“On a Saturday? I thought Sunday was the church day.”
“It takes time to cleanse the soul, man. Especially when you’re a damn dirty sinner like me.”
The middle-aged woman in front of me turned with a scowl. “This is a church!”
“I apologize, ma’am,” I said with a tip of my head. “Obviously, I need to be here more than most, don’t I?”
When I winked, her mouth dropped, and she turned back around, shuffling forward a step or two, as if she needed the extra space to protect herself from my sinning ways.
“Are you done making trouble yet?” Derek asked on the other side of the line.
I smirked. “For now. What’s the name?”
“I don’t know if this will help. Kate Csaszar.”
I frowned. “You look her up yet?”
“Zola, you must really think I’m stupid.”
“Sorry. I don’t think you’re stupid. You’re a fuckin’ champ, King. You’re the best detective I’ve ever met, and I bow to your investigative prowess, all right?”
“Thanks, and go fuck yourself,” Derek said.
“You’re very fuckin’ welcome,” I rejoined.
The lady in front of me whirled back around with a hiss. “Language!”
I grimaced and held one hand up in surrender. “I promise I’ll say an extra Hail Mary if it makes you feel any better, ma’am. At least I’m here, right?”
She scowled hard enough that it made her look like a gargoyle, and I almost started laughing right there in the middle of the apse. Wouldn’t have been the first time I got kicked out of a church for bad behavior, but I had to admit, it had been a while since secondary school.
“You’re a real ne’er-do-weller, aren’t you?” Derek said.
“Terrible influence on God’s flock,” I agreed. “So what do you know about this Kate character?”
“That’s the thing. Absolutely nothing. Cliff ran the name through a bunch of systems and even asked a friend at the Newark DMV to check it out. There’s a Katarina Csaszar listed on the 1990 census in Paterson, but I don’t know if that’s the same person, given the name difference. I think it’s a dead end, man.”
I, however, did not. “That’s pretty close. She could have changed her name,” I said as I shuffled forward in line. “They sound Russian or something.”
“Bulgarian, actually,” Derek said irritably. “I know how to google, Zo.”
I ignored him. “Who else was on the census?”
“Head of house was listed as Benjamin Vamos, forty-two. Household includes a Sara Berto, a few years younger, and another man, twenty, named Károly Kertész. Then Katarina, age one. But I checked with immigration. Sara went back to Hungary the next year and took the little girl with her. I’m telling you, man. It’s nothing.”
I wasn’t buying it. “You by a computer?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Look up the names Berto and Csaszar in the social security database. Check for any name changes.”
As I waited, I could hear the clicks of the keys under his fingers.
“Nothing,” he said. “In New York or New Jersey.”
I frowned. “How about the other kid? The boy. Kertész.”
More keys.
“Holy shit. Zola, you slick motherfucker. What do you have, a sixth sense for slime?”
I might have smiled if I hadn’t known it to be true. After all, it takes one to known one. “What did you find?”
“I still can’t—this is insane. Zola, in 1996, Károly Kertész changed his name to—get this—Calvin fucking Gardner. You asshole. You fucking nailed it.”
“Fuck, yeah, I did!” I crowed, loud enough that the “fuck” bounced around the stone arches of the church like the tolls of its bell.
“Shh!” This time it was several people in line hushing me, not just the witch in front.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” I muttered to everyone. “I’ll keep it down, I promise.”
“You should just leave!” hissed the gargoyle lady.
“Tell it to the priest,” I snapped at her. Then, back to Derek as quietly as I could: “I knew it!”
“All right, all right,” Derek said. “You figured that out. But we still don’t know who this Csaszar girl is and what happened to her. Is she Calvin’s sister? Are they related?”
“Someone does,” I said. “And we’re going to figure out who. Calvin Gardner doesn’t keep his associates under wraps, and he isn’t smart enough not to tell at least someone he trusted with Pantheon. This thing was run by one of the richest, most powerful men in America. The others working with him know. Someone knows. These slimy uptown fucks all known each other’s business.”
“So, what, you thinking a surveillance warrant?”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. “We got cause,