17

Sunday passed. That’s the best I can say for it. I spent it with my nose packed in ice, downing aspirin every four hours. My nose didn’t swell much, but my head felt like a balloon. Monday morning I decided I’d live.

Rupert Murdoch likes to call the site of his publishing empire One Herald Square, but it’s plain old 300 Harrison Avenue to me, one more impossible place to park. Exasperated after a ten-minute search, I plunked the Toyota in a loading zone and prayed the visit to the classified ads department wouldn’t take long.

Imagine my delight as I stood and tapped a foot and waited till my presence was acknowledged by a teenybop secretary puffing on a cigarette, adjusting a high heel, and chatting on the phone as if she had no intention of ever signing off. She seemed hyperactive, maybe on speed, with her jaw, hands, feet, and hips in overdrive. I almost developed a tic waiting for her to get off the phone.

At least I wouldn’t have to look for parking near the Globe building too. I’d phoned. They hadn’t received any responses to my ad. The Herald had one.

She finally said farewell and teetered in my direction. Some women can’t walk in heels and shouldn’t try. They look so goddamned vulnerable. If I were a purse snatcher, I’d go after ladies in five-inch spikes. I gave her the box number from my ad and she pulled one lone envelope out of a wooden grid. It didn’t have a stamp on it.

“Somebody bring this in?” I asked.

“I dunno,” she said. It was an automated response. If I’d asked her the time, the day of the week, her mother’s maiden name, she’d have mumbled “I dunno” in syllables of sheer indifference. She had the glazed look of a late-night partygoer.

I took a twenty out of my wallet. Enough to pay for a manicure for her blood-red talons. Her eyes got interested. “Were you here when this came in?” I asked, holding up the envelope and keeping my fingers firmly on the twenty.

“Oooh,” she said with a quick grin, “might have been.”

“‘Might have been’ isn’t good enough,” I said.

“What if I said a Spanish lady brought it in, kind of dumpy, maybe twenty, wearing a flower-print dress?”

“I’d say you keep your eyes open.”

“Got to do something to keep from catching brain death in this place,” she said with a sniff. Maybe the bash last night had included a little powder snorting. I wondered if the lady had gone home to change or come straight to work from the party. Her purple satin tank top and short black skirt weren’t really suited to office air-conditioning. I couldn’t tell if her eye makeup was badly smudged or meant to be that way.

“When did the lady bring it by?”

“She was waiting when I opened up at nine. She didn’t speak good English, but she had the paper and she pointed to the ad, so I got the box number and stuck it in. I didn’t get her fingerprints or anything.”

If she didn’t speak English, I wondered how she’d read the ad in the first place.

“Notice anything else? Jewelry? Hair?”

“It was early, you know. Real early,” the secretary said with a yawn.

The phone rang and the young woman cursed. I gave her the twenty and my card.

“If you remember anything else—”

“Don’t count on it,” she said, one hand on the phone.

“What’s your name?”

“Helen,” she said. “Like Troy.”

She still hadn’t picked up the phone when I left. I wondered if she would.

I didn’t read the note until I was back in my car. Once behind the wheel, I slit the envelope with a nail file and pulled out a sheet of unremarkable white paper. Three words, that’s all. In pencil, written by a shaky hand, or a hand tracing unfamiliar letters: Hunneman Pillow Factory.

I let out my breath and realized I’d been holding it. I punched on the tape deck and smothered a laugh. That happens to me a lot. I’m expecting a note that says “Meet me under the Harvard Bridge at midnight” and instead I get one directing me to a pillow factory.