Hard Stop by Chris Knopf Page B

heavyweight contenders stayed out of my normally snarled dreams. Held at bay by the surge of gratitude that com mingled with the scent of Amanda’s thick brown hair and filled my mind as I let go and yielded to the night.

FIVE
    I CAUGHT UP TO S ULLIVAN the next day at the boxing gym in Westhampton, as I often did in the late afternoon, both of us preferring to go there after work. He was riding the stationary bike, a towel around his neck and a scowl on his face.
    “I’m still unhappy about cutting that stupe loose,” he said as I approached.
    “I know. I appreciate it.”
    “Ross never heard anything. I hope he never does.”
    Ross Semple was the Chief of Southampton Town Police. Sullivan’s boss.
    “He won’t from me,” I said.
    “You’ll be thanking me the rest of your life for that one.”
    “So then you won’t mind doing me another favor.”
    His expression stayed the same, but he sped up his pace on the bike. “Funny.”
    “I need to match a license plate with a name and address.”
    He smiled.
    “Sure. Do you want a surveillance crew to go with that?”
    “That’s okay. I’ll handle that part.”
    He took his feet off the pedals and the bike slowly spun to a stop.
    “Explain.”
    “I found Iku’s boyfriend hanging at a club last night. When I tried to talk to him he took off. But I got his plate number.”
    I stopped him before he could say no.
    “There’s no official police interest in this, I know,” I said. “But so far at least two people consider this woman missing. Her boss and her big-shot lover. These are not minor connections. What if the boyfriend’s in the same boat? She was last known to be in Southampton. That’s your interest, right?”
    “Jesus Christ.”
    “If I can’t do this through you I’ll have to go underground. Consort with dangerous scoundrels selling license plate identities out of storefronts in the Bronx.”
    “I thought you were born in the Bronx.”
    “Right. The attraction will be irresistible.”
    He stuck out his hand.
    “Gimme the number.”
    I took it out of the waistband of my workout shorts.
    “It was a Volvo. Four-door, black, fairly new. The guy’s name is Robert Dobson. Mid-thirties, maybe a little more. Five foot nine, maybe less. Light brown hair, might have a short beard. I’m pretty certain he’s out of the City, but might have an address here as well.”
    He looked at the slip of paper as if he could pull the address out of his memory.
    “Why’s that?”
    “He’s here all the time. Even in the off-season. Iku was last known to be here. One and one is two.”
    “Could still be a renter. Part of a group. Used to be a summer thing, now you see it year-round.”
    “Good thought,” I said.
    “You’ll have to talk to the realtors. But if it’s a private deal, there’s no records anywhere. You’d have to go door-to-door.”
    “Let’s try the easy way first.”
    “What ‘let’s’? This ain’t an ‘us’ thing. It’s a ‘you’ thing.”
    “I know. Whatever you can get me on the plate is all I need. Then I’ll leave you alone.”
    “Right.”
    I spent the next hour doing all the clichéd things you do in a boxing gym—working the bags, jumping rope, lifting weights. I’d never seen the inside of a regular gym where regular people worked out, so I didn’t know what that was all about. Having been a fighter as a kid, I’d gotten used to a boxing gym’s sweet stink and blunt-force simplicity, its sense of purpose and undercurrent of latent threat. More motivational.
    I had to stop sparring on doctor’s orders. That was fine with me. I never liked the actual fighting part of the sport. Way too easy to get hurt.
    In further acknowledgement of time and the looming menace of infirmity, I’d almost quit smoking, and for the first time put a weekly budget on vodka consumption. I wasn’t entirely committed to the idea and the program was still in the experimental phase. But at least it kept at bay my daughter’s carping