A bell above the door had chimed as I entered. A man with olive coloring walked out from the kitchen and greeted me. He wiped his hands on a dirty apron and flashed a hospitable smile. He had thick caterpillar eyebrows that reminded me of two of my scars, and a smile that would have made me uncomfortable if I was a woman.
“Pos Eisai,” he said. “I am Nicholas. Will you join us here or take out?”
The door behind Nicholas—to the kitchen I presumed—eased open and a college-age young man stuck his head out. He was prepared to yell something but swallowed the words the moment he spotted me. Rather than disappear in the kitchen again he stomped out into the dining area and plopped down demonstratively in one of the few chairs. His posture was poor and loose and he had already audibly sighed several times in that short span. He wore high-top Puma skater sneakers, faded skinny jeans, and a Michael Jackson RIP T-shirt. He had thick eyebrows as well, and a frown every bit as lascivious as old man Nicholas’s smile. He played with a Breast Cancer awareness bracelet on his slim wrist and eyed me curiously.
“Neither,” I told Nicholas.
His lustful smile held. “We have very reasonable lunch specials,” he offered.
I nodded. “I’m looking for someone. It’s very important. I’ll pay you for two lunch specials just for a moment of your time.”
“Pay me but not eat?” he asked.
“Sure.”
A frown knitted his eyebrows and erased the smile from his face. “What is this?” he asked. His son made a sound like a thoroughbred racehorse.
“I’m looking for a man,” I explained. “He either comes in or orders out a few times each week.”
Nicholas shook his head, waved his arms. “I don’t know.”
“I haven’t told you anything yet,” I said.
“I don’t know,” he insisted.
“His name is Sweet,” I said. “He usually orders your grilled vegetable sandwich, I believe.”
“I don’t know.”
“Darren Sweet,” I said.
The smile was long gone. The frown deepened. “You go or I call the police.”
“That’s not necessary, Nicholas.”
“You go!”
A chair scraped. I turned to observe the son rise from his seat, a smirk on his face, and disappear back through the door into the kitchen.
“You go,” the old man said once more.
I went.
IT TOOK JUST UNDER half an hour for the rain to let up and for him to come bustling out through the dark chocolate door at the front of the bistro, whistling the melody to a Katy Perry song, carelessly carrying a tall bag of food by the handle. He did not flinch in surprise when I stepped in pace behind him. He just kept walking until he reached his car. A dark, late-model Saab parked in the space behind Chris Hall’s Accord.
“It’s no fun without a chase,” he said, placing the delivery bag of food on the Saab’s roof so he could root through the pocket of his skinny jeans. He came out with a keychain fob with a light blue rabbit’s foot attachment, used it to chirp the Saab’s locks.
“Darren Sweet,” I said.
“You don’t even introduce yourself,” he complained. “Just move in completely dry. That’s not so nice.”
I didn’t need this.
I turned to leave.
“Wait, wait,” he called.
I turned back.
He was smiling. “I’m a bit strong for some people’s tastes,” he said. “I get it, I apologize. I’m Nicky, by the way.”
“Little Nicholas.”
“Little?” he said, and smiled and blinked. “I beg to differ, MysteryMan. But you wouldn’t know any better unless you checked under the hood. You interested in checking under the hood?”
I ignored that. “Do you know of Darren Sweet?”
“Sweet Darren,” he said. “Of course. What has he done? I always thought that boy would get himself in some trouble or another.”
“Why is that?”
He shrugged. “A feeling.”
“You have these feelings often?”
“Often enough.”
“I don’t have a sense of Sweet. What can you tell me?”
“Interesting boy.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“Not a bit.”
“I need to speak with him,” I said.
“Just speak?” he said.
“I’m trying to locate a mutual friend. I was hoping Darren could shed some light on her whereabouts.”
“Locate a friend? Have you tried Facebook?”
“It’s a little deeper than that.”
“She’s missing missing?”
“Something along those lines,” I admitted.
“You don’t think Sweet Darren’s involved, do you?”
“I don’t know him,” I said. “You tell me.”
“Gossip is so ugly, Mystery Man.”
“Chris.”
“Pardon?”
“My name is Chris,” I said. “Chris Hall.”
“And I’m Glenda the Good Witch,” he replied.
I reached for my pocket.
“Don’t pull out any ID,” he said, frowning. “You can buy them two for ten dollars on Broad Street. We’re just talking now. If it gets heavier we’ll figure something out.”
“It won’t get heavier.”
“You’re supposed to wait until I give you information before you break my heart. You’re new at this aren’t you?”
“Your father seemed to shut down when I mentioned Darren Sweet.”
Nicky played with his bracelet again. The smile disappeared. “Mother passed four years ago,” he said. “The bistro is all he has left. That’s why we do deliveries. Above and beyond, you know? He’s protective of the customers. Particularly the good ones.”
“Darren Sweet’s a good one?”
“You said it, Mystery Man, he’s eating our food at least twice a week.”
“I really need to talk with him, Nicky.”
His smile returned. “You used my first name to set me at ease. That’s a tactic the police use during interrogations of suspected criminals isn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Wouldn’t you?” he said, smiling coyly.
“I really need to talk with him, Nicky,” I repeated.
“It is effective,” he said. “There might be some hope for you at this after all.”
“Can you tell me how I can get in touch with him?”
“You won’t hurt him?”
“That’s not my plan at all.”
“But possible?”
“Maybe he’ll try to hurt me,” I said.
“Hardly.”
“It’s been suggested to me he’s into some less than desirable things.”
“Like what?”
“Gossip is so ugly,” I said.
He smiled. “Touché.”
“What can you do for me, Nicky?”
“That a loaded question?”
Getting through a conversation with him might have been the heaviest lifting I’d ever have to do.
“I’m serious,” I said.
“You think I’m not?”
“Please?”
“A beggar,” he said, and clucked his tongue. “The big ones usually are.”
I didn’t respond.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “This might work out anyway. Father and I have been worried. It’d be good for someone to check on Sweet Darren.”
“Worried?” I asked.
“He hasn’t called in a few days.”
“When was the last time?”
“Four, five days at the outside,” he said. “How long has your mutual friend been MIA?”
“About the same amount of time.”
“Double mayhem.”
“Let’s hope not.”
“Let’s.”
“So can you tell me anything, Nicky?”
“Sweet Darren’s apartment complex, where I deliver his food. Would that help?”
/>
“A great deal.”
He told me. I nodded, thanked him, and moved for my car.
“Hey,” he called out.
“What?”
“I once knew a boy named Chris,” he said. “Very well. Your fake name brings back some fond memories.”
I slid inside the Accord and shut the door on his laughter.
FOURTEEN
SWEET’S APARTMENT COMPLEX WAS on a tree-shaded street less than two miles from the bistro. It was a two-story building constructed with white brick that could not seem to hold its paint. Some of it came off on my shirt and hand as I leaned against the building to let a woman pushing a green cart of groceries past. The cobbled entranceway path was too narrow for us to both travel through at the same time. She did not speak but smiled in a way that colored the gray out of the day. A smile brighter than the absent sun. I would place her somewhere in her late sixties in age. My best guess for the man quietly tinkering with a gutted radio on his steps just beyond us would be early seventies. The woman standing in the doorway of the unit next to his could have been anything from a few years younger than he to a few years older.
When I reached the end of the path, I looked back at those I had passed and frowned. Maybe my head was full of cobwebs and dust. Maybe I just was not good at this, as Nicky suggested. Whatever the case, my instincts were tingling, alerting me to some imbalance in reason, but without the necessary clarity as to what that imbalance was exactly. Either way, I knew something was not right, and so I climbed the black metal staircase at the end of the path with a high degree of measure.
It was daylight time so I was not worried about anything going bump in the darkness of night. Yet something was not clicking and I would remain guarded until I discovered just what it was.
The door to Sweet’s unit was at the halfway point of the second landing. I paused long enough to listen for any odd sound, long enough to study his window treatments. Pale pink blinds and curtains shielded me from an inside view of the apartment. On the ledge of one of the windows rested a lighted figurine of Jesus with his hands clasped to his chest in a position of repose.
I knocked on the door.
It took just a moment before it opened to the midpoint of its security chain. From the cover of the door a woman looked out at me. I could tell it was a woman by the long, curly eyelash. “Yes?” she said. And also by her warbled but feminine voice.
“I’m looking for Darren Sweet,” I said.
I couldn’t see, and I’m not for certain, but I had the sudden impression that she tilted slightly and quickly righted herself.
“And who are you?” she asked.
“Chris Hall, ma’am.”
“I’ve never heard that name,” she said.
“Is Darren in?”
“What did you need, Mr. Hall?” she asked in an unexpectedly strong voice all of a sudden.
“To speak with Darren, ma’am.”
“Why do I get the feeling your politeness is insincere, Mr. Hall?”
“I’m sure I can’t answer that.”
We stood in silence for a moment. I heard a noise off in the distance. Sounded like the woman I had passed on the way in, her cart’s wheels clicking the cobbled path below. Eventually Darren Sweet’s sentry spoke.
“You’re not with the police,” she said. “Your bearing’s more suited to someone on the other side of the fence. And you’re not answering my questions, so all I can assume is that you’re here with deleterious intent.”
“Darren and I have a mutual friend,” I said, parroting the line of the day. “She’s missing, it appears. I was hoping Darren might offer something that would hint to her whereabouts.”
“She?”
“Yes.”
“There’s somewhat of an offensive stench to what you’re telling me, Mr. Hall.”
“I don’t know how to respond to that, Ms…”
“Mrs. Lippman.”
“I’ve been forthright with you, Mrs. Lippman.”
“Have you?”
“Indubitably,” I said.
“Are you being a wiseass?”
“Just a little bit,” I admitted.
One beat. Two beats. Then she cackled. Cackled and worked the door chain off at the same time. She opened the inner door and stepped into the light. Her hair was magnificent silver, every strand touched by the brilliance. Her dark skin was smooth in the way that only black women of advanced age could seem to manage. The top of her head reached only to the crook of my elbow and yet she cast a presence two feet taller.
The dimness that had trapped my mind faded. Suddenly I had clarity about what was bothering me just a few moments before.
“This is a senior complex,” I said.
“It better be,” she said. “Or the gentleman downstairs that has been keeping me company is quite the inappropriate pervert.”
The candor of her words surprised me. She must have noticed the question in my eyes.
“My Richard passed away going on seven years now, Mr. Hall.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re thinking I’m quite the ribald old bird, are you not, Mr. Hall?”
“You’re refreshing, Mrs. Lippman.”
It wasn’t me speaking to her. It was…
And your college studies make you feel like some kind of investigator?
I’d shed my persona for the good of the cause. My confidence increased with the knowledge. I would find out what happened to Nevada.
“Darren obviously isn’t here,” Mrs. Lippman replied.
“I haven’t asked, is Darren your grandson, Mrs. Lippman?”
“Richard and I weren’t blessed to be parents,” she said mournfully. “No, Darren is just a young man that I’ve looked after whenever at all possible. I say young man even though he’s well past thirty.” Another piece of the puzzle. “From the first moment I became acquainted I was encouraged by his great potential. I’d consider myself fortunate to be his grandmother. Even though that isn’t the case, I’ve been enriched by our relationship.”
“I understood that he was staying here.”
“You’ve been misinformed, Mr. Hall.”
“Do you have a way of contacting him?”
“He contacts me,” she said, smiling. “Frequently. Unlike some of the young people who believe talking to an older citizen will plague them with some unfortunate disease.”
“When did you last speak with him?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“It’s been about five days,” she said.
“Did he seem troubled when you last spoke?”
“Should he have been?”
“I don’t know, Mrs. Lippman.”
“He was fine,” she assured me.
I realized she had not invited me inside.
“I’m not harboring him in my back bedroom, if that’s what you’re thinking, Mr. Hall,” she said, seemingly looking inside of my head and pulling out my thoughts.
I smiled and shook my head. “You’re amazing, Mrs. Lippman.”
“Less so with each day,” she said. “Age truly deteriorates you.”
“Can I leave my number?” I said. “And when he contacts you, would you have him call me?”
She smiled. “Since you didn’t say ‘if’, surely.”
“What’s that?”
“You said ‘when he contacts me’.”
I nodded.
She stepped back inside the shadow of her apartment. Came back a moment later, opening the door just wide enough to hand through a small notepad and ballpoint pen. “You write your information, Mr. Hall. My hands are terribly tremulous.”
I wrote down my phone number and handed the pad and pen back through the crack to her.
“I was wondering something,” I said as she relocked the outer door.
“Yes?”
I cleared my throat. “I’ve heard some talk that Darren was recently disbarred from his law practice. Is that credible talk, Mrs. Lippman?”
“We’ve
had nearly a perfect conversation, Mr. Hall.”
She closed the door in my face.
I KNOCKED ON A few more doors in the complex, searching for someone with a different perspective on the elusive Darren Sweet. Real investigators chased down leads with the tenacity of a dog chewing on a favored old sneaker. I would not discover anything about Nevada’s disappearance by resting on my laurels, or one elderly woman’s panorama. Unfortunately, either Mrs. Lippman’s neighbors really did not know much or they had been properly schooled in the art of ignorance. Frustrated, I eventually left.
I considered a return to the bistro for a second chitchat with Nicky. Decided that would not yield me any more valuable insight, and small doses of the young man were enough for a lifetime. He was the equivalent of a Measles, Mumps, and Rubella shot. Stuck without a further purpose, the day bled into night. And eventually night bled into the dark passageway between one day’s end and another’s beginning.
I went back to Nevada’s and, unable to sleep, watched television until my vision blurred and my eyes started to burn. Every sound in the settling house raised my hope that either Nevada or Siobhan was at the door. I moved to the living room window more times than I care to admit, each time peering out at an empty stoop.
At some point, I fell asleep. I dreamed about quiet rivers and lost toddlers, helicopters and a hearts-and-vines tattoo, far off tinkling bells.
Wait.
I woke up with a start. I could hear what I had thought of as tinkling bells ringing in the distance. My new cell phone hadn’t rang even once since I had gotten it. Wiping sleep from my eyes, I stumbled through the semi-darkness of Nevada’s bedroom, out into the hall, and to the kitchen to secure my ringing cell phone from the counter.
I answered and thought of all the day’s conversations.
Nicholas and Nicky, Mrs. Lippman, her neighbors.
The conversations had been surreal at best, odd at worst.
Finally, I had somebody that spoke in my harsh language.
“I heard you been looking for me, motherfucker?” a man spoke in my ear.
Darren Sweet’s voice jolted me awake fully.
FIFTEEN
“I TAKE IT YOU didn’t wish to be found, Sweet?”
“You haven’t found me, asshole.”
I laughed without merriment. “It’s only a matter of time.”
Triage: A Thriller (Shell Series) Page 17