by Tim Greaton
23
Lives Collide
Clay, a private detective specializing in missing person cases, stood in the bank line and waited for the older woman with the black faux-mink coat to finish with the bank clerk. He could tell the fur wasn’t real because he’d grown up next to one of the largest mink farms in Oklahoma, and at one time he might have recognized which litter a particular coat had come from. Though it had been nearly twenty years since then, he still knew that the fur this woman wore had been spun from a cotton-silk combination, probably overseas. It wasn’t that he agreed with wearing fur, but he never understood those people who wanted to look like they were wearing fur. Either you did or didn’t. Why pretend?
“Thank you, Ma’am,” the young redheaded teller said as the elderly woman ambled away.
The woman’s rude lack of a response didn’t seem to bother the young woman as she turned to Clay with a smile. She had two prominent freckles at the tip of her nose, one just a little higher than the other.
“Can I help you, sir?”
“That’d be great, miss,” he said. He had remembered earlier to take off his cowboy hat, but now it was in the wrong hand. He shuffled it to the left hand so that he could reach his right hand into the breast pocket of his suit jacket. He stepped forward, his boot heels clicking loudly on the marble floor, and slid the check and his deposit slip over to the teller.
She examined the check, looked up at him, and then repeated the motion, several times.
Used to this, he smiled and, after shuffling the hat again, reached into his pants pocket for his wallet. He propped the hat with his knee against the counter and used both hands to pull out his Oklahoma driver’s license, which he slid it over to her.
Her head bobbed up and down a couple more times while she compared his license photo to his own face. She shrugged cutely and smiled.
“I’m sorry, sir, but the manager has to approve this.”
“No problem,” Clay responded as the teller moved to a counter a few feet away and picked up a phone. He was used to this part, too. At one time bankers only worried when you took money out of their banks, but now it seemed they were just as concerned when you put it in. Of course, it probably wasn’t every day that an out-of-state customer wanted to deposit a hundred and twenty thousand dollar check. But that’s why he had opened an account at one of the national banks. He figured he’d be able to make his deposits anytime, no matter where in the country he happened to be. Even so, it hadn’t changed the song and dance he had to go through each time. Patience wasn’t just a virtue, sometimes it was a learned skill. He fingered his hat while he waited.
“Good morning, Mr. Gromkis,” a heavy-set man with a suit approaching him from the lobby side only moments after the attractive teller had hung up the phone. He reached out and shook Clay’s hand with what felt like a clammy dead fish. His smile was equally unsettling as one of his upper teeth seemed to be twice the size of any of the others. “I’m Tom Winthrop, the Branch Manager. I apologize for the inconvenience, but it will take us a few minutes to verify your deposit. On a positive note, these security measures are the same ones that allow us to keep your monies safe.”
Clay forced a smile and nodded. He’d heard this line, or a variation of it, a dozen times in the last two years.
“I understand.” He handed the manager a business card from his home branch in Oklahoma. “It might help if you give that number a call. The manager at my home branch should be able to clarify any of your questions.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Gromkis, but we also have the issue of insurance. You understand that your deposit puts your account past the limits of the FDIC coverage we can provide for you. We, of course, could arrange private insurance coverage for the difference.”
“Whatever you think is best would be fine, but I think my portfolio insurance with your company should cover it. I’ll wait here while you work out the details. ”
“Very good, Mr. Gromkis,” the manager said. “Again, I’m very sorry for the inconvenience.”
Even with Donna’s direct number, it took about fifteen minutes for them to finish with the deposit. Clay used the time well and made sure he had the teller’s phone number before he left. He hoped to spend a few days in town, and she had a pretty smile. He whistled as he slid into the front seat of his classic silver Corvette. He’d long-since learned to turn the music off before he got out of the car so heard his cell phone ring just as he settled into the seat.
The display screen said the call was from a restaurant in Boston. He didn’t know anybody in Boston, but these days his name did tend to get around. He did a mental calculation of distance from his location in Daytona Beach to Boston. With a few hours layover for sleep, he should be able to make it in about twenty hours. So much for the pretty girl with two freckles, he thought, as he picked up the phone.
“Clay Gromkis.”
“Mr. Gromkis, can you help?” a frantic woman’s voice said. “It’s my son, Jesse. He’s been kidnapped.”
I didn’t see Uncle Finneus for nearly four months after he had gone to save Vicky. I had actually begun to worry that one of the other fallen characters from my extended family might have bested him down below. It wouldn’t have done them any good if they did, however, because I didn’t intend to open any new basement doors for anyone other than my Uncle Finneus. No matter how nice of a smile any shady grandfather this or dark grandmother that happened to have, they weren’t getting into my house. It would be Uncle Finneus or no one at all.
In those months following Vicky’s crisis, I found myself thinking more and more about life and about the options that only being back on Earth could offer. I desperately wanted to have another chance at running through forests, at having a dog and at growing up in a place filled with people my own age who wouldn’t disappear as quickly as they came. But I didn’t know if I could live with the risk of winding up back in Under-Heaven again. Of course, I knew everyone had to die at some time, but I wanted a chance at a full life. It didn’t seem fair that I had only been given nine years the first time around and there were no guarantees I’d even get that far the next time.
Jesse woke in the dark, lying on what felt like a blanket on a hard floor. In all his five years of life, he didn’t think he’d ever been anyplace so completely black. His head throbbed and when he moved his jaw it felt like something was shifting in his forehead. Could the horrible bear man have broken his head?
Jesse struggled to get to his feet but felt woozy and sat back down. He knew he had to do something but couldn’t think of what. Too dizzy to stand, he crawled on his hands and knees along the edges of what turned out to be a small room. The floor was concrete like his school cafeteria, and three of the four walls felt like bricks. The fourth wall was made of wood and had a door in it. Knowing it was dangerous but needing to try anyway, Jesse reached up and felt for the handle. He used it to pull himself upright. His head felt like it was being kicked from the inside, and he knew if he let go of the knob he’d fall.
The knob wouldn’t turn. It was locked.
Jesse slid back to the floor and crawled back to the blanket. He knew he should have been terrified, but right then his head hurt so badly he just wanted the pounding to stop. He settled onto his back and tried moving his mouth again. Each time he did, it felt like the bones above his eyebrows were grinding together. He wondered how many five-year-olds had died like this. As tears rolled down his swollen cheeks, Jesse prayed.
He prayed that his father would be okay.
“You don’t think it was the father?” Clay asked. “How can you be sure?”
“Wagner’s a screw up,” the weathered woman said, “but he wouldn’t do that. He loves Jesse as much as I do.”
She was young, maybe late twenties, but the years had not been easy ones. Already there were deep circles under her eyes, and her smile had the beginnings of age-creases. Her hair was a cross between dirty blond and brown, but grays were sprinkled at the temples. She wore a tight white
waitress uniform with a pink apron. Though her figure was slim, it seemed to Clay more likely a result of undernourishment than health-consciousness.
Clay set his pencil on the Formica counter and reached into his coat pocket. He rubbed at the pewter key chain his mother had given him many years before. The simple movement helped to slow his mind to a methodical pace. These interviews were the most important part of any investigation, and Clay had learned to take his time and be attentive. Though there were dozens of veteran detectives at the Oklahoma Police Department when he left, nearly every major case had been given to him, especially the ones that effected the department’s reputation the most. Not only had Clay learned how to solve the majority of his cases, he somehow managed to do it while still playing by the rules. Unlike some detectives he could name but wouldn’t, Clay had never roughed up witnesses or dealt with questionable informants, and he had never even once created evidence to put a man in jail. Clay wasn’t always by the book, but he believed in the law, and had always been a good representative of it.
While she waited for him to say something, Clay watched her hands quiver. She didn’t seem to be on drugs, an assumption he based largely on her logical, even if uneducated, answers to his questions. No, he guessed the trembling came from a genuine fear for her son. He felt certain she was in no way involved. And, as an extension, Clay felt it was unlikely the husband was either. Fathers could be fooled, but mothers usually had an instinct for that sort of thing. Clay also felt certain she wasn’t hiding anything. This was clearly a woman who would have shared any information that might have helped bring her son home safely.
No, there was a responsible third party here, but it was too early to guess at who or why.
“You’re sure you don’t know how I can reach your husband?”
“I’m sure. I’ve looked everywhere. I called all of our friends and relatives. I called all of his friends, too. I even tried to locate his drug dealers.”
“He’s an addict?”
“I kicked him out of the house because I didn’t want Jesse around that stuff. Wagner tried, but it was obvious he couldn’t kick the habit. I even considered getting back together…for Jesse, but when those men burned his truck—”
She broke down into tears.
Clay had been doing this long enough to know emotions came with the job, and patience was about the only way to work through them. While she recovered, he surreptitiously looked over her arms for needle marks.
Nothing.
There were also no marks between her fingers or under her nails. Had her legs been visible, he would have casually glanced there as well. But he already felt confident there was nothing to find. This woman was not and probably had never been on drugs.
“When’s the last time you saw your husband?” he asked when it seemed polite.
Apparently, the tears had dislodged a tightly held guilt, because she suddenly blurted out, “I’m sorry Mr. Gromkis. I desperately need to get my son back but I don’t have any money to pay you! I never should have let you drive all this way—”
Again, the tears came.
He reached across the counter and laid a hand on her forearm.
“Mrs. Largess, it’s okay. We’ll worry about money later. Right now what’s important is finding your son.”
Through the tears came a look of wonderment.
“You’re still willing to help?”
“Of course.”
“Why? I mean…I’m so thankful, but why would you help me?” Probably thinking he had other payment methods in mind, she suddenly pulled away from him.
“I used to be a police officer, Mrs. Largess. I was a detective with the Oklahoma City Police Department and spent almost fifteen years chasing thieves, mobsters, and dirty politicians.” He purposefully didn’t mention murderers. “I left the department when I realized the crooks always seemed to get back on the streets and the politicians always got reelected.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When I find a child and bring him or her safely back home, I am accomplishing something.”
“But you can’t work for free, can you?”
“Not normally, no. But the truth is many of the parents I have helped are wealthy. They pay me well. Some of them actually keep paying me long after their children have returned home, just so that I can continue doing what I’m doing.”
He didn’t want to mention that his latest check had come from a man whose child he had found dead. Mr. Imodo had since committed to helping find other missing children before it was too late, and Clay was apparently at the top of his donor list. Now that he thought about it, Clay made a mental note to apprise Mr. Imodo’s secretary about this case when it was resolved.
“Are you sure?” she said.
He smiled. “I’m working for Jesse now, Mrs. Largess. I’m going to do everything possible to find him.”
“Can you?”
“Yes, I think I can.” Maybe it had just been the luck of the draw, but in the last two years he’d successfully found seventeen missing children.
It was unfortunate that less than half had still been alive.
Together, Grandma Clara and Nate watched as a new arrival purposefully strode up to nearly every soul in Under-Heaven. She had no angel relative at her side, which seemed odd, and she seemed intent on talking to everyone. The last few people she talked to pointed toward Nate’s house.
“I don’t like this,” Grandma Clara said as the young woman approached his front porch.
He guessed the woman to be about twenty. She was stunningly beautiful but her smile gave him the creeps. His reaction might have been, in part, because of her color. Her shoes were shiny black. Her long stockings had colorful stripes rising to her knees. Her skirt was bright pink and her sweater was dark blue. To top it all off, she had a pink ribbon in her dark hair. There was literally not a spot of white clothing on her.
“I’m going inside,” Grandma Clara said to Nate, “and so should you.”
Nate could see why she felt that way, but he’d grown used to making his own decisions in Under-Heaven. Though he had an instinctive negative reaction to this woman, he didn’t see how her colors could make her any more dangerous than his Uncle Finneus.
“Hi,” she said as she came uninvited up the stairs. She extended a hand, which he politely shook. “My name is Mary-Lou Evans,” she continued. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“I think it’s a pleasure to meet you, too,” Nate said. He had yet to be sure.
“Oh,” she said sweetly as she looked down at her own colorful attire. “I am a little loud for the neighborhood. Sorry about that.”
Nate knew that it wasn’t his place to share information with the dead—their angel relatives were supposed to take care of that—but this woman seemed more knowledgeable than most.
“You know what the colors mean?”
“Yes, a number of those fine souls explained the basics.” She waved absently toward the fountain where several dozen people had gathered to watch the legendary boy of Under-Heaven and the frighteningly colorful woman converse.
“You were murdered?” she said lightly, as though discussing nothing more serious than the weather.
Nate nodded. He glanced down at her blue sweater. No stains.
“Oh, not me,” she said. “I killed myself.” There was something almost perverse in her cheerful statement of something so gruesome.
“Why?” Nate blurted, but then he immediately regretted his rude response.
“Oh, to follow him.”
“Follow him?”
“My stepfather.”
“You followed your stepfather to Under-Heaven?”
She had a genuine smile that would have left most live boys in silent awe. Nate, however, had already sensed she was used to manipulating people with her looks. He remained cautious.
“Actually, I’m pretty sure he went to Hell. I’m going there next. I had a little killing to do before I left, but now it’s time I took ca
re of the man who started it all.” Again, she smiled.
I was immediately disgusted and knew I didn’t want to know any more. “Personification of evil” is a term I might have used as an older soul, but at that time I only knew she was utterly corrupt and happy about it.
“I’m sorry, Nate. It is Nate, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
“I probably shouldn’t have been quite so open about all this. You are a little…well, white.”
“That’s true enough,” my grandmother Clara said, reappearing on my porch. I felt her hand on my shoulder and was happy to have it there.
“I’m right that I shouldn’t have said it, or that he is white?” the woman asked mockingly.
“Both,” Grandma Clara responded.
The woman smiled sweetly.
“Isn’t it funny,” she said, “that an angel has a problem with my honesty?”
I’d been around long enough to know what sarcasm was. However, even including my Uncle Finneus, I don’t think I had ever heard anyone use it so acerbically. This woman could smile sweetly and make you feel as though you’d been spit on at the same time. Other than possibly the men who had killed my family, this woman scared me more than anyone I had ever met.
“Shouldn’t you be getting along now, young lady?” Grandma Clara said. “I believe your ride is about to arrive.”
“Really? That’s great!” The woman winked at my grandmother then focused her brilliant smile back on me. For some reason her cheerful grin now looked somehow deformed to me. I could easily have imagined worms crawling in and around her teeth.
“I’m sorry we didn’t have more time to get to know each other,” she purred. “I could have taught you so much.”
Grandma Clara stepped between the colorful visitor and me.
“I’m surprised you didn’t ask how I became so colorful, Nate,” the said.
I shook my head, instinctively knowing I’d heard enough. She had already admitted to killing someone.