"She is what she is," he said.

CHAPTER 5

PAUL, went out to the car and brought Pearl in. She raced around the house with her nose to the ground for about fifteen minutes before she was able to slow down and follow me around while I searched the house.

The refrigerator was on, but nearly empty, and there was nothing perishable in it. There was no fruit in the bowl on the table. The strainer was out of the drain in the kitchen sink. There was no suitcase to be found in the house, which meant either that she had packed it and taken it with her or that she didn't have one. Paul didn't know if she had one, and he couldn't tell if any of her clothes were missing. There were very few cosmetics in the bathroom. There were eleven messages on her answering machine, three from Paul. I copied down the names and phone numbers that had been left.

Mostly they were first names only, and Paul didn't know who they were. But the phone numbers could lead to something. I couldn't find an address book.

"Did she have one?" I said.

"Yes. I know she did. She carried it around with her and she was always afraid of losing it."

"She work?"

"Yes. She sold real estate. Worked for a company called Chez Vous."

"Cute."

"Hey," Paul said. "We're in the suburbs. Cute is important out here."

"You New York kids are so jaded," I said. "Do you know where she met Rich?"

No.

"Probably a dating bar called Entre Nous," I said.

"Or Cherchez la Femme," Paul said.

"That betrays a preconception about dating bars," I said.

"I suppose it does," Paul said. "How about what you've found here? You have any conclusions ~to reach?"

"Everything here says that she left of her o~p accord," I said. "There's no mail piled up, which means she stopped it at the post office. There's n~ suitcase. Most people have one, which sugges* that she took it. There's a dearth of cosmetic, which suggests that she packed them. The house is neat, but not like no one's ever coming back. There are no perishables in the refrigerator, which suggests that she was planning to be gone for a while."

"Without telling me?"

"We agree that's she's not Mother Courage," I said.

"True."

"You want me to find where she went?"

"I feel like kind of a jerk," Paul said. "I wouldn't want the police involved."

"But you'd still like to know where she is," I said.

Paul nodded. "I think she'd have called, or written me a postcard, something."

"Sure," I said.

"Of course I want to think that," Paul said. "I don't want to think she went off and didn't think about me."

"Well, let's find out," I said.

"What will you do?"

"First we'll track down Rich. There must be people know his last name. If he's also not around we'll have a reasonable presumption."

"And then what?"

"We'll ask everyone we can find who knows either of them if they know where

Patty and Rich are.

"And if no one knows?"

"We check airlines, trains, local travel agencies, that stuff. We see if

Rich's car is missing. If it is we run a trace on his license number. If it's not missing we check the car rental agencies."

"And if none of that works?"

"Some of it will work," I said. "You keep asking enough questions and checking enough options, something will come up, and that will lead to something, and that will lead to something else. We'll be getting information in ways, and from people, that we don't even know about now."

"You can't be sure of that," Paul said.

"I've done this for a long time, Paul. It's a high probability. If you want to find someone, you can find them. Even if they don't want to be found."

Paul nodded. "And you're good at this," he said.

"Few better," I said.

"Few?"

"Actually, none," I said. "I was trying for humble."

"And failing," Paul said.

CHAPTER 6

IT was a nearly perfect September day. Temperature around 72, sky blue, foliage not yet turned. There was still sweet corn at the farm stands, and native tomatoes, and the air moved gently among the yet green leaves of the old trees that still stood just off the main drag undaunted by exhaust fumes or ancestral voices prophesying war. Paul was in my office with the list of callers from his mother's answering machine. I was back out in Lexington at the post office in the center of town, where a woman clerk with her pinkish hair teased high told me that Patty Giacomin had put an indefinite hold-for pickup on her mail. There was no forwarding address.

I went to Chez Vous, which was located next to an ice cream parlor behind a bookstore in a small shopping center on Massachusetts Avenue. Four desks, four swivel chairs, four phones, four side chairs, and a sofa with maplewood arms and a small floral print covering. The wall was decorated with flattering photos of the property available, and the floor was covered with a big braided rug in mostly blues and reds. Two of the desks were empty, a woman with blue-black hair and large greenrimmed glasses sat at one of the remaining desks speaking on the phone. She was speaking about a house that the office was listing and she was being enthusiastic. The other desk was occupied by a very slender blonde woman wearing a lot of clothes. Her white skirt reached her ankles, nearly covering her black-laced high-heeled boots.

Over the skirt she wore a longish ivory-colored tunic and a black leather belt with a huge buckle and a small crocheted beige sleeveless sweater, and a beige scarf at her neck, and ivory earrings that were carved in the shape of Japanese dolls, and rings on all her fingers, and a white bow in her hair.

"Hi, I'm Nancy," she said. "Can I help?"

I took a card out of my shirt pocket and gave it to her. It had my name on it, and my address and phone number and the word Investigator. Nothing else. Susan had said that a Tommy gun, with a fifty-round drum, spewing flame from the muzzle, was undignified.

"I'm representing Paul Giacomin, whose mother works here."

Nancy was still eyeballing the card. "Does this mean, like a Private

Investigator?"

I smiled winningly and nodded.

"Like a Private Eye?"

"The stuff that dreams are made of, sweetheart," I said.

The woman with the blue-black hair hung up the phone.

"Hey, PJ," Nancy said. "This is a Private Eye."

"Like on television?" PJ said. Where Nancy was flat, PJ was curved. Where

Nancy was overdressed, PJ wore a sleeveless crimson blouse and gray slacks which fitted very smoothly over her sumptuous thighs. She had bare ankles and high-heeled red shoes. Around her left ankle was a gold chain.

"Just like television," I said. "Car chases, shootouts, beautiful broads. .."

"Which is where we come in," PJ said. She had on pale lipstick and small gold earrings. There were small laugh wrinkles around her eyes, and she looked altogether like more fun than was probably legal in Lexington.

"My point exactly," I said. "I'm trying to locate Patty Giacomin."

"For her son?" Nancy said.

"Yes. She's apparently gone, and he doesn't know where and he wants to."