When the Shit Hits the Housewife by Johnny Ostentatious

PROLOGUE

Marie tried to keep up with the backpedaling woman who held her hostage. The woman was behind Marie and had her arm around Marie’s throat. Marie tried swallowing and placed her hands on the woman’s arm in an effort to loosen the chokehold. Marie dropped her freckled hand from the woman’s skinny, ashen arm when the muzzle of the pistol in the woman’s other hand pressed harder against Marie’s temple—if that was at all possible.

Marie closed her eyes. Would this be happening if she and Matthew had never gone went to that happy-hour party?

1

The month: May. The night: Friday. The time: 8 p.m.

It was a perfect spring evening, the workweek a fading aberration, and the only worry was how to spend the next restful 60 hours or so. Über-beautiful 80-degree temperature and the setting sun made this Friday night particularly pleasant. All around, excited voices partook in intellectual conversation or office gossip. The best of both worlds.

Thirty-seven-year-old Marie Dougherty enjoyed this on the deck of Graham Archer’s house. Graham worked with Matthew, Marie’s husband, at Leaf & Dashiell, a healthcare publisher. Graham was the executive editor, overseeing a staff of 20. His house was in Narberth, a Philadelphia suburb. Graham’s deck overlooked a sprawling backyard that ran into a park. Marie wasn’t sure where the property line lay, since the Archers never put up a fence.

Matthew joined Marie at the wood railing. He held a 16-ounce Deer Park bottle. “Nice night.”

Marie nodded. She was unsure what to do with her margarita. In hindsight, she should have never accepted it from Graham. Matthew was coming up on 90 days of sobriety. He attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings four nights a week (Thursday through Sunday). She didn’t think he had a problem with the bottle. Sure, he had imbibed on weekends, and about once a month, he got sloshed, but it wasn’t as if he boozed every day. However, he wanted to put the kibosh on his partying, since alcoholism ran deep on both sides of his family.

Graham stepped out of the house, closing the sliding door behind him. He swerved through the mid-size crowd on the deck. “There’s the man I’m looking for!” He wrapped an inebriated arm around Matthew’s shoulders.

Graham measured 6 feet, 6 inches and was 44 years old. He had a mane of brown hair that receded slightly, and with each passing year, he packed on a couple more pounds. Marie couldn’t call him fat because his body distributed the weight well, but if kept up at the current rate, he would—without question—be obese in the next six years. Regardless, she thought he looked like Penn Jillette from Penn & Teller, though Graham lacked the booming voice of that loquacious half of the comic-magic duo. Graham had a slight lisp and a gruff voice, the latter a result of his cigar-a-day habit.

“What’s going on?” Matthew asked.

Graham clapped his bearish arm around Matthew, who stumbled from the force of the greeting.

“I’m going to be honest with you, Mrs. Dougherty,” Graham said. “We couldn’t have wrapped up the latest project in time without your little honeybunch here. And a week ahead of schedule, no less! Yes!!!”

Matthew blushed. He fiddled with the label of his Deer Park bottle.

Graham removed his arm from around Matthew and said, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go tinkle.” Their host staggered back into his five-bedroom house.

Marie beamed at Matthew. Unlike most American men, he probably wasn’t figuring out how to parlay Graham’s compliment into a pay raise. It made her love him even more. Like her, he was content to live in their three-bedroom house in Glenside and travel abroad once a year for a week or two.

“Volleyball time!” Graham yelled from the kitchen, his forehead pushing against the screen of the window overlooking the deck.

Everyone on the deck except Marie and Matthew streamed down the two flights of steps into the backyard.

“Sure you don’t want to go down?” Matthew asked.

Marie shook her head. “Let’s stay up here for a few more minutes.” She touched Matthew’s cheek, her fingers on his earlobes, thumb grazing his five o’clock shadow. “It’s been a long week.”

In order to finish his project, Matthew had worked 12-hour days all week, except today. He never worked past five on Fridays.

Marie removed her hand from Matthew’s face. She grinned.

Abruptly, Matthew bent to kiss Marie. His amorous movement surprised her, but she had enough time to purse her lips for his peck. The kiss over, a jolt of arousal shot through her. She couldn’t wait to get home. Her overactive imagination had a few sexual scenarios she was eager to try out.

Down below, in the backyard, partygoers split up into two teams. The team on the left side of the net consisted of six players, three of them huddled in the corner farthest away from the deck. The triad were girls in their early- to mid-twenties: a blond, a brunette and a redhead. The blonde and the brunette both wore tight white T-shirts and shorts that in a different decade would have been called hot pants. The redhead wore a long-sleeved, ankle-length white dress with daisies on it.

Marie pretended to drink. “Which one is she?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Matthew said.

“To me it does.”

Matthew sighed. “The blond wearing the Gwen Stefani T-shirt.”

Marie frowned. The bimbo’s blond hair had the luster of a shampoo model. Marie tucked a curl of her own red hair behind her ear. She hadn’t examined her roots lately. Any more gray hairs? Maybe I should dye my hair. Mentally, she shook her head. As an adolescent, she dyed her hair so often, the routine nowadays bored her more than an Anita Blake novel.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Matthew said, “her semester’s over next week.”

Marie gulped her margarita.

The blond bimbo was an intern for the spring semester at Leaf & Dashiell. Almost from day one in mid-January, the Bimbo Intern zeroed in on Matthew. That hadn’t surprised Marie. He resembled a young Harrison Ford and had been the object of many indecent proposals over the years. But the Bimbo Intern’s persistence startled Marie. Matthew told how the 22-year-old had bragged about her sexual adventures ending each tale with: “But I’m, like, totally sick of college boys. I need to experience a mature, older man.”

The volleyball game began. The redhead did the first serve. The brunette and the Bimbo Intern hovered near the net. The redhead’s serve was impressive—low and fast. The opposing team scrambled to keep the ball in the air. The Intern jumped up and down, her copious breasts bouncing around like sacks of silicone.

Marie set her glass on the wooden railing and folded her arms across her own chest. She was happy with her body, except for her breasts. She didn’t like having A-cups; they made her feel inadequate. She knew she shouldn’t think so much about her neighbors, as Matthew called them, but she couldn’t get over being shortchanged in that department. And it didn’t help that her well-endowed mother, who died last year, had referred to them as “sunny side up.” Sometimes, Marie wished she hadn’t been adopted.

“Don’t even go there,” Matthew said.

“What?”

In the backyard, the redhead spiked the volleyball, scoring a point. The Bimbo Intern gave her a high five, the slapping of skin echoing.

Matthew said, “You know I love you and would never do anything to hurt you.”

Marie frowned. “Loyal, loving husbands have fallen into temptation before.”

“But I won’t. Besides, I’ll never see her again after next week.”

“You know what worries me?”

“That the world will probably never see peace in the Middle East?” Matthew joked.

Marie smiled politely. “No, when she came into your office to show you her tattoo.”

Matthew’s thumb played with the white, plastic ring on the lip of his Deer Park bottle.

A couple months before, the Bimbo Intern had barged into Matthew’s office early one Wednesday morning, when no one was in yet. She announced that the previous night, after her weekly visit to the Empire Rock Club for ladies’ night, she had gotten a tattoo. Would he like to see? Before he could answer, she planted a foot on the edge of his desk and inched up her miniskirt to display a quarter-size rose on her upper-inner thigh. And she wore no underwear.

“You have to admit,” Marie said, “that was very forward, even in this day and age.”

“I know.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m proud you ushered her out of your office. Not a lot of men would have the willpower to do that.”

“But,” Matthew prompted.

“But you should’ve fired her or at the very least reported her to human resources.”

“Hon, how many times do we have to go through this? It’s pointless to go down to Judy in H.R. Sexual-harassment suits almost always favor the woman. Besides, let’s not forget how she got the paid internship in the first place.”

“I know, I know.”

The Bimbo Intern’s uncle was Raymond Dashiell, son of one of the company’s founders. Raymond Dashiell was active in the Montgomery County Republican Party and he sat on the board of directors at Leaf & Dashiell. In theory, no board member outranked any other, but 90 percent of the board’s decisions favored Raymond.

Marie uncrossed her arms and picked up her drink. What really bothered her was that since the tattoo incident, Matthew had told no more Bimbo Intern tales. The 22-year-old floozy didn’t strike Marie as someone who gave up easily. I mean, look at her down there, chasing the ball all over the place.

“Isn’t there anything you can do?” Marie asked.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never interned or co-opted. Isn’t there a report or e-mail sent to her school, letting them know how well or bad she did?”

“I don’t know. She’s actually Graham’s responsibility—his gofer, more or less. And from what he’s told me, she’s a pretty good worker.”

“I bet.”

The volleyball landed on the grass. Someone kicked it, and the ball shot into the park. The player apologized and jogged after the ball. The other players used the unofficial time-out to imbibe their drinks. One of the players, who looked like an extra from The O.C., ducked under the net and whispered in the Bimbo Intern’s ear. She batted her eyelashes.

Wonder if they’re fake, Marie thought. Probably are. Like the rest of her.

Graham came out of the house holding two unlit torches, each on a six-foot stand. “Glad to see at least two of my guests possess the aptitude to stand back and be spectators. Not everyone can be a superstar on the field of life.”

“Need a hand?” Matthew asked. A little too eagerly, Marie thought. Glad for the diversion?

“Nah, I’m fine, mate.”

Marie hadn’t seen Graham in a while. She’d forgotten about his fondness for British slang. That personality quirk had always fascinated her because Graham never left the continental United States.

Graham placed one of the torches in a corner on the deck and the other by the stairs to the backyard. He lit both. Marie inhaled the torches’ scent (vanilla-pumpkin mixed with citronella) and felt the heat from the one near the steps.

Marie finished her margarita and listened to cicadas. A mosquito buzzed near her ear. She swatted it. Off to the left, the sun sank like the Titanic.

Graham grabbed a bottle of Sam Adams from the cooler on the deck. “Hey, hey!” He staggered down the steps to the volleyball court. “Quit loafing around! I paid good money for these tickets, and I expect to be entertained, goddamnit!!!”

Most of the players laughed. The Bimbo Intern cackled. Marie rolled her eyes.

“Oh, shit!” Matthew said. His Deer Park had slipped from his hand and bounced off the railing. The bottle landed on the shoulder of a man with a crew cut, who was built like a missile launcher. The spring water spilled down his back. He jerked. The bottle tumbled down his front. He punched the plastic. It zoomed under the deck and crashed into a lawn chair.

“Sorry, Mick,” Matthew said. “Need a towel or anything?”

Mick blinked at Matthew, lips straight, eyes seething. He stepped out from under the porch. His casual dress shirt soaked, he undid the buttons and took it off. Marie noted that Matthew had a similar one. Red and black checkers with a button-down collar.

“That’s Mick Collins,” Matthew whispered to Marie. “He’s the new art director. I’ve eaten lunch with him a few times in the picnic area.”

Marie stole another glance at the wet art director. He knelt on the grass and fussed with the trade paperback he had held during his unscheduled shower. She squinted. Couldn’t make out the lettering on the book, but she recognized the image on the cover. Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

Matthew leaned over the railing. “You sure I can’t get you anything?”

Mick blinked for about five seconds, then turned away, shaking his head and waving a hand. Marie saw that he wore blue jeans and black Converse high-tops, just like her childhood friend Nick.

Matthew took Marie’s hand. “I think we’ve overstayed our welcome.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“Are you saying you’d rather hang out here all night instead of going home to the privacy of our own bedroom?”

“Why, what would we ever do there?” Marie smirked.

“Oh, I don’t know. Play a little skin flute, maybe.”

“I’ll be in the car,” Marie joked.

As Marie and Matthew said their goodbyes, three deer stood on the edge of the forest, staring at the volleyball court.

2

Marie waited as Matthew unlocked the passenger-side door of their Toyota Prius; he held her door open with the arm that had a tattoo of his old band, Mr. Mainstream. A moment later, he was in the driver’s seat. A millisecond after the engine turned over, he unclipped his iPod from his belt and hooked it up to the car stereo. He pressed shuffle songs. The first tune to play was the Thompson Twins’ “We Are Detective.”

“Wow, look at that.” Marie pointed at a car that looked like the kind Mike Myers drove in the Austin Powers movies, except this one didn’t have the British flag painted on it. However, it did have a miniature Union Jack on the tip of its antenna.

“That’s Graham’s latest toy,” Matthew said.

“He sure does love the U.K., doesn’t he?”

“To each his own.”

Matthew reversed out of the driveway, and they left the heart of Narberth. To get to their house in Glenside, the Prius had to cut through Philadelphia. Matthew knew a shortcut.

Fifteen minutes into the ride, the sun had set. The Prius headlights punctured the darkness. The streetlights on Tabor Avenue were either blown out or their timers were out of whack—Marie went with the latter.

The Prius was the only auto on this two-lane road. Plenty of cars were parked on the residential/commercial avenue, but no other traffic was in sight. Marie noticed that no pedestrians were around.

At the intersection of Tabor Road and Godfrey Avenues, the light turned red. Matthew slowed to a stop. Activity materialized. Cars and trucks zoomed by in both directions on Godfrey. From a few row homes on the left, residents exited to race down the houses’ concrete steps.

The light turned green. On the right was the Defense Supply Center; on the left, more row homes.

“Goddamnit,” Matthew muttered.

The Prius had gone no more than 100 yards before hitting another red light on Tabor Road between Cheltenham Avenue and Rosalie Street. The iPod played Adorable’s “Submarine.”

“I ask you,“ Matthew said, slapping the steering wheel, “what is the point of this light here?”

“Well, there is that.” Marie’s nose motioned to the right, at a black gate belonging to the Defense Supply Center.

“Pshaw. I was telling somebody at work about this the other day. In the five years I’ve been taking this road to work, I’ve yet to see that gate open once.”

“Why don’t you speed? That way, you can get the green light.”

Tabor Road had a speed limit of 30 miles per hour. If you did 40 or 45, you could catch all green lights until it was time to turn left on Martins Mill Road.

“I’m trying to be good,” Matthew said. “That’s one of the things I like about AA. They talk about doing what’s right. On the downside, they can’t go five minutes without babbling about God.” He frowned. “Stupid Christians.”

Marie nodded. Growing up, she and Matthew had fallen prey to the Catholic Church’s aggressive brainwashing policy. He went to CCD classes for a few years; she spent grade school at Presentation Blessed Virgin Mary.

“Go,” Marie said. The light was green.

Matthew put the Prius in park, took his foot off the brake and unsnapped his seatbelt. Before Marie could say anything, he tore out of the car. He left the door open, keys in the ignition ding-ding-dinging.

An SUV coming the other way on Tabor slowed down. The driver lay on the horn. Matthew ran in front of the SUV. From her seat, Marie watched his body momentarily slice through the headlights.

Marie put on the Prius’ hazards, unbuckled her seatbelt and opened her door.

Matthew was on the opposite side of Tabor. He sprinted across Cheltenham Avenue’s pedestrian strip. A car (Marie couldn’t tell the color, make or model—it was too dark), which had been behind the SUV, was in the process of turning onto Cheltenham, but Matt’s darting forced the car to swerve around him. Bassy, bellicose hip-hop blared from the car.

Marie squinted. Matthew veered left into an alley.

An 18-wheeler barreled around the right of the Prius. The truck driver, who wore an unwashed NASCAR cap, called Marie a “liberal cunt.”

3

Marie didn’t get home until 3 a.m. The cops took her down to the Second Precinct and interviewed her over and over and over again. She told the story so many times, she was sick of her own voice. Yes, Detective, my husband jumped out of the car, almost got himself killed running across the street, then dashed down an alley. No, I don’t know why he did it. No, we don’t know anybody in the neighborhood. Yes, we’re happily married.

Crawling into bed, Marie didn’t bother changing into her pajamas. She wondered if the adrenaline from the evening’s events would keep her awake. Not to worry. She fell asleep quicker than an Ergs’ intro guitar riff.

4

Late Monday morning.

Marie had spent the weekend sleeping, watching Netflix DVDs and eating takeout. Right now, she lounged on the living-room couch. On the muted TV, Bob Barker yapped about the Showcase Showdown on a Price Is Right rerun. From the kitchen wafted the smell of last night’s dinner: Seafood Delight, Cantonese style.

All weekend, Marie had stayed close to the phone. Not surprising, no one had called. She had no immediate family left, and the friends in her Rolodex were acquaintances at best. For the past 15 years, her world had consisted of Matthew and her career.

Marie was a writer. In addition to turning out four romance novels a year, she wrote for women’s magazines, and she had recently landed a monthly column in Philadelphia Weekly, the city’s premier arts and entertainment newspaper.

Any other Monday morning at the current time—11:30—Marie would already have spent two and a half hours writing. Fortunately, she was between projects, so she could afford the time off.

Marie glanced at the phone. She thought about calling the police precinct, but the past 60 hours or so of vegging had the unintended effect of regression. Her present state of mind was similar to her worldview at age 16, when she was more antiauthoritarian than Jello Biafra.

Why should I call the cops? Marie thought. They don’t care. They’re probably too busy scoffing down donuts and framing innocent minorities because they’re too lazy to do some actual investigating.

Marie jumped off the sofa. Enough self-pity. Time for a little action and reaction.

Swiping her keys from the bookcase near the front door, Marie marched with the stride of a woman invigorated with hope. She would find out what happened to Matthew. But first she needed a little help.

5

Marie parked her Prius in Center City at the corner of 20th and Spring Garden Streets. She hopped out of the car and slammed the door with her heel. At a baroque-Gothic building on Spring Garden, she pressed a red button for an apartment on the eighth floor.

“Um, yeah, articulate,” said a groggy voice via the intercom.

“Hi,” Marie said, “David?”

“Uh, no, this is Butch, a friend of his.”

“Oh. I’m looking for Nick Marsh. Does he still live here?”

“Sorry, no. Gotta go. My soaps are coming on.”

The intercom clicked off. Marie pressed the red button again. “Hello? Hello?” No answer. “Damn.”

Marie trudged down the gray-painted cement steps to the sidewalk. It didn’t surprise her that Nick wasn’t there. She hadn’t seen him in years. And she couldn’t call him. She’d lost his number eons ago. (Directory assistance would be useless; he had always been adamant about being unlisted.)

Shrugging, Marie dug her keys out of her purse. Time for Plan B.

6

A short skip and a screech later, Marie and her car were a block from the University of Pennsylvania campus. The Prius played nice with a parking meter while she walked into a coffee shop called the Internet Café.

Marie took a window seat near the front door. The wood chair she temporarily called home had a high seat and a low back. On the oval table in front of her was a PowerBook. She tapped the touchpad. The screensaver disappeared to reveal the Firefox Internet browser. The previous patron had visited a news site called DemocracyNow.org.

Sipping her small mocha latte, Marie—out of the corner of her eye—saw a middle-aged, bearded, bespectacled man turning the page of the Daily Pennsylvanian. Her imagination began doing the creative version of spontaneous pushups. Why was this man alone, on a Monday morning, in a café packed with college-age students, most of them girls? Was he a professor? A predator? Recently divorced? Marie rubbed her chin. He would make an interesting character, and she had been meaning to write a non-romance thriller. Was this the kernel of a story idea to kick it off?

A waitress breezed past Marie’s table with a tray of blueberry muffins. The aroma, mixed with the waitress’ rosy perfume, snapped Marie out of her reverie.

Time to get to work.

Marie typed “farting out a fetus” in the Yahoo! search-engine bar. She scanned the results and clicked the third choice. It was supposed to take her to www.
fartingoutafetus.net, but the site redirected to the punk band’s My Space page. Before a song started streaming, she raced the mouse to the contact portion of the page. She hit send message, and a prompt told her to log onto My Space. She did so, then returned to http://www.myspace. com/fartingoutafetus. Her message read:

Subject: Nick

Hi, I’m trying to track down Nick Marsh. It’s VERY important (seriously). My name is Marie Dougherty, although he might remember me by my maiden name -- Abraham. He can contact me here or at UniquelyUntalented@yahoo.com

THANKS!!! Marie Dougherty

Marie hit send, logged out and picked up her drink. Blowing on her overpriced coffee, she contemplated how long to wait for a reply.

7

Marie stayed in the Internet Café for about an hour, nursing her mocha latte and performing her favorite pastime: people watching. She would have stayed longer, but three college boys tried picking her up in 15 minutes. She had flaunted her wedding ring at the first one, but that hadn’t stopped the two who followed. She decided to go home.

Back in Glenside, Marie checked her e-mail every five minutes. She soon realized that was overkill, so she cut back to every 15, 20 minutes.

Between checks, Marie straightened up around the house. She didn’t know if her unexpected burst of energy was from the latte or her weekend of vegging. Whatever the reason, she knew she couldn’t concentrate enough to read any of the magazines and newspapers stacked by the TV.

After cleaning every square inch of the living room, Marie wondered if Nick would ever get her message. Farting Out A Fetus’ (FOAF) My Space page said they last logged in the day before. Hopefully, one of the band members would check it today.

Maybe I should have given my phone number. Another thought occurred to Marie: Did Nick still play bass for the band? Sure, his name was in the About Farting Out A Fetus section of the Web page, but that didn’t mean it was up to date.

Marie froze. She hoped FOAF wasn’t on tour.

With these thoughts caroming inside her head, Marie tapped her chin and walked into her office. She hit refresh on her computer.

8

Around 1 a.m., Marie fell asleep on her office floor, MacBook next to her, index finger on the touchpad. An hour and a half later, she jerked awake.

Standing above Marie was Nick Marsh, looking the same as he did the last time she saw him. It was—what?—10, 12 years ago?

Nick had a shaved head. He wore a white T-shirt, blue jeans and black Converse high-tops. Marie stretched and stood up, her vision blurry. Through her grogginess, she noticed the torchiere lamp in the corner was on full fluorescent blast, glaring off the white walls and stucco ceiling.

“Wha—how?” Marie managed to mutter.

“Got your message a couple hours ago,” said Nick, who could still be a stand-in for Ian MacKaye, except Nick was a half-foot shorter than the Fugazi vocalist. “Took a little while to track ya down. Obviously.”

Marie tried to stand up and stumbled. Nick placed a steadying hand under her left arm, saying, “I got ya.” She had forgotten how raspy his voice was. It still reminded her of Tim Armstrong’s cigarette/liquor-stained singing voice, especially on Rancid’s masterpiece, Let’s Go.

“How. . . .” Marie rubbed her eyes. “How did you find me? I’m unlisted.”

“I had a hacker buddy of mine hack into Yahoo!’s database to get your address.”

Now fully awake, Marie remembered that years ago, when signing up for Yahoo! Mail, she had to provide a phone number and physical address. The next time she was online, she’d have to update her profile with false information.

“So what’s up?” Nick clapped his palms together. “Ready to renounce your sellout suburban ways?”

Marie folded her arms. “Matthew’s gone.”

“Who’s that? The right-wing Republican who made you give up your DIY lifestyle?”

“He was—is—a libertarian, and he didn’t make me give up anything.” Pause. “He’s missing.”

Nick dropped his wise-ass smirk. He placed a hand on Marie’s shoulder. “What happened?”

Marie told him.

9

Fifteen minutes later, Nick and Marie were on her back porch. He appreciated that it was nothing elaborate (his own place gave new meaning to the word spartan). Marie’s porch was simply several slabs of concrete, with a rusty drain in the middle. An aluminum awning hung over the porch supported by three trellis-like posts.

Nick lounged on a vinyl beach chair, the kind that kept your legs horizontal and your feet off the ground. Marie leaned against the middle post, her left foot on the grass. The backyard was 20 square feet, enclosed by a waist-high chainlink fence.

“Yo,” Nick said, patting the patio chair next to him, “pull up a seat. Don’t be such a stranger.”

Marie shook her head. “I’d rather stand. I spend 60-hour weeks sitting in my office. My back gets stiff, so I try and stand as much as possible.”

“Check.” Nick gulped from the Pepsi can he had grabbed from the refrigerator. “So why’d you contact me?”

Marie didn’t answer at first. She sipped from her glass of Country Time pink lemonade.

A warm breeze made wind chimes clang and jangle.

“Why you?” Marie asked.

“Yeah.”

Marie sucked on her lips. Crickets chirped.

“I mean,” Nick said, “there are people who do this for a living that are really experienced at this sort of thing.”

“I know.” Marie set her drink down on a white plastic table. “I wrote an article last year on private detectives, so I have more than enough contacts I could call. But I wanted someone I truly trust, you know? Plus, I remembered all the good times we had as teenagers. And yesterday, I was recalling all of those situations you found yourself in, how you always knew exactly what to do.”

Nick nodded.

“There was the time we visited Chauncy,” Marie said, “after his family moved out to Villanova. He was driving us to the train station, so we could go home. Do you remember this?”

Nick didn’t.

“We were going to miss the train,” Marie continued, “and it was the last one, but the parking lot had just been paved or painted. Chauncy gunned his truck, running over the traffic cones at the entrance. When we got out, a cop ran toward us, yelling. I forget exactly what you said, but I remember you calling him ‘sir’ a lot. You used just enough tact to defuse him, so Chauncy didn’t get a ticket.

“Then there were times when you used violence because that was the only way to resolve the situation.”

Uncomfortable with the adulation, Nick redirected the conversation back to Marie’s side of the porch. “And you have no idea why your husband jumped out of the car and ran down the alley?”

Marie shook her head.

“Was there any . . .” Nick ransacked his high school-educated brain for the right word (Marie may have been a childhood friend, but she was still in a stunned state—he needed to be sensitive). “. . . tension between you and Matt?”

“No, everything was fine.”

“No problems at all?”

Marie stiffened. “What are you getting at?”

“I’m just asking. I haven’t seen you in over 10 years. I don’t know what your relationship was like. Maybe you thought it was all hunky-dory, but a observant outsider might be able to pick up on something that hinted otherwise.”

Marie stared at her hands, thumbs twiddling.

“Myself,” Nick said, “I though things between me and David were picture perfect. Then I come home from tour a day early, and he’s banging a cowboy twink, you know?”

Marie nodded, not making eye contact. Lightning bugs created an aura around her head.

Nick had more questions, but they could wait. Marie obviously wasn’t in the best frame of mind. Better let her get some sleep.

10

Nick felt a knee jabbing his side. He forced his eyes open. Marie stood over him. “Ready, sleepyhead?” she said.

“What time is it?” Nick’s pupils adjusted to the light that flooded the living room.

“A little after nine,” Marie answered.

“Give me till 10.” Nick pulled the sheet up to his chin and buried his face in the couch where he had spent the night.

Marie sighed. “We should get moving.”

“C’mon, Abe, I usually don’t get up till noon.”

Abe was what Marie had been called as a teenager. It was short for her surname: Abraham.

Marie tore the sheet away. Nick still wore his T-shirt and jeans, but he curled tighter into a ball.

“Uncouth, Dougherty!” Nick yelled, eyes closed. “Like a Karl Rove wannabe, you don’t know how to fight fair.”

“Nick, please.” Marie’s voice had a tinge of whining in it.

As a rule, Nick didn’t hesitate to get acerbic on somebody specializing in self-pity. But he cut Marie some slack. He couldn’t imagine what it was like to have a loved one go AWOL. Gotta give credit where credit’s due. If it was me, I might be breaking down, blubbering like a Morrissey fan every five minutes. Haven’t see Abe cry yet. Who knows, maybe that’s how she fell asleep last night.

“All right, all right.” Nick sat up and put on his white athletic socks and black Chuck Taylor high-tops.

“Did you sleep all right?”

“Oh, yeah. You know me. I could pass out at Ozzfest. How’d you sleep?”

“Fine.” Marie looked down, making her way towards the kitchen. “Need anything before we leave?”

“Coffee, if ya got it.” Nick picked up his cigarettes from the end table. Lighter in hand, he headed out back.

11

After breakfast, Marie drove her Prius. In the passenger seat, Nick fiddled with the radio, switching between 91.7, WKDU and 103.3, WPRB. Eventually, he settled on the former.

“So, Abe,” Nick asked,“ how come you and Matt never had kids?”

Marie shrugged. “Never got around to it.”

“For truth?”

“No. We were just so caught up in our careers. The timing never felt right to have any children. Besides, I had reservations about putting any offspring through the terrors of adolescence. I barely made it through mine. Thanks to writing and punk rock, I survived, but it could have easily gone the other way.”

“Did Matt have any problems?”

“What?”

“Drinking, drugging, gambling, womanizing,” Nick explained. “Anything that might have put a strain on your relationship.”

“He recently started going to AA meetings, but I didn’t think he had a problem. Apparently, he thought he did.”

“Fuckin’ AA! Does more harm than good. I can’t tell you how many people I know who relapsed and were worse off after falling off the wagon, all because AA’s steps tell newcomers they’re powerless over alcohol. So when somebody relapses, they go for broke because they’re brainwashed. I bet if they did a poll of AA members, 90% of ‘em would be conservative Christians. Fuckin’ assholes!”

Nick growled and shook a fist out the window. Quicker than a one-hit wonder’s career, he brought his hand back in and asked, “Hey, how come you moved out of the city and dropped out of the scene?”

“After you moved out west”—Nick had lived in San Francisco from 1992 to 1995—“I didn’t have anyone to hang out with. All of our friends moved away, got real jobs that took up all their time, or started families. I’ve never been completely comfortable in social situations, so making new friends wasn’t really an option. Then I met Matthew, and between him and my writing, I had next to zero free time.”

“Why move to Glenside? Why not just stay in the city?”

Marie shrugged. “It just seemed like the next logical step. We actually lived in Narberth first, but after a few years, we moved to Glenside. I’m glad we did. The Blue Comet is nice to go to on Sunday nights, when they have live rockabilly. And the Glenside Library is almost a second home to me.”

They reached their destination: Tabor Road and Cheltenham Avenues. Traffic was steady. A SEPTA bus roared by, its public-transit exhaust dissipating quicker than the Eagles’ chance of ever winning the Super Bowl.

Nick smirked. “Ready to rumble, grasshopper?”

“Mm-hmm.”

In unison, they got out of the Prius. The closing of their doors echoed.

12

Marie and Nick headed for the alley Matthew had disappeared down Friday night. On Tabor Road, a hot rod barreled past, Howard Stern blasting from the radio speakers; the driver shouted, “Lookin’ good, honey!”

“I think he’s talkin’ to you,” Nick said.

Marie nodded. She wore espadrilles, black slacks and a white blouse with a dress-shirt collar. The blouse had eight buttons (the top one undone) and a subtle, vertical pleated design.

Back at the house, Marie had spent 20 minutes in front of her bedroom closet, figuring out what to wear. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself. Guess I’m a failure on that front.

Marie and Nick entered the alley in question. Row homes lined both sides. In the middle was a driveway wide enough for a Hummer to coast down. A paved yard sloped from the driveway toward each house. Residents used the slopes as personal parking spots.

Halfway down the alley, Marie smelled a mixture of dog dung and feline urine. But she couldn’t tell where it came from.

From the top floor of one of the row homes, the sound of a screeching saxophone filled the alley. A young‘un practicing?

Marie and Nick reached the end of the alley. They stared at Bingham Street. The sides of row homes stared back, hard plastic green awnings over many of the windows.

Nearby was an old Chevy S-10 Blazer. Sun glared off the windshield. Marie shielded her eyes.

“Do you think Matthew went into any of those houses?” Marie asked.

“It’s possible. Was he in great shape?”

“He was healthy, but he couldn’t run a marathon.”

A voice to the left said, “Move, please.”

Marie moved. Motoring their way was a black boy, about 10 years old, in an electric wheelchair. He wore a Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith T-shirt and a Doctor Who baseball cap.

“In my way, you are,” the kid in a gravelly voice.

“Sorry, Yoda Jr.,” Nick said. “What’s the rush, yo? Dagobah on fire?”

The wheelchair stopped. Yoda Jr. grinned.

The three of them stood on the sidewalk. A maple tree shaded them.

“You may be wise, bald one,” Yoda Jr. said, “but cockiness leads to the dark side, it does.”

“So what are you saying, I shouldn’t let Boba Fett be the godfather to my cloned child?”

“No goodness in aligning with bounty hunters, there is.”

“How ‘bout a white male running down this alley here on Friday night ‘round . . .” Nick eyed Marie; she held up nine fingers. “. . . nine p.m.?”

“Hmmmm. . . .” Yoda Jr. stroked his Jay Leno-esque chin. “Recall exact stardate, do you?”

“Sure.” Nick’s eyelids fluttered. In thought? Marie guessed. He opened his eyes. “Six-oh-eight-two-four-point-four,” he said.

“Yes, yes. Recall a humanoid fits description, I do.”

“Oh, yeah? What went down?”

“Why need to know?”

“He was her husband.”

Yoda Jr. peered at Marie. She returned the favor.

“Dragged into a white van, he was, by two men in blue-gray uniforms.”

“So my husband was taken against his will?”

Yoda Jr. answered with an affirmative “mm-hmm.”

Nick asked, “What else can you tell us about these two guys in uniforms?”

“Caucasian, they were. Wore black shoes. Uniforms one-piece, like what janitors wear.”

“Did the van have any markings? Anything written on the side?”

“No,” said Yoda Jr. “Nondescript, it was.”

Marie leaned in. “Do you remember the license-plate number?”

“Began DHV, it did.”

Nick asked, “Do you remember the rest of it?”

“Did not see.” And with that, Yoda Jr. wheeled off the curb between two parked cars. He motored down the one-way street as if late for a date with a Dalek.

13

“Well,” Nick said, “since that was pretty much a bust, let’s go visit the place where your husband wasted his days.”

“Huh?”

“His work.”

“Oh,” Marie said.

“Who can we talk to?”

“I don’t know. He’s good friends with one coworker, Graham Archer.”

“Let’s do it.”

They hopped out of the Prius in Leaf & Dashiell’s parking lot. Nick stretched, his back cracking. The midafternoon sun shined down as if it were a spotlight, and the parking lot was a stage.

Nick and Marie headed for the six-story office building a good 300 yards away, past the full parking lot. Heat rising in the distance made the building waver.

With Leaf & Dashiell’s front doors 100 yards away, Nick thought, Kinda glad we came here. Last thing I wanted to do was knock on doors down by where Matt disappeared, asking if anybody saw what happened to him.

Nick glanced at Marie. She hadn’t put her keys in her purse yet. The car key stuck out between her thumb and index finger, her knuckles whiter than the face of a Red State resident who actually believed terror alerts.

“You all right?” Nick asked.

“Sure, why?” Marie said through clenched teeth.

Nick touched Marie’s arm. “Stop.”

They stood in front of a handicapped spot. The Mercedes parked there had no handicapped plate, but it did display a country-club sticker on the windshield above the rearview mirror.

“What?” Marie said.

Nick removed his hand from Marie’s arm. “Calm down.”

Marie’s cheeks shaded salmon, and her lips curled. Before she could argue, Nick said, “It’s self-defeating for you to go in there being more uptight than a accountant with a ledger stuck up his ass.”

Marie laughed. She dropped her keys.

Nick picked up the keys and pointed his nose at the office building. “You ready for this?”

Nodding, Marie slipped the keys into her purse.

They started walking again. To the right was an oval garden. A three-foot-high goose waddled towards a lake, her three goslings in tow.

Nick asked, “Don’t you do this all the time? Interviewing people.”

Marie shook her head. “I spend most of my working hours writing romance novels—no research really needed for that. The only nonfiction I do are my column and the occasional article. I only interview when I have to.”

“Message received and understood,” Nick said.

They ambled up the six steps to Leaf & Dashiell’s entrance. Artificial air blasted their way. Nick rubbed his palms together. Party time!

14

Marie let Nick go first. Something she hadn’t noticed in the parking lot was his gait. He strutted like George Jefferson, just as he had when he was a teenager at an all-ages punk show, stage-diving into a brawl.

Forgetting Nick for a moment, Marie realized that she hadn’t been in this building for at least three years. She hadn’t even been on the grounds except for those times she dropped Matthew off or picked him up when his car was at the mechanic’s.

Marie fought a smile. The last time she’d been here was a Saturday. She and Matthew were on their way to a barbecue; he wanted to stop off to pick up some CDs he had left in his desk. As they were leaving, he felt frisky. Next thing she knew, they were having sex in the stairwell.

Clearing her throat, Marie scanned the directory next to the elevators with her finger. Let’s see, Leaf & Dashiell, Leaf & Dashiell. Where are they?

“What’s up with you?” Nick asked.

“Huh?” Marie quit looking at the directory, but her finger remained on its plastic cover.

“You got this glow about you all of the sudden.”

“Glow?”

“Yeah,” Nick said. “If I plugged ya into a power plant, you’d probably light up the whole friggin’ East Coast.”

“Stop.” Marie turned back to the directory.

An elevator dinged. Doors opened, and out paraded a woman, six feet tall and wearing a pale-green pantsuit. Her skin was whiter than Polly Whitebread, and her shoulder-length, auburn hair (which, for some odd reason, always reminded Marie of willow leaves) was tucked behind minuscule ears and titanium eyeglass frames.

“Marie?”

“Oh, hi, Judy.”

“What are you doing here?” The woman smiled.

“My friend Nick and I— Oh, Nick, this is Judy Walker. She runs human resources here at Leaf.”

“Yo,” Nick said, raising a Black Panther fist.

“It’s Relations,” Judy said with a rictus grin.

“Excuse me?” Marie said.

“Relations. We changed the name to Human Relations.”

Nick sneered. “Why?”

“It’s what all the Fortune 500 companies are doing now.” Judy rested a hand on her purse; from the front pocket jutted a pamphlet for Conservatives United Now—Tomorrow. “Do you have an appointment with someone in the building?”

“Actually,” Marie said, “we were going to stop in and see Graham. See if he can tell us anything about Matthew.”

Judy grimaced, as if swallowing a SweeTart. “Oh, that won’t do.”

“Ex—Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry, but Graham is in meetings all day.” Judy raised a hand over her head and snapped her fingers. A security guard stepped out from behind a marble desk that looked like half of an enormous egg.

“That’s OK,” Nick said to Judy. “We’ll just leave a message for him.”

Judy tented her hands together. “Graham can’t be disturbed. He’s in the middle of interviewing applicants for the senior-editor opening.”

Marie gulped. That was Matthew’s job.

“That’s cool,” Nick said. “We’ll wait till he has a break.”

“Look.” Judy met Marie’s eyes. “We here at Leaf & Dashiell realize the sensitivity of your situation, but we can’t be pulling employees out of their offices for matters best left to the police.”

Marie stepped back. Not only to contain her anger but also because Judy’s breath reeked of coffee and onions.

The security guard slid in front of Judy, his bulk obscuring her (at least from Marie’s viewpoint). He had a Hitler moustache and the build of Mike Tyson in his prime. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask both of you to leave.” His hands were on his belt, left hand on the billy club, right hand on the Taser.

“Come on.” Nick wrapped an arm around Marie. “Let’s blow this lame-o-rama. This place is gayer than Whoopi Goldberg’s career.”

15

In the parking lot, Marie felt Nick remove his arm from around her shoulders as they passed the handicapped spot. When several feet from the Prius, she said, “Excuse me.” She turned away from him, took her purse, pulled it into her solar plexus and bent over.

Marie let out a scream like Kathleen Hanna on Bikini Kill’s “New Radio.” She screamed till she was out of breath, 30 seconds maybe. Then she stood up, chin high, and rummaged in her purse for the car keys.

Nick smirked. “All better?”

“Mm-hmm.” Marie unlocked the doors. “I wanted so bad to jump over and claw her eyes out, or at the very least yell at her for being such a . . . such a . . .”

“Uppity bitch?”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“You should have.”

Marie shook her head. “That wouldn’t have helped.”

“It was a lost cause once she asked you who you were there to see. That was her little corporate way of saying, ‘I ain’t lettin’ you past me, mofo.”

“You think?”

“Shit, yeah, motherfucker!”

Marie put the key in the ignition but didn’t turn it. She stared out the passenger window at a mound of grass.

“What’s up?”

“Huh? Oh, nothing.” Marie started her car. “I was just thinking. Last summer, I met Judy at the company picnic. She seemed so nice and sincere. She was telling me about her cats and how she was active in her church, specifically the choir. Now, she was almost a completely different person.”

“Yeah, people tend to sing a different tune when their job is on the line. For as much as I fuckin’ hate corporations, I have to admit, it’s nice how they give lots of people jobs. But on the downside, a lot of employees turn into sheep, where there’s this huge homogenization going on. It’s almost like cultural genocide, you know? If you’re not acting like a upper-crusty WASP, you’re seen as inferior. It seems like it whitewashes out all these cool little ethnic groups and subcultures that have their own little scene. You know?”

Marie nodded even though she didn’t know what Nick was talking about. How are we going to talk to Graham? I would really like to talk to him today. A gong went off in her head, and she reached for her phone in the glovebox.

“What’re ya doin’?” Nick asked.

“Calling the office.”

“Smart.”

The receptionist answered. Graham was away from his desk. Marie asked to have him paged. The receptionist apologized; they couldn’t do that at Leaf & Dashiell. Would she like Mr. Archer’s voicemail? “No thanks,” Marie said. “I’ll call back.”

“What time you got?” Nick asked.

Marie glanced at her Elgin watch, a gift from Matthew on their fifth wedding anniversary. “Five to three.”

Nick imitated Al Pacino: “Hoo-yeah.”

Marie looked up to see what excited Nick. Marching out of the office building were three security guards, the one from before in the middle.

Nick moved for the passenger-door handle.

Marie released the parking brake and gunned out of the parking spot. The guards paused, six aggressive eyes on the Prius.

“Whaddya doing?” Nick had opened the passenger door a hair. He slammed it shut.

“Avoiding the obvious. They obviously don’t want us on their property, so I’m saving them the trip of coming all the way down here.”

“Oh, you’re no fun.” Nick practically pouted. “I could’ve handled them with one hand tied behind my back.”

“OK, Spenser.”

“Huh?”

“He’s a fictional private detective. Like Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe, but better.”

Nick looked out the rear window. Marie assumed he was checking out the security guards one last time.

“Man,” Nick said, “I would’ve loved to take the one on the right. I think it was Andy Clancey.”

“Who?”

“A former defensive tackle for the Eagles. He played for four seasons or so, then made some bad business decisions. WIP”—WIP was Philly’s primary sports AM radio station—“said he became a free agent, but nobody picked him up, and the Eagles didn’t invite him back. Sounds like locker-room politics, you know?”

“What should we do now?” Marie turned right.

“I, for one, would turn this jalopy around so I can practice some kung-fu moves on Mr. Clancey that I saw in some Quentin Tarantino movie last week. But if you’re gonna be a total hater, then go ‘round the block, and we’ll park across the street.”

Marie drove a few miles per hour under the speed limit to waste time, in case the security guards dawdled in the parking lot. The octagon-shaped office park appeared larger than the sports complex in South Philly. It took them almost 10 minutes to drive all the way around it.

Driving down the two-way, four-lane Jefferson Drive, Marie saw Leaf & Dashiell’s building on the right. She knew it was her imagination, but the building seemed imposing.

“Any sign of them?” Marie asked.

“Nah.” Nick rolled down his window. “You might wanna get in the left lane.”

Marie did so. At the light, she turned left into an industrial park. She pulled into a spot at the end of the parking lot off Jefferson Drive. They had a clear view of Leaf & Dashiell’s front doors.

“Now what?” Marie asked.

“Now, we wait.”

“For what?”

“For our beloved Mr. Archer to get off work,” Nick said. “Then we tail him and ambush him like Samuel Jackson gettin’ all Mace Windu with those goddamned overhyped snakes on a plane.”

Despite feeling stressed, Marie laughed and leaned into the driver’s-side door. The release felt good. Her stiff back relaxed and her lungs enjoyed the exercise in hilarity.

16

Marie rolled down her window and rested her arm on the door. Across the street, a flock of sparrows flew from tree to tree. I hope one of them flies near Judy’s office and drops a mother lode on her window. Marie scolded herself for such a resentful thought and dwelled on it no more, thanks to an 18-wheeler roaring by on Jefferson Drive. Smoke, the color of obsidian, spit out of the cab’s exhaust stack. It rose and rose but didn’t dissipate. Marie smelled burning coal. She wasn’t sure if it came from the truck or not.

“Fuck,” Nick said.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m bored already.”

“Want me to turn the car back on?” Marie asked.

“Nah, don’t wanna waste all your gas. Besides, nothing personal, but there’s probably nothing on your iPod to my liking. All I listen to is punk and hardcore. I’m kind of a fuddy-duddy that way. Besides, I’m really in the mood for some Refused. Ever hear of ‘em?”

“No.”

“They were from Norway or something. They broke up in ’99, I think, after doing The Shape of Punk to Come. It was a fuckin’ awesome swan song. It was this total hardcore record, but they had all these interludes in there, like techno, classical—all this weird shit. But it worked. Not one piece of filler on the whole fucking album. Unbelievable. And ya wanna hear the best part? They broke up ‘cause they felt they were gettin’ too popular. In their eyes, all that selling tons of records was doing was enabling the corrupt capitalistic system they were railing against. So they broke up, so they could be real anarchists. Pretty cool, huh?”

Marie shrugged.

Nick said, “Don’t know if I’d ever have the balls to do something like that—I kinda enjoy my consumeristic lifestyle too much. Sure do admire ‘em, though.”

Marie nodded even though Nick had been the most unconsumersitic consumer she’d ever known. Suddenly, she jerked.

“What’s up?” Nick asked.

“There can’t just be one exit. What if Graham parked in the rear? Or maybe he carpooled.”

“OK, second things first. I seriously doubt he carpooled. This is America, the country that prides itself on being anti-community. Isolation for all, with big houses in the burbs and individuality over what’s best for everyone as a whole. What kind of car does he drive?”

“A Jaguar,” Marie said. “With a little British flag on top of the aerial.”

Nick rested his forearms on the dashboard and squinted. “There it is.”

Parked near the lake was the Jaguar with the miniature, plastic Union Jack on its antenna. A goose honked at the car’s hood ornament.

“Excellent,” Marie mumbled. A few moments later, she turned around to scan the parking lot the Prius occupied.

“Don’t worry,” Nick said, “nobody’s gonna bother us.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. We’re too far away for anybody to notice. Besides, our buddy Graham’ll probably come out sooner rather than later.”

Traffic on Jefferson Drive began to back up in both directions, rush hour beginning its predictable, twice-a-day, five-times-a-week ritual. None of the commuters paid Marie’s car any mind. The drivers and riders stared ahead, sneering and frowning.

“Oh,” Marie said, “I forgot to ask: I’m not taking up too much of your time, am I? Are you supposed to be in the studio or on tour?”

“Nah, FOAF’s taking a break so Pat and Greg can work on some songs.”

Marie was going to verify that those two were Farting Out A Fetus’ principal songwriters, however, Nick asked a question of his own.

“How ‘bout yourself? Got any shit you should be doing?”

Marie said she was between projects.

A few quiet moments passed. On Jefferson Drive, one driver called another an asshole.

“So,” Nick asked, “how come you don’t do your zine no more?”

In high school and college, Marie had written and published a zine she called Preenly Punk.

“Guess I outgrew it,” Marie answered.

“No, shoes you outgrow; bad habits you outgrow; old underwear you outgrow. What happened?”

Marie shrugged. “I started writing novels.”

Nick pretended to hold a microphone. “Marie Abraham-Dougherty, is there something you would like to tell our studio audience? You’re among friends here. Answer me this: Are you a sellout?”

“I need money to live.”

“What for, a posh house in the burbs and a fancy-schmancy automobile?”

“Can we not have this conversation now? What happened to your make-believe microphone?”

“Oh,” Nick said, “don’t worry ‘bout my microphone. It’s in a special, secret place.”

“Pan’s Labyrinth?”

“Answer me this, Abe. How come all your books are put out by corporate publishers? Why don’t you give any indie presses a shot?”

Marie smiled. “Nicholas Owen Marsh—“

“What are you a cop? Using my middle name. . . .”

“—what do you know about my novels? You don’t seem like the romance-reading type.”

“Hey,” Nick said, “I read the trades. And by trades, I mean your column in Philly Weekly. Hell, half the time all you do is talk about that whole Harlequin scene.”

“Jealous?”

“Yeah, right. If they tried rubbing elbows with me, I’d stick their hands down my pants.”

“Now there’s an image I could go without.”

“Yo, don’t knock it till you tried it, sister! There’s a huge, fantastical world down there that puts Guillermo del Toro’s daydreamings to shame.”

“WHAT!?!” Marie grinned so much, her mouth hurt.

“You know what I’m sayin’. Seriously, why you kicking the small presses to the curb?”

“They don’t pay well, or a lot of times, not at all.”

“Well, how can they, if you’re gonna run first to those corporate cock-knockers? A indie community can’t survive when all the artists got dollar signs in their eyes.”

“But at least I’m self-employed. It’s not as if I’m punching the clock, working for somebody else.”

“That’s only half the battle,” Nick said. “What’s the point in booking your own life if you’re sucking up to the mainstream? It’s counter-productive, you know? It’s like all of those quasi-indie punk labels. They say they’re DIY, but it’s like it’s all a act. Sure, labels like Epitaph and Fat Wreck Chords put out some cool punk-as-fuck CDs, but it seems kinda pointless when they’re hooking up with Spin to promote it or streaming the entire album on AOL. Ever hear of Leftöver Crack?”

Marie slipped into a smile. “No.” Nice name.

“They’re a pretty popular punk-ska band. They used to be on Hellcat Records—a Epitaph subsidiary, by the way. They had a pretty racy album cover, and Hellcat gave ‘em shit ‘cause Best Buy wouldn’t stock it. WHAT THE FUCK!!! You’re supposed to be a punk label. Why the hell are you sucking up to a heartless corporation?”

“Are you finished? You’re making my head hurt.”

“Hell, no, I ain’t finished! And here’s another thing I fuckin’ hate about Epitaph: I once read in Punk Planet they put a sampler out and bleeped out all the fuckin’ curse words. What the fuck. . . .

“Thank God there’s still labels like Alternative Tentacles, Dischord Records and Asian Man that are truly independent and punk as fuck.”

Marie looked across the street. Graham Archer strode toward his Jaguar.

17

The Prius tailed the Jaguar up Pontiac Pike, a five-lane highway (the middle lane used for turns). As Marie drove, Nick thought about what had happened when Graham approached his car.

The goose from before had its bill around the Jaguar’s hood ornament. When Graham came with striking distance, the goose ripped the ornament off and flew back to the lake. Graham chased the goose to the water’s edge. In the middle of the lake, the goose placed the ornament on a lily pad and honked. Triumphantly? Even now, sitting in the Prius, Nick wasn’t sure. But he smiled nonetheless.

The Jaguar turned right off Pontiac Pike, went a little less than a quarter-mile before pulling into a bar/restaurant called Eleventh Heaven. Graham tossed his keys to the valet.

Nick heard the Prius’ turn signal clicking. “Not yet.”

Marie switched off her turn signal.

“Go up a little bit,” Nick instructed. “I don’t want him to see us yet. Make a U-bee here.”

Marie slid into the middle strip of the three-lane road and turned into a dry cleaner’s parking lot. A 50-something woman with frosted hair, tan skin and oh-so-apparent plastic surgery held an armful of fresh dry cleaning. She opened the door to her Porsche and scowled at the Prius’ illegal maneuver. Nick blew her a kiss and said, “Tell your husband I’ll be over late tonight. I’m feeling kinda sore, so no rough stuff, OK?”

Marie pulled into Eleventh Heaven’s parking lot and coasted past the valet, who looked too young to see a PG-13 movie.

“Park here,” Nick said.

Marie guided the Prius into a spot at the end of the lot. She parked at an angle, behind a Dumpster. No one leaving the restaurant would be able to see her car.

“Probably a little overkill,” Nick said, “but I don’t want him seeing us and taking off.”

“Even though a valet parked his car, and he might not know where it is right away?”

“Like I said, probably overkill. Better safe than sitting around with our thumbs up our asses.”

They got out of the Prius. When about to enter Eleventh Heaven, Nick saw over on the road a Ford Mustang use the right shoulder to pass a Dodge Caravan, which was going the speed limit. The incident reminded him of an old 7 Seconds song, “Busy Little People.”

“Smoking or non?” asked the host.

Nick saw Graham at the bar, smoking a cigar. The barmaid placed a frosty mug in front of him filled with lager the color of engine oil.

“We’re just popping in for a drink,” Nick told the host.

Nick and Marie headed for the bar. It was on the host’s right. On the host’s left was an aisle that led to the dining room. From there, Nick smelled all kinds of food: Italian, Greek, Indian. . . .

Nick plopped down on the barstool to Graham’s right. Marie sat next to Nick. The jukebox blared the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine.”

“Mind if we join you?” Nick said.

“Not at all,” Graham replied. “The more the merrier, mate.”

“Hello, Graham,” Marie said.

“Hi, Marie.” Graham held his mug in midair.

The barmaid stopped washing glasses. “What can I get y’all?”

Nick ordered a Budweiser bottle, Marie a ginger ale, no ice. Marie slipped the barmaid a $1 tip.

“So, Graham,” Nick said, “what do you think about Marie’s husband disappearing after going to your party Friday night?”

Graham stubbed out his half-finished cigar. He gulped from his frosty mug. Several seconds later, he burped into his hand while dipping his chin. “What do you want me to say?”

“Aren’t you the least bit curious what happened to him? Weren’t you friends?”

“Acquaintances at most. Basically, we were coworkers who got along fairly well. The only times we got together outside of the office were at my parties.”

“What?” Marie interjected. “You and Anne have been to our house lots of times.”

“Look,” Graham said, “I’d like to help you—I really would—but I can’t.” He avoided eye contact. His neck shading red-purple, he polished off his lager, belched and slammed his mug on the red-and-white We’re Glad You’re Here coaster. “Once again, my apologies, but I really must shove off. Cheerio.”

Without waiting for a reply, Graham departed. He weaved through the crowd quicker than a scud missile on its way to bomb a children’s playground.

“Well,” Nick said, “that was certainly interesting.”

“Do you think he knows anything?”

“I don’t know.” Nick sipped his Bud. Tasted great. Not too cold, not piss warm.

Marie played with her little straw. At the end of the bar, a muted TV showed Fox News.

“Don’t get too dejected,” Nick said. “I’m sure there’s plenty of other people we can talk to.”

Marie nodded.

“Come on,” Nick said, “finish your drink so we can blow this Jack & Jill stand.”

18

Marie led the way out of Eleventh Heaven. She squinted. The sun hung in her point of view, between a cherry tree and a five-story medical building. Purple clouds of dusk descended like hot-air balloons.

“Give me the keys,” Nick said.

Marie half-laughed. “What?”

They passed the valet on their way to the Prius. Cicadas shrilled in unknown locations.

“I wanna drive,” Nick said.

“No way are you driving my car.”

“Why not? Afraid I’m gonna be a better driver than you?”

Marie fought a smile. “You are not driving for one very simple reason: you do not have a license.”

Nick flapped his lips and waved a hand.

Marie couldn’t tell if Nick was offended. “OK?”

Nick smirked. “Just ‘cause I don’t got no stupid piece of paper from the Man, saying I passed some arbitrary test, don’t mean I shouldn’t be driving this little superfine and divine automobile of yours. Never mind that those driver tests do nothing to prepare you for all the arseholes on the road.”

Marie unlocked the doors. “Sorry, you’re still not driving my car.”

“What if I promise to go only 10 miles over the speed limit?”

“No dice.”

“Sellout.” Nick grinned.

Marie smiled. “Rebel without a cue card.”

They hopped into the Prius. She clicked on her seatbelt. He slouched in the passenger seat, knees against the glovebox.

Marie tapped her thumbs on the steering wheel. Who can we talk to next? What’s today? Tuesday, right? Ooo, I know where we can go.

Marie told Nick who they could interview next and where they could find that person.

Nick checked the time on the car radio. He screened the digital display with his hand so he could see the time.

“Cool,” Nick said. “We got plenty of time, then. Let’s head down to South Street for a bite to eat.”

Marie put the Prius in drive. Soon, Eleventh Heaven was nothing but a pit stop on the path to finding out what happened to Matthew and where he was now.

19

Years ago, South Street had been the nadir in Philadelphia. Then city officials added a couple of boroughs below it, making the neighborhood a part of Center City. Up until the 1950s, South Street was primarily a garment district, when the legendary city planner Edmund Bacon (father of actor Kevin Bacon) urged the city to build the Crosstown Expressway, a thoroughfare along South Street to connect I-95 and the Schuylkill Expressway. Bacon’s project never panned out, but plunging prices after the project died made South Street real estate affordable. That attracted artists and hippies who started art stores, bistros, bookstores, cafés, craft stores and nightclubs. By the 1980s, though, South Street became such a tourist magnet that corporations and corrupt politicians killed the bohemian vibe with chain stores and fast-food franchises.

Presently, Marie and Nick ate at the South Street Diner on the 100 block of South Street before the Delaware River. Throughout their meal, Nick flirted with the waiter. When he paid the bill, they exchanged phone numbers.

Outside, Marie and Nick headed west on South Street. It surprised her that the area wasn’t too congested for a spring evening. At the corner of Second and South, an old, skinny, blind, black man strummed a steel guitar. He played Pink’s “Stupid Girls.”

At Fourth and South, Marie screeched to a halt. Nick turned right down Fourth Street, heading south.

“Hey,” Marie said, “where are you going? The car’s parked up here.” She pointed north.

“Yeah, I know. I wanna show you somethin’.”

Marie shrugged. She did a figure eight around a teenage Hispanic couple making out and a 20-something hip-hopper doing his best thug pose (scowling and thumbs hooked in his diamond belt, which failed to pick up his droopy drawers).

Businesses on this block of Fourth Street included two record stores, a tattoo shop and a clothing store for dance-club kids. Halfway up the left side of the street, past a claustrophobic alley, stood a store called Crazy ‘Bout Zines. Nick stepped on the white marble stoop and entered, the doorbell jingling. Marie followed.

Crazy ‘Bout Zines smelled of old paper and cat fur. To the left was a checkout counter. A radio played folkish music. Marie couldn’t hear the lyrics. Volume too low.

A tall, lithe woman in a paisley, ankle-length dress paraded up the middle of the three aisles. “Hi,” she said. “I didn’t hear you come in.” Her black, leather loafers clopped on the scuffed wood floor, and she was upon Marie and Nick quicker than Jayne Krentz inventing a memorable character name. The woman’s movement from the back of the store to the front didn’t startle Marie. After all, the shop was only 20 yards in length and 10 yards in width.

“Nick!” said the woman. “Long time no see.”

“You know me. So many zines, so little time.”

“I take it you’re all finished with that issue of Wonka Vision?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Nick said like Alvin Chipmunk.

“That good, huh?”

“Unbelievably awesome. Oh, hey! Alex, this is my friend Marie Dougherty. Marie, Alex Elliss, the fine proprietress of this kick-ass establishment.”

The women shook hands. Afterwards, Alex pushed her gigantic glasses up the bridge of her nose. The spectacles looked like two fishbowls in black, plastic frames.

Marie saw a half-dozen cats mewing at Alex’s feet. Alex squatted and picked one up, a Maltese. She kissed the cat’s nose and said, “That Wonka Vision went pretty fast. I think I ran out of all my retail copies in less than 48 hours.” Almost to herself: “I’ll have to order more next issue.”

“Yeah,” Nick said, “ya can’t go too wrong putting Propagandhi on the cover. Gotta love a bunch of Canucks who stick to their ideals. I still can’t believe they made fun of Fat Mike on their latest CD.”

“Who’s that?” Alex asked.

“He’s the singer, bass player and main songwriter for NOFX. A couple years ago, they had a song with a line that went, ’When did punk rock become so safe?’ Propagandhi made fun of it on Potemkin City Limits by basically saying NOFX are part of the problem. Weird thing is, Fat Mike’s label put out Propagandhi’s record. Kinda takes a big man to do that. Not unless he let it ride to save face or just make money off it.”

Marie didn’t know what Nick was talking about. Come to think of it, why are we even here? We should be on the road to Northeast Philly.

A floorboard creaked. Nick seesawed like a boiling teapot. He stopped goofing around, his mouth near Marie’s ear. “This place is cooler than Minor Threat in their heyday,” he said. “They sell every zine you can think of, and Alex also has memberships. How much are they now?”

“Twenty-five dollars a year.”

“It’s pretty cool. It lets you come in and borrow any zine you want. You can’t take out another one until you return it; and if you lose it, you gotta pay the cover price. Pretty freakin’ cool!”

Alex grinned. The Maltese yawned. The cat lounged on her shoulders, most of its body behind her neck.

Nick stuck out his chest and shouted, “GOD BLESS THE ARTS!”

Marie and Alex laughed.

“Yo,” Nick said to Marie, “before we leave, you gotta check this out.”

Nick led Marie to the checkout counter, which doubled as a display case. Inside were a few glass shelves holding numerous zines, each sealed in a plastic bag. Some of the zines were sun-stained, including an early issue of MaximumRocknRoll. All of the zines in the glass case must have been collectors’ items. Prices ranged from $50 to $1,000.

“Wow,” Marie said, knowing Nick expected her to say something.

“Look at the first shelf again,” Nick said.

Marie did. A wave of nostalgia rippled through her. Out of all the things she anticipated seeing in her lifetime, this was—without question—not one of them.

On the top shelf in the display case was a box set of all 22 issues of Preenly Punk. Asking price? $900. (Well, $899.99.)

Marie quit hunkering in front of the case. She stood up, left knee popping, and blushed.

Nick wrapped an arm around Marie’s shoulder. “Check it out, Alex. This is ABE.”

When doing her zine, Marie had turned her nickname into an acronym: Against Bloody Everything. She signed her editorials and articles ABE.

Alex’s eyes lit up. She removed the Maltese from her shoulders and placed it at her feet, the feline’s nails clicking on the wood floor. A Cheshire Cat smile crossed Alex’s face. “I’ll be right back.” She disappeared into the rear.

Marie gave Nick an inquisitive look. He shrugged.

Alex strode out of her office and rejoined Marie and Nick near the display case. She held a copy of Preenly Punk’s first issue.

If I didn’t know any better, Marie thought, I’d say she’s gushing.

“Would you mind . . .” Alex held out the brittle zine. “. . . signing this for me?”

20

Marie started the Prius. Clammy hands gripped the steering wheel. She still was unsure what to make of Alex Elliss.

“Still think zines are a total waste of time?” Nick asked.

Marie said nothing. She didn’t know what shocked her more: that a box set of Preenly Punk sold for $900, or that Alex had asked for her autograph.

Nick planted his right hand on the dashboard, his body turned towards Marie. “Just imagine what life would’ve been like if you kept putting out your zine.”

“I don’t know.” Marie idled at a red light. “Maybe part of the reason it’s such a collector’s item is because I made such a big deal about the last issue, each article about the end of something.”

Preenly Punk #22 was titled “The Final Issue.” Each article detailed the end of an artistic movement, a punk band’s breakup or an author’s last masterpiece.

Marie continued, “I think people like it when there’s a definitive beginning and end. That’s probably why the Beatles are still such perennial favorites. There’s no way they can ever get back together.”

“Holy shit,” Nick said, “did you just compare yourself to the fuckin’ Feeble Four? I don’t know what’s worse, you having a ego, or comparing yourself to probably the most overrated band of all time.”

Marie grimaced. “You’re right. That was pretty egotistical of me.”

The light turned green. The Prius headed up Fifth Street. On the right, anarchists congregated outside of Wooden Shoe Books & Records.

“Time for a little Empire Club action?” Nick asked.

“Mm-hmm.”

“You sure she’ll be there?”

Marie nodded. “Apparently, Tuesday is ladies’ night. She’s not one to miss cheap drinks. Or cheap company, for that matter.”

“What’s her name again?”

“Bimbo Intern.”

21

The Empire Club was on Roosevelt Boulevard in Northeast Philadelphia, between Tyson and Cottman Avenues. The Empire was bit of an anomaly. Most of Northeast Philly’s nightlife consisted of bars and taverns that offered jukeboxes or cover bands. The Empire differed by hosting live, original artists. Most played rock ‘n’ roll of some variety (punk, thrash, metal, hard rock, etc.). But the Empire’s owners were smart. They realized not everyone wanted new music all the time, so after every original song, a band had to play a cover. Most did so without griping, since the Empire treated artists well, paying them half the money not only from the cover charge but also from the CD-Rs the club created of the band’s performance, which the house engineer sold after the last encore.

Nick stared out the windshield at the Empire. Marie had parked the Prius at the end of the lot. Because the club shared asphalt with Kmart, parking spots were at a premium. Tonight, the retailer was in the midst of a sale that would make Smurfette’s shopaholic heart aflutter.

“Damn,” Nick said. “Haven’t been here in a while.”

“You ever play here?” Marie asked.

Nick nodded. “It’s been at least a year—maybe two. Cool thing I like about it is that it’s all ages, you know?”

Nick and Marie got out of the Prius, the slamming of the doors echoing in the parking lot. Overhead, a flock of sparrows flew in triangle formation. Across the street was a sports field. A wooden bat thwacked a baseball; a crowd cheered.

“How come you haven’t played here for so long?” Marie asked.

“We’ve been recording a lot the past year for this mail-order One Seven-Inch A Month Club, and we’ve been doing a lot of touring. When playing locally, it’s usually someplace downtown, like the First Unitarian Church. And when I do have off, no sense in me hiking it all the way from West Philly to see a show here. Plenty of shit going on down in my own neck of the woods, you know?”

They reached the Empire’s front double doors. Inside the club, bass-heavy music thumped to a one-two beat.

Nick held open the door on the right. “Ladies first.”

“Thank you, P. Diddy.”

“My pleasure, but please call me Puff, being’s I’m full of so much hot air.”

22

Since Tuesday was ladies’ night at the Empire, women got in for free. Men had to pay a $10 cover charge. About 200 people were at this show, a little less than half the room’s capacity. A third of the patrons were women.

Nick made a beeline for the bar. He ordered water for himself and a White Russian for Marie. Quicker than a cop shaking down a small business, the bartender delivered the drinks, Marie’s in an octagonal glass, Nick’s in a brandy snifter.

Nick handed Marie her White Russian. Their backs were to the bar and—off to the side—the entrance. In front of them, down three steps, was a dance floor big enough to keep Savion Glover busy for eternity. To the left and right of the dance floor were dining areas on elevated platforms.

Straight ahead, on the stage, the World/Inferno Friendship Society played their unique blend of cabaret and punk rock. The singer, Jack Terricloth, swayed to the music like a cobra in a Bangladesh basket, his hands rarely leaving the mike stand.

Nick leaned into Marie’s ear. “You see her?”

Marie scanned the spectators. She squinted. Nick would have too. The strobe lights flickered. When the light show returned to normal, she pointed.

“Over there,” Marie said.

On the left, in a booth, the Bimbo Intern sat between two muscleheads. Both her hands were under the table.

Nick wondered if the Bimbo Intern whitened her teeth daily. Her bleach-bright smile forced him to look away. Christ, talk about a glare.

Marie asked, “What do we do?”

“Wait,” Nick answered.

Fifteen minutes later, the Bimbo Intern wiggled out of the booth, the meatheads leering. Before heading into the bathroom, she waved at her two bulky admirers.

When the Bimbo Intern came back out, Nick glided in front of her, his body blocking her from the meatheads’ line of vision. His job was made easier by customers flocking in and huddling in front of the bathrooms.

“Is that your car out there?” Nick asked.

“The Range Rover?” The Bimbo Intern blinked, arms akimbo, wrists limp.

“They’re towing it away.”

“WHAT?”

“C’mon,” Nick said, “I’ll show you.”

“This is bullshit!”

Nick let the Bimbo Intern go first. She stormed out of the club, running a hand up each forearm, as if rolling up sleeves, even though her dress was sleeveless.

In the parking lot, the Bimbo Intern started for her Range Rover. “Hey—“

“A little word to the wise,” Nick said. “When somebody says, ‘Is that your car out there?’, don’t volunteer the make and model.”

Marie joined Nick, but the Bimbo Intern was too busy fumbling with the latch of her purse to notice. Her eyes darted everywhere except at Nick and Marie. No one was within shouting distance. A streetlight bathed the three of them in a yellowish hue. Fifty yards away, traffic barreled by on Roosevelt Boulevard.

The Bimbo Intern’s hand jerked out of her purse. “Not one step closer, or I’ll Mace your face.”

Nick started laughing. Marie giggled.

“What?” muttered the Bimbo Intern. She looked at the object in her hand. A vibrator.

Nick massaged his side. He laughed so hard that his side cramped.

The Bimbo Intern shoved the vibrator back into her purse. She pulled out a Swiss army knife.

Nick stopped laughing. He dried his eyes. “Put that thing away before you cut yourself.”

“I’m warning you, both of you. Not one ste. . . .” The Bimbo Intern studied Marie, as if for the first time. “What are you doing here?”

“Trying to find out what happened to my husband.”

“Well, I haven’t see him since Graham’s party, so there.” The Bimbo Intern put the knife back in her purse.

Nick asked, “Do you know why he jumped out of their car and ran down that alley?”

“Is that what happened?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I don’t know,” said the Bimbo Intern. “Maybe he split because of her.” She pointed her hooknose at Marie. “I heard she was a pretty lame lay.”

Knuckles cracked. Nick saw Marie form a fist.

Nick asked the Bimbo Intern, “Is there anything you can tell us?”

“Nope.”

“Anybody we can talk to?”

The Bimbo Intern shrugged. “You can try Mick Collins. He and Mattie were pretty tight.”

“OK, thanks.”

The Bimbo Intern strutted back to the club, cutting between Nick and Marie. The velvet material of her dress brushed against his arm. Her Paris Hilton perfume made him cough.

Before she reached the Empire’s front doors, the Bimbo Intern swiveled and placed her hands on her hips. She zeroed in on Marie.

“If you ever do find Mattie, tell him to give me a call. He was the best lay I ever had. That birthmark under his left arm still turns me on.”

23

Nick drove the Prius. Marie hadn’t objected when he took the keys. He’d been smart to do so. She was in no shape to drive.

Back in the Empire parking lot, after the Bimbo Intern’s parting comment, Marie had screamed, “YOU FUCKIN’ CUNT! I’LL KILL YOU!!!” But Nick grabbed her from behind (by the waist) and prevented a homicidal act.

“How ya doin’?” Nick asked.

“I want to go back there and tear that little bitch a new orifice,” Marie barked. “Or better yet, take that little fucking knife of hers and stab her in the vagina, so she’s never able to sleep with a married man again.”

“She could be lying.”

“How did she know Matthew has a birthmark?”

“He could’ve told her. Maybe she saw him wearing a tank top at the gym. Or maybe it’s on his health records at work. Didn’t you say her uncle’s some bigwig there? She could’ve gotten hold of his records by turning on the charm on her uncle.”

Marie snorted. “What charm?”

Breathing evenly, Marie felt her anger abate. She realized the Prius was heading south on Roosevelt Boulevard. Oh my God! A thought sideswiped her gray matter: Nick had been driving for at least 10 minutes. Since the Bimbo Intern’s parting comment, everything was a blur. I can’t remember the last time I blacked out over an adrenaline-infused rage.

Calmed down now, Marie took note of Nick’s driving. For someone without a license, he was quite the conservative driver. He didn’t run yellow lights, drove no more than five miles over the speed limit and passed other cars only when necessary. Fascinating. Most people she knew who drove without a license raced like a stunt person on a Jerry Bruckheimer movie.

The Prius turned right on Bustleton Avenue. A few blocks later, it made a left on Knorr Street. If they’d stayed on Bustleton, they would have passed a storefront that was now a pizza place, but back in the day had been the Record Cellar.

As a teenager and 20-something, Marie visited the Record Cellar at least once a week. It had two aisles, with four rows of records in waist-high wood bins. Near the front were cassettes in cases nailed to the wall. In the late ‘80s, the store started stocking compact discs. In 1996, the Record Cellar shut its doors so the owner, Neil Drucker, could devote time and resources to his fledgling record label of the same name. A month before the closing, Marie went through the clearance bins. That was when she’d met Matthew.

Back in the present, Marie slapped a hand over her face. She groaned.

“What’s up?” Nick asked.

“Nothing.” Grunt. “I can’t believe I used the C word back there.”

“What, it’s not like she didn’t deserve it. She is, after all—what do you call her?—a Bimbo Intern.”

Marie nodded. “I know, but it’s such a vile word.”

“Hey, if it bothers you so much, next time, use the code word my buddy Derek uses. C-Class.”

“C-Class?”

“Yeah,” Nick said, “one time he got cut off by some shithead driving a Mercedes C-Class, so now, instead of using the C word, he just calls those of the uncouth persuasion ‘C-Class.’”

24

The next morning, Marie jumped out of bed. After tending to hygiene concerns, she strode back into her bedroom on the balls of her feet (something she had done as a teenager whenever walking barefoot) and opened the metal closet door, tiptoeing for the top shelf. Since she missed laundry day over the weekend, her choices were limited. Eventually, she chose cargo pants; a white T-shirt with a decal of the Circle Jerks’ only good album, When the Shit Hits the Fans; and her Sun Dog sneakers. No espadrilles today, her feet ached from wearing them yesterday.

In the living room, Marie tapped Nick’s feet. “Let’s go,” she said. “Rise and shine, sopor-head.”

“Ughhh.” Nick sandwiched his head between two pillows. “Somebody tell the sun to take the day the fuck off.” He grinned and got up.

25

A half-hour later, Marie and Nick were—once again—in her Prius. She drove to their next destination: Graham Archer’s house in Narberth to talk to his wife, Anne.

Before leaving Glenside, they had breakfasted à la America’s Choice cinnamon-raisin bagels slapped with Philadelphia cream cheese. Marie had objected to Nick’s insistence that they talk to Anne Archer. Marie didn’t see the use. They already had a lead with Mick Collins. Why waste precious time with Anne? Nick argued that their best bet was to ambush Collins at lunchtime, when he ate in the picnic area behind Leaf & Dashiell. Nick pointed out that the two of them had an entire morning to kill. Might as well talk to Anne, in case the conversation with Collins proved futile. Anne might offer another lead.

Marie pulled into the Archer driveway behind a Lexus. Since Graham drove the Union Jack Jaguar, this Lexus must have been Anne’s.

“Holy shit on a bass pick,” Nick said, stretching and yawning. “How the fuck do you nine-to-fivers get up so goddamned early every day? The working day should start at noon”—his voice took on a British accent—“I say.”

Marie removed her keys from the ignition. She didn’t answer Nick’s question. If she had, she’d have told him her typical workday ran 12 hours, not counting the two to three hours a night she spent reading the newspaper and a book or magazine.

Marie walked around the car. She wore sunglasses with lenses shaped like bug eyes. From a nearby house, a TV blared Good Morning America.

The Archer house abutted the driveway, so Marie and Nick didn’t have to trek across an expansive lawn. Nick went first, trudging up two steps to the wood porch. He opened the screen door and knocked on the steel door. (Down near the mailbox slot was a small sticker advertising Doors Unlimited.)

Activity inside the house. Someone peered through a peephole. Marie slid into view. The door opened after the unmistakable sound of a door chain being unhooked.

Anne Archer opened the doorway halfway. She squinted, even though the porch overhang provided plenty of shade.

“Hi, Anne,” Marie said.

“Oh, hello . . . Marie, is it?” Anne opened the door all the way.

Anne hadn’t been at the party on Friday. Marie hadn’t seen her since the fall, when the two couples had dined at Estia, a Greek restaurant in Philadelphia.

This morning, Anne wore a white, silk bathrobe that practically merged with her ivory skin. Her shoulder-length, bleached-blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she smelled of potpourri. Marie wasn’t sure how someone could smell like that unless she had rolled around in it. But stranger things have happened. Like your husband jumping out of the car at a traffic light on a Friday night.

Marie introduced Nick. Pleasantries passed all around. Anne invited them in.

A Shih Tzu scuttled in from the kitchen. It yelped at Marie and Nick. A bell on the dog’s flea collar jingle-jangled.

“Oh, Geffen,” Anne said to the Shih Tzu, her arms crossed over her chest, as they had been when she answered the door. “Simmer down. Simmer down!”

“Fan of the Mighty Bosstones?” Nick asked.

“Excuse me?”

“Back when they were good, before they began to ‘never knock on wood,’ they had a song called ‘Simmer Down’—a Bob Marley cover, I think. Not too many people use that phrase anymore. That isn’t where you got it from?”

“Afraid not.” Anne pursed her lips as if sucking on expired caviar. She inhaled through her nose and invited Nick and Marie to sit, indicating a beige-and-white living room.

Marie and Nick sat side by side on the couch under a painting of a submarine. Anne turned off the widescreen TV. Marie watched the image fade of Regis and Kelly. They’d been interviewing Tom Gable, the former lead singer of Against Me! Gable was promoting his Dylan-esque solo album.

As Anne settled into a loveseat near the faux fireplace, Marie gazed out at the patio and backyard. Sitting here made her queasy. Just five days before, she and Matthew had been here, enjoying their time together and kick-starting another blissful weekend.

Marie cast the memory aside, though she couldn’t take full credit. Anne, sitting with both feet tucked under her buttocks, had picked up a teacup off a table that was part of a lamp. The cup held coffee the color of football-field mud. She rattled it on a white saucer decorated with lattices.

“Yo,” Nick said, “you got anymore of that lovin’?”

“What? Oh, sure.” Stone-faced, Anne unwound herself and headed for the kitchen. She returned with coffee in a pint-size I © New York mug. Nick gripped the ceramic handle and gulped as if he had given up java for Lent. Marie assumed the coffee was lukewarm. Otherwise, he would have come up for air by now.

“Goddamn,” Nick said, placing the mug on the coffee table in front of him and Marie. “That’s good stuff! Like Depeche Mode says, ‘I just can’t get enough.’” Still sitting on the couch, he did a little New Wave dance with his shoulders.

“Glad you like it.” Anne raised her eyebrows at Marie.

“No, I’m fine, thank you,” Marie said. “I’m not much of a coffee drinker.”

Nick took another swallow of the coffee as Geffen tore across the living room floor, barking. Nick picked up the Shih Tzu and placed it on his lap. Geffen stopped barking as soon as Nick started petting it.

Marie crossed her legs and stared at the stucco ceiling. She tried to remember if Geffen had been at the party. Never mind. It was inconsequential.

“So, Anne,” Nick said, “now that I’m all caffeinated up and working at optimum levels: Matthew Dougherty. What can you tell us about him?”

Anne rubbed her nose. “What do you mean, what do I know about him? He’s her husband, and he works with Graham. What more is there to know?”

Marie cleared her throat. She told Anne about Matthew’s disappearance.

“Oh.” Anne put her teacup on the lamp table. She hugged herself.

“Graham didn’t tell you?” Marie asked.

“No. No, he didn’t.” Eyes down.

Marie and Nick traded glances.

Nick asked, “Do you have any idea why Matt would bolt like that?”

“No. Sorry.” Anne wrinkled her nose.

“Is—“

Anne interrupted Nick. “Shouldn’t this be a police matter? Why are you two even bothering with this little charade? I’m sure he’ll turn up.”

Marie’s eyes widened. This was the most emotion Anne had shown since they arrived.

“The cops!” Nick said. His voice woke Geffen, who had fallen asleep in his lap. “I wouldn’t trust those pigs to coax a cat out of a tree, let alone handle something sensitive like Abe’s AWOL pooh bear.”

“Well.” Anne scowled. She picked up her teacup and saucer. Bringing the cup to her lips, she knocked her head back and snorted. Marie was pretty sure Anne had emptied it earlier.

Enough of this.

Marie got up. “Thanks for seeing us, Anne, and answering our questions. I hope we didn’t put you out too much.”

“No, not all.” Anne sniffed and stood.

Nick got up, too. He held Geffen in front of him, letting the Shih Tzu lick his nose and mouth. Afterwards, he set the dog on the plush carpet and joined Marie by the door.

“We’ll see ourselves out,” Marie said.

Hand on doorknob, Marie paused when Anne called her name. Anne stood in the middle of the living room, arms limp at her sides like clumps of spaghetti.

“Graham did tell me one thing. He said the new art director and your husband were working on an extracurricular business plan. I don’t remember any of the details.”

“OK. Thanks.” Marie opened the door. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw on the table in the foyer, a stack of pamphlets for Conservatives United Now—Tomorrow.

26

Sitting behind the steering wheel, Marie cringed when Nick slammed the passenger door. His breath reeked of coffee. She rolled down her window.

Nick said, “How much ya wanna bet that right about now good ol’ Mrs. Archer’s got her nose buried in a bag of blow?”

“You think?”

“Does a bear maul a documentarian to death? Man, I haven’t seen anyone touch their nose so much since my nephew had a sinus infection.”

Marie put the Prius in reverse and coasted down the driveway. She frowned. Why hadn’t Matthew told her about his business plan with Mick Collins? Well, they would soon find out.

27

Nick led the way around Leaf & Dashiell’s building. Marie was right behind him. They navigated a serpentine path to the picnic area. Fifty-foot trees shaded the courtyard, making it seem like dusk rather than high noon.

Nick was glad no security guards patrolled the grounds. He wasn’t in the mood for violence today.

The courtyard contained seven concrete picnic tables. Mick Collins sat at the one in the middle. He wore a casual dress shirt with button-down collar and a pattern of black and tan checkers. In front of him lay a book. He highlighted a passage.

“Yo, Mick!” Nick plopped on the picnic table’s bench to Collins’ left. “Wha’cha reading?”

Collins showed him. Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.

“Hey,” Nick quipped, “shouldn’t that be called Avaricious Father, Exemplary Father?”

Collins blinked.

“Don’t ya think he’s doing nothing but giving people a excuse to be greedy?” Nick said.

Collins shook his head. “He’s providing a useful service by showing how to be self-reliant. The government’s not going to take care of you when you’re old and retired.”

A few years before, Nick had listened to the audiobook of Rich Dad, Poor Dad (always a good idea to check out what the enemy is reading). He agreed with Kiyosaki that owning a home was more of a liability than an asset and that America’s educational system bred employees rather than entrepreneurs. But in the end, Rich Dad, Poor Dad promoted the status quo. Nick was about to recommend Moving Forward by Michael Alberts, but he remembered that he and Marie weren’t here for an ideological discussion.

Marie sat across from Collins. Flying ants zipped around all three of their heads, and bees buzzed about in search of nectar.

“Hi, Mick,” Marie said. “Do you remember me?”

Collins blinked. “Yes.” He dog-eared the page of his book and closed it.

Collins picked up a plastic fork and ate a chunk of his tuna salad from a clear plastic container. To the right of the takeout meal was a bottle of Coppertone suntan lotion, SPF 40. Probably for his bald dome, Nick guessed.

“So,” Nick said, “word on the street is you and Matt had a little business arrangement going on.”

“Yes.” Collins’ right cheek bulged with a bite of food.

“What was it?” Marie asked.

“What was what?”

“The business plan.”

“Oh.” Collins blinked. (Nick wondered if he wore contacts.) “We were going to open a shop based on the Starbucks business model. They don’t franchise to individuals.”

“A Starbucks knockoff!” Nick said. “Jesus jerking off at the Last Supper, why in the hell would you wanna do that?”

Collins blinked and shrugged. “It’s a safe investment.”

“So’s pushin’ crack onto kindergarteners, but I don’t see ya doin’ that.”

Collins sipped his Frappuccino. “We were supposed to start scouting for locations this weekend. Do you think Matt will be back by then?”

Marie stared at him. “How much money did you two save?” she asked, her face flushed.

“We hadn’t gotten that far yet. I think Matt was going to talk to you when we reached that stage.”

Nick watched Marie’s left hand grip the corner of the picnic table. Her right hand was on her lap, out of sight.

“Gotta question for you,” Nick said.

Collins—yet again—blinked.

“You’re the art director here, right?” Nick asked.

“Yes.”

“You’re probably makin’ close to 80 grand a year. That’s almost double what a normal, working-class family makes. You got it made right now. Why do you wanna start a business?”

Collins beamed. “I want a bigger house and would like to retire before my forty-fourth birthday.”

“Wouldn’t you rather work and be a productive member of society?”

Collins’ jaw tightened. He dove back into his tuna salad and mumbled, “Liberal.”

Marie planted her elbows on the concrete table, arms crossed, a hand on each opposing shoulder. “Do you know where Matthew is?”

“No, sorry. But if you see him, tell him I’d like the paperwork he compiled. He was in charge of keeping notes on our progress.”

28

Marie and Nick left the picnic area. This time, she went first. She strode up the serpentine path, eager to put as much distance as possible between her and Mick Collins’ slopping and slurping. A squirrel scurried out of her way.

At the end of the path, Marie squinted and shielded her eyes. The sun blared down like a Death Valley fireball. Heat rose from the parking lot’s asphalt, burning through their shoes.

Marie wished she hadn’t left her shades in the Prius. The sun seemed to shine off every windshield and chrome bumper in the parking lot. God, how I hate the heat! What she wouldn’t have given to hop in a time machine and go back to winter, when she could hole up in the house and not feel guilty about it.

Hopping in the Prius, Marie rolled down the windows and cranked up the A/C. Hot, stale air blasted her way, so she closed the middle vent for the time being. Nick sat in the passenger seat, door open, feet on the ground.

“What the. . . ?” Marie said this only because Nick was here. If alone, she would have simply scrunched up her face in a quizzical manner.

On the dashboard were six guitar strings, each curled like an @ symbol. The end of one nestled in the air vent. The blasting A/C made it rattle against the windshield.

“Where did these come from?” Marie asked.

“I dunno.” Nick uncurled the strings and examined them. “That’s weird.”

“What?”

“They’ve been cut.”

“What do you mean?” Marie asked.

“Somebody just didn’t buy them then dump ‘em on your dash. These used to be on somebody’s guitar.”

Marie rubbed her forehead. She was too hot to think about the guitar strings. “Close that door, will you?”

Nick complied and scooped up the strings to drop them in a white plastic Wawa bag that hung from his door handle.

Marie opened the middle air vent and shifted the Prius out of park. The second she tapped the gas, her mind drifted to Matthew. Did he really plan on opening an imitation Starbucks? Why didn’t he tell her? What else didn’t she know about him?

The Prius turned left out of the lot and onto a two-lane road, still in the office park. The car stopped at a light. They needed to go right, however, a sign said NO TURN ON RED. A camera on top of a utility pole persuaded her to sit tight.

With the traffic light still red, Marie thought of the old Cure song “How Beautiful You Are” from the Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me CD. The tune was about how nobody every truly knows anyone else, no matter how much in love they are. She had always thought singer Robert Smith was being his typical melodramatic self with those lyrics, but now she wasn’t so sure. If she didn’t know Matthew was planning on opening a Starbucks knockoff, then he may have been cheating on her, too. Maybe the Bimbo Intern learned about his birthmark in a pay-by-the-hour motel room.

“Yo, Abe,” Nick said. “Green means go.”

“Oh.” Marie retrieved her wandering mind and stamped the gas. The A/C puffed out a blast of cold air. Felt good.

“Starbucks, huh?” Nick prompted.

“Mm-hmm.”

“Pretty weird, don’t ya think?”

Marie nodded. She didn’t want to talk about it right now. For the ride home, all she wanted to do was listen to her iPod shuffle the 100 or so songs in her Mountain Goats playlist. Presently, she listened to “Half Dead,” singer John Darnielle murmuring that he couldn’t get his lover out of his head.

29

Nick followed Marie into her house. He shut the door as she tossed her keys in an ashtray on a bookcase shelf. The keys clanged on the ceramic. He couldn’t go into the living room. She stood in the way.

“What’s wrong?” Nick asked.

Marie swiped her keys from the bookcase. “Something’s wrong,” she whispered.

“Wrong how?”

“I don’t know. I. . . .”

“Wait here.”

Nick slid past Marie and tiptoed up the stairs. The bathroom, her office and both bedrooms were empty and apparently undisturbed.

Back downstairs, Nick raised a finger to his lips. Marie stood in the middle of the living room, purse still over her shoulder. She gripped her keys in a pallid fist, Viper car-alarm remote dangling like a lucky charm.

Nick crept through the dining room and kitchen. No sign of foul play here or in the backyard. One more place to check.

Nick backtracked into the dining room. He prowled past the china closet and slowly turned the knob to the basement door. It started to creak. He let go of the knob and wiggled his fingers between the door and the frame. Hand wrapped around the side of the door, he tried opening it again, but the wood continued to creak. Fuck this. The door was open 10 inches, enough for him to slip through.

Heading down the basement steps, Nick moved with the stealth of a second-story man. Fortunately, the stairs didn’t creak. His hands skimmed the sandstone walls on either side of him. He could see no more than a foot in front of him on the dark staircase.

Nick was halfway down the stairs on a landing. Light from the basement windows made him blink.

Descending the last 10 steps, Nick listened for any odd movements. Marie had said, “Something’s wrong.” He should have asked for more information. But on the chance an intruder was here, best to be on the alert.

Marie’s basement was less cluttered than the cellar of the punkhouse where Nick lived. Here, he had plenty of room to move across the concrete floor. An intruder would have few places to hide. Sure, bookcases lined the basement, but they were pushed against the walls. No one could hide behind one and stay hidden for long. (The black bookcases were filled with different editions of Marie’s 50 novels, each one in a plastic sleeve.)

Nick reached the end of the mildew-smelling basement, where there was the laundry. Nobody or nothing in that little room, except a washer/dryer and a pile of dirty clothes.

Relaxed, Nick turned on his heel to head back upstairs. Looks like Abe’s intuition needs a tune-up.

Nick screeched to a stop. Outside the laundry, next to shelving crammed with white cardboard banker boxes, was an alcove filled with musical gear. In the one corner was a Fender electric guitar; in the other, an acoustic. A mid-sized Marshall amplifier sat on the floor. On top of the amp, an electronic tuner. And on a tray table was a four-track recorder.

Nick assumed this was Matthew’s home within his home. Nice to see Matt hadn’t totally given up playing music after his band, Mr. Mainstream, had broken up in 2001. For most of the ‘90s, Mr. Mainstream had been local heroes in the tri-state area, but their major-label debut in 2000 went straight from the pressing plant to the remainder bins due to poor reviews, a minuscule marketing campaign and band members so sick of each other that they often broke into fistfights on stage.

Nick stepped into the alcove and took the Fender from its guitar stand. He was about to strum a few chords, but he stopped.

“What the fuck?”

30

Marie and Nick sat at her dining-room table. On the plastic, peach-colored tablecloth was Matthew’s electric guitar, which Nick had brought up from the basement. All six strings were missing. Now they knew where the guitar strings on the Prius dashboard had come from.

On the top of the guitar were old photos that Marie had of her and Matthew. The operative word being had.

While Nick was down in the basement, Marie had sat in the living-room recliner. She stuffed her keys in her purse. Suddenly, a dose of adrenaline jolted through her. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Straight ahead, to the left of the TV, was their wedding picture, except Matt was MIA. Someone had cut him out of the picture.

Staring at the photographs on the dining-room table, Marie couldn’t believe Matthew’s image had been removed from every one. How was that done? Probably with a utility knife, since the edges of the photos were intact.

Marie muttered. She meant to voice a rhetorical question, but her vocal cords, like the rest of her body, were in shock.

“Somebody’s sending us a message,” Nick said.

Marie picked up a picture. This one had been taken in 1999, at a Halloween party. She had gone as the Bride of Frankenstein, and Matthew went as Dracula. Except he was no longer in the photo. Her right index finger traced the edges where he had been. She was floored by the vandal’s (or vandals’) precision. They had removed only Matthew. Nothing else.

Dropping the vandalized photograph, Marie frowned and ran a hand over her face. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“I think somebody’s trying to send us a message.”

“Wh—What kind of message?”

“I don’t know,” Nick said. “Maybe we’re gettin’ close to finding Matt. Or maybe we’re way off base and just happened to piss the wrong people off.”

Marie stared out the kitchen window. Dandelion seeds floated by. In a neighbor’s yard, a woodpecker rapped away as if possessed by Walter Lantz. And the smell of chlorine wafted into the Dougherty dining room—the day’s heat had compelled a neighbor to fire up their pool early this year.

Marie removed her hand from her mouth. “Do you think it’s somebody we’ve talked to?”

“Could be. Where’s your pen and paper?”

Marie told Nick a pen and a writing pad were in the living room. Quicker than a keystroke, he returned to the dining-room table. She watched him write across the top of the page in bold block letters: SHITHEADS WE TALKED TO.

The list consisted of:

— Yoda Jr.

— Graham Archer

— Bimbo Intern (Nick had written down her real name,
but to Marie, she’d always be the Bimbo Intern)

— Anne Archer

— Mick Collins.

“What about Judy Walker?” Marie asked.

“Who?”

“The head of Human Resources at Leaf.”

“You mean Human Relations?” Nick joked, scribbling HR headjob in the right margin. He circled Judy’s nickname and drew an arrow between Yoda Jr. and Graham Archer.

“Do you think Mick cut up all of these pictures and put the strings from Matthew’s guitar on my dashboard?”

“I don’t know. I doubt it. He didn’t know we were coming. It’s not like we set up a appointment or anything. Plus, how could he show up at his job today, then drive to your house, cut out all the pictures of Matt, unstring his guitar, then put them in your car while we were heading to that picnic area?”

“He could have had the morning off,” Marie said. “Maybe he waited for us to leave, then did the vandalism.”

“I think you’re letting your imagination get the better of you. Remember, he was sitting there all relaxed, eating his lunch when we pulled up. It was obvious he’d been there awhile.”

“He could’ve had an accomplice.”

Nick shook his head and leaned back in his chair. It groaned. He wrinkled his nose and twisted his lips to the side.

“What’s wrong?” Marie asked.

“I’m just wondering what we should do next. Interview more people who might know what happened to Matt, or try to find out who busted into your house.”

“I think we should go back to the Bimbo Intern. That little bitch knows more than she’s telling. I just know it.”

“You sure you’re not letting your feelings get in the way?”

“I—“ Marie looked away. “I hate that bitch. I . . . I can’t get her and Matthew out of my head. I keep seeing them outside the Empire, making out on top of our car.”

“You gotta block that shit out. It’ll drive you crazy.” Nick leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I thought things were cool between you two.”

“So did I, but I’m learning all this stuff I never knew before, like his plan to open a coffee shop. Who knows what else he was up to? He could have been having an affair. . . .”

Nick ticked off two points on his fingers. “A: Matt was still in the planning phases of the Starbucks knockoff. Like Mick said, he probably was just gettin’ his game plan together before talking to you. And B: the Bimbo Intern—as you call her—could’ve been lying about hooking up with him.”

“But with the coffee shop, he should have come to me as soon as he had the idea. We’re married; we’re a team. I should be his first stop, not his last.”

“True that,” Nick said, smirking.

And what if Matthew was cheating on me with somebody else? Marie hated to think such things, but since Saturday, that idea had kept popping in her head. Maybe Matt was one of those smooth operators who practiced infidelity with such ease that his innumerable rendezvous slipped under her radar.

Nick stood up and picked up the stringless guitar. Marie grabbed the mountain of mutilated photographs before they could tumble to the floor.

“Ya mind if I throw this back downstairs?” Nick asked.

“Shouldn’t we keep it up here?”

“What for?”

“Because it’s a clue,” Marie said.

Nick grinned. “It can still be a clue downstairs.” He turned serious. “Besides, it’s best to put it back in the guitar stand. Don’t wanna warp the neck and make it hard to tune.”

“OK.”

As Nick clunked down the basement steps, Marie swept the photos in her arms and shoved them in the china closet’s empty bottom drawer. They didn’t all fit, so a few handfuls went in the next drawer, on top of some Ian Fleming paperbacks.

Nick closed the basement door with a sole of his Chuck Taylors. “Hey, I was thinking. Since we have absolutely no idea who did this”—he motioned at the damaged photographs in the drawer Marie was closing—“whaddya say we keep talking to people who knew Matt?”

Marie cleared her throat. “Sure.”

“Anybody else we can talk to at his job?”

Marie sucked in her cheeks. “No, I don’t think so.”

“How ‘bout after work? Who’d he hang out with?”

“Me mostly. Occasionally, he’d go out for drinks with Graham.”

“Nobody else?”

Marie began to shake her head but stopped. “Oh, wait. Every Wednesday, he played sports with the same group of guys. In the winter, they played basketball; in the spring, volleyball; summer, baseball; and football in the fall.”

“Cool. They play at night, right?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s roll, then,” Nick said. “You drive. I’ll moon passersby.”

31

With a few hours before the gym opened, Marie and Nick ate at the Mayfair Diner in Northeast Philadelphia. Their waitress—Dottie, her name tag said—wore the standard black-and-white Mayfair Diner uniform, and Nick would have been shocked if she were younger than 60.

Leaving the diner, Nick burped, his bacon cheeseburger and chocolate milkshake sitting scrumptiously in his stomach. Marie had enjoyed her meal (fruit salad and apple juice), too. He knew this because her gait had an extra spring to it. None of the pedestrians or drivers here on Frankford Avenue noticed, but he did. Hard to believe we haven’t hung out for at least 10 years. Kinda crazy how strong childhood bonds can be.

“Whaddya say I drive?” Nick said.

Marie pulled the keys from her purse. “Give me one good reason.”

“’Cause I know the city’s side streets and major intersections like the back of my bass.”

“Even though you don’t own a car?” Marie tossed the keys. Nick caught them overhand.

“Hey,” Nick said, “don’t underestimate the power of a Philly bike courier. We’re the finest bitches this side of Chicago.”

32

Marie settled into the Prius’ passenger seat. She saw no harm in letting Nick drive. His time behind the wheel Tuesday night had proven he drove better than most. He was—without question—better than her late father, who, no matter how fast he was going, waited until the last possible moment to brake for stop signs and red lights.

Nick got comfortable in the driver seat and started the Prius. Marie removed her iPod from one of her many pants pockets and keyed up Mates Of State’s Bring It Back, their best album, in her opinion. But the battery died after the second track, “Fraud in the ‘80s.” She replaced the iPod in her pocket, and Nick turned on the radio, scrolling to the left of the dial. WKDU, Drexel University’s radio station, came on. The freshman DJ showed he was what he played by spinning 20-plus-year-old vinyl from hardcore’s heyday.

“I don’t get it, “ Marie said. “Why did Matthew jump out of the car in the first place? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Let’s. . . .”

“What, what is it?”

“Do you hear that?” Nick asked.

“No.”

Nick kept his eyes on the road but arched an ear towards the dashboard. Marie heard nothing off-kilter, so she turned down the radio. I still don’t hear it. What’s Nick talking about? Oh, God, I hope he’s not having an acid flashback.

Then, Marie heard it. A cross between a racquetball bouncing off walls and a tiger thrashing in a reservoir.

“What the. . . ?” Marie said. She shifted her foot. White foam dripped from the bottom of the glovebox. None had landed on her.

The sound in the glovebox grew louder. Marie and Nick traded an anxious glance. He broke away to peer in the rearview and door mirrors. She knew he was looking to pull over, but the heavy traffic on this four-lane avenue scudded at 40 miles an hour, never mind the 25-m.p.h. speed limit. The Prius was in the right lane, but pulling over would have been like slamming on the brakes during rush hour on an expressway. And no parking spots were available.

The banging in the glovebox moved to the dashboard. The noise remained on the passenger side but sounded as if near the windshield.

“What the fuck,” Nick muttered, flicking the hazard lights on.

Marie watched Nick’s right knee rise—foot easing off the gas. Behind them, a soccer mom driving solo in an oversized SUV lay on her horn. She tore around the Prius. In doing so, she cut off a biker wearing Mad Max boots, blue jeans and a sleeveless white T-shirt. He lifted his mirrored Terminator sunglasses and extended a tattooed arm to give Nick the finger. Marie shook her head at the biker. Mad Max throttled into the distance, his salt-and-pepper mane flying in the spring wind.

Nick tapped the brake, and the thing inside the dashboard unveiled itself. Marie couldn’t believe it. This wasn’t a Stephen King story. Stuff like this didn’t happen in real life, right? But she bumped that thought aside for a more important one: How did it get in my car in the first place?

The aggressor in question popped its head through a corner in the airbag cover. A rabid weasel.

Even though the weasel was a good two feet away, Marie pushed back against the seat and turned her knees to the door. White foam oozed from the weasel’s nose and mouth. It squealed like a rodent in a trash compactor. Its eyes had the raging look of a failed freelancer.

“Hold up,” Nick said calmly.

The Prius reached the end of a block. Nick pulled into a bus stop, nothing more than a white rectangle on the black asphalt with an X in it. A half-dozen commuters glared at the car.

The rabid weasel was halfway out of the dashboard. Its little forearms twitched. Nails (abnormally long, Marie thought) scratched the dash.

Nick put the Prius in park. At the same time, he pulled out the keys from the ignition.

Meanwhile, Marie unlocked and opened her door. One foot on the curb. Fuck! She’d forgotten to undo her seatbelt. Eyeing the weasel, she unfastened the buckle with shaky hands.

The weasel dug three paws into the dashboard. The airbag cover snagged its left hind leg.

“No,” Marie whispered, her stomach and lungs feeling like they’d swapped places. NO!

Marie couldn’t get out of the Prius via the passenger side. A pole advertising the bus stop blocked her door. She could only open it six inches. Oh, God. She pulled her foot back into the car and saw commuters swarm around Nick with questions. The only commuter not bothering him was a 19-year-old who wore not only a do-rag but also enormous headphones. He blew Marie a misogynistic kiss.

Inside the Prius, the airbag cover continued to hold down the weasel. It seemed frustrated by its predicament. The weasel banged its head on the windshield. For a second or two, its glistening nose mesmerized Marie.

No longer staring at the weasel, Marie removed her seatbelt. Moments ago, she had unbuckled it, but the belt hadn’t retracted. Now, her sudden movement threw the buckle against the passenger window. The weasel snarled, sounding like a choking child.

The weasel stopped snarling. Despite being rabid, it must have realized it would never work free of the airbag cover, no matter how much effort it put into pulling its tail and left hind leg. So the weasel did what any enraged animal would do. It began to gnaw on the dashboard.

With the weasel preoccupied, Marie climbed into the backseat. She planned to exit by the driver door. She would have climbed into the driver seat from the passenger seat, but scrambling over the parking brake was too risky. The last thing she wanted was to fall forward and let the weasel tear her throat out. As a kid, she had heard that if you contracted rabies, you’d spend the rest of your life getting 20 shots in the stomach every day. Treatment had probably improved over the last 30 years, but no reason to chance it. Better safe than sick with rabies.

In the backseat, Marie fumbled for the lever to push the driver’s seat forward. Nick opened the driver door first. It felt like he’d been gone for eons.

“Fuckin’ gapers,” Nick said in reference to the gawking crowd.

Nick didn’t offer Marie a hand. She frowned, but then she saw why. He held a large Wal-Mart shopping bag that he threw at the weasel. The timing was perfect. The weasel had just broken free of the airbag cover.

Nick pulled the driver’s seat forward. “C’mon!”

Marie took Nick’s hand. Once outside, she peered over her shoulder. The weasel’s Freddy Krueger nails sliced through the white plastic bag.

Nick slammed the door. The weasel tossed the bag aside and throttled towards the driver-side window. The sound of its skull pinging on the glass made Marie cringe, but the weasel was none the worse. It landed on the driver’s seat and ripped into the upholstery. A spring popped out of the seat. The weasel pounced on it and bit into the iron.

Marie sat on a fire hydrant. Nick leaned against the bus-stop pole.

Jesus Christ. Marie rested shaky hands on her knees, her heart beating like an overtaxed generator.

In the distance, sirens wailed. Marie felt Nick slip her the car keys. “In case they ask,” he said, “you were driving.”

33

Nick watched a cop car force traffic in both directions to stop so it could make an illegal U-turn. The marked parked behind the Prius. Nick wasn’t surprised that both cops were white. And he predicted their first question: “Were any blacks involved in this incident?”

Nick let Marie answer the pigs’ questions. He observed an Animal Control van pull behind the cop car. A man and a woman got out and looked inside the Prius. They went back to their van and returned to Marie’s car with an apparent plan. The man opened the car’s driver door, and the woman pressed the trigger of a pistol. Out shot a tranquilizer dart the size of a horse enema. It must have knocked the weasel out in an instant; the two Animal Control employees weren’t panicking, and Nick couldn’t see inside Marie’s car, the weasel’s breath had fogged the windows.

After taking statements from the commuters, the cops left. Good riddance, Nick thought. The Animal Control van departed soon after.

Marie pulled her cell phone from a pants pockets. She called a tow truck. When it arrived, she told the driver to drop off her car at Glenside Auto Body, around the corner from her house.

As the tow truck lumbered away, the Prius clanging behind, Nick and Marie stood on the street corner. She made another call on her cell, this time for a cab.

Ten minutes later, a verdant-colored cab screeched to the curb. Nick held the door open for Marie. The backseat smelled of Cheetos and lentils.

“Tenth and Arch,” Nick said.

The cab slipped into the stream of traffic. Mardi Gras beads jangled from the rearview mirror as the taxi slipped into the stream of traffic.

Marie asked, “What’s at Tenth and Arch? Besides Chinatown.”

“A friend of mine,” Nick answered. “This is gettin’ too big for us. We need help.”

Marie stared outside. Nick saw her reflection in the window. Hard to tell how she was holding up. Hopefully, she dealt with the stress in five-minute increments. That way, she was nowhere near a nervous breakdown.

34

Marie followed Nick into a building in the middle of the 100 block of North Tenth Street. Down the street was Chinatown’s world famous Friendship Gate, a 40-foot arch of green, red and gold dragons that spanned Tenth Street.

Nick’s friend’s office was on the third floor. He knocked on the door and walked in. Marie stayed in the hallway, studying the door. It was something out of a Robert B. Parker novel. The door was dark brown wood, with a frosted glass insert that advertised the name and occupation of Nick’s friend: Ian Hahn, Private Eye.

Marie came in and closed the door. She shook her head. The door had a transom. Didn’t they stop making transoms around the time John D. MacDonald lost his magic touch (circa 1964, when he started the Travis McGee series)?

Back against the door, Marie examined the office. A black leather couch took up part of one wall; in the corner, a Deer Park water cooler hummed. A short wall, six feet long, was covered with framed movie posters: The Killer, Tokyo Raiders and The Bride with White Hair. Two large windows pierced a long wall opposite the one with the door. Across from the movie posters, three file cabinets took up another short wall.

Across from where Marie stood, in front of the wall with two windows, sat an Asian man in a white-collar polo shirt. On his compact imitation-oak desk was an open Dell Inspiron Notebook.

“Ian,” Nick said, “my man!”

Ian Hahn stood up. The two men shook hands. Ian was short but muscular. He must work out at least four times a week, Marie thought.

“Ian, Abe.”

“Marie Dougherty,” Marie said, smiling and offering her hand. Ian’s handshake was firm but not forceful.

“So, Nick,” Ian said, the three of them still standing, “to what do I owe the pleasure of this unexpected visit? Wait, don’t tell me. You were in the neighborhood.”

Nick gestured toward the windows. “Rearranged the place, eh? What’s up with the tinted windows?”

“It’s to prevent the city’s less-skilled hit men from getting a shot at me. Of course, anybody with a heat-seeking rifle could spot me. But like I said, it’s strictly for the amateurs.”

“How come you don’t get bulletproof windows?”

“Done and done.”

“Nice.”

“Have a seat.” Ian indicated two leather chairs in front of his desk.

Marie sat in one of the plush chairs. Her eyes fell across Ian’s desk. In one corner was a framed picture of a 20-something Asian woman.

Nick angled his body towards Marie. She understood his body language. Taking a deep breath, she launched into the story of Matthew’s disappearance. Nick picked up the thread from their talk with Yoda Jr.

“So,” Nick said, “I’ve been meaning to give you a call to run that partial license plate through that we got from Yoda Jr.—just haven’t got around to it. But after the little weasel incident, I realized we’re way out of our element. I mean, Matt’s strings were cut from his guitar and his pictures were all cut up. That’s three suspicious things. Can’t be all a coincidence, you know?

“You think somebody’s trying to send you a message?”

“Uh, yeah,” Nick said, his voice rising and falling like a valley girl’s. “Whaddya think?”

“I don’t know yet.” Ian pulled a yellow legal pad from a desk drawer and made a few notes. “Before I agree to take this case, I need to know one thing. Do you prefer Marie or Abe?”

“Either or,” Marie said, though she preferred her birth name.

“OK. Marie. That’s not the question, by the way.” Ian tapped his cleft chin with his pen. “Has it crossed your mind that your husband doesn’t want to be found?”

The question hit Marie like a punch. For the past few days, her judgment had been clouded by her obsession that Matthew cheated on her with the Bimbo Intern.

Marie finally found her voice. “What are you saying, Matthew purposefully did those things to stop me from finding him?”

“By things you mean. . . .”

“The guitars strings. The pictures. The weasel.”

“Is he capable of that?”

“I—I—I don’t know. It’s possible, I guess, but I doubt it. We have a great marriage. I can’t see him running away like he did, only to sneak back and do those”—Marie’s hand flittered through the air—“things.”

“Did you change the locks before the break-in?” Ian asked.

“Uh, no.”

“Please don’t take these questions personally. I need to play devil’s advocate to help me decide if I’ll take the case.”

“Yo,” Nick said, “let’s not forget her husband was dragged into the van.”

“But that’s from only one witness’ account, right?” Ian glanced at his notes. “Yoda Jr.?”

“Yeah, but trust me, that kid’s telling the truth. He’s a sci-fi/fantasy fan, and 99 percent of them are good, honest heartfelt people. I don’t wanna say they’re incapable of lying, but they’re more likely to tell the truth than some shithead, like a salesman or CEO.”

“I know, but it could’ve been staged.” Ian scribbled on his legal pad. Marie squinted. Looked like he wrote in Chinese.

Ian tapped the cap of his pen on the legal pad. He stretched to look out the window.

“What’s up?” Nick asked.

Ian quit looking out the window. “I’ll take the case.”

“Cool.”

Marie didn’t know whether to be elated or indifferent. She knew next to nothing about this guy. Come to think of it, how did I miss talking to him when I did my article last year on P.I.s? He wasn’t in the phone book or on the Internet. Maybe his business is all word of mouth. Could he be that good that he doesn’t need to advertise?

“It seems . . .” Ian dropped his pen on the legal pad and leaned back, hands behind his head. “. . . very peculiar that somebody would voluntarily jump out of their car, run down an alley, then be forced into a nondescript van.”

“Yeah,” Nick said, “it’s fucked up is what it is.”

“Oh,” Marie asked, “should we go back to my house and get the guitar and cut-up pictures? You know, for fingerprints.”

Ian shook his head. “Not necessary. If it was the same persons who planted the weasel in your car, we’re dealing with professionals. Putting that rabid weasel in your glovebox in a busy parking lot tells me they’ve done this type of thing before.”

Marie nodded.

“Let’s do this.” Ian’s fingers flew across his laptop’s keyboard. “You said the first three characters of the van’s license plate were DHV, right?”

Nick: ”Yeah.” Marie: “Yes.”

Less than 10 minutes later, Ian shut his computer down.

“What’s up?” Nick asked.

“We have a lead,” Ian said.

Ian pulled a pistol from the desk and inserted it into his shoulder holster. Marie tried not to gawk. She had written action sequences featuring firearms, but she’d never seen a real one before.

“Let’s go,” Ian said, putting on a black jacket and zipping it up halfway. For easy access to the gun? Marie wondered.

35

Ian led the way to his Honda Civic parked in a tiny lot behind a little Chinese restaurant called Hom Times. He had known the owners/operators, the Hom family, since before he could kick-box. Mr. and Mrs. Hom reserved a parking spot for him near the kitchen door. The tradeoff was that any time trouble brewed at the restaurant, he had to respond quicker than an addict relapsing for the umpteenth time. Fortunately for Ian, the Homs requested his services no more than four times a year. And on the rare occasion when he was out of town, he sent his unofficial partner, Jeff Chen. (Sometimes it paid to have a future brother-in-law who flirted with organized crime.)

“Wait here,” Ian said. Marie and Nick stood on the sidewalk as he coasted his Civic out of the parking lot. Nick rode shotgun. Marie sat in the back, behind the passenger seat.

Since it was rush hour, the half-mile ride from 12th and Race Streets to the Ben Franklin Bridge took forever. Ian drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel. “So, Nick, I know you abhor calling before arriving anywhere. What would’ve you done if I wasn’t in the office?”

Nick shrugged. “Would’ve went to your mother’s. See if you were there, or if she knew where you went.”

Ian’s mother lived in an apartment building at Ninth and Race Streets.

Marie poked her head between the driver and passenger seats. “Where are we going?”

“The city,” Ian answered. “New York City. We’ll take the New Jersey Turnpike.”

The Civic idled on the 900 block of Arch Street. Customers streamed in and out of Wan Sheng Supermarket. Next door, the Szechuan aroma from Chung King Garden made Ian salivate. And back at 10th and Arch, a street vendor closed up shop and hooked his hot dog cart to the back of a Subaru station wagon.

“Yo, Abe,” Nick said, “you’re never gonna believe this, but guess what Ian is?”

“Um . . . uh . . .” Marie twisted her lips, Ian observed peripherally.

“A motherfucking empath! You believe that shit?”

“Um, what’s an empath?” Marie asked.

“Tell her.”

Ian waved a no, thank you hand. He let his arm hang out the open window. A warm breeze brushed his hand.

Nick turned Marie. “You know how a psychic—no, that’s not the word I wanna use.”

“Telepath,” Ian offered.

Nick snapped his fingers. “That’s it! You know how a motherfucking telepath can read minds and shit?”

Marie nodded. “If one actually existed.”

“Listen to you, pulling a Scully. Anyway, Ian’s a empath. Empaths can’t read minds, but they can sense a person’s emotion.” Nick turned to Ian. “What are you again?”

Ian smiled. “A 27-year-old Chinese-American private detective.”

“No. What kinda empath?”

“Olfactory.”

“What does that mean?” Marie asked.

“I can sense a person’s overwhelming emotion or their main personality trait. If I smelled propane, that would mean the person I was talking to suffered from some type of addiction. Curdled milk means that he—or she—was very depressed.”

“What do I smell like?”

“A pile of wet snot rags,” Nick joked. “Pee-u, Abe! When’s the last time you fuckin’ took a bath?”

Marie blushed.

“Unfortunately,” Ian said, “my empath ability has been dormant for over a month.”

“Shut up!” Nick said.

Marie asked, “Has that ever happened before?”

Ian nodded. “Only for a few days, here and there. Never for this long, though. But don’t worry. I made it a point a long time ago not to depend on my empath ability. It’s a nice little extra tool, but I’ve solved cases without it.”

“Wow.”

Nick and Marie made eye contact. “You’re thinking what a great story it would make,” he said, “aren’t you?”

Ian glanced in the rearview mirror. Marie smiled sheepishly. “Maybe.”

The Civic crossed the Ben Franklin Bridge into New Jersey. Overhead, cumulonimbus clouds crawled by.

36

The second the Civic entered New Jersey, Marie flinched as if slapped with cold water. “Oh, Nick, we’re supposed to be talking with Matthew’s sport buddies, remember?”

“Shit,” Nick said, “I forgot.”

“What’s this?” Ian asked.

Nick told Ian that he and Marie had planned to interview the group of men that Matthew played sports with each week. Ian told them not to worry about it. His P.I. instincts informed him the license plate was their best lead.

“So,” Nick asked, “what’s in New York?”

“That van you and Marie saw is listed as being owned by Donna O’Connell, with an address of 613 West 166th Street.”

“Where’s that, Manhattan?”

“Probably.”

Nick and Ian continued their banter. Marie blocked it out. She tapped her right thumbnail on her upper lip and wondered if Graham Archer was involved in Matthew’s disappearance.

37

A little after 6:30 p.m., the Civic crossed the George Washington Bridge. Nick rolled up the passenger window. He didn’t mind the stench from the Hudson River, but Marie obviously did. As soon as the window was up, she removed her hand from her nose and mouth.

By 7 p.m., the Civic parked across from 613 West 166th Street. Nick and Marie stood in the street, leaning against the car. Ian stood on the sidewalk, next to a cherry tree whose base was surrounded by a square, green, chain-link fence. Behind the trio was a basketball court. Inside the rusty enclosure, the game was intense. The sounds of sneakers, profanity and your mommas filled the air.

Nick turned his head around but kept his back planted on the car door. “Third floor, right?”

“Yes,” Ian said.

“Why am I not surprised?”

Across the street was a row of six-story neo-Baroque buildings. Nick focused on the one in the middle of the block. Hanging from the third floor was a red, white and blue flag. At the moment, no springtime wind whisked down the street, so reading the flag was easier than a politician committing perjury. Printed on the flag were the words:

Conservatives

United

Now

¯

Tomorrow

“What the fuck,” Nick said.

“Problem?” Ian asked.

“Dude, have you looked at that banner?”

Ian glanced at it. “Interesting acronym.”

“’Interesting acronym’? That’s all you can say!?! Where’s your outrage, your righteousness?”

“You seem to be carrying enough for the both of us.”

Nick turned to Marie. “How ‘bout you? Doesn’t that banner piss you the fuck off?”

Marie read it. She frowned.

“Thank you.” Nick shook his head. “Who the fuck names themselves after the goddamned C word? Fuckin’ conservatives. . . .”

Ian said, “I’m pretty sure that arrow is supposed to symbolize a dash.”

Nick threw up his hands. “What, so they go around calling themselves CUN-dash-T? Oh, like people ain’t gonna look at ‘em funny. Jesus Christ making out with Muhammad, this is some fucked-up shit.”

Nick stopped mid-rant when a redhead emerged from the CUN—T building. She wore a sleeveless, knee-length white cotton dress. Slung across her chest was a beige purse; it rested against her right hip, and she held the bag with both hands. The last detail Nick noticed was her hair. Now, he wasn’t one of those gay men who obsessed over tresses, but every inch of her long, straight hair—from the roots to her mid-back—looked like it underwent top-notch treatment daily (it glistened like an emperor’s ring).

Marie grabbed Nick’s arm. “I know her!”

“Shh, shhh.” Nick grabbed Marie and turned toward the Civic, hiding their faces.

“What’s going on?” Ian said.

“Marie recognizes our friend Red over there,” Nick said

“Who is she?”

“One of the Bimbo Intern’s friends,” Marie said. “She was at Graham’s party. She played volleyball on Bimbo Intern’s team.”

Ian, standing on tiptoes, looked up and down the street. “OK, I don’t see any white vans.”

Nick squinted. Red turned the corner, stepping over a homeless man.

“What are we going to do?” Marie asked.

Ian smiled. “Tail her, of course.”

38

At a comfortable pace, Marie, Ian and Nick tailed Red to the end of the block. Pedestrian traffic on this avenue was light.

“Marie,” Ian said, “do me a favor, will you? Walk behind Nick and me. In case she looks back, I don’t want her seeing you. Not yet, at least.”

Marie dropped back. The trio got stuck at a red light. Marie peeked between Ian and Nick. Red was less than a half a block ahead.

The light turned green. Marie stayed behind Ian and Nick, her head down. She observed their legs moving in tandem, like an autonom.

Ian asked over his shoulder, “Do you know her name?”

“No,” Marie said. “Sorry.”

Six blocks from CUN—T, Red ducked into a coffee shop called Java Junkie. Marie, Ian and Nick stopped next door. It was a deli, aptly named Delicatessen.

“Excuse me,” said a gruff voice.

A man with weighty jowls left the deli, the bell on its door ringing. Marie smelled salami and sausage in his bag. He cut through the trio, flipping his white scarf with theatrical flair.

“Faggot,” Nick mumbled.

Ian stepped in front of Marie and Nick, blocking their view of the departing deli patron. “Notice anything?”

Marie and Nick looked around, flummoxed.

Ian pointed across the street to a small parking lot. In the first spot was a white van. Marie noted that it was a Ford E-150.

“Is that it?” Nick asked.

“Let’s find out,” Ian said. He pulled a pair of binoculars from his jacket. Marie assumed they were infrared, since the sun was setting. Ian brought the binoculars to his face and turned the central focusing wheel.

Marie saw the license plate had a tinted, plastic cover. A strand of light from a utility pole shined on the corner of the plastic cover.

Ian stuffed the binoculars back in his jacket. “That’s the one.”

“Rip it up,” Nick said, quoting an old Adolescents song—something had had always done when he and Marie were teenagers.

Ian’s right hand rooted in his jacket’s inside pocket. “I need one of you to pick up my car and park it here on the street or in that lot.” He removed from his pocket a black object, the size of an ant trap. “And I need one of you to plant this on the van.”

“What is it?” Marie asked.

“A bug, so we can track the van. I’d be surprised if Red doesn’t hop in that van after leaving here.”

“I’ll plant the bug,” Marie said.

“You sure?”

Marie nodded.

“OK.” Ian handed Marie the bug. “I usually stick them inside the rear bumper. If it’s too concave, or you can’t squeeze your hand between the bumper and van body, try the wheel well or somewhere on the chassis. Just make sure the bug’s not visible because once I activate it, a red light will start flashing.”

Marie held the bug at eye level. Sure enough, on the top, in the center, was a tiny red lens.

“What’s it have a fuckin’ flashing light for?” Nick asked.

“So you remember to hide it,” Ian answered. “I know, I wish it didn’t have a flashing red light, but this is the best tracking device on the market.”

“Word.”

Ian tossed Nick his car keys.

“What’re you gonna do?” Nick asked.

“Keep an eye on our conservative friend,” Ian said, gesturing toward the coffee shop, “see what she’s up to.”

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Ian opened the door to Java Junkie, the sound of folk music and conversation escaping. The door clicked shut.

Nick strode back to the Civic.

Marie stood on the sidewalk for a moment. She switched the bug from one sweaty palm to another and swallowed a mouthful of nervousness. Get a grip, Marie. You volunteered for this.

Inhaling through her nose, Marie knocked back her shoulders and held her head high.

39

Ian entered Java Junkie. It was five degrees warmer in here than outside. He navigated the dimly lit room to the counter on the left and ordered a cinnamon-raisin bagel as well as an AriZona RX Stress iced tea.

After paying the college-age cashier, Ian scanned the room. The place could hold no more than three dozen patrons. Right now, six people sat at the tables: two couples and two loners. Red sat alone at a table in the middle of the room.

“Care for a little company?” Ian asked.

Red jerked. She had been staring ahead, at the stage. “Oh, I’m actually—“

Ian turned on his charm by smiling at full wattage, dimples forming at the corners of his mouth. “Come on, make an out-of-towner’s day and say, ‘Please, have a seat.’”

Red glanced at the stage. She ground her teeth, then grinned. “Sure, have a seat.”

“Thanks. Tony Leung.”

“Donna O’Connell.”

Donna presented the back of her hand, forcing Ian to grip her fingers. He wondered if she expected him to go retro and kiss the back of her hand, as if she were a damsel in the city and he a knight in shining Kevlar.

“Friend of yours?” Ian asked, eyebrows pointing at the stage.

On the stage was a musician whose long, dark blond hair cascaded to his waist. He had replaced a broken string and now tuned his acoustic guitar. He wore alligator-skin boots, jeans with fashionable holes and a light leather jacket plastered with emo logos.

Donna answered Ian’s question with a headshake. “I’m a fan. That’s Alec Youth. He used to sing and play guitar in Good Golly Miss Molly. They’re from Brooklyn.”

“Any good?”

Donna nodded enthusiastically. “They had an interesting sound, sort of a cross between emo and late-‘60s, early-‘70s album rock, like Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones and early Led Zeppelin.”

“Interesting mix.”

“Unfortunately, they broke up last year. This is Alec’s six or so solo show.”

“No much of a crowd,” Ian observed.

“No. His solo career isn’t going too well.” Donna leaned forward. In the center of the table, a candle in a beer mug smelled of incense and cast a hellfire spotlight on her face. She cupped a hand around her mouth. “To be perfectly honest, I’m only here to hear some GGMM.”

“GGMM, what’s that?”

“It’s what fans call Good Golly Miss Molly.”

“Ahh,” Ian said.

Alec Youth slid off his stool. “Sorry, everyone. I seem to be experiencing major tune-age difficulties.” He grinned, apparently impressed with his wit, and knelt on the stage’s Persian rug to rummage in his guitar case.

“So,” Ian said, “before he starts playing, let’s hear your life story in 30 seconds or less.”

Donna giggled. “Umm. . . . I grew up in Harleysville, about 50 miles north of here. I’ll graduate from Villanova this May, and I just completed an internship at Leaf & Dashiell—they’re a healthcare publisher about a half-hour outside of Philadelphia. How’s that?”

“Bravo.” Ian clapped like a socialite after an orchestra’s encore, but not loud enough to disturb the other Java Junkie customers.

“How ‘bout you?”

“My mother is from China. She emigrated here when pregnant with me. In fact, she gave birth to me in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We first lived in San Francisco. Then we moved to the East Coast when I was five. Nowadays, I’m a traveling salesman.”

“Oh? Who do you work for?”

“Myself. I’m a freelancer.”

“Don’t you have to pay a lot of taxes?”

Ian nodded.

“I hate taxes,” Donna said. “The government’s always trying to steal our hard-earned money.”

Ian didn’t reply because Alec Youth no longer knelt over his guitar case. He had returned to the stool and was strumming his six-string. Ian wasn’t much of a music lover, but he had always liked acoustic guitars (they sounded . . . clean, for lack of a better word). However, when Youth started singing, Ian did his best not to cringe. Sounded similar to a screeching hawk in heat.

40

With Java Junkie at her back, Marie jaywalked across the one-way street to the parking lot where the white van waited to be bugged. But she hadn’t looked before crossing. She froze. A Hummer skidded to a halt. The angry, white, middle-aged driver laid on his horn and thrust his head out the window.

“Watch where you’re going, you dumb broad!”

The Hummer peeled around Marie. She raised her hand into a makeshift visor, to block the blaring headlights. The vehicle barreled down the street, classic rock blasting from its speakers: the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.”

Marie dropped her hand from her face. The Hummer turned around the corner, tires screeching. Marie frowned and extended her middle finger, but she didn’t raise that hand.

Frown gone and finger retracted, Marie set foot in the parking lot. Its dozen spots were filled, and no employee was in sight. In fact, the lot had no attendant booth.

Marie tried to slip between the van and a green Jaguar convertible, but the Jag had an über-sensitive car alarm. The vehicle began beeping and flashing as soon as she came within a foot of it. Startled, she stepped back. The car rewarded the retreat by silencing itself.

Marie glanced around. Good. The Jaguar’s antics had attracted no attention.

Marie tried the other side of the van. Since it occupied the first spot, she didn’t have to contend with another paranoid car alarm.

Realizing her actions might look suspicious, Marie ducked, squeezed between the van and the lot’s two-foot-high, white sandstone wall. Quicker than a James Patterson chapter, she made her way to the rear of the van. She stayed low, though it was dark enough that she could have stood without being seen.

Marie tapped the tracking device against her chin. Where should she put it? Underside of the bumper? Out of the question. It was solid rubber and glued to the van—no place to stick the bug.

Marie dropped to the ground and slid under the van. On her back, she moved with her shoulders and heels. She ignored the trash and chewing gum on the asphalt. Sucking her lower lip, she looked for a spot to plant the bug. A nearby utility pole gave her enough light.

Marie froze.

Somebody had entered the parking lot.

Marie stopped sucking on her lower lip. She held her breath.

The stranger leaned against the front of the van. Marie couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. All she saw were black pants and rubber-soled shoes. A cell phone shrilled, and the stranger answered.

“Yeah,” said the stranger. It was a man.

“I don’t know where Dougherty and Marsh are,” he said, “but Hahn’s in the coffee house with Agent Five-Eleven.” Pause. “I disagree. We should continue with the plan. For now, the operation is safe and sound.”

Down the street, someone hailed a taxi. Because of that, Marie only heard one word of the man’s next sentence: “. . . terminate . . .”

A moment passed. The man said, “Over.” The phone beeped. The man walked away, his footsteps silent.

Marie stared at the van’s muffler, hand over her mouth. What did that conversation mean? How did he know her, Nick and Ian’s last names?

Shaking her head out of those conundrums, Marie got to work with the bug, turning it over and peeling away the plastic strip that covered the self-adhesive. She chose a spot on the left-rear wheel well. There, she thought, pretty as a picture, as my Aunt Agnes used to say.

Marie climbed out from under the van. She stood in front of it, clapping dust and dirt off her hands.

Damn! Marie realized she was in plain sight. Real smart, Marie. What should I do? I know.

Dipping her chin, Marie covered her face by pretending to scratch her forehead. She made a right out of the parking lot.

“Yo, Abe!” Nick called. Ian’s car sat between a gray Hyundai Elantra and a beige Subaru station wagon by an abandoned brick building next to the parking lot.

Marie dropped her hand from her forehead. She and her blushing cheeks rushed into the Civic’s passenger seat.

41

“How’d it go?” Nick asked.

“OK.” Marie told Nick about the man on the mobile.

“And you’re sure he said our names?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Weird.” Nick tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel. “We’ll have to tell Ian about that.”

“Is he still in there?”

“As far as I know.” Nick had a clear view of the coffee shop without craning his neck too much. Couldn’t see anything but some singer-songwriter swaying on a stool, playing a guitar solo, his face scrunched up as if taking a suffering-succotash shit.

“So, Abe, I was pretty shocked when you volunteered to plant that bug. What brought that on?”

Marie shrugged. “I kind of feel like dead weight. Ian’s a professional private eye, you have street smarts, but I’m not really equipped for this sort of situation. I mean, give me a crew of characters, a story idea and a deadline, and I can come up with a nice little beach read, but real-life action and initiative are out of my element, you know?”

Nick nodded. He was the exact opposite. Plop him in front of a computer, and he was bored after visiting PhillyShreds.com and PunkNews.org. Life on the city streets was what he lived for.

“Nick,” Marie said.

Nick stopped staring at the steering wheel. His eyes followed Marie’s pointing finger.

Red was leaving Java Junkie with the singer-songwriter in tow. They were linked at the elbow.

“What the hell?” Nick said.

“Where’s Ian?” Marie asked.

“I don’t know.”

Red and the singer-songwriter crossed the street. Nick saw peripherally Marie crouch down on the floor of the passenger seat. Smart, Nick thought. Don’t want Red seeing her.

The singer-songwriter carried a soft black guitar case in the arm not linked to Red’s. He slid the case up his arm and over his shoulder. For some reason, that movement made Nick think the singer-songwriter looked like a hybrid of Anthony Keidis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Evan Dando from the Lemonheads.

Red and the singer-songwriter unlocked arms. At the entrance to the parking lot, she rooted through her purse for her car keys.

A couple blocks away, a police siren wailed. Red jerked and dropped her keys.

Nick turned back toward the windshield and away from his spying. He rotated his shoulders; the twisting around had stiffened his back muscles.

In the rearview mirror, Nick watched Red pull out of the parking spot. She braked at the entrance, and the singer-songwriter hopped in, flipping his hair as if filming a shampoo ad.

The van passed the Civic. After it turned the corner, Ian came out of the coffee shop.

42

“You say they turned left?” Ian said.

Marie and Nick answered yes. She sat in the passenger seat; he had climbed into the backseat.

After the Civic made the left turn, Nick asked, “So what the hell happened in there?”

Ian told them. “After Youth finished playing, she fed me some line about how he was her cousin, and he needed a ride home.”

“You think she was lying?” Marie asked.

“Without a doubt. First, she says she’s a groupie, then she’s related to him. Give me a break.”

“Yeah,” Nick said, “what kinda fuckin’ cousins skip across the street, practically hand in hand, you know?”

Marie asked Ian, “So we’re not going to the CUN—T office?”

“No reason to. The van is our best lead. Do me a favor. Pop that glovebox and hand me that thing that looks like a GPS receiver.”

Marie did so. At the next light, Ian looked at a tiny computer screen on a small rectangular control box. A blinking red dot was the white van. It was a half-mile ahead on this avenue.

No one spoke as Ian drove. He turned on the headlights. Dusk descended with the portent of Edward Arlington Robinson’s “Richard Cory.”

The Civic was at the edge of Manhattan, on the border of the Bronx. At Broadway and West 207th Street, about 100 peace activists protested the Iraq War. New York City police videotaped the nonviolent demonstrators. Ian cocked his head. Hadn’t he read recently in the Philadelphia Bulletin that a federal judge ordered that the bullies in blue stop taping peace activists, that it was unconstitutional?

At the next red light, Ian observed Marie’s fidgeting fingers. He ignored her nervousness and consulted the screen again. Good. The van was still a half-mile ahead.

The Civic drove through the Bronx. With each traffic light they went through, it got darker and darker.

43

By the time they crossed the city line into Westchester County, the white van was only a quarter-mile ahead. The Civic tried to fall back to the previous half-mile gap, but this expressway traffic made it more impossible than General Motors and Ford returning to their halcyon days.

“Oh, snap!” Nick said from the backseat. “Yo, Abe, we forgot to tell Ian about your little visitor.”

Marie tensed. Little visitor was what she and Matthew called her period. She quickly realized Nick wasn’t talking about that. (How could he? It was an inside marriage joke.) No, he meant the stranger on the cell phone.

Marie recounted the story. Afterwards, Ian said, “Interesting.”

“Who do you think it was?” Nick asked.

“I don’t know, but it is . . . peculiar.”

No one spoke as they tailed the van through the towns of Monroe and Goshen. They were about 30 miles north of the Big Apple.

“What the. . . ?” Ian frowned.

“What’s up?” Nick popped his head between the two front seats.

“I lost the signal.”

Marie’s heart vaulted for her throat. “Has that ever happened before?”

“Once in Silicon Valley. There were so many EMFs, it shorted the bug.”

Nick sang some of “Unbelievable” by EMF, ending with: “OH!”

“Electromagnetic fields,” Ian clarified.

Marie asked, “Do you think EMFs are causing your bug to short-circuit?”

Ian opened his mouth but said nothing.

“What,” Marie asked, “what is it?”

Then Marie saw it as the Civic rounded a bend. Up ahead were two rows of radio towers, six on each side of the highway.

“That’s what’s causing us to lose the signal,” Ian explained.

“Shit,” Nick said. “Whad’re we gonna do?”

Ian stuck the control box in the glove compartment. He slammed the compartment with such force that Marie flinched.

“Fortunately,” Ian said. “I have a backup plan.” He pulled a piece of paper from his breast pocket.

“What’s that?” Nick asked.

“Donna’s phone number.”

Hope swelled in Marie’s solar plexus.

44

The Civic turned into a motel in Harleysville. Ian checked them in. By the time they entered their room in the back, it was well after 10 p.m.

“Let’s get a good night rest,” Ian said. “Tomorrow, the fun begins.”

The room, which smelled of fresh carpet, had two queen-size beds. Ian slept in one, Marie and Nick shared the other.

45

The next morning, Nick woke up at 11:45—15 minutes earlier than his usual rise-and-shine time. However, he remained in recline.

Marie was already up. Since her side of the bed wasn’t warm, Nick knew she’d been up awhile. She paced, nibbling a hangnail. Her path included the bathroom and the parking lot (the door was open).

A little after high noon, Ian rose from the chair and table next to the window. Nick didn’t want to know how long he had been up. Ian swiped his cell phone from the table and punched a few keys.

“Hi, Donna. It’s Tony Leung.”

Marie ran into the room and closed the door behind her, blocking out the blaring sun. She sat on the corner of her and Nick’s bed, staring at Ian with her elbow planted on her leg and her fist supporting her chin. In the bathroom, the sink faucet leaked New York tap water. It was pretty loud. Nick was surprised the noise didn’t bother Marie.

Ian smiled into his phone. If Marie’s rapt attention distracted Ian, he did a good job of hiding it. No reason it should, Nick thought, he did do the drama thing in high school.

“You’re not going to believe this,” Ian said, smiling, “but I’m in Harleysville.”

As if following a script, Nick knew Donna was now asking Ian—oops, Tony—what in the world he was doing in Harleysville.

“Remember how I said I do a lot of traveling, since I’m a salesman,” Ian said. “Well, one of the companies I work for asked if I’d rather go to Omaha, Nebraska or Harleysville, New York. Three guesses on my answer. The first two don’t count.”

Donna said something. Ian threw his head back, roaring with laughter. He pointed at his cell and mouthed, “What a moron.” Nick and Marie traded an amused glance.

“Anyway,” Ian said, “I really enjoyed meeting you last night—in case you couldn’t tell—and I would love to take you out to dinner tonight, if you’re free. What’s that?” Ian’s right hand formed a fist. He relaxed. “I’m staying at a motel. Not sure where. I pulled into the first one I saw.”

Ian talked and flirted for about 15 more minutes. Nick caught that they’d agreed to meet at Dalasio Restaurant in Harleysville Square.

Ian put his phone back on the table. He mock-shivered. “I feel so dirty.”

“You should,” Nick said, “you motherfuckin’ male-slut. No lie, I think I threw up in my mouth at least six times.”

Ian smirked in Marie’s direction. “How am I going to get through dinner tonight with such a foul-minded temptress?”

Marie smiled.

Nick asked, “So what now?”

“Now,” Ian said, “we sit and wait.”

“Cool. Who wants to arm-wrestle? Marie?”

46

Ian, Marie and Nick played cards all afternoon. After their umpteenth game of Go Fish, Nick got up to stretch his legs.

Ian rocked his chair back on its rear legs. He was in the mood for hot tea. Maybe he’d stop for a cup on his way to meet Donna.

Marie shuffled the cards. “When do you think we’ll find Matthew?”

“Let me put it this way, I wouldn’t be going on this date if I didn’t believe—“ Ian stopped rocking on the chair. He planted his elbows on the table, tented his hands and tapped his lips with his index fingers.

“What?” Marie asked. “What is it?”

“I just realized something.”

“What?”

“Alec Youth is a musician. Your husband used to play guitar, right?”

Marie nodded. “Do you think there’s a connection?”

“I’m not sure, but I do find it hard to believe it’s a coincidence that both Youth and your husband are musicians.” Ian went back to his rocking. He and Donna would have at least one topic to discuss over dinner.

47

When Nick got back to the room, Marie decided to take a stroll of her own.

Closing the door behind her, Marie had a skip in her step. Sure, they didn’t know where Matthew was, but at least they seemed to be making progress.

Marie scratched her forehead. She hoped nothing bad had happened to Youth. Or to Matthew.

Marie skidded to a stop.

What if Matthew was dead?

No. Marie raised her chin. Get that idea out of your head right now. He’s alive. I know it!

With that positive reinforcement, Marie found herself in front of the motel office. She opened the screen door and stepped inside.

48

The office looked well-lighted from the outside. Inside, it was darker than a movie theater, and Marie hated going to the movies. She didn’t mind watching them on DVD, but going to the complex had never appealed to her. Whenever she and Matthew had gone out, they patronized the Walnut Street Theatre or the Arden Theatre Company. Plays were so much more interesting and intimate. Plus, you were supporting local actors and artists.

Marie scrunched her nose. The office smelled like onions and scallops. She liked both about as much as she liked going to the movies.

“Why, hello,” said the clerk from behind the counter. He spoke in a “Monster Mash” singsong, except his voice was creepy, not amusing.

The Creepy Clerk was skinny, and he must have stood seven feet tall. He had an oblong forehead and thinning salt-and-pepper hair, more pepper than salt, long on the sides. But what creeped Marie out the most was his skin color. Jaundice.

“Do you sell any paperbacks?” Marie asked.

“Paperbacks?”

“Yes. Books. Novels.”

“I’m afraid not,” said the Creepy Clerk. “But fear not, my pretty, I have plenty of reading material.” He pointed behind Marie.

Piles of horror magazines covered four tray tables. Past the metal tables was a wall where there hung framed, autographed headshots of Alfred Hitchcock, Anthony Perkins, John Carpenter, Donald Pleasance, Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell.

“Sorry,” Marie said, “Horror’s not my cup of tea.”

“Really? What is?”

“Romance novels and thrillers.”

“Oh, that’s too bad.”

Marie stepped back, reaching behind her for the door handle. “Thanks for your time.”

“Oh . . .” The Creepy Clerk dipped his chin, his brow shadowing his eyes. “. . . the pleasure was all mine.”

Marie opened the door. Sunlight spilled into the office. She stepped out, rubbing her neck.

“Toodles,” said the Creepy Clerk to the empty office. He limped into his living area. An industrial hose and a canister of gas lay on the floor next to a life-size cardboard cutout of Boris Karloff as Frankenstein. A stranger had dropped the hose and gas canister off an hour ago—the same stranger who’d talked on his cell phone while Marie was under the van in Manhattan.

49

From his and Marie’s bed, Nick watched Ian step out of the bathroom. He had freshened up, hair wet. Nick had forgotten how hot Ian was. He looked away. Get those thoughts out of your head. He’s straight. Besides, he’s engaged to a wonderful woman—a friend of yours. Never mind he would break The Rule. (Nick lived by The Dating Rule: you should never date anyone younger than half your age plus seven years.)

Ian picked up his cell phone off the table. “All right, I’m off.”

“Whatever happens,” Nick joked, “keep it in your pants.”

“Good luck,” Marie said, sitting on the edge of Ian’s bed.

Ian nodded. He departed.

Nick heard the Civic rev to life. The sound of the four-cylinder faded into the distance. Outside, a crow cawed.

“You hear that?” Nick said, but Marie posed a question at the same time. He asked her to repeat it.

“I asked if you smelled that.” Marie twitched her nose. “Smells like gas.”

“Wanna crack open the door?”

“Sure.”

Nick opened the door halfway and returned to the bed. Reclining on his back, he placed a pillow over his face, his head resting on another pillow.

Need a nap. . . .

50

After dinner at Dalasio Restaurant in downtown Harleysville, Ian parked his Civic outside of Donna’s house near the county line. Her home was a hybrid of Baroque and Byzantine architectural styles, with a hint of Tudor and Gothic.

“Feel like a cup of coffee?” Donna asked.

“Sure,” Ian said.

Inside, Donna took off her high heels and offered Ian a seat. She sashayed to the kitchen in her dress that ended a hair above her knees.

Ian sat on the living-room couch. He listened to Donna opening and closing cabinets. He heard the click of coffee cups being placed on a counter or a table.

Ian tapped his fingers on the arm of the couch. How was he going to do this? He wasn’t nervous about extracting information from Donna. What made his innards quiver was making out or having sex with her. He’d done so with clients in the past, but he’d never felt good about it. He was engaged to Joan Chen, his soulmate and the only person he could make love to. Whenever he had to kiss or sleep with someone, he’d fake interest by visualizing her. Fortunately, Joanie wasn’t the jealous type. That made him love her even more.

Donna returned with a tray holding two coffee cups and necessary accessories. She placed the tray on a low table in front of the couch. Ian poured cream into his coffee.

“So.” Donna held her cup in front of her face. She sipped and winked, almost imperceptibly.

“So.” Ian smiled as if he enjoyed Donna’s company. Wonder if my coffee is poisoned or drugged.

“I like your shirt,” Donna said. “Have I told you that already?”

“You have, but who’s counting?” Ian raised the cup to his lips. At the last moment, he pretended to remember something. “Oh, I forgot to ask: Did you and your cousin make it home all right the other night?”

“My cousin?”

“Yes. Alex. . . .” Ian pretended the name was on the tip of his cerebrum. Putting on his actor’s cap, he snapped his fingers and glanced at the ceiling.

“Alec?” Donna offered.

“Alec. There you go. Alec Yaunch, right?”

“Youth. Alec Youth.”

“Alec Youth,” Ian said. “Does he have any more shows?”

“I don’t know,” Donna said slowly.

“He’s pretty good. You have any of his CDs? I’d love to hear some.”

“I may have one up in my bedroom. Let me go see.”

“Excellent.”

“I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll be right here,” Ian said, smirking.

Donna giggled. She double-stepped up the wide staircase with plush carpeting.

When Donna reached the top of the stairs, Ian leapt off the couch, hurdled the table and dumped his coffee in the pot of a five-foot faux fern by the fireplace. Steam rose, smelling of turpentine.

Empty cup in hand, Ian raced into the kitchen. He thumbed a calendar on the wall above the kitchen table. Nothing but concert dates and CUN—T meetings.

Aware that Donna could return any second, Ian scanned the rest of the kitchen. What’s this?

The refrigerator door was covered with flyers and business cards held in place by GOP campaign magnets. The freezer door was blanketed with glossy snapshots. A business card tucked behind a corner of the Kenmore logo caught Ian’s eye. He stepped closer. The card was from a company called Force Tech in Reston, Virginia. It listed a phone number, fax number and e-mail address. Ian brushed a finger over the card’s embossed emblem. Looked like the CIA seal.

Creaking.

Ian peeked into the living room. No sign of Donna. Have to hurry. She’ll be back any second.

Ian whipped out his cell phone. He snapped both sides of the Force Tech business card. There was handwriting on the back, but he would read it later. And no need to worry about a blurry photograph because his cell took high-resolution pictures.

After returning the card to the freezer door, Ian marched back into the living room with his empty cup. The moment his posterior hit the couch cushion, Donna barreled down the stairs, half a dozen CDs in hand.

“Sorry I took so long,” Donna said. “Thought I would bring down some GGMM, too.”

“Who’s that?”

“Good Golly Miss Molly. His old band.”

“Right,” Ian said, trying to sound bored, as if he had spent the past five minutes lounging on the sofa.

Donna turned on her stereo and loaded the CDs. Electric guitars ripped from the speakers. Even though the volume was low, Ian camouflaged a cringe by coughing. Movies, not music, were his escapist outlet.

“Can I get you another?” Donna asked, eyeing Ian’s empty cup.

“Oh no, I couldn’t drink another drop. Thanks, though. It was delicious. Home blend?”

“Trader Joe’s.”

The CD changer jumped to a new track. The song began with rumbling drums, like Kitaro’s “God of Thunder.”

Donna slid onto the sofa within kissing distance of Ian. Her naked leg touched his knee. She leaned in.

“Tony?”

“Yes?” Ian flushed. He loved Joanie, but he was still a man, easily aroused by the proximity of a beautiful woman. Donna may not have been his type, but she had a body most supermodels would starve for.

Donna licked her lips. “Tony . . .” She offered her hand. “. . . I had a lovely time.”

Ian took the proffered hand. Donna leaned back, straightened her arm, shook his hand business-like, then stopped the handshake in mid-pump. She retracted her hand and stood up.

“You should go.” A curt smirk.

“Sure.” Ian rose, hoping his erection didn’t show.

Donna led the way to the front door, bare feet patting the wooden floor. Ian noticed she scratched her right thigh as she reached for the doorknob, hiking her dress in the process, long enough for her to showcase frilly pink, satin underwear. He raised an eyebrow. An actual itch or one last flirtation?

“If you’re ever in town again,” Donna said, “please call. I had a wonderful time, but all of the sudden, I have a headache.”

“I understand.” Ian stepped through the doorway. “Thanks again for the coffee.”

“Oh, my pleasure.”

“Well, good night.”

“Good night.” Donna slammed the door.

Grinning, Ian headed for his Civic and pulled out his cell to call Joanie. He couldn’t wait to tell her about his date and this case.

51

Marie opened her eyes. Where am I? She sat up. Oh, that’s right. The motel room greeted her. The door was open all the way. Wind must have done that.

“Ugh.”

Marie got out of bed. She stumbled but didn’t fall. Hand on a wall, she massaged the back of her neck. Why was she so stiff?

Nick groaned awake. “What the fuck?” He went horizontal again, sandwiching his head between two pillows.

Why do I fell hungover? Marie wondered.

“Man,” Nick said, “I had the weirdest fuckin’ dreams. One of ‘em was me fooling around with Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz on this small stage at the Reading Festival, and J Church was in the background playing ‘The Heroic Trio’.” He sat up again, this time for good. “Christ on the crapper.” He rubbed his neck and stood up. “Damn, I haven’t felt this shitty since gettin’ in that brawl in Austin.”

Marie was about to ask Nick if he had been in Texas on tour, when a car screeched into the motel parking lot. Its high-beam headlights lit up the room like a floodlight in a prison yard.

52

What the hell? Nick thought.

Two figures jumped out of the car. They brandished machine guns.

“Oh shit.” Nick blocked out his aches and pains. He slammed the door, locked it and grabbed Marie’s hand. They ran into the bathroom.

Gunfire ripped into the motel room. A few harmless sparks danced under the bathroom door. Nick assumed the sparks came from the TV dying via firing squad.

Marie covered her ears with her forearms. The rat-tat-tatting of the machine guns grew louder. Nick noticed that with each round of bullets fired, the smell of shot-up motel furniture overpowered the aroma from the toilet tank’s potpourri jar.

Nick and Marie pressed their backs against the bathroom wall farthest away from the door. He looked up and down the yellow-tiled wall. Fuck. No window to climb through. All the bathroom had was a vent no bigger than a freaking mousetrap.

“Come on,” Nick said.

They climbed into the shower and squatted. Nick slid the opaque plastic door shut. The shower had two doors; you could slide either one open to enter or exit (the doors were on a tract on the edge of the tub).

Finally, the gunfire stopped. Nick cracked open the shower door closest to the wall with the mousetrap vent. Wisps of smoke slithered under the bathroom door. All quiet on the motel front. He closed the shower door.

Marie shuddered. Nick wrapped an arm around her. He wondered how long the intruders had stood in the parking lot, shooting up the room. Maybe after a minute or so, they had goose-stepped into the room, their fingers never leaving the triggers.

THWACK!

The bathroom door banged open so hard, it hit the stopper and closed with a slam of Amityville proportions. Nick placed his hand over Marie’s mouth. The door opened again, more quietly this time.

One of the intruders stepped into the bathroom. He tapped the muzzle of his machine gun on the shower door near the bathroom door.

Nick—his hand still over Marie’s mouth—looked around the shower stall. Nothing he could use as a weapon. Fuck!

The second intruder stepped into the bathroom. Through the opaque shower door, Nick saw that the intruder had the bulky build of a well-fed, middle-aged man. He stood in the doorframe.

The first intruder scratched his muzzle on the shower door. Nick noted the etching was in the shape of a swastika.

“Fee-fi-fo-fum,” said the first intruder, “I smell some city-slicker scum.”

The muzzle moved away from the shower door. Nick felt a drop of perspiration from Marie’s forehead run across his knuckles.

A blur on the other side of the shower doors. What the. . . ? Nick thought.

The shower door in front of Nick crashed in. Marie jerked. He removed his arm from around her. Peripherally, he saw her scramble. Her right foot landed on the faucet and the heel of her left foot slipped into the soap dish—the bar of Irish Spring not going anywhere. She wedged herself back into the corner.

Nick charged out of the shower. He seized the wrecked shower door by its handle and used it as a shield. It had a horizontal bar across the middle.

With the skill of a Spartan, Nick used his shower-door shield to shove the first intruder against the sink. Nick peeked around his shield. The intruder’s machine gun was behind his back. A leather strap crossed his chest. It belonged to the machine gun.

The second intruder stood in the doorway. He raised his machine gun.

Oh, shit! Nick’s groin tightened with fear.

Nick tossed the shower door aside. He yanked up the first intruder, who was disoriented, and used his body as a shield. The second intruder—still in the doorway—changed tactic. He dropped to a knee and focused on the eyesight of his machine gun. Nick didn’t know what the second intruder was aiming at, and he didn’t want to find out. He shook the first intruder like a rag doll, hoping the jerky movements would frustrate the second intruder. While doing so, he realized he held the leather strap of the machine gun, and the strap was around the first intruder’s neck. Damn. He didn’t want to choke the first intruder to death, but he also didn’t want to get shot by the second intruder. Maybe I should just throw this gunman here at that fucker in the doorway and hope for the best.

Nick didn’t get a chance to test his idea. Marie did something he never would have predicted.

53

Marie climbed off the spigot and soap dish. She slid open the remaining shower door to see the intruder in the doorway drop to his knee. He aimed at Nick.

Without thinking twice, Marie dove for the intruder in the doorway. But he must have spotted her before she leapt at him because he rolled out of the bathroom as if a sniper spotted on a rooftop.

Marie’s hands slapped the cold, tiled floor. She tumbled out of the bathroom.

On her hands and knees, Marie watched the intruder finish rolling. He sprang to his feet. It amazed her how fast he moved, considering the bulk he carried. She also took note of his blond/white hair and his gray irises, the latter colder than the machinery in Elo Gray. He reminded her of the Pillsbury Doughboy.

The Pillsbury Gunman pressed the trigger. Bullets torpedoed in Marie’s direction. She rolled to the right, debris digging into her sides, but no bullets.

Marie stopped rolling; the gunfire stopped. She hid behind an overturned box spring in the middle of the room. What am I going to do? The box spring would only provide temporary cover. Bullets could pierce it easier than a talon shredding tissue paper.

Marie’s chest heaved. She heard the Pillsbury Gunman march toward her, rubble cracking under his feet.

Think, Marie! Do something!! Anything!!!

Marie grabbed the TV remote. She slung it at the Pillsbury Gunman. She only needed to distract him for a moment or two.

The Pillsbury Gunman grunted. Marie sprinted for the doorway.

54

Nick watched Marie leap out of the shower and the second intruder roll into the bedroom. Currently, gunfire rat-tat-tatted. Nick assumed the intruder fired the weapon. He hoped Abe was OK.

“Shit,” Nick muttered.

Nick still held the machine gun’s leather strap around the first intruder’s neck. As if electro-shocked, he let go of the strap. The intruder flopped to the bathroom floor. Nick seized the machine gun and patted the intruder down looking for extra ammo. One cartridge in the ankle holster. He pocketed it.

Nick studied the intruder. He wasn’t moving, but he did breathe, albeit sluggishly. Cool, Nick thought. Last thing I need on my mind is murder, even though it was self-defense. Sort of.

Cradling the machine gun, Nick tiptoed out of the bathroom.

55

Marie ducked. The Pillsbury Gunman started firing again. She crossed the threshold of the motel room. Bullets tore up the archway, wood splinters flying, her ears ringing.

The Pillsbury Gunman stopped shooting. Out of bullets?

Marie turned right out of the room and into the parking lot. She was so hyper and panicky, her eyes couldn’t focus on anything. And the night seemed darker than it actually was. Therefore, it didn’t surprise her when the side of her right knee tapped an object. She quit running to see what her leg made contact with.

An open car door. The intruders’ vehicle?

The engine was running. Its headlights shined in the motel room. Marie wondered why the intruders left the key in the ignition. Maybe they’d expected to finish their job more quickly.

The car’s blaring headlights picked out Nick’s movements in the room. The Pillsbury Gunman saw him, too. He must have been out of ammunition because he swore and darted out of the room quicker than Tonya Harding’s accomplice.

A voice in Marie’s head ordered her to hop in the car. She did.

The Pillsbury Gunman dashed towards the car. His shadow stretched across the engine hood.

Marie slammed the driver door shut but left the passenger side open. Out of habit, she reached for the seatbelt, however, as her fingers touched the buckle, she came to her senses and gripped the steering wheel with both hands.

The Pillsbury Gunman held his machine gun like a baseball bat (hands around the barrel). “Get out of the car, bitch!”

Marie jerked. She knew that voice. It belonged to the man from the parking lot in Manhattan.

The Pillsbury Gunman sliced his machine gun through the air. The handgrip banged on the side of the driver headrest. Luckily, Marie had leaned away before the strike. Now, the Pillsbury Gunman tossed his machine gun aside—it clacked on the ground—and thrust his arms into the car. His limbs moved like vehement vipers.

Marie took the car out of park. Thank God it was automatic! She walloped her foot down.

No!!

Marie had stamped the brake instead of the gas. She rectified the situation.

The car sped in reverse, veering slightly to the right. Marie grasped the steering wheel at three and nine o’clock. Her arms trembled, and she had trouble breathing. Felt as if she were on the peak of a mountain, with nothing but rarified air.

The Pillsbury Gunman’s aggressive hands were still inside the automobile. He clung to the car, his corpulent body covering the windshield.

Marie hit the brakes. The Pillsbury Gunman held on. So she did what any frenzied heroine would do. She shifted into drive. Her plan was to throttle forward for a few seconds, then bring the vehicle to a grinding halt. But his palm smacked her left shoulder. She recoiled, hitting the gas pedal too hard. The car zoomed out of control. She let go of the wheel.

WHACK!!!

The car hit something. Marie wasn’t sure what. The Pillsbury Gunman was no longer glued to the windshield. The hood had popped up; steam billowed from the radiator. A busted timing belt rattled around inside the engine. The stench of burnt rubber made Marie cough.

“Holy shit, son!” Nick said, machine gun in hand. He stuck his head in the car, which was 90 percent in the motel room.

Marie took stock of herself. No broken bones, and not too much blood.

Hold on. Marie twisted around. Where did the Pillsbury Gunman go?

“C’mon,” Nick said. He opened the driver’s door from the inside.

Marie lumbered out of the car. She smelled gasoline.

“Let’s get out of here,” Nick said. Marie thought she heard a hint of hysteria in his voice. He tossed the machine gun aside. It landed in the remains of a mattress.

Marie closed the car door so Nick could get by. The vibration caused both airbags in the front seat to activate. She thought he would have giggled. Instead, he tugged her arm.

They hurried out of the room. Marie expected the Pillsbury Gunman to pounce, maybe with a hunter’s knife clenched between his teeth. I wish Nick had held onto that machine gun.

Marie let Nick guide her to the end of the parking lot, near the entrance by the motel office. The lot was empty. They must have been the only guests.

Marie gazed back at their room. Sparks descended from the ceiling from where the overhead light had been.

In the distance, sirens wailed.

With no sign of the Pillsbury Gunman, Marie let herself flop down on a patch of grass beyond the lot. Nick joined her.

Suddenly, the intruders’ car blew up. Marie and Nick ducked and turned away, even though they were 200 yards away—too far away to be harmed.

Soon, the fire spread to three-quarters of the motel. The office was unscathed. As the heat of the blaze warmed Marie’s face, she wondered if the Creepy Clerk had slept through the explosion or if he had left hours ago.

Simultaneously, a police cruiser, an ambulance and a fire truck screeched into the parking lot, blocking Marie’s view of the blaze. Curt transmissions from their radios mingled with the crackling of the fire.

Nick threw an arm over Marie’s shoulders. “How ya doin’?”

“Fine.” Marie set her head on Nick’s shoulder.

Would they ever find Matthew? Were they too late?

56

7 a.m. Nick had been up for almost an hour. He lay on his bed: the bottom bunk in a jail cell.

On the top cot, Marie tossed and turned. Nick assumed the morning sun trumpeting through the bars in the window had awoken her.

The springs in Marie’s bunk creaked. “Ow.”

“You all right?” Nick asked.

“Yeah. Bumped my head.”

The top bunk was close to the cement ceiling. When Nick had got up to use the bathroom 45 minutes before, he’d seen Marie sleeping on her side, arm brushing the ceiling.

Marie hopped down off her bunk. Her Circle Jerks T-shirt had more wrinkles than Keith Morris’ face.

Last night—after the medics had examined Nick and Marie—the sheriff, thick and bull-faced like the actor Brian Dennehy, had insisted on taking Nick and Marie downtown for questioning. But when the sheriff escorted them into the station, he didn’t guide them to the chairs in front of his desk. Instead, he shepherded them into the station’s only cell. While the cell door squeaked closed, Nick caught Marie on the verge of tears, a plea on her lips. He shook his head. She read his sign and kept mum.

“Well?” Marie said.

Nick removed his hands from under his pillow. He turned on his side, head on fist. “What’s up?”

“What’s going to happen to us?”

“I don’t know.” Nick sat up. He smelled the stench of the toilet and the aroma from the bakery across the street. Standing up, he inhaled the freshly baked bread.

Marie began to pace. Nick leaned against the top bunk.

“How can you be so nonchalant?” Marie demanded.

“I still don’t feel so hot.” Nick felt exhausted, yet energetic. It made no sense, but he knew how he felt.

Marie stopped pacing. She stood in the corner opposite the toilet. “Now that you mention it, I don’t feel so good, either. My head’s pounding like there’s a Quidditch Snitch bouncing around in there.”

“Yeah,” Nick said, “aftereffects of being drugged.”

“Drugged?”

Nick nodded. “How else do you explain why we both fell asleep around the same time yesterday and woke up feeling all hungover and shit? Plus, me having that erotic dream with Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz. C’mon, I’m gay, for Christ’s sake!” Smirk. “Though, I gotta tell you, Penelope gave me the best rim job of my life—real or imagined. You think it’s got something to do with those Botox lips of hers?”

Marie appeared not to have heard Nick’s joke. She strode across the cell and, after some maneuvering, planted one foot on the sink, the other on the horizontal bar between the two bunks (on the footboard side). She gripped the bars on the window, which was about the size of a magazine spread.

“What’s goin’ on?” Nick asked.

Marie returned to the floor. “I had a weird dream, too, yesterday. I came into town and roamed around, but it looked nothing like what’s outside now.”

Before Nick could ask about Marie’s dream, the front door opened. In strutted the sheriff, followed by Ian.

57

Around 9 a.m., Ian sat behind the Civic’s steering wheel. Marie was in the backseat. Nick lounged in the passenger seat.

“Yo,” Nick joked, “let’s get out of here before he changes his mind.”

Ian pulled away from the police station. He didn’t think the sheriff would storm after them with an arrest warrant. An honest man, the sheriff had admitted he and the mayor were relieved to see the motel burned down to embers and ashes. The motel’s main clientele had been Mafiosi from NYC and porn producers from a 90-mile radius. The mayor had promised voters he’d close the motel. Problem solved.

Marie asked, “And we definitely don’t have to worry about anything appearing on our record?”

“You’re free and clear,” Ian said. “The sheriff and D.A. won’t press charges. Though, I did agree that we would leave by sunset.”

The Civic passed a blue sign with white lettering that thanked them for visiting Harleysville (Please Come Again!). On the other side of the road, a sign said Interstate 87 was four miles east.

“So,” Nick asked, “how was your date? Did you snog her?”

“Snog?” Ian said.

Nick shrugged. “Only half-decent cable channel that motel had was BBC America.”

“The date was . . . interesting.” Ian gave an abridged version of his night (he skipped the dinner part and told them what happened at Donna’s house). When he got back to what remained of the motel, a firefighter told him the sheriff had already taken Nick and Marie in. Ian called the sheriff’s house, but his wife acted as gatekeeper by saying, “Father needs his eight hours sleep. Good night.” Click.

Nick said, “Smart move dumping that coffee. Me and Marie were drugged.”

“Really?” Ian rubbed his jaw.

“Yeah. Luckily, we both woke up before those two gunmen arrived.”

“Gunmen?”

“Yeah, didn’t ya hear?” Nick told Ian what had happened.

“I’d still like to know how we were drugged,” Marie said. “I wonder if the Creepy Clerk played a role in it.”

“You could have been gassed,” Ian suggested. “Something pumped through the vents.”

“You might be right,” Nick said. “When we were running out of there, I saw this big-ass hose hanging from one of the vents. Kinda seemed out of place, you know?”

Ian stopped to pay a toll. As the Civic regained its former speed, he asked, “Creepy Clerk?”

Marie nodded. “The guy in the motel office.”

“Ahh.” Ian remembered him from when he had checked in.

“I wonder,” Marie began, “I wonder if he meant to gas us enough to kill us.”

“Could be,” Nick said. “We did have the door cracked, so maybe most of the gas went outside.”

“Then why have those two gunmen show up?”

Ian said, “Maybe that was their plan all along. Maybe the Creepy Clerk—as you call him—was supposed to gas you until you passed out, then the two gunmen would finish you off.”

“But why did they show up so late?” Marie asked. “You’d think they would have been there right away.”

“Murphy’s Law,” Ian said. “Maybe they got stuck in traffic. Or maybe the clerk wasn’t supposed to start gassing until later.”

“Who knows?” Nick said. “I can’t believe we’re still alive. Pretty crazy how we were able to fight ‘em while all doped up.”

“Adrenaline will do that to you,” Ian said. “Besides, from the way you described them, they didn’t sound as sharp as, say, CIA operatives.”

“Yeah, the one Marie whacked did have a bit of a pouch.”

“Pillsbury Gunman,” Marie said.

“Hot damn,” Nick said, “you got a nickname for everyone!”

The Civic went quiet. Ian glimpsed in the rearview mirror. Marie appeared pensive. “What’s wrong?”

“I just realized something. We didn’t see the Creepy Clerk in the parking lot when the fire trucks and cop cars arrived.”

“Fuck ‘im,” Nick said. To Ian: “Where to now, Captain?”

“Reston, Virginia.”

“For Force Tech?” Marie asked.

“Yes.”

Nick asked, “We driving all the way down?”

Ian nodded. “With any luck, we’ll be there by nightfall.”

In the backseat, Marie fidgeted around. Ian inquired if she was all right.

“I—I don’t mean to seem bitchy,” Marie said, “but do you think we should be going all the way down to Virginia? I mean, Donna O’Connell is only a few miles away from here, and CUN—T is right here in the city. They both seem to be connected with Matthew’s disappearance.”

Ian cracked his window. The smell of stinkbugs permeated the air. If his empath ability were active, that would mean somebody nearby was sullen.

“My gut is telling me to go to Reston,” Ian said. “I think the answers are there. I’m 99.9 percent certain we’re going to find out what happened to your husband in Reston. Trust me on this.”

Ian glanced at Marie. She crossed her arms and stared out the window.

The Civic passed a billboard promoting a local navy shipyard.

58

Reston, Virginia is about 20 miles west of Washington, D.C. According to the Census Bureau, Reston has an area of 17.4 square miles. It’s home to Sprint Nextel, the National Wildlife Federation and the United States Geological Survey.

Reston, however, is probably most infamous for having a strain of the Ebola virus named after it. Ebola Reston made its D.C.-area debut in 1989, when a medical research facility imported infected monkeys from the Philippines. The Centers for Disease Control had no choice but to murder the monkeys and decontaminate the facility. In 1995, a construction crew demolished the building.

The Civic passed the site of the deadly outbreak, now an office park. Marie looked out the window at the address of the long-gone medical research facility. There stood a kindergarten and preschool center.

Marie glanced at her watch. 5:30 p.m. The Civic had made great time. It helped that Ian had lain on the gas. Plus, they had stopped only once for food and the bathroom.

“So,” Nick asked from the passenger seat, “what’s the deal, McNeal?”

Ian turned right at a red light. “I want to drive by Force Tech. See what we’re dealing with.”

Five minutes later, the Civic reached the business park where Force Tech resided. Marie pressed her forehead against the backseat window on the driver’s side.

Force Tech was in the kind of business park where each company had its own one-story building. About a quarter-mile into the park, Marie saw Force Tech’s suite. On the tinted glass door were the firm’s name and an emblem that looked suspiciously similar to the CIA seal.

Ian didn’t stop in front of the Force Tech office. He kept going at the same speed ever since entering the business park. Ten miles per hour.

“Wow,” Nick deadpanned, “this is too much fun. When do we stop the car and get out and start breaking stuff?”

“All in good time.” Ian smiled.

Marie looked back as they left the business park. The horizontal heating strips of the rear defogger shadowed her face. She stole one last glance at Force Tech’s suite and wondered if Matthew was in there.

59

The Civic entered Arlington. On the right was Arlington National Cemetery. Nick blocked out the landmark. Despite 100-plus visits to the D.C. area over the years, he had mixed feelings about the cemetery. On the one hand, he hated all wars (like Howard Zinn, he believed there was no such thing as a justified war). On the other hand, people had died for their country, even if their patriotism had been manipulated by Machiavellian politicians and businesspersons.

From the backseat, Marie asked if Matthew might be a prisoner in the Force Tech office. Nick pretended he didn’t hear the question. It was intended for Ian.

“I don’t think so,” Ian said. “The office is too small, and when bringing him here, it would have been too risky with all the other businesses, not to mention all the security cameras.”

“Turn here,” Nick said, pointing left. He acted as navigator, since he knew how to get to the place they were crashing at tonight.

The Civic drove down Beecher Street. They would stay on this road for a while, so Nick’s mind wandered.

Dischord Records was close by. It still fascinated Nick what a punk-rock success story Dischord was. It had been running for—what?—almost 30 years now, right? Amazing. He wondered if the label’s longevity had something to do with the popularity of the bands fronted by Ian MacKaye, Dischord’s co-owner. It seemed that Minor Threat, Fugazi and The Evens kept Dischord afloat.

Nick pondered the idea of a record label surviving only through flagship bands. Maybe that’s why Philly never had a punk-rock institution like Dischord. Maybe you needed an internationally renowned act to keep the operation chugging along.

Ahh, Nick thought, Philly ain’t all bad. At least we got R5 Productions. Sure, Sean Agnew and crew don’t just promote and put on shows for punk bands and fans, but at least they’re keeping the indie spirit alive.

Nick snapped out of his musings. “Turn left and park halfway up the street.”

60

Marie followed Nick into the punkhouse where they would sleep tonight. Ian closed the door behind them.

The trio stood in a foyer. To the left and down two carpeted steps was a living room, which gave Marie olfactory overload. So many smells, so few brain cells. She recognized two smells: marijuana and peroxide.

Marie stood in the middle of the living room. The foyer was to her right; her back faced the front windows. In front of her, two steps led to a horizontal hallway. A few feet to the left was a kitchen. A woman with spiky, pink hair came into the living room with a camera that a professional photographer might use.

“Smile!”

Marie didn’t, and she couldn’t see if her two compatriots did. (Nick lounged on an Archie Bunker couch, and Ian leaned against the vanity fireplace.) Marie imagined the photograph would be black and white, showing her weary expression, Ian’s cool/calm exterior and Nick’s punk-as-fuck demeanor.

“So,” said the woman with the camera, “what brings y’all to the V House?”

61

The V House was named after the hero in the graphic novel V for Vendetta. It was the D.C. area’s premier punkhouse. Where the West Coast had the Maximum Rocknroll house, the East Coast had the V House. Punks and liberals from all over the world visited and crashed at the five-bedroom abode. No one owned the V House, and the by-laws—drawn up in 1969—stated that the longest anyone could stay was one year. V House’s primary purpose was to provide a temporary support system for newcomers to the area. Touring bands and artists were also welcome to stay a night or two. Nick and his bandmates had crashed at the V House seven of the last 10 times they’d played in D.C. The other three times, they had slept in their van because the V House was full.

Currently, it was 3 a.m. Nick’s bass pick-size bladder forced him awake after three hours of sleep.

Shuffling out of the bathroom, Nick returned to the Cheetos-smelling bedroom he and Marie called home for the night. He collapsed on a mattress under the four-pane window. Marie slept soundlessly in the middle of the room on an air mattress that Ian had brought in from his trunk.

Fuck.

Nick couldn’t fall back asleep. He hated this. His body seemed to go through these cycles where he would sleep great for a few weeks, then like shit for five nights or so. He’d wake up in the middle of the night and toss and turn until the alarm clock shrilled. He knew that if he got up now, he’d pass out from exhaustion in mid-afternoon. Sometimes, he wished he were a psychopath. He once saw in a documentary that they never had trouble sleeping.

Nick lay on his back and linked his hands, thumbs wrestling. He hoped tonight Marie had enjoyed assembling the pamphlets. The girl with the camera, Anarchy Allyson, was a member of Pro Choice Pro Child (PCPC). This weekend, PCPC planned on marching down Pennsylvania Avenue in support of Roe v. Wade, without any restrictions so many conservative Christians lobbied for. Nick, Ian and Marie had helped Allyson bind the four-page pamphlets—nothing to it, just two eight-and-a-half-by-eleven pieces of paper folded in half—for the march on Saturday. Nick always got a kick out of group efforts like that. He was pretty sure tonight Marie had too.

As if Marie’s ears burned from Nick’s thoughts, she rolled off the air mattress, but she ignored him as she stumbled to the bathroom. Unlike him, she closed the door while answering nature’s call.

Nick turned on his side. In his head, he tuned a guitar. That old musician’s trick worked. He was falling back asleep. The moment his eyes rolled back into his head, the image of Ian flashed in his mind’s eye. Hope he’s not running into too much trouble. . . .

62

Ian parked his Civic on a residential side street in Reston. He got out with the stealth of a secret agent man. At the end of the block, he turned left. His car beeped. Car alarm activated.

Ian sported his normal attire for breaking and entering: black pants, sneaks and turtleneck. He strode down the sidewalk. Not too fast, not too slow. As if it were normal for him to be on the streets of Reston at 3 a.m.

No autos drove past in either direction.

In the middle of a block, Ian dropped on one knee and pretended to tie his sneak. He rolled right, between two azalea bushes. Standing up without using his hands, he pulled black gloves from his back pants pockets.

For five minutes, Ian trod through woods. No path existed, so he made his own. It wasn’t easy. Magnolia trees tilted toward one another, their top roots above ground, twisted together. At the moment, two deer and a fawn bounded by, their hoofs clopping on tree roots.

Eventually, the trees spread out, and the ground cleared. Ian picked up the pace.

Ian withdrew a mask from his right front pants pocket. The mask was made of black, porous silk. He put it on; it fit tightly. He viewed the woods through two eye slits.

Ian reached the end of the woods. Before him were topiary bushes cut into the shape of weapons. On the other side of the bushes was the business park where Force Tech had its office.

On his hands and knees, Ian peeked through the bushes. Between two bushes—one in the shape of a missile, the other a Blue Angel—he saw Force Tech’s building.

Ian scanned the area. All clear.

Ian climbed a nearby tree, jumped from it and bounded off the top of the Blue Angel topiary. He flew across the driveway and landed on the roof of Force Tech. As soon as his feet touched the tar, he dropped to his chest and flipped onto his back. He listened for any alarms or approaching security guards. The only sounds were chirping crickets and shrilling cicadas.

For safe measure, Ian counted to 10, then turned over. Chest kissing the roof, he crawled forward. The tar smelled of mold and mildew. A recessed roof with no real drainage?

Ian stopped and pulled from his left-front pants pocket a Swiss army knife. It wasn’t one you’d find in any store or catalogue. He had personalized it for his private-eye needs. He flicked his wrist, and a kn