting rain that had persisted throughout the first three days of 2020.
Paul Eustis glanced out the Bentley’s rain-smeared side glass, at the windows of the corner bar to his right, then frowned into his rear-view mirror at the slim, gray-haired man in the back seat. “Mister Powell, do you really think you’ll find Mr. Boyle at the Buena Vista? In all those years he never struck me—.”
David Powell peered through the rain at the bar’s double doors and smiled. “As a tourist? Paul, Mrs. Boyle was a tourist and Jack was a law student waiting tables the afternoon he met her. Right in there at the Buena Vista. Marian would have turned sixty-three today. I like my chances.”
Paul Eustis smiled. Not at the memory of Marian Boyle. That gentle woman’s passing remained too profoundly sad for anyone who had known her, even two years on. Paul smiled because David Powell had never forgotten Paul’s birthday, or the birthday of anyone he employed, or even their partners’ and children’s birthdays.
David Powell turned up his topcoat’s collar, then laid his hand on the rear compartment’s door handle. “Two hours. Unless I call.”
The driver reached for the umbrella on the seat beside him, as he prepared to limp around to Powell’s door and hold the umbrella over his boss.
But David Powell raised a calf-gloved palm. “Stay put, Paul. Silly for us both to get wet.”