to being turned down. My agent says if I refuse, they'll regard me with contempt. Like who turns down a big raise and regular national exposure? I'd have to be a jerk to do that, right?'
She turns to me, hugs me tight. Hugging her back, I feel her small, hard body tremble against my chest.
'I'm so sorry,' she says, breaking from our embrace. 'I didn't mean to go squishy on you. Now I've got to get my hair and makeup done.'
'Let's have lunch, talk it through.'
'Sure, lunch!' she says cheerily, striding off toward the CNN trailer in the alley.
Today's court session is typically dull until Kit Foster's lawyer, launching into his cross-examination of Caleb Meadows's manager, introduces the notion of a stalker. I find myself electrified. Dad, in Pam's words, “stalked’ Barbara, and several anonymous letters implicit with threat, including one containing a condom, were received by her in the weeks before she was killed.
Suddenly everything is cutting too close.
I quickly finish my drawings and hand them off to Harriet, then find Pam on a bench in the corridor finishing up a call. As we walk into Plato's, a lawyers hangout two blocks from the courthouse, she tells me that after we parted this morning she spoke again with her agent.
'He wants me to come to New York, says it's time to put me into play. I'll do my afternoon stand-up, then take the early evening flight. Starret's got a temp reporter flying in. I'll be gone through the weekend at least.'
'So your agent's going to shop you around. Reporter or anchor?'
'Either or both. High bidder gets the girl.'
'You'll go with the money?'
'In this business that's the only way to go.'
Pam's not squishy now; she's tough and on a roll. I think she's right, and I tell her so.
She reaches for my hand, leans over her plate of spanakopita, and plants a kiss upon my palm.
'I'm really glad I hooked up with you.'
'We have a lot of fun.'
'Will continue to, I hope.'
'Let's see how thins play out.'
She winces. 'I'm not a location-affair-type person, David. I'm a relationship girl.' She grins. 'Anyway, no matter what happens in New York, I'll be back to finish out this gig. And, if you let me, to stay here with you until you finish yours.'
With Judge Winterson's decision to devote the afternoon to an evidentiary hearing, I find myself with nothing to draw. Fine with me; my hand's tired. Already today I've executed three dramatic courtrooms sketches plus three fantasy drawings based on Dad's case study.
As I'm making my way on foot down Spencer Avenue toward Harp, the sky darkens, then suddenly lets loose. Within seconds the street gutter becomes a stream. I run the final block to the Doubleton Building then dash into the lobby soaked and out of breath.
The black elevator attendant with jaundiced eyes sadly shakes his head.
'You're one wet doggy,' he tells me. 'You got a minute, I'll fetch you a towel.'
Nice man. The towel he brings me isn't all that clean, but I use it anyway then tip him a couple bucks. On the ride up to the seventh floor, I use my fingers to smooth down my hair.
I'm making my way along the corridor toward PHOTOS BY MAX, when I suddenly halt, caught by the words MARITZ INVESTIGATIONS neatly painted at chest level on a pebbled glass door.
Walter M. Maritz: That was the name of the former-cop-turned-private-investigator hired by Andrew Fulraine to build a dossier on the promiscuity of his ex-wife, the same Maritz who confessed to Mace Bartel that he'd gone straight to Barbara to warn her and sell his client out.
Calista, a city of over half a million people, must have at least two hundred office buildings downtown. Isn't it a neat coincidence, I think, that private investigator Maritz and bust-in photographer Rakoubian not only worked from the same building but also from the same floor?
Though undergroomed for an office visit, I knock on the door. A short, dumpy, middle-aged Asian woman opens up. She peers at me through half-moon spectacles.
'Is the Walter Maritz's agency?' I ask.
'This is Maritz Investigations,' she says. 'Mr. Maritz is retired.'
'But this was his firm?'
'Were you acquainted with Mr. Maritz?'
'I'd like to talk to him. Can you tell me where he is?'
'He moved to Florida. I'm afraid I can't tell you any more than that.'
I show her my courthouse press pass and my Society of Forensic Scientists ID. She studies them a moment, introduces herself as Karen Lee and invites me in.
No seedy private eye's clutter here, rather a minimalist decor – stark filing cabinets, steel desks, Singapore Airlines calendar on the wall, and a large white formica conference table where three young Asian males, each facing a computer screen, continue whatever they're doing without looking up.
Karen copies Maritz's Sarasota retirement address on the back of a business card.
'I bought the agency from him two years ago for the lease and the goodwill,' she tells me. 'The lease was okay. The goodwill didn't exist.' She pauses. 'We don't do the same kind of work as Mr. Maritz.'
'What kind was that?'
'Gumshoe.' She snickers.
'And you?'
She gestures toward the young men at the consoles. 'We locate people using electronic resources.'
'Interesting.'
'Are you looking for someone, Mr. Weiss?'
'Suppose a woman worked at Merrill Lynch in New York twenty-six years ago. She might be married now, she might not. Could you find her from her maiden name?'
'If she's alive, we can find her. That's what we do. A search like that will run you two to four hundred dollars, depending on how long it takes.'
I give her Susan Pettibone's name, then write out a check for two hundred as a deposit.
Karen Lee escorts me to the door. I turn to her as I'm about to leave.
'Walter Maritz had an associate.'
'Yes, a Mr. O'Neill. He didn't fit in with our concept so we let him go. The business has changed. We don't use any of Mr. Maritz's people. When we find Ms. Pettibone, I'll give you a call.'
This time the door to the reception room of PHOTOS BY MAX is open. I figure Chip hears me, because a moment after I enter I hear the blowtorch in the inner studio shut off.
'Someone out there?'
'It's David Weiss, Chip. Gotta minute?'
'Sure, come in. Watch the pigeon shit.'
Chip, welder visor up, wearing a grungy, gray tanktop, picks up a broom and makes menacing motions toward a trio of pigeons perched on his windowsill.
'Shoo! Shoo!' he yells, waving the broom. 'Fuckin' rats with wings,' he calls after them.
Though I took in his sculpture during my first visit, this time, I find, I'm unable to pull my eyes away.
'What do you think?' Chip asks.
'Strong work,' I tell him.
