Read Paper Phoenix: A Mystery of San Francisco in the '70s (A Classic Cozy--with Romance!) for Free Online Page B

said. “Why don’t we have some fresh coffee?”
    As he set the new, steaming cups beside the cold ones he said, “I’ve got a proposition for you, Maggie.”
    All at once I felt reckless. “Name it.”
    He took a large bite of his Danish and chewed thoughtfully, leaving a few crumbs clinging to his beard. Then, ticking his points off on his fingers, he said, “I know something you want to know. You know something I want to know. Now this is the deal.” He edged his chair closer and leaned conspiratorially across the table. “Why don’t we tell each other what we want to know?”
    I nearly laughed out loud. “They certainly teach you clever ways to elicit information in journalism school.”
    “I never went to journalism school. I was a political science major.” He smiled. “What do you say?”
    It was obviously the only way I’d find out anything more. “All right. But only if you go first.”
    “Do you know,” he said ruminatively, “those are the exact words my first little girlfriend used when I asked her to play doctor. But if I had ever learned anything from experience, would I be where I am today?”
    His face sobered. “Here goes. Larry was working on a story about the Redevelopment Agency, especially Richard Longstreet. Now, you’re going to ask, what was the story about? I don’t know. Like I said, Larry was paranoid about leaks, but at the same time if he was on something very large, he couldn’t resist making tantalizing remarks about it. For the past several months, he’s been telling me, ‘We’re going to get those Redevelopment bastards,’ or ‘I’m going to blow Richard Longstreet right off the map.’ So the answer to your question is, yeah. Larry had a story, and it was big.”
    So I’d gotten my answer, after all the trouble. There was a connection between Larry and Richard. I felt as if I had walked through a doorway and Andrew’s words had slammed the door behind me. Now I was in a place I’d never been before, and there was no way to go back.

Six
    “You got pale. Are you OK?” Andrew said.
    My face felt immobile, as if encased in plaster. I had trouble moving my lips to ask, “Is there any way of finding out more about the story?”
    Looking at me closely, Andrew hesitated before he answered. “I’m not sure. I haven’t been through Larry’s office yet, his private papers. It could be there, or it could be that he was carrying the whole thing around in his head. Sometimes he worked that way.” He sat back in his chair. “Your turn.”
    A bargain was a bargain. Besides, as I tried to think how to begin, my suspicions once again seemed to melt into absurdity. I knotted my hands together in my lap. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”
    “After three years at the
Times
, I consider craziness a purely relative concept.”
    “When I saw Larry’s obituary in the paper, I remembered something I overheard Richard say about Larry on the telephone a couple of months ago.”
    “Oh yeah?”
    “Yes. I don’t know who he was talking to, but he told the person that he knew Larry Hawkins was a pain in the ass, but they wouldn’t have to worry about him much longer. When I remembered, I got curious and I wanted to find out—” I broke off. Find out what?
    “Holy shit,” said Andrew. He looked stunned. “You mean, like— you think Richard might have had something to do with Larry’s death?”
    I shrank from hearing it put so baldly. “Probably not,” I said hastily. “Really it was just that I was curious. I said it was crazy.”
    “Not especially crazy.” Andrew’s face, so yellow and unhealthy-looking when I had met him earlier, now surged with color. I was surprised, thrown off balance by the intensity of his reaction. Surely he could see how tenuous the whole thing was, I assured myself. He wouldn’t begin a campaign for Richard’s arrest on the basis of a few words.
    “Listen, this is strictly confidential,” I said, wishing I’d said it