Strawberry Sunday Page 26

  “Get what you needed down there?”

  “Most of it.”

  “Don’t sound like it did you much good.”

  “Murder never does me much good, Ruthie.”

  “Tell me about it, Sugar Bear.”

  We shared a remembrance of her dead husband, shotgunned twenty years ago in a dusty valley town called Oxtail. It seemed like yesterday to me, and it probably seemed like a nanosecond ago to Ruthie.

  “So how’s the office?” I asked.

  “Picking up. Got a skip-trace, executive background check, disability verification, and a witness to a construction accident to hunt down.”

  “Sounds pretty good.”

  “Lucrative, at least. These boys can pay the freight as opposed to a few dozen of your other so-called clients I could name. Coming down this morning?”

  “I’ll be in about noon. Got something to take care of first.”

  “Oh. A lawyer named Knoblock keeps calling. What should I tell him?”

  “Tell him I’m taking care of it.”

  I got to Charley’s house just after nine. I’d last been in it a couple of months back, when Charley was a fugitive from justice and I was looking for leads to his whereabouts. Back then, the house had been a repository of proof; now it was a store of memories.

  I got the key from under the rock on the porch and let myself in. The first thing that hit me was the smell, a musty spritz of anoxia that evoked neglect and maybe putrefaction. The house seemed to have shrunk in the interim as well, to have become a toy, a playhouse, a miniature token of something larger and more significant. I wandered the rooms, absorbing impressions, provoking recollections, activating the boundless spirit of my dead friend.

  When I’d been through it all, I sat on the couch and pondered. There was precious little of value in the place and what there was I would leave to be sold for the benefit of the children’s project, Charley’s primary beneficiary. What I wanted was a souvenir, a memento of Charley and the good times we’d had and the thoughts and ideas we’d shared, most silly and irrelevant but a few possibly profound. I went in the bedroom and prowled around. What I pounced on was hanging on a hook in the closet.

  It was tan with a full brim, treated to be waterproof, soft and shapeless and stained with the leavings of sweat at the band. It was the largest size they made and even then it hadn’t fit him. Originally intended to shade fishermen from the sun, for Charley it had served as his poker hat. He’d worn it every Friday night for years, covering his bald pate at the behest of Clay Oerter, who’d complained that the light off Charley’s barren orb was a detriment to concentration and the source of an Excedrin headache. I think Clay even paid for the hat. In any event, it had served as Charley’s only comic prop for twenty years. It would look good hanging on my wall, maybe in the office across from the Klee or maybe in my living room next to the poster by Ansel Adams. I took the hat to the living room and sat back down.

  Poker was covered, but Charley was other things besides a card-sharp. He was a cop, of course, but my daily fare provided me with plenty of reminders of that side of his life. It would be nice to have his badge, but it had probably reverted to the department and I wasn’t on good enough terms with the brass to ask for the badge as a favor. So much for cops and robbers. Those memories are essentially melancholy anyway.

  Charley also had a mind. Tough and original, fearless and insightful. Mostly he was a genius with people—he knew instinctively what they needed, what they wanted, and why they did what they did, which was mostly because of fear and loneliness. In spite of that knowledge or maybe because of it, Charley liked them. All of them for the most part, not just the good guys, but the whores and beggars and transients, the cripples, the crazies, the con men, along with the other denizens of the Tenderloin, where Charley spent most of his time.

  He called them the folk, and they were his religion, the only gods he worshiped other than his late wife. The ones he couldn’t abide were the predators, the takers and abusers who made the lives of the folk more miserable than they were already. There were plenty of predators in the Tenderloin as well, of course, but Charley treated even them with respect, which is not to say he was above slamming a hand upside of a head to get its attention or to herd it along.

  I walked to the wall and looked at his library. There were a few valuable things there—first editions of Sanctuary and From Here to Eternity for example, but I left them where they were for the benefit of Charley’s kids. What I finally selected were two books—Chinaman’s Chance by Ross Thomas and All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren. Two of Charley’s favorites, books that told you a lot of what he was, which was a clever sleuth and a passionate and misunderstood crusader for social justice. I stuck the books under my arm, put the hat on my head, and left the way I’d come.

  I spent the rest of the day at the office, talking to Ruthie Spring, touching base with old clients, and introducing myself to some new ones. When the colors in the room began to deepen I locked the door, strolled up Columbus to Guido’s, said hello to the regulars in attendance, which happened to be most of them, downed two shots of bar scotch and half a bowl of bar peanuts, and headed home.

  The rest of the evening was spent watching Barry Bonds and his mates beat up on the Dodgers, keeping my mind off the phone. By the time she called, I was barely awake.

  “Marsh? Hi. It’s Jill.”

  “Jill? Which Jill?”

  “Coppelia, you jerk.”

  “Oh. That Jill.”

  “As if you know any others. You’re home, I take it.”

  “Yep.”

  “Did you solve the case?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Who did it?”

  “Her best friend.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she was afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “That Rita wouldn’t be her best friend anymore.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Best friends are important,” I said with surprising verve, a character witness for a killer, endorsing Thelma’s motive for reasons that had little to do with Rita or Thelma and everything to do with Jill and the way she’d treated me the last time we talked.

  “Are you all right?” she asked after a moment.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “I didn’t mean physically.”

  “I didn’t either.”

  “Well good. I’m glad you’re fine.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But I’m not.”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I feel bad.”

  “Flu?”

  “Not that kind of bad. I feel bad about what I did. To you. I feel bad about what I said the last time we spoke.”

  “I felt bad about that, too. Which makes a surplus of bad floating around, I guess.”

  “I know. So I apologize.”

  “For what, exactly?”

  “For making it sound like I didn’t have a good time with you in Salinas. Which I did. And for making it sound like I didn’t want to see you again. Which I do. Very much.”

  “Good.”

  “Are you sure? I was quite a little bitch.”

  “I’m not sure the word ‘little’ has any—”

  “Don’t push it, Tanner.”

  “Okay.”

  “So can we? See each other, I mean?”

  “When?”

  “Tonight?”

  “It’s ten o’clock.”

  “You’re tired.”

  “Not really.”

  “You don’t want to make the effort.”

  “I—”

  “I’ll come over there if you want. I want to see your place anyway.”

  “It’s not that much.”

  “It doesn’t have to be.”

  “I haven’t done a lot in the way of cleaning up since I got back.”

&n
bsp; “I haven’t done a lot of cleaning up since I moved in.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But caveat emptor.”

  “I’m not buying the place, I’m just spending the night.”

  “You are?”

  “If I can.”

  “Who’s going to stop you?”

  “I guess no one.”

  “You guess right.”

  It was two hours after that, after we’d made love and washed up and were reclining on the couch drinking hot chocolate and eating popcorn, that I realized my wounds didn’t hurt anymore and hadn’t during the more vigorous moments of our congress. I guess that meant I was healed. I guess that meant Jill was good for what ailed me. I guess that meant that life was, essentially and predominantly, a good thing and the future held promise and potential.

  It had been a while since I’d seen it that way.

  Turn the page to continue reading from the John Marshall Tanner Mysteries

  Chapter 1

  I’ve been in the business a long time, so these days I make them come to me.

  They don’t like it much, the lawyers and their satraps, and they like it even less when they compare the pedestrian decor of my office to their own palatial work environments, but if they want me, they put up with it for as long as it takes to hire me. Sometimes it takes quite a while. Like this time, for instance.

  Her brown hair was flecked with gray and crimped into a Brillo bun that reminded me of my grandmother, the one on my father’s side who always made me take off my shoes before coming indoors, the one I didn’t like very much. Her powder blue blouse buttoned to the throat with mother-of-pearl, her navy blue suit jacket covered the entire topology of her torso, and her matching straight skirt was hemmed well below the knee, at the point of maximum frumpiness. Her shoes were as sensible as snow tires; the eyeglasses on her nose made her look like a jungle bird on the brink of capture. Some people think women lawyers are like Ally McBeal. Those people have never met one.

  She didn’t have an ounce of fat or of irony either. Whatever had brought her to my place of business was deadly serious, in fact, or so I was urged to believe by her demeanor.

  We faced each other like bookends in the reference section. “Mr. Tanner?”

  I glanced at the calendar, the one labeled HARD BOILED. “Ms. Sundstrom?”

  “I’m pleased to meet you,” she said without meaning it, and extended a ringless hand.

  “Same here,” I said as we shook. Her flesh was as cold as custard. Her knuckles were as faceted as fine jewelry. “And please call me Marsh.”

  “Karla.”

  “With a K?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll bet your father was Karl and you were an only child.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Elementary, my dear Ms. Sundstrom.”

  After a twitch of indecision that no doubt questioned my sobriety, she gestured toward a chair. “May I sit?”

  I’m nothing if not magnanimous. “Of course.” I gave her credit for not trying to dust it off.

  She squirmed this way and that, trying to find a comfortable angle of repose, but it would have been easier to find a four-leaf clover in the carpet. Her focus on her own contentment was such that she didn’t even respond to the painting on the wall at my back. It was just as well. She probably viewed Klee as random and racy and therefore profane.

  She clasped her hands and launched her pitch. “Before we get into details, I should mention that the engagement I’m going to describe will occupy virtually all of your time, at least periodically. Are you in a position to take on such a task, assuming we formalize the arrangement?”

  My mind glided across my active case list the way a seagull glides across a landfill. “As it happens, I’m between projects at the moment.”

  “Good.”

  “Not according to my accountant.”

  She frowned until she deciphered it. “Yes. Of course. Well, I’m sure the hiatus is only temporary. What are your rates, if I may ask?”

  I employed the fudge factor I use when the job seems tedious or the client obnoxious. “Sixty dollars an hour plus expenses.”

  She raised a well-penciled black brow. “That seems rather high.”

  I crossed my arms and propped my feet on the desk, assuming my own favorite angle of repose. “You’re a lawyer and you’re here on behalf of a client, am I right?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “So your meter is running, as they say.”

  “I … yes. If you want to put it that way.”

  “Then I’ll charge whatever you’re charging.”

  She colored and looked away. “That wouldn’t be at all appropriate.”

  “Why not? I’m the one loaded with free time. Seems to me it’s a seller’s market.”

  She readjusted her position and recrossed her shapeless legs. When she was adequately arranged, she tugged so hard on her skirt I was afraid she was going to rip it off. “You seem rather out of sorts this morning, Mr. Tanner.”

  “And you seem rather dour and reluctant, Ms. Sundstrom.”

  We locked sight lines until we decided to mutually disengage. “I find a certain reserve helps me be more effective in my work,” Ms. Sundstrom acknowledged finally, though not without embarrassment.

  “As do I,” I countered.

  “Plus my expertise is in personal services contracts and intellectual-property issues. I’ve never dealt with a potentially violent situation before.”

  “Whereas I deal with such situations all the time,” I exaggerated.

  She took the bait. “I suppose that’s why I’m here.”

  “And I suppose that’s why I charge sixty bucks an hour.”

  After a philosophical struggle that seemed to be unique to her experience, Ms. Sundstrom bowed in homage to my trump. Then she consulted a watch that was thinner than her wrist but not much. Then she looked up. “Shall I proceed, or have we decided we’re terminally incompatible?”

  I laughed because I assumed she’d made a joke. “You tell me.”

  “I’m prepared to go forward.”

  “So am I. Though not necessarily all the way, since this is our first date.”

  Her lips wrinkled and her nose lifted. “Men frequently assume I’ll be undone by double entendre. I have four older brothers; I’ve yet to hear a scurrile reference that wasn’t inflicted upon me with regularity from about the age of nine.”

  Now I was the one who blushed. “I apologize.”

  “What for?”

  “For being like all the other men in your life.”

  “I have no men in my life.”

  “I guess that’s what four brothers will do for you. Shall we get down to business?”

  “Please.” She retrieved her briefcase from the floor and extracted what looked like a contract. “I have a client who’s in danger, Mr. Tanner.”

  “What kind of danger?”

  “Her life has been threatened. Several times.”

  “Threatened by whom?”

  “The threats were anonymous.”

  “Have there been actual attempts to harm her?”

  “Not yet. Thank God.”

  “But you take the threats seriously.”

  She nodded. “More important, so does my client.”

  “Who is?”

  “Chandelier Wells.”

  Now my brow was the one that elevated. “The writer?”

  “Yes.”

  “My hourly rate just tripled.”

  I finally provoked an infinitesimal grin. “I take it you’re familiar with her work.”

  “Not her work; just her reputation.”

  “Yes, well, whatever you may have read or heard about her, shall we say, personal peccadilloes, Chandelier Wells is the most successful novelist in San Francisco, Danielle Steel and Richard North Patterson not excluded.”

  “Good for her.”

  “But I’m afraid success comes at a price.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”<
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  “The price in this instance is danger.”

  For some reason I looked at my sagging couch and my faded carpet and my peeling paint and wondered how long it would be till I could stop taking on troubles for a living. “What does Ms. Wells want from me, exactly?” I asked before I’d answered my question.

  Like all good lawyers, Ms. Sundstrom was ready with a succinct answer to a predictable inquiry. “She wants you to serve as her bodyguard until the source of the threats is identified and neutralized. The precise nature of the relationship is spelled out in this document I’ve prepared for your signature.”

  As Ms. Sundstrom placed the document on the desk, I pushed back my chair and stood up. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t do that kind of work. I don’t even go to those kinds of movies.”

  Ms. Sundstrom stayed seated. “Please hear me out.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because Chandelier asked for you by name. And because she doesn’t take no for an answer.”

  I did a partial pirouette. “Take a look, Ms. Sundstrom. I don’t have enough muscles to make anyone think twice, I have only one gun and I’m not sure where it is at the moment, I’ve never attended defensive-driving school or counterinsurgency training or even learned CPR, and I don’t like being cooped up with strangers even on a bus ride. You’d better get a new boy.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not an option, I’m afraid.”

  “But why me?” I asked, more plaintively than I intended. “There are all kinds of mammoth security firms that can guard Ms. Wells day and night and she won’t even know it’s happening. I can give you names if you want. I’ll even make you an appointment.”

  She was shaking her head before I finished my screed. “Sorry, Mr. Tanner. I don’t want names, I want you.”

  “I still don’t understand why.”

  “Because you come highly recommended.”

  “By whom?”

  “Millicent Colbert.”

  I sank back to my chair, heavily and disconsolately, and propped my head with my hands. “How does Ms. Wells know Mrs. Colbert?”

  “They have children in the same preschool.”

  “Laurel Hill.”

  “I believe that’s the one.”

  “And Millicent told Chandelier I could take care of her problem.”