Chapter 3

The next morning I got up late and ran some errands on the way to my office. I work out of a small windowless room that is part of a dry cleaning establishment in a strip mall. The rent is minimal, but I still have problems paying it. It's really just a place to have an answering machine and to meet with clients. I could easily work out of my apartment, but people expect a detective to have an office.

I parked my van and bought a big cup of regular drip coffee at the Starbuck's and took it with me to the Busy Bee dry cleaners. Mr. Han, the Chinese proprietor, was sitting behind the cash register like a statue. I said hello and he lifted one hand without changing expression. I'm not sure he fully appreciates the romance and excitement of having a genuine private eye on his premises.

To get to my office, you go through the doorway at the left of the front counter and then turn right down a narrow hallway that ends in a fire exit at the back of the building My office is on the left, halfway down the hall. The solid wooden door says "Frank Stern, Licensed Private Detective," in gold stick-on letters. Otherwise it could easily be mistaken for a supply closet.

The inside is pretty drab. A huge, battered wood desk with drawers that stick, two dusty metal file cabinets, a few old chairs. I do have a decent computer, which looks out of place. The answering machine was flashing one message, which is more than I get on most mornings. I punched the message button and dropped into my swivel chair.

Ten seconds later I was back on my feet and heading out the door, my coffee left steaming on the desk. It was from Larry, the manager of my apartment building - someone had just broken into my apartment.

It only took me fifteen minutes to get back home, but it seemed like forever. I don't have renter's insurance, and I have a lot of stuff in my apartment. It seemed quite likely that this was going to be a very costly morning.

Larry was standing at the head of the little staircase that leads down to my back door. He's a short, round guy who I've never seen wearing a shirt. He looked up at me with a scowl and said "Gerri called me a little while ago. Said she saw a guy leaving your apartment, looked kinda suspicious. I went over, saw the door was busted. I didn't call the cops yet."

He scratched a hairy armpit and glared at me, as if it was my fault that someone had broken down my door. I didn't let the glare bother me. Building managers always look at tenants that way, otherwise they get bugged constantly about fixing things.

"Let's go take a look, see what's missing," I said, trying to breath evenly.

I went down the stairs and looked at the door, which was ajar. Judging from the splinters around the lock, it had been forced open with a prybar. With a feeling of dread, I pushed it open and went inside. My first impression wasn't a good one. My place had been tossed, and it had been done roughly, by someone in a hurry. The floors were covered with books, CDs, cushions, and whatever else had been on my shelves and in my drawers.

"Motherfucker," said Larry. "They really messed the place up."

"Thanks for the observation."

I picked my way through the debris and went into the bedroom. I have a safe in the back of my closet which contains my picture collection and other miscellaneous small valuables. It had been discovered, but was undamaged.

I went back to the living room. Larry was putting the couch cushions back.

"Your TV and VCR and stereo are all still here," he said. "Not busted or anything."

I nodded. It was starting to look like it wasn't too bad. It's not like I have an expensive art collection or a drawer full of jewelry. Then I remembered the pictures of Claire Ingleford, which I had rather foolishly left on the coffee table.

"Shit. You see any pictures around? Five by sevens of a topless brunette?"

Larry knows about my hobby, so he took this in stride. "Nope. Think they got nicked?"

"Probably." I went into the darkroom and turned on the light. It was also in complete disarray. My expensive enlarger was tipped over on it its side, and I felt a stab of fresh anger. It didn't take long to figure out that the negatives of Claire Ingleford had also been stolen.

"I guess a thief sees a stack of topless pictures, he's gonna grab them," said Larry. "Human nature."

"Makes sense," I agreed. I didn't mention that the negatives were also missing, which made less sense for a burglar to bother with.

I started putting the darkroom back in order, and Larry went back to straightening up the living room. Despite the scowl and gruff attitude, he's not a bad guy.

An hour later the place was almost presentable, which is to say it looked better than it did before the break-in.

"So what's the damage?" asked Larry.

"A Nikon camera body and a pair of binoculars," I said. "Plus the pictures. That's all I can say for sure."

"Coulda been worse. Gerri said the guy wasn't carrying anything big. Some balls, busting into a place in the middle of the morning."

"Did Gerri get a good look at him?"

"Nope. Said he was on the big side, was dressed pretty nice. He had a hat, and she didn't see his face."

I chewed on that for a few seconds.

Larry said "So you wanna call the cops?"

"What do you think?"

He shrugged. "What they do is come out, poke around for a while, ask you a bunch of stupid questions, make you fill out a buncha forms, and then tell you to put on a stronger lock. It ain't like they're gonna catch the guy or get your stuff back. On the other hand, if you want your insurance to pay for the camera and binocs, you gotta file a report."

"I don't have insurance. Forget the police. Maybe I'll look into it myself."

"Hey, there you go. You gotcher self a new case. Lemme know if I can help - I'd love to see you catch the bastard."

I nodded numbly, the utter futility of launching a one-man investigation into an apartment break-in washing over me. If I was serious, I should have dusted around for fingerprints before Larry and I straightened up. The feeling of helplessness and anger that accompanies a gross violation of one's personal space was keeping me from thinking straight.

"You OK?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"I'll get your door fixed today. I'll see if I can put on something that doesn't pry open so easy. We got insurance that covers that sorta thing."

"Great. Thanks, Larry."

He patted me on the back in an awkward gesture of brotherhood and waddled away. I decided I might as well head back to the office.

On my way, I remembered something that had been nagging at me since I discovered the pictures were missing. I had never developed the second roll of film, the one that had shots of Claire frolicking in the ocean. I knew those pictures wouldn't be as good as the other ones, but now they would be better than nothing. The film was still in the little Olympus, which I hadn't seen in my apartment, and for a bad moment I thought that it must have been stolen. Then I reached behind me and found it on a folded blanket where I had hastily tossed it during my ignomius retreat from Sparkle Beach.

I was feeling a little more cheerful as I parked in the strip mall for the second time that day. Exercising more caution than usual, I took the camera with me rather than leaving it in the van. It was already past one, and I stopped at the Subway for a turkey sub to go. It's actually pretty convenient working in a strip mall.

I ate the sub at my desk, washing it down with the tepid Starbuck's coffee, and pondered the break-in. I was going to have to become more security conscious, maybe install an alarm. I allowed myself to luxuriate in a Charles Bronson fantasy of a silent alarm that would allow me to show up at my apartment with a baseball bat and a pair of pruning shears while a burglary was in progress. Then I forced myself to get real.

The fact that the negatives had been taken from the darkroom seemed very odd. You can't really see what's on negatives unless you hold them up to the light and squint hard or load them into the lightbox, and I had a hard time imagining a nervous burglar who was ransacking the place for valuables bothering to do that.

My gut instinct was telling me that it wasn't a random burglary at all, but that someone had broken in just to get the pictures. The problem with this scenario is that it's just the sort of paranoid fantasy that a down-and-out private eye would cook up in his head to give himself something to do. I decided I would run it by someone who would give me an unbiased opinion. Like maybe Gerri. My cock twitched at the thought.

As it turned out, that wasn't necessary. I was scanning through some newsgroups on the computer when my warning buzzer went off, informing me that someone had opened the door at the other end of the little corridor that led to my office. I installed the circuit to give me a little warning when I'm going to have a visitor. Sort of a nice private-eye touch, I think. It gives me just enough time to sweep a pile of diamonds off the desktop into a drawer, or to make sure my gun is loaded and in my shoulder holster, that sort of thing. More realistically, it gives me a chance to zip up and put on the screen saver.

This time I just spent the extra ten seconds trying to guess who it might be. I didn't even get close, although I might have if I had trusted my gut a little more. I opened the door in response to the sharp knock and found myself facing a beautiful dark-haired woman wearing a baseball cap and expensive-looking sunglasses. It was Claire Ingleford.

"Come on in," I said, after gaping for a moment. "Have a seat." To my relief, my voice didn't quaver or break. I sat back down in my chair and she took the straight-back chair across from the desk.