“Never.”
“Or maybe,” I surmised, “maybe she’s knows what’s happened to the necklace and is afraid of what will happen when you find out.”
“I don’t understand.”
“There might be a lover involved.”
“No. No. Never.” He sat down again. “And even if there was, she could still come to me.”
I gave him a skeptical look.
“You don’t understand, Mr. McGill. Chrystal is my life. I’d be lost without her.”
“That may well be,” I conceded, “but life and love are often more complex than they at first seem.”
“What are you talking about?”
“People often react to fears that are in their minds and not the real world around them. They are reacting to the ways that they were raised, and maybe... abused.”
“Chrystal had a perfectly normal childhood,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with her.”
“I wasn’t trying to imply that there was,” I said. “But it is possible that she feels guilty and has put that guilt on you.”
“That’s ridiculous. I love her,” he said, and I almost believed it. “I would never do anything to cause her pain.”
“Be that as it may,” I said quoting a phrase my father used again and again in my radical homeschooling. “This woman did come to me, and she told me what I’m telling you.”
“Where is she?” he demanded. “I need to talk to her myself.”
“She told me that you might ask that question. She said that you’d offer me money to reveal her whereabouts and therefore she would not tell me where she was staying or how to get in touch. She said that she’d call me to find out what I had learned.”
“Why did she think you’d talk to me if you were hired to look for the necklace?” he asked. He might have been weak but he was not a stupid man.
“She was worried that I would come to you for a better paycheck. She said that keeping her location a secret would assure my... fidelity.”
“But you could find her for me,” he insinuated.
“Probably. But I won’t.”
“Then why come to me? Why don’t you do what she hired you to do?”
“I believe that she hired me to save her marriage,” I said. “I also think that she’s confused about the necklace. She gave me a lead or two, but those seemed to be dead ends. The best way to solve the problems, as I interpreted them, was to come here and lay out the scenario for you.”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” he said. “What use can you be if she doesn’t trust me?”
“I’ve met with you. I can tell her that. I can say that I confronted you about the necklace. Maybe that will convince her to come clean.”
“You think that she’s lying to you?”
“No one tells the whole truth,” I said, “even to a stranger.”
“I’ll pay you a hundred thousand dollars to find her, Mr. McGill.”
For a few seconds there my mind went as pink as the hallway walls outside the shit-brown door.
I had to clear my throat before saying, “No.”
“Why not?”
“You aren’t my client.”
“Then what do you want from me?”
“Is her ruby and emerald necklace missing?”
“I don’t keep track of her belongings.”
“Is she missing?”
He paused before answering, “For six days now.”
I unlaced my hands and used them against the chair’s arms to sit up straight.
“It would be a definite conflict of interest to allow you to pay me to betray her whereabouts to you,” I said. “But... but I would take ten thousand to deliver a message.”
“A message?”
“Anything you want me to tell her... or maybe a note.”
Cyril Tyler’s face hid nothing. He was confused and worried, hopeful, even though he suspected that I wasn’t being completely honest.
“I need her, Mr. McGill,” he said. “Things have been strained lately, but it has nothing to do with our relationship, with her.”
“Maybe you’re the one having the affair,” I said. “Maybe that’s what drove her to make her own mistakes.”
“Me? An affair? Never.”
“I want to help you but I’m working for your wife,” I said, telling two lies in one sentence. “I’ll deliver a note for ten thousand. Take it or leave it.”
“Will you take a check?”
“No.”
He sighed and stood, walked to the door I’d entered through, and passed out into the riotous gallery/hallway.
After he was gone, I let my eyes nearly close and counted breaths until he returned, maybe ten minutes later. He handed me a white envelope, sealed, and a stack of crisp one-hundred-dollar bills.
“I expect something from this,” he said.
“I’ll deliver the note. That’s all I can promise. Do you have anything else to tell me?”
“Like what?”
“Like why she left? Maybe... what she might be afraid of?”
“It’s not of me, if that’s what you’re saying. I love Chrystal.”
“I love hamburger,” I said. “But when lunch is over the sandwich is gone.”
“Chrystal is not a plate of food.”
We parted in the brown library. I walked past Chrystal’s paintings and into the glass office, which was now empty. I ambled across the lawn to the private elevator, then down the empty floor to the other.
The light-brown doorman ignored me as I passed out into the street.
Two blocks away I tore open the envelope and read the poorly scrawled note. Chrystal, I love you and would never be upset about anything having to do with your actions or oversights.
I was amazed at the legal quality of the message, but that didn’t matter. I’m not an editor or a life coach. My job is, has always been, to take money from people either to assuage their fears or to fan the flames of their rage.
And there are worse elements to my profession.
9
Cyril Tyler’s hidden mansion was only nine blocks from my place. The fact that it wasn’t the gossip of the neighborhood proved that he had extraordinary clout — and was willing to use it.
I made it to my building in nine or ten minutes and then climbed up the ten flights to the apartment at a good clip. A man in my line should at least be able to run up some stairs if the situation called for it. Somebody might be after me, or me after him — either way, I needed the edge.
I got to our big black door and stopped. The blood slamming through my veins had reminded me of something and I knew that once I was in the house that detail might fishtail away. Taking out my phone I entered and transmitted a text message: Mardi, download pic of woman who came in today. Said she was Chrystal Tyler but wasn’t. Look up last bug-search I did and see if you can identify her. Probably a relative, likely a sister. Thanx.
I could have called Mardi. She would have answered and promised to do the job. But the best way to talk to young people is on the tiny screen. They remember, save, and pay closest attention to the texts of their lives. That’s how they stay connected, coincidentally avoiding the overexcitement and the inherent inaccuracies of aural memory. Maybe one day all of our memories will be contained on little devices in our bags and back pockets. People like me will make their money looking for lost and stolen electronic recollections.
“Who was I, Mr. McGill?” the potential client would ask my descendant.
“I’ll get right on that, Mr. Doe. Just transfer the dollars into my Panamanian account.”
I used the special electronic key on the lock, and two bolts — one at the knob and the other in the floor — slid open.