Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 126, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 769 & 770, September/October 2005

And Maybe More by Michael Z. Lewin

Michael Z. Lewin’s “Lunghi Family” private-eye series began in EQMM before the author had even considered writing books about them. But he did subsequently publish two books in the series. (See Family Business and Family Planning.) Another Lewin series you’ll enjoy is that starring Albert Samson. Booklist says of the latest entry, Eye Opener (Five Star 12/04), “savor this one. It’s an emotional roller coaster... but it’s not to be missed.”

Gina was alone in the office when she heard footsteps on the stairs. Normally the sound would have pleased her. Not many clients came off the street to the Lunghi Detective Agency, but those who did usually provided more interesting cases than the bread-and-butter work from the legal profession. Beggars and private detectives may not be choosers, but a little jam now and then is good for everyone.

Today, however, Gina’s heart sank rather than lifted as the unexpected visitor climbed to the office door. So close to five o’clock... Gina’s plan had been to close the office ten minutes early. The plan was to catch her son, David, before he went to his Monday after-school class in Web-site design. David had things to tell, Gina was sure. And the best time to extract the information was when he badly wanted to be elsewhere. He would be thinking, “I’ve got to get out of here. How can I get out of here?”

How? By telling his mother what she wanted to know, of course.

What Gina wanted to know was everything David knew about his sister Marie’s latest source of money. Marie refused to say anything more than that it was legal and that it wasn’t dangerous. Pushed, she would throw a teen tantrum and stomp to her room. It had already happened twice.

There were, of course, steps that Gina and Angelo could take as her parents. But Gina much preferred to get information without invoking the iron fist. One of the sources of information about Marie was David.

The children went to the same school. And David often trailed around with his sister and her gang of girlfriends. Marie complained about it at family dinners, although it seemed to Gina that she was also rather proud of her little brother and his accomplishments, however geeky. After a lifetime of sniping at each other, this new mutual admiration between the two children was a pleasure — and relief.

But a corollary of their new mateyness was that it was now harder than it used to be to get David to rat out his sister. Marie continued to sail close to the wind — constantly taking risks — and this was certainly not David’s style. But the fact was that many of Marie’s friends had younger sisters, girls, not far from David’s age. David was now so hungry for a real girlfriend that he almost drooled. He certainly viewed staying in Marie’s good books in an entirely new light.

To break David down about Marie, Gina would need to make him feel that he was at risk of losing his other current passion — the Web-site design class. He would have spent all weekend looking forward to it.

Between the energy David put into fantasies about girls and the time he spent in front of a computer, it was amazing that he was still doing so well at school. Certainly Marie wasn’t. How well she did or didn’t do at school was getting serious.

Who’d be a kid again, eh?

Certainly the man who knocked lightly on the door at the top of the stairs and then entered the office was no kid. He was forty if he was a day: bald, short, and dumpy.

Once inside the office he stopped. He held on to the door handle as if to make sure no one was going to prevent his escape if he decided to run for it.

A nervous Nellie. Gina sighed inwardly. Bound to take time. Could cornering David wait till the slot before Wednesday’s class? Perhaps Angelo would be finished with his surveillance job by then, and able to cover for her in the office. Ah, well.

With a smile Gina stepped out from behind her desk and said, “Hello. I’m Gina Lunghi. Would you care for a cup of tea? I’m just making one.”

Angelo and Marie spotted each other on Walcot Street as they headed for home from opposite directions. Marie was coming from the town center and called, “Hi, Daddy.” She waited at the door to the flat as he approached.

Angelo would have called back, but he was very tired. So he just waved. However, he wasn’t too tired to recognize that his moody daughter must be “up.” She could just as easily have gone into the flat and slammed the door behind her. But Angelo’s fatigue was too great for him to remember what new problem with Marie he was supposed to have been thinking about during the dreary hours he’d spent sitting in a car outside 43 Camden Green Close. And nothing is drearier and more tiring than a whole day spent watching for something that doesn’t happen, unless it’s an eighth consecutive day watching for something that doesn’t happen.

Ah, well, it was what the client wanted.

What was it about Marie? Something at school? No. Something else. But it just wouldn’t come back.

Then, just before Angelo got to his elder child, the door to the office opened. The doors to home and office stood side by side, facing the street, the original buildings having been united only internally. And from the office a man emerged.

The man was short and a bit chunky. He stood for a moment staring directly ahead, oblivious to the teenage girl standing beside him within arm’s reach. The man then took a deep breath, perhaps to mark the end of a stressful episode, and he walked straight ahead, crossing the street. Both Angelo and Marie looked after him until he disappeared up the tunnel of steps that led to the Paragon.

“What was that?” Marie asked her father. She moved toward the street, aping the man’s odd gait. At the curb she turned back, expecting her father to be amused.

Well, she’d certainly caught the man’s funny walk. Was that what they taught them to do in the drama classes she liked so much?

“Go on and laugh, Daddy,” Marie said. “You know you want to.”

“Good day at school?”

“School finished hours ago. Duh.” Marie pushed into the entryway that led up to the flat. But she didn’t slam the door.

Definitely one of her better moods. And what the hey, Angelo thought. Maybe Marie would grow up into a sensitive, caring adult one day. It could happen, right?

Dinner, as was often the case on Mondays, comprised a diverse collection of leftovers. There was Italian fare from Sunday dinner, of course, as well as kai phad phed from Saturday’s takeaway from Sukothai. There was also a little of the curry Rosetta, Angelo’s sister and the children’s aunt, made for the family the previous Thursday. But Marie was not satisfied with any of it.

“What’s the point of living so close to Schwartz’s and never using it? You know, don’t you, that Venue has rated them the best burgers in Bath for six, s-i-x straight years.” She held up six fingers and flashed them at her parents and at Rosetta.

“If you’re not happy with what we feed you, young lady,” Angelo said, “then buy your own damn food.”

“Okay,” Marie said lightly. She was out of her chair and out of the kitchen door before Angelo could work out that he had fallen into a trap.

“Great,” Gina said with a sigh.

What Marie was doing for her newfound money... Angelo remembered now. That’s what he was supposed to have been thinking about. “Phooey,” he said.

“Phooey indeed.” Gina began eating.

Rosetta, who lived in the family flat but worked in the business only as a bookkeeper and accountant, turned from her brother to her sister-in-law and back again. “Anything interesting happen today?”

“No,” Angelo said.

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Gina said.

The bald dumpy man accepted Gina’s offer of tea quickly. “Biscuit?” Gina asked as she waited for the kettle to boil. She held out the tin.

He took two, but sat holding them in silence, waiting for the tea.

Most people nibble, Gina thought. This was, perhaps, a man who knew exactly how he liked to do things.

When the tea was in the pot and brewing, Gina took down preliminary details. Among them that Colin Cottard was an accountant who worked and lived locally, although he’d been brought up all around the world as the child of a career soldier.

“So,” Gina said once the tea was poured, “what might we be able to do for you, Mr. Cottard?”

“I’m a single man.”

After a moment spent waiting for him to continue without a prompt, Gina said, “Yes?”

“And two months ago I decided it was time for me to change that.”

“A single man who wants to get married?” Rosetta sat straighter in her chair. “An accountant, you said?”

“Who recently found the perfect woman,” Gina said.

“Oh.” Rosetta relaxed again. Why did it seem so hard to find a good, solid, ordinary man?

But Angelo screwed up his face. “Yet he tells you this, and now he wants something from us?”

“He found the perfect woman, but he lost her.”

“Careless,” Angelo said.

Rosetta gave Gina’s story renewed attention.

“So I began reading lonely-hearts columns,” Colin Cottard said. “I expect you think that rather sad.”

“I think nothing of the kind,” Gina said.

“It’s just that in my job... It doesn’t expose me much to women in a social context.”

“No?”

“And anyway, one has to be so careful in the workplace these days.” Cottard raised his eyebrows.

He means what? Gina thought. “I don’t...”

“I mean the fashion for sexual harassment.” He held up a hand to allow himself time to be more accurate. “Not the fashion for doing it. The fashion for seeing it everywhere. Or if not everywhere, then where it wasn’t seen before.”

“I can understand that must make one... more careful,” Gina said.

“Exactly. After some... confusing incidents — nothing involving me, I hasten to add — my firm sent us all on a sensitivity-training course. So now we just don’t know where we stand. And there’s no point taking chances. Not when one’s career is potentially at risk.”

“Many people use dating services these days,” Gina said, trying to move on. “Newspapers, on-line, introduction agencies. It’s much more acceptable than it used to be.”

Cottard accepted Gina’s reassurances with a silent nod.

“So you answered an ad?”

“Yes. In the newspaper.”

“And how did it work out?”

“It was quite, quite enchanting.”

For a moment Cottard’s face showed he was back on the date. There was a relaxation and pleasure about his expression that had been totally absent till then. But obviously something had gone wrong — he wouldn’t be here telling the story otherwise. Gina felt a flash of sympathy for the man.

She said, “You liked her. Didn’t she like you?”

“She certainly seemed to. She was refined without being stuffy. Cultured without being humourless. We kept away from the subject of work — hers and mine — and concentrated on the moment. She... had a good time. I’m sure of it.”

“So what’s the problem?” Angelo asked. “He likes her, she likes him. It’s a bingo.”

“Cottard certainly thought so. But now she won’t return his calls.”

“No?” Rosetta said.

“Ever since the date, all he gets is her machine.”

“How long ago is this date?” Angelo said.

“Ten days.”

“And she took his calls before?”

“Yes. When he answered her ad, they talked a few times and then arranged to meet.”

Angelo shrugged. “He liked her, but he was wrong about she liked him.”

“That happens, trust me,” Rosetta said. Her emphatic tone drew looks from both the others. “What?”

Gina said, “But Cottard doesn’t think he got it wrong. He did sensitivity training, don’t forget.”

“So is he sensitive?” Angelo asked.

“He feels that the good time over dinner was unmistakable. Good food, good wine, good talk.”

“Did he hit on her?” Rosetta asked.

“He says he was the perfect gentleman. She even kissed him on the cheek when they went to their cars.”

“That’s a good sign,” Angelo said.

“And,” Gina said, “when he said, ‘Good night,’ she said, ‘Hasta luego.’ ”

“She said what?” Rosetta said.

“Hasta luego,” Gina said. “It’s Spanish for ‘till later.’ Foreign languages are one of the things they have in common. She’s travelled and he’s done classes.”

“I could do classes.” Rosetta looked slightly shocked. “Did I say that out loud?”

“So there’s been no luego and ten days of hasta,” Angelo said. “What I don’t get is where we come in.”

“The woman clearly doesn’t want to socialize further with me. That part I get,” Colin Cottard said. “She’s already advertising again. In fact, I don’t think she ever stopped.”

“Where did you first see her ad?”

“In the Bath Chronicle, although subsequently I’ve found that she also advertises in the Bristol Evening Post, the Western Daily Press, and in Venue. Same ad, each place.” Cottard pushed a piece of paper across the coffee table.

As Gina took it, she said, “Do have another biscuit.”

“I shouldn’t, but I’m that upset by all this.” He took two.

“What does the ad say?” Rosetta asked.

Gina read, “Independent, attractive lady, thirties, seeks solvent male for good company, good food, and maybe more. Age, appearance, smoking habits immaterial.”

“That’s the ad he answered?” Rosetta said. “Huh!”

Angelo said, “So he got the good company. How about the food?”

“He says the meal was excellent.”

“So he didn’t get the ‘more.’ Is there some promise in these ads that it doesn’t say?” Angelo looked to his sister.

“What?” Rosetta said.

“They have abbreviations, don’t they? SOH to mean ‘sense of humour,’ yes?”

“What that really means is, ‘I expect you to laugh at my jokes.’ ”

“But this ‘maybe more.’ It is a promise? A code?”

Rosetta shook her head.

“So maybe means maybe,” Angelo said. “Hmmm. What about the ‘thirties’? Why not say the age?”

Rosetta shook her head at this, too. “Usually they do.”

“Cottard didn’t say anything about the woman’s age, pro or con,” Gina said. “Deena Scott is her name.”

“And he liked her, this client,” Angelo said. “But she didn’t like him. So it’s end of story, yes?” He frowned as he looked to his wife. “This Cottard. Is he a client now?”

“Tell me, Mr. Cottard,” Gina said. “What exactly would you like us to do for you?”

“I want you to find out where she lives.”

Gina frowned. “She didn’t tell you?”

“No. And the phone number I have is a mobile.”

“If she didn’t volunteer the information...”

“I know what you’re thinking, but I have no intention of turning up on her doorstep, or stalking her, or sending some vile thing through the post. I did well on the training course. I scored ninety-eight percent on the exam.”

“So why are you after the address?”

“Look, Mrs. Lunghi, I know there’s no future with Deena. I accept that. But I need to understand what happened, if I’m not to make the same mistake again.” Cottard sipped from his tea and reached for another biscuit. “I mean, I even whistled in the shower next morning.”

“He wants to hire us so he can find out why she didn’t like him?” Angelo’s face expressed his amazement. “He thinks we can do this?”

“Enough to leave a cash retainer,” Gina said.

“It’s grey, this area,” Angelo said. “Finding where she lives when she didn’t want him to know. Hmm.”

“I could go ask her,” Rosetta said.

“You?” Angelo said.

“Why not? Single woman to single woman.” They all knew how infrequently Rosetta got involved in agency cases.

“Why do you think she’s single?” Gina asked.

That stopped Rosetta for a moment.

“She advertises, but gives no information about where she lives or works, not even which city. When they talk she gives only a mobile phone. You have to ask why. One reason could be she has a husband.”

“And the ads?” Angelo asked.

“She likes meeting new men. Maybe one after the next.”

“And sometimes maybe more?”

“Who knows.”

Rosetta asked, “Where did they meet?”

“A restaurant in Saltford, off the main road and down by the river,” Gina said.

“A private place?”

“Yes.”

“And not in Bath or Bristol,” Angelo said. “Between. Off the beaten path...”

“What did you agree to do for him, Gina?” Rosetta asked.

“I said we’d try to get the address and that the least we would do is deliver his letter for him.”

“No stalking, good.”

“And to get this address?” Angelo asked. “What do you think? Work from the phone number?”

“I had a different plan in mind,” Gina said.

“What plan?”

“Well, she is still advertising, right?”

“Salvatore!” Angelo and Rosetta said simultaneously.

Salvatore Lunghi was the only adult member of the family not to work in the family business. Salvatore was a painter. However, the economic realities of life as a painter meant that he undertook occasional work for the agency. Nevertheless, he retained his independence. They could ask if he wanted to work on a given job and he could say yes or no, even if it was often yes.

He was also the only member of the family not to live in the Walcot Street complex, giving up predictable comfort for a series of bedsits, often in lofts, although all with north light. But that fact, too, didn’t mean he avoided, say, family meals. In fact, he often brought guests, known collectively as his models.

However, this evening, as the phone rang, Salvatore was standing before an easel, lit by incandescent light. He did consider not answering, but he wasn’t seeing anything new for the canvas. The model for his painting was in his mind, not in the flesh. This made it harder. The human body was what moved Salvatore, each one so different. He worked best when he could react visually to the real thing. Unfortunately, he was between volunteer models and without the cash for a professional. “Yo?”

“Hey, big boy. Want to make some money?”

Serendipity. “You got a case that needs my magic?”

“If you’re not too busy to consider gainful employment,” Gina said.

“I... could be convinced to come out.”

“How would you like to be paid to take a woman out to dinner? An attractive woman in her thirties who isn’t fussy.”

Gina waited in the kitchen for her children to come home. Though David often stayed after the theoretical eight o’clock end of his Web-site class, he was also a growing boy. He got hungry. And for once Gina hoped that Marie would stay out later than she was supposed to on a school night without permission. That would leave some time with David on his own.

But as luck — or design, who ever knew with kids? — would have it, the children came up the stairs together. They both had paper bags marked with Schwartz’s logo.

“Look what I found monging about outside our front door like a lost puppy,” Marie said cheerily.

“Woof,” David said. “Hi, Mum.”

“Hi,” Gina said.

“So what do you think?” David said to Marie. “Do you think she would?”

“Your son is asking me for lovelorn advice,” Marie said. “Should I help him, or is he still too young?”

“Marie!” David said.

“Helping each other is at the heart of being a family,” Gina said. “All of us should definitely help each other.”

The children paused, just for a moment, to work out what their mother might be getting at. But when they failed and she didn’t follow up, they headed down the hall to eat in their rooms. The last thing Gina heard was David saying, “So do you think she would?”

When Gina and Angelo were in bed and alone at last, Gina said, “I think you’ll have to do the surveillance again tomorrow.”

“I figured,” Angelo said.

“Sal has to be flexible for the Deena woman.”

“I know.”

“I could cover you for a while. For the morning, say.”

Angelo considered. “Okay. Thanks.”

“But I want to do the office in the afternoon.”

After a pause, Angelo said, “Okay.”

“Because I want to close early. Like maybe half an hour.”

After a pause, Angelo said, “Why?”

“So I can catch David when he comes home from school.”

Angelo frowned. But David was in the house now, and had been since... “Why?”

“About Marie, her money.”

Angelo knew there was a problem about Marie and her money, but what did David...

“Forget it,” Gina said, tired of trying to engage her tired husband. “I’ll sort it out myself.”

When Salvatore rang the office in the afternoon, it was Gina who answered. “I’ve made contact with Deena Scott,” he said.

“Already?”

“I responded to her Chronicle ad this morning and left my number. She called about an hour later.”

“Must have liked the sound of your voice.”

“So what a treat she’s in for when she sees me in the flesh.”

“You’ve arranged a date?”

“Yeah. For dinner tonight. She apologized for seeming forward, but her busy schedule, you see...”

“It wouldn’t have been your busy schedule, now would it?”

“Me-ow.”

“Where are you taking her?”

“She suggested a place she knows in Saltford. Ever heard of the Cummerbund?”

“Only when our client told me that’s where she met him.”

“Must be a place where she feels comfortable meeting strangers.”

“Or she likes it because it’s out of the way.”

“You think?”

“There’s got to be some reason to eat in Saltford. I mean, with all the great restaurants there are in Bath, and in Bristol.”

Gina was in the kitchen when David arrived home from school. “Hi,” David said. Then, “What?” when he saw the stern expression on his mother’s face.

“Sit down, please, David.”

“What?” She couldn’t know about the cigarette behind the boiler room. Could she? No. It was only today, for crying out loud. Did he smell? Was that it? Could she smell it? He sat.

“Is there something you want to tell me, David?”

“No.” Well, he didn’t want to tell her. Could it be that someone at school saw him and Keven and Steve and called her, called all the parents? Oh God!

“Are you sure about that?”

David racked his mind for another possible offence. Carving his and Fiona’s initials in a tree by the canal came to mind. But that was months ago, in the summer hols. Besides, he didn’t really like Fiona much anymore.

“Because, David, I know for a fact that you know what Marie has been doing to make this money she has now.”

Marie? It was about Marie? What a relief.

“I can see by the smirk on your face that you know.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes,” his mother said. “You do.” It was clear that she was very displeased. But how could she be upset with him?

“No, I don’t,” David said, but even he could hear that the tone of his voice was less convincing this time. But if he told his mother, and Marie found out it came from him...

Gina sat back in her chair and folded her arms. “Just tell me, David. Now. It will save us all a lot of trouble.”

Us “all”? She was threatening to punish him somehow if he didn’t tell. But that wasn’t fair. And besides, if he told, Marie would tell Cassi and Jackie and Natasha and Aimee and his name would be mud with them all. And then there would be no chance at all that Jojo would go out with him, ever.

David jumped up. “Stop trying to bully me,” he shouted. “You’re always trying to make me your spy. Well, you ought to be your own spy, the business you’re in. And I’m not going to be your spy anymore and I don’t know anything anyway.”

And he ran from the kitchen to his own room and slammed the door behind him. But even as he dived onto his bed and lay facedown he knew that with his heart beating the way it was, he wouldn’t be able to resist telling the whole thing, and about the cigarette, too, when his mother followed him into his room. Fighting was so awful. Resisting her so impossible.

She would be there any second. He put his pillow on the back of his head so that he would make a dramatic picture for her when she arrived to scold him, and then punish him. As long as she didn’t forbid him to carry on with the Web-site class. Oh God, she wouldn’t do that, would she?

It would be so unfair. Because Marie was always running away to her room when she wanted to break off a conversation that might get her into trouble. And she not only always got away with it, she bragged about how she’d throw a fit to her friends. How sometimes she added screams, just for effect.

Several minutes passed before it dawned on David that his mother had not followed him to his room.

Was it possible that she wasn’t going to?

Was it possible that he — David — had thrown a fit and gotten away with it?

Beneath his pillow, David began to giggle.

Gina was still in the kitchen when Angelo came in. “We have to talk,” she said.

“Sure, baby,” Angelo said.

The “baby” caught Gina so much by surprise that she was shaken from her own agenda.

“Guess what happened today?” Angelo pirouetted, and then put the case with the agency camcorder down on the table before his wife. “Guess what finally happened...”

“Shriver came out?”

Angelo beamed.

“He came out and you got him.” It was the object of the long surveillance.

“Not only came out, in the bright sun where we could see him clearly,” Angelo said. “He forgot something and ran back up the steps to the house.” He patted the camcorder again. “Ran. And it’s all in here.”

“You checked?”

“I played it back as soon as he got into his car.”

“He drove?” The case was an accident claim in which the “victim,” Shriver, purported to be all but totally disabled because of injuries to his spine.

“I’ll put it on tape and make a backup,” Angelo said. “And then we party.”

“Yes. All right. Of course.” Gina decided to defer the difficult conversation for a while. Let Angelo enjoy the moment.

But he said, “What do we need to talk about? Marie?”

Well... “Yes.”

“No luck from David?”

“No.”

“I guess we better follow her, then.”

“I think maybe we’ll have to.” The cloud that had blotted Gina’s day was suddenly relieved. A rule for years had been never to use detection techniques or equipment inside the family. But this time she’d tried every other avenue she could think of. She’d expected her husband to have difficulty about taking an unprecedented step.

But Angelo was having difficulty with nothing. “I’ll be free tomorrow,” he said. “Fa-la-la. How about I pick up the trail as she leaves school?”

When he found the restaurant in Saltford, Salvatore was surprised how posh it looked. No Michelin stars, but despite being well off the main road it was well-presented and inviting. Chances were that the food would be decent. Whether he’d be able to say the same of the woman was another matter.

Client Cottard had been seriously smitten with... with... with Deena. Deena, Deena, Deena. Must remember. Deena Scott, who on the phone had sounded quite nice — rather like the restaurant. Not only the sound of her voice but the care with which she spoke. “Look, Salvatore,” she’d said, “I don’t often do what I’m about to, but do you think we could meet for dinner tonight? I feel really dumb, and it must sound like I’m desperate, which I’m not, honestly. Usually I’d wait till I felt I knew you better, but you sound so nice, so gentlemanly, so... What can I say? So together. And it’s the only evening I have free for a week.”

After checking his diary Salvatore confirmed that he too could do tonight, so together it was.

Marie was on the phone to Cassi. “It’s not like she said anything when I came in, but I could tell by her face. Then all through dinner she was bottling it up, like any minute her cork would pop. The only reason she didn’t is that Dad’s happy about some work thing. But her... She’s getting on my wick. She really is.”

“I so know what you mean,” Cassi said. “It’s like they think they own you.”

“Well, she doesn’t.” Marie stamped her foot. “In fact, let’s go out again.”

“Now? Tonight?”

“Why not?” Marie thought about “why not” after she said it. But answer came there none, as Aimee said today, which sounded pretty cool. Marie’s grandparents weren’t due back from London for at least two days. And no one from Cassi’s family ever went anywhere. Cassi herself hadn’t been to London more than twice in her life, poor thing.

When she and Cassi had saved up some more money they could change all that. There could be days out, to ride the Millennium Wheel. Or nights out... “See you in fifteen minutes outside Doolally’s,” Marie said. “Sooner if I don’t have to pick a fight.”

David sat with his face even closer than usual to the computer screen. Despite this, his attention wavered. Every few minutes his mind went back to the exchange with his mother.

His success at being able to avoid her previously irresistible pressure still made him grin, even giggle. He’d entered new territory. Never before had he picked a fight to escape confessing something he didn’t want to say.

Life was going to be different now. Did he look different? Would he be able to see it in a mirror?

David caught bits of his reflection on the glass of the monitor’s screen. Was he, at last, a real teenager?

“Of course you may go out,” Gina said, “as long as your homework’s done.”

“Done and dusted,” Marie said. At least to the extent of her having planned slots in her morning classes to work on it. That portion of her homework she planned to do at all. It’s not like every bit of homework was important, just because some silly old teacher got a whim and assigned it. Everyone knew that. Everyone who wasn’t ancient. Old people were so rigid, too unsubtle to understand the fine points. So it wasn’t a lie to say that her homework was done. It was just a simplification to save her mother needless anxiety.

“Fine.”

“I won’t be late,” Marie volunteered, in order to reward her mother’s cooperative mood.

“Well, well, well,” Salvatore said as he was shown to the table reserved by Deena Scott.

“You must be Salvatore.”

“I certainly am. And you’re Deena.”

“Please, sit down.”

He sat, but looked around. “Where are the cameras?”

“What cameras?”

“Because this has to be one of those television programs.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’re gorgeous. And it makes no sense at all that you’d be advertising to meet men.”

“Well, thank you for the compliment.”

“It’s not just flattery. I’m surprised, that’s all. And I’m not complaining.”

“Perhaps you don’t know much about the life of a modern businesswoman.”

“Perhaps I don’t. But I’m eager to learn.”

“And I’d tell you all about it, if only it were interesting,” Deena Scott said with a sigh. “But my hope is that we’ll find more entertaining and exciting topics to talk about this evening.”

“Let’s give it a try.” Salvatore lit his first full-wattage smile of the night.

Eventually David realized that he was hungry. It hadn’t crossed his mind till now, what with his preoccupation with the confrontation with his mother. What time could it be?

He checked the time in the corner of his computer screen. Nearly quarter past eight. But nobody had called him for dinner!

Had they and he didn’t hear?

No, he was sure that nobody called.

Was there significance to that? There must be. They always called.

And he always came.

Was she going to starve the information out of him? Was that it? Well, that was really unfair. He ought to be allowed to decide for himself what he said and what he didn’t and still get fed. He was a member of the family, after all. It’s not like Marie was ever denied food when she finally came out after throwing a fit.

Of course he hadn’t been denied food either. Yet.

And he was hungry.

David went to the door of his room. He listened. It sounded like the television was on in the living room. But that could be Auntie Rose.

He couldn’t hear anyone talking in the kitchen.

He opened the door a crack, ready to slam it again if someone was lurking outside.

The corridor was empty. He ventured out.

The kitchen was empty. But there was a note in his mother’s handwriting on the table. “David, your father and I are at the Bell having a drink. There’s plenty of food in the fridge. Help yourself. Hope you’re feeling better.”

Feeling better? What did that mean? Was she saying that he’d just had a moment of not being himself, that everything would be the same again after he came to his senses and spilled the beans?

Well! How offensive was that! As if what had happened wasn’t a serious matter of principle. As if she expected him to return to being her spy.

Well, she’d soon find out. For sure. And have a surprise. Huh!

David stood, indignant, holding the note, ready to return to his room.

But it wouldn’t compromise his principles to take a full plate back there with him, would it? No. He went to the fridge.

After the appetizer, Deena Scott excused herself to go to the ladies’ room. It left Salvatore to reflect on how much he’d enjoyed talking with this woman so far. She was an intriguing combination of being forward but modest, tasteful but lively. She was maybe a little more conventional-looking than he usually chose for himself, but she was definitely a woman of quality. And more attractive in all the important ways than he’d ever expected to find in a woman who advertised in the Bath Chronicle’s “Find a Partner” page.

Maybe the bad rep of lonely-hearts ads was undeserved. Salvatore’s success with women might be legend but, like any success, it took work to sustain. He might even consider advertising there himself. “Painter seeks model for work on canvas, and maybe more.” Hmm. Maybe more, indeed.

When Deena returned to the table, Salvatore stood and held the chair for her. She thanked him with a nod of the head and a flicker of a smile.

Tasteful, but not uninterested...

“Marie?”

Marie turned in the direction of the voice that had addressed her. She couldn’t believe what her ears had already told her. She found herself face-to-face with her grandmother.

Behind, she saw her grandfather struggle to move a suitcase over the rough pavement that led to the taxi rank in front of the railway station. The bag had wheels, but it kept falling over.

“Hi, Gran,” Marie said. “It’s just wonderful to see you.”

Mama Lunghi squinted in the dim light. “But you couldn’t know we would be here, Marie. Nobody knew today, much less now.”

“But it’s still wonderful to see you. I’ve missed you.” Marie’s mind was whirring, trying to figure out where this was going to go.

“We didn’t know until it happened. How could you be here?”

Cassi filled the vacuum as she ran from near the front of the queue of people waiting for taxis. “Have you got change, Marie? I got two and he gave me a five.” Then Cassi saw who Marie was talking to. “Oh, hi, Mrs. Lunghi. How you doing?”

After the date, Salvatore decided to report on his evening rather than wait until morning. But when he appeared in the family kitchen Gina, who was clearing up, seemed mildly surprised. “Before ten? Losing your touch?”

“What was it, exactly, that you hired me to do?” Salvatore asked. “I don’t remember anything about ‘touch.’ ”

“So what happened? Was she a woofer?”

“Not in the slightest. Deena Scott is attractive, charming, refined, and she wasn’t shy about ordering the most expensive items on the menu.”

“How shy was she about paying for them?”

“She allowed me to pick up the tab, like the gentleman I so obviously am.”

“When you’re on expenses.”

“I bet she could get used to pizzas,” Salvatore said.

“Oh yeah?”

“If she was really hooked on a guy. Yeah, I bet she could.”

“And is she hooked on you?”

“No.” He smiled enigmatically.

“The expense account only runs to the one date, Sally.”

“The lady and I have made no plans.”

“So, did you manage to get an idea of what she didn’t like about Colin Cottard?”

“No.”

“No?”

“She wanted to focus on us and now, not on her dating history. Or, if it comes to that, anything much about herself at all.”

“Hmm,” Gina said. “And did you get her address?”

“I asked, but she said she didn’t feel comfortable giving it to me yet.”

“My, my. Well, I guess you’re not as young as you used to be.”

“My age, or other attributes, had nothing to do with it.”

“Immaterial?”

“So after the date I followed her.”

“Good. And?”

“And she tried to lose me.”

Gina looked to see if her brother-in-law was joking.

“For real,” Salvatore said. “I wasn’t obvious, and I can’t be sure she didn’t spot me, but she definitely engaged in evasive manoeuvring. Her road skills are considerable.”

“Sufficient to shake her tail?”

“She certainly wagged it.”

But it was at exactly this point that Gina and Salvatore were interrupted by loud noises from downstairs. The door to the street banged open, and they heard people talking.

“Such kerfuffle.” This was Marie’s grandfather, father of Angelo, Salvatore, and Rosetta, and founder of the Lunghi Detective Agency. “You’d think she robbed a bank.”

“More like she’s a whore,” his wife said.

“Grandma!” This was Marie.

“Where is your mother, young lady?” Mama asked. “At home, this hour, I hope.”

By now Salvatore and Gina were at the top of the stairs. “Mama? Papa?” Behind them, David, Angelo, and Rosetta were in the hall on their way to the kitchen, alerted to something happening by all the noise.

Salvatore turned to Gina. “I thought Mama and Papa weren’t back till day after tomorrow.”

They weren’t, but Gina was more concerned with something else. “Marie?” she said. “What about a whore?”

“Who’s a whore?” Angelo said.

David couldn’t believe his ears.

“It’s all a storm in a teacup,” Marie insisted once everyone squeezed into places around the kitchen table.

“With my own eyes, I saw it,” Mama said.

“You saw me standing in a taxi queue!” Marie said. “That’s all you saw.”

“A taxi queue where?” Gina asked.

“Where were you going in this taxi?” Angelo asked.

Marie stood up. “I don’t have to take this!”

“Sit down,” Gina said forcefully.

The crowd blocked any easy escape from the room so Marie sat, with a very deep sigh. She sighed a second time.

“You were queuing for a taxi?” Gina said. “So where were you planning to go?”

“Nowhere,” Marie said.

“We’ve had more than enough attitude from you, young lady,” Angelo said.

“I was going nowhere!”

“What’s this nowhere?” Papa asked. He least of everybody present felt there was any importance in where Marie had been discovered. “She was where she was. She was there to meet us.”

Marie considered trying to float this, but realized it would sink like a stone. Nevertheless she said, “Thank you, Grandpa.”

“What thank? So do we get a cup of tea with this impromptu family meeting, or what?”

Rosetta got up. “Who wants tea?”

All the adult hands went up.

Then Gina said, “Why were you in the taxi queue in front of the railway station, Marie?”

The room went silent. All eyes were on her. They waited. “I wasn’t going anywhere.”

“And?” Gina said.

“I was just queuing.”

The adults glanced at one another, except for the Old Man. “Darjeeling, I think, Rosetta,” he said. “This time of night.”

“Okay, Papa.”

“Why were you queuing?” Gina asked.

Another silence. “Oh hell,” Marie said, as she capitulated. “Trains come in, especially during the rush hour from London, and they’re really full.”

“This is true,” the Old Man said. “I thought maybe we would have to stand. But then there was a seat, and then a young man got up so we could sit together.” In the silence that followed this he looked around. “Huh!”

“Marie?” Gina said.

“All right. When the trains are full a lot of people want taxis, and the queue waiting for them is long. Cassi and I and some of our friends stand in the queues and then when we’re near the front we sell our places to people who are in a big hurry. All right? Happy now?” She stood up and made her way to the door to the hall. “Can I go to my room now, please? I have homework to do.”

Later, Gina, Angelo, Salvatore, and Rosetta sat together in the living room sharing a bottle of wine. Mama and Papa were safely reinstalled in their flat at the top of the house. The children were both in their rooms.

“Marie will go far,” Salvatore said. “What an amazing kid.”

Angelo said, “Do we believe this taxi queuing?”

“Oh, I think so,” Gina said. “The question is, do we try to stop it?”

The parents were silent, not having a clear answer.

“Why stop it?” Salvatore asked. “It’s not illegal.”

“But is it dangerous?” Gina asked.

“I think people in the queues will get fed up with it,” Rosetta said. “Once or twice, cute girls, being entrepreneurial, but if every time they get off a train they’re there, people will just push past them.”

That made sense to the others. “If the railway staff don’t clamp down,” Angelo said.

“Maybe we could go to the station sometime, and watch how it all works,” Gina said.

That, too, didn’t seem the worst idea in the world.

Then Rosetta said, “So, Sally, how did it go with the lonely heart?”

“Ah,” Gina said, “she tried to shake you.”

“Yep, she tried to shake my tail,” Salvatore said. “But I wasn’t having any of it, nossir. Don’t want nobody messin’ with my tail.”

“So you did find out where she lived, this Deena Scott?” Gina said.

“That was what you hired me to do, wasn’t it?” Salvatore said. He flashed them a big smile.

Colin Cottard was amazed. “She lives behind the restaurant?”

“That’s what we learned, Mr. Cottard,” Gina said. “There’s a small flat at the back.”

“But... but...” Cottard couldn’t get his head around how what he was hearing fit with what he had experienced. “But after dinner, she drove off. I remember that distinctly.”

“In a small green Nissan,” Gina said. “Yes, she did the same last night after the meal with our operative.”

“But... why?”

“This client Cottard,” Salvatore said, “what did Deena Scott eat at the dinner with him? Do you know?”

“I... I think I have it in the file,” Gina said. “Or I could ask him tomorrow.”

“Is it important?” Rosetta asked.

“Because I’ve got an idea what this might be all about,” Salvatore said.

“What idea?” Angelo said.

“I think there’s a question worth asking that we haven’t asked yet.” Salvatore spread his hands. The gesture invited the others to work out what Salvatore was thinking.

The others considered.

Angelo poured the last of the wine into his own glass. “I can’t think of any question at the moment except shall I open another bottle of wine?”

“Go on,” Gina said.

“But first think about what we know,” Salvatore said. “This woman advertises for men. She suggests a meal in this restaurant in Saltford and she lives behind it.”

“I know!” Rosetta said. “I know the question!”

“The question we asked ourselves,” Gina said to Colin Cottard, “was this: Who owns the restaurant, this Cummerbund?”

“Who owns it?”

“And this morning we found out that it is owned by a company called Deescott Holdings.”

Cottard absorbed this, then spoke slowly as he spelled out the significance of what he’d just been told. “She owns the restaurant? But why...?” And then, “It’s all to boost the takings?”

“We wanted to talk with you before we spend more of your money, trying, say, to establish that the restaurant isn’t doing very well. But our theory is that Deena Scott advertises in the newspapers so that she can get men to take her to the Cummerbund and pay for the top-price menu items that she orders.”

Cottard sat before Gina in stunned silence.

“But doing something like that is... It’s so unfair,” Rosetta spluttered. “Because the people who answer those ads, they do it in good faith, most of them.”

“Fraud we could get her on, maybe?” Angelo suggested.

“I doubt it’s illegal,” Salvatore said. “But can we take out a civil suit for misrepresentation? Because, I tell you, bro, I feel really used.”

“I wonder what our client is going to feel,” Gina said.

“I can tell you what I’d feel,” Rosetta said. “I’d be really, really angry.”

Colin Cottard’s silence persisted so long that Gina began to worry about how anger in this organized man might manifest itself. Had it been a mistake to tell him where the woman who’d trifled with his feelings lived? It was almost impossible to explain her actions without doing so, but... Had the Lunghis been so pleased with their detective work that they had irresponsibly triggered a potential crime, even a tragedy?

“Despite the fact that we have told you where Deena Scott lives...” Gina began.

But Colin Cottard held up a hand. The look on his face was not an angry one. Gina stopped to hear what he had to say.

“If a business, such as a restaurant, is in difficulty, sometimes the sensitive intervention of a trained financial specialist can work wonders.”

“A trained financial specialist?” Gina said.

“Yes.”

“Such as yourself?”

“So, if you would be so kind, Mrs. Lunghi, I would like you to do one final thing for me in this matter.”

“Which is?”

“What I asked you to do in the first place — deliver a letter for me to Deena. Because I think there might just be a future for us after all.”

Copyright (c); 2005 by Michael Z. Lewin.