Pearls of Asia: A Love Story (7 page)

This was Mac’s way of making sense of a nonsensical world: sitting on his butt, surrounded by the song of a shower, baptized by hot water and darkness. The bathroom blackout provided a still and blank canvas to help him find the answers. Where was his father? What happened to his marriage? Why did his partner get shot?

Only those closest to Mac knew of his unusual method of meditating. His wife knew, but she tolerated his habit by ignoring it. His mother knew, and she understood it was the reason why her thirty-two year old son, whom she hadn’t seen cry in over twenty years, wanted to move back in with her. After losing both his partner and wife in the course of two weeks, Mac didn’t want to be alone, and unlike the apartment he shared with Denise, the bathroom he grew up with didn’t have a window.

Sitting in the murky obscurity, his mouth tasting like a greasy back alley puddle, Mac tried to make sense of what happened at the corner of Ninth and Howard. What was a ‘gender illusionist?’ How does a man make himself look like that? And why did admiring The Body That Ashley Built get him so aroused last night? Or now?

Get a grip, Mac thought to himself. Get your mind back in the game, back on the case. But first get some coffee.

MAC CLIMBED THE STAIRS
toward the kitchen. His mother lived in a five-story townhouse on Grand View Avenue in Noe Valley that she inherited from her late husband. There were two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room, a dining room, and a two-car garage, and the rooms were stacked one on top of the other like layers on a wedding cake. Mac and his mother moved into this working-class neighborhood when he was six years old, after she divorced Mac’s father and got remarried a week later to Henry Parker. Five years later, Mr. Parker walked into work, sat down at his desk, and minutes later died of a heart attack. He left Victoria Parker the townhouse, no debts, and a small pile of cash, which she used to transform herself from a retired soccer mom into Wall Street’s version of Tyra Banks.

With a mug of coffee in one hand and a cup of green tea in the other, Mac skipped the private elevator and walked up two flights of stairs to the dining room, which his mother had converted into an office after Mac moved back home. Unshowered, her chestnut hair piled carelessly on top of her head, and wearing her every day trader’s uniform of sky blue flannel pajamas with matching slippers, Victoria Parker was speaking into a wireless headset while listening to CNBC and scanning four computer screens. This was a woman who took multi-tasking to a new level.

“Listen Dustin, I don’t care if the float on Lehman Brothers is skinnier than Paris Hilton. That sorry excuse for an investment bank is going broke faster than M.C. Hammer. If you can borrow enough stock so my short position gets north of a hundred thousand shares, I’ll treat you and your latest boy toy to another crazy night at Badlands. Now get to work.”

“Badlands?” Mac asked while placing her tea in front of her. “What’s my mother doing hanging out at a gay nightclub with her stockbroker?”

“Having more fun than I care to tell you about. Now talk to me about this case. It sounds exciting, like the San Francisco version of O.J. Simpson.”

“You got that right. A former Miss America is murdered, her wealthy husband has a mistress, and it turns out she works at a place called
Pearls of Asia
, where every waitress has the same plumbing as me. Hollywood couldn’t make this stuff up.”

“She works at
Pearls of Asia?”
cackled Victoria Parker. “You’ve got to be kidding. I love that place! My girlfriends and I had a Cougar Committee meeting there a few months ago. The food is great, the drinks are ferocious, and the girls are jaw-dropping gorgeous. Have you ever been there?”

“Not until last night. It’s not exactly a sports bar.”

“Mackey, you need to get out more often. For my money it’s the best restaurant in San Francisco for just plain fun. What did you think of it?”

“I had a good time, at least I did until one of those make believe ‘girls’ decided to give me a good night kiss smack on the lips.”

Victoria Parker put her hands over her mouth and burst into a howl of laughter. “Well that explains the empty wine bottle I discovered this morning.”

Mac could feel his face begin to flush, although he wasn’t sure if it was from anger or embarrassment. “It’s not funny, Mom. Another guy from the precinct saw her, or him, kiss me. I’m sure by noon it will be all over the precinct.”

Victoria Parker removed her headset and turned CNBC to mute, which she never liked to do. As far as she was concerned, CNBC provided the best analysis on Wall Street. If every talking head they paraded before the cameras said to “sell,” then she knew it was time to buy. In the case of Lehman Brothers, she knew the biggest player in the mortgage-backed securities market was in a fatal death-spiral when her illegal alien manicurist from Guadalajara scored a zero-down mortgage on a half-million dollar home. She needed more documentation to cross the border than she did to buy a house.

“First of all, that was a girl who kissed you, and she is more of a woman than that cold-blooded bitch you called a wife. Denise did everything she could to be more like a man so she could snag a bigger bonus check. Those girls at
Pearls of Asia
, on the other hand, spend every waking moment of their lives trying to be the best woman they can be. Have you ever noticed how they glide when they walk, or how they gracefully arch their neck when they flip their hair? It’s amazing how truly feminine they can be. You shouldn’t be embarrassed because she placed her lips on yours. You should be proud. She obviously has good taste.”

Mac shook his head. “‘Proud’ is not the word I’d use, Mom. ‘Confused’ is more like it.”

Victoria Parker gave her computer screens a passing glance, just to make sure the financial world hadn’t come to an end. At least not until she rounded out her position in Lehman Brothers.

“Here’s something else you should think about before you pass judgment on these women. You think it takes guts to be a cop, or to fling money from one side of the globe to the other? Imagine for a moment how much courage it takes to change your sex. To explain to your parents why you want to go from George to Georgette, or to tell your boss that from now on you’ll be wearing Bebe instead of Brooks Brothers? I couldn’t do it, you couldn’t do it, and I know for a fact that sorry excuse of femininity named Denise Fleet couldn’t do it.”

Mac’s watch said he was already late, and that he’d better get his tail into work. Otherwise, he’d come face to face with the dreaded Wrath of Mayes. His natural curiosity, however, was getting the best of him.

“Okay, Mom. Fess up. How do you know so much about trannies?”

Victor Parker put down her mug and spoke to her son as though she should ground him for bad behavior. “Show some respect, will you Mackey? A ‘tranny’ sounds like something that needs replacing on my Toyota. The girls at
Pearls of Asia
are transsexuals. And speaking of respect, do you have any idea what those girls go through? It costs money, and plenty of it, for them to transition from one sex to the other. Hell, I bet you didn’t know my accountant is a transsexual.”

Mac leaped out of his dining room chair. “Hold it right there. You can’t be serious. Andrea Connors? The same woman who sat at this table last Thanksgiving with her husband and heard me say that her body defied the laws of gravity? Damn, I can’t believe it. I had no idea.”

“Of course you didn’t,” said Victoria Parker, mocking her cynical son. “Andrea likes to say that she’s the best white woman from Nebraska $150,000 can buy. She cashed in her 401-K and got her face feminized, her boobs implanted, and unlike those girls at
Pearls of Asia,
had a vagina installed for good measure. She’s as much a woman as I am, although not quite as shy and sensitive.”

“That’s a hell of a story, Mom. Does her husband know?”

“Of course he knows. He could care less, too. He’s crazy about her.”

Mac took a final sip from his cup. How he wished he were crazy about a girl.

MAC STROLLED INTO THE
precinct to find Mayes examining the list of party guests faxed over by Jim Grisham. Thirty people were invited to the party; ten couples plus ten men who arrived unescorted. There were a few notables on the list, including businessmen, politicians, and even the proprietor of a North Beach strip club. What Mayes found intriguing were two additional names scribbled in ink at the bottom of the list. Whereas the computer printout had the names, addresses and phone numbers of the invitees, these two were lumped together as “tall blonde from LA” and “skinny brunette in a black dress.”

“Did your mother forget to wake you up?” asked Mayes, looking at his watch. Mayes was a stickler for punctuality, a habit Mac was still getting used to. Mac and his former partner, Larry Kelso, had worked together for years, and were so close they could finish each other’s sentences. Mac enjoyed working with Mayes, and the two enjoyed a playful banter, but the true bond that was necessary for two detectives to completely trust one another was still in its formative stages.

“Osher’s alibi check out?” asked Mac, signaling to his partner that his focus was laser sharp despite the late start. Mayes told him that three witnesses corroborated Paul Osher’s story that he indeed was in Los Angeles at the time of the murder.

“What about you, Romeo? Did you come up with anything on Osher’s girlfriend?”

“I did, Mr. Mom. It turns out Miss Sheyla Samonte lives in a swanky high-rise apartment in South Beach that our combined paychecks couldn’t afford. I went to her place, but she played coy and wouldn’t open the door. I did recognize that marvelous voice of hers though, and she’s definitely the one from Osher’s phone records. I’m telling you, Mayes, that woman could make a fortune starting her own 1-900 number.”

“And I’m sure you’d sign up for a platinum membership. Did you ask her if she knew Paul Osher?”

“I did. She claims she doesn’t know him, but we both know a mistress isn’t wired to tell the truth. I also found out she’s a waitress at a restaurant located South of Market, so I waited around the corner and watched her drive away in a six-figure Mercedes. It’s called
Pearls of Asia.
Ever hear of it?”

Mayes’ eyes brightened. “Yes I have, actually. Somewhere on Howard Street, one of those Asian fusion places. The food is supposed to be good. They have some kind of cabaret show, too. Pamela and I have been meaning to go there.”

Mac did his best to feign indifference. “What else do you know about it, Mr. Know-Everything-On-The-Planet?”

Mayes placed a finger on his lip and paused. “Oh yeah, and all the waitresses are transsexuals, men to women type of thing. Supposed to be a heck of a show. So what else did she say?”

Mac wasn’t sure what to say next, or even how to say it. If he were talking to Larry Kelso, the words would spill out like a broken oil well, because Larry was single and rolled with the punches. Mayes, on the other hand, layered with the triple responsibilities of a mortgage, a wife and kids, was wound tighter than the nuts on a new bridge. How would he react to Mac being kissed by a man? More importantly, how would he react to Mac being kissed by a potential murder suspect in the middle of an investigation?

Mac shuffled some papers and decided telling the truth was the way to go. “Nothing. I never got to ask her any questions. But she did give me a big kiss on the lips, on stage, with the whole place watching.”

Mayes burst into laughter, chortling like Jabba the Hut. “You’ll be okay on this one, partner. I don’t think she’s your type of girl.”