My Name Is Venus Black

by Heather Lloyd

  I park a couple of spaces behind the truck. Turn off the engine. Now what? I can’t charge in there and ask if he’s a kidnapper. I don’t even know if it’s the right Tony. I get out of the Honda in what feels like slow motion. I casually stroll by the shop and glance inside.

  Oh my God, it’s him! It has to be! Late thirties, dark-haired, and suave-looking. Better-looking than Ted Bundy. I try to picture this guy having Leo in a cage, using him for perverse purposes, but I just can’t.

  Of course, there could be more than one good-looking tattoo artist named Tony in Oakland, but the truck is the kicker, the ace. This has to be the guy. My knees are weak and I feel shaky, on the verge of tears or collapse. I wonder if I should find a phone booth and call Inez and tell her I think I’ve found him.

  Then I realize that I didn’t necessarily find Leo’s kidnapper. I found the guy who looked at the house in Everett and seemed suspicious to Inez. There’s a huge leap in logic to say he kidnapped Leo. I need to know more, need to actually see or find Leo.

  But how am I going to do that? I guess I could wait for this Tony to get off work and then follow him and see if I can catch sight of Leo. I could call the police, but what if this guy has Leo stashed somewhere and he won’t talk? What if the police only botch it?

  I turn and walk past the shop once again, glancing inside as I do. The guy looks up and I could swear we make eye contact. As I pass by the truck again, I pause. Since he can’t see me from where he is, why not glance inside the vehicle to see what I can see? I boldly approach the truck, shield my eyes, and peer inside. Nothing to indicate a kid, much less a kidnapper.

  And then something catches my eye. There’s a sticker on the back window of the truck’s cab. A black paw image with the words PANTHER PRIDE. When I look closer, I see text around the edges: EDNA BREWER MIDDLE SCHOOL. Could this guy have enrolled Leo in school? It seems far-fetched, given we’re talking about a kidnapper. And even more unlikely given Leo’s disabilities. I know I’m grasping at straws, but this straw gives me tingles.

  On impulse, I ask a passerby if she knows where I can find the middle school. She says it’s not far. Easy directions. But what if I go there and I miss the dude getting off work? And yet, I doubt this Tony is going to take off from work anytime soon. When I glanced inside, it looked like he had customers waiting their turn. Since I have no better leads, I decide to find the school and wait outside to watch for Leo coming out. The odds that I’d spot him in a crowd of kids pouring from the building are slim.

  But it’s worth at least a try.

  Finding the school is easy. I park and head into the main office, which is right inside an enormous main entrance off the street. I approach the secretary. “I’m supposed to pick up my nephew today. What time does school let out?”

  She barely looks up from her desk behind the counter. “Two fifty-five.”

  I walk back to my car to wait but realize I need to pee. It’s only two-fifteen, so I have plenty of time to get back on Park Boulevard and visit one of the cafés I passed. I find a hopping lunch place, and no one seems to notice or care that I haven’t ordered anything. But the ladies’ room door is locked. Which makes me have to go even worse. While I wait, I check my watch every five seconds. Finally, I try to calm myself down by using some breathing techniques Sharon taught me back in Echo.

  It might not even be him. But what if it is! I remember Piper’s big green eyes. “I’m praying for Leo to come home.”

  A small, slightly hysterical laugh escapes me. And then, for the first time in my life, I decide to chance it that God might exist. If he ever wanted to convince me, now is his big—perhaps only—chance. Let it be Leo, I pray. Let it be Leo.

  After I take my turn in the restroom, I wash my hands and look in the mirror. I am wild-eyed and my hair—no longer in a braid—looks like a nest for small birds. Instead of drying my hands with a paper towel, I dry them on my hair, trying to calm it down some. I put on fresh lipstick. Then I ask myself the most painful, scariest questions of all: What if Leo doesn’t remember me? And what if I’m not sure it’s him?

  I just don’t know.

  Back at the school, I’m still early and I get my pick of places to park out front. My plan is simple: If I spot a boy who could be Leo, and he gets on a bus, I’ll follow it. Or if he gets in a car, same thing.

  My hands on the steering wheel are damp with sweat. Other parents begin to show up. At about two forty-five—ten minutes early—a woman comes out of the building with six kids in tow. One is in a wheelchair, and I quickly realize what’s happening. She’s letting the special-ed kids board the buses first.

  And then I see him. A slender blond boy who looks about thirteen. His hair is long and covers most of the right side of his face. He has a pack on his back and carries a large music case. Could it really be him?

  As they get closer, I see that he looks at the ground as he walks and tilts his head to the left. I can’t help myself. I jump out of the car and race to intercept the teacher. “Ma’am? Can I have a word?”

  She is stocky, a redhead with two inches of gray roots. “Yes?”

  I glance behind her. “Can I talk to Leo for a second?”

  “I guess,” she says warily. So his name is Leo! It has to be him!

  “Hi, Leo,” I call out. He and all the other kids stop walking. I walk right up to him. I get down on my knees as if to pray, so I can look up at his face. “Leo? Do you remember me?”

  Leo tries to look at me.

  “It’s Venus, Leo,” I say. “Remember your sister, Venus?”

  His grayish eyes skitter across mine and he nods. “My sister, Venus. From before.”

  I have never wanted to hug a person so badly in my life.

  As usual, Tessa gets home first and then waits for Leo at his bus stop. When she asks Leo about his day, instead of his typical “Fine,” he says, “I saw Venus.”

  “What?”

  “I saw Venus from before.”

  Suddenly Tessa feels her throat closing. “Where did you see Venus?”

  “At school,” he says. “After.”

  Tessa tries to stifle her panic as she walks Leo the two blocks home. As they enter the house, Tessa looks back and notices that a red Honda is parked half a block away with a woman sitting in it. Tessa swears she is staring right at her.

  Inside, she quickly locks the door, using both bolts. She peeks through a crack in the front-room draperies and watches the red car pass. The girl has big black curly hair, and she is staring at their house as she goes by.

  Oh my God, could it be Leo’s sister? She waits by the window to see if the woman passes by yet again. She doesn’t.

  Tessa feels flushed with fear, as if she has a fever. She goes to the kitchen and gets a glass of water. Her tongue is stuck to the roof of her mouth. Her knees feel weak. She sits in a kitchen chair. Leo has started playing his cello, even though it’s not time to practice. It’s a beautiful song, sweet and full of heavy, slow notes.

  Her eyes sting. She looks at the clock. How will she pass the hours until her father comes home? What will she tell him? Maybe she should call him at the shop right now and warn him. But it might be nothing and she knows he’s in the middle of a busy day, still making up for lost time when he was in Seattle.

  She goes to her room. She lays her hands on her statue of the Virgin Mary. She prays, Let it not be Venus. Let it not be Venus.

  * * *

  —

  SINCE I CAN’T just grab Leo, I tell him goodbye and that I’ll see him in a little bit. I watch what bus he gets onto and then follow it. When he gets off at the second stop, he’s met by a pretty Mexican girl who looks sixteen or so. I stay behind, crawling along until they enter a small ranch-style house together. Then I drive by slow enough to see and memorize the address.

  Worried I’ll forget it in my panic, I pull over a block lat
er. I frantically scour the car for a pen. What if I forget the address and never find the house again? What if it’s a dream?

  I hurriedly dig around in Inez’s messy glove box. No pen, but there’s a lipstick. I use it to jot down the address on some receipts that look like they had to do with car repair. I try to picture Inez’s face when I deliver Leo back to her.

  My lipstick handwriting is shaky, and I need to calm down and think. The house Leo entered was in a decent neighborhood. Maybe Leo is at least being treated well. Then again, what if this house isn’t even where he lives? What if that girl was his babysitter or something? If I pull away, I could still lose Leo between there and the real kidnapper’s house.

  But all my instincts tell me that this is where Leo is living. The way the girl glanced down the street at me, looking worried. With no car out front, and it being afternoon, it seemed safe to say there wasn’t another grown-up there.

  I guess the next step would be to find a police station. I hadn’t thought this part out—what to do when I found Leo. I must not have really expected to find him—especially unharmed and apparently cared for by another family.

  I realize the smartest thing to do right now is to call the police and get them involved so they can arrest this Tony guy. Oh, the irony! Once, the police locked me up, and now I need their help to nab someone else. As I drive to find a phone booth, I keep saying to myself, “Oh my God, Leo is alive. Oh my God, Leo is alive.”

  I’m so excited I’m afraid I’ll get in a wreck or something dumb like that and miss my opportunity to rescue Leo. I drive carefully until I reach a busy boulevard, and then I search for a pay phone.

  I spot a small diner, which I know will have a phone. The restaurant is dark inside and smells of burned coffee. The pay phone is where I thought it would be, just outside the restrooms. I flip open the front of the book, where you can usually find important community numbers. I should call the Oakland police, but they make it hard to figure out which number you should call. Is this an emergency? I decide that it is. I dial 911 for the second time in my life.

  When I state my emergency—my brother was missing and I think I found him—the operator puts me through to a detective. Finally, I’m on the phone with a detective named Cunningham. “My brother was kidnapped in Washington,” I explain. “He’s been on milk cartons. His name is Leo Miller and he’s been missing for six years and I finally just found him here in Oakland.”

  I come up for air, then hurtle on. “I have the address. I also can tell you where the kidnapper works. What should I do?”

  “Calm down, miss,” says the detective. “Back up. Take it slow. Your brother was kidnapped from where?”

  “From Everett, Washington.”

  “And when was this?”

  “It was in February of 1980. And I just saw him at a middle school and followed him to a house here in Oakland.”

  * * *

  —

  TESSA PUTS ON her apron. She is planning to make lasagna tonight, and she’s kind of glad it takes a long time. It will keep her mind off her worries about the girl with the huge hair who might be Venus who might be Leo’s sister who might be a person who will take him away.

  She starts with a large pot of water on the stove. She puts a pound of hamburger in a frying pan on the other burner. She begins slicing onions. The doorbell rings. Her heart leaps. She lays the butcher knife down with great reluctance. That’s how scared she is. In the front room, she glances out the window and sees a squad car. The girl with the black curly hair is sitting in the back. Tessa goes numb with terror. She makes herself open the door. There’s nothing else to do.

  “Can I help you, Officers?” She sounds like a person on one of those dumb cop shows.

  “Yes, maybe you can,” says one of them. “Can we come in?”

  Tessa opens the door and steps aside. “My dad isn’t home,” she says. She’s so glad this is true. She’s aware of the sound of Leo playing his cello in his room. She doesn’t want him to stop. She doesn’t want him to come out here and see police and freak out.

  “Do you know when he will be back?”

  “Around six o’clock.”

  “Do you have a brother named Leo?”

  “Well, he’s not my brother. He’s my cousin.” How come she and her dad never talked about what to do if something like this ever happened? What is she supposed to say? She knows she’s visibly shaking.

  “Can you call your father and tell him that he needs to come right home?” the cop asks. “We’ll wait here for him.”

  Tessa goes to the kitchen to use the phone, but her mind is so frantic that she has trouble thinking of the shop’s number. Her fingers shake as she pushes each button. It reminds her of some of her dreams, where she can’t dial an important number no matter how many times she tries. But she gets it right, of course. And her father answers.

  “Daddy?” Her voice is clearly distraught.

  “Tessa, what’s wrong?”

  She bursts into tears. “The police are here. I’m pretty sure it’s about Leo.”

  * * *

  —

  LEO LIKES TO play his cello after school. He likes the cello better than Tessa’s clarinet and better than other kids’ instruments. He thinks the cello is best because you hear it with your whole body, not just your ears. And it makes a warm yellow sound that climbs in your chest and makes you feel like the sun is shining in there.

  This afternoon Leo is playing Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1. As he runs the bow across the strings, he feels the brightness in his chest. The music thrums like when he hums, only better. Then he hears voices in the living room. Someone has come to the front door, and Tessa is talking to a man who isn’t his dad. He starts playing louder and faster to drown out the voices.

  After a while, Tessa knocks on his door and Leo stops playing to open it. That is the rule. If people knock, you have to open. “You’re interrupting!” he tells her.

  “I’m sorry, Leo,” she says. “But I have bad news.”

  “What news?” asks Leo. News is usually on TV.

  “I’m sorry. But some people you don’t know are going to take you to a place you don’t know, and I can’t go with you. And Dad can’t, either. But it will only be for a couple days, and you’re going to see your mother and your sister.”

  “I don’t want to go,” says Leo.

  “Do you remember your mother?” Tessa asks. “Your sister, Venus? Remember how you just saw Venus at school?”

  “I don’t want before,” he says in his loud voice.

  “I understand, Leo. But right now a nice lady and man want me to help you pack some clothes.”

  “Why are you crying?” he asks.

  “Because I don’t want you to go,” she says.

  “I don’t want to go, either!” Leo shouts. When Tessa opens Leo’s top dresser drawer, he starts to panic. “Not until bedtime!”

  “I’m sorry, Leo,” she says. She starts putting some of Leo’s clothes in a small suitcase.

  Leo lunges for the clothes and tries to put them back in the dresser. “No!” he yells. “Not until bedtime!”

  But Tessa won’t stop. She tells him to stop instead. Then she tells him to play his cello while she packs.

  But Leo doesn’t want to play his cello. He wants Tessa not to cry. The way Tessa is acting makes Leo afraid. Tessa is always trying to make Leo use feeling words. So maybe if he tells Tessa how he feels, she won’t make him go with people he doesn’t know.

  “I’m scared,” he tells Tessa. “My feelings are scared.”

  “Oh, Leo,” she says, trying to catch his eyes. “Me, too.” But she still keeps crying and she still keeps putting his clothes in the suitcase.

  Leo sits on the edge of his bed and starts to rock hard, maybe even rocking number three, which is supposed to be only for emergencies. But Tessa
lets him rock as hard as he wants. So maybe this is an emergency. When people make you go where you don’t want to go.

  How am I supposed to just sit here? The detective and his partner—I can’t remember their names—said to wait in the squad car. Not to come in. But this is driving me crazy.

  I look at my watch. I was supposed to call Piper today. Every Friday at 4:00 P.M. she waits for my call, and then she can’t think of what to say but she never wants to hang up. This time she’ll miss the call, but when she hears why—that I found Leo—she’ll be so happy.

  It’s been almost fifteen minutes since the dark-haired man—Tony—pulled up in the black truck and hurried into the house. I can’t sit here in this police car for another minute, not knowing what’s going on. What could the cop do to me anyway? Arrest me for not minding him?

  I have my hand on the door lever when another police car with flashing lights pulls up in front of me. How many cops does it take? Then I have a moment of panic. What if something went wrong in there? What if the kidnapper pulled a gun? What if Leo is hurt?

  Two cops quickly exit the cruiser and head into the house. By now neighbors are standing outside their homes, staring. I feel so conspicuous. It probably looks to them like I am being arrested. Finally I get out and stride to the front door. I can hear voices; the door is open half an inch, and so I just go in. I see one of the policemen putting cuffs on the Tony guy.

  The dark-haired girl—clearly his daughter—is crying.

  “Call Uncle Marco right away, honey,” this Tony tells her. “Don’t worry. It will be okay.” The girl is the first to see me standing there in the entry. She wipes her eyes. Lifts her chin in a way that suggests…what? She is clinging to her pride, fighting to stay composed. I’m struck by her beauty, her petite features, and her large brown eyes.