Read Online The McCone Files by Marcia Muller - Free Book Online

that Kabalka was too cheap to hire a permanent guard. “In a place like the Diablo Valley Pavilion, the security is excellent, and I’m sure that’s been explained to you. It hardly seems necessary to hire an armed guard when the pavilion personnel—”
    I was silent, watching him. He shifted his gaze from mine, looking around with disproportionate interest at the tattered wall posters. Finally I said, “Mr. Kabalka, I don’t feel you’re being frank with me. And I’m afraid I can’t take on this assignment unless you are.”
    He looked back at me. His eyes were a pale blue, washed out—and worried, “The people here at the station speak highly of you.” He said after a moment.
    â€œI hope so. They–especially Mr. Del Boccio—know me well.” Especially Don; we’d been lovers for more than six months now.
    â€œWhen they told me they had a bodyguard lined up, all they said was that you were a first-rate investigator. If I was rude earlier because I was surprised by your being a woman, I apologize.”
    â€œApology accepted.”
    â€œI assume by first-rate, one of the things they mean is that you are discreet.”
    â€œI don’t talk about my cases, if that’s what you want to know.”
    He nodded. “All right, I’m going to entrust you with some information. It’s not common knowledge, and you’re not to pass it on, gossip about it your friends—”
    Kabalka was beginning to annoy me. “Get on with it, Mr. Kabalka. Or find yourself another bodyguard.” Not easy to do, when the performers needed to arrive at the pavilion in about three hours.
    His face reddened, and he started to retort, but bit back the words. He looked at his fingers, still laced together and pressing against one another in a feverish rhythm. “All right, Once again I apologize. In my profession you get used to dealing with such scumbags that you lose perspective—”
    â€œYou were about to tell me…?”
    He looked up, squared his shoulders as if he were about to deliver a state secret to an enemy agent. “All right. There is reason why my clients require special security precautions at the Diablo Valley Pavilion. They—Gary Fitzgerald and John Tilby—are originally from Contra Costa County.”
    â€œWhat? I thought they were British.”
    â€œYes, of course you did. And so does almost everyone else. It’s part of the mystique, the selling power.”
    â€œI don’t understand.”
    â€œWhen I discovered the young men in the early seventies, they were performing in a cheap club in San Bernardino, in the valley east of L.A. They were cousins, fresh off the farm—the ranch, in their case. Tilby’s father was a dairy rancher in the Contra Costa hills, near Clayton; he raised both boys—Gary’s parents had died. When old Tilby died, the ranch was sold and the boys ran off to seek fortune and fame. Old story. And they’d found the glitter doesn’t come easy. Another old story. But when I spotted them in that club, I could see they were good. Damned good. So I took them on and made them stars.”
    â€œThe oldest story of all.”
    â€œPerhaps. But now and then it does come true.”
    â€œWhy the British background?”
    â€œIt was the early seventies. The mystique still surrounded such singing groups as the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. What could be better than a British clown act with aristocratic origins? Besides they were already doing the British bit in their act when I discovered them, and it worked.”
    I nodded, amused by the machinations of show business. “So you’re afraid someone who once knew them might get too close out at the pavilion tonight and recognize them?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œDon’t you think it’s a long shot—after all these years?”
    â€œThey left here in sixty-nine. People don’t