He worked mostly alone, without the sophisticated equipment or networks of the bigger agencies. His cases were rarely dramatic; most of his income came from investigating malpractice insurance claims for a doctor-owned company called ASCLEP. This was how he and Monks had met. Monks was a case reviewer and expert witness for ASCLEP, but his medical expertise was a help in fieldwork, too, and sometimes it was good to have another body. Larrabee paid Monks back in kind when he could. Once, it had almost gotten him killed.
But there was more to the partnership, and more than friendship. Monks fascinated him.
Larrabee was under no illusions about himself. He was smart, but not intellectual. He cared, but that caring was tempered by a hard edge, a self-preservation instinct that kept his brain in control of his feelings. It wasn't something he had to work at. It was built in.
But Monks – Monks was something else. He was a South Side Chicago mick who'd spent years laying his hands on damaged bodies and dealing with all the troubles that came with that. He was not shy about fighting, physically. But underneath, Larrabee sensed another quality, much harder to grasp, that showed through in glimpses. It was like some gentle thing that was trapped in a cruel cage, desperate to break free. Sometimes it came across as childlike, sweet, and clear, or hurt and incomprehending. But other times, that desperation turned destructive, even berserk, and he sensed, too, that Monks had spent a lot of his life fighting it, trying to channel that fierce energy. He had a hard time keeping going. And Larrabee, for reasons he himself did not fully understand, was determined to make sure that he did.
The heart of the Castro District was gay and trendy. But west toward Twin Peaks, there was a more conservative maze of curving hilly residential streets that seemed to lead only to others like them. As well as Larrabee knew the city, he still got lost in there. The houses were small and set close together, not fancy, but well kept. There was a sense of watchfulness about the area.
Tina Bauer let him into the house she shared with her partner, Bev. She was a small woman in her late thirties, bony, flat-chested, and mousy. Her hair was a neutral brown, bobbed, and she wore cat's-eye glasses. You could not call her pretty, although there was a certain girlish appeal. Bev thought so. Bev weighed over two hundred pounds, worked as the night dispatcher for a trucking company, and was insanely jealous.
Except that she was wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants, Tina looked like she could have been an accountant, and in fact, she had been. But she had the sort of mind that grasped things differently than other people's, especially in the realm of electronic information. Fifteen years earlier, married, recently graduated from UC Berkeley, and working for Pacific Gas and Electric – the epitome of straight – she had figured out a way to shave a tiny fraction off of pennies of the utility's incoming revenue and deposit it in her own numbered account. The missing amounts were so minuscule individually, and spread so thin, they were barely noticed. By the time they added up enough to catch the accounting department's attention, she had accumulated several hundred thousand dollars.
This had launched her on a road to self-discovery, starting with two years in prison. Not surprisingly, her marriage had collapsed, but she had not liked men all that much to begin with. Over the next years, she had refined her skills to the point where she could operate with near invisibility, and she kept it small-scale. Occasionally she was questioned, as when a bank discovered that funds had been electronically moved from a place they knew about to a place they did not. But nobody had been able to make anything stick.
"What have we got?" Tina said. She was very serious and matter-of-fact. He was not sure he had ever seen her smile.
Larrabee handed her a printout with the pertinent information about D' Anton.
She scanned it, eyebrows rising. "You're going after a big fish."
"Know anything about him?"
"Just his reputation. Lifter of famous boobs and booties."
"I want you to check his malpractice insurance company files," Larrabee said. "Pacific Doctors Mutual. Any kind of complaint or irregularity that shows up."
"Did somebody's tits explode on an airplane?"
"It's nothing that simple."
"Okay," she said. "I should be able to do it tonight. Insurance company firewalls usually aren't much."
"You want some money up front?"
"We know where you live."
As he was stepping out into the hall, Tina said, "Hey, Stover." She was standing with her hands on her hips, watching him thoughtfully. Her face was stone serious, as always.
"I wouldn't mind blowing you once in a while," she said.
Larrabee had thought that he was pretty good at turning a compliment, but this one left him speechless, twisting in the wind.
"Don't worry, Bev's at work," she said. "But it would feel too weird here anyway. I could drop by your place."
"That's, uh, a lovely offer, Tina. I'm incredibly flattered."
"It's the only thing I miss, with guys. I'm very oral. Dildos aren't any good for that, I like it to feel alive. But I don't want to, you know, ask just anybody."
"No, that wouldn't be smart."
"You have to keep it secret. If Bev found out I even thought about it, she'd kill me."
"I believe you." He did.
"And you can't come in my mouth. I don't like that part."
"I promise."
"Yeah, and the check's in the mail," she said. "Keep it in mind."
In fact, it was impossible not to.
There was one more place Larrabee wanted to look at tonight, a restaurant that Eden Hale had talked about to her brother Josh. Apparently she had painted it in glowing terms – a classy establishment with an upwardly mobile clientele, a different order of business from the sorts of places where she had hung out with Ray Dreyer in her earlier life. Larrabee wondered how much time she had spent here, and if she had made any acquaintances. She had to have done something with her time, besides shopping and carrying on her affair with D' Anton.
The place was called Hanover Station. It was located several blocks west of China Basin – another industrial building that had been abandoned as industry died. Dot-commer entrepreneurs had refurbished it and opened it at the crest of that money wave, five or six years ago. Larrabee had never been inside.
When he walked in, he saw that it had been turned into a single space the size of an airplane hangar, ringed by a second-story balcony for dining. The brick walls had been left uncovered, the old hardwood on the main floor refinished. The back bar was antique, cherry or rosewood. All in all, it was not bad, although the nut must have been fearsome. The room was nowhere near full now, and he suspected it was in jeopardy, with the crashing of the markets that had built it.
He ordered a Lagavulin scotch, straight up with an ice-water back, at the bar. He paid for it with a twenty and got five back. That came as no surprise, but the drink was short. For a place that was losing business, that was the wrong direction to take. The bartender was a slick, good-looking young man, brimming with unconcealed self-admiration. Larrabee decided there was no help there for what he wanted.
He stood and sipped, casually watching the scene. The crowd was all young, mid-twenties to thirties, well-dressed, confident, used to spending money. Two cocktail waitresses circulated among the tables. Larrabee made his choice, left his empty glass on the bar with no tip, and sat at a table in her area.
She came over immediately. He had picked her because she didn't really fit this place – she looked like she would have been more at home in North Beach or the Haight. She was about thirty, tall, and very slender, dressed in close-fitting black, with long straight dark hair. She wore at least one ring on every finger, and many bracelets, all silver. She was quite attractive, although there was a certain Morticia Addams quality.