I WAS KEEPING AN EYE on the clock. I figured I’d head out a little before nine, be down by the university twenty minutes after that, at the latest. Paul was up in his room doing, to my astonishment, some homework. I popped my head in, told him I’d be going out in a few minutes.
“Where?” he said, still looking at something he was writing on his computer screen.
“It’s a work thing.”
“A work thing?”
“Yeah.”
He shook his head. “I dunno. I think I need more details.”
I was heading down the hall when the phone rang. Paul grabbed the extension in his room, and when he didn’t call me immediately, I figured it was for him. But by the time I was down to the kitchen, he shouted, “Dad! Phone! It’s Mom!”
I grabbed the kitchen extension. “Hey,” I said.
“Isn’t it awful about Stan?” Sarah said.
“What?” I said. “What about Stan?” I assumed she was speaking of Stan Wannaker, the Metropolitan photographer. I don’t think either of us knew any other Stans.
“Oh my God, you haven’t heard? I’m up here, at this thing, and I hear about it, and you haven’t?”
“Okay, you’re connected. You’re plugged in. What happened to Stan?”
“Okay, you’re not going to believe this. He’s dead.”
“What?”
“Stan. He’s dead. I just found out like five minutes ago. We’re all coming back home tonight. Nobody’s in the mood for any more of this touchy-feely management bullshit after something like this has happened.”
“He did that thing with me yesterday,” I said, feeling very cold. “That photo shoot at the car auction. What happened to him? Did he have an accident?”
“Someone beat him to death. Right behind the Metropolitan building, in the lot where the photogs park. Someone smashed his head in his car door.”
I didn’t say anything. I was numb.
“I mean, the guy goes all over the world, Sarajevo, Afghanistan, fucking Iraq, and he gets killed in our parking lot.”
“There was that guy,” I said.
“What guy?”
“Remember, when I called you from the auction, and Stan got in a fight with this guy? Uh, I know his name, Cheese Dick told me.”
“How would Cheese Dick know anything about this?”
“He was looking at Stan’s pics, the ones he took yesterday at the auction, and he said, he said, ‘Oh yeah,’ he said, ‘that’s Barbie Bullock.’ That’s what he said. That’s what he said the guy’s name was.”
“Barbie Bullock?”
“Yeah. Stan wasn’t even taking a picture of him, I guess Bullock was just kind of in the picture, you know? And he tries to tear Stan’s camera away from him.”
“Did he know who Stan was?”
“I mean, I don’t know, it’s possible. Stan did tell him he was a photog from The Metropolitan. Told him to back off.”
“Did Dick Colby say who this guy was, this Barbie guy?”
“He works for Lenny Indigo, that guy that got sent up? That name mean anything to you?”
“Sure. We ran the trial coverage. Sears covered it. He ran half the criminal operations in town.”
“That was the guy.”
“I’m calling Dick, telling him this. He’ll be doing the story on it, he’ll need this info, he can pass it on to the cops.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “I mean, if it was Bullock, there’s no way he’d be able to get the film back at this point. He’d have to know Stan would have turned it in by now. It’s been a day and a half.”
“Maybe he didn’t want the film,” Sarah said. “Maybe he just wanted to get even.”
I glanced at the clock. It was after nine. I had to get going. “Listen, Sarah, call Dick, tell him what I told you.”
“He may want to call you, get more details.”
“He’ll have to call my cell. I’m going out.”
“Where? What do you have to do?”
“Look, I’ll explain everything to you when you get home.”
It was the wrong thing to say. “What do you mean, explain it to me when I get home? Whenever you say something like that, there’s something I need to know right now.”
“Honestly, things are fine.”
“Is this about Paul?”
“No.”
“Then it’s about Angie.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“What’s going on with Angie?”
I took a breath. “First of all, I’m still worried about this Trevor Wylie. The guy’s been following her around.”
“Look, so he runs into her once in a while. That doesn’t make him a stalker.”
“No, Sarah, he’s actually following her around. In his car. When Angie goes someplace, he follows her.”
“Oh God. Angie told you this?”
“No, she-” And I stopped myself.
“If she hasn’t told you, then how do you know he’s following her? Zack? Hello? Are you there?”
“It’s a hunch,” I said.
Sarah got very quiet. “No, not with you, it wouldn’t be a hunch. Zack, how do you know Trevor’s following her?”
“I might have seen him, you know, following her.”
“How did you see that? Good God, Zack, have you been following him?”
“No,” I said, emphatically. “I have not been following him. Not exactly.”
“Then who have you been following?”
I said nothing.
“Zack? Tell me you’re not following your own daughter.”
I guess I must have hesitated.
“Oh my God,” Sarah said. “You’re unfuckingbelievable.”
“It hasn’t been to be nosy,” I explained. “I just wanted to be sure she was okay. It wasn’t like I was trying to invade her privacy, that was never my intention, you have to understand that.”
“Zack! Honest to God! I don’t believe you! I mean, sure, we need to know what our kids are up to, but we don’t trail them around like they’re common criminals. Why don’t we just put cameras in their rooms? Bug their phones? Open their mail? Get search warrants for their lockers at school?”
Actually, I thought there might be some merit in all those things, but didn’t mention it.
“I never meant to do it, to follow her around. In fact, in some ways, I wish I’d never started this. There are some things you simply don’t want to know.”
There was a long pause at the other end of the line. Finally, Sarah said, “Like what?”
“No, no, never mind, you’re right, it’s a violation of Angie’s privacy. Who she goes out with, who she goes to visit, that’s entirely her business.”
“Who’s she going out with? Who did she visit?”
“You hear yourself?”
“For fuck’s sake, Zack, what’s happening?”
What the hell, I thought. “Do you have any idea why Angie would go out to Oakwood to visit Trixie? Late at night?”
“She’s visiting Trixie? Trixie Snelling, of Whips and Chains Inc.?”
“Yeah. I don’t remember them being friends when we lived out there.”
“No, neither do I. You were the only one, having coffee all the time, being all neighborly. It got to where I wondered if I should be checking you for rope burns.”
I ignored that. “You think Angie’s getting career counseling? Because, you know, if she were choosing between, I don’t know, bank president and dominatrix, I’d probably go with bank president.”
“I have to get home.”
“Not a word to her about this,” I said. “I don’t know how to bring this up, not without letting her know that I’ve been following her around. Which reminds me, I have to get going.”
“Is that what you have to go do? You’re going to follow her tonight?”
“Just to make sure Trevor’s not on her tail anymore. I had a word with him today.”
“You spoke with him?”
“It was just a friendly conversation, that’s all. Friendly, but firm. The kid’s weird, Sarah. He’s not as harmless as you think.”
“Go, then,” she said. “Just go, let me know what you find out.”
“Okay. And tell Dick about this Barbie guy.”
“Why do they call him that, anyway?” Sarah asked. I told her about the thug’s rumored collection. “But doesn’t a grown man who collects Barbie get teased a lot?” she asked.
“Sounds like you’d only do it once,” I said.