the photographer at the hotel about it. How many copies do you think I shouldask him for?"

"Two or three dozen, anyway. It's better to havetoo many than too few."

"That will run into money."

"I know, and so will I."

"Are you trying to talk yourself out of ajob?"

"I don't need the work, and I could use arest."

"To hell with you then."

He snatched at the flimsy picture betweenmy fingers. It tore across the middle. We faced each other like enemies, eachof us holding a piece of the happy honeymooners.

Alex burst into tears.

chapter 2

I agreed over lunch to help him find hiswife. That and the chicken pot pie calmed him down. He couldn't remember whenhe had eaten last, and he ate ravenously.

We drove out to the Surf House in separatecars. It was on the sea at the good end of town: a pueblo hotel whose Spanishgardens were dotted with hundred-dollar-a-day cottages. The terraces in frontof the main building descended in wide green steps to its own marina. Yachtsand launches were bobbing at the slips. Further out on the water, beyond thecurving promontory that gave Pacific Point its name, white sails leaned againsta low gray wall of fog.

The desk clerk in the Ivy League suit wasvery polite, but he wasn't the one who had been on duty on the Sunday I wasinterested in. That one had been a summer replacement, a college boy who hadgone back to school in the East. He himself, he regretted to say, knew nothingabout Mrs. Kincaid's bearded visitor or her departure.

"I'd like to talk to the hotel photographer. Ishe around today?"

"Yes, sir. I believe he's out by the swimmingpool."

We found him, a thin spry man wearing aheavy camera like an albatross around his neck. Among the colored beach clothesand bathing costumes, his dark business suit made him look like an undertaker.He was taking some very candid pictures of a middle-aged woman in a Bikini whodidn't belong in one. Her umbilicus glared at the camera like an eyelesssocket.

When he had done his dreadful work, thephotographer turned to Alex with a smile. "Hi. How's the wife?"

"I haven't seen her recently,"Alex said glumly.

"Weren't you on your honeymoon acouple of weeks ago? Didn't I take your picture?"

Alex didn't answer him. He was peeringaround at the poolside loungers like a ghost trying to remember how it felt tobe human. I said:

"We'd like to get some copies made ofthat picture you took. Mrs. Kincaid is on the missing list, and I'm a privatedetective. My name is Archer."

"Fargo. Simmy Fargo." He gave mea quick handshake, and the kind of glance a camera gives you when it recordsyou for posterity. "In what sense on the missing list?"

"We don't know. She left here in ataxi on the afternoon of September the second. Kincaid has been looking for herever since."

"That's tough," Fargo said."I suppose you want the prints for circularization. How many do you thinkyou'll be needing?"

"Three dozen?"

He whistled, and slapped himself on hisnarrow wrinkled forehead. "I've got a busy weekend coming up, and it'salready started. This is Friday. I could let you have them by Monday. But Isuppose you want them yesterday?"

"Today will do."

"Sorry." He shrugged loosely, making hiscamera bob against his chest.

"It could be important, Fargo. What do you say wesettle for a dozen, in two hours?"

"I'd like to help you. But I've got ajob." Slowly, almost against his will, he turned and looked at Alex."Tell you what I'll do. I'll call the wife in, and you can have yourpictures. Only don't stand me up, the way the other one did."

"What other one?" I said.

"Big guy with a beard. He ordered aprint of the same picture and never came back for it. I can let you have thatprint now if you like."

Alex came out of his dark trance. He tookhold of Fargo's arm with both hands and shook it. "You saw him then. Whois he?"

"I thought maybe you knew him."Fargo disengaged himself and stepped back. "As a matter of fact, I thoughtI knew him, too. I could have sworn I took his picture once. But I couldn'tquite place the face. I see too many faces."

"Did he give you his name?"

"He must have. I don't take orderswithout a name. I'll see if I can find it for you, eh?"

We followed him into the hotel and througha maze of corridors to his small cluttered windowless office. He phoned hiswife, then burrowed into the pile of papers on his desk and came up with aphotographer's envelope. Inside, between two sheets of corrugated paper, was aglossy print of the newlyweds. On the front of the envelope Fargo had writtenin pencil: "Chuck Begley, Wine Cellar."

"I remember now," he said."He told me he was working at the Wine Cellar. That's a liquor store nottoo far from here. When Begley didn't claim his picture I called them. They

© Alexander Sviyash, 2009