P.J. Morse - Clancy Parker 01 - Heavy Mental (7 page)

I took a long gulp from my beer. “I have to get to the point on some things. Husbands don’t always get to the point. Do you want me to find a necklace, or do you want me to find out if she’s having an affair? I have to know what you really want, and this is a strange request. So excuse me if I’m skeptical.”

Mr. Buckner shook his head violently. “I trust Sabrina. She’s my wife. We’ve been together for a long time. I’m just afraid for her now. I want her to be safe.” Then he had a second thought. “I wouldn’t mind terribly if you could check out her psychiatrist. He might be making things worse.”

“Who is the psychiatrist?” I asked, like I didn’t know.

“Dr. Craig Redburn. He’s been on the talk shows, has a book out. A big name, but I don’t know what he does. Seems like mumbo-jumbo to me.”

“Do you know the name of the book?”

He snorted with contempt. “
You Are Your Worthiest Cause
. Silly stuff, but Sabrina just loves him. She was happier when she first started seeing him, but it didn’t last long … she’s a vulnerable person. Someone could take advantage of her easily.”

Judging from what I’d seen of Sabrina, I had to agree with that statement. “Okay. I can do that. I make sure she doesn’t get herself—or you—in trouble and check out this Redburn guy. That seems easy enough.” In fact, it seemed too easy. “Are you sure you don’t have anything else to tell me?”

“Yes.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Positive?”

“Yes.”

Still suspicious, I considered saying no and focusing on the necklace only. I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of Mr. Buckner trying to drive around South Park if he needed to see me again. Besides, his wife had already wreaked enough havoc.

Then again, a little extra money never hurt, and I would be shadowing Sabrina to find the necklace anyway.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I read Mr. Buckner my standard speech about finding me under the bed, how he’d think he was being watched (he started sweating even more at that), how I handled expenses and how much I cost. He took it all in without any questions, which surprised me. Usually there were questions and a little haggling by the end. But he started looking like he wanted to go, especially when Muriel, the sitar player and a few other bar patrons launched into a rowdy chorus of “100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.”

“I’ll be in touch,” Mr. Buckner said. Then he stood, bowed stiffly, and left his empty gin and tonic and soggy hankie behind. As he left, he gave Muriel and her new friend a wide berth.

I was already suspicious enough to start following him, but Muriel slid into the seat formerly occupied by Mr. Buckner. “BO-ring! Guess what? I know him!”

“What?” I looked at the sitar player, who was juggling bags of Fritos and trying to get Muriel’s attention. “From where?”

“Not him! He’s cute, though, but a little pervy about that sitar. You would think he sleeps with it at night. Who knows? He might. Anyway, your client. He was my economics teacher at Sacramento.”

My jaw dropped at the coincidence. “Really? You took economics? You think he knew you? He was giving you a look.”

Muriel laughed. “Probably for other reasons. I had pink hair, then. And I failed.” She shrugged. “Like I said, BO-ring! He was a real asshole, too. I remember him telling us on the first day that half of us would fail. And he looked at my butt once when I went to office hours. I caught him. He did it again tonight, too. Not like I am being full of myself or anything.”

I thought that a roving eye at least spiced up Mr. Buckner’s character. Then I remembered why I came to the Seagull’s Nest in the first place. “Will you join the band?”

“No.” Muriel pouted. This was like a running gag to her.

I began cajoling. “But you yourself said things were rocky with the Thunderpussies!”

“Not until your asshole buddy Shane gets down on his knees and apologizes. You tell him that when I am fucking a guy, I prefer exclusive rights.” Then she brightened up. “Speaking of, Sitar Boy wants a date with me, and he says he has a roommate who is available. Sitar Boy said the roomie likes redheads. Interested?”

I drank a huge gulp of beer. Ever since Larry bailed on me, I hadn’t had much of a love life. But I didn’t really want one, either.

Muriel knew exactly what was going on in my mind. “Oh, get over it. Larry was like an old man. Your landlord acts younger than Larry does. Seriously—look up ‘old man’ in the dictionary. You’ll find a picture of him in there.”

“He’s 27,” I reminded Muriel. One year younger than me. And at least 10 years more mature, I had to admit.

Muriel hunkered over and mimicked the voice of a retirement-home resident. “Clance? Clance? Where’s my Metamucil, Clance? Boy, I can’t wait until I turn 30. Then I won’t feel so bad about crashing the early-bird specials and watching ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ reruns.”

I interrupted her lame little routine. She was probably right, but I wasn’t in the mood for it. “He took good care of me. He was really hot, he listened, he made me laugh—”

“When? If that dude has a sense of humor, I have not seen it. Maybe he was hot, granted, but he was like a dad. You have this thing with the daddy types. But a boyfriend? Please.”

I had to admit I stretched it a bit with the sense of humor part. But what I said next was the truth: “Larry was a great bass player.”

Muriel scowled. “I can assure you that he isn’t as good as me.”

I was pleased I got in a dig at Muriel after that comment about my passion for “daddy types.” “Of course he isn’t,” I reassured her. “But you’re not a Marquee Idol, are you?”

“Look, I don’t want to be anywhere near that son of a …” She was ready to rail on Shane again, but Sitar Boy came over and put his hand on her shoulder. If she was thinking about Shane the second before, he was off her mind instantly. “Why, hello there!”

“Wanna go to the Beauty Bar? I haven’t been in a while. If you aren’t busy …” he looked at me, as if he needed permission. If I were inclined toward daddy types, Muriel favored eternal boys.

Muriel nodded emphatically. “Yes, I would like to. But my friend here is moping.” She asked me, “Do you want to come along and, you know, have fun for once?”

I shrugged and sipped my beer. I didn’t want to be stuck in the awkward position of third wheel as Muriel turned Sitar Boy into a conquest. “Nah. I need to do a little research on your old econ prof.”

Muriel stood up and flicked her hand through her hair. The purple streaks caught the light, and I was jealous of her endless confidence. “Suit yourself. I’ll see you at the Echo Chamber, then?”

I nodded. I took my time with my beer after Muriel bounded out with Sitar Boy. I missed Larry then. If he were there with me at that moment, we probably would have tallied up Muriel’s impressive list of conquests on a bar napkin. Then we would have started our own game of pool, headed home and had some great sleepy sex. He would have made pancakes for me in the morning. He always said he was the only one who made sure I ate right.

Then again, maybe Muriel was right about that daddy business. My own daddy tried to take care of me, usually with some advice I’d never follow, but he wasn’t exactly good at nurturing. And Harold was like a daddy, so why did I need a daddy type in my love life? I decided to stop analyzing myself and shift gears the best way I knew how—work.

CHAPTER 10

THE BEST LIBRARIAN IN TOWN

B
ACK IN
S
OUTH
P
ARK,
I
let myself in the building and heard Harold’s soft snoring as I tiptoed upstairs. Even though it was late, I went to my CupcakeCity laptop and opened a new document, listing what I knew about the Buckners. Sabrina seemed to have it together on the outside, but her finances were shaky, and her husband and her shrink needed her money. Mr. Buckner was right—his wife was sheltered and open to suggestion. If she hadn’t been, she wouldn’t have landed in Dr. Redburn’s office.

But Mr. Buckner’s vision of his wife didn’t fit what I saw earlier that day. Sabrina was fragile, but she didn’t seem crazy. I knew crazy. I toured with one band whose lead singer thought a pink elephant was chasing him and who proceeded to throw himself out of the tour van.

Even my own band mates were a little nuts. One time, Wayne made a giant loaf of zucchini bread for an audience in Nashville. I remembered him yelling, “We don’t got no fishes, but we do have loaves!” as he cut out slices and threw them into the audience. Shane once got a DUI in Oakland for getting so drunk that he couldn’t even steer a push scooter in a straight line. Based on my evidence, Sabrina wasn’t crazy. She was befuddled, but not crazy.

Also, something didn’t feel right about Mr. Buckner. He tried too hard to impress me, for starters. Our conversation felt more like a job interview, only I was the employer instead of the detective-for-hire. Everything about him smacked of trying too hard.

I started browsing some online newspaper archives to learn more about the Nortons. I came across Sabrina Norton Buckner’s grandfather first. He was a real up-by-the-bootstraps story. He was a tailor who noticed more high-class hotels springing up in San Francisco, so he offered to produce uniforms for all the maids and bellhops at a few of those select hotels. More and more hotel owners noticed his attention to detail, and the better the uniform, the classier the hotel seemed. Eventually, Sabrina’s grandfather had the contract for all uniforms in the city, even those for the police and fire departments.

I heard a rumbling in Harold’s apartment, so I wondered if he was up. Now that Harold was retired, he had an irregular sleep schedule. He would nap in his lawn chair, or he would doze off while trying to meditate in the mornings. All this meant that he rarely slept straight through the night.

Picking up my guitar case, I knocked it three times on the floor. Three softer knocks replied. Those were from Harold’s broom handle, and they meant that he couldn’t sleep and was in the mood to chat, so I took my laptop downstairs.

Once I got there, Harold was in an old recliner that had been abandoned by a dot-com devoted to Scandinavian furniture. He was drinking a glass of warm milk, and he had on fuzzy white slippers. “How was the Seagull’s Nest?” he asked.

I plopped on the couch and opened the laptop. “Muriel is a party animal.” I didn’t mention meeting Mr. Buckner, as I wanted to focus on Mr. Buckner’s wife first. “I need some help from the best librarian in town.”

Harold laughed. “I respond well to flattery.”

“So, what do you know about the Norton family?” I asked.

Harold, ever the human computer, spit out the data. “They are a textbook tale of American capitalism. The first generation built the empire. The second generation maintained it. The third generation almost destroyed it—or were destroyed by it.”

“You’re good, Harold. That sings.”

“I know.” He sat back and stuck out his chest with pride. “I think the woman who was here today is Theo Norton’s daughter. She’s the third generation.”

“Who’s Theo Norton?” I asked. “Second generation?”

“Yup. And he was a real asshole. I have a little personal history with this one. Theo Norton inherited the company from his daddy and turned out to be a union-buster. My uncle worked at the factory, and I helped him make signs when they went on strike. Mine was a good one—‘No naked cops in my neighborhood!’”

I laughed.

“So we won, but you know what Theo Norton did? He moved production to Mexico. Hello, profit! Bye-bye, jobs! And bye-bye, quality! I was right about the naked cops. They were complaining that their pants seams were splitting—not so good when dealing with protesters, huh? But SFPD was locked in that contract with the uniform company.”

I was looking through an article from the newspaper archives about the production facility in Mexico. A business writer complained that the quality of Norton Uniforms had declined considerably, but “no one was going to argue with the bottom line.”

The business writer also referred to a family tragedy that happened around the same time of the strike and the move to Mexico. “Harold, what happened to Theo Norton’s wife?”

“Oh, that was bad. The union suspended striking a day because of it. He was driving on the Pacific Coast Highway, and his wife was in the car. There were bad rains that week. We were soaking wet. Marching isn’t always fun. Anyway, Theo Norton was driving and spun out, and you know what it’s like on the PCH. She died.”

It wasn’t too hard for me to figure out what happened next. As an apology for their mother’s death, Theo Norton spoiled his children silly. They were all over the gossip columns as traveling to this horse show or that auto race. “So, the kids took over the company?”

“Well, I don’t remember your client … what’s her face? … having anything to do with it. I don’t know anything about her.”

“She’s in the society pages a lot,” I said.

“Then I definitely don’t know anything about her,” Harold chuckled. “I don’t want to feel bad for her because she strikes me as a snot, but Theo’s kids lost control of the company. She has a few brothers, I think, and they took turns running it—badly. One of them—oh, yeah, now this is a good one—married a beauty pageant winner. He tried to make her the face of the company, but she was friends with Anita Bryant, and she was no friend of Castro Street.”

“Anita Bryant? I bet that went over well around here.”

“Protests galore! Men and women dressed up as pageant winners with protest signs! That was one of the best protests I’ve ever been to! My sign read, ‘You may be a beauty queen’ on the front and ‘but you’re ugly on the inside’ on the back. I didn’t dress up, though. I tried, but all the thrift stores were out of prom dresses that would fit me.”

I had stopped Web surfing and was laughing, thinking of Harold in drag.

Harold kept going, “The No to Norton protest was almost as successful as that one the Castro had against Coors. A big winner. That son found himself ejected from the boardroom because the company was completely in the toilet, and somebody else took over. Fresh blood. I guess they’re doing okay. They haven’t been in the news for years.”