“Basically, yes. But they do know how I’m going to spend it,” I reminded him. “Instead of running around like a chicken with its head cut off I’m going to sit in one place and let him come to me, like the detective at Les Deux Magots in Paris.”
“I can’t tell one of the most important venture capitalists in the Western world that you’re going to take his money and open a pizza parlor,” Roscoe said, obviously meaning it.
I laughed. “Then don’t tell him. He doesn’t need to know exactly how I’m going to spend his money, at least not right away. And to make it easier for both you and your client, you may tell him that I’m so certain I know where Dr. Packer has gone to earth that I won’t take a fee, not a penny, unless I’m successful in fingering him.”
“So, tell me,” Joey asked as we rode the Greyhound south, “how you’re so certain that this crook—”
“Dr. Tony Packer.”
“—whatever, how this so-called genius, is laying up in a small town—”
“San Luis Obispo. Everybody who lives there calls it SLO.”
“—south of San Francisco, when nobody else could figure it out.”
“Simple, Joey. The guy grew up there, stayed in town to go to Cal Poly when he could have gone to any university in the state — Stanford, for one, had offered him a full scholarship, as had Caltech. He thinks San Luis Obispo is heaven on earth, and has said so in at least half a dozen interviews over the past twenty years. Plus, he’s put lots of his own money, several million dollars at least, where his mouth is, by funding a bunch of local charities and community organizations. And,” I smiled, “the icing on the cake, so to speak, is that he’s been an avid surfer since he was a little kid, and SLO is just a few minutes away from some of the best surfing on the Central California coast.”
“How do you know all this?”
I smiled. “There’s this thing in San Francisco called a library, where you can get free access to this other thing called the Internet...”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Joey responded, shaking his head. “But what you’re talking about, him taking it on the lam in his own hometown, is too obvious. Way too many people would know him, would have heard of the theft up here in the Bay Area.” He shook his head again. “Even today, twenty million’s a lot of dough. Someone would have said something if they’d seen him down there. I guarantee you, somebody woulda dropped a dime by now.”
“I don’t think so. Sure, lots of people might know him, but even more people down there admire him, admire what he’s done for the community. And keep in mind, stealing money from fabulously wealthy venture capitalists in Palo Alto wouldn’t even be considered a crime by more people than you might think — particularly if the thief was otherwise well liked, and for good reason. The local attitude down there would be, hey, if he clipped a couple of Silicon Valley greed merchants, more power to him.”
“I know what you’re saying, but how about the local police? The sheriff’s office? As soon as he disappeared, you can bet law-enforcement agencies up and down the state were told to be on the lookout for him. If he’d settled in down there the police woulda known about it.”
“Not necessarily. Remember, Packer’s not exactly a dummy. He hasn’t been down openly strolling around town, telegraphing his presence to anyone interested enough to take notice. No,” I shook my head confidently, “he’s stayed under the radar, probably changed his appearance somewhat, kept his mouth shut and his eyes open. I would also be astonished if he doesn’t have at least one, and probably several, of the local police and sheriff’s deputies on his payroll, maybe even the chief, keeping him advised as to any official activity that might crop up from time to time.”
“Now that,” Joey interjected forcefully, “I can believe. Any cop that isn’t taking a little money under the table isn’t worth a damn to anybody.”
“And, almost certainly, a few, a very few of the local civilian heavy hitters know he’s in the area and keep him informed as to what’s moving up and down the grapevine as it relates to him.”
Joey and I got off the Greyhound in San Luis Obispo, bought a local paper, and, two hours later, found a furnished duplex apartment within walking distance of the quaint downtown. That evening we walked around the commercial district, checking out the small restaurant scene. Several places sold pizza, mostly aimed, not surprisingly, at what could charitably be called the student trade. Joey dismissed them as competitors based on smell and ambiance alone.
“I’m not even going to tell you what I smell in there in terms of nothing you want to eat, but beyond that any place that plays loud rock music is no place to expect good food of any kind,” he assured me. “Take my word for it,” he added, nodding his head as if to confirm the veracity of his own words, “these people,” meaning, I presumed, the good citizens of San Luis Obispo, “are going to be talking about us for years to come.”
Thanks to hard economic times that had resulted in a glut of commercial vacancies downtown, it took only two weeks to find a suitable spot, sign a rental agreement, hire a local starving artist to paint a tasteful Roman street scene on one of the interior walls, and lease the bare essentials needed to get a pizza parlor up and running. Knowing how outsiders are often viewed with suspicion by the local bureaucrats, I retained the services of a former city attorney, Anabel Fuentes, to help us with the necessary licenses and permits, and paid her a nice premium on top of her usual hourly billing rate for cutting through the clutter with admirable efficiency.
“What are you going to call your business?” Ms. Fuentes asked as we were filling out forms in her office.
“SLO Pizza,” I immediately replied. The name was totally spur of the moment — it arrived on my lips at the same instant it hit my brain.
If Ms. Fuentes was impressed, she didn’t show it. “If the pizza’s any good you’ll do just fine — most people around here, the ones with a brain anyway, believe that you’ve got to go all the way to San Francisco for a good pizza.”
“Yeah, and good luck finding one there,” Joey interjected with a snort of derision.
“Joey comes from a multigenerational family of Detroit pizza makers,” I assured her. “It takes him twenty-four hours just to make and simmer the tomato sauce. Furthermore, we’re going to use only local, certified organic vegetables, together with handmade artisan cheeses from a small creamery in Santa Barbara.” I smiled at her. “Tell all your friends about us — I promise you they won’t be disappointed.”
“Oh, by the way, if you haven’t hired your delivery boys yet I know a couple of high-school kids who would do a good job,” she said, looking up from the forms.
“Thanks, but at SLO Pizza there’s going to be no delivery and no takeout.” I looked over at Joey, who nodded his head. “Our pizza’s too good to eat any way other than right out of the oven.”
Ms. Fuentes raised an eyebrow and I could see her thinking that she was glad she had demanded a cash retainer before doing any work for us.
We opened SLO Pizza soon thereafter, and I was pleasantly surprised at the number of people who showed up. Several told me they had heard about us from either Anabel Fuentes or our landlord while the rest said they had been walking by and were attracted by the smell of the simmering tomato sauce and the cooking pizzas. Joey stayed busy behind the counter spinning pies while I waited tables, chatting up the customers and enjoying the looks of disbelief when people took their first bites. We closed at two-thirty and while Joey walked back to our apartment to take a short nap, I cleaned up and got the front end ready for the dinner trade. We opened again at five and by the time we closed at ten I was exhausted.