Ben was still reflecting when they reentered with the cake, Kate carrying, Shay bringing up the rear and handing Ben the knife after he’d made his wish and blown out the candles. He cut them each a slice, then himself one. Knowing where Kate had ordered it: a place they used to go for coffee and a bear claw Saturdays after they’d made love.

  Past tense.

  At least the cake was as he remembered—chocolate with a rum-laced filling. They’d about finished, Ben thanking them both for the surprise, when Kate said, “Well…?”

  “What…this?” Picking up the package and shaking it.

  “Never in a million years,” Kate said.

  “Kleenex? Surf wax? Neckties?”

  “Since when do you wear neckties?”

  “Codpiece? Edible briefs?”

  “Daaaad.”

  He looked at Shay. “Your turn.”

  “How should I know? Open it, will you?”

  “Yeah, Dad,” Kate said.

  At that, Ben had to smile. What little he knew about being one he’d learned from books and the seat of his pants—Fighting Thurman Metcalf and Darnell Light not exactly poster children for the being-a-dad category. More like Dennis Rodman in a bridal gown. One thing sure, though: Like roundball, it came best when you weren’t forcing it.

  He had the paper off now, only to discover another wrapped box and yet another, his anticipation starting to go beyond a silent prayer. Fearing the worst as the packages got smaller and her grin bigger—expensive the corollary to small—he opened a last wrapping, tore the tissue from what was inside.

  Oh, God…Three first-class airline tickets…photographs of a boat under sail and power…guidebook and travel brochure for Costa Rica, glorious in living aquas, greens, sunset reds, and lavenders.

  Seventy-five hundred at least. More probably.

  In the mirror behind her, Ben’s smile looked stricken even to himself.

  Frosting-smeared dishes, Shay announcing that no way could she take two weeks off from school, leave her friends, yadda-yadda, before marching upstairs. Ten by the brass chronometer, thin dings to mark it—Ben having settled into a Rob Roy over ice, Kate another glass of wine. Saying after a sip, “So much for thinking I’d have to stop you from doing backflips.”

  “It’s just totally impractical right now,” he said, feeling like a shit. Each time he shifted in the chair his hurts reminding him why.

  “Jeb said he could spare you, if that’s what’s on your mind.”

  “Permission granted, huh?”

  “Unworthy, Ben.”

  “What’s on my mind is money, Kate. The thousand-pound eight-ball we’re behind.”

  Only too aware of how it sounded. As if she’d been the one twisting his arm to lay it off with a weasel like Al Devore. Regular games, playoffs, Super Bowl: black Sundays. The meanest season in all the years of trying to win Evelyn Metcalf some breathing room after Deputy Thurman left her with gutted insurance and a ransacked IRA. SOB DOA at Fountain Valley Regional, the gang banger who’d fired first already dead from the old man’s service nine—a matte-finish S&W he’d let Ben hold, run a rag through, shoot sometimes on Anza-Borrego escapes from the main events he had with Evelyn. Deep-sixed the night of Thurman’s funeral.

  Twenty, Ben had been. Five months before the point-shaving mess that bought probation and swift closure to any NBA aspirations he might have had coming out of college. Bye-bye college, period: Cal State Irvine’s most promising shooting-guard prospect shot down. And he’d been the one loading the bullets.

  “I didn’t use our money,” Kate was saying.

  “Come again?”

  “Savings bonds. Mine since I was a kid. ”

  Explain it to Walter and Tommy, Ben thought.

  “And the boat is Craig and Nancy’s. You know how they’ve been pestering us to use it. Supplies and fuel, that’s it. Why I splurged on the tickets.”

  “So cash out.”

  Double shit. Triple, quadruple shit.

  “Nonrefundable. And not the airline’s idea, Ben—mine. I figured it was something I could do to make up for being gone so much. I thought it would please you. But I can’t say I didn’t expect this.”

  Ben tipped the Rob, felt its heat as she picked up steam.

  “It’s so typical of us lately. One goddamn trip.”

  “Which I appreciate, Kate. I really do. It’s just that—”

  “What…”

  “Have you thought about Shay?”

  Quintuple shit: We have a winner!

  “What about her? She’s fourteen, she’ll come around.” Pausing to drive it home with shining eyes, breaking off to glance up the stairs before coming back to him.

  “All right—who is she?”

  He felt a shriveling. “What are you talking about?”

  “The one Shay saw you with, the one she’s all conflicted over. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

  Hoping it passed for exasperation, Ben blew a breath. “That’s what’s bothering her? Some fling I’m supposed to be having?”

  “Tell me this isn’t you not wanting to leave her—whoever-she-is I smelled on you before dinner. The perfect wife and mother I may not be, but I am not stupid.”

  “Then please don’t act like it.”

  A door slammed upstairs, momentarily snapping them in that direction, then into silence.

  “Wonderful,” Kate said finally. “Happy birthday.”

  “My fault, as usual.”

  “Not altogether. I’m inadequate for being ambitious, or not making more out of it, or less of what she thinks I should be making of it, or something.”

  “As you say, she’s fourteen.”

  “I deserve better. Me.”

  “You’re being melodramatic, Kate. Not to mention reckless.”

  Please welcome to the Hall of Fame: Total Shit, Benjamin Dean Metcalf.

  “Am I? Prove it. What’s really stopping you from going?”

  Loren, the debts and Little Al, Walter and Tommy: Redemption starts here. All you have to do is tell her.

  “Nothing’s stopping me,” he said.

  Dried frosting on an empty plate—Kate staring at him.

  “Nothing,” he added, as though closing a deal with himself. Tossing off his drink and sliding back his chair.

  “Not a goddamn thing.”

  Back to TOC

  Here’s a sample from Catching Water in a Net, the first Jake Diamond mystery by J.L. Abramo.

  One

  The phone on my desk rang so unexpectedly that I nearly spilled the Mylanta onto my only unstained necktie.

  It was my trusty assistant calling from her sentry post out front.

  Darlene Roman was different from most office receptionists in that the words do you have an appointment were not in her vocabulary.

  Darlene greeted anyone who walked through our door as if it were our very first client, or might be our last.

  “Yes, Darlene.”

  I tried not to slur the words, just in case Darlene was using the speakerphone.

  “There’s a woman here to see you.”

  I’d figured we had a guest. The place was small. Usually when Darlene wanted me she just hollered.

  “Count to twenty Darlene, and send her in,” I said, determining that we were on a secure line.

  “Is that one, two, or one Mississippi, two Mississippi?”

  I quickly assessed the condition of the desk.

  “Make it one Montgomery, Alabama, two Montgomery, Alabama.”

  I tossed the bottle of Mylanta into the top drawer along with the plastic ashtray, remembering for a change to extinguish the burning cigarette. I opened a few dummy file folders and spread them across the desktop. No reason why everyone had to know how slow business had been lately. I buried my face in the top folder, which incidentally held an unfriendly reminder from my ex-wife’s attorney regarding past due alimony payments.

  The date on the letter was from the last millennium.

  The home of Diamond Investigation was a two-room affair above Molinari’s Salumeria on Columbus Avenue. The leasing agent had described it as an Office Suite. The man was imaginative if nothing else.

  Darlene’s reception area was off the hallway entrance and my cubbyhole was directly behind hers, facing the street.

  The elevator never worked, except as a homeless refuge occasionally.

  The air, even at three stories above the avenue, always held a hint of provolone and Genoa salami.

  “Mr. Diamond,” my visitor said, walking through the door connecting the two small rooms.

  Her voice could have broken glass. I felt a twinge in one of my molars. I slowly looked up from the folder and the woman standing there could hardly be described in words. But I gave it a stab. She looked like a traced picture of herself.

  She was plain as a cake donut.

  “Can I help you, Miss…?”

  “Mrs. Mrs. Harding.”

  “Have a seat, Mrs. Harding.”

  “You can call me Evelyn.”

  “Sure, why not. Have a seat Evelyn.”

  She looked down at the only other chair in the room and stood immobile. I jumped up and apologized as I moved the stack of folded boxer shorts from the offered seat. Darlene did a little laundry for me once in a while.

  She sat tentatively and I returned to my own resting-place, tossing the underwear into the bottom desk drawer, on top of my only clean shirt.

  “So, Evelyn. How can I help you?”

  “It’s my husband.”

  If I had ten cents for every time I’ve heard that phrase I could have all three ties dry cleaned.

  “I can’t find him,” she added.

  “I assure you, Mrs. Harding, he’s not here.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a joke I use to relax new clients.”

  “It doesn’t work.”

  “I can see that. How long has your husband been missing, Evelyn?”

  “Since Saturday evening.”

  “That would be four days.”

  “I can see now why you came so highly recommended.”

  Evelyn Harding was as personable as an Office Depot catalog.

  “Who did recommend me, Mrs. Harding?” I asked, turning the other cheek.

  “Grace Shipley.”

  My response was not subtle. It resembled a knee jerk from the neck up. I pulled open the top desk drawer and took a long pull from the bottle of antacid. I had been so certain that I would never hear that name again, I couldn’t be sure that I had actually heard it.

  “Come again?”

  “Grace Shipley.”

  It sounded pretty convincing the second time around.

  “Could I ask you how you know Ms. Shipley?”

  “Mr. Diamond, I came here to talk about my husband.”

  “Of course you did, Evelyn,” I said. I think my voice may have cracked. “Have you thought about going to the police?”

  “Finding my husband is already of interest to the Los Angeles Police Department,

  Mr. Diamond. I was hoping that you could help me locate him before they do.”

  “Call me Jake.”

  “Grace called you Jacob.”

  Grace had called me a lot of things.

  “Why are the police interested in locating your husband?” I plowed on.

  “They suspect that he killed his business partner.”

  “And why would they think that?”

  “My husband’s gun was found beside the body.”

  “Did he do it?”

  “I don’t believe so.”

  “But the murder weapon was found at the scene, and it belonged to your husband. Any theories about that?”

  “My husband kept the gun in his office. The victim was killed in the office adjacent to his. The police have little else to go on.”

  “And?”

  “They seem unwillingly to grant that almost anyone could have taken the weapon and killed my husband’s associate.”

  There you go, it could have been anyone. That should convince a jury.

  “If your husband is innocent, why is he dodging the authorities?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps he feels that no one will believe him, he’s always lacked persuasive ability. That’s why I need to find him. Before he gets himself hurt. Grace seems to think you can help.”

  Why me.

  “Why me?” I asked, “There are plenty of very competent investigators in Los Angeles. I could highly recommend a good friend of mine down there. Jimmy Pigeon.”

  “I came to you, Mr. Diamond, because my husband’s business partner was Jimmy Pigeon.”

  I managed to delay my reaction long enough to get the rough details from Evelyn Harding and then quickly sent her on her way, assuring her that I would stay in touch.

  She was barely through the door before the surprise and shock of Jimmy Pigeon’s death hit me like a sucker punch.

  I opened the top desk drawer and pulled out the ashtray and the bottle.

  This time it was the bottle of bourbon.

  Two

  After a few shots and a smoke I pulled myself together. At least enough to give what I had heard some attention.

  I went over the facts as Evelyn Harding had laid them out.

  The toughest fact being that I hadn’t heard about any of it before.

  Evelyn’s husband, Harry Harding, was a co-founder of Ex-Con.com. An Internet company that located felons released from prison. There appeared to be a potential clientele for that sort of information among those seeking retribution and those fearing it, from victims and families of victims on one hand, to arresting officers, prosecutors and jurists on the other.

  The co-co-founder was Jimmy Pigeon.

  The late Jimmy Pigeon.

  Shot to death with a gun belonging to Harry Harding.

  It was Jimmy who got me started in the business of Private Investigation.

  For a moment I wondered why Jimmy hadn’t brought me on board the dot com enterprise. In fact, he’d never mentioned it. I liked to think that Jimmy considered me a worthy collaborator.

  On second thought I figured that what Jimmy Pigeon needed was a financial backer, not another penniless gumshoe. Locating ex-cons would have been right up Jimmy’s alley. Harding must have been the money man.

  I finally realized that I was playing cat and mouse with the question that was really bothering me. If Jimmy was in danger, or in some kind of trouble, why hadn’t he come to me for help?

  Now Jimmy Pigeon was dead and Harry Harding was hiding from everyone, including his wife.

  In Harry Harding’s favor was the fact that there were more than a few unsavory characters who would not be broken hearted over Jimmy’s death. Jimmy Pigeon was good at his work, the kind of work that tended to create enemies.

  But Harding’s gun and his disappearance were top-notch credentials for a bona fide murder suspect.

  Unfortunately, I could think of no better way to get started than to pay a visit to Vinnie Stradivarius. When it came to Jimmy Pigeon, no one knew better than Vinnie.

  Vinnie was like a son to Jimmy, like the son Jimmy never had.

  Albeit the kind of son that would put any father to task.

  Vinnie was a handful; constantly getting into jams that took more than a little effort and creativity to pry the kid out of. For reasons of his own, which I could have been too selfish to understand, Jimmy had taken on the challenge.

  Part of Jimmy’s strategy was to try keeping Vinnie busy. To that end Jimmy often had Strings assist in his investigations; just enough to make the kid feel that he was being useful, but nothing that would totally blow a case. It gave Vinnie less time to get into mischief and gave Jimmy an excuse to throw the kid some rent money.

  I wondered who in the world was going to take on the thankless chore of Vinnie Stradivarius now that Jimmy was gone. I shuddered at the thought, so I immediately abandoned it.

  You are going to hear many different opinions about the type of person who chooses private investigation as a vocation. Believe all of them.

  Every PI will give you his or her rationale. Often without being asked.

  Here is mine.

  Jimmy Pigeon.

  I had never met anyone quite like Jimmy. His walk, his talk, his self-confidence and, above all, his honesty.

  In Jimmy Pigeon I finally saw what I wanted to be when I grew up. I’m reluctant to admit that I was nearly thirty-five when it happened. And that I’m still working on it.

  Nine to five was never in the cards for me. I had always imagined that movie actors had the ideal career. I tried it for a while myself, but kept being cast as a thug. And a supporting thug at that.

  It was on a movie set, in fact, that I first met Jimmy Pigeon. He was there as Technical Advisor for a B thriller in which an over the hill PI, played by an over the hill actor who I won’t name, was searching for a Senator’s daughter held ransom by a group of thugs, one of whom looked a lot like me. Pigeon and I became fast friends and he inspired me to turn in my SAG card for an investigator’s license. I was at a point in my acting career where every suggestion sounded perfect. I left Hollywood for a desk in Jimmy’s Santa Monica office and learned the ropes. Once I had been given enough rope to hang myself I decided to head north to San Francisco to set up shop on my own.

  The move had two major advantages. It was four hundred miles further from Los Angeles and four hundred miles closer to Mom’s cooking.

  I also had Jimmy Pigeon to thank for the first client who walked into my small office above the Italian deli in North Beach. Sally French hired me to find her biological mother. Jimmy, who knew her adoptive father from his college days at Santa Barbara, had given her my name. I was able to locate her mother, who became my mother-in-law, though not for very long. I couldn’t blame Jimmy. He meant well.

  Now Evelyn Harding had hired me to find her husband, apparently in the hope that I could help establish that he wasn’t responsible for Jimmy Pigeon’s murder.