Bill Pronzini - Hellbox

“Sweet thing. Oh, brother.”

“Best offer you’ll get all day. Better take advantage.”

“Are you sure you’ll be up to it again so soon?”

“Double hah,” I said. “I’m Italian, remember?”

“How could I forget?”

I stood, stretched, waggled my eyebrows again, and held out my hand.

“If this is the effect Green Valley is having on you,” Kerry said, “maybe we ought to rethink buying this place.” But she got right up and twined her fingers in mine and let me lead her off to the bedroom.

While Kerry took her turn showering and dressing, I headed out to the deck again. On the way, my cell phone cut loose with its burbling summons, barely audible inside my jacket where I’d hung it on the peg inside the door. I’d almost forgotten I had the thing with me; had definitely forgotten it was still turned on. Cell phones don’t always work in mountainous country, but this was not one of those satellite dead zones. I almost wished it was until I got the cell out and checked the caller’s name on the screen. Tamara. Oh, Lord, I thought, not some sort of emergency. But it wasn’t.

“I didn’t think you’d pick up,” she said. “Just wanted to leave a callback message for you. Didn’t interrupt anything, did I?”

“You might have if you’d called half an hour ago,” I said. “What’s up?”

“Question on the Western Maritime fraud case you handled. I’m trying to get caught up on our billing.”

“Haven’t you heard? Sunday’s supposed to be a day of rest.”

“Yeah, sure. Like Saturday night’s supposed to be boogie time.”

“Meaning yours wasn’t?”

“Not hardly. Two glasses of wine, a bad rental flick, and in bed by eleven. All by my lonesome.”

Not good, I thought. She was drifting back into the semi-reclusive, workaholic shell that she’d closed herself into after her longtime cellist boyfriend, Horace, moved back east and then dumped her for a second violinist in the Philadelphia Philharmonic. A brief hookup with a man who called himself Lucas Zeller had brought her out of it for a while, until he turned out to be a con man and worse; the none-too-pleasant events that followed had taught her some hard lessons. She still hadn’t quite recovered from the damage to her self-confidence and self-esteem. Still wasn’t ready to put her trust in anybody she didn’t already know and know well, particularly a member of the male sex. Caution and skepticism were healthy attitudes up to a point, but not if she let them make her a social outcast. She had a great deal to offer any man with the sense and sensitivity to treat her right. What she needed to do was put herself in a position to find him, and be willing to let him into her life when she did.

She hadn’t asked for my advice, though, and I hadn’t volunteered it. Nor would I. We had a kind of de facto father-daughter relationship, in addition to our professional bond, but I had to be careful not to come on too strong with her. Her relationship with her own father was prickly, and now and then she carried it over to me. Best for both of us if I kept my mouth shut, let her work out her personal problems on her own.

Fortunately, she changed the subject by asking, “So how’s your weekend been?”

“Good. Very good. Looks like we’ve found our second home.”

“All right! Where?”

I gave her the relevant details. “We’re staying a few more days to make sure. Nothing urgent to drag me back sooner, I take it?”

“Nope. Everything under control.”

“What’s the problem with the insurance case?”

It had to do with a foul-up on the expense account charges-my fault. When we got it straightened out, I asked, “Any new clients?” because I hadn’t spoken to her since Thursday.

“Couple,” she said. “One routine; Alex is handling it. The other… well, Jake’s plate’s pretty full, and the new client’s black. So I rang up Deron Stewart and gave it to him.”

“I thought you didn’t like Stewart.”

“Don’t much, but he did a good professional job on that Delman mess, and he didn’t try to hit on me. So I figured I’d throw him another bone.”

Stewart was a qualified operative, an ex-cop who’d worked eight years for the San Francisco office of a large national agency. Tamara and I had come close to hiring him over Jake Runyon when we expanded operations a few years ago. She was the one who’d vetoed him; too slick, too much ego, too much a womanizer for her liking. Stewart hadn’t had any luck finding a permanent spot with another agency in the interim, owing to the lousy economy and with some outfits, maybe, a veiled racial bias. He freelanced now, much as Alex Chavez had before we’d put him on full time a couple of months ago.

“What kind of case?” I asked.

“Nasty one. Excelsior woman being stalked by an ex-husband.”

“Pro bono?”

“Not quite. Reduced fee. She’s got a good job, but she’s also a single mom-two kids. Her ex is one of those early-release, violent crimes’ offenders the goddamn state keeps turning loose. ‘No menace to public safety,’ my ass. Police haven’t been much help because the guy hasn’t done anything yet, except hang around and make veiled threats. Woman swears it’s only a matter of time. She’s scared half out of her head.”

“You think Stewart can handle the situation without escalating it?”

“Says he can. He’d better, if he wants any more bones tossed his way. Not a lot of freelance detective work out there these days.”

“That’s for sure.”

We talked a little more, then let each other get on with our respective Sundays. I put the phone back into my jacket pocket, went out and leaned on the porch railing and thought about the cases Runyon and Chavez, and now Deron Stewart, were dealing with. As much as I liked this property, as much as I was glad to be away from the city and the daily grind, I still had a left-out, pastured feeling now and then. Officially semi-retired now, with a maximum two days a week at the office and mostly routine stuff when I was there. Okay, good. It was what I wanted, what Kerry and Emily wanted; I’d made my decision and I didn’t regret it. But when you’ve been in the same business for two-thirds of your life, and found it rewarding and satisfying, despite a number of unpleasant situations and brushes with violence, it’s hard to let go.

Maybe I wouldn’t feel that tug, that vague sense of past-my-prime-and-no-longer-needed in six months, a year, two years. I hoped so. But if it lingered, I was not going to backslide again. There’s nothing more pathetic than an old plowhorse hobbling around trying to function at the same level of competence as he had in his younger days, and accomplishing little except getting in everybody’s way.

Six Pines was at the south end of the valley, a high school flanked by a baseball diamond and football field at the upper edge, the business district flanking the main road farther along, homes and cottages built up along one hillside, a church and what looked like a community center on the more gradual rising slope opposite. The population was 2,200 year-round residents, but it was evident that second-homers, tourists, and sportsmen swelled that number considerably during trout fishing season and in the peak summer months. A banner strung across the middle of Main Street advertised the annual Independence Day celebration Budlong had told us about-parade, carnival, picnic barbeque. Most of the business establishments looked open today, and there were a lot of people out and about when we rolled in a little past noon.

The town had a pleasant, century-past look and feel. This was old mining country and vestiges of the Gold Country heritage had been carefully preserved here-false-fronted and native stone buildings, a local museum that had once been a blacksmith’s shop, galleried boardwalks instead of paved sidewalks on Main Street and a couple of the side streets. The more modern structures sprinkled among the venerable ones seemed out of place, anachronistic. They did to me, anyway. But then, I prefer the old to the new in most things. Kerry says I’m hopelessly old-fashioned, a wallower in nostalgia-compliments, as far as I’m concerned.