Then a click. I stood for a moment, fuming. Who the hell was Joel Pilarsky to give me an order and then hang up? I almost called him back just to say that. Yes, well, chill, Lydia. Just go up there.

We certainly did have to talk.

I got in gear and trotted to the N train, reaching the platform in time to see red taillights. Served me right for arguing with myself. Well, so Joel would have to wait. Served him right for pushing me around. When the train finally came, the ride was shorter than the wait had been.

Joel’s office was in midtown, in a 1930s building with complicated corridors and cranky steel windows. Its elevators grumbled and its terrazzo floors sagged. Joel claimed he didn’t move because the place was such a dump the landlord paid the tenants, but I knew the truth. From the day we met, I’d seen Joel’s impatient know-it-allness for what it was: a smoke screen for his secret identity as a hopeless romantic. Like most romantics, he was disappointed in little and big ways dozens of times a day, and like most, he kept trying. These rabbit-warren hallways, these glass-paneled doors with names in gold, creaking onto small rooms with vast Manhattan views-what could be a more romantic place for a private eye? Joel Pilarsky, I thought, you don’t fool me.

I got a nod from the lobby guard. My last case with Joel-the runaway wife and the noodle king-had been only a year ago, so maybe he recognized me. More likely he just hoped he did so he wouldn’t have to tear himself from the Enquirer’s coverage of a spaceship landing in Pittsburgh.

The elevator muttered all the way up as though I’d interrupted its lunch break. On Joel’s floor I walked the maze, left-right-right-left. I knocked and pushed his door open. There was an outer office, as though Joel had a secretary, but he didn’t, just a part-time bookkeeper to send out the bills. I walked through to the inner office, saying, “Pilarsky, this place is a mess. If you’re going to make me drop everything and run over here, the least you could do-”