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his number in my address book and phoned
him. All I got that late on a Sunday night was an answering machine.
I left my name, Kirsten's number, and told him I'd be back in touch.
I tried calling Marnee Thompson at the apartment, but there was no
answer there either. Marnee obviously hadn't been forthcoming with me
about Kirsten and her brother. But then, I was working for Papa Phil,
and Kirsty was her friend.
    I thought about phoning Pearson himself, and decided
to wait. judging by how much of his children's pasts—and his
own—he'd already concealed, I didn't think I'd get him to talk
openly without some leverage. Or a body.
    After a time Heldman came back into the room. He had
a beautiful little girl of about ten with him.
    "This is my daughter, Katie. Katie, Mr. Stoner."
    Katie curtsied as if I were royalty.
    "Go on, toots," he said, giving her a smack
on the rear.
    She gave her father an indignant look and marched off
up the hall.
    "She thinks she's too old to be given a potch on
the tuckus."
    "She's very pretty."
    Heldman smiled proudly. "I think so. Did you
finish your ca1ls?"
    "All except for a cab to take me back to
Kirsty's apartment."
    "I could drive you."
    "That's all right, Professor. I need you to run
another errand."
    "Anything," he said.
    "How close are you to Jay Stein?"
    "He's a colleague," the professor said with
a stilted air of professional courtesy. "He came here this past
year as an instructor, fresh out of the Iowa workshops. I very much
doubt he will be renewed this coming year—if that's what you're
getting at."
    It wasn't what I was getting at, but I was glad to
hear it anyway. Glad to know that forbearance had its limits, even
among professors of literature.
    "I'm sure that Stein has told me a few
self-protective lies," I said. "But there is probably a
certain amount of truth mixed in with them. It's important for me to
know what Kirsty and he actually talked about on Thursday morning—if
she did in fact tell him she was going to see her brother or someone
else. Do you think you could . . . ?"
    "What?" Heldman said uneasily. "Pump
him?"
    "I was thinking of something a little more
hardball than that. It wouldn't be a lie if you said that you'd just
talked to me and that I'd raised some disturbing questions about his
conduct, would it?"
    "You want me to threaten him?" Heldman said
with humor.
    "I want you to find out where Kirsten went.
Otherwise, she may well be destined for calamity."
    Heldman thought it over for a moment. "I'l1 do
what I can" was all he said.
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    I called for a cab and, before leaving, told Heldman
to phone me at Kirsten's apartment after he'd talked to Stein. He
wasn't comfortable with the idea of blackmailing the man—that was
obvious. But I had the gut feeling that he'd get the information I
wanted, because he really did care for Kirsten, as I myself was
beginning to care for her in spite of my misgivings about the case.
    On the cab ride back to the apartment I wondered why
Phil Pearson had waited for the girl to go missing before calling for
help. He had talked vaguely about "disturbing signs" in
Kirsten's behavior—he'd talked vaguely about everything having to
do with his daughter, as if her past was a personal embarrassment to
him. But the signs of Kirsten's disintegration were quite clear to
everyone who knew her. They had to be just as clear to her father,
who was a trained psychiatrist. Perhaps Pearson couldn't bring
himself to intervene in his daughter's life again after his
disastrous rescue attempt of the previous summer. Perhaps he thought
that another such intervention would drive her over the edge. I
didn't know. But there was an  inconsistency about his behavior,
about everyone's behavior toward Kirsty, that almost amounted to
ambivalence. It was as if her friends had decided to let her life run
its course, even if it meant her death.
    I'm sure they felt they were respecting her wishes,
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