The Father Hunt

I had promised I would let her know what happened, so I left the Henry Hudson Parkway at Ninety-sixth Street and took the Eighty-fifth Street transverse through Central Park. Trying to find a legal space at the curb would be like trying to find room for another kernel on an ear of corn, and I drove to the garage on Second Avenue where Elinor Denovo had kept her car. Don't ask me how or why, but I have always had a feeling that it helps to see places that are in any way connected with a job, even if they tell you nothing. Walking to Amy's address I took the route Elinor had taken the last time she had walked, and I saw that it would have been no trick at all, at that time of night, for someone who knew she had her car out, to park near the corner on Second Avenue, see her arrive in her car, and see her leave the garage and turn into Eighty-third Street. By then of course he would have had the engine started and would be ready to go.

I didn't give Amy a verbatim report. We rarely do to clients; they'll always ask why you didn't tell him this or that, or what you said that for, or you should have realized he was lying. Also I didn't tell her what was next on the program. That's even worse; they'll object for some cockeyed reason or they'll have something better to sug-

gest. When I had given her the facts that mattered, her big question was whether I thought Jarrett was her father, and of course I passed. I told her that while it was still the best guess that he was, I wouldn't personally risk a buck either way. I tried to get out of her exactly what she intended to do when we finally got it pinned down, but when I left I still didn't know and I doubted if she did. Apparently that was open and she wouldn't know the answer herself until she knew for sure who her father was. It was only ten minutes to dinnertime when I got home, so the verbatim report had to wait until we had taken on the curried beef roll, celery and cantaloupe salad, and blueberry grunt, and had gone to the office for coffee. When I had finished, including my stopover at Amy's, his first question was typical. He emptied the coffee pot into his cup, took a sip, and said, "I think it's quite possible that Paul Revere did make a silver abacus. What gave you the notion?"

I tapped my skull with knuckles. "You said once that the more you put in a brain the more it will hold. What about the things that come out that were never put in? That's why I can't answer your question."