The Trade. Shirley Palmer

with playing second fiddle to that bike.”

      “She knows she’s on to a good thing. She’s got us both.”

      Matt opened a bottle of Merlot while Bobby decanted the food, put it into the microwave.

      Matt leaned back in his chair, reached for a couple of glasses, poured the wine.

      “So, what’s up?” Bobby asked.

      “The sheriff’s department is asking questions about me,” Matt said. “Jimmy McPhee called tonight.” He repeated the conversation.

      “Routine stuff, nothing to worry about.” The microwave beeped. Bobby placed the containers on the table.

      “What will happen to her, Bob?”

      “The baby? Well, if they can’t find the mother, she’ll either get a civil burial or transfer her body to a teaching hospital where pediatric surgeons get their training.”

      The food in Matt’s mouth was suddenly a lump impossible to swallow. “You mean—” He wanted to gag. He thought of the delicate body he’d seen, the fragile limbs. “She shouldn’t be cut up.”

      Bobby helped himself to more braised beef. “Yeah, turns your stomach, doesn’t it? You know, in one month last year…August, I think, three babies were found on the beach in Santa Monica, about a week apart. Remember that?”

      “No.”

      “Yeah, well. No one notices. Just the flotsam of a big city. Another little Jane Doe, no one to claim her.”

      “Then I’ll claim this one. She should have someone, not end up on a surgical slab, alone.”

      “You can’t just walk in and claim a body. It’s not that easy. Why would you want to do that?”

      Because she died in his arms. Because maybe he could have saved her if he hadn’t been so hellbent on getting home to his house and his dog. Although he still didn’t know how.

      “Because I found her, I guess. Why not?”

      Bobby shook his head. “Matt, just think for a minute how this plays. Single guy finds a baby. She’s still alive. No one’s around as a witness. Baby dies. Then the guy claims the body, spends a fair amount of change to give this Baby Doe a funeral. What do you think that says?”

      “That someone wants to do the right thing? What? You think like a cop, Bobby, you know that?”

      “Twelve years on the job, Matt. It’ll do it to you every time.” After college, Bobby had bummed the world following the waves for a couple of years before he came home, met Sylvie and joined the sheriff’s department.

      Matt pushed his chair back, got to his feet. He dumped the remains of the food into the trash. “So what’s the next step? Do I call the coroner’s office?”

      “No. You sleep on it for a week, then you call.”

      “That might be too late.”

      “Yeah,” Bobby said. “You’re right.”

      CHAPTER 4

      “See what I mean? It’s a prime piece of property.” Mike Greffen of Downtown Realty Associates, was resplendent in a well tailored gray suit, white shirt, Hermes tie. He gestured toward the vast empty interior of the almost derelict building. In spite of the brilliant fall day outside, the late afternoon sunlight barely penetrated the second floor windows, multi-paned and washed with a thin film of brown paint. The place reeked of excrement, human and animal, rats, stray cats, the unwholesome stink of the transients who used the place to drink and vomit and crash. “Know what they say about location. Still can’t beat it, gentlemen.”

      Ned stamped a foot tentatively on the splintered wooden planks of the uneven factory floor. A small cloud of dust coated his Nikes. He and Matt wore their usual working clothes, blue jeans, polo shirts, sneakers.

      “Wow. Nearly went through there. What do you think anyone can do with this piece of industrial wasteland? Matt, you got any ideas?” Matt recognized Ned’s opening salvo for negotiation on the price. Ned managed their financial affairs, bank loans, mortgages. There wasn’t a real estate broker or a banker alive who could best Ned. He could wring the last penny out of any deal.

      Matt shrugged. “I’d call in the bulldozers.” His cell phone buzzed and he excused himself, walked over to the bank of darkened windows.

      “Matt Lowell.”

      “Matt, it’s Bobby. Listen, a heads-up. Better you don’t contact the coroner about that matter we talked about last night. Something’s come up. Okay?”

      “What’s happened?”

      “I’m at the desk, I can’t talk now. Just hang tight, don’t make any calls, okay?”

      “Too late. I called this morning.”

      “Shit. Did you leave your name?”

      “Of course I left my name.”

      “Shit,” Bobby said again. “Oh well, maybe it won’t make any difference. They lose bodies all the time down there, chances are they’re no better with telephone messages.”

      “What bodies? What are you talking about?”

      “I can’t talk right now. I’ll call you tonight. Better yet, I’ll come by. Meantime, don’t make any more calls to the coroner.” He rang off.

      Slowly, Matt returned the cell to his pocket. He cleaned a circle in the filthy window with the heel of his hand. Across the street stood a mirror image of the four-story building he was standing in. Someone had enough faith in the neighborhood to try to do something with it, but not enough to trust the neighbors not to make off with anything they could get their hands on. Surrounding the old factory was a new ten-foot chain-link fence topped with a concertina of razor wire.

      Matt walked over to rejoin the two men.

      “Mike tells me we can turn this dump into luxury apartments,” Ned said. “You’re the design and structural arm of the firm.” For Matt, the thrill of his job was in seeing the aesthetic possibilities in the crumbling buildings they restored. He was good at it, had the imagination to see what could be, probably got it from his father. It also enabled him to see the absence of opportunity, such as this building.

      Matt laughed. “Mike, you don’t believe that.”

      “Sure I do. Would I lie to you guys? This is a wicked piece of property. Great potential.”

      “Yeah, potential to go from bad to worse.”

      “That building you were looking at, Matt? Across the street there? Sold in less than a week, asking price, and I hear it’s going to be gutted and refitted as apartments. It will bring the whole area up.”

      “In your dreams, Michael,” Ned said. “Who’d you sucker into that deal?”

      “Unfortunately, I didn’t have the listing, but I hear it was bought by some outfit from Canada. I could have offered this one to them, but we’ve been doing business for a long time. I wanted to give you guys first crack at it.”

      The three men navigated the dark filth-encrusted stairs and stepped out into the sunshine.

      “So don’t wait too long, guys,” Mike said. “This is a primo piece of downtown real estate, a steal at the price.”

      He slid into his late model Lexus, tapped his horn at a kid running across the street, and drew away.

      “Shall we go for it, Matt?” Ned’s tone was doubtful.

      Matt eyed the street scene. A couple of guys selling foam-rubber pads and remnants of fabric from the back of a beat-up truck to small round women a long way in time and distance from their Aztec roots. Men with the same flat features leaned against walls, hats