“You said there was something I could do about—”
“Way ahead of you, kid.” He handed me something that looked like a skinny tube of lipstick. “Just fill in the scar with this. Not too much; you want it to look natural. The scar’s so white you really can’t see it until you’re up close. Unless you get a flashbulb exploding in your face, nobody’ll even notice. I even got you a present.”
He handed me a long, narrow little box. Inside, a pair of glasses. I put them on. But I didn’t see anything different.
“ ‘What’re these for?’ is what you’re thinking, am I right?”
“Yeah. I mean, it’s not a … disguise or anything.”
“No? That’s exactly what it is. These glasses, they got no prescription. Just plain glass. With a tiny little bit of tint, like the ones they make for indoor-outdoor. You know, the brighter it gets, the darker they get? Go look at yourself in the mirror over there.”
That’s when I saw what Solly meant. The glasses didn’t change my face or anything, but you couldn’t see my eyes through them. I mean, you could see them, but not good enough to see the colors.
“Get used to them,” Solly told me. “I got three more for you, exactly the same. Wear them all the time. After a while, it’ll be just like brushing your teeth in the morning.”
“Thanks, Solly,” I said. And I meant it—compared to Solly, I was still an amateur.
I was unlocking my car when the woman came out.
“Those look good on you,” she said.
“What?”
“The glasses. When did you start—?”
“Oh. No, I always wear these,” I told her, “they’re prescription.” This one doesn’t miss much. “But it takes a while to make them up in the flexible frames I like. I just got these back.”
“You work some strange hours,” she said.
“Yeah, I do.” Nosy, too. “But that’s what this business is. The people I train, they’ve got important stuff to do. If I want to make a living, I need to understand that their schedule’s more important than mine.”
“I guess that pays pretty good.”
“Better than you might think,” I told her. I had a decent bit of cash upstairs. Not hidden, like I had done with that closet years ago, just stuck in different places, like one of my jackets and my gym bag. I figured she’d find it anyway. I was worried about snooping, not stealing, and I figured not having loose cash around would only make her suspicious.
“It sounds like you never have too much time for yourself.”
“Sure, I do. See, I work whatever hours the clients want, but that’s only when they’re here. In New York, I mean. They go away, I do, too. Like a long vacation. One time, I was gone almost three months.”
“Wow!”
“Well, like I said, they pay good. And I’m careful with my money; I don’t throw it around. If you don’t waste money on … things, you know, then you can pretty much travel anywhere you want.”
“That sounds—Ah, I’m holding you up, aren’t I?”
“A little,” I said, looking at my new watch. It gets a signal from some atomic station, and it’s always on the nose. It wasn’t flash, either.
“Well, nice talking with you.”
“Me, too,” I said. Then I got behind the wheel and turned the key. She walked back into the house like she was sure I’d be watching.
“Do you have an appointment?” the girl behind the glass-top desk asked me. She was slim, dark-skinned, with shiny black hair. She wore it pulled up, held with a little heart-shaped diamond clip.
“No, I’m sorry. A friend of mine told me about Mr. Ramirez, and I thought I’d ask him about this … thing. I guess I should have called.”
“Well … he is working on a very important case. A brief to the United States Court of Appeals. But let me just try.…”
She punched a number. Talked in Spanish. So fast that I couldn’t even make out a single word. I only know a couple of words, anyway—everyone who’s done time knows those.
The conversation went on too long. By the time she said it was okay to go on back, I figured out that she was the lawyer’s girl, not just some secretary.
He stood up when he saw me come in. Reached out his hand. I shook it. He made a little move, telling me to sit down across from him.
First thing I did was slide one of my business cards across to him. He glanced at it. Nodded to tell me he got the message—he’d never seen me before.
It was a seriously upscale office. Thick carpet on the floor, real wood on the walls, big window behind him. My money was on one-way glass.
“Look at the door behind you,” he said.
I turned, saw it had some kind of thick padding on it.
“Soundproof,” he said.
“Nice.” I doubled my bet on the one-way glass in his window.
“Gloriana said you wanted to see me?”
“Yeah. I want to do something, but I can’t do it myself. It’s completely legit, only I’m not the kind of guy who can go around doing it without taking a chance.”
“So mysterious?”
“Nah. I’m just … I don’t always know how to make things sound the way I want them to come out.”
“Ah?”
“I need to hire a private eye. A good one. Probably the kind a high-class lawyer like you would use on a big case.”
“You want this private eye to do … what?”
“I just want him to find somebody.”
“Somebody around here?”
“I don’t think so. I really don’t have very much to go on.”
“Tell me what you have.”
I did that. Gave him all the scraps Solly had, plus a description. I’m good at stuff like that. I see something once, and I’ve got it forever.
Jessop was a little taller than me, probably six four or so. We’d both been wearing the same kind of work boots, so I figured the measurement was right. I was about two sixty-five then, and Jessop was maybe a hundred pounds short of that.
That job had been hard work. Hot as hell. After a while, we took our shirts off. Then I could gauge his body real easy. Skinny, but all muscle. Not pop-out muscle; all ropy, like.
I thought me and Big Matt were going to do all the heavy work, and they’d picked this guy because he was skinny enough to slip through places we couldn’t fit. But he was seriously strong, pulled his weight. I guess Albie must have known that he could.
Jessop had some ink, but you couldn’t tell much from it. Confederate flag on his chest, right over his heart, but no “88” or shamrock or other race stuff.
It looked professional, that tattoo. He had outdoor skin, too. If he’d ever been Inside, it was a while ago.
Dark-brown hair, cut pretty short, like a businessman. Dark eyes. Kind of a big nose, but nothing that’d make you look twice. The little finger on his right hand was crooked, like it was broken once and never set right. Long fingers, thin wrists. A rip scar on his left forearm—the kind you get from blocking a blade.
If I had to guess, I’d say he was somewhere around my age. No way this was his first job: he knew how to use tools, and he lifted with his back. Never tried to pick up something he didn’t think he could handle.
Didn’t talk much, but none of us did, so I didn’t know if he was naturally closemouthed or just being a pro.
He wasn’t from New York, that was for sure. I don’t know how people talk in Florida—that was where Albie lived—so he could be from there, maybe.
He was the kind of guy, you walk in a poolroom, he’s waiting for you. When I tried to picture what he did when he wasn’t working, I could see him doing that. He didn’t look like a gambler.
“Would this person know you?” the lawyer asked me.
“Yeah.”
“Even in your new glasses?”
Showing off? I didn’t know. I just said “Yeah,” again. I figured that was smarter than telling him a story like I told the girl who owned the house I was staying in. On this slicks
ter, it would never fly.
“So you’d know him?”
“No question.”
“Say we could get a picture …?”
“That would do it. For me, I mean.”
“If he’s got a record—and I’m thinking he probably does—shouldn’t be that hard to find. Okay, so this person gets … located. What then?”
“Well, if your guy could find out some other stuff, that would be good, too.”
“Such as?”
“Like you said, if he had a record. Or if he was a drunk. Or a junkie. Things like that.”
The lawyer touched that pencil mustache of his. “Anything that might make him, should we say … unreliable?”
“Uh-huh.” Damn, I remember thinking, this one’s got a fucking stiletto for a brain.
“Mr.… Wilson, is it? Mr. Wilson, is it correct for me to assume that should he be located nothing is going to happen to this individual?”
“Absolutely.”
“No … difficult questions you want to ask him?”
“Not a one.”
“You understand, in such a situation, the investigator would be working for me, but you would be the client, yes?”
“Sure.”
“And you understand there is no way I could claim I haven’t met you before?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“And the reason you want this person located?”
“An old friend of mine—I mean old-old, he was like eighty-something—he died. While I was Upstate. This guy, the one I want to find, I heard he and my friend were close. My friend, he wanted to be buried in Arlington. You know, the place where—”
“So he was a veteran, your friend?”
“Yes.”
“So you’re not certain his final wishes have been carried out? And you believe this gentleman might know?”
“Exactly,” I said, trying to say it like Solly would.
“Very good,” the lawyer said. “You understand that you’ve really provided very little by way of information, yes? So this could take a while.”
“And time is money, I know. But this is real important to me.”
I left my new cell-phone number with the lawyer. And ten large in hundreds.
I was in the middle of a workout the next morning when I heard someone coming up the back stairs. Before I could … I can’t say what, exactly, because I wasn’t ready for anyone knowing about the place.
Which makes me stupid.
Then I heard, “It’s just me.” The woman from downstairs.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Wilson,” she said, when she was standing in the front room, where I’d been working out. “I wanted to ask you something, and I thought it would be silly to call, since I could see you were home. I mean, from your car and all.”
I just looked at her.
“I didn’t want to ring the bell, either. In case you were asleep. Or on the phone.”
I put down the weights.
She ran her hands through her hair. Looked like she’d just washed it. She was wearing a white tank top and black stretch pants—I couldn’t see her feet because she was still on the staircase.
“And … well, you know how people are. I wasn’t going to use the outside steps. The old lady who lives right across the street, she’s like Neighborhood Watch. Sits there all day, watching.”
“You wanted to ask me something?”
She took that as inviting her to come the rest of the way up. I saw where her shoulder came to on the wall above the railing—she was maybe five two, at the most.
“More like a professional opinion,” she said. “Now, I know, this must happen to you all the time. Like at parties: people find out a man’s a doctor, they start asking him all their medical questions. I apologize if … if I’m doing that.”
I stepped back, making it like I did that so I could sit on the couch, get some distance.
But she came closer.
“Could I ask you a personal question?”
“Uh … okay.”
“How old are you?”
“Forty.”
“Well, what it says on your license, you’re only thirty-nine. I mean, you were born in 1970. December. This is still only July, so you’re not forty yet, right?”
“On my next birthday.”
“I know. I was just … I mean, I didn’t believe you were that old when I first met you. But I guess, being a personal trainer and all …”
I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t trying to stare her down, or even make her uncomfortable, but I didn’t want her coming up here all the time. I was glad I had the glasses on.
“I’ll bet, if you asked a hundred people who were about to turn forty how old they were, ninety-nine of them would say thirty-nine. Maybe all one hundred.”
I shrugged. That’s what I do when I can’t see where someone’s going.
“It’s not the age you are, it’s the age you look, isn’t that true?”
“On the outside, maybe.”
“Well, I bet for the people you train that’s what’s important to them.”
“Oh sure,” I told her. I was a lot more comfortable now that I could see where she was going. “Yes, it would be. But there’s a lot more to it than losing weight. Like cardio. And eating right. I guess it’s more about being healthy than looking … younger, or whatever.”
“Could you tell by just looking at a client what they’d need for a … a program, right? Isn’t that what you call it?”
“Yes. A program, I mean. But you can’t tell anything by looking at someone. You need a body-mass index for that,” I told her.
I could feel the confidence in me, now that I knew she wasn’t asking her questions to check my credentials. The more a person is paying attention to themselves, the less they pay to you.
“Are you saying you can’t tell if someone is too fat?”
“That wouldn’t be my decision.”
“I don’t understand.” She walked over to where I was sitting, hesitated a second, then sat down in the armchair to my right. She crossed her legs. I could tell she was pressing down hard over her knee, because her thigh pulsed. She was barefoot. Small feet, high arch. Shoulders back, spine straight.
Posing.
If I didn’t say anything, she’d think I was going along, looking her over. So I told her:
“If someone thinks they’re too fat, that’s what counts. Or too skinny. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks; if someone’s … dissatisfied with themselves, that’s enough. But nobody should go into training because of what other people think.”
“Really? Then how come so many movie stars have all kinds of plastic surgery?”
“I don’t know any movie stars, so I’d be guessing, but I’d still come down on the same spot. Maybe, for them, it’s still about what other people think, only there’s a lot more of those people.”
“But that’s dangerous, isn’t it? Botox in your face, collagen in your lips, that’ll cost you in the end.”
I could tell she wasn’t asking a question, so I just nodded.
“Even liposuction, people die from it sometimes.”
“I guess so. I don’t know anything about stuff like that. My clients make their own goals—it’s my job to make up a program so they can reach them.”
“Well, my husband is always telling me I’m too fat.”
I shrugged again. She was headed back to a place I didn’t want to go.
“He thinks what I do is just sit on the couch all day and watch TV. You know what ‘secretarial spread’ is?”
I shook my head, hoping that wasn’t some personal-trainer stuff I should have known about.
“It’s what girls get from sitting all day. Kind of spreads them out, so they take up more room.”
“Oh. Yeah, I … guess so.”
“Well, see, that’s what I was. A secretary, I mean. In fact, I worked for my husband. He wasn’t complaining about my fat ass back then, believe me.”
I made some sound, just enou
gh to tell her I was listening. Anything I said out loud would be a mistake—I knew that much.
“I don’t think he says it to be mean, but it kind of hurts my feelings, you know? And he … well, maybe he’s thinking he didn’t get what he paid for?”
“Paid for?”
“I just mean I’m not the same girl he married.”
“How could you be?”
“What does that mean?”
“Nobody stays the same forever. Does he look just like he used to?”
“Charley? You must be joking. Oh, that’s right; you’ve never even met him, have you?”
“No.” I said it the same way you’d say a weather report. I didn’t want her to think I didn’t want to meet him, but I didn’t want to talk to him, either.
“It’s not the same for men,” she said. “They can get fat and bald and … anything they want. It doesn’t matter. That’s if they’ve got money, I mean.”
“I guess that’s so.”
“But I don’t want to be unfair. Charley treats me like a princess. Anything I want. So, I was thinking, maybe he makes those cracks—you know, like I said before—maybe he’s just trying to make sure I’m like you said. Healthy, right?”
“That’s what I said, sure.”
“But it would be a great present for him, too, don’t you think?”
“That kind of thing never works,” I said. Not a chance in the world I was going to let myself be played into training her husband—I’d end up having to move.
“But you just said—”
“Sure. But when you give someone a gift certificate for training, most times they kind of resent it. And even if they do show up, they’re not really motivated. Once they see how hard it’s going to be to really reshape themselves, they don’t stay with it, anyway. So you’d just be wasting your money.”
“Not for Charley, silly! I mean, yes, it’d be for Charley, but the present wouldn’t be some gift certificate; it would be me.”
Stepped right into that one, you fucking mope, I was thinking, but I didn’t say anything, just tried to look surprised.
“You know what my measurements were when I first went to work for Charley? I was a C-cup thirty-seven, twenty-four, thirty-eight.… I guess I was always a little hippy. I weighed a hundred and nineteen pounds. That wasn’t so long ago—our tenth anniversary is next year. You know how much I weigh now?”
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