The Boys from Santa Cruz

right down to the dessert brownie.

Feeling cheated, he nuked another dinner, refilled his tumbler, and set up a second TV tray for the sheaf of faxed newspaper articles he’d brought home with him. Then he donned his half-moon specs and read through the articles while he ate, glancing up at the television only when he heard a loud crack of the bat, or when the home crowd roared loudly enough to attract his attention.

The last clipping was dated April 25. Twenty-one confirmed dead was the final body count, which included Little Luke. No one left missing or unaccounted for. The initial explosion was held to be the result of arson at the hands of person or persons unknown, said person or persons believed to have perished either in the initial explosion or in the subsequent fire.

That last item, Pender realized, would explain why the investigation might not be vigorously pursued: the locals were assuming the perp was deceased. But then again, they were also assuming that Luke Sweet was deceased, and Pender’s gut continued to insist that they were dead wrong about that.

CHAPTER TWO 1

6:00 A.M., Pacific daylight time. The pain in his hips and lower back awoke Skip Epstein as surely and promptly as any alarm clock or telephone wake-up service. Rolling over onto his side, he fumbled around for the bottle of Norco tablets on the bedside table, and washed two of them down with a swig of bottled water.

6:40 A.M. For the first and probably last time that day, nothing hurt. Skip might even have been a little buzzed-sometimes it was difficult for chronic pain sufferers to distinguish between a drug high and the euphoria that came with being temporarily pain free. Five minutes, he told himself: you can have five minutes to enjoy it.

6:45 A.M. Okay, five more minutes.

7:30 A.M. The thump of the Chronicle hitting the front door of Skip’s two-bedroom flat on Francisco Street-he lived on the ground floor and rented out the top to a family of Russian immigrants-finally lured him out of bed. Even in San Francisco’s prosperous Marina district, there were people who saw a newspaper lying on the sidewalk as fair game. But the walk from the bed to the door reawakened the pain in his hips; bending stiffly from the waist to pick up the paper reaggravated the ache in his back.

One glance at the front page and the pain was momentarily forgotten. PROMINENT SF ATTORNEY MISSING, BELIEVED KIDNAPPED, read the headline. CADDY FOUND SHOT TO DEATH was the subhead, which seemed like kind of an ass-backward priority to Skip, but not particularly surprising.

Accompanying the article was a photograph of Ellis Brobauer shaking hands with Assembly Speaker Willie Brown at a black-tie charity event. Skip skimmed the story on the stoop, in his bathrobe. As he reentered the apartment, he heard the telephone ringing and hurried down the hall to the kitchen-you couldn’t say ran, though he did employ the awkward, hopping gait that had earned little David Epstein the nickname Skip in grade school.

Skip managed to snatch the wall phone out of the cradle just before the answering machine intercepted the call. He was glad he had, because it was his father on the line, and Leon J. Epstein, Esq., took machine-answered calls as personal affronts. “Did you see, Davey?”

“I saw.”

“What do you think?”

“I think somebody wanted that corner office of his real bad.” Though largely retired and spending most of his time at his second home in Pebble Beach, the Chairman Emeritus of Wengert amp; Brobauer had refused to give up his twenty-third-floor office with its power view of the bay from Alcatraz to Treasure Island.

“Not funny, sonny. You know how much our family owes that man?” With Ellis’s backing, Leon Epstein had become the first member of his faith ever to make full partner at Wengert amp; Brobauer.

“I know, Dad.” When Skip first struck out on his own, folks weren’t exactly knocking each other down for the privilege of hiring a gimpy P.I. Jobs and referrals from W amp; B had kept him afloat that first year, and the law firm was still one of Epstein Investigative Services’s most important clients.

“So what do you think?”

“Professionally?”

“No, as a baseball fan.” Leon J. rolled his eyes-yes, over the phone. “Of course, professionally.”

“Unless there was some contact they’re not telling us about, this was no kidnapping for ransom.”

“Which you know because…?”

“Kidnappers who’re hoping for ransom almost always contact the family within the first few hours to tell them not to call the cops.”

“So if not ransom, then what?”

Skip shrugged-if his father could roll his eyes over the phone, Skip could shrug. “Who knows? Listen, I gotta go, Dad. If I hear anything over the grapevine, I’ll let you know.”

The Buchanan Street headquarters of Epstein Investigative Services were a vast improvement over the old digs, in a derelict warehouse south of Market that had been condemned after the ’89 quake. In the new offices, the receptionist sat behind a swooping art deco counter that looked like it belonged in an airport terminal, while the heart of the business, the bull pen, was situated in an airy, well-lighted room that took up over half the floor. There, skip tracers in soundproofed carrels employed telephones and personal computers in an ongoing campaign to threaten, cajole, hoodwink, and bamboozle bureaucrats, contacts, and functionaries into disclosing the whereabouts of debtors, deadbeat dads, repossessable vehicles, and white-collar criminals.

Although the Marina district location was only a few blocks from his apartment on Francisco Street, Skip drove to work as always, parking his Buick in a reserved space in the basement garage. He took the elevator up to the second floor, stopping off at the reception desk long enough to admire Tanya’s latest piercing and pick up his messages, one of which was from Warren Brobauer, Ellis’s son, currently the managing partner of Wengert amp; Brobauer.

Skip returned the call from his corner office. “Warren. Skip.” In San Francisco, business etiquette required the use of first names for everyone below the rank of mayor.

“Thanks for getting back to me, Skip. Are you aware of what’s going on vis-a-vis my father?”

“Just what I read in the Chron this morning. Do the cops have any leads yet?”

“Cops! Hah! You can stuff what they know in the proverbial gnat’s ass and still have room for a set of matched luggage. I spoke with Lil this morning”-Warren’s older sister was named Lillian, although as Herb Caen had once remarked in his column, most newspaper readers thought her first two names were Prominent Socialite-“and we both agreed we want you to look into this on behalf of the family.”

“I have to tell you, Warren, police departments do not generally appreciate P.I.’s getting involved with ongoing homicide investigations.”

“And I have to tell you, Skip, I’m so frustrated with the lack of motivation on the part of the Monterey Sheriff’s Department that at this point I could give a proverbial rat’s proverbial ass what any police department does or does not appreciate.”

Skip punched the air in silent triumph, then sighed audibly into the phone like a man coming to a hard decision. “Okay, Warren, let me see what I can find out.”

“Thank you. We-we’d be grateful.” For the first time in the conversation, there was a catch in Warren’s voice. Suddenly Skip realized that the poor bastard was hurting, that his father had just been kidnapped, for shit’s sake. Protestants, thought Skip: if it was my dad, I’d have been a basket case by now.

“De nada,” said Skip, a little more gently. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I know anything.”