Free Never Street by Loren D. Estleman Page B

for God and country, but we’ve stopped believing in the one and no longer trust the other. So instead we throw it up for points.”
    “We’re a tangled mess, all right,” I said. “Tangled enough anyway to make me wonder why anyone would throw it over for something as complex as the noir world.”
    “Actually it’s simplistic. I said it was two-dimensional. You’ve got your good guy, your heavy, your good girl, and your tramp. Upon examination the noir landscape makes more sense than ours. I don’t wonder that an obsessive like your client’s husband would prefer it to his own snarled affairs. His wife, whom he perceives as the good girl, represents the crushing responsibilities that landed him in therapy the first time. The girlfriend, whose situation might have come out of any crime movie of the forties— Pitfall is an excellent example—promises adventure and uninhibited sex and a respite from his oppressive routine. The whole thing might have been made to order for a man with his fixation.”
    “Even the danger?”
    “Especially the danger.”
    I watched him place the reel in a flat can labeled out of the past and seal the lid. “What would it take to shake him out of it?”
    “The shock of reality might do it, if he isn’t too far gone.”
    “The third dimension.”
    He nodded. “The world we live in has more twists than any screenplay. Villains turn out to be just guys trying to get along. Bad girls are just good girls in trouble. Angels turn into whores while you’re looking at them. If that doesn’t bring your man around, neither will electrodes.”
    I thanked him. He tucked the film can under one arm and shook my hand again. “This is stale stuff,” he said. “There’s a classic film festival taking place next week at the DIA. You can catch the originals there, the way they were meant to be seen.”
    “You think he might show up?”
    “That’s only part of it. The festival is connected with a VIP reception next Friday night at the Fox Theater, when Austin Alt’s new picture premieres. He’s one of our greatest living directors. He apprenticed under Fritz Lang and Billy Wilder, and survived the blacklist. He’s expected to attend.”
    “Tell me, does shilling pay better than teaching?”
    He smiled again, this time without apology. “Alt is the man you want to talk to. Your man will, if you don’t. Otherwise his wife might as well have him declared legally dead.”
    I drove back to the office and put in the time till quitting opening my mail and wondering if a complete set of the 100 Greatest Books Ever Written, bound in genuine leather and stamped in fourteen-karat gold, would do anything for the office. At length I concluded I would have to redecorate the place around them and decided instead to replace the dead plant in the waiting room. My service reported that Gay Catalin had called three times without leaving a message, but when I called her number no one answered. I was reaching for the telephone to try again when it rang and I picked it up and it was her.
    “I still haven’t heard from Brian, Mr. Walker. It’s been two days. I’m worried.”
    She sounded calm. I pictured her in the room filled with flowers, drawing from their drowsy serenity.
    “Did you call the police?”
    “No. I thought I’d talk to you first.”
    “Call them. That’s what you pay taxes for. I’ll let you know if I come across anything on this end.”
    “Should I tell them about Neil?”
    “Sure. They’ll bawl you out for not going to them first, but even they won’t be listening. File a report on Neil while you’re at it. Make sure they put out a BOL on his car.”
    “BOL?”
    “It stands for Be On the Lookout. It’s like an All-Points Bulletin, only without Broderick Crawford. People have been known to vanish, but a car has to be parked somewhere.”
    “Do you think Brian’s being gone has anything to do with Neil?”
    “Maybe not. Coincidences happen, although I wouldn’t try to