Death Notes

dark blue.’ He studied the line of grease under his fingernails. ‘You know how it is at night. The engine sounded like a four-cylinder job.’
    Great. That narrowed it down to just half the cars in San Francisco.
    ‘Could have been dark green, too, now that I think about it.’
    ‘How about the burglar? What did he look like?’
    ‘Average.’ He said it like it meant something. ‘I’d say he looked average.’
    ‘Caucasian? Black? Tall or short?’
    ‘I don’t know. That light He pointed to the cracked street lamp midway down the block - ‘somebody should fix it, you know? Especially now. She’s not scared, is she? Rosario won’t let me go over there alone because Sharon was a dancer before and Rosario, well, you know, Rosario doesn’t think much of dancers.’
    I tried to picture Sharon’s stout little form moving gracefully across a stage and didn’t have much luck. ‘Where did she dance?’
    ‘Condor Club,’ he said.
    Topless dancing was born at the Condor.
    ‘Most people, they hear Match was a musician and they think we get a lot of noise, but no. He was quiet. Real considerate.’
    Rocky glanced past my shoulder to Sharon’s house.
    ‘Are you a cop, lady?’
    ‘Private investigator.’
    I could tell he had some doubts so I slipped him my card. His lips moved while he read it.
    ‘If you remember anything else, or see anybody snooping around who doesn’t belong, give me a call, will you?’
    His chest puffed up with pride like I’d just asked him to guard the crown jewels.
    ‘Of course, Miss Ventana. And Rosario, she’ll watch, too.’ I left him hurrying up his sidewalk, clutching my card and calling his wife’s name.
     

22
     
    Sharon had said I didn’t need to see Nick DuPont or Eugene Tobinio anymore, but under the circumstances that just added to their cachet.
    DuPont’s office was in a Sansome Street building in the heart of San Francisco’s Financial District. I checked my rearview a dozen times on the way over, suddenly nervous and paranoid about being followed. I never saw the same car twice, but somehow couldn’t shake the feeling that somebody was following me.
    I looped around a few times over the one-way streets, drove through a couple of underground garages, then finally gave up and parked on the street a couple of blocks down, even though there was a parking garage in his building.
    Thirty floors up, the plaque on the door said CREATIVE CORPORATE FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT. It sounded like an invitation for an SEC review, but nobody’d asked me when they named the business. The carpets were a rich mauve, and thick. Chrome and glass gleamed all over the place, and expensive-looking pieces of abstract art - not the kind some decorator just throws up for show - hung on the walls. The message was clear: Nick DuPont’s office spelled big bucks.
    While I waited for Nick DuPont to decide whether he’d see me or not, I wondered what connected him to Match. I couldn’t picture Match, raggedly skinny, in jeans, strung out and sitting here amid all these polished surfaces like I was, waiting for an appointment. Then I wondered what tied Malone to DuPont. Maybe he liked to slum.
    I was still trying to figure out why a corporate financial management consultant would lend a broken-down ex-junkie sax player money when his secretary told me DuPont was ready to see me. If I got nothing else out of this interview, I’d be happy to hear the answer to that one.
    The secretary led me down a marble-paneled passage to a pair of huge, carved double doors. They looked like they belonged in a church. She threw the doors open and gestured with the grace of a geisha for me to go in. As soon as I was inside, the doors hissed shut behind me in what sounded like an airtight seal. I flashed back to an ancient history class I’d taken and I suddenly felt like I knew how the Christians felt when they were thrown into the arena with the lions. Then I heard the music -a sweet, cool jazz piped in from somewhere - and I relaxed.
    It took me a few seconds to find Nick DuPont in the big, mahogany-paneled room. He was a teensy elf of a guy who, except for his wavy gray hair, looked like some kid let loose to play in Daddy’s office. High-tech gadgets and flashing machines I didn’t even recognize hummed quietly on his desk between beeps and whirring while he stabbed at a couple of keys on an exquisitely thin laptop.
    He punched a final button that blackened the screen, then swiveled in his chair and