"I do mostly family work," I said. "Missing kids, wayward spouses. I never use a camera or tape recorder."

Placing her elbows on the desk, Sharon Weiss asked, "What can I do for you, Mr. Tooms?"

"Angie Lear is missing," I said. "Her mother is a sick woman who relies completely on her daughter. She's very worried, for many different reasons. I came here to look for her, and also to find out if she's been let go."

"I'm not allowed to give out personal information," Sharon told me. There was a lot of yellow in her brown eyes. I wondered if the reflection of my suit brought out that hue.

"I won't tell anyone," I said. "And as long as you don't give me any specific information, there would be no reason to question you."

She believed my hands.

Opening the folder that she had retrieved when Larry Spender called, Weiss paged through, slowly. As she read a frown came across her face.

"Hmm."

"What?" I asked.

"This is very unusual."

"What is?"

Sharon looked up at me.

"I've never worked on Miss Lear's file," she said. "It's, um, strange."

"In what way?"

"She didn't go through the usual interview process. Upper management simply sent down the word to hire her. And, and there was a note attached, just a few days ago, that says to keep her position open regardless of her absence. I've really never come across anything like it."

"Is the note signed?"

"No. But it's stamped with the executive board's seal. No one, not even the president, can revoke that."

"Damn," I said. "Are there any other abnormalities?"

"No. She has good attendance and no behavior reports. All in all, except for her recent absence, she's an exemplary employee."

"I see. Well… thank you, Ms. Weiss. You've been a great deal of help. And don't worry. I won't pass any of this information on to her mother. I'll just tell her that as far as I know she hasn't been fired."

"Thank you."

We both stood and she came around the blue plank as I opened the glass door. I extended a hand that she took with both of hers.

"You have very strong hands, Mr. Tooms."

"Do you have a card?" I asked. "I might want to call you."

The day was bright and chilly. It wasn't yet noon but the sun, I knew, would set in less than five hours. The next step for me was to go down to Angie's apartment. First, though, I had to visit my office to prepare myself for that leg of the investigation.

When I didn't see Aura and her beau making out on the street I recognized that I was nervous about going to the Tesla. This trepidation was deeply disturbing to me. My office is the center of my life. The seventy-second floor of that Art Deco building is the one place where I feel secure and almost happy. It was bad enough that Aura had taken love from my life, but now…

JUST THE TOP LOCK of my outer door was engaged. The only thing I could imagine was that Aura was in there. She wanted to talk, and so did I.

I pushed the door open eagerly but the excitement quickly faded. I'd forgotten about Mardi, my new receptionist. She stood up when I blundered in. She was wearing a rose-colored dress that seemed more appropriate for a girl her age.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing," I said. "Why?"

I come from a long line of slavery, second-class citizenship, revolutionaries, orphans, and crooks. Put all that together in a man's heart and you make ordinary circumspection look like careless abandon. My face rarely gave away anything that I felt.

"I just thought," Mardi said. "Nothing."

"That's a nice dress," I said to cover up the odd discomfort we both felt.

"Thank you. I bought it yesterday when I saw that you thought my Mrs. Alexander's dress was too old-fashioned."

"I didn't say that."

"I could tell, though," she said. "I'm pretty good at picking up on how people are feeling. Sometimes Twill brings me along when he wants to know if somebody is lying to him."

"Have you heard from Twill in the last twenty-four hours?"

"He called last night to find out how the job was going."

"How did he sound?"

Mardi's smile could only be called knowing. She said, "Twill's one of the only people that I can't read very well. He's always the same no matter what."

"And how was your day yesterday?" I asked.

"Real good. A Detective Kitteridge called. He was nice, said he needed to speak to you. I organized all the files and phone numbers. I started going through your notes. I'm trying to figure out a good way to put them in your files."

"That's great. You know, I think you'll be a real asset to me, Mardi. We should set you up with a payroll company. You'll start at five seventy-five a week. Then find out the best medical insurance coverage for you and your family."

Mardi's smile was so wide I could almost see her teeth.

BACK IN MY INNER sanctum I went through a closet at the opposite end of the hall from my office. There I kept all my various disguises. I decided on the drab workman's overalls. A man in work clothes rarely needs ID. I put on some funked-up work boots and a cap that had ConEd stitched over the visor. I picked out a red metal toolbox and lumbered toward the front.

"I'm going out for a while, Mardi," I said as I moved toward the door.

"Okay, boss," she said, seemingly oblivious to my change of clothes.

I stopped to smile at her.

The attention made her beam.

"LAWRENCE DOLAN," I WAS saying to the super of Angelique Lear's building on Twelfth Street, two blocks up from the northern border of Tompkins Square Park. Angie lived on a sedate block straddling the northwestern fringe of Alphabet City. The rickety edifice was six stories high and slender, with only one apartment on each floor.

"How can I help you, Mr. Dolan?"

"We got a call on a gas leak. I'm here to check it out."

"I haven't made any report," the hunched-over white man said in perfectly executed English.

"I don't know who made the call," I said. "All I know is that they sent me paperwork on this address and I'm supposed to check it out."

"Where's your truck?" the man asked. He would have been tall except for the slouch. His hair was gray and his white skin stained from many years of working with dust and dirt.

"They got us two to a truck nowadays," I said, pretending to harbor resentment. "Trying to cut costs. Merwin's gone to a place down on Sixth Street."

"You have to understand, Mr. Dolan," the man who had given me no name said. "I didn't call, and so I'm hesitant to let you in."

"Hey," I replied, hunching my shoulders with nonchalance. "It's nuthin' to me. I'm just gonna shut off the gas and electric and you can work it out with my supervisor when she wants to turn it back on."

"What? Turn off our power?"

"There has been a gas leak reported," I explained patiently. "If I can't tell my boss yea or nay I have to shut you down. I mean, they could be sued for millions if there's an explosion or a fire."

"But why the gas and electricity?"

"When people refuse to let us in we shut ' em down. That way we got a reason to come back… one day."

I reached into my breast pocket and handed him an official-looking business card. It had my alias and a few phone numbers printed in dark-blue ink.

"My boss is Janey Markus," I said. "Her number's at the bottom but you can get to her through any of these. She'll tell you the same thing I'm saying."

The number actually went to a machine I kept at Zephyra Ximenez's apartment. If he called he'd get one of a dozen specially designed recordings telling him that Ms. Markus was not in but that she would return the call as soon as possible.