“Food! That’s all he ever wants from me is food!” She gave the guy sitting next to me a little slap on the arm. “You know who that is next to you? That’s Johnny Lane, the detective. The one in the Examiner.”
That got some fellow diners to turn around and give me a look. It wasn’t long before I was telling stories and folks were shaking my hand and patting me on the back. The black mood I had been drifting into was all but gone. By the time I finished eating I was feeling pretty good, feeling confident that I was doing the right thing with Mary and that everything would work out. I had a third cup of coffee and kidded Carol a little. By the time I left everything was fine with the world.
Once back at my office, I checked in with my answering service and got a list of messages. More than half were from Mary. After a few tries, I located her at school. She was too excited to listen to me at first. After calming her down I gave her the bad news about the trip being a bust. I asked if she could stop by for a talk, which was like asking a politician if he could stomach a contribution. We agreed to meet in a half hour.
Chapter 7
Mary looked miserable. “I don’t understand. You seemed so sure you were going to find them.”
We had been at it for a while now. I let my eyes close. “With these things you never know for sure,” I said, trying to keep my voice under control. “I did think I was on the right track, but out in Oklahoma I hit a stone wall.”
She was struggling to keep the tears back. The corners of her mouth were quivering and I sped up, hoping to keep the dam from breaking open. “If you think about it, tracing a full grown woman back to the parents who gave her up for adoption can be close to impossible. A mother giving up her baby is usually doing it for a good reason but that doesn’t stop her from feeling ashamed about it. So she doesn’t cooperate by supplying agencies or hospitals with any useful information. What you end up with is birth certificates and hospital records listing the mother as JANE DOE.”
“What are you trying to tell me, that you can’t do the job?”
“Well, no,” I said, a little hurt. “If the job can be done, then I can do it. I’m just trying to tell you that these things don’t always happen the way you’d expect them to.”
I heard the door to my anteroom open and excused myself to find Max Roth standing there looking uncomfortable. I asked him to take a seat and wait. Back in my office, Mary was sitting with her head bowed, pulling at her fingers. When I sat down, she slowly lifted her head and peeked at me. “I’m sorry, Johnny,” she said. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. I know you’ve been trying your best. I guess I’m disappointed and a little frustrated. You seemed so positive before you left. And I thought knowing the name of that lawyer would make it easy. I—”
She lowered her eyes. I could tell she was having trouble putting her thoughts together. It was as if she were trying to express herself in a foreign language and only knew a few of the words.
“I know,” she continued slowly, “it might be hard for other people to understand, but I need to find who my real parents are. I have to know who I really am.”
Her shoulders started shaking and I could see it was useless. I took a deep breath and waited and sure enough the tears started flowing. I got up and patted her head, telling her everything was going to be okay and being as sympathetic as all hell.
After a while the crying stopped. I took out a handkerchief and mopped up around her eyes. After blowing her nose, she looked up at me and bit her lip. “This is embarrassing,” she said. “Usually I’m not like this.”
“Don’t worry about it. You’ve been wanting this awful bad and it’s only natural to get shaken up a bit when you’ve been let down.” I hemmed and hawed a little before continuing. “I hate seeing you torn up like this. Should it really be this important for you to find your birth parents?”
“I don’t know, Johnny. But it is.”
“Your adoptive parents are nice folks, better than most people could hope for. Maybe you should be satisfied with them. It would be a shame to end up spending all this money and time only to find out something you might be better off not knowing. There’s a reason why a pretty little baby is given up for adoption.”
She shook her head, her jaws tightening with determination.
“I’ve got to find them,” she said. “I’ve been wanting to ever since I was twelve—that’s when I found out I was adopted. Frank and Julie are wonderful parents and I love them. But that doesn’t mean I don’t need to know who I really am.”
“What if it turns out your real mother was a prostitute? Or your daddy was a madman? Or a murderer?”
“Why are you saying that?”
I gave her a sympathetic smile. “Mary, some things are better left alone. Maybe this is one of them.”
“I don’t want to leave it alone.”
“How’s your job going?” I asked.
“What—it’s going okay.”
“It must be awful hard,” I said, “going to college during the day and then working nights at that convenience store. Just to pay for this.”
“It’s my decision.” She forced a weak smile. “I’m an adult, you know.”
I leaned back in my chair and decided to go at it from a different angle. “When I first started out as a private detective I had a case similar to this. This boy, he felt the same as you, that he couldn’t be happy unless he was able to meet with his birth parents. And—”
Mary cut in, giving me a cross-eyed look. “I’m really not interested in this,” she insisted.
“I appreciate that,” I stumbled on, “but it might help to hear me out. I found this boy’s momma for him. After more sweat and hard work I found his daddy had been long dead, killed in prison. It turned out that my client, well let’s just say, was the product of a rape and grew up to be the spitting image of his daddy. When he showed up at his momma’s door and she got a look at him, something in her snapped.”
Mary’s eyes drifted away from me. My story was boring her and I couldn’t help feeling a little hot under the collar. I cleared my throat and continued, wishing I had never started.
“When she looked at this boy she didn’t see him as her long lost son. Instead she saw the son of a bitch who had raped her years before. By the time anyone was able to get her off him, she had half his face scratched up and had almost cut out one of his eyes. My client didn’t end up any happier and neither did his mother.”
Mary was looking around impatiently. “I don’t understand why you’re telling me this. It’s not going to change my mind. And besides, I don’t think I have to worry about being the spitting image of a rapist.”
I leaned further back in my chair and gave her a hard look. She was so damn determined and headstrong. There was no sense trying to talk her out of it. For a second, I almost told her the truth. I wanted to, but it would have ended up causing too much pain.
I let out my breath slowly. “I only want to make sure you understand what you might be up against. If you want me to keep looking, I’ll do just that.”
“I appreciate that, Johnny.” She blushed, lowering her eyes from mine. “There’s something else, something we haven’t talked about. The night before you left. I know things got kind of weird, but before that everything happened too quickly for me. I guess I wasn’t ready for it. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want it to happen. Only that we need to take it more slowly.”
Her face had turned red. I forced a smile and told her I felt awful about it, and that I hoped the two of us could forget it ever happened.
She looked startled, not expecting what I said. “That’s not at all what I’m trying to say. I don’t feel bad about it and you shouldn’t either. And I’m not saying we should stop!”
I shook my head. “We have to. It was plain wrong with you being as vulnerable as you are right now, and well, me being as old as I am.”
“Why are you acting like this? You didn’t—” And she stopped herself cold. She gave me an odd kind of look, almost as if she were seein
g me for the first time, and sat there for a good minute trying to make up her mind about something. Finally she told me I was probably right. She looked down at her nails and added, “I better be going. You’ll let me know as soon as you find out anything?”
I nodded, my smile strained. “And don’t worry. I’ll find them for you.” I watched, almost hypnotically, the rhythmic motion of her hips as she walked towards the door. She hesitated slightly and then she was gone. As the door closed behind her, I couldn’t help but feel a little empty inside. As if I had screwed up and lost something I couldn’t afford to lose.
That night before I left for Oklahoma . . . .
I closed my eyes and played it back in my mind. The way Mary’s lips felt brushing against mine, the way she smelled and how dizzy and light everything became. And then the sickness rolling over me. For a moment I could feel it again, the dull nausea swirling in my head and stomach. I could feel it way down in my throat, pushing its way up. I squeezed my eyes shut and forced the images out of my head.
The hell with it. The hell with all of it.
It wasn’t as if there was anything to be ashamed of. I had stopped it way before that. Anyways, I didn’t show her anything she hadn’t seen before. I bet if I had kept going she would have taught me a few new tricks. It’s just like everything else; you try so hard in this lifetime and, well, like I said, the hell with it.
And besides, the two of us were nothing at all like Craig Singer and his daughter.
Nothing at all like that . . . .
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, turning my mind back to what I needed to focus on. I wasn’t going to be able to talk Mary out of searching for her parents. Something else was going to have to be thought up because if Mary didn’t get what she was paying me for, sooner or later she was going to lose faith in me and hire herself another detective.
He’d find Rose for her. He’d have to. It was easy enough for me to do it.
With a start, I heard Max’s voice coming from the anteroom. His voice was hushed as if he were trying to keep it low, and I realized he had to be talking to Mary. I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts I’d forgotten about him.
I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but I knew what he was after. He’d be making it sound as if the two of us were closer than brothers and all the while dropping snide hints and innuendos about me. And acting every bit as dumb and innocent as he looked. “Johnny, great guy, give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. Used to be a pretty good detective before people started asking for his autograph. I guess with all that, you can’t help getting a little careless.” And he’d be worming out of Mary what she had hired me for, and then building himself up as if God had put him on earth specifically to help her. All to chisel me out of a client.
I have a rule among the detectives that work for me that I, and I alone, meet with the clients. Over the years I caught him sneaking behind my back a few times. That’s what happens with some folks when you try to treat them fair. They look to stick it to you as soon as you’re bent over and ignorant to the world. And I couldn’t have been any fairer to Max over the years, always giving him the benefit of the doubt. Putting up with a lot of crap that any other sane person wouldn’t, letting him act as if I should be working for him instead of the way it was.
I had to laugh thinking about how his jaw would drop when Mary told him what she was paying me. He’d get her to tell him. No matter how hard up he was he wouldn’t want to work for that. And anyway, he was probably even dumber than he looked. If there was anyone out there who couldn’t find his ass from his elbow, let alone Rose, it was him.
* * * * *
It would look funny for me to go out there and say something, so I sat and waited. After a few minutes I heard the outer door to my office shut. I got up and asked Max to come in. He hesitated before taking my hand, and when he finally did, you’d think I was contagious with something particularly unpleasant. I gave him a big smile and an even bigger slap on the back as he made his way past me. We sat ourselves down and without as much as a how-do-y’-do he tried pushing a folder on me. I ignored it and made my smile nice and friendly.
“They put a new coffee machine out in the hallway. If you like I could get you some?”
He shook his head.
“Something from the vending machine? Gum? Candy bar?”
“No, nothing, thanks.”
“So, Max, how are things going for you?”
“I can’t complain,” he said, sounding hoarse, as if his throat had been scraped with sandpaper. “I’ve finished the Crowley job and have the report ready for you to look over.”
I waved it away. “My poppa always taught me that if you worry too much about business you’re plain worrying yourself too much. We can get to that in a little while. Speaking of little, how’s the missus doing?”
“Uh, she’s okay.”
“Well, I’m certainly glad to hear that. And how are your boys getting along?”
He shifted in his chair. “They, um.” He cleared his throat. “They’re doing okay too.”
“Regular chips off the old block, aren’t they?”
“Um, yes. But they—”
“Although,” I cut in, “you can see some of Moira’s features in them. Her better features, that is.”
“What do you mean by that?” he demanded, emotion muffling his voice.
“Nothing at all,” I said innocently. “Only that some of her features are better than others. Nobody in this world’s perfect.”
“I don’t know if—”
“Aw, come on.” I winked. “There’s nothing about her you would change if given the chance?”
“No!”
“There’s something about everyone that could be improved. Me, I’ve never been too happy about my nose. It’s a little too small and flat for my face.”
“I’m happy with her the way she is,” he insisted.
“That’s good to hear.” I nodded. “It sure must be something having a wife and family. How long has it been since I’ve seen them?”
“I’m not sure—”
“You know what? I’d really enjoy visiting you and Moira and your boys sometime.”
Of course I wouldn’t enjoy it at all. Not with the way Moira shuffled about, acting as if I were the reason for all her problems. And not with having to sit there with his boys. It was a shame the way they’d turned out, getting the worse they could possibly get from their parents. Growing up to be big, sullen and dull like their daddy, and with their mother’s pasty, colorless features. It really was a shame.
I wondered what it was like having a family like that. Waking up every morning knowing they’d be waiting for you at night. I wondered how Max has managed not to take his gun and . . . .
* * * * *
Max turned uneasily in his chair, working himself up as he tried to explain why right now wasn’t a good time for them to have company. “Sure we would like to have you over, but, uh, I need to talk to my wife.” His face turned redder as he continued, “Um, this is a bad time, though. Moira hasn’t been feeling well and there’s a lot to do around the house. But I’ll talk to her.”
I told him I understood and asked if he wouldn’t mind going over his report with me. And damned if he didn’t let loose with a sigh of relief! We started on the report with Max attacking the expenses first, justifying each item to death. He’d padded the amount of billable hours and was cheating me on the expenses but I sat there nodding in agreement. It doesn’t pay to be too hardnosed about these things, and besides, it wasn’t all that likely the client would notice. If he did, well, Max and I could always go over it again.
We quickly finished the report. Crowley Industrial Rentals was having a problem with some of its power tools disappearing. Max had traced them back to an employee who had been borrowing them to make his own pool table. It seems this fellow had his retirement coming up and thought a pool table would help pass all the idle time he was soon going to have. He never did
get a chance to finish it and that was a shame, what with his retirement coming upon him faster than expected.
I was disappointed. Before leaving for Oklahoma I was planning to use Mary’s case for my next column, but that idea was no longer feasible. I had hoped Max would have something I could use, but his case was no good either. The public doesn’t like reading about a big company coming down hard on the little guy. Hell, I might as well pack up and close the office for the good that story would do me.
Max cleared his throat to get my attention. He asked if I had any cases he could take a crack at.
I shook my head and frowned. “It’s kind of slow right now. I’ll call you, though, as soon as something comes up.”
He started to get up, hesitated, and then sat back down. “Do you think you could pay me now for the Crowley job?”
“Now Max, you know I always pay after the client pays. But if you’re a little short I’d be glad to give you a loan.”
I reached for my wallet, making it slow. Max stopped me and mumbled to no one in particular to forget it. He stared at his hands. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something.”
“Sure, what’s on your mind?”
He hesitated for a second, and then said, “I’m not happy with our arrangement.”
I didn’t say a word. I let him go on.
“I don’t think forty percent is fair after all I’ve done for you.”
I’d had a good idea where the dissension in the ranks was coming from. Now I knew.
“That’s what I pay out,” I said. “None of the other detectives have ever complained about it. And it’s not like I’ve ever held a gun to your head and made you work for me. If you don’t like what I’m paying, you don’t have to take it.”
“Yeah, and what am I supposed to do?”
“It seems to me you could quit bitching and moaning and expecting a free ride from me. Maybe you should try standing on your own two feet for a change.”
His big face flushed with anger. “You promised me!”
“Aww,” I said under my breath.
Fast Lane Page 6