Iron Orchid

TWENTY-THREE

HOLLY SAT AT HER LAPTOP at the desk in her room while Tyler Morrow looked over her shoulder.

“This is nuts,” Holly said.

“What do you mean, nuts?”

“There’s no way we can begin to cover opera in New York. You’ve got the Metropolitan and the New York City Operas, both at Lincoln Center, both running five days a week. What’s more, the same opera often plays more than one night during a week. Look at this: Carmen on Thursday night and Saturday night. Even if we knew that Teddy loved Carmen, which performance would we cover? And Carmen is on the following week, too. And we don’t know that Teddy loves Carmen. We can’t go to two operas five nights a week, either.”

“I see your point,” Morrow said. “After all, there are only two of us.”

“You don’t have to attend the opera to find out if Teddy does,” said a voice from the hallway.

Holly and Tyler turned to find Lance standing in the door.

“You just said that both the opera houses are at Lincoln Center. Why don’t you stake out both houses, one each, every night before the performance and watch the audiences go in? Look for men alone, fifty or older; Teddy is said to look at least ten years younger than his sixty-seven years.”

“Good idea,” Holly said, embarrassed that she hadn’t thought of that herself.

“And how about record stores specializing in opera?”

“I’ve spent half the morning going through those already,” Holly said, pleased to have anticipated him. “Most record stores carry opera, and the specialty stores don’t get much narrower than classical, which includes opera.”

“There’s a shop I visited once with a girl, years ago,” Lance said. “I can’t think of the name, but it’s something related to opera. It’s in the West Forties, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, as I recall. Small place, but it had everything, even some quite obscure recordings. You might try that.”

“You can’t remember the name?” Holly asked.

“Do I have to think of everything?” Lance disappeared down the hall.

Holly went back to the laptop and had Google search for “opera record stores.” “Dammit,” she said, “I can’t get the search narrowed enough. It keeps giving me all kinds of record stores.”

Tyler opened Holly’s bottom desk drawer and took out the New York City Yellow Pages. “Let’s try the old-fashioned way,” he said.

“You do that. I’ll try Yahoo,” Holly said.

Tyler opened the Yellow Pages and flipped through a few pages. “How about this?” he said, pointing.

Holly followed his finger and saw a small ad:

ARIA

Opera, opera and more opera

LPs, CDs and DVDs

“It’s on West Forty-third Street, between Fifth and Sixth.”

“That took about a second,” Holly said, disgusted. “So much for computers.”

“We can’t go to Lincoln Center until tonight,” Tyler said. “Why don’t we go check out Aria?”

“Why not,” Holly said, grabbing her coat.

They took a cab to the corner of Fifth and 43rd, and got out and started down the block.

“Where are you from, Tyler?” Holly asked.

“Call me Ty.”

“Is that what folks back home call you?”

“No, nobody has ever called me anything but Tyler, and I’m sick of it.”

“Where are you from?” she asked again.

“Little town in Georgia, Delano, forty-five hundred people.”

“And they wouldn’t call you Ty?”

“Never. Just Tyler.”

“How old are you, Ty?”

“Thirty-one.”

“You look like twenty-one and dress like fifty-one.”

“You’re not the first to point that out.”

“The contrast is a little jarring.”

“Women usually say that.”

“You actually know women?”

“Not… exactly.”

“Why not? You’re a pretty good-looking kid, uh, guy.”

“Listen, if I knew…”

Holly stopped walking. “It’s across the street,” she said, nodding toward the shop.

“You mind if I do this alone?” Ty asked.

“Why?”

“I don’t know; there doesn’t seem to be any advantage in double-teaming them.”

“Okay, sure, go ahead. I’ll wait here. Holly turned and began looking in a shop window.

TY WALKED INTO THE SHOP, which was not very large but packed to the ceiling with recordings, and approached a girl at the sales counter. She was dressed entirely in black, had long, black hair and wore black spectacles. “Excuse me,” he said.

“Yes?” she asked pleasantly, smiling at him.

Ty produced his I.D. “I’m Special Agent Morrow, with the FBI, and I’m looking for someone who may be one of your customers.”

Her face fell, and her brow furrowed. “FBI? You think I would rat out a customer for you federal pigs? You made a friend of mine’s life hell for two years, and I wouldn’t give you the time of day. Now, unless you’ve got a search warrant or something, get out!”

Ty took a step back, stunned by the reception he’d received. “I’m very sorry,” he said. He turned and left the shop.

HOLLY SAW HIM COMING. “That didn’t take long,” she said. “Did you have a look around?”

“Not exactly,” Ty replied.

“You’re all red in the face. What happened?”

“The lady in the shop wasn’t exactly receptive to a visit from the FBI,” he said.

“What did she say?”

“You don’t want to know. Apparently, a friend of hers was once hassled by the Bureau.”

“You flashed your I.D.?”

“Of course; we’re trained to…”

Holly burst out laughing. “What have you been doing since you got out of the FBI Academy?”

“Working in Washington, coordinating bank robbery investigations.”

“In an office?”

“Well, yes, kind of.”

“You need to get out into the world more, Ty. Everybody hates the FBI. Didn’t you know that?”

“Well, no, I didn’t. Why would they hate us?”

Holly sighed. “Come on, Ty, let’s get some lunch; this is going to take a while.”