P.J. Morse - Clancy Parker 01 - Heavy Mental (2 page)

After putting the water on to boil, I did my best to make Mrs. Sabrina Norton Buckner think she was the only person in the universe I cared about. I sat down at my desk, adjusting my chair so that I was at eye-level with my client. “May I ask what brings you here, Sabrina?”

Sabrina sat a little straighter. “I’ve read about you in the papers, and your mother gives out your business cards.” Sabrina gestured to one of a stack of my cards on the desktop. My card wasn’t hard to miss, as it had a picture of a woman holding a magnifying glass to her right eye, and it was printed in dark red ink.

I smiled. If my father wasn’t on my side and frowned upon my chosen careers, my mother, too eccentric for Cape Cod, not to mention too eccentric for my dad, was an enthusiastic backer. I could count on at least one cheating-spouse case a month because my mom recommended me to her friends. Wronged socialites regularly visited South Park while clutching my business card in their beautifully manicured hands. A few local gossip hounds started frequenting the neighborhood because, if a big name was knocking on my door, a dirty secret was sure to follow. Anmol, who was always generous, offered to rear-end them for me, but I declined.

Sabrina looked at the cards and curled her lip slightly upwards. “Normally, I would go with someone more-” she looked at the “Lick Our Frosting” bumper sticker on the computer “-discreet. But I need someone effective, and I have heard that you get results. And, from what I hear, your prices are reasonable.”

Most people revealed their true natures when the subject of money came up. But I was usually the one who mentioned it first. No matter the status of the person who came in the office, I needed to ease price into the conversation, often within the last five minutes. The professional clients, like the lawyers and insurance companies, wanted to bargain, whereas the people who came in through the front door had other matters on their minds.

But, this time, Sabrina needed to bring up money right away. I was surprised that she brought it up so quickly and even brought it up at all. Normally, women who looked like they came from a certain social caliber never once talked about money. They had other people talk about money for them. Money was the last item on the mind of a wronged woman, especially a wronged wealthy woman.

No matter how surprised I was, I always let the client drive the conversation, so I replied, “The price depends on the nature of the work.”

Sabrina sighed. “I have lost something very, very valuable. I intended to help someone important to me, and now I can’t help him.” Tears welled in her eyes. Something was weighing on her, something big enough to distract her from dangerous ice-cream trucks bearing down on her, something big enough to overcome Harold’s open contempt.

I pushed the box of tissues back toward Sabrina and didn’t say anything. Sometimes customers needed to pause, especially if they were the types who preferred not to admit their weaknesses.

Sabrina went on to explain, “I am fortunate to have inherited jewelry. Diamonds, mostly. All passed down through the family. The jewelry is small, mostly wearable. I don’t like to be too showy.” I wondered what Sabrina’s definition of “showy” was given that she drove a Jaguar and her outfit looked like Prada.

Then Sabrina touched her collarbone ever so briefly, as if something that should have been there was gone. I had a brief flashback, a childhood memory of when my mother managed to lose her own wedding ring, which she would take on and off depending on the state of the Parker marriage. This one time, when I was eight, Mom touched her finger and realized the ring was missing. As Mom swooped around the room and put the household help to work flipping over beds and digging in the sofa cushions, I calmly went to her jewelry box, inventoried each item, and quickly discovered the precious piece. She bought me an ice-cream sundae as a reward, and I became a pro at finding whatever it was she lost.

My immediate look of recognition cracked Sabrina’s shell. She began to sob. “My necklace! I don’t know what to do!” Her eyes began darting around the room, and she grabbed her throat as if the harder she grabbed, the more likely the necklace would reappear. “I … I don’t think I should have come here.”

The kettle went off. I often had to pat clients on the back, but she didn’t seem to be the touchy-feely type. I imagined Sabrina never cried in front of anyone and probably needed a moment to get used to the feeling. So I gave her some space, leapt from the desk and walked across the hall to the kitchen. I grabbed a clean UC Santa Cruz Banana Slug mug from the cabinet, ripped open a bag of green tea, and poured in the steaming water.

When I returned with the mug, the woman in yellow was gone.

CHAPTER 3

HIGH STRUNG

I
HEARD HER RUN DOWN THE
steps, but she was much taller and must have taken advantage of her long stride. “Watch the beer!” Harold yelled. “Aw, c’mon!”

By the time I made it down the stairs and avoided a puddle that resulted after Sabrina ran into Harold, she had started the car and was peeling out of South Park, nearly hitting Anmol, who had parked his truck and was strolling over for his regular afternoon chess game with Harold. “Way uncool, lady!” Anmol shouted. He looked back at us and wagged a Drumstick in the direction of her departing car. “She is pulled tighter than one of your guitar strings!”

I gasped. That reminded me. I had to make band practice. I spun around, raced up the stairs, and returned with my guitar case and a roll of paper towels. I had already done a lot of running around for this client, and she hadn’t even hired me yet. Once we mopped up the beer puddle, I was gone. “You kids enjoy yourselves!” I told Harold and Anmol, immediately walking toward the Embarcadero and the nearest N-line stop. “And, if she comes back—”

“I hope she doesn’t,” Anmol grumbled.

“—tell her to wait. Please? Pretty please?”

Neither of them replied, but I knew the Cho-Singh Answering Service would take Sabrina’s messages.

I took the N line to Wayne’s cave-like apartment in the Haight, where the Marquee Idols—me on lead guitar, Shane on drums, and Wayne on rhythm guitar usually gathered on Saturdays. The Saturday sessions were more relaxed, largely due to the quantities of pot we tended to smoke in the backyard in between songs.

However, during that particular Saturday’s backyard festivities, I couldn’t stop worrying about the gaping hole in the band, and no amount of pot was going to stop that. Our bassist, Larry, jumped ship just before we got booked for a show at the South of the Slot. We were going to open for Highbrow/Lowbrow, a band from Chicago. One of the big-name indie-rock producers produced their debut record, which meant, for the first time in ages, the Marquee Idols would have a real audience.

Shane and Wayne were tops, but Larry tied everything together for the live shows. His bass lines helped our songs fill the room, and his thundering notes, each one as strong as an army general, kept everyone in line so we didn’t stray off into jam-band noodlings. We were pretty good musicians, but we got distracted, and we needed Larry’s help. Alas, a few months before, Larry broke up with the band—and with me.

Right before practice that day, Wayne, who was missing a vital conversational tool known as a filter, announced, “Hey, guess what? I saw Larry.”

Shane, whose filter was somewhat more advanced and whose romantic experiences were slightly more sophisticated, gave Wayne a heaping helping of stink eye. “You know you’re not supposed to mention him, right?”

I looked down, pretending to tune my guitar so no one noticed that I was blushing. “I appreciate your concern, Shane, but I am an adult. So, how is our former bassist?”

Wayne barreled on. “He’s at Hastings Law!”

“Hastings?” I stopped tuning. I wanted to know what the hell Larry was doing at the law school.

Shane played a ba-dum-ching on his drums. “So, he picked Hastings after all?”

I turned to him. “What? You knew about this?”

“Yeah,” Shane replied, guiltily. “I saw him at a cafe with the LSAT book. It’s not exactly leisure reading. You didn’t know he was studying for the test? That was a while ago.”

I turned a knob on the amp hard. Up to 11 hard. I looked at Wayne. “And did he have anything else to say?”

Wayne thought a moment, and a light turned on behind his eyes, like he finally realized he was discussing a touchy subject. “You’re not gonna like it.”

“What?”

“He said he’d grown out of the rock and roll lifestyle.” He started shifting around like his pants didn’t fit right. “Um, can we change the subject?”

“Too late,” I replied.

Grown out of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle.
Larry had been gone for over seven months, but those words stung me, as I thought I had a perfectly legitimate day job. Larry always told me being a private detective was “dangerous” and that he fretted about me getting hurt, especially after a guy I was tailing followed me back to my apartment and informed me that he would scalp off my pretty red hair if I told his wife he was sleeping around. I successfully karate-chopped him into submission. I was proud of myself. Larry was less enthused. After that episode, he suggested that I might want to consider a straight job.

All that time and all that talk, and he didn’t even bother telling me about his own plans. Chicken. If anything, he was trying to bend my plans to suit his. I was pissed, not really about the law school thing, although that revealed how boring he really was. I was even more pissed that he didn’t tell me himself.

I cursed myself for not picking up the clues that were right in front of my eyes. Of all the people in the world, surely I should have noticed Larry had changed. Private eyes were trained to notice sudden shifts in behavior. I gave myself credit for noticing that he was reading the
New Yorker
all of a sudden, which was definitely out of character since he barely read at all. If he ever did read, his reading material was usually the
TV Guide
that Wayne left on top of his toilet tank. But Larry was such a good bassist that I ignored his non-rock behavior until he dropped the bomb that didn’t want to be in the band anymore.

After my job-related misadventures, Larry was beginning to sound like my dad, who enjoyed making impromptu phone calls from New England to lecture me that I was mingling with a “bad element,” as if detectives and rock musicians ever mingled with a good element. Plus, my dad has mingled with the Kennedys, and more than a few people would argue that clan was a “bad element.”

Surely being a private detective was just as respectable as being a lawyer. My chosen profession was probably even more respectable. And the private detectives generated a hell of a lot of business for the lawyers and did their legwork half the time. As far as I was concerned, Larry should have been grateful to me.

Wayne walked around me in an arc toward his guitar, as if he were afraid I was about to explode. He should have been. “You okay over there?”

Shane was already tapping out a beat. “Let’s practice. Fuck ‘im.”

I agreed. “Yeah. Let’s play.” We immediately launched into song. It didn’t sound right without the bass, but it was fast, loud, and mad, which was exactly how I felt.

CHAPTER 4

A GUEST AT THE GOLD RUSH

W
HEN
I
HOPPED OFF THE
N train and started walking toward South Park, it was about time for the baseball game. There was barely enough room on the train for me and my guitar. The October air in San Francisco was still and soft, unlike the bracing air the city usually had, even in the summer. At that time, while other cities were sweltering in the heat, San Franciscans enjoyed summer for free—no bugs, no humidity, no sweat. And the sun had an orange-sherbet undertone that no other city could match.

While walking along the Embarcadero, the baseball fans were riding a buzz, chatting about the Giants’ World Series chances, what kind of beer they would drink, the speed of the team’s outfielders, the expense of the beer they would drink, the abilities of the pitchers, and how much beer they would drink. I found myself forgetting about Larry thanks to baseball and beer, America’s most reliable distractions.

I neared the entrance of the Gold Rush BBQ Restaurant, where people were gathering for a private political fundraiser of some sort. Puffy old men who were trying to look liberal and hip emerged from their luxury cars as the restaurant’s valets took their keys and searched for a rare parking space in the South Beach neighborhood.

I heard someone shout, “Clancy!” and I immediately began scanning the scene for Jamal, one of the valets who occasionally relayed messages from clients who didn’t want to be seen at my place and busted by industrious reporters.

Jamal worked in the perfect spot for gathering the latest news. The Gold Rush BBQ was owned by a former San Francisco mayor, and he often showed up at the establishment and found ways to give back to the community through the restaurant. Gold Rush served splendid food with a Southern twist, had a brilliant view of the bay, and attracted many of the types who eventually became my clients, including politicians and tech gurus. Many of them claimed they went to Gold Rush because the staff grilled the barbecue right behind the restaurant, but it was also an ideal place to grease a few political palms. Overhearing a few conversations in that place was far often more informative than reading the local paper.

Jamal was manning the door while a fellow valet drove off. Jamal waved at me, and I got a peek at the fading tattoo that ringed his neck. That tattoo was the only hint at the gang activity and miscellaneous theft he used to engage in before he landed in jail. After his time behind bars, he scored a gig at the Gold Rush BBQ, who regularly hired ex-cons as part of its job-training program.

Since he was an ex-con with bulging muscles and tattoos that peeked out of his shirt collar and cuffs, Jamal’s mere presence regularly made upper-class buttocks clench in terror. I first met Jamal back in May, when I took my father, Thomas Clancy Parker the Third, who was in town from Cape Cod to make sure his wayward daughter hadn’t been kidnapped by rock ‘n’ roll perverts or something, to Gold Rush BBQ for lunch. My dad, owner of the New England Parker’s Pantry gourmet grocery chain, was skeptical about a restaurant owned by a super-liberal politician and staffed by ex-gang members, and he didn’t think it could meet his exacting standards. As I prided myself on pushing my dad’s buttons, I considered it a prime lunch destination.