LITMIR.BIZ

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a start.” Lindsey paused, then asked, “Is Sergeant Plum still on the force?”

      Again a pause, but this time there was more information coming. More, but not much more. “Yes.”

      “I’d love to say hello.” You bet I would!

      “I’m afraid she’s out of the building just now.”

      “When will she be back? Tomorrow morning?”

      Yamura frowned. “Tell you what, Mr. Lindsey. I’ll get a message to her. Are you staying in Berkeley?”

      “Emeryville. I’ll be at the Woodfin for a while.”

      Yamura looked impressed. “Nice surroundings. I trust you’re on an expense account.” She smiled.

      Lindsey found another International Surety card, scribbled Woodfin on the back and handed it to Yamura.

      He handed in his visitor’s badge and stepped out of the building, into brilliant late-afternoon sunlight. He’d come into Berkeley on rapid transit and rented a car on International Surety’s dime. The Avenger was safely garaged. Feeling stale, Lindsey headed toward Berkeley’s modest downtown on foot. There were the usual changes, businesses coming and going, pedestrians’ fashions evolving along with the rest of the world. Business-suited professionals mingled with jeans-wearing high school and college students and ragged street people.

      Berkeley had lost much of its fabled radicalism, but it was still a progressive town whose character was dominated by a huge university. Farther from police headquarters Lindsey came to fabled Telegraph Avenue. That street had changed little in the years since he’d first tackled a case there. A seemingly worthless cache of comic books had been burgled from a specialty shop, and when the owner filed a claim the local International Surety branch manager had turned pale, then bright red, then sent Hobart Lindsey to look into the matter.

      The routine insurance matter had turned into a murder investigation and Lindsey had found himself working with then-Officer Marvia Plum, the first African American with whom he had had more than a passing acquaintance. That case had changed Lindsey’s career, made him a rising star at International Surety. And Marvia Plum had changed his life.

      The biggest change on Telegraph Avenue was the disappearance of a landmark bookstore. Lindsey stood gazing at the vacant building. He asked a scholarly-looking individual what had happened and was rewarded with a wry smile. “General Motors got a bailout, Citibank got a bailout, Cody’s Books went belly up. Sometimes mismanagement pays, sometimes it doesn’t.”

      Lindsey found a quiet restaurant near the campus. It was in an old building, had the atmosphere of a monastery’s refectory. He had a good meal, treated himself to a glass of red wine, and strolled back to the garage for the Avenger. Minutes later he was settled in his hotel room. He had a soothing view of San Francisco Bay, a big screen TV, and an internet connection.

      He had nearly finished writing up his notes for the day, preparatory to sending them to SPUDS headquarters in Denver, when he heard the knock. He put his laptop to sleep and crossed the room.

      For a breathless moment neither of them said a word or moved a muscle. Then they moved simultaneously, he toward her, she toward him. Then they were in his hotel room, the door closed behind her, their arms around each other. To Lindsey’s astonishment he found himself crying.

      Then they dropped their arms as if embarrassed. Was it embarrassment, Lindsey wondered, or something else? What else? He had no idea. He was not an emotional man. Since his enforced early retirement from International Surety he had lived quietly in the house where he had grown up. His mother had remarried. The former Mrs. Joe Lindsey, widow, was now Mrs. Gordon Sloane. She lived with her husband in a senior community in the town of Carlsbad, California, near San Diego. Lindsey had spent his time reading, watching old motion pictures, filling his mental Rolodex with trivia about the entertainment world of Mother’s era, tending a modest garden, and waiting for middle age to turn into old age so he could move into a senior community near San Diego.

      Instead—instead—he was breathless.

      The two of them crossed the room hand in hand, like children taking courage from each other in the darkness, except that this room was by no means dark. They sat on a characterless hotel-room sofa holding hands.

      Lindsey studied Marvia Plum. Her hair was cropped short. Her face—she might have gained a few pounds but her face was hardly changed.

      She wore civilian clothes. Nothing to draw the eye, nothing to attract attention to the outfit or the person. A lightweight jacket, a plaid shirt with a button-up front and a button-down collar, moderately faded jeans, flat shoes. In a town like Berkeley you passed a hundred Marvia Plums in an afternoon and didn’t really notice one of them. The only place where she’d be noticed was a town where anybody with black skin is noticed.

      When they spoke they spoke at once.

      “Dorothy Yamura told me you were looking for me.”

      “Dorothy Yamura told me you were still on the force.”

      “It’s funny.”

      “It’s funny.”

      Finally she put her hand on his mouth to stop him from speaking, to caress her onetime lover. He leaned forward, pressed his cheek to her head. He wasn’t as tall as he might have been, but he was tall enough to do this. After a moment he straightened.

      “Hobart, it’s been a long time since we worked together.”

      “That arms collector in Marin.” She’d dropped her hand back to her lap.

      “What’s this about the Simmons homicide?”

      “It’s an insurance matter.”

      “Same as always.”

      “What about—” he started to say us but his courage failed and instead he said, you. “What about you and your family? Your mother? Tyrone and Jamie?”

      She managed a laugh. “My mother’s gone. Died two years ago. I warned her to calm down. She was a perfect candidate for a stroke and she had one. At least she went fast, that was a mercy. She could never have coped with being disabled.”

      “I’m sorry.”

      She nodded. “We never got along, you know. I think she was frustrated. I think she had dreams as a girl, wanted to—I don’t really know, Hobart. I’m not sure that she knew herself. But those were the old days. There wasn’t much chance for a black woman. She got out of the ghetto, made a decent living. She had a good husband. But forty years shuffling papers in a rabbit warren—she wanted more. I think so, anyway. And she laid her hopes on me.”

      She made a funny sound, half moan and half grunt. “Do you have anything to drink, Bart?”

      “You mean alcohol?”

      She made a positive noise.

      “I’ll call room service.”

      “No.” She shook her head.

      “Let’s go out, then.”

      “Yes, let’s.”

      In the elevator Lindsey said, “I don’t really know this town. Not any more. Where should we go?”

      “What’s your pick, noisy or quiet?”

      He thought about it. “Noisy.”

      She drove a battered Ford Falcon.

      As Lindsey climbed in he said, “Your brother still in the mechanic business?”

      “He’s got a shop on San Pablo. Takes customers only by referral, and there’s a waiting list.”

      She tapped a button on the dashboard and the car was filled with the sound of a Bach harpsichord piece.

      She guided the Falcon under the freeway and parked at a converted railroad station. The sign over the entrance said,

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