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She took it hard about the business folding.”
    Lorraine lit a cigarette.
    “Yeah, well, I’m not out celebratin’ myself, Jake, but one of us has got to earn the rent.”
    “You’re right, you’re right. So stay put, I’ll drive around.”
    “Was she at the meeting?”
    Lorraine asked with just a tinge of concern.

    “Outside it, I left her with Phyllis whatever her name is. I just hope the two of them aren’t out someplace tying on a load. See ya.”
    Her heart sank when not long after Jake had left she heard a bellow from the street and then Rosie’s footfalls. The small apartment, which had only one bedroom, a tiny bathroom and a living room with a kitchen crammed into a corner, was on the second floor of an old house on Marengo Avenue. The apartment below was occupied by an ever-growing family of Latinos. Luckily, they created much more noise themselves, their radio and TV sometimes turned up so loud you could hardly hear yourself sneak; anyone else having to live beneath the thunder of Rosie’s footsteps would have had a nervous breakdown.

    “Hey! You #ťn’t believe what I got to tell you.”
    Rosie’s cheeks were flushed pink with the exertion of hurrying home. She gasped for breath.

    “Rosie, how much have you had?”
    “I’ve got more bottled water swilling around inside me than the main water tank.”
    Rosie kicked off her shoes and chucked her coat aside, hurling her purse onto the sofa, and then, with her hands on her wide hips, she beamed from ear to ear.
    “I think we just got lucky.”
    “You want some coffee?”
    “No, sit down and listen, right now. Go on, siddown. Okay, now, you ever heard of a very famous movie star called Elizabeth Seal?”
    “Nope.”
    Rosie threw her hands up in the air.
    “Of course you have. The Maple Tree, you remember that one. And you gotta remember The Swamp and Mask of Vanessa, yes?”
    “Nope.”
    “For Chrissakes, we saw it on cable. The movie star Elizabeth Seal is famous, you gotta know who I’m talking about, late fifties, sixties, she washugel”
    “Have you been drinking with her?”
    Rosie flopped down on the sofa bed, which creaked qminously.
    “Don’t be dumb, as if Elizabeth Seal would be out drinkin’ water with me in Joe’s Diner. She’s a big movie star! Maybe you heard of the name Caley? Elizabeth Caley? That’s her married name.”
    Ł>
    “Nope.”
    “
    “Holy shit, I don’t believe you. Elizabeth and Robert Caley have been headlines, well, almost a year ago they were. Every paper ran their story, even the TV, it was headlines because of her bein’ so famous. Their daughter disappeared, you listening? Their eighteen-year-old daughter, Anna Louise Caley, disappeared.”
    Lorraine was trying to recall their names, but she still drew a blank. Nothing new in thatthere were big gaps of months, even years, when she hadn’t even recalled her own name, never mind anyone else’s.

    Rosie sipped the coffee. She was so excited she was sweating, her eyes bright like a child’s.
    “She disappeared without a trace. They had the police involved, they had mystics, psychics, ‘cause they had a big reward on offer. But they got no ransom note, no phone calls, no notes, nothin’. Like she just disappeared into thin air. Cops reckoned she might have been kidnapped and it went wrong and they killed her. They think she’s been bumped off and …” Half an hour later, Lorraine was sitting with her head in her hands, still unsure what Rosie was so excited about.
    “I mean, Rosie, if according to this Phyllis woman the Caleys have hired the top private investigation agencies, why come to us?”
    “Because nobody has found her yet and they’re still spending thousands. They’re megarich, Lorraine, and they keep on shellin7 dough out.”
    Lorraine held up her hand.
    “Wait, wait, Rosie, please, just listen to me. If the… Caleys, yes? have already over the past… how long did you say?”
    “Eleven months or so, happened during Mardi