Play

“Listen to your breath. Inhale all the way, fill your lungs, and then let it out, Hmmmm.”

The wood-paneled studio is filled with the exhalations of two dozen spandex-clad students—nearly all women, all of whom are either younger than me or just immaculately preserved by years of “practice.” The ten-year-old reason I’m here is crouching on the mat next to mine, her eyes closed in fervent concentration, stick-thin arms stretching toward opposite walls in her miniature warrior. At least she’s enjoying herself. My white V-neck is soaked in sweat, my knees and butt are screaming in pain, and—as anticipated—I feel way more stressed than I did a half hour ago.

“. . . down into the tabletop position, and then you’re going to slowly touch your left knee to your right elbow.”

The instructor folds herself up into a pretzel like it’s the most natural thing in the world. The blond woman next to me is a fucking contortionist; they’d burn you at the stake in the Middle Ages for moving like this. I try to jerk my knee up to my chest, forcing it, gritting my teeth, and instead of any sort of profound insight, I’m rewarded with a shooting pain up my back.

Sadie has no problem with any of the poses. Little kids’ bodies are like putty, plus they don’t really have any awful realities lingering in the back of their skulls while they’re trying to stretch: unpaid utilities bills, looming root canals, sexual dry spells.

I’m more or less collapsed now on my mat, wheezing like the little engine who couldn’t, almost certainly the person in this room who needs this the most and is enjoying it the least.

“. . . We’re going to bring it back to downward dog now. Bend your knees if you need, and remember we all have different levels of flexibility and strength . . .”

I’m sure the instructor is addressing this directly at me, but I’m too ashamed to meet her gaze. Instead I focus my attention on my daughter, effortlessly arching her lower back, swanlike. It seems impossible that we share genetic material.

As something snaps in my lower back, I curse the parents of her school friends. Who introduces their kids to yoga in fourth grade? Last week when I picked Sadie up from school she started begging me to take her to a yoga class because all her friends are into it. So I gotta choose between being the stick-in-the-mud single dad who they whisper about at PTA meetings, the one whose poor daughter is missing out on all the opportunities afforded by your conventional healthy-as-fuck nuclear family, or exposing her to this indoctrinating witchcraft bullshit—smug, slender women who think they’re the only people on the planet who know how to breathe.

Finally we’re doing the only position my creaky body is qualified for: lying flat on your back, chilling. But even now, as we’re supposed to be clearing our minds of karmic toxins, I’m thinking about last night, combing through the jacket pockets of a corpse someone threw in a Dumpster behind a Chinatown deli. Hoisting 180 pounds of deadweight onto my shoulders and tossing him facedown onto the cold cement, cutting a line down the back of his sweatshirt with my ceramic knife, other hand clasped over my nose to keep out the smell. Pulling back the fabric with a gloved hand to reveal the end of a two-week-long investigation: a splotchy brown birthmark the shape of a ketchup bottle. Snapping a few pictures to erase any doubt in the widow’s mind, then flipping him over onto his back, writing his name, address and phone number on an index card. I call the cops from a pay phone, tell them where they can find the guy, then head over to his widow’s house both to deliver the bad news and collect my fee—I promised to find your husband, sweetheart, didn’t say anything about what condition he’d be in.

Not my fault that he was a bad high-stakes mahjong player but didn’t know it. Or at least didn’t figure it out till he owed enough to buy a small house in the Poconos.

“Dad, come on. It’s over.”

Sadie is standing over my heaving form, her pink face expressing both gratitude and sympathy. I sit up with a grunt. Around us, flushed coeds roll up their mats and talk about which juice bar to go to.

“Did you like it?” she asks as I follow her to a wall of wood cubbies and squeeze between a skinny woman who’s positively glowing and a sweaty man in a wifebeater to retrieve our clothes.

“It was alright,” I tell Sadie as I hand her her coat. Before handing Sadie her backpack, I covertly remove my Magnum from the side pocket and tuck it into my waist. Was starting to feel naked without it. “A lot of it hurt, to be honest.”

“That means you need it!” she says seriously as we get in line to exit. No way to avoid the instructor, who is standing by the door with a tissue box for donations. I force a smile and drop in a five—if I just think of these classes as a self-serve S&M dungeon, I guess it’s sort of a bargain.

I hold Sadie’s hand as we walk down the staircase, past a flurry of glistening women too young for me to even think about in a sexual way. At this point it’s just painful. They do smile at Sadie though and even grin at me when they realize the nature of today’s masochism session. I’m no longer a creepy, groaning, forty-five-year-old guy in their eyes. I’m a daddy.

“Can we get ice cream?” Sadie asks as soon we burst out into the brisk January afternoon. St. Marks Place is momentarily jarring after the calm of the studio: teens loitering in front of head shops and tattoo parlors, impatient taxi drivers honking to no avail, tourists taking pictures of storefronts I’ve never even bothered looking at.

“It’s too cold for ice cream,” I protest, even as Sadie’s tiny gloved hand pulls me toward an admittedly enticing dessert spot across the street. The line extends all the way outside. Better be good.

“How can it be too cold for ice cream if I want it?” she replies.

I drop her hand to inspect the dwindling contents of my wallet and curse to myself. Costs twenty dollars just to leave your apartment in this city, triple that if you have a kid. I have only four bucks left after that gouging at the yoga studio. They better take cards. I look up, and Sadie’s already sprinted across the street and gotten in line.

“Sadie!” I say and barrel after her, squeezing between the bumpers of two taxis. I wedge beside her in line, ignoring a dirty look from the orange-faced guy behind her. I grab her shoulders and stare into her wide eyes. “You can’t do that. There’s too many people around here. I could lose you.”

She shrugs and looks away, cranes her neck trying to get an advance view of the selection of artisanal flavors.

“I can’t see,” she complains. “Pick me up.”

I grip her skinny hips through her puffy green coat and, with a grunt, heave her up onto my shoulders so she can see over the line. My first involuntary thought: how light she is compared to last night’s dumpster corpse. I try to push that from my mind.

“See anything good?” I moan, my shoulders and arms still shaky from the yoga.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what they taste like by just looking.”

I roll my eyes and lower her to the ground. Within moments, Sadie is rocking back and forth impatiently. The line is moving glacially, each client appearing to take at least six or seven samples, nodding seriously as they taste, mulling each one over, discussing the flavors with their companions like they’re philosophy dissertations. Sadie looks tormented.

“How was school today?” I ask, trying to distract her.

“Fine,” she shrugs, not taking her eyes off the distant dessert counter. To her it must seem we’re an eternity away. Everything is so black and white at her age. Right now she’s in hell—is there anything worse than waiting in a stagnant line? And once she gets the ice cream: total, unadulterated bliss. Maybe it’s silly, but I envy that feast-or-famine mind-set. Certainly better than middling in the neutral nether-zone. If my life were a food, it would be bland grey pudding, sweetened only by a touch of Sadie and the rare occasion when a client pays me on time.

“Fine? Did you learn anything cool? Besides what all your friends are doing?”

“Nah.”

The line inches forward as a satisfied young couple peels off from the cashier and leaves the shop, sharing a grotesque mound of chocolate ice cream piled tenuously atop a waffle cone. Another man a few spots ahead of us throws his hands up in exasperation and storms off, giving up.

“What are you gonna get, Dad?” Sadie asks, jumping out of her skin.

“Nothing. I told you, it’s too cold for ice cream.”

“I think when you see the ice cream up there you will change your mind,” she says.

“Nope.”

“You don’t know. You don’t know what you’ll feel like when you see the ice cream.”

“Yes I do,” I say. “I’ve been around ice cream before.”

Sadie rolls her eyes and sighs, like I’m the child.

“You think you know everything, Dad. You know a lot, but not everything.”

I’m probably not supposed to let my daughter speak to me like that, but then, I probably won’t be winning any parenting medals anytime soon either.

It takes fifteen minutes to reach the pearly gates. Saint Peter is a slightly overweight redheaded boy wearing his corporate baseball cap backwards. His pitiful rebellion. He stands slouched behind his array of gourmet offerings, his vacant eyes not exactly conveying pride in his work.

“Next customer,” he grunts wearily.

Sadie takes a moment to scan the brightly colored flavors until she fixates on a bucket of pink.

“Can I taste the strawberry oatmeal cookie?” Sadie nearly shrieks.

Glassy eyed, the boy diligently scoops a tiny sample onto a plastic spoon and hands it to her. Her eyes go wide when she sticks it in her mouth.

“I want that!” she declares.

“Are you sure you don’t wanna try anything else?” I say. “We waited so long.”

“Nope. I like that. That’s what I want.”

“You heard the lady,” I instruct the employee. “A small strawberry oatmeal cookie in a cup.”

“Cone!” insists Sadie.

“No. You’ll drip it all over yourself. Cup,” I assure him.

I stare at Sadie’s exuberant face as the boy readies her dessert. She looks like she’s gonna burst.

“This is the best part,” I tell her. “The anticipation. It’s always better than the actual thing.”

“No it’s not.”

“Six bucks,” says the boy, the cup of pink ice cream visible beside him behind the glass display.

“You take cards?”

“Cash only.”

“Jesus,” I mutter to myself and open my wallet, pantomiming surprise when I discover my four pathetic singles. How the hell is that not enough for a small cup of ice cream? I summon an exasperated look—it doesn’t take much—and hold out the four pitiful bills.

“I have four,” I say. “I’m sorry. Is that alright? I’ll come back later and bring you another two.”

The boy looks confused. “It’s six,” he states.

“I understand. But I only have four. I’m sorry. I’ll come back later with another two.”

Sadie is wearing a mask of horror as the possible implications of the situation become clear to her.

“There’s an ATM across the street,” he says.

“Alright. Can we just have the ice cream now though? I don’t want to wait in line again. Then I’ll run across the street and get the cash.”

“Uhhhh . . .” The boy’s mouth is open slightly; this sort of decision tree analysis is way beyond his job description. “Sorry, it’s six bucks.”

Sadie’s upper lip is trembling. Jesus. I bite my lip and lean in close to him. My daughter is not leaving here without her ice cream.

“Listen to me carefully, you shit stain,” I whisper. “I want you to look down, through the glass, at my waist.”

Confused, he obliges, and first squints, then recoils when he understands. The silver butt of a .38 Magnum is protruding from my belt line.

The color drains from his face.

“W-w-what the fuck, man?”

He nearly shoves the cup of ice cream at me.

“Take it, man. Fucking nut job.”

I smile and hand him the four dollars.

“Thanks, we’ll be back in a second.” I give the cup and a plastic spoon to Sadie and watch her face light up as she takes a monstrous bite. The boy is still staring blankly at me, terrified.

“That’s fucked up, man,” I hear him mutter.

Maybe I should write a parenting book.

I take Sadie by the hand and pull her out of the ice cream shop into the busy sidewalk before the kid can gather his wits. It occurs to me that while I fully intended to bring him his money at the time, it would be really awkward at this point.

We walk to Washington Square Park and find a park bench where Sadie can plow through her ice cream with abandon. I can’t help feeling a little satisfied.

The case of Frank Lamb and the overpriced artisanal ice cream: closed.

My phone starts vibrating. Must be the widow. Probably can’t accept the finality of last night’s revelation and wants me to play therapist.

Nope. Blocked number.

“Hello?”

“Is this Frank Lamb?” It’s a woman’s voice, but not the widow. Deep and silky.

“Last time I checked.”

“I’d like to hire you,” she says as Sadie scrapes the bottom of the cup.

“Let’s talk. You’re in the city?”

“Yes.”

I try to imagine what the woman on the other end looks like and have a hard time even getting started.

“Whereabouts? I could swing by your office or home or whatever.”

“I’ll come to you.”

I sigh. “That’s fine. I should caution you though, I work out of my apartment. But I assure you I’m the consummate professional when it comes to—”

“I’m actually calling because I hear you have a tendency to be unprofessional.”

Oh boy.

“Alright. 247 East Broadway. I can be back there by five. That work?”

She’s already hung up.

*  *  *

I’m a private investigator, but that’s vague. My job is getting things for people. It never fails to surprise me how many people want things: A woman wants a gold watch—an heirloom—back from her estranged brother. An insurance company wants evidence of fraud. A dirtbag wants the money another dirtbag owes him, plus maybe the dirtbag himself. A lawyer wants a reason to disqualify a juror. A half-senile man realizes he threw out papers with his Social Security information, pays me three grand to follow the trash, protecting an identity that’s not worth stealing.

I never ask why they want it; I just get it for them and collect my bounty. This has nothing to do with professionalism. I’m simply not interested. I have my life with Sadie and my job as a retriever, crawling through the grease that lubricates the gears of society to recover ideas, objects, evidence, people. I usually loathe my clients, but it’s a loathing born of fear—that if I crawl around in this muck too long, I’ll be absorbed by it, dragging Sadie down with me.

I used to think more about how I ended up here—examining Dumpster corpses, snapping pictures of adulterous trysts, manipulating the truth out of low-ranking drug mules—but it’s proven to be an exercise in masochism. Looking back, it feels like I never had a choice, like the river of fate just pushed me here and I never bothered resisting the current until I was in too deep. I went to law school because people always told me I’d be a good lawyer, but I took leave after a year and a half, when my mom got sick, and never went back. Worked as a bartender for a few years until someone offered me an entry-level marketing job. Was promptly fired after deciding I was smarter than my boss and explaining my reasoning to her, sprinkling in some admittedly unnecessary commentary on her appearance for flavor. Went back to bartending and started taking night classes at cop academy, figuring at least I wouldn’t have to work in an office. I figured wrong and spent a miserable four years filling out paperwork and biting my tongue in the 21st Precinct. Then Sadie fell into my lap, and I saw an opportunity to make a move: private sector. Be my own boss, work my own hours, make a name for myself.

It took three months before I got my first job, a referral from a detective I was friendly with. An insurance fraud investigation, fairly basic PI stuff. A Wall Street quant’s Upper West Side town house burned down two months after he took out a well-above-market policy on it. Smart guys think they can get away with anything.

It didn’t take long for things to get ugly. Turned out he stopped showing up at work shortly after the “accident,” and not even his wife knew where he went. Comes out he had a real bad coke problem. Burned through a six-figure salary, then started buying blow on margin. Give the guy credit—he had the foresight to see where this was headed, and the patience to wait two months before torching his home and ditching his wife and three kids.

Took me a week to discover that the quant was still in touch with one of his coworkers, a weak-willed man who broke down as soon as I asked if he knew about the fraud before it happened, which would make him complicit.

I found the poor quant in a motel room upstate, shades drawn, shaking under the covers, thin streams of blood pouring from his nose. Just waiting for someone like me to put my shoulder through the door.

When I told him I was a PI, he knew the gig was up. Blew his brains out, coating the still life behind the bed with what looked like Bolognese sauce. First time I’d seen anything like that. I fainted.

That’s when I got the first inkling of what I’d gotten myself into. It was going to be an ugly life; that would be the price I’d pay for self-employment. Didn’t have the prescience to just get out then. Insurance company recovered the claim and offered me another job, paying me double. I didn’t like snooping, but apparently I was pretty good at it.

Most of the time—assuming someone knows the location of the mark—my job is comprised of two easy steps: Find the person who knows where it is, and then make them tell you. Sometimes they can’t wait to get it off their chest, and sometimes you gotta beat the piñata to get the candy. Every person holds their knowledge behind a combination lock, and in eight years of this shit, I have yet to meet a combo that doesn’t consist of some mix of fear, trust and greed.

*  *  *

The downstairs buzzer goes off before I can get my place anywhere close to clean. The kitchen is strewn with evidence of last night’s culinary fiasco—a “Mexican casserole” I whipped up after paying the babysitter, which Sadie correctly diagnosed as nothing but salsa, canned beans and cheddar poured over corn tortillas and microwaved.

“It’s so bad that you’re not even eating it!” the little empress said, noting my untouched plate. I just shrugged, didn’t explain that the smell of trash-soaked flesh was still in my nose, on my jacket and gloves.

I buzz in my prospective client, then race to my room, rip off an ancient Rolling Stones T-shirt and slap on a wrinkled blue button-down. In the living room, Sadie is on the couch, swimming in one of my old wifebeaters, reading a library book and drinking instant hot cocoa. I should probably be more concerned about her sugar intake.

“Sadie, could you read in your room? I’m sorry, but I’m gonna have a meeting in the kitchen.”

“Okay,” she says, popping up. “How long? Are you working tonight?”

“I don’t think so,” I say, straightening my collar. “No open cases. We’ll watch a movie or something, alright? Your pick.”

“Okay,” she says, ducking into her room: a section of the living room I paid someone to wall off a few years ago. She’s got enough room for a twin mattress and a dresser, that’s about it, but she probably won’t mind for a couple more years at least.

A firm knock on the door. My guest scaled those steps pretty damn fast. I quickly assess the apartment as a prospective client might: the mess in the kitchen, clothes coating the carpeted living room floor, Sadie’s schoolwork all over the dinner table. If she wants unprofessional, she’s come to the right place.

I begin my apology before the door is even open.

“I’m sorry about the mess. Fridays are cleaning day, I swear we have a system—”

My sheepish grin freezes as I pull the door back to reveal a jarringly beautiful woman. I’m rendered momentarily speechless as I drink her in. Just south of six feet—about two inches taller than me. Auburn hair trimmed to a length that only truly beautiful women can pull off. Wide green eyes, flawless, sharp cheeks. A body with the gentle hills and valleys of a rolling Scottish countryside, evident beneath a tight black turtleneck. She’s wearing black leather gloves and red silk pants that hug a breathtaking pair of hips. Her rigid expression reveals nothing more than the fact that she’s likely impervious to stupid flirtation, so don’t even try, hotshot.

“Frank Lamb?” she says, her low voice immediately recognizable as the one I heard on the phone.

“That’s what it says on the buzzer.” Jesus, Frank. Stupid, stupid. “Please come in. You don’t have a coat?”

She ignores the question. I beckon her to the dinner table and bid her to sit down in the most comfortable chair I own: a plush art deco number that Sadie and I found on 5th Street. She sits stiffly upright as I sweep Sadie’s math homework to the side. There’s something almost robotic about this woman. If she notices the mess, she’s doing a great job of hiding it.

“Hi.” Sadie has come out of her room to size up our visitor.

“Sadie.” I turn and force some oomph into my voice. “I asked you to stay in your room and read until we’re done.”

“It’s okay, she doesn’t mind, right?” Sadie beams a grin at our guest, the one that usually charms any woman within fifteen years of birthing age, but this target’s icy exterior is surprisingly impenetrable.

“Actually, I think it’s best if I meet with Mr. Lamb in private,” she says.

I give Sadie a glare like sorry, but you’re gonna have to scram, kid, and she reluctantly retreats back into her room.

“Sorry,” I say. “That’s my daughter. Like I said, I don’t usually meet clients here.”

“I love children,” she says emptily. “You’re married?”

“No.”

“Where’s her mother?” The question catches me off guard.

“Not in the picture.”

“Not in the picture?” Only her sharp gaze tells me it’s a question.

“This is getting pretty personal, considering you haven’t even told me your name yet.”

She frowns, as if she’s displeased with herself, like this is a mistake she makes often and is working to correct.

“Of course. That was rude. My name is Greta Kanter.”

She doesn’t offer me her hand. Her gloves are still on. She’s not showing a sliver of flesh below where the crest of her tight black turtleneck hugs her neck. I’m thinking, if she’s a leper, then sign me up for leprosy.

“Nice to meet you, Greta. Well, first things first. If you don’t mind, I must insist on seeing some photo ID and knowing who gave you my name. Both are kind of standard.”

She purses a pair of creamy lips and wordlessly plucks a green leather wallet from some fold of her pants, hands me a driver’s license. I copy down the info—taking a little longer than I have to so I can admire a DMV photo that could pass for a glamour shot.

She says, “I got your name from Orange.”

Ugh.

I was hired about eight months ago by a Columbia linguistics professor to gather proof that her loser husband was having an affair. She was all but sure he’d been cheating on her and didn’t want to give him a penny when she divorced him. It only took two days to figure out that whatever he was doing, he was doing it behind an incredibly sketchy-looking metal grated door on West 59th Street, nestled between an old Polish restaurant and Laundromat. The husband stops a couple times a week in the early evening, buzzes in, then leaves four or five hours later. I figure, too much time for sex, plus I never see women coming or going. Must be drugs or gambling. Finally, after watching this guy for a week, I buzz in myself and wave to the little CC camera. A voice tells me to wait, and thirty seconds later a grotesque fat man in a tan suit materializes from the darkness, huffing from what must be some steep steps, followed by two dudes in sweatshirts, each about two heads taller than me and looking straight out of a Ukrainian mail-order meathead catalogue.

The fat guy is pale, with black eyes sunk deep into his rubbery face. He’s built like a 350-pound teapot, and his face bulges and bloats in all the worst places. Gives me a greasy handshake, introduces himself as Matty Julius, but everyone calls him Orange. He’s doused in expensive cologne, and I catch the monogram on his silk pocket square. I think he puts in a lot of effort to draw attention from the parts of his appearance he can’t change. I also think he might be wearing a toupee.

He explains he’s seen me out here taking pictures of his facade over the last few nights, and if I’d be so kind as to turn those photos over to him, he’d be happy to offer double whatever my current employer is paying me. I casually note the size of the rocks on his stubby fingers, think I could probably ask for triple and he wouldn’t blink, but explain that I already signed a contract—I’m an investigator, not a mercenary. But he needn’t worry; the pictures will never be seen by anyone but my client.

He nods, satisfied, impressed even. I can tell he’s one of these guys who takes a lot of pride in being a man of his word. Unbelievable how many dirtbags consider themselves men of honor. He’s about to sidle back into his nether-lair when he stops and asks if I have a card, says he’s actually in need of a snooper. Especially one he knows won’t sell him down the river to a higher bidder.

Matty “Orange” Julius calls me two weeks later. He and his goons pick me up in a black Escalade and drive me around town while he describes the job. He wants me to hunt down a pair of Italians who sold him what he claims is a fake Rembrandt. I say I don’t know jack about art, and he replies all I have to know is how to track down shitbags. Cuts me a check for the down payment right there in the car, catches my smirk when I see Midtown Fitness, DBA in the upper left-hand corner, and then I’m off, Orange never clueing me in to the precise nature of his apparently very well-decorated subterranean operation.

It was two months before I busted in on the Italians in their recently acquired Miami penthouse, brandishing my Magnum and screaming to drop the prosecco and kiss the fucking carpet. Finding them had required less blurring than straight-up mauling of certain laws. Notably: those against breaking and entering, aggressive interrogation techniques, and whichever amendment preserves an immigrant’s right to not be knocked unconscious, bound with duct tape, and hauled back to Manhattan in the trunk of a rented Hyundai with very bad shocks.

“Look,” I tell Greta, handing her back her license, “you should know that’s not my usual purview. I got caught a little deep in that mess and ended up doing some things I’m not proud of. If you’re looking to hurt someone, I’m not your guy. Hurting happens incidentally, but I try to avoid it. And if you want someone killed, I’m going to advise you to just turn around, as I’d be legally obliged to report that.”

In the silence that follows, I find myself desperately hoping she doesn’t take my advice. I really need the work. I try to keep my gaze level with hers, but it’s like looking into the sun.

Finally she licks her lips. It’s subtle and quick but doesn’t escape my attention.

“Nothing like that, Mr. Lamb.” She interlocks her gloved hands in front of her on the table, still sitting straight as a flagpole. Maybe she does yoga. “I want you to find something for me. And Orange Julius spoke very highly of your tracking abilities. As for the legality of the methods you employ, I couldn’t care less. I care only about results.”

I swallow hard. I’ve never met a woman like this. She’s beyond gorgeous, sure, but something about her unnerves me. Her skin is too perfect, her wide, unblinking green eyes coldly calculating. It’s like aliens created a flawless synthetic human from silicone. She’s like a parody of beauty.

“Alright,” I say. “I’m listening.”

She reaches a gloved hand into her black leather handbag and removes a thick folder. She’s about to open it but seems to think better of it and looks at me. The dying January day seeps in from the window behind me, casting half her face in pale, orange light. Her eyes are locked in a subtle—but fierce—glare that, with a little imagination, could be construed as sexual. I try to force that thought out of my head; I’ve seen guys crush on their clients, and it never ends well. Sure, Sadie could use a mom, but Greta doesn’t quite strike me as the nurturing type.

“The first and most important thing to understand, Mr. Lamb, is that I value discretion. Nothing I tell you can be mentioned to anyone, even if you don’t decide to accept my case. Is that clear?”

I’ve already lost control of this situation. Usually I’m the one laying down the ground rules, telling the flustered client how it’s gonna be.

“That’s actually very standard with PIs,” I say, trying to sound authoritative. “If you’d like me to sign some type of nondisclosure though, I’d be happy to.”

“That won’t be necessary,” she says, then reaches back into her purse and pulls out five crisp hundred-dollar bills. She drops them on the table and slides them toward me, her tightly gloved hand dragging sensuously across my shitty Ikea tabletop. “But I’d like you to have this in advance, as a way of thanking you for not sharing this with anyone.”

I can feel my forehead crinkling of its own volition. Five hundred bucks just to keep this quiet? Must be plenty more where that came from.

But I slide the bills back to her.

“I haven’t agreed to work for you yet, Greta. But I assure you that nothing you say to me leaves this room.” With a smile, I add, “Again, unless you ask me to kill someone.”

She frowns but leaves the bills out in plain sight, as if to remind me that they’re there if I want them. Then she hands me the folder, grimacing like she’s giving up her child for adoption. It’s a police report, at least three hundred pages thick, stuffed with typed memos, glossy pictures and court documents.

The front page says simply, Savannah Kanter. Homicide. 7/21/08.

“Your . . .”

“Sister,” she says. I shift in my chair. Before I can express my condolences, she clarifies: “I’m not asking you to investigate a murder. The case was closed two weeks after her death. The murderer turned himself in and has been incarcerated ever since.”

“Okay.” I make a triangle with my fingertips and try to ignore the way her chest slowly expands and contracts beneath that tight turtleneck. It’s weird that she has a copy of the police report. Detectives’ offices will usually give relatives a copy eventually if they ask for it, but the last thing most families want is to dwell on the grisly details. “Then . . . ?”

“I need you to find a by-product of the murder.”

By-product?

“Let’s start at the beginning,” I say. It feels like a feeble attempt to take control of this dialogue. Her unblinking eyes, low breathing, rigid posture . . . She’s like a magnet, sending my usually trusty compass spinning. I’ve never met a person who carries themselves like she does. “What happened to your sister?”

She hesitates, like she’s summoning the strength for whatever’s about to come out of her mouth next. She’s so fucking beautiful. I’m trying to not imagine kissing her but can’t help myself. Imagine sliding my hands down her hips, the weight of her heaving form on top of me—

“My family was on vacation. Me, Savannah and our parents. We rented a beach house a few miles south of Bangor. Maine. I was twenty-eight, Savannah was twenty-four—”

This was five years ago, so she’s only thirty-three now? I had her pegged for early forties.

“We’d been there for three days, the four of us just relaxing. Swimming and lounging on the beach during the day. Playing cards and drinking at night. We hadn’t been together for a while. My father’s job requires constant travel, and he and my mother are always in Europe, Asia—”

“What does he do exactly?”

“Journalist. Writes international news for an English periodical. On day four of our trip we went into town. We got ice cream on the boardwalk and sat down on a picnic bench. Savannah handed me her cone and said she was going to run to the bathroom. She never came back.”

She pauses and gazes at the back of her gloved hand. I make a mental note to mention this to Sadie as a cautionary tale—this is why you always hold Daddy’s hand in public.

“Are you alright?” I ask. “Would you like a glass of water?”

Yeah, that will fix everything. Idiot.

She ignores me anyways:

“For twelve days, nothing. It still seems impossible, given the scope of the search, that we didn’t find her. Every hotel in the state was emailed her picture. Police barricades on all major highways stopped cars at random. My father got on the local news and offered a half-million-dollar reward.” She smiles emptily. “My parents had money. The police took it very seriously. They found some of Savannah’s hairs in a parking lot about a hundred fifty feet from where we were sitting. There must have been a struggle while she was forced into a car. That was all they had to go on.”

I’m struck by how impassively she describes all this; the same detached tone in which one might read a dense legal document or narrate a documentary on indigenous Indians. It’s been years, so maybe she’s just recited this so many times that it’s become rote, devoid of emotion, the facts no longer resonant of the horror she must have gone through.

“No eyewitnesses saw her being shoved in the car?” I ask.

“No.”

“Identifiable tire tracks near the hair?” I ask. “Anything caught on camera?”

“No,” she shakes her head. “Gravel parking lot. Too vague. And we’re talking about rural Maine. Not cameras on every corner, like here.”

“Okay, so then?”

“Twelve days later a man approached a traffic cop in Portland and said he killed Savannah. He showed him a Polaroid of her corpse and told him where he could find the body. It was there. In the cellar of a cabin seven miles south of the boardwalk.”

“Just a second,” I say and quickly jump from my chair to stick my head into the living room, making sure that Sadie isn’t eavesdropping on this. Kids should learn about murder the right way: on television, when their parents aren’t around. I return to my seat. Greta’s face is unwavering.

“Why her?” I ask, figuring the answer is that she was as beautiful as her sister.

“The police thought it was because she was small, much shorter than me, and skinnier. She weighed around a hundred pounds. She would have been relatively easy to drag back to the car.” She pauses, and then, as if anticipating my next question, adds, “She wasn’t raped.”

“I don’t have much experience with homicide, but I imagine that’s unusual.”

Greta’s nostrils flare. “That is perhaps the least unusual part of the whole thing. She was asphyxiated,” she continues. “In court, he explained that he tied a plastic bag around her head until she stopped breathing.”

I’m suddenly seized by an overpowering desire for a drink. There’s a bottle of rye on the bookcase, visible over Greta’s right shoulder, but it’s not even dark out yet, and I’m pretty sure that day drinking isn’t the kind of unprofessionalism she had in mind. From the window behind me I hear somebody on East Broadway screaming in Spanish and what sounds like the clattering of a metal trashcan.

“I don’t understand what you want me to do,” I say, imagining an iced double shot burning its way down my throat.

“You’re not very patient, are you?” she asks, without the slightest hint of flirtation in her voice. She speaks slowly and deliberately, mechanically, like someone keeps pulling a drawstring on her back to trigger prerecorded phrases. Images of her in the throes of passion keep trying to burrow in through my ear and nest in my brain, and I keep mentally swatting them away like mosquitoes.

“No, I’m not,” I say. “I seriously might have ADD. I hope that’s not a deal breaker.”

Again, she ignores my pathetic attempt at humor. This reminds me of every bad first date I’ve ever been on.

Greta grabs the folder back from me. She flips through it for half a minute—I desperately want to ask her about the gloves but resist—and finds a photocopy of an article from a local Maine newspaper. I scan the first paragraph.

“Silas Graham. Even sounds like a murderer. He pleaded insanity?”

“Yes. And it held up.”

“Because he turned himself in?”

“There’s more. He also confessed to killing his parents twenty-two years before and told them where they could find those bodies. Their decomposed bodies were buried in a scrap yard in rural Alabama, identifiable only by dental records. But indeed, it didn’t take long to discover that the two of them were declared missing when Silas was around eleven. Silas was taken into foster care shortly thereafter. It took less than two weeks of court time to determine that he was likely a paranoid schizophrenic, and he was committed to an institution for the criminally insane.”

That bottle is looking better and better. I’m no prude, but this kind of shit—kidnapped and murdered girls—isn’t exactly my wheelhouse.

“I was on the force for a few years before going solo,” I say. “In my very limited experience with this sort of thing, the ‘criminally insane’ verdict is usually indicative of little more than an expensive team of lawyers.”

She smirks ever so slightly and flips a few pages deeper into the folder. “Not this time. Look at his face.”

I inspect the grainy black-and-white photo she’s pointing at for a moment, then recoil.

“Oh my god.” I have to look away, the picture is making me a little ill. “Are those burns?”

“Tattoos. All over his face.”

Greta continues flipping through the folder and stops at a full glossy. She stares at it a moment, taking in slowly what must be a picture of her sister. She breathes deeply, then rotates it in my direction. What I see makes my stomach tingle with cold. Savannah lying faceup on a coroner’s slab. Her face has the exact same tattoos as her killer.

“Jesus,” I gasp.

Greta nods and mercifully flips to another page.

“What the fuck?” I ask. “Why would he do that to her, then kill her?”

Her green eyes seem to be staring at something very far away. A siren screams down East Broadway and then fades.

“I’ve long since given up trying to understand,” she says, her words sounding weighed down. “But here’s the important thing.” She flips to another article about Silas’s trial and points to a circled paragraph. “Read,” she says.

. . . next to the body was found a Sony tape recorder, a model discontinued in 1992. Throughout the brief trial, Mr. Graham displayed an exceptional willingness to cooperate. The only exception being when asked about the purpose of this device, to which Mr. Graham repeated only, “I made a tape. I made a tape of her dying.”  When pressed as to the nature of this tape, Graham showed uncharacteristic reticence, shaking his head and occasionally appearing close to tears . . .

I look up into Greta’s glowing eyes.

“I want you to find the tape,” she says.

I can’t contain a snort. “The guy was nuts. He probably didn’t even know what he was saying.”

She stares past me, out the living room window. Not much of a view beyond the brick co-op towers across the street.

“He knew,” she says.

What little willpower I have evaporates. I shoot out of my chair, return with two lowballs and the bottle of rye. Pour myself four fingers.

“Want any?” I ask.

She purses her lips. “No.”

I shoot down half of it. Instantly I’m hit with a little hazy relief, and lean back in my chair.

“Alright, so let’s pretend you’re right. It exists. What do you want with this alleged cassette tape?”

She doesn’t respond. Stares unblinking over my right shoulder.

“Greta, if you want me to find this—”

“On the last day of the trial the verdict was read,” she starts. “Life in an institution for the criminally insane. I remember his face when this was announced. He seemed relieved—or pleased perhaps. Don’t ask me why. As they were leading him down the aisle, out of the courtroom, he stopped at the front row, where I was sitting with my parents, and leaned in close to me. He was so close I could smell his breath—his teeth were rotting brown, and it smelled like he hadn’t brushed them for years.” The first traces of emotion I’ve heard from Greta so far. Voice wavering slightly in anger. “And his tattoos . . . he didn’t even seem human. His voice was so awful. Throaty and raw.”

She stops and looks at me for a painfully long moment. I shiver involuntarily. She seems to be deliberating whether or not to continue.

She says, “He leaned in close and whispered, ‘It was worth it. I got what I wanted.’”

I polish off my rye and have to tuck my fingers under my thighs to resist a refill.

I say, “Like I said, he’s crazy.”

“He made a tape of her dying, Lamb. That’s what he said.”

I raise an eyebrow. Greta’s face is cracking slightly with emotion. Yet there’s something about the way she’s telling this story that doesn’t quite ring true with me. It seems rehearsed, though that could just be because she’s gone through this so many times. But I can’t shake the feeling that she’s omitting crucial details. And why hasn’t she taken off those gloves?

As the light fades outside, Greta’s pale skin seems to turn luminescent, glowing like a jack-o’-lantern filled with blue ice.

“Sure you don’t want a drink?” I ask, my left leg fidgeting uncontrollably.

Greta doesn’t seem to have heard the question. I suddenly remember poor Sadie, sitting alone in her room all this time. She probably doesn’t even mind. I got her a bunch of good stuff from the library last week. But she’ll probably guilt the hell out of me once Greta leaves.

“So . . .” I finally say, leaning in closer. I can smell her expensive perfume and minty breath.

Greta purses her lips, like she’s swishing her next words around in her cheek; tasting them before releasing them.

“I told all this to the detectives on the case. They didn’t care. They found the killer, that’s all that mattered to them. Why should they care about some cassette tape?”

I shake my head slowly, mulling over the implications of what Greta is telling me. “But . . .” I swallow a laugh of disbelief. “I mean, surely you have to agree the most likely scenario is that it simply doesn’t—”

“It exists, Lamb,” she spits. Then she suddenly starts rubbing viciously at her upper cheeks, rubbing until I understand that she’s scraping away a thick layer of makeup to reveal dark blue circles hanging beneath her eyes. “It’s all I can think about. It’s out there somewhere. Savannah’s last words. And I can’t make peace with this until I have it back. The thought of some sicko out there listening to her . . . I haven’t really slept for five years.”

Another long, empty pause. Another siren screams down East Broadway.

“Isn’t it possible you misheard?”

“No,” she growls, and the sudden shift in her voice makes me jump slightly out of my seat, then try to compose myself. She’s growing heated, her face starting to glow pink. “And either he still has it, or he stashed it somewhere before he was arrested. It’s mine, Lamb, you understand? He has my sister’s voice. Her dying words. Nobody should have that but me.”

I’m not quite sure I do understand.

“Okay. So suppose I agree to try to find this—”

“You’ll start by talking to Silas. He’s housed in the Berkley Clinic—a mental institution a hundred miles north of the cabin where my sister was murdered. I’ll give you ten thousand up front. And three hundred thousand when the tape is in my hands. Cash. And I’ll be able to tell if it’s the real thing, because it will be Savannah’s voice.”

A three-hundred-thousand-dollar bounty for something other than a briefcase filled with five hundred thousand in cash is nearly unheard of. This is it. The holy grail of snooping. This is the stuff PIs dream of. But I summon my best poker face, act unimpressed by her offer.

“I’m guessing Silas isn’t going to be thrilled with the prospect of cooperating.”

“That’s where your unprofessionalism comes in,” she says.

“There are guards, no? Loony bins are basically prisons.”

“For three hundred thousand dollars, I suspect you could get creative.”

This is a lot to process. While my gears are still turning, she sits back in her chair and conveys something with the slightest upturn of her lip that may be flirtatious but reads more likely as disgust. Her smudged makeup does nothing to mar her beauty. On the contrary, the imperfection gives her the slightest air of vulnerability. She glowers at me and lowers her voice.

“And once I have the tape,” she says, “you will have me. However you want.”

Her face is completely deadpan. Betrays no hint that this is something she would enjoy in any way. It’s just another part of the generous compensation she’s offering. My poker face is wilting, my heart screaming, pushing blood to every corner of my body. Controlling myself is taking every inch of concentration. Both legs are shaking. She frightens me.

“Ten thousand up front, but another five for expenses,” I practically squeak. “And make it three fifty. Only half of that is for me. I’m going to need help.”

She weighs this for a moment. “Who?”

My mouth is dry. I can’t tell if this thing seizing me is lust or terror. Either way, I suddenly want her out of my apartment, away from Sadie. I clear my throat.

“I had help on the Orange case, never could have done it alone. Courtney Lavagnino is the best tracker I’ve ever worked with. Honestly, he’s a genius.”

“Courtney?” She spits his name out like it’s bitter. I catch a glimmer of fiery orange in her eyes. “That’s a man?”

“He was the brains behind finding the forgers,” I gush, eager to change the topic. “He’s brilliant. Speaks like seven languages. He once found a ninety-year-old Nazi hiding out in New Zealand, based only on a water-damaged black-and-white photo of him from the war. He worked briefly for the DEA, gathering evidence against drug moguls, but quit because he needed to work at his own speed. He was hired by a hot sauce manufacturer to find a pepper seed—a single fucking seed—rumored to grow into the hottest pepper known to man. He found it. If you’re serious about getting this tape back, you’ll pay for both of us.”

She runs a gloved hand through her hair. I want to say she’s calming herself down, but really she never actually flipped out. Did she ever even raise her voice? She’s able to project this terror just with her eyes.

“Then give me his information. It sounds like he’s the one I need, not you.”

I shake my head. “If you want to find a truffle, you can’t just hire the pig.”

She raises an eyebrow. I clarify: “For Courtney, it’s all an intellectual exercise. He’s a pure tracker—not always a man of action. If you want someone to locate the tape, hire Courtney. If you want someone to get the tape, you need both of us.”

Greta mulls this over. I sense the additional fifty grand is inconsequential to her if it means a higher chance of her holding the tape in her hands.

“Where was the seed?” she asks.

“In the safe-deposit box of a South American dictator. Courtney wouldn’t tell me which one. He was apparently a connoisseur and collector of peppers, bought it on the black market for millions. As I said—he found it. I believe he was working with someone like myself, who figured out how to actually steal the thing.”

If I’m underselling Courtney’s competence in the field a bit, it’s more than offset by failing to mention his occasional interpersonal gaffes. He almost derailed our search for the forgers by growing impatient with what turned out to be a key witness, pointing out inconsistencies in that poor, confused girl’s story with the callous logic of a poacher doing his taxes. Nearly broke her, and it took me hours of comfort and coaxing to finally extract what we needed out of her.

Greta reaches into her purse and removes a large wad of hundreds. Counts them out and plops them on the table.

“Well this time, locating it is not sufficient. I want you to hand it to me. Here is ten thousand up front, plus five for expenses. After three days call me on this number”—she scribbles it down on a page in the police report— “and report your progress.”

“Don’t you want to sign—”

“No contracts. Just get me the tape. Call me sooner if you discover anything important.”

I can hardly stand up to let her out. My legs are trembling, and the tips of my fingers are numb. By the time I manage to pull myself up, she’s already out the door, the click of her black boots receding down the staircase. I stare at the pile of money on the table and try to remember if I ever actually agreed to this.