“Shitfuckdamn!” I shouted, banging my fist into the steering wheel. I tried it again, then again, without success.

I went into the shop. There were customers at only three tables. A man and two boys in soccer jerseys, evidently coming home from a late game or practice, sat at one, a young man and woman whispering to one another were at another, and at the third, a fat, unshaven guy in a Celtics sweatshirt. He was drinking coffee from a paper cup, hovered, pencil in hand, over the crossword puzzle from The Metropolitan. He took a bite of his apple fritter.

“That your cab?” I asked.

He chewed slowly on his fritter, barely looking up from his paper. “Yeah.”

“I need you to take me someplace.”

“I’ll just be a couple of minutes.”

I breathed in and out twice. “It’s kind of an emergency.”

“I tell ya what,” he said. “Answer me this. Five-letter word, last letter ‘h,’ and the clue is ‘Luke’s pa.’ You tell me what that is, we leave right now.”

“Darth,” I said.

The cabby cocked his head, pursed his lips in surprise. He studied the puzzle. “Shit, I think that’s it. Oh yeah, right, Luke Skywalker’s daddy. I shoulda been able to get that, but you know, sometimes, it’s just not there.” He penciled in the answer I’d given him.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, where you headed?”

I told him, and he snapped the plastic lid back onto his coffee, then folded back the opening that would allow him to drink it while he drove. It was about a ten-minute ride, and my driver tried to engage me in conversation about some trades in the NHL, but my mind was elsewhere, and he quickly gave up.

We pulled up in front of the address from Lawrence’s card, which turned out to be a single door fronting onto a sidewalk in a business district, sandwiched between a hairstyling place and a cheese store. Lawrence’s apartment had to be over one of the shops.

“Stay here,” I said, handing the cabby a twenty.

“No problem,” he said. “I’ll work on my puzzle, save the hard ones for you when you get back.”

I got out of the back of the cab and rang the buzzer next to the door. I leaned on it for several seconds and then, after getting no answer, tried to open it myself. It was locked. I went back to the cabby and said, “Don’t go anywhere. I’m going round back, see if his car’s here.”