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  "Sure," I said. If there was one thing I was good at, it was poking at an issue until I learned more than I anticipated. Or sometimes more than I wanted to. I wondered if Earl was prepared for that.

  "You'll probably want a two-day retainer," he said. "Like last time."

  "No," I said.

  "No?"

  "What I want is a four-day retainer, because I think I'll need at least four days to do a thorough investigation. If it's less, I'll give you a refund."

  "That's six thousand dollars you want me to fork over," he said, lowering his eyes. "And I'm supposed to trust you to keep your own hours?"

  "Yes. That's exactly what you're supposed to do. Don't worry. Unlike you, I'm honest when it comes to money."

  Earl scowled. "You have a nasty way about you."

  "Sure," I said. "And it's not six thousand dollars you'll be paying me. It's ten thousand."

  "Huh?" he glowered. "Just how did you get to that? You have some awfully funny math."

  "It's simple," I said. Part of me was hoping Earl Bainbridge would get up and leave. The other part wanted to get paid. "You'll also need to pay me the four thousand you owed me from before. That debt gets settled before I do any more work for you. And you should feel lucky I'm not charging you interest on the debt."

  Earl's anger began to turn into bewilderment. I suppose he began to conclude this was the only way he would get to hire me, and perhaps the only way he would have a uniquely talented investigator take on the case. Resigned to this, he finally acquiesced and raised his pen.

  "All right. Do I make it out to Burnside Investigations?"

  "Your bank should. I'll need a cashier's check."

  "Oh, come on!" he barked, starting to get irritated again. "I mean, is this really necessary?"

  "In your case, yes," I said. When someone cheats you out of money, their credibility is shot. I allow people to take advantage of me once. Give a cheater a second chance, and they'll have a second opportunity to cheat you.

  Earl stood up, looked as if he were about to storm out, and then stopped. Resignation crept across his wrinkled face. "I imagine there's a Wells Fargo in West L.A.? I don't normally leave Pasadena. No reason to, you know."

  "There's one over on Pico. Past Westwood. You can be there and back in fifteen minutes. It's mid-morning. Traffic's light."

  He turned to leave, but I had one more question.

  "Say, Earl."

  He turned back to look at me. "Don't tell me you have one more requirement."

  "Nope. Just a question."

  "What's that?"

  "How much money did you personally donate to St. Dismas for this fundraising venture?"

  Earl's expression turned sheepish and he looked at me for a good five seconds. I wasn't sure if he was trying to make me sorry I had asked, or simply trying to remember the amount. "A hundred thousand," he finally said. "That impress you?"

  I let out a low whistle. And I started to think my fifteen hundred-a-day fee might have actually been too low.

  "That's quite a lot."

  "Yeah," he said sourly. "I wish I had never sent Austin to that school. But he's a senior now, so it's done. I should have listened to a friend of mine at the club. He told me who this St. Dismas character really was, but I just laughed it off."

  "All right. So who was St. Dismas?"

  "He was referred to," Earl said, a nasty sneer crossing his face, "as the patron saint of thieves."

  Chapter 2

  Only a few minutes after Earl departed, my past continued to resurrect itself, this time in the form of a willowy woman, fortyish, and mildly pretty. Her name was Rebecca Linzemeier, and for many years she had lived in the apartment below mine in Santa Monica. Ms. Linzmeier was a woman I would have rather forgotten, the unpleasant memories flooding back to me like the stench of a nasty meal that made your stomach do cartwheels. Coming on the heels of Earl Bainbridge, I decided this was not my day. If bad things came in threes, I shuddered to think who else would be passing through my office door.

  I was never really attracted to Rebecca, although she had made it quite plain she would welcome such an overture. And I suppose if I had not lived above her apartment for twelve years, I might have been tempted at one point. But the building we lived in had no insulation, and I think I heard every shrill conversation she ever had, and every sniveling comment she ever uttered. Rebecca Linzmeier was the neighbor from hell, the one who got up at 5:00 a.m. and felt she had the right to make a ridiculous amount of noise. The only times she slept in were when the occasional boyfriend spent the night, and her nocturnal screams were the stuff of legend. She certainly had no qualms about letting the world know just how much she was enjoying yourself. Her neighbors, myself included, suffered through it.

  "Mr. Burnside," she said formally.

  "Ms. Linzmeier."

  "You remember me."

  "I have a good memory for certain things," I said, not telling her those things were mostly ones which had ruined many a good night's sleep.

  "May I sit down?" she asked.

  "You may."

  Ms. Linzmeier sat down, looked around the room, took a deep breath, and then burst into tears. She closed her eyes tightly, her mouth wincing and her chest heaving slightly. She tried to stop crying, but as is often the case, the harder one tries to stop doing something, the harder it becomes. She composed herself for a moment, apologized, and then began whimpering again. I reached into my desk and handed her a box of tissues. She took it without a word, pulled two out, dabbed her eyes and blew her nose. After another minute or so, she took a deep breath and let it out.

  "I didn't mean to do that," she said.

  "It's all right," I said. "No one ever does."

  "You're probably wondering why I'm here."

  "Well, yes," I said.

  "It's got nothing to do with the apartment building."

  "All right."

  "I know you moved out a while ago," she said.

  "Yes, we bought a house," I pointed out. "We're in Mar Vista now."

  "I remember your wife. She was nice. So beautiful. And you had a baby."

  "We did," I said, repressing a need to start tapping my fingers on the desk. "Tell me. What brings you here."

  "I ... I have a problem."

  "I assumed you did. What's going on?"

  She took another deep breath, flinched for a moment, and successfully held off another wall of tears. "It's my boyfriend."

  "What did he do?"

  "I'm not sure. Not entirely sure, mind you. But I think. Well, I'm pretty sure Doug's cheating on me."

  It was my turn to take a deep breath. I hated these types of cases. A partner's infidelity, like the previous occupants of your hotel room, was a subject you simply didn't want to think about. This reminded me yet again of why Earl Bainbridge had hired me back in the day. My initial thought was to advise Ms. Linzmeier that no relationship grows if it's built on a lie. But of course my potential client didn't know this for certain, and even if she did, she might not want to end things. When it comes to matters of the heart, things often get messy.

  "Why do you suspect this?"

  "I've found credit card receipts. From a hotel restaurant. A really nice one. Shutters. Over on Pico."

  "Have you confronted him?"

  She shook her head no. "I can't. Not without proof. I would feel too foolish. And what if he just denied the whole thing? How would I know for sure?"

  "Are you living together?" I asked.

  "Not exactly. Doug still has his own apartment. But he stays at my place three or four times a week."

  "And you think he's been staying at this hotel."

  "I can't be sure. But it's strange. I do remember one night he came home and I smelled perfume on him. And he was drunk. And it was a night where I found a credit card receipt."

  "That does sound strange," I pondered. "Can I ask what his financial situation is like?"

  She blinked a few times. "I suppose it's good. He's a mortgage
broker. Gets home loans for people. He's not exactly rich, but he makes a nice living. Why is that important?"

  I shrugged. People who are having affairs will sometimes get a room, but Shutters was an exclusive hotel, and those who stayed there were doing very well financially. Or the people they were seeing were here on business trips and mixed in some pleasure. But if this Doug still maintained his own place, it was interesting that he chose not to use it. Maybe he just didn't want to take the chance of getting caught.

  "I'm not sure if it's important," I finally said. "So you want me to do what here? Find out if he's actually having an affair? Are you sure you want the answer to that question?"

  She agreed vigorously. "I have to know."

  "What will you do if I find out he's been cheating?" I asked. Before I take on a case with emotional entanglements, I wanted to at least get a sense of what I was in for.

  Rebecca Linzmeier opened her mouth for a moment but no words came out right away. As she considered my question, a confused look crossed her face.

  "I suppose ... I'd have to confront him," she finally said.

  "And if he admits it?"

  "Well, I ... I guess I'd have to ... ask him to end it. To stop the affair."

  "Is there going to be an 'or else' at the end of that demand?"

  "I ... I don't know. Oh, why are you asking me this? Can't you just find out for me? And we'll deal with all that other stuff then?"

  I took a breath. Therein was the problem. Clients often say they want to know the truth, but in reality they don't always want to. The answer gives them closure, but it often gives them pain. I didn't have a good response for Rebecca Linzmeier, other than it's better to know than to not know. But when someone has been unfaithful to you, a part of you will never fully trust that person again. Many people claim they can forgive and forget, but the forgiving is far easier than the forgetting. The mind doesn't always operate the way we want it to.

  "Yes," I said. "I can find out for you. I'll need his name and a recent photo. And if you suspect he'll be going there again one night, let me know. The best course of action is to be there when it happens."

  "Okay. I can get all that to you. And I generally can sense when that woman might come back. He usually comes up with an excuse of having to meet clients for dinner or something like that."

  "All right."

  "What do you charge for your services?" she asked.

  This is where I wind up losing half my potential clientele. "My normal fee is a thousand dollars a day," I said, watching her carefully and seeing her grow a little paler.

  "That's ... a lot."

  "I do have a sliding scale," I added. "I can lower it if you're budget is constrained."

  She managed a half-smile. "That sounds like something psychologists offer."

  It was not the first time I had heard that reference, and it usually came from people very familiar with the feel of lying on a couch, staring at the ceiling and discussing their problems with a stranger. I thought back to my days as a bachelor and it also reminded me of a few one-night stands.

  "I have an idea," I said. "It probably wouldn't be productive for me to follow your boyfriend around all day. And I do have another client. Here's what we can do. When you sense your boyfriend is planning to go back to that hotel, let me know and I'll conduct surveillance that night. I'll charge you one hundred an hour, plus expenses. And I may only need a few hours."

  She processed this. "You're being very kind to me. I guess being a good neighbor has some value."

  I processed this, too, and chose not to respond.

  *

  Rebecca Linzmeier departed, and I spent a little time combing through the Internet, ostensibly looking into St. Dismas, but mostly surfing aimlessly. I waited to see if Earl Bainbridge would indeed come back with my payment, or if he would hightail it back to Pasadena for another eight years. If he did choose to make good on his debt, it would take Earl less than an hour to go to the bank, make the transaction, and return.

  As it turned out, Earl was indeed true to his word about paying me, although it wasn't Earl who showed up with my compensation. Rather, it was a courier, who presented me with an oversized yellowish envelope that contained the cashier's check. I admired the check for a brief moment, thought wistfully about my inflated salary as a college football coach the past three years, then returned to the present and counted my blessings for the things I still had.

  After depositing the money into my own Wells Fargo account, I drove my Pathfinder to The Apple Pan for a hickory burger to celebrate my two new clients. But it was now past noon, and judging by the line out the door, it appeared others were celebrating something, also. It was not only hot out today, it was very dry as well, as September often is in L.A. Waiting outside in a long queue would quickly remove any joy I was feeling. One of our local secrets is that September is often the hottest month of the year. The month when fires were most likely to rage. And the month of September was only beginning.

  The trek to Pasadena wasn't bad, thirty-five minutes of steering carefully along that serpentine road we called the 110 Freeway, before it ended and spilled traffic onto Arroyo Parkway. Pasadena was once a very beautiful little community. It had evolved into a somewhat beautiful large community. The street names were often a misnomer, as there were no lakes near Lake Avenue, and orange groves were nowhere to be found on Orange Grove Boulevard. At least when I turned onto California Avenue, I was still in the right state.

  Pie 'n Burger was located a few blocks off the main drag. Like the Apple Pan, it specialized in just a few dishes and had thrived for many decades. But unlike the Apple Pan, it had air conditioning and the wait was a little shorter. And when I told the hostess I was by myself, she led me directly toward a single open chair at the counter. I apologized as I slid past a few patrons, who gave me the evil eye for getting seated out of turn. I sat down, flagged a waitress, and quickly ordered. My lunch arrived a few minutes later. Everything was starting to go so swimmingly today. I began to wonder if I should buy some Powerball tickets.

  I dug in. My cheeseburger was good, the slice of Dutch apple pie was good, the service was good. It wasn't quite like the Apple Pan, and I guess when you've grown up with something and eaten it for four decades, nothing else tastes quite the same. Not better, not worse, just different. As I finished, I took note of the people sitting next to me at the counter. On one side of me sat a couple discussing the float they were planning for the Rose Parade, and whether it was more practical to use blue azaleas or real blueberries in their American flag. Apparently everything on the floats had to be natural. On the other side of me sat a pair of Cal Tech students arguing whether it was more advisable to go forward into the future or go backward into history, an argument that would only become an issue if the time machine they were envisioning actually became fully functional. As I waited for the check, I felt my mind start to shut down and considered the more pedestrian problem of who would be starting at tailback when USC opened its football season on Saturday.

  Walking to the cash register, I noticed a row of pies in the back and decided if I was going to announce two paying clients to Gail and Marcus, I should probably come home with some spoils. As today marked my son's first day in preschool as well, it struck me that a celebration was in order. I knew Marcus liked the new and the different, so I ordered a whole strawberry pie to go. People commented how unusual it was for a three year old to be so open to trying new things, but I think Marcus liked the shock value. We took him to his first sushi bar recently, figuring he might like tamago, the sweetened slice of omelet placed atop a bed of rice. What we didn't anticipate was that when Marcus discovered they had eel and octopus on the menu, he wanted -- no, demanded -- to be able to try these. I'm not fully convinced he liked them, but I knew for a fact he took delight in watching others at the sushi bar point and stare at him. He clearly enjoyed the limelight.

  Class was still in session when I arrived on the St. Dismas campus a few minutes
later. I walked down a tree-lined path toward the school and noticed a number of beautiful green and red parrots sitting in the trees. Many years ago, a local pet store caught fire and burned to the ground. The animals were fortunately rescued, but not some of the exotic birds, which normally sat around the store uncaged. When the flames tore through the walls, the birds narrowly escaped, and re-settled in various parts of Pasadena. Their flock grew, and they were now part of the urban ecosphere, as well as part of urban lore. Wild parrots are simply not something you expect to come across in Pasadena, or anywhere near L.A. for that matter.

  The main building on the campus had a stone exterior and resembled a medieval castle more than a high school. A bronze statue of a biblical figure, possibly St. Dismas himself, was positioned in a grassy area near the entrance. I pushed open the front door and a sleepy-looking security guard smiled and waved me through. Maybe he remembered me as a college football recruiter, maybe he thought I was a parent, but all in all, the guard seemed unconcerned about my presence which suddenly made me concerned. Lax security is rarely a good thing. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed he recalled me as a college football coach looking to offer scholarships to certain students. He certainly wouldn't have been expecting a shady private investigator who wanted to poke his nose into the financial irregularities of a private school's questionable fundraising arm. Unaware of exactly where to start, I walked through the building and over to the football field. At the very least, I knew where that was.

  Classes were now ending, and a few players, already in their practice uniforms, had begun moving out of the locker room and onto the field. A couple of men wearing blue Department of Water and Power uniforms were inspecting the grass. Climbing up the bleachers, I recognized a number of other assistant coaches from various top-tier college programs. I sat down beside Chuck Mantle, a chatty offensive coordinator from some college in the middle of the country. It might have been Nebraska or Oklahoma or Texas; I vaguely recalled he had switched schools in the past couple of years. College assistants tend to move around a lot. I knew from personal experience that their job security was tenuous at best. Sometimes coaches got fired when their school failed to win enough games. In my case, I was let go because we were too successful. Our head coach, Johnny Cleary, took a step up and accepted a head coaching spot with the Chicago Bears. USC's new coach wanted to bring in his own staff. It is indeed possible to do your job too well.