W is for Wasted (Kinsey Millhone Mystery) by Sue Grafton Page A

used his own name with an X as his middle initial. The rest of the personal information—employment, bank accounts—he invented on the spot, wondering if the company would actually be foolish enough to issue him a card.
    It didn’t bother him so much that he was broke. It was the unpleasantness he objected to, having to suffer the screaming and insults, being interrogated about his intentions, which forced him to make up excuses or, worse yet, tell outright lies. He didn’t enjoy the dishonesty, but what choice did he have? Business was slow and had been for the past year and a half. The rent on his small office was three months in arrears. He avoided the premises when possible because his landlady was likely to pop up without warning, angling for payment. She insisted on cash, refusing to accept Pete’s checks after the third one was returned for insufficient funds.
    He glanced at his watch, startled to see the time had gotten away from him. It was 9:43. He had an appointment at 10:00, a job prospect that had come as a happy surprise. Fellow named Willard Bryce—young man by the sound of him, clearly unaccustomed to requiring the services of a private eye. During their phone conversation, Pete had pressed, trying to get a line on the problem, but the fellow was reluctant to specify. Pete was imagining a matrimonial issue, always depressing to contemplate.
    He removed his sport coat from the rack, hung his scarf around his neck, locked the office door behind him, and went out to the car, brooding about his lot in life. In his heyday, he’d hated having to stoop to domestic cases, which were emotional and messy and seldom netted much in the way of returns. Confirm a woman’s intuition that her husband was cheating and suddenly she’d reverse herself, denying the truth even when the photographs were laid out in front of her. If Pete managed to convince her, she’d be too bitter or too upset to pay his fee. On the other hand, if he assured her of her hubby’s innocence, the wife would claim he hadn’t done his job. Why pay a PI who couldn’t come up with the goods? Why was that worth thirty bucks an hour, she’d ask, peevishly.
    Working the husband’s side of the equation was no better. Pete would tease out the ex-wife’s property holdings, providing proof she’d bought a condominium in Hawaii while at the same time claiming her meager spousal support was inadequate to her needs. By the time a court date was set to review the facts, the husband would have piled up legal expenses so steep that he wouldn’t have the bucks to pay the PI who’d provided the ammunition.
    He drove north on the 101, waving in response to the sour looks from passing drivers. His 1968 Ford Fairlane wouldn’t exceed fifty-five miles an hour. The muffler was noisy and the once fire-engine red paint had faded to a harsh flamingo pink. It was a sweet drive for a twenty-year-old vehicle with 278,000 miles on the odometer. On cold mornings, it took a fair amount of coaxing before the engine turned over, sending up dark puffs, like smoke signals, visible in his rearview mirror. He’d bought the car at what he could see now was the height of his career. It ate up gasoline at a rate of fifteen miles to the gallon, but it was otherwise low maintenance.
    He didn’t want to dwell on the fact that the prospective client lived in Colgate, but it didn’t bode well. Colgate was a lackluster sprawl of tract homes, built on land that had once supported citrus and avocado orchards. Colgate residents were workaday folk—plumbers and electricians, auto mechanics, store clerks, and trash collectors—not poor by any stretch, but getting by on wages that barely kept up with inflation. Actually, they all made more than he did, but that was neither here nor there.
    He’d been a damn fine detective once upon a time and he was still good at what he did. If he cut corners on occasion, he figured it was strictly his business. He’d learned early on that in