juice glasses halfway full to the lip. The band ended its set with a pumped-up version of Miles Davis’s “Milestones.” The young bartender put some low-volume Jamaican dub on the house stereo. Billy, who was starting to look a little pickled, leaned my way.
“Let’s talk business,” he said.
“All right.” I pulled the deck of Camels from my overcoat and shook it in his direction. He started to reach for one but then waved it away. I slid one out, lit it, and took in a lungful.
Billy said, “I guess you’ve noticed the ring on my finger.”
I nodded and said, “So?”
“This is about that.”
“I don’t tail wives or husbands anymore. I should tell you that straight up. My bartending job keeps me off that sort of thing.”
“It’s not what you think,” he said.
“What is it then?”
“My wife has left me, Nick.” Billy took the matches that rested on the top of my cigarettes and pulled one off the pack. He struck it, watched it flare, then blew it out. “She walked on her own accord. You’d call it desertion, I guess, if it was a man doing the walking.”
“Kids?”
“None. We tried for a couple of years, but it wasn’t in the cards.”
I had a sip of bourbon then followed it with a deep drag off my cigarette. When I exhaled I blew the smoke past his head and tried not to look into his eyes. “Like you said, Bill, this is business. I’m going to ask you some questions that are personal…”
“Go ahead.”
“This type of thing-and not to make it seem small-well, it happens every day. Hell, man, in a way it happened to me. So why hire a detective?”
“I’m worried about her,” he said. “It’s that simple. And since there’s no evidence of foul play, the cops won’t give it the time of day.”
“You’ve been to them?”
“Yeah, I reported it the first day. They came around, asked me a couple of questions, I never heard from them again.”
I had a last pull off my smoke and butted it. “What do you want me to do?”
“Find her, that’s it. You don’t even have to talk to her. Just report her location back to me, and I’ll do the talking. If she doesn’t want to come home, then at least I gave it a shot.” Billy looked at me briefly and then looked away.
“What else?” I said.
“Like?” m' “LikeHe nodded me on with his chin.
“Did she leave you for someone else?” Instead of answering, Billy finished the bourbon in his glass, an answer in itself. I signaled Cissy for two more. “Do you know him?” I asked.
“Yeah, I know him. He was a man I did business with.” The waitress brought our Beams and two more beers. Billy and I lightly touched glasses, and I had a drink while he continued. “I met this guy as a client. I was showing him around town, some spots for a chain of carryouts he was thinking of opening. Anyway, I did him a couple of serious solids in terms of negotiating leases, that sort of thing. He liked my style, and he put me on the payroll of his corporation in a retainer capacity.”
“You kept your job with the real estate company?”
“Yes.”
“Kind of a conflict of interest there, wasn’t it?”
“It depends on how you look at things, I suppose. I’ve learned some very creative ways of putting deals together, and I guess Mr. DiGeordano didn’t want me doing that for anyone else but him.”
“Joey DiGeordano?”
“That’s right.”
I whistled softly. “You got yourself pretty connected, didn’t you, Bill?”
“You’ve heard of him, then.”
“I read the paper,” I said, leaving out the fact that my grandfather had known the old man. “The DiGeordanos have been in it once or twice through the years. They’re what passes for a small-time crime family in this town. Nothing serious, by today’s standards-a little gambling, some Jewish Lightning in the old days.”
“I’m aware of those things,” he mumbled.
“Keep going,” I said.
“April and I-April, that’s my wife’s name-we socialized with Joey and his wife a few times early on. Right from the beginning I could see Joey had the eye for April. But that didn’t bother me much. I mean, I was used to it. April is a very good-looking woman.”
“Did they have an affair?”
“I can’t prove it if they did,” he said. “Let’s say it was a suspicion I had.”
“What was your relationship like when she left?”
“I thought it was good. We had our problems, but in general I was pretty content. And I was willing to work at it, that’s the thing. Then I came home one day and she was just gone. Her closet was emptied and there was a note, and that was that.”
“When was that?” I asked.
“A week ago yesterday,” he said. “Wednesday.”
“Anything unusual about the note?”
Billy considered that. “It came off a printer. I guess that’s unusual, huh? A typed Dear John.”
“Any idea why?”
“She ran the thing off on my computer. That was always a sticking point with her-I’d come home from work and immediately get on my computer and start running spreadsheets and figures. I guess I was pretty obsessed with making it and all that. Anyway, she certainly thought so. And the note was just her way of twisting the knife.”
I thought that over and said, “What about Joey DiGeordano? Are you still doing business with him?”
Billy said, “Our business relationship has become strained. I can’t exactly talk to him about it, even though I think he might have some idea where she is. That’s where you come in.”
I lit another cigarette and exhaled a thin gray veil that settled between us. “I’ll need to know a few things about your wife. Her history, family, that sort of thing. A recent picture.”
“Then you’ll help me.”
I nodded and said, “Yeah.”
“Thanks, Nick.” Billy shook my hand and held it for more than a few seconds. His felt cool. “I want you to understand that I didn’t come to you for any friendship deals.”
“There won’t be any,” I said. “I get two-fifty a day plus expenses, with a day’s worth up front.”
“No problem.” A few strands of his moussed hair had fallen across his forehead, and he brushed it back. “Listen, man, I’m a little drunk right now.”
“Me too,” I admitted.
“Anyway,” he said, “it’s as good a time as any to apologize for all the years that went by. The thing is, Nick, I think of life as being more… linear than you do, you know what I mean? High school, college, career, marriage, family, retirement-and I have no trouble leaving the last phase behind me when I start a new one. Anyway, when I went away to school, I could see you just weren’t going to come along. I just don’t want you to think I forgot about you, man. I never did.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “You’re calling it straight. That’s exactly the way it was.”
The band was gathering for their next set. Billy reached for his wallet and said, “Come on, let’s get out of here. I’ve had enough.”
“You go on,” I said. “I only live a couple of blocks away. I’ll walk home.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
Billy shrugged and left a twenty on the table. I let him do it and watched him button his coat. “I’ll courier all
