That helps, knowing the city, assuming the guy was being honest. But then Inez admits how many goose chases she’s sent the cops on over the years. “I can already hear Detective Pete saying, It’s too bad you don’t have a license plate to go on. Or even a last name. There’s a lot of Tonys in Oakland. And why would a kidnapper tell the truth about where he’s from?”
I sigh heavily and sit back.
“We can still call the police if you want,” she says. “We can call right now.”
Thank God I came when I did, because we haven’t lost much time. “But I don’t trust the police to get right on this,” I tell her. “Here’s what we’ll do. Tonight you’ll call the police and fill them in. But in the meantime, I’m going to Oakland. I came here to get bus fare for California, anyway. But a bus isn’t going to help me with the search. I see you still have your Honda.”
Inez’s eyes go wide with surprise. “You want to take my car?”
“Yes,” I tell her. “Don’t you have a friend who has a second car?”
“Shirley still has her late husband’s truck….I’m sure she’d let me borrow it.”
A plan is forming in my head. And within a few minutes, I can already see myself hunting down this asshole.
“But you’d go alone?” Inez asks, concern in her voice. I realize she’s gotten older, more cautious in the last six years.
“Yes.” I don’t want Inez along for the ride. She’d only slow me down. I remind myself that we’re still estranged. “You have to work anyway, right?”
She nods.
“I saw the milk carton, and you need to be here in case something turns up. You can’t be driving around California.”
“I guess you’re right,” she says.
“It’s not as hard as you think to find people,” I tell her. “Look how quickly you found me.”
She begins insisting I stay the night and go to the bank with her in the morning. I balk at first, but it makes some sense. I have no car and by now it’s raining like hell. What with all the transfers, it took me almost three hours to get here from Capitol Hill.
“You can sleep in Leo’s bed,” she offers, tentative.
“No way,” I tell her. “I could never.” So she makes up the couch for me. Funny how neither of us acknowledges my old room downstairs.
Even if it had never been a crime scene, I doubt she would keep my room the way she’s kept Leo’s—like it’s a memorial. I know this in my gut the same way I know she wishes it were me instead of Leo who went missing.
* * *
—
DESPITE ALL THE wine she drank with her daughter, Inez doubts she’ll sleep a wink. She still can’t believe that Venus showed up. That she stayed. What does this mean? She’d swear Venus is softening toward her, but she doesn’t want to get her hopes up.
Now she pictures Venus on her couch in the living room, and it seems too good to be true. Even with the blinds closed, she knows the streetlamps make it bright enough to see out there. All of a sudden she’s tempted to go steal a look at Venus sleeping. Surely she must be knocked out by now, given how much wine they drank. Her tolerance would be so low, compared to Inez’s.
She debates herself, but in the end she simply can’t resist the chance to look at her daughter without fear of saying the wrong thing or otherwise arousing her anger. She glances at her bedside clock and sees it’s almost 1:00 A.M. She slips from her bed, feeling strangely giddy and nervous.
At the end of the hall, she peeks into the living room and sees Venus lying still, sleeping on her back, softly snoring. The wine, perhaps. Inez tiptoes closer and pauses. She gets on her hands and knees and crawls around the coffee table in her nightgown, aware of how ridiculous she must look. To whom? God?
No. God would understand. Who knows? Maybe God does something similar when we’re mad as hell at him.
And, ah, there she is. Inez notices that Venus’s eyebrows are plucked, which makes her face look somehow softer, more open. Her prominent, sculpted nose is a thing of beauty, though Inez knows Venus doesn’t like it. Her lashes are thick and long—she probably doesn’t even wear mascara. Doesn’t need to. As always, her hair is like Medusa’s—an enormous tangle of black curls spread out on the pillow.
For several moments, Inez continues to ponder the miracle of her daughter’s presence in her home. She wishes she could touch her face, stroke her cheek at least. Instead, she prays for Venus, that she will find peace. That she will come to forgive Inez. That she will find her way to a happy life despite all that’s gone so horribly wrong.
Before she’s done, it dawns on her that she’s finally praying on her knees.
The next morning, I wake up early with an excruciating headache and a sore neck because the couch is too small for me.
I sit up and get reoriented before I go to the kitchen to start some coffee. I open the blinds and see that it’s drizzly and miserable again. I can’t wait to get out of Everett, out of the rain, away from the smell of rotten eggs that can come from the city’s pulp and paper mills.
It was a small sawmill on the Everett waterfront that took the life of my father. Inez tried to sue, but I guess my father had violated too many safety rules—so nada. Sorry, ma’am.
After using the bathroom and getting my cup of coffee, I sit down in the living room on the side of the couch that isn’t sunken from Inez’s bottom. I still can’t believe what happened last night. That I got drunk with my mother, for one. That I signed up to be a detective, for two.
When Inez gets up, I hear her call in sick to work. After a quick breakfast, we go to the bank, where she withdraws eight hundred dollars. The teller stares at me instead of at Inez. She obviously knows the story and exactly who I am. I look away, wishing I had just stayed in the car. What was I thinking? Of course being with Inez is a dead giveaway.
I remember Piper saying “Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” and wish I could be so childish toward the teller. Thinking of Piper, I feel a familiar stab of loss. Piper. Where is she right now? We agreed to phone calls twice a week and when her aunt brings her to visit her uncle Mike in Seattle—of course I’ll be there.
How I’ll do that after I move to California, I have no idea.
After Inez and I get back in the car, she says, “I’m giving you the Honda. To keep. I plan to buy a new car when I sell the house anyway.”
“No way,” I reply. “I don’t want it.”
“Why? You need a car, for Christ’s sake.”
“After all this, I’m not taking a car from you. It’s too much.”
She is quiet the rest of the way home, and “after all this” hangs in the air.
“Please take it.”
Once we’re back at the house, she asks again.
“I’ll think about it,” I tell her. “But to be honest, I would want a way better car.” I laugh at my own mean joke.
“So when are you leaving?” she asks, opening the dishwasher. I can hear the worry in her voice.
“Not as soon as you think,” I tell her. “We still have a big problem. You’re forgetting something very important,” I say with mock sternness.
She looks stricken. “What?”
“I don’t know how to drive a car!” The look of relief on her face cracks me up. “Lucky for you, I just happen to have a phony license. And you’re gonna teach me how to drive in one day.”
“How fun!” she says, genuinely excited.
I’m tempted to make a smart remark about how this—her teaching me to drive—should have happened years ago. But I hate to dampen the mood.
A few minutes later, we’re back in the Honda. Only this time, I’m the one in the driver’s seat.
* * *
—
AFTER A FEW hours of Inez’s direction, it’s painfully apparent that I’m not yet ready to drive alone to California. We s
top at Herfy’s Burgers for lunch, and I can barely choke down the burger for the good memories that come with it—my friends and I after soccer games, a gang of girls lining up at the order window, starving, our knees bruised, our bodies sweaty, our faces happy—even if we’d lost.
Damn if those good memories aren’t the worst.
On the way home, I can tell Inez is thinking hard about something. It bothers me to still know her so well.
“I really want you to stay for one more night,” she says. “I’ll work with you on learning to drive the rest of the afternoon—into the evening. I don’t care how long it takes. And you need to leave early, because I don’t want you to drive at night.”
I almost make a joke that this—I don’t want you to drive at night—is precisely the kind of thing I was supposed to hear from her when I got my license at sixteen. But I stop myself. I wait for further arguments or emotional manipulations. When none come, I meet her eyes and I can tell she’s just being practical. Shit. Damn.
“Okay,” I say. “One more night. But we get to call in Chinese for dinner.”
“Oh, so you like Chinese now?” she asks.
“I have absolutely no idea,” I tell her. Which is the point, I guess.
* * *
—
ON TUESDAY MORNING, as soon as I pull away from the house, I notice that even without Inez in it, the Honda smells like her Charlie perfume. The first time I stop for gas, I buy a tree-shaped air freshener and a map of California.
Traveling south on I-5, I’m careful to drive the speed limit or just below. I never try to pass anyone, nervous about being pulled over. My name is Annette Higgman. I live on Federal Drive Boulevard.
I drive and drive, and keep on driving. I can’t decide if I’m on a fool’s errand—or if I really have a chance. Perhaps what matters most to me is that I make the effort. For Leo. For all of us.
Inez warned me that Oakland is massive—not some small town where people all know one another or you can find someone by just asking around. I try not to let her doubts—and mine—get to me.
It’s pretty late when I finally stop at a cheap hotel in Redding, California. But I’m so excited just to be in California I can hardly sleep. Plus, the adrenaline must really have me going. In that half-sleep state, I dream of my real father, his black curly hair and sparkly blue eyes—even though I can’t recall them exactly. I dream of Leo and Echo Glen. I dream of my childhood best friend, Jackie. I dream of Truly, who died of cancer (the reason for her wispy, barely there hair) a year after her great escape from Denney. I dream of my whole life—and yet I swear I never slept.
At first light, I drive through a McDonald’s for an Egg McMuffin and a greasy hunk of hash browns. Almost four hours later, I roll into Oakland. I take a random exit and find a pay phone to call Inez to tell her that I made it here. It’s so bizarre to dial the number for home after all these years. She fills me in on her conversations with the Everett police. They suggested she phone the police in Oakland. Duh. We should have thought of that!
I’ve decided to start with art galleries. I open the phone book. There are five pages of listings. Shit. I rip out all those pages. It takes me an hour to whittle it down to the five galleries that seem most promising because they feature numerous artists—and there are a few Anthonys in the bunch. I make a list of addresses to visit and I use my map.
As I travel around Oakland, I am startled by how different it feels from Everett. The streets—and a lot of the people—seem rough, unfriendly. Phone poles are covered with bills advertising who-knows-what. I spot graffiti everywhere.
At the end of the day, I’ve only managed to find four galleries—mostly because I have to keep stopping and looking at my map. Usually, the artist isn’t around at the gallery and so I inquire with staff, giving them a description of the artist I’m looking for. No one recognizes our guy.
On day two, I continue my quest, but it feels stupid. After the last gallery leads nowhere, I drive up and down busy retail strips, trying to keep an eye out for a black truck with pretty doors—which is a dangerous way to drive and an act of foolishness, given the size of Oakland.
By the end of the second day, I know how to park a lot better. I’ve been honked at for going slow, and I’ve made several errors at complicated intersections. But I have to congratulate myself that I haven’t had an accident. As soon as it’s dark, I eat dinner at a diner and then fall into bed at the Holiday Inn I checked in to that morning. Tomorrow will be better, I tell myself.
Yeah, sure.
At least I sleep well that night, and I wake up ready to go again at 7:00 A.M. I eat breakfast from a snack machine at the hotel and hit the streets with forced optimism. But by noon, I start to flag, ready to quit. I’ve seen a lot of art, some of it good. I’ve found dozens and dozens of black trucks but none with a design on the door that looks like art.
Starving and discouraged, I stop for lunch at a pizza place in a run-down strip mall. As I’m heading inside, I notice a yellow Mustang in the parking lot, because it is decorated on the side with an advertisement: TATTOOS TO DIE FOR, surrounded by an image of razor wire and skeletons. As I approach the pizza place, I notice that next door is the tattoo parlor being advertised. Suddenly I stop in my tracks. My stomach flutters. What if Tony is a tattoo artist? What if, just like this guy, he advertises on his truck? That might explain why Inez called it “pretty.” Plus, what kind of guy, especially one who wears tattoos, would want something remotely pretty on the side of his truck unless it was an advertisement? It’s not any dumber a theory than the one I’ve been following.
I skip the pizza place and instead enter the fine establishment called Tattoos to Die For. As I push open the door, I’m greeted by a guy with a long beard and a big belly. Business is obviously slow.
“Looking for a tat, pretty lady?” he asks. “Name’s Bart.” He extends a beefy hand and I shake it.
“I’m sorry. No. I’m looking for a tattoo artist, though. Maybe you know the guy. His name is Tony and he drives a black truck.”
Bart pauses to think. “Nope. Don’t know him. But there’s a lot of tattoo parlors in this city.”
I’m disappointed but still intrigued by this new idea. After leaving Bart, I find a phone booth and look up the tattoo section. Bart was right—just a glance tells me there are tons of tattoo parlors in and around Oakland. It will take some time to phone each one and ask if there’s a Tony who works there.
I call Inez and run the idea past her. “Could he be a tattoo artist?”
“Well, like I said, he had tattoos. And I guess they might think they’re artists. And he did say, ‘Kind of.’ But still, I don’t think…”
“Why not?”
“He just didn’t have that vibe,” says Inez. “Apart from the bits of tattoo peeking out, he seemed so clean-cut. No piercings or weird stuff.”
“Maybe you’re thinking in stereotypes,” I tell her.
“Yeah, I guess,” she agrees. “Totally. But I hate to waste time going in the wrong direction.”
“You mean you hate for me to waste time.”
“Sorry, you’re right,” she says. “No luck at the galleries?”
“Don’t you think I’d have said so? Geez, Inez.”
“Any word from the police?” I ask, knowing the answer.
“Nothing yet,” Inez says.
“When you think about it, we don’t have much to go on,” I say. “The guy didn’t ask to see the garage and seemed sad in Leo’s room. That could mean a lot of things. Maybe he’d decided by then he didn’t want the house, so he didn’t need to see the garage. And maybe it was your imagination that he seemed sad in Leo’s room. What if we’re on a really stupid goose chase?”
Inez doesn’t answer for a moment. “I’m sorry, Venus,” she says. “I’m sorry about everything.”
Oh shit. I can tell she’
s about to cry. “Don’t start with that,” I tell her. “Not now. We need to focus on finding Leo.”
After we hang up, I am so discouraged. I go back to have pizza at the place next to Bart’s Tattoos to Die For. I sit at a table facing the parking lot and force myself to finish the extra-large slice of pepperoni. Afterward, I return to the phone book and rip out all the pages for tattoo shops.
A clerk at a nearby market grudgingly lets me buy a roll of quarters from her.
Back at the phone booth, I take a deep breath and start calling shops, beginning at A. “Is there a Tony who works there?” I ask. I get all no’s, most of them gruff. I run out of quarters way too quickly. Plus, it seems this is a popular phone booth. I have to stop several times to let a lineup of shady-looking people take their own sweet time.
I get more quarters from the market and go back to the phone booth. Once, I call a shop where the woman who answers says, yes, they have a Tony who works there. “He’s not in today, though,” she adds.
“Does your Tony have short dark hair? Is he handsome?”
The woman on the other end cackles. “Tony—handsome? He’d get a kick out of that!”
* * *
—
WHILE I’M WAITING for an old lady who pulled up in a large Buick to finish using the pay phone, I glance through all the pages I have yet to get to. And there it is. My heart drops. Tattoos by Tony. Why didn’t I just start at T, for Tony.
Now I have to fight back my excitement. It’s still such a long shot, I remind myself. So I found a Tony who owns a tat shop. That’s nothing, really. But I abandon the phone booth and get in my car, where I open my map. Trying to figure out where I am in relation to this shop takes me five minutes. It’s not all that far.
Driving there, I feel like I’m in a dream. The idea that I might have found Leo’s kidnapper is just too much. I feel certain that, in my panic, I’ll get in a wreck or otherwise ruin my chance. But I don’t. I arrive on the right street safely. And there it is: Tattoos by Tony. When I see a black truck with a design painted on the door, my heart starts to pound.
My Name Is Venus Black Page 24