Death Turns A Trick (Rebecca Schwartz #1) (A Rebecca Schwartz Mystery) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

when Larry and Chris had faded discreetly into the kitchen.
    “Yes. My marriage broke up last year, and I’d been wanting to get out of Seattle for months. So when I got a job offer here, I took it. It seemed like a good place to live, and anyway I already knew two people here—Larry and my sister Carol, who’s a student at San Francisco State.”
    Then he asked me about my law practice, and I started to warm up to him. I like men who ask me about myself. That old high school advice—that you should talk to men about what they’re interested in—is a good way to bore yourself silly.
    I told Parker all about my star client. Then, as he still seemed interested, I told him about my bordello tour and regaled him with a few of Elena’s stories. I even confessed my silly shopping trip. He was kind enough to admire my wicked-woman shoes and asked if they were good for dancing. I said I’d show him sometime.
    Which I did, after dinner; we left early and went to a little place I know.
    After we danced awhile, we talked some more and I learned several things of interest:
    When he laughed, he used his whole face.
    He played tennis.
    He liked classical music.
    His favorite movie was
King of Hearts
, which is only my third favorite, but that’s close enough.
    I was quite prepared to pack for an indefinite stay and run away with him if he asked me.
    He didn’t, so I invited him over to see my aquarium. It was a bold move, but I had on wicked-woman shoes.
    I left the lights off, because the aquarium was lit, and so was the whole city of San Francisco on the other side of the window. We sipped brandy and smoked a joint. The anemones performed their endless, delicate, futile tentacle-dance. The hermit crabs were good for comic relief. San Francisco was lambent as the Emerald City. It was better than
King of Hearts
, so after a while I made popcorn. A while after that, we made love.

Chapter Five
     
    Elena spoke before I could: “Rebecca, you poor baby, out on a night like this without your keys! Where are you calling from?”
    “
I’m at the Hall of Justice. Why aren’t you?”
    “I forgot you didn’t know. It wasn’t a raid after all. Just some sort of dumb practical joke arranged by some of the guests. The shots were blanks, thank God. But what are you doing at the Hall?”
    “Trying to prove I didn't steal your car. Would you mind talking to the nice officer?”
    I handed him the phone; he asked her some questions, and they negotiated. I was tired and I wanted to go home.
    * * *
     
    It was your basic fairytale evening, all right. But Parker and I were both mature adults with degrees from the well-known school of hard knocks. We didn’t plight our troth on the spot. By mutual unspoken consent, we decided to exercise reasonable caution with each other. We went tidepooling the next day and had a liquid, romantic lunch at one of those roadside fish places down the Peninsula, but we didn’t spend Sunday night together.
    In fact, we didn’t see each other again until the next weekend, when we went to a Bunuel movie. I was in love, but this is not unusual. My average (except for the two years I was with Gary Wildman) is four times a year, and the average length of the infatuation is three weeks. I keep seeing my lovers—usually about three to six months—but the edge is generally off after the first few dates, when I start finding fault. I didn’t find any in Parker the night of the movie, though. He didn’t whine at me about his broken heart, and he did laugh at my jokes. I remained in love and we made a third date.
    The third Friday in November, the appointed day for our third date—and incidentally the longest day of my life—it started raining before I woke up and showed no signs of letting up for the next thirty-nine days and thirty-nine nights. I spent the morning calming a client whose impending divorce was threatening her reason and then popped over to Heshie’s with Chris for a pastrami sandwich and a cream soda.
    “I hear you’re going out with pigball tonight,” she said when we were settled. “Larry and I asked him to dinner and he confessed. Is he Mr. Right or not?”
    “He seems pretty solid.”
    “God, Rebecca, you are the most conservative woman I’ve ever met. No wonder you’re never in love for more than three weeks. How in hell did you ever manage to move in with Gary?”
    “I wasn’t nearly so cautious in those days. Besides, it was entirely his idea; he practically dragged me