Free Muller, Marcia - [10] The Shape of Dread (v1.0) (html) Page A

although he was a hopeful. I kept telling him he ought to stick
to tending bar."
    "Why on earth did you give him a chance, then?"
    "That was my partner Rob Soriano's bright idea. He thought it would
be good publicity to let him fill in for Tracy. Anguished boyfriend
helps the show go on while he waits for news of his beloved." Larkey
made a disgusted face.
    "Well then, why do you keep him?"
    "What can I tell you? They like the sucker."
    I was about to comment on the level of his clientele's taste when
the door opened and a man's voice said, "Jay, do you have a minute to
go over those loan papers?" Seeing me, the new arrival stopped on the
threshold.
    He was a tall, well-built man wearing a tuxedo and steel-rimmed
glasses. He held himself with soldierly precision, shoulders squared,
arms and spine rigid. His hair was clipped short, in a flattop style
that I'd noticed had been making a comeback in certain conservative
circles of late, and was so uniformly dark brown that it had to have
been dyed. I judged his age to be in the early fifties.
    "Speak of the devil," Larkey murmured. More loudly, he said,
"Sharon, this is Rob Soriano. Rob, Sharon McCone. She's a private
investigator working on the Bobby Foster case."
    For a moment Soriano's square-jawed face was blank. "Foster… oh,
right. The kid who murdered Tracy Kostakos."
    "Well, it seems there's a difference of opinion on that—"
    Larkey broke off as the phone buzzed. He snatched it up and barked,
"Yes?" After listening for a few seconds, he said irritably, "I'll be
right out." As he moved toward the door, he said to Soriano and me,
"Sorry. Trouble with some drunk at the bar wanting credit. I'll be
back."
    Rob Soriano eyed me curiously. "Investigator, eh?" he finally said.
    "Yes, for All Souls Legal Cooperative." I remained where I was, my
feet still propped on the desk drawer.
    "Never heard of them."
    "A lot of people haven't. Mr. Soriano, did you know Tracy Kostakos?"
    "Not well. I caught her act a few times. She had a nice little
talent."
    "What about Bobby Foster?"
    "He was just one of the kids who parked cars."
    "Are you an active partner in Café Comedie?"
    "No, I prefer to keep a low profile. My wife enjoys the glamour,
such as it might be."
    "Is it a profitable enterprise?"
    "So-so."
    "It's certainly crowded tonight."
    "We manage to pack them in. Comedy's hot in San Francisco, and
people like clubs. Gives them a chance to dress up, get out, be seen
doing the 'in' thing. But the real profit isn't in the small
independent clubs; it's in the franchises like the Improv."
    I recalled that an Improv club had opened downtown recently.
"They're a chain?"
    "Some people call them the 'Baskin-Robbins of comedy,' Squeaky-clean
stuff, no offensive material; they're tied in to a couple of TV shows.
Good clubs, but they really have more appeal to tourists or
suburbanites than locals. But to get back to your question, Café
Comedie is more or less Jay's hobby. Some people retire and play golf;
Jay became a champion of young
aspiring comics."
    "When you came in, you mentioned loan papers, and I see there are
real estate contracts here on Jay's desk. Is he thinking of expanding
or changing locations?"
    A smile flickered across his thin lips, then vanished as quickly as
it had appeared. "You're quite interested in Jay's affairs. But it's no
secret: he and I have a second partnership, in real estate development.
We've been buying up SoMa properties and holding them to see which way
things go here."
    The SoMa real estate market, I had heard, was a fluctuating one
whose eventual direction could mold the development of San Francisco
business for decades to come. The area was currently caught in a
tug-of-war between those who advocated increasing the number of
industrial and service businesses, and an older community of residents
and artists— including the clubs—who favored maintaining the status
quo. Multibillion-dollar developments such as the Mission Bay complex
and Yerba Buena