“He’s right here,” my grandmother said, banging through the screen door to deposit the cordless phone into my hand.
“Drayton,” I said. My grandmother stood over me, arms crossed.
“Mr. Drayton? Gordon Laws. Talked to your secretary a couple minutes ago. Nice girl. Listen, just wanted to extend my thanks personally. My son and I, lot of water under the bridge, but on account of you we have a chance to go forward as a family. My wife is thrilled. Also wanted to tell you, check’s ready for pick up, and we decided to give you a nice little bonus.”
“That’s very generous. My assistant, Katherine, she’s the one who did the lion’s share of the work.”
“Well, make sure she hears that we’re happy.”
“Will do.”
“Take care.”
“Same to you.”
“All right.”
“All right then.”
“Christ,” I said, handing my grandmother back the phone.
“Something the matter?” she said.
“No, I just owe Ben a hundred dollars.”
She shrugged and pointed at the dog. “Looking a pretty sorry spectacle.”
“She still gets around the yard,” I said.
The only way my grandmother would coexist with a dying dog was a promise from me that once the cycle was over, I’d refinish the main floor in real hardwood. My grandfather and his brothers had built the house on Laurel Street. During renovations in the late seventies, on my grandmother’s whim, they installed pink shag carpeting in all the bedrooms. Her sinuses had had to live with that decision for almost forty years.
“You will never catch me letting someone put their hand up my bum,” my grandmother said. “I’d rather be dead than that.”
“If it was Antonio Banderas’s hand, you’d look forward to it all day.”
She scowled, shook her head, collapsed the phone’s antenna and took it back inside. I rolled the ball underhand along the shadow of the clothesline. The dog, resting on the lawn, raised her head and watched the ball roll past, as though deciding if it was worth the effort.
At the office I found Katherine and Ben in the midst of an argument over some film, Ben making the kind of sweeping statement that I doubt even he believed, but said to enrage others and make himself feel edgy.
Ben vacated my chair and moved to the other side of the table. His hands were busy slicing one of my old business cards into strips.
“How’d it go?” Katherine asked.
“Ever date someone who was on the rebound, and they try to hold against you everything their ex did to them? Well, Mr. Szabo hired Aries Investigations, and based on that, he’s decided not to pursue a relationship with us.”
“Poor guy,” she said.
“Settle this for us, okay?” Ben said to me. “Orson Welles: genius or fraud?”
“Genius,” I said, settling into my chair.
“Correct. But would you watch his movies?”
“Sure.”
“But do you watch his movies?”
“Once in a while I’ll put on Touch of Evil.” I turned to Katherine. “Why, who was he saying was better? He never makes one of those grand dismissals without an equally absurd replacement.”
“I don’t know the name,” she said. “The guy who directed Speed.”
“Not what I said, I said it was a better film than Citizen Kane.” Ben rolled the strip of cardboard into a makeshift filter and affixed it to a slim joint he produced from his pocket. I scanned my table carefully and found particles of bud, mostly stems and seeds.
“Go outside to do that.”
“Not till you hear me out on Speed,” he said. He began counting the virtues on his fingers. “It’s got at least as many fully-developed characters. It’s better paced. The effects are better. It’s got as many memorable lines of dialogue. It obeys the laws of Aristotelian unity. It’s better acted.”
“Better acted,” Katherine said. “Keanu Reeves?”
The buzzer saved me from responding. On the monitor I saw Cliff Szabo start up the steep stairs. “Troll somewhere else,” I told Ben. To Katherine I added, “The bonus for the Laws job is yours provided you pick up the check from him.”
“Why so generous?” she asked, as Ben ducked out of the room, pawing his pockets in search of his Zippo.
“You did the work.”
“That the only reason?”
“It’s not the highest paying job, I know.”
“How about fifty-fifty?”
“Where I come from we don’t turn away money.”
“You just did.”
Cliff Szabo stepped past her. Katherine shut the door as she left, shooting me a look that was equal parts “thank you” and “you’re insane.”
Szabo tested the bench before sitting down. “I overreact,” he said by way of apology.
“I’d like to help,” I said.
“I’m still not sure,” he said. “What can you do the cops can’t?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing,” he repeated.
“That’s right. The police have resources and connections I can’t begin to compete with. They’re your best hope to get your son back. Any PI who’s not a fraud will tell you the same.”
“So why hire you?”
“Because, statistically speaking, the more people looking, the better. And because sometimes people get lucky.”
I gestured at the kettle. Szabo shook his head.
“Most missing persons the police find, or they come back on their own. Of the three I worked where that wasn’t the case, I found two. And both were due more to luck and patience than skill.”
“You said three.”
I nodded at the Loeb file on the corner of my table.
“I want you to understand,” I said. “The best I can do is work this efficiently and diligently. I can’t make your son appear. When you feel that what I’m doing isn’t helping, say so, but know going in that it’s expensive and time-consuming, and there are no guarantees.”
He stood up and walked to the table. He produced a thick roll of twenties, stretched the elastic around his wrist, and began counting out piles of five.
“You don’t have to pay up front,” I said.
He didn’t reply until there were six piles of five, fanned across the table like a poker hand.
“Six hundred is all the money I have,” he said.
We both looked at the money silently.
“I can also pay you ten percent.”
“Of what?”
“My