A new thought hit him then- one so awful, so unbearable he nearly lost control of his car:
Olivia was pregnant.
The light turned red. Matt almost drove through it. He slammed on the brakes at the last moment. A pedestrian, already starting across the street, jumped back and waved his fist at him. Matt kept both hands on the wheel.
Olivia had taken a long time to conceive.
They were both in their mid-thirties and in Olivia's mind the clock was ticking. She so badly wanted to start a family. For a long time their attempts at conception hadn't gone well. Matt had started to wonder- and not just idly- if the fault lay with him. He had taken some pretty good beatings in prison. During his third week there, four men had pinned him down and spread-eagled his legs while a fifth kicked him hard in the groin. He had nearly passed out from the pain.
Now suddenly Olivia was pregnant.
He wanted to shut down his brain, but it wouldn't happen. Rage started to seep in. It was better, he thought, than the hurt, than the awful gut-wrenching ache of having something he cherished ripped away from him again.
He had to find her. He had to find her now.
Olivia was in Boston, a five-hour journey from where he now was. Screw the house inspection. Just drive up, have it out with her now.
Where was she staying?
He thought about that. Had she told him? He couldn't remember. That was another thing about having cell phones. You don't worry so much about things like that. What difference did it make if she was staying at the Marriott or the Hilton? She was on a business trip. She would be moving about, out at meetings and dinners, rarely in her room.
Easiest, of course, to reach her by cell phone.
So now what?
He had no idea where she was staying. And even if he did, wouldn't it make more sense to call first? For all he knew, that might not even be her hotel room he'd seen on the camera phone. It might have belonged to Blue-Black Hair. And suppose he did know the hotel. Suppose he did show up and pounded on the door and then, what, Olivia would open it in a negligee with Blue-Black standing behind her, a towel wrapped around his waist? Then what would Matt do? Beat the crap out of him? Point and shout "Aha!"?
He tried calling her on the camera phone again. Still no answer. He didn't leave another message.
Why hadn't Olivia told him where she was staying?
Pretty obvious now, isn't it, Matt ol' boy?
The red curtain came down over his eyes.
Enough.
He tried her office, but the call went directly into her voice maiclass="underline" "Hi, this is Olivia Hunter. I'll be out of the office until Friday. If this is important, you can reach my assistant, Jamie Suh, by pressing her extension, six-four-four-"
That was what Matt did. Jamie answered on the third ring.
"Olivia Hunter's line."
"Hey, Jamie, it's Matt."
"Hi, Matt."
He kept his hands on the wheel and talked using a hands-free, which always felt weird- like you're a crazy person chatting with an imaginary friend. When you talk on a phone, you should be holding one. "Just got a quick question for you."
"Shoot."
"Do you know what hotel Olivia's staying in?"
There was no reply.
"Jamie?"
"I'm here," she said. "Uh, I can look it up, if you want to hold on. But why don't you just call her cell? That's the number she left if any client had an emergency."
He was not sure how to reply to that without sounding somehow desperate. If he told her he had tried that and got the message, Jamie Suh would wonder why he couldn't simply wait for her to reply. He wracked his brain for something that sounded plausible.
"Yeah, I know," he said. "But I want to send her flowers. You know, as a surprise."
"Oh, I see." There was little enthusiasm in her voice. "Is it a special occasion?"
"No." Then he added extra-lamely: "But hey, the honeymoon is still on." He laughed at his own pitiful line. Not surprisingly, Jamie did not.
There was a long silence.
"You still there?" Matt said.
"Yes."
"Could you tell me where she's staying?"
"I'm looking it up now." There was the tapping sound of her fingers on a keyboard. Then: "Matt?"
"Yes."
"I have another call coming in. Can I call you back when I find it?"
"Sure," he said, not liking this at all. He gave her his cell phone number and hung up.
What the hell was going on?
His phone vibrated again. He checked the number. It was the office. Rolanda didn't bother with hellos.
"Problem," she said. "Where are you?"
"Just hitting Seventy-eight."
"Turn around. Washington Street. Eva is getting evicted."
He swore under his breath. "Who?"
"Pastor Jill is over there with those two beefy sons of hers. They threatened Eva."
Pastor Jill. A woman who got her religious degree online and sets up "charities" where the youth can stay with her as long as they cough up enough in food stamps. The scams run on the poor are beyond reprehensible. Matt veered the car to the right.
"On my way," he said.
Ten minutes later he pulled to a stop on Washington Street. The neighborhood was near Branch Brook Park. As a kid Matt used to play tennis here. He played competitively for a while, his parents schlepping him to tournaments in Port Washington every other weekend. He was even ranked in the boys' fourteen-and-under division. But the family stopped coming to Branch Brook way before that. Matt never understood what happened to Newark. It had been a thriving, wonderful community. The wealthier eventually moved out during the suburban migration of the fifties and sixties. That was natural, of course. It happened everywhere. But Newark was abandoned. Those who left- even those who traveled just a few miles away- never looked back. Part of that was the riots in the late sixties. Part of that was simple racism. But there was something more here, something worse, and Matt didn't know exactly what it was.
He got out of the car. The neighborhood was predominantly African American. So were most of his clients. Matt wondered about that. During his prison stint, he heard the "n"-word more often than any other. He had said it himself, to fit in at first, but it became less repulsive as time went on, which of course was the most repulsive thing of all.
In the end he'd been forced to betray what he had always believed in, the liberal suburban lie about skin color not mattering. In prison, skin color was all that mattered. Out here, in a whole different way, it mattered just as much.
His gaze glided over the scenery. It got snagged on an interesting chunk of graffiti. On a wall of chipped brick, someone had spray-painted two words in four-foot-high letters:
BITCHES LIE!
Normally Matt would not stop and study something like this. Today he did. The letters were red and slanted. Even if you couldn't read, you could feel the rage here. Matt wondered about the creator- what inspired him to write this. He wondered if this act of vandalism had diluted the creator's wrath- or been the first step toward greater destruction.
He walked toward Eva's building. Pastor Jill's car, a fully loaded Mercedes 560, was there. One of her sons stood guard with his arms crossed, his face set on scowl. Matt's eyes started their sweep again. The neighbors were out and about. One small child of maybe two sat atop an old lawn mower. His mother was using it as a stroller. She muttered to herself and looked strung out. People stared at Matt- a white man was not unfamiliar here but still a curiosity.