P.J. Morse - Clancy Parker 01 - Heavy Mental Read Online Free Page A

“Peter D. Buckner. Vanity plate of ‘Bucky.’” He returned to his regular voice and headed for the car. “You’ll probably find him before he finds you. You can’t miss this guy.”
    I was surprised by the last name of “Buckner.” It had to be Sabrina’s husband, but why would he want to see me independent of his wife? Was his presence in the neighborhood enough to make her run off before I could find out what she wanted? And, if that was the case, how did she know he was looking for me? “You sure no one was with him?” I asked. “No woman in a yellow dress? Skinny with Olsen Twin sunglasses?”
    “Just him and his stomach. He ain’t no Olsen twin.”
    “I’m getting home right now to wait for him.” When the other valets were distracted by another local lovely, I slipped Jamal five twenty-dollar bills. “You tell me when you want to go into business for yourself, you hear?”
    As I turned around to walk back to South Park, Jamal, who was already in the car, honked the horn, leaned out the window, and called out, “Hey, did you get a bassist for the band yet?”
    I cringed and shrugged. Jamal had talent. He remembered everything, even the stuff I’d rather forget. If I could have only solved the bassist problem, my late San Francisco summer would have been perfect.
     

CHAPTER 5
    TWO SOCIALITES
    T HE C HO- S INGH A NSWERING S ERVICE HAD its hands full while I was indulging in catharsis with the Marquee Idols and picking up messages from Jamal. Not only did Sabrina return, but she returned with my mother. Anmol and Harold were sitting on the steps, just drinking. The chess game sat on a card table, ignored.
    “You two look like you’re up to something,” I said.
    “She’s baaaack …” Harold said. “And your mother brought her here.”
    Anmol sighed. “Clancy, I believe your mother is more determined than you are.”
    I stood up straighter and started looking around. “Where are they?”
    “Your office,” Harold replied, jerking his head in the direction of the door. “She let herself in.”
    “She said you wouldn’t mind,” Anmol added.
    “Oh, boy.” Now I had not one, but two socialites in my office, and my mother was probably already trying to redecorate. I love my mother, but she requires an unusually high amount of energy.
    Katherine Charlotte “Kit” Parker Whitman, an heiress to a toothpaste company, was always flashing her pearly whites and tossing her blonde mane at San Francisco’s gala events. The “Whitman” came with her second marriage when she married an heir to a resort chain that featured golf-centric hotels. The guy didn’t last long, but the new last name stuck.
    Some of Mom’s frenemies said me and Mom were like Christmas—red hair, green eyes, and gaudy decorations. Mom had gone blonde so no one could deliver the Christmas tree insult again, but it was hard to change eyes so green they practically glowed in the dark.
    After my parents divorced when I was nine, I bounced from coast to coast, parent to parent, bad cop to good cop, eventually going to college closer to Mom. She always supported my unconventional pursuits, whereas Dad would just call a few times a month from the Cape and lecture me in a Kennedyesque braying voice. Sometimes I wondered if Mom was such a cheerleader and sent me clients because she loved nothing more than ticking off her ex-husband.
    I took a deep breath. “I’m going in.”
    Harold and Anmol applauded, and Harold started humming the tune from Rocky .
    When I walked into my office, I saw Mom with Sabrina, both of them sitting on the Barcalounger the wrong way. In the span of a few hours, Sabrina’s dress had wrinkled up, and the buttons on her jacket weren’t lined up. By contrast, Mom looked great in a navy shirtdress paired with a red sling.
    Mom didn’t need accessories. She wore plenty of slings and casts. My poor mother may have been blessed in the looks and money department, but she was a klutz, and she had the most