I stifled a giggle.
George glared at me and took a pull of his beer. Then he started smiling, too. “It was pretty funny,” he admitted. “The DA doesn’t even want to prosecute him anymore.”
“Why’s that?”
“What the hell are you going to do with him? Put him in Jamesville? It’ll cost an arm and a leg. They’re not set up for that kind of thing. Put him under house arrest? He already is. And doesn’t that sonofabitch know it, too. He’s got a leer on his face I’d love to wipe off.”
“He really gets to you.”
“Yes, he does.” George took another gulp of his Molson. “I’ll tell you one thing, though.”
“What’s that?”
“You know who you should really be careful of?”
“His enforcers?”
“His mother.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I’m not.”
“Why? What could she possibly do?”
George chuckled dryly. “I think I’ll let you find out for yourself. I wouldn’t want to deny you the pleasure.”
“Thanks a whole bunch.”
He gave a little bow. “I shall eagerly await your story.”
“You know, sometimes you really are a creep.”
“No. I just want my twenty dollars’ worth of entertainment.”
“Hey,” I protested. “I told you I’d give you the money tomorrow.”
George stood up. “Fine. I’ll drop by the store to collect it.”
“You do that.”
He leaned toward me and twirled an imaginary mustache. “And if you don’t have it, you’re all mine.”
Chapter 14
“He’s interested,” Connie said to me after George had left. She’d drifted back from the other end of the bar in time to catch the tail end of our conversation. “I can tell.”
“You’re nuts,” I retorted.
“Trust Mother Connie.” She patted her chest. “I know about this kind of thing.”
I snorted. “Maybe you do, but you’re sure as hell wrong this time. First of all I’m not his type. My boobs are too small and my IQ is too high.”
Connie tsked. “Nasty, nasty.”
I leaned forward. “But true—as you well know by some of the bimbos he’s dragged in here. Remember Myra?”
“Be that as it may,” Connie told me, “you think he’s hot. Admit it, the guy turns you on.”
I ran my finger around the edge of my glass. “I admit I like him, but that’s as far as it goes.”
“You do more than that,” Connie declared as she cleared away George’s beer bottles and began wiping down the counter. “Really, you’re such a chicken shit.”
I could feel myself redden.
“I mean,” Connie continued, “I know you’ve gotten shot at and all the rest of that junk, but the reality is you’re chicken about what counts.” She pointed a finger at me. “Ever since Murphy died I’ve watched you wall yourself off in your own little world. You’re scared to get involved with anyone you could feel anything about.”
“I didn’t know you were getting a degree in psychology,” I sneered.
Connie shrugged. “Fine. Have it your way.”
“I will.” I drained my Scotch, grabbed Zsa Zsa and left.
Okay, so maybe Connie was on to something, I admitted to myself as I zoomed out of the parking lot. She still didn’t have to say what she did. I wasn’t being a chicken shit; I was just being cautious. Given my relationship with Murphy it made sense. One of my friends had said that being with us was like being on a roller coaster. Either we couldn’t keep our hands off one another or we were ready to slit each other’s throats. I don’t think we were ever really in love; we were in lust and when we started to cool off we had nowhere else to go. Now I think I didn’t really know Murphy at all; all I knew was the fantasy of him I’d created in my mind. And that scares me. I don’t want to do that with George. I also don’t want to start something and have George go away. I like him too much. Which means what? That I should only go to bed with guys I don’t like? God, how did I manage to get so screwed up? The question depressed me, and I pressed my foot on the gas and went flying down Meadowbrook at sixty miles an hour. I knew I’d have to deal with this stuff soon, but I wasn’t ready to deal with it tonight.
I could hear my answering machine beeping as soon as I walked into the house. I went into the kitchen and played the tape back. There were three calls, all of them from the folks at Visa and MasterCard wanting to know when they were going to get paid. I deleted the messages and went into the kitchen. James was sitting on the counter waiting to be fed. I opened a can of tuna for him and grabbed a handful of Oreo cookies for myself. “Well,” I said to him. “It looks as if we’re going to be strictly cash-and-carry for a while.”
James ignored me and went on eating. I sighed and went up the stairs.
That night I dreamt about George. I woke at five with a sense of dread I didn’t understand and couldn’t shake. I tossed and turned trying to get back to sleep, until finally I gave up, went downstairs, turned on the TV, and lay down on the sofa. I was just dozing off when Zsa Zsa woke me. She wanted to go out.
I was wide awake when I came back in, so I spent the rest of the time before I had to go to work alternating between writing advertising copy for the store and coming up with a plan to find Estrella.
Tim and I hit the parking lot at the same time—he with his container of yogurt and I with the three doughnuts I’d picked up at Nice N’ Easy. Pickles was right by the door when I opened it. The moment I stepped inside she meowed and twined herself around my legs while Zsa Zsa danced around us. I petted the cat for a while, then got down to work. It was an annoying morning. Two customers returned fish which had died of ich. Then I signed for a case of flea powder only to find upon opening the carton that the company had sent me defoggers instead—which we didn’t need.
It took me half an hour to get the distributor on the phone and another fifteen minutes to convince the secretary that a mistake had been made. Then on top of everything someone kept calling and hanging up. Finally around eleven I took a break and called Rabbit. There wouldn’t have been any point in calling earlier because he’s never up before eleven. I was hoping he’d come up with some information on Estrella, but he wasn’t home. His brother told me he was with Manuel. Manuel’s mother said the boys were with Will. Will’s mother told me the three of them hadn’t come home last night.
“If you see ’em, you tell ’em to get their butts over here,” she growled.
I said I would, but privately I doubted they’d listen. If I had that waiting for me, I wouldn’t be in a big hurry to go home either. I twisted a lock of hair around my finger. So much for that idea. The guys could be back in a half hour or two days from now, and I couldn’t afford to wait and find out which one it was going to be. After a couple of minutes of consideration I decided to visit the house on Deal on my way to the bank. Who knew? Maybe I’d get lucky.
This time a girl answered the door. With her pale, scrubbed skin and waiflike body she looked eleven at the most. I wondered if the baby she was cradling in her arms was hers.
“What do you want?” she whispered. Her voice was so soft I had to strain to hear it.
“I’m looking for Estrella Torres,” I told her.
“She’s gone.”
I guess I wasn’t going to be lucky after all. “Do you know where she went?”
“No.” The baby the girl was cradling let out an anemic mewl. The girl looked down. “Excuse me but I got to go feed her.”
“She yours?”
The girl nodded. “She’s three months old. She was born a month early, but she’s doing all right now.” She offered her up for my inspection. The baby had circles under her eyes. She looked tired, as if she’d already seen more of life than she wanted to. “She’s got to have an operation, though.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Next month.” The baby cried again
. “The doctors said she’s going to be fine.” The girl leaned forward. “But I don’t think she’s going to be,” she confided. “You believe in angels?”
I told her I did because I didn’t have the heart to say anything else.
“Me, too.” The girl was going to say something else, but another girl, an older one, appeared behind her.
“I was wondering where you went off to,” the second one said. Her blond hair was streaked with blue. Her dark eyes were wary.
The younger girl pointed at me. “She was asking for Estrella.”
“Well, she ain’t here,” the older girl said.
“I know.” I tried again. “Do you know where she went?”
“I think she’s living at the Colony or maybe at her mother’s. She said something about going to see her mother.”
“And where is her mother?”
“I don’t know. Toronto maybe. I’m not sure.”
I thanked her and turned to go.
“Hey,” the older girl said to me, “you catch up with her tell her I want my shirt back.”
I told her I would and left. Seeing the girl and her baby depressed me and I almost wished I hadn’t come. Their vision stayed with me while I stood in line at the bank. It seemed as if we, as a country, were slipping back to an earlier, harsher time and place. It also seemed to me as if Estrella wasn’t too far away from a similar fate. It made me want to look harder. I hadn’t been able to help Marsha; maybe I could help her.
The first thing I did when I got back to the store was call Garriques and ask him for Estrella’s mother’s phone number. He didn’t have it, but he gave me the aunt’s. I could hear the school PA system announcing club meetings in the background while he talked. The sounds made me long for school’s simplicity.
I called Ana Torres next. I wanted to tell her what I’d found out, but she wasn’t home. A youngish-sounding child answered and told me that her mother had gone to the store and would be back in a couple of minutes. I decided to go over and talk to her in person. I didn’t know how good her English was, but I knew that my Spanish was lousy. Communication would go better if we were face to face.
I was reaching for my keys when a man I’d never seen pushed the door open and walked in. He was wearing a gray suit and tie. The jacket pulled around the shoulders and the waist and looked as if it had been made for someone smaller. He had a round face, made even rounder-looking by a receding hairline, and a soft body; but his eyes were hard, and the scar running from his lip to his chin had fixed the left side of his mouth in a permanent sneer. But sneer or not the man was a customer, so I smiled and asked if I could help him.
“I’ll take one of those,” he said, pointing to the box of rubber mice sitting on the counter.
“That’ll be $2.99 plus tax,” I told him.
He reached in his pocket and handed me a five-dollar bill.
“So what kind of cat do you have?” I asked, trying to get a conversation going.
“I don’t,” he informed me. His voice was hoarse and low and I had to strain to hear him.
I tried again. “Dogs like these, too. Especially terriers.”
“I don’t have one of those either,” he said as I handed him his change.
Strike two. “Well, is there anything else I can help you with?” I figured what was the harm in asking.
“No.”
I tried one last time. “Are you sure you don’t need anything else for your pet?”
“I don’t have any pets.” He threw the mouse back down on the counter.
“I don’t understand.” I was definitely missing something here.
“It’s simple really. I just came in to get a good look at you.”
I felt a chill going down my spine as he turned and walked out the door.
Chapter 15
“What was that all about?” Tim asked from behind me.
“You got me.” I picked up the mouse and stared at it for a moment before I tossed it back in the box. “But I’ll tell you one thing—I’d sure like to find out.”
Tim made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “The guy’s just a nut case from Hutchings.”
Pickles jumped up on the counter, rubbed her head against my hand, then lifted it up so I could scratch under her chin. “I hope so.” But I wasn’t entirely convinced. There had been something very controlled about the guy, very purposeful. I had the feeling this was the opening shot in a game I didn’t know I was playing. I shook my head to clear it. I was getting jumpy in my old age. Tim was right. The guy was a nut case. He’d probably just forgotten to take his morning Thorazine.
Tim twirled one of his earrings around. “Mrs. Garriques called earlier,” he told me, changing the subject. “She wants us to deliver and set up the tank next week. I told her I’d check with you.”
“That’s fine.”
“I guess she’s really not going to get the retic.”
“It certainly looks that way.”
I took out a cigarette and was searching for my lighter when the door opened and Rabbit and Manuel came in. “Find Estrella yet?” Rabbit asked.
I shook my head. “Have you?” Maybe I wouldn’t have to run over to Estrella’s aunt after all.
“No.” So much for that hope. “But I just heard she burned some dealer,” Rabbit said.
“Great. It’s nice to know she’s doing well.”
Manuel interrupted. “Did you get rid of Rabbit’s rattler yet?”
I turned toward him. “No,” I replied. “Why?”
“I think I got a buyer.”
I left Tim to deal with the two of them and took off.
Ana Torres lived on Clifford Street. It was almost impossible to see the house from the street. The view was obscured by overgrown clumps of yew and cedars. If it wasn’t for an old rusted-out Chevy Chevette parked in the buckling driveway I would have missed the place altogether. It had started raining, and the drizzle increased the house’s sense of desolation, although in truth I don’t think sunlight would have helped. The house was too far gone for that. I parked my car and followed the indentation of what had once been a brick path through the weed-clogged lawn to the door. Except for the tarnished brass knocker, the door was that grayish color wood acquires when it’s stripped and left unfinished.
As I stood on the cracked concrete stoop I could hear the faint sounds of a TV inside. I used the knocker. The rapping scared a stray cat that had been peeking out of the shrubbery back into its hiding place. No one came. I sighed and wished I’d brought an umbrella. I don’t like being damp. Of course, it was always possible that Ana Torres hadn’t come back from the store yet. Or maybe she had come, taken the kid with her, and gone. Maybe that was somebody else’s car in the driveway, but even if it was, I still wanted to talk to them. I knocked again. No response. Except for the TV I couldn’t hear any activity inside at all. Shit. I took a step back, and as I did I happened to look up. I sucked in my breath. A face was staring down at me from the corner of the window. A second later the curtain dropped.
Well, one thing was for certain. Someone knew I was here.
And it wasn’t the kid I’d spoken to on the phone either.
It was an adult, a woman. I was positive of it.
Whether or not it was Ana Torres was a different matter.
I cupped my hands. “My name is Robin Light,” I yelled. “Gregory Garriques sent me. He asked me to help find your niece.”
The curtain remained down. No one peeked out. I didn’t hear footsteps coming down the stairs.
I tried again. “Listen, Mrs. Torres, if you’re there, I really need to speak to you about Estrella. I’m not from Immigration. Call Garriques and check if you don’t believe me.”
Still nothing.
I repeated myself in fractured Spanish and got the same response.
Nada.
I turned and walked back to the car. There was no point in standing in the rain and getting even wetter than I already was. As I was getting into the cab I glanc
ed up at the curtain covering the window on the second floor. There was no movement, the curtain didn’t even flutter; but I couldn’t help feeling that someone was watching me just the same. I waved, got in the cab and drove off. Then I circled the block and parked in back of a large red truck which was sitting about thirty feet down from Ana Torres’s house and waited for her to come out. One way or another I was determined to talk to her. It didn’t take long. I was just finishing my second cigarette when Ana Torres emerged. I flicked the butt into the street and ran over.
She gasped when she saw me and hugged the child standing next to her tightly to her side. “I don’t want no trouble,” she said. She was short. Her face was round. Her features were Indian.
I tried to reassure her, but the tremors in her hands told me she clearly didn’t believe me.
“I didn’t do nothing wrong,” she protested.
“I know. I just want to talk to you about Estrella.”
Ana Torres clutched the child next to her even more tightly. “I don’t got nothing to do with her. Nothing.”
“But she lived with you.”
“Not no more.”
I sighed. “Her friends said she may have gone to visit her mother. Do you have her address?”
“I clean house for Mr. and Mrs. Garriques,” Ana Torres said, pretending she hadn’t heard my question. “I do a good job. You ask them.”
“I’m sure you do,” I said soothingly.
“I even clean for that crazy brother of hers, the one with all the dead animals in his place.” After saying those words Ana Torres made the sign of the cross.
I tried to steer the conversation back to the subject at hand. “So you don’t know where your niece is?”
“No.” She opened the door of the Chevette. The child scrambled in. “I must go now.”
I played my last card. “Then she’s not at the Colony Plaza?”
Ana Torres’s eyelids fluttered in alarm. She’d told me what I needed to know. “She’s in Liverpool,” she lied.
I thanked her for the information, but from the expression on her face I could tell she knew that I knew that she was lying. As she backed out of the driveway it suddenly occurred to me that she might be going to warn Estrella that I was coming to find her. I cursed and hurried back to my car.
In Plain Sight Page 11