guessed she was around thirty.
Her face and slender neck were flushed from exertion. Her tank top, between her small, round breasts, was dark with sweat, and so was the waistband of her shorts. Sweat glistened on her arms and on her belly too, and her hair was damp at the ends. Behind her, I could see the reason. In the center of the apartment, in a space cleared from a thicket of stacked boxes, a heavy bag swung from a metal stand. Her hands and wrists were taped like a boxer’s, and so were her ankles and bare feet. I could see where some layers of tape, over the striking surfaces of her hands and feet, had been scuffed away by contact with the bag. Her elbows and knees were a little scraped up too.
She was looking at me, and I realized I was staring. I was also regretting my peevish tone. Her fretful look vanished, replaced by a little smile. “You’re Lauren’s brother, aren’t you? You guys look alike.” She stuck out her taped right hand. “I’m Jane Lu.”
Chapter Seven
“Al Burrows? Yeah, that was my father. He died last year, at ninety-eight. But he never worked in no bank. The bastard barely worked at all.” She paused to belch demurely. “What else you want to know?” Ada Burrows had a thick Long Island accent and sounded pretty old herself, but she was one of the more accommodating Burrowses that I’d spoken to all day.
“You know any other Al Burrows-any brothers or cousins or uncles by that name?”
“Nah, not too many Burrows men still alive. None named Al. I got a cousin Albert on Mom’s side, but he’s a Boyle, and I think he’s dead anyway. What else?”
“Nothing else that I can think of,” I said. She sounded disappointed. I was too. I crossed another name off my list.
Besides globalizing the market for junk in people’s attics, and bringing joy to pornographers everywhere, the Internet has been a boon to private investigators, at least to the ones it hasn’t put out of business. Thanks to the many search services available on the Web, the job of finding people, a staple of the PI trade, is vastly easier these days. Easy enough that a lot of folks dispense with PIs altogether and do it for themselves. The relentless march of progress, I guess.
Personally, I use the services all the time. Provide them with your subject’s name, and you’ll get back a list of people, complete with addresses and phone numbers, which just might contain the person that you want. The more data you can supply-a city, a state, maybe a date of birth-the better your results. And you can get more than just addresses and phone numbers. Many services provide information on criminal convictions, property ownership, bankruptcy filings, marriages, divorces-a whole range of public data. Much of it is available immediately, online. But while the services are big timesavers, they’re not magic. If you’ve got nothing more to go on than a name, and that name isn’t Rufus T. Firefly, or something equally distinctive, you may get back a very long list indeed. And then it’s time for some old-fashioned legwork, or, as in this case, phone work.
By Monday afternoon, I’d been through nine A. Burrowses, Ada included. That was over half the number I’d turned up in a search restricted to the New York metropolitan area. Based on what Pierro had told me, the A-for-Al Burrows I was looking for was a white male, over six feet tall, and by now in his late forties or early fifties. Eighteen years ago he’d been heavyset and had thinning, dirty blond hair. By now he could be a bald blimp or, technology being what it is, a skinny redhead. No way to know until I found him.
Ada’s father was my second dead A. Burrows, the other one having been run over crossing Queens Boulevard two years go, at age twenty-seven. His mother was inconsolable still, and I was sorry that I’d bothered her. I’d found Albert Burrows, out in Chatham, New Jersey, who might have been the right age, but who assured me, in barely civil tones, that he’d never worked in banking, and that eighteen years ago he’d been living in Capetown. Arthur Burrows, of Dobbs Ferry, was also about the right age, but his career had been in B amp;E and GTA, and eighteen years ago he’d been right in the middle of his second nickel bit upstate. Next to Ada, he was the chattiest Burrows I’d spoken with, and he told me more than I wanted to know about his personal relationship with God.
I’d found an Alexander in Katonah, who was in banking, but who’d been in junior high at the time in question. And I’d found Alberta, Arlene, Akeema, Amy, and Alyssa Burrows, scattered about the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. Some were suspicious, some annoyed, others impatient, and a few downright surly, but none knew any man by the name of Al Burrows-or would tell me, if they did. I had just two Manhattan names on my list. Alfred Burrows had turned out to be a thirty-year — old black man; Alan Burrows was, so far, just a voice on an answering machine.
I shut down my laptop and pushed my chair back from the long oak table that serves as my desk. I stretched and worked the kinks out of my neck. Between dialing for Burrowses, checking in with Mike, and talking to Tom Neary, I’d been on the phone for most of the day. I’d told Mike about my walk in the park and about my meeting with our client. He’d already heard from Pierro.
“He called to thank me,” Mike had said, “for bringing you in on this. He said it was a great move, and that you were a great guy, and that everything would be great.”
“Great,” I’d said.
Mike had chuckled. “He’s a salesman-you’ve got to make allowances.”
“Is he really as optimistic as he sounds about all this?” I’d asked.
“At some level. Mostly, I think he’s boxed it up in his head and pushed it off to the side.”
“It works, if you can keep it up,” I’d said.
“It takes a lot of energy.”
I’d told Mike about my meet with Neary, too. He went quiet at the mention of Fred Pell.
“Another reason to go carefully,” he’d said after a while. I hadn’t replied. “I’ll interpret your silence as agreement,” he’d said hopefully and rung off.
Neary’s call came right after. I could have my tour today, he’d told me, if I could meet him at the MWB offices at three-thirty. I was surprised, and pleased, that he’d gotten back to me so soon, and said okay. I rubbed my eyes and checked my watch; it was one-thirty-just enough time for a run.
It had dried out over the weekend, but was still blustery, so I pulled on tights and a wind shell. I headed due west, toward the piers along the Hudson. I hadn’t much time, and I’d done a long run on Sunday, so I was aiming for a quick four miles. I turned north at the river, toward Chelsea Piers. I was running into a steady wind now, and it was an effort to keep an eight-minute pace. The wind eased as I came up to 23rd Street, and I picked it up a little. As I ran, my thoughts turned, not for the first time, to my new neighbor.
I’d seen Jane Lu only once since knocking on her door, and then only briefly. She’d been leaving the building as I was coming back from my run on Sunday morning. She was with a clean-cut, frat-boy type with blond hair and lots of teeth. She was wearing jeans, an orange turtleneck, and tiny, wire-rimmed sunglasses, and she’d given me a smile and a friendly hello. After fifteen fast miles, I wasn’t sure that I’d said anything coherent in return.
She’d been nice as pie to me on Friday night-apologizing profusely for the noise, confessing her kickboxing mania, explaining that she’d been working with my sister, Lauren, for the past six months. She even offered me a Pepsi. And the nicer she was, the more ridiculous I’d felt for having been so irritated. At some point it had dawned on me that Jane recognized my discomfort, and so was being particularly gracious-the better to see me squirm. I’d found this interesting, if slightly annoying. There was a lot interesting about Jane-her considerable physical appeal, her rich, easy laugh, and the powerful intellect that gleamed in her dark eyes. I’d talked with her, with her doing most of the talking, for about twenty minutes before going downstairs, to bed.
I was back from my run in thirty-three minutes. I stretched and showered quickly, and dressed in gray trousers, a white shirt, a blue blazer, and a red paisley tie. And then I headed downtown.
I got off the subway at Wall and William, and walked south. Daylight had begun to fade, and the dark, narrow streets were growing darker. Soon the markets would close and the streets would fill with homeward pandemonium, but just now they were quiet. A few people stood at the entrances of buildings-smoking, talking, watching the traffic pass; a few others made for the subway-the first small trickle of the evening rush. A couple of TV news vans were parked near the old Morgan Guaranty building. Technicians snaked cables on the pavement out front, and bantered with the cops at the Exchange. A group of tourists rested on the worn steps of Federal Hall,
