friend?”
“I’m afraid I didn’t catch his name.”
“Did he have an Irish accent?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“I dated a mick once; I know what they sound like.”
Automatically assuming that Milo was back in town, I couldn’t help but feel a sudden shift in my personal weather. Was it possible that Ex-boyfriend #12 (Connor O’Sullivan) had skipped town and returned the bar to its rightful owner, which meant that I could become a rightful patron once again?
“Let’s go,” I said, calling a cab. I had a feeling that neither of us would be in any condition to drive after we knocked back a few.
“I’ll leave a note for Henry,” Gertrude said.
The note read: Isabel and I are not here. Love, Mom.
Twenty minutes later, feeling a surprisingly pleasant buzz of anticipation at the prospect of seeing my old friend Milo, Gerty and I entered the dim cave of the Philosopher’s Club. The familiar scent of hops and dishrags brought back comforting memories. I looked to the end of the bar, and whatever hint of a smile had begun to surface faded quickly. The bartender, on the other hand, was all aglow when he saw me. “Ain’t you a sight for sore eyes,” he said.
“You’re back,” was my only reply.
“You betcha,” he said. “Bernie’s back for good.”
The next thing I knew, I was trapped in a bear hug and I couldn’t get out.
EDWARD SLAYTER
M onday morning at eight A.M. , I began my surveillance of subject Edward Slayter. I sipped coffee and sat in my car three doors down from his home and waited for him to depart for the day. According to Mrs. Slayter, he had a board meeting at nine A.M. His driver would pick him up somewhere around eight thirty. At eight twenty-five, a black Town Car drove up to the Slayter residence in Pacific Heights. A male driver in a black suit and tie left the car double-parked, idling in the middle of the street. 1 Since the Slayters have a fat driveway, especially for San Francisco, I found this behavior particularly irksome. However, the Town Car was not left idling for long. Not quite forty-five seconds after subject’s driver rang the Slayters’ doorbell, Mr. Slayter strode down his driveway and got into the backseat of the car.
Edward Slayter was described by his spouse as a handsome, fifty-five-year-old male, with short-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, with an athletic but not overly muscular build. The clinical nature of her description struck me as a bit odd. Spouses usually add humanizing details—he has a scar on his chin from when he fell out of a tree as a child; there’s a mole above hiseyebrow that he talks about having removed every now and then; he has an ever-so-slightly receding hairline, which he monitors religiously. But Mrs. Slayter added no personal flourish to the portrait of her husband. The only unnecessary detail she added was that his walk was always brisk, as though he were in a perpetual rush. Since Mr. Slayter was a busy man with many fiscal responsibilities, this detail seemed extraneous.
My instructions were simple, too simple: Monitor subject’s activities. If they strayed from his reported schedule I was to promptly notify Mrs. Slayter via text message. Typically, further documentation is requested—photographs, videos, and written reports. I asked Mrs. Slayter if she was interested in any of that and after a brief, reflective pause, she said, “I don’t believe that will be necessary at this time.”
The driver zigzagged across side streets to South Van Ness Avenue, one of the primary veins that run through the city, and turned south. The dense morning traffic forced me to keep a close tail, which is always problematic if you’re following a subject who is expecting a tail. As far as I could tell, neither the driver nor the subject took much notice of the navy-blue Buick that was never farther than two cars behind them.
As expected, the Town Car pulled up in front of 111 Market Street. Mr. Slayter did not wait for
“I’m afraid I didn’t catch his name.”
“Did he have an Irish accent?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“I dated a mick once; I know what they sound like.”
Automatically assuming that Milo was back in town, I couldn’t help but feel a sudden shift in my personal weather. Was it possible that Ex-boyfriend #12 (Connor O’Sullivan) had skipped town and returned the bar to its rightful owner, which meant that I could become a rightful patron once again?
“Let’s go,” I said, calling a cab. I had a feeling that neither of us would be in any condition to drive after we knocked back a few.
“I’ll leave a note for Henry,” Gertrude said.
The note read: Isabel and I are not here. Love, Mom.
Twenty minutes later, feeling a surprisingly pleasant buzz of anticipation at the prospect of seeing my old friend Milo, Gerty and I entered the dim cave of the Philosopher’s Club. The familiar scent of hops and dishrags brought back comforting memories. I looked to the end of the bar, and whatever hint of a smile had begun to surface faded quickly. The bartender, on the other hand, was all aglow when he saw me. “Ain’t you a sight for sore eyes,” he said.
“You’re back,” was my only reply.
“You betcha,” he said. “Bernie’s back for good.”
The next thing I knew, I was trapped in a bear hug and I couldn’t get out.
EDWARD SLAYTER
M onday morning at eight A.M. , I began my surveillance of subject Edward Slayter. I sipped coffee and sat in my car three doors down from his home and waited for him to depart for the day. According to Mrs. Slayter, he had a board meeting at nine A.M. His driver would pick him up somewhere around eight thirty. At eight twenty-five, a black Town Car drove up to the Slayter residence in Pacific Heights. A male driver in a black suit and tie left the car double-parked, idling in the middle of the street. 1 Since the Slayters have a fat driveway, especially for San Francisco, I found this behavior particularly irksome. However, the Town Car was not left idling for long. Not quite forty-five seconds after subject’s driver rang the Slayters’ doorbell, Mr. Slayter strode down his driveway and got into the backseat of the car.
Edward Slayter was described by his spouse as a handsome, fifty-five-year-old male, with short-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, with an athletic but not overly muscular build. The clinical nature of her description struck me as a bit odd. Spouses usually add humanizing details—he has a scar on his chin from when he fell out of a tree as a child; there’s a mole above hiseyebrow that he talks about having removed every now and then; he has an ever-so-slightly receding hairline, which he monitors religiously. But Mrs. Slayter added no personal flourish to the portrait of her husband. The only unnecessary detail she added was that his walk was always brisk, as though he were in a perpetual rush. Since Mr. Slayter was a busy man with many fiscal responsibilities, this detail seemed extraneous.
My instructions were simple, too simple: Monitor subject’s activities. If they strayed from his reported schedule I was to promptly notify Mrs. Slayter via text message. Typically, further documentation is requested—photographs, videos, and written reports. I asked Mrs. Slayter if she was interested in any of that and after a brief, reflective pause, she said, “I don’t believe that will be necessary at this time.”
The driver zigzagged across side streets to South Van Ness Avenue, one of the primary veins that run through the city, and turned south. The dense morning traffic forced me to keep a close tail, which is always problematic if you’re following a subject who is expecting a tail. As far as I could tell, neither the driver nor the subject took much notice of the navy-blue Buick that was never farther than two cars behind them.
As expected, the Town Car pulled up in front of 111 Market Street. Mr. Slayter did not wait for
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