The Girl in the Glass by Jeffrey Ford Page A

shoes, white socks and had gold clips in her hair. She is approximately four foot tall with brown hair in pigtails, green eyes, and a missing front tooth. Should you see a child fitting this description, please contact your local authorities.
    "Harold Barnes, well-known shipping magnate, is offering a sizable reward for information concerning his daughter's whereabouts. He could not be reached for further comment. The community's hope is that the child has wandered off and will soon be found and reunited with her family." Schell finished reading, sat back, and stared straight on.
    "How?" I asked.
    Antony reached over and slipped the paper out of Schell's hand. He turned it and looked at the photograph.
    "Exceedingly strange," said Schell.
    "Does this mean the kid's dead?" asked Antony.
    "How old is that paper?" asked Schell, suddenly becoming animated. Antony unfolded it and flipped to the front page. "Four days old," he said.
    "We were at Parks' place five days ago," I said.
    "Yes," said Schell, "the twenty-second."
    "A ghost?" asked Antony.
    "I'm not certain of anything," said Schell. "But I mean to find out. What's the next stop?"
    "Jamaica," I said.
    "I hate to disappoint you fellows, but I'm getting off there and turning back. You two can go on to New York without me."
    "Come on, Boss," said Antony. "You need a rest."
    "No, no, no," said Schell. "I'm heading back. I have to make an appointment to see Mr. Barnes."
    "You're not going to take this poor bastard now, with his daughter missing," said Antony.
    "On the contrary," said Schell. "I'm going to try to find her."
    "I'm in," I said.
    "Free of charge," said Schell.
    "Three words I never thought I'd hear you say," said Antony.
    "I've got to get to the bottom of this," said Schell.
    "Okay," said Antony, "what the hell."
    We got off at Jamaica and toted our luggage over to the eastbound track. While we waited for the next train, Schell paced impatiently up and down the platform. Antony and I sat on a bench. When Schell was some distance from us, the big man leaned toward me and said, "So much for our head shrinking, kid." I didn't answer as my mind was caught up in the notion that Schell's occult experience offered possible proof of an afterlife. The fact that there might actually be another side from which the dead might travel, and that we had played so fast and loose with it, didn't bode well for our eternal souls. Antony's thoughts must have been running along the same path, because when I asked him for a cigarette, he actually gave me one and lit it.
    THE CHEATERS
    H arold Barnes wasn't an easy man to get to see, even if you wanted to offer your services "free of charge." Schell had called the estate but got no further than a secretary, who had curtly informed him that Mr. Barnes was not available for comment or interview. He admonished himself afterward for not thinking through the situation. "The press is most likely hounding the family at every turn. I let my eagerness get the better of me," he admitted. "From now on, I have to treat our efforts as a con, even though delusion's not the goal here."
    Antony and I were dispatched on a research mission. We drove into Jamaica to the offices of the Republican Long Island Farmer , where Peewee Dunnit's sister, Kate, worked as a clerk in the file room. Antony slipped her twenty dollars, and she slipped him the newspaper's dossier on Barnes. Usually when we tapped her for a file, she'd let us have it for a day or two, but with the millionaire's daughter missing, it was in hot demand by their own reporters. We could have one hour with it before it had to be returned.
    We staked out a table in a diner around the corner from the paper, ordered coffee, and set about consuming and recording as much pertinent information as possible. It was a thick file, as Barnes was well-known; even if we had all day with their file, it would be difficult to decide which pieces of information were relevant to our investigation. What we might