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  For Barbara,

  Susannah, Toby, and Hadley

  PART ONE

  In fine, having quite lost his wits, he fell into one of the strangest conceits that ever entered the head of any madman; which was … that he should commence knight-errant, and wander through the world … in quest of adventures.

  —Miguel de Cervantes

  Don Quixote

  Translated by Charles Jarvis

  CHAPTER 1

  The hand holding the unfiltered cigarette was long, narrow.

  Smoke curled up from the cigarette tip in a movie poster arabesque. The ash was half the length of the cigarette, gray speckled with black, wiry-looking like the knuckle hairs.

  From a record player, not a CD, came Frank Sinatra’s 1959 version of “Stormy Weather.” The version he recorded before the Kennedy assassination. The song’s sorrow conventional, dramatic not tragic, not specific, not full of tears like the version he recorded after Dallas.

  Don’t know why—Sinatra sang—there’s no sun up in the sky …

  The hand shifted.

  Stormy weather.

  The ash fell off the end of the cigarette. A man—Harry Dickinson—cleared his throat.

  Since my gal and I ain’t together …

  Harry sang along with Sinatra, coughed, and again cleared his throat, letting Sinatra sing alone.

  Harry lay the cigarette in a chipped clear glass ashtray, found the tumbler half full of Jack Daniel’s—from the way his hand moved cautiously half an inch one way, then half an inch the other, the pinky extended ahead of the rest of the hand like a blind man’s cane, it was clear Harry wasn’t looking at the side table where the glass stood—wrapped his hand around the tumbler (Harry would have called his hand a mitt) and brought the tumbler to his mouth.

  He drank half the booze, his eyes shadowed, the light from under the old vanilla-colored paper lamp shade illuminating his upper lip, his mouth, his chin, his two-day-old beard.

  He lowered the glass. Licked his lips.

  With the back of his other hand, he wiped his mouth as the doorbell rang.

  “It’s raining all the time,” Harry sang.

  Harry’s office was a mess, a low-rent, dusty hole-in-the-wall. Brown-and-white cardboard bankers’ boxes were stacked along the baseboard of one wall. On top of them were back issues of the Springdale Union, The Boston Globe, yellowing magazines from the 1930s and 1940s—Black Mask, Dime Detective … Shelves were crammed with Forensics, Criminalistics, Shadowing and Surveillance, Gun Digest, Emmanuals’s Evidence, Correction Law of Massachusetts, Penal Law …

  On the walls hung framed movie posters: Where Danger Lives, Rogue Cop, and The Killers.

  Dusty daylight filtered in through the slats of crooked venetian blinds, bathing the office in a sepia glow.

  Harry was thirty-five with a long, seamed face, sleepy eyes, and a mouth crimped up on the right in a semipermanent, dubious grin.

  He was tilted back in his chair, his feet crossed on his desk. Next to his feet was the bottle of sour mash.

  His baggy brown suit was cut with wide lapels. His white shirt was starched. One collar tip was bent up like the corner of his mouth. His maroon tie was wide, and he wore it short, a hand span higher than his belt. His brown brogans were polished.

  Harry, the room, the whole atmosphere, evoked a 1940s hard-boiled detective movie.

  “Life is bare,” Harry sang.

  The doorbell rang.

  From an alcove, a kettle whistled.

  “Harry!” a voice called.

  A female voice, low, throaty, coaxing.

  Friday’s voice.

  “Keeps raining all the time,” Harry sang.

  The doorbell continued to ring.

  Friday—whose real name was Linda Chapin—appeared in the entrance to the alcove, holding a copper tea kettle and a jar of Chase & Sanborn instant coffee.

  She was a few years younger than Harry. With something doll-like about her eyes—as if they closed when she lay down and flipped open when she was upright.

  That was the only doll-like thing about her.

  Friday was a savvy, tough-talking, angular brunette whose hair always seemed on the verge of escaping from the knot on the top of her head.

  “Harry,” she said.

  “Gloom and misery everywhere,” Harry sang.

  “Harry!” Friday repeated.

  “Stormy weather,” Harry sang.

  “Hey, Chief,” Friday said,

  “Hold the phone,” Harry said, and he finished singing.

  “The door,” Friday said.

  She glanced significantly at the kettle in her hand.

  Harry took a drag on his cigarette and flipped it toward the ashtray. It fell short. Harry let it lie.

  The doorbell rang.

  Friday sighed, turned back to the kitchenette, and put the kettle back on the hotplate.

  “I’ll get it,” she said. She went to the door separating Harry’s office from the outer office. “You make the coffee.”

  “Happy birthday,” Harry said.

  From the kneehole of his desk, Harry took a brown paper bag, which he held out toward Friday.

  Friday said, “Oh, Harry…”

  The doorbell rang.

  Friday put the bag on Harry’s desk, smiled at him, and said, “I’ll be right back.”

  She disappeared into the outer office.

  When Harry stood, he seemed to be unwinding, not just rising but growing.

  From his desk, he took a dirty coffee cup.

  Whistling “Stormy Weather,” he crossed to the kettle. He emptied the dregs from the cup into the wastebasket and wiped the inside of the cup with a cotton handkerchief he pulled from his right hip pocket. He found a spoon on the table and scooped some instant coffee into the cup.

  Friday came back into the room.

  “Client?” Harry asked.

  “Your favorite kind,” Friday said.

  “Rich?” Harry asked.

  “Female,” Friday said.

  From the paper bag, Friday took her birthday present. As she unwrapped it, Harry picked up the kettle and poured hot water into his coffee cup.

  “Don’t know why…,” Harry sang under his breath.

  “Not again!” Friday said, holding up an army surplus ammo box, fastened with a lock.

  “Can’t crack a lock,” Harry said, “can’t be a detective.

  “I don’t want to be a detective,” Friday said.

  “Of course you do, Friday,” Harry said. “Everyone does.”

  Friday tapped the lock and asked, “What’s the combination?”

  Harry sipped his coffee.

  “It took me two hours to open my Christmas present,” Friday said.

  “This is a cheaper lock,” Harry said.

  Friday sighed and turned the knob on the combination lock.

  “Anyway,” Harry said, “you’re getting better.”

  The lock didn’t open. Friday scowled.

  “I’ll send in Miss Mysterious,” she said.

  Carrying the ammo box under her arm, Friday went into the outer office, where she put the ammo box on her desk.

  A woman stood just inside the door. She wore a severe beige suit with a wide leather belt—vaguely military—as though she were fighting a war with her voluptuous figure. Her lipstick was a little too red. And smudged on her upper lip.

  Friday jerked her head in the direction of the office.

  “Boss’ll see you,” she said.

  The woman—Carol LeGrange—entered Harry’s office.

  Friday sat at her desk. From her pocketbook, she took an emery board, which she used to file her fingertips. Like Jimmy Valentine. Then, she blew on her fingers. Eyes closed in concentration, leaning close to the lock so she could hear—as well as feel—the tumblers drop into place, she turned the lock’s knob.

  Carol hovered in the doorway of Harry’s office, a little impatiently.

  “What do private eyes always say in novels?” he asked. “‘A hundred dollars a day plus expenses. And I don’t do divorce work.’ Well, it’s one-fifty. And I’ll take any case you got.”

  “Seven-thirty,” Carol said.

  “Address?” Harry asked.

  Carol started for the door.

  “I don’t have time for this,” she said.

  Harry called after her, “What’s your address?”

  Carol didn’t turn around. She sighed. “Twelve Crescent Hill.”

/>   “A hundred-fifty now,” Harry said. “I’ll bill for expenses.”

  Carol slammed out of Harry’s office.

  Harry followed, entering the outer office just in time to see the door swing shut after Carol.

  Friday was still trying to crack the lock on her birthday present.

  Not glancing up, she said, “What did Miss Mysterious want?”

  “The usual,” Harry said.

  Friday got the last number. The lock snapped open. Harry glanced at his watch.

  “Fifteen minutes,” he said.

  “I am getting better,” Friday said.

  “But,” Harry asked, “can you do it when there’s a guy with a gun coming down the hall?”

  Friday opened the ammo box and took out her birthday present: an old book in mint condition.

  “The Thin Man,” she said.

  “Pick you up at nine,” Harry said.

  “You do,” Friday said, “and I’ll call the cops.”

  Imitating Jimmy Cagney’s nasal voice and flat vowels, Harry said, “You threatening me? Are you threatening me? Don’t threaten me. I’m in the threat business.”

  “I’ll pick you up,” Friday said. “I don’t like driving in cars older than my mother.”

  Harry blew her a kiss and headed out the door.

  Friday opened the book and read the copyright: “Nineteen thirty-four. A first edition.”

  Harry re-opened the door and grabbed his battered slouch hat from the clothes tree.

  “Harry,” Friday said, “it must have cost a fortune.”

  He fit his hat on his head at a rakish angle and left.

  Hefting the book, Friday smiled.

  CHAPTER 2

  April twilight. The smell of new-mown grass and gasoline from the cars on nearby Route 91. Springdale, Massachusetts.

  The Art Nouveau lamps along the paths in the town common were lit. Their glow illuminated the green buds of the maples. One side of the common was flanked by two copies of the Parthenon: Symphony Hall and City Hall. Between them, a clock tower that looked like it should be in the Piazza San Marco in Venice. The marble was covered with spray-painted graffiti: CAM 1, SCOOP, OZ-52 …

  Opposite Symphony Hall and City Hall was a block of old-fashioned office buildings—the kind with gilt letters arching across dusty second-floor windows.

  Harry came out of one of the office buildings. He turned right toward Main Street. Everyone he passed—a newspaper vendor, a man in a gray suit, two middle-aged women carrying Kmart shopping bags—greeted Harry with affection and enthusiasm: Hey, Harry! Harry! How you been? Harry returned the greetings cordially, with a courtly formality. He tipped his hat. Very 1940s. Their contemporary look made Harry seem odd and out of place. But there was something lovable, exuberant in Harry’s anachronistic style, something that cheered the people he passed.

  A man—Frank Emholdt—came along the sidewalk. He was about Harry’s age. But, unlike Harry, Emholdt seemed beaten down, depressed. He walked with a slump.

  “Hey, Harry,” Emholdt said. “See any suspicious characters around?”

  “They’re all suspicious, Frank,” Harry said. “That’s what makes life interesting.”

  Emholdt nodded noncommittally.

  “Take you, for instance,” Harry said. “Now, you’re an interesting fella.”

  “I’m a dentist,” Emholdt said.

  “You and I…,” Harry said. “We don’t know each other very well.”

  “We don’t,” Emholdt agreed.

  “But just about every night for the past … what? A dozen years. I’ve seen you on your way to the garage there,” Harry said. “We say, Hi, whatever, pass on our way. And just about every night, instead of going right into the garage … Instead, you walk half a block out of your way so you can pass the florist shop.”

  “That’s right,” Emholdt said.

  Under Harry’s gaze—and interest—Emholdt began to straighten up, to look more cheerful, more confident.

  “And just about every night,” Harry said, “before you get to the florist shop, you straighten your shoulders, adjust your tie.”

  “I do?” Emholdt asked.

  “I’ve wondered about that,” Harry said.

  “You have?” Emholdt asked.

  “There’s a mystery there,” Harry said.

  “There is?” Emholdt asked.

  “That’s what I tell myself: ‘Mr. Frank Emholdt … He’s a man of mystery,’” Harry said.

  “I am?” Emholdt asked.

  Emholdt straightened up even more, became even more cheerful and confident.

  “Sure,” Harry said. “At least, it’s a mystery to me. Why do you do that? Go by the florist. With the…”

  Harry mimicked Emholdt adjusting his tie. Cautiously, Emholdt looked around to make sure no one could overhear.

  “I’ve never told anyone this,” he said, “but … Rhonda Tripp. The woman in the florist shop.”

  “The blonde?” Harry asked.

  Emholdt nodded.

  “The one who always wears her hair in a ponytail,” Emholdt said. “When I was in fifth grade, I had a crush on her.”

  “And still do,” Harry said.

  Again, Emholdt nodded.

  “Harry,” Emholdt said, “I’ve been married for almost twenty years. And no one knows. No one has ever known. Not my wife.”

  “Not even Ponytail,” Harry said, “what’s-her-name, Rhonda?”

  “I haven’t talked to her since fifth grade,” Emholdt said.

  “A mystery,” Harry said. “What did I tell you!”

  Harry headed up the street.

  Emholdt watched Harry leave.

  “Me,” Emholdt said. “A man of mystery. How about that?”

  He smiled.

  CHAPTER 3

  The hallway outside of Harry’s office was lit with only three sixty-watt bulbs, each on hanging wires, which reflected from three angles onto the pebbled-glass pane of Harry’s door.

  Friday, a short red jacket under her arm, locked the door. At the end of the hall, the old-fashioned elevator whirred into motion.

  Friday started down the hall, which smelled sweet. Of insecticide.

  The elevator stopped. The door opened—and out came a man Harry’s age, but as different from Harry as he could be. Sonny Plante.

  Plante wore a Ventile hunting jacket, pre-washed jeans, and three-hundred-dollar sneakers. Working-class clothes no one in the working class could afford.

  Seeing Plante, Friday said, “Oh, shit!”

  She bolted down the stairs.

  Plante ducked back in the elevator, hit the “down” button. The door closed. The elevator whirred.

  In the lobby, yellow-stained white tile on the walls and floor, Friday rushed from the stairway just as the elevator door opened, disgorging Plante, who chased Friday out of the building.

  Plante hit the sidewalk in time to see Friday slipping into her car an old, battered Tercel—which she was having trouble starting. The motor ground and ground.

  Plante ran to the car.

  Friday locked all the doors, rolled up the windows, and again tried to start the car as Plante peered through the window, knocking on the glass.

  The motor started.

  Friday pulled away.

  Plante ran after her for a block and then stood, breathing heavily, watching the car roar off. Angry, frustrated, he kicked over a trash can.

  CHAPTER 4

  On Main Street, Harry passed a shoe-shine stand.

  The shoe-shine “boy,” Diogenes Nunez, mid-seventies, ash-colored hair, wearing a stained apron, leaned against the wall of his stand, gazing out at the street, as he had done every evening at this time for the past sixty years.

  “Nikes, Reeboks, Adidas, Etonics, New Balance, Saucony…,” Nunez said.

  Shaking his head, Harry said, “Sneakers. Terrible.”

  Harry entered the stand and sat on one of the raised wooden chairs. Nunez spritzed Harry’s shoes with cleaner.

  “Lawyers, salesmen, bankers,” Nunez said.

  Harry nodded and said, “Even doctors wear them.”

  “Used to be,” Nunez said, “a man could make a living shining shoes.”

  Harry picked up a nine-by-twelve manila envelope from the seat next to his.

  “Someone forgot something,” Harry said.

  “Must of been the guy with the boots,” Nunez said. “In here about an hour ago. Red boots. Had me polish the whole thing. Uppers and lowers. Then stiffs me, like he was wearing a pair of loafers.”