Five-Eighty is a novel about a private detective working in the suburbs of the Bay Area of California in the early 1970s. Each Saturday morning a new installment appears. As the events of this novel take place during the election season of 1974, the story will be released during this, the election season of 2024. May it prove an entertaining distraction from the news of the day. Please enjoy, and as always, comments are welcome!
—HF
Chapter 3
It is a few minutes to four as I pull into the gravel lot at the Three Star, several miles north of Rancho Santa Rita, on the road to Martinez. A few old gas pumps sit out front, and a big low asphalt shingle roof overhangs plaster and shallow brick siding. Out front there is a Pacific Bell telephone booth and a smattering of big American sedans in various shades of indeterminate pastels, the one on the end being a brand-new mint green flake and white Landau topped Cadillac. I park the Volvo next to it and go inside through a windowless steel door. The Three Star is one of those places with a small stage in one corner, and a back room that used to be for pinball machines when pinball was viewed down upon by pastors and librarians. It is dark, the lights intentionally low to hide the yellowed nicotine smudge that is on everything, including the patrons. To the right is a long, upholstered bar, to the left small booths. In one at the back I see David Campbell Carpenter sitting with a glass of indeterminate brown liquor.
I sit opposite of him. The shiny cherry red vinyl seat below me makes rubbery sounds and expels air.
“What is this all about?” Carpenter asks.
“Marriage. Much like your troubles, I imagine.” He grunts, or rather snorts, but says nothing else in reply. “Before we begin, I need to know a couple things. For your own protection.” He stares, I continue. “Is there any chance I will encounter anything with legal dimensions in the course of this job?”
“Legal dimensions?” He takes a slug of his drink. “What’s that mean?”
“Criminal activity.”
“What are you talking about? What do you mean criminal? There’s nothing criminal about this.”
“Well I need to know how likely it is that I might have to talk to the police. If you want me to fully protect your interests—”
“Say, what is this? Look, shut up, will you?” I shut my yap, and watch as Carpenter readjusts himself in the booth as if suddenly discovering that he is sitting in a cold, wet, unidentifiable puddle. “Look, I asked John to recommend a reliable man.”
“Anything. You tell me. Is not. Private.”
He blinks.
“If some cop decides they want to bust my balls, I can’t conceal your identity or your business, not for long anyway. There’s no such thing as privilege when it comes to investigators and clients. Unless there’s an attorney involved. If an attorney working for you hires me, what I find is covered under your attorney-client privilege. So any cop, any lawyer, any officer of the law can’t roll me. If this is purely a domestic affair, no problemo. But if anyone is involved in anything even slightly illegal, I might run into a cop. Hell, I might run into a cop just tailing your wife or your partner, even if everything is above board. So, before you tell me any details, we both need to know how likely your business is going to end up in front of authorities who can compel me to talk. And if that’s likely, we need to get a lawyer involved before you tell me one word more.”
He took another draw off his drink and set it back down, the glass sweaty and mostly empty, what little of the ice that was left sliding idly around in the bottom as if circling a drain it vainly hoped was there. “I’m sure you think you’re smart, Kenny. And I suppose maybe you are. And I appreciate what you just said, really I do. But the fewer people that I tell about this the better. Now John said you’re smart, as in smart enough to know when to take orders and do what you’re told. Smart in a way people who actually work for their living get smart, because they have no other option. So how about this: I pay you double your usual fee—what is that, anyway?”
“Fifty dollars a day, plus expenses.”
“So a hundred a day. Plus expenses. Reasonable expenses. And you keep your mouth shut and your head down and don’t tell anyone anything. Deal?”
“Being held in contempt of court isn’t worth a hundred dollars a day. Being thrown in jail isn’t worth a hundred.”
“So it’s just how much it’s worth, right? So what do you want?”
I pause. I realize that Carpenter is a man who thinks he can win any argument with money, and I’m not entirely convinced that he is wrong. “Two,” I respond.
“Fine. Now can we get on with this?”
“No.” I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out a small notepad. “What do you have in your wallet?”
“Right now? I don’t know. Around a hundred maybe.”
“You got a five? Or a ten?”
“Probably.”
“Give it to me.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now.”
He reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out a big billfold, something Italian and leather. He pulls out a crisp portrait of Andrew Jackson and pushes it across the table at me. In my notepad I write him out an impromptu receipt and give it to him.
“I’m now on retainer. You are now my client.”
“Fine. Now will you please find out for certain if my wife is sleeping with Richard?”
“When did you first begin to suspect this was going on?”
“What difference does it make?”
“It can help me to establish when and where and how.…”
“I don’t care about that. Look, all you have to do is follow him, find out if they are together, and tell me. Simple.”
“Well what about their behavior makes you think….”
“Are you listening to me?”
I put my pen down. “Yes.”
“Then repeat after me: I am going to follow Richard Santini and find out if he is sleeping with my wife.”
“Well, okay, but I already know he’s not sleeping with my wife.” I throw a grin.
“I’m beginning to think I should take my ten dollars back.”
“Sorry, but I need to know more if I am to be effective.”
“No. You need to shut up, take your two hundred a day, not ask questions, follow Richard, and tell me whether he is sleeping with my wife. The end. That’s all. Exactly as you were told, and exactly as I am heavily overpaying you for. Get it?”
“Sure. Sure. Okay. Well then why do you think Santini….”
“Sonofabitch.”
“It’s relevant! Is he missing at certain times of day or night? Are there specific days he seems to be gone, when it’s possible they might be together? I’m one person, I can’t follow him twenty-four-hours a day. I need to start when I’m most likely to catch him, and where I am most likely to catch him.”
Carpenter grunts. Inside, I’m both pumped on adrenaline and elated that I’d just landed a mental torpedo in his midships. “Richard has a house in Saint Francis Wood, but he wouldn’t take her there. His wife lives there. He has a cabin up at Tahoe but I don’t think that’s close enough. So I don’t know where. And I don’t keep tabs on him on the weekends.”
“And on the weekdays?”
“We’re both in the field a lot. Job sites. Meetings. Business lunches and business dinners. It could happen anytime.”
“And your wife?”
“We keep different hours. I usually see her at breakfast, but not always.”
“Any pattern to when you don’t see her at breakfast?”
He let his mouth open, and he frowns, but then snaps it shut. Then, slowly: “Not really. That’s why you are to follow Richard.”
“You’re probably right. Narrowing things down helps save time though. When your wife isn’t there in the mornings, I assume it is because she was gone all night? I mean, she was never in your bed that night, right?”
Carpenter reaches up, puts one hand into the air, then looks around confused.
“You have to order at the bar,” I say. He moves to get up but I hold up a hand. “Let me. What’s your poison?”
Carpenter holds the glass tilted towards him and frowns down at the watery ice. “They claim this is a whiskey sour. I think it’s just whiskey that they waved a bottle of lemon juice over.”
At the bar, I order (and pay for) two whiskey sours, then bring the insipid drinks back to the table. “So,” I say, “she just doesn’t come home those mornings?”
“I’m not sure. We usually share a room, but sometimes things get busy. Sometimes I sleep in the den. Sometimes she sleeps in her studio.”
“Studio?”
“She paints. It’s the old chauffeur’s quarters, above the garage. It has a daybed.”
“Alright. So it could happen overnight sometimes. Have you talked to Richard’s wife?”
“God no. That old battle axe? She’s part of why I wouldn’t blame Richard for wanting to step out. She’s basically a premade widow with the face of a firetruck. She should be selling fortunes and garlicky tonics in North Beach. And if I said anything to her she’d probably tell Richard. And look, I don’t want you bothering her. Or him. I need you to stay invisible, got it? Our partnership benefits both of us. I don’t want to jeopardize it.”
“You just want to know if he’s shtupping your wife.”
“Yes.”
“Got it.” I close my notebook.
“No more unnecessary questions? Can you get on with it?”
“Where would I be likely to find him this afternoon?”
“I don’t know. Matilda would know.”
“Matilda?”
“My secretary. Our secretary. You spoke with her earlier.”
“Could she get me a copy of his appointment book for the next week?”
“No. I don’t want her knowing what this is about. But I can probably get it after six. I can work a Xerox. I’ll get it couriered over to your office tonight. Or is that a bad idea, what with your wife…?”
“I’ll just pick it up from your office in the morning.”
More each Saturday!
Enjoy this installment of Five-Eighty? Watch for future installments every Saturday morning during Fall, 2024.
Harbour Fordyce 