Bill Pronzini - Nightcrawlers

The two private offices at the rear were side by side, the one on the west a little larger-the bathroom had been added on to the east-side office-and with the better view. She’d insisted I take the larger one; I insisted she have it. We’d wrangled a little, but as the senior partner I had the final say. When I walked into the east office this morning, I could see her at her desk through the connecting door, which we kept open unless one of us was with a client. She was in her usual pose, hunched over her computer keyboard, a study today in dark brown and spring yellow. There’d been a time when she dressed like a character in a bad street movie, but that was long past. Now she wore suits and blouses and shoes with designer labels and had her hair done by professionals instead of self-styling it with an eggbeater or whatever she’d used.

She’d changed, Ms. Corbin had, in the five years since she’d first come to work for me. And considerably in the four months since the holiday ordeal in our old offices on O’Farrell Street-a hostage situation in which she and Runyon and I had come close to dying at the hands of a madman armed with an arsenal of weapons. That experience seemed to have had a profound effect on her. She was less prickly now, less inclined to grumble and to sudden mood swings, more coolly professional in her dealings with clients. More self-assured, as if she understood herself better and was more comfortable in her own skin. Even her speech was less peppered with the Ebonic and slang phrases she’d sometimes wielded like tools of self-defense. She still had her sense of humor, but it didn’t have the edge it once had and she didn’t put me on quite as often as she once did. In a way I missed the old Tamara, but I had even greater admiration and affection for the new one.

She was wrapped up in what she was doing and didn’t notice me at first. I shed my coat, thumped my briefcase down on the desk, and then entered her office.

“Morning, kiddo.”

“Morning,” she said without looking up. “I heard you come in.”

“Sure you did. Ever vigilant.”

“Uh-huh.”

“How’s that for an agency motto? ‘Ever Vigilant.’ ”

“Retro. Like ‘We Never Sleep.’ ”

“Don’t let anybody who works for Pinkerton hear you say that. How was your weekend?”

She said, “Quiet,” and then amended it to “Busy. Worked most of Saturday.”

“Now you’re picking up my bad habits. What happened to your social life?”

“Club scene? Guys with booze on their breath hitting on me? Who needs it?”

“There are other things to do with your friends.”

“Not when they’ve all got love lives.”

“Maybe you should take a few days off, fly to Philadelphia.”

“Too much work to do here.”

“Can’t Horace get away?”

“Symphony season’s already started back there. He’s got no time for anything except that cello of his.”

That sounded a little ominous. I wanted to ask her if everything was okay with her and Horace, but I didn’t do it. She’d been reticent about their relationship lately, and prodding her would not have gotten me anywhere. Three and a half months apart is a long time; biweekly phone conversations just aren’t enough to keep a long-distance romance burning hot. It had to be a strain on both of them. In fact…

“Can I ask you a personal question, Tamara?”

“Long as it’s not about Horace.”

“It’s not. I’m just curious… have you been on a diet?”

“How come you asking that?”

“Well, you’re looking pretty svelte these days.”

“Didn’t think you’d noticed.”

“Trained professionals notice everything. Ever vigilant.”

“Uh-huh. Well, I’ve lost twelve pounds so far.”

“By choice?”

“What, you think I quit eating ‘cause I’m pining away for Horace?”

“No, no…”

“Well, don’t worry. I’m losing weight for me, nobody else. Just got tired of looking at myself naked in the mirror. Love handles are okay, but I had bulges big enough for a couple of 49ers’ linemen to hold on to.”

I let that pass. “What kind of diet are you on?”

“SlimFast and rabbit food. Yummy. But I’m used to it, now.”

“How much more are you planning to lose?”

“Eight or ten pounds. Until I can wear a size eight without looking like a sack of cookie dough.”

“Hot stuff.”

“Yeah, well, there’s still my big booty and my face. Can’t do much about either of those.”

“What’s wrong with your face?”

“Hah. No competition for Halle Berry, that’s for sure.”

“Who’s Halle Berry?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“I’m not kidding. Who’s Halle Berry?”

“Where you been lately? First African-American woman to win a best actress Oscar. Real hot stuff.”

I said, “Oh,” because I see maybe one new film a year that Kerry recommends, avoid newspapers and the TV news, and pay no attention to actors or the Oscars.

“Lot of modern film critics think Louise Beavers should’ve won one way back in the 1930s,” Tamara said, “but you know how blacks were treated in those days. In and out of Hollywood.”

“Who’s Louise Beavers?”

“Come on now. Don’t tell me you never saw Imitation of Life. As many old movies as you scope on TV?”

“That tearjerker with Claudette Colbert?”

“And Louise Beavers. Delilah. Everydamnbody overlooks her and she stole the picture.”

“I’ve seen it, but not in a long time. Since when do you watch old movies?”

“Since I was about ten, if they have black folks in ‘em. Don’t know me as well as you think you do, huh?”

“Evidently not. Sorry.”

“For what?” She gave me one of her looks. “Beavers,” she said.

“Right, Louise Beavers.”

“I’m thinking other beavers now. You know who Beaver Cleaver was?”

“No. Who?”

“Leave It to Beaver. ‘Oh, Ward, we just have to do something about the Beaver.’ ”

“Huh?”

“Take that two ways,” she said.

“Take what two ways?”

“Beaver.”

“I don’t get what you mean.”

“Don’t you know what a beaver is?”

“Of course I know.”

“Well?”

“Fur-bearing mammal. Buck teeth, flat tail, and dam-building skills.”

“I mean the other kind.”

“There isn’t any other kind.”

“That’s what you think.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“Beaver. Slang term.”

“Slang term for what?”

“You really don’t know, huh?”

“I really don’t know.”

“I’ll bet Kerry knows.” Mischievous old-Tamara grin. “Why don’t you ask her tonight when you get home?”

“I’ll do that,” I lied. If I did, judging from that grin, I would regret it. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss. “So what’s on the agenda for today? Any new business?”

“Nothing so far,” Tamara said. “But I turned up a possible lead on the deadbeat dad case.”

“Which case is that? Oh, the split-fee from the Ballard Agency?”

“Yup. Turns out George DeBrissac has a cousin who lives in Antioch and owns a second house in San Leandro. Rental property. Five months since the last tenants left, but it was taken off the market three months ago and there’s no record of it being rented at that time or since.”

“How long since DeBrissac skipped Portland?”

“Just about three months.”

“Could be coincidence.”

“Hah,” she said.

Right. In our business, the old “if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck” axiom usually applies. This was particularly true in deadbeat dad cases. They tend to be the easiest skips we’re called on to find, since the individuals are generally middle-class types with little or no criminal history and some traceable source of steady income. George DeBrissac was a well-paid freelance accountant with Bay Area ties; it stood to reason that when he ran out on his ex-wife and two kids in Portland, he would head straight for northern California. The Ballard Detective Agency up there, hired by the ex-wife, had figured the same thing; so they’d called us and farmed out the hard part of the job for half the fee, one of those cooperative deals that become necessary when the client isn’t wealthy enough and the fee isn’t large enough for the primary agency to send one of its own operatives out of state. The case was Tamara’s, for the most part. She hadn’t had any luck yet in finding out where DeBrissac was working, if he was working, but now maybe it didn’t matter. The relative’s house in San Leandro looked like a strong lead-just the sort of place a not-too-imaginative skip would pick to hole up.