Detective

probably had other talents that helped him earn his keep. The thought did not sit well, and I dropped back another hundred yards.
    The limo turned south onto the Grand Central Parkway, took the Grand Central to the Van Wyck. It was heading for JFK Airport, which didn’t make any sense at all. You drive the stuff all the way up from Miami, and when it gets here you get on a plane?
    Tony wasn’t going to the airport. The limo got on the Belt Parkway heading east and got off at Sunrise Highway. It stayed on Sunrise Highway for a while, and I realized we had left Queens and were now in Nassau County.
    We drove a little further, then turned south and started following some smaller back roads. This made things a lot trickier. I had to stay closer to see which way they turned, and if they made too many turns they were going to realize I was on their tail.
    We were going through a very poor section, which suddenly turned into a very rich section, as if someone had just pushed the “wealth” button, and suddenly I knew where we were. Woodmere!
    I’d served a summons in Woodmere once, and I had reason to remember it because it had been a thorn in my side. I hadn’t signed up the case myself, so I didn’t know anything about it other than the information in the summons I was supposed to serve: a 12-year-old boy had fallen down on the front steps of a building in Yonkers, owned by G. & D. Realty, and broken his arm, and his mother wanted a million dollars cash. Could you write me a check now, Mr. Real Estate Man?
    The address of the real estate company was on the summons, so I drove up to Yonkers to serve it. When I got there, though, the address turned out to be a wooden door with a diamond-shaped glass window on the street level between two stores. There was nothing on the door other than the street number, nothing to indicate what, if any, businesses resided within.
    I looked through the window. There was a narrow hallway with a flight of stairs leading to the presumed businesses above. On the wall just inside the door were a half-dozen mailboxes, but the angle wasn’t good enough for me to read the names on them. There were no bells outside the door, no way of attracting the attention of anyone within. And the door, of course, was locked. Considering my expertise with locked doors, I was somewhat at a loss as to what to do next.
    I was pondering my next move when a woman came down the street, pulled out a set of keys, and unlocked the door.
    I stepped right up as if she were just the person I’d been waiting for, said, “Thank you,” and held the door open as she went in. She gave me a look, but I was wearing my suit and tie, and didn’t appear to be that dangerous rapist the whole county was looking for, so she continued on in and up the stairs.
    I followed, stopping at the mailboxes, There were several small businesses listed, none of them G. & D. Realty; none, in fact, realty companies at all. Nor was there a listing for either a Mr. Golden or a Mr. Dursky, the two partners of G. & D. Realty named in the summons.
    I went upstairs and pounded on every door. Nobody had ever heard of G. & D. Realty, or any Mr. Golden or Mr. Dursky.
    Things were not looking good. I went outside, found a pay phone down the street, and called Richard’s office.
    I had the bad luck to get Kathy, who reluctantly looked up the information: yes, they had pulled the tax record for the building where the boy was injured; yes, the owner was listed as G. & D. Realty; yes, the address was the one on the summons; yes, the partners were Golden and Dursky; no, the tax record didn’t list home addresses; no, she didn’t have any other information, why didn’t I stop bugging her and go serve the damn summons?
    Why indeed?
    I was so angry when I got off the phone that it didn’t even register when a mailman walked right by me on his appointed rounds. He was halfway down the block before I came to my senses and caught up with him.
    He was a black man of about 55 and, contrary to the postal employee stereotype, intelligent, friendly, courteous, and helpful: yes, he delivered mail to the building in question; yes, G. & D. Realty received mail at that address—the mail was put in the box marked Craft Associates; no, the mail did not necessarily come care of Craft Associates, but anything addressed to G. & D. Realty went in that box.
    He had nothing for G. & D. Realty or Craft Associates that day, but he had mail for the building and, of course,