From Berkeley with Love
From Berkeley with Love
By Hamilton Waymire
Copyright 2012 by Hamilton Waymire
Cover Copyright 2012 by Dara England
and Untreed Reads Publishing
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Also by Hamilton Waymire and Untreed Reads Publishing
Confidence Tricks
By Hamilton Waymire
Nineteen eighty-nine was a year of turmoil. The Loma Prieta quake shook the Bay Area, the Berlin Wall crumbled, and the demise of Kricken & Associates forced me to set up my own agency.
I got myself a fancy two-room suite in a high-rise building on MacArthur Boulevard, not far from John Wayne Airport. An attorney’s practice to the left and a tax consultant’s to the right set off my office between them. The embossed sign on the outer door said in gilded letters:
Benson Keirstad, Investigations
. My savings would pay the rent for maybe three months, if I didn’t eat, but I wasn’t too worried, having snatched old man Kricken’s client list before anyone else could get their dirty hands on it. In the late morning of my third day of self-employment, I was busy making solicitation calls when I heard the bell jingle in the waiting room.
Linda Cramer and Ron Mayer looked like the quintessential Orange County couple—well-to-do, stylish, arrogant, and in a constant state of bickering. At first I silently cursed her for wearing such an offensive perfume. Then I realized the scent was his.
“What can I do for you?” I asked, looking from one to the other.
“I’m the one who wants to hire you, Mr. Keirstad,” said the woman. Her voluminous blonde mane framed a no-nonsense face, complete with black horn-rimmed glasses. The mid-length skirt displayed a pair of slender legs to great advantage. Had it not been for the lines around her mouth, she might have passed for thirty.
I turned to her. “Certainly. What’s the trouble?”
“We’re being blackmailed,” she said. “Twenty-some years ago, we belonged to a small commune of free spirits, up in Berkeley. The times were very different then. We experimented a lot—drugs, sex, you name it.”
“I never did drugs,” Mayer interjected.
“Yeah, right,” she snapped. “Anyway, this guy Steven Wainer took photographs. Now he’s threatening us with the pictures.”
“What kind of pictures?”
“Of an intimate nature. Outré enough to compromise our positions.” She pressed her lips together as if to signal her reluctance to go into details.
“How much does he want?”
“Fifty grand from me, fifty from him.” She motioned to Mayer with her head.
I remarked that it seemed unlikely for Wainer to run separate accounts for a couple.
“Oh, we’re not together,” Linda said quickly. “Just old acquaintances. We all sort of lost touch in the seventies as the appeal of flower-power wore off, you know. Ron and I only ran into each other about a year ago. We didn’t even know we both lived in Orange County.”
Our conversation revealed that the situation was somewhat worse for her than for him. Linda was dean of humanities at a private liberal arts college and a leading figure among Orange County Republicans. She didn’t say it in so many words, but it appeared that she had ambitions to move up to Sacramento. Mayer worked as a physician at the Newport Coast Medical Center, directing the emergency department. He didn’t think Wainer’s photos would necessarily threaten his career, although they certainly wouldn’t help him either.
“So what do you want me to do?” I asked.
“
I
want you to find the S-O-B and get the photos from him,” Linda said. “Ron thinks we should pay him off.” She scoffed at her companion.
Mayer shrugged. “Fifty thousand isn’t such a big deal for either of us. I just thought it was less risky than sending a private dick after him.”
After an aggravated sigh, Linda pointed out to him
—surely not for the first time—that blackmailers never quit.
He lifted his hands, palms up. “All right, all right. I’m here with you, so calm down.”
I asked if they knew Wainer’s whereabouts, but all they could tell me was that the letters had been mailed in Ventura. Neither Linda nor Ron had heard from him in over twenty years.
“Can I see the letters?”
“I burnt mine,” said Mayer.
Linda looked at me and raised her eyebrows. “Is that really necessary?”
I said, “Please,” and held out my hand.
She rummaged through her purse for a couple of minutes and produced a standard white envelope, neatly sliced open at the top. Holding it halfway across the table, she pulled back when I reached for it, hesitated a moment, then let it go. I noted the Ventura date stamp. One sheet of white paper stuck inside, inexpertly folded to fit the envelope. My eyes wouldn’t focus on the text, gravitating instead to the photograph that had been photocopied on the page. The picture quality was poor, but it showed a young woman, presumably Linda, engaged in an acrobatic sexual activity involving a guy and another girl. That would’ve made me vote for Linda every time, but I had to agree that such images might not go down well with her Republican friends.
Eventually I managed to pry my eyes from the picture. The words instructed Linda to deposit fifty thousand dollars in cash in a private mailbox in Santa Ana by the seventeenth. That would be Saturday. Three days from today.
“How do you know it’s from Wainer?”
“There were six of us: Wainer, his girlfriend Tammy, Linda and me, and the Dretskes,” Mayer said. “Peter and Carla Dretske died in a car accident while we were still seeing each other. Their deaths kind of broke up the group, I guess.”
Linda interrupted him. “There’s an off-chance it might be Tammy, but frankly, I don’t think she’s smart enough. They could be in it together, I suppose.”
I pondered that for a moment. “Your letter pretty much the same?” I asked Mayer.
“Identical, except for the picture,” he said and tried to smile.
When they exited the office, I was left with a thousand dollar retainer, a blackmailer’s letter, and a twenty-two year old color photograph that Linda had brought, fading at the edges and showing Steven Wainer, Tammy Zelter, Ron Mayer, and my client. I could’ve done worse.
I put a call through to Patty O’Connor, an old flame from my days at St. Augustine High School. As a claims processor with the Social Security Administration, she had access to a huge computer database. Unfortunately, she’d never forgiven me for dumping her for this fun-loving biker chick I met right after graduation.
“You’ve got some nerve,” she barked as soon as I said my name. “I have work to do. If you’re going to ask a favor, forget it.”
“When have I ever asked you a favor, honey? Look—”
“I’m not your honey, and the last time you asked was in February. I’m really swamped, Ben.”
“I’m looking for a Steven Wainer, born around 1938 or ’39. Last known address is 15 Basilone Alley, Berkeley, California. That was back in 1971. I don’t have a social.”
She snorted. “You must be joking. It would be illegal for me to give out such information. And besides, with so little to go on, I probably wouldn’t find him anyway.”
“I know you can do it.” I hated myself for buttering her up like this, but I really needed the money from this job. “Please. For old times’ sake. I’d do the same for you.”
“Old times’ sake? You friggin’ dumped me for a leather-wearing slut.”
“Honey, if I could turn back time, I wouldn’t make that mistake again,” I said, trying to sound sincere. “Please.”
“What was the name again?” she grunted.
I repeated the information.
“I don’t know why I should, but I’ll give it a shot,” she said. “You owe me. Big time.”
“Sure,” I said. “And while you’re at it, could you throw in Tammy Zelter, same address, couple years younger? Next time I’m in Baltimore, I’ll take you out to dinner. Promise.”
I could picture her sardonic grin as she said, “Give me some advance warning. I’ll need to think up something to tell the hubby.”
I made some more calls—phone companies, utilities—but didn’t get anywhere. When I finally put my feet up on the desk, my right shoe came to rest on the blackmailer’s envelope. I pulled it out from under my foot, extracted the letter and contemplated the photo again. If only I could’ve been a hippie. All this free love floating around, the chicks experimenting and just wanting to love the one they were with. Ironically, the girls of my generation, daughters of hippies, had been super uptight, at least in Platteville, Wisconsin. I held the page closer to my eyes. Blood rushed to my head. Hum. Maybe finding the pictures would be its own reward.
* * *
I arrived at the office at nine the next morning. Patty called at nine-fifteen.
“I’ve got something for you,” she said. “Of course you don’t deserve it.”
“I sure don’t. What is it?”
“Steven Mathison Wainer, born 28 September, 1939. Currently registered with the Social Security Administration at 7614 Attlesborough Place, Santa Barbara, California.”
“I love you, Patty.”
“Whatever. You want the lady too?”
“Sure. Shoot.”
“She’s collecting disability checks in Berkeley—1879 Haycraft Avenue, apartment C.”
“I’m sending you flowers.”
“Want me to tell you where to shove them?”
I said I still loved her and hung up before she could come back with something vicious. But I did make a note to send her flowers.
The operator provided me with a phone number for a Steven Wainer in Santa Barbara. I called and got him on the phone. He wasn’t interested in auto insurance and hung up on me.
* * *
Traffic on the 405 crawled, as usual, and didn’t get much better on the 101. Nonetheless, my beloved Firebird made it to Santa Barbara inside three hours. Attlesborough Place was the most rundown street in the city. Compared to its neighbors, number 7614 held up well. The paint was flaking, the screen doors were warped, and the tiny front lawn had more brown in it than green, yet it seemed like a palace in these surroundings.
I flicked my cigarette into the gutter and walked across the street. As soon as I set foot on the sidewalk, the neighbor’s pitbull lunged out of its dog house and hurled itself against the wire-mesh fence separating the properties. I tried to ignore it, but these attack dogs scare me shitless. Pressing Wainer’s doorbell produced no audible effect. I knocked. The long silence was broken only by the dog’s barking. I knocked harder.
“You lookin’ for Wainer?”
A skinny adolescent with tats up and down his arms stood behind the fence. I hadn’t heard him approach, with the dog raising hell and all.
“Yeah,” I said and slammed the palm of my hand against the door.
“He ain’t in,” said the kid. “You got a cig?”
I took my Marlboros from my shirt pocket and offered him one. He took it and stuck it behind his ear.
“What you want from him?”
I shrugged. “I need to talk to him. It’s personal.”
“Well, he ain’t in.” He squinted at me. “I might know where he’s at. What’s it worth to you?”
I wanted to say it was worth not knocking him in the kisser, but his pitbull was staring at me none too friendly. I fished a twenty out of my pocket and held it out to him.
He grinned. “Would Andrew Jackson have a twin?”
“He has an evil twin who might just beat you to a pulp and feed you to that mutt of yours.” I stepped a little closer. “Now spill it.”
His left eye twitched. I figured by the time he got the dog over the fence, I’d have my gun ready.
At length he licked his lips and said, “There’s a tittie bar on Berlin Boulevard, name of Bobbie’s Den.” He pointed due south. “No boobs now,” he said with compassion, “but you can get blotto there twenty-four/seven.”
He gave me directions.
“What’s Wainer look like these days?”
The kid snorted. “He’s like freaking bigfoot, man.”
Not the kind of description I’d hoped for, but the little pusher didn’t seem inclined to elaborate.
Bobbie’s Den was the saddest striptease joint I’d seen in my life, and not for any lack of experience on my part. Its entrance was half-blocked by a rusting dumpster that seemed to do double-duty as a bag lady’s home. You could smell the sweat, cold smoke and stale beer twenty feet from the door. Speaking of which, it wouldn’t budge until I put my full body weight behind a hard shove.