Read Online The Night Searchers (A Sharon McCone Mystery) by Marcia Muller - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Marcia Muller
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Mick says. Grab something glitzy from the property room”—what we called the closet where we kept an assortment of clothing to suit anyone from a beggar to a socialite—“and keep track of him.”
“Contact? No contact?”
“Either. The closer you can get to him, the better. If you make actual contact, try to find out the points I’ve outlined in the file.”
“Will do.”
“I forgot to ask: is Tonio covered tonight?” Even though Julia lived with her sister, who cared for her son in her absence, I was concerned about him.
Julia smiled archly. “Tonio is going to the movies with my friend Joseph tonight, and then staying over at his apartment.”
“Who’s Joseph?”
“Boss, you haven’t been listening to the office gossip these days.”
She winked at me as she left my office.
6:01 p.m.
I poured myself a glass of wine and sat in my armchair, contemplating strategy, then went back to my desk and began listening to messages and making calls.
Hy: “Nothing yet on the VH matter. I’m still working the situation in Des Moines, but we’re close to a resolution. Love you.”
Julia’s cell was turned off. She was already on the trail of Chad Kenyon.
None of Mick’s numbers answered.
Duck confit , I thought. Uh-huh.
Derek Ford, my other techie, was at home—surprisingly. Of course, it was too early for him to hit the restaurants and clubs he enjoyed.
“Sure,” he said, “I can run those checks in no time. Let me see if I’ve got them straight: Chad Kenyon, Dick Kenyon. The Global Policy Forum. Anything else?”
“Not for now.”
“Call if you think of anything.”
“What, you’re not going out?”
“I am”—he made a mock sobbing noise—“disappointed in love.”
“What happened? And with whom?”
“Can’t remember. Now that I’ve got work to do, I’m over it.”
I clicked the phone off, smiling.
My other operatives were working cases I’d assigned to them: Patrick Neilan, a single father with sole custody of his boys, was after a deadbeat dad—his favorite kind of hunt. Craig Morland and Adah Joslyn—he a former FBI agent, she a former SFPD homicide investigator, and recently married to each other—had taken on an overnight surveillance of a woman suspected of insurance fraud.
I might as well go down the Embarcadero to Carmen’s, one of the last few waterfront diners, for a bite to eat.
8:03 p.m.
The diner had seen better days. Its original owner, a former longshoreman, had been a good cook and a genial host, plying his customers with tales of the old waterfront when San Francisco had been a true seafaring port, before the shipping business decamped to more modernized facilities across the Bay in Oakland. When he retired, the diner passed through the hands of various owners, and with each one the food and service grew worse. Now the leatherette booths were cracked and bleeding stuffing, the Formica tables were gouged with drawings and initials, and one of the windows overlooking the water was badly cracked. Sometimes I wondered why I even bothered to go there.
Well, I supposed because the waterfront diners were a dying breed: only a handful of them still existed. As with the piers, many had been torn down or replaced by boutique shops and expensive restaurants. But even with today’s public art, new sports stadium, and upscale businesses, part of the waterfront was dying. The hundreds of palm trees that had been planted on the median strip after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake were succumbing to a contagious fungal disease called Fusarium wilt, which is almost always fatal. Many would live on for years, and the city planned to replace those that didn’t survive with a hardier species, but it would never be the same. Just as the rough-and-tumble Barbary Coast had vanished. And the steamship age. And a lot of other things that had made this city unique.
Enough, McCone!
At Carmen’s I took the least disreputable of the booths and ordered a cheeseburger—rare,
“Contact? No contact?”
“Either. The closer you can get to him, the better. If you make actual contact, try to find out the points I’ve outlined in the file.”
“Will do.”
“I forgot to ask: is Tonio covered tonight?” Even though Julia lived with her sister, who cared for her son in her absence, I was concerned about him.
Julia smiled archly. “Tonio is going to the movies with my friend Joseph tonight, and then staying over at his apartment.”
“Who’s Joseph?”
“Boss, you haven’t been listening to the office gossip these days.”
She winked at me as she left my office.
6:01 p.m.
I poured myself a glass of wine and sat in my armchair, contemplating strategy, then went back to my desk and began listening to messages and making calls.
Hy: “Nothing yet on the VH matter. I’m still working the situation in Des Moines, but we’re close to a resolution. Love you.”
Julia’s cell was turned off. She was already on the trail of Chad Kenyon.
None of Mick’s numbers answered.
Duck confit , I thought. Uh-huh.
Derek Ford, my other techie, was at home—surprisingly. Of course, it was too early for him to hit the restaurants and clubs he enjoyed.
“Sure,” he said, “I can run those checks in no time. Let me see if I’ve got them straight: Chad Kenyon, Dick Kenyon. The Global Policy Forum. Anything else?”
“Not for now.”
“Call if you think of anything.”
“What, you’re not going out?”
“I am”—he made a mock sobbing noise—“disappointed in love.”
“What happened? And with whom?”
“Can’t remember. Now that I’ve got work to do, I’m over it.”
I clicked the phone off, smiling.
My other operatives were working cases I’d assigned to them: Patrick Neilan, a single father with sole custody of his boys, was after a deadbeat dad—his favorite kind of hunt. Craig Morland and Adah Joslyn—he a former FBI agent, she a former SFPD homicide investigator, and recently married to each other—had taken on an overnight surveillance of a woman suspected of insurance fraud.
I might as well go down the Embarcadero to Carmen’s, one of the last few waterfront diners, for a bite to eat.
8:03 p.m.
The diner had seen better days. Its original owner, a former longshoreman, had been a good cook and a genial host, plying his customers with tales of the old waterfront when San Francisco had been a true seafaring port, before the shipping business decamped to more modernized facilities across the Bay in Oakland. When he retired, the diner passed through the hands of various owners, and with each one the food and service grew worse. Now the leatherette booths were cracked and bleeding stuffing, the Formica tables were gouged with drawings and initials, and one of the windows overlooking the water was badly cracked. Sometimes I wondered why I even bothered to go there.
Well, I supposed because the waterfront diners were a dying breed: only a handful of them still existed. As with the piers, many had been torn down or replaced by boutique shops and expensive restaurants. But even with today’s public art, new sports stadium, and upscale businesses, part of the waterfront was dying. The hundreds of palm trees that had been planted on the median strip after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake were succumbing to a contagious fungal disease called Fusarium wilt, which is almost always fatal. Many would live on for years, and the city planned to replace those that didn’t survive with a hardier species, but it would never be the same. Just as the rough-and-tumble Barbary Coast had vanished. And the steamship age. And a lot of other things that had made this city unique.
Enough, McCone!
At Carmen’s I took the least disreputable of the booths and ordered a cheeseburger—rare,
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