Dating Is Murder

“You had him checked out?”

“Yeah, and the Bentley he drives was seized in a case last month. It’s his bu-car, in Fed-speak.” She looked at me. “Of course I checked, I was worried. It’s weird, someone recruiting you. You’re not ratlike enough.”

“Thanks,” I said, not liking anything about this conversation. “So what about tonight? Are we sure the agency’s even open?”

“Fredreeq checked. She has ways of getting calls returned you can’t imagine. They’re open the Friday after Thanksgiving because of their international business. Till five.”

“And we’ll be back for Biological Clock? I’m spying tonight.”

“Bing couldn’t get the location till midnight, so it’s a late start. You and I’ll be done long before that. In and out. A drive-through burglary. Sorry, did I say burglary? Borrowing.”

I rode to Au Pairs par Excellence with trepidation. Joey’s casual about things I care about, like physical safety and staying within the law. But Marie-Thérèse, A

“Relax, Wollie,” Joey said. “Even your mom approved this operation. By the way, who was she in a past life?”

“Everybody. She’s a very old soul.”

“Anyone I’d know?”

“Beethoven. Winston Churchill. Cleopatra’s stillborn child.”

Joey nodded. “It could be worse. She could be in the state pen and you’d feel compelled to go visit her every week. Or she could be dead. Of breast cancer, something you’d worry about inheriting and passing on to your daughters.”

“I’m not having any daughters. Or sons. Even if I’m still physically capable, I’m not mother material. I’m broke, uneducated, bad at long-term relationships, really bad at math, and I recently let a three-year-old eat six cupcakes in four minutes. Fredreeq’s still in shock.”

“Well, nobody’s perfect. You may not be the best judge of your maternal instincts; ask Ruby if you’d make a good mother.”

I couldn’t ask Ruby. She was in Asia. And I missed her.

“What my shrink would say,” Joey continued, “is that you’re childless because you fear turning into your mom. That’s what he tells me.”

I hadn’t realized Joey had baby issues. “What does he say to do about it?”

“Since I can’t change her, I have to take a stab at appreciating her so that turning into her doesn’t depress me. Realize I’d like her just fine if she weren’t my mom. Admit she loves me, however imperfectly. Acknowledge she’s not truly bad, she’s just offbeat-bad mothers leave their children alone in locked cars on hot summer days with the windows rolled up.”

“This is good, therapy by proxy,” I said. “Anything else you found out about me?”

“Yes. Your desire to find A

I didn’t know what to say. Didn’t everyone live like that at nineteen?

The rest of the way to San Pedro we talked about Lauren Rodriguez. And Britta and the pill that co

“Sounds like he was exporting this to Germany,” Joey said. “But the international drug trade-there are syndicates to go through. You don’t just hang out a shingle and take orders.”

No. You signed on with Vladimir Tcheiko and went global. Little Fish must’ve recruited Rico when he visited the set. Maybe Rico was eager to show some initiative, putting together his own team in preparation for the big merger.

“Joey,” I said, “if someone on the show is into drugs, would you know?”

Joey glanced in the rearview mirror. “Depends on what you mean by ‘into.’ I’ve done everything that doesn’t involve needles or aerosol cans, but I’ve never sold, even when I needed money. Little kink in my moral code. Other people deal them but don’t use. On B.C. I don’t know; I’m the producer, people don’t let their hair down around me. Production sucks.”

Joey circled the block so Fredreeq could precede us into the Au Pairs par Excellence lot. We parked too, and went into the Laundromat next to the agency, positioning ourselves near the window. If any coin-op customers found it odd that we’d come in to enjoy the view, they didn’t mention it.

Fredreeq got out of her Volvo, looked around, then approached a boxy orange vehicle next to her and slowly walked the length of it, touching it. “What’s she doing?” I whispered.

“Drawing a line with Wite-Out,” Joey whispered.

Fredreeq returned the Wite-Out to her purse and hurried into the agency, emerging seconds later with the secretary-receptionist we’d met the previous week. Joey and I slipped out of the Laundromat and into the empty agency.

File boxes were everywhere, as they’d been the week before. If anything, they’d reproduced. I checked under Marty Otis’s metal desk. Even there, boxes. “Joey?” I said.

“Go for it.”

“What about you?”

Before she could respond, we heard Fredreeq’s voice outside, u

“-didn’t want you thinking it was me. People so damn irresponsible, no accountability- Where’s the phone?” She made a call to her husband, Francis, asking about stores that carried car paint. I wondered where Joey was hiding and told myself not to worry, that she was a toothpick, that her hair took up more space than her body.

Fredreeq sounded prepared to talk indefinitely, but the receptionist eventually told her she had to close up. Thank God. Fredreeq said good-bye, drawers opened and closed, a window cranked shut, a phone machine message changed, and, finally, a key turned in a door.

Uh-oh.

I waited for Joey’s faint “Wollie?” before I crawled out from under the desk. It took me a full minute to stand. Was this what arthritis felt like? I looked around and said, “Joey?”

A muffled sound came from a file cabinet. It was a vertical job not much more than four feet tall, moved out from the wall about fifteen inches, due to a fortuitously placed pipe. It rattled and from the back Joey emerged, looking like I felt, hair disheveled and body parts unfolding with difficulty.

“How did you fit back there?” I asked.

“Squatting and bent over. I may have to spend the night at a chiropractor’s.”

“We may have to spend the night here.” I went to the glass front door for a closer look. “What if we need a key to get out? I didn’t think about that. Did you?”

“It crossed my mind, but that’s not what worries me. It’ll be Christmas before we get through these boxes. This is insane. I can’t believe I’m asking, but is it worth it?”

“It’s worth it. I’m telling you, Marie-Thérèse knows about A

There were over a hundred boxes. Had these people been in business since World War II? The au pair program hadn’t been around nearly that long. I picked one at random, and looked at my watch. In less than seven hours we had to be in Beverly Hills for B.C. “Do we leave things tidy?” I asked. “Are we trying to cover our tracks?”

“We could turn a leaf blower loose in here and no one would notice. I say we just start in. Maybe put a check mark on the boxes we’ve looked at.”

It was 5:22 P.M. At 6:49 we turned on the radio to liven things up, and listened to the latest report of volcanic activity on the Big Island of Hawaii. At 8:03 we stopped the au pair search and began a food search. “Protein bars. Oyster crackers. That’s what normal people keep in an office,” Joey said. “I bet this place is a front for something.”