“Hello?”

“Who hired you?”

“It’s not polite to hang up on a brother, Roger.”

“I’m not your brother.”

“You still hung up on me.”

“Excuse me,” he said, maybe even meant it. “I’m not used to private detectives calling me on the phone.”

“You called me,” I reminded him.

“You came to my office.”

“It’s not so bad,” I said, “being sought by a PI. Nobody said you did anything wrong.”

“Who hired you?”

“Are you the Roger Brown who was once known as B-Brain?” I asked again.

The silence was long and painful. Roger didn’t want to hang up a second time. He didn’t want to answer my question either. There was music playing in the background of whatever room he was in; thuggish hip-hop with an insistent beat.

“How much they payin’ you, man?” a slightly different Roger Brown asked. This young man didn’t wear a suit and tie or collect a salary that had taxes taken out.

“My regular fee.”

“I’ll double it.”

“You don’t know what it is.”

“I’ll pay you a thousand to forget me.”

“Are you in trouble, Roger?”

“Naw, man. I ain’t in no kinda trouble.” His descent from Madison Avenue to the Lower East Side continued.

“Because,” I said, “I only ever charge my standard fee. I never take more. That way I keep my nose clean.”

“Why you up in my grill, man?”

“All I need to know from you is if you are the Roger Brown known as B-Brain.”

“Why?”

“I’ll tell you what, Roger,” I offered. “I’ll come over right now and meet you at that little espresso place across the street from your office or anywhere else you say. We could talk.”

“Uh-uh. No way, man. I ain’t meetin’ you nowhere, no kinda way.”

I had already been to his office. He didn’t know what I looked like. Even if Juliet had described me, he didn’t have my picture in his head. But Roger wasn’t being rational. He was afraid of something, and I wanted to know what that something was.