“Yes, sir?” she said, so she figured I was one thing.

  “My name is Mitchell, Jack Mitchell. I’m looking into the disappearance of a man who works here. His name is Frank Jethroe. He didn’t come home six days ago—that’d be last Wednesday. His wife hasn’t seen him since. As far as she knows, nobody else has, either.”

  She gave me a funny look. It wasn’t the kind you’d give before you asked, Are you a cop? That was what I expected next, but I didn’t get it. Instead, she said, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

  “I don’t think ….” Then I noticed her name plaque. It said she was Barbara Woodson. Babs. I grinned my number one friendly grin. “Yeah, as a matter of fact, you do. We were at the same table at the Blue Lobster Club Saturday night, listening to Bird.”

  “That’s right! Isn’t that funny?” she said. I wouldn’t have recognized her. She wasn’t dressed to hit the clubs on Central now, either. But the coincidence distracted her enough so she never did get around to asking me if I was a cop. “What did you say his name was?”

  “Frank Jethroe.”

  Plainly, it didn’t ring a bell. “I’m sorry, Mister Mitchell, but you can see this is a big place. Can you tell me what department or unit he works in?”

  Something I didn’t think to ask his wife. Always the stuff you don’t think of that ups and bites you. “I’m afraid I don’t know. I can tell you his boss is Pat Brannegan, though, if that helps.”

  Her face lit up. “It does! That’d be Molding and Treads. Do you want me to call him and ask him if he’ll talk to you?”

  She had a switchboard, there in her booth. She put on a headset with earphones and a mike that went in front of her mouth, pulled a couple of cables out from where they were and connected them somewhere else, then waited a few seconds. She spoke too quietly for me to follow. After another small wait, she spoke again. She listened. I could see her mouth Thanks. She took off the headset and turned up her volume for me: “He’ll be here in a couple of minutes. Uh, you can smoke if you want to.”

  “Don’t mind if I do.” I took out my Old Golds. Before I lit up, I offered her the pack, but she shook her head. I sucked in smoke. I’d feel a little smarter, a little more relaxed, for a little while. Damned if I knew whether I’d be either, but I’d feel that way.

  I had time to finish the cigarette before Pat Brannegan walked out into the lobby. Well, Babs had it right; it was a hell of a big building. Red hair, freckles, broad forehead, pointed chin. Irish as they came—no doubt who he was. He wore chinos, a neat blue shirt with Brannegan embroidered by machine or magic over the pocket, and crepe-soled shoes. Not a suit; not what a guy on the line’d put on, either. A foreman type.

  I told him my name, in case the receptionist hadn’t. We shook hands. I said, “I’m looking into the disappearance of Frank Jethroe. He didn’t come home from work last Wednesday, and his wife hasn’t seen or heard from him since.”

  “Are you with the police or with the County Sheriffs?” Brannegan asked the question Babs should have.

  Not without reluctance, I shook my head. Impersonating a law-enforcement officer lands you in so much trouble, you’ve got to be desperate to think about it, much less try it. “No, I’m not,” I said. “I’m a licensed private investigator, working for Missus Jethroe.”

  “I’ve been wondering what the devil happened to Frank myself. I thought he was a pretty reliable, uh, fella till he stopped showing up all of a sudden.” Brannegan didn’t say a pretty reliable boy or anything like that. I couldn’t prove he almost did, either. He went on, “Why aren’t the police looking into it?”

  “His wife reported it to them day before yesterday. You’d have to ask them about that.” Somebody Pat Brannegan’s color grows up sure the police are there to catch crooks and help ordinary people. Somebody like Clarice Jethroe knows better.

  Sure as hell, he said, “That’s … peculiar.”

  “Isn’t it?” Was I dry? Oh, I might’ve been.

  He spread his hands. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “His wife says you and Jethroe had some kind of disagreement over something that had to do with the way the production line was going. I don’t know any of the details,” I said.

  Pat Brannegan’s smile would’ve made a used-car salesman jealous. It was that wide, that sincere, and, if I was any judge at all, that phony. “Line workers come up to the people above them all the time with ideas about how to make things go smoother or faster or better. The company wants ’em to. When we use an idea like that, the guy who suggested it gets a bonus or a raise or a promotion. But we only use a few—most of ’em don’t work out for one reason or another. Frank’s was like that, I’m sorry to say. I was the guy who had to tell him so. He didn’t take it real well, I’m afraid.”

  He sounded smooth. He sounded reasonable. So does the guy in the plaid jacket who swears the rusted-out ’35 Hupmobile he’s trying to unload will get forty miles a gallon doing 110. But I’m just a private eye. I couldn’t haul him down to the station and bust him in the head three or four times to see if he’d change his tune.

  Instead, I fished out my wallet and gave him a card. “If you remember anything else, if you get any news, please let me know. His wife and his little girls are worried to death about him.”

  He looked at it before he stuck it in the pocket under his name. Told you he was smooth. “I’ll do that,” he said, and then, after exactly the right pause, “You want anything else?”

  Before I could answer, a janitor came by with a push broom, a dustpan, and one of those trash cans on wheels. He was a little darker than Frank Jethroe, and old enough so his hair was gray. They’d pay him more than they’d give for a zombie, but you can bet not much more. The glance he gave me said he knew what I was, whether Pat Brannegan did or not. But he didn’t say nothin’. Like Old Man River, he just kept rolling along.

  Which brought me back to Brannegan. “No,” I said. “Thanks very much for your time.” We shook hands again. I nodded to Babs and headed for the door.

  I didn’t catch the god-thing looking me over when I got outside, but that doesn’t prove it didn’t. Instead of going back to the bus stop, I looked across Scrying Crystal Road. Factories as big as the US Rubber plant and some of the others in the neighborhood spawn saloons and diners and all kinds of little shops that help the working stiff unload some cash even before he goes back to where he lives.

  I jaywalked to the other side. Got honked at once, but it wasn’t close. The place I went into had EAT in red neon letters in the front window. But it was empty except for me and the guy behind the counter. Still a while till the lunch crowd.

  “What can I getcha?” the counterman asked.

  “Coffee, please.” I put a dime down in front of me.

  He poured from a percolator sitting on a hot plate. Corrosive as battery acid, even with cream and sugar. Strong, though. Strong was good.

  Halfway down the cup, I set my picture of Frank Jethroe where the dime had been. “This guy ever come in here?”

  “You a cop?” The guy gave me a once-over before he answered his own question: “Nah, you ain’t a cop. Why do you wanna know?”

  “He’s missing. His wife’s worried about him. They’ve got two kids.”

  “Ahhh, that’s a bastard. Yeah, Frank’d come in two, three times a week.”

  I’d figured he might, if he didn’t carry a lunch pail. It was the closest place to grab something quick and then get back to work. I took back Jethroe’s picture and set a dollar bill in its place. “If some of the guys he works with show up today, will you tip me a wink?”

  The counterman didn’t say anything. I put another dollar on top of the first one. My turn to wait. He made the money disappear. “I can do that.”

  “Thanks.” I finished that vicious joe and said, “Let me have another cup.” The things you have to do in my racket!

  I nursed this cup. The guy didn’t bang his gums at me. He made like I wasn’t there, in fact, which suited me fine. When it got close to twelve, I ordered a hot pastrami on rye. I didn’t expect much, but it turned out good. The pastrami was laid on thick, and it wasn’t all fat.

  While I ate, the place filled up. For a while, the counterman was as bouncy as a flea circus on a hot griddle. Then, when he slid by me with a plate in one hand and two in the other, he muttered, “Them guys under the sign.”

  “Thanks.”

  I went over to them, fighting the tide of customers coming in. Four men sat at that table, three white, one about the color of Frank Jethroe. I stood right close to the table, trying not to block anybody heading toward the counter.

  One of the white fellows said, “You need something, Mister?” It wasn’t exactly unfriendly, but it sounded as if it could get that way in a hurry.

  “A man you work with—his name’s Frank Jethroe—hasn’t been home since last Wednesday. I’m trying to find him.”

  That got their attention, all right. Before any of the white men could say anything, the Negro asked, “You with the police?” The way he asked made me guess he wouldn’t like it if I said yes.

  But I said, “No. I’m a private investigator. I’m working for his wife. She went to the police first. They didn’t want to listen to her.”

  All the white fellows seemed surprised, the way Pat Brannegan had. The colored workman didn’t. It was one of the white guys, though, who said, “Grab a chair. Talk to us.”

  I didn’t think I’d be able to grab a chair, but I got lucky. Somebody at the table behind me got up and left. I snagged his before anybody else could. Making the fifth seat at a table barely big enough for four isn’t easy, but the men who were already there scooched around enough so I didn’t stick out too much.

  “Got any proof you are what you say you are?” the black man asked.

  I took out the photo of Frank Jethroe. “His wife gave this to me. Her name’s Clarice.”

  He nodded. “I’m sold. They got a big print o’ this one in their front room.” Dollars to doughnuts none of the white guys had ever been anywhere near the Jethroes’ front room, but they went along with him.

  One of them, a tough-looking fellow in his forties, said, “Okay. What do you wanna know?” He was missing the ring finger on his left hand. War wound? Job accident? Chances were I’d never find out.

  “Was he acting different than usual before he disappeared? Was he having trouble at work? His wife said something about an argument with his boss, but she couldn’t tell me any more about it.”

  They all looked at one another. The youngest, a blond guy a year or two younger than me, said, “Buddy, if you don’t have trouble with Pat Brannegan, you ain’t half trying.” Their heads bobbed up and down in pretty good unison.

  “That’s a fact,” the colored man agreed. “Don’t help if you look like Frank or me, neither.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I said. They nodded again, raggedly this time. The way I said it made the Negro give me a second look. He hadn’t suspected. Now he wondered, at least. I went on, “What was Frank’s beef with this Brannegan?”

  “How fast the line runs. How come the machines don’t have more shields and guards on ’em. How come we don’t get more breaks. We all bitch about that stuff, but not too much, ’cause the pay’s good. Frank didn’t care. He said he didn’t want to come home in chunks.” That was the last white fellow. He looked as Irish as Brannegan, only with black hair, cat-green eyes, and skin so white it might’ve been phosphorescent.

  “It can happen. That’s how I got this.” The older man held up his left hand, so I learned how he got hurt after all.

  “What did Brannegan tell him?” I asked.

  “To shut his damn mouth and do the damn work,” the Irishman said.

  “Brannegan, he didn’t used to be so bad,” the Negro said. “Past few months, though, he’s turned hincty as all get-out.”

  “He jumps at his own shadow, too,” the guy with nine fingers put in, proving he didn’t know what hincty meant.

  “Was he arguing with Frank at quitting time Wednesday?” I asked.

  “Not then, but earlier in the day,” the young blond fellow said.

  “Frank and me, we headed for the bus stop, ’cause we ride the same one to the trolley line,” the Negro said. “He stopped to take a leak, though. The bus came up right when I got there. He wasn’t there yet. I reckoned he took the next one. Guess not, though. That was the last time I seen him.” He sadly shook his head.

  I got their names—well, the names of three of them. They weren’t senior enough to have them on their shirts. The colored man was Alonzo Horton. The guy with the missing finger was Carl Angeletti. The Irish looking fellow was Bob McGraw. And the young blond man didn’t want to tell me. “I’m me. No offense or anything,” he said.

  “Whatever you feel like,” I said. Not as if I could make him do anything. People in my line of work don’t get to do that.

  Angeletti looked at his watch. “We better head back. You know we’ll catch it if we’re late.”

  They stood up. So did I. The diner was emptying out. Lunch looked like the place’s big moneymaker. Some people would come in for supper—bachelors who didn’t want to cook for themselves or eat close to where they lived—but fewer.

  I went to the bus stop. I knew more than I had before, but not nearly enough. I’d gone ten or fifteen miles in less than an hour. Same county. Different world.

  I stopped at the office to change clothes and say hello to Old Man Mose, then went on up to Bunker Hill. When I got there, I gave the angel a penny. He spread his wings, took me in his enormous hands, and flew me up to the top. He’s never dropped anybody. I know I told you that before. All the same, I couldn’t help thinking, Always a first time.

  What I had on said I was a workman. God knows the places up on Bunker Hill need work these days. I carried a metal case in my left hand. It might’ve held tools. In fact, it did, but some were the tools of my trade, not the kind a plumber or dowser or carpenter would use.

  Walk around like that and you might as well wear a tarncape. You’re as good as invisible. No one pays any attention to somebody who looks like a repairman on his way to do a job. What does he look like? A guy. What’s he wearing? Clothes. Is he holding anything? Who notices? Who cares?

  A beat cop galumphed right past me without looking my way. Beat cops get paid to be suspicious. They’re good at it. But they aren’t as good as they think they are. As long as you don’t do anything out of the ordinary, you don’t register on their crystal.

  I stopped at a light pole across the street from the place where Jonas Schmitt lived. It was an iron tube, painted the same color as the uniform I’d worn. A little iron door, about head high, let somebody who needed to fix something get inside. One of the tools in my case was an adjustable wrench. I undid the nuts that held on the door and reached in for all the world as if I were supposed to.

  I fiddled around. I shook my head, as if the job were giving me more trouble than I’d expected. I sat down on the curb and smoked an Old Gold. If a workman grabs a smoke, so what? I ground out the butt under my heel and kicked it into the gutter. It had company there. I went back to work.

  Nobody who did happen to watch me would have been able to say I was eyeballing the place across the street. I looked as if I were looking into the hole, which was on the sidewalk side of the light pole.

  A woman walking a wirehaired terrier came by. The dog wanted to stop. The woman didn’t want to listen to his reasons. “Get moving, Vernon,” she said, and rolled her eyes at me. I grinned, the way you would. Vernon got moving, even if he didn’t much want to. Hell of a name to slap on a poor mutt.

  Thirty feet farther along, the terrier lifted his leg against a telephone pole. Now the other dogs’d know he’d passed through. If he was lucky, they wouldn’t know he was called Vernon.

  After he and his person turned a corner, I sat down on the curb for another smoke. Detective work is gambling. You show up where you think something may happen. Once in a while, it does. Mostly, you waste a couple of hours. If you aren’t patient, you’ll never make a snoop.

  I figured I’d stick around another forty-five minutes, maybe another hour, then give it up and try again some other time. An hour and ten minutes later, I parked on the curb with one more Old Gold. Anybody who knows me will tell you I’m a stubborn so-and-so. That was it, though. I’d finish this one and call it a day.

  And I got lucky. Out of the place that had seen better years came not just Schmitt but Schmitt and Marianne Smalls. A so-long scene if I’d ever watched one.

  Quick as a snake, I grabbed a miniature camera from my case. Half the size of the palm of my hand, but it uses 35mm film and takes good pictures. I got it off one of the fylfot boys, a major, a few miles south of Milan a week before the war ended. He’d never need it again, that was for sure.

  Schmitt and Marianne were too wrapped up in each other to give a damn about the fellow across the street goofing off on the job. They wouldn’t hear the clicks the camera made; I could barely hear ’em myself. At last, Marianne tore herself loose from the piano man and headed off towards Angel’s Flight. Schmitt stood watching her backfield in motion for a few seconds, then went inside again.

  Me? I was in no hurry now. I had what Lamont Smalls wanted—some of it, anyhow. Not in a hotel room or through Schmitt’s window, but if he wasn’t busy alienating her affections, nobody ever was.

  Before I left, I put the little access door back on the light pole and made sure I fastened it good and tight. You don’t want to do any damage while you’re out there looking busy. That taken care of, I stuck the wrench in my case. I used the lid as a shield so nobody could watch me unloading the camera, then put the film in my pocket. I went back to the angel myself.

  Most of the time, he gets pennies or nickels. He’s not a businessangel, always out for profit. What he makes for flying somebody up to the top of Bunker Hill or down to the bottom has to be worth something, but it doesn’t have to be worth much. I pulled a quarter out of my pocket and gave him that. If I had money, I was going to enjoy it.