LarrySpectorsYear

LARRY SPECTOR’S YEAR

A Novel by Harry Dolan

E X C E R P T

Prologue: Sam Marlowe

On the thirty-first of May, when Sam Marlowe was called out to the Notting Green Trail, Larry Spector was three days gone.
The trail ran through cornfields that were privately owned, but it was officially part of the state park system, and when Marlowe arrived on the scene he found a park ranger leaning on the railing of a wooden bridge, sweating in the mid-morning sun. The bridge, no more than thirty feet from end to end, crossed an irrigation channel that fed the fields on either side of the trail. A man and a boy, who looked like they might be father and son, stood uncomfortably by the trail’s edge. The boy gripped the handlebars of a battered bicycle.
The ranger stepped away from the railing as Marlowe approached. He shook Marlowe’s hand briefly and said, “You’re going to think I’m silly.”
Marlowe smiled without showing any teeth and waited while the ranger removed his sunglasses, slipped them into his shirt pocket, and produced a spiral notepad from a pouch on his belt. He opened the notepad, paged through it, closed it, and then used it to point at the boy with the bicycle.
“This is Dylan McConnell. He says he found this bike abandoned by the side of the trail two nights ago. You can see it’s not much of a bike, but the tires have air and the brakes work and there’s no—well, there’s no good reason why someone would just leave it there. And Mr. McConnell here”—again he pointed with the notepad—“when he found out about it he called the park service to report it.”
The elder McConnell stepped forward. He glanced at Marlowe but when he spoke he was speaking to the ranger. “When I called you people it was just to say that somebody lost a bike. I never thought the . . . police would get involved.” Though he said “police,” Marlowe took it for granted that he meant “cops.”
McConnell wagged a finger in the ranger’s face. “My Dylan’s a good kid. Never been in trouble. If he says he found that bike, I believe him. If you think he stole it, you’re . . . crazy.” Though he said “crazy,” Marlowe took it for granted that he meant “fucking crazy.”
The ranger held up his notepad, as if to shield himself from McConnell. “I never said he stole it. Nobody’s saying he stole it.” He turned to Marlowe. “Honest, I never said anything about stealing. I’ve tried to explain to Mr. McConnell that his son is not under suspicion and that we appreciate his cooperation—”
“That’s another thing,” McConnell said. “I took off from work to come out here and meet with you—”
“That we appreciate his cooperation,” the ranger continued, “and regret any inconvenience. But there may be something more going on here than just a lost bike.”
Marlowe smiled. He met the ranger’s eyes, ignoring McConnell. He said, “Have we gotten to the part yet where I’m going to think you’re silly?”
The ranger wiped his forearm across his brow, turned, and led Marlowe to the railing of the bridge. He spoke in a low voice. “Our boy Dylan says he found the bike beside the trail just a few feet away from this bridge. If you’ll look down here you’ll see what I’m concerned about.”
The bridge was supported on either end by a foundation of concrete. At the nearer end, where the ranger was pointing, the concrete base formed a small shelf that would not be readily visible from the trail. Marlowe saw that there was just enough space there for one or two people to stand. At the edge of the shelf rested a pair of white running shoes, their toes pointing toward the water.
“Sneakers?” Marlowe said.
“I know, I know, but arranged the way they are, doesn’t that suggest—”
“Is there blood on the sneakers, Mister—” he read the ranger’s name from a plate pinned to his shirt pocket, “Mister Pellum?”
“Officer Pellum. And no, I went down for a look. There isn’t any blood.”
“Body floating under the bridge?”
Pellum sighed and looked off into the distance. “No body.”
“How far do you suppose it is from here to the water?”
“Couldn’t be more than fifteen feet. ’Course it’d be even less from that shelf.”
“You’d want a little more height if you were thinking about suicide, wouldn’t you?”
“I haven’t said anything about suicide.”
“No, you haven’t. That would be silly. People jump off bridges all the time, but generally they favor the bigger models. There’s a perfectly good bridge a few miles from here, up toward Toledo. Crosses the Maumee River. You could drop a good eighty or ninety feet, I’d think. But here, well, I suppose if you went in headfirst you’d break your neck. That would be something. Do you think he went in headfirst?”
Pellum looked up. His mouth made a pained expression. “No, I don’t think . . .”
“No. Because if he went in at all, he’d still be in. It’s not exactly a raging torrent down there, is it? What kind of depth are we looking at? Less than a foot?”
“Eighteen inches, out in the middle part there.”
“Shall I call in a crew? Have them drag it?”
Pellum closed his eyes. He tucked his notepad into the pouch on his belt and rested his hands on the railing of the bridge. Without opening his eyes he said to Marlowe, “I’m going to tell the McConnells they can go home. I’m going to tell Dylan he can keep the bike. If the owner comes looking for it, we know where to find it. I’m going to walk back to my car, which is just down the trail here, and I’m going to drive away. And in the future, Detective Marlowe, I’ll try not to trouble you with anything less than a bloody corpse and a smoking gun.”
When he had finished, Pellum drew his sunglasses out of his shirt pocket and put them on. As he turned to leave, he reached into his pocket again and brought out a small plastic card. Holding it by the edges, he laid it carefully on the wooden railing. “I found this in the left shoe,” he said.
When the ranger had gone, Marlowe picked up the card. It was a picture I.D. from Notting Green University. The photo showed a pale young man whose eyes were focused on something other than the camera. The name on the card was Lawrence Patrick Spector.
#
The back roads of Notting Green, Ohio, are straight, flat, featureless. They run north to south, east to west, in perfect rectangular grids. The road where Marlowe had left his car intersected the Notting Green Trail about a quarter mile north of the bridge where Larry Spector had left his sneakers.
Marlowe drove east, then north, then east, in a pattern that eventually brought him into downtown Notting Green. As he drove, he used his car phone to call the department’s dispatcher, who was able to give him an address and phone number for an L. Spector who lived in a graduate student apartment complex near the university. When he dialed the number there was no answer; he let it ring for a good long while.
Marlowe found the apartment manager in the leasing office of the complex. She looked young enough to be a graduate student herself. She didn’t remember Larry Spector, but she was happy to take Marlowe to his apartment. She hoped that nothing was wrong and that Mr. Spector wasn’t in any trouble with the police. When they reached the apartment, she knocked on the door repeatedly before using her key.
Marlowe knew when he entered that Larry Spector was gone. The closet near the entryway stood open; there were only a few empty coat-hangers inside. The living room was furnished with a couch and chair, a coffee table and a lamp, but there was no television set, nothing hanging on the walls. The bedroom held a bare mattress and boxspring, an empty chest of drawers, more hangers in the closet. In the bathroom Marlowe found a worn toothbrush in the sink and a dirty towel on the floor.
#
Larry Spector’s faculty advisor sat Marlowe down, offered him a cup of coffee, and said, “Do you mind showing me some I.D.?”
Marlowe took out the calfskin wallet that held his detective’s shield and identification, passed it over the desk, and let the man take his time with it. He had dealt with university professors before; he was married to one. Their offices, in his experience, were all alike: the cluttered desk, the aging computer, the bookshelves lining the walls. This one had the usual cartoons taped to his office door, the usual neglected plant in the corner, the usual window looking out longingly on the quad. His name was Arthur Baidlee and Marlowe had never heard of him. He had a stack of freshly minted hardcovers on the corner of his desk, where no one could fail to notice them. Their dustjackets were illustrated with photographs of ancient Greek pottery. Their spines were aimed at the door so that anyone coming in could see that they bore the imprint of a prestigious university press and that their author’s name was Arthur Baidlee.
Marlowe smiled as he watched Baidlee jot something down on the blotter of his desk. Reading it upside down, Marlowe could see that it was his badge number. He took a sip of coffee from the styrofoam cup Baidlee had given him. It was very nearly the worst coffee he had ever tasted.
After giving it one last look, Baidlee passed Marlowe’s identification back to him. Then he leaned back in his chair, clasped his hands over his stomach, and said, “Now tell me what Larry Spector has done to gain the attention of the Notting Green police department.”
“I wouldn’t say he’s done anything, professor. He’s certainly not accused of any crime. At the moment, I’m simply trying to locate him. Do you know where he is?”
“No.”
“He’s cleared out of his apartment. Has he left the university?”
“If he has, no one’s mentioned it to me.”
“He hasn’t completed his degree here, has he?”
“No. I believe his course work is finished, but he’s just begun writing his dissertation.”
“Is it possible he got frustrated and decided to pack up and leave town?”
Baidlee smiled. “Anything’s possible, detective. But if you’re asking me if I think Larry has abandoned his studies, I’d have to say no. He has an excellent topic picked out for his dissertation and has submitted a detailed proposal, which has been approved by the members of his committee. I’ve actually seen a partial draft of his first chapter.”
“Do you happen to have a copy?”
Baidlee turned to look at the stacks of papers scattered around the room, but made no effort to get up from his chair. “I’m sure it’s around here somewhere,” he said, “but I’m afraid I’d be hard-pressed to lay my hands on it. You don’t really think it’s relevant to your inquiry, do you, detective?”
“Probably not. I’m just curious. What subject is he writing on?”
“Larry has chosen to work in my own area of specialization: ancient ethics. His research deals with classical Greek views of friendship.” Baidlee hesitated. “Should I go on? I’m not sure how much detail you’re interested in hearing.”
Marlowe took out a pen and a small leather-covered notebook and gestured for Baidlee to continue.
“Larry’s dissertation is going to focus on Aristotle’s discussion of various kinds of friendship in the Nicomachean Ethics. Specifically, on the distinction between utility friendship and virtue friendship. In Aristotle’s theory, utility friends seek the advantages that friendship can bring, while virtue friends care about one another’s moral character. I’m simplifying, of course. Larry wants to challenge whether the distinction itself is valid and whether virtue friendship is the higher and nobler form.”
“And what’s your view of the subject?” Marlowe said. “Is he on to something?”
“It’s not my place to tell my students what conclusions they should reach, detective. My obligation is to urge them to examine their own beliefs and to provide the strongest arguments they can for whatever position they choose to take. But I’m afraid none of this is very helpful to you. It doesn’t tell you where Larry’s gone to.”
“No, it doesn’t. But if you don’t mind my saying, professor, you don’t seem very concerned about finding him.”
“Is he lost? So far, all you’ve told me is that he’s moved out of his apartment.”
“That’s right. Without notifying his apartment manager or leaving a forwarding address. And without telling his advisor, or his department secretary, or the university registrar. Wouldn’t you say that’s a little unusual?”
Baidlee made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “I really couldn’t say what’s usual or unusual.”
“The summer session begins in a few days, doesn’t it? Your secretary tells me that Larry is scheduled to teach an introductory ethics course. Are you at all concerned that he might not be here to teach it?”
“That would be unfortunate. But it’s hardly a police matter, is it?”
Marlowe put his notebook away. He picked up his coffee cup from where he had set it on the floor. He had taken only a sip, so it was nearly full. He said, “Let me ask you something, professor. What would make it a police matter? Would he have to jump off a bridge?”
“My goodness, detective. That’s rather melodramatic, isn’t it? Why would you say such a thing?” Baidlee’s look became grave. “He hasn’t jumped off a bridge, has he?”
Marlowe smiled. “Don’t be silly, professor.”
On his way out, Marlowe set his cup on the cover of the topmost book in the stack on Baidlee’s desk. He was gratified to see that a little coffee washed up over the rim and ran down the side of the cup onto the dustjacket.
#
“Larry? I haven’t seen him in—what’s it been?—maybe a couple weeks. Has something happened to him?”
The philosophy department secretary had given Marlowe a list of eleven students who had entered the graduate program in the same year as Larry Spector. Marlowe had found four of them lingering in various offices around the department. The fourth was a woman in her late twenties who wore glasses with designer frames and a dress that might have come off the rack at the Salvation Army.
“I mean, he’s not in trouble, is he?” she said. “He’s not a fugitive or anything?”
Marlowe smiled and shook his head. “He’s not a fugitive. Did he say anything to you about leaving town or quitting school?”
“He hasn’t quit, has he? That would be a shame.”
“Is he a good student?”
“I think he is. That’s the impression I get. To tell you the truth, I don’t know him real well.”
Marlowe took a breath, held it, let it out. “Could you think of anyone who might be able to help me?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Steve, or Cynthia?”
“Cynthia Loomis? I spoke to her a few minutes ago.”
“Yeah? What did she say?”
“She said, ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t know him real well.’”
#
Marlowe’s wife was sitting on the sofa with her feet up when he arrived home late in the evening. She had a newspaper open in her lap and a glass of iced tea in her right hand. Marlowe left his shoes by the door and slipped off his jacket and tie as he crossed the living room. She set the newspaper aside and shifted so that he could stretch out on the sofa with his head resting on her lap.
He said, “I pissed off a park ranger today.”
She was quiet for a moment, drank some iced tea and said, “I expect nothing less of you.”
“I spoke to Arthur Baidlee.”
“The philosophy professor? Why would you want to talk to him?”
“It was a matter of duty. I had to interrogate him.”
“Did he ask to see your badge?”
“He took down the number. Our discussion, as it turned out, wasn’t terribly fruitful. Are you familiar with the Nicomachean Ethics?”
“Passingly.”
“Am I pronouncing it right? I was going to ask him to spell it out, but I feared he might lose respect for me. I gather it has something to say about the nature of friendship.”
“Among other things, yes.”
“There’s a student, Larry Spector, who’s writing his dissertation on it.”
“Is this what you discovered by interrogating Arthur Baidlee? Did you have to grill him under the lights?”
“No, he gave it up easily. The curious thing is, as far as I can tell, Larry Spector doesn’t have a single friend in the philosophy department of Notting Green University.”
Marlowe’s wife ran her left hand over his brow. “Sounds like you’ve put in a solid day’s work. Would you like some iced tea?”
“Thank you. No. The park ranger called me out to look at Larry Spector’s sneakers.”
“And what was he doing with Larry Spector’s sneakers?”
“He found them on the base of a bridge on the Notting Green bike trail.”
“Poor Larry—friendless and sneakerless.”
“And nowhere to be found. He’s apparently skipped town without telling a soul. The curious thing is, no one seems very alarmed.”
“That’s two curious things you’ve mentioned. I’m guessing there may be more.”
“You’re right. I got Larry’s file from the philosophy department secretary. His father is listed as his emergency contact. A Mr. John D. Spector of Nossos, New York. The phone number listed on the form is fake—blatantly, obviously fake. The area code is correct, but the exchange is ‘555’. Only people in the movies have numbers that begin with ‘555’. But that’s not all. I called information for Nossos, New York. There’s no listing for any John D. Spector.”
“The mystery deepens. Are you sure you don’t want some iced tea?”
“Positive. Now a lesser man might assume that John D. Spector had died, or moved out of Nossos, or had his phone disconnected.”
“But that’s not what you assumed.”
“Hardly, angel. Your Sam’s a detective. The curious thing is—and I promise this will be the last curious thing—information did have a listing for a Lawrence P. Spector, Senior.”
“And did you call Lawrence P. Spector, Senior?”
“I did. This is going to sound anticlimactic. There wasn’t any answer, and Larry Senior doesn’t have an answering machine. I’ll have to try him again tomorrow.”
Marlowe’s wife ran her fingertips lightly across his forehead. She raised her glass, then lowered it without drinking. “In the meantime,” she said, “should we be worried about Larry Junior?”
Marlowe took hold of his wife’s wrist and brought it to his mouth. He kissed her, lingering to feel the beat of her pulse on his lips, then moved her arm to let it fall across his chest.
“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Marlowe said. “As long as he doesn’t jump off any bridges.”

Part I: Present
Chapter 1. Oliver

It’s like falling off a horse, Oliver Cameron thought. Everybody knows, you fall off a horse, you’ve got to get right back on. There’s no sense in kidding yourself. There’s no sense in pretending you’re never going to ride a horse again.
Oliver let himself watch the old man struggle with his suitcase and boxes for a few more seconds. There were other people around, but none of them made a move to help.
Oliver ran his fingers through his hair, smoothing it back. He picked up his briefcase and walked unhurriedly across the tiled floor of the station. He was wearing a suit that would have cost him several hundred dollars new. He had bought it in a Goodwill store for nineteen dollars and ninety-five cents. His white shirt was freshly cleaned and pressed. His tie was silk; it had been a gift from a woman.
The old man had set his suitcase down and was trying to arrange three cardboard boxes so that he could carry them with one arm. Oliver let a smile come to his lips. He said, “Can I give you a hand with one of those?”
He could see the relief on the old man’s face. He reached for one of the boxes. It was heavier than he expected.
“You’re very kind,” the old man said. “I ought to be able to manage these. I got them this far, but then the string broke on this one and it got away from me.”
Oliver saw that each box was bound with a piece of twine. The knot on the box he was holding had slipped loose. One of the flaps was bent upward, and he glimpsed what looked like a magazine inside.
“They’re comic books,” the old man said. “I’m sort of a collector. If it’s not too much trouble, I’m just going to put them in one of these.” He pointed to a row of coin-operated lockers along the wall, near the hallway that led to the train platforms.
“It’s no trouble,” Oliver said. With a box in one hand and his briefcase in the other, he followed the old man to the closest unused locker. He held the door open while the old man lifted his suitcase in and arranged two of the boxes on top of it. Oliver passed him the third box and waited as he knelt on the floor and carefully tied the twine into a bow. The old man’s tendons moved under his skin as he tightened the knot. When he finished, he stacked the box on top of the others and reached absently into his pocket. He came out with a handful of coins, which he sorted through slowly, pulling out the quarters.
He looked up at the locker and back down at the coins in his hand. “I hate to bother you,” he said to Oliver, “but would you mind waiting here while I get change?”
“I don’t mind. But what do you need? Maybe I’ve got it.”
“I’ve only got two quarters, and one of them’s Canadian,” the old man said, showing Oliver the coins in his palm. “It takes four.”
Oliver put his briefcase down, brought out a handful of change from his pocket, and began to look through it. While he was looking, the old man loaded his lone American quarter into the locker’s coin slot.
Oliver found that people seldom noticed small details. If the old man had been paying attention, for example, he might have observed that there was an unusually large number of quarters among the change from Oliver’s pocket. It was a simple thing for Oliver to select four quarters and to begin slipping three of them into the coin slot, even as the old man was pulling out his wallet and searching through it for a dollar bill.
When Oliver finished he turned the locker’s key and extracted it. He accepted the wrinkled dollar bill the old man offered him and dropped a key and a quarter into the man’s upturned palm. The locker the old man had chosen was number 17. He didn’t notice anything unusual about the key Oliver Cameron turned over to him. The number on the key was 23.
The old man put the key in his pocket and offered Oliver his hand. The handshake was firm and lingering. Sometimes, Oliver found, the hardest part was getting away.
“It was good of you to stop and help me,” the old man said. “So many young people today have such poor manners. We haven’t formally introduced ourselves. My name is Roger Siegelman. Let me give you my card.”
The old man released Oliver’s hand and produced a business card from the inside pocket of his sportsjacket. The card identified Siegelman as president of Argent Comics and gave a Buffalo address and phone number.
“It’s a little company I acquired years ago. We publish comics based on classic literature—Greek myths, Robin Hood, King Arthur, that sort of thing. These days, my son takes care of the business. Me, I’m semi-retired. I like to travel. I like to look around the little shops. A lot of these comic book shops, they don’t know what they have. Sometimes you can find some wonderful things. Do you read comic books?”
“When I was a kid.”
“Young people these days, they don’t read enough. Now, it’s video games and movies. Television, satellites and cable, a hundred and fifty channels. But you don’t want to hear me go on like this. I’ve taken up too much of your time.”
“Not at all. But I do have to get to a job interview, so I should probably be going. It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Siegelman.”
Oliver reached for his briefcase. He thought if he was holding it he might be able to avoid shaking Siegelman’s hand again. But when he came up with the briefcase, Siegelman’s hand was out and he was saying, “It was a pleasure meeting you too, but I’m afraid I didn’t get your name.”
Oliver smiled and shifted the briefcase to his left hand. “It’s Dantes,” he said, gripping Siegelman’s hand again. “Eddie Dantes.”
“Well, Mr. Dantes, if you’re looking for a job you should give me a call. Publishing is a fascinating field. You might think you’re not interested in comic books, but let me tell you, it can be an excellent way to get your foot in the door. We’ve had several young people start with us and move on to publishing houses in New York.”
“That’s very generous of you, Mr. Siegelman. Thank you very much. But I really should be going.”
“Of course. Let me walk with you a little. I’ve got an appointment this evening, before I catch my train back home. But that’s not until six. In the meantime, I’m as free as a bird.”
Oliver turned and began walking toward the station’s main exit. He didn’t look at Siegelman, but he could hear the old man’s voice at his side, chattering about a comic book artist who had gone on to make it big as a technical illustrator for a textbook publisher in Manhattan. Oliver quickened his pace, but Siegelman seemed to have no trouble keeping up.
Then they were past the information counter and through the front doors and out onto the sidewalk. It looked like it might rain. Oliver wished it would start pouring. He closed his eyes and had a momentary vision of the old man slipping on the damp sidewalk and breaking a hip. Would that stop him? Or would he drag himself along the pavement, his fingers digging into the cracks—would he seize Oliver’s pantleg in an unforgiving grip, the tendons of his hands bulging—Of course you’ve got to go, but just let me trail along behind you, because I want to tell you about a nice young man who got his start in our mailroom and now heads the advertising department of a major publisher of gourmet cookbooks . . .
Oliver opened his eyes. Siegelman was still beside him. He had gone on to a new subject. He was talking about the woman he was meeting later in the day, a widow who had discovered a treasure trove. “Just imagine,” he said. “You’re cleaning out your closets and you stumble onto a box of first-edition D.C. Comics from the forties. In perfect condition, each one in its own plastic sleeve. She says they must have belonged to her late husband, but they were together fifty-one years and she never even knew he was a collector. Can you imagine?”
Oliver agreed that it was hard to imagine. He wondered how much farther they could walk before it occurred to Siegelman to ask what kind of job he was interviewing for, and when, and where the office was. These were questions Oliver could answer if he had to, but he preferred to avoid them. He told himself he should have gotten into a cab. There had been cabs at the train station. He didn’t see any cabs now.
Siegelman had exhausted the subject of lucky widows finding priceless comic books in their closets. He moved on to the relative merits of various forms of transportation.
“Whenever I travel,” he said, “I always travel by train. Doesn’t matter if it’s a short trip or a long trip. Even if I was going to California, I’d go by train. I’ve never set foot on an airplane. What do I need to fly through the air for? A train’s reliable. You won’t go wrong with a train. You never hear about a train plummeting to the earth, killing everyone on board. Oh, sure, they come off the rails sometimes and it’s a mess but you’re much more likely to survive something like that than a plane crash. No sir—air travel, you couldn’t pay me enough. What I say is, if God had meant for man to fly, He would have given him wings. Don’t you think?”
They had reached a corner. Across the street, the don’t walk sign was flashing. Oliver judged that he could have made it across, but he stopped, and Siegelman stopped with him. The don’t walk sign finished flashing; it shone solid red now. Oliver waited. He watched the traffic lights. When he sensed that the sign was about to change from don’t walk to walk, he turned to Siegelman and spoke in a mild, level voice.
He said, “I think that if God had meant for man to fly, He would have given him the sense to buy a fucking plane ticket.”
The sign changed to walk. Oliver stepped into the street and strode quickly across. He didn’t look back. He walked three blocks in silence before was completely convinced that he had left Siegelman behind.
#
Oliver Cameron never followed a fixed schedule, but there were certain patterns in his day, places he frequented, people he saw and sometimes spoke to. He had lived in Nossos, New York, all his life, but within the bounds of the city he liked to keep moving. Part of it was restlessness and part of it was the nature of his work: he needed crowds and, as far as possible, he needed anonymity.
The episode with Siegelman had upset the pattern of Oliver’s afternoon. He had intended to drive from the train station to the airport; he had left his car in the train station lot. In his eagerness to get away from Siegelman, he hadn’t thought to take it. And how would he have explained it? A traveler arriving by train, in town for a job interview, doesn’t generally have a car waiting for him in the lot.
He decided to leave the car where it was. He didn’t want to risk doubling back and running into Siegelman again. He found that his palms were sweating and his breathing was heavier than it ought to be. It’s the fourth of June, he thought. Less than three weeks until the summer solstice. You’re walking around in the sun, wearing a suit. Of course you’re sweating.
A five-minute walk brought him to a café that sold used books in the back. He smiled at the girl behind the counter and bought a glass of lemonade and took it with him as he browsed the shelves. He found a volume of aphorisms by Nietzsche and a copy of The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas. In the science fiction section he found a recent paperback by a well-known female author. He put the Nietzsche and the Dumas in his briefcase and finished his lemonade, and on his way out he placed the paperback on the counter and asked the girl how much he owed her. She looked at the cover and her face lit up—she had been reading a book by the same author. She held it up for him to see. She told him about the course on science fiction she was taking at the local community college. He left with his change and her phone number.
Outside the café he caught a bus that took him to the Nossos Court Mall, but the crowds were too thin for his taste and the hour he spent there was fairly unproductive. To pick a pocket properly requires three people. The basic scenario is simple: Accomplice number one, walking in front of the mark, stumbles or stops short; this forces the mark to stop short, to avoid colliding with accomplice number one. Accomplice number two, walking behind the mark, bumps into him and lifts his wallet, and then passes it off to accomplice number three, who quickly moves away while numbers one and two are making their apologies. Oliver never used this scenario; he disliked having to trust more than one other person at a time. He sometimes used a single accomplice, but just as often he worked alone. It was cleaner; there was no fuss about dividing up the take.
The solo pickpocket is dependent on a crowd. People get suspicious when a stranger bumps into them out of nowhere, but in a crowd they expect to be brushed, pushed, jostled. In the right kind of crowd, Oliver had all the cover he needed.
The crowd at the Nossos Court Mall on a Tuesday afternoon left something to be desired. There were mothers with young children; there were high-school kids playing hooky at the end of the school year. There were old people walking in tennis shoes, getting their exercise indoors. Oliver took his time scoping out the place. He spotted a few likely looking businessmen, some in shirtsleeves and suspenders, talking on their cellphones, their wallets resting in their back pockets.
Oliver took off his jacket, folded it as neatly as he could and stowed it in his briefcase. An obliging lady at the customer service desk in one of the department stores agreed to let him leave the briefcase with her while he browsed. She winked at him and told him he’d have to leave it at his own risk. “I can’t be responsible if someone runs off with it,” she said. He smiled and held up his hands and said he would just have to trust her.
Unencumbered, Oliver began searching for a likely mark. He followed several possibilities in turn, but in each case he found a reason not to move in: one man was wearing a jacket, so Oliver couldn’t be sure where his wallet was; one had his back pocket buttoned, and that was always a hassle. When he caught himself thinking that one of his potential marks was too tall, Oliver realized he was just making excuses. He let the tall man go and picked up one he had spotted earlier, when he had first entered the mall: a man with a crewcut and a silk tie and expensive-looking shoes. Mr. Crewcut was apparently having a difficult time making up his mind, because he went in and out of several clothing stores without making a purchase. Oliver trailed him for a long while, but Crewcut seemed to have a shy streak: he tended to stay away from crowds. Oliver was thinking about cutting his losses when God intervened on his behalf. Two elderly nuns, in full habit, crucifixes proudly displayed, emerged unexpectedly from a gift shop. Crewcut moved suddenly to his left to avoid running into the nuns and when he did he ran headlong into a tall, gangly teenager in a tanktop and baggy shorts and the teenager knocked him backwards and his wallet—Oliver would have sworn it—leapt out of his pocket and into Oliver’s waiting hand. And then the teenager was cursing and the nuns were gasping and Oliver was brushing by and he was away, he was away clean. As he stashed the wallet in his pocket, he felt a peculiar rush in the skin of his cheeks and he wanted to laugh out loud but instead he walked calmly and deliberately and with only the hint of a smile he touched his forehead and his heart and each of his shoulders—the sign of the cross.
In the mall’s men’s room, Oliver counted Mr. Crewcut’s cash—about sixty dollars—and pocketed it along with the credit cards. He wiped the wallet down with a handkerchief and stuffed it in the trash. In the department store where he had left his briefcase, he selected five silk ties and paid for them with Crewcut’s American Express. There was a different lady behind the customer service desk, but she was happy to turn his briefcase over to him. She told him he had an honest face.
The bus ride to the train station took twenty minutes. It was getting close to six o’clock and Oliver was confident that Siegelman would be safely on his way to his meeting with the widow. One did not come across mint-condition D.C. Comics from the forties every day. At the station, Oliver stowed his briefcase and shopping bag in the trunk of his Mustang, then started the car and sat with the air-conditioning on and the radio tuned to NPR. The rain had managed to hold off all afternoon, but he didn’t think it would hold off much longer. At six-oh-five he shut the engine off, locked the car, and walked across the parking lot to the station’s entrance.
He took a casual walk around the main hall and saw nothing unusual: no cops, no one trying not to look like a cop. This was the part he didn’t like. There were too many variables. Maybe Siegelman had come back to check on his belongings before his six o’clock meeting; maybe the meeting had been canceled; maybe Siegelman would be walking into the station at any moment. Maybe Siegelman’s suitcase would hold nothing but a toothbrush and extra socks; maybe the comic books had only sentimental value; maybe he’d bought them for his grandchildren; maybe they were worth a nickel apiece.
Oliver, his hand in his pocket, was clutching the key to locker number 17; it was digging into his palm. He was passing the information counter, ready to make a second circuit of the hall when a voice behind him spoke his name.
He stopped; his first reflex was to drop the key and hold his hands up to show that they were empty. He turned, recognized the woman who had spoken to him, realized that his hands were up and casually lowered them.
He said, “Hello, Miriam.”
She said, “How’s business?” She was working behind the information counter, looking sharp and professional in a navy blue blazer. The tag pinned to her lapel displayed her first name, but Oliver knew her full name. It was Miriam Quinn.
He said, “Fine. You know, the usual stuff.”
She said, “I’m trying to remember, what business are you in?”
He tried to recall if they’d ever discussed his business. He didn’t think so. He said, “Trading. Futures.”
She said, “Of course. And the trading’s going well? The futures are looking good?”
He smiled. “It is. They are.”
She smiled back. She had very straight teeth. She said, “So, you’re here to meet a train?”
He agreed that he was there to meet a train and then, to change the subject, asked her the first thing that came into his head.
“Have you ever ridden a horse?”
She looked a little puzzled, but said, “Sure. When I was in college.”
“Ever fall off?”
“Once or twice. You can’t let it spook you. You’ve got to get right back on—that’s what they say.”
“Yes,” he said. “That is what they say.”
“On the other hand, some horses, it’s not worth getting back on. Are we having a metaphorical discussion here, or have you actually fallen off a horse?”
“I haven’t been on a horse in years. Listen, Miriam, it was very nice talking to you again, and I’d like to stay and chat, but—” He was spared from having to complete his thought when a burly fellow standing behind him broke in and demanded to know what time the train from Albany was due.
Oliver stepped away from the information counter and made his way to the row of storage lockers. No one laid hands on him when he twisted the key in locker number 17. No one thought anything amiss when he trundled Roger Siegelman’s suitcase and comics through the station and out to the parking lot. The boxes were cumbersome but he made it in one trip, and they fit neatly in the trunk of his Mustang. Oliver saw a drop of rain fall on the lid of the trunk as he closed it. He looked up at the clouds and thought that he had every reason to get in the car and drive away, but he knew just as surely that it made no sense to ask if a horse was worth getting back on. If you were going to ride horses, it was the only thing to do.
Back inside the station, he made another pass through the main hall. There were people heading toward the platforms and people coming off the platforms and he was trying to decide which group would be more promising when he heard a loud sharp crack of thunder and saw a flash of lightning through the wall of glass at the station’s entrance. Suddenly the rain was coming down in sheets and there were people running in from the parking lot, and the timing was so perfect that Oliver’s thoughts turned once more to divine intervention. He was able to circle around a clutch of rainsoaked travelers and fall into step behind a man in his twenties wearing a cheap gray suit. He watched the man take off his suitjacket, which was wetted black by the rain, and there was the wallet clearly outlined in the right back pocket of his pants. It was the easiest thing in the world to walk a little too quickly, to fail to stop in time, to mumble an apology as he went by, to slip through the small crowd that was gathering around the information counter, where Miriam was answering questions about fares and timetables in a clear, calm voice.
In the men’s room of the train station Oliver walked past a handful of travelers washing up and combing their hair before the row of mirrors that lined the wall above the sinks. He found an empty stall and stood inside with the door closed, examining his latest acquisition. The wallet was cheap and unpromising; he suspected it was imitation leather. Inside he found a ten and four singles, a Visa card, a pair of car keys slipped flat inside a plastic sleeve. He tucked the cash and credit card into his pocket reflexively. He left the keys where they were, because he didn’t get involved in stealing cars. You have to have someone to sell them to, and he didn’t like the idea of dealing with criminals.
He was through with the wallet in record time. It was one of the sparest he had ever seen: no photographs, no business cards, no scraps of paper with phone numbers written on them. The only other thing it contained was a driver’s license from the state of Ohio. The photo showed a face that was unremarkable, except that the eyes seemed to be focused on something other than the camera. The name on the license was Lawrence Patrick Spector.
Oliver wiped the wallet down and tossed it in the trash on his way out. He took one last stroll around the hall, one last walk past the coin-operated storage lockers, but he knew he was finished for the night. The last thing he saw before he left the station was Larry Spector, his suitjacket folded over one arm, leaning against the information counter, talking to Miriam Quinn.

Chapter 2. Miriam

When he looked back on the day he met her, Larry would say he’d been struck by lightning. Their meeting took place on a Tuesday, two days after his father’s death, four days after Sam Marlowe began looking into his disappearance, seven days after his departure from Notting Green, Ohio.
People meet all the time, and no one would have said that there was anything out of the ordinary about what happened to Larry Spector on the fourth of June. The facts of the case could be stated simply. Her name was Miriam Quinn. They met in a train station just before summer, when Larry was twenty-six.
There was a light rain falling, and Larry was driving a dented Buick, a car he had owned since he was seventeen, the car in which, a few days before, he had driven the five hundred miles between Notting Green and Nossos, New York. He was dressed for mourning in a gray suit that fitted him loosely, and his best black shoes. He had an appointment to keep. He was on his way to view his father’s body.
But there was a stop to make first; Larry had responsibilities. He was meeting the evening train from Rochester. He thought it was a quaint idea—going to meet a train. Almost as quaint as mourning. He was picking up two passengers: his brother and his brother’s wife.
There had been no rain when Larry left his house, but as he approached the train station a few scattered drops began to appear on the windshield of his Buick. He let them accumulate until it became difficult to see and then switched his wipers on low and that was enough. When the windshield cleared, he realized he had almost missed his turn. He eased on the brakes just in time and swung into the parking lot.
The space closest to the station’s entrance was on the end of an aisle, next to a black Mustang. The lightning struck just as Larry turned off his engine. First there was a long, rumbling hiss, and then the crack of thunder and the flash of the bolt, so close that Larry saw it in his rearview mirror. It took him a moment to realize it hadn’t struck inside the car, but a few yards behind. It took him another moment to realize he wasn’t breathing. He took a breath; he could see; he could hear; he was unharmed. Lightning, when it strikes, can stop the heart; it can wreak havoc on the central nervous system; it can burn skin, fracture bones, tear muscles. A near miss is less dramatic, but for Larry it was close enough.
The rain, which had been a drizzle, was falling hard when Larry opened the door of his car. It seemed to fall even harder as he ran across the parking lot. He reached the station’s entrance just behind a small group of travelers clutching suitcases. The last of them held the door open for him, and when his fingers touched the metal handle he felt a tiny shock. Inside, he stopped for a moment to assess the damage the rain had done. The shoulders and front of his suit were wetted black and his tie was drenched. He lingered briefly, drying his face with a handkerchief, smoothing back his hair. He wiped his hands and folded the handkerchief and put it in his pocket.
He glanced at his watch: it was six twenty-two. Calling hours at the funeral parlor began at seven o’clock. He tried to remember whether his brother’s train had been scheduled to arrive at six fifteen or six twenty-five, but succeeded only in remembering that the time was written on a scrap of paper he had left wedged between the dashboard and windshield of his Buick.
He took off his jacket, folded it over his arm, and headed for the information counter. He had to weave through groups of people loitering or heading for the exit; he was jostled and bumped by travelers with bags and suitcases, people coming and going and not wanting to be where they were. He waited amid the press of people who had gathered around the counter, waited until his turn came.
That was how he met her. There was no sudden recognition between them. There was little that was sudden about Larry Spector.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hi.”
She stood behind the counter wearing a white blouse and a navy blue blazer and a pin that gave her name.
She said, “Turning into a nasty night, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
Larry ran his fingers through his wet hair. He had expected a simple “May I help you?” but was pleased by the informality. He had not looked at the woman before, not really, but now he did. She had fine, sharp features and her skin was clear and smooth. Her black hair was trimmed short like a man’s—with the kind of sheen that no man’s hair ever possesses. And her eyes were a rich, dark shade of brown that dared one to assume that brown eyes were plain—the kind of eyes that made Larry wish he was good at thinking on his feet so that he could come up with something clever to say to her.
No dice. He found himself fiddling with his hair some more and explaining his appearance instead.
“I lost my umbrella a couple weeks ago.”
“Ah.”
“Actually, I know where it is.”
“Oh?”
“It’s in a little café in—well, in a town in Ohio that you’ve probably never heard of. I remember sitting at a table in the corner and putting it underneath my chair. When I left, the sky had cleared up. I forgot all about it until today.”
“Hmmm.”
Uneasy silence. “It’s not supposed to rain in June anyway.”
“Oh,” said Miriam. “When is it supposed to rain?”
“Um . . . March, April. Even May, I guess.” He found himself wanting to play with his hair again, but put his hands in his pockets instead. He cleared his throat, wishing she had just said “May I help you?”
She said, “May I help you?”
Larry blinked. “Yes. My brother and his wife are coming in from Rochester this evening.” Groping in his left pocket, he found half a roll of breath mints. Too late now. “I’ve forgotten what time they were scheduled to arrive.”
She didn’t hesitate or consult the timetables on the counter in front of her. “Six fifteen,” she said.
“I see. And it’s nearly six thirty now.” In his right pocket, Larry encountered a quarter, two pennies, three dimes.
“But the train has been delayed,” she said. “It’ll be here in a few minutes.”
“Good,” Larry said absently. The fingers of his right hand searched his pocket for something other than change. Brown eyes regarded him from behind the counter.
“Oh Christ,” he said softly, reaching to check the pockets of his jacket. “Where’d I put my keys?”
“You left them in your car,” the owner of the brown eyes said.
It didn’t occur to him at first that she shouldn’t answer. He hadn’t even realized that he’d asked the question aloud. But when he tried to recall removing the key from the ignition, putting it in his pocket, he couldn’t. He said, “How did you know?”
She smiled and tapped her temple with a finger. “Psychic,” she said. “Or it could be that when people can’t find their keys, it usually means they’ve left them in their car. I don’t suppose you left the door unlocked.”
Larry shook his head. He remembered locking the door on the driver’s side—some habits persist, even when one has just been struck by lightning—and the passenger door he always kept locked.
“But luckily it’s not a big deal,” he said. “I keep a spare set of keys in my wallet.”
Miriam leaned forward, elbows on the counter, fingers interlaced beneath her chin. She said, “That is lucky.”
Even as she said it, he knew something was wrong. A brief search confirmed his suspicions. “My wallet’s gone,” he said.
“I was afraid it might be,” she said. “Someone must have lifted it as you came over here through the crowd.”
Larry was checking his pockets again, mechanically, because he couldn’t think of anything else to do. It took him a few seconds to absorb what she’d said.
“You were afraid my wallet might be gone? What’s that supposed to mean?”
She paused, looking thoughtful. “Is that what I said?”
“That’s what you said. Do you know something about it? Did you see something?”
She shrugged. “Maybe you left it in your car.”
“No. ‘Someone must have lifted it,’ you said. Did you see who took my wallet?”
“Look, I probably shouldn’t have said what I said. I didn’t see anything. Just because he was here doesn’t mean he took—”
“You did see something. Did you get a good look at him? Is he still around? Can you describe him?”
“I’m not very good at describing people . . .”
Her voice was soft, and she looked so uncomfortable that he relented and said, “Well, listen, it’s all right. I—”
“His name is Oliver Cameron.”
Larry closed his eyes and counted to ten real slow. He was aware of rainwater trickling down his forehead from his hair and collecting in his eyebrows.
“Would you like to tell me—” he said. “Would you like to tell me how you know the name of the man who stole my wallet?”
“I’d rather not get into that. Look, how bad could it be? How much did you have?”
“How much did I have? I don’t think that’s the point.”
“Come on, you can tell me.” She was smiling again. “More than twenty? More than fifty?”
“No.”
“No to both? You mean you had less than twenty dollars? You really want to make a fuss over less than twenty dollars?”
“I had a Visa card,” he said. When he heard his voice he thought it sounded a little too defensive.
“You’ll want to cancel that. Get them to send you another. Want to use the phone? We can cancel it right now.” There was a telephone on the counter. She picked up the receiver and held it out to him.
“I can cancel my own credit card,” he said. “Why are you so concerned about this guy? Why are you defending him?”
She didn’t answer right away, and when she did she answered slowly, as if she were trying to convince herself as much as him. “I just think . . . I get the sense that he’s been troubled. He may have had some kind of . . . accident. . . . I think he may have fallen off a horse.”
“And that’s an excuse? He fell off a horse?”
“I’m not saying he actually fell off a horse. He may have been speaking metaphorically.”
“Metaphorically. He fell off a horse metaphorically. Are we still talking about the same thing? Because he took my wallet literally. It’s gone. That’s an actual crime. And frankly, my first inclination is to call the cops and turn him in.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“No? Maybe you’d rather I put it metaphorically? All right: I think I ought to sing, squeal, drop a dime, blow the whistle—in short, rat him out and send him up the river. Can you tell me why I shouldn’t?”
“I understand you’re upset. I just think it would be a shame if he went to jail over a few dollars.”
“And my keys. You’re forgetting about my keys. What’s to stop him from finding out where I live and coming to steal my car?”
“I don’t think Oliver would do that. He’d only be interested in your cash and credit card. He probably ditched the rest in the men’s room.”
Larry started to answer but was interrupted by an elderly gentleman in a tan raincoat who stepped up to the counter beside him as if on cue. “Excuse me, miss,” he said to Miriam. “Someone left this in the trash in the rest room.” He passed her Larry’s wallet. “Thank you, sir,” she said. “I’ll take care of it.” The whole exchange might have been choreographed.
“Your wallet,” Miriam said, holding it out for Larry to take.
His driver’s license was there, and his spare keys were still tucked in one of the clear plastic sleeves that were meant to hold photographs. His cash and Visa card were gone.
He put the wallet away and said, “I don’t suppose there’s any point in asking how you knew where he’d leave it.”
She smiled and tapped her finger on her temple without saying anything.
“All right,” he said. “Is that it? Don’t you want to dazzle me a little more? Tell me what I ate for breakfast this morning, maybe?”
She laughed. “That would be too easy. What if I told you your fortune instead?” She closed her eyes and said, “I see that you are about to be reunited with a mysterious man from your past.”
Larry felt a touch on his shoulder.
“Hey, L.P., sorry we’re late. The train was delayed.”
“Hi, Mark. It’s good to see you,” Larry said, turning as he spoke. “Hi, Claire.”
His brother’s palm was plump and sweaty, and as they shook hands Larry was conscious of his own thin fingers. Claire stepped forward and gave Larry a hug. Looking tired but lovely in jeans and a light blue pullover, she didn’t seem to mind that his clothes were wet.
Mark looked at his watch. “How we doing for time, L.P.?”
“Calling hours start at seven. That gives us less than twenty minutes—and you’ll want to change—which means, of course, that we can’t possibly make it.”
“The old man’ll just have to start without us. He was always late for these things anyway. Poetic justice.” Mark picked up a suitcase and passed it to his brother, then took the other himself. With his free hand he touched Larry’s lapel.
“What’s this, the wet look?”
“Yeah. It’s what everybody’s wearing to funeral parlors these days.”
“Of course. Let’s go.”
Larry hesitated. “I’ll be right with you,” he said. He turned back to Miriam. He couldn’t think of anything to say to her, so he said, “My father died.” He tried not to make it sound too solemn.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He thought about shaking her hand or telling her he’d stop by again or asking for her number. None of these things seemed appropriate. He said, “It was nice meeting you,” and she said, “Nice meeting you,” and he left it at that.