Dead Midnight Read Online Free PDF Page B

for it?”
    At the last inquiry Rae laughed so hard she dribbled champagne over her fingers. “Listen,” she said, “I’d’ve paid
them
big bucks to publish it. They’re a little literary house in New York, and they tell me it should be out in about a year. And if I get to do any signings, you’ve all got to promise to come, so I won’t be lonely.”
    A voice from the doorway said, “Anybody need more champagne?” Hank Zahn and his wife and law partner, Anne-Marie Altman, stood there, bottles in hand.
    “How’d you know we were partying?” Rae asked.
    “Ted called over to us. And Ricky phoned us from L.A. after you called him. Gave us the news and said to tell you he was able to charter a flight and will be home to celebrate this evening.”
    Suddenly my eyes stung and I had to turn aside. When Rae had resigned I’d been afraid our friendship would slip away as she became involved in her writing and life as a celebrity’s wife. When Anne-Marie and Hank had moved their offices to Hills Brothers Plaza, I’d feared it was an end for us, rather than a simple relocation. Not so, apparently. Things had changed, but only for the better.
    J.D. Smith and I sat at a sidewalk table at the South Park Cafe, sipping wine and waiting for our steamed mussels to be served. It was an unusually warm evening for April in San Francisco, and people wandered across the oval park or sat on its benches until tables opened up at the crowded restaurants. The branches of newly leafed sycamores moved in a gentle breeze; near the playground equipment a whippet caught a Frisbee with long-limbed grace.
    Years ago, before the park became a trendy hangout, I’d worked a case there that ended in disaster for several people—both innocent and not-so-innocent. In its aftermath I took to walking the grassy ellipsoid in the darkness of the winter evenings, trying to make sense of the tragedy and my inability to prevent it. Eventually I recovered and so did South Park, which became home to galleries, cafés, shops, and architectural and multimedia firms. The cream of the dot-com establishment conducted their deals and spent money lavishly at the tables of the chic bistros.
    Now I noted that the park was beginning to look a bit shabby again. FOR RENT signs appeared in many of the windows, and the talk in the café was more likely to be about which firm had closed its doors than which was floating an initial public offering. If the downward spiral of the high-tech market continued as predicted, South Park might very well return to being an urban secret known only to those who were brave enough to venture among its shady and often desperate habitués.
    “So,” J.D. said in his faint southern accent, “
InSite
magazine, nuts and bolts first. They’ve been in business over five years—which, as you know, isn’t all that usual for online ’zines. Their funding comes from VC, who—”
    “Wait a minute—Vietcong?”
    He laughed, throwing his head back. He was a thin-faced, pale-skinned man with a mane of untamable red hair. Dressed in the expensively casual garb of the foundering new economy, he lounged in his chair, keen blue eyes following and assessing each good-looking woman who walked by. Now he turned them, sparkling with wicked amusement, on me.
    “You’re under the same illusion as I was. When I first started freelancing for
InSite
I’d hang out at the offices because that’s how they do business, and I’d hear the honchos talking about the VC. And I’d think, ‘Why’re they talking about the Vietcong? They’re not a political rag and, besides, that war’s long over.’ Imagine my chagrin when I realized that these particular VC are venture capitalists.”
    “It must be a generational thing. Go on.”
    He waited till the waiter had set steaming bowls of mussels in garlic broth before us, tore a chunk of fresh sourdough off the loaf in the basket. “Okay, VC are people who make their profit by financing likely business