Klaus came back to the office to take his lunch break. As he was clearing off the desk, he noticed the pad on which I’d written down the information about the license plates.
“Utah, huh?” he kind of mumbled to himself.
“What about Utah?”
“If there was any what in Utah, boss, I wouldn’t be living in New York,” he said, his turned-down lips hinting at the pain behind his flippancy. “What’s this, HNJ1956?”
“I thought it might be a license plate number.”
“Well, 1956 was the year my brother Kirk was born. Maybe it’s somebody’s birthday. You know, Harold Nance Jacobson, born 1956. Or maybe it was the year someone died.”
Bells didn’t quite go off in my head, but Klaus had a point. It’s an amazing thing how the human mind works, how different minds process the same information to divergent ends. I’d been focused on HNJ1956 for over twenty-four hours, yet it had never occurred to me that HNJ could be somebody’s initials, nor had I seen 1956 as anything other than the individual numbers 1-9-5-6. Once Judith Resnick had suggested it was a tag number, my mind seemingly closed off other interpretations. I’d have to be careful to keep that lesson in mind.
There was more to recommend Klaus’s analysis beyond its simply being different from mine. It resonated. I didn’t have to perform mental gymnastics to see the potential connection between someone’s birthday and newspaper stories about a kid and a bike. But what kid? What bike? Whose birthday? Like everything else since I’d first flipped through Moira’s checkbook ledger, each possible answer gave rise to more questions.
As I walked the aisles of the store, distractedly dusting and straightening bottles, I tried imagining how I might be able to replicate the newspaper search Moira had paid for a few weeks before Ivan Alfonseca had strangled the life out of her. Even if Klaus was exactly right that HNJ1956 was a group of initials followed by a year, it wasn’t enough. Or as my old philosophy professor was fond of saying, it was necessary but not sufficient. I tried anyway.
Judith Resnick, though happy to hear from me, wasn’t very encouraging. Even if I could tie the initials HNJ to the year 1956 and could further tie those two elements to newspaper articles written about a kid and a bike, it probably wouldn’t do me any good, not as far as her company was concerned. Not only would it take an eternity to search through all the archives, but it would cost a fortune. “Certainly more than a hundred and fifteen bucks,” she said.
The bottom line was this: I needed to come up with a specific name or geographic region in order to replicate or approximate the search Moira had paid for. Until then, I was just spinning my wheels.
The other line started ringing before I hung up with Judith. I told her I had to go. She apologized for not being more helpful and let me know she’d already mailed out that brochure I’d asked for.
I picked up line 2: “Bordeaux in Brooklyn.”
“Hey, you gimpy Jew fuck, how you doing these days?” It was Larry Mac.
“Don’t tell me you got promoted again. What is it now, chief of the Sioux Nation or grand wizard of the Klu Klux Klan?”
“Shut up or I won’t take you and Katy to dinner this evening.”
“Call 911.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m suffering from auditory hallucinations. I could swear you just said you were inviting Katy and me to dinner.”
“Asshole, that’s what I said.”
“Then call 911 anyway, because now I’m gonna have a heart attack.”
The blind steer, located only a few blocks away from 10-9-8, was one of the oldest steak houses in New York City. I suppose, like 10-9-8, it had been trendy once, probably around the time Lincoln was giving the Gettysburg Address. Even if you didn’t know its exact address, you could spot the life-size red, white, and blue neon steer swinging above its front door from all the way down Ninth Avenue.
Larry Mac was waiting for us at the bar when we arrived. I was surprised to see him alone. I had just assumed his wife, Margaret, would be joining us. When Katy asked after Marge, Larry was kind of vague about the reasons for her absence. Now I was suspicious. Earlier, on the phone, Larry had said he had been meaning to take us to dinner since his promotion, that it was the least he could do for me. He explained how the promotion had come so swiftly and as such a shock to him that he hadn’t even had time to arrange for the time-honored tradition of a promotion party. That was true. Rob Gloria hadn’t thrown his yet either.
Larry signaled to the maitre d’ that his guests had arrived, and we were shown to a prime table in a private corner of the dining room. While Katy and Larry studied the menu, I studied Larry. As was the norm, he was impeccably dressed in a black linen suit over a gauzy white shirt. I always admired that about Larry-he had an abundance of substance and style. That he had taken us here to celebrate was another indication of that. Yet, there was an unfamiliar tension in his expression that I could not decipher. He seemed to be working too hard at his usual easy charm.
Without a sign, verbal or otherwise, a waiter in a long white apron came to the table carrying a bottle of Mumm Cordon Rouge. Larry offered toasts to me, to Katy. We toasted his successes, current and future. All the toasting out of our systems, we ordered dinner. The food was excellent, the aged beef melting like butter in our mouths. The meal was all so splendid, but there was also that tension Larry had brought with him as an escort. It held tight on to Larry’s arm, whispered in his ear even as he ate and made small talk. I wondered if Katy noticed it too. Tonight was about more than just saying thanks. There was definitely something besides steak on my old friend’s plate.
After dessert, Larry ordered cigars and three Grand Marniers in heated snifters. Katy excused herself as a darkly attractive young woman in a black satin cocktail dress came to the table toting a humidor. Though not her equal, her looks were reminiscent of Steven Brightman’s wife. She placed the humidor before Larry and opened the mahogany box in a very formal, almost ritualistic manner. I half expected her to recite some ancient incantation. When the high priest had selected two cigars, he pressed a folded bill neatly into the woman’s right palm. She closed the box.
Larry ran a cigar under his nose, taking in an exaggerated breath.
“All right, Larry, what’s going on?”
He laughed a little self-satisfied laugh, clipping the end off a cigar and handing it to me. He repeated the motion and used the outside of his pinkie to sweep loose bits of tobacco off the white tablecloth. Katy and the waiter arrived back at our table simultaneously.
The drinks served, the cigars lit, I noticed Larry’s escort had seemingly vanished in a haze of smoke. The tension was gone. Larry reached into his pocket and placed a small, unwrapped box on the table in front of him.
“This,” he said, sliding the box toward me, “is yours if you want it. No strings attached.”
Though it was nauseatingly cliched, I picked up the box, placing it to my ear. Then, almost involuntarily, I shook it. I think I knew exactly what it was the second I felt its weight. I had a replica of one in my sock drawer at home.
“Open it, for chrissakes!” Larry prodded, cigar smoke gushing from his mouth.
My hand trembled. I immediately put the box on the table and hid my hands beneath the tablecloth.
“Open it, Moe,” Katy urged, curiosity getting the better of her.
My hands somewhat settled, I placed one on the box and slid it to Katy. “You go ahead.”
She removed the lid without a moment’s hesitation and gasped. Katy’s too-thin lips formed a smile fraught with a sense of deep-seated satisfaction. It was the kind of smile you smile not for yourself, but for your kids, or for your team when they pull off an impossible comeback. Katy slid the box back in front of me.
Inside was a hunk of gold-plated metal in the shape of a glittering nine-pointed star. Within the rim of the star was a field of cobalt blue enamel. At the center of the rich blue enamel was more gold in the guise of a Dutchman and an Indian standing on either side of an eagle perched atop a coat of arms. The words CITY OF NEW YORK POLICE formed a gilt-lettered horseshoe around the central symbol. Beneath the symbol was another word: DETECTIVE. In a rectangle below was the number 353.