Shamshine and Sunshine are not the same thing. Anybody with training can tell the difference. Just like anybody with training could tell that Winfred Pimsley was a crook. But he was my kind of crook.
His antique shop perched on a hilltop just south of the ruins of San Francisco. On the Daly City side, little houses made of ticky-tacky sat back from the street, guarded by picket fences. Cars smuggled up from Mexico were parked across lawns, rusting steadily in the Pacific fog as they waited to get their plates changed. Kids playing hooky raced bikes held together with duct tape and resignation. A block away in San Francisco, moldy Victorians crumbled onto shattered sidewalks. Wild anise poked through the cracks in the deserted streets. Even daredevil teens knew to stay out of the old city. The area had seen plenty of illicit psychopigment spills over the last thirty years, permeating the landscape with a thick emotional haze at odds with its appearance. As Tommy and I drove past yards overgrown with mile-high dandelions, the aging pigment's mix of ennui and affection made me feel like I'd just walked into my dad's old hardware store. Most antique dealers would've chosen a nicer neighborhood, but Pimsley had weighed the weeds against the ambient nostalgia and moved his operation from downtown faster than you could say "Falklands." That was the inveterate salesman for you: everything calculated to pull customers’ heartstrings before they passed the fence. We left my red Renault 4 on the curb outside the shop. I made sure it was locked before heading to the cornflower-blue garden gate.
Not that anyone would bother breaking into a clown car with a lousy paint job, but it was the principle of the thing. Tommy jerked open the shop's stained-glass door and shouted, "Psychopigment Enforcement! Hands up!" A low-throated chuckle greeted us from the back. Pimsley's gray pompadour peeked over the top of an overstuffed recliner. A lever thumped, lowering the footrest, and he stood slowly. His impeccably tailored pewter suit needed no smoothing, but he plucked at his pant legs to make sure they fell straight. I'd known him since his mane had been a lush chestnut, but he'd embraced the first strands of white as a sign it was time to go full silver fox. He'd always played a man of another era. With his shift in hair color his persona had become even more outlandish. Sometimes I felt like I was talking to a parody of a 1920s matinee idol. But the sharp mind underneath cut through the gingerbread often enough to keep me on my toes. "Agent Kay Curtida herself!" He spread his manicured hands at me in welcome. "With her delightful cadet! I was just thinking of putting on another pot of tea." We weren't there for a social visit, and he knew it. Getting information out of Pimsley always happened on his terms, but the beverage was negotiable. "Don't suppose you've still got that coffee maker lying around," I said, producing a packet of old-school grounds from my navy fanny pack. Pimsley's smile cut lines in his pale cheeks. He looked like an albino lizard hiding its teeth. "I'm still waiting for the buyer on that one. Perhaps it will be you?" "Guys, do you have to go through the whole thing about the coffeepot every time?" Tommy asked, sauntering over to the vintage records lining the back wall. "Couldn't you just drink the instant stuff like everyone else?" "Youth! That lack of patience, that burning urgency—what a thrill!" Pimsley sighed. "I will make the java. I have a new disc for you, Tommy, darling. Let me get the key to the turntable." He took the grounds and moved to a Victorian rolltop desk. Reaching for a hidden lever, he shooed me away. "This is not for the prying eyes of the law, Agent."