I walked halfway down the steps. “I want to know who Roland is.”

One of the bigger guys stabbed my shoulder with his index finger. “Roland your worst fucking nightmare.”

The girl said, “Worse than your wife.”

They all laughed and I walked down the steps and cut between the blue Malibu and the green Granada.

“Stay away from Roland,” Jerome said. “What kill elephants, don’t so much as faze Roland. Cause he ain’t human.”

I stopped, turned back, my hand resting on the Malibu. “Then what is he?”

Jerome shrugged, folded his arms across his chest. “He just plain bad. Bad as it gets.”

FOUR

Shortly after I got back to the office, we ordered out for some Chinese and went over the day.

Angie had done the paper trail while I followed the physical one. I told her what my trail had brought us, added the names “Jerome” and “Roland” to the first page of our file, entered it into the computer. I also wrote “Break-in” and “Motive?” and underlined the latter.

The Chinese food arrived and we went to work clogging our arteries and forcing our hearts to work double time. Angie told me the results of the paper trail between mouthfuls of pork fried rice and chow mein. The day after Jenna disappeared, Jim Vurnan had gone to the restaurants and shops around Beacon Street and the State House to see if she’d been in recently. He didn’t find her, but in a deli on Somerset he got a copy of one of her credit-card receipts from the owner. Jenna had paid for a ham on rye and a Coke with a Visa. Angie had taken the receipt and using the tried-and-true “Hi, I’m (Insert target’s name) and I seem to have misplaced my credit card” method, she found that Jenna carried the Visa only, had a spotty credit history (one run-in with a collection agency back in ‘81), and had last used her card on June 19, the first day she didn’t show up to work, at the Bank of Boston on the corner of Clarendon and St. James for a cash advance of two hundred dollars. Angie had then called the Bank of Boston claiming to be a representative of American Express. Mrs. Angeline had applied for a credit card and would they mind verifying her account? What account?

She got the same response at every bank she tried. Jenna Angeline had no bank account. Which is fine, as far as I’m concerned, but it makes a person harder to find.

I started to ask Angie if she’d missed any banks, but she held up her hand, managed a “Not finished yet,” around some spare rib. She wiped her mouth with a napkin and swallowed. Then she downed a gulp of beer and said, “’Member Billy Hawkins?”

“Of course.” Billy would be doing a dime in Walpole Penitentiary if we hadn’t found his alibi.

“Well, Billy works for Western Union now, out of one of those Check Cashing Express places.” She sat back, pleased.