A woman with too much blonde hair went past us wearing stretch jeans and very high heels that caused her hips to sway when she walked. Hawk and I watched her all the way down the length of the market until she turned aside in the rotunda and we lost her.
'Stretch fabric is a good thing,' I said.
'We going to talk with Gerry?' Hawk said.
'I thought we might,' I said.
Hawk nodded and pushed the last of his scrambled eggs onto his fork with the last of his toast. He put the eggs very delicately into his mouth and followed with the toast. He chewed carefully and swallowed and picked up his cup and drank some coffee. He put the cup down, picked up his napkin, and patted his lips.
'Don't sound like you got anybody else to talk to,' he said.
'Nope.'
'Paul worried about her?'
'Yes.'
He nodded. 'Want me to see I can arrange it?' he said.
I drank more of my second cup. 'Soon as I finish my coffee,' I said.
CHAPTER 14
PAUL and I went back to see Martinelli. He wasn't there and the shop was closed. We went back to see his sister Caitlin. She wasn't there. And she wasn't there the next day when we called, nor that evening, nor the next morning. And neither was Martinelli. We went back to the real estate women at Chez Vous. They had nothing to add. They didn't know anyone else who would have anything to add. They seemed to know less than when I'd spoken to them first. We talked with three other people we'd tracked down through the answering machine. They didn't know who Rich Beaumont was. They didn't know where Patty might be. At least two sort of hinted that they also didn't care. We called every travel agent in the Yellow Pages and every major airline without success. There was no business listing for Rich Beaumont in the Yellow Pages. The Secretary of State's office had no listing of any com pany with that name in its title. Nobody at either North or South Station could help us. Nobody at either bus terminal could help us. I got Beaumont's registration number, make, and model from the Registry. There was no car that fit the plate or description parked in the garage of the Revere Beach condo or anywhere around. None had been towed by either Boston or MDC police.
'It looks like they disappeared on purpose,' Paul said.
We were walking Pearl along the river, past the lagoon, west of the Hatch
Shell. Some ducks were cruising the lagoon, and when Pearl spotted them she got lower and longer and sucked in her stomach and froze in a quivering point. Paul and I stopped and let her point for a moment.
'Yeah, but it doesn't have to mean that. They could simply have gotten in his car and driven off in full innocence. We'd have come up with same zero.'
Pearl edged a step closer to the ducks. Her complete self was invested in them. I picked up a small rock and tossed it at them. They rose from the water and swept out toward the river. I said, 'Bang,' and Pearl broke the point and glanced at me for a moment and then forgot about it and proceeded on, her nose close to the ground, tracking the elusive candy wrapper.
'What about the fact that we can't find either of the two people who had anything useful to tell us?' Paul said.
'Not encouraging,' I said.
'Do you think anything happened to them?'
'Probably not,' I said. 'Probably they were told to go away for a while and they did.'
'Joe Broz?'
I shrugged.
'The son, whatsisname?'
'Gerry,' I said. 'No way to know yet.'
'So now what do we do?' Paul said. 'A tearful plea on the noon news?'
'Let's hold off a little on that,' I said. 'Let's go out to Lexington and collect your mother's mail.'
'Can you do that?'
'You can,' I said. 'Just tell them your mother wanted you to pick it up for her. If some postal clerk is really zealous you can prove you're her son.'
We finished Pearl's walk, in which she pointed a flock of pigeons, and tracked down the wrapper to a Zagnut Bar, and went back to my place and loaded her into the car and headed out to Lexington.
The postal clerk was the same woman with the teased pink hair that I'd talked with before, though she didn't seem to remember me.
'You talk to your mother's friend?' she said when Paul presented himself.
'No,' he said.
'Oh. I figured when we couldn't give him the mail he got hold of you.'
'No, my mother didn't mention it,' Paul said.
'I hate regulations, too,' the clerk said. 'But they're there. You can't just hand the mail out to anyone who asks.'
