On the outskirts of town, I shunted into Beaver’s Exxon at the full service isle. The cable my tires crossed dinged to summon a tall, rangy girl from the first bay. Her oval pocket patch read, “Mandy”.

"Yes sir?" She rubbed a chapped wrist across her forehead.

"Premium," I told her. "Do me a favor. Check my oil and fluids."

"You just get paid?" Mandy wondered.

"Why?"

Mandy hunched a shrug inside the olive-drab overalls. "Money must burn a hole in your pocket for all that service. You work local, a stable groom or groundskeeper?"

"Temporary chauffeur," I replied. "The regular fellow quit to join the Marines."

Nodding, Mandy hefted the hood, cleaned and examined the dipstick. "Ain’t it the way of the world, we working stiffs keep the gasoline flowing. My dad is an ATV mechanic, owns no IRA nest egg. Retirement, what’s that? The bills keep coming. We’ll both bust fannies until we keel over dead."

"I heard that."
After the gas pump snapped off, I paid Mandy who counted change for a $20 bill. Driving away, I scowled. Mandy waxing philosophic about the proletariat’s burden had blown away my ebullient mood. Not much further, I turned into a pea gravel lane curving behind a quad of yellow brick buildings with apple green mansard roofs. Breezy lilac whipped something potent up my nose while young ladies in sundresses moved over dandelion-studded lawns.

A well shorn blonde lady, mid-forties, bracketed between white Corinthian columns waved both hands, gesturing. I bumped the dirt-brown Nissan with gray Bondo scars into her Visitors Only slot, ranged out with a nonchalant stretch, and strolled over.

"Mr. Johnson?" Her smile was tentative until my nod. "I am Ms. Cantrell, Dean of Holly Springs. Welcome, sir." After I joined her on the top step, we pressed the flesh, then I trailed her through oak doors into a corridor smelling of Johnson’s Paste Wax on the plank floor. Her office was on our immediate right where miniature silver spoons ringed the coffeemaker. Half-turning, she pointed and I sat in an overstuffed chair under a foxhunting portrait. She dragged a make-up mirror and plastic straw into the top drawer. I pretended not to notice.

"Coffee?" she asked.

I replied, "Thanks, no."

"Did you notice our campus?" Still on her feet, Ms. Cantrell stooped at the knees to peer out a window. A girlish hand shielded her puffy eyes shot with red spidery veins. "Sidwell Friends School, Foxcroft, and Notre Dame Academy have nothing on us. We’re cream of the crop." Her mocking pride verged on arrogance.
Clearing my throat, I leaned elbows on the desktop. "You mentioned over the phone about a dilemma."
Smoothing her black quilted vest and black tweed skirt that fell above mid-thigh, Ms. Cantrell sat at the desk. "You came to me recommended by Mr. Gatlin as -- oh, how did he phrase it? -- as a handyman."

Robert Gatlin was a self-made billionaire lawyer for whom off and on I did heavy lifting. My reaction was noncommittal as my response was trite. "Former clients have said I come in handy. I don’t disabuse the notion. It’s good advertising."

Her tongue sponged her lips, a nervous tic. "One of my students, a fifteen-year-old prodigy named Wendy Payne, is missing."

"Runaway? Kidnapping? Truant? What are we talking about here?"

Ms. Cantrell’s pupils dilated with anxiety. "It’s delicate. Wendy has, we believe, jetted off to Europe. Frankfurt. It was within her means. Against my counsel, her parents gave Wendy a credit card."

"You smell a lawsuit blowing in the wind?"

Ms. Cantrell blanched. Her tongue darted out again. "Mr. Johnson, perhaps you’re not suitable for this task."

"I apologize for my cynicism. Did you notify the police?"

Lick, lick. "Not at this stage." Lick, lick. "We’re dealing only with an errant student."

"Fair enough. Why Frankfurt? I could see a girl as Wendy winging off to Paris, Rome, or Athens. But Frankfurt? From my MP days, I remember it as raw, cold, and desolate. Hell, even Hitler avoided it."

"Wendy is obsessed with Goethe. He's a philosopher. Frankfurt was his home.. She confided in a fellow classmate and two days ago disappeared. I want you to bring her back to us."

Ms. Cantrell’s plain brown envelope thrust into my hands housed a two-way ticket, business class on Lufthansa. Like a bank teller, I tallied ten C-notes and reservations for a Frankfurt airport hotel. Out of the notch of my eye, I saw Ms. Cantrell shift her forearm. "Who’s my client? You or Wendy’s parents?" I asked.

Fidgeting, Ms. Cantrell sighed. Her forearm had been concealing a razor blade. She jerked back to cover it. "Your client? Oh, me. I’ll keep her mother and father appraised from this end. They’re now in Kyoto. Finding Wendy is your all. "

"Talking to Wendy’s schoolmate is the logical starting point," I said.

"Boo is an impressionable, high-strung girl," she said. "I’ve extracted all the pertinent facts from her."

"If you don’t cooperate," I pointed out, "this becomes a waste of time neither of us can afford."

Mrs. Cantrell hurried outside the doorway to snag a passing student. "Marsha, will you bring Boo to my office?"
We waited. Ms. Cantrell’s little finger swiped away imaginary particles of lint. "Wendy’s dad drinks, I’m afraid.

He’s prone to fits of violence."

"Physical violence?"

"Four years ago Wendy was dumped on us as an abused child. She’s our reclamation project which up until now has been a success."

The hinges whined. A diffident girl in her mid-teens slipped inside. She wore a wine-colored smock and knee socks.
Ms. Cantrell directed her to sit in the other overstuffed chair while explaining who I was, what I wanted.

"Boo and I should talk in private." I cut my eyes to Ms. Cantrell.

"It’s against school policy. No girl is left alone in a room with a strange man."

What she said had merit but I didn’t wish to debate it. "This may be a hard lump to swallow but I could care less. If it’s my investigation, it’s done my way."

Her eyes narrowing, Ms. Cantrell withdrew.

I used the direct approach. "Boo, please tell me what Wendy said. She may be in danger and time is running short."

The gist of what Boo said was Wendy had horrors about the upcoming summer because her mean dad had it in for her. She’d formed an escape plan but shared no details.

"Why might Wendy flee to Frankfurt?" I asked.

Tears leaked to Boo’s cheeks. "I don’t know, Mr. Johnson. That’s my best guess since she kept a scrapbook on Frankfurt and Goethe."

* * *

I stood in the Frankfurt Rhein-Main airport at old Terminal 1 where ballpark light panels overhead whirred every few moments to report flight status updates. Outside the overcast skyline looked like burnt motor oil smeared on a dog’s mange. It depressed me all over again. I paddled between milling passengers and ducked into Dr. Mueller's World of Erotic, Germany’s only airport porn shop. The German escalator I mounted operated same as those in America. So much for famed Teutonic engineering. I paused on the glass-paneled skywalk. Underneath, vehicles -- BMWs, Mercedes, and Volkswagens -- streaked by on the autobahn. The LCD display signaled "Zoo District: 125 Slots Available." City parking here also came at a premium.

"First visit to Frankfurt?" the desk clerk asked me.

"Nope. I marched through often during the Cold War."

"You’re set, sir. Pool, handball court, and sauna are downstairs."

"How about a watering hole?"

"Tiki Lounge serves liquor until midnight," she said.

Room 530’s passkey came tucked inside a red packet she edged across the brass counter. Women kept pushing envelopes at me. Yet, here I went alone to a cold bed thousands of miles from home. My tongue sued for Johnny Walker Red and I arrayed three smut rags atop the TV chained to my room’s wall. Any sneak thieves might snatch them and overlook riffling my Samsonite.

A noirish blue murk swallowed me on a bamboo stool in the Tiki Lounge. No Johnny Walker Red, only gin. In my palm was a portrait of Wendy Payne. I examined it under a dim light. Two adjectives jumped to mind: chipper and defiant. The green cashmere sweater was tight but tasteful. Brunette hair, big brown eyes, a heart-shaped face.

"Nice kid," said a voice, male. "Yours?" Distillery fumes battered my turning face.

As he leaned closer to squint at Wendy’s picture, I tightened across the shoulders. "Want to remove your hand from my coat pocket? Or do I rip off your head?"

He raised both arms to eye level, stumpy fingers outspread.

"Whoa, easy, bud," he said "You figured me wrong."

The burly bartender floated down to us. "Kirk, you pestering my customers again?"

Kirk objected. "Not at all."

The bartender forked a thumb. "Go sell your meat for tourists elsewhere. Scram."

Finishing my gin, I wondered if I looked hard up for a piece of tail and decided not to show around Wendy’s photo here. After paying, I left the bar. As I cornered the vestibule, a hatted man on a wall telephone hung up. We collided.

"Excuse me." The mutter belonged to Kirk.

"No harm, no foul," I replied.

"You’re headed upstairs solo, huh?" he noted.

"You a pimp?" I asked.

"Maybe," said Kirk. "Is your pleasure that young babe in the photo?"

We strolled into a shaft of light. "Yep. I screwed the ass off her last time in town. It has to be her. Nothing else swings my vine."

"No can do, mister. She’s a doll, I grant you. Still, I offer them even younger."

I stiff-armed the stunned Kirk into the cage-elevator, its doors swooshing shut. "Never mind, ass-wipe. Go on up. I’ll catch the next one."

My porn bait on the TV hadn’t been thumbed through. I curled on a lumpy mattress with the comforting thought that the hotel pimp hadn’t preyed on Wendy. No sleep came, just jumpy nerves. I picked up the phone and after some fast talking ran down Wendy’s parents staying at the most luxurious hotel in downtown Kyoto. The lobby rang their suite.

A man’s baritone picked up. "Alex Payne, speaking." The slur suggested he’d been drinking, my area of expertise.

"Your daughter Wendy has been reported missing," I said. "Did you know that?"

"Wendy is at school." An impulsive rage flew into his speech. "She’d better be, god damn it."

"You get off on knocking her around, huh?" I egged him on.

"That charge was later dismissed . . . say, who the hell are you?"

I hung up, dialed through the operator again. After three rings, Ms. Cantrell came on though I hadn’t the foggiest idea what the hour was in Middleburg.

"So, you made it over," she said, words also slurred. "Excellent."

"Tomorrow I’ll poke around in Frankfurt," I said. "Call in my progress report to you."

"My secretary will take your information. An emergency has come up. My mother died of a sudden heart attack."
"Sorry for your loss," I told her. Somehow, the depth of personal grief didn’t convey in her voice over the line.

* * *

Next morning, I hitched the tram to Frankfurt and at the Hauptwache disembarked to ride the escalator up to bell clear skies bleeding Dutch blue. Being a Sunday, all the stores and businesses were closed. On a noticeboard by a copy shop’s door, I scanned the posted ads. Obtaining a Green Card in Germany was all but impossible. Seven ads offered tutoring in English for 15 euros per hour, six others to be live-in au pairs. Wendy for the time being was financially solvent so I moved along. I met no people and window-shopped looking at Cartier watches, Zeiss binoculars, and Birkenstock footwear. Monday I could swing back to buy anything catching my eye. Except I intended to be long gone by Monday. I traversed Frankfurt’s entire urban core in less than thirty minutes. Trying to get inside Wendy’s head, I backtracked as the cathedral bells gonged. At the Greenpeace the kiosk, I turned right.
My ear trained on the distant cacophony of music. The correct term used by Deutschland youth, I believed, was techno. Scowling with growing pessimism, I doubled my gait. Guitars growled. Drums thundered. A synthesizer screaked. Wendy more than likely was drawn in this same direction. Her beloved Goethe Haus, a disappointing cramped brownstone cottage, came and went.

At the opera house’s rear, I crossed the intersection into shade and ran into Schillers’ bronze statue. He wore a constipated smirk. On a lamppost was a placard promoting a free Bob Dylan concert on May seventh. Mr. Zimmerman’s headshot was circa "Nashville Skyline." Hadn’t Dylan’s PR geniuses invented the cult of eternal youth? Sure, we Baby Boomers never aged. Scurrying over wet white petals on a bike path, I fell into a public park.
There I tripped over a hypo syringe. Christ, I winced. My eyes flicked to one spike, another nearby, then to dozens sprinkled along hedges and everywhere. The short hairs prickling the scruff of my neck became hot needles. Hot, dirty needles. Panic roiled my insides in painful twists. From behind, a gloved hand plucked my left wrist.

"Pssst, buddy. I can send you to paradise."

"Not if I can help it."

Pivoting, I smashed my right fist into his bearded chin. Releasing my wrist, he snapped backward as a black Luger sliced out from under his trench coat. Fury streamed adrenaline to my shoe punting his groin. Screaming agony doubled him over. My elbow chunked down on the back of his head. Toppling like ballast to the cobblestones, he moaned. Spitting, I stepped over his inert form and retrieved the damn Luger to toss down a sewer drain.
Beyond a grove of horse chestnuts, sunrays splashed on a green verge. My teeth clacked. One, two, three . . . oh hell, a rally of blonde youths squatted toking on bongs and roach clips, their expelled puffs saucing the air with a bitter redolence. Girls stoned to the tits looked to be in their early teens. Christ. Underneath a tin pavilion, smack angels sat in rows of pews. Some wept. Some begged. Some mainlined. One lay prostrate on the ground.

From my jacket pocket, I fished out the school photo of Wendy Payne. Parting the dead girl’s brunette hair, I shivered. Yep, it was her. No mistake about it. The pinched, pallid face was a ghost’s and she wore a crooked grin, but it looked peaceful just the same.

What could I do? Amid the shadows the municipal buildings cast, I unpeeled my jacket, draped it over her fuzzy orange knee sox. The thin blue sweater I buttoned to her collar and placed grimy hands atop her stomach. Telltale needle tracks lined her wrist. Wendy’s vacant eyes beamed up at me the whole while until I lidded them shut.

A banana-shaped purse lay where Wendy had dropped it. I unzipped it, pried fingers inside. Perhaps I was violating Wendy’s privacy but I was paid to do so. She packed a tube of cherry lip balm, a metal comb, Tampax, a vial of Shalimar perfume, and a rubberbanded wad of C-notes. Hmmm. There was a folded-up letter.

"Who are you?"

Wheeling, I confronted an oafish man in a midnight blue uniform sizing me up. He eclipsed me by three inches and thirty pounds. His nose was a toucan’s beak. "What is your business here? Are you a thief? A pervert?" He was, I supposed, a Frankfurt policeman. I buzzed him my expired PI license.

"Frank Johnson. My assignment is to fetch this girl to the U.S. Embassy. Her name is Wendy Payne."

"You needn’t bother." His English was a surly growl. "The corpse detail will soon drive by and scoop up the garbage."

"For fuck’s sake, she’s an American citizen!"

The policeman, hands hitched behind his back, grunted. "Look, we get 80, 90 addicts daily. All stripes, all colors."
He edged a bit closer, eyeballing me. "Who are you with? What do you want? You best come along, sir."

My arm shifted to evade his grasp. Disgusted, I pitched the clump of C-notes culled from Wendy’s purse at his black square-toed shoes. "Here, pocket this and get lost."

As expected, he picked up the bribe and stalked off. Left alone, I read aloud Wendy’s letter.

Dear Moms,
I love it in Frankfurt. The sun always shines. I’m OK, so don’t fret about me. Ms. Cantrell says I am very mature for my age group. She’s a cool mentor! I met some really cool kids in the public park! We do neat stuff together. I may never ever fly home.

Chances were, she’d planned to add more later except she’d never got that later. Heroin had smashed her. My veins curdled as Ms. Cantrell, the "swell mentor," locked a stranglehold on my thoughts. Her nervous licks, cocaine eyes, and flighty behavior were dead giveaways. I’d deal with her later. For now, I tugged out a Frankfurt map and traced a shaky fingertip over streets in search of the U.S. Embassy.