He found plenty of agencies that looked honest and reliable: “All our investigators are former police officers, fully licensed and bonded,” or “Offices in New York, Dallas, and Chicago.” He didn’t want anybody like that, so he kept searching the pages. He found one that had a suite on the second floor of a building with an address that sounded like a strip mall. The small, cheap ad said: FRAUD DETECTION, MARITAL, DEBT COLLECTION.
He took a cab to the address. The building was in a part of the city that Till thought of as Daylight Las Vegas. Tall hotel buildings poked up like fingers in the distance, but in the foreground there were only one- and two-story box structures with stucco on the front sides and tinted windows that the eye could not penetrate. The address was on a strip with a low-end store that sold discount clothes, a tattoo parlor, a chiropractor, and a small storefront offering tae-kwon-do lessons. Up on the second level there was a door with a sign that said Lamar Collection Services.
He opened the door, heard an electronic bell ring, and waited at the counter at the back of the small reception area. He looked around and saw three plastic lawn chairs and a laminated table that held year-old car magazines. In a moment he heard some shuffling sounds from a back room, and a woman in her forties with bright red hair came through the door. She placed her hands on the counter, and Till could see a set of long blue fingernails painted with tiny white flowers. “How can I help you?” she said without enthusiasm.
Till took out his identification. “My name is Jack Till. I’m a private investigator from Los Angeles. I’m searching for a former client of mine. I’d like to find out if she’s living in Nevada.”
She shrugged. “We’re skip-tracers. We can do that.”
“Her name is Ann Delatorre.”
“You haven’t said you represent a company she owes money, or that you’re trying to deliver money they owe her, or anything. There are laws.”
“Oh. Did I forget to mention that? She hired me and didn’t pay. What do you charge?”
“Depends. Just to see if we’ve got her under our noses is forty bucks. That includes a search of the two biggest databases. If you want us to collect for you, then you’re talking about quite a bit more.”
“I think I’d like to start with the easy stuff. For now I’d just like an address and, if possible, a phone number.”
“Okay.” She pushed a pad of paper to him with a pen. “Write down the name. You pay in advance, then come back in an hour.”
He took out two twenty-dollar bills, wrote down the name. “I can wait here.”
“Suit yourself.”
She went away for no more than ten minutes, and returned with a skip-trace sheet she had printed out. She set it on the counter and turned to walk toward the back of her store. She said over her shoulder, “There you go.”
Till got up from his plastic chair and took the paper. It had the name Ann Delatorre, a home address, and a Social Security number. Under occupation it said “Sales,” and the employer was a company called “Karen’s” on Paradise Road. It occurred to Till that it was possible Wendy Harper had found a way to have another extra identity. She could be Ann the salesclerk and also Karen, the absent owner who hired her, paid her salary and verified her ID papers. Till said, “Thank you,” but the woman with the blue nails was gone.
As he walked to the street and took out the card with the cab company’s phone number on it, he glanced at his watch. It was still early. Karen’s would probably still be open. He called a cab, rode to Paradise Road, and found that the address was a mailing center that rented mailboxes. He reminded himself that Wendy Harper had stayed invisible for six years. He had expected her to be good at it.
13
SYLVIE SLIPPED OUT of the airplane’s aisle into the window seat, then lifted the armrest up to open the space between her and Paul as he sat down and fastened his seat belt. Then she wiggled her hips once to establish contact with him. He looked down at her and smiled.
It was interesting to Sylvie to see Paul moving back and forth so easily between the extremes of his personality. Just an hour ago, he had been speaking with the boy in the car-rental office and smiling almost as warmly as he was now. He had said, “I really would appreciate your help in this situation. Jack is my oldest friend, and my wife’s brother. We’ve got to locate him just as soon as we can.”
The boy had not returned Paul’s beautiful smile. He had simply played at being a heartless bureaucrat. “I’m sorry, sir. But company rules prohibit us from using the locator on a car just because somebody asks.”
“But this is an emergency. My wife’s mother is very ilclass="underline" Jack’s mother. We think this could be the end. She’s a dear old lady, and she’s asked for Jack. With the help of people from your company in Los Angeles we managed to trace him to Santa Barbara. We know he made it this far, and turned in the car. We need to know if he rented another car from you and is still in town, or if he got on a plane. I can’t even conceive of what harm it would do to tell us. I’ll pay you very well for your trouble.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“What’s a day’s pay for you? I’ll give you that just for a little help.”
“I don’t know, sir. I’m paid once a month.”
“All right. A week’s pay, in cash. Divide your paycheck by four.”
“I’m sorry, sir. Company rules.” The boy held his hands up in a shrug.
Paul’s long arm shot out, and before the boy could step backward, Paul had gripped his right wrist, spun him around, and had the arm twisted behind his back. Paul was as quick and graceful at jujitsu as he was at dancing. He held the boy’s arm with no apparent effort. The boy was bent over, his face almost to the counter, his eyes watering, then almost closed in pain. His body tilted to the side while Paul was steering him around the counter and into the open.
Paul said to Sylvie, “Would you please give him three hundred dollars?”
“Sure.” Sylvie opened her purse, took out the three bills, held them up like a magician’s assistant, folded them once, and placed them in the boy’s breast pocket.
Paul applied some more pressure, and the boy went to one knee. “I’ll do it. All right. Stop. Stop it.”
Paul released him and said, “Thank you.” He watched while the boy pushed on his knee with his good hand to raise himself. The hand that Paul had held was pressed to the boy’s stomach, as though held by an invisible sling. The boy went around the counter and Paul went with him. He used his uninjured hand to tap on the computer’s keys while Paul looked over his shoulder. Paul took a pen off the counter and wrote on a map the code number for the locator on Till’s car and the license number.
The boy said, “He’s got a white Cadillac DeVille. It’s in Las Vegas, parked at the MGM Grand Hotel.”
“Thank you.” Paul reached into his own wallet and added two more hundred-dollar bills to the boy’s breast pocket.
Now, as Sylvie sat beside him on the airplane, she leaned into the space between them and snuggled, then leaned back to wait for takeoff. “I like Las Vegas.”
“Me. too. Too bad it’s got to be for work.”
“I don’t care. It’s still exciting. I love going with you.”
She was telling the truth. Paul had changed her life in the way that she had imagined when she was a little girl that a man would. Her mother had usually been without a man in her life, but she had always been trying, flirting with men in grocery stores and at school events. She had invited men from work over for dinner. Sylvie could still remember sitting in awkward silence while her mother talked to one of these men, her conversation false and bright and quick, her voice more strained as time went on. After a time, the man would always find a way to leave. None of the men had seemed very promising to Sylvie, but she had observed at other times that her mother was not a stupid woman. If her mother was so desperate for a connection with a man, then they must have value.