by Gerry Boyle
There was a pause. He grunted.
“Is your mother home?”
“No, she’s out.”
“How ’bout your . . .”
I stumbled. Dad? Stepfather? I liked it better in the days of the traditional nuclear family.
“How ’bout Bobby? Has he been back?”
“No,” Stephen murmured.
Then stopped.
Poise himself. Maybe I should have inquired about his ammo supply. I wasn’t sure what to say, didn’t know how much he knew.
“Listen, Stephen,” I began. “I’m in Valley. I just wanted to let your mother know that. I just thought I’d—”
“What’re you doing there?” he blurted.
“Well, I thought I’d see if he’d been arrested or something down here. Hurt or something. I tried over the phone, but it—”
“So you’re down there?”
He sounded anxious, upset. Maybe he hadn’t known. Maybe I was bringing bad news, or at least foreshadowing it.
“Yeah,” I said. “I thought I’d look around. See if anybody had seen him. I thought I’d talk to the newspaper people down here, see if—”
“Jesus,” Stephen said.
And he hung up.
I sat there with the phone in my hand. “Whoa,” I said. “What’s his problem?”
“Was he upset?” Clair said, sitting back in a chair, beer on his lap.
“I don’t know. I guess. I don’t know. He seemed surprised to hear I was in Valley. And when I was telling him what I was going to do, ask around a little, all that, he just said, ‘Jesus,’ and hung up.”
Clair sipped his beer.
“Maybe he thinks the only news from down here would be bad news.”
“Maybe he didn’t know Bobby was down here at all,” I said.
“Maybe you should call back.”
I did. The phone rang twice. Melanie answered.
“Hi,” I said. “I think I upset Stephen.”
“Where are you?”
She sounded tense.
“Valley. The Route 293 Motel. I tried getting answers over the phone, but kept getting put on hold, so I zipped down.”
“So what are you going to do?”
You’re welcome, I thought.
“Ask around some. I talked to some cops already but they haven’t seen him down here. Not that they know of.”
“What are you gonna do now?”
Jeez, I thought. Is it okay if I go to the bathroom?
“I don’t know. I’ll probably stop by the paper in the morning. Try to talk to the police reporter. Wander around some, I guess. Get somebody to ask around for me. Who would Bobby see if he was down here? Relatives? Old friends?”
“There’s nobody,” Melanie said flatly.
“Nobody? How long did you guys live here?”
“Long enough. When we left we burned up the bridges behind us.”
“All of them?”
“Some of ’em we didn’t want.”
“What do you mean? You got chased out of here?”
“Something like that, I guess. I mean, we didn’t leave our address.”
“And Coyote?”
“He didn’t, either,” Melanie said.
“So have things cooled down or what?”
“I don’t know. I guess a lot of the people from back then are dead. Or in jail.”
“What about the guy Bobby left with? Was he from the old days?”
Melanie hesitated.
“I hope not,” she said.
Downtown was a half-mile from the motel as the crow would have flown had there been any in Valley. For us, half lost, circling in the dark, it was a couple of miles, and then we pulled up on the main drag. There was a restaurant, Restaurante Dominica, just behind us, between a bank and a department store. Clair locked the truck and we walked back. I was reading the menu in the window when Clair tried the door. It was locked.
“Must be a lunch-hour place,” Clair said.
“It sounded good,” I said.
We kept walking.
There was a Christian Science Reading Room, but that was closed, too. Another bank, then a storefront display of the Valley mills in their heyday. Sepia photographs of poker-faced young women in front of long rows of spinning machines. Poker-faced guys with mustaches, standing beside the women.
“There must be a museum in this place,” Clair said.
“We’ll find it tomorrow. I’m starved.”
So we walked down the block, then took a left. Walked down that side street and took a right. A sign way down the block said PHNOM PENH GARDENS.
“Yes,” we said in unison.
Phnom Penh Gardens was open. Better than that, it was almost empty. We had three hovering waiters, all young men, none of whom spoke much English. I counted five more people in the kitchen.
“How does a place like this support so many people?” I said.
“They don’t have American expectations.”
“A lot of money?”
“For very little work, in the shortest possible amount of time,” Clair said.
“You think they’ll catch on?”
“The ones who do join gangs.”
“Trade in their Old World values for new ones,” I said.
“Everybody else has,” Clair said.
Dinner was hot-pot vegetables, simmering in electric cook-pots on the table, with raw seafood on the side. We cooked the shrimp and scallops, mussels and clams, holding them in the steaming broth. It was very good and the beer was cold. I noticed that Clair handled chopsticks as well as he handled a chain saw, which was very well.
“You look like you’ve done this before,” I said.
“I loved Asia. In peacetime, it’s paradise.”
“And in war?”
“It’s like every other place in war.”
We ate with purpose, then drank tea as the waiters stood around us like servants in livery. The one who spoke the most English told us to have a nice night. I thanked him and paid the bill. Clair left a big tip.
“Sign of a tourist,” I said.
“Industry should be rewarded,” he said.
Outside, it was quiet and dark, but on the next block there were lights and people on the sidewalk.
“Let’s see what’s down there,” I said.
Clair nodded and we walked. The lights turned out to be bars, one on our side of the street, two on the other. As we got closer, I could see that the people on the sidewalk weren’t directly outside the bars, but a little distance away, walking, leaning against the brick walls. Cars passed and they moved to the edge of the street.
I could see they were mostly women.
“The red light district,” Clair said.
“I think I’ll try to talk to them.”
“Talking doesn’t pay their bills.”
“Their bills are for heroin and cocaine,” I said. “They never get paid.”
We slowed as we approached. Two women leaning against the wall looked at us warily. A guy was leaning against the door of an idling Toyota. The Toyota had fancy wheels and blacked-out windows. The driver was a shadow in the seat. The guy who was leaning gave us a long look, then turned back to his conversation. I felt like a conventioneer stepping out.
“You boys need a date,” a woman said, coming from one of the doorways.
She was small and young, dressed in red heels and a black skirt that was very short and was not real leather. Her sweater was white and fuzzy and barely buttoned.
I tried to look paternal.
“You could get hypothermia out here dressed like that,” I said.
“You know what you could get?”
Her accent was city. She came close and took hold of my arm. Her hair was dyed an odd shade of orange. Her face was clumsily made up, so she looked like a little girl playing dress-up. She might have been pretty, but, between the red stuff on her cheeks and the red stuff on her lips, was sallow junkie pallor.
“You guys have a car?�
� she said. “We got a two-for-one special I think you’d like.”
I shook my head. Clair was on my left, closer to the street. His face was full of pity.
“No, we’re just walking,” I said. “But I do have a question for you.”
She sidled closer.
“You want to talk,” she breathed huskily. “I’m good at talking. Ten minutes. Twenty bucks.”
“I’d like to talk to you, but that’s not—”
“I make that phone stuff look like baby talk, I’m telling you.”
“I’m sure,” I said, “But I’m looking for somebody. A buddy of mine. His name’s Bobby. Maybe you’ve seen him. You or one of your friends.”
“Maybe,” the woman said.
She held out a hand with long red nails, palm up.
“Talk’s talk,” she said
I hesitated, then took out my wallet and slipped out a twenty. I put it in her hand and it disappeared inside the waistband of her skirt.
“His name’s Bobby Mullaney,” I said. “He’s about my height, a little skinnier. Dark curly hair, talks a mile a minute. He’s from Maine.”
The woman shrugged. Another woman, who had been watching our transaction, walked toward us. She was bigger, older, black hair and a short black dress.
“Your friend here, he need a date, too?”
Clair shook his head slowly. The woman went to him to try the next phase of persuasion. He stood there, impassive and immobile, probably thinking about his daughter.
My friend still had me by the arm.
“You heard of him? Bobby Mullaney?”
“Uh-uh.”
“I’ll give you another twenty if you walk along here and ask these people.”
She looked doubtful.
“Come on. Twenty bucks for two minutes. Think of what you have to do normally to make forty dollars.”
“I don’t—”
“And he may be with a guy named Coyote. Really tall and thin. Long hair down his back. Black, black eyes. Says he’s an Indian. Real spooky-looking.”
I took out a ten and held it out. Her hand came up and snatched it like a frog snagging a fly.
“Ten more if you look like you made a good effort.”
“I’ll be right back,” she said.
She moved up the sidewalk. The car still idled and the two guys were still talking. When the woman walked away, the guy outside the car stopped talking and looked at us. We looked back at him. Clair hadn’t blinked since we’d stopped.
With him as my backup, I walked over to the two men. I smiled and said hello. They were young but not children. Handsome faces sharp as knives. Dark hair swept back to small tails. The guy in the car was wearing a football jacket and batting gloves. Cross-training. The guy closest to me was wearing a fatigue jacket and a baseball hat on backward.
They looked at me as though I hadn’t spoken.
“I’m looking for a guy,” I said.
No reaction.
“He’s from Maine. His name’s Bobby Mullaney. He may be with a guy named Coyote. Both around thirty. Bobby’s got curly hair, talks a lot. Coyote’s tall and skinny. Hair real long. Says he’s an Indian.”
They looked at me like I was a museum specimen, behind plate glass.
“I’m down here for the guy Bobby, his wife. She’s afraid he might get whacked.”
Two sets of eyes were fixed to mine. That much I knew.
“He left Lewiston, Maine, with a guy from Valley who does business up there. More than just a runner.”
The guy in the car moved his lips. I was getting through.
“If anybody’s seen these guys down here, I’d sure like to know, and so would Bobby’s wife. I’m sure she’d make it worth your while. She’s pretty worried. I’m staying at the Route 293 Motel. Jack McMorrow.”
I reached into my pocket. The guy in the car reached under the seat and back up before I could take out my pad. He had something in his lap and it wasn’t a map. And fifty bucks said the safety was off.
Very slowly, I wrote my name and Bobby’s name. Then I wrote the hotel name and phone number on the pad. Just as slowly, I extended the paper to the guy in the fatigue jacket.
He looked at me.
Looked at the paper.
It fluttered like a hankie. Fluttered again and then just hung there.
He took it.
“Cop?” he said.
“Reporter.”
“Who’s that one?”
He looked toward Clair, who I sincerely hoped was still behind me.
“A friend.”
He looked at Clair and then back at me. The guy in the car was still as a mannequin.
“You guys are from Maine?”
“Yeah.”
“You must be nuts. Loco.”
“I don’t know. You get used to the winters. Mud season’s kind of a drag, and then there are the blackflies . . .”
I let it trail off. The fatigue guy looked at me as he slipped the paper inside his jacket pocket.
“You better watch your goddamn ass down here, man,” he said. “You just used up a big chunk of luck.”
He turned away and we did, too. The woman came back and said nobody had heard of Bobby Mullaney. She held out her hand and I put a ten in it. She asked if I was sure I didn’t want a date. I said I was, and took out my pad and wrote the names and number again. She took it and read it, which took her a long time, as if I’d written her a long letter. Then she stuck the paper in the front of her skirt and did a little gyration.
“You sure?”
“I’m sure,” I said.
We walked up the block to the next intersection, where cars were crossing and we stopped.
“I’m impressed,” Clair said.
“Reporters in New York talk to people like that every day. Alone.”
“No, I mean how you memorized the phone number of the motel.”
He grinned.
“Superior intellect,” I said.
“This guy’s wife really putting up money?”
“I made that part up.”
“Smart. You think this direct approach’ll work?”
“I don’t know. It’s really a pretty small place. We do this a few times and the word will get around.”
“And then what?”
“I don’t know. If that doesn’t work maybe we could get one of those planes that tow the signs behind them. ‘Seen Bobby Mullaney? Call 677-7866.’ ”
“How ’bout milk cartons?”
“That’s good. And posters on all the telephone poles.”
“Maybe Bobby would see them,” Clair said.
The cars passed. We stepped out.
“Oh, yeah. I guess I keep forgetting that he could be out there.”
“Alive,” he said.
We walked up two blocks, over one. On that block was another tavern with several cars parked outside. Across the street, a half-dozen women stood. We approached and were received just as warmly as before. Different faces. Same misery.
A blonde white woman wearing a long black leatherette coat latched on to me and I gave her my pitch. She opened the coat to show me she was wearing only underwear, and when I still didn’t bite, she grudgingly took my ten dollars and went to ask her colleagues my question.
The woman stopped at each woman. A couple, she queried two at a time. At the far end of the sidewalk, I couldn’t hear what she was saying. I saw heads shake no. Then she made her way back, still walking her swinging, hooker’s walk.
As she drew closer to us, she stopped at a woman she’d already polled once. I heard the woman say, “Cops?”
Our woman said, “Nah.” Then said something quickly in Spanish. I caught the words “Mullaney” and “Maine.”
“El indio?” the other woman said. Her voice became almost angry. Or afraid.
“No indio. No, no,” and she gave the first woman a little shove and hurried away.
I started after her.
And headlights came on.
The
y glared from the end of the block, beyond the women. The women turned to look and then lights came on behind us and they were hurtling forward and a loudspeaker voice was saying, “Police. Stay where you are.”
“The other ten, quick,” the woman said.
I had it in my hand and I put it in hers as a spotlight lit the sidewalk.
“You,” a voice said. “Hold it right there.”
The woman scuttled away on her heels. Across the street, a guy had his hands on a car roof, a cop in a blue raid jacket already patting him down. More headlights were coming down the block. I saw the paddy wagon come around the corner. Two cops were coming toward us.
“Which one?” they called back to the car.
“The younger guy. Soliciting. Saw cash.”
“Damn,” I said.
“John law,” Clair said.
“Okay, Jack,” one of the cops said. “Put your hands on that wall there and spread ’em.”
I did.
“What’s your name, sir?” he asked, patting me down.
“Jack,” I said.
“Hey, you wanna play games? I’ll play games.”
“Play ’em by yourself,” I said. “My name’s Jack McMorrow.”
19
The copy who frisked me put me in the back of an unmarked car. The women went in the black-and-white van. Clair was halfway up the block on the way back to the truck when I went by in the car. He looked calm and not the least bit surprised.
That made one of us.
My hands were handcuffed behind me and I was belted in. It was a different cop and he drove fast, whistling softly to himself.
“Where you from, sir?” he said suddenly.
“Maine,” I said.
“Looking for a little action in the big city?”
He said it without judgment.
“No, I was looking for some information.”
“Oh, yeah. How’s that?”
“I’m a reporter. I’m trying to find a guy. He’s in the story I’m working on.”
“What’s his name?”
“Bobby Mullaney. Another guy named Coyote.”
“Don’t know any Coyote. You really a reporter?”
He said that without judgment, too.
“Yeah.”
“What paper?”
“Freelance. Doing a story for the Globe.”
“No kidding.”
“No, really.”
“Hey, I do a little writing myself. I’m taking a course at U Lowell. Expository writing. You do a lot of writing in this job, but most people, they don’t know that. They think you just ride around looking for bad guys, you know? But it’s a lot of desk work. Killer desk work. But this writing class—I think my reports are better already. I mean, I know what to put first and then second and so on. Before, I just sort of upchucked it all out there, you know what I mean?”