Steve Martini - Double Tap

“This Orb. If she wanted it as part of her collection, it probably has a history. Find out who owned it, where it came from, who might have wanted to own it, when it was made, everything you can regarding its pedigree.”

The building is well past its prime. If I had to guess I would say something from the late forties, put up during the postwar building boom when materials were at a premium. It is a universe away from the opulent government palaces built by dollar-a-day WPA artisans during the Depression: post office buildings with soaring Doric columns of granite and Tennessee marble lining the walls and floors. Today the best of these have all been squatted on by the federal courts and refurbished to within an inch of their original splendor.

What I am looking at from across the street isn’t even a distant relative. Five stories high, it stands ten blocks to the south of the trendy Gaslamp Quarter and maybe a decade from the grasping clutches and wrecking ball of urban renewal.

I skip across the street midblock, dodging cars, and climb the two cement steps leading to the main entrance. Inside is a directory, names and office numbers behind smudged glass with a hodgepodge of block letters of varying sizes and colors, some metal, some plastic. I find the one I’m looking for and take the elevator to the third floor.

The office is on the back side of the building.

The lights are on inside, enough illumination for me to see the hulking shadow of a figure, its outline skipping across the dappled glass every few seconds as it moves. No voices, so I assume he is not on the phone.

As I turn the knob and swing the door open without knocking, I see Herman Diggs, his massive shoulders hunched, neck bowed like a Brahma bull, his eyes trained on a piece of paper. Several piles of papers are neatly stacked across the top of his desk. As Herman looks up, it takes a second before he makes the leap from written word to familiar face, then he smiles. His missing front tooth looks like a gap in a fence.

“Whoa. Look what the wind blew in. Is that Paul Madriani I see?”

“In the flesh,” I tell him.

“Didn’t expect to see you .” Herman pushes his chair back from the desk. It takes him a second to get to his feet. “How you been?”

“I’m fine. But you should learn to keep your door locked if you’re going to do dangerous work.”

“What you talkin’ ‘bout, ‘dangerous work’?” He’s smiling, moving around the desk to greet me.

“I’ve been told you’re doing divorce cases. It doesn’t get any more dangerous than that.”

“Hell, only dangerous work I ever did was workin’ for you.” Herman’s laughing, hobbling a little on a stiff leg, one hand on the furniture to steady himself, evidence of the truth in his last statement. He offers me his hand, big and beefy, the size of a baseball glove.

“I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.”

“Be a sad day when I don’t have time for friends,” says Herman.

“I should have called first, but I was in the area.”

“Hey, don’t be foolish. Actually I’m busy as hell. You know how it is. When you’re good at what you do, your services are always in demand. But I can always make time for a friend. My next appointment’s not till”-he looks at his watch-“let’s see, next Wednesday.” Herman laughs, full of his own version of blarney and bluster. “How ‘bout a cup of coffee so’s we can sit and bullshit a little longer? Keep me from that pile of papers over on my desk there.”

“Not for me. Just had lunch downtown. A meeting with a client.”

I take a seat in one of his client chairs. The chairs, like Herman’s desk, are scarred with someone’s carved initials, grooved and tattooed in assorted colors of ink. “So how’s business?”

“It’s growin’, comin’ along,” he says. “Picking up a few cases here, a few there. It takes time. You know what I mean?”

“I do. I almost didn’t stop in. I thought you might be out working the shoe leather.”

“Fact is, you saved me from a fate worse than death.” He gestures toward the stacks on his desk. “Don’t have a secretary as yet, so I gots to do my own filing. Hate that shit.” Herman moves to a little table by one of the filing cabinets against the wall, a coffeemaker and some cups on top of it. He pours himself a cup.

“How’s the leg?”

“Oh, that. It’s no problem.” He moves his right leg a little, heel and toe tapping-Fred Astaire on one leg-as he rests all his weight on the other foot, a demonstration to show me that the leg still works. “It’s nothin’. Just tends to stiffen up when I sit too long.”

Herman is like the soldier shot in both lungs who told the medic he was okay since it only hurt when he breathed.

“Be fine,” he says. “All I need is to pick up a few more clients so I can get out an’ about. This sittin’ behind a desk is not good. Puttin’ on weight, too.”

“Yeah, I noticed that right off.” Herman is a brick, solid muscle, well over six feet. He probably tips the scale at 250 pounds and claps his hands between his hundred push-ups every morning.

He settles his behind on the edge of his desk, cup in hand as he sips and smiles down at me. I met Herman two years ago while trying to tie up loose ends on a case down in Mexico, the Yucatán Peninsula. Herman had been brought in as part of a security team. At the time he was working for a large firm out of Chicago. He ended up taking two bullets, an act that would have ended my life if he hadn’t. I’ve not forgotten it.

“Harry said he heard you were in town. Said he saw an ad in one of the community throwaways. Little yellow tabloid.”

Herman thinks for a second, then slaps his good leg. “ Triple Nickel ,” he says. “Little gold mine. As I recall, I picked up three clients from that one. Divorcées out in the east county. You know, cowboy country. Good ad. Know, ‘cuz I wrote it myself. How’d it go?” He closes his eyes and traces the words with a finger through air as he recites. “‘Put a tail behind your husband. Put your mind at ease. Make sure he’s got no tail on the side. Discreet Investigations. Herman Diggs and Associates.”’ He opens his eyes, gives me a smile. “Not bad for a guy never finished college, huh? What the man said: ‘You gotta keep ‘em entertained-you gonna put your hand in their pocket.”’

“So how long have you been here?”

“What? This place?”

“In town, I mean.”

“Oh, I dunno. Three, four months.”

“And you didn’t stop by?”

“Been busy,” he says. “All kindsa things to do when you open a business. You know how it is. Gotta get furniture and phones in. Name and number in the yellow pages. My license over there. . ” Herman gestures with an offhand nod and a dip of his shoulder toward a lonely certificate under glass in a black frame hanging high on the wall behind his desk chair. This is as casual as it gets for a man who tips the scales at eighteen stone and was once viewed as budding lineback material by the NFL. Herman went south to work in Mexico after his college scholarship did the same, the result of an early knee injury.

“Been in this office, what, maybe a month. Course, this is just a watering spot, you understand, a kinda way station like they say. Be workin’ my way toward greener pastures shortly.” What Herman means is when he actually catches up with all of those associates he currently has employed only in his ads and on his business card, one of which he plucks from a plastic holder on his desk and hands to me.

Herman is hardworking, energetic, what you would call a natural self-starter. His enthusiasm is such that trying to chill any plan he has ever hatched is doomed to fail, like throwing cold water on a red-hot stove. With Herman, words of caution usually serve only to make steam. In any endeavor Herman is likely to make a fortune-that is, if he isn’t arrested first.