“What’s her last name, Mr. Thayer?”

“Hill. Anita Hill. Well, as I said, I went down to try to make her see reason. And-right after that she disappeared.”

“It sounds to me like your problem’s solved.”

“I wish it was. The thing is, now Pete’s saying I bought her off, paid her to disappear. And he’s threatening to change his name and drop out of sight unless she turns up again.”

Now I’ve heard everything, I thought. Hired to find a person so her boyfriend would go to business school.

“And were you responsible for her disappearance, Mr. Thayer?”

“Me? If I was, I’d be able to get her back.”

“Not necessarily. She could have squeezed fifty grand out of you and gone off on her own so you couldn’t get it back. Or you could have paid her to disappear completely. Or you may have killed her or caused her to he killed and want someone else to take the rap for you. A guy like you has a lot of resources.”

He seemed to laugh a little at that. “Yeah, I suppose all that could be true. Anyway, I want you to find her-to find Anita.”

“Mr. Thayer, I don’t like to turn down work, but why not get the police-they’re much better equipped than I for this sort of thing.”

“The police and I-” he started, then broke off. “I don’t feel like advertising my family problems to the police,” he said heavily.

That had the ring of truth-but what had he started to say? “And why were you so worried about things getting heavy?” I wondered aloud.

He shifted in his chair a bit. “Some of those students can get pretty wild,” he muttered. I raised my eyebrows skeptically, but he couldn’t see that in the dark.

“How did you get my name?” I asked. Like an advertising survey-did you hear about us in Rolling Stone or through a friend?

“I found your name in the Yellow Pages. And I wanted someone in the Loop and someone who didn’t know-my business associates.”