I asked what he knew about Jasmine, and he said the phone was not the place for it.

“You send me three messages before nine and then you go careful on me?”

“I have a mortgage and a pension,” Daniel said.

“Give me until this afternoon.”

Daniel had always liked being the first to know a thing.

I had spent years mistaking his nerves for gossip.

“Where did she come from?” I asked.

“A staffing agency in Norwalk.