Beyond, in the tiny apartment, Hideo heard a cacophony of doors and drawers opening and closing. It lasted less than a minute, and then Kenji was beside him.
"Empty, Takita-san," he said in Japanese. "And no katana."
"How many bedrooms?"
"One."
Hideo nodded as a sinking feeling dragged on his gut.
"The closets—any men's clothes?"
He shook his head. "Only woman's. And not much of that."
Goro and Ryo appeared, the latter holding up a framed photograph. Hideo took it and saw the old woman with her cheek pressed against that of a dark-haired, dark-skinned young man who looked nothing like Hugh Gerrish. He showed it to her.
"Who is this?"
She snatched it from him. "Mi Julio." Tears rimmed her eyes. "What has happened to him?"
"Nothing. He is fine. We have made a mistake."
"Mistake?" she said, her tone and expression growing indignant. "You break into my home and frighten—"
"How long have you lived here?"
"Since September."
Eight months. Gerrish must have moved out last summer. Hideo suppressed a curse and masked his frustration as he pulled a wad of bills from his pocket.
"We have disturbed you and wasted five minutes of your time." He peeled off five hundred-dollar bills and pressed them into her hands. "I trust this will help you forgive us."
She gazed at the bills as if he'd given her a fortune. Perhaps to her it was. To him it was merely an expense he would charge to Kaze.
What had seemed so straightforward and easy yesterday was proving digressive and difficult. He had run into obstacles, but none he could not surmount.
As Americans liked to say: Back to the drawing board.
Shouldn't be too hard to spot, Jack thought, studying the face in the photo as he walked west along East 96th Street.
He'd just left Russ Tuit, his go-to guy for all things computer. Russ had downloaded the photo, cropped out Bobblehead and the inebriated-looking Laurie, sharpened and enlarged the guy behind them, and printed it out. Still kind of blurry, but serviceable.
Hugh Gerrish had a round, florid face topped by wavy brown hair that scooped down into a sharp widow's peak. The outstanding feature was a big diamond stud stuck in his left earlobe. Jack wished he had more of a view of his body to help spot him from a distance, but this would work.
He'd checked the post time at Belmont: first race one o'clock except Fridays when it moved to three P.M. The track was closed today so he'd have to wait till tomorrow.
"Jack?"
A woman's voice. He looked around and saw a slim blonde in her mid-twenties, looking much younger because of her pigtails and her getup. She wore a white oxford shirt with a loose, askew tie, a plaid pleated miniskirt, white knee socks, and high-heel Mary Janes. Only a few of the shirt buttons were fastened, exposing her diamond-studded navel.
Jack stared, dumbfounded. "Do I—?"
She smiled and batted her heavily mascaraed, blue-shadowed eyes. "It's me. Junie. Junie Moon. We met—"
"Right-right. Gia's friend. How are you?"
They'd met last summer when Junie had been a guest at a Brooklyn party celebrating a big sale of one of her paintings. But she hadn't looked like jailbait then.
"Fine. Things have cooled down a little, but still better than I'd ever dreamed."
Nathan Lane had bought one of her paintings and publicly raved about it and suddenly her canvases were going for twenty K apiece. Jack had never seen any of her work but Gia said she was good.
"You're looking… different."
"Like it?" She struck a pose. "Marketing. All marketing." She stepped closer. "I saw Gia last week."
"You did?"
"She didn't tell you?"
"No."
Jack wondered why not.
"Must've forgot. I finally got the nerve to stop by. I'm such a slut of a friend. I mean, here she's been like my big sister for years, but I couldn't bring myself to stop by after the accident. I just couldn't stand seeing her hurt."
"She's pretty much back to normal now."
Junie shook her head. "Not really."
Jack felt a sinking sensation. "What do you mean?"
"Her art, my brotha. Her paintings. They're…"
"She showed you?"
"Well, ya-ah. We're both artists, you know. Why wouldn't she?"
It stung knowing Gia would share them with someone else but not him. Maybe the artist connection explained it, but still…
"I haven't seen them."
"Oh, shit. You two aren't on the outs, are you? Because if you've hurt her—"
"Never in a million years. She just doesn't want me to see them."
"Yeah, well, maybe I can see why."