* * *
—
All the Best People’s offices took up the entire second floor of a renovated Victorian. I couldn’t imagine why they needed so much space, but they seemed to be doing a landslide business, because phones in the offices on either side of the long corridor were ringing madly. I assumed it was because the summer vacation season was approaching and San Francisco singles were getting anxious about finding someone to make travel plans with.
The receptionist was more or less what I expected to find in the office of that sort of business: petite, blond, sleekly groomed, and expensively dressed, with an elegant manner. She took J. D.’s card down the hallway to see if their director was available to talk with me about the article I was writing on the singles scene. I paced around the tiny waiting room, which didn’t even have chairs. When the young woman came back, she said Dave Lester would be happy to see me and led me to an office at the rear.
The office was plush, considering the attention that had been given to decor in the rest of the suite. It had a leather couch and chairs, a wet bar, and an immense mahogany desk. There wasn’t so much as a scrap of paper or a file folder to suggest anything resembling work was done there. I couldn’t see Dave Lester, because he had swiveled his high-backed chair around toward the window and was apparently contemplating the wall of the building next door. The receptionist backed out the door and closed it. I cleared my throat, and the chair turned toward me.
The man in the chair was god-awful Jerry Hale.
Our faces must have been mirror images of shock. I said, “What are you doing here?”
He said, “You’re not J. D. Smith. You’re Sharon McCone!” Then he frowned down at the business card he held. “Or is Sharon McCone really J. D. Smith?”
I collected my scattered wits and said, “Which are you—Dave Lester or Jerry Hale?”
He merely stared at me, his expression wavering between annoyance and amusement.
I added, “I’m a reporter doing a feature article on the singles scene.”
“So Marie said. How did you get this address? We don’t publish it because we don’t want all sorts of crazies wandering in. This is an exclusive service; we screen our applicants carefully.”
They certainly hadn’t screened me; otherwise they’d have uncovered numerous deceptions. I said, “Oh, we newspaper people have our sources.”
“Well, you certainly misrepresented yourself to us.”
“And you misrepresented yourself to me!”
He shrugged. “It’s part of the screening process, for our clients’ protection. We realize most applicants would shy away from a formal interview situation, so we have the first date take the place of that.”
“You yourself go out with all the women who apply?”
“A fair amount, using a different name every time, of course, in case any of them know each other and compare notes.” At my astonished look he added, “What can I say? I like women. But naturally I have help. And Marie”—he motioned at the closed door—“and one of the secretaries check out the guys.”
No wonder Jerry had no time to read. “Then none of the things you told me were true? About being into the bar scene and the church groups and the health club?”
“Sure they were. My previous experiences were what led me to buy Best People from its former owners. They hadn’t studied the market, didn’t know how to make a go of it in the eighties.”
“Well, you’re certainly a good spokesman for your own product. But how come you kept referring me to other clients? We didn’t exactly part on amiable terms.”
“Oh, that was just a ruse to get out of there. I had another date. I’d seen enough to know you weren’t my type. But I decided you were still acceptable; we get a lot of men looking for your kind.”
The “acceptable” rankled. “What exactly is my kind?”
“Well, I’d call you…introspective. Bookish? No, not exactly. A little offbeat? Maybe intense? No. It’s peculiar…you’re peculiar—”
“Stop right there!”
Jerry—who would always be god-awful Jerry and never Dave Lester to me—stood up and came around the desk. I straightened my posture. From my five-foot-six vantage point I could see the beginnings of a bald spot under his artfully styled hair. When he realized where I was looking, his mouth tightened. I took a perverse delight in his discomfort.
“I’ll have to ask you to leave now,” he said stiffly.
“But don’t you want Best People featured in a piece on singles?”
“I do not. I can’t condone the tactics of a reporter who misrepresents herself.”
“Are you sure that’s the reason you don’t want to talk with me?”
“Of course. What else—”
“Is there something about Best People that you’d rather not see publicized?”
Jerry flushed. When he spoke, it was in a flat, deceptively calm manner. “Get out of here,” he said, “or I’ll call your editor.”
Since I didn’t want to get J. D. in trouble with the Chron, I went.
* * *
—
Back at my office at All Souls, I curled up in my ratty armchair—my favorite place to think. I considered my visit to All the Best People; I considered what was wrong with the setup there. Then I got out my list of burglary victims and called each of them. All three gave me similar answers to my questions. Next I checked the phone directory and called my friend Tracy in the billing office at Pacific Bell.
“I need an address for a company that’s only listed by number in the directory,” I told her.
“Billing address, or location where the phone’s installed?”
“Both, if they’re different.”
She tapped away on her computer keyboard. “Billing and location are the same: two-eleven Gough. Need anything else?”
“That’s it. Thanks—I owe you a drink.”
* * *
—
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 excitedly 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’s 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 in San Diego; like me, he had a degree in the 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 my 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 were 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? Sundays I always fix bacon.”
In spite of having just 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 burglaries.”
“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.
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’d 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, his 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 jobs 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 in 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’s security guard.”
DETECTIVE: REBECCA SCHWARTZ
BLOOD TYPES
Julie Smith
AFTER A LONG AND SUCCESSFUL CAREER as a journalist, Julienne Drew Smith (1944– ) turned to fiction writing. Having graduated from the University of Mississippi, she took a job as a reporter for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, followed by stints at the San Francisco Chronicle and the Santa Barbara News-Press. Other jobs included writing catalog copy for Banana Republic, serving as press officer for the San Francisco district attorney, and, with fellow mystery writer Marcia Muller and others, forming Invisible Ink, a consulting company that provided editing and writing services.
Death Turns a Trick (1982), Smith’s first mystery, introduced Rebecca Schwartz, a San Francisco attorney who, against her father’s wishes, followed in
his career footsteps. She is smart, ambitious, independent, Jewish, and a feminist—as she is quick to tell anyone who will listen. She appeared in five novels before Smith began to focus on Skip Langdon, who made her debut in New Orleans Mourning (1990), which won the Edgar for best novel of the year. Langdon has been the protagonist in eight additional novels.
Langdon, a former debutante and Carnival queen, works as a policewoman in New Orleans—an unlikely choice for a woman who had been a petty thief and a drug user and had flunked out of Tulane. She may be the most recognizable cop in the NOPD being six feet tall, big-boned, with lots of long curly hair and bright green eyes.
“Blood Types” was originally published in Sisters in Crime, edited by Marilyn Wallace (New York, Berkley, 1989).
Blood Types
JULIE SMITH
“REFRESH MY RECOLLECTION, counselor. Are holographic wills legal in California?”
Though we’d hardly spoken in seven years or more, I recognized the voice on the phone as easily if I’d heard it yesterday. I’d lived with its owner once. “Gary Wilder. Aren’t you feeling well?”
“I feel fine. Settle a bet, okay?”
“Unless you slept through more classes than I thought, you know perfectly well they’re legal.”
“They used to be. It’s been a long time, you know? How are you, Rebecca?”
“Great. And you’re a daddy, I hear. How’s Stephanie?”
“Fine.”
“And the wee one?”
“Little Laurie-bear. The best thing that ever happened to me.”
“You sound happy.”
“Laurie’s my life.”
I was sorry to hear it. That was a lot of responsibility for a ten-month-old.
The Big Book of Female Detectives Page 145