Silent City

by Alex Segura

  Chapter Three

  Pete sat down at the far end of the Abbey’s bar, close to the speakers. He usually avoided bars that didn’t have a jukebox—being part music nerd and part control freak—but the Abbey boasted a fairly solid, iPod-run sound system. Not every song was a winner, Pete thought, but they batted a pretty healthy average. Now, they were blasting the Buzzcocks’ “What Do I Get?”—a power-punk plea for attention that only the best bands could pull. The track took him back to his college days, when his love of music had helped him discover a love for writing, and his nights consisted of rock shows by bad-to-great bands in seedy bars on the edge of downtown. The nights usually produced some overly-stylized reviews that consisted of Pete’s best imitation of Lester Bangs or fluffy features for his college paper on the few bands that dared pop down to Miami for a show. He’d even been in a band—the foolishly named Dancing Violence. Pete hummed the melody to one of their songs but couldn’t remember it past the first verse. He didn’t even own a guitar anymore. Pete rubbed his eyes, sore from staring at his monitor for nine hours. It’d been a long night. It wasn’t over.

  The bartender, a thirty-something stoner named Nick, was wearing a rumpled Smiths T-shirt and sported the requisite blond stubble. He hovered at the other end of the bar. Pete motioned for him and ordered a Delirium Tremens. The bartender served him a glass with the trademark pink elephant on it and returned to his post, talking to a thin, bespectacled man. From what Pete could overhear, they were debating the Dolphins’ chances in the coming football season. As much as Pete loved football, specifically the Dolphins, he was in no mood to get involved in heated sports debate. Not tonight.

  Pete sipped his beer slowly, aware from many past experiences that the selection of brews at the Abbey was not only diverse, but also highly potent. It was close to two. Pete was early.

  The bartender looked over as he wiped off a pint glass with a rag that hung limply from his waist. A few minutes passed and his first beer was gone. Pete ordered another. He pondered a shot, but remembered the Abbey was beer and wine only. Probably for the best.

  • • •

  Chaz walked into the Abbey at a quarter past two. Wisps of blondish-gray hair framed his thin face. He reminded Pete of a sitcom dad after a three-night bender. Pete pictured Chaz sitting him down on the couch for a heart-to-heart about the perils of premarital sex. Pete chuckled under his breath. Chaz wore a plaid, short-sleeved, button-down shirt and worn light-blue jeans. Like Pete, Chaz carried a notebook in his shirt pocket. Chaz had been working at the Times for over 25 years. Despite his recent nosedive in quality, he still had an impressive resume that Pete could only dream of matching. He appreciated Chaz’s old-school ethic. Too many reporters had lost themselves in the technology, using it as a crutch to mask bad journalism and weak writing. Despite their difference in age, Pete felt some kinship with the elder reporter.

  Chaz looked around the empty bar until he noticed Pete at the far end. Pete was on his third drink and feeling it. He forced himself to focus.

  The bartender looked at Chaz as he took a seat next to Pete, nodding politely. Pete slid over the drinks menu.

  “What’ll it be, man?” The bartender asked Chaz.

  “Rogue.” His voice was hoarse, but cleared up a bit as he spoke.

  The bartender nodded and walked over to the taps near the center of the establishment. Pete and Chaz were the only people in the bar, aside from Nick the bartender.

  “Good to see you,” Pete said. “Though, I can’t say I really know what this is about.”

  “Thanks for coming. I appreciate it.” Chaz’s eyes were tired and empty. Pete could still smell whiskey on his breath. “At this point, I feel like I need to take any help I can get.”

  “Well, what can I do?” Pete said. “I don’t really know Kathy that well. So, she’s missing?”

  “I don’t really know. She was fine a couple weeks ago, but I haven’t seen her since.”

  “Well, OK. How does that mean she’s missing?” Pete asked. “Has she been to work?”

  “I only realized she was gone yesterday,” Chaz explained. He trailed off a bit as the bartender served his beer. He took a hungry gulp. Most of the beer was finished with one lift. Pete felt like he was getting a glimpse of what he might look like in 30 years. Or was he just being melodramatic? Chaz closed his eyes for a second and then looked at Pete. “Sorry. It’s hot as fuck outside. I hate this city. Even at night it’s hot. No breeze, just heat, sweat, and smell. Too much. It’s too much sometimes.”

  “I guess,” Pete said. He looked up at one of the muted TV screens. Repeats of the evening news. A gator found in Homestead. He’d have to call Emily to see if it had crawled through her yard. Or not, he thought. Pete could already hear her laughing on the other end of the line.

  Chaz slid a finger over his glass. He didn’t respond.

  “Why don’t you go to the cops?” Pete asked.

  “The cops don’t think she’s missing.”

  “Doesn’t that count for something?”

  “They think that she’s just not talking to me, since we don’t have much of a relationship.” Chaz looked away from Pete and finished his beer in one pull.

  “Maybe she’s on vacation? I don’t know,” Pete shrugged. His buzz was fading and he was getting bored.

  “She’s been off my radar for a few weeks. She usually calls once a week, on Sundays,” Chaz said. “To chat, to say hello, to ask for money. The usual routine. The last time we talked she sounded frazzled. Just…I dunno…off. She’s been seeing this guy, Javier.”

  “Javier what?”

  “Reyes. You know him, right?”

  “Yeah, I know him. We went to high school together,” Pete said. He hadn’t thought of Javier in years. He vaguely remembered Emily or Mike mentioning something about Javier and Kathy. The few times Pete had hung out while Kathy was around, the topic of Javier never came up. Neither did her having a boyfriend. He felt slightly disheartened to discover she wasn’t single. Javier and Pete had run together in high school, back when Pete wasn’t much more than a wannabe street thug—petty theft, minor dealing. If it hadn’t been for Pete’s dad and his discipline, he’d more than likely be doing time or struggling to get back on his feet after doing time.

  “Early thirties—about your age. Kind of a smartass. Acts like he’s hot shit but still talks like he’d just pulled his raft off the beach. Has the same ‘¿Que Pasa USA?’ accent all those new Mexicans or Cubans have.” Chaz stopped himself, realizing he was drunk and not in control of his tongue. “Aw shit, sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Pete sighed and slid his empty glass toward the bartender. His system could probably handle one more. But his patience was wearing thin. This was going nowhere. He still felt the residual pounding of the morning’s hangover.

  The proverbial collision of two worlds—his misspent youth and his misspent present—had taken him by surprise. Of all places to find Javier, he would have never expected it’d be at the Abbey with Chaz Bentley.

  “So they were dating?” Pete was surprised at the directness of his own question.

  “I guess so,” Chaz muttered. “They’re always together when she comes over, all wide-eyed and chatty, hopped up on who-knows-what.”

  Pete scratched his chin, rubbing against his four-day stubble. The bartender poured him another. He closed his eyes and let his mind drift back to a decade before, when he couldn’t think of anyone closer to him than Javier. Best friends that never acknowledged it. Strumming guitars in Pete’s bedroom, hustling students with a few weed sales here and there. They weren’t bad kids. Sure, they cut class, drank and smoked, listened to loud music, snuck out late at night to see the few punk acts with enough cash to make the trek down to Miami—but there were always other kids doing worse. Pete often found himself getting nostalgic for when the biggest problem was how to get to the mailbox before your dad did, to prevent him from finding that form letter from the school inf
orming them his kid hadn’t bothered to show for class in a few weeks. Before Mike and Emily, there was Javier—his literal partner in crime.

  Those years, his first few at Southwest Miami High, were glorious times, fueled by cheap beer, weed and great music. He could almost feel the summer breeze whipping at his face as he and Javier sped down Bird Road in his dad’s battered red Mustang, well after midnight, listening to the title track from Let It Bleed on loop. Mick’s put-on drawl reminding the listener that we all need someone we can lean on. The words meant so much then. Pete hadn’t played that record in years.

  It had ended abruptly, like those things do. A few beers too many one night and they’d decided they were invincible. Strutting into a desolate 7-Eleven on Coral Way with nothing to lose. Both of them wearing big coats that screamed “We’re shoplifting!” on a humid Miami evening. They thought they were the shit as they slid a few forties of Olde English into their pockets, trying with little success not to giggle. They stopped laughing when the old man behind the counter pulled out a shotgun and ordered them to put their hands up. Extreme? Sure. Javier gave Pete a look that said “Let’s go, he won’t shoot.” But for Pete it was over. This was farther than he ever thought he’d get, and he wanted no part of being an actual criminal. Pete would never forget the look of betrayal in Javier’s eyes. He didn’t know it at the time, but that’s when their friendship died. Later that night, Pete’s father—looking more shamed than he’d ever seen him—walked into the police station, hat in hand, and dragged Pete back home. Pete remembered the cloud of guilt that hovered over him for weeks. Knowing that his father was already working himself to death chasing after a pile of unsolved cases, only to find his biggest problem was his own son. Pete resigned himself to his new life, more out of sheer embarrassment and shame at disappointing his father. By their junior year their friendship was nonexistent. Pete ran into Javier outside a party and Javier brushed off his half-baked attempts at reconciliation before driving off in the same Mustang that had been basically his, too, just a few months before. One of the last times Pete remembered seeing Javier was during freshman year in college, when he found Javier leaning against a fence for support outside Pete’s newly discovered hangout, the Gables Pub. He looked older, gruffer, his shirt wet with vomit. It had taken him a few moments to even recognize Pete. His words only cemented what Pete should have known years ago: “What, Pete? Come back to slum with the losers you left behind?” He remembered a shove and Javier was gone.

  Chaz’s words snapped him back to reality. “He’s not a bad guy, I guess. He seems to treat Kathy OK, from what I can tell.”

  “I have a few questions before this conversation goes any further,” Pete said, lifting his glass. Chaz nodded.

  “First, what is it exactly you want me to do that the police can’t do?”

  “Well, the police aren’t doing anything.”

  “Be specific.” Pete was growing weary of the conversation.

  “I called the cops, but they said they can’t really do much until they get more proof that she’s missing and not just avoiding her dad,” Chaz said, his eyes on his drink. “We don’t have a great relationship. Sometimes it’s close to normal; other times, she acts like she wants me dead. I…I wasn’t much of a father to her when I was with her mom. I feel like it’s too late for me to go back and fix that. I just want to make sure she’s OK. Alive. Somewhere.”

  “OK, fair enough,” Pete turned his barstool to face Chaz. “Why me, though? Kathy and I aren’t friends. I mean, we’ve hung out from time to time. She used to be friendly with some friends of mine, but that’s it.”

  “Kathy has had some trouble fitting in at the Times,” Chaz said. “It’s hard to come in and not be considered some kind of golden child when your dad’s worked at the paper for years, so that made it hard for her to make friends.”

  Chaz took a quick sip from his beer. It was kicking in, Pete thought.

  “You know my daughter, and you’re smart,” Chaz said. “Before you came here, you had a pretty solid rep as reporter. A reporter known for finding things out, digging for information. You were good journalism. It’s not like I can afford a private eye. Not on my salary.”

  Pete tried to not let the compliment go to his head. He reminded himself that the Chaz Bentley sitting next to him was not the same one he’d read as a kid with his breakfast each morning.

  “There isn’t much to it,” Chaz said, looking at him. Pete could see that Chaz’s eyes were already bloodshot. “Everyone in that place resented her. You were nice and chatty a few times. She said you guys had some good conversations when you all went out. Whether you were trying to get her into bed, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. What matters is you didn’t just hate her because she had my last name.”

  Pete paused for a second before responding, both of his hands on his pint.

  “I don’t know—I don’t buy it.”

  “What?”

  “Kathy’s a nice girl,” Pete said. “I like her. But I know she has friends, I know some of them myself. Just because I was nice to her at work and over a few drinks in the last year or so doesn’t qualify me to find her—if she’s actually missing, and not just avoiding you.”

  “You don’t think you can?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying,” Pete said. He felt himself beginning to ramble slightly. “I feel bad for you, and I want to help, I just don’t know why you’d come to me.”

  Chaz sighed and finished his beer. The bartender had lowered the music slightly and put on CNN.

  The usual mix of bad news and puff pieces was creating a buzz of background noise Pete was finding hard to avoid.

  “I don’t know anyone else,” Chaz said. “I don’t know who my daughter hangs out with. I barely know her boyfriend. You know both of them, might know some other people in their circles. You’re not a novice. You know how to follow logic and formulate theories—maybe for a newspaper article, but it’s the same ballpark. You could probably check her files—see if she was working on anything that might be worth reading or is alarming. That gives you more of a head start. I’m really just looking for someone to make a few calls and find out she’s fine. If after that, you’ve got nothing, I’ll have more reason to pressure the police. It’s not complicated.”

  “Fine,” Pete said.

  “What?”

  Nick the bartender walked over and refilled Pete’s glass. Chaz declined another beer with a quick nod as he waited for Pete to respond. He was tired of this conversation. Tired of talking to Chaz. Tired of the memories that it dredged up. Of a friend left behind, his father’s disappointment, his youth growing smaller in the rearview mirror. Maybe this was a chance to reconnect with a friend he’d thought lost forever. Or, the very least, a chance to do something, anything again. He thought about Kathy, her flirty smile over a few drinks, when their eyes would meet across a crowded table. What was the harm in helping this sad, old man if it meant he would have something to do aside from drinking himself to oblivion each night before waking up in time to stumble into his car and go to work again? He couldn’t deny he was curious to see what Javier was up to. Not surprisingly, he was more curious to talk to Kathy. He blamed the beer.

  “OK, I’ll do it,” Pete said. “I can do some basic research through the paper, but I’m not going to break the rules and get fired over this.”

  “That’s fine. I understand. Thank you.”

  “Do you have keys to her apartment? I’ll need to look around her place to see what’s up. Get a better idea as to whether she left recently or what.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Chaz didn’t hesitate, and rummaged through his front pocket before handing Pete a set of keys. He knew I would say yes, Pete thought. “I can’t guarantee they’ll work, though. She’s been known to change the locks—on me, ex-boyfriends, whatever.”

  Pete shrugged.

  “She lives around Little Haiti—small place off Biscayne.” That was relatively close to his apartment, he realized.

/>   Pete nodded before taking his latest swig. He was past the point of being drunk and was now coasting toward being just plain fucked up. Still, he was enjoying the misleading moments before pure drunkenness struck. He would be of no more use to this guy tonight.

  “I can pay you—a little bit. Obviously, I’m not flush. I’m just not sure what this kind of thing costs,” Chaz said, reaching for his wallet. It was now half past three in the morning.

  Pete waved him off. “Put your money away, man.” He said, leaning on the wall now. Pete’s legs hung loosely around his barstool, his left hand still gripping the goblet-like glass. He’d barely touched his new beer. It felt like the previous ones were hitting now, all together. He wondered if he’d had five or four. The stereo had shifted to Modest Mouse. Was it “Float On”? Pete wasn’t sure. Emily loved that song.

  “Let me find Kathy,” Pete blurted out. “Then we’ll worry about money.”

  “I can’t explain how much this means,” Chaz looked close to tears. That was the last thing Pete needed tonight. A grown man sobbing at the bar.

  Pete felt his vision begin to blur. His stomach churned. Hungry, or about to get sick? He had to slow down. Night shift or not, there was work to be done tomorrow; Pete mumbled something in response to Chaz but wasn’t sure what. Something about not worrying about the tab. Chaz slipped him his business card, his number and address on it.

  Pete looked over at Nick, who was staring up at the television. There’d been another gang-related murder near the beach. The country was at war. The Marlins were playing the Dodgers. Pete was reminded of the West Coast scores. Chaz left. Pete leaned his head back and let his eyes close.

  Chapter Four

  Pete felt something grab and shake his shoulder. His eyelids were heavy. He could still taste the alcohol and he had a bitter, bile taste creeping up in his throat. Had he thrown up? He gave himself a quick once-over and determined he hadn’t. He turned his head slowly and saw Mike standing beside him. Pete was still at the Abbey. He’d been leaning on the wall. He was used to this scenario: Mike comes to collect Pete after a bender leaves him splayed out somewhere, usually at a bar. Mike had a list of places to check. The Abbey was not far from the top.