steeled myself to face the truth: that life isn’t very good but it’s all you’ve got. And all the time, though I didn’t know it, the changes were stirring.
DAMASCENE
3
The woman known as Damascene came to me the very next day in Snuff’s Landing, New Jersey.
Snuff’s Landing is one of the decaying Hudson River towns that line the shabby foreshore between Hoboken and Fort Lee.
As usual, I was in my dingy office on Sisal Street and I remember that I had just reached page 666 in Motley’s Rise and Fall of the Dutch Republic , which is exactly the sort of book to read when you have a business like mine with long gaps between the exciting bits, if any. Then my first customer of the year, aside from Frankie, tapped lightly on the door and came in.
This was very welcome since it was already June.
She was a tall, willowy girl with sunstreaked blonde hair. Her mouth looked sort of trembly and vulnerable. Her eyes were dark and gray, and she had peculiar little lights in the irises. She was wearing a severely tailored dark suit which did not hide her shape; it was that happy simultaneity of ampleness and slenderness that some fortunate women possess.
“Are you Hobart Draconian?” she asked.
“Just like the sign on the door says,” I told her. “Who are you?”
“Men call me Damascene,” she said. “I come from Montclair, New Jersey, where the pomegranates grow.” She smiled at me and a lock of hair fell fetchingly over one eye, giving her that Veronica Lake look that I find so hard to resist.
“Unusual name,” I commented, sizing up her good legs as she sat in the client’s chair facing my desk.
“It’s not my real name,” she said. “I was just kidding about that. It’s something I do when I get nervous. Actually, I’m Rachel Starr with two r ’s and the first thing I have to ask you is if the name Vedra means anything to you.”
Vedra is an uninhabited island off the coast of Ibiza. Ibiza is one of the four Balearic islands that lie in the western Mediterranean between Spain and France. Vedra was the place we used to go for sunset watching, back a million years ago when I lived on Ibiza with Kate and we did things like that.
“What do you know about Vedra?” I asked.
“I know that you and Alex shared a house near there one summer.”
“Alex? You mean Alex Sinclair?”
She nodded.
I’d lost track of Alex years ago. He and I had been pretty tight for a while.
“What’s the problem?” I asked.
“Alex said if anything ever happened to him, I should look you up.”
“So what’s happened?”
“He’s missing.”
I nodded. It would have to be something like that. That’s why they come to me.
“Where was he last seen?” I asked her.
“Paris.”
I straightened up in my chair. “What was he doing?”
“He was playing in a rock band. Five-string electric banjo, I believe. He left Amsterdam to rejoin his group.”
“Just a minute.” I swung my feet off the desk and found a pad and a Bic. “What was the name of his group?”
“Les Monstres Sacrés.”
“That sounds like Alex’s sort of group all right. Please continue.”
“I know he arrived in Paris. He sent me a telegram from De Gaulle Airport. He was going to telephone me when he had a hotel room.”
“Obviously he didn’t.”
“No, he did not. I didn’t hear anything from him. That was three weeks ago.”
“I don’t mean to be harsh,” I said, “but is it possible maybe he was ducking you?”
“I don’t think so,” Rachel said. “He’d given me his power of attorney to clear out his bank accounts and sell some property. I’m holding nearly eighty thousand dollars in Alex’s money. That, my friend, is not chicken liver.”
“I agree he probably wasn’t trying to duck you,” I said. “Did you have anyone to call and ask about him? A mutual friend?”
She shook her head. “Alex was very specific about that. If anything happened, I wasn’t to try anyone but
DAMASCENE
3
The woman known as Damascene came to me the very next day in Snuff’s Landing, New Jersey.
Snuff’s Landing is one of the decaying Hudson River towns that line the shabby foreshore between Hoboken and Fort Lee.
As usual, I was in my dingy office on Sisal Street and I remember that I had just reached page 666 in Motley’s Rise and Fall of the Dutch Republic , which is exactly the sort of book to read when you have a business like mine with long gaps between the exciting bits, if any. Then my first customer of the year, aside from Frankie, tapped lightly on the door and came in.
This was very welcome since it was already June.
She was a tall, willowy girl with sunstreaked blonde hair. Her mouth looked sort of trembly and vulnerable. Her eyes were dark and gray, and she had peculiar little lights in the irises. She was wearing a severely tailored dark suit which did not hide her shape; it was that happy simultaneity of ampleness and slenderness that some fortunate women possess.
“Are you Hobart Draconian?” she asked.
“Just like the sign on the door says,” I told her. “Who are you?”
“Men call me Damascene,” she said. “I come from Montclair, New Jersey, where the pomegranates grow.” She smiled at me and a lock of hair fell fetchingly over one eye, giving her that Veronica Lake look that I find so hard to resist.
“Unusual name,” I commented, sizing up her good legs as she sat in the client’s chair facing my desk.
“It’s not my real name,” she said. “I was just kidding about that. It’s something I do when I get nervous. Actually, I’m Rachel Starr with two r ’s and the first thing I have to ask you is if the name Vedra means anything to you.”
Vedra is an uninhabited island off the coast of Ibiza. Ibiza is one of the four Balearic islands that lie in the western Mediterranean between Spain and France. Vedra was the place we used to go for sunset watching, back a million years ago when I lived on Ibiza with Kate and we did things like that.
“What do you know about Vedra?” I asked.
“I know that you and Alex shared a house near there one summer.”
“Alex? You mean Alex Sinclair?”
She nodded.
I’d lost track of Alex years ago. He and I had been pretty tight for a while.
“What’s the problem?” I asked.
“Alex said if anything ever happened to him, I should look you up.”
“So what’s happened?”
“He’s missing.”
I nodded. It would have to be something like that. That’s why they come to me.
“Where was he last seen?” I asked her.
“Paris.”
I straightened up in my chair. “What was he doing?”
“He was playing in a rock band. Five-string electric banjo, I believe. He left Amsterdam to rejoin his group.”
“Just a minute.” I swung my feet off the desk and found a pad and a Bic. “What was the name of his group?”
“Les Monstres Sacrés.”
“That sounds like Alex’s sort of group all right. Please continue.”
“I know he arrived in Paris. He sent me a telegram from De Gaulle Airport. He was going to telephone me when he had a hotel room.”
“Obviously he didn’t.”
“No, he did not. I didn’t hear anything from him. That was three weeks ago.”
“I don’t mean to be harsh,” I said, “but is it possible maybe he was ducking you?”
“I don’t think so,” Rachel said. “He’d given me his power of attorney to clear out his bank accounts and sell some property. I’m holding nearly eighty thousand dollars in Alex’s money. That, my friend, is not chicken liver.”
“I agree he probably wasn’t trying to duck you,” I said. “Did you have anyone to call and ask about him? A mutual friend?”
She shook her head. “Alex was very specific about that. If anything happened, I wasn’t to try anyone but
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