“How much longer are you going to wait here?” I questioned.
“As long as it takes. I’m not leaving without her. She’s my whole life. I mean, what would I do without her?”
“I’ll tell you what, if you’re still here when I wrap up looking for my guys, I’ll stop by and we can walk back together. Deal?”
“You’re missing people as well?”
“My two Dicks. I figured they might have found their way into one of the live sex theaters, but the three classiest places insisted I pay full admission for the privilege of looking for them, so I’m narrowing my search down to less classy establishments, like triple X-rated video shops and tattoo parlors.”
“Are your boys wearing the standard issue nametags?”
“Last I knew, they were.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for them.”
“Thanks.” I smiled my appreciation. “And if I run into Mary Lou and Laura, I’ll stick with them like glue and drag them back with me.”
He tried to smile, but there was such anguish in his face, his mouth refused to cooperate. “Sounds good,” he said dismally, looking as if his knees were about to buckle beneath the weight of his predicament.
Poor Mike. I sure hoped Mary Lou showed up soon, because if she didn’t, he looked as if he might suffer a complete breakdown. This was so weird. At first blush, he’d struck me as the kind of guy who bled confidence, but had I read him correctly? Or was the real Mike McManus still an emotionally stunted sixteen-year-old whose mental health could be derailed by the slightest disruption?
I mulled this over as I rejoined the mob in the street.
Funny thing about people. Old friend or new, they always managed to surprise you.
_____
The Dicks weren’t here. I’d looked everywhere I could possibly search—darkened doorways, smoky cafes, hotel lounges, dingy cellar shops, erotic bars, erotic clubs, and several erotic outlets where I picked up a slew of free catalogs for Nana. I gave descriptions to store clerks, waiters, bouncers, and desk clerks, but all I heard was the same old thing: “Haven’t seen them.”
At two o’clock I called Jackie’s cell. “Please, please, please tell me the Dicks are back at the hotel.”
They weren’t. “But everyone else is functioning normally again, except for the double vision, so I made them form a conga line on their way back to their rooms so they could hold onto each other for support. You better get them to a clinic in the morning though. Double vision isn’t a good thing for old people to have. I don’t want to be an alarmist or anything, but I think it means they’re all getting ready to suffer kidney failure.”
At 4:20 a.m., discouraged by my failed efforts and unable to keep my eyes open, I decided if I didn’t call it a night, Nana might soon be sending out a search party for me. Not only did I need to catch forty winks, I needed to regroup.
I passed by the “Come to Jesus” bridge, where the same batch of protestors were warning people to repent, but Mike was gone, so I hoped that was a good omen. Too tired to hoof it back to the hotel, I phoned a cab and began the weary walk to my pick-up point. As I approached the footbridge by the Café Bar de Stoof, I noticed a woman leaning against a van parked by the canal and realized there was a good chance she might know more about the Dicks’ whereabouts than any other person I’d talked to this evening.
“Excuse me, Officer,” I said as I approached her, “could you help me?”
_____
I returned to the hotel armed with official police forms that were to be filled out and delivered to the nearest station within twenty-four hours of my reporting the members of my party missing. The policewoman had assured me that most people who went missing in the Red Light District usually turned up embarrassed but deliriously happy the next morning, so I should probably wait a few hours before filing a formal report. “Things like dis happen all der time,” she insisted.
Feeling slightly more confident that the situation would have a positive outcome, I headed straight for my room, kicked off my shoes, and collapsed face down on the bed without bothering to brush, floss, or moisturize. I was awakened about six seconds later by a loud and persistent knock on my door.
“God, Emily,” Jackie warbled when I let her in, “you look terrible, but you don’t have time to do anything about it now. You have five minutes to get downstairs before the breakfast service ends. Our new tour director wants to speak to you, Nana and the gang are running into the furniture in the dining room like it’s not even there, and the Dicks never came back last night.”
I hung my head tiredly. “Is that all?”
“Nope. Paula Peavey never came back either.”
Nine
“Emily?” The man waiting for me at the entrance to the dining room looked vaguely familiar, which probably explained why my name flew from his mouth like a spitball rather than a greeting.
I suspected he knew me.
“Holy crap. You’ve gotta be kidding me. Emily Andrew? Well, well, well. This explains a lot.”
Recognition struck, accompanied by an uncomfortable twinge of guilt. Oh. My. God. He hadn’t changed all that much since I’d last seen him. Same chubby chipmunk cheeks. Same bland eyes. Same neat, buttoned-down appearance. He’d traded in his navy-blue blazer and khakis for a pea-green Passages Tours blazer, but if you ignored his expanding waistline and receding hairline, he still looked a lot like the boy next door, in a middle-aged kind of way.
I hazarded a cautious smile. “Wally?”
“Throw the girl a fish. She remembers me.”
“Of course, I remember you! Golden Swiss Triangle Tours. The Grand Palais Hotel. Lake Lucerne. Mount Pilatus. You were a
terrific tour director. How could I forget you?” I pulled a face. “Our local guide was pretty annoying, but you were wonderful. I’m astounded you remember me.”
“Are you serious? Three days in Switzerland? Three dead bodies? How could I forget you?”
“I had nothing to do with those deaths.”
“You found the bodies. Close enough.”
“It is not!”
“Besides which, you deliberately ditched me so you could have drinks at the Hotel Chateau Gutsch with that hot police inspector.”
Okay, he had me there, “I wouldn’t call what I had a drink. It was more like an extravagantly expensive sip.”
“You were a jinx!”
“I was n—!” I winced. “You really think so?”
“I know so. The rest of the trip went great after you and your group left, except that the company canned me because they held me responsible for exceeding the allowable number of guests expected to die over a three-day period.”
“There’s an allowable number?”
“Yah: zero! So I get hired by another company, establish a perfect record, and what happens? My holiday gets canceled so I can replace an otherwise healthy guide who croaks for no reason at all.”
“Actually, there was a bicycle involved, so—”
“And who do I find in the middle of it all?”
I forced a smile. “Have I caught you at a bad time?”
“And I’m hearing rumors that not all the guests made it back from an unauthorized excursion to the Red Light District last night. Is that right?”
“Which part?” I asked sheepishly. “That the excursion was unauthorized or that several guests didn’t make it back?”
“Several? As in, more than one?”
“We were only missing two last night.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “But the number sort of climbed to three this morning.”