Detective

summonses on either partner.
    In all, I went four times to the Englewood Cliffs address, which turned out to be a luxury high-rise so posh you practically had to show your membership in the local country club to get in. I never got past the front desk. Three times I was told Mr. Golden wasn’t there. The fourth and last time, the doorman called upstairs and someone answered the phone. The doorman wouldn’t let me talk to this person, but instead relayed messages back and forth. I said I had a delivery for Mr. Golden. I was asked who I was and what I was. I said I was an officer of the Supreme Court of New York, and I had papers for Mr. Golden. I was asked what kind of papers. I said it was a summons. I was asked from whom. I told them—they would know anyway, from the copy I’d taped to their door. The doorman then hung up the phone and informed me that Mr. Golden was not at home.
    I just stared at him. I knew he was lying, and he knew I knew he was lying, but what the hell could I do about it? I didn’t even know what Golden looked like. He could walk right by me in the lobby, and I wouldn’t even know it. And the doorman sure wasn’t going to tell me. Jesus Christ, I thought. What sleazebags. These guys are so slick and crafty and rich that they know all the angles. They’re smart enough to hide behind their phony corporate names and addresses and mail drops and doormen. They’ve consulted their lawyers and know the statute of limitations is running out on the case, and all they have to do is keep ducking me for a few more weeks and it will be too late to file suit, and they’ll have won. The fucking sleazebags.
    I was determined to get them. For one thing, I owed it to Richard. I had fucked this thing up for him, and now it was up to me to make it right. For another thing, Richard never paid for an assignment until it was completed, and I had already invested almost twenty hours in the damn case, for which I wouldn’t get a dime until the summons was served. But most of all, I had to get them for me. My self-esteem as a private detective, never particularly high, was at an all-time low, and I was feeling particularly stupid, incompetent, bungling, useless.
    I swore I’d get them.
    I’d failed with Golden, but I still had a shot at Dursky. His address in Woodmere would be a private house, no doorman to contend with. But he’d be forewarned. He’d know I’d tried to serve Golden, that I had Golden’s address, so he’d assume I had his address, too. He’d be expecting me. He’d take precautions. He wouldn’t open the door.
    For a service to be legal, there must be physical contact. It can be slight—you can touch the guy with the summons and drop it on the ground and that’s fine—but there has to be some. So Dursky had to open the door.
    I’d never gone to such lengths to serve a summons before, but I was desperate. And what I did made me feel almost like a real private detective, at least for a little while.
    I dug through my desk drawers and found an old telegram someone had sent me back when Tommie was born. The envelope was a little faded, but I figured it would pass.
    I borrowed an old UPS book from my father-in-law’s business. With it folded open and a carbon in place so you couldn’t see the UPS emblem, it could pass for a Western Union receipt book.
    I got up early the next morning, put on a jacket and cap, which I figured was as close as Western Union messengers would come to wearing a uniform these days, and drove out to Woodmere with the telegram and receipt book. I got there a little after seven, figuring if a guy as wealthy as Dursky got up and went to work any earlier than that, perhaps he deserved to keep his money.
    The address in Woodmere turned out to be a sprawling three-story stone mansion on an ungodly large lot. I parked my car in the street, and walked up the twisting drive to the house.
    The front door was a massive thing of carved oak. It had a peephole in the middle, a large brass doorknocker, a mail slot, and three substantial-looking locks. The locks were my main concern. If I were to succeed, they would have to open.
    I rang the bell. There was long wait, during which I thought, Jesus Christ, maybe nobody is at home. Then I heard movement behind the door—slow, shuffling steps, and then the sound of the metal plate covering the peephole being slid back. A thin voice said, “Who is it?”
    I held up the telegram in front of the peephole. “Telegram for