The Vanishing

by Bentley Little

  Still, there were drawbacks. The coating of respectability was only a thin veneer, and behind the scenes, life in the club was probably not much different than it had always been. He wasn’t going to name names, but cocaine, physical abuse and alcoholism were all part of various dancers’ lives. Two of them had kids. One was a part-time hooker. Some of the customers were a step above stalker. One of them had been a stalker and was now in police custody.

  Manny sighed. ‘‘It’s a lot tougher than sweeping up rat shit, gum wrappers and paper clips.’’

  Brian held up the videotape.

  ‘‘What’s that?’’

  ‘‘I was hoping you could tell me. Another reporter got it and it’s connected to . . . a big story.’’ He wasn’t sure how much he wanted to give away. ‘‘If you have a TV and a machine here, we can watch it. It’s really short.’’

  ‘‘Just tell me what happens.’’

  ‘‘Well, nothing really happens. There’s a dead guy’s body and a dancer, although both of them look blurry and . . . creepy. There’s some weird plants and a shot of this building. Oh, and the whole thing’s in black and white. We’re trying to find out who made it, and since it showed a dancer and the outside of Razzamatazz, I thought you might know something.’’

  ‘‘Yeah, I know who made it. That rich dude that croaked. I saw him on TV the other night and said, ‘That’s him!’ When he came in here, though, I thought he was just some ordinary asshole. We all did. No one knew who he was.’’

  ‘‘Are you sure? You want to watch the video and see—’’

  ‘‘I don’t need to watch it,’’ Manny said. But something in his voice told Brian that he didn’t want to watch it. That he was afraid to watch it.

  ‘‘What happened?’’

  ‘‘We don’t let people film in here or take pictures. For obvious reasons. But that butt-fuckin’, mother-humpin’, dick-lickin’, dog-shittin’, tit-tweakin’, tater-twangin’, tubesteakin’ son of a bitch conned his way in. Said he was doing a documentary for HBO. Got carte blanche.’’

  ‘‘Was there anyone else with him? A crew?’’

  Manny shook his head. ‘‘No. Just him with this little video camera. Thing is, he didn’t want to tape the girls dancin’. I guess that made him seem more legit. He said he wanted backstage stuff, ‘reality.’ So when I saw him, he wasn’t even tapin’ anything. I was out on the floor, and I saw him every so often, but he just seemed to be wanderin’ around, lookin’ for sum’n to do. If it was up to me, he woulda been outta there. I didn’t like the guy. But it wasn’t my call.’’

  Manny lit a cigarette. Nervously, Brian thought.

  ‘‘As far as I knew, he didn’t tape anything that night. So it’s kind of a surprise to find out he did.’’

  ‘‘It was just the building, like I said. And there’s a dancer. But . . . I don’t think she works here. You could see it for yourself—’’

  ‘‘No thanks.’’ Again, Brian thought he sounded scared. ‘‘Is that where you got the tape? Was it his? The rich guy?’’

  Brian nodded.

  ‘‘Thought so.’’

  There seemed to be no more forthcoming. ‘‘Is that it?’’ Brian asked tentatively. ‘‘Is there anything else you can tell me?’’

  Manny smoked in silence for a moment before speaking. ‘‘We got a dancer here who stuffs animals.’’ He rolled his eyes. ‘‘Don’t ask. She’s payin’ her way through taxidermy school or some such shit. Anyway, she had a dead pigeon that she found outside the club and was keepin’ on ice in the dressin’ room ’til she got off that night.’’

  ‘‘That night?’’

  ‘‘Yeah. Anyway, he wanted to see it. Didn’t want to film it, just wanted to check it out. I wasn’t there, but three other people were, and they all saw the same thing. The guy reached out to the bird and . . . touched it.’’ Manny paused, took a deep drag off his cigarette. ‘‘It came back to life.’’

  Brian shivered, feeling suddenly cold.

  ‘‘It’s still back there.’’

  He looked toward the spot where Manny had gestured and saw a dark narrow hallway leading behind the raised stage. His senses felt heightened, as though he were in a nightmare, and the shadowed hallway seemed not only claustrophobic but threatening. He didn’t want to go there. But he put one foot in front of the other and followed Manny past the stage, past a cluttered empty office to a shared dressing room.

  ‘‘Girls won’t be here for another hour,’’ Manny said.

  The lights were off, but even after he turned them on, the room remained dim. Brian supposed that if the round bulbs ringing the makeup mirrors were switched on, there might be enough illumination to see clearly, but Manny walked past the mirrors and directly to a sheet that had been hung between the walls and affixed to the ceiling with hooks, partitioning off the far side of the narrow room. He lifted the bottom of the sheet and held it up for Brian to pass under.

  An open-topped Panasonic television box sat on the floor. ‘‘There,’’ Manny said, pointing.

  The bird was . . . puffy. It looked more like a chicken than a pigeon, and it moved in a lurching, disjointed, almost spasmodic manner, banging repeatedly against the opposite side of the box and flapping its oddly crimped wings. Its head was cocked at an upward angle, and there was a feral glint in its glassy eyes that chilled him to the bone.

  ‘‘We don’t know what to do. Everyone’s afraid of it. No one wants to take care of it, but no one wants to kill it, either. If it can be killed. Again.’’ He shook his head. ‘‘As far as I know, no one’s fed it since it . . . came back. But here it is.’’

  The bird staggered toward them, and Brian took an involuntary step back.

  ‘‘Yeah,’’ Manny said. ‘‘Creepy, ain’t it?’’

  The creature craned its neck and cried out. The sound was grating, like nails on a chalkboard. At the same time, it reminded Brian of something he had heard before—although he could not immediately place it— and the familiarity of the noise made it seem that much scarier. The bird cried out again. Inside its beak, he saw what looked like gray splotchy mold.

  ‘‘Jesus,’’ Brian said.

  ‘‘Yeah.’’

  They watched the bird flounder around for another moment or two; then Manny turned and went back under the sheet, holding it up again for Brian to follow.

  ‘‘So why’d you give Devine so much access if you didn’t know who he was?’’

  ‘‘That his name, Devine?’’

  ‘‘Bill Devine, yeah.’’

  ‘‘Well, like I said, it wasn’t my call. I didn’t give him anything. That came from higher up.’’

  ‘‘But why was he allowed to do whatever he wanted?’’

  Manny sighed. ‘‘We got scammed.’’

  ‘‘How?’’

  ‘‘No one does shit here unless they get paid, right? I mean, rules of the fuckin’ room. Well, this guy offers up big bucks. Five grand. On a Monday! That’s nothin’ to sneeze at. Even on a weekend that might fly. So he pays with a check, gives it to Willie, the bartender. Willie looks at the amount, makes sure it tabs up, puts it away. No one notices until later the way it’s signed or who it’s made out to.’’

  Brian felt the cold creeping back.

  ‘‘Fact is, we still don’t know who it’s made out to. Can’t make head or tails out of that chicken scratching.’’

  ‘‘Can I see it?’’ Brian asked.

  ‘‘Sure. Well, not the real check. A copy of it. Owners have the real one.’’

  ‘‘That’s fine. I just want to see what it looks like.’’

  Manny led him down the hallway and back out to the front of the club. Behind the bar, a Xerox was taped next to the register. He’d known ahead of time what he would see, but it was still a shock to spot that by-now familiar jumble of incoherent symbols and scribbles writ small on the preprinted lines of a Bank of America check.

  I’m afraid of that language.

  He wondered what Lisa LaMunyon wo
uld say about this. His eyes were drawn to the spot where the signer’s address should have been printed, but he saw only a blacked-out square. Could the professor use the check as a key to decipher the writing? If the scrawls on the signature line corresponded to the letters in Devine’s name, perhaps the code could be cracked.

  ‘‘Do you think you could make me a copy of that?’’ he asked Manny.

  ‘‘I don’t know. I gotta check with my bosses. Somehow, I don’t think they’ll be too thrilled with the idea of a reporter lookin’ into their business.’’

  ‘‘I won’t even mention the club,’’ Brian said. ‘‘Just tell them I’m doing a story on Bill Devine. I only want it for that.’’

  ‘‘This is about more than just that videotape, ain’t it?’’

  ‘‘Yeah,’’ Brian admitted.

  ‘‘Does it have something to do with that rich fuck’s death?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know,’’ he said honestly.

  ‘‘What is it, then? What exactly are you lookin’ for?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know.’’ Brian shook his head. ‘‘I don’t know anything. Yet.’’

  Nine

  Carrie squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. On the stage of the San Francisco Opera House, ten musicians were performing a slow interminable piece titled ‘‘Ten Musicians’’ that had been written especially for this event by a supposedly famous composer.

  How had she allowed Sanchez to talk her into this?

  The benefit was for a good cause—helping the homeless—and a percentage of the money raised would go to their department for some much-needed improvements, but it really should have been the responsibility of Sanchez to represent their office here. Unfortunately, he, along with everyone else, seemed to have a life. She was the only one who was single and unencumbered, with no plans for the evening, so she’d gotten roped into attending the event. Sure the ticket was free, but parking wasn’t—she’d had to shell out twelve dollars of her own money just to pull her ancient Celica into a spot in an underground garage that it would probably take her an hour to get out of—and she’d been forced to confront the fact that she’d gained weight when she put on her red evening gown and discovered that she no longer had the wiggle room she once had. The thong underwear that she used to wear as a matter of course now felt plain uncomfortable.

  Which was probably why she couldn’t seem to find a position in her seat that felt right.

  Not for the first time, Carrie glanced down at the program in her hands, hoping to discover that the concert was further along than it was. No such luck. This was still only the fourth piece of music to be performed this evening. There were five more to go. Not to mention all the speeches between the music.

  She felt awkward being here by herself. She wasn’t one of those people who was comfortable attending social events alone. She didn’t eat at restaurants by herself or go to movies unaccompanied, and she attended parties only if there were to be other singles in attendance. She realized with a start that it had been nearly two years since she and Matt had broken up. It didn’t seem anywhere near that long—but it had been. And she hadn’t been on a date since, not because she was in mourning or had sworn off men or anything but because she hadn’t made the effort to get out and meet someone new. She’d just buried herself in her work.

  How pathetic was that?

  Sometimes she was glad that her parents were dead. She didn’t have to explain herself to them or justify her life. She didn’t have to be embarrassed or ashamed of who she was.

  Although she was embarrassed. She was ashamed.

  Why had she agreed to come here tonight? Why hadn’t she lied and gotten out of it?

  It had been a long day, she was tired, and the lengthy, quiet passages within the music acted on her like a soporific. It was only the discomfort of her clothing and the seat that kept her awake.

  She thought about her job. She’d gotten to know Rosalia fairly well these past few weeks—social work inevitably accelerated the process of learning about a person—and the two of them were comfortable enough with each other that today she’d finally found the courage to ask about Juan. Unsurprisingly, the story Sanchez had told her about the llama show turned out not to be true. The real story was much more prosaic, although just as confusing. In her musical, heavily accented English, Rosalia said that soon after moving to the United States, she had been courted by a ‘‘very, very nice man,’’ who was also ‘‘very, very important.’’ She’d lived in a one-room apartment with six other young women at that time and had just started working as a waitress at a new Peruvian restaurant in the trendy section of town. He was a regular, apparently, and though one of her room-mates warned her that he was not what he seemed, the roommate offered no proof to back up her assertion, and Rosalia put it down to jealousy.

  The man was certainly charming. Polite and well spoken, he tipped lavishly, and when she made mistakes while serving—which happened far too often—he stuck up for her and made sure the owner knew that he considered her the restaurant’s greatest asset. He started coming for lunch and dinner more and more often, eventually learning her schedule and making an effort to arrive shortly before her shift ended. He would take her out afterward for coffee or dessert, walk with her through the historic streets, and once he even took her to an expensive clothing store where he let her pick out the dress of her choice. He spoke Spanish, which meant they could communicate, and Rosalia found herself falling in love with him. Against her morals and better judgment, against her upbringing and the teachings of her church, she became involved in a physical relationship. She’d known at the time that it was wrong, but she had feelings for him . . . and they were going to get married . . . and . . . and . . . and . . .

  So God had punished her by making Juan the way he was. He was her burden to bear, and after the restaurant had closed and she’d been unable to find another job, she understood that that was part of His punishment, too.

  ‘‘What happened to . . . Juan’s father?’’ Carrie probed gently. Even after all this time, a sense of honor had prevented Rosalia from giving the man’s name.

  Rosalia started to sob. ‘‘He leave.’’

  ‘‘When he’’—Carrie looked behind her, lowered her voice—‘‘saw Juan?’’

  ‘‘No. When I get pregnant. I tell him and he disappear.’’

  It turned out that she had no idea where he lived, that their trysts had always occurred in motel rooms or cars, and immediately Carrie’s opinion of him shifted. Whereas she’d been imagining the kind, cultured, handsome man described by Rosalia, she now saw a cynical user, an exploiter of innocent immigrants.

  Carrie had tried to get Rosalia to give her more information about the man, explaining that he was responsible for child support and that she was going to make sure that he did right by his son, but Rosalia clammed up and would say no more, bursting into tears once again and ordering Carrie to leave her apartment.

  On the stage, ‘‘Ten Musicians’’ ended. There was no speech this time, thank God. Another piece simply started just as the applause started to taper off. ‘‘The Gate,’’ according to the program. She tried to enjoy it, but the music seemed just as boring as its predecessor, and once again her mind wandered. She found herself thinking about Holly and her son—

  Rhino Boy

  —and the slaughter that had occurred in their slummy apartment. Even amid the heat of bodies in the crowded auditorium, her skin prickled with gooseflesh. As far as she knew, the police were nowhere on this. There were no suspects, no leads, and despite the assurances she’d received, Carrie was not at all sure that they were working as hard as they could to solve the murders. After all, the victims were only a hooker and her deformed son.

  But Rhino Boy had been in the Weekly Globe. Press attention always put pressure on the police. So maybe they were trying their best.

  Maybe the killer wasn’t human.

  He’s coming.

  Carrie pushed those thoughts away, tried to c
oncentrate again on the music. Ever since that day in the apartment, there’d been a nagging sensation in the back of her mind that she’d done her damnedest to ignore, a small voice telling her that Holly and her son—

  and Rosalia and Juan?

  —were connected to things that she could not hope to understand. Deep things. Dark things. She’d assumed that the feeling would fade over time, but it hadn’t, and the fear she’d experienced in that tenement building could be called up at any time, as fresh and real as ever.

  ‘‘The Gate’’ was mercifully short and ended just at that moment. Applause took her mind off her reverie, and the next performer, a former punk rocker from her youth who was now a balding chubby folkie, not only distracted her but kept her engaged. In fact, she remained interested and attentive for the remainder of the program.

  An announcement was made at the end of the show that over $200,000 had been raised tonight for the cause, and even Carrie stood and clapped for that astonishingly good news.

  The biggest benefactor by far was Lew Haskell, and before the program began, he’d stood up to give a speech about the importance of an involved citizenry and how it was incumbent upon society’s most fortunate to give back to the community and help out those who were less fortunate, especially in these days of seemingly endless government budget cuts, when elected officials thought the Constitutional reference to ‘‘promote the general welfare’’ meant cutting services for the poor in order to cut taxes for the rich. ‘‘This is our country,’’ he said. ‘‘We’re all in this together.’’ Carrie had been told in no uncertain terms that she was expected to meet with him, to convey the department’s gratitude, and at the mixer afterward, she approached the philanthropist as he stood next to a pillar at the bottom of the sweeping stairway, drink in hand. He was talking to a well-known author who’d won every literary prize imaginable for a trilogy of novels set in frontier California that contained no punctuation of any kind. She’d tried to read one but had never been able to get through it, and she was inwardly pleased to discover that the writer was just as pompous and pretentious as she’d imagined him to be. She didn’t feel guilty at all for hating his work.