Write me a Letter

off on a camel overland to Timbuktu . Which is probably what will happen if I drop in on his mother or sister or both, who seem to still reside where our skip, one William Gince, resided until a few days ago when he took off with a lot of money that didn’t belong to him. Anyway, that’s the story, although I think there’s more to it than that.”
    ”How would your visiting his mother and sister frighten him?”
    I sighed.
    ”It’s called the telephone, dear,” I said. ”Which they use the moment I leave, saying the heat is on.”
    ”Presuming he’s got a phone number and they know it,” she said.
    ”I’ve got to presume something,” I said. ”I’ve got nothing else to go on.”
    ”Also presuming they know why he split and that they connect you with it.”
    ”Also presuming,” I agreed.
    ”What if they write him instead of phoning?”
    I shrugged.
    ”I’ll try something else,” I said. ”Look. Let us assume they know where he is. Let us assume they will call him, given sufficient reason. I can give them sufficient reason, or you can give them a less-sufficient but still-sufficient-enough reason. Either way, he gets called. And if he gets called from his old apartment, I can find out where he is now.”
    ”How?”
    ”You’ll find out, maybe. If he’s already in Timbuktu , it doesn’t matter who goes calling, me or you. We still win because we’ve found out where he is, assuming what we’ve assumed, and can take it from there. But what if he’s somewhere relatively close like San Diego or Disneyland ? Last thing in the world we want to do is frighten him into taking the first plane out, we want him right where he is, close. And that, noodlehead, is where and why you come in.”
    ”I get it, I get it,” she said. ”You don’t have to go on and on forever. I drop in instead of you. I’ve got no connection with the reason he split, but I do give them some other reason for calling him. Like what, for instance?”
    I told her.
    She groaned theatrically. ”Is that the pathetic best idea you could come up with?”
    ”Here is the tale you spin the ladies,” I said. I told her the tale. ”And here is what I want you to do while you are talking to them, and after you have finished talking to them.” I told her that, too. ”OK? All clear?”
    ”Yeah, yeah,” she muttered. ”When does all this happen?”
    ”As soon as you go home and don some apparel more suitable for the job,” I said. ”Not that you don’t look most fetching in what you have on, which is a welcome change.”
    ”It gives me the creeps just thinking about what you probably wore back in the twenties when you were my age,” she said. ”So what should I put on?”
    ”How do I know what sartorial splendors lurk in your walk-in closet,” I said. ”Something respectable.”
    ”You gonna drive me down there?”
    ”No way,” I said. ”I got a small sum, a token, really, up front for expenses, it should just about run to a cab for you.”
    ”Both ways,” she said.
    ”Of course!” I said. ”Really, Sara, you do disappoint me sometimes. Don’t forget to get a receipt.”
    ”Get the big spender suddenly,” she said. ”How about something up front for my expenses?”
    I handed over forty dollars without further ado.
    ”And there’s fifty more when you come up with the goods,” I told her. ”Hell, make that seventy-five.”
    She whistled in mock amazement and rolled her eyes. ‘Are you sure you’re feeling OK?” She leant over and touched my forehead, then blew on her fingers as if they were red hot.
    ”Now that we’ve had our little laugh at ol’ Vic’s expense,” I said, ”can we get on, lambie-pie, unless you’d like to pop round to the pharmacy, steal a rectal thermometer, and double-check my temperature.” I remembered to scribble the Gince’s address down and passed it over. She grinned, gave my specs, which I was wearing, an unnecessary wiggle, then hastily removed herself from the premises before I could retaliate by tickling her, which she hated, or whatever. As if I’d even bother.
    She came back into my life late that afternoon, it would have been about five-thirty. I was still in the office running a chess program for beginners Benny had given me, on the computer. For beginners—I like that, most amusing. I did actually know that bishops moved one way and the guys on horses another. I switched off speedily when Sara appeared, wanting to forestall any comments she might have about