“We have to find out,” said Peter, who also sounded unusually grumpy. “And I know exactly who to ask.” His cell phone rested in a cradle on the dashboard, and he reached over and pressed a couple of buttons that activated its small speaker phone and then speed-dialed a number.

“Dr. Forrest’s office,” answered Charles’s receptionist.

“Hi, Mitzie, it’s Peter.”

“Peter!” she said warmly. “How are you, sweetie?”

Sweetie was almost closer to forty than to thirty, but that was beside the point. “I’m fine, thanks. And you?” We all listened as Mitzie gave Peter the update on her husband, children, and, from what I could glean from the conversation, a pair of erratically behaved lovebirds named Joe and Judy.

“Is my dad around?” asked Peter once Mitzie had finished discussing how Joe and Judy were flourishing now she’d changed their brand of birdseed.

“Sure. He just finished up with a patient, and I’m sure he’ll want to talk to you. Hold on a sec.”

A moment later, Charles’s voice boomed out of the tiny speaker. “Peter? Everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine, except I seem to have a song stuck in my head. What were you playing last night? When Rachel and I got home?”

“Last night? That was Sidney Bechet. You must know Sidney Bechet-he was a contemporary of Louis Armstrong. Not as famous, but every bit as talented. Some would argue he was even more talented. One of the great jazz musicians of all time, and a real legend on the soprano sax.” This was practically more than Charles had said during the course of the entire weekend, and it was definitely the most I’d heard him say at once.

“Do you know which song was playing? Right when we came in?” Peter asked.

Charles didn’t remember, which meant Peter was reduced to humming it to him, but since Peter was nearly tone-deaf the rest of us ended up humming along, as well.

Charles seemed oddly delighted to be on speaker phone with us all. He chuckled. “I can’t believe you don’t recognize it-I’ve played that record hundreds of times. It’s one of Bechet’s most famous works. Some would even call it his signature piece.” And then he began to sing, in a surprisingly melodic tenor he had neglected to pass along to his son. The words were in French, which meant they mostly mushed together, but one phrase stuck out.

“Au jardin de mon coeur,” sang Charles, “une petite fleur.”

“What was that?” I interrupted.

“Au jardin de mon coeur,” he sang again, “une petite fleur.”

“Petite fleur?” asked Peter.

“It’s the name of the song. ‘Petite Fleur.’”

With a rush, disjointed memories of the previous day came flooding back: first sitting in Union Square as the sounds of a distant saxophone wafted over us, and then the lone musician at the Martin Luther King memorial, playing the saxophone for the handful of people scattered across the grassy lawn.

“That’s it,” I blurted out. “Now we know for sure. Marxist Santa and Petite Fleur are the same person.”

“What did you say, Rachel?” asked Charles.

“Oh. Uh, nothing.” I had no intention of giving him yet more reasons to think I was idiosyncratic.

“Dad, thanks. This has been really helpful,” said Peter.

“Yes, thank you,” the rest of us chorused.

But as soon as Peter had disconnected the call, I explained. “Marxist Santa or Petite Fleur or whatever we want to call him-he was nearby, watching us, both when I received the keychain and then again when we found the iPod. But we didn’t notice him, because he was playing the saxophone. We thought he was just a regular street musician.”

“So we’re looking for a jazz aficionado and saxophone player who’s also a hacker and a Marxist and is trying to screw up Igobe and its IPO?” summarized Peter.

“Exactly,” I said.

“But we’re not looking for that person,” Luisa reminded Peter and me, her tone stern. “We’re looking for Ben, because we’re trying to find Hilary, and the two things have nothing to do with each other. You both need to focus.”

“Right,” I said, trying to focus.

“I know this isn’t about Ben,” said Abigail apologetically, “but I still keep thinking about Leo. It’s as if Petite Fleur is channeling him from beyond the grave.”

Luisa did not remind Abigail to focus, which seemed like a blatant double-standard. “What makes you say that?” she asked instead.

“Leo played several different instruments, including the saxophone, and he was a huge jazz fan. He even named his dog Scat,” said Abigail.

I started to turn around in my seat, but Luisa made a threatening noise low in her throat, so I faced forward again. “What does naming a dog Scat have to do with jazz?” I asked.

“Scat’s a type of jazz singing, isn’t it?” said Peter.

“Yes,” said Abigail. “But instead of singing real words, you sing made-up syllables.”

“Like bop and bap?” I asked.

“Bop’s a real word,” said Luisa.

“Not when people sing it that way. And bap isn’t a real word, either,” I said.

“It might be, in some other language.”

“But that doesn’t count, because if you’re singing in English and then you sing bap, it’s not supposed to mean anything.”

“But it would count if you were singing in the other language,” she insisted.

“But we’re talking about singing in English.”

“Of course we are, since you don’t speak anything besides English. You really should consider broadening your cultural horizons.”

“My horizons are broad,” I protested.

“How are your horizons broad? Give me one example of how your horizons are broad.”

“I speak excellent pig latin.”

“You two aren’t going to start up again, are you?” asked Peter through gritted teeth. “Because we still have a good ten or fifteen miles to go, and you really don’t want to be walking on the highway once it’s dark.”

24

We had to grovel a bit, but ultimately Peter didn’t make us walk the rest of the way, so half an hour later we were back in the lobby of the Four Seasons. Fortunately, Natasha was on duty at the front desk, and she remembered me from the previous day and still thought I was Hilary. She also must have been trained in not registering disgust at the appearance of hotel guests, although she did ask what had happened to my lip. I explained about the tennis ball, thinking as I did that I should come up with a more interesting excuse. If I was going to look like a special effect from a horror film, I should at least have a story that could better withstand repetition. One with more drama and even a hint of intrigue.

We took the new keycard Natasha coded for me and headed up to the room Ben had been sharing with Hilary. We knocked, just to be safe, but there was no answer, and the Do Not Disturb sign no longer hung from the doorknob, so I used the keycard to open the door. Then I drew the security bolt on the inside so we wouldn’t have to worry about Ben walking in on us if he suddenly decided to return from whatever shady activities he’d been pursuing.

Hilary’s belongings remained in the modified state of disorder in which we’d left them the previous day, and more importantly, Ben’s suitcase was still there. We took this as a positive sign, but the pile of receipts I’d left on the desk also looked as if they hadn’t been touched, which only reinforced our hypothesis that Ben wasn’t actually playing on our team. He had no need to recreate Hilary’s itinerary if he already knew where she was.

With a collective sense of déjà vu, we began searching the room yet again, but this time we concentrated on Ben’s belongings rather than Hilary’s. His neatness seemed compulsive when contrasted with Hilary’s mess, which was compulsive only in its need for chaos. It was a miracle their relationship had lasted as long as it did.

Peter hoisted the suitcase up onto the carefully made bed and unzipped it, and we all began rifling through its contents. This felt vaguely unethical, and it was probably illegal, as well, but if desperate times did, in fact, call for desperate measures, then we were well justified. But that didn’t mean we found anything but dirty clothes stuffed into a plastic laundry bag and clean clothes folded alongside. A search of the bag’s inner and outer pockets proved equally fruitless, as did an examination of the lining for any hidden compartments. There were no papers, no maps with a convenient X marking a spot, or even a handy Palm Pilot or calendar.