Day Seventy
Lally went about her life the best she could for four long weeks, keeping her flight schedule, even taking on extra shifts to help the time pass.
At every layover, each new city, she talked herself out of calling Harlan.
He was doing his job, she hoped; he would call her with news.
What were the rules? How much space did you give a private detective in order not to seem too anxious, too desperate, perhaps even suspicious yourself? It was worse than dating someone new.
And wouldn’t she be so grateful if Harlan were the one to find Norman?
She imagined it would be impossible not to throw herself into his arms when he brought her the news that Norman had returned safe from Minneapolis or wherever the fuck he was.
Yes, she had gone to Harlan’s office on business, but she was still a woman.
She hadn’t seen forearms on a man like that since childhood cartoons of Popeye, and, in her lonelier moments, she could all but feel them wrapped around her.
Could she, she wondered idly somewhere over the Midwest, be falling for an actual sleuth?
Ridiculous, the very thought! Private eyes fell for the femmes fatales that appeared in their offices in desperate need, not the other way around.
Humphrey Bogart for Mary Astor. Jimmy Stewart for Kim Novak.
Jack Nicholson for Faye Dunaway. Okay, so a missing brother wasn’t exactly the Maltese Falcon, but it wasn’t nothing, either.
That day in his office, Harlan seemed moved to help, doing his best to remain rational and calm her emotions.
And so every time she would land after a long flight she would immediately turn on her phone, living a grander and grander fantasy—Norman was found just in time to be the officiant at her wedding to Harlan, who had fallen madly in love with her over the course of the search—in the moments before her phone caught a signal and she realized there were no messages.
Until one morning, in Columbus, there was.
Hello, Lally? It’s Harlan calling about our little project. Give me a call when you can. I’d like to update you where we are.
She listened to the message three times. Where we are. That meant he hadn’t found Norman; otherwise he would update her on where her brother was. But she did like the collaborative sound of “we” and “our.” They were in this together.
Lally didn’t know the protocol exactly, but when she landed at LAX she stopped in the terminal and bought a Starbucks card for Harlan’s assistant, Lyle, before exiting the airport.
Sometimes, on a cross-country flight, people left little gifts for the flight attendants.
Often they were useless crafts, a nice thought, perhaps, but one more thing for her to carry (she never dared throw them out until the next city).
Bookmarks were the only useful homemade gift.
Starbucks cards were prized—they never failed to make her day.
Easy to carry. Usable in any airport. Thoughtful.
These gestures made her inclined to treat assistants well.
A chatterbug like Lyle didn’t exactly need to be hopped up on caffeine, in fact it might be a detriment to doing his job well, but that wasn’t really her problem, and besides—it was the thought that counts.
She returned Harlan’s call when she was clear of LAX, perhaps overcautious behavior, but Lally didn’t want anyone she worked with to know her personal business, and she was always convinced that the government listened in on more calls in the vicinity of an airport.
Lyle answered on the third ring and put her straight through; Harlan asked to meet for drinks.
It was more than coffee, less than dinner, and while it might confuse someone else (was drinks a date?), she found it a thrilling invitation, fuel on the fire of her fantasy.
No dame met her private dick at Chipotle.
She quickly agreed but had another flight out early, and so she could not meet him until her next layover in two days.
He said that would allow him time to make another trip to Joshua Tree to get the most recent lay of the land and warned her he might request another small retainer when they met.
Which was fine. What was a little cash in the face of true love?
The bar he chose was located inside a restaurant with the word Stagecoach as part of its name, one of those out-of-date places with a revolving dessert case and dark wood paneling—the kind of joint that might still have a smoking section; in short, it was absolutely perfect.
Harlan was sitting on a barstool when Lally entered wearing a wrap dress she had rescued from the back of her closet, a von Furstenberg knockoff, midi length, with two chest pockets that made it look both dated and timeless.
Harlan wore a slightly different version of what he was wearing the last time they met—something men could get away with, but femmes fatales could not.
He waved to her and she smiled, quietly longing to make him over, he could use a woman’s touch, but she knew from experience it was almost impossible to ask a man to be other than he was and she was happy at least to see he had his sleeves rolled up, as if he knew the effect his forearms had on her.
Of course, what made him so attractive was that he didn’t.
She pulled her hair down as she approached the bar, doing her best to play her part, and he asked what he could get her after they shook hands.
(No wedding ring, she noticed, or tan line where one might be, making her feel equally the detective.) He was drinking a scotch, even though it appeared they were shy on single malts in favor of blended bottles with unfashionable labels like Cutty Sark.
“Pinot grigio,” Lally said, not wanting to be too extravagant; she knew whatever she ordered stood a good chance of winding up on her tab.
Harlan gestured for the bartender and in an instant a glass with a heavy pour was placed in front of her centered perfectly on a cocktail napkin.
A Sheena Easton song was piped in through the speakers: “Almost Over You,” even though when it came to Harlan, Lally was anything but. They were the only two at the bar.
“What is this place?” she asked with a grin. She offered her glass for a toast, and he raised his own to meet hers. They both sipped as Harlan looked around the bar as if taking it in for the first time.
“Oh, sorry. I like it because it’s a little out of the way.” It was like they were trading in state secrets.
“Are you kidding? No apologies necessary. A little overdone on the wagon wheel theme, but I am in love with the dessert case.” She was already debating between a slice of coconut cake and the Boston cream pie.
But honestly, why should she choose? The wine burned her throat, and she coughed once, as delicately as she could, which broke the spell of her fantasy.
“Besides, we are here about Norman. I would go anywhere for news.”
Harlan reached into his worn leather bag to produce three folded pages. He smoothed them out on the bar. In the corners they were torn like they’d once been taped. Across the top of each was written Missing. “Are any of these Norman?”
Lally leaned in for a closer look. One of them was a woman.
“Not this one, obviously,” he said sheepishly, removing the woman from the lineup. “I just wanted to show you a pattern. One is always upsetting, but people go missing. It’s just one of those things. Two is disconcerting. Three missing people in a concentrated area is a sign that something’s up.”
Lally pulled the two remaining pages closer to her skeptically, not knowing whether to hope one would be Norman or not.
They were aged, faded from the sun, and she did her best to iron them with her fist against the oak bar, but all of that was for show.
As soon as she took even a sideways glance at them, it was clear neither of the men was her brother.
If Harlan was hoping for a break in the case, sadly this wasn’t it.
She made her mouth really small, a look Norman had called the cat’s anus when they were young.
“Ah, well. Nothing’s ever that easy.”
“Do these men have families?” Lally asked, not sure why her heart suddenly went out to them. “And this woman, too?” She was described as a teacher from the College of the Desert.
“Someone made the posters and hung them all over town. These were far from the only copies.”
Lally shifted her weight, relieved that her search wasn’t derailing anyone else’s. “Should we be making one of these for Norman?” Was that what Harlan was suggesting? She struggled to remember if she had a recent photo, or imagine how she would get it to Kinko’s. If there even were still Kinko’s.
“That’s your call, obviously. You’d have to tell me if he’s lowercase missing or, you know.
” He tapped on the uppercase red lettering on one of the posters.
“At this point, maybe it’s not worth spooking your brother-in-law.
If he starts seeing these with his husband’s face plastered all over town…
” Harlan shrugged. But Lally understood the implication.
If Jesse had information she needed, she didn’t want to unnerve him or drive him further underground.
She sipped her pinot grigio; the glass was thick and heavy in her hand, the only knock against this place—a crisp wine deserved a more elegant presentation. “Is that it? What you had to show me?” Lally asked, suddenly wondering if she was getting her money’s worth.
“No, that was just…” He didn’t finish the sentence. “I’ve been staking out your brother-in-law’s house. He doesn’t come and go much. Not a lot to see.”
“He’s a writer, he works mostly from home.”
Harlan wiped a napkin across his forehead to dab at some sweat. It suited him; manly men perspired. “Yeah, I don’t think he’s doing a lot of writing.”