She handed over the photograph. 'It was taken about six months ago at the club where I work.'
'And where's that?' the man said, studying the photo.
'Little Cayman Island in the Caribbean. I'm a diving instructor at a resort there.'
'I've always wanted to dive. You must love it.'
'I do. Now, about my brother.'
'Why don't you come on down to my office, Miss..
'Enders. Same name as my brother. Laura Enders.
'Well, I'm Nell Harten,' the man said. 'I'm vice president here.'
He extended his hand, which was large and warm. 'Alicia, this woman's brother did work for us once, but I believe he left before you arrived.
However,' he added, looking pointedly at Laura, 'he called himself Scott Shollander then, not Scott Enders. Now, if you'd like to come down to my office, I'll be happy to tell you what I know of him.'
On the way to his office, Neil Harten stopped at the locked personnel office and retrieved the file on the man he had known as Scott Shollander. He poured Laura a cup of coffee, then settled in behind his desk.
His office was fairly large, but not opulent. Certificates from a number of chambers of commerce, service organizations, and business bureaus were spotted on the walls, along with framed advertisements for various Communigistics programs and equipment.
Harten, who had a weariness about his eyes and deeply etched furrows across his high brow, answered Laura's queries with practiced patience.
Yes, he was certain that Scott Sholiander and Scott Enders were the same person. No, he had no idea why Scott would have changed his name. No, Scott hadn't been fired-he was very good at his job. He had simply walked in one day and quit. And no, he had no idea where Scott had gone or for whom he was working.
Laura reached into her purse and handed over a stack of postcards.
'Here,' she said. 'These are the cards I've received from Scott for the past two and a half years.
There are nearly seventy of them from all over the world. He missed a week once in a while, but he's never missed two that I can remember.
Now, all of a sudden, I haven't heard from him since February.
Harten flipped through the cards. Most of them contained just a line or two.
''Wish you were here'… 'Hope you're okay'…
'Casablanca is more mysterious now than it ever was in Bogey's day.'
Your brother isn't the newsiest writer, is he?'
'There's nothing in any of them about changing jobs.'
Harten shrugged. 'I don't know what to say. Scott was a very private person, but I guess you know that.
I can give you the address we have for him in D.C and I can ask around.
But beyond that?' He held up his hands. 'Where are you staying?'
'Staying? Nowhere. I… I just flew in and took a cab here.'
'I'll be happy to call you another cab and make reservations somewhere.'
Laura wandered over to the window. Four stories below, she saw her cabbie reading a paper behind the wheel.
'That's okay. My ride's still here,' she said. 'But I will take that address.'
'Fine, Here it is. Win you be heading back to the Caribbean from D.C.?'
'I'm not going back until I find Scott.'
'Well, then, I hope you do.'
I will,' Laura said. 'I'll stop by this address right now.
'And then?'
'And then Boston, I guess. The last few postcards came from there.'
Harten sighed and tapped his fingertips together for a time.
'Here,' he said. 'This is my home phone. I have business connections all over the country. Feel free to call me if there's anything you feel I can do to help.'
'I appreciate that. It's very kind of you. Mr. Harten, I'm going to find him.'
Neil Harten studied her face.
'I believe you will,' he said.
Laura took the elevator back to the lobby and paused by the directory.
Nothing made sense. Nothing at all.
Why would Scott have used a false name? Why didn't he mention leaving Communistics?
She thought about the years following the death of their parents-Scott's emotional and financial sup port during her schooling, the cards and calls, the holidays spent together, the nonjudgmental acceptance of her decisions. Through those years her brother had never asked a thing of her. Now he needed her. She felt that with near certainty. He was in some sort of difficulty, and he needed her. She stepped out into the graying afternoon.
'Take me to the city, please. This address,' she told the cabbie, handing over the note Harten had printed for her.
'You got it,' he said.
They drove out of the industrial park and onto the highway.
Moments later, a dark sedan swung around the corner and followed.
By the time his bedside alarm sounded to wake him at 5:45 A.m. Eric Najarian had already completed twenty minutes of intense calisthenics and was skimming through a medical journal as he wolfed down two glasses of orange juice and a bagel. It was rare that he ever slept past five, and he would have reset the clock to an earlier hour had he ever thought to do so. But invariably his thoughts were otherwise occupied-usually with — medicine.
On this April morning, absorbing a significant percentage of those thoughts was the selectior. of the new associate director of the White Memorial Hospital emergency service. The position carried with it an associate professorship at the medical school, and it continued to be, at least according to rumor, a twoman contest between Reed Marshall and himself.
Now, after months of interviews and speculation, the three-person search committee was scheduled to meet at four o'clock to announce its decision. If Eric was chosen, he would become the youngest faculty member to be tenured in the history of white Memorial. In over a century and a half, the youngest. For years he had worked toward rewards and acclaim that such an honor would bring. Finally, before this day was over, he would know.
Engrossed in an article extolling the value of placing portable defibrillators in airplanes and on golf courses, he stumbled over cartons of books as he picked his way down the cluttered hallway to his bedroom. The unpacked boxes, sparse furnishings, and unhung pictures gave the impression that he had moved into the Beacon Hill apartment just that week.
In reality it had been well over a year. Initially, his friends had teased him about ignoring the place. With time, they had become more concerned. Eric, however, simply didn't care.
He turned off the alarm and opened Verdi's cage.
The macaw hopped out onto the bed, then swaggered over to him for a dog biscuit, which it devoured with the voraciousness of a German shepherd.
The bird had been a fixture in Eric's life for nearly three years-since the day it was delivered by the uniformed chauffeur of a man whose son Eric had saved from a potentially fatal gunshot wound.
It arrived with no note or instructions-no name, no age, no sex-and spent its first month in Eric's company glaring at him.
Eric initially named the bird Hippocrates after the father of medicine.
But that was before it began singing opera. From what Eric could tell, it could do snatches of a dozen or more arias-all Italian.
There was no way it could be induced to sing on cue; nor, once it started, was there any nonviolent way to stop it. But sing it did, sometimes for as long as ten minutes at a stretch. And although Eric had never held any great interest in opera, he had listened to enough of it now to tell that Verdi was not very good.
Eric waited until the macaw had headed down the hall before shoving the box of biscuits back under a sweater in his closet. Then he checked-his calendar and confirmed that Marshall would be covering the E. R. that
