Black Bart hadn’t been impressed with my charm or cleavage. I didn’t think I’d get a lot of help from him. Clyde was eager, but not real bright. Andrew seemed like my best shot. I took the turnoff to TriBro and called Andrew on my cell phone.

“Guess what?” I said. “I’m in the neighborhood. Can I take a couple more minutes of your time?”

“Absolutely.”

Absolutely was a good answer. Very positive. No sign of annoyance. No lecherous side remark. Professional. Andrew was definitely the brother of choice.

I parked in the lot, entered the lobby, and was immediately directed to Andrew’s office. More good luck. No Bart or Clyde to slow me down. I took a chair across from Andrew and thanked him for seeing me.

“TriBro has an interest in finding Singh,” he said. “We signed for the visa bond. If Singh skips, TriBro pays the bill.”

“Do you have other employees on work visas?”

“Not now, but we have in the past. And I have to tell you, Singh isn’t the first to disappear.”

I felt my eyebrows raise.

“It’s nothing suspicious,” Andrew said. “In fact, I find it understandable. If I was in a similar position I might disappear, too. These men come to work for three months and are seduced by the potential for success. Everything is within their reach . . . rental movies, burgers, designer jeans, a new car, microwave popcorn, and frozen waffles. I have some sympathy for their flight, but at the same time TriBro can’t keep absorbing bond losses. If this sort of thing continues we’ll have to stop using visa workers. And that would be a shame, because they make very good temporary employees.”

“Singh must have had some friends on the job. I’d like to talk to them.”

Andrew Cone sat through a couple beats of silence, his eyes holding mine, his thoughts private, his expression guarded. “Why don’t we put you undercover,” he finally said. “I can give you Singh’s job for a day. We haven’t filled it yet.”

“I’m not even sure what you make here.”

“We make little things. Machine-tooled gears and locks. Singh’s job primarily consisted of measuring minutia. Each part we supply must be perfect. The first day onboard you wouldn’t be expected to know much.” He reached for his phone and his mouth tipped into a small smile. “Let’s see how good you are at bluffing.”

Ten minutes later I was a genuine bogus TriBro employee, following after Andrew, learning about TriBro Tech. The gears and locks that composed the bulk of TriBro’s product were made at workstations housed in a large warehouse-type facility adjoining the reception area and offices. The far end of the warehouse was divided off into a long room where the quality control work was done. Windows looked into the interior. In the entire facility there were no windows looking out. The quality control area consisted of a series of cubbies with built-in tables, shelves, and cabinets. The tables held an odd assortment of weights, measures, machine torture devices, and chemicals. A single worker occupied each of the tables. There were seven people in the quality control area. And there was one unoccupied table. Singh’s table.