DANCING WITH THE ICE LADY. Ken Salter

they’re sure to listen to anything I say.”

      Nate rubbed his chin while he pondered what to tell me. “Respond directly and truthfully to her questions, but don’t volunteer information. I want a written report on your findings daily. You can write it by hand, but leave no copy in your office computer if you type it. Your reports are to be left in her file in my locked safe.”

      I was sorely tempted to ask for a notebook computer I could carry with me. I quashed my impulse to demand one. I’d wait until I had some juicy info before insisting I needed an expensive toy to aide my investigation. Nate wanted me to be his good man Friday. He’d be perfectly happy with handwritten reports to have an excuse to meet directly with Gloria Simmons.

      Like most infatuated males, Nate didn’t want me getting too close to Mrs. Simmons. He expected me to concentrate on the mortuary and leave the more intimate inquiries to him. Nate knows me well enough to know I’d pump Mrs. Simmons for whatever info I needed whether he liked it or not. He also knew I wouldn’t reveal how my street contacts worked or what info they developed unless I wanted him to know. He was bound to practice law within the strictures of the California Evidence Code and the Code of Professional Ethics regulating lawyers’ conduct; I wasn’t yet, so he knew better than press me on my sources or how they got their info.

      Nate kept a stash of cash in his safe for me to use to pay my eyes and ears on the street. No receipts and no questions as to how I used the money so long as I got the goods; just as well our client paid cash. There’d be no paper trail in billing records regarding who I paid and for what.

      “I’ll need $500.00 in pocket money to start. I’ll have a written report in your safe by 5 P.M. tomorrow providing I don’t have to work on pending cases.”

      Nate didn‘t hesitate to swing his safe open and hand me a wad of greenbacks. He knew I only wanted small, well-used bills to pay my “street expenses.” I stuffed the pile of 20’s, 10’s and 5’s in my pocket.

      “I’m gonna drop Perkins. What about Sharon Miller and Patsy Kline? I’d like to drop them as well.”

      “I think we have Miller’s settlement wrapped up.” He rummaged through the files on his desk and pulled one; he removed the top pleading document and handed it to me.

      “Make a copy and take it around for her to sign when you have time. Her husband has signed off on the child support and alimony. Tell her I’m sorry I can’t meet with her personally. She should be happy with the results. You’ll have to meet with the Kline woman. I’m booked solid with depositions. You did the investigation, so you can give her the bad news yourself.”

      I shrugged. We both knew if Mrs. Simmons called in the meantime, I was expected to drop everything and play run and fetch it for Nate’s primetime client. As I left, I was pleased to see Marcie’s door was closed. After making a copy of the Sharon Miller settlement, I called her to set up a time to drop by her apartment to sign her settlement agreement. I called Patsy Kline and set up an appointment in my office for later that afternoon.

      I hustled out of the office past Saundra who was still with a client. She gave me the evil eye, but held her tongue in front of the woman seated at her desk. I smiled at the woman; she looked to be in her early forties. She regarded me with a sad, doleful expression of bewilderment. Her faded calico dress looked like it came from an old Montgomery Ward mail order catalogue for farm wives. She’d twisted her long, chestnut-colored hair into a flat pigtail and stuffed her still pretty feet into nondescript Birkenstock sandals. No wonder Gloria Simmons could breeze into Nate’s office and sweep him off his feet.

      I’d work outside the office until my appointment with Patsy Kline to avoid Nate’s staff monitoring my moves.

      Chapter 4

      AFTER SKIPPING OUT OF THE OFFICE, I HEADED TO a funky, little café called “Reggie’s Place” on Martin Luther King Way near the Berkeley-Oakland border. I waved to Reggie, who was chopping and dicing vegetables; I slid into a booth at the back where I could watch the door. It’s been a habit of mine ever since I read how Malcolm X always kept his back to the wall and an eye on lookout so his enemies couldn’t take him by surprise.

      As a kid raised in Berkeley, I’d identified with Malcolm X and his red hair and light-colored skin. In spite of Berkeley’s reputation for racial tolerance, life was hell for a kid like me growing up in this town. I wasn’t accepted by either black or white kids at school. There were few half-breed blacks like me with a black father and white mother to provide a buffer from the insults and taunts from the cliques of both races that dominated high school. Despite my pale milk chocolate-colored skin and frizzy, rather than kinky hair, I was still a nigger to most of the white kids and a pariah to black kids who resented my white liberal mother with her dark, wavy hair and honey-olive skin inherited from her Sephardic ancestors.

      They especially resented my father’s café-au-lait coloring and Creole good looks. I think kids of both races resented dad most because they thought he’d humped his way into the white man’s world where he didn’t belong.

      I feel at home in Reggie’s Place. I come here often to write notes on cases and plan investigations. Reggie and I share first names and black skin. The last time anyone called me Reginald Charles instead of R.C., I was in some kind of trouble.

      Reggie tipped his green and white A’s baseball cap on my arrival. The lunch special was scrawled on a small chalk board behind the register in large letters, “Fish Gumbo with Corn Bread.” My stomach was already responding to the delicious smells coming from the big iron pots on the stove. I pointed to the chalk board and Reggie flashed me a knowing smile.

      When he’d finished chopping his veggies, he brought me a steaming mug of black coffee and plopped it down on the Formica table.

      “How you doin’, R.C.? Mista’ Charlie keepin’ you on the run?”

      “Same as always, Reggie. The Man likes to see his little darkie play step an’ fetch it. Otherwise, he don’t be too friendly when it’s time to cut my pay.”

      “Yeah, we all’s got the same mis’ry, R.C. Them white college folks like to come here an’ watch ol’ Reggie do some steppin’ and fetchin’ too. Be along wid’ yo’ gumbo shortly.”

      I pulled my daybook out of my backpack and started a list of things to do on the Simmons case. I needed to nose around the mortuary before anyone suspected what I was up to. I planned to pay a visit on my way back from the courthouse in downtown Oakland.

      I called my sister, Tiffany, on my cell phone and left her a message to order title, tax and credit reports for the mortuary on the “QT.” She’s a real estate broker. I signed off with “Catch you later, Miss Gator” which is our code to call me after ten at my cottage.

      My next call was to my old buddy, Jeff Banes, at All American Insurance where we used to work together. “Say, Jeff, how you been doin’?”

      “Hey, R.C., I was thinking about you, you lucky bastard. I’m commuting two hours a day to the City where I’m chained to my computer terminal while you’re running around on the loose spending clients’ money on God knows what monkey business. I’m jealous.”

      “Naw, you got it all wrong, Jeff. I’m the guy running around sweating how to pay the bills and risking his neck on a legal assistant’s pay as an independent contractor. You got the paid vacation, the health plan and the company car.” Jeff chuckled. We both knew he’d give his eyetooth to be out on his own, but couldn’t. He hated the office routine, but with a diabetic kid at home, he couldn’t afford to give up his generous medical benefits. If he quit, he’d never get coverage for his sick kid even though he worked in insurance.

      “What’s up?” Jeff asked.

      “I need some info on a case. Need to know who’s insuring a black mortuary in Oakland called the Simmons Family Mortuary. I’m especially interested in their liability and