Nobody's Child (The Jeri Howard Series Book 5)

by Janet Dawson

  “Other homeless people. Street punks, the small-time crooks who are in and out of the slammer. And kids. Teenagers who think nothing of bashing some guy with a baseball bat, just for the fun of it.” He shook his head again, this time in disgust.

  “The kids are the worst.”

  The voice came from my right. He’d been eavesdropping. Now he gave me a friendly smile, his teeth clean but uneven in a narrow, worn-out face. Lines gouged the roughened flesh on either side of a nose colored by the weather as well as broken capillaries. The whites around his pale blue eyes were also reddened. He was a few inches shorter than me, with a head of sandy graying hair that looked like he’d cut it himself with a pair of scissors. I guessed his body was as thin as his face, but it was hard to tell. Like many of the people I’d encountered today, he was swathed in several layers of clothing, trying to stay warm and dry on this cold rainy afternoon. He had what looked like an old military duffel bag tucked between his booted feet.

  “Kids will beat up on you just for pure meanness,” he continued. “I got rolled by three kids once. No more’n fourteen, fifteen years old. I was sleeping in a doorway on Haste Street. They hauled me out on the sidewalk, called me all kinda foul names, kicked me, took all the money I had. Now I’m real careful where I sleep.”

  “Couldn’t you get into a shelter?” I asked him.

  “I stay out of those shelters. They’re bad news.” His shoulders lifted in a shudder. “They’re dirty. I like to keep as clean as I can. There’s people in there with lice and TB and who knows what kinda diseases. Guys beating up on each other too. Me, I’d rather sleep outside. Of course, it’s pretty damn cold these nights with all this rain.”

  “I’ll bet it is.” I looked around for Hotchkiss, but he’d turned his attention to a young couple, the woman visibly pregnant. My ears picked up enough scraps of that conversation to learn that they were living in their van. What in the world were they going to do when the baby came along? Which reminded me of the as-yet unresolved fates of Maureen and Dyese Smith.

  I turned to the man next to me. “What do you do when it rains all day?”

  “All kinda things.” Now he grinned. “You want to hear about them?”

  “Yes, I do. What’s your name?”

  “Denny. What’s yours? You doing an article for a newspaper or something?”

  “My name’s Jeri. I’m looking for somebody. Maybe you can help me.”

  “Maybe.” He stumbled toward me as he was jostled by a man behind him. His eyes moved to his duffel, making sure it was still there.

  “Is there someplace else we can talk, Denny?”

  “There’s a deli down the street.” A hopeful light dawned in Denny’s watery blue eyes. “They make real good sandwiches.”

  “Good idea,” I said. “I haven’t had lunch.”

  He hoisted the duffel bag by its strap, swinging it onto his shoulder. He held the door of the center open for me as we left. The deli he’d mentioned was just a few doors past my car, and I stopped to feed the meter. Berkeley’s traffic control people are notorious for their profligacy with parking tickets, and I didn’t want one in my Christmas stocking. Denny went on ahead to the deli.

  As I went through the door the clerk behind the counter had fixed him with a glare and a hectoring, unwelcome tone. “Hey, what are you doing in here?” she said with a frown. “No handouts. And the bathroom’s for customers only.”

  “He’s with me,” I said. “And we’re having lunch. So I guess that makes him a customer. Order anything you want, Denny.”

  The deli clerk, an older woman, looked nonplussed and muttered something about all the riffraff spilling over from the homeless center down the street. I ordered a pastrami on rye and a Calistoga. Denny surveyed the menu board and looked as though he’d died and gone to heaven.

  “I want a submarine,” he said, savoring the words as he planned to savor the sandwich. “A big fat one, with roast beef and turkey and ham and cheese. Mustard and mayonnaise, and hell, even sprouts. And cole slaw. And a couple packages of those corn chips and some big sour dill pickles.”

  I laughed. “You going to eat all of that now?”

  “Oh, no,” he said seriously. “I’ll eat half now and save the rest for later. And a big cup of black coffee and...” He looked sideways at me. “Can I have a beer, too? For later, not right now. It helps me sleep.”

  I didn’t answer right away, for purely selfish reasons. I wanted to pump this guy for information. If he was an alcoholic, I didn’t want him to get drunk on my dime. But there was something absurd about this man who looked old enough to be my father asking me if he could have a beer. Besides, if I was living on the streets, as he so obviously was, I’d probably want a little booze to help me sleep. I’d just be afraid I wouldn’t wake up.

  “I said you could have anything you wanted,” I told him.

  “Thanks.” He told the deli clerk which brand of beer he wanted. When she set it on the counter, he picked it up and stashed it in his duffel. Then he turned to me. “I maybe got me a little problem with booze,” he admitted. “Just a little one. I don’t get drunk too often, though. Can’t afford it, moneywise. Can’t let my guard down either.”

  “Just so you save it till later. Now we talk. About what you do to stay out of the rain.”

  “Find me a nice-looking lady like you to buy me lunch,” Denny bantered. His rheumy blue eyes twinkled at me, then gazed at the deli clerk, watching her as she constructed the huge submarine sandwich. When she’d made both sandwiches, I paid her and we carried them to a little table in the corner. He doctored his coffee liberally with cream and sugar and took a sip. Then he picked up half of the sandwich and took an enormous bite. He chewed slowly, with great pleasure. When he’d swallowed that first mouthful, he grinned. “Oh, that’s good. That’s real good.” He set it down and wiped mustard from his mouth with a fistful of napkins.

  “Now,” he said, “you ask me what I do to stay out of weather like this. Normally I panhandle, ‘round town, on Shattuck and up on Telegraph. If I get me enough cash together, I do lotsa things. You gotta be creative. Sometimes I go over to the U.C. Theater. First show in the afternoon, so it’s matinee price, which isn’t so bad. And it’s always a double feature over there, old movies and foreign films. There’s bathrooms, and sometimes I buy popcorn. But that movie popcorn’s pricy for what you get.”

  “It is,” I agreed, hefting my pastrami on rye. “What about the theater staff? How do they react to you?”

  “They’re pretty mellow at the U.C.,” Denny said. “Long as I keep to myself and don’t bother the regular patrons. They know who I am, because I’m sort of a regular too. Besides, most people don’t go to the movies carrying a big old bag.” He pointed at his duffel. “Now when I’m up on Telegraph, I go to one of those coffeehouses, buy me a big cup of coffee, maybe even a pastry. I can nurse that all afternoon while I read a magazine or newspaper. Just like I was a student, studying for exams.”

  I smiled at this, recalling my visit to the Café Med last week during finals, and all the students huddled over their books and coffee. Denny was quiet for a moment as he consumed another few inches of his sandwich.

  “Then there’s laundry,” he continued. “I get me enough change together, I can spend the whole day in a Laundromat, washing my stuff. It’s nice and warm with all those dryers going. Long as I got quarters and dimes, I got an excuse to be there.”

  As long as you’re a customer, you’re welcome anywhere, I thought, glancing at the deli clerk. She kept watching us surreptitiously over the counter, as though we were going to make off with the tables and chairs.

  “All these things require money, whether it’s the Laundromat or the theater.”

  “True enough,” Denny said. “Restaurants and stores don’t like homeless people hanging around. Scares off the regular customers. Sometimes we steal things. Once I stole some bread from a grocery store. I was real hungry, or I wouldn’t have done it. But I can usually m
ake enough panhandling to buy food. Of course, if things get really bad, there’s always Dumpster diving.”

  I must have looked horrified. Denny laughed ruefully. “It’s okay. You’d be amazed at what people throw out. Especially in a college town. I’ve found everything from clothes to electronic equipment.”

  “But food?” I protested. “Food that’s been thrown out?”

  “You gotta be careful,” Denny continued, after swallowing a bite of his sandwich. “Gotta ask yourself, why did whatever it is get tossed. These college kids, here at the end of the semester, they’ll clean out the refrigerator before they leave on break. Perfectly good stuff, like bread and peanut butter, or cheese with just a little bit of mold.”

  I thought of the contents of my own refrigerator, which probably needed cleaning out too. I myself had been known to scrape the mold off a hunk of cheddar before chunking what was left into an omelet. But the thought of consuming the refuse from someone else’s refrigerator, particularly after it had been tossed into the garbage, made my stomach flip-flop. I pushed away my half-eaten sandwich and changed the subject.

  “Where do you go when the Laundromat or the theater closes? Where do you sleep if you don’t get a bed in a shelter?”

  “If I have a good day panhandling,” he said seriously, as though he were a small-businessman, “I may have thirty, forty bucks. With that I can get some groceries and a room in one of those cheap hotels Hotchkiss was telling you about Last time I did that I took a shower.” He grinned at the memory. “I stood under that water till it got cold.”

  He paused for a sip of his coffee. “Now if I don’t have a good day, I have dinner over at Trinity Methodist. They serve a hot meal every evening, and it’s only a quarter. If you can’t pay, you can sign up for the working party. I’ve done that a few times. Then I find me a place to crash. You know, I kinda schedule things around food and sleep. I guess a lot of guys do.”

  “You sleep out in the open?”

  “Sometimes. Got me a sleeping bag in this duffel. If I sleep in People’s Park, the Catholic ladies serve breakfast there in the mornings. And a coupla churches serve hot lunches during the week. For a while I was staying with some guys in a squat. You know, a vacant house. But the owner came and boarded it up. During the summer I camped out up at Tilden Park. You know where that is?”

  I nodded. I’d been hiking in the regional park that stretched along the East Bay hills. “That’s quite a distance,” I told him.

  “It’s not so bad,” Denny said. “It’s real pretty up there. I like to move around. In the spring and summer I walk up to where fancy houses are, to look at the gardens. Sometimes I even hike all the way up to the Hall of Science and the botanical gardens. Sometimes I go in the other direction, down to the railroad tracks.” He pointed in the direction of the interstate, which hugged the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay. The rail line paralleled the freeway. “That’s a long way too. But there aren’t many people down there after dark, so it feels safer. But in the winter I try to stay under cover. I can’t afford to get sick. Sometimes I find medicines in the Dumpsters, but I gotta be careful. I stick with the over-the-counter stuff, and leave the prescriptions alone.”

  “Denny, how long have you been on the street?”

  He shrugged. “Five, six years. I lose track of time. Been thinking about getting off the street for good, though. Hard on a man my age.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Forty-five,” he said.

  Despite Lauren’s earlier comment that living on the streets aged people significantly, I was startled. Denny was only eleven years older than me, and he looked as though he were pushing sixty.

  “How did you wind up like this?”

  He ducked his head. “Aw, hell, you don’t want to hear that.”

  “Sure I do.”

  “It’s the same song and dance you’ll hear from any one of the guys you see on the street,” he said with a shrug and a frown. “Some of us used to have jobs, used to be married.” He stopped and reached for his coffee, while I wondered if his little problem with booze was a big factor in his current situation. “I don’t want to talk about that. You want something, and it’s not my life story. You said you was looking for someone?”

  I didn’t probe past his obvious reluctance to talk about his past. “I’m looking for a guy who’s a regular on Telegraph, name of Rio.”

  “Rio,” he said, then he grinned again. “‘Rio, Rio, Rio by the sea-o, flying down to Rio—’ Damn, I can’t remember the rest. You’d think I would. I’ve seen the movie a dozen times.” He sipped his coffee. “What’s this fella Rio done to warrant your attention?”

  I showed him the picture of Maureen and Dyese. “He may have some information about these two.”

  “Runaway?” he asked, looking at the picture with a sober expression on his lined face. “Pretty girl, pretty baby. Damn, it’s hard enough being a man and living like this. Tough on a woman, especially with a baby. I just hate seeing kids on the street.”

  He didn’t speak as he carefully wrapped the remaining half of his sandwich. Then he got up from the table and politely asked the deli clerk for a paper bag, which she rather ungraciously slapped down on the counter.

  “You can take this too. I’m not going to eat the rest.”

  I didn’t know whether he’d be offended at the offer of the untouched half of my pastrami on rye. But he said, “You’re sure?” When I confirmed this with a nod, he wrapped my sandwich just as carefully and tucked both into the brown sack, along with an unopened bag of chips. When he’d stowed the food in his duffel, he took a plastic freezer storage bag from one of the side pockets. It held some toiletries, a toothbrush, toothpaste, a razor. He looked at me.

  “Would you watch my stuff? I’m going to use the rest room.” He headed for the rear of the deli.

  The clerk glared at his back, then she glared at me, angry for having brought him into her establishment. I stared back at her until she dropped her eyes, sipping the rest of my mineral water. I’d have to use the facilities myself. But I didn’t want Denny to leave until he’d answered my question.

  When he returned, he cocked his head at me. “Will you give me a ride up to Telegraph?”

  “Will you tell me about Rio?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. On the way.”

  Twenty-one

  I CHANCED A TRIP BACK TO THE DELl’S REST ROOM, after deciding Denny wasn’t going to disappear on me. He was waiting for me near the door when I returned. We walked through the rain to my Toyota and I opened the hatchback so he could stow his duffel bag.

  “I’m going up to Trinity Methodist,” he told me as he climbed into the passenger seat next to me. “You know where that is?”

  “Not exactly.” I started the Toyota and checked the side mirror for oncoming traffic.

  “Durant and Dana. In back of the Free Clinic.” Denny had so many layers of clothing on he had to struggle to fasten the seat belt and shoulder harness. He finally snapped the latch home.

  I pulled out onto Martin Luther King Jr. Way. “That’s where they serve the hot dinner.”

  “Yeah. Like I said, I plan my day around food and sleep.” He stared out the front windshield as I turned on Dwight, heading for the area south of the U.C. campus.

  “You were going to tell me about Rio.”

  “Yeah.” Denny was silent for a moment, his fingers drumming on his knee. “I give the guy a wide berth. There’s something spooky about him. Besides, he’s a hell of a lot bigger than I am. Tall, built like a football player. Dark, like a Mexican or an Indian. I only see him up around Telegraph and People’s Park. He disappears a lot, don’t see him for weeks at a time.”

  Denny stopped, then continued. “I figure he’s a drinker, got a problem with the booze. I bet he goes on benders.” Denny spoke with the conviction of someone who’d experienced more than a few benders himself.

  “And when you do see him?” I stopped for a red light at the corner of Dwight and Shat
tuck and looked over at my companion.

  “He keeps to himself. Well, maybe I better phrase that different. He’s the kinda guy who looks like he’s by himself even when he’s in a crowd. You know what I mean?”

  “Yes, I do.” The light had changed and I urged the Toyota across Shattuck Avenue. “Someone told me Rio deals drugs. And looks out for the women on the street.”

  “Drugs I know nothing about. Don’t want to. The other, well, I guess he does look out for the women and the younger kids. I just wonder if he gets something from them in return. If you get my drift.”

  I got it Denny was referring to sexual favors. “Denny, that picture I showed you, of the girl and her baby. The mother’s dead, and the baby’s missing. I think Rio may have seen the mother recently. That’s why I want to talk with him.”

  “Maybe he killed her,” Denny said soberly, watching my windshield wipers streak the raindrops. “Maybe you don’t want to talk to him.”

  “I have to. Guess that just means I’ll hang out on Telegraph until I find him.”

  Denny cut his eyes toward me. “You watch yourself. It’s rough on these streets.”

  “I can take care of myself.” I said the words automatically, as if by rote. I’d been saying them for years, every time I ran up against someone who thought a woman couldn’t handle an investigator’s job. During my six years as an investigator I’d gotten beat up a couple of times. I’d looked down the barrels of a few guns. But the life I’d encountered today, the life Denny lived every day, was something I’d never experienced. Living on the streets, moving from place to place and handout to handout, were totally alien to me. I didn’t know whether I could survive that life, as Denny had, with his sense of humor intact.

  There was some truth to what he said. It was possible Rio had killed Maureen. But I never get answers unless I ask the questions.

  Dana was one street below Telegraph, and Durant just a block from the south edge of the U.C. campus. Many of the streets in the area were one-way, so I took a series of turns in order to wind up at Trinity Methodist, the church that served a hot dinner to the homeless. Now that the U.C. Berkeley fall term was over, most of the students had departed and there was, wonder of wonders, a parking space on Durant. I swooped the Toyota into it and cut the engine.