Mikhael hadn’t come for Freddy’s things. It had been more than a week since his note and still no sign of him, no sign of her. Steve Jenkins had sent a man over to the apartment and I had moved him into Brianna’s room. He’d been there for five days when Captain Jenkins came by himself to check on things.
"Nothing yet," I told him. "But you know that already."
"Yes, we do," he said. I motioned to him to sit down, but he remained standing.
"I have a few additional questions for you, Max, may I call you Max?"
"Sure," I said and I knew what was coming next.
"Good. And, please, call me Steve."
I nodded, knowing I probably wouldn’t.
"Go ahead," I said.
"Well, first of all, Max, and this is a big one....this Mikhael...this husband of hers...."
"I don’t believe that. I think that’s a lie, Steve," I almost shouted this, more alarmed at my use of his first name than at the statement.
"Well, let’s call him the boyfriend, then, just to keep it kosher, okay? This guy Mikhael...have you seen him lately, anywhere?"
"No. Not for over a year."
"But you’d know him if you saw him again, I suppose."
"We were all kids together," I said softly, "and I’d know him anywhere."
"Good. I may have to ask you to come and take a look at someone...see if you can identify him."
"What does that mean?"
"We’ll get to that."
I nodded again, not knowing why I did it.
"You’re girlfriend, his girlfriend, whomever...still no word from her, I assume?"
"None."
"Any idea where she might have gotten to?"
"I thought she might have gone back to London, actually. Freddy’s always been meticulous about finishing whatever she starts to do and her job wasn’t completed when we came back to New York."
"Can you check on that yourself?" Steve asked me.
"I haven’t done it. It’s awkward. I left a ... situation there and I don’t want to reopen that door."
"I see." He took out a small notebook and wrote something down in it. I tried not to strain my neck hoping to catch the turn of his hand, a dotted ‘i’ or a crossed ‘t’ or any other hint about his comment to himself.
"Is there something else?" I asked him.
"Yeah. In a minute, Max." He kept writing. Then he stopped, let his right hand drop to his side while his left held that notebook close to his chest. "Here’s the thing, Max," he said, "if she went back to London and you can find that out, you should. It would save the taxpayers a lot of money."
"I understand that," I said.
"Would you make the call, please."
"Well, what if I made the call, but you asked the questions," I suggested.
"I could do that. I would have to say where I was and how I got the number and the person at the other end might want to speak with you, though."
"I couldn’t talk to him."
"And why is that?"
"I left in a hurry."
"Did he know the situation?"
I paused before answering. "Some of it," I said guardedly. "He knew my parents had died."
"He wasn’t aware of your relationship with the woman."
I was cautious. I think I cast my eyes down for the second it took me to answer. "No."
"And she was his girlfriend at the time?"
"No." I think that sounded more quizical than the first ‘no.’ "She was working for him. She’s an architectural designer."
"Okay. Then the problem is.....?"
"Let’s just say, Steve, that my friendship with the man was souring."
"Souring." The word sounded odd in his voice.
"Yeah, souring. We weren’t the friends we had been."
"Would you care to tell me something more concrete about this friendship, Max?"
"It’s not germane," I said quickly.
"This is a police investigation, Max. There’s no such thing as not germane."
"Let’s make that phone call, Captain Jenkins. Let’s do it right now." I was suddenly eager to do this, to have it out and finished, to let Drew know that I wasn’t coming back there, ever.
I reached for the telephone and picked it up, removing the receiver and about to dial when the policeman at my side took the instrument from me and hung it back up.
"You don’t have to do this, Max. It’s done."
"Excuse me?"
"It’s done. I already spoke to Mr. Drew Hatton in London. We found his name through the firm your friend works for here in New York. I was surprised when he asked me about you before answering my question about her."
"What did he say, exactly?"
"Oh, interested in him now, are you?" The cop smiled, almost smirked I thought. "Well, let’s see. He asked if you were here and how you were. I thought that was a nice touch. He asked me if you and ‘Freddy’ were a couple. That made me curious, too. Are you?"
"We have been," I answered cautiously. "But he wouldn’t have known about that. We didn’t share that with him."
"Why not? Sounds natural to me," he said.
"Yes. Of course it is. Very natural."
"And you’ve been friends since childhood."
"Yes. Did you ask Drew about her? Was she there? In London?"
He shook his head slowly. I didn’t know which question he was answering.
"She’s there?" I asked again, hoping for an affirmative answer.
"No. She didn’t return to him either."
"What do you mean by that?"
"He wanted to know if you were all right, how you were holding up under the loss of your parents, if he should come over and be with you?"
"He was a good friend to me."
"Was he? Or was he something else?"
"He was a friend."
"Not something closer than a friend?"
"What are you getting at, Captain?" I knew I was sounding strained now. I couldn’t help it.
"I have a file in my office, Max, about your parents, your sister, you."
"A file? I don’t understand."
"People never get it. They think that as long as they keep clean and quiet that no one pays attention to them and their little dirty business."
"This is...." I got no further with my protest.
"The authorities aren’t stupid, Max. So much more is noted than any citizen would ever believe. Your mother, did you know this, was arrested back in 1942. She might not even have told your father about it, but it’s true. One of her - let’s say clients - filed a complaint about her and she was picked up and taken in for questioning and she spent a night in jail. We had to let her go, it says in the file, because the complaint was dropped. But that opened a file. Do you know what that means in police parlance, Max, to open a file. It means that a person is no longer flying under the radar. It means that new information can be gathered from all sorts of sources and that the file grows and the information is kept."
"What do you know about us? About me?" I asked him.
"What I know is what I read, Max. That’s all I know."
"What do you know about me?"
"I know you’re not like your parents. That’s one thing I know. But I know something else about you. I know that we have different religions."
"Excuse me?" Now I was very confused.
"You believe one thing and I believe another, Max. I’m a moral man."
"So am I."
"Are you? Well, your morals and mine are very different, then. I believe that the body is a temple and is sacred and should be reserved for a single form of worship. I believe that to throw yourself at an ever-changing congregation is not a moral way to live."
"You’re bizarre, Steve," I said to him.
"I’m bizarre," he said. "I’m normal."
"I’m normal, too," I responded. "I’m so normal it kills me sometimes."
"One man’s ways are not anothers."
"Take your phony morality and get out of my apartment," I told him. "My parents were good people. They had a profession and, like it or not, they practiced it in an honorable fashion. They hurt no one. They abused no one. They took advantage of no one and they loved their children. That’s the definition of normal, Steve. That’s normal."
"Is it."
"My sister is a good woman. My grandmother was a good woman."
"The unmarried one, with the daughter who bore you?"
"My grandmother was a lady, goddammit, and you can’t make her anything less than that, no matter how much you try, no matter how often you sneer at her."
"We come from different religions, Max."
"And what does this have to do with the case, anyway? Where’s Freddy? Find her. That’s your job."
"Max, I still need you down at the station. There's something there you need to see. Later."
He looked at me with a mixture of pity and anger showing on his face. "And if we do, I’ll be back," he said. He tore out a piece of paper from his notebook and threw it down onto the floor infront of me. Then he turned and walked out of the room, out of the apartment. I left the paper on the floor for a long time, but when I finally picked it up and read it, it made me cry.
"What’s a nice boy like him doing in a place like this?" the note began. "What’s wrong with this world? This picture? What the hell can I do to change it for him? Such a nice kid."
I crumpled the note up in my hand as I stood there, tears rolling down my cheeks. I didn’t have an answer for him, and I didn’t think he wanted one.