Chapter Four: Alfredo Llamosa

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Alfredo Llamosa knows how other people see him. To be black in America means to be, of necessity, hyperaware of other people's perceptions. Add tall and dark and male to the calculus and who he is becomes hidden behind a pernicious mythology. When he told Joan Watson that he figured he hadn't been asked to be a sponsor because he was "quiet," he was playing with her, watching to see if she caught his whiff of sarcasm. The slightest roll of her eyes when he said it told him that she understood. Good.

In some ways Joan knows him better than Sherlock does. They grew up in adjacent neighborhoods in Queens, only ten blocks apart. Sometimes when Alfredo drops by the brownstone to check on Sherlock, Joan makes him a cup of coffee—not tea, thank you—and they tick through a list of things they recall from their childhoods. Did she ever skate at the Roll Around in Astoria? Every Saturday in the summers. Did he remember the shabby Gloria Theater that showed only second run movies? His favorite hangout until high school. They spent half an hour arguing the merits of Petey's burgers over those at the Jackson Hole diner until Sherlock tapped his foot impatiently and asked if they were ever going to discuss anything remotely interesting.

"We're interested," Joan said, but Alfredo caught her glance and a hint of a smile, and when she changed the subject abruptly to a breaking news story about a hit and run, he followed her lead.

When Joan calls him early one Saturday morning, he assumes she wants to schedule another carjacking lesson. She mastered the elementals months ago and promised to let him show her some workarounds for the newest alarm systems. That she hasn't gotten back with him in awhile is easy to understand—her friend's death, moving back into the brownstone. She's been busy. More than that, Sherlock alluded to her being unsettled the last time they spoke before a meeting.

But Joan isn't calling about a lesson. "It's Sherlock," she says. "He's in some sort of weird mood right now."

"You mean weirder than usual," Alfredo says. He hears Joan laugh softly.

"It all started with this case we were on. Missing person. It went nowhere, and Sherlock just let it go. You know how he can be—he never lets go when he's on to something. Not this time. When our early leads didn't turn up anything, he said he was done."

"Maybe he figured there wasn't enough evidence to solve it so he didn't want to waste his time."

Alfredo hears Joan sigh on the other end of the line.

"Sherlock keeps several boxes of cold cases," she says. "He goes through them whenever he has a spare moment. No, this is something else. He's distracted, or upset about something. He says he's fine, but I can tell he isn't."

"You want me to ask him to go to a meeting?"

"I want you to come talk to him," Joan says. "As his friend. He might tell you what's going on."

Alfredo tries to keep the skepticism out of his voice when he agrees to a time. It's true that Sherlock sometimes gives him a peek into his inner life—though those glimpses are offered at odd moments while something else is the presumed focus—taking apart a magnetic door lock on a Lamborghini Gallardo, for instance, or looking at specs on the Ferrari 458 Spider.

More often Alfredo is the one giving details of his life story, not because Sherlock asks for them but because Alfredo needs to share them to feel connected as his sponsor.

"You and me," he told him early on in their relationship, "we're not that different. I jacked my first car when I was 14 on a dare, but I kept on doing it because I was bored. I can't really explain it. I mean, my parents tried. We lived in a good house, in a nice place. Lots of my friends had less. But I kept thinking there had to be more to life than getting a job and raising a family. The thought of the kind of conventional life my parents had was so boring."

"And your boredom led you to drugs," Sherlock said. Alfredo shook his head. "Partly," he said. "But I didn't spin out of control until my parents split up and my dad went back to Colombia. For a long time I blamed my addiction on my parents' divorce, but the reality is—I was looking for a fix a long time before that."

Sherlock was silent for a few moments. "You were bored because you have an exceptional intelligence. If you had had an opportunity to push yourself educationally—"

"Oh, I had the opportunity," Alfredo said, flushing. Even after all this time he was still embarrassed to confess this part of his story. "I had a free ride to Cornell to study chemical engineering. Your family makes less than a hundred grand a year, lots of the Ivies waive tuition for good students. Summer before I was to start, I got busted for possession at a friend's party. That was the end of my education."

"The university rescinded your acceptance?"

"I didn't find out," Alfredo said. "I withdrew. By then I didn't care. I was more interested in getting high."

Sherlock said nothing more and Alfredo felt like his attempt to find common ground had floundered.

"You get that he's not like anyone else," Joan told him later.

Alfredo had huffed in irritation. "No one's like anyone else," he said. "Sherlock isn't more of an individual than you or me."

But Alfredo knew what she meant. And despite his protests to the contrary, he had to admit that Sherlock Holmes was not like anyone else he knew.

"He's on the roof," Joan tells him when he gets to the brownstone shortly before noon. She presses a folded piece of cloth and mesh into his hand. "If he's checking the bees, you might want this."

Alfredo unfolds the cloth and sees that it is a beekeeper's veil. "I can wait," he says, but Joan waves him toward the staircase.

Like most New Yorkers, Alfredo appreciates a skyline view when he can get it. His basement apartment affords him little natural light, much less a majestic view of Manhattan across the East River. As he opens the door onto the roof, Alfredo scans the horizon—the 59th Street Bridge on the right, the Williamsburg Bridge on the left. Across the river he can see the cars along FDR Drive. The spire of the Empire State Building and the façade of the Chrysler Building are immediately recognizable.

"Watson sent you." Sherlock is sitting on what appears to be a folding campstool facing the beehive, which, Alfredo notes thankfully, seems undisturbed. Picking up a wooden crate, Alfredo turns it over and sits down.

"Joan thought you might want to talk." No use pretending this visit is anything else. Sherlock's look is squinty and sardonic and prolonged. Turning back to the bees at last, Sherlock says, "She was wrong."

"You mind if I ask you a few questions, then?"

"If I say I do mind?"

"I'm going to ask them anyway."

Sherlock shrugs.

"What's with that case you gave up on?"

Sherlock bristles visibly. "I did not give up on a case. I am allocating my energies elsewhere. I will return to it later."

"Oh!" Alfredo says, genuinely surprised. He waits a beat, watching the bees crawling under the glass. "What are you allocating your energies on?"

"It wouldn't interest you," Sherlock says quickly.

"You can't read my mind," Alfredo says just as quickly. "How do you know?"

"Because," Sherlock says, darting a glance at him, "it is boring. Even to me, and I refuse to inflict boredom on a professed drug addict for whom boredom is a trigger."

Something about Sherlock's manner is off, as if his brusqueness is a sham. "I appreciate your concern," Alfredo says, "but I'm good. What's on your mind?"

Sitting back, Sherlock seems to make a decision. "It's an existential question, actually. Or more precisely, an existential dilemma. This case Watson said I had abandoned? Two weeks ago a young man reported to the NYPD that his older brother is missing. Other than take his report, the police could do little, so Captain Gregson asked for our help. Watson and I interviewed the brother, the girlfriend, the missing man's work colleagues. They are all in agreement—the missing man is a paragon of virtue, a kind-hearted friend and lover who has, apparently, no enemies who would wish him harm."

"Could he have been kidnapped?" Alfredo says.

"No one has asked for a ransom."

"Maybe he was killed in a robbery."

"No body has been found. That doesn't mean he wasn't murdered, of course, but the lack of evidence suggests another possibility."

"Which is?"

"The young man doesn't want to be found. That he is missing because he removed himself."

"Wait a minute," Alfredo says. "You mean he ran away."

"It's not that uncommon. People have gone so far as to stage their own deaths in order to keep the authorities from seeking them."

Alfredo frowns. "But why—"

"Multiple reasons," Sherlock says. "To avoid repaying gambling debts, to exit an unhappy marriage, to cause pain for those left behind." His expression flickers oddly and then flattens. Alfredo leans forward.

"So you think this guy is trying to escape something?"

"I'm sure of it. What I'm not sure of," he says, pausing, "is whether someone who doesn't want to be found should be. Why shouldn't someone unhappy with his present life be able to walk away? What's wrong with that, really?"

"Like you did last summer," Alfredo says. At once he knows he's made a mistake. Sherlock takes a deep breath and stands up, chest out, his taut posture indicating the conversation is over.

"Not like that at all," he says, the testy tone in his tone unmistakable. "Watson always knew where I was. She could have contacted me at any time."

Alfredo knows better than to linger when Sherlock is in this mood. As he starts back down the stairs, he mentally rehearses what he'll say to Joan. She so rarely asks him for anything, and now he's failed her.

X

As Joan closes the front door behind Alfredo, she hears Sherlock on the steps.

"You could have contacted me, you know."

He's standing on the bottom step, his arms stiffly at this side.

"I thought you might feel more comfortable talking to Alfredo," Joan says. "You seem—distant—lately and I—"

Sherlock steps to the floor. "When I was in London. You could have called."

"What?"

"I didn't run away," Sherlock says. He grimaces like someone in pain and adds, "Or if I did, you knew how to find me."

"I didn't think you wanted me to," Joan says. "You hardly said goodbye." The lingering hurt in her voice surprises her. She thought she was beyond that. "Besides, why are you bringing that up now?"

"Our missing person case," Sherlock says. "The one you thought I had given up on. I'm convinced Bart Evans walked away and doesn't want to be found."

"We talked about that possibility already," Joan says. "What's your point?"

"Perhaps his reasons for walking away are sound ones. Why shouldn't he be able to leave?"

Sherlock bounces slightly on the balls of his feet, his chin thrust forward, an offensive posture he adopts when he invites her to pick an argument apart.

"His brother is worried," Joan says. "He deserves to know what happened. It isn't fair if Bart just walked away without an explanation."

"What if the younger brother is abusive? According to the people who know him, Bart Evans is unusually docile. Perhaps this is the only way he can extricate himself from a bad situation."

"What about his girlfriend? Or his boss? Don't they need to know if he isn't coming back?"

"From their point of view, certainly. Perhaps even from ours. But do we have the right to impinge on what he wants?"

It's a question Joan has already considered and discarded. No man is an island. She tells Sherlock so.

"You can't pretend that your actions don't have consequences," she adds. The heat in her voice is still there—and looking up at Sherlock, she knows he hears it, too. "Yes, even you. People are affected by what you do, whether you want them to be or not."

She walks from the hall and sits on the sofa, irritated with herself for letting her anger show. Following her into the room, Sherlock sits on the chair closest to the fireplace.

"It is true," he says, "that in the past I operated as if my actions affected me alone. I have come to realize, with your help, that such an idea is incomplete and false, that there is a sort of ripple effect that emanates from what we do. Your asking Alfredo to speak to me, for instance, is because I failed to tell you why I have not been not pursuing the Bart Evans case with more enthusiasm."

He looks like an earnest schoolboy as he speaks, or like someone half expecting a blow. Joan feels a stab of sorrow on his behalf.

"That's okay," she says. "Maybe you're right. If Bart Evans doesn't want to be found, maybe we shouldn't look for him. Besides, the trail went cold so fast, I don't know where we would look."

Sherlock goes still, his head tipped slightly to the side. "What did you say, Watson?"

"I said that the trail is cold. We don't know where to look."

"It is cold, isn't it? Unusually cold. People almost never vanish into thin air. They have to interact with others, even if it is just the cashier at the local bodega. Yet Mr. Evans left work one day and was never seen again. No record of a car rental, no airplane ticket, no bus fare with his name on it. No credit card use, no checks written, no ATM withdrawals."

"If he was planning on walking away," Joan says, "he would have established another identity before he left. That way he would have access to transportation and money."

"Yet none of the people we interviewed had any inkling that he was planning to leave."

"Maybe something happened that forced his hand," Joan says. "He left because he got in trouble somehow."

Sherlock runs his fingers along the arm of the chair. "While that would explain why his friends and family were startled by his absence, it doesn't explain how he is able to function without money or access to it. If he is on the run, his name should have shown up somewhere by now, yet when Detective Bell ran his name through the credit database, nothing showed up."

"Then he's using an alias," Joan says. "He could have gotten a false identity ready before now—applied for credit cards, bought a stolen social security number."

"Which takes us," Sherlock says, "back to our starting point. Bart Evans planned ahead of time to leave or he left out of a sudden necessity. Either way, the people who know him are in the dark. That not one person knows something is incongruous."

"Some people are hard to know," Joan says, letting her words do double duty. "But let's say you're right, that at least one person knows something. What do we do now?"

Sherlock stands up. "Get your coat, Watson. We have to interview the people who knew Bart Evans again."

X X

"Like I told you, Bart and I moved here two years ago from a small town in North Carolina you never heard of. He got a job in the IT department of the New York Department of Education—you know, doing computer stuff. I don't even understand all of it. He made enough so I could work on my novel. I told him I'd pay him back when I finished the book. He was like that—unselfish."

Bart Evans' younger brother Harold sits on one end of a lumpy futon. Watson sits on the other. Sherlock paces slowly around the room. Through one door is a tiny kitchenette. A full garbage can by the stove is visible, fast food wrappers and take-out boxes stacked high.

Through the other door is a small bathroom. A single wadded towel hangs on the rack.

Sherlock whirls back to Harold. "You and your brother have always shared this apartment?"

"Ever since we moved to New York. I mean, I know it's small, but until I get a paying job—"

"And your banking?"

"Excuse me?"

Watson picks up the thread. "Did you and your brother share a joint banking account?"

"Well, yeah. Is that a problem?"

"Not a problem," Watson says, "but not usual."

"It costs money to have an account," Harold Evans says, his tone defensive. "You have to keep a certain balance."

"Since your brother's disappearance," Sherlock says, "have you noticed any withdrawals other than the ones you've made yourself?"

"No," Harold Evans says. "That's why I think something bad must have happened to him. I told the police—"

"It's possible," Sherlock says, cutting him off. He catches Watson's eye and she follows him to the door. "Thank you, Mr. Evans. We'll be in touch."

They are halfway down the sidewalk before Watson says, "You saw something."

"Several somethings, as did you, I'm sure," he says. He starts to list them but pulls himself up short and waits. Sure enough, Watson's observations are apt.

"He lives there alone," she says. "Unless one of the brothers sleeps on the floor. The futon was the only bed."

"They could sleep in shifts," Sherlock says, "though that seems highly unlikely."

"Just as they could share a towel—or never cook—but that also seems unlikely. Except for the futon, there wasn't any other furniture. The clothes he had piled up in a corner didn't look like enough for two people. Why would he lie and say that his brother lived there when he didn't?"

"Perhaps Bart Evans did live there," Sherlock says. He sees Watson jerk back and stop. He takes a step in her direction, forcing passersby to detour around them.

"You just agreed with me that Harold Evans lives there alone."

"Harold Evans lives there now. Until he disappeared, Bart Evans lived there."

Watson starts walking again and Sherlock matches her stride. "So where was Harold before he moved in?"

"He was there," Sherlock says. "With Bart."

Watson's face is a delight to behold. Her expression shifts in degrees as her brain tumbles the pieces into place, going from baffled to enlightened, her eyes bright with her discovery.

"They are the same person!"

"You recall that when we talked to Bart Evans' girlfriend, she said she's never met his brother, Harold, though they have spoken on the phone. Likewise with Bart's colleagues at work. They knew almost nothing about his private life, in fact—a disturbing revelation about the nature of American workplaces—unless you prefer anonymity and privacy, of course. This entire case is proof of how little we do know about other people."

"You're joking now," Watson says, barely containing a grin, "but the serious question is, why go to all this trouble to report someone missing who doesn't even exist. He'll get in trouble for filing a false report. And he's lost his job. And his girlfriend. For what?"

"Who can say? Mr. Evans wanted to start over—and nice guy that he was reputed to be, he couldn't think of any other way to do so than to shed one persona and become his brother."

"If he even has a brother."

"Oh, he does," Sherlock says. "The joint banking account, remember? Probably still living in No-Name Town, North Carolina. At any rate, that should be easy enough to track down."

"But still," Watson says, shaking her head, "it seems so cowardly, ducking out on everything and everyone like that. You should treat the people you care about better."

"The vagaries of the human heart," Sherlock says. "As well we both know."

They're quiet on the subway ride home—partly because they can't talk over the roving mariachi band playing for tips that enters the train at the Times Square stop and doesn't exit until Wall Street. By the time they reach their own stop and walk the three blocks to the brownstone, Watson volunteers to step around the corner to order takeout Thai.

Sherlock heads straight to the roof. The overturned crate is still there, a reminder of Alfredo's earlier visit. When he left they were unhappy with each other—or Sherlock was unhappy to be reminded of the pain he caused when he left for London. Tomorrow he'll call Alfredo and make amends somehow. The car show at the Barclays Center next month. He'll buy tickets to that for the two of them.

Unlatching the beehive door, he tugs on the hinge and pulls out the packet of letters from Irene. Not Irene, he tells himself, again. Not Irene. Moriarity. Wasn't he scolding Watson about that same misstep—calling Del Gruner by his Christian name?

In his dreams she will always be Irene, but in his waking life he is in control.

Fishing out the careworn envelope he carries in his pocket, he slides it into the packet of letters. Since it arrived in the mail three days ago it's been like a weight in his pocket, in his chest. He hasn't told Watson about it—won't tell her. He knows what she would say, that it's folly to keep the connection open, tenuous though it may be.

If Moriarity is telling the truth in this letter, that her trial is close to being scheduled, he'll have to fortify himself to be called to testify. It's a daunting notion, facing her in the courtroom, the pubic drama of lawyers and jury and judge. He has a moment of great sympathy for people like Bart Evans who have an overwhelming need to flee.

Closing the door of the beehive, he takes a moment to scan for one of the Euglassia Watsonias. There in one corner, its feathered antennae waving in salute. Pulling up the campstool close to the hive, he settles in to watch.

When he does go to court, he won't be alone, of course. Watson will be there. His heartbeat starts to slow, calmed by that thought—or by the comforting buzz of the bees.

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