The McCone Files (23 page)

In spite of my earlier determination to depart the singles scene, I spent the next few nights on the phone, this time assuming the name of Patsy Newhouse, my younger sister. I talked to various singles about my new VCR; I described the sapphire pendant my former boyfriend had given me and how I planned to have it reset to erase old memories. I babbled happily about the trip to Las Vegas I was taking in a few days with Weekenders, and promised to make notes in my pocket organizer to call people as soon as I got back. I mentioned—in seductive tones—how I loved to walk barefoot over my genuine Persian rugs, I praised the merits of my new microwave oven. I described how I'd gotten into collecting costly jade carvings. By the time the Weekenders trip was due to depart for Vegas, I was constantly sucking on throat lozenges and wondering how long my voice would hold out.

Saturday night found me sitting in my kitchen sharing ham sandwiches and coffee by candlelight with Dick Morris' security guard, Bert Jankowski. The only reason we'd chanced the candles was that we'd taped the shades securely over the windows. There was something about eating in total darkness that put us both off.

Bert was a pleasant-looking man of about my age, with sandy hair and a bristly mustache and a friendly, open face. We'd spent a lot of time together—Friday night, all day today—and I'd pretty much heard his life story. We had a lot in common: he was from Oceanside, not far from where I'd grown up on San Diego; like me, he had a degree in social sciences and hadn't been able to get a job in his field. Unlike me, he'd been working for the security service so long that he was making a decent wage, and he liked it. It gave him more time, he said, to read and to fish. I'd told him life story, too: about my somewhat peculiar family, about my blighted romances, even about the man I'd once had to shoot. By Saturday night I sensed both of us getting bored with examining our pasts, but the present situation was even more stultifying.

I said, “Something has
got
to happen soon.”

Bert helped himself to another sandwich. “Not necessarily. Got any more of those pickles?”

“No, we're out.”

“Shit. I don't suppose if this goes on that there's any possibility of cooking breakfast tomorrow? Sunday's I always fix bacon.”

In spite of my having wolfed down some ham, my mouth began to water. “No,” I said wistfully. “Cooking smells, you know. This house is supposed to be vacant for the weekend.”

“So far no one's come near it, and nobody seems to be casing it. Maybe you're wrong about the burglars.”

“Maybe…No, I don't think so. Listen: Andie Wyatt went to Hawaii; she came back to a cleaned-out apartment. Janie Roos was in Carmel with a lover; she lost everything fenceable. Kim New was in Vegas, where I'm supposed to be—”

“But maybe you're wrong about the way the burglar knows—”

There was a noise toward the rear of the house, past the current construction zone on the back porch. I held up my hand for Bert to stop talking and blew out the candles.

I sensed Bert tensing. He reached for his gun at the same time I did mine.

The noise came louder—the sound of an implement probing the back-porch lock. It was one of those useless toy locks that had been there when I bought the cottage; I'd left the dead bolt unlocked since Friday.

Rattling sounds. A snap. The squeak of the door as it moved inward.

I touched Bert's arm. He moved over into the recess by the pantry, next to the light switch. I slipped up next to the door to the porch. The outer door shut, and footsteps came toward the kitchen, then stopped.

A thin beam of light showed under the inner door between the kitchen and the porch—the burglar's flashlight. I smiled, imagining his surprise at the sawhorses and wood scraps and exposed wiring that make up my own personal urban-renewal project.

The footsteps moved toward the kitchen door again. I took the safety off the .38.

The door swung toward me. A half-circle of light from the flash illuminated the blue linoleum. It swept back and forth, then up and around the room. The figure holding the flash seemed satisfied that the room was empty; it stepped inside and walked toward the hall.

Bert snapped on the overhead light.

I stepped forward, gun extended and said, “All right, Jerry. Hands above your head and turn around—slowly.”

The flash clattered to the floor. The figure—dressed all in black—did as I said.

But it wasn't Jerry.

It was Morton Stone—the nice, sad man I'd had the dinner date with. He looked as astonished as I felt.

I thought of the evening I'd spent with him, and my anger rose. All that sincere talk about how lonely he was and how much he missed his dead wife. And now he turned out to be a common crook!

“You son of a bitch!” I said. “And I was going to fix you up with one of my friends!”

He didn't say anything. His eyes were fixed nervously on my gun.

Another noise on the back porch. Morton opened his mouth, but I silenced him by raising the .38.

Footsteps clattered across the porch, and a second figure in black came through the door. “Morton, what's wrong? Why'd you turn the lights on?” a woman's voice demanded.

It was Marie, the receptionist from All the Best People. Now I knew how she could afford her expensive clothes.

“So I was right about
how
they knew when to burglarize people, but wrong about
who
was doing it,” I told Hank. We were sitting at the bar in the Remedy Lounge, our favorite Mission Street watering hole.

“I'm still confused. The Intro Line is part of All the Best People?”

“It's owned by Jerry Hale, and the phone equipment is located in the same offices. But as Jerry—Dave Lester, whichever incarnation you prefer—told me later, he doesn't want the connection publicized because the Intro Line is kind of sleazy, and Best People's supposed to be high-toned. Anyway, I figured it out because I noticed there were an awful lot of phones ringing at their offices, considering their number isn't published. Later I confirmed it with the phone company and started using the line myself to set the burglar up.”

“So this Jerry wasn't involved at all?”

“No. He's the genuine article—a born-again single who decided to put his knowledge to turning a profit.”

Hank shuddered and took a sip of Scotch.

“The burglary scheme,” I went on, “was all Marie Stone's idea. She had access to the addresses of the people who joined the Intro Line club, and she listened in on the phone conversations and scouted out good prospects. Then, when she was sure their homes would be vacant for a period of time, her brother, Morton Stone, pulled the job while she kept watch outside.”

“How come you had a date with Marie's brother? Was he looking you over as a burglary prospect?”

“No. They didn't use All the Best People for that. It's Jerry's pride and joy; he's too involved with the day-to-day workings and might have realized something was wrong. But the Intro Line is just a profit-making arm of the business to him—he probably uses it to subsidize his dating. He'd virtually turned the operation of it over to Marie. But he did allow Marie to send out mail solicitations for it to Best People clients, as well as mentioning it to the women he ‘screened', and that's how the burglary victims heard of it.”

“But it still seems too great a coincidence that you ended up going out with this Morton.”

I smiled. “It wasn't a coincidence at all. Morton also works for Best People, helping Jerry screen the female clients. When I had my date with Jerry, he found me…well, he said I was peculiar.”

Hank grinned and started to say something, but I glared. “Anyway, he sent Mort out with me to render a second opinion.”

“Ye Gods, you were almost rejected by a dating service.”

“What really pisses me off is Morton's grieving-widower story. I really fell for the whole tasteless thing. Jerry told me Morton gets a lot of women with it—they just can't resist a man in pain.”

“But not McCone.” Hank drained his glass and gestured at mine. “You want another?”

I looked at my watch. “Actually, I've got to be going.”

“How come? It's early yet.”

“Well, uh…I have a date.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I thought you were through with the singles scene. Which one is it tonight—the gun nut?”

I got off the bar stool and drew myself up in a dignified manner. “It's someone I met on my own. They always tell you that you meet the most compatible people when you're just doing what you like to do and not specifically looking.”

“So where'd you meet this guy?”

“On a stakeout.”

Hank waited. His eyes fairly bulged with curiosity.

I decided not to tantalize him any longer. I said, “It's Bert Jankowski, Dick Morris' security guard.”

IN SAN FRANCISCO'S Glen Park district there is a small building with the words GREENGLASS 5 & 10¢ STORE painted in faded red letters on its wooden façade. Broadleaf ivy grows in planter boxes below its windows and partially covers their dusty panes. Inside is a counter with jars of candy and bubble gum on top and cigar, cigarettes, and pipe tobacco down below. An old-fashioned jukebox—the kind with colored glass tubes—hulks against the opposite wall. The rest of the room is taken up by counters laden with merchandise that has been purchased at fire sales and manufacturers' liquidations. In a single shopping spree, it is possible for a customer to buy socks, playing cards, off-brand cosmetics, school supplies, kitchen utensils, sports equipment, toys and light bulbs—all at prices of at least ten years ago.

It is a place forgotten by time, a fragment of yesterday in the midst of today's city.

I have now come to know the curious little store well, but up until one rainy Wednesday last March, I'd done no more than glance inside while passing. But that morning Hank Zahn, my boss at All Souls Legal Cooperative, had asked me to pay a call on its owner, Jody Greenglass. Greenglass was a client who had asked if Hank knew an investigator who could trace a missing relative for him. It didn't sound like a particularly challenging assignment, but my assistant, who usually handles routine work, was out sick. So at ten o'clock, I put on my raincoat and went over there.

When I pushed upon the door I saw there wasn't a customer in sight. The interior was gloomy and damp; a fly buzzed fitfully against one of the windows. I was about to call out, thinking the proprietor must be beyond the curtained doorway at the rear, when I realized a man was sitting on a stool behind the counter. That was all he was doing—just sitting, his eyes fixed on the wall above the jukebox.

He was a big man, elderly, with a belly that bulged out under his yellow shirt and black suspenders. His hair and beard were white and luxuriant, his eyebrows startlingly black by contrast. When I said, “Mr. Greenglass?” he looked at me, and I saw an expression of deep melancholy.

“Yes?” he asked politely.

“I'm Sharon McCone, from All Souls Legal Cooperative.”

“Ah, yes. Mr. Zahn said he would send someone.”

“I understand you want to locate a missing relative.”

“My granddaughter.”

“If you'll give me the particulars, I can get on it right away.” I looked around for a place to sit, but didn't see any chair.

Greenglass stood. “I'll get you a stool.” He went toward the curtained doorway, moving gingerly, as if his feet hurt him. They were encased in floppy slippers.

While I waited for him, I looked up at the wall behind the counter and saw it was plastered with faded pieces of slick paper that I first took to be playbills. Upon closer examination I realized they were sheet music, probably of forties and fifties vintage. Their artwork was of that era anyway: formally dressed couples performing intricate dance steps; showgirls in extravagant costumes; men with patent-leather hair singing their hearts out; perfectly coiffed women showing plenty of even, pearly white teeth. Some of the song titles were vaguely familiar to me: “Dreams of You,” “The Heart Never Lies,” “Sweet Mystique,” and others I had never heard of.