Marcia Muller: McCone And Friends

I stepped into the office and cleared my throat. Slowly Shar turned, looking at me as if I were a stranger. Then her eyes cleared. “Rae, hi. Nice work on closing the Anderson file so soon.”

“Thanks. I found the others you left on my desk: they’re pretty routine. You have anything else for me?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.” She smiled slyly and slid a manila folder across the desk. “Why don’t you take this client?”

I opened the folder and studied the information sheet stapled inside. All it gave was a name-Darrin Boydston-and an address on Mission Street. Under the job description Shar had noted “background check.”

“Another one?” I asked, letting my voice telegraph my disappointment.

“Uh-huh. I think you’ll find it interesting.”

“Why?”

She waved a slender hand at me. “Go! It’ll be a challenge.”

Now, that did make me suspicious. “If it’s such a challenge, how come you’re not handling it?”

For and instant her eyes sparked. She doesn’t like it when I hint that she skims the best cases for herself-although that’s exactly what she does, and I don’t blame her. “Just go see him.”

“He’ll be at this address?”

“No. He’s downstairs. I got done talking with him ten minutes ago.”

“Downstairs? Where downstairs?”

“In the parlor.”

Oh, God!

She smiled again. “Lime green, with a Texas accent.”

“So,” Darrin Boydston said, “Did y’all come back down to chew me out some more?”

“I’m sorry about that.” I handed him my card. “Ms. McCone has assigned me to your case.”

He studied it and looked me up and down. “You promise to keep a civil tongue in your head?”

“I said I was sorry.”

“Well, you damn near ruint my morning.”

How many more times was I going to have to apologize?

“Let’s get goin’, little lady.” He started for the door.

I winced and asked, “Where?”

“My place. I got somebody I want you to meet.”

Boydston’s car was a white Lincoln continental-beautiful machine, except for the bull’s horns mounted on the front grille. I stared at then in horror.

“Pretty, aren’t they?” he said, opening the passenger’s door.

“I’ll follow you in my car,” I told him.

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

As I got into the Ramblin’Wreck-my ancient, exhaust-belching Rambler American-I looked back and saw Boydston staring at it in horror.

Boydston’s place was a storefront on Mission a few blocks down from my Safeway-an area that could do with some urban renewal and just might get it, if the upwardly mobile ethnic groups that’re moving in to the neighborhood get their way. It shared the building with a Thai restaurant and a Filipino travel agency. In its front window red neon tubing spelled out THE CASH COW, but on the bucking outline letters was a bull. I imagined Boydston trying to reach a decision: call it the Cash Cow and have a good name but a dumb graphic; call it the Cash Bull and have a dumb name and good graphic; or just say the hell with it and mix genders.

But what kind of establishment was this?

My client took the first available parking space, leaving me to fend for myself. When I finally found another and walked back two blocks he’d already gone inside.

Chivalry is dead. Sometimes I think common courtesy’s obit is about to be published too.

When I went into the store, the first thing I noticed was a huge potted barrel cactus, and the second was dozens of guitars hanging from the ceiling. A rack of worn cowboy boots completed the picture.

Texas again. The state that spawned the likes of Uncle Roy was going to keep getting in my face all day long.

The room was full of glass showcases that displayed an amazing assortment of stuff: rings, watches, guns, cameras, fishing reels, kitchen gadgets, small tools, knickknacks, silverware, even a metronome. There was a whole section of electronic equipment like TV’s and VCRs, a jumble of probably obsolete computer gear, a fleet of vacuum cleaners poised to roar to life and tidy the world, enough exercise equipment to trim down half the population, and a jukebox that just then was playing a country song by Shar’s brother-in-law Ricky Savage. Delicacy prevents me from describing what his voice does to my libido.

Darrin Boydston stood behind a high counter, tapping on a keyboard, on the wall behind him a sign warned CUSTOMERS MUST PRESENT TICKET TO CLAIM MERCHANDISE. I’m not too quick most mornings, but I did manage to figure out that the Cash Cow was a pawnshop.

“Y’all took long enough,” my client said. “You gonna charge me for the time you spent parking?”

I sighed. “Your billable hours start now.” Them I looked at my watch and made a mental note of the time.

He turned the computer off, motioned for me to come around the counter, and led me through a door into a warehouse area. Its shelves were crammed with more of the kind of stuff he had out front. Halfway down the center aisle he made a right turn and took me past small appliances: blenders, food processors, toasters, electric woks, pasta makers, even an ancient pressure cooker. It reminded me of the one the grandmother who raised me used to have, and I wrinkled my nose at it, thinking of those sweltering late-summer days when she’d make me help her with the yearly canning. No wonder I resist the womanly household arts!

Boydston said, “They buy these gizmos ‘cause they think they need ‘em. Then they find out they don’t need and can’t afford ‘em. And then it all ends up in my lap.” He sounded exceptionally cheerful about this particular brand of human folly, and I supposed he had good reason.

He led me at a fast clip toward the back of the warehouse-so fast that I had to trot to keep up with him. One of the other problems with being short is that you’re forever running along behind taller people. Since I’d already decided to hate Darrin Boydston, I also decided he was walking fast to spite me.

At the end of the next-to-last aisle we came upon a thin man in a white T-shirt and black work pants who was moving boxes from the shelves to a dolly. Although Boydston and I were making plenty of noise, he didn’t hear us come up. My client put his hand on the man’s shoulder, and he stiffened, when he turned I saw he was only a boy, no more than twelve or thirteen, with the fine features and thick black hair of a Eurasian. The look in his eyes reminded me of an abused kitten my boyfriend Willie had taken in: afraid and resigned to further terrible experiences. He glanced from me to Boydston, and when my client nodded reassuringly, the fear faded to remoteness.

Boydston said to me, “Meet Daniel.”

“Hello, Daniel.” I held out my hand he looked at it, then at Boydston. He nodded again, and Daniel touched my fingers, moving back quickly as if they were hot.

“Daniel,” Boydston said, “doesn’t speak or hear. Speech therapist I know met him, says he’s prob’ly been deaf and mute since he was born.”