"How dumb is this?" he said aloud to the picture.
But, of course, Sophie couldn't answer.
14
The following morning-Thursday, June 2-Hunt was moved by two considerations to walk the fifteen-odd blocks from his home to his detective agency's two-room office over the Half Moon Café on Grant Avenue in Chinatown.
First, an unexpected break in the fog had created a glorious morning.
The other was that the waiting period was over today-he'd circled the date on his calendar-and he could stop and pick up his new gun, a 380 ACP Sig Sauer P232, which gave him about an inch less barrel and an inch less height than the weapon he'd been carrying for the last couple of years, the Sig P229.
He'd fallen in love with the new weapon the last time he'd been to the range with Devin Juhle, who'd been trying one out and ultimately decided against it. For Devin, it was too small, and he didn't feel he could be as accurate with it. But Hunt had found the opposite to be true. Lighter and easier to handle, the gun performed better for Hunt than anything he'd ever shot. Plus, though the actual spec difference in size wasn't that great, it felt far less bulky in his back-of-the-belt holster.
Armed with his new toy, knocked out by the beauty of the day, Hunt surprised himself by stopping in and buying a bag of freshly made, still-hot char siu bao-sticky dough buns filled with pork in a sweet sauce. The Chinese food last night with Juhle had been so good that he was unable to resist the craving for more this morning. Back out on the street, Hunt's sense of well-being got so much the better of him that he emptied his pockets and put all his coins in the hat of a homeless guy who was sleeping in one of the doorways.
In his office, Tamara was out from behind her desk watering the plants. She wore a red miniskirt, red low-heeled shoes, and a demure white blouse that nevertheless stopped in time to display a couple of inches of taut flat stomach and a faux-diamond navel stud. "If you ever get a job in a real office," Hunt said, "you know they probably won't let you show off your tummy."
She flashed him a tolerant smile. "That's why I won't work in a place like that. Craig likes my tummy."
"It's a fine tummy," Hunt said, "but old guys like me-not saying me personally, but guys like me-might find it distracting in a business environment."
"Well, that's their problem. Not saying you personally, but people like you. We're never going to have this be like a real office, are we? With dress codes and everything?"
"It's unlikely," Hunt said. "Except maybe if Craig pierces anything I can see."
"Does his tongue count?"
Hunt held up a hand. "Tam. Please. Not before breakfast. He hasn't done his tongue, has he?"
"No, but we were talking about maybe the two of us…You wouldn't really fire us, would you?"
"No. Never, I hope. But I also would find it a little hard to have a casual little chat like we're having right now because I would be creeped out."
She smiled at him. "Maybe I shouldn't tell you, then, about Craig's…"
Hunt stopped her. "Better left unsaid," he said. "But speaking of the boy?"
"He's process serving. Six subpoenas."
"Six in one day? Don't tell me somebody's actually getting to trial."
She nodded. "Believe it or not. One of Aaron Rand's clients. Craig's on his cell if you need him." She pointed to the white bag in his hand. "Tell me those are fresh bao."
"I'll play your silly game," he said. "These are fresh bao, but sadly I only bought a dozen."
She gave him a look, held out a be-ringed hand punctuated with red nail polish. "A dozen feeds a hungry family of four. Give."
"Besides, they're just out of the oven. Way too hot to eat."
"I'll blow on them."
Hunt sighed theatrically. "It doesn't seem right." He opened the bag, handed her one of the buns. He turned and let himself into his office, closing the frosted glass door behind him. Taking off his coat, hanging it on the rack by his door, he reached around and took out his new gun, just to look at it again. But holding it now, he suddenly realized that he needed to run downtown and get his CCW-carry a concealed weapon-permit updated to cover it. Technically, he shouldn't be walking around with the thing in its holster on him until he'd done all the paperwork. He reminded himself to remember to take care of it at lunchtime, then put the gun back where it belonged and went around to his desk.
The office was good-sized, square, utilitarian. When he'd first seen it, it had essentially been a large windowless closet-a major factor in its affordable rent. His first improvement was to knock out a three-foot-square section of the wall and put glass between Tamara's office and his own to let in some natural light.
Next Hunt installed wall-to-wall carpet throughout. He had a standard-issue IKEA blond desk with a computer and phone and a matching swivel chair and a double stack of light tan metal filing cabinets. From his home, he'd brought down two acoustic guitars-one steel and one gut-and hung them for easy access on the wall to his left. On his right was a Corian counter with a sink and hot plate and printer and fax machine on top and a small refrigerator with drawers for surveillance supplies-night goggles, binoculars, pilot bags when pit stops to pee weren't an option-and photo equipment underneath. He thought that the bunch of framed old black-and-white baseball photographs that he'd gotten cheap at the ballpark didn't look too bad above the counter.
He'd resisted the urge to call Andrea when he'd gotten up. He knew that he could have pretended that he was just checking up on her, making sure she was feeling okay, that her hangover had abated, but he didn't need Juhle to tell him how lame that would be. He'd get in touch later in the day, casually. No mention of the phone call she had promised yesterday.
Now that he'd made it all the way into work without having yielded to the temptation to call her, he resolved that he'd put it off until later and simply ask her out. She'd either say yes or no. He didn't really believe it, but he knew it was possible that their moment yesterday could after all have been her exhaustion and vulnerability, and he didn't want to play to those cards. If anything real had been there yesterday, it would still be there today-or even tomorrow.
He forced her out of his mind.
After his day off yesterday, his workload had backed up and was fairly heavy. At noon, he was scheduled to assist in some predeposition statements from some witnesses in a fraud case at one of his clients' offices, which might take up a good portion of the afternoon. He had three surveillances of one kind or another that were in more or less active status. A doctor had also hired him to find out some history about his very rich mother's new and much younger boyfriend. And when things got slow, he could always fall back on locating witnesses-there were always a few that needed to be found.
But he had some computer work to get out of the way first. He was taking an online class on information technology and computer forensics, pumping up his skills set to compete with the big PI firms should his specialization as a legal investigator become a liability. When he finished today's lesson, he was planning to search the Net as part of a background check on one of the job applicants with an executive headhunting firm that he'd snagged as a client.
Engrossed in the intricacies of computer forensics, he never heard the telephone ring outside on Tamara's desk. He had told her that he was doing his lesson online and didn't want to be disturbed for an hour. So he jumped when the phone went off at his elbow.
"That was a short hour," he said.
"I'm sorry, but it's Amy Wu. I thought you'd want to talk to her. She sounds upset."
If it was Wu, he would talk to her. He punched at the phone. "Amy, what's up?"
Her voice unusually serious, Wu said, "Maybe nothing. Maybe I'm just paranoid. I was wondering if you've talked to Andrea recently."