Angie said, “Why not?” She said it sharply. Her idea  she wasn’t going to just let go of it.

I explained my reasoning.

“Maybe,” she said, her voice slightly deflated. “Let’s keep it on the burner though.”

“Agreed.” It wasn’t a bad idea, and if it came to it, we’d follow it down, but it didn’t quite fit.

It goes like this a lot. We sit around the office and bounce ideas off each other and wait for divine intervention. When that doesn’t come, we chase down each possibility, and usually not always, but usually we end up tripping over something that should have been obvious from the beginning.

I said, “We know she had trouble with creditors a few years back.”

Angie said, “Yeah. So?”

“I’m brainstorming here. I never promised pearls of wisdom.”

She frowned. “She has no record, right?”

“Except for a bunch of parking tickets.”

Angie flicked her cigarette out the window.

I started thinking about the beers in my apartment. Heard them calling me, asking for company.

Angie said, “Well, if she had all those parking tickets...” We looked at each other and said it together: “Where’s the car?”

TWENTY-TWO

We called George Higby at the Registry of Motor Vehicles. It took us fifteen tries to get past the busy signal, and then, once we did, a recorded voice told us that all the lines were busy. Our call would be taken in the order it was received and please stay on the line. I hadn’t been planning on doing much till the end of the month anyway, so I cradled the phone against my neck and waited.

The silence ended after about fifteen minutes and the phone rang on the other end once, twice, three times; four, five, six. A voice said, “Registry of Motor Vehicles.”

I said, “George Higby, Vehicle Registration, please.”

The voice hadn’t heard me. It said, “You have reached the Registry of Motor Vehicles. Our business hours are nine to five p.m., Monday through Friday. If you need further assistance and have a Touch-Tone phone, please press ‘one’ now.” A sonic beep went off in my ear about the same time I realized it was Sunday. If I pressed “one,” I’d get another computer that would gladly connect me to another computer and by the time I got pissed off enough to throw my phone through the window, all the Registry computers would be having a good old yuck for themselves.

I just fucking love modern technology.

I hung up and said, “It’s Sunday.”

Angie looked at me. “Yes, it is. Tell me the date and you’ll be my idol.”

“Do we have George’s home number around here?”

“Possibly. Would you like me to find out?”

“That’d be peachy.”

She wheeled her chair over to the PC and entered her password. She waited a moment and her fingers began singing over the keys so fast the computer had a hard time keeping up. Served it right. Probably hung out with the Registry computers on its off days.