One Cold Night

cuddled on the couch for a full twenty minutes. He was the one man in her life who forgave her for how she looked, smelled, felt or where she’d been all night; this little man demanded her love, and she gave it. Something she figured by now she’d never find in a grown man.
    Lupe thought Mrs. Susan Bailey-Strauss was lucky in her husband. Dave Strauss was confused as hell right now, but anyone could see he was crazy for her. Lupe wondered what she would do if someday she met a guy like that, a full-grown man who could really love her. Would she tell him all her secrets? She had plenty; her early years were no picnic. But she’d never met a man who really wanted to know the dirty under her sweet-and-sour. Love was like that, and if you wanted love, you had to hold tight to your side of the covers.
    When the car was gone, she went back inside to talk to the doorman. Burly guy about sixty, wearing a black toupee and a nametag reading EDUARDO. Her head barely came up past the tall counter that looked like some kind of fake green marble. Eduardo was looking down, reading something, and he didn’t notice her. Pick any reason you want; on the job, he was off the job, “Which is why he’s a doorman” she would have told Orlando.
    “Excuse me!” She deliberately made it a statement instead of a question, and brought out her badge. Now he saw her.
    “Yes, Detective, what can I do for you?” He had a crick in his voice, telling her he smoked. The yellow stains on his fingers, when he reached over to shake her hand, confirmed it.
    “Got a few questions about a FedEx delivery this morning,” she said in Spanish.
    “Okay,” he answered in kind.
    “You remember it?”
    “FedEx and all the rest come in and out of here all day long,” the guy said.
    “What time you started working today?”
    “Six. I’m here until two in the afternoon.”
    “’Bout eleven thirty this morning, FedEx came with something for Susan Bailey-Strauss.”
    He shrugged and smiled, his small eyes nearly vanishing in the folds of his skin.
    “You remember or not?”
    “Sure, I remember. I’m here, no?”
    Good question. “Can you give me a description of the guy?”
    The sides of his mouth dipped in an imitation of thought. “Listen, these guys are in and out all day, bunches of them, every size, shape and color. They’re like lollipops.” He chuckled at his own wit.
    “Lollipops,” she said in a flat voice, staring at this loser. “Let me make a note of that.” She did not take out her notebook. “How long was this one lollipop upstairs?”
    Eduardo pursed his lips in more deadly thought. “About five minutes.” Meaning: Taking a pee break or a cigarette break or a nap on my desk — no idea.
    She slipped one of her business cards over the top of the high counter. “You think of something, you let me know.”
    “Will do.” He took the card.
    She would have liked to have gotten a look behind his counter, but could have guessed: crushed cigarette pack, coffee-stained paper cup, empty soda can, old gum balled up in a paper wrapper.
    He came around the counter, buttoning his navy blue blazer, and opened the door for her.
    A couple of cops she recognized from the Eight-four were stationed outside the building and she asked them the same questions she’d asked Eduardo. Their memories weren’t much better.
    “We didn’t know we were supposed to be looking for FedEx,” one said.
    “A little warning woulda been nice.” The other was a genius, too. “I mean, FedEx comes and goes all day, everywhere. They’re like—”
    “Lollipops, I know.”
    Lupe walked away, thinking useless and interesting and I will make a note of that: No one actually saw anyone make a delivery to the Bailey-Strauss loft.
    She walked down Washington Street and into the Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park, in exactly the same direction Susan Bailey-Strauss had last seen Lisa go. Some things were crystal-clear right now; others were murky as old bathwater. She needed to think, which for some people meant taking a walk and for her may have been just a little bit more. She prowled; that was what she called it. Her colleagues at the Eight-four knew that about her by now: “Loopy’s on the prowl!” someone might shout when she headed out without purse or appointment. “Loopy’s hopping on the Ouija board. New York City, watch out!”
    Prowling opened her; it helped her mind to work out problems — problems like missing girls, footprints and suspicious