Ceremony

Chapter 5

There were seven people Gurwitz listed in the Boston telephone directory. None of them was Amy. I called all the numbers and none of them ever heard of Amy. There was one Gurwitz listed in the Smithfield book. I called them. Mrs. Gurwitz didn't know where Amy lived, and didn't know her phone number, and hadn't heard from her since she had left and didn't want to.

"I got three others to think about, mister," she told me on the phone. "And the farther away she stays from them, the better I'll like it. Her sister made honor roll last quarter."

"Any of the kids know how to get in touch with her?"

"They'd better not, and you better not get them involved with her again either."

"No, ma'am," I said. "Thank you for your time." I hung up and called Susan at the high school.

"The name Amy Gurwitz mean anything to you?" I said.

"Yes. She dropped out last year."

"She and April are supposed to be friends."

"Could be. They were both sort of lost, alone kids. I don't know."

"She got any siblings in the high school?"

"I think a sister, Meredith."

"I talked to Amy's mom. She doesn't know Amy's whereabouts and doesn't want to. Maybe you could ask the kid sister. She must be smart. She made honor roll last quarter."

"I'll talk with her," Susan said, "and call you back. Are you at my house?"

"Yeah, you know the number?"

She hung up. I leaned my forearms on the kitchen table and looked out the window. The maple trees were black and slick in the rain, their bare branches shiny. The flower bed was a soggy matting of dead stems. The house was so still you could hear its vital functions. The furnace cycling on and then off as the thermostat required. The faint movement of air from the heat vents. The periodic click, somewhere, probably of the gas meter. I had listened to too much silence in my life. As I got older I didn't get to like it more. A barrel-bodied Labrador retriever nosed through Susan's backyard, its tail making a steady arc as it foraged for anything that might have been left for the birds. There was nothing there, but she showed no sign of discouragement and moved on past the naked forsythias and into the next yard, with her tail making its rhythmical sweeping wag. The phone rang. Susan said, "Okay. Meredith Gurwitz doesn't know where her sister is, but she's got a phone number where she can reach her. You got a pencil?"

"Yes."

"Okay, here it is," Susan said, and read me the number. "Can you find the address from the number?"

"You forget to whom you speak," I said.

"I withdraw the question," Susan said.

"Before I hang up," I said, "tell me something."

"Yes?"

"Do you spend much time at work fantasizing about my nude body?"

"No." "Let me rephrase the question," I said.

"Just see if you can find out the address for the phone number," Susan said, and hung up. She was probably embarrassed that I'd discovered her secret. I looked in the phone book and then dialed the telephone business office in Government Center and asked for my service representative.

The operator said, "May I have your telephone number, sir?"-they never said phone at telephone business offices. I gave her the mystery number. She said, "I'll connect you," and in a moment a female voice said, "Mrs. Foye. May I help you?"

"You're damned right," I said. "This is Mr. Phunuff' -I turned my head and blurred the name-"and I am getting all sorts of mail from you people that doesn't belong to me. What have you got there for an address, anyway?"

"I'm very sorry, Mr. Poitras," she said. "What kind of mail are you getting?"

"I'm getting the kind I don't want and I'm about damned ready to call the DPU. Now what the hell kind of address have you got for me?"

"We have you at Three Sixty Beacon Street, Mr. Poitras."

"Yeah, that's right," I said, millified, "and you got my named spelled right? P-O-I-T-R-A-S?"

"Yes, that's what we have-Mitchell Robert Poitras."

"Well, then, how come I'm getting all this stuff in the mail?"

"Sir, if you could just tell me what exactly you are getting… ?"

"Yeah, right, well, look-Mrs. Foye, is it?-here's what I'll do. I'll package it up and send it all to you. Are you in Government Center?"

"Yes. Six Bowdoin Square."

"Well, I'll send it in and you'll see for yourself."

"If you'd…" and I hung up. Mitchell Poitras, 360 Beacon Street. I probably could have got Cataldo to get the address for me, or Frank Belson in Boston, but it's always good to know you can still do it on your own if you need to. It was a lot better than bullying a seventeenyear-old kid. Ma Bell was a worthy opponent.

Three Sixty Beacon would be somewhere around Fairfield or Gloucester. Condos: walnut paneling, skylights, private gardens, deeded parking, working fireplaces, gourmet kitchens. Amy had not lowered her standard any by moving in with Mitchell Poitras.

It was raining harder as I drove into Boston. The convertible roof on my MG was aging and some of the snaps were gone. Water leaked inoffensively around the snapless gaps and trickled amiably down the doorframe. Might as well save Amy Gurwitz, too, while I was in the neighborhood. They could make honor roll together. I couldn't ever remember making honor roll. Probably why my roof leaked.