Another car was parked at the lookout, a white Dodge, with a lean-faced man at the wheel reading a newspaper. I ignored him, just as he ignored me.
They couldn’t make me do anything, I was thinking. They couldn’t force me at gunpoint to walk on the beach until a little girl begged for an ice cream. No way to win the confidence of a child, parading a man at gunpoint. And why such a cock and bull story? Who was the kid? I could think of half a dozen answers that were more convincing than the story Kersh had told: the president’s long-lost granddaughter, heir to the British throne, an oil billionaire’s illegitimate daughter, an experimental subject carrying deadly viruses in her blood.…
A wind had come up, whipping through the gorge below, setting the trees adance, and twirling leaves that looked like clouds of confetti. I had become hot and sweaty hiking, but now I began to shiver. Where was the kid sleeping? Was she staying warm and dry? Who was feeding her? Buying her clothes?
I drove aimlessly through the mountains. Presently I would stop and take some pictures, I told myself, but I drove on and on. And finally I started to drive south. I didn’t know yet if I could let myself be used by Kersh; I still didn’t want to get involved in whatever was going on, but I drove south. I didn’t believe his story, and now accepted that I probably never would know what they were up to, but they were putting in a lot of time on it, and they really did want my help. I laughed out loud when it occurred to me that his tame psychologist might have told him that arousing my curiosity was the key to use.
But mostly I was remembering how the little girl had reached out her hands for me to lift her to the wall, and how she had assumed I would help her down again, and how she had giggled when I warned her about trusting strange men. Where was she now?
It was about two when I stopped at a restaurant. Kersh ambled over to my side as I was tossing my hiking boots into the trunk.
“Buy you some lunch,” he said amiably. “Your appestat is sure set for different hours than mine. I thought I’d starve before you stopped.”
I shrugged, and closed the trunk lid.
“Think of it as a refund on your income tax,” he said, as we entered the restaurant together.
Regular business lunch, I thought, after we had ordered, pastrami on rye, milk for me, ham and cheese on white toast, coffee for him. No business talk yet. He looked as if he needed the coffee. He looked exhausted, and as if in confirmation, he yawned widely.
He didn’t bring up the matter until we had finished eating and I ordered coffee. Then he said, “You decided to go along with us?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“You’ve got nothing to lose, Seton. Just gain, all the way.”
“What gain?”
“Good will. Bundles of good will, and that’s not to be sneezed at these days. Get the government agencies on your side, clear sailing all the way.”
“She might not even be there any longer.”
“Oh, she hasn’t left. We know who goes in and who comes out. Atlantic City’s easy, not too many ways in and out, unless you want to take a long, cold swim.”
“The weather’s changed; she probably wouldn’t be on the beach now anyway.”
“We thought of that. Thing is, she probably hangs out where other kids are. Purloined letter effect. We have a pretty neat city map for you. It’ll be in your room. Anyway, you wander around taking pictures of the elementary schools, the playgrounds, the beach, boardwalk. Where there are other kids, she’ll turn up. We’re betting on it.”
He finished his second cup of coffee and motioned to the waitress for a refill. Any minute now he’d start twitching, I thought. Very quietly he said, “Seton, someone’s going to find that child. You know it, and I know it.” Reluctantly I nodded. “Good. Now, we’ll make your reservation for you. You like that place you stayed in before? The Abbey? If not, say so. We’ll put you up at the Taj Mahal, Trump’s Palace, whatever you say. Meals, booze, whatever you want, just put it on the tab. No problem. If there are other expenses, keep an account and hand it in. We’ll take care of it.”
The Abbey was relatively small, three or four blocks off the main drag, quiet. I said it would do fine.
“Okay. See, we want you to be comfortable. This might take a few days. She might not spot you right off, or she might hold back a day or two. If she does approach you, talk with her. That’s all, just normal friendly chatter. Then leave, and you’re done. From sundown to sunup you’re on your own. Play, have fun. She isn’t going to show at night. In a place like Atlantic City a kid by herself at night would stick out like a dinosaur on the beach. Look over the map; we’ll mark the places we think she might frequent. If she doesn’t show in any of them, then wander about where you think she might turn up. We don’t expect you to search for her, just be in places where she might see you.”
I drank my coffee; it had grown cold and was bitter. “What if she doesn’t approach me in a few days?”
“Then we’ll think of something else to try,” he said tiredly. “On Saturday we’ll turn the screws a little. There’s going to be one of those unfortunate leaks in time for the news Saturday night, and Sunday’s papers. It will hint that the FBI suspects the Milliken grandchild is being hidden in Atlantic City, and that they intend a house-to-house search.” He sighed and spread his hands. “We want to avoid doing that. Let’s hope she comes to you tomorrow or by Saturday afternoon.”
I had an image of a small child being cornered by a flock of FBI agents, a SWAT team, a herd of private investigators, and a million poor sods who knew about the Milliken reward. I stood up. “Jesus,” I said. “She’s just a little kid!”
“Is she, Seton? Are you sure?”
I started to walk away and he suddenly snorted with laughter. “Good Lord, I just realized why you like the Abbey. They let you park your own car there, don’t they? No valet parking.”
I kept moving. He caught up with me at the door. “If Falco had taken your car instead of your wife, then would you have beaten the shit out of him?”
He was still laughing, and I was still walking away from him, or he would have known that at that instant my indecision had become resolved.
If the child approached me, and if she was the three-to-four-year-old I had seen before, I’d do what Kersh wanted. Turn her over. You can’t leave a small child alone in Atlantic City, or anywhere else. She belonged to someone; presumably Kersh knew who that was, and presumably she would be returned and I would never know more about it than I did then. But if a child approached me who seemed older, bigger, different in any significant way, Kersh couldn’t have her.
Stating this to myself was simple and at the time it even seemed reasonable; following up seemed impossible. I drove and thought and the more I thought the more hopeless it appeared. They had the city sewed up; no one could leave except by boat without crossing a bridge, and it was easy enough to maintain surveillance on a bridge.
Traffic was heavy; I got in the right lane and let everything moving pass me by, and finally came up with the name Joey Marcos, and a plan that might even work. I pulled off at the next gas station/diner complex and called Joey in Manhattan. Since he worked for one of the biggest ad agencies in the business where he had advanced to dizzying heights, it was easier to get the firm’s number from information than to get him at the agency. Finally he came on the line.
“Win,” he said, “that really you?” I got in a word and then he said, “Hey, man! How you doing? Where are you? Come on over!”
“Joey, shut up and listen. I need a favor.”
“You got it,” he said, dead serious.
He didn’t interrupt a single time when I told him I needed someone to bring me a car and to fly home again without seeing me.
“I’ll need the license number, and make, all that,” I said. “And the keys, natch. If this happens can you be available over the next three nights? I don’t know when or even if I’ll need the car.”
“Baby,” he said soberly, “this sure sounds lik
e big trouble to me. Atlantic City? No problem. You’ll want a couple of numbers where you can reach me.”
I let out the breath I hadn’t known I was holding. “Thanks, Joey,” I said. “Just thanks.” No questions, no demands, just, You got it. We talked a few more minutes and when I hung up I felt committed for the first time.
When Joey was thirteen and I was fourteen his family moved from Brooklyn to Atlanta, where they did not find the over-touted Southern hospitality. Joey was no darker than I was, but the kids in high school knew he was black, and he had a funny accent, Spanish Puerto Rican overlaid with Brooklyn. We had a couple of classes together and for the first time I found someone I could talk art with, and he said it was the same for him. He was shy when he wasn’t being a strutting macho son of a bitch. We both wanted to be artists; we talked about what we would do: go to the Rhode Island School of Design—neither of us did—spend a year or two soaking up art in Italy—he did, I didn’t. When he was fifteen and I was sixteen he was picked up for questioning about a break-in at a 7-Eleven, and I signed an affidavit saying he had been with me at my folks’ cabin at the lake that weekend. It was a lie. There was a lot of sniggering, a lot of those looks, but in the end they turned him loose. I invited him out to the cabin the next weekend and I beat him up out there. It wasn’t hard; I had several inches and fifteen pounds on him.
“What’d you do that for?” he wailed, holding a bloody washcloth to his cheek.
“Because you’re a thickheaded nigger and I know what they’d do to you.”
This time he started the fight, and afterward we both cried.
Back in the Thunderbird, driving south, the plan shaped up more and more firmly. But there was nothing at all I could do about it until I saw the child again.
* * *
I checked into the Abbey, showered, changed clothes, and hit the casinos. I played blackjack a little, played with the slots a little, and hit the money machines a lot, three hundred here, five hundred there until I had nearly five thousand in cash. I had dinner late, and then drove up and down the island, in and out of the side streets, along the boardwalk, back, until I finally found the kind of place I was looking for. A round-the-clock store-front bingo game with a hundred players, and a tiny children’s area off to one side. Out front there were two zebras under spotlights, and next door was a church. Atlantic City. I found two parking lots within two blocks and, satisfied, I went back to the hotel and went to bed.
In the morning after breakfast I called Joey from a pay phone and told him the addresses of the parking lots, and he told me the kind of car he would drive down if I gave the word. An eighty-nine Toyota Celica, gray. I made a note of the license number; he said he’d be standing by, and that was that. Then I went out to the boardwalk and the beach with my gear.
By three in the afternoon I was ready to start driving anywhere. The weather was cold and gray, threatening rain that didn’t materialize, but hung there like a glower. I had taken more pictures than I had film for, and was shooting with an empty camera, which didn’t help my disposition. And I had eaten a hot dog for lunch and now had heartburn. Not a good day, I was thinking, when I saw a bunch of kids playing on some concrete turtles. Little boys were climbing over the things, kicking at each other, king-of-the-turtle fashion. And behind them a small group of little girls played with a ball. And she was there.
The sweater I had seen her in before had been a bit too big; today it was just a little too small. A hot wash, I told myself, unloading the camera, setting up, keeping my eyes on the boys and the turtles. All the kids stopped to watch me. Don’t come near me, I thought to her. Keep your distance, kid. She stayed back with the other girls. Today she was mingling with the four-to five-year-olds and passing just fine. I focused on the boys who began to make faces; the girls made faces back at them, taunting them, and I said in a conversational tone, “Your turn next, girls. Let’s do the boys first. You know where the zebras are, down by the church?” One of the boys said sure, and I went on, leaning over the camera now, “Well, tonight I’ll be taking pictures there. After dark.”
The little girls began to move in closer, and I said, still addressing the camera, “Keep back. People are watching us, you know.” I glanced up at the kids, who laughed. Belatedly she laughed, too. But she looked frightened. One of the boys was trying to stand on his head; he fell, and they all laughed louder. I pretended to take his picture anyway. One of the girls threw the ball then and they all ran off after it; none of them looked back at me. The boys stopped horsing around and I packed up my gear. “Thanks, fellows,” I called, and walked on.
Had it been enough? I had no way of knowing. But, at the very least, no watcher would have had cause to single her out. And for the first time I felt a shiver that was not brought on by weather. I thought of Kersh’s words when I protested that she was just a little kid: “Are you sure?” And I knew that I wasn’t sure of anything.
I wandered for ten minutes, spotted a coffee shop, and went in. From a pay phone there I called Joey and said, “Tonight,” and hung up, then quickly dialed my own office number. Gracie answered and we chatted a minute or two. A tall black woman had moved close enough to overhear and I made no attempt to keep her from hearing. After that I had coffee and a danish.
* * *
Kersh was waiting in the lobby when I got back to the Abbey. “Buy you a drink,” he said.
Since for the past half hour all I had thought of was getting inside, getting warm, and having a drink, I shrugged and followed him into the hotel bar. “You look like hell,” I said when he sat opposite me at a tiny table. The light was dim, and seemed to exaggerate the shadows under his eyes and the pallor that had overcome the pinkness of his cheeks.
“Cold coming on,” he said. “I feel lousy. Too damn damp here.”
“Tell me about it,” I muttered. We ordered and didn’t talk until we had our drinks in hand.
“No dice yet,” he said finally. “We really didn’t expect it to be quite that easy, you understand.”
“I worked my butt off in the cold today.”
He grinned fleetingly. “I know. One of the reports stresses how conscientious you were. Well, tomorrow’s another day.”
“Why don’t you get some sleep,” I said, draining my glass. “I’m cold, hungry, and tired. I intend to take a very hot shower for a long time, then eat a good dinner, and then go to bed. I recommend it.”
“Maybe it’ll end tomorrow,” he said philosophically. “Maybe she’ll come up and ask, not for ice cream, not in this weather. Maybe hot chocolate. Hot chocolate today, Coke tomorrow, martini the next day?” He nodded, and looked past me, and for a brief moment, I thought I glimpsed the man behind the nearly babyish face. That man was frightened.
* * *
At nine-thirty I returned to the hotel after dinner, retrieved my key from the desk and was given an envelope that had been left for me. The car key for the Toyota. At a quarter to ten I turned off the room lights and left again, this time heading for the back stairs, not the elevator. I had put on a heavy sweater under my jacket, and my pockets were stuffed with money. I took nothing else with me. If anyone stopped me I didn’t want a razor to give me away.
I went out by the side door to the parking lot. Many people were around; it was Friday night, a long fun weekend shaping up. I walked around the building, out to the back street, and started the longer walk to the bingo room and the zebras.
I walked fast, trying to keep warm; a stiff cold wind was blowing in off the ocean. When I reached the street with the perpetual bingo game I slowed down and even paused a moment to glance inside the store front. It looked like the same bunch of people, only more of them, and the same bunch of bored kids in the little playroom. I moved on past the two zebras, drew even with the entrance to the church, then, as I was getting closer to the corner, a small figure came out from behind a message board. She slipped her hand into mine.
She was icy, shivering hard, still in the sweater that was too small an
d too lightweight for the weather. Silently we kept walking, her hand in mine. Two blocks, I was thinking. Just two blocks to the parking lot, a car, a heater, maybe even safety for her. We covered one of them, still not speaking, not walking fast enough to draw attention. There were a lot of people on the sidewalk, in groups, in pairs, bunches of teenagers … I was afraid a few people were eyeing me reproachfully, eyeing the child. Traffic had jammed to nearly a gridlock; drivers were leaning on horns, music blared. Another block. I resisted the impulse to pick her up and run.
We found the car and she got in the back seat. On the front seat in an envelope were the parking ticket, Joey’s driver’s license and even a credit card, and under the envelope was Joey’s beautiful black glove leather beret that he had bought in Paris fifteen years ago. It had become almost a trademark with him. I put it on.
I drove the side streets for a few minutes before I stopped. “Are you okay?” I asked the child. “Warm yet?”
She nodded. “I’m hungry, though,” she said.
“I’ll find something for you to eat as soon as I can.” I looked up and down the street, a little traffic, no one on foot, and I got out to inspect what all Joey had provided. I had asked for a dark blanket, but he had done much better than that. The car was gray with black sheepskin seat covers, black floor rugs, and the blanket was so dark it looked black. There were two sleeping bags, a six-pack, a styrofoam cooler, a thermos bottle and a pillow. In the cooler were sandwiches, apples, a wedge of cheese, a tin of smoked oysters. I wanted to laugh and to cry.
“Listen,” I said to the child, handing her a sandwich, “we’ll drive around for a while and then we’ll leave the island. After you eat, you have to stay on the floor with the blanket over you, until I say you can come out. Okay?”
The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Tenth Annual Collection Page 76