I staggered out of the room, sort of trembly and dizzy, but I walked down the six flights of stairs to get my head straight, and then went right out of the hotel, not handing in my key, not saying anything to my Indian pal. Just got out of there. Let him try to find Philip Marlowe.

After making the 911 calls and walking about twenty blocks in some kind of frenzied panic, spitting repeatedly to get the taste of the dead man out of my mouth, I hailed a cab to take me back to Brooklyn. In the car, I tried calling Lisa Weiss, hoping to end this nightmare and find the damn girl, but got the same fucking filled-up voice mail. I then tried calling Rachel Weiss, but she didn’t pick up and I left a message, saying she should call me right away, though I tried to keep my voice calm. When I spoke to her, I was going to tell her to have her parents call the police right away. But I have to say, this scared me. What kind of trouble could I get into for taking on this whole thing and then anonymously reporting a dead body? But it didn’t matter, I just had to get out of this mess.

I got home around twelve thirty and lay on top of my bed for hours, didn’t even take off my sport coat or shoes, just lay there, numb, waiting for Rachel to call, but she never did. At some point, I passed out. I woke up around eight a.m. and called Rachel again and left another voice mail. At nine I tried her again and I got a recording telling me that the service at the number had been suspended. Fucking college student hadn’t paid her bill and I needed to talk to her!

I thought of calling her parents but I didn’t know where in Maryland they lived. I started pacing in my dirty apartment. I went on craigslist and called one of the private detectives listed. I told him most of my story, kept it real tight, except I didn’t say anything about my bogus ad, just that I was a friend trying to help out.

“Why did you make an anonymous call to the cops?” the PI asked. He had a gruff voice.

“I don’t know. I was scared.”

“That doesn’t look good. Makes it seem like you did something wrong. You and your friend better go to the police. It sounds like you stepped in a big pile of shit.”

“Could you help us?” I asked. I hadn’t told him about Vincent’s dog, so he didn’t know how accurate his metaphor was.

He was silent a moment, then he said, “I’m busy,” and he hung up. He must not have liked the sound of the whole thing. I didn’t blame him.

I tried Rachel’s number again and got the same recording. I called Temple University information and the number they had for her was her cell phone.