“What’d you talk about?”
“Well, it wasn’t culture, I’ll tell you that. She talked about food most of the time, but I never saw her put anything in her mouth except cigarettes and Fresca. She drank pop incessantly and that mouth of hers flapped all the time. So self-centered. I don’t believe she ever asked me one word about myself. It simply never occurred to her. I was bored to death, of course, and began to avoid her whenever I could. Now she’s rude because she knows I disapprove of her. Insecure people have a special sensitivity for anything that finally confirms their own low opinion of themselves.”
“Did she mention Elaine?”
“Oh yes. She said Elaine was off on a trip, which struck me as odd. I’d never known her to come down here only to go someplace else. What would be the point?”
“Can you tell me who else Elaine might have kept in touch with? Any other friends or relatives down here?”
“I’ll have to think about that. I don’t know of anyone offhand. I assume that most of her good friends are in California, since that’s where she lives most of the time.”
We talked on for a while, but mostly about other things. At 11:15, I thanked her and took her back to the parking lot, gave her my business card so she could call me if she needed to, and then watched her hobble to the elevator. Her gait was irregular, like a marionette’s being worked from above by strings. She waved to me with her cane and I waved back. She hadn’t told me much, but I was hoping she’d be able to report on what was happening here after I flew back.
I drove out to the beach and sat in the parking lot with my index cards, making notes of everything I could remember about my search to this point. It took an hour and my hand was cramped, but I needed to get it down while the details were fresh. When I finished, I took my shoes off and locked the car, walking the beach. It was too hot to jog and the lack of sleep had left me torpid anyway. The breeze coming in off the ocean was dense with the smell of salt. The surf seemed to roll in at half speed and there were no whitecaps. The ocean was a luminous blue and the sand was littered with exotic shells. All I’d ever seen on the California beaches were tangles of kelp and occasional Coke-bottle bottoms worn smooth by the sea. I longed to stretch out on the beach and nap in the hot sun, but I had to be on my way.
I ate lunch at a roadside stand built of pink cinder block while a radio station blared out Spanish-language programs as foreign to me as the food. I feasted on black-bean soup and a bolsa-a sort of pouch made of pastry holding a. spicy ground meat. By four o’clock that afternoon, I was on a plane, headed for California. I’d been in Florida for less than twelve hours and I wondered if I was any closer to finding Elaine Boldt. It was possible that Pat Usher was being straight with me when she claimed Elaine was in Sarasota, but I doubted it. In any event, I was anxious to get home and I slept like the dead until the plane reached LAX.
When I got to the office at nine the next morning, I filled out a routine form for the Driver’s License Records at the Department of Motor Vehicles in Tallahassee, Florida, and a second form for Sacramento on the off-chance that Elaine might have been issued a driver’s license in her own name sometime in the last six months. I also sent similar requests to the Vehicle Registration Records in both places, not so much with the expectation of the inquiries paying off, but just to cover my bets. I stuck all four envelopes in my out box and then I pulled out the phone book and started checking addresses for travel agents located within walking distance of Elaine’s condominium. I was hoping to establish her travel arrangements and find out if a plane ticket had been used. So far. I had only Pat Usher’s word that Elaine had ever arrived in Miami. Maybe she never even reached the airport in Santa Teresa, or maybe she got off the plane at some point en route. In any event, I was going to have to check it out item by item. I felt as if I were on an assembly line, inspecting reality with a jeweler’s loupe. There’s no place in a PL’s life for impatience, faintheartedness, or sloppiness. I understand the same qualifications apply for housewives.
Most of my investigations proceed just like this. Endless notes, endless sources checked and rechecked, pursuing leads that sometimes go no place. Usually, I start in the same place, plodding along methodically, never knowing at first what might be significant. It’s all detail; facts accumulated painstakingly.
It’s hard to remain anonymous these days. Information is available on just about anyone: credit files on microfiche, service records, lawsuits, marriages, divorces, wills, births, deaths, licenses, permits, vehicles registered. If you want to remain invisible, pay cash for everything and if you err, don’t get caught. Otherwise, any good PI. or even a curious and persistent private citizen can find you out. It amazes me that the average person isn’t more paranoid. Most of our personal data is a matter of public record. All you have to know is how to look it up. What your state and city government don’t have on file, your next-door neighbor will usually share without so much as a dollar changing hands. If there was no way to get a line on Elaine Boldt directly, I’d try an oblique approach. She’d left for Boca two weeks early, traveling at night, which, according to Tillie, was something she didn’t like to do. She’d told Tillie she was ill, leaving town on doctor’s orders, but at this point, there was no verification of that claim. Elaine might have lied to Tillie. Tillie might be lying to me. For all I knew Elaine had left the country, planting Pat Usher behind her to promulgate the notion that she was in Sarasota instead. I hadn’t any idea why she’d do such a thing, but then I had a lot of ground to cover yet.
Having narrowed the list of travel agencies to six possibilities, I put in a call to Beverly Danziger and filled her in on my excursion to Florida. I wanted to bring her up to date even though the trip hadn’t netted me much. I also had a couple of questions for her.
“What about family?” I asked. “Are your parents alive?” “Oh, they’ve both been gone for years. We were never a close-knit family in the first place. I don’t even think there were uncles or cousins she’d kept in touch with.”
“What about jobs? What sort of work has she done?”
Beverly laughed at that. “You must not have a clear sense of Elaine quite yet. Elaine never lifted a finger in her life.”
“But she does have a social-security card,” I said. “If she’s worked at all, it gives me one more avenue to pursue. For all we know, she’s waiting tables someplace for a lark.”
“Well, I don’t think she’s ever had a job, and if she did, it’s not something she’d ever do again,” Beverly said primly. “Elaine was spoiled. She felt she should be handed everything and what she wasn’t handed, she took right out from under your nose anyway.”
I really wasn’t much in the mood to listen to Beverly unload past grievances. “Look, let’s skip to the bottom line here. I think we ought to file a missing persons report. That way we can open up the scope of this thing. It should also eliminate some possibilities and believe me, at this point, everything helps.”
The silence was so complete, I thought she’d hung up on me.
“Hello?”
“No, I’m here,” she said. “I just don’t understand why you want to talk to the police of all people.”
“Because it’s the next logical step. She may well be somewhere in Florida, but suppose she’s not. At the moment, we only have Pat Usher’s word for that. Why not get some broadscale coverage? Let the cops put out an APB. Let the Boca Raton ED. get some sort of inquiry routed through Sarasota and see what they come up with. They can circulate a description through the state and local police down there and at least determine that she’s not ill or dead or under arrest.”
“Dead?”
“Hey, I’m sorry. I know it sounds alarming, and it may be nothing like that, but the cops will have access to information I just can’t get.”
“I don’t believe this. I just wanted her signature. I hired you because I thought it would be the quickest way to find her. I don’t think it’s really a police matter. I mean, I simply don’t want you to do that.”