left his address book. Asked me to mail it to him care of American Express in Athens.' He passed me the book.
'Excellent.'
Now, on a missing-person case I want to know everything the client can tell me about the missing person, no matter how seemingly unimportant and irrelevant. I want to know preferences in food, clothing, colors, reading, entertainment, use of drugs and alcohol, what cigarette brand he smokes, medical history. I have a questionnaire printed with five pages of questions. I got it out of the filing cabinet and passed it to him.
'Will you please fill out this questionnaire and bring it back here day after tomorrow. That will give me time to check out the local addresses.'
'I've called most of them,' he said curtly, expecting me to take the next plane for Athens.
'Of course. But friends of an M.P. —missing person—are not always honest with the family. Besides, I daresay some of them have moved or had their phones disconnected. Right?' He nodded. I put my hands on the questionnaire. 'Some of these questions may seem irrelevant but they all add up. I found a missing person once from knowing that he could wriggle his ears. I've noticed that you are left-handed. Is your son also left-handed?'
'Yes, he is.'
'You can skip that question. Do you have a picture of him with you?'
He handed me a photo. Jerry was a beautiful kid. Slender, red hair, green eyes far apart, a wide mouth. Sexy and kinky-looking.
'Mr. Green, I want all the photos of him you can find. If I use any I'll have copies made and return the originals. If he did any painting, sketching, or writing I'd like to see that too. If he sang or played an instrument, I want recordings. In fact, any recordings of his voice. And please bring if possible some article of clothing that hasn't been dry-cleaned since he wore it.'
'It's true then that you use uh psychic methods?'
'I use any methods that help me to find the missing person. If I can locate him in my own mind that makes it easier to locate him outside it.'
'My wife is into psychic things. That's why I came to you. She has an intuition that something has happened to him and she says only a psychic can find him.'
That makes two of us, I thought. He wrote me a check for a thousand dollars. We shook hands.
I went right to work. Jim, my assistant, was out of town on an industrial-espionage case—he specializes in electronics. So I was on my own. Ordinarily I don't carry iron on an M.P. case, but this one smelled of danger. I put on my snub-nosed 38, in a shoulder holster. Then I unlocked a drawer and put three joints of the best Colombian, laced with hash, into my pocket. Nothing like a joint to break the ice and stir the memory. I also took a deck of heroin. It buys more than money sometimes.
Most of the addresses were in the SoHo area. That meant lofts, and that often means the front door is locked. So I started with an address on Sixth Street.
She opened the door right away, but she kept the chain on. Her pupils were dilated, her eyes running, and she was snuffling, waiting for the Man. She looked at me with hatred.
I smiled. 'Expecting someone else?'
'You a cop?'
'No. I'm a private investigator hired by the family to find Jerry Green. You knew him.'
'Look, I don't have to talk to you.'
'No, you don't have to. But you might want to.' I showed her the deck of heroin. She undid the chain.
The place was filthy—dishes stacked in a sink, cockroaches running over them. The bathtub was in the kitchen and hadn't been used for a long time.
