Dope

by Sara Gran

  “Have you tried the phone book?” she asked. “Or do you mean something like Who’s Who? Or the Social Register?”

  “I mean all three,” I said, trying to sound as high and mighty as she had. I hadn’t thought of the phone book.

  She smirked. “I’ll get you all three.” She rummaged around behind her desk for a while and then put three heavy books on the table. I opened the first one and she shook her head.

  “Over there,” she said. She pointed to a desk across the room and I lugged the books over.

  Nathaniel Nelson wasn’t in the Social Register, or Who’s Who. But he was right there in the Manhattan phone book. Nathaniel Nelson, Nelson & Associates. 667 Madison Avenue.

  Chapter Eighteen

  667 Madison was a modern glass building that stretched up farther than I could see without craning my neck. I figured I’d have to go through a few office girls to get to Mr. Nelson. I didn’t figure four. The first receptionist was right there when you walked into the building. She was easy; told me to take the elevator up three flights, take a right, and ring the buzzer. I did, and I was let into a big room with fancy sofas and a thick carpet by a brunette in pink. She was a little more inquisitive. What was my business with Mr. Nelson? Personal. What was my name? Miss Josephine Flannigan. I looked for a reaction. There was none. She made a call, and then instructed me to take the elevator up two more flights. There I would make a left and look for the door marked “Executive.” On the other side I was met by a blonde in baby blue. The girls got prettier as I climbed up the ladder.

  My business? Personal. My name? Flannigan. Didn’t ring a bell with her, either, unless the office girls were also actresses now. I was glad I wasn’t one of them. Glad I wasn’t going to work for a big shot every day, opening his mail and picking up his shirts and generally making his life livable, waiting for him to notice me. He never would.

  The blonde conferred by phone with someone else for a minute and then escorted me through another door. The girl behind the desk in this room should have been in Hollywood. She had thick black hair and eyes you could drown in. She wore a black suit that looked sewn on. The room was paneled in mahogany and all the furniture was brown leather. I figured this was the end of the line, unless next was a girl in a swimsuit in a room covered in floor-to-ceiling mink.

  “Miss Flannigan,” the brunette said with a smile and a voice like a violin. “How can I help you?”

  “I’d like to see Mr. Nelson.”

  “Usually Mr. Nelson isn’t able to see anyone without an appointment. He has a very tight schedule. May I ask what this is regarding?”

  She was still smiling. I imagined she always smiled. Her skin was like pure cream. I felt like a hunchback just being in the same room as her. I was still glad I wasn’t her.

  “It’s personal,” I answered.

  “I’m Mr. Nelson’s personal secretary,” she said. “Surely you can tell me the nature of your inquiry?”

  “It’s about his daughter.”

  I was pleasantly surprised when it worked. “Okay then,” she said. “Right this way.” She stood up and led me through another door, which led down a short hall and into Mr. Nelson’s office.

  It was, naturally, a corner office. About a thousand feet by a million. So much mahogany you would think you were in a forest. Leather furniture you could probably reach right through with your bare hand. A carpet so plush I could barely tread through it in my high heels.

  “Miss Flannigan,” the girl said. “Mr. Nelson.”

  The Mr. Nelson in front of me was almost at middle age, with square shoulders and blond hair streaked with gray, sitting behind a desk the size of a Cadillac. The look on his face told me he was a busy man, and very important, and I’d better not forget it.

  I had never seen him before in my life.

  “Sit,” he said. He gestured to a chair on the other side of the desk and I took it. He didn’t smile and he didn’t get up. “Now, Miss Flannigan, what’s this about my daughter? The police were here earlier today, and they wouldn’t tell me anything, either.”

  “Your daughter is named Nadine?” I asked.

  He nodded. “That’s her.”

  “Do you have a picture?”

  He frowned and looked at me suspiciously. “What’s this all about? Who are you?”

  “I’m a private investigator,” I told him. “Or rather, I work for one. We have reason to believe your daughter was a witness to a crime—”

  “What kind of a crime?” he interrupted.

  “Mr. Nelson,” I said, as if he had asked the most ridiculous question in the world. “You’re a lawyer. I’m sure you understand confidentiality. I only have a few questions. I won’t take up too much of your time. Now, you say the police were already here?” I didn’t know where I had learned that voice—it was smooth and professional and kind of snaky—but I thought it sounded good.

  He nodded. “They were asking me all kinds of questions, but they wouldn’t tell me anything. What’s this about Nadine being a witness to a crime?”

  “I’m not surprised the police were here,” I said. But I was. Springer was checking out my story. And I was willing to bet it hadn’t checked out good. “I’ll need much of the same information you gave them. As a lawyer, I’m sure you know that they’re not always able to do their job as well as we’d like. Now, do you have a photograph of Nadine?”

  There were three picture frames on his desk, facing him, and I couldn’t see them but I guessed that one would be his daughter. I was wrong. Instead he reached into his desk drawer, looked around for a minute, and pulled out a photograph in a silver frame. He handed it to me. It was Nadine, all right. In better days. She wore a white satin gown and held a corsage of white flowers. Some type of debutante party, probably. She was smiling. I realized I had never imagined her smiling.

  “Do you know where she is now?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I haven’t seen her for months.”

  “Have you tried looking for her recently?” I asked. “Have you hired anyone to find her?”

  He looked at me like I was trying to sell him a gallon of snake oil. “That’s what the police asked. I don’t know who you are, lady, or what you want, but I never hired anyone to find my daughter. I know who she is, and what she is. I don’t know where she is, or if she’s alive or dead. And I don’t want to know.”

  I don’t know what kind of reaction he expected, but I didn’t give him any at all. After a minute he missed the sound of his own voice and he started talking again. “I did everything for her. For all my kids. I’ve got three. The other two are just fine, thank God. The boy’s in medical school and the girl’s engaged to a good fellow, going to be a lawyer. But Nadine—she was always a problem. First she started trouble with the family next door, then—”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “With the father. He’s an old friend of mine, nicest man you ever met. She said he did all kinds of things, crazy things—”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “She’s been one headache after another ever since. I sent her to Barnard—do you know what that costs?—and she just got into more trouble, failing her classes, causing all kinds of problems. She never came home anymore—”

  “Where do you live, Mr. Nelson?”

  “New Village, in Westchester. But I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this. It’s my own problem, not yours, and I still don’t know what the hell you want. I can tell you there’s no reward or anything like that for finding my daughter, if that’s what you thought. I’m not looking for her.”

  “Yes, I understand that. But if you wouldn’t mind just a few more questions. She never came home anymore . . .”

  “Right. Never came home anymore. Had all these new friends, bohemians or whatever you call them, lowlives if you ask me, and they’re the ones who got her on drugs. We tried to help her a thousand times, we did everything we could, but she didn’t want to stop. Eventually she got herself expelled from
school, and then she just took off.”

  “So when was the last time you saw her?”

  “Probably a month before that. Broke her mother’s heart.”

  “And you haven’t seen her since?”

  He shook his head. “I haven’t seen her, and I don’t want to. She’s not my daughter anymore.”

  I bought a map at a gas station to find my way to New Village. When I was close by I used a phone book in a drugstore to find the Nelsons’ house. I had heard of places like New Village before, but never seen anything like it. Block after block of houses, all exactly the same, like they all sprang up together out of the blue one day. A new car in every driveway. Every house had a little lawn out front, and every blade of grass on each lawn was trimmed down to the exact same height. Some of the ladies had flower beds and even the flowers all looked alike, something small and pink. There wasn’t a person out on the streets, which made sense seeing as there were no sidewalks—the lawns came all the way out to the road. It gave me the creeps.

  Each street in New Village was named after something lovely: Sunset Drive, Mockingbird Lane, Maple Leaf Road. The Nelsons lived on Pleasant Avenue. Mrs. Nelson answered her door on the first ring.

  “Are you Mrs. Nathaniel Nelson?” I asked.

  “Yes, can I help you?” She smiled, but it was thin. She was around forty, slender and pretty with short blond hair in a fancy do, wearing a plain blue dress. I could see the resemblance to Nadine. She had on a full face of makeup. I wondered who would put on that much makeup to sit around her house in New Village all day.

  I thought I heard someone talking inside the house. But then I peered in and saw a television set in the living room. I had never seen one, except in the stores. It was amazing, like a miniature movie theater right there in her house, except the picture was small and fuzzy. Two ladies were sitting around a kitchen table. “I don’t understand,” one woman said to the other. From the look on her face she was pretty torn up. “Bob NEVER finishes his breakfast anymore.”

  The other woman looked at her wisely. “Have you tried Vita-Crunch?” she said, as serious as if it were a funeral. “You know, nine out of ten doctors recommend Vita-Crunch.”

  For the second time that day, I felt lucky. At least I didn’t live my life putting on makeup to watch cereal commercials all day.

  “Yes. I’m here about your daughter, Nadine.”

  Mrs. Nelson’s smile dropped. “Is she okay?”

  She didn’t say anything about the police. I guessed they probably hadn’t bothered with the wife. “I don’t know,” I said. “That’s why I’m here.”

  “Do you want to come in?”

  “No thanks,” I said. Like I said, the place gave me the creeps. “I work for a private investigator in New York City, Mrs. Nelson. We have reason to believe your daughter witnessed a crime and we’re desperately hoping she can help us. Do you have any idea where she is?”

  “No, I—Is Nadine okay?”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “About a month ago.”

  “And did you recently hire anyone to find her whereabouts?”

  She looked confused and shook her head. “No, I mean . . . it’s not like I never see her. Every once in a while I go in the city and meet her somewhere.”

  “Where?”

  She frowned. “A cafeteria, coffee shop—someplace like that. I mean, I can’t take her someplace nice. Not looking like she does.”

  “And what does she look like?”

  Mrs. Nelson grimaced. “Skinny, dirty—well, like a whore. Like a drug addict and a street whore,” she said angrily. “Do you have children?” she asked.

  “No,” I told her. “I can’t.”

  She looked at me. There’s usually only one reason why a healthy woman can’t have children. Maybe a woman like her could find a real doctor when she needed one. But not me.

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. I didn’t say anything. “You don’t know,” she said, more softly. “You don’t know . . . to see your own daughter, like that.”

  “You ever try to bring her home?”

  Mrs. Nelson shook her head and looked down at the ground. “Oh no, I couldn’t do that. She couldn’t come back here. Her father . . . He wouldn’t like that at all. We couldn’t have her around. Not in the state she was in.”

  “How about her brother and sister?”

  She shook her head. “Nadine was never close to them. She’s much younger.” She tried to make a little smile. “I . . . I had some female problems, too, and I didn’t think I could have any more children until Nadine came along.”

  “The last time you saw her,” I asked, “where was she staying?”

  Mrs. Nelson shrugged. “She was living with girlfriends, I think. I don’t know. Maybe a man. I don’t know where she was living then, or how she was supporting herself. Of course I gave her whatever I could, whenever I saw her, but Nathaniel has a budget for me, and there’s only so much we can do without. He doesn’t want me giving her any money, he’s been very firm about that. He doesn’t know that I see her at all.”

  “How did you talk to each other? Did she leave a phone number, or—”

  “No,” Mrs. Nelson said. “I guess they don’t have phones in the kind of places she stays. She’s always called me whenever . . . whenever she was desperate enough, I guess.”

  “How about this neighbor?” I asked. “I heard there was a problem with the man who lived next door?”

  Mrs. Nelson looked everywhere except at my face. “I don’t know. Nathaniel said it was impossible. That he would never . . . Nadine always was . . . dramatic, I guess you’d call it. She was an artist, you know.”

  “I know,” I said. “I saw one of her drawings. It looked good.”

  She smiled. “She is good, isn’t she?” I smiled back. “You know I always liked to draw, too, but I never had the chance. . . . Well, I was so pleased when Nadine took an interest in it. That’s one thing that gives me hope. At least she has something. . . .”

  She started to cry, but kept herself under control. That was all she knew. I asked her to be more specific about the places she had met Nadine. She could remember two: a Ukrainian coffee shop on the Lower East Side and a cafeteria near Times Square, but she didn’t know their names. There were over a dozen of each. It didn’t do me any good.

  “Do you think she’s okay?” Mrs. Nelson asked before I left.

  “Yeah,” I lied. “I think she’s fine. From what you’ve told me I think this was all a big misunderstanding. The girl who was mixed up in all this—I don’t think it was Nadine at all. I’m sure Nadine’s just fine. I’ll let you know.”

  “Really?” she said. “You really think she’s okay?”

  “I’m sure of it,” I said. I made myself smile. “It’s just a misunderstanding. Nadine is in no kind of trouble at all.”

  A relief came over her that was so strong it almost rubbed off on me.

  “And who did you say you were working for?” she asked. “I was so startled when you came to the door, I’ve forgotten what you said.”

  “I’ll be sure to let you know when I find Nadine,” I said, and walked back to the car.

  Just for good measure, I threw a rock through the window of the house next door before I left New Village.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The drive back to the city seemed longer than the drive out. It was just as I’d thought: Nadine’s family had no idea where she was and had nothing to do with any of this. It was most likely that Jerry had cut Nadine loose as soon as they got into trouble. The girl in the Royale had said that Nadine was leaving to meet Jerry somewhere later. He probably never showed up. She knew where they had stolen the dope from. That was probably who had killed McFall. And my chance of finding her was about as good as finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I’d thought I was at a dead end before. I didn’t know just how dead an end could be. I wouldn’t waste any more time looking for her. There were other ways to find out w
ho McFall had been dealing with.

  In the Bronx, up north where it was still the country, I stopped at a gas station to fill up the Rocket 88. And I noticed something funny. Behind me on the road had been a black Chevy, a few years old, a big dusty car that needed a wash—although by now, so did Jim’s. I’d noticed it because I was switching lanes a lot, trying to shave a few seconds here and there off the trip. And the black sedan kept right up with me. That wasn’t so strange.

  But now that same car pulled into the station just behind me. Not over to the pumps, but over by the office, like he was going to get a Coke. Except he didn’t get out of the car. I must have passed five gas stations on the way. And there was nothing special about this one.

  The kid pumping gas came to my window. “Sorry,” I said. “I forgot—I don’t have any money on me. I’ll come back later.”

  “Yeah, sure,” he spat out, and walked away. I waited a minute. No one got out of the Chevy. I pulled back out and got on the road going south again. The Chevy followed. I kept in the same lane, now, so he could get right up behind me and I could get a look at him in the rearview mirror. But he didn’t. He was following me, all right, but he wasn’t quite that dumb, and he put a few cars in between us now.

  All this time I’d been wondering how someone could have followed me to McFall’s without my noticing. Because I was sure someone had followed me—there was no other way for them to know when I found McFall. But now I saw that it was pretty easy to follow someone. If I hadn’t pulled into the gas station, I never would have noticed the Chevy at all.

  The Chevy kept up a good pace behind me and at the next gas station I pulled in and let the attendant fill up the car. While he was doing that, the Chevy pulled in, not to one of the pumps, but by the office again.

  While the kid was filling up the car I got out and went over to the Chevy. He pulled out of there and back onto the road so fast you’d think I’d pulled a gun on him.