P.J. Morse - Clancy Parker 01 - Heavy Mental Read Online Free

collected while a few well-heeled dinner guests waited for their friends. When the guests were safely inside and he was alone, he stepped toward me and said, “Somebody asked for you by name today. Wanted to know if you were busy.”
    As a matter of fact, not only was I busy with Sabrina and her necklace problem, but I also had a bunch of small jobs lined up for the week. I had to leave a little spare time for the band, after all. But rent was high in San Francisco. “There’s always room for more. What do you know?”
    “Seems more important than your average customer.” Jamal proceeded to offer up one of his profiles, which started broad and funneled down into specifics. Since he’d mingled with hustlers high and low, he was an excellent reader of personalities. He also didn’t waste any time. He began to count off qualities on his fingers: “Blue BMW. White dude. Gray hair. Red eyes. Loud. Fat. Good suit. Didn’t see a wife. Had a wedding ring. He has wrinkles. Doesn’t sleep much. Dumb jokes. Shiny cuff links. Nails done. Shitty tipper. I mean shitty. Smelled like cigars. Scared of me. And he cannot drive for shit.”
    Jamal then twisted his face into the vague, beady expression worn by corporate types, and he launched an impersonation of the gentleman in question: “Huh-huh. Bet you had a joyride in the Beamer, huh, fella!” Jamal rolled his eyes. “ Fella . My ass .” He scowled. “You should have seen it. His car was all over the damn road!” He held up his hands as if they were on a steering wheel and threw in some screeching sound effects.
    Then a Gold Rush BBQ patron drove up. Jamal’s face transformed into a stiff welcoming expression, which relaxed as soon as he had the keys and the patron walked inside.
    Judging from the profile Jamal provided, I thought that the potential case sounded like a breeze. An overweight rich guy with a wedding ring who liked to flash his wealth was likely being cheated on and wanted to catch the wife in the act. Along with the occasional insurance fraud case, adultery was my bread and butter. It was easier money than being the opening act at one of the local clubs.
    Most of my jobs involved sitting in my Mercury Topaz, which I had christened “Cherry 2000,” after the movie in which a red-haired Melanie Griffith played a sci-fi bounty hunter. The car was a beater, a mid-90s model that ran like it was made in ’85, but it was still a sexy maraschino red, a shade that isn’t too far off from my hair color. From Cherry 2000, I trained my binoculars on faceless suburban ranch houses in San Jose, hillside homes in Marin County, or leaf-shaded cottages in Berkeley, watching my targets do boring things like getting the mail and waiting to see the silhouettes of errant husbands frolicking with their mistresses.
    The number of adultery assignments I got peaked in October. The sudden, unusual warmth that invades San Francisco at that time melted brains and impaired otherwise decent judgment. Any other detective I had met in the area agreed that adultery—gay, straight, bi, animal, vegetable, or mineral—boomed in October. I could not even imagine what business was like in the cities that got really hot in summer.
    Jamal must have read my mind because he immediately altered that avenue of thinking: “I don’t think it’s the usual fuckery. He’s got something else going on. He kept looking behind him like someone was watching him, like he’s gonna get jumped or something.” He took a moment to hiss at his fellow valet and the restaurant host, who were busy making exaggerated hand gestures to approximate certain aspects of the female form as a curvy woman walked into the restaurant. “The fuck is wrong with you? You’re on the clock!”
    “So are you!” the host yelled. “You gonna park that car, or what? Hello, Miss Parker.”
    “Hello, yourself.” It was time to make my exit. “Did you get his name?”
    Jamal imitated the stuffy voice of a well-bred white guy.