“It’s hard to know how to act rich when you’ve never been,” Marvin said.
“Yep,” I said. “Anyway, she made me and Leonard and that was it: we were given our traveling papers, and we were out the door.”
“All right,” Marvin said. “I’ll look into it. Might be enough to reopen the cold case on Sandy.”
“Do you know anything about that case?” I asked.
Marvin shook his head. “Been gone too long. But I’ll look into it this week. My guess is she’s growing grass somewhere.”
“That’s what her grandmother thinks, but she still wants her back,” I said. “Even if it’s just her bones or a hank of hair.”
“I understand.”
We had another cup of coffee, and then after an hour or so, Marvin said he had to go. Brett popped some popcorn while I drove Buffy to the drive-through for that ice cream cone. When we got back the dog consented to lying on the couch between us, but she was nervous every time we reached out to pet her. That, of course, made me mad at her previous owner all over again.
Other than that, it was a nice night. The popcorn was a little greasy, and it gave me a feeling of having a knotted rope in my stomach. But hey—compared to stuff that was going to happen, it wasn’t so bad.
10
It seemed like forever before I fell asleep, and it seemed a shorter time before I awoke to Brett saying, “We got to go to the office.”
“Didn’t we just lay down?” I said.
“Nope.”
“I feel like I just laid down.”
“Was it night when you laid down?”
“Yes.”
“It’s day now, so you didn’t just lay down.”
“It’s early,” I said. “You own the place. I’m just part-time hired help. I been thinking about calling in a sick day.”
“You’re full-time. And when I go, you go. And you don’t get sick days. Come on, lazybones.”
“But why would I go to the office? I’m not a receptionist.”
“Because I want you there. Either that or you and Leonard can get on the job and find out something about Sandy.”
“We’ll do that,” I said and tried to cover back up.
“And you’ll still get up,” she said.
“What if I offered savage sex?”
“Would it have to be with you?”
“Yes,” I said. “I think it would.”
“Then get up.”
While Brett made coffee, I put the leash on Buffy and took her out, and damn near jumped a foot. Leonard was sitting on our porch swing. He was pushing gently with his foot, back and forth. His skin, normally black as night, looked ashen. He had lines around his eyes and mouth and appeared to have shrunk into himself.
“What the hell, man?” I said.
“John went home last night. I didn’t want to stay in the apartment.”
“So you sat out here and sniffed under our door?”
“Yeah. Did you have barbecue?”
“We did,” I said. “What happened, man? Did John leave angry?”
“I think so. I told him to go fuck himself, because I wasn’t going to.”
“I’m going to vote he was angry.”
“Sounds right. He kicked one of my shoes on the way out and slammed the door.”
“More evidence,” I said. “What happened to get you in the ‘go fuck yourself’ department?”
“One whine too many. And then just before we got down to the business, he got on his knees by the bed and prayed to God to forgive him. That set a tone I didn’t like. If he had been praying for strength, I could have got behind that, so to speak. But forgiveness? Hell, we hadn’t even done anything yet. That wilted my pecker something furious, let me tell you.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Since sometime last night. I dozed a little. I woke up, and a raccoon was in the yard. He looked at me like this was his swing.”
“It is. He comes here at night. Likes to make it move by swaying from side to side. You’re here tomorrow night, he might not be as accommodating. And he has friends. Come in. Have some coffee.”
We went inside, me leading Buffy and Leonard. Brett glanced at Leonard.
“Look what turned up,” I said. “And I still need to walk the dog.”
Me and Buffy went back outside. The heat moved across the morning like an invisible truck, heavy and crushing, and with a hotter engine than the day before. It was the kind of heat that made me feel short and fat and close to the ground. It made me thirsty and made my stomach heavy as lead. I wished for rain, but knew if it came, even if it cooled things, when it passed it would be hot again and, worse yet, humid. Nothing helped but the arrival of winter.
Buffy sniffed where the raccoon had been, then did her business near the edge of the road under one of our trees on a patch of grass. I walked her down the sidewalk for about twenty minutes, then put her in the house, got the shovel from the garage, and cleaned up the dog crap, bagged it and trashed it. Time I got through doing that I felt even shorter and heavier and was sweated up and almost sick from the heat.
Inside we all had coffee, and I had a lot of cool water to boot, hydrating myself and thinking maybe I might move to Maine. I said that once to Leonard, and he said, “If it isn’t the heat, it’s the Yankees, and I prefer the heat.”
You’d have thought he fought for the Confederacy.
Leonard and Buffy rode with us to the office. I suggested we get Buffy an ice cream, but Brett was against it. “She’s been indulged enough. And besides, it’s not good for her, and she shouldn’t have something like that so early.”
“Its not like drinking,” I said. “It’s okay to have a cone before ten. And she’s not driving.”
“It’s important to set a good example,” Brett said.
At the office we gave Leonard some cookies, primarily because he had a shitty night. I gave Buffy one when Brett was in the bathroom. I said to Leonard, “Don’t tell.”
“Only if the key to the drawer is mine when I want it,” he said.
“You are an evil bastard,” I said.
That’s when the phone rang.
It was Marvin. He had some news on the fingerprints.
He drove over and we made more coffee, decaf this time, and got comfortable. Buffy climbed on the couch. She was starting to be bolder. I liked that.
“How’s the new job?” I said.
“Fits me like a G-string,” he said. “Nice and snug.”
“You had to go there,” I said. “Now I’ve got that in my head all day.”
“If you can’t stop thinking about it, call me later,” Marvin said.
Brett came out of the bathroom then. When she saw Marvin, she said, “I was only in there to powder my nose.”
“Of course,” he said.
“I thought I heard the toilet flush,” Leonard said.
“Hey,” she said. “Who gave you cookies?”
“I may have heard the flush below, in the bicycle shop,” he said.
“That fingerprint you gave me,” Marvin said. “You’ll like this. It belongs to a man.”
“Interesting, to put it mildly,” I said. “Frank didn’t look like a man, in spite of the name. Maybe you ought to run them again.”
“Frank, or Frankie, is really one Frank Chesterville from the old days, but she had the tree cut and the stump split.”
“A surprise, but not a crime,” I said.
“It depends on how big the dick was,” Leonard said. “Some things, from my viewpoint, are a criminal waste.”
“You’re going there again,” Brett said. “Lady present, goddamn it.”
“The measurements were not in the report,” Marvin said. “She does have a record, though. I guess that’s right. She? Hormones and operations now put her in the female department. That’s right, isn’t it?”
“Why you looking at me?” Leonard said. “I’m queer, not an expert on every kind of sexual orientation in the world. I look at it simp
le. You got your good folks and your bad folks. They can be nudists, gays, trans doodads and no doodads, albinos, midgets and giants, black, white, brown, all the colors in between. I keep it simple. I think Frank might be a bad folk.”
“I think you meant little people,” I said.
“What?”
“You said ‘midgets.’ I think they like to be called little people.”
“Fuck you,” Leonard said. “And fuck the little people, too, right down to the ground. And piss on their little hats.”
“Little hats?” Brett said.
“Oh, he is fussy today,” I said.
“I just thought you might know what was what,” Marvin said, shrugging his shoulders, looking at Leonard.
“So what’s the past crime Frank committed?” Brett said. “You didn’t wind up with her fingerprints in the system for nothing.”
“You’ll love this,” Marvin said. “When she was a he, she was a pimp in Fort Worth. High-class, but a pimp nonetheless. Ran a tip-top joint, had people who took care of bad company, throwing them out, giving them an attitude adjustment now and then. No leg breaking, stuff like that, just kind of rearranging them for a moment. Keeping it all clean and calm and profitable. But Frank got nailed for pimping, did a little time and paid a fine, got out, had the sex change, and maybe changed her life. She may have gone on to better things and is a fine example of humankind and only works at the car place to finance her research into the elimination of cancer. Or maybe not.”
Marvin paused.
“You want someone to ask, ‘What do you mean “maybe not”?’ don’t you?” Leonard said.
“Thank you,” Marvin said. “Frank did have a minor problem later with a man who said she was trying to blackmail him. That got swept under the rug, though. I think the guy got over being mad and started worrying about what his wife would think about some film that may or may not have been taken of him doing the sweaty-sheet wallow. He decided not to press the issue.”
I thought on that a moment. “I don’t know for sure she’s still pimping, but it sounded like it to me. She was talking in a way where I could keep asking until I got the answer I needed. But I spooked her. I wasn’t a guy with money, and she smelled a rat.”
“Well, this isn’t my problem just yet,” Marvin said. “No crime is known. I’m just giving you a little information on the sly. If it comes to something, let me know. Frankly, I don’t really give a shit if she’s selling ass, as long as no one is underage or forced and they’re keeping clean and not spreading disease. But you know, the law is the law, so if I should know it for a fact, I got to act. Blackmail is involved, that’s a different matter. That one bothers me, and I damn sure need to know about it should you find out.”
“Our business is finding Sandy,” I said. “That’s it. Wherever it leads.”
“From what you’ve told me,” Marvin said, “if Sandy went to work for them peddling tail, it’s possible she moved on. Maybe she just didn’t want anything to do with Grandma, and Grandma thinks she’s dead, but she’s moved on to be a hairdresser in Fort Lauderdale.”
“That’s possible,” Brett said. “But I bet Grandma, who is, at least by her own admission, tech-savvy, has searched for her. It’s harder to hide these days than it used to be.”
“But not impossible,” Marvin said. “People do it every day.”
“We’ll find her,” Brett said.
“I love my girl because she’s an optimist,” I said.
“One week on the job and she’s Sam Spade,” Marvin said.
“Sammy Spade now,” she said. Then looked at me, said, “You and me, baby, we need to talk.”
“Honey, even if you were a horse in a past life, I’m satisfied,” I said.
“I’m not sure what to think about that,” Brett said. Then she whinnied.
11
We have this friend named Cason Statler. He works for a dying newspaper in Camp Rapture, which isn’t far from LaBorde. He’s one of those dark-haired guys that looks like an underwear model but is tough as sandpaper. Been in the military. Been to war. I don’t know all the details, but he’s done some things that have given him hard bark, even if it doesn’t show right away. I like him.
Brett, on the other hand, thinks Cason’s a little too free with the ladies, plays the field too much, but my take is if he’s not making any promises to anyone, then so be it. Make it clear, and everyone knows the lay of the land, then it’s all good if everyone is in agreement. Doesn’t matter in whose garage he’s parking the car.
We drove over to Camp Rapture and caught him at the newspaper. He didn’t even ask for time off, just came with us. We wheeled over to a coffee shop downtown, where a very nice-looking, bouncy blond waitress wearing a short dress with barber-pole-striped stockings up to her knees put the hustle on Cason. Me and Leonard might as well have been extra chairs. Cason was polite with his smile, gave it to her freely, then ordered all of us coffee, and when she went for it, he said, “So you want me to be an operative of sorts?”
We had explained a bit of it to him as we drove him from the paper to the coffee shop.
“That’s about the size of it,” Leonard said. “Thing is, man, we don’t know what’s going on. It might be a legitimate car lot that sells expensive cars and we just looked like old biscuits, not new bread, so she was willing to let us pass. Then again, maybe Frankie was hiding something.”
“Here’s the thing,” I said. “Frankie used to be Frank, but now she looks like a retired movie star planning a comeback. I don’t know which way she swings. Men, women, zebras, or moose. But we think if you put on some nice duds, you got the look that says money, and you got the look she’d like if she likes men. I can’t tell you which end of the farm she works. I don’t know if she’s hoeing potatoes or corn.”
“What am I getting out of this?” he asked.
“The satisfaction of finding out if the place is actually a front for a call-girl service or something else nefarious. It’s got a stink all over it. You could write a damn good article or two or three on that. We think that’s what Sandy was trying to do—write an article.”
Cason thought that over. He sipped his coffee, thought it over some more. “I could use a good article. I could make a series out of it if it’s any good. Last piece I wrote was about the blueberry festival. Bad year. Lots of rot.”
“There’s always the cabbage festival next year,” Leonard said.
Cason nodded. “Might be something there, except we don’t have a cabbage festival.”
“You could write like there’s one,” Leonard said. “Like it was a huge event, and everyone reading will think, shit, I missed the goddamn cabbage festival.”
“No,” Cason said. “I don’t think so.”
The waitress came with the coffee. She made some small talk, and we tried to make some with her, Leonard and I being witty and all, but she didn’t think so. On the other hand, there wasn’t anything Cason said that wasn’t interesting to her. He asked for some Sweet’N Low. She went away and got it and was back faster than I could pour cream in my coffee.
Cason managed to end their conversation politely. When she left we noticed one of the artificial-sweetener packs had her name and phone number on it. This did not seem to take Cason by surprise. He stuck the packet in his shirt pocket without so much as blinking.
Okay. Maybe Brett was right, and he was a little bit too much of a player. Or maybe I was jealous he was so attractive to women. Leonard, of course, just thought it was funny. Hell, I think he had a mild crush on the guy.
“What we’ll do is set you up with a rental,” Leonard said. “Nice car, a bit of spending money. But please don’t spend it.”
“I may have to,” he said.
“Only if you have to.” I said. “Brett’s money.”
I took a moment to tell him that we weren’t working for Marvin, how things had changed.
“How much money?” he said.
“A thousand,” I said. “Plus the rental. Y
ou may have to get that in Tyler. That’s what we did. But she might check the license plate.”
He nodded. “I won’t need a rental. I know a brunette lady who has a very nice old Jag. She’ll loan it to me.”
“All you have to do is wash it when you finish,” I said.
“Maybe a little more than that,” he said. “Still something that will get me wet, but nothing that hurts my feelings.”
12
Cason told us he would start the next day, as he had a loose rein at the newspaper, could pretty much come and go as he pleased. He was the only one who worked there who at one point had been short-listed for the Pulitzer, so he was kind of their pet.
Since there was nothing for us to do but wait, we drove over to see Ms. Buckner. I had a few questions for her. It was a simple house with the grass grown up and a mailbox at the curb on a post that leaned a little. The garage was closed up tight where the Mercedes would be resting, ready to threaten cars and dogs and people on bicycles.
Once upon a time there had been a flower bed next to the house. Now it was weeds, and even they looked as if they were hoping for death. There was a stone Negro lawn jockey between the flower bed and the door. I thought he looked very hot and a lot insulted.
“Nice,” Leonard said, studying the jockey.
I laughed at him and rang the bell.
It was hot outside, and it took her about the time it took for a roast to cook in a slow oven before she answered the door. She was wearing a loose white shirt with food stains on it and some yellow stretch pants that fit her a little too well, causing the bones in her hips to stand out. She had on fluffy brown house shoes. She studied us for a long moment.
“Found her?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“Then what the hell are you here for?”
“She is so endearing,” Leonard said.
“Go fuck yourself,” Ms. Buckner said, glaring at Leonard with two watery eyeballs.
“And her verbal skills are delightful,” he said.