"I need your help," he said as though I were going to contradict him. "I want you to find a missing person."

I had him sit down. I was low man at the agency, and didn't often meet with clients. It was a welcome change of pace, especially after spending an entire morning going through forty-year-old tax records at City Hall.

Despite what people think, being a private investigator is no more glamorous than being a plumber.

Now I had to deal with someone else who had read too much Raymond Chandler. "Then you should be talking to the police, not me."

"Yes. The police." He seemed even more uncomfortable, if that was possible. "The police have not been helpful, I'm afraid. I need to try ... other methods."

"I can't guarantee we'd do any better."

"Oh, understood, Mr. Benhaim. Understood." He smiled as though we had come to some sort of agreement.

I took a pad from my desk. Might as well get down the information; I could pass it off to someone else. It wasn't my job, which usually involved searching through records and databases for information, or calling up secretaries and pretending to be a friend of their boss, just to see what secrets they'd accidentally spill. No murders or missing persons, and my one main talent for the agency seemed to be an ability to tell stories convincingly. "Who are you looking for?"

"Albert Einstein."

I put down the pen. "Einstein?"

"Yes. A physicist. Formulated the Theory of Relativity. His most famous equation is E equals--"

"I know who Einstein was." Better than many. I stood up. "I'm really very busy right now. Perhaps if you--"

"You think I'm some kind of nut, don't you?"

"No, of course not."

"I need to find him."

"Well, you might try Princeton, New Jersey. Ask around the cemeteries. He died 35 years ago."

He looked almost as though he was going to cry. "I'm looking for the real Einstein. Alive, not dead." He pulled his billfold from his pocket and began to fumble through it.

"Look, Mr. Vole. Einstein can't be alive. He'd be over a hundred years old."

"One hundred and fourteen," said Vole, picking out a photo. It was bent and scored as though he had shown it to thousands of people. "Look at this."

I was thinking of calling for help to throw him out, but the image caught my eye. It was Einstein, all right: the wild white hair, the leonine face and placid eyes. He was standing on the edge of a small knot of people, as though he had been passing by when the camera went off.

Vole pressed his finger beside the head of a teenage boy with a forced smile. "Take a look at what's on his head."

I did. It was a black baseball cap, the letters "C" and "R" printed on it.

"Einstein supposedly died in 1955," Vole said. "That's a Colorado Rockies cap. The team didn't exist until this year. You could buy the caps before then, but--"

I stared at the image. I recognized the location: the South Mall in Albany. Something else that didn't exist while Einstein was alive. "It's a fake," I said.

"I assure you it's not. I know he's somewhere near here, but I've done all I could on my own. I need a professional."

I didn't know what to say. Despite the absurdity of his claim, I believed him. It was a heck of a lot of trouble to go to for just a joke. "You think I can track him down?"

"I don't know. But I'd like you to try."

"Well, ... before I agree to anything, I have to know why you need to see him. It's a lot of money to spend on a probable wild good chase."

Vole told me about how he lost his job at the bank for all this Einstein talk, and that the truth was the only thing that would get him reinstated. "Please, Mr. Benhaim. I need someone's help."

I considered things for a minute. "Let me think about it."

It seemed to satisfy him. He scribbled a number on a sheet of scratch paper. "Call me."