“The house is horribly empty,” he said. “Very big. Things echo.”
“Like the sound of your own breath?” I said.
“And my thoughts,” he said.
My hunch expanded. I said, “So, a second chance with a lady who happens to identify as lesbian no longer has the capacity it once had to inflict, what, pain, or to enrage?
“I’m not at all proud of the way I handled that,” he said
“Some might say,” I said, “a line was crossed that cannot, now, be stepped back over.”
He said, “Is that how Adrienne sees it?”
“Tell you what,” I said, “not my business. Forget I said anything.”
“I hate being alone,” he said. He was talking to the wrong guy. “I’ve never lived by myself.”
“Maybe you owe it to yourself,” I said, “and to Adrienne, to give it a shot.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” he said.
“Since I’ve already stepped in it,” I said, “Adrienne might be vulnerable at the moment. I’m not sure I could stand by and watch anyone else walk over her again.”
He said, “By anyone else, you mean—”
“I think you know what I mean,” I said.
“Right,” he said.
I stood up and said, “Let’s go. I’ve been sitting way too long again.” Without waiting, I headed for the door. He found me outside standing next to his rented Lexus. “With this construction,” I said, “it’ll be better if I walk back. You can hit the Eastex Freeway and head north. It’s a straight shot.”
“I don’t mind dropping you,” he said.
“That breakfast is sitting like a gut bomb,” I said. “I’ve got to walk it off.” I extended my hand. “I’m on the case. Adrienne can keep you current.” I turned and started walking.
He shouted after me, “Mind if I call from time to time?”
I circled back and stood in front of him. “Reed,” I said, “we’re done. This has been instructive. I’m glad you did not fulfill my worst expectations. Go home. Get your life configured the way you need to. I’m not going to stop until I secure justice for what happened to Allison. I’m doing this for Adrienne and for myself. There’s not a thing I could do with your calls from time to time.”
He snorted, dropped his jaw, and said, “You don’t like me, do you?”
I needed to be shut of this man. “I have no regard for you one way or the other,” I said. “But your concern for that might be something to address in the work ahead of you, in order to go it alone. Drive safe.”
I left him standing in the parking lot drenched in the scent of coffee as I hurried across the adjacent street. The long walk back to my office was going to do me a world of good.
Four
Bumper recognized me before I did him. He was working Pacific Street near Taft. I had cruised the Main-Fannin-San Jacinto area around mid-town and followed the pattern I’d developed of then going over into upper Montrose. Next would be Jensen north of downtown. After that the Ship Channel area. He called me by name. I stopped in the middle of the street. The curb was crowded with parked cars. He crossed from the other side of the road, leaned on the roof of my Chrysler, and stood with his weight on one foot, provocatively. His t-shirt was a couple of sizes too small and short enough to reveal that the top button on the fly of his jeans was undone. “Thought that was you,” he said. “You remember me?”
“I do,” I said. “The funeral.”
He said, “Looking for company?”
I said, “Not exactly.”
“Something special?” He said.
I said, “You hungry?”
“You mean,” he said, “do I swallow?”
“No,” I said. “I mean, would you like something to eat? A cup of coffee?”
“You’re not looking for a date?” he said.
“No,” I said, “I’m looking for information.”
He asked, “This about Juice?”
“Yes,” I said.
He pulled back and regarded me for some moments before asking, “You a cop?”
I said, “No.” He looked about, perhaps to see who might be watching. “I’m a Private Investigator,” I said.
“This could get me into a lot of trouble,” he said.
“Would it be better,” I said,” if we just took a ride?”
“I liked Juice,” he said. “She was good to me.”
“I figured,” I said.
“If I get in,” he said, “the clock starts ticking.”
“Of course,” I said.
He walked around the back of the car and slipped into the front passenger seat. I put the gear selector into drive, observed the speed limit, and turned off of Pacific down toward Westheimer at the first opportunity. “If you don’t want to go to the Sandpiper,” he said, “we’re going to have to stay in the neighborhood.”
I said, “Sandpiper?”
“Motel,” he said.
“You want me to rent a room?” I said.
“I take you back to the Sandpiper,” he said, “I’m going to have to do something. Even if it’s just a hand job. Or a massage. The rooms are monitored.”
I said, “What’s with the Sandpiper Motel?”
“We’re supposed to try and get dates to go there,” he said. “You pay for the room by the half hour and for my time. Double dip.”
“We can’t just drive?” I said.
“It’s got to look like I’m doing you,” he said. “Turn around. I know a spot.” He directed me to a tree-lined street several blocks away that was secluded and dark. “Anywhere along here. Find a place to pull over.” I pulled in behind a pickup that was missing a left rear tire. The exposed wheel drum sat on a rim laid flat on the asphalt. It looked to have been there for some time. “Recline your seatback a bit,” he said. I followed his instruction. The he added, “I’ve got to make it look like I’m going down on you.”
I said, “We weren’t followed.”
“This is where we provide curb service,” he said. “Never know who’s going to drive by.”
We were fast approaching a point for which I was not prepared. “I don’t think this is going to work,” I said.
“Too late now,” said Bumper. “I’ve got to take the dive. I won’t touch you. I’m going to roll off onto the floor. We can talk eight, ten minutes tops.” I found myself laughing, which had more to do with incredulity over my willing participation in this charade than with humor. Bumper leaned over my lap and dropped below the window. Good to his word, he never touched me as he curled into a ball under the dash in the passenger foot-well. He could not have been comfortable. “Okay,” he said, “now, settle your head back onto the headrest, close your eyes, and start talking.”
I had hoped to find Rain. Were it she, I doubt I would have felt the least bit uncomfortable with her having to get into the curled-up position under the dash the way Bumper had. I said, “How long have you known Allison—Juice?”
“Almost a year,” he said. “She slept on our couch sometimes.”
“Our couch?” I said.
He said, “Me and my girlfriend.”
“Your girlfriend,” I said.
He said, “Rhonda.”
“So, you’re not gay?” I said.
“When I need to be,” he said. “No big deal.”
“And Rhonda’s okay with what you do?” I said.
“She’s going to help me get into acting,” he said. “She does scenes.”
I asked, “Would that be porno?”
“It’s just sex,” he said. “You know, girl-girl, boy-boy, boy-girl. Money’s good.”
“So, you’re both in the life?” I said.
“We’re going to get married,” he said.
“When?” I said.
“Soon as I buy my way out from Mister,” he said
“How much do you owe?” I said.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It keeps changing.”
I asked, “Why do you owe Mister this mon
ey?”
“I accidentally locked eyes with another pimp,” said Bumper. “Mister had to buy me back.”
“Because you happened to look at someone else?” I said.
“It’s how it works,” he said. “I made a mistake. Thought you wanted to talk about Juice?”
Couldn’t argue with that. I’d learn nothing if he decided to bolt. I said, “Did Juice have debt with Mister?’
“You walk his street,” said Bumper, “you owe him. It’s how it works.”
“She must have paid it off,” I said.
“No,” he said. “The Russian bought her.”
“The Russian,” I said. “He have a name?”
“Sure,” said Bumper. “First name The. Last name Russian.”
I sensed that Bumper was re-evaluating the risk to himself in talking with me. I was going to have to sharpen the probe. The Russian offered a way out. Rain had mentioned at the cemetery that in order to work for The Russian you had to be clean of HIV, and substance-free. Verified, no doubt. Those chosen would have to be screened. Blood tests. Specimens. Smears, scrapings. Physical examinations.
Bumper asked, “We done?”
My mind was actively engaged now. I doubted that I appeared to anyone passing by as someone in receipt of a blow job. “Where would I find The Russian?” I said.
“You don’t,” said Bumper. “He finds you.”
If I wanted future cooperation, I was going to have close and get Bumper back to the safety of the street. I said, “Why would Allison sleep on your couch?”
“You mean Juice?” he corrected.
“Yes,” I said,” I mean Juice.”
Bumper uncurled from beneath the dash and settled into the passenger seat. He surveyed the surrounding area as much as possible without craning about. He said, “Didn’t have a place of her own.”
“Any idea why?” I said.
“Was trying to save money,” he said. I wondered what she had done with her money since Adrienne would not accept it. “Trouble was,” said Bumper, “she lent her money out. Didn’t always get it back.” And there it was. Despite my prior cool feelings regarding Allison, it was clear she had operated with code.
The street was lined with parked vehicles but empty of moving traffic. I started the car. Bumper certainly knew how to find dark. “Where to?” I said.
“My corner,” he said, “where I picked you up.”
Funny, I thought, as I drove him back there, I thought it was I who had picked him up.
Five
Adrienne’s mother answered the door and said, “I understood you to have your own key.”
“For emergencies,” I said, “or if Adrienne’s away and I look after the house for her.”
Constance Davenport said, “Would you have knocked if I weren’t here?”
I was pinned down out on the porch and did my best to dodge bullets from a side of this woman I hadn’t yet encountered. I assumed she didn’t intend to sound sharp; rather, it was more like, in the absence of a need for considerate behavior, her unguarded demeanor shown through. “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “My mother was a stickler for good manners.”
Had she added voice to the breath she expelled through her nose, it would have been a snort. There was an indication in the way she closed her eyes on this, and shook it off, that she sounded more abrasive even to herself than recent resolve would have permitted. The kind of revelation that occurs when no one is watching, including one’s self. “Come in, please,” she said. “I am not myself today.” On the contrary, I thought, as I stepped past her into Adrienne’s living room, perhaps she was more herself than was the model behavior she had first displayed upon arriving in town. “The truth is,” she said,” I want to ask you something that is none of my business, but it won’t let me go.”
“Better ask it, then,” I said, “and end the torment.”
She asked, “What is the nature of your relationship with my daughter?”
The impulse for flippancy was almost too rich to suppress. I managed. She regarded me. We let it build to a tipping point where she looked like she might be about to retract the question. I said, “I don’t have a lot of friends, Mrs. Davenport. Adrienne kind of snuck in under the radar.”
Her scrutiny intensified with a lift of her chin. She was a handsome woman, groomed with precision, absent of anything one might characterize as casual. That impression had not altered from our first encounter at the airport. Even if Adrienne had not been there to quicken as Mrs. Davenport had emerged from the Baggage Claim area, I felt I might have identified her as Adrienne’s mother. Something about her countenance and the weight of those eyes over a straight nose. We had been waiting for an older woman in the company of a younger man, but Reed Thomas had not followed out until several moments later. Having waited for it, I correctly anticipated her response. “Friends?” she said.
“She is much the better friend than I am,” I said. “I try not to live in shame.”
“What does that mean?” she said.
“I like to carry my weight,” I said.
She crossed her arms and dug in. “I don’t understand,” she said.
“Maybe Adrienne and I don’t either,” I said. “But it seems to work.”
Her neck lengthened as she asked, “Are you in love with her?”
Reed Thomas and now her. I said, “I suspect that’s not the question you really want to ask.”
She absorbed this in the manner of one creature devouring another whole, took a moment for continued regard, and said, finally, “No, perhaps not.” Then she glanced away and down, as Reed Thomas had done in my office. The air grew thick around us. “Could you,” she said, “love my daughter?”
“Mrs. Davenport,” I said, “I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that what you really want to know is will I at some point love your daughter?”
She came back on a slow-motion reconnect, the question gaining more traction as she settled on me again. I got slammed with the sense that she had played me. “And?” she said.
“I wonder,” I said, “could she love me?”
Something closed for her, something not unwanted. “Love does not last,” she said. “Whereas, respect is much more durable. Her respect for you is the pillar of a wife’s devotion. A powerful inducement to all manner of change.”
I said, “The thing I do love about Adrienne is the certainty that such a relationship is not likely for us. I think it liberates us both.”
She said, “You think I am foolish for even entertaining the idea?”
“I don’t think you’d be doing anyone a favor by pursuing it,” I said. “Least of all yourself.”
“And am I now to assume,” she said, “that you are concerned for me?”
I became impatient and said, “Where are we going with this, Mrs. Davenport?”
That she had riled me appeared to have been a benchmark achievement for her. “Bear with me, Mr. Mitchell,” she said. “I’m just trying to satisfy myself that there could never be even a remote possibility for such a connection between you.”
“I have learned never to say never,” I said, “but what would it take to satisfy you?”
“Your word,” she snapped, “that you would not intervene should Reed decide he would take her back.”
Trying to see into this woman, as I thought I had done with Reed Thomas, was like trying to look through lead shield. Had they actually made a plan? I said, “I see, Mrs. Davenport, that I have more respect for your daughter than you do.”
She continued strident, as she said, “You see nothing, Mr. Mitchell. Certainly not a mother’s unrelenting desire to see that her daughter does not burn in hell.”
I asked, “Have you or Reed discussed this with Adrienne yet?”
Her back got straighter; she grew taller. “No,” she said. “We have not.”
“And if I should mention it?” I said.
“I would deny it completely,” she said, “and your motive would become suspect.”
/> “Neutralize the competition,” I said, “even so far as to head off a pre-emptive strike?”
She said, “Here’s what I see, Mr. Mitchell, you in fact are not ignorant. Just slow.”
Adrienne came down the hall, through the dining room, and into the living room carrying what looked to be a freshly-bathed Grace. “Looks like treason here,” she said. “Hope you’re hungry.”
“You two sit and talk,” said Mrs. Davenport. “Dinner should be ready shortly. Smothered chicken. You’ll either like it or go hungry.” She fled the room without looking back.
“The comfort of childhood food,” said Adrienne. “Hope I survive it.” She put Grace in my arms. I was given to believe the child was glad to see me. I found myself laughing before I knew I felt like doing so. “What’ll we do if she starts calling you daddy?” Adrienne said.
“Shoot me,” I said. “That would be one too many females I had led astray.”
“Interesting answer,” she said. “Not what I would have guessed.”
“I presume,” I said, “you will want to tell me what you would have guessed.”
An awkward moment arose. Adrienne scrunched her nose and shook her head. “No, she said, I don’t think I will. But you’re not staying for dinner, are you?”
The women in that house were ahead of me. Something was not right. To stay promised unnecessary complication. Best to simplify. “I’m onto something,” I said, “and want to stay on it.”
She said, “You could have just called and said so.”
“You know,” I said, “I’m here five minutes and already I’m black and blue.”
“Can I come with you?” she said.
And once again, I did not see that coming. “Not a good idea,” I said.
Adrienne asked, “Why not?”
Truth was, I was not on to anything at all but couldn’t offer that now. “Because,” I said, “I work alone.” I was certain she saw me cringe at my own stale refrain.
“I want to help,” she said.
“You’d just be in the way,” I said.
“So,” she said, “you’re telling me no.”
“Adrienne what is this?” I said. “At some point things are going to get dangerous. I can’t work if I’m worried about you.”
Spare Parts: A Ted Mitchell Detective Novel (Ted Mitchell Detective Novels Book 4) Page 3