“You have joint custody?”
Nina took another drag and cast about for an ashtray. “Basically,” she said.
“What does that mean?”
Nina scowled and looked like she was going to bite, but she shook it off. “We have an informal kind of deal. Technically, I’ve got custody and he’s entitled to monthly visitation. But we arrange things between us and he ends up seeing Billy more than that- when he doesn’t cancel.”
“He pay child support?” Nina nodded. “Alimony?” Another nod. “Everything current?”
“Until about a week ago, when the check didn’t show.”
“If he’s in violation of your settlement agreements, you can take that to court. They might even help you find him.”
Nina’s mouth puckered and she shook her head. “You sound like my lawyer, for chrissakes. But trust me, court battles are definitely not the way to deal with Greg.”
I nodded and thought for a while. “You said he doesn’t have many friends. How about enemies? Does he have any of those?”
She laughed out loud. “Only a zillion or so. Being as fair as I can, John, I got to say that Greg is just not a likable guy. Smart, yes- even funny, in a nasty sort of way- but not likable. And besides the people who know him and don’t like him, there are all those people who followed his stock advice. I don’t expect they’re too happy with Greg either.”
Nina had a point, and I laughed a little too.
“Maggie told me you had good references,” she said. I nodded. “She said she didn’t know you personally but everyone she talked to gave you high marks for smart and persistent.” I didn’t disagree. Nina went on. “I hired a PI once before, you know, in the divorce. He was about twice your age and twice your size, and I had to talk real slow around him and use small words.”
“What did he do for you?”
“Pictures, credit card receipts- the usual divorce stuff. He did his job.”
“So why didn’t you call him for this?”
“Because I didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. Plus, his liver’s probably given out by now.” She stubbed out her cigarette and looked at me. “So how about it- are you going to do this for me?”
I looked back at her. “Why haven’t you talked to the cops?”
“The cops?” Nina Sachs looked appalled. “Why the hell would I do that?”
“Because they have a whole bunch of people who have nothing to do but work missing persons cases, and they have resources and access that I don’t. If you really think something bad has happened to Greg, the cops are the way to go.”
Nina shook her head vigorously and dug in her pocket for another smoke. “No fucking way. Cops- that’s all I need. You know what Greg would say if I brought them into his business, snooping around? As torqued up as he is about his reputation? Jesus- he’d go ballistic.”
I held up a hand. “You may not have much choice in the matter. His employers could file a report- if they haven’t already- or a friend or neighbor could. Or the press might get hold of it. On a slow news day, they’d love a story like this.
“If something has happened to him, he might be grateful that you called the cavalry. Either that or he’ll be beyond caring. And so what if he gets pissed at you for calling the cops; what do you care? You don’t seem to like the guy much anyway.”
Nina fired up another cigarette and shook her head some more. “I may not like him, but I’ve got to deal with him, for chrissakes. He’d make my life miserable over something like that- mine and Billy’s both- trust me. If the cops get into this, let it be on account of somebody else, not me.” Nina looked at me, waiting for an argument, but I wasn’t going to give her one.
While I’d meant what I said about the police, I also knew what they were likely to tell Nina, or anyone else who filed a report: that there was nothing illegal in a grown man going missing, and nothing particularly unusual about it either; it happened every day, all across the country, and only rarely was foul play involved. They would take down the facts, and, as the guy had a history of disappearing for weeks at a time and there seemed no reason to suspect wrongdoing, the case would join a lot of others on a very big pile. There were many things the cops could do that I couldn’t- at least not as easily, or legally- but there was something I could do that they wouldn’t: make finding Gregory Danes my highest priority.
“So, how about it?” Nina asked again. “You going to do this or what?” I looked at her and nodded, and she gave me a quick, crooked smile.
I had a few background questions for Nina and she answered them and I was about to wrap up when we heard a key in the lock. The front door swung open and a dark-haired woman and a boy came in.
The woman was five-ten and supple, with cat-black hair precisely cut to shoulder length. It was parted on the side and fell in a glossy wing across her forehead. She had a long face, olive skin, and large almond eyes that were dark and vigilant. Her nose was straight and strong, and there were lines around her wide mouth and in the gap between her brows. I put her age south of forty, but not far south. I thought she might be Latin or Asian or both.
She wore a green silk suit with a simple cut and a thick gold chain on her neck. She fingered the chain absently as she looked around the apartment. She smiled at Nina, and the somber traces went out of her face. The smile disappeared when she looked at me.
The boy, I knew, must be Billy. He was small- five foot zero- and slight. His hair was very short and auburn, like his mother’s, and he had her thin face too, though not her pallor. His eyes were watery blue and smudged- looking like his father’s, and his mouth was thin-lipped. But there was none of Gregory Danes’s mocking superiority in his son’s face, at least not yet. Instead there was petulance and anger.
He wore sneakers that looked like bowling shoes and baggy jeans and a navy-blue parka, too heavy for a warm spring day. He shrugged it off and left it where it fell. Underneath, he wore a black T-shirt, too large for him, with part of a song lyric printed in white across the chest. Like sittin’ on pins and needles Things fall apart, it’s scientific. p›
It was unattributed, but I recognized it: Talking Heads, “Wild, Wild Life.” Everything old is new again. Billy’s gaze skated across his mother and me and never paused. He headed for the kitchen, his skinny freckled arms stiff.
Nina stood and looked at the dark woman, who closed the door and returned a heavy key ring to her green leather handbag.
“The doctor see him?” Nina asked.
The dark woman glanced at me and nodded. “She saw him and said he is fine. She said he had no fever; it may be a virus that is going around.” The woman’s voice had a nice timbre, and her English was quick and exact but heavily accented. Spanish. “He is fine to go to school- even this afternoon if he likes.” Her dark eyes flicked toward the kitchen.
“He doesn’t like,” Billy said, in a reedy voice. His head was buried in the refrigerator. The dark woman raised an eloquent brow. Nina jammed her cigarette into an ashtray. Billy leaned on the open door of the fridge and stared inside. Nina put an awkward hand in his short hair.
“C’mon, honey, Nes will fix you something- or we can order in- and then I’ll run you over to school. You don’t want to miss another day.”
Billy twisted away from her, his shoulders hunched. “I don’t want anything and I’m not going to school,” he whined. “I still feel like shit.” He took a last disgusted look in the refrigerator and disappeared into the bedrooms. Nina closed the refrigerator door and looked after him. The dark woman sighed heavily.
“He is just-,” she began, but Nina cut her off.
“Don’t say it, Nes. I know what he’s just- he’s just a moody son of a bitch.” She shook her head and followed after Billy. I heard doors opening and closing and tight, muffled voices.
I turned to the dark woman, who was looking around the room. She stared at the mess on the ebony desk and pursed her lips. She put her green bag down and took off her suit jacket and somehow found a spot for it on the coatrack. Her ivory blouse was sleeveless and her arms were sinewy. She sniffed the air and wrinkled her nose. She flicked a wall switch; somewhere a big fan whirred and air began to move and freshen in the loft.
She picked up the desk drawer, slid it halfway into the desk, and swept the pile on the desktop inside. She
