Pain Management b-13

by Andrew Vachss

  “How could they—?”

  “It’s nothing personal,” I said gently. “That’s what I mean by them being prisoners of their minds. You can’t expect them to overcome their conditioning.”

  “But they didn’t act like that at all,” she said, an undercurrent of something like resentment in her voice. “They were almost . . . I don’t know . . . dismissive, perhaps. The only thing they seemed really interested in was that damn computer.”

  “You mean your daughter’s . . . ?”

  “Yes. As soon as they found out she was online, they got very excited. They even got some specialist to examine it. He did a . . . ‘hard-drive sweep,’ I think they called it.”

  “Sure. Thinking maybe she got lured away by someone she met in a chat room.”

  “That’s exactly what they said. But after they got done with the computer, they said there was nothing. They asked us about her friends, her teachers . . . but you could see their hearts weren’t in it.”

  “How did they leave it, then?”

  “They have Rose listed as a runaway. No evidence of foul play, that’s what they said. One of them told us she’d probably turn up. The other didn’t even seem to care that much.”

  “You expected . . . ?”

  “More,” she said, somewhere between bitter and disappointed. “I expected . . . more.” She took a shallow breath, switched to a singsong voice, as if she were answering stupid questions: “No, our daughter was not a Goth, not a drug addict, not an alcoholic. No, our daughter was not involved with someone we didn’t approve of. No, our daughter was not adopted . . . although why they thought that was important, I’ll never know.”

  “Kids . . . teenagers—they’re natural seekers. Adopted children sometimes get this romantic notion about their ‘real’ parents, especially when they hit puberty and start to have social problems. They get the idea that DNA can explain things happening in their lives. If they ask their adoptive parents questions, and don’t get the answers they’re looking for, sometimes they go looking for themselves. That’s all they meant.”

  “Oh. Well, they said all the right things. They just didn’t seem truly . . . concerned, I guess.”

  “Concern’s just window dressing,” I said. “It might make you feel better, but it wouldn’t make them do a better job.”

  “My husband didn’t trust them.”

  “Because . . . ?”

  “Kevin doesn’t trust the police,” she said, making an apologetic noise in her throat.

  “Any special reason?”

  “He was almost forty when Rose was born,” she said, as if that explained everything. When my expression told her it didn’t, she went on: “Kevin was an antiwar activist.”

  “Ah. And now?”

  “Now he’s an architect,” she said, pride rich in her voice. “A very fine one. With a very prestigious firm. But I wish he’d go out on his own.”

  “You sound as if that’s something you’ve discussed more than a couple of times.”

  This time her laugh came from her chest. “Only about once a night for ten years. But Kevin makes so much money where he is. . . .”

  “Did your daughter ever get involved in those arguments?”

  “Rose? Don’t be silly. And they weren’t arguments. I just think Kevin could do better for himself professionally. Be more creative, choose his own projects. But he’s more comfortable where he is.”

  “All right,” I said, deliberately moving her away from any domestic unhappiness. “Could I have a look at Rose’s room?”

  “I . . . Kevin hated that.”

  “Letting the police search her room?”

  “Yes. He said it was an invasion of Rose’s privacy. We would never do such a thing ourselves. So it seemed . . . bizarre . . . that we would let anyone else do it.”

  “Well, given the circumstances . . .”

  “I know. Kevin agreed, finally. But he just wasn’t comfortable with the whole thing. He insisted on being there every second. Not to look at anything himself,” she assured me, “to make certain the police were . . . respectful.”

  “He’s a very protective father?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. I think I’m more . . . strict with Rose than he could ever be. Kevin believes too much parental control stifles a child.”

  “Do you want me to wait until your husband comes home to check Rose’s room?” I asked her bluntly.

  “No . . . I don’t think so. I mean, Kevin knows you’re coming. And, anyway, you’re working for us, not the police, isn’t that correct?”

  “I’ve got nothing to do with the police,” I said, making sure she got it. I knew better than to try and hold her eyes to emphasize the point. My eyes don’t track together ever since I took that coup de grâce bullet that hadn’t worked out like the shooter intended. People who try and stare me down get disconcerted pretty easy.

  “All right, then. You can—”

  She clamped her mouth shut suddenly as a little girl exploded into the room. The kid was maybe ten, wearing a red-and-white barber-pole-striped T-shirt and blue jeans. “Mom! Can I—?”

  “Daisy, we have company. Do you think you can wait until I have—?”

  The kid spotted me, whirled to bring me into focus. “What’s your name?” she demanded.

  “B.B.,” I told her, pulling it out of the air.

  “Like a BB gun?”

  “Yep,” I said, going along.

  “What happened to your face?”

  “Daisy! What kind of question is that to ask our guest?”

  The kid ignored her mother, watching me like she damn well expected an answer.

  “I was in an accident,” I said, keeping my voice level and polite.

  “Oh. A car accident?”

  I nodded agreement, trying for gravity.

  “How come your eyes are two different colors?” she demanded.

  “That is it, young lady,” her mother said sharply.

  “You’re here about Rose, aren’t you?” the kid asked me, hitting the mute to her mother’s station on some private remote.

  “I am.”

  “You’re the private detective!”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you think you’re going to find her?”

  “I’m going to try.”

  “The cops will never find her,” the child said solemnly.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because they don’t know her.”

  “That makes sense, Daisy. And you know her, right?”

  “Yes. We are very close,” the child said, smug and sad simultaneously. Proud of her adult phraseology . . . and terrified that she’d slip and use the past tense when she was referring to her sister.

  “Then, later, you and me, we’ll talk, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said, coming closer and sticking out her hand for me to shake. I did it, sealing the bargain. She whirled and charged out of the living room on full boil.

  “I must apologize for—”

  “She just wants to help,” I said to her mother. “And—who knows?—maybe she can.”

  “I’m . . . not sure. She absolutely worships her sister, but I don’t think she could possibly know anything about . . . this.”

  “It can’t hurt,” I assured the woman. “And it would make her feel better to be helping.”

  “Do you want to see Rose’s room now?” she replied, moving me away from something that made her uncomfortable.

  The girl’s room was on the second floor. Bigger than most Manhattan apartments, with its own attached bath. Between the skylight in the sloping ceiling and the triple-pane bay window, the room was flooded with natural light.

  The furniture was a polyglot mixture of different woods and fabrics. The only linking theme was that it was all old. Looked like reconditioned flea-market stuff to me . . . except for a magnificent rolltop desk that stood in one corner, closed. As soon as I slid it open, I knew it was some kind of priceless antique: a maze of tiny, pe
rfectly aligned drawers, each with a separate inlay, intricately rendered in contrasting woods, and miniature handles so small you’d need a toothpick to pull them open. The pigeonholes were widely varied in size. Reminded me of the California Job Case I was trained to work with in the institutional print shop when I was a kid. I couldn’t see the slightest trace of a nail. The whole piece was hand-finished to an artistic perfection beyond what any machine could hope to duplicate.

  I’d heard that artists always sign their work, but I couldn’t see any evidence of that until I noticed the brass plate surrounding the keyhole had “Erwin Darrow” engraved on it. I’d heard that name before. Michelle once told me he was an American master, explaining why she’d laid out a couple of grand for a jewelry box he’d made. The desk probably cost enough to buy a nice car. But it fit right in with all the recycled stuff, somehow.

  The double bed was covered with a bright patchwork quilt that showed more enthusiasm than expertise. One wall was papered with concert posters—Joni Mitchell, Tracy Chapman, Sinead O’Connor. Against the facing wall was a bookcase made of long bare planks laid over cinder blocks. The shelves were filled—mostly serious-looking trade paperbacks. Each rack was bookended with half of a large purple-and-white geode.

  On the bottom shelf I saw a set of thick black books, about the size of airport paperbacks, but bound like hardbacks. The spines were blank. I picked one up, opened it. A notebook, the pages as empty as the spines had been. There were another half-dozen of them. All the same, the pages as unused as a pawnbroker’s heart.

  The computer stood on one of those two-tiered workstations, an incongruously modern purple-and-white iMac . . . maybe to match the geodes? Above it was a pen-and-ink rendering mounted on some kind of artist’s board. A pair of crows perched on a high wire. It looked as if they were deep in conversation. The detail was incredible; you could see every feather. And the light-of-life in the birds’ eyes. In the lower right-hand corner it said: “Maida and Zia, 39/250, Geof Darrow.”

  Darrow again. Was there any connection? Could the girl know their family or something? I filed it away, went back to work.

  The phone was a relic—black Bakelite, with a large rotary dial. It perched on a thick pad of music composition paper. Blank. I moved the phone aside to take a closer look. Under the pad was a stack of comics. All issues of something called Cuckoo. Didn’t ring a bell with me.

  “Is this the way Rose kept her room?” I asked the mother.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s incredibly neat; everything in its place. Looks like it’s ready for military inspection.”

  “Oh,” she said, making a sound I didn’t recognize. “I see what you mean. Yes, Rose always kept her room immaculate. But that was her choice. Her father . . .”

  It took me a few seconds to realize that the woman wasn’t going to say anything more. I stepped back to the desk, took a closer look. Inside, some of the pigeonhole slots were filled—envelopes, stamps, paper clips, a stapler—but most of them were empty. On the writing surface sat an old-fashioned green blotter with worn brown leather corners. Centered on the blotter was a pad of typewriter-sized paper, horizontally ruled in sets of five lines separated by white spaces. A square-cut glass inkwell stood guard to the side.

  “Did Rose use a dip pen?” I asked the woman.

  “I . . . don’t know.”

  “Has anyone been in here since she left?”

  “The police . . .”

  “Sure. I mean, has anyone straightened up the room? A maid, maybe?”

  “A maid? Kevin would never allow us to have a maid. That would be exploitation of—”

  “A housekeeper, then? Someone who comes in once a week to help you with the heavy cleaning?”

  “No. I do everything myself.”

  “Must be a lot of work.”

  She clasped her hands across her stomach. “Well, I don’t want you to get the wrong impression. The girls are very helpful. And Kevin does his share, too.”

  I got it. This Kevin was Alan-fucking-Alda to the third power.

  The closet doors were wood slats; they opened accordion-style. Inside, it looked like a sixties revival—long dresses in flower prints, platform shoes and clunky boots, dozens of pullovers, even an old army jacket with the peace sign hand-drawn on its back in black Magic Marker.

  A guitar case stood alone in a corner, propped wide open to display its torn purple plush lining, as if to mock the searchers it knew would be coming.

  The bureau was so old it had glass pulls on the drawers. It was nearly full, all neatly arranged—underwear, pajamas, T-shirts, socks.

  I moved over to the bay window, checked it out. The large center portion was fixed in place, but the smaller panes of glass on either side could be opened by a little crank. I turned one experimentally. The opening was big enough to let someone in. Or out. I looked down. It was maybe a fifteen-foot drop into a lush pad of grass surrounded by trees. The backyard had no fence.

  “The garage is on the other side of the house from here?” I asked.

  “Yes. It’s attached. With an apartment over it.”

  “Apartment? You have a tenant?”

  “Oh no,” she said, as if I had asked her if they kept space aliens in the attic. “Kevin uses it for a studio. Like a home office.”

  “Hmmm . . .” I muttered, to give her the impression that I was working on a thread. I walked out of Rose’s room, got down on one knee, took a sight line to the bay window, nodding to myself.

  “What are you—?”

  “What’s down the hall?” I interrupted her.

  “That way? Just Daisy’s room and a guest room. Our room, our bedroom, I mean, and Kevin’s den, and . . . well, there’s a whole separate section, but it’s on the other side of the stairs as you go up.”

  “Is there a side door off this floor?” I asked, moving down the hall, trailing my conversation behind me.

  “No. There’s only the staircase. The way we came up,” she said, not quite catching up to me, but staying pretty close. By then, I’d reached the end of the hall and gotten what I wanted—a glance into Daisy’s room. It looked like someone had been searching for a lost coin, using a backhoe. I made my way back to Rose’s room, rubbing my chin like I was contemplating something.

  “Would you mind leaving me alone up here for a while?” I asked the woman. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. “It’s going to sound silly,” I said, apologetically, “but I like to get a . . . sense of the place where the . . . person involved lived. I’m no psychic or anything, but, sometimes, I can pick up a clue to the person’s essence.”

  “I don’t see why I can’t—”

  “Oh, you’re welcome to stay,” I lied. “You just have to keep perfectly still, all right?”

  I turned my back on her, sat down on the woven-rag rug in the middle of the room, threw my legs into a reasonable approximation of the lotus position, and closed my eyes.

  It took her less than five minutes to clear out. I kept my eyes closed, waiting. I didn’t know how much time I’d have until her husband showed up. Or even if my hunch would play out.

  “What are you doing?” the voice said.

  “I’m looking for Rose,” I told Daisy.

  “How can you look for anything with your eyes closed?”

  “I think you know,” I told her.

  “You’re weird,” she said.

  I sat quietly, counting to a hundred in my head. Then I asked, “Do you write songs, too, Daisy?”

  I felt the disruption of air as she ran out of the room.

  When I was sure Daisy wouldn’t be coming back, I got up and went over to the telephone. On first inspection, it had looked old, but the wiring turned out to be modern. And the modular jack housed a splitter, so Rose could choose between the Internet and a regular call off a single line. The line itself was at least a dozen feet long, neatly folded over and held together by a plastic twist-tie. I measured with my eye. Yeah, it could reach the be
d, easily.

  I picked up the phone, pulled one of the comics out of the middle of the pile underneath it, and stuffed it into my jacket.

  Rose’s bathroom was as immaculately organized as her bedroom. And sparkling clean. But it was a beat off—something . . . dishonest about it. I prowled the medicine cabinet and the flush-mounted linen closet. Slowly, the way you do when you’re looking for what isn’t there.

  I didn’t expect Luvox and Lithium, or lamb-placenta rejuvenation face cream, any more than I expected a plastic-wrapped pistol in the toilet tank. But no anti-acne stuff? No aspirin? No shampoo or conditioner in the shower, either. The sink was ancient white enamel, heavily chipped. It was set into the top of a wood cabinet. I knelt, opened the cabinet. Lots of cleaning supplies, but no toilet paper.

  And no matter where I looked, I couldn’t find a single box of napkins, pads, tampons . . . nothing.

  I went back into the bedroom, looking for two things. When I couldn’t find the backpack, I figured I knew where the other thing was, too.

  I came downstairs and spent the next hour or so listening to the woman ramble on about not much of anything. Her chemical eyes were a little more toxic than before, but her speech was as flat and unemotional as it had been from the beginning.

  Daisy stuck her head around the corner twice, but darted away each time I shifted position.

  I was glancing out the front window when a burgundy Volvo P1800 pulled up. It must have been thirty years old, but it sparkled like a new jewel, even in the evening’s soft light. As the driver waited for the garage door to open, I could see the little Volvo had the squared-off, mostly glass back that turned the close-coupled coupe into a ministation wagon. Maybe the husband liked his toys practical.

  He was inside the living room in a minute, reaching down to shake hands with me. Tall and thin, with a thick mop of shaggy brown hair and a heavy mustache. Not one thing about his appearance disappointed me until he turned his head to say something to his wife and I noticed he wasn’t sporting an earring.

  “She told us she was sleeping over at her friend Jennifer Dryslan’s house,” he told me. “That was a Friday night, the first weekend after school let out for the summer. We didn’t expect to see her until sometime Sunday evening.”