Dietz looked up. The waiter was approaching, dressed like an usher at a wedding, complete with white gloves.
“Good afternoon. Something to drink before lunch?” The waiter’s manner was circumspect and he avoided making eye contact.
Dietz turned to me. “You want a drink?”
“White wine,” I said.
“Chardonnay, sauvignon blanc?” the waiter asked.
“Chardonnay.”
“And you, sir?”
“I’ll have a beer. What do you have imported?”
“Amstel, Heineken, Beck’s dark, Beck’s light, Dos Equis, Bohemia, Corona …”
“Beck’s light,” Dietz said.
“Are you ready to order?”
“No.”
The waiter stared at Dietz, then nodded and withdrew.
Dietz said, “We probably won’t see him for half an hour, but I hate being bullied into ordering.”
He picked up his story again about Bertie the crow, who liked to take long walks on foot and lived on a diet of M M’s, hard-boiled eggs, and dry cat food. While Dietz talked, his gaze shifted restlessly around the room. He seldom looked at faces, always at hands, checking for concealed weapons, sudden movements, signals perhaps. Some underling arrived, bearing our drinks, but the waiter didn’t return. Dietz scanned the dining room, but there was no sign of Mm. Twenty minutes passed. I could see Dietz take note and in a surge of uneasiness, he finally tossed a bill on the table and got up. “Let’s get out of here. I don’t like this.”
“Do you see everything as part of some plot?” I asked, trotting after him.
“That may be all that keeps the two of us alive.” I shrugged to myself and let it go at that. When we reached the front entrance, the Porsche was parked right up against the shrubs. He snagged the keys off the board himself and helped me into the car. He got in on his side and fired up the engine.
We drove home along the beach. I was exhausted and my head was starting to pound. When we got to my apartment, Dietz hauled out his portable alarm system, which he showed me how to arm and disarm. He affixed it to the door.
“I’ll tell Henry to keep an ear turned while I’m out . . .”
“You’re going off somewhere?” I felt a little bubble of panic arise, testimony to how quickly I’d come to depend on him for my sense of personal safety.
“I want to have another chat with Lieutenant Dolan. He said he’d talk to the Carson City DA and try to get an ID on this guy with the kid. Somebody must have heard of him. Maybe we can pick up a mug shot and at least figure out what he looks like. I’ll be back in half an hour. You’ll be fine here. Get some rest. You look beat.”
He took off while I downed a pain pill and headed up to the loft. I had promised to call Irene and I could feel the tiny voice of my conscience whining deep within. The phone rang just as I was pulling off my shoes. Dietz had told me not to answer it if he wasn’t there, but I couldn’t help myself. I leaned across the bed and picked up the receiver.
It was Irene Gersh. “Oh good, it’s you. I’m calling from the nursing home. I’m so glad you’re there. I was afraid you were still out.”
“We just got in. I was thinking I should call you, but I hadn’t worked up the energy.”
“Is this a bad time?”
“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. What’s happening?”
“Nothing. That’s the point. I’m sorry to be such a pest, but I’m just beside myself. Mother’s been gone now for eight hours and there’s simply no sign of her. Clyde feels maybe we should get out and check the neighborhood ourselves.”
“Sounds smart,” I said. “You need any help knocking on doors?” In that split second my concern for Agnes’s safety overrode my worries about myself.
“Thank you. We’d appreciate it. The longer Mother’s on the loose, the more frightened I get. Somebody must have seen her.”
“You’d think so,” I said. “When do you need me there?”
“Soon if you could. Clyde called from work and he’s on his way over now. If it’s not too much trouble …” She gave me an address in the eleven hundred block of Concorde.
“I’m on my way,” I said and hung up. I put a quick call through to Lieutenant Dolan’s office and left word for Dietz to meet me at the nursing home, reiterating the address. That done, I picked my way carefully down the stairs. I craved action. My whole body was seizing up in the wake of the accident and my joints felt stiff with rust. Certain postures caused excruciating pains to shoot through my neck, causing me to murmur, “Ow, ow, ow.” I was hoping the painkiller would do its work before long.
I found a jacket and my handbag, checked to make sure my little .32 was accounted for, and headed for the door, searching for my car keys in the outside leather pouch. Where the hell were they? I stopped dead, perplexed, and then it dawned on me. I didn’t have transportation. My VW was still down in Brawley at the auto body shop. Well, hell, I thought.
I turned on my heel, picked up the phone again, and called a cab. By that point, I had already begun to internalize some of Dietz’s precautions. I knew better than to loiter outside on the curb in plain sight. I waited, dutifully standing in the tub in the downstairs bathroom, where I could look out the window until the cab appeared in front. For the second time, I snatched up my jacket and my handbag. When I opened the front door, the alarm system went off, scaring me so badly that I nearly wet my pants.
Henry’s back door banged open and he came running out with a meat cleaver in his hand. All he had on was a pair of turquoise briefs and his face was pale as bread dough. “My God, what happened? Are you all right?”
“Henry, I’m fine. I accidentally set off the alarm.”
“Well, get back inside. You scared the hell out of me. I was about to take a shower when that damn thing went off. Why are you out here? Dietz said you were napping. You look awful. Go to bed.” His panic had rendered him a little cranky, I thought.
“Would you quit worrying? There’s no cause for hysteria. Irene Gersh called me and I’m on my way over to the nursing home to help look for her mom. I’ve got a cab waiting out in front.”
Henry grabbed my jacket. “You’ll do no such thing,” he said snappishly. “You can wait till Dietz gets back and go over there with him.”
I could feel my temper climb in response to his. I grabbed the jacket back, the two of us tugging like kids in a schoolyard. The cleaver he was holding made it treacherous work.
The second time he reached for the jacket, I held it up and away from him. “Henry,” I said warningly. “I’m a free human being. Dietz knows I’m going over there. I called Dolan’s office and talked to him myself. He’s on his way.”
“You did not. I know you. You’re lying through your teeth,” Henry said.
“I did call!”
“But you didn’t talk to him.”
“I left a message. That’s just as good.”
“What if he never gets it?”
“Then you can tell him where I am! I’m going.”
“No, you’re not!”
I had to argue for five minutes before I was allowed to leave the premises. Meanwhile, the cab driver had already tooted twice and he appeared from around the corner looking for his fare. I don’t know what he must have thought when he caught sight of us … me with my battered face, Henry in his Calvin Klein skivvies with a cleaver in his mitt. Fortunately, Henry knew the guy and after earnest reassurances on all sides, he finally consented to my departure. He didn’t like the idea, but there wasn’t much he could do. The cabbie was still shaking his head with mock disgust. “Get some pants on, Pitts. You could get arrested like that.”
By the time I reached the nursing home on the Upper East Side, it was nearly two o’clock. I realized as the cab pulled up that I knew the neighborhood. Rosie and I had combed the entire area, looking for a board-and-care for her sister, Klotilde. The houses, for the most part, were built on a grand scale: rambling interiors with high ceilings, oversize windows, wide porches, surrounded by massive oaks and old, shaggy palms.
In contrast, the nursing home from which Agnes had disappeared was a two-story Victorian structure with a carriage house in the rear. The frame siding was a pale gray, with the trim done in fresh white. The steeply pitched roof was made of slate tiles, overlapping like fish scales. At the second-story level, a raw-looking L of decking and a set of wooden stairs had been added as a fire escape. The house sat on a large corner lot, the property shaded by countless trees, dotted with flower beds, and bordered with shrubs, which were pierced by the protruding upright arrows of an ornamental iron fence. There were several cars visible in the small parking lot in the rear.