by Chris Knopf
On the way to the first club on our list we stopped at the small shop off the main parking lot in Southampton recommended to me by Jackie Swaitkowski. It was called Good to the Last Byte and its purpose was akin to that of the auto repair shops I used to work for as a kid: basic computer maintenance and repair. It was cleaner and smelled better, but looked as if somebody’d set a bomb off inside a bank of mainframes—wire racks crammed with cartons, boxes and devices with faceplates splattered with tiny LEDs, heaps of printed circuits, loose CDs, stacks of packaged software, monitors of every vintage and size, plastic crates disgorging tangles of cables and surge protectors, pizza boxes and a full-size trash barrel filled with empty Mountain Dew cans.
“No wonder Jackie likes this guy,” I said to Amanda as we picked our way to a rolling wire rack recruited as a service counter by the owner of the place.
“Randall Dodge,” I said.
“That’s me, Sam. Nice to see you again,” he said, unfolding his full six-foot-eight frame and putting out his hand to shake.
Randall lived on the Shinnecock Reservation and was a racial gumbo of African, European and indigenous peoples. I knew him from Sonny’s, the boxing gym I went to north of Westhampton Beach. I met him one day when he found himself at the top of a bench press with a bit more weight then he could safely put down. His request for a little help was remarkably calm and polite, given the circumstances. From then on we spotted for each other, and I had a chance to show him some things, like how to hit the speed bag and how to stay on his toes when moving around the ring. Like me, he almost never sparred, which was lucky for the rest of the kids who worked out at the gym. He was thin and slower than an earth mover, but he could reach halfway across the ring, and if he ever managed to connect with a punch it’d be good night, Irene.
“This is Amanda Anselma.”
Randall took her hand and gave a little bow.
“My pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”
“This your place?” I asked.
“For certain. Used to be my uncle’s, but the technology got a little ahead of him. I was sorry to see him go. He didn’t talk much, but you get used to the company.”
Randall’s head was big even for his beanstalk body. Or maybe it just looked big because of his broad face and high cheekbones, framed by a pair of slender, tightly woven braids. I never saw him form a smile, but his eyes were perpetually alight.
“I thought you were going to Hofstra,” I said.
“I dropped out after taking all the computer science courses they had. After four years in the Navy I’m too old to be sitting through lectures on poetry and poli-sci. Got to get down and dirty with the circuits, you know?”
“Yeah, I do. What do you know about digital photography?” I handed him the disk.
“I’m a warrior of the Photoshop,” he said, studying the disk as if the silvery surface could reveal its inner mysteries. “What are the issues?”
He slid the disk into an aquamarine Macintosh and brought the picture up on a big flat-screen monitor. I explained how we’d pulled the shot off a website, but needed a clearer image.
“The first thing you have to deal with is the low resolution,” he said. “The original photo was probably high-res, but you can’t have that on the Web. Slows everything down.”
I reached over his shoulder and pointed at Iku.
“That’s the girl. I’d love a good-sized printout. Clear enough to make an ID.”
“Hard to do, boss,” said Randall.
“Not for a Photoshop warrior,” said Amanda.
Randall’s sparkly eyes looked at me.
“Did you tell her pretty women drive me to impossible feats?” he asked.
“Why do you think I brought her along?”
“Go buy her a cup of coffee. I need a few minutes. The impossible could take a little longer.”
We got drinks instead, at the big restaurant on Main Street. Seemed an appropriate way to ramp up to the evening. I had vodka. Amanda sipped red wine and filled the joint with radiant beauty. I never tired of looking at her. It was one of the few failings I allowed myself without reproach. When I wasn’t feeling charmed by her smile I was lost in her pale green eyes. Or distracted by an ankle or the shape of her neck. I used to like looking at Abby, my ex-wife, but that was different. More an objective admiration of elegant, comely form. There was nothing objective in my appraisal of Amanda. Quite the contrary. The longer I lingered, the weaker my judgment.
“You’re staring,” she said.
“I am.”
“Shouldn’t we see how Mr. Dodge is fairing? While we can still see?”
“I’m clear as a bell.”
“Of course you are. It’s so irritating.”
We paid the bill and walked back to Randall’s shop. It wasn’t a long walk, but I enjoyed every step. It was times like these, random events, that reminded me I’d given a lot of my life to misplaced ambitions and faulty desire. Not to dwell on regret, but to better appreciate the moment.
I watched Amanda as we walked, at once a presence so close at hand the barest twitch would alert her attention, yet as distant as the moon. This was something I’d learned about Amanda. She was there, and then not. And that was okay, now that I knew her better. I’d been through a lot of trial and error, sorting it out. But as long as she was there, walking next to me, I assumed she was willing to press on, even without a confirmed destination.
“You’re staring at me again,” she said.
“I am?”
“I don’t mind as long as I haven’t done something ridiculous.”
“I’ll tell you when you do.”
“And they say you aren’t a gentleman.”
“They do?”
Randall looked hypnotized by his computer screen when we got back to his shop.
“I’ve got something, not sure what,” he said to us without looking up. I walked into his work area and looked over his shoulder. A vivid portrait of Iku Kinjo filled the screen.
“You got what I wanted,” I said.
He looked up at me.
“You sure? The skin tone doesn’t look right.”
“Her father was African-American. A soldier.”
“Shoulda known. I got a big dose of that myself. On my mother’s side.”
“And you’re just as pretty, Randall. Give me a half dozen copies.”
In a few minutes we were out of there with a big white envelope stuffed with pictures of Iku. The whole experience made me feel as if the world had surged abruptly into the future without me—caught unawares and preoccupied with the Little Peconic Bay, questioning the point in having any future at all.
“You didn’t actually box with that young man, I hope,” said Amanda as we walked back to the Grand Prix.
“I never fight with techs. Too good at getting even.”
The first two clubs were a bust. Nobody remembered Iku or took any interest in helping advance the cause. It wasn’t worth the effort. They wore indolence as a cloak of pride. It made Amanda a little tense, glancing sideways to gauge my reaction. But I remained circumspect and polite. Pacing myself.
By the time we hit the third place, a dance club called the Playhouse, the early autumn nightlife had gained some traction. The house system was at close-to-full roar and a quorum of happily scrubbed and perfumed young aspirants were executing arrhythmic contortions on the dance floor. The men, anyway. The women moved much more fluidly, their eyes on each other, or the ceiling, or otherwise disengaged from their partners so as not to betray their amusement or horror at the situation they’d put themselves in.
I waited until we were hard up against the bar before showing around Iku’s picture. Safe haven.
“Sorry, man. Haven’t seen her. Friend of yours?” was the usual response.
“Sister.”
After a long string of blank faces, Amanda decided to take over. As if the beauty of the investigator determined the results.
“Oh yeah. My favorite look,” said the secon
d guy she approached. A bartender.
“But did you see her?”
“Oh, yeah. Love the multiracial thing. In a thousand years we’re all gonna look like Halle Berry and Tiger Woods. It’ll be Earth Beautiful. Until some recessive ugly gene takes over and we’ll have to mix it all up again.”
“So you know her.”
“Not really. Campari and soda is all I remember. Always came in with two other women and a guy. I see those three all the time. Live together at a share. All strictly Caucasoid.”
“When was the last time they were here?” I asked.
“Labor Day weekend, I think.”
Amanda stuck her thumb at me.
“Any chance they’ll be here tonight?” I asked.
“Anything can happen, chief,” said the bartender.
“I guess we’re forced to wait here at the bar,” I said to Amanda.
“No sacrifice too great.”
We ordered gin and tonics and took a position where we could watch people coming through the door. We filled the time talking about the houses Amanda was knocking down and rebuilding on Oak Point and around the corner on Jacob’s Neck. I worked for Frank Entwhistle, but occasionally consulted for Amanda. For no charge, unless you counted frequent use of her pickup truck and outdoor shower.
The Playhouse slowly filled to near capacity and the volume finally overwhelmed our ability to converse, neither of us inclined to shout over the noise about Sheetrock crews and building permits. So we settled on watching the pulsing throng on the dance floor and the people standing around and drinking, the couples entangled or ill at ease, the packs of men in baseball hats and baggy pants trying to look nonchalant as they surreptitiously scanned the crowd for targets of opportunity.
The bartender who’d seen Iku sidled up to me at the bar and put his hand on my forearm.
“There’s the dude,” he said. “Over there next to the pole. White shirt. Heineken.”
I watched him for a while. He was apparently there alone, leaning on the pole and looking out on the dance floor, but otherwise disengaged. He had short brown hair and a few days’ growth of beard. He was slight, just shy of delicate—Iku would have been close to his height in her bare feet. But he wasn’t a bad-looking archetype of the generic young professional class.
“What do we do now?” asked Amanda, shouting in my ear.
“I don’t know,” I yelled back.
The guy stayed put through a half dozen musical segments—I don’t know what else to call them—strung together with the non-stop thump of the underbeat. Then he put his empty bottle on a table and headed for the men’s room. I told Amanda to save my seat and followed him.
A short line formed at the door. I stood behind him until we were through and waiting for vacancies at the urinals along the wall. It was a good time to take out the picture of Iku and hold it in front of his face.
“Hey, Bobby.”
He whipped around.
“Get away from me,” he said in a strained whisper. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for your girlfriend. What are you doing?”
He pushed past me and plunged back into the crowd. I followed him across the club floor to the main entrance. He maneuvered his way through the oncoming flow and shot through the door. When I got outside he was already partway through the parking lot. I ran after him.
“Hey, just want to talk,” I called, which had the effect of shooting him into a full run. I saw him point something at a row of cars and the lights inside a Volvo sedan lit up. By the time I got there he was in the car with the engine running, his headlights blinding me as the car pulled out of the parking space and tore down the lane. I turned around and ran for the entrance to the lot, zigzagging through the rows of cars, hoping to cut him off at the pass.
Which I didn’t quite do, but as he squealed out onto the street the headlights from the other cars lit the rear of his car and I could make out the license plate. I pulled a pen out of my shirt pocket and wrote the number on the inside of a pack of matches.
A man and a woman I’d nearly plowed over on my way across the lot came up behind me.
“What was all that about?” the woman asked me.
“That guy hit my car when he was backing out. Didn’t even bother to look.”
“Fucking Volvos,” said the man, as if that explained everything.
When I got back to the bar Amanda asked me how it went.
“It went out the door and down the road. In a big hurry,” I shouted in her ear.
“Interesting.”
“You think?”
“Did he say anything?”
I told her what he’d said, as best I could above the noise.
“Odd,” she said.
“I got his plate number. I think.”
“So what do we do now? All this shouting is hurting my throat.”
I looked around the inside of the club, which was now filled with young bodies and energetic foolishness.
“We dance,” I told her, pulling her out on the floor and holding her in a traditional slow dance embrace, contrary to the pace of the music. It was the only kind of dancing I knew how to do, though empirically speaking, it was also the best.
We left after that, which I was happy to do. I was never much for nightclubs, and they made even less sense at this stage of the game. Amanda always looked great to me, but looked best when I could hear her speak, when she was animated by the conversation, whatever the content.
I cashed in my rain check for the outdoor shower before we went to bed. Cleansed by the steaming water, the pinprick stars overhead and the proximity of the sacred Little Peconic Bay, I slept hard. For once the swarm of bitter wives, alienated daughters, conniving plutocrats and light heavyweight contenders stayed out of my normally snarled dreams. Held at bay by the surge of gratitude that com mingled with the scent of Amanda’s thick brown hair and filled my mind as I let go and yielded to the night.
FIVE
I CAUGHT UP TO SULLIVAN the next day at the boxing gym in Westhampton, as I often did in the late afternoon, both of us preferring to go there after work. He was riding the stationary bike, a towel around his neck and a scowl on his face.
“I’m still unhappy about cutting that stupe loose,” he said as I approached.
“I know. I appreciate it.”
“Ross never heard anything. I hope he never does.”
Ross Semple was the Chief of Southampton Town Police. Sullivan’s boss.
“He won’t from me,” I said.
“You’ll be thanking me the rest of your life for that one.”
“So then you won’t mind doing me another favor.”
His expression stayed the same, but he sped up his pace on the bike. “Funny.”
“I need to match a license plate with a name and address.”
He smiled.
“Sure. Do you want a surveillance crew to go with that?”
“That’s okay. I’ll handle that part.”
He took his feet off the pedals and the bike slowly spun to a stop.
“Explain.”
“I found Iku’s boyfriend hanging at a club last night. When I tried to talk to him he took off. But I got his plate number.”
I stopped him before he could say no.
“There’s no official police interest in this, I know,” I said. “But so far at least two people consider this woman missing. Her boss and her big-shot lover. These are not minor connections. What if the boyfriend’s in the same boat? She was last known to be in Southampton. That’s your interest, right?”
“Jesus Christ.”
“If I can’t do this through you I’ll have to go underground. Consort with dangerous scoundrels selling license plate identities out of storefronts in the Bronx.”
“I thought you were born in the Bronx.”
“Right. The attraction will be irresistible.”
He stuck out his hand.
“Gimme the number.”
I took it out of t
he waistband of my workout shorts.
“It was a Volvo. Four-door, black, fairly new. The guy’s name is Robert Dobson. Mid-thirties, maybe a little more. Five foot nine, maybe less. Light brown hair, might have a short beard. I’m pretty certain he’s out of the City, but might have an address here as well.”
He looked at the slip of paper as if he could pull the address out of his memory.
“Why’s that?”
“He’s here all the time. Even in the off-season. Iku was last known to be here. One and one is two.”
“Could still be a renter. Part of a group. Used to be a summer thing, now you see it year-round.”
“Good thought,” I said.
“You’ll have to talk to the realtors. But if it’s a private deal, there’s no records anywhere. You’d have to go door-to-door.”
“Let’s try the easy way first.”
“What ‘let’s’? This ain’t an ‘us’ thing. It’s a ‘you’ thing.”
“I know. Whatever you can get me on the plate is all I need. Then I’ll leave you alone.”
“Right.”
I spent the next hour doing all the clichéd things you do in a boxing gym—working the bags, jumping rope, lifting weights. I’d never seen the inside of a regular gym where regular people worked out, so I didn’t know what that was all about. Having been a fighter as a kid, I’d gotten used to a boxing gym’s sweet stink and blunt-force simplicity, its sense of purpose and undercurrent of latent threat. More motivational.
I had to stop sparring on doctor’s orders. That was fine with me. I never liked the actual fighting part of the sport. Way too easy to get hurt.
In further acknowledgement of time and the looming menace of infirmity, I’d almost quit smoking, and for the first time put a weekly budget on vodka consumption. I wasn’t entirely committed to the idea and the program was still in the experimental phase. But at least it kept at bay my daughter’s carping on the subject.
When I was back in my car I made a call on my cell phone, another concession to the inevitable. This was all Jackie’s fault. She’d lent me her phone once, and I liked it so much I didn’t want to give it back. I blamed her for the new addiction even as I delighted in calling people from the front seat of a ’67 Pontiac Grand Prix.