The Edge of Reason

by Melinda Snodgrass

  The man smiled out of the mirror at her. “Since the moment of your birth.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re very special to me … to us.”

  Rhiana scuttled back a few feet. “You’re with them,” she accused.

  “I might say the same of you.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Nothing very fearsome. To take you to dinner. To get to know you. That’s all.”

  “No!” She fled toward the door.

  “You know how you used to think you were special?” he called after her. “Well, you are, Rhiana. More special than you know. I can tell you why. Let me know when you’re ready.”

  Letters and words sprang to life on the computer screen as Richard swiftly typed. On his left Snyder was laboriously hunting and pecking as he also wrote a report. Snyder caught Richard’s gaze and glared. Richard quickly looked back at his screen. It seemed like everything he did, everything he was, annoyed his fellow officers.

  A large, warm hand clapped onto his shoulder as a folder slapped onto the desk next to him.

  “Nice work,” said Weber.

  “It wasn’t precisely complex,” Richard replied, and tried to stifle the tingle of pride and accomplishment engendered by Weber’s words. “Once his mother realized he was in more danger from the victim’s friends than from us she told me where to find him.”

  “Didn’t hurt that you speak Spanish.”

  “And maybe when he catches a real case we’ll find out if he knows fuck-all about being a detective as opposed to all this chichi, Miss America talent competition shit,” grunted Snyder.

  Richard felt himself flush, but Weber’s face suffused with blood. He looked on the verge of a stroke. Richard laid a hand on the older man’s wrist, a feather touch, begging him not to make it worse. Weber shut his mouth, took a few deep breaths.

  Richard examined his options. Having Weber fight his battles would be the worst, but letting Synder’s remark pass without reaction wouldn’t be much better. Sometimes you had to hit back before a bully would stop. Richard had learned that lesson on a succession of playgrounds and locker rooms. His small size and handsome face had made him an irresistible target.

  “Well maybe one of my chichi talents can help you out.” He gave Snyder a thin smile. “I can touch type. Let me know when you want me to teach you.”

  Hitting the print button, Richard rolled back his chair. The hilt of the sword dug into his back, a reminder of the two worlds he now inhabited. Standing, he walked over to the communal printer. Weber joined him.

  “Showing some teeth, little man. About damn time, but what’s gotten into you?”

  “I’m tired. There are five violent crimes detectives now that I’ve been promoted, but I seem to be catching every boring, pissant case.”

  “Gee.” Weber laid a finger against his temple. “Huh, I wonder why that might be?”

  “I won’t quit.”

  “Another big surprise.” The lieutenant’s expression became serious. “You keep clearing cases at this rate, and believe me the game is going to pall. Eventually the other guys are going to realize that their solve rates look like shit and all they’re doing is making you the golden boy. Hang in there. It won’t go on much longer. Want to get some lunch?”

  “I want to stop by the hospital and see how Charlie … Father Fish is doing.”

  “No reason we can’t do both,” Weber said. “Is he any better?”

  “Still in a light coma. They keep saying that’s encouraging. I wish I could believe them.”

  Gathering up his report, Richard signed it, but before they could leave Ortiz came out of his office, head craning as he looked across the squad room. His gaze fell on Richard.

  “Oort, where’s your partner?”

  “Out sick today, sir.”

  “I can ride with him,” Weber offered.

  “Snyder’s free,” Ortiz mused.

  “Nah, let me go,” Weber said. “What have you got?”

  “Missing kid. Maybe a snatch. Down at the McDonald’s on Isleta.”

  They didn’t ask for further elaboration. They went.

  “Ow! Shit, shit, shit, shit,” Rhiana muttered as the power arced from the Tarot cards blistering her fingertips.

  “Those would be the ones.” Cross nodded with approval and picked up the Tarot deck. Kenntnis was out of town, but they were under standing orders to patrol for incursions whenever the shattered god was in one piece. Since they had to limit the search in some way, absent any specific instructions from Kenntnis, they trawled through occult, New Age, and religious stores. This was the first time they’d gotten a hit.

  Rhiana, sucking on her burned fingers, glared at him. The shop was in a converted house just off Central Avenue in the University area. Heavy curtains blocked out the winter sun. Light was provided by horn lanterns wired for electricity. Incense hung heavy and cloying in the overheated air. The dominant feature was cases and cases of books on the occult, but there was also a section for magical paraphernalia—crystals, athames, Tarot decks, incense burners and jewelry.

  They went up to the counter to pay for the cards. The owner of the Crystal Eye Mystic Book Store was a heavyset young woman dressed in jeans and a baggy sweatshirt. Tumbling curls of beautiful auburn hair framed her pale, bloated face. She had the sulky expression of one who’s been disappointed by life.

  Rhiana wondered if the girl blessed or cursed her one beauty? Would it have been easier to simply be plain and have no expectations? Or had the hair led her to need to be special, to be magic?

  “You ever use this deck?” Cross asked, casually wagging the cards in the air.

  “Yeah, I test them all out. See which ones really spark for me. They’re all different, you know. Some manufacturers are just hacks. There’s no pride in the work, it’s just about money. These cards seemed to really be keyed in.”

  “Cool,” said Cross.

  Out on the sidewalk Cross shoved the Tarot deck into Rhiana’s coat pocket, and looked back at the building. “That gal’s got some mojo. We need to get her neutralized without getting Richard arrested for assault. Otherwise she’s just going to keep on powering decks.” He started to walk away. Rhiana got in front of him.

  “Since you see magic, would it have strained you to give me a heads-up? Or was it just more fun to let me get burned?” Her voice shook with anger.

  Cross stared down at her. His eyes didn’t seem very human. Rhiana forced herself to hold the stare. “You needed the reminder.”

  Rhiana took two running steps and caught up. “Reminder of what?” The homeless god didn’t answer. “You just wanted to see me get hurt. You don’t like me, do you?”

  Cross stopped so abruptly that Rhiana, unable to react quickly enough, walked on for several feet. She swung back and met the brunt of the blunt answer.

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Why? What have I ever done to you?”

  “I know what you are,” he said cryptically and walked on.

  Rhiana stared hard at his back, fingered the pennies in her pocket, swallowed the ache in her throat, and prayed for him to shatter into a thousand pieces and never get back together again.

  Chapter EIGHTEEN

  The slowly spinning lights on a couple of patrol cars marked the location, which was good because the McDonald’s was missing the usual golden arches. It had been designed to meet zoning regulations requiring architectural sensitivity to historical style. That meant it looked like a runaway pueblo set among the rundown stucco and metal buildings to either side. One held a custom body shop specializing in turning your wheels into a primo low rider. The howl of tortured metal echoed over the traffic noise from Isleta Boulevard. On the other side was a check-cashing service. Richard hated them; they were a racket designed to prey on the poor.

  In the parking lot the odor of grease, fries, and that peculiar boiled meat smell of McDonald’s burgers was strong enough to defeat the blast of exhaust from the passing cars.

&n
bsp; The uniforms were gathered in the outdoor play area, and cultural sensitivity hadn’t extended there. It held the usual garish plastic and metal maze. It squatted on a high platform supported by thick steel pipes that could double as a jungle gym. Green, red, blue, orange and purple plastic tubes punctuated with globes snaked down from the central body, creating the impression that a psychedelic octopus had washed up to die incongruously in the New Mexico desert.

  There were three round concrete tables with benches. Underfoot the dirt was covered with rubberized outdoor carpet. The playground was surrounded by a high wrought-iron fence with mesh wire between the posts. Hamburger wrappers and squeezed ketchup packets had blown up against the eastern side. It had all the charm of an exercise yard in a prison. There was a gate set in the fence. Weber and Richard chose to enter through that rather than walk through the restaurant. Curious faces peered through the windows facing out on the playground with expressions of mingled fear and excitement. Everyone loves a tragedy as long as it’s not theirs, Richard thought.

  A distraught young Hispanic woman dressed in a shabby sweat suit slumped on a concrete bench at one of the tables. She had a Madonna’s face atop a deep-bosomed, wide-hipped body. The rich brown tones of her skin were blotched from crying.

  “I’m telling you! I was here the whole time! I didn’t go away. I wouldn’t leave Miguel! Why don’t you listen to me!” And she went off in a torrent of Spanish.

  “Do I want a translation?” Weber asked.

  “No,” said Richard.

  They walked up and flashed their shields. One of the uniforms joined them. He was a heavyset Anglo man whose buzz cut suggested that cop was a second career and the first had been the military. His name tag read KOPEK. He hitched up his belt and glanced back at the young woman. The look wasn’t kind.

  “What have we got?” Weber asked.

  The uniform flipped open his notebook. “Miguel Rodriquez, age three. Wearing a Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt, jeans and tennis shoes. He was out here playin’ in the maze. She …” Another disgusted glance. “Says he went in and never came out. I think she went inside to pack on another Quarter Pounder with fries and some creep grabbed the kid.”

  Perhaps it was the sniping from Snyder that had reduced his tolerance, but Richard found the insensitivity of the cop’s remark breaking through his usual polite reserve. “Why, thank you for that insight,” Richard drawled. He glanced up at Weber. “I guess we don’t need to ask any questions now. Shall we go on to lunch?”

  Weber laid a quelling hand on Richard’s shoulder. “What’s her name?”

  “Maria Rodriquez,” the uniform answered.

  “What’s the word on the dad? Any chance this is a custody snatch?” Weber asked.

  “Unwed mother, big surprise,” Kopek grunted.

  “Do we know for certain he’s not in the maze?” Richard asked, disliking Kopek more and more with each word out of his mouth.

  “You hear a kid cryin’ in there? If he was stuck we’d fuckin’ know it. It’s been an hour and a half since he’s gone missing according to the mother.”

  “So in fact you haven’t checked,” Richard demanded.

  “You want to go crawl through it and check, detective? ’Course you’re about the right size,” Kopek grunted, thrusting out his chin and chest, daring Richard to react.

  Weber sighed and interposed himself between Richard and Kopek. “Okay, we’ll take it from here.” They walked away toward the woman.

  “What a … ,” Richard struggled with himself.

  “Oh, go ahead, Richard, say it,” Weber urged.

  “Prick. Racist prick,” Richard added thinly.

  “Yeah, but remember those guys are usually first on the scene. You want them working with you, not against you.”

  “I know, I know,” Richard said. They reached the young mother.

  Maria Rodriquez’s hands were tightly clenched. Richard saw the tatters of a tear and snot-soaked napkin in her hand. He pulled out his handkerchief and gave it to her. On the table behind her were the half-eaten remains of a Happy Meal. It was poignant and depressing.

  “Do we need an Amber alert?” Richard asked Weber quietly.

  “Too early to tell. Let’s ask a few questions first.”

  The woman’s dark eyes darted back and forth between them. “He’s here! I swear he’s here. I didn’t leave him. I didn’t!”

  Weber held up his hands and patted the air in a soothing gesture. “Okay, okay, ma’am. We understand you didn’t leave the playground.”

  “That’s right,” Rodriquez said. She relaxed a bit with the indication that she might actually be believed.

  “But maybe you got distracted … you talked to somebody or you were focusing on your food, and you took your eye off him for a few minutes,” Weber suggested.

  “No! He wanted me to watch him climb inside. Last week he was scared and some other kid made fun of him. So this time he was going to do it.” Her voice had the musical cadences of her distant Spanish ancestors. “He was real proud when he went in. He turned around and smiled and waved to me. I told him how brave he was. I watched his little feet as he climbed farther up.” Her voice broke and she mopped at the sudden stream of tears with the handkerchief. She threw back her magnificent mane of black hair, cleared her throat and began again. “So I waited. I thought I’d see him in some of those little window things.” She indicated the gray plastic portholes and one large bulge set in the side of the squat body of the maze as if the octopus were in the process of ingesting a bathyscaphe. “But I never saw him. I waited for awhile and then I went over and called. He didn’t answer, and he didn’t come out, and that’s the truth.”

  Weber glanced over at Richard and raised his eyebrows. When you’re a cop you get an instinct when somebody is laying a story on you. This didn’t sound like a story. The problem was, it didn’t make any sense.

  “And no one’s been in?” Richard asked.

  “Well, I won’t fit.” She laid her hands self-consciously on her wide hips. “But one of the clerks, she’s a little thing, she went in.”

  Richard glanced over at Kopek. “Would have been nice of him to mention that.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Weber said, driving home the lesson. Richard knew he probably deserved it, but it stung nonetheless. “Go, find her and talk to her,” Weber ordered. Richard went.

  Inside the restaurant, curiosity had a few people edging close but most stayed away. He was an Anglo cop and in this neighborhood their experiences with Anglo cops had probably not been great. He called out, “Which one of you went in the maze?” A tiny Hispanic girl in her late teens raised her hand. She was behind the service counter and wore the McDonald’s uniform. Richard took her over to one of the pre-formed, bolted-down tables and they sat. There was a blot of ketchup on the table. He used a napkin to wipe it clean and then leaned forward, resting his arms on the table.

  “Could you tell me what happened?”

  “Well, this lady comes in and she’s all excited, yelling about how her little boy is lost in the maze. The manager, he tells her how a lot of kids like to tease their moms, but she’s not having any of it. She’s yellin’ louder and wavin’ her hands around, so he sends me out to look.”

  “And,” Richard prompted.

  “He wasn’t in there, and I went through the whole thing.”

  Depressed, he walked back out to the playground. Maria Rodriquez seemed so sincere, and he hated to think his instincts were that far wrong.

  Weber was continuing his questioning, taking different angles, but no matter what he tried the story stayed the same. Richard waited for a natural break, then pulled his boss aside and repeated the clerk’s story.

  “So that’s it, then.” Weber flipped closed his notebook. “Now we call the Amber alert.”

  “Let me check in the maze.” Richard started toward it. Weber’s hand fell hard on his shoulder, stopping him cold.

  “No.” He jerked his head toward th
e uniforms. “Now, you can bet Kopek has been busy bragging to his partner about how he put the gold shield in his place, and since we’re a small department everybody knows you’re the new kid. After the crack Kopek made you can’t go in there. It will be all over APD by shift change, and you can’t afford to get humiliated.” Weber sensed his hesitation and reluctance. “What?”

  Frowning, Richard scanned the maze. “I don’t know, this just feels … hinky. Like something out of Kenntnis’s world.”

  “You got anything more than a feeling?”

  Richard shook his head, frustrated that Weber sounded so much like Kenntnis. It made him feel gauche and young and inexperienced. He could accept the inexperienced, but not all three.

  “Okay,” Richard finally said and knew he sounded churlish.

  They returned to Rodriquez. “Ma’am,” Weber said, “we’re going to need a picture of Miguel. We’ ll get it up on the TV.”

  “Why? He’s in there!” Her voice rose and she pointed a shaking hand at the maze.

  Weber put a hand under her arm. “Come on now. These gentlemen are going to take you downtown and you’re going to give us all the particulars.”

  Hands flailing, she beat at Weber’s chest and face. “No, no, he’ll hear me. He’ll come back to me.”

  “Ma’am, ma’am.” Richard caught one of her hands, only to be shoved aside as Kopek and his partner ran over and grabbed the distraught woman.

  “Go easy, guys, she didn’t hurt me and she’s upset,” Weber said.

  All the fight went out of Rodriquez and her knees buckled. Her shrieking sobs accompanied the trio across the parking lot to the squad car.

  Weber sighed. “Let’s get started. It’s going to be a long afternoon. Sorry about visiting the father.”

  “That’s okay, I think Father Fish would understand.”

  But Richard took one more long look back at the maze before hurrying after Weber.

  It was after nine p.m. before Richard left headquarters. There had been a lot of calls, but none of them the right call. Miguel Rodriquez remained missing. Maria’s extended family turned up at six o’clock and took her back to her parents’ home. There they would hold vigil. Neighbors would come with food. Possibly the priest. This was a community that rallied to any crisis or catastrophe. In his three years with APD Richard had walked into many such vigils, where tall votive candles, their glass holders imprinted with an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, flickered in front of pictures of the Savior of the Bleeding Heart. Now that bleeding heart had a whole different meaning for Richard and he shuddered as he stepped into the parking lot.