The antebellum homes overlooking the Fan’s tree-lined streets are large but built close together, with small yards taken up mostly by flower gardens. Over the years many of the old homes have been divided into apartments, so the Fan is densely populated. Health food stores, art galleries, and offbeat boutiques dot the main avenues, and, unlike other areas of the city, backgrounds, creeds, and colors are as diverse as the residents’ interests. Blacks and whites. Young and old. Hippies, professionals, creative types, and students. It’s the city’s melting pot.Angela slid into a wooden booth in Castro’s, named not for Fidel but for a rhythm and blues band, Skip Castro, that had gained a measure of fame in Virginia during the seventies and eighties, but never quite made it onto the national scene. On the other side of the scratched table sat Kate Charboneau, a slim woman in her early forties. Kate had long blonde hair that cascaded past her shoulders in unruly waves, penetrating hazel eyes, thin features, and fair skin.They hadn’t spoken in two years.
