“You’re right, they did.”

“So that’s,” Os said, “when the Subaru turned off.”

“But they didn’t follow it.”

“Because it was going home.”

“Oh, my God,” Mark said. “You’re right! They see where he turns off, they mark the place, they keep going, we sail right on by.”

“Because,” Os said, with his infuriating doggedness, “we were following the wrong car.”

Mark, choosing to ignore the implied criticism, said, “Could we find that spot again?”

“Where they hit their brakes?”

“Of course. Could we backtrack, find it?”

“God knows,” Os said.

“I’m not doing anything else today,” Mark said, “so let’s try it.”

•

“By God, there it is.”

They’d driven, and driven, trying to stay on their back-trail even though all roads look different when traveled in the opposite direction, and trying to look at every house and drive and side road they passed, until Os declared they’d overshot somehow, they had to go back. So they did, discovering that they had in fact gotten briefly onto the wrong road, but then found the right road again, and there, on the left, in the blacktop area in front of what looked like a pretty large apartment house, very large for this backcountry neck of the woods, there was the Subaru. The same one, definitely, in front of a faux-Tudor building with a large sign on the weedy patch of lawn between parking lot and road: CARING ARMS ASSISTED LIVING.

Mark said, “A nursing home? What the hell is he doing in a nursing home?”

“Let’s see if it’s the same car,” Os said, and turned in at the parking area. But as he did so, out of the building came the guy himself, bouncing along like a windup doll, a big gray canvas ditty bag thrown over his shoulder. So Os kept driving in a circle, back out to the road, as Mark twisted around to watch the guy’s progress. Throw the ditty bag into the back of the Subaru, get behind the wheel.

“Os,” he said, “this time we follow him.”

“A much better plan.” Os looked in the rearview mirror, “Here he comes, and here’s a gas station.”

So Os pulled in at the gas station, rolled very slowly past the people refueling there, and regained the road after the Subaru had already gone by. “Now,” he said, “we follow the right car, at last.”

“Not too close,” Mark said. “This little white Porsche is a bit noticeable.”

“I know what I’m doing,” Os said, which might have been yet another implied criticism.

If it was, Mark ignored it, saying, “I don’t get it. Maybe three times a week, he goes and spends about an hour at Monroe Hall’s place. Then from there he goes to a nursing home? What for?”

“They’re customers,” Os suggested. “It’s some kind of in-home service. He’s a… what? Religious adviser? Psychotherapist? Hairdresser?”

“Physical therapist?” Mark said. “You saw the bag he carried, you saw how he’s built, like every personal trainer you’ve ever seen in your life. Too muscular, and too short.”

“My mother,” Os said darkly, “probably knows him.”

Mark said, “I doubt he makes house calls in Boca Raton, but I know what you mean. And you know what I mean.”

Os said, as the unmindful Subaru scampered ahead of them across the rolling landscapes of Pennsylvania, “You mean, we join him today on his rounds.”

“Sooner or later,” Mark said, “this guy’s day of kneebends and shoulder thumps must come to an end. Then he goes home. And we’ll be there.”

“Leave it to the union,” Os said, “to give up after one little try.”

20

“WE COULDN’T JUST FOLLOW him around all day,” Buddy insisted. He was the driver, and the other two were disagreeing with his executive decisions.

Ace, for instance: “We could have waited. How long’s he gonna be? An hour?”

“And then on to somebody else,” Buddy said. “It’s the middle of the day, he could be seeing clients until six o’clock for all we know. Besides which, it’s lunchtime.”

They were, in fact, seated at a window table in this diner in the middle of Somewhere, Pennsylvania, elbows on the Formica, waiting for various fried foods, and watching the occasional vehicle drive by out front. It was a timeless America they’d found, and the waitresses had a speed to match.

Mac, frowning deeply, said, “Buddy, in a way I understand what you’re talking about. Hanging around behind that guy could get boring after a while—”

“And he could notice,” Buddy pointed out, “that same car behind him all the time.”

“That’s also true,” Mac agreed. “But, Buddy, we had a bird in hand.”

“We’ve figured out who the guy is, or at least what he is,” Buddy said. “One of those rich-people personal trainers, your own gym coach. Hall can’t get off the property, can’t get much exercise, so this guy comes around to keep him in shape.”

Grudgingly, Ace said, “Okay. And the nursing home, that fits in.”

“Sure,” Buddy said.

Mac said, “But so what? Buddy, what do you want us to do? Go through every Yellow Pages in central Pennsylvania, which has gotta be about a hundred—”

“More,” Ace said.

“More,” Mac agreed. “Check out every personal trainer in every phone book?”

“We’ve got the guy’s license number,” Buddy reminded them. “And the make of the car. And we know what his business is. Mark, we’ve got over twenty-seven hundred members in ACWFFA. At least one of those people’s got a cousin on a police force. We don’t have to say what we want it for, a union brother will respect the need for privacy, but we do have a big spread-out powerful force out there, in the rank and file, and I think we should use it, and in no time at all, we’ll have this guy’s name and address and everything in the world that the law knows about him.”

Mac sighed. “I didn’t want to bring the membership in,” he said.

Buddy said, “I know you didn’t, and I agree, and I don’t want to make anybody accessories or anything. But this is the quick and easy way, Mac, and sometimes, you just have to set your principles aside just a little bit and go for the way that works.”

Mac sighed again. “I suppose so,” he said. “Just so this isn’t the beginning of some slippery slope.”

21

WHEN DORTMUNDER WALKED INTO the O.J. at four that afternoon, one of the daytime regulars down at the left end of the bar was fast beginning to work himself into a fulltime rant. “Who come up with this great idea?” he demanded of the universe. “That’s what I wanna know. Whose idea was this, English is a second language?”

Rollo was at the right end of the bar, doing the crossword puzzle in the Daily News. Dortmunder headed straight for him.

“I was born in this country. I got English as a first language, and that’s the way I like it!”

Rollo nodded a hello, and said, “The other bourbon’s got your glass in the back.”

Dortmunder said, “Was there anybody else with him?”

Rollo looked confused. “I’m not sure.”

“That’ll be the guy,” Dortmunder said, “from what I hear of him.”

“You’re gonna have to come rip English out of my cold dead hand, that’s what you’re gonna have to do.”

Rollo said, “You got more comin?”

“The vodka and red wine, and the beer and salt.”

“He’s gonna push me into the profit margin, that beer and salt.”

“English was good enough for my father, and it was good enough for his father, and it would’ve been good enough for his father if he’d been here!”

Dortmunder headed down around the vocal end of the bar, where the regulars around the ranter had a fixed, glazed, genre painting look.

“English is a second language,” said in tones of deepest contempt and disgust. “So whadawe supposeta do now, learn Mexican or something?”

“Por favor,” said a deceptively mild voice, as Dortmunder rounded the corner, headed down the hall, and entered the back room, where Kelp had naturally taken the best seat for himself, facing the door, with some nondescript guy to his left.