Tony met Gulliver at a diner on Coney Island Avenue. Gulliver pushed his eggs around the plate. Tony had no such trouble. He ate with gusto.
“What’s with you?” Tony asked.
“Mia’s moving back to Michigan.”
“Why?”
“Because…forget it. It’s a long story, and it involves your boss. It involves the fee you’re going to give me when I find Bella.”
“You’re an idiot. You know that, Dowd?”
Gulliver looked up from his plate. His face was red and twisted. “Am I?”
“Yeah. You are. Love don’t come around like the hands on a clock. Sometimes it only comes around once. Sometimes never. Only came once for me. After Maria, that was it. I been with plenty of women since, and I ain’t found love again. I almost thought I did, but when me and Maria had that thing all those years ago…it reminded me what love really is. Bella is a reminder of that. Of what love can produce. You had it twice. And let’s be real here, Dowd. Handsome as you are, that’s pretty lucky. You ain’t exactly a prize.”
“A booby prize maybe.”
They both laughed.
“Do whatever you got to do to keep her, Dowd. Don’t let her go home. Without love, nothing else is worth it. Nothing.”
Gulliver changed the subject. “You got that list for me?”
“Yeah, I got it.” Tony slid a piece of lined paper across the table. “So you and me going to go see these guys?”
Gulliver shook his head. “You’re half right. I’m going to see them. Just me. Like how I showed up at Joey’s that first time. No one ever sees me as a threat. I get into places you couldn’t get into with an Abrams tank.”
“Whatever you say, Dowd.”
“So did you and Ahmed talk to Mike Goodwin’s family?” Gulliver asked.
“Yeah. Dead end.”
“You sure?”
“The kid went to school and, like, fell in love with this other girl about a week into their first term. He’s only been home twice since he left for Michigan last August. Spends his holidays with the girl and her family in California. Goodwin’s folks say the girl’s dad is a Hollywood big shot and sends his private jet to bring his girl and the Goodwin kid back to Palm Springs all the time. Ahmed googled the father, and it seems the father checks out. Like I said, I think the boyfriend is a dead end.”
“Okay, I think we’ll have a better idea of things by tonight,” Gulliver said. “You and Ahmed go talk to Bella’s professors at FIT. Talk to her classmates. See if that gets you anywhere. If it doesn’t, go talk to everyone in her building again.”
Tony rolled his eyes. “But we already talked to everyone in her building, and didn’t you talk to the professors and staff when you went to talk to that Philipps girl?”
“No one said this was exciting work, but that’s how it’s done.”
“Okay. Whatever.”
Gulliver threw a twenty and a ten on the table. But as he hopped down off the booth cushion, Tony grabbed him by his right bicep.
“Don’t let her go, Dowd. You let Mia go, she won’t come back.” Then Tony released his grip.
Gulliver left the diner without saying another word, but he knew Tony was right.