Page 117 of Two Marlboros

More glare from Church, who was on the verge of unraveling.

Unraveling.

It was such a Nathan word. I could already picture him recounting the scene, with Raybans crossed in his V-neck T-shirt: “Church was about to unravel. One more word and the cussing would start!” By the end, in his company, I had extended my vocabulary to the Manhattan slums’ words.

“May I finish, Stoner? I was saying: the phone numbers in the phone records all belong to the same person, who, however,does not appear in the registry of any state. In other words, it’s a fake name.”

I would have given anything for a breath of wind. Church crossed my gaze for a moment, and I felt another drop keep company to the previous one. Unlike Ash, I didn’t have the courage to say anything. Church searched through the stack of papers and pulled out another one: these were the remaining names from the phone records.

“These are the other people Cossner was in contact with.”

Church had highlighted each different call sign with a different color; I scrolled through all the lines until I found an interesting one.

Ryan Stephen Goldwin.

I pointed my finger at him.

“Did Cossner and Goldwin keep in touch?”

Church nodded, after which he rotated his computer monitor toward us. With a few clicks, he showed us a network of links he had automatically produced on the computer: the first screen showed names and corresponding photos, the next screens contained histograms of the frequency of calls to each recipient, and, by selecting various ticks, it was possible to identify any habits regarding phone calls. The overview, perhaps the most interesting section to get the full picture, showed Cossner’s photo in the center, connected with arrows to his callers, with a thicker line corresponding to denser contact. From the graph, it was immediately clear which people were orbiting Michael and which were the most important.

It turned out that Private Number, Ryan, and Clide were the people with whom he had the most regular relationships, although rather thinned out since his disappearance. At that point, the connection between them was quite obvious: Michael could have given us information about Ryan and the robbery,and vice versa. Had we been able to find Cossner, the investigation would certainly have been given a boost.

Church asked for my report on our evening at Webster Hall, so I gave a summary. Instead, Ashton told how he had approached a young man who had just helped himself to the drug dealer, asking where to buy good stuff.

“By Waitch” he had answered him.

So, I braced myself for my big reveal.

“I have good reason to think that ‘Waitch’ is nothing but the initials W.H., which may belong to the local Webster Hall.”

I waited for Church, too, to show that surprised expression of someone who hasn’t had the same flash, but several seconds passed without his face changing. He continued to be pensive, his gaze lost in the void.

“I disagree, Scottfield.”

I feared Church would turn the tables on himself, to take credit for a discovery that had already become a truism. That time, however, I was wrong.

“It is possible that “Waitch” may represent the two initials W.H., but I don’t think they indicate the local ‘Webster Hall’. Think about it for a moment: if that was really what the initials meant, the boy being questioned by Stoner would not have answered ‘by Waitch’s,’ but only ‘here,’ since he was already at the club.”

Not only was the observation brilliant, but it was also right. Church continued, but he did not seem to want to rage; rather, he was reasoning with us.

“If indeed that word is a reading of the two initials, I am more inclined to think they’re initials of a person’s name. Likely, it’s a code name used by a drug dealer in the area.”

Admitting he was right really stung. After all, if he was the coordinator of the investigation, maybe there was a reason.

“Don’t beat yourself up, Scottfield. It happens to everyone to make mistakes, but you still had a brilliant hunch.”

In his eyes I almost read a fatherly rebuke, of someone who is proud of you despite your mistakes. Three hours earlier he had sent me out for coffee, whereas at that moment he almost seemed to treat me as his equal. I wondered if I was missing something. And it was meager consolation anyway, because Nathan had had the hunch, not me. I thought I had made the big leap, but I realized that the time had not yet come.

My theory, which saw Michael’s disappearance as drug-related, was indeed beginning to waver. Sure, Ryan was one of the robbers, he most likely dealt drugs, and it was possible that Waitch was indeed the man we were looking for, but evidence was lacking. And yes, the vandalized symbols on Michael’s car looked like a stylized version of the Webster Hall logo, but was that enough to establish a connection between him and drugs?

I expounded my theories to Church, who did not laugh at them as I feared. On the contrary, he endorsed the suspicion that the motive for Michael’s disappearance might have been a drug debt.

“Of course, that’s all to be verified,” he continued. “However, if we exclude the passion motive and the underworld motive, we only have the economic one, which I think is the most plausible. Right now, the priority is flushing out Cossner and finding out information about Waitch, as well as discovering the identity behind the private numbers. Also,” and he tapped his index finger on the computer screen, “from studying the wiretaps, we know that Clide is in town. I should have pinpointed his exact location.”

Ash and I looked at each other surprised, but I knew we had been crossed by the same idea.

“We’ll try to track him down right away and ask him a few questions,” Ash replied, with a certain satisfaction on his face, but Church would never accept not having the last word.

---