Inherit the Dead

adozen or so blocks from his Yorkville one-bedroom, could have been a hundred miles away in every conceivable way and buffered by something special: money.
    The call had come the night before.
    It’s my daughter. She’s missing and—
    Did you call the police?
    No. It’s . . . a family matter. And I want to keep it that way.
    How long?
    How long . . . what?
    How long has she been missing?
    Oh. A week. No. Closer to two.
    Perry thought: Two weeks . If his daughter were missing for two days he’d have called out the National Guard.
    That’s a long time.
    A pause. Well, my daughter, Angel, has a tendency to . . . wander. Now and then.
    Wander?
    Yes. Take a trip, go off with a friend. She’s not a child. She’s twenty. And she doesn’t live with me.
    Who does she live with?
    Her father.
    And I presume he hasn’t heard from her.
    You presume correctly.
    Have you checked with her friends?
    Of course. The words barked.
    Perry could tell this would be no ordinary mother-and-child reunion.
    You will help me, Detective.
    It was not a question. And Perry had not answered it. Instead, he waited for her next command, which followed.
    Come see me. Now.
    Now?
    Is that a problem?
    Now—as in ten at night—when he was already in his underwear, feet up, watching a Law & Order rerun. Clearly a woman used to getting what she wanted when she wanted it. But if she could wait nearly two weeks, she could wait another eight hours.
    I’ll see you in the morning.
    But you will get started right away.
    Again, not a question.
    We’ll see, he’d said, though he knew he would take the case. A job was a job. And with the current economy he needed every one, though he was doing okay. Four years now since he’d started his own PI firm. More than half of his tiny apartment was his ad hoc office: two computers, a scanner, video equipment, a digital camera with an extra-long telephoto lens, listening devices. Things he never imagined he’d be using, but necessary for the work he did for his biggest clients: insurance companies. Spent his days spying on people out dancing and climbing trees when they claimed they couldn’t walk.
    It’s my daughter, she’s missing . . .
    The woman’s words replayed in Perry’s mind as he quickened his step against the cold.
    He didn’t particularly like missing persons—“locates,” as they were called in the business. Most of them were people who didn’t want to be found, embezzlers or ex-husbands behind on child support, the latter his least favorite and something he turned down when he could. Perry hadn’t missed a child support payment in five years, even at his lowest point when it meant skipping meals—but a missing girl, even one twenty years old, was something else, something to worry about.
    Unless she’d run away. Perry turned the corner, more icy wind in his face. Most runaways were teenagers, he knew that, young oneswho didn’t know yet how tough it could be out in the cold, cold world. Perry had found more than his share of them. Girls and boys out of the plains states, corn-fed innocents, pretty young things who’d run away because they hated their parents for good and bad reasons. A mistake either way, which they learned working Manhattan’s mean streets. Most turning up scared and sick, ruined, a few who might be saved (though he was never sure); every one of them another scar on his soul, to see what the world could do to a kid.
    Perry tugged the woolen scarf—a gift from Nicky—tighter around his neck.
    It’s not my birthday, kiddo.
    Does it have to be your birthday to get a gift, Daddy? You give me things all the time.
    Nicky had draped the scarf around his neck—soft wool, blue and tan stripes. See, it matches your eyes, Daddy.
    Impossible. There’s no red in this scarf, and my eyes are always bloodshot.
    Oh, pul-leese, Daddy. Your eyes are blue, like mine!
    The best kid in the world—and he had lost her. Well, not entirely. But every other weekend was like a prison sentence, though one he would wait out because in another three years she’d be eighteen and thinking about college. Barnard on the Upper West Side. Something Perry had suggested. He was already checking out two-bedroom apartments in the area.
    The thought made him smile, but looking around at the passersby he noted he was the only one. Lexington Avenue was clogged with people trudging to work on streets slick with ice or stepping over gutters filled with blackened snow, all of them frowning.
    A strong