The McCone Files (21 page)

And that apparently was what had happened at the big singles complex down near the San Francisco—Daly City line, owned by Hank's client, Dick Morris. There had been three burglaries over the past five months, beginning not long after the place had been leafleted by All the Best People Introductions Service. Each of the people whose apartments had been hit were women who had filled out application forms; they had had from two to ten dates with men with whom the service had put them in touch. The burglaries had taken place when one renter was at work, another away for the weekend, and the third out with a date whom she had also met through Best People.

Coincidence, the police had told the renters and Dick Morris. After all, none of the women had reported having dates with the same man. And there were many other common denominators among them besides their use of the service. They lived in the same complex. They all knew one another. Two belonged to the same health club. They shopped at the same supermarket, shared auto mechanics, hairstylists, dry cleaners, and two of them went to the same psychiatrist.

Coincidence, the police insisted. But two other San Francisco area members of Best People had also been burglarized—one of them male—and so they checked the service out carefully.

What they found was absolutely no evidence of collusion in the burglaries. It was no fly-by-night operation. It had been in business ten years—a long time for that type of outfit. Its board of directors included a doctor, psychologist, a rabbi, a minister, and a well-known author of somewhat weird but popular novels. It was respectable—as such things go.

But Best People was still the strongest link among the burglary victims. And Dick Morris was a good landlord who genuinely cared about his tenants. So he put on a couple of security guards, and when the police couldn't run down the perpetrator(s) and back-burnered the cases, he came to All Souls for legal advice.

It might seem unusual for the owner of a glitzy singles complex to come to a sliding-fee scale firm, but Dick Morris was cash-poor. Everything he'd saved during his long years as a journeyman plumber had gone into the complex, and it was barely turning a profit as yet. Wouldn't be turning any profit at all if the burglaries continued and some of his tenants got scared and moved out.

Hank could have given Dick the typical attorney's spiel about leaving things in the hands of the police and continuing to pay the guards out of his dwindling cash reserves, but Hank is far from typical. Instead he referred Dick to me. I'm All Souls' staff investigator, and assignments like this one—where there's a challenge—are what I live for.

They are, that is, unless I have to apply for membership in a dating service, plus set up my own home as a target for burglars. Once I started “dating” I would remove anything of value to All Souls, plus Dick would station one of his security guards at my house during the hours I was away from there, but it was still a potentially risky and nervous-making proposition.

Now Hank loomed over me, still grinning. I could tell how much he was going to enjoy watching me suffer through an improbable, humiliating,
asinine
experience. I smiled back—sweetly.

“'Your sexual preference.' Hetero.” I checked the box firmly “Except for inflating my income, so I'll look like I have a lot of good stuff to steal, I'm filling this out truthfully,” I said. “Who knows—I might find someone wonderful.”

When I looked back up at Hank, my evil smile matched his earlier one. He, on the other hand, looked as if he'd swallowed something the wrong way.

My first “date” was a chubby little man named Jerry Hale. Jerry was
very
into the singles scene. We met at a bar in San Francisco's affluent Marina district, and while we talked, he kept swiveling around in his chair and leering at every woman who walked by. Most of them ignored him but a few glared; I wanted to hang a big sign around my neck saying, “I'm not really with him, it's only business.” While I tried to find out about his experiences with All the Best People Introduction Service, plus impress him with the easily fenceable items I had at home, he tried to educate me on the joys of being single.

“I used to be into the bar scene pretty heavily,” he told me. “Did all right too. But then I started to worry about herpes and AIDS—I'll let you see the results of my most recent test if you want—and my drinking was getting out of hand. Besides, it was expensive. Then I went the other way—a health club. Did all right there too. But goddamn, it's
tiring
. So I then joined a bunch of church groups—you meet a lot of horny women there. But churches encourage matrimony, and I'm not into that.”

“So you applied to All the Best People. How long have you—?”

“Not right away. First I thought about joining AA, even went to a meeting. Lots of good-looking women are recovering alcoholics, you know. But I like to drink too much to make the sacrifice. Dear Abby's always saying you could enroll in courses, so I signed up for a couple at U.C. Extension. Screenwriting and photography.”

My mouth was stiff from smiling politely, and I had just about written Jerry off as a possible suspect—he was too busy to burglarize anyone. I took a sip of wine and looked at my watch.

Jerry didn't notice the gesture. “The screenwriting class was terrible—the instructor actually wanted you to write stuff. And photography—how can you see women in the darkroom, let alone make any moves when you smell like chemicals?”

I had no answer for that. Maybe my own efforts at photography accounted for my not having a lover at the moment….

“Finally I found All the Best People,” Jerry went on. “Now I really do all right. And it's opened up a whole new world of dating to me—eighties-style. I've answered ads in the paper, placed my own ads too. You've always got to ask that they send a photo, though, so you can screen out the dogs. There's Weekenders, they plan trips. When I don't want to go out of the house, I use the Intro Line—there's a phone club you can join, where you call in for three bucks and either talk to one person or on a party line. There's a video exchange where you can make tapes and trade them with people so you'll know you're compatible before you set up a meeting. I do all right.”

He paused expectantly, as if he thought I was going to ask how I could get in on all these eighties-style deals.

“Jerry,” I said, “have you read any good books lately?”

“Have I …
what
?”

“What do you do when you're not dating?”

“I work. I told you, I'm in sales—”

“Do you ever spend time alone?”

“Doing what?”

“Oh, just being alone. Puttering around the house or working at hobbies. Just thinking.”

“Are you crazy? What kind of a computer glitch are you, anyway?” He stood, all five-foot-three of him quivering indignantly. “Believe me, I'm going to complain to Best People about setting me up with you. They described you as ‘vivacious,' but you've hardly said a word all evening!”

Morton Stone was a nice man, a sad man. He insisted on buying me dinner at his favorite Chinese restaurant. He spent the evening asking me questions about myself and my job as a legal researcher; while he listened, his fingers played nervously with the silverware. Later, over a brandy in a nearby bar, he told me how his wife had died the summer before, of cancer. He told me about his promise to her that he would get on with his life, find someone new, and be happy. This was the first date he'd arranged through All the Best People; he'd never done anything like that in his life. He'd only tried them because he wasn't good at meeting people. He had a good job, but it wasn't enough. He had money to travel, but it was no fun without someone to share the experience with. He would have liked to have children, but he and his wife had put it off until they were more financially secure, and then they found out about the cancer….

I felt guilty as hell about deceiving him, and for taking his time, money, and hope. But by the end of the evening I'd remembered a woman friend who was just getting over a disastrous love affair. A nice, sad woman who wasn't good at meeting people; who had a good job, loved to travel, and longed for children…

Bob Gillespie was a sailing instructor on a voyage of self-discovery. He kept prefacing his remarks with statements such as, “You know, I had a great insight into myself last week.” That was nice; I was happy for him. But I would rather have gotten to know his surface persona before probing into his psyche. Like the two previous men, Bob didn't fit any of the recognizable profiles of the professional burglar, nor had he any great insight into how All the Best People worked.

Ted Horowitz was a recovering alcoholic, which was admirable. Unfortunately, he was also the confessional type. He began every anecdote with the admission that it had happened “back when I was drinking.” He even felt compelled to describe how he used to throw up on his ex-wife. His only complaint about Best People—this with a stern look at my wineglass—was that they kept referring him to women who drank.