W Is for Wasted

as a happy surprise. Fellow named Willard Bryce—young man by the sound of him, clearly unaccustomed to requiring the services of a private eye. During their phone conversation, Pete had pressed, trying to get a line on the problem, but the fellow was reluctant to specify. Pete was imagining a matrimonial issue, always depressing to contemplate.
    He removed his sport coat from the rack, hung his scarf around his neck, locked the office door behind him, and went out to the car, brooding about his lot in life. In his heyday, he’d hated having to stoop to domestic cases, which were emotional and messy and seldom netted much in the way of returns. Confirm a woman’s intuition that her husband was cheating and suddenly she’d reverse herself, denying the truth even when the photographs were laid out in front of her. If Pete managed to convince her, she’d be too bitter or too upset to pay his fee. On the other hand, if he assured her of her hubby’s innocence, the wife would claim he hadn’t done his job. Why pay a PI who couldn’t come up with the goods? Why was that worth thirty bucks an hour, she’d ask, peevishly.
    Working the husband’s side of the equation was no better. Pete would tease out the ex-wife’s property holdings, providing proof she’d bought a condominium in Hawaii while at the same time claiming her meager spousal support was inadequate to her needs. By the time a court date was set to review the facts, the husband would have piled up legal expenses so steep that he wouldn’t have the bucks to pay the PI who’d provided the ammunition.
    He drove north on the 101, waving in response to the sour looks from passing drivers. His 1968 Ford Fairlane wouldn’t exceed fifty-five miles an hour. The muffler was noisy and the once fire-engine red paint had faded to a harsh flamingo pink. It was a sweet drive for a twenty-year-old vehicle with 278,000 miles on the odometer. On cold mornings, it took a fair amount of coaxing before the engine turned over, sending up dark puffs, like smoke signals, visible in his rearview mirror. He’d bought the car at what he could see now was the height of his career. It ate up gasoline at a rate of fifteen miles to the gallon, but it was otherwise low maintenance.
    He didn’t want to dwell on the fact that the prospective client lived in Colgate, but it didn’t bode well. Colgate was a lackluster sprawl of tract homes, built on land that had once supported citrus and avocado orchards. Colgate residents were workaday folk—plumbers and electricians, auto mechanics, store clerks, and trash collectors—not poor by any stretch, but getting by on wages that barely kept up with inflation. Actually, they all made more than he did, but that was neither here nor there.
    He’d been a damn fine detective once upon a time and he was still good at what he did. If he cut corners on occasion, he figured it was strictly his business. He’d learned early on that in his line of work, it didn’t pay to be too fastidious. As long as he delivered the goods, his clients looked the other way. Most made a point of not inquiring too closely about his methods. For years he’d sidestepped the Business and Professions Codes that governed the practices of private investigators. By his reckoning, he’d violated most of them anyway, so why get all prissy at this point? His clients didn’t seem to care what he did as long as nothing blew back on them. So far he hadn’t been
caught
, which was, after all, the point. As long as he wasn’t apprehended in the course of an illegal act, he wasn’t subject to censure. He was immune from threats of having his license yanked since he hadn’t operated with a valid PI license for some years. Those who hired him understood that whatever their needs, fees would be paid in cash before he embarked on a job and little would be committed to paper. A contract was sealed by gentlemen’s agreement, confirmed by a handshake, and accompanied by a nod and a wink.
    Once in Colgate proper, he turned off the main street onto Cherry Lane, leaning forward to catch house numbers. The address he was searching for turned out to be a twelve-unit apartment complex, built during the fifties by the look of it, not shabby but with the glum air of postwar construction. He found a parking spot, locked the car, and walked back to the entrance. An iron gate opened into a spacious courtyard partly shaded by young trees. Now he pictured a schoolteacher or the general