Hardball

She smiled in embarrassment. “I didn’t come on his account, I’m afraid. But he told me you’re a detective, and you seem like the kind of person I need.”

Oh, boy. I do a good deed and I get a client. Who says we have to wait for our reward in heaven? When I ushered her into my office, she stood hesitantly in the doorway, looking around, the way people do whose ideas of private eyes are taken from Humphrey Bogart and James Ellroy movies.

“What is it you need detecting, Ms.-?”

“Le

“You know, not to turn down work, but the police have a whole department devoted to missing persons.”

“My ladies are African-American and very old,” Karen said. “They have bad memories of the police. A private detective wouldn’t carry all that baggage, in their eyes.”

“I don’t work for free, the way the cops would,” I said. “Or the Salvation Army-they have a service.”

“The Army says Miss Ella’s son’s been missing too long for them to do much for her, although they did file a report.” She hesitated. “She’s living on her small Social Security check, didn’t get a pension after all her years screwing gizmos together for the phone company. I looked you up online and saw the voluntary organizations you serve-women’s shelters, rape crisis, reproductive rights-I thought you probably would do pro bono work if the people were in dire need.”

My lips tightened. “I sometimes do pro bono work but not on missing persons, especially not a person who’s been missing for a long time. How long has it been, anyway, that the Salvation Army balked at searching?”

“I don’t know the details.” Karen Le

“Someone will have to come up with money for my fee,” I said firmly. “Even if I don’t charge my full rate, which is a hundred fifty an hour, I ca

My old friend Lotty Herschel is the leading perinatologist at Beth Israel. We were having di

“Maybe if you have a conversation with Miss Ella, you can steer her toward a place she could afford.” Karen sidestepped my suggestion. “What harm can one meeting do you?”

4

OVER DINNER WITH LOTTY, I TOLD HER ABOUT MY RESCUE of Elton and Karen Le

“Max knows more about the hospital’s subsidiaries and their staffs than I do,” she said when I asked what she knew about Karen Le

Max Loewenthal, Lotty’s longtime friend and lover, was executive director of Beth Israel Hospital and on the board of their holding company. Lotty called me the next day with his response. “Le

I could have-should have-let Karen Le

The security guard at the entrance directed me to Karen Le

Lionsgate Manor was clean, but its last overhaul lay a long way in the past. The paint on the walls was chipped, and you could see where walkers and canes had pounded dents in the cracked linoleum flooring. Only a few hall lights were burned out or missing, but management used the lowest wattage possible, so even on a bright summer day the air was a dingy green, making me feel as though I were at the bottom of a dirty ocean.

When I finally reached Le

I mentioned Max Loewenthal’s name to the chaplain as we rode the elevator, and her face brightened. “So many executive directors are too focused on profit. Max remembers that the hospital only exists because it has a mission to care for human suffering.”

We got off on the ninth floor. Le

Karen Le

Miss Ella was a tall woman, and, despite the cane, she held herself ramrod straight. Home alone in the middle of the afternoon, she still wore stockings and a severely cut navy dress.

“This is Ms. Warshawski, Miss Ella. She’s here to talk with you about your son.”

Miss Ella inclined her head a fraction of an inch but ignored my outstretched hand.

“Call and let me know how you get on.” Karen Le

I got off to a rocky start as soon as I walked in. The room was tiny and crammed with the mementos of Miss Ella’s life-tables and shelves stuffed with Hummel figurines, china vases, glass animals, a large bronze head of Martin Luther King, Jr… I knocked against a teetery table and rattled a tableau of china gazelles and zebras. Nothing fell, but Miss Ella muttered “Hmmpf,” adding, “Bull in a china shop,” in a loud undervoice. Only a small round table near the kitchenette was free of breakables, but it held Miss Ella’s workbasket, an enormous wicker affair that sprouted knitting needles like porcupine quills.

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s and Barack Obama’s portraits hung on either side of the wall-mounted television, framed religious texts stood among the figurines. “During your times of suffering and trial, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then I carried you,” I read, and “Try to live each day He sends / To serve my gracious Master’s ends.”