Part 17 (1/2)
”What you staring at? Your eyes look kinda weird. You bang your coconut or something? You sure you don't want me to call an ambulance?”
”Your license plate,” I mumbled.
”What about it?”
”The Garden State,” I read aloud.
”New Jersey, yeah. So what?”
”NJ. Do me a favor, name some towns in Jersey.”
”Look, Officer, I said I was sorry. There's no need to f.u.c.k with me. I-”
”Do it!” I shouted.
”Paterson, Marlboro, Newark, Trenton, Camden, Cherry Hill, Hoboken, Alp-”
”Hoboken, HNJ. Thanks, buddy.” I shook his hand and gave him a business card. ”You ever need a favor, you gimme a call.”
He looked at the card. ”I thought you were a cop.”
”I can't make up my mind.”
I got back in my car and found the parking lot Aaron and I kept reserved spots in.
Aaron tilted his head at me like a confused dog. ”It's your day off. What the h.e.l.l are you doing here?”
”I have to make a call.”
”You feeling all right, Moe? You came all the way to the Upper West Side on your day off to make a call? Everything okay with you and Katy?”
I took the box that held NYPD detective s.h.i.+eld 353 out of my jacket pocket and handed it to my big brother. ”I came to talk to you about that, but just at the moment I need to make a call.”
”Don't let me stop you. You own half the place.”
Instead of continuing to the office, I stopped to look around. Sure, I still came to this store once or twice a month, but in some sense I had moved on. Bordeaux in Brooklyn was my store now. I walked back up front and brushed my fingertips against the five- and ten-dollar bills from our first sales. And mounted just below the bills, a picture of our dad, his tentative smile an impossibly inadequate armor against the pain of his failures.
”He'd be proud, wouldn't he? Of us, I mean.” I turned to Aaron.
”Of course he would.”
Certainly more proud than he was of my career as a cop. Like Aaron, my dad had disapproved. I always suspected the watch my parents gave me when I graduated the academy was mostly my mother's doing.
Now Aaron was completely perplexed. ”Are you sure you're okay?”
”That's a popular question today.”
”And what am I supposed to do with this?” He held up the s.h.i.+eld.
”Hold on to it while I make that call. I'll be in the back.”
Judith Resnick was surprised, but not at all displeased to hear my voice. If nothing else, she joked, I deserved a commendation for persistence.
”How would you like some work?” I asked.
”Work's what we're here for. Believe it or not, Moe, I don't sit around here all day just waiting for your calls. What you got?”
”Finally something besides questions. I think I know what HNJ1956 stands for. H is the first letter of the name of a town and the NJ stands for New Jersey. The 1956 is self-explanatory. At least, I hope it is.”
”Now that's information I can do something with,” she said, brightening. ”How'd you figure it out?”
”A license plate.”
”But I thought you said-”
”Judith, it's a long story not worth telling. Take my word for it.” Then I reminded her about the kid and the bicycle, how that might help narrow the search.
”There's a lot of towns in New Jersey that start with an H, Moe: Hackensack, Hoboken, Hasbrouck Heights, Ho-ho-kus, Hillside.... Even if I were to charge you rates from ten years ago, it would still cost a lot more than a hundred and fifteen bucks. So where does that leave your theory?”
”There's a big difference. The woman who paid for the initial search knew what town she was looking for. I don't.”
”Good point.”
”I can send you a check right now to get the search going and pay the balance when you're done. Does that work for you?”
”That's fine, Moe. I'm going to get some of my people started on it immediately.”
”How much of a deposit do you want?”
”To start off, a hundred and fifteen bucks sounds about right.”
I liked Judith. She sounded almost as into this as I did, and all she had was money at stake. I didn't even have that. All I had was curiosity. I hoped that would be worth something in the end.
There was a knock on the office door.
It was my brother. ”You off the phone yet?”
”Yeah, who wants to know?”
”NYPD, Detective Prager,” Aaron burst in, holding up the s.h.i.+eld like on TV. ”Confess, punk.”
”Or what, you gonna start discussing the relative merits of varietal grapes?”
”Exactly.”
”Okay,” I said, ”I did it.”