"So? What was it?" He clapped his hands together, half a dozen times, like applause during an intermission. "Come on, come on, come on. You must remember."

"I mustn't," she said. "Sit down, Mr. Stark."

He went back to pacing. "I can't. What was his name?"

"It was a weird name, not usual. Not a name I heard before."

"Unusual, likeaEzra?"

"Not Ezra."

"Jonny?"

"No."

"Fred? Richard? Tim? Jeff? Bob?"

"Bob is unusual?" Kavanagh thought about it. "But short like that. Like a clap. One syllable. Bob. Bob. Bob." Thoughtfully she clapped her hands together, trying to remember and then glanced at Jared. "Why do you want to know who it is? Is that going to help you?"

"If she's not with him, that's helpful, no? Then we know my theory is correct, something terrible's happened to her. Can't you remember?"

"No."

"What about now?"

"Don't badger me, Mr. Stark." She kept clapping her hands.

"Kai," she finally said. "It was Kai."

Oh my G.o.d. The car dealership! That salesman he hated from the first time he saw him. Oh my G.o.d. But hea "No, that can't be. That's wrong," said Jared, shaking. "That kid was barely out of high school."

Kavanagh said nothing.

It was like Jared was. .h.i.t by a fastball in the temple. She flamed up, burned through, settled down into her betrayal, over the course of sixteen, eighteen months, seventy, eighty weeks, six hundred days, mornings, nights, and all the while he lived his life, worked, slept, made love to her, as if things were normal. He felt sick. He started to retch. He was sick in the wastepaper basket.

"How old was he?"

"Twenty-one."

As he staggered out of the office and drove blindly down the street, Jared knew this wasn't Kavanagh's fault, but he wanted to blame her. Eighteen months! He couldn't imagine what he would say, but it didn't matter. Creativity in action always followed rage.

It was Tuesday nearly 1 p.m. when he stormed into the Jaguar dealership. The receptionist, a vacant-looking chick with braces said, "Can I help you?"

Wild-eyed he searched the floor. "I don't know if you can help me," he said. "Is Kai here?"

"Who? Oh, Kai. Um, no. Unfortunately he, uh, he doesn't work here anymore."

"What? Where's the manager?"

"Jim?"

"Yeah, whatever. No, Chad. He around?"

"I think so. Let me pagea""

But Jared was already walking to the business office in the back, where four men stood behind the counter, having sandwiches for lunch.

"Hey," said Chad who had recognized him. "How you doin', man? Everything cool with the car?"

"What car? Oh. Yeah, absolutely."

"So how can we help?"

"Is your salesman here? Kai?"

"No, sorry. He quit. But Gary can help you. He's excellent."

"Quit? Do you know where he went?"

"I don't. He just said he had to be movin' on. Salesmen come and go in this business. He was a young kid. He stayed a lot longer than we thought he would. What a tremendous salesman. Actually won a Jag for himself. We haven't had that happen in seven years. Traded it in, got some dough, then quit."

"I knew we should've never traded it in for him. He'd still be here."

"Well, how could we not trade it in? That's ridiculous."

"Yeah, but now what are we going to do? Our sales will be in the toilet."

"We're temporarily screwed. We gotta get someone else as good."

"No one's like him. And I'm a salesman twenty years. Takes a lot for me to admit that."

Chad and Jim suddenly turned their attention back to a waiting Jared, head lowered, fingers gnawing the counter, his own palms. "Um, everything all right? Can we help you with something else?"

"Yeah. Does he live around here?"

Chad became less friendly. "What's this about anyway?"

"Not much. Just have to ask him a quick question. I gave him a copy of my tax records. Turns out I misplaced the ori ginal. Wanted to see if he could make a copy for me."

"Your tax return from last year?"

"Yeah. Don't have it." It's a good thing they'd forgotten he was the CFO of an investment bank.

"Well, he didn't leave anything in his desk, if that's what you mean."

"You don't happen to have his cell, do you?"

"We do, but he turned off his service. We tried to call him ourselves this morning."

Jared took a step back, turned around, walked away. The receptionist became friendlier when he stopped at her station and pretended to chat with her. He was inventing small talk on the fly; it was like learning English.

"So he left, huh? Bet you miss him around here. He was good, right?"

"He was the best," she said wistfully smiling, all metal braces, name-tagged Crystal. "He really was. He was so fun, and great with the customers. We went out a couple of times. I was sorry to see him go. We all were."

"He didn't say where he was going?"

"Nah. He didn't talk much about his business. He just said it was time to start movin' along."

"Strange, right? He was so successful," prodded Jared.

"Oh, he was," said Crystal, lowering her high-pitched voice to a dog whistle whisper that grated on Jared like a tree saw on metal. "We all think something major was up. He didn't get another job, he just left." She raised her painted eyebrows. "In a hurry."

"He probably got a job at the BMW dealer down the street."

"Nah. We know those guys. He's not there. Kai would've told me."

"Well, he has to pay his rent somehow. Doesn't he live around here?"

"Yeah, right on Albright Circle, a block or two away."

"Albright what?"

"Here, let me check for youaI have his records in the computerahere it is. Albright 12. I just sent his last paycheck there on Friday."

"He didn't come in for his paycheck?"

"No. Thursday was his lasta"

Jared was already out the door.

Twelve Albright was a large old yellow house. He couldn't imagine a young kid living here unless it was with his mother. He parked in the front, knocked on the front door, knocked again loudly, waited.

She came to the door, an old woman in a housecoat, awake but barely dressed, her hair gray and mussed.

"I'm looking for Kai," Jared said.

"Who?"

"Young kid who lives here? Kai."

She shook here head. "Not here no more."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean not here no more. Paid me till the end of May, then split last week. Just like that. One day here, moved out the next."

"When was this?"

"Right before the long weekend. Paid me and split."

Jared couldn't stifle a tortured groan. The landlady looked at him funny.

"Do you know where he went?" he managed to ask.

She shook her head. "I don't ask. He pays me my money, I don't ask nothing."

Unsteadily Jared took out a picture of his wife. "Have you seen this woman around here?"

She squinted. "I don't have my gla.s.ses," she said. "There was one woman who used to come by here. Drove a sports car."

"What color?"

"What color woman?"

He grabbed hold of the railing. "What color sports car?"

"Oh. I don't know. Some funky thing. Non-descript. Like the color of water."

"I see. Thank you."

"Do you want to see the place?" she said. "Maybe rent it?"

"I don'ta"" But how do you pa.s.s that up? "Yes. If you don't mind."

"I don't mind," she said. "I'm Mrs. Sinesco. Who are you?"

"Jared."

Slowly she came down her stairs and they walked around back to the gravel lot. "What did he drive?" Jared asked.

"He had a motorbike," she said. "Very snazzy. Hid it in the garage. Loved it like a child. Bathed it every Sunday." Slowly she made it up the stairs. "I used to tell him, Kai, you gotta love somethin' else in your life like you love that bike, and he would say, why do I gotta? Gotta paint these again," she muttered, going slow, lifting her legs, clutching the chipping wooden railing. "Paint's peeling bad. Sorry about that. If you move in here, I'll paint for you. I'll give you a discount on the rent if you help. What did you say? Speak up, because I can't hear too good."

Jared was lifting his own legs slowly, clutching the railing. "I didn't say anything," he said. He crawled up the stairs like old deaf Mrs. Sinesco.

She opened the door and he walked in to the sunlit room, large and wood-floored. The place was furnished, and the bra.s.s bed stood at the wall between two windows where the white curtains fluttered. The bed was freshly made. All the personal things were gone. The bookshelves were empty, the open fridge turned off. He stumbled around, even peeked in the bathroom. All was gone. Not even a smell of her remained.

"I cleaned it real good," Mrs. Sinesco said. "Lots of bleach. To get it ready for the next tenant. It's a nice open room, don't you think? A good bachelor pad for someone."

"Yes." He grabbed on to the door.

"You okay? You want to rent it? A thousand a month."

"I'll think about it."

And he did think about it.

But he couldn't think about it too long, because he had to race from Albright Circle to make it to Michelangelo's school by 2:40. He was a few minutes late. Both the teacher and Michelangelo glared at him. "We've never met," said the teacher. "I'm Mrs. Brown."