“So then you won’t mind doing me another favor.”
His expression stayed the same, but he sped up his pace on the bike. “Funny.”
“I need to match a license plate with a name and address.”
He smiled.
“Sure. Do you want a surveillance crew to go with that?”
“That’s okay. I’ll handle that part.”
He took his feet off the pedals and the bike slowly spun to a stop.
“Explain.”
“I found Iku’s boyfriend hanging at a club last night. When I tried to talk to him he took off. But I got his plate number.”
I stopped him before he could say no.
“There’s no official police interest in this, I know,” I said. “But so far at least two people consider this woman missing. Her boss and her big-shot lover. These are not minor connections. What if the boyfriend’s in the same boat? She was last known to be in Southampton. That’s your interest, right?”
“Jesus Christ.”
“If I can’t do this through you I’ll have to go underground. Consort with dangerous scoundrels selling license plate identities out of storefronts in the Bronx.”
“I thought you were born in the Bronx.”
“Right. The attraction will be irresistible.”
He stuck out his hand.
“Gimme the number.”
I took it out of the waistband of my workout shorts.
“It was a Volvo. Four-door, black, fairly new. The guy’s name is Robert Dobson. Mid-thirties, maybe a little more. Five foot nine, maybe less. Light brown hair, might have a short beard. I’m pretty certain he’s out of the City, but might have an address here as well.”
He looked at the slip of paper as if he could pull the address out of his memory.
“Why’s that?”
“He’s here all the time. Even in the off-season. Iku was last known to be here. One and one is two.”
“Could still be a renter. Part of a group. Used to be a summer thing, now you see it year-round.”
“Good thought,” I said.
“You’ll have to talk to the realtors. But if it’s a private deal, there’s no records anywhere. You’d have to go door-to-door.”
“Let’s try the easy way first.”
“What ‘let’s’? This ain’t an ‘us’ thing. It’s a ‘you’ thing.”
“I know. Whatever you can get me on the plate is all I need. Then I’ll leave you alone.”
“Right.”
I spent the next hour doing all the cliched things you do in a boxing gym—working the bags, jumping rope, lifting weights. I’d never seen the inside of a regular gym where regular people worked out, so I didn’t know what that was all about. Having been a fighter as a kid, I’d gotten used to a boxing gym’s sweet stink and blunt-force simplicity, its sense of purpose and undercurrent of latent threat. More motivational.
I had to stop sparring on doctor’s orders. That was fine with me. I never liked the actual fighting part of the sport. Way too easy to get hurt.
In further acknowledgement of time and the looming menace of infirmity, I’d almost quit smoking, and for the first time put a weekly budget on vodka consumption. I wasn’t entirely committed to the idea and the program was still in the experimental phase. But at least it kept at bay my daughter’s carping on the subject.
When I was back in my car I made a call on my cell phone, another concession to the inevitable. This was all Jackie’s fault. She’d lent me her phone once, and I liked it so much I didn’t want to give it back. I blamed her for the new addiction even as I delighted in calling people from the front seat of a ’67 Pontiac Grand Prix.
“House Hunters of the Hamptons,” said the sing-song female voice on the other end of the line. “You tag ’em, we bag ’em. This is Robin speaking, how can I help you?”
“I think the selling metaphor needs a little work.”
“Not if you ask my accountant.”
“This is Sam Acquillo.”
“Who else. Ready to cash in and move up?”
Robin and her partner Laura were old friends of Amanda’s from when she worked at the bank. They’d started their real estate business at the bottom of the market in the early nineties, starved for several years, and now lived in the kind of houses they once dreamed of listing with their agency. Yet success had done nothing to add polish to their operation.
“I’m looking for a guy.”
“Can’t help you there, Ace. Sales and rentals only. Does Amanda know this?”
“The guy’s a renter. Maybe. Though I guess he could be a buyer or an owner,” I said, realizing I’d assumed from his age that he couldn’t afford to buy in the Hamptons, which was ridiculous given the money often made by the callow youth of Wall Street.
“Why are you looking for him?”
“I’m actually looking for his girlfriend. It’s a long story.”
“Sounds it. What’s his name?”
“Robert Dobson.”
“I can check the computer.”
“While you’re at it, check for Iku Kinjo,” I said, spelling out the name.
“That I’d remember, but I’ll check.”
She put me on hold. I spent the time trying to stay on the road while catching occasional glances of the tiny screen on the phone, checking the connection. I was still getting used to the mystical vagaries of modern telecommunications.
“Nobody here by that name,” said Robin when she came back on the phone. “But I can ask around the other agencies.”
“You can? That’s great.”
“Sure. We talk all the time. It’s like one big happy back-scratching family. When we aren’t back-stabbing. Don’t tell the FTC I said that.”
When I hit the end button on the cell phone I noticed the message icon on the tiny screen. This was a regrettable consequence of owning the phone. I’d been able to resist an answering machine my whole life, now it just tagged along for the ride whether I liked it or not.
I struggled unhappily through the retrieval process. It was George Donovan.
“Hello, Sam. It’s George Donovan here. Just calling to confirm that I’ve spoken with counsel regarding the intellectual property settlement. I have full discretionary powers to negotiate a resolution of potential claims based on certain provisos being met. It’ll need both our signatures. I’ll await an update on your progress toward completion of the items we’ve discussed. Just a heads-up.”
I knew circumlocution was the language of commerce, but I never liked listening to it. At least this time there was a good reason for the gibberish. I saved the number he’d called from and tossed the phone on the front passenger seat, letting it cool down before the next irritating interruption.
When I got home I showered off the day of work at Frank’s giant rehab over on Halsey Neck and my subsequent workout at the gym. I was so eager to get under the hot water I forgot Eddie’s dinner. When I came out of the outdoor shower he bounced around my feet and ran toward the door to show me where it was, then ran back to make sure I understood simple instructions.
“So, I shouldn’t take a few hours to get back into the house like I usually do,” I said to him.
He ignored me and continued herding, tongue out and lavishly long tail aloft, waving in the air.
Still in my towel, I dumped food in his bowl and a pint of Absolut in my aluminum tumbler. Our rations for the night. Or at least that part of the night. I put on a clean T-shirt and jeans as I always did after a day of dusty carpentry. It meant an almost daily laundry run to the basement, but it was a habit I’d formed early on. A reaction, I think, to my old man’s disregard for the effect his greasy clothes had on the already agitated atmosphere of our
