“No argument. You don’t think that boy’s still alive, do you?” That forced-sounding remark about piss and vinegar was lingering.

The FBI man’s long face got longer. “We have to assume so. And I’ve been told to follow Mr. Greenlease’s lead.”

“Because he’s a worried father or a big General Motors stockholder?”

The only answer he’d had for that was a smirk as he backed away and waved me on.

Now I was in my hotel room, sitting up in bed with a slit of sun peeking between the closed curtains and the nightstand clock saying it was already after ten A.M. I had left no wake-up call, expecting to hear from Greenlease if anything had broken. Apparently nothing had, except maybe my head. While I hadn’t been drunk last night by any means, over the course of a long evening enough rum had been involved to give me a dull headache.

My stomach was in no mood for anything but the cup of black coffee I grabbed in the President’s coffee shop. Then I drove to the Greenlease place in Mission Hills. A different Fed stopped me at the checkpoint, but when I proved who I was passed me on.

Paul Greenlease greeted me again. His suit-and-tie seemed to be standard, for the duration of the kidnapping anyway, and the shyly smiling maid was there to collect my hat and coat. But before escorting me deeper into the big somber house, the older Greenlease son lingered with me in the high-ceilinged, expansive entryway like the only couple on a ballroom dance floor.

“Mr. Heller,” he said, and this adopted son looked enough like Greenlease to make a private detective suspicious, “may I ask you something?”

“Of course, Paul. And make it Nate. I’m a friend of the family in this.” With a check for five thousand dollars from his father in my billfold, admittedly.

“Now that the ransom has been delivered,” he said, stroking his rounded jaw nervously, “will you stay involved?”

“Is there news of your brother?”

“No. Nothing from Pittsburg yet.”

I offered a sigh. “It’s probably time to let the FBI take over, frankly. That’s what I’ll be advising your father.”

The dark eyes were still bloodshot. “I had the idea that… well, that Dad might want you out there trying to find the people who did this.”

“Again, that’s probably better handled by the federal investigators, at this point.” I shrugged. “I do have means and methods not open to them. Uh, admittedly there are certain…niceties I don’t have to respect. So I may be discussing that with your father. Why, son?”

The word “son” had come automatically. For a man in his mid-thirties, he seemed young to me. His high forehead tensed. “Mr. Heller, there’s something bothering me that I haven’t shared with anyone. Can I trust you not to take this to Dad and Mother?”

The formality of “Mother” next to “Dad” struck me as interesting. Not sure I could tell you why.