A tall, thin man hauled himself out. Our gazes locked. I rested the beer can on the redwood deck. What was he selling that I couldn’t live without? His purposeful stride told me I’d soon know. His running shoes were red, shirt red, and trousers chinos. Was the gold timepiece on his wrist a Rolex (I’d only seen them in advertisements)? Sloped shoulders signified he bore a world of woe. Lucky for me, things were rough all over since my livelihood depended on it.

Halting at the bottom step, the man appraised me in the lawn chair. I didn’t like him. He reeked of money, the filthy kind. Hooded jet eyes reminded me of a gangster.

“Can I help you, mister?” I asked at last.

He hawked and spat. A hand flicker adjusted his family jewels. “You be Johnson?” A raspy baritone, he stressed the final syllable. “The detective fellow?”

Our shopworn script usually had a lady for the other part. “Could be. Who’s asking?”

He shrugged. “I’m Ty Pangle.”

Beneath my feet stood, the redwood deck felt warm. The mid-morning sun was cranking up a stultified April day. “I’m Johnson.”

His scowl didn’t let up. “Mr. Gatlin referred me to you.”

Nodding, I threw up my palms. Enough said. Robert Gatlin was a self-made billionaire attorney, a white knight self-appointed to correct the world’s injustices especially if a camera caught him at it. “I’ve done investigative work for Gatlin.”

“My daughter vanished. I drove Katherine to Dulles Airport two weeks ago. It was the last time I saw her.”

I ushered Pangle into my kitchenette. It was cooler inside and more importantly it was private”. After he declined my offer, his lips curled to see my new can of icy Stroh’s. As if I gave a good god damn but my expression remained remote and blank.

“Where was Katherine’s flight headed?” I asked him.

“Toronto,” he replied. “She was to deliver a paper at a conference. You know, where English professors sit on their duffs talking about comic books and film. She’s a graduate student with a misguided hope to become an academician. Did you ever attend college, Johnson?”

“Call me Frank. No, but I’m lost either. Did she reach Toronto?”

“No, but she sure as hell didn’t do a D.B. Cooper between here and there, now did she?”

“Mr. Pangle, did we get off on the wrong foot?”

Pangle’s face went red. “Sorry, Frank. Once settled in, Katherine was to phone me. It never happened.”

“Okay, summarize your last two weeks.”

Impatient, Pangle licked his chapped lips, a nervous habit. “Well, after two days, I notified Arlington County Police. A sympathetic corporal in a purple scrunchie filed my missing person report. For the next three days I paced by the phone and gnawed on my nails. Nothing. Meantime, I contacted all of Katherine’s girlfriends. Nothing. Near my wit’s end, I flew up to Toronto myself. I showed Katherine’s photo around at the hotels and the airport. Nothing. She vanished. Disappeared. Gatlin sent me here. He called you ‘a last resort.’”

A wry thought struck me. “Maybe Katherine didn’t board at Dulles Airport.”

“Impossible! How could she without detection? Security what it is now.”

“No security is 100% foolproof. Despite 9/11.”

“I can’t fathom why Katherine would ever pull such a stunt,” he said. “Here’s a copy of the passenger manifest list. She sat in Seat C-10.”

He handed me a page creased in half. Flight 307’s human payload: eight passengers, three attendants, and two pilots. Unlucky 13. I puzzled about something. “I didn’t catch how old Katherine is.”

“A very immature twenty-two,” he replied.

“So, she’s a big girl now free of daddy.”

“Screw you, Johnson! She’ll always be my little girl,” he said. “How soon can you begin?”

Men will do anything to avoid cleaning a gutter or mowing the grass. A free trip to Toronto, for instance. “As soon as you sign a contract,” I told him.

“Gatlin mentioned your fear of flying.”

“It’s not a phobia,” I said. “It’s a preference for mode of transportation.”

“Yeah, whatever. Five thousand dollars and a round-trip bus ticket are inside here. Also, a recent snapshot of Katherine,” he said, thrusting out the manila envelope. “One more thing. I’m a hands on type. Keep me informed. Mornings and evenings.”

“You’re easy to please,” I said, the heavy-handed sarcasm barely disguising my reluctance to take on his problem. “But the pay is the same.”

* * *

Aboard the Greyhound bus, I crossed the U.S.-Canada border. After little sleep and grim chow inside even grimmer roadhouses, I debated getting in more hypnosis to try and subdue my aviophobia, fear of flying. It couldn’t hurt. Taking a taxi to Toronto’s downtown core, I studied Katherine’s head-and-shoulder glamour shot.

A brunette, her hair curled at the shoulders was swept up behind one ear, its lobe pierced with a sapphire stud. A lemon yellow scarf stood out on her white-ribbed blouse. I couldn’t help but wondering if her natural beauty had got her in trouble somewhere down the line.

The cab ejected me at the Downing Arms in Cabbagetown. It was a solid base of operations, cheap and central. Down a few blocks, the byzantine Ridley Towers soared skyward. Katherine had never gone there to claim her suite. For the time being, my working assumption was she’d arrived to Toronto on Flight 307. What next? Chances were she’d met an old college boyfriend at the conference and they’d shacked up a private hidey-hole. All on daddy’s dime made it sweeter. Maybe I envied the rich but I wouldn’t trade a day in paradise with most.

Under the hotel lobby’s dirty lamp light, leggy blondes poised on divans under ceiling fans screamed “prostitute!” Their presence stunned but didn’t sway me. Under the Downing Arms logo, a knife-faced clerk with minty breath squared me away. For an extra ten bucks, tacked on Mr. Pangle’s tab of course, I billeted as far as possible from the elevator. I was a light sleeper. Up in the stall shower for a room, I pitched my brown suede luggage on the narrow bed. The lobby connected me long distance. Down south in Middleburg, Virginia, Mr. Pangle picked up mid-ring.

“Congratulations. You made it,” he said. “How long before you get me some positive results?”

“My conservative estimate is two days.”

“Unacceptable.”

I’d handled hostile clients before but not of this magnitude. “Look, Mr. Pangle, you waited two weeks before dumping this case on me. If you’re daughter is anywhere in this damn place, I’ll find her. Good bye.” It made my day to hang up on him, even if I wondered how I’d find a missing girl in a strange city of one million where one in four was an immigrant. Serendipity, I suppose. Except for me, “serendipity” only came up in crossword puzzles.

I rushed down to the secondhand bookstores strewn along Queen Street. A wintry nip to the afternoon pall doubled my gait. Clouds the hue of rough pewter bunched overhead. I made a reasonable guess that Katherine, an English graduate student, was an inveterate reader. She’d blitz these same bookshops while in town. Although bellhops and hacks might not peg a face from thousands streaming by, a bookstore proprietor reliant on customer service and repeat business sure would. Not only that, but Katherine did cut an eye-popping figure.

It made for a tedious, long afternoon. A poster on the last bookshop’s door advertised ex-Boomtown Rat Bob Geldof was playing at the Opera House, 735 Queen Street East. I wasn’t a fan. Stepping inside, a cowbell clanked behind me. A near empty bin by the cash register held the latest CD by Coldplay. Here, old tunes blended with the new.

The middle-aged proprietor rugged as a Kalashnikov rifle drew up beside me. He smelled of cedar cologne. I almost laughed. His shaggy eyebrows arched on me were whiter than Shell Scott’s.

“May I be of assistance, sir?” he asked me.

“I only hope you can.” Placing Katherine’s photo under a gooseneck lamp, I asked, “Have you seen this girl over the past couple weeks? She was in Toronto for a conference held over at the Ridley.”

“You're at the Ridley? I always request their special. Always.” The proprietor unfolded steel-framed reading glasses to mash on his nose and squinted one eye. “No-no. But the young lady is gorgeous, I’ll grant you. Let me guess. You’re a private eye?"

“Good Lord, no! I'm her father. You see, Mary Beth is a literary illuminati groupie and she never came home.” Some cagey instinct motivated me to throw out the impromptu alias. Or I felt ashamed to admit to being a moribund detective without any other job skills.

“Hmm. She doesn’t look bookish,” he said. “More New Age. You know the type who seek out alternative medicine gurus, Oriental herbalists, and acupuncturists.”

“And they are located . . .”

“Over in Koreantown along Bloor Street between Bathurst and Christie,” he said. “Your best bet is to grab a cab. They’ll know the way.”

“Since you mentioned it, Mary Beth has always been a quirky girl.” I stowed the picture in my shirt pocket. “Thanks. You’ve been a big help,” I said, the sarcasm this time unintentional.

My mood souring, I shouldered through the door to the sidewalk teeming with shoppers. An orange orb, the sun dodged behind a pearly smog. I took the proprietor's sensible advice. From the curbstone, I hailed a taxi to whisk me over to Koreantown. Merchants there wagged their heads “no” to my queries. Block after block elicited similar negative responses. Foot-sore and punchless, I ducked into a corner pub.

Steak and kidney pie with on-tap beer hit the spot. In the booth behind me, a gangly fellow with spiky red hair bragged to his two pals over pale ales. I eavesdropped. He was going to Rosedale to scout up some well-to-do nookie. A stupid idea popped into my head.

Hitching around, I pecked on his shoulder. “Hey, mate,” I said. “Just blew into town myself. And I wouldn’t mind getting in on your action.”

They laughed. “You would, Pops,” one said. “How much you got on you?”

My thumb shuffled a fat wad of Pangle’s travelers checks from my wallet. “Enough,” I said.

Spiky Hair grinned when I ordered him and two his pals the next round of ales, an old PI trick to establish rapport with street contacts. His speech dropped to a lower register. “What you want, Pops, is an outcall escort service.”

“Damn straight.” My wink was lewd and conspiratorial as theirs were.

“State your pleasure,” he said.

I visualized Katherine Pangle’s photo. “Like I said, she has to be classy. Um, brunette hair and eyes, 5’7”, a toned 125 pounds maximum, no body piercings or tattoos, nonsmoker, funny, worldly . . .”

“You’re easy to please.” His head shook in disbelief. “Contact this number from your room.” A matchbook spilled into my lap. “I scribbled it on the inside cover. Good luck, Pops. You’ll need it.”

Laughing, the other two uplifted their half-empty ales to toast my departure.

* * *

Huddled in my semi-dark crib, I peered out the window six floors up from the street. A caution light blinked over Toronto’s starless skyline. Spanning the lobby a few minutes earlier, I’d missed seeing the painted ladies. They were, I could only suppose, booked for the evening. Toronto sure had a vibrant nightlife.

I continued noodling the stupid idea around in my head. Katherine’s portrait and the matchbook lay on the nightstand.

Q: What might motivate such a girl to disappear on her own?
A: To escape a domineering, obsessive son of a bitch for a father.

Q: Okay, once cut adrift, how would this girl support herself in the manner to which she was accustomed?
A: Working for top scale wages in a lucrative trade. So far, all that to my stupid idea computed okay.

Q: What trade would compensate her so well?
A: Why, the oldest trade of them all, Marlowe. I extended a mental thanks to the lovely ladies in the lobby for that answer.

After flicking on the dimmest lamp setting, I rehearsed the script in my mind. There were certain things to ask, certain things not to ask. Propositioning for an in-room massage was illegal, punishable by jail time. I’d end up busted if I wasn’t careful how it was transacted. Of course, then Mr. Gatlin, my benefactor, could rush up to Toronto and bail me out. Still, I decided to play it cozy and careful.

I dialed the scribbled number on the matchbook. On the third electronic bleep, a soft pillowy accent greeted me. “Just for general information, can you describe who’s available tonight?” I asked her.

“Well, sir, I have Tandy. She’s a great old gal . . .”

“Nope. Not even close. No ‘great old gals for me.’ No, I’m seeking someone tall, extremely fit, brunette.”

“Yes, I can arrange that. Are you staying uptown, sir?”

“Um, at the Downing Arms. Something else. Is the session for the entire hour?”

“The full hour, naturally. Where are you from? Do you hold an airline ticket?”

“The Lower Forty-eight. Look, this might be irregular but I brought a photo and don’t know the business lady’s name. A trusted friend recommended her to me.”

“Yes, I understand. Are you alone, sir?”

“Very. Meet me downstairs at the piano lounge in an hour. Just look for the middle-aged fart wearing a Washington Redskins cap drinking a rum and coke. And keep your damn bouncer muzzled. I’ll show you her photo. Maybe this will benefit the both of us.”

“Well, I’ve access to every girl in the city. Do you have money?”

“I’ll cover any and all expenses. Good bye.”

The piano lounge had honey-toned panels behind low-lit tiers of ferny vegetation. The sallow illumination washed out its drab edges. A beagle-faced geezer wilted sitting on a chrome stool over a half-empty vodka-cranberry. At the corner booth, a couple of college-age girls in tank tops and cargo pants read from the menus. Through the plate glass windows, I watched two cabbies under mercury vapor lights conversing.

A slender lady with straight white hair and stiletto black boots appeared the lounge. She was garbed in a long black coat and oversized sequin sunshades. Behind her, knuckles dragging the carpet, stalked her bouncer. She came to my table and, uninvited, slid into the seat opposite me. The bouncer remained standing off her shoulder, Doc Martin boots planted apart. His colorless cold eyes affixed on me.

“Call me, Tess. What are you drinking?” she asked me as the twig of a waitress hovered near.

“Ginger ale to stay clear-headed.”

Tess’ lips twitched at the waitress. “Make mine a white wine.”

My thumb jerked behind us. “How about him?”

“Guido is happy, thank you. Did you bring the photo?”

Guido breathed down my neck as Katherine Pangle’s headshot edged across the tabletop. “Like I said, she has better than average street walker looks.”

After a quick, furtive glance, Tess tucked the photo under a cocktail napkin, pushed it back at me. Tidy and discreet were her watchwords. Oh, and capitalistic, too. “Let’s make a deal,” she said. “Where are you?”

“Room 508.” I stood up and vacated the lounge.

A while later, a crisp double rap sounded at Room 508's door. I squinted through the peephole, drew off the bolt lock, and undid the chain. She walked in. I barred the exit.

With her hair cropped shorter, somewhat slimmer to almost gaunt, and face more dolled up, she was the object of my search, Katherine Pangle. She wore a bright pink suit with matching accessories including purse and heels.

“First you undress,” Katherine said in an acidic whisper. “In the bathroom, if you prefer. We’ll then discuss business. Meantime, I’ll check in downstairs.” So, Guido could operate a telephone. I was impressed.

From a chink in the bathroom door, I watched Katherine slip over to the bureau. On purpose, I’d left out her picture along with her father’s written instructions. She went for the bait. Bending to look closer, she flinched. I came out of the bathroom as she wheeled.

“You scum sucker,” said Katherine. “I suspected you were a cop. But my father sent you to hunt me down, didn’t he?” Her eyes darted to the telephone between the two beds. Guido was only a phone call away to rip off my head. Nope, that wasn’t going to happen.

I smiled, shrugged in my most disarming way. “True, he hired me. But that was the extent of it. My task is now in the bag.”

Katherine gnawed her upper lip. “He paid you how much? I’ll double, no, I’ll triple it. Fly back, claim you didn’t pick up my trail. It’d grown too cold. Convince him I dropped off the face of the earth. If he goes for it and leaves me alone, I pay you the same fee again.”

“That’s a lot of money I doubt you really have. What’s the beef with your old man?”

“My father is a psychopathic monster,” she said. “You crave every lurid detail? First, at age twelve, it started the night he crawled into my bed . . .”

I thrust out both palms, my stomach queasy. “Whoa. I heard enough.”

Cocking her head, Katherine’s long bangs flopped into moistening big brown eyes. “Your business card reads ‘Troubleshooter.’ Name your price. How much to kill the bastard?”

My heart hammered between my ears. “You’ve got the wrong impression, Miss Pangle . . . ”

“Blow him sky high in The Blue Cheer,” she said. “That Mustang is his pride and joy. That’d bring me some poetic justice to cheer about.”

“. . . I’m not a hit man.”

“What the hell good are you?” she asked. Tears came in profusion. I believed her and then felt sorry for her. She could’ve been my daughter.

I scooped a money clip from my pocket to fling near her. It landed on the corner of the sheet. “Two hundred fifty dollars. Enough for your show money tonight and Guido’s raw hamburger. In a few days I’m doing the dog back to the States. I’ll report it just the way you told me.”