A low sound in her throat, not a laugh, more like a confused cough. I couldn’t stop staring at her and she wouldn’t break eye contact with me. Like when someone’s got a grip on a high-voltage wire and can’t release it, and the people around watching him, his brains frying, sparks shooting out his ears, are all thinking to themselves, Why doesn’t he just let go?
She blinked and broke the spell, or at least suspended it.
“Who are you looking for?”
“You. Well, not exactly.”
What had I been thinking? She wasn’t all that pretty. Her features heavy, her nose a lump. Really kind of ugly, or else that was all just from the ponderous frown she leveled at me.
“Not exactly,” she repeated. She had some trace of accent I couldn’t place, but not American, more guttural, her words spoken under her breath. “Could you be exact?”
“Possibly. Given time.”
“I do not have time, I’m about to go out.”
“But you just got back in.”
She cocked her eyebrow, but ignored the deliberate provocation. “And now I go back out again.” She pushed the intercom button and, when she heard a crackle from the speaker, said, “The door.” The latch clacked and she pushed the door open behind her and took a backward step.
“That’s in,” I said, feeling playful.
“What?”
“You’re going in. You said you were going back out again, but that’s in you’re going. I learned all about it. From this guy, Grover. Shaggy blue hair, red nose, thin dangly arms? No? He also taught me about near and far. If you like I could teach you sometime.”
“Yes. Let us begin with far.” She started to swing the door closed.
“I have information.”
Her eyes narrowed. She stepped out again, keeping one hand behind her back. I heard the door shut.
“Who are you?”
I reached into my back pocket and she stiffened, her shoulders tensing, until my hand came forward with my wallet. Her reaction made me uneasy—what had she expected, what sort of thing was she used to?
I opened my wallet, keeping my thumb on the snapshot of Owl, while I extracted one of my business cards, one of a batch I had printed last year. Nicer than the old ones. Heavy cardstock, raised lettering. Nine boxes of them left. Hardly ever gave them out to strangers, even felt a little odd handing one over to her now, like an indecent exposure.
My head started to ache again, the tequila buzz was wearing off.
She read my card, her fingernail flicking its edge.
“Private…investigator.” She said it like she was tasting the sound, as if she never had the opportunity to say the two words together aloud before. But she didn’t repeat it, the novelty already stale on her lips.
“And you are?” I asked.
“My name is Sayre Rauth.” Oddly formal, like a ritual recital. “You said you have information for me?”
From over her shoulder, the intercom speaker crackled a little. But it didn’t have to mean anything, could’ve been stray radio-dispatch noise from a passing taxicab.
“I have information. Maybe it’s for you. Do you know this man?”
If she had glimpsed Owl’s picture inside my wallet before, she hadn’t reacted. Now I handed her the photo, made her look at it.
“Who is he?” she asked.
Strike one.
“George Rowell. His friends call him Owl.”
She looked up at me sharply, as if I were trying to confuse her again, then back down at the photo. She unfolded it so the young girl was in the photo, too.
“He’s another private investigator,” I told her. “Do you know him?”
She shook her head, not lifting her eyes. But I saw a reaction, a tiny tightening of the muscles around her lovely, lovely jaw.
“Are you sure?” I leaned in.
She looked up. “Yes.”
Strike two and strike three, caught looking, I was out.
I sighed.
“You don’t know me,” I said, “so I understand if you’re cautious and holding back. That’s only natural. But you can trust me.”
She laughed, no confusion in the sound this time.
“You are trying to find this man?” she asked.
“No, I’m not.” I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea that I was after George Rowell. If she was keeping her association with Owl a secret, she’d deny anything about him. “Do you know him?”
She shook her head, still looking down at the picture. I had to ask her to hand it back in order to make her look up again.
“Is that all you wanted? To ask me if I know this man?”
“No, there’s more. I wanted…I came to tell you about a man who followed you back here from the cafe this morning.”
She said nothing.
I tried again. “He was watching you from across the street. He waited for you to leave. Then he followed you all the way back here.”
Calmly, she asked, “How do you know this?”
“I was watching him. I followed him.”
“So…where is he now, where’s my stalker?” She leaned forward. I watched the fine, taut and tender line of her neck. A fresh flowery scent wafted by me and I inhaled deeply.
She looked to the right, she looked to the left, her dark eyes settled back on me. I liked having them there. “I don’t see anyone. The only man I see who followed me is you.”
I winced. She had a point there.
“So you don’t want my information about this guy?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Is this really what you do, follow people who follow people and then ring their doorbells looking for work?”
“Yeh,” I said sourly, “that and chase parked cars.”
“I don’t understand. The photograph of the old man, who is he? Why are you looking for him?”
“I told you, I’m not.” I met her eyes and held them, then dropped the D-bomb. “He’s dead.”
It was a cheap maneuver, not designed to get me anything worth having, even if it hit its mark, like swinging away at a pitch after already being called out. And missing again. Strike four.
She had no reaction. Unless she was the world’s greatest actress, had incredible control. Or else didn’t believe a word I said so it didn’t matter. Or…
Or she was simply telling the truth, she didn’t know Owl, he was a complete stranger to her, she wasn’t his client, it was all just my wishful thinking, and I’d somehow gotten it completely wrong.
The extent of just how wrong began to dawn on me, though dawns are seldom so bleak: what if I’d followed the wrong ones from the cafe? The people I was meant to tail long gone now, along with the only link to Owl’s client.
The woman’s voice softened. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“You look so…I didn’t realize. He was close to you?”
“I hardly knew him. He hired me only this morning to follow this guy and report where he went to ground. Except now, I’ve got no one to report to, he’s dead. Unless I can find whoever hired him.”
She nodded her head, pursed her lips. “I see. And you thought I was this person?” She said it like she was diagnosing my particular mental disorder.
“I thought you might be. But that doesn’t matter. There’s this guy following you, see? I thought you’d like to
