Peter Spiegelman - Red Cat

“Did you ever meet any of the players?”

“There was a guy who came here.”

“What guy?”

“An actor, from the group. He drove her up here a couple of times, to pick up some of her things. I think they were seeing each other.”

“Gene Werner?”

Deering shrugged. “It could’ve been. I don’t remember.”

“When was this?”

“The first time? A couple of years ago, maybe. And then again last summer.”

“This past summer?” He nodded. “Do you remember what he looked like?”

Deering tugged at the cuffs of his flannel shirt and thought about it. “A tall guy, with brown hair, long I think, and a little goatee. Handsome guy, looked like he could’ve been an actor or something.” Gene Werner.

“And he’s her boyfriend?”

“It seemed that way.”

“Have you seen him since then?”

“Just those two times.”

“Did she ever bring anyone else here?”

A log popped and crumbled in the fireplace, and Deering started. He shook his head. “She barely comes here herself.”

“Not for holidays or birthdays?” Deering shook his head. “When was the last time she was here?”

He squinted at me again and shrugged. “Maybe in the summer, when she came up with that guy, or maybe there was a time after. Whenever, it was a while ago. Months.”

“Would your wife remember better?”

The thought that I might ask her horrified Deering. “The summer was the last time- I’m pretty sure.”

“How about friends in town? Are there any she’s in touch with?”

Deering took off his glasses and cleaned them on his shirttail. “Not that I know of,” he said.

“How about people from college?”

Deering shrugged vaguely. “Sorry,” he said.

I nodded. “And Holly doesn’t go to Brookfield, to visit her father?”

Deering blanched. “No,” he said.

“How do you know?” I asked. He peered at me. “I mean, how would you know if she just went up there to see him?”

Deering shook his head. “She wouldn’t. She has nothing to say to him.”

Another log collapsed in the fire, and Deering and I watched the ash and embers drift. “What happened with Holly that she doesn’t talk to her family?” I asked after a while.

Deering gave another cautious glance around the room, as if someone, maybe Nikki, might appear in the doorway. He pinched his blurry chin between thumb and forefinger. “It’s just one of those things,” he said quietly. “The parents fought a lot and the girls chose sides- Nikki with her dad and Holly with her mom- and then their mom died, just when Holly was starting high school. That’s a tough time for a kid, and Holly’s been angry ever since- at Fredrick, at Nikki, even at their mom. As long as I’ve known her, she’s been mad at pretty much the whole world.”

Deering stared again into the dwindling fire. Outside the window, snow was starting to fall.

The storm started slowly, and with no wind, and though the roads were crowded with people fleeing work or school, or making last, desperate runs to the supermarket, I returned to the city without incident and returned my rented car in one piece. Back in my apartment, I listened to a message from Clare-“I’ll be over later, snowshoes and all”- then I poured a glass of water and opened my notebook.

A lifetime ago, when I’d been trying merely to locate Holly Cade, Gene Werner hadn’t returned any of my telephone calls. Ultimately I’d been able to get where I was going without his help, and I’d had no need to push. But that was then. Now I knew that Werner and Holly had been seeing each other as recently as last summer, and now Jorge Arrua’s vague description of Holly’s belligerent old boyfriend-“white guy with dark hair, in his thirties…tall”- sounded less vague. I leafed through my notes until I found Werner’s phone number and address.

A deep, newscasterly voice came on the line, but it was just his answering machine, apparently back in working order. I left another message. I looked at his address, on West 108th Street. I looked outside, at the city going white, and decided what the hell. I put on jeans and boots, and a parka over my turtleneck. I left a note for Clare, and headed for the door.

The snow was coming harder when I stepped outside. My hair was white by the end of the block and frozen by the time I walked down the subway stairs at Fourteenth Street. When I walked up again, at 110th Street and Central Park West, a wind was blowing and streetlights were coming on. I headed south and west.

Werner’s block was a mixed bag- a few lovingly restored seven-figure brownstones, a few of their beaten, boarded-up cousins, a seventies-ugly housing project, and an even worse senior center from the 1980s- all bookended by slouching brick tenements. There was a coffee shop at one end of the street and a pizza parlor at the other. Werner’s building was in the middle, a four-story brownstone, not boarded but by no means restored. It was soot-streaked and the front door was wire glass and metal bars. The intercom was outside, mounted in the recessed doorway.

There were three apartments to a floor; Werner was in 2-B. I leaned on the button but got no answer. I tried his neighbors and got the same. I stepped back from the building and looked up. All the second-floor windows that I could see were dark. There was a narrow passage between Werner’s building and the one next to it, and I could see a side door about twenty feet along, under a security light, but the alley was protected by a high metal gate that no one had been considerate enough to prop open with a coffee cup. I pulled out my cell phone and tried Werner’s number again. Again the machine. I dropped my phone into my pocket and walked to the corner and into the pizza place.

There were a half-dozen tables, all empty, to the right as I came in, and to the left a counter. The guy behind it was rolling out dough and listening to forrГі on a loud radio, and he barely glanced up when I came in. I ordered a slice and a Pepsi, and he slid a large piece of pizza into the oven and filled a tall cup with ice and soda. I took the cup to a table by the window and waited for my pizza and stared through the snow at the front of Werner’s building.

I made the pizza last, and the soda too, and the whole time I ate, I saw only one person pass through Werner’s door. She was a small, round woman, with a long, puffy coat and frizzy hair exploding from under a white knit cap, and she was inside the building before I could make a move. A minute later I saw a light go on on the top floor. I was throwing out my greasy napkins when the second person came along. He wore a red parka and he was tall, and underneath the snow on his head, there was dark hair. He had two sacks of groceries, and he set them on the sidewalk as he dug in his pockets. I ran out the door, zipping my coat as I went.

“Gene,” I called, as I crossed the street. He didn’t look. “Hey, Gene,” I said again, coming up beside him.

He pulled a heavy key ring from his pocket and stooped for his bags. He looked at me curiously.

“Huh?” he said.

Unless Werner had developed an overbite and bad acne scars since Terry Greer’s bar snapshots had been taken, this wasn’t him. “Sorry,” I said. “Wrong guy. I was supposed to meet Gene, but he hasn’t shown up yet. Gene Werner- you know him?”

A wrinkle of distaste crossed the man’s face. “I know who he is.”

“I was supposed to meet him here half an hour ago. Have you seen him around?”

“Not lately,” the man said. He slid his key into the lock and pushed the front door open. I followed behind him and stepped into the doorway. He turned and elbowed the door shut. I stopped it with my foot.