Number seventeen needed paint, and leanedon its pilings like a man on crutches. I knocked on the scabbed gray door.Slowly, like bodies being dragged, footsteps approached the other side. Thebearded man opened it.

He was a man of fifty or so wearing anopen-necked black shirt from which his head jutted like weathered stone. Thesunlight struck mica glints from his eyes. The fingers with which he washolding the edge of the door were bitten down to the quick. He saw me lookingat them and curled them into a fist.

"I'm searching for a missing girl,Mr. Begley." I had decided on the direct approach. "She may have metwith foul play and if she did, you may have been one of the last people who sawher alive."

He rubbed the side of his face with hisclenched knuckles. His face bore marks of old trouble, some of them done byhand: faintly quilted patches around the eyes, a thin scar on his templedivided like a minature ruler by stitch-marks. Old trouble and the promise offurther trouble.

"You must be crazy. I don't even know anygirls."

"You know me," a woman said behind him.

She appeared at his shoulder and leaned onhim, waiting for somebody to second the self-administered flattery. She wasabout Begley's age, and may have been older. Her body was very assertive inshorts and a halter. Frizzled by repeated dyeings and bleachings, her hairstuck up on her head like a yellow fright wig. Between their deep blueartificial shadows, her eyes were the color of gin.

"I'm very much afraid that you mustbe mistaken," she said to me with a cultivated Eastern-seaboard accentwhich lapsed immediately. "I swear by all that's holy that Chuck hadnothing to do with any girl. He's been too busy looking after little old me."She draped a plump white arm across the back of his neck. "Haven't you,darling?"

Begley was immobilized between the womanand me. I showed him Fargo's glossy print of the honeymooners.

"You know this girl, don't you? Hername, her married name, is Dolly Kincaid."

"I never heard of her in mylife."

"Witnesses tell me different. Theysay you went to see her at the Surf House three weeks ago this coming Sunday.You saw this picture of her in the paper and ordered a copy of it from thephotographer at the Surf House."

The woman tightened her arm around his neck, more likea wrestling partner than a lover. "Who is she, Chuck?"

"I have no idea." But he muttered tohimself: "So it's started all over again."

"What has started all over again?"

She was stealing my lines. "Could I please talkto Mr. Begley alone?"

"He has no secrets from me." Shelooked up at him proudly, with a wilted edge of anxiety on her pride."Have you, darling? We're going to be married, aren't we, darling?"

"Could you stop calling me darling? Just for fiveminutes? Please?"

She backed away from him, ready to cry, her downturnedred mouth making a lugubrious clown face.

"Please go inside," he said. "Let metalk to the man."

"This is my place. I have a right to know whatgoes on in my own place."

"Sure you do, Madge. But I have squatter'sprivileges, at least. Go in and drink some coffee."

"Are you in trouble?"

"No. Of course I'm not." But there wasresignation in his voice. "Beat it, eh, like a good girl?"

His last word seemed to mollify her.Dawdling and turning, she disappeared down the hallway. Begley closed the doorand leaned on it.

"Now you call tell me thetruth," I said.

"All right, so I went to see her atthe hotel. It was a stupid impulse. It doesn't make me a murderer."

"Nobody suggested that, exceptyou."

"I thought I'd save you thetrouble." He spread out his arms as if for instant crucifixion."You're the local law, I gather."

"I'm working with them," I saidhopefully. "My name is Archer. You haven't explained why you went to seeMrs. Kincaid. How well did you know her?"

"I didn't know her at all." Hedropped his outspread arms in emphasis. The sensitive areas around his mouthwere hidden by his beard, and I couldn't tell what he was doing with them. Hisgray eyes were unrevealing. "I thought I knew her, but I didn't."

"What do you mean?"

"I thought she might be my daughter.There was quite a resemblance to her in the newspaper picture, but not so muchin the flesh. The mistake on my part was natural. I haven't seen my daughterfor so long."

"What's your daughter's name?"

He hesitated. "Mary. Mary Begley. Wehaven't been in touch for over ten years. I've been out of the country, on theother side of the world." He made it sound as remote as the far side ofthe moon.

"Your daughter must have been quite young whenyou left."

"Yeah. Ten or eleven."

"And you must have been quite fond of her,"I said, "to order a picture just because it reminded you of her."

© Alexander Sviyash, 2009