I came to be only four people away from the cashier in the line at the unemployment office. The lady in front of me shuffled forward. She was dragging a shopping bag along the floor. I glanced into the bag. It. looked like a condensed version of somebody's attic.
There was a while there after I left Empire when I thought I might be in trouble. While Beth was sick, I'd started running in the early mornings to try to work off my anxiety. After she died, I stopped jogging and started drinking. After I left Empire, I really started hitting it, leaving unopened most of the packed boxes in the new apartment. Then one January night, driving home from a bar, I missed a kid on a bike by about half a Scotch.
When I got to the apartment, I threw up twelve or fifteen times and tried to drown myself in the shower. I climbed out and looked at myself in the mirror. I began taking stock. Thirty-plus, six-feet-two-plus. Unemployed and rapidly approaching unemployable. I'd spent most-hell, all-of my adult life in investigation work for Uncle Sugar or Empire. Six years earlier Empire had required all of us to obtain and maintain private-detective licenses from the Department of Public Safety. I knew three or four semireputable guys in the trade who could tell me how to get started and maybe even refer me a few clients. I decided it was time J. F. C. became his own man. With a little interim help from the unemployment compensation folks.
The shopping-bag lady waddled past me. I reached the window, collected my $106.25, expressed my gratitude, and went home.
SECOND
– ¦ The bouncy voice on the other side of the fire alarm said, "Hi, John. This is Valerie Jacobs."
The clock radio said eight-thirty; the sun in my bedroom window said A.M. Unfortunately, I had decided to cut back on my drinking slowly, and the Red Sox game on TV the night before had gone thirteen innings.
"Hi," I said quietly. "Who are you?"
"Fine, thanks," she replied, I guess because she thought I'd said "how" instead of "who." Maybe I had. "The school year's over, and I'm hoping this will be my best summer of all."
"That's nice," I said.
"Listen, John, I can tell I woke you up, and I'm sorry. I wanted to talk to you about a problem, but when I called Empire, they said you'd left the company. I'm not seeing Chuck anymore, so I didn't know."
Valerie. Valerie and Chuck. Sure. She was a teacher who'd been going out with one of the claims adjusters in the office. Beth and I had met her at a few company functions. In fact, I remembered she'd sent a condolence card just after Beth died.
"I'm a private detective now. In Boston."
"Oh, John, that's perfect! I know this is short notice, but so much time has gone by already. Could you meet me for lunch today? Around one?"
"Sure."
"How about L'Espalier?"
"Fine. You buyin'?"
"Put it on your expense account," she laughed, and hung up before I could tell her she definitely had overestimated my status in the profession.
I got up, vacillated over running, then finally laced my Brooks Villanovas. I pulled on a fading Tall Ships T-shirt from the Bicentennial summer and a pair of black gym shorts. I warmed up with loosening and stretching exercises for ten minutes and then went outside. It was a glorious June day, and the sidewalk was frying-pan hot. In Boston, we don't have spring; at some point in May, we jump from March to August.
I crossed over Storrow Drive on the pedestrian ramp and did a fairly leisurely two miles upriver and two miles back. As I recrossed the ramp toward Charles Street and the apartment, I watched the commuters inch by below me.
It had been only five months since I'd missed the kid on the bike, but I wasn't really struggling. In terms of conditioning (or reconditioning, if you insist), I'd been running three times a week, three to six miles each time. I'd been doing push-ups, sit-ups, and a little weight lifting. To try to regain some dangerousness, I began relearning jukado (a combination of judo, karate, and a number of other disciplines) which I'd picked up in the army. I even persuaded a police-chief friend of mine from Bonham (pronounced "Bonuhm," if you please), a town south and west of Boston, to let me use his department's pistol range.
In terms of business, the advent of no-fault divorce in Massachusetts had cut back considerably on that aspect of private investigating, which was line by me. A friend in the trade had told me that the secret of survival was keeping the overhead down. He suggested I use a tape device on my telephone instead of an answering service, and he was proving to be right. I also operated out of my apartment, so I had no office expense.
A retired Boston cop who'd known my family was a security director for a suburban department store. He had thrown a few "inside-job" surveillances my way, and on one we'd actually nailed the dipping employee. I had been quietly blackballed in Boston insurance circles, which kept my unemployment compensation coming. However, one maverick investigator had brought me in as a consultant on a warehouse security problem, and I sewed it up nicely in enough days to pay the next three months' rent. In other words, although I wasn't exactly pressed for free time, I was getting by.
I stopped at the grocery store on the corner and bought a quart of orange juice, some doughnuts, a Boston Globe and a New York Times. I politely stayed downwind (actually down-air-conditioner) from the cashier. After I climbed the three flights to my apartment, I duplicated the pre-run exercises. I showered, shaved, downed my doughnuts, and dressed in my only gray slacks and blue blazer. I even wore a regimental tie. Peter Prep School goes to luncheon.
I sat in Public Garden for two hours, reading my papers thoroughly in a way I'd never seemed able to while I was working. Funny, with my time my own and only food, shelter, and car insurance to worry about, I couldn't really look on my present occupation as working. By the time I finished the Times, it was 12:45, and I'd been panhandled three times. I walked down Arlington Street and toward the restaurant. L'Espalier was then on the second floor of a building between Arlington and Berkeley streets on Boylston. It has since moved to Gloucester Street between Newbury and Commonwealth. It has also ceased serving lunch, to allow concentration on the magnificent dinner menu. The couple who own and manage the restaurant had lived above Beth and me in the condominium building. After Beth died, I'd wasted some beautiful afternoons over a carafe of house bordeaux while Donna and Moncef patiently looked on.
Donna greeted me at the entranceway and gave me a table for two in the corner. I'd just ordered a pina colada (without the kick) when Valerie walked in. I recognized her, but I realized I would have been hard put to describe her beforehand.
She stood about five-seven without the heels. She had long, curly-to-the-point-of-kinky auburn hair, a broad, open face, and a toothy smile. That may sound unkind; I don't mean it to be. Let's say she resembled Mary Tyler Moore in her late twenties. Her sundress hinted at small but nicely shaped breasts. The dress also hid most of her legs, which were slightly heavier than I would have recalled but appeared, thankfully, to be shaved. She was burdened with at least four store bags.
From the door, she gave me a wave that was a little too much I'm-meeting-someone-in-a-nice-Boston-restaurant" and therefore not entirely for my benefit. She smiled at and said something to Donna and strode over toward me. I noticed that Donna was giving me a sardonic grin. I also noticed, as Valerie cleared the table before mine, that the bags she carried were from Lord amp; Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue labels out. I stood up.