Child Not Found

by Ray Daniel

  A light came on in an upper window.

  “I am,” said Bobby.

  “Making an entrance and making friends.”

  “I’m not here to make friends. Neither are you. I’ll bet you Angie’s in there.”

  “Doubt it.”

  “Really, smart guy? Why?”

  “Makes no sense. What would Hugh want with Angie, and why would he hide her in his house?”

  “Who knows? All we know is that Angie got an email from Hugh, and Angie’s phone was thrown off the bridge.”

  “Something’s—”

  The door cracked open.

  “FBI,” Bobby said. “We’d like to speak to Hugh.”

  A just-woken voice said, “Hugh isn’t here.”

  “We’d like to ask you some questions. It’s official.” Bobby waved his credentials at the door crack.

  A young woman’s face appeared in the crack, looked at the credentials, and disappeared. The door closed, then swung open.

  A girl in a Boston College t-shirt turned on the hall light. She had blond hair, long legs, and nipples that poked out from the words Boston and College. We stepped in and closed the door behind us, keeping out the cold.

  “I’m Special Agent Miller,” Bobby said. “This is Mr. Tucker.”

  “You can call me Tucker.”

  “I’m Sandy Cameron.”

  “We need to ask you a few questions,” said Bobby.

  “Hugh told me to never talk to the cops or let them in the house,” she said.

  “Yet you let us in,” Bobby said. “Why?”

  “Hugh’s missing.”

  “What do you mean, missing?”

  “He went out to work yesterday morning and never came back.”

  “Did you try calling him?”

  “His cell phone is dead.”

  Bobby scribbled into his book. “What’s your relationship to Hugh?”

  “I rent a room here.”

  Bobby cocked an eyebrow. Looked at me. “You’re a boarder?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You pay to live here?”

  Sandy looked away. I wondered what Hugh considered payment.

  “It’s easy to get to classes,” she said. “I go to BC.”

  “What’s your major?”

  “Biochem.”

  “You mean with the Krebs cycle and stuff like that?” I asked.

  “More like splicing DNA. Protein replication. Stuff like that.”

  Bobby asked, “Did Hugh say anything? Did he seem nervous.”

  “Yes,” Sandy said. “He said that things were heating up in Boston.”

  Bobby asked, “What things?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t tell me.”

  “We think that Hugh was involved in a shooting on Hanover Street yesterday.”

  “Oh God. Is he hurt?”

  “When he left he was fine,” I said.

  Bobby turned to me. “How would you know?”

  “Or so I am told,” I said.

  “By who?”

  Dammit. Trapped!

  I said to Bobby, “Let’s talk about this later.”

  “No,” Bobby said. “Let’s talk about this now.”

  “I can’t go into it now.”

  “You can’t go into it? What the fuck does that mean?”

  Sandy crossed her arms, hunched up. “Can you guys do this somewhere else? It’s cold.”

  “Sorry to disturb you, miss.” Bobby handed Sandy a business card. “Call me if Hugh shows up, okay?”

  In front of the house, Bobby said, “How did you know what happened to Hugh yesterday?”

  “Um—”

  “Don’t you fucking lie to me. You were there, weren’t you?”

  I saw Jael, launching herself off the tabletop, firing down onto Pistol Salvucci as he shot at me. She didn’t have to be there. None of this was her fight. She didn’t deserve an arrest, a jail term, deportation. What will you tell the police? I will tell them nothing.

  “I was there,” I said.

  “Who else was there?”

  “Hugh, another guy.”

  “The witnesses said there was a woman.”

  “The witnesses were mistaken.” I worked to control my thoughts, tell myself that this was the truth, keep the deception off my face.

  “You’re fucking lying to me,” said Bobby.

  “I’m not.”

  “You just did it again! It’s all over your face.”

  “Stop it.”

  “It was Jael, wasn’t it?”

  My eyes pulled wide. “No, it wasn’t.”

  “I pulled your ass out of the fucking river, and this is how you repay me?”

  “Look, can we just go?”

  “We? What’s this fucking we? You’re actually going to stand there, fucking lie to my face, and then expect a fucking ride home? There is no we.”

  Bobby walked around his car. Worked the fob once, unlocking the driver’s door. He pointed. “The fucking T stop is that way. Newton Center. Get walking.”

  He slid into his car, slammed the door, and drove away, his tires kicking up rock salt and road sand.

  I didn’t blame him one bit. I turned, freezing in my damp cotton jeans, and started for the T station.

  At one in the morning I finally dropped into bed. Had hyperrealistic dreams in which I shot Bobby dead with Frank Cantrell’s gun.

  Fifty-One

  The Boston Bruins foghorn blared. Screaming fans jumped to their feet. The Jumbotron screen in the center of the Garden showed the replay of my one-timer blasting past a Bobby Miller goalie. The foghorn blared again, and a third time. I opened my eyes, pulling myself out of the dream. My phone rang a fourth time, foghorning me into action.

  “Tucker? It’s Caroline.”

  “Whaa?” The sky outside showed the slightest gray hint of dawn. “What time is it?”

  “Seven. Did I wake you?”

  I nearly wept. “Seven?”

  “Would you like to have breakfast?”

  “Yeah. Sure. When?”

  My doorbell rang.

  “Now.”

  The call ended. My doorbell rang again. I untwisted my sheets, stumbled out of bed, pressed the intercom.

  “Hullo,” I said.

  Caroline’s voice crackled through the intercom. “It’s me, sleepyhead.”

  “C’mon up.”

  I pressed the buzzer, opened my apartment door, and heard the street door open below. Looked down at myself, saw nothing but boxers. Stumbled back into my room, found sweatpants and a t-shirt that read Code Monkey.

  When I returned, Caroline stood in in my apartment, wearing a big green peacoat. She carried a bag of bagels and a cardboard tray with two gigantic Starbucks coffees. At least it wasn’t Dunkin’ Donuts.

  “You don’t have a problem with gluten, do you?” she asked.

  My brain clanked and groaned. “Gluten?”

  “The bagels have gluten.”

  “No. No. I like gluten.”

  “Good.”

  “What brings you here?”

  Caroline put the bagels on the counter and walked toward me, unbuttoning her peacoat. The coat fell open to reveal black yoga pants, a red prosthetic, a green sports bra, and a bare midriff. Caroline followed my eyes down to her red prosthetic.

  “It goes with the green bra,” she said. “For Christmas.”

  I felt my sweatpants start to reveal something, Caroline’s outfit exacerbating my typical morning stiffness. I needed to put a counter between us or things would get obvious. Stepped around Caroline, behind the breakfast nook, and started to unload the bagels.

  Caroline removed her peacoat. I would have taken it from her, but that would have required coming out f
rom behind the breakfast counter. “You can just toss that into my office,” I said.

  Caroline turned to stash the coat and I got to see the backside of her outfit. The person who invented yoga pants deserves a Nobel Prize. My sweatpants bumped the breakfast counter. A tiny groan escaped.

  Caroline returned. “Did you say something?”

  “No,” I said. “Are you dressed for exercise?” Stupid question.

  “Yup. Yoga.”

  “Do you do yoga often?” I arranged the six bagels Caroline had brought on a plate.

  Caroline sat on one of the kitchen stools. “Every day.”

  “What kind?”

  “Bikram hot yoga.”

  “Ah,” I said, cutting the first bagel. “What does it do for you?”

  “It makes me hot.”

  I swallowed. “You mean like ‘boy, it’s hot out’ hot or ‘you look hot’ hot?”

  “Every kind of hot.”

  I arranged the bagel so that the halves were slightly offset, then started on the second bagel. “Are you going to yoga or coming from yoga?”

  “I rarely come from yoga.”

  I gave a goofy spasmodic laugh. I think I snorted. Continued cutting bagels and arranging them in a circle. The Starbucks coffee had the generic burnt flavor that had made them famous. “Good coffee!”

  “It’s the Christmas Blend.”

  “Festive.”

  I turned to my cabinets, grabbed a little glass bowl, turned back and started scooping the cream cheese from its paper container into the bowl.

  “What are you doing?” Caroline asked.

  “Who, me? Nothing. I’m just making things look nice.”

  “You really don’t have to do that.”

  “I just hate eating out of paper.” I placed the cream cheese in the center of the circle of bagels, found a butter knife, stuck it in the cream cheese, reached into the spice rack, and pulled down some dried chives. Sprinkled them on top. Presented it to Caroline. “Ta-da.”

  “It’s pretty,” she said.

  I turned to grab two big coffee mugs that read Keep Calm and Carry On and poured our coffees into the mugs.

  “I hate drinking out of paper,” I said.

  “Who wouldn’t,” Caroline responded.

  Took a big gulp of burnt Starbucks Christmas cheer. Said, “Mmm.”

  Caroline cocked her head to one side, looking at me.

  I pulled down a pair of plates. Chose a bagel. Smeared some cream cheese on one half, offered it to Caroline who shook her head. Put the dry half on her plate, put the smeared half on mine, and set them in front of us.

  Caroline nodded to herself. “Shit. I should have known.”

  “Known?” I asked. “Known what?”

  “That you’re gay.”

  The coffee went down the wrong pipe, hit my trachea, and launched me into a fit of coughing. I spun and spit coffee all over the back of my kitchen nook, mostly in the sink.

  Caroline said, “Not that there’s anything wrong with it.”

  I tried to speak through a coffee-paralyzed larynx. “Grk—gg—”

  Caroline looked concerned. “Are you choking?”

  “Gaaak—”

  Caroline came around the table, stood behind me, wrapped her arms around me. “If you need the Heimlich, make the universal sign for choking.”

  Universal sign for choking?

  “Grrkk?” I said.

  “Yeah, you’re choking.” Caroline balled her fist, shoved it under my ribs, squeezed hard, and jabbed her fist into my spine. Knocked the wind straight out of me.

  Now I couldn’t talk because I had no air. “Hhunnh! Hhunnh!”

  “Another? Okay.”

  No, dear God, not another.

  I spun in Caroline’s grasp. Putting myself chest to chest with that amazing sports bra. Did the only thing that I knew would save me. Pulled her tight against me. Kissed her. My sweatpants said the rest.

  Caroline reached down and patted my buddy. “Oh—so you’re not gay.”

  I shook my head. Sucked in a lungful of air.

  Caroline rubbed her hand around. “You seem happy to see me.”

  I kissed her again, softly, as my hands slipped down her yoga-slicked skin to her waistband. I lingered there, tracing my fingers across the small of her back. I smelled Caroline’s clean sweat as I kissed her just behind the ear, my tongue tasting salt as it tickled the base of her neck. My fingers stopped stroking and switched to massaging the toned muscles of her spine.

  Caroline let slip a tiny gasp, traced her fingers down my belly, undid my drawstring, and slipped her hand inside my boxers. It was my turn to gasp.

  “I don’t know the universal sign for choking,” I said.

  Caroline said, “I’ll show you later.” She took my hand and led the way to my bedroom.

  We fell on the bed. The yoga pants, sweatpants, t-shirt, sports bra, panties, and boxers found their way to the floor. I ran my hand down Caroline’s belly, over to her thigh, where I reached the sleeve of her prosthetic.

  “Let’s get rid of that,” she said, guiding my hands down her leg and showing me what to do. Soon the bedsheets were tangled and heaped on the floor as our bodies tangled and rocked together. We pet and panted, kissed and cuddled, surrendered and strove. No matter how things went, Caroline always wound up on top.

  Who was I to argue?

  Fifty-Two

  I slipped from the bed as Caroline snoozed, placed my robe on the bed for her, and padded out into the kitchen. The bagels sat on the cutting board, forgotten. The Starbucks coffee was cold. Good. I dumped the Starbucks down the drain, its burned smell filling the room. Grabbed some Colombian from Wired Puppy, set up Mr. Coffee, and let him do his thing.

  I was feeding Click and Clack when the door opened and Caroline peeked out, her red prosthetic peeking out from under the robe. She gave me a sleepy smile, waved, and limped into the bathroom. The bathwater ran. I considered asking if she needed help, decided that she was the type who would have asked.

  I poured myself a cup of coffee, put the rest of the coffee into a thermos, carried the bagels and thermos out to the dining room table, and waited.

  My mind, left to its own devices, drifted back to yesterday and the impossibility of my situation. Bobby, Sal, Hugh, Jael—how many people were relying on me to tell, or not to tell, the truth about the past week? If I admitted that I was on Hanover Street, Jael would go to jail. If I didn’t, Bobby would rightfully shun me. He probably wouldn’t even listen to me if I told him about Cantrell’s deal with Sal—a deal that could get him killed.

  Maybe I just tell everybody everything. Bobby would learn about Jael and about Cantrell. Sal would deal with the consequences. Maybe there was no proof, and Sal would walk. Maybe they’d arrest Hugh Graxton for murder. Maybe Bobby would ignore Jael and focus on Cantrell. The amazing thing was that nothing would happen to me, regardless. I didn’t shoot, bribe, or hurt anyone. I’d walk, live a long life as a traitor. A traitor and a loser who let a little girl get kidnapped, killed, or worse.

  The bathroom door opened and Caroline stepped out. Limped lightly down the hallway. Stood in front of me, undid the robe. My hand reached unbidden for the first thing in reach: Caroline’s toned thigh.

  I caressed her just above the prosthetic sleeve, then offered her my hand for support. “Sit?”

  Caroline accepted the offer, sat next to me, left the robe as it was. “So it doesn’t bother you?” she asked.

  “What?”

  She lifted her leg, flexed the knee to wave the red prosthetic. “This.”

  “Why would it bother me?”

  “It bothered my ex-fiancé.”

  I took Caroline’s hand, kissed the back. “He was a schmuck.”

  “You say the nicest things.”

 
I reached into the robe, rested my hand across Caroline’s hip, kissed her again. “Let’s have some bagels.”

  Caroline rewarded me with a brilliant smile, closed the robe, and chose a sesame bagel. I poured her some coffee. We leaned back. Caroline threw her leg across mine. I massaged her foot in the instant intimacy created by sex.

  “What were you thinking about earlier?” she asked.

  “When earlier?”

  “When I walked down the hall. You looked sad.”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  Intimacy was one thing. Truthfulness might take more time.

  “Oh, okay. Nothing,” said Caroline. “That was a whole lot of nothing.”

  “I don’t even know what I could tell you.”

  “Anything you want.”

  “But you’re an officer of the court or something, aren’t you?”

  “I’ll just invoke attorney-client privilege.”

  “Don’t I need to pay you a dollar or something as a fee?”

  Caroline patted my crotch. “Consider it paid.”

  “Really? I was worth a whole dollar?”

  “No. No. At least five dollars.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “What just happened—before, in bed?”

  “I’m pretty sure you were there.”

  “Yeah, but—I didn’t know we were at that point,” I said.

  “I went a little fast for you?”

  “I’m not complaining.”

  “There was a time I would have waited the customary three dates,” Caroline said over her coffee mug.

  I worked the sole of Caroline’s foot. “You mean a time before the bombing?”

  “A few feet closer … I don’t know. It’s hard to explain, being so close to getting killed.”

  Vince Ferrari and the shipping crate flashed into my head. “Yeah. I know.”

  “How would you know?”

  “Long story.”

  “Oh, you mean the whole lot of nothing you were thinking about before?”

  I said nothing.

  Caroline slipped her foot away, sat next to me on the couch. She said, “Anyway, I took the initiative and came over for a booty call.”

  “Ahh.”

  “I wanted to get in your pants. You are sexy as hell.”