Lynette stops eating and looks at me across the table. “Of course I remember him,” she says. “Why?”
Tyson is Kim Gaskell’s second husband, and her longest recorded partner; also, according to the biography I read at Ben’s, the most affluent of Gaskell’s many spouses, and – I hope – the one Lynette felt most comfortable with. That was a phase of her life with the least problems at school, the least problems anywhere. Cause of eventual divorce was infidelity on his part.
“I don’t know how to say this,” I say uneasily, “but Mr. Tyson is dead. Cancer, nothing anyone could do.” I try and read Lynette’s expression, but it’s hard. Is she upset? Glad? It’s impossible to tell, the eyes glassy, unresponsive. “I am the executor of his will,” I add, knowing that those words will bring her back to reality. “And you are one of the benefactors.”
“What?” she asks, eyes wide, surprised.
“Ms. Lynette Hyams is one of the benefactors of Mr. Tyson’s will,” I add, continuing to lie through my teeth in a bid to save this girl. “Now, is that you?”
“Ye . . . Yes,” she stumbles. “But why would he . . .? I’ve not seen him for . . .”
“He felt bad about leaving you, about the divorce, about what happened,” I lie, and these lies are coming easier now, and I can’t escape the horrific idea that I am no better than the predator that would have abducted her.
No, another voice tells me, that’s ridiculous. You want to help this girl, not harm her.
“I can’t even remember him,” she says, “not really . . . My mom, she married him when she got out of prison. Things had been bad before then, uh . . . just really bad, you know. But he was nice, at least while it lasted, mom was happy, I think I was happy . . . but things fucked themselves up I guess, like they always do. He left, and then . . . well,” she says, wiping her dripping nose with the cuff of her jacket, “let’s just say that mom’s next boyfriend wasn’t so nice, okay? Shit, maybe he does owe me, after all? If he’d stayed then . . . well, I guess it don’t much matter now, anyway.” She finishes the burger, looks back up at me. “How much?” she asks.
“First,” I say, “the proof. How do I know you really are Lynette Hyams?”
“Here,” she says, pulling out a battered purse and rooting around in it until she finds a plastic card, holding it up for me.
“A learner’s permit?” I ask, surprised.
“Yeah,” she says, “one of the only things I’ve got Den to thank for, I guess.”
I nod my head as I take the card, examining it, taking note of the details. Some pimps don’t want their girls having a license, knowing it would make it easier for them to leave; others, however, see it as an advantage, the ability to drive making them more mobile, able to cover a wider territory. Not that she can actually drive yet – you can get your learner’s permit in Alaska at fourteen, but still have to wait until you’re sixteen for a restricted license.
But whatever the reason she has one, I know it means that she can board a domestic flight, even as a minor. I might have to fill out some paperwork at the airport, but she will be able to travel.
“Okay,” I say, handing her the card back, “and now for the conditions.”
“I thought you said I didn’t have to do anything?”
“It’s nothing you don’t want to do,” I say. “You told me you don’t like this place, right? You’re not happy?”
“I didn’t say that,” Lynette answers quickly. “You did.”
“And you didn’t object to my assessment,” I remind her.
“Okay,” she says slowly, making me work for it. “So, what do you mean, ‘conditions’?”
“You need to move,” I tell her. “Mr. Tyson, when he found out about his own condition, he hired people to find you, find out what had happened to you.”
(lies, lies, it’s all lies, she’ll find out, it’s lies . . .)
“And it was his dying wish for you to leave this life, to get out from it while you still can.”
(Emotional manipulation, you’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel now . . .)
“So, his explicit instructions are for you to leave Anchorage. Today.”
“What the fuck? Today?”
I tap the side of my head, as if I have memorized his entire will. “He said that – if you want the money – then you have to leave Anchorage as soon as his attorney makes contact with you, you need to fly to . . .”
(Shit! Where? Where, where, where, why didn’t you think this through before you opened your big mouth?)
“. . . to Gainesville,” I say, face flushed.
“Gainesville?” she asks, brow furrowed. “Where the fuck is that?”
“Florida,” I say, knowing why I said it, because it is about as far south of Alaska – in the continental United States, at least – that you can possibly get, more than four thousand miles from Anchorage, from Dennis Hobson, from the killers that even now might be waiting to abduct this girl, to rape her, to torture her until she dies. Maybe also because I’ve been there recently, it’s on my mind – it seems safe, it seems like a place she might enjoy living.
“Florida?” she says in disbelief. “How the hell am I going to get there?”
“I’m going to buy you a ticket,” I tell her, “put you on the plane myself.”
Lynette eats some fries, drinks some coffee, then looks at me. “It’s warm in Florida,” she says, with the hopeful look of the little girl she is, a look that breaks my heart, “isn’t it?”
“It is,” I say, trying not to cry, trying to stop the bleeding of my heart for this poor girl, abused for so long and – if I don’t stop it – with only more agony to look forward to. I asked myself, days before, if I would swap places with Lynette Hyams, if it meant that she wouldn’t have to experience what she experienced, go through what she went through. I wasn’t sure at the time, but I am sure now – of course I would. “I was only there the other day,” I continue, gathering myself, “it was so hot I had to stay indoors, scared I’d get a sunburn.”
“Wow,” she says wistfully, “I’ve always wanted to go somewhere I might get a sunburn. There’s palm trees there too, right?”
I nod. “There sure are,” I say. “Palm trees everywhere.”
“My mom . . . sometimes used to take me into travel centers, you know, places with holidays, sold holidays, you know . . . well, she’d look like she was going to get us a holiday, she’d talk to the guys there, think about it, make me think about it, I’d look at those . . . what do ya call ’em, brochures? Yeah, brochures, I’d look at these great hotels, these warm, warm places, palm trees and beaches, and that’s where I wanted to go.” She pauses, breathes, drinks more coffee. “We never did go anywhere though.” She looks up at me, eyes searching. “Florida, huh?”
I nod my head. “Florida,” I confirm.
“So,” she says again, “how much?”
“Twenty thousand dollars,” I say, knowing that the payment is going to come straight from my own pocket. I want it to be enough to entice her, to convince her, an amount that might actually change her life, enable her to get a foot in the door; but at the same time, I don’t want it to seem like an amount that Richard Tyson simply wouldn’t have.
As it is, I know that a single phone call might show my story for what it is – total bullshit. But if I keep her occupied, if I don’t let her out of my sight until she’s on that plane to Florida, then by the time she can speak to anyone who can tell her that Tyson is still alive, she’ll be in Gainesville with twenty thousand dollars in her pocket. And then, what will it matter if she discovers I was bullshitting all along? She’ll be safe anyway, safe and far away.
I watch her face as I give her the figure, this girl who turns tricks for fifty bucks a shot, most of which will get turned over to her pimp, the rest of which will go on drugs, and I can see the change in her as she starts to understand what this might mean, the opportunity to start again, the chance to reinvent her life. She is young, she can start agai
n; but first and foremost, she needs to survive.
She needs to get out of Anchorage, out of Alaska, for good.
“So what do you say?” I ask her. “Will you go?”
I watch as she looks into the dregs of her coffee cup, her gaze indistinct, unclear.
I suddenly feel like a predator again, watching and waiting, wondering if my prey is going to accept my bait.
The feeling makes me uneasy, but I try and ignore it as I wait for her reply.
In the end, she looks at me and nods her head firmly, her mind made up. “Yeah,” she says, the first beginnings of a smile on her face. “Fuck it. I’ll go.”
I look at her, taking her in, thinking for the first time that I’m not seeing a ghost, that I’m seeing a vibrant, young life that won’t be taken before it’s time.
Good for you, I think as I look at her, unspeakable happiness in my heart, tears in my eyes, though I try and hide them.
Yes, Lynette, I think, good for you.
You’ve just saved yourself.
5
This is taking too long, I think as I nervously take another look through the broken blinds of the apartment window to the parking lot below.
“Lynette?” I shout through to her. “You going to be long?”
We’re in the room that Hobson rents for her, where he often stays with her. The façade of the two-story structure looks out on West Benson Boulevard, but parking and the actual entrances are on West 29th Place, the road running parallel to the south. Lynette’s unit is on the second floor, up a wooden balcony and along a narrow terrace. The car’s left out front in a numbered slot, and I’m starting to worry about it getting stolen; some of the people I saw hanging about outside were not exactly friendly-looking.
The room itself was probably once quite neat and tidy; now it is a pit of desperation however, filled with the fumes of nicotine and weed, sweat and sex. It looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in a long time, maybe not even since Hobson started renting it, and I’m not surprised when I see roaches scuttling away into the corner.
Lynette has already shoved what clothes she needs into a relatively new-looking sports bag, and is apparently gathering some other things from the bathroom.
I start to get an idea of what she’s really doing though, and suddenly rush across the room and rip open the door – and when I see her poised over the sink, starting to sniff the coke she’s poured there, I grab her and pull her away.
“Dammit, what the hell are you doing?” I shout at her.
“What the fuck?” she spits back, wrestling free of my grip. “What the hell you doin’, what the fuck you care?”
“I care,” I say slowly, trying to regain my composure, “because you’re about to go to an airport – the security guys see you’re high, you’re not getting on a plane anywhere. They’ve got sniffer dogs too, you want one of those going off at you?”
She pauses as she considers what I say, then shakes her head. “They couldn’t give a shit what people do, so long as they pay for their ticket.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I say, “but maybe you’re wrong. You want to risk it? Which would you rather be, twenty grand richer in the Florida sunshine, or broke in an Anchorage jail cell?”
She looks as if she’s going to argue with me again, then thinks better of it. If anything’s going to get her to kick the habit, it’s the promise of money. “Okay,” she says, “shit, okay. Maybe you’re right. Maybe you’re right.”
And yet I know that she might try something again, her desire for a hit so strong that she might be powerless to oppose it. I start to look through her bag, looking for anything else that might set the dogs off.
“Hey!” she yells, sniffing helplessly. “Get your freakin’ hands off my shit!”
I hand the bag to her, only half-convinced it’s clean. “If you have any of that shit in there, get rid of it.”
“There isn’t any,” she says angrily.
“Okay,” I say, then notice the white powder that has spilled onto her top, traces of it in her hair. Aw, shit. “You need to get changed,” I tell her, “or you’re going to get picked up. Have a shower, wash your hair, and get changed.”
“You’re shitting me, right?”
“No,” I say, “I’m not. You need to get out of here today, I need you on a flight to Florida.”
“Why the big rush?” she says, although I can see she’s already starting to take the jacket off.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Mr. Tyson didn’t specify. He just wanted you gone from here the same day I made contact.”
“Shit,” she says, looking around the room, “is it really that bad?” She must see the look on my face, because a smile breaks out for the first time that day, and she nods her head. “Yeah,” she says, “I guess it is, right?”
I smile back and shrug my shoulders. What can I say?
The girl is smiling now, but I can still see the need in those tired eyes of hers, I understand how much she still needs that hit. Maybe I was wrong? Maybe money isn’t the most important motivating factor in her life, after all.
She strips unselfconsciously, and although I don’t stare, I still see that her pale, young body – except for the absence of the more obvious damage – is not so much different from the corpse that lay on the autopsy table.
I follow her into the bathroom, watch as she gets into the shower. How can I leave her alone now? Who knows what other shit she has hidden in here.
She looks at me and shakes her head sadly, understanding why I’m keeping guard but obviously disappointed in me doing it; but she’s not exactly won my trust yet, so what else can I do?
“Make it as quick as you can,” I tell her.
I desperately want her out of here, out of the apartment, out of the country; every minute she remains is another minute that she could still be abducted, still be hurt, still be killed.
And today, Anchorage seems to be a maelstrom of dangers, a melting pot of potential suspects – Artie Jenkins is working at the shelter, and I’ve also seen the Latimer twins and Paul in very close proximity. And then there is –
“Who the fuck are you?” the angry voice growls from the apartment doorway, and my heart sinks.
Oh, shit.
Dennis Hobson.
6
I turn slowly, aware that Lynette doesn’t know he’s here, the sound of the water drowning out his voice.
He is similar enough to the photo I’ve seen that I don’t need further proof – the hard, stubbled jaw; the acne scars on the pockmarked cheeks; the deep-set, sullen eyes; the scar that goes through an eyebrow onto the bridge of his nose; the greasy hair swept back into a short ponytail, ears filled with gold studs.
Yes, I think as I struggle to breathe, it’s him, alright.
“I asked you a question, bitch”, he says again, his voice like rough gravel, grating and harsh.
“I’m . . . a friend of Lynette’s,” I say at last.
“Yeah?” he asks, eyeing me up and down like a vulture about to pick up some roadkill. “You a working girl? I don’t recognize you.”
“I’m not from around here.”
“I know that,” he says, edging closer, and my heart rate is racing as I remember that this is a man who carries a straight razor and is happy to use it as a matter of routine. “So where you from?”
“Seattle,” I say, improvising again. “I’ve been hired to track down Lynette by her mother.”
He smiles with no warmth or humor, horribly reptilian. “Her mother?” he says with a raised eyebrow. “I seriously doubt that, from what she’s told me about her.”
I shrug. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but that woman is worried sick about her daughter. Believe me.” In the background, I can still hear the shower, and I don’t know if it would be better for Lynette to be here or not. From the look on Hobson’s face, I’m thinking not.
“So, are you a private eye?” he asks with a smirk.
“In a way,” I say. “I work for
an investigative firm.”
“So, you’re not licensed then,” he deduced, “which means you got fuck-all right to be doin’ anythin’, am I right?” He gestures to the bathroom. “So, what’s she said? She wants to go with you, go running off back to Mommy?”
“No,” I say, knowing what his reaction would be to that. “I think she wants to stay here. Her mother wants her home, but not if she’s not willing. She just wants to know that her daughter is okay.”
Hobson keeps edging toward me, toward the bathroom, his presence menacing, threatening.
“And what are you gonna tell her?” he whispers.
“Well,” I say, trying to keep my voice cool, “she has a place to live, she can obviously support herself through . . . work . . . and she seems to have also met a nice young man who I am sure has only her best intentions in mind.”
He grins, and I see blackened teeth and receding gums. “Yeah?” he says. “Hah, I like that. Yeah, I like that. Best interests, huh?” He looks toward the shower. “Well,” he says, “I guess it looks like she’s getting ready for work, so maybe it’s time that you left? Wouldn’t want to get in the way of her making money and supporting herself, would you?”
I wonder what I am going to do, how I am going to handle the situation. I need to get her out of here, need to get past Hobson. But how? I don’t have anything to hit him with, and I’m not sure if I’m even capable of knocking him out, even if I did have a weapon. The horrific image of the dead body of Douglas Menders flashes through my mind then, his head smashed open with the brass lamp.
You are capable, the voice tells me. You are.
But still, I see no weapon.
I know I could leave, observe her, follow her, and pick her up later, when Hobson’s eye is not on her and we have a chance . . . but what if Hobson is the person that abducts her? Witnesses have him in Anchorage pretty much continually over the next few days, but maybe he just abducts her, hands her over to someone else? Maybe he’s been offered money for one of his girls?
Red Moon Rising Page 27