The Deader the Better

by G. M. Ford

  Misty’s father Mark made his fatal mistake about three months ago. He’d kicked in his mother’s front door, thrown her to the floor and then dragged his runaway daughter, kicking and screaming, back out through the shattered portal. Big mistake.

  What Mark McMahon overlooked was that Constance Hart’s front door was in Peninsula County, not King County, and in Peninsula County, Ms. Constance Hart was both extremely prominent and astonishingly well connected. Seems her late husband Frank had not only left his widow extremely well fixed, but had shown the remarkable foresight to have gone to college with both of the county’s district judges, one of whom, after a suitable period of mourning, now considered himself to be a serious suitor for Constance Hart’s affections. She only had to ask once. Within forty-eight hours, Mark McMahon had been arrested on a Peninsula County warrant charging him with kidnapping, felonious assault, child molestation and breaking and entering. As Misty was witness to the alleged crimes, the county insisted that she be present at her father’s arraignment. Once they had her back in their jurisdiction, they ruled that Mark and Mona McMahon were unfit parents and awarded permanent custody to Constance Hart. Halfhearted protests from King County fell on deaf ears. That was the good news. The bad news was that Misty’s previous experience with the social welfare system had, quite understandably, failed to foster a great deal of faith in the judicial process. While Constance Hart was in the Peninsula County Courthouse, on the very day when she was awarded custody, Misty ran away. That was three months ago yesterday. Constance Hart gave me a rundown of her efforts to find her granddaughter. First the cops. Overworked and understaffed. Runaways not a high priority. The shelters. Doing the best they can. The CPS folks. Barely holding their own. The missions. Same deal but with religion. Somebody said maybe she ought to try a private firm. Hired Consolidated, the biggest firm in town. For the past six weeks, they’d had an army of suits papering the city with posters of the kid. No go.

  “What makes you think she’s in Seattle?”

  “She called. About a month after she ran away.” Her spine stiffened. She took a deep breath. “She…she sounded like she was on drugs. She kept saying she was fine. Just kept repeating that she was fine. I tried to explain the court order…but she hung up.” She took a sip of her tea.

  “I’m afraid you’re my last resort, Mr. Waterman.”

  Par for the course. Nobody comes to me first. At least not with anything legal. In my business, you get over any ro mantic idea that you were their first choice to help them with their problem and come to realize that by the time they worked their way down to your yellow pages ad, they’d already consulted everything from the cops to the I ching.

  “Why me?”

  She eyed me carefully. “I heard—in several places—that you were quite skilled at finding people and things that didn’t want to be found. They said you were tenacious and knew people on the street.”

  Tenacious was a pretty big word for most of the people I knew on the street, so I asked, “Who said?”

  “They asked me not to use their names.”

  Couldn’t say I blamed them.

  “What else did Misty say?”

  “She said she was okay. She said she’d seen her picture on a poster and wanted me to know that she was okay.”

  “That all?”

  “I tried to tell her about the court order, but she kept repeating that she was okay and that I should stop looking for her.” She took a deep breath. “She said an angel was taking care of her.”

  I shuddered. Not an angel. Angel. Angel Monzon. Kiddie pimp.

  “Consolidated came up a complete blank?” I asked. She pressed her lips into a thin line. “They said…,” she began, “they said they had information that she was…” She stopped again. Looking away this time. Shook her head.

  “Turning tricks?” I prodded.

  She gave the smallest of nods. I wasn’t surprised. Pimps like Angel Monzon have a sixth sense when it comes to finding the broken ones. The secret is to find the ones who’ve already been to hell. Then the rest is easy. All that’s left is to get them strung out on something they can’t afford and then turn them out. I was betting Angel had been standing right by Misty’s side while she talked to Grandma. Didn’t like the heat from the posters. Especially not with one so young. Theysend your ass down for thirteen-year-olds, and nobody but nobody wants to do state time as a baby raper.

  “Suppose I do find her,” I said. “She’s been on the streets for three months.” She was stirring her tea. “Mrs. Hart,” I said. Reluctantly, she raised her eyes to mine. “Have you given any thought to what I might bring back to you? Three months is an eternity on the streets for a kid that age.”

  “What you bring home will be my granddaughter.” She said it with such immense dignity that, for a second, I almost believed it myself.

  The words escaped my lips before I had a chance to think.

  “I’ll try to get a line on her,” I said. G’s voice startled me. “What?” he barked. I showed him my palms. “I didn’t say anything.”

  “Yeah, but your big ass was thinkin’. I could hear it.”

  Two guys in yellow hard hats came out of the diner and got into an orange Parks Department pickup truck. The glare of the backup lights bathed the two women in stark black and white.

  Funny how light works. In the spectral glare, Narva looked like the Vampire Princess. Tall, translucent, seeming to glow with a deep inner light, the midnight blue of her raincoat transmuted to black, lustrous and panther-rich. Darlene just looked old. Like you could lose your Visa card in the creases in her cheeks. She waved a long white cigarette as she spoke. About every third word, she’d jerk her chin over her shoulder, making sure the car hadn’t moved, and then she’d go back to talking.

  G noticed, too. He made a smacking noise with his lips.

  “That Narva girl.”

  “You said you guys work a straight percentage,” I prodded.

  “Strictly business,” he said quickly. “Hell…she don’t work but Friday and Saturday nights. Gross five, six grand a weekend. Goes to graduate school the rest of the time. Getting her a master’s or some such shit.”

  “How much?”

  “How much what?”

  “How much does she get?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Lookin’ for a little somethin’ you can’t git at home?”

  “Just curious.”

  He eyed me closely. “The G man can be very discreet. No reason Rebecca got to know. You know me…hey, hey, I always say…a man’s business is a man’s business.”

  “How much?”

  “Fifteen hundred. Straight half and half. Anything exotic is extra. Got her a small but real loyal following.”

  “That what she charges you?”

  He scoffed as he adjusted his tie. “You crazy? I don’t pay for no nappy dugout.”

  “So…you gettin’ it for free, then?”

  He didn’t say a word, so I stayed in his face. “What? No freebies for the G man? I thought the G man always got freebies. You know…like one of the perks.”

  He rolled his eyes toward the headliner. “This one’s different.”

  He sensed my astonishment.

  “Shit, Leo. You know me.” He twisted his lips into a wry grin and then laughed into the back of his hand. “She first come to me with the proposition.” He made his astonished face. “I figured, you know…so who’s this pushy ho tellin’the G man hisself what she’s gonna do for him? So I grab a handful of her hair…” He reached out over the dashboard with his left hand. The handful of imaginary hair struggled mightily, but the G man held on with grim resolve. “And I tell her, you know, that ain’t how it works down here, sweet cakes.” He curled his lip as he began to force the hand down toward the floorboards. “I tell her, hey, baby…listen, what you do for me is get down on your pretty little knees and polish the G man’s knob for a bit. That way, you and me get this arrangement off on a right and proper footing, so to speak.”
r />   “And?”

  “And I do what I always do then, I pulled my joystick outta my pants.” He held out his other hand, palm up. He now held an imaginary Narva in one hand and an imaginary dick in the other. “His Majesty’s sitting right there in the palm of my hand; I’m tryin’ to stick her face in it and you know what that crazy bitch says?”

  “What?”

  He looked down into his own palm as if confused. “She look down and say, she say…” He wiped the corner of his mouth on the shoulder of his suit. He was beginning to giggle. “She say…‘You know…that look just like a penis, but much, much smaller.’”

  We burst out laughing together. I nodded.

  “Your dick ought to have one of those warning labels about how maybe things appear to be bigger than they really are.”

  He waved me off. “Don’t start that racial envy shit with me. I seen that pathetic little string of yours.”

  We kept bonding until Narva emerged from the shadows and began walking toward the car. She got in behind me, slid her way to the center and handed the picture back to G.

  “Darlene says she saw the girl last night.”

  She kept her eyes glued on G as she spoke. “She says one of those little farm weekends is going on over in Bellevue. Says she went last night with a john. Says that’s where she saw the girl.”

  “Farm?” I said. “What’s a farm weekend?”

  They passed meaningful looks before G took over. “It’s like a little private something for the exotic trade, if you can dig it. Every once in a while, this rich motherfucker name of Spooner likes to stage what they call a ‘power exchange weekend.’ Very exclusive. You got to know Spooner or some body who knows somebody. Got to call ahead and make arrangements, so’s they can have whatever weird shit you want ready for you.”

  I must have looked blank.

  “You know, man,” he continued. “Like bondage, S and M, that sorta Gothic shit. You name it, the farm got it. They don’t got it, they’ll send out for it. You want a big mama in leather to stuff her panties in your mouth while she beats your ass wid a canoe paddle, you go to the farm. You want a prune juice enema from a transvestite wearing a red pig mask, you wangle youself an invite to the farm.”

  “Don’t trivialize what those people do,” Narva said quickly. G began to sputter. “Don’t what? What you say? Trivia. What kinda shit is—”

  She ignored him, speaking instead to me. “They do all that Gothic scene stuff.” She shot G a look that would have killed lesser men and then returned her eyes to mine. “What he’s not telling you is that if you’re on the guest list and what you happen to want is a twelve-year-old boy”—she made a gesture with her hand—“who, say, you want to bugger and then brand with your family crest…they’ll get you one of those, too.” She reached over the seat and snatched the picture from G’s hand. “Or a thirteen-year-old girl who you maybe want to—”

  I couldn’t help myself; I interrupted. “How in God’s name would a kid end up in a place like that?”

  “Might have trolled her up off the streets,” G suggested. Narva sneered at the idea. “Darlene said the girl’s tricking for Angel Monzon. Says Monzon leased her out for the weekend.” She made a disgusted face. “He probably wasn’t satisfied with her work. Maybe she wasn’t making her quota, or maybe she wasn’t coming across with what the customers wanted and he figured she could use a little attitude adjustment, so he sends her to spend the weekend at the farm.

  Figures after a weekend in there, she’ll be more of a happy and contented camper.”

  “Doan put me in wid those people,” G protested. “I ain’t never loaned one of my bitches to those folks. Never.” He threw a hand at the windshield, at the back of Darlene wobbling her way out of the darkness and into the light out by the highway. “Not even that no-good ho there,” he protested. “I turn ’em down every time.”

  “Yeah, G…you’re a prince,” Narva said.

  “Who you—”

  “Only reason you don’t rent your girls is because you’re too goddamn cheap to pay their medical bills afterward,”

  Narva snapped.

  “What?” G sputtered.

  As they sniped at each other over the seat, I tuned them out and thought it over.

  “How solid is Darlene’s information?” I said finally.

  “She a no-good, crack-smoking—” G began. Narva cut him off. “If Darlene says the girl was there last night, then she was there last night.”

  I turned to G. His face was a knot. He waved a finger in my face.

  “Don’t be givin’ me that look.”

  “What look?”

  “The ‘you owe me’ look. That’s what fuckin’ look.”

  “I’m not giving you any look,” I protested.

  “I’da beat that rap. With or without your help.”

  “You’da done fifteen to twenty-five,” I countered.

  “Arnold woulda done the right thing. He’da come around, told the cops I didn’t have nothin’ to do with that shit.”

  “Yeah…that’s how come I found him hiding out in a roach motel in Sarasota, Florida. How come I had to take him across three states in the trunk of the rental car, so’s he’d know I was serious. How come he sat in County for eightyfive days before he’d talk to the grand jury. Oh, yeah, old Arnold was just dying to get your moldy ass off the hook for murder. Chomping at the bit, he was.”

  G looked like he was about to swallow his lips. We sat in silence.

  “Ain’t no problem either way,” he finally declared. “You ain’t got a reservation, you just flat don’t get in that motherfuckin’ place. Period. End of story.”

  “You could get us in,” Narva said.

  G peered over the seat at her. “You hear what you sayin’here, girl? This here ain’t no college girl shit. Can you dig what I’m sayin’?”

  “Can you?” I asked.

  “Can I what?”

  “Get me in there.”

  “No motherfuckin’ way. You shittin’ me?” He chuckled.

  “Trust me, Leo. You a badass motherfucker and all, but, you don’t mind me sayin’, you just don’t come off as the Gothic scene type.”

  “I’ll go in with him,” Narva said from the backseat. G’s voice rose an octave. “What is it wid you and this thing, girl? This ain’t no shit of yours.”

  She turned her green eyes my way. “If G can get us in, can you get us back out?”

  “Depends on the layout of the place and what kind of security they’ve got inside.” I looked over at G. First he tried to pretend he didn’t see me; then he said, “Got this legbreaker name a Gunter. Drives his car for Spooner. Big ugly motherfucker wid a funny lip. Handles the door. That’s all the security I ever seen.”

  It made sense. That sort of scene, most anybody was gonna need was an occasional bouncer. Last thing in the world they wanted was any serious noise.

  Narva thought it over and shrugged. “Get us in,” she said to G.

  First he claimed he couldn’t. Said it would make him persona au gratin. Then he claimed he wouldn’t. For our own good, you know. Finally, with a great show of reluctance, he pulled his cell phone from his jacket pocket, shouldered the door open and stepped outside. In three long strides he was ensconced under the wraparound eaves of the building, shaking his big head, dialing.

  As G leaned against the diner with the cell phone pressed to his ear, the beads of water on the side window outlined Narva’s profile like sequins as she stared impassively out into the darkness.

  “G’s right,” I said. “This could be dangerous as hell.”

  “I heard him,” she said.

  I pressed. “I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate your help here, but…you know…G owes me. You don’t.”

  “I can take care of myself,” she said.

  “I wasn’t suggesting you couldn’t.”

  She turned her stony gaze my way. “What, then?” she demanded. “Should I make up some personalized sob story, so�
��s the great big private eye will feel all warm and fuzzy?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Let’s give it a try.”

  She moved her attention back toward the window. “Let’s just say I draw the line at consenting adults.”

  “I appreciate that,” I said. “And I feel the same way, but…it’s like G said. This is some serious shit.”

  “Listen to me,” she began. “Leo…that’s your name, isn’t it?” I said it was. “You have any personal experience here?”

  she asked. “Ever been abused by anybody? Anybody in the family?”

  When I told her no, her expression said that was what she’d figured.

  “How many people do you trust, Leo?” she asked suddenly.

  “I mean implicitly, with no reservations.”

  I mulled it over. “Maybe three,” I said.

  “Not many, is it?” Before I could answer, she said, “Imagine what the number would be like if the people who were supposed to be protecting you when you were a kid turned out to be abusers.”

  “I try not to think about that,” I said. “Finding kids is hard enough without putting myself inside their heads.”

  “You got lucky with Darlene here tonight,” she said. “Most of the street girls are so zoned they wouldn’t recognize their own mothers.”

  She picked up Misty McMahon’s picture. I watched as her eyes traveled down the kid’s face, from the outlandish radar bangs down over the freckles to the thick row of railroad tracks crossing her teeth.

  “Could be it’s already too late,” I offered. Narva didn’t disagree. We sat listening to the sound of the rain on the car, as G pranced up and down under the diner’s overhang, phone pressed to his ear, free hand flapping about like he had a nervous disorder.