"Well," I ask then, hopefully, "maybe he did, huh?"
"His girlfriend doesn't think so," Kimball says tonelessly.
Without even beginning to understand, I imagine, what a speck Paul Owen was in the overall enormity of things.
"But..." I stop. "Has anyone seen him in London?"
Kimball looks at his book, flips over a page and then, looking back at me, says, "Actually, yes."
"Hmmm," I say.
"Well, I've had a hard time getting an accurate verification," he admits. "A... Stephen Hughes says he saw him at a restaurant there, but I checked it out and what happened is, he mistook a Hubert Ainsworth for Paul, so..."
"Oh," I say.
"Do you remember where you were on the night of Paul's appearance?" He checks his book. "Which was on the twenty-fourth of June?"
"Gosh... I guess..." I think about it. "I was probably returning videotapes." I open my desk drawer, take out my datebook and looking through December announce, "I had a date with a girl named Veronica..." I'm completely lying, totally making this up.
"Wait," he says, confused, looking at his book. "That's.. not what I've got."
My thigh muscles tense. "What?"
"That's not the information I've received," he says.
"Well..." I'm suddenly confused and scared, the Nuprin bitter in my-stomach. "I... Wait... What information have you received?"
"Let's see..." He flips through his pad, finds something. "That you were with - "
"Wait." I laugh. "I could be wrong..." My spine feels damp.
"Well..." He stops. "When was the last time you were with Paul Owen?" he asks.
"We had" - oh my god, Bateman, think up something - "gone to a new musical that just opened, called... Oh Africa, Brave Africa." I gulp. "It was... a laugh riot... and that's about it. I think we had dinner at Orso's... no, Petaluma. No, Orso's."
I stop. "The... last time Iphysically saw him was... at an automated teller. I can't remember which... just one that was near, um, Nell's."
"But the night he disappeared?" Kimball asks.