Where Are You Now?

51

D etective Bob Gaylor began searching for Zach Winters on Sunday after the squad meeting. He was not at the Mott Street shelter that was his off-and-on home. He had not been seen on the streets since early Saturday morning, when he had been hanging around the Woodshed, and then had gone to Gregg Andrews’s apartment. He had been interrogated on Saturday afternoon, then presumably had gone back to his usual haunts. But he had not gone back to the shelter.

“Zach usually shows up at least every other day” Joan Coleman, an attractive thirty-year-old volunteer kitchen worker on Mott Street, confided to Gaylor. “Of course, it depends on the weather. He loves the club area in SoHo. He brags that he gets better handouts there.”

“Did he ever talk about being near the Woodshed the night Leesey Andrews disappeared?”

“Not to me. But he’s got a couple of what he calls his ‘real good buddies.’ Let me talk to them.” She brightened at the idea of doing detective work.

“I’ll go with you,” Gaylor volunteered.

She shook her head. “Not if you want to get any information, you won’t. I don’t usually come in for dinner, but I’m subbing for a friend tonight. Give me your phone number. I’ll call you.”

Bob Gaylor had to be content with that. He spent the better part of the day wandering through SoHo and Greenwich Village to no avail.

Zach Winters might have disappeared from the face of the earth.