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being careful, honey. Don’t get mad. I don’t want this leaking out to those reporters, that’s all. You can understand that, can’t you?’
    I told her I could, so she sat down, cleared her throat, then paused dramatically.
    ‘Like I said, Match wasn’t any good with money,’ she began solemnly. ‘He just couldn’t keep a budget. Now, I don’t want any of this to get out, honey, but he owes some people money. At least I think he does.’
    ‘And you want me to find out for sure?’
    She sat back. There was a satisfied look on her face. ‘You’re smart, honey. I like that.’
    She rose, got a piece of paper off the desk in the comer, came back and handed it to me.
    ‘Here. There’s four of them.’
    I took the list and read it. No addresses, no phone numbers, just four names printed in block letters. Siegfried Malone. Buddha Teagues. Nick DuPont. Eugene Tobinio. None of the names meant a thing to me.
    ‘Who are these guys?’
    ‘Friends of Match’s.’
    ‘Musicians?Business partners? Patrons?’
    ‘Friends.’
    She said it a little too casually.
    ‘Were they at the Riff Club Saturday night? Are they suspects?’ Her beady little eyes went wide.
    ‘Oh, no, honey. It’s nothing like that. They liked Match. I told you he didn’t have any enemies. If you ask any single one of them they’ll say Match walked on water. Go ahead. Don’t take my word for it, ask them yourself.’
    I decided I would.
    ‘Tell me about the loans.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Do you know if Match signed anything? A promissory note, an IOU? How much do you think he owes them? Is the debt separate or combined?’
    ‘Match didn’t like paperwork. I wouldn’t even know about this myself except he let it slip one night. He said he’d pay them back if he ever cut another album. I asked him what for and you know what he said? He said, “For believing in me.’” I studied the list while Sharon clanged and shimmered in front of me like some kind of giant decorated amoeba. She reached out and laid a fake purple fingernail next to Siegfried Malone’s name.
    ‘This one he made a deal with, but I don’t know for what. All I want you to do, honey, is talk to them. If they tell you how much, then tell them I’m closing these deals, see, and as soon as I get some cash, I’ll settle up.’
    I looked at Sharon, her dirty-blonde hair curled and unkempt around her fleshy, tinted cheeks. She was sort of seeping out of her clothes, bulging seams and distended zippers. Her short little fingers twisted like bloated worms in her lap. I felt sorry for her.
    ‘Match wasn’t big on the fine points,’ she said, ‘like who he owed money to or who owns what. Proprietary - that’s what he called it. He said he just wasn’t proprietary.’
    I thought about what she was asking. It sounded simple enough. Post couldn’t say I was homing in and it’d only take me a couple of hours to do it, max. But why didn’t she just talk to them herself? I could have asked, but for private investigators there’s a fine line between asking enough and asking too much. With clients like her, I preferred to err on the side of ignorance. Ignorance of the law won’t get you off the hook, but ignorance of a client’s motives might. As far as I was concerned, it was her dime and her show.
     

8
     
    I spent the next hour working out the plans for the burglar alarm and setting up the place for installation while Sharon polished off half a bottle of Scotch and haggled over the phone with recording companies. Hearing her ‘honey’ and wheedle and whine at them made me wonder how I ever could have felt sorry for her.
    My pal, Toby, down at Electronic Systems, was glad for the business but griped about the short notice.
    ‘I gotta pull four guys off a job in the Sunset to do this, Ron. That’s gonna cost. And this shit you’re asking me to bring - hell, it ain’t cheap.’
    I ended up short, with just two months’ rent instead of six, but that was okay.