The Legacy [antikvár]

A visitor to San Francisco in the late 'fifties might well have been advised that along with the cable cars, the Coit Tower, and the Golden Gate Bridge, he should look for Big Dan Lavette. While not nearly as well known as the above, except locally, Dan Lavette was nevertheless a sort of civic fixture, and almost any morning, the weather being tolerable, he could be found striding along the Embarcadero with his wife, Jean. Asking for further facts, the visitor would be told to look for a large, heavyset man, somewhat over six feet in height, with a shock of curly snow-white hair and a brown face as lined and creased as a relief map of Northern California. He would most likely be wearing gray flannels and an Irish hand-knit pullover and his arm would be linked with the arm of a handsome, white-haired woman almost as tall as he was. From the Ferry Building to Fisherman's Wharf, they knew every shopkeeper, sidewalk vendor, fisherman, and Embarcadero drifter and walker. Usually by nine o'clock, the Lavettes had left their home on Russian Hill and were headed down Leavenworth toward the bay, but now and again, in the summertime, when the press of tourists on the 11