Chapter Eight
Powder stopped at Johnson’s, a neighborhood grocery store, on his way home. Open till ten every night, it was run by a family of many members whose several destinies were controlled by a man who seemed to be the uncle of all the others. They called him Uncle Adg and his given name, Agile, was as ironic as it was unusual considering that he was singularly fat. Powder had never seen him stir from the store’s stock room. But however god-uncly Adg’s absolutism in the family, his dealings with Powder about neighborhood issues were always temperate and polite.
As Powder stood before a frozen-food cabinet, one of the nieces noticed him and stopped restocking shelves nearby.
“Evening, Mr. Powder.”
“Evening. Janice, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. You got a minute, Mr. Powder?”
“I guess so.”
“I know Uncle Adg would like to see you, if you got a minute.”
Powder nodded. “I was getting a headache trying to choose here anyway.”
He followed Janice to the stock room, where Adg was working on a clipboard.
“Mr. Powder. Thank you for sparing a moment.”
“That’s OK. What can I do for you?”
“John Parrun, of the residents’ association, you know him?”
“Sure.”
“He was talking today about something he sees as a danger to us all.”
“What would that be?” Powder asked quietly.
“These.” Johnson held out a leaflet. Powder took it and read about a special offer on insulation inspection.
“I don’t understand.”
“They are being put in people’s mailboxes. And you see? There’s no address on it.”
“Yes?”
“I called the number on the bottom. It’s just a funny sound. Like, maybe, disconnected.”
Powder waited.
“We think it may be a dodge.”
“How?”
“It’s June. Getting into prime vacation time. If leaflets are put into mailboxes so a corner can be seen from the road, then you can tell which houses are empty from people going away.”
Powder rubbed his face. “What an untrusting fellow you are, Mr. Johnson.”
“You can do all the right things, going on vacation. Stop the papers, leave a light on, have the mail held. Someone comes along and puts this in the box and everybody knows that you’re away.”
“OK,” Powder said. “I’ll have it looked into.”
“Thanks. Everyone will be grateful.”
Powder went back to the frozen-food cabinet. He read the leaflet.
Janice Johnson, still at work on shelves, asked, “Can I help you, Mr. Powder?”
“Yeah,” Powder said forcefully. “Yeah.”
“How?”
“Tell me what kids eat these days.”
As Powder entered his apartment’s front door, Ricky appeared in the hallway almost immediately. He came from the living room and pulled the door closed behind him. Two wires trailed through the hall to Powder’s spare bedroom.
“Hey, Dad. How you doing?”
“Great,” Powder said. He walked to the kitchen and began unpacking his shopping bag.
Ricky followed. He said, “I’ve got a few friends in. We’re going out for a big feed in a few minutes. One of them is late. And I wanted to hang around till you got back so I could let you know not to worry.”
“I won’t worry.”
“And I’ll try not to disturb you when I come in, or anything like that.”
“OK.”
“And thanks again for letting me stay at such short notice. I’ll be out looking for a permanent place tomorrow.”
Powder turned from the refrigerator and asked, “Day off?”
“No, no. But you know what I mean. I’ll keep an eye out, put the word around, that kind of thing.”
“I know what you mean,” Powder said.
“OK,” Ricky said. “That’s fine.”
“I think I’ll come in and meet your friends,” Powder said.
“What?”
Powder left the kitchen and walked to the living room. Ricky scuttled after him.
“The wires are for my speakers,” Ricky said edgily. “I put some music on and didn’t want to impose by using your hi-fi.”
“Thanks,” Powder said. “They got their clothes on in there?” He walked into the living room ahead of his son. “Stand by your beds,” he said.
Darting in behind, Ricky said, “Smokes out, people. I’d like to introduce my father.”
Two men and two women, all in their early twenties, sat in the room. Three stubbed cigarettes out in coffee cups.
“I warned them, see,” Ricky said. “You don’t like smoking.”
The aroma in the room was of uncomplicatedly commercial origin. “What a waste of good tobacco,” Powder said. “I’m Roy Powder, Ricky’s dad.” He stood in front of the nearest visitor. “Who are you?”
Startled, the man rose. “John Hurst,” he said.
“I’m a detective lieutenant in the police department, John Hurst. What do you do?”
“Uh, I work for the post office.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Powder said. He shook Hurst’s hand.
“I also work for a community newspaper. As an investigative reporter.”
“Must be fascinating,” Powder said. He moved to the woman next to Hurst.
“I’m Rebecca Coffey,” she said.
Powder shook hands with her. “Do you work?” he asked.
“Not for money.”
“And probably all the harder for that.”
A pudgy man with blond curls rose as Powder passed to face him. “Dwayne Grove,” he said. “I work for the phone company, like Ricky.”
“A colleague from work,” Powder said. “How folksy.”
“Only I’ve got the easy end of the job. Indoors, with accounts and records.”
“I see,” Powder said.
Turning to the second woman he asked, “And you?”
“Lila Lee. I work for the Department of the Interior, in the geological survey department.”
“Glad to meet you, Ms. Lee.”
“It’s Mrs. Lee,” she said.
“Apologies,” Powder said.
“My husband is away.”
Expansively, Powder said, “Pleased to meet you all. Any friends of Ricky’s are friends of mine. His casa is your casa.” Powder dropped to the floor in a cross-legged position and picked up one of the cups. “There’s more than half of this cigarette left,” he said. “Is this one yours, Mrs. Lee? I don’t know much about them, but is it relightable?”
“Uh, no.”
“Well, have another. Go on. Have a fresh one.”
Lila Lee found a pack of cigarettes in her purse. Taking one she offered the pack around.
Powder was saying, “I don’t think cigarettes are nearly the worst thing for public health there is around these days.” He smiled sweetly at Rebecca, a sallow woman with a lean face and very small ears.
“Oh?” she said vacantly.
Ricky was clearly ill at ease, but Dwayne Grove asked, “What do you consider worse than cigarettes, Lieutenant?”
“Oh, don’t call me ‘Lieutenant’ here, Dwayne Grove,” Powder said. “ ‘Sir’ will do just fine.” He looked sternly around the room, then broke into a loud, short laugh. “What’s worse than smoking? I’ll tell you. Eating is worse than smoking.”
“Eating?” Grove asked. Everyone but Ricky smiled.
“No joke,” Powder said. “No joke.”
“What, you mean additives and all the stuff like that?” Lila Lee asked.
“No,” Powder said. “I mean food, generally and specifically.”
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“It is simple enough, Mrs. Lee. You are, perhaps, five feet six inches in height and of so-called normal weight.”
“I hope so,” she said.
“Normal, by the char
ts for weight and height that are on all the public scales.”
“Yes.”
“If you weighed less,” Powder said, “six or seven percent less, then your life expectancy, already high, would be extended by several months. Do you catch my drift?”
“I guess so.”
“My drift is that ‘underweight’ people live longer than ‘normal’weight people, Mrs. Lee.”
“Yes?”
“Yes, indeed,” Powder said. “So if that is the case then it is indisputable that in any amount greater than that required to keep you ‘underweight,’ food kills.”
“But almost everybody weighs more than those charts.”
“Therefore food is a pervasive social evil, and consumption of food should be actively discouraged by society,” Powder said.
“I like it. I like it,” John Hurst said. “Health warnings on everything you eat.”
“Definitely. Banning of food advertising. Punitive taxation on high-calorie food.”
“Another antisocial ploy of the big corporations, trying to make us all eat more and more and more,” Hurst said, nodding. “Think of the food commercials on TV. They’re killing us all for profit. I never really thought about it before.”
Powder rose abruptly. “But hey, my boy here says that you are all going out for a big meal, right?”
Hurst nodded.
“A bit of a celebration, eh?”
Looking at the others before speaking, Lila Lee said, “I think you could call it that.”
“Gee,” Powder said. “All this talk about food . . . I wouldn’t put you off your feed for the world.”
Chapter Nine
To Powder’s surprise, Ricky joined him at breakfast.
“Hey, my people really liked you,” Ricky said.
Powder was silent.
“Really. There’s a party Friday night and they want you to come.”
“Groovy,” Powder said.
“No, Dad. Things aren’t groovy much anymore.”
“Your people,” Powder said. “Do they live near here?”
“Yeah, they all live within striking distance. I don’t know how you managed to get a place in this part of town on your salary, but this is definitely the place to be in Indianapolis. Apartments in this area just can’t be had these days.”
“You were up near your mother’s, weren’t you?”
“The old house, yeah, right.”
“How is your mother?”
“I haven’t seen her for a few weeks.”
“But you were living up there.”
“Well, not just lately. I moved into Speedway, but then that didn’t work out. There’s nothing and nobody out in Speedway.”
“Except Tammy?”
Ricky smiled. “She’s not important to me,” he said earnestly. “More and more my important friends—business and pleasure—live around here.”
“What kind of business would that be?”
“Never wise to have all the eggs in one basket,” Ricky said lightly.
“Chicken farming, are you?”
Ricky exaggerated a mysterious smile.
“How was your mother, then?”
“OK. Fine.”
“Great?”
“Yeah, great.”
“Superb?”
“Yeah, pretty superb.” Ricky hesitated. “What do you mean?”
“So, where does this party Friday take place?”
“You know Rebecca, from last night?”
“Yes.”
“Well she has a house, actually on Lockerbie Street. It’s real old, like maybe pre-1900, and it has these churchy-type windows.”
“She owns it?”
“Her husband and her.”
“Which one was her husband?”
Ricky looked away momentarily. “Her husband wasn’t there.”
“I see.”
“But there’s one thing. It’s not really a problem, but it’s something you should know.”
“And what would that be?”
“It’s a costume party.”
Powder was silent.
“You know. Costumes. Not that you would have to, or even be expected to, but you should know.”
“I see.”
“They really want you to come. They were very impressed.”
“Did you have a good meal last night?”
“Really good. I took them to the Gin Tub. It’s up north on—”
“I know where it is. You took them?”
“Yeah, well. It was kind of a return for a favor or two. Dwayne put me onto some private wiring work and I did a little job for Lila, so this was by way of thanks.”
“Dwayne. The one in telephone records?”
Puzzling, Ricky said, “Yeah.” Then, “But you should go to the Gin Tub sometime. The food was special. None of this ‘natural’food crap that breaks off pieces of your teeth. All really prepared and cooked stuff.”
Powder stood up. “What do you want for breakfast?”
“Is there some cereal?”
“I just happened to get some in yesterday,” Powder said. “It’s new. Uncooked grains of rice, house dust, dried oak leaves, and very small pieces of carpet, for natural fiber.”
“What?” Ricky didn’t understand. “Any Sugar Puffs?”
“Damn. Ran out yesterday.”
“I think I’ll just have a cup of coffee,” Ricky said.
“Coffee,” Powder said. “Groovy.”
The day was gray and wet.
Before he went to his car. Powder stopped at the two-floor brick house next door to the west. The house had a cast-iron balcony that overhung the front door and dripped rusty water in the light rain. He rang the bell and stood in front of the door for a long time. Finally it opened and a broad, stooped woman peered out.
“Mrs. Cook, I stopped to tell you that your drawer will take another day.”
“Oh?”
“I said I would have it for you today, but it won’t be finished until tomorrow.”
“That’s the way with everything anymore. Nothing happens when it’s supposed to.”
“Not till tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow morning. Oh. Oh, that’s all right. Thank you very much, Mr. Powder.”
“That’s quite all right.”
“Mr. Powder?”
“Yes?”
“Yesterday. Yesterday I saw a young couple at your door. In the afternoon. They stood there and then they went in. I wondered whether I should do something about it, but then I saw you out front.”
“The young man is my son, Mrs. Cook, and he had a key.”
“Oh. How nice.”
“He’s going to be staying with me for a while.”
“You’re a very lucky man, Mr. Powder.” “I’ll have the drawer for you tomorrow.”
Chapter Ten
When he saw the head nurse. Powder could tell that something was wrong. She was on the telephone but as soon as she recognized him her face darkened to forebode the fierceness of an April thunderstorm.
When it came it missed only the lightning.
“I suppose you already know that we notified your people in the night.”
“My people?”
“You’re a policeman, aren’t you?” she asked rhetorically and with considerable irritation.
“What has happened?” Powder asked.
“Your ‘Jane Doe’—” she began archly.
Powder interrupted. “Is she still here?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“What the hell has happened?”
“The hell that has happened is that your ‘Jane Doe’ was found in the toilets last night. She had scored her face with the edge of a broken bottle.”
Powder stared.
“My duty nurse heard the bottle breaking, but it took her a few minutes to locate it. The poor woman’s face looked like a piece of raw beef.”
Although it was already plenty. Powder could tell that there was more.
“It wa
s a disinfectant bottle. She found a cleaning closet door and she drank everything she could find. Bleach, everything. Then she did the work on her face. My muse stopped her, and called for help. She was rushed to intensive care, and she is still under close observation.”
“I see.”
“We try not to treat attempted suicides as if they’re a lower class of patient here, though it’s difficult for a lot of nurses since we see so much pain that is not self-inflicted. But last night you said that you had upset this woman. In my book that makes you responsible and irresponsible. I would be most grateful if you would arrange for someone with a degree of sensitivity to do whatever visiting is necessary in the future. Do I make myself clear?”
Powder arrived at Missing Persons earlier even than usual. He tried to fill the time by dealing with paperwork. But his mind wasn’t on it. He ended doodling on a pad, and wondering if anybody remembered droodles.
He drew a face, then scored it, as if it were graph paper.
Out loud he said, “Phooey.”
Five minutes before the office opening time, a woman tapped on the Missing Persons door. She was plump and wore a dark shawl and looked agitated.
Powder let her in.
“This Missing Persons?” the woman asked as she walked in.
“That’s right.”
She followed Powder closely and shifted impatiently from foot to foot as he took his place behind the counter.
“I name Mrs. Woods. It my niece. She not show up last night. I telephone my sister and she put her on bus herself and we wait and wait and she don’t show up. I telephone bus and bus get in, but girl, she gone.”
Powder explained that he had to take details before he could ask more about what had happened.
“OK, mister,” the woman said. “I know. Red tape. Girl name Gilkis. Marianna.”
Powder recorded the names and addresses. “All right, Mrs. Woods. How old is your niece?”
“Twenty years of age, being twenty-one in November on seventh.”
“And where was she traveling from?”
“She come from St. Paul on Greyhound. Changing over Chicago. Bus head on Cincinnati, but she ticket here.”
“Might she have gotten off in Chicago?”
“She know nobody Chicago. She know nobody here, only me, her auntie. She come live here, try to work. She come live permanent, you know? Jake Woods, husband, he dead. I alone.”
“How was the girl to get from the bus station to your house?”
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