Endangered Species (7 page)

Salt must have been in the back, because I didn't see him when I walked in. The store was empty, a fact that cheered my heart. I was standing by the reptiles looking around for someone to talk to when I heard a man say, “I thought I told you not to come in here anymore.”

I turned and there Salt was, a vision of beauty in his polyester pants and Izod shirt. I nodded toward the dead iguana. “Still maintaining your normal high standards of care, I see.”

Salt's jaw muscles started working. “Get the hell out.”

I did my tough-guy imitation, not that anyone ever takes it seriously. “I will as soon as you tell me what you know about Nestor Chang.”

Salt threw back his head and let out a roar of laugher.

“I'm glad you think I'm funny.”

“I think you're hilarious.” He mined his ear with his finger and wiped the wax off on the hem of his shirt. Watching him made me want to throw up. “In fact, I think you're so funny,” he continued, “that I'm going to call security and have them arrest you.”

“On what charge?”

“Shoplifting. You took ...” He made a clicking noise with his teeth as he looked around. “One of those.” He pointed to a box containing a heat rock. “Not that I need a charge. The guys are my friends.”

“You have friends?”

Salt went over to the counter, picked up the phone, and began to dial. “Let's see,” he said as he waited for someone on the other end to pick up.

I left before anyone did.

Maybe I should have stayed. Maybe he was just calling the local weather information line, but I didn't want to take the chance. I had too much to do to play games with security right now. A session with them could eat up an hour. If they decided to call the cops and I got taken downtown, that would be another two right there. At the minimum.

Salt watched me go. He was grinning as I walked away. It took every ounce of self-control I possessed to refrain from turning around and belting him in the mouth. He and his store were like warts. You cut them out and they just came back. But then, maybe I just hadn't found the right knife.

The store could afford the fines, but what about public opinion? I headed for the phones down by the door and called Calli, my friend who works on the Syracuse newspaper. She'd been out in California when I'd called the ASPCA last time, but she was back now. People may not care about dead lizards and fish, but they care about abused puppies. Let's see what Salt would do in the face of an expose? Calli and I chatted for a little while and she promised she'd run my idea by her editor and get back to me.

I felt better after I hung up. The feeling lasted until I dug the list I'd asked Eli and Manuel to compile out of my backpack and looked at it. I still had five people to talk to. Something told me I wasn't going to get any more out of them than I had out of the first three. I decided to take a breather and get a cup of coffee before I began.

I was sitting in Cup O Java—one of those mall-franchised coffee shops that sells black dishwater and calls it espresso—trying to decide whether adding a fourth packet of sugar would help the taste of the swill I was drinking, when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned my head.

“Yes?” I said, glancing up.

A teenage girl was standing in back of me. She looked like a wraith. She was so thin, her thigh was probably as big as my wrist. Her eyes were two large dark black pools, her skin was dead white, and her hair resembled straw. The green T-shirt and the faded denim overalls she had on served to underscore her thinness and her youth. She looked like a street urchin in need of a hot meal.

“My name is Myra. I was in the back of the store when Salt was yelling at you,” she said.

I motioned for her to sit down. She slipped into the chair next to me.

“Can I get you anything?” I asked. “A piece of cake? A sandwich?”
All the food in the store
I wanted to add, but didn't.

The girl shook her head. “I told Salt I was just getting a soda, so I can't stay too long, but I have to know. Nestor is in trouble, isn't he?”

“Yes, Myra.” I pushed my coffee away. It was undrinkable. “He stole something from someone and they hired me to find him and get it back.”

The girl wrinkled her nose. “He's such a sleaze.” She ran her finger over the metal clasp on her overalls. “I'm amazed Hal waited as long as he did to fire him.” She stopped for a few seconds and then continued, the words tumbling out of her mouth in a rush. This wasn't someone who needed any prompting. “He was always calling in sick and leaving me to close. According to him, he was dying. He always had something wrong with him. He had the flu or strep throat or he sprained his ankle or whatever. Not that it mattered when he was here. He never did anything except talk on the phone. If I were the manager, I would have run his ass out of here a long time ago.”

“Really?” I reached for a cigarette before I remembered I couldn't smoke in the mall. Watching this girl, listening to the enmity in her voice, made me wonder what Nestor had done to her to make her dislike him so.

“Yes. Really.” She glanced behind her as if she was fearful of being seen talking to me. Given the way Salt felt about me, she probably was. “He was stealing stuff from the store and selling it himself.”

“Livestock?”

“Everything.” The girl tugged at the neck of her T-shirt. “He wasn't even smart about it. I mean, I think Hal would have overlooked a little stuff like that. But stealing cases of dog food? Come on. Hal may be stupid, but he's not brain dead.”

I leaned back and toyed with the spoon lying across my saucer. “Do you have any idea where Nestor's gone?”

“He'd never tell me anything like that. We didn't talk. But if you really want to find out about him, go speak to his friend, Sulfin Olsen. Maybe he can tell you what you want to know. And then there's that animal guy.”

“Animal Guy?”

“You know.” The girl scrunched up her face while she tried to recollect the name. “The one that keeps all that strange stuff.”

“You mean Parker Littlebaum?” I'd supplied things to him once in a while over the last three years. And the girl was right. He did have strange stuff. A lot of it.

She nodded. “I'd talk to him, too. Nestor was always over there.”

I wrote the names down on the top of the paper Eli and Manuel had given me. “Can I ask how come you're telling me all of this?”

“No, you can't.” She pushed her chair back abruptly, got up and left.

I watched her stride by the empty stores. When she turned the corner, I left, too.

I
probably would have spent more time wondering precisely what Myra had against Nestor if I hadn't stopped at the phone on my way out of the mall and called Tim.

I jingled quarters in my hand and listened to the wind whining through the cracks in the doors as I waited for him to pick up the phone. The weather had worsened in the half hour since I'd called Calli. The sleet had changed to snow, but this wasn't the gentle drifting sort that poets rhapsodize about. This was the kind that insinuated itself down your collar, lashed your cheeks, and made you blink. It wasn't a good evening to be outside. Judging from the way two couples were huddled in the doorway, peering out into the storm, they agreed with me.

Tini answered on the fifth ring. “Noah's Ark,” he said, sounding slightly out of breath, as if he'd been in the middle of doing something and had had to drop it and hurry over.

“Zsa Zsa okay?” I asked after I'd said hello. She was barking in the background. She had a small dog's bark, high-pitched and annoying. I could see her in my mind, reddish-blond fur, stubby tail, flopping ears, dancing around the floor, her eye firmly fixed on something too small for me to see. I hadn't taken her, because I hadn't known how long I was going to be in the mall.

Tim suppressed a cough. “She just wants some more potato chips, but I'm not giving her any. She's had half a bag already.”

Which is why she weighs thirty-eight pounds, six pounds above the ideal weight for cocker spaniels. “Any problems?”

“Aside from the fact that Manuel has been driving me nuts phoning the store every ten minutes, wanting to know where you are, no.”

I unslung my backpack and rested it on the marble floor. I was definitely going to have to see a doctor about my shoulder. “What does he want?”

“He didn't say. He just said to tell you it's an emergency.”

I groaned. “Emergency, hunh?”

“That's what he said.”

Tim sounded as skeptical as I had. Maybe that was because everything with Manuel always is an emergency. He could be calling because he found a severed foot or he could have gotten himself stranded and need a ride home. On the other hand, he had told me he owed someone money. Now I wished I'd asked him who the guy was and how much he owed.

“He says you should come here right away.” And Tim read off an address on the west side of town.

“Do you have the number?”

“He wasn't calling from there. He was calling from a pay phone.”

I hung up and tried the number Tim had given me. All I got was a recorded message telling me this phone didn't receive calls. Great. I called Tim back. He answered on the first ring.

“So, now what?”

“I'm not sure.” I could see the rest of my plans for the evening dissolving into the muck of Manuel's needs. I sighed and twisted a lock of hair around my finger while I thought about my options.

I watched one of the men standing by the front door muscle it open. I could feel the cold air through my jeans as he gestured for the woman who'd been next to him to follow. She hesitated. He gestured more forcefully. I was just about to yell for him to shut the friggin' door when she gave in. Gathering her coat around her, she hunched her shoulders and stepped outside.

Tim began coughing again, a deep hacking, wheeze of a cough that left him breathless and spent. I'd watch him doubling over with spasms for the past week and it didn't seem to be getting any better. I hope he didn't have pneumonia. There was a lot of it going around lately. “So, when he calls again, what should I tell him?” Tim asked when he could speak.

The couple ran for their car, shoulders tilted against the snow beating down on them.

I knew what I wanted to tell Manuel. The last thing I felt like doing was driving to God knows where in my loaner. Especially since the tires were bald. Unfortunately, the way I saw it, I really didn't have a choice.

Manuel could be in serious trouble.

Or not.

Probably not.

I didn't want it on my conscience if he was, though. The hours of self-torture I'd inflict on myself as a penance weren't worth it.

In a way, I hoped he was in trouble. Because if he wasn't ... If he wasn't, well, he would be, I vowed, as I told Tim to tell Manuel I was on my way the next time he called. “Once you've spoken to him, you might as well close up shop and go home. There's no point staying open in weather like this.”

“With my luck, he probably won't call and I'll be stuck waiting around,” Tim groused. Static crackled across the line. I pictured the telephone wires swinging in the wind. “I'll take Zsa Zsa home with me so you don't have to come back and get her. Drive safe,” he said, and hung up before I could say the same to him.

When had “drive safe” replaced God bless? I wondered as I dialed my answering machine to collect my messages. Chapman had returned my call. I phoned him back and left another message telling him I wanted to set up a meeting and I'd try to get in touch with him tomorrow morning. Then I dialed George's number, hoping he might want to come along with me. I got a busy signal. I tried again ten minutes later, then minutes after that before I gave up. He was probably online, cruising the web. There was no point in waiting. George could be on his computer for hours before he logged off, especially if he was playing Avenger.

I hung up, shouldered my backpack, and walked toward the door. I leaned against the frame, smoked a cigarette, and watched the white flakes swirling under the parking lot lights. It looked as if the Nor'easter the weather people had been predicting had finally blown into town. These storms, which seem to get more frequent each year, rampage up and down the eastern seaboard, usually leaving a substantial amount of damage in their wake.

As I finished my cigarette, I considered the fact that I should have pruned the dead branches off the crab apple in front of my house and topped the spruce near the kitchen window this fall. Now the storm would probably do it for me. And on that note, I buttoned my jacket, turned my collar up, opened the door, stuck my hands in my pockets and ran. The cold air sucked at my breath. Snowflakes clung to my hair and eyelashes. The world became white.

I really do hate this weather, I decided as I scraped the ice off the car's windshield. It's true it's not as bad as tornadoes or floods or forest fires or earthquakes, but it's bad enough. The other day it had been in the forties, and now this. You go out wearing jeans and sneakers and get caught in a blizzard. No wonder everyone around here was always sick. By the time I got in the car I was chilled to the bone. My mood didn't improve when I got on Erie Boulevard.

The driving was terrible. I had to hunch forward to see out the window. The snow was greasy, and as if that wasn't bad enough, the sleet had laid down an undercoating of ice. I chugged along, following the headlights of the car in front of me and tried to ignore the asshole in the SUV riding my tail. It's amazing. Give a guy a four-wheeler and any sense he has vanishes.

Normally the trip to Sullivan Street would have taken me fifteen minutes at the most. This time I was betting it would take forty-five. It turned out I was wrong. It took an hour. When I turned onto Montgomery, I was down to five miles an hour. A horse could have made better time. When I turned on to West Onondaga, things got even worse. The hill, which was steep enough to make a good ski run, was littered with vehicles.

While I watched, one car got a quarter of the way up the hill and slid back, and another one going down the hill did a three sixty and smacked a third car stuck sideways across the street. No way was I going up there. I backed up a couple of feet and made a left onto Tolliver—at least the street was flat—and clicked on the radio as I concentrated on driving in the tracks the car before me had created. The announcer was telling everyone the southbound ramp on Teall was closed due to an accident, as was the northbound on Thompson. Emergency parking rules were now in effect. Police were advising against unnecessary travel.

“No shit.” I clicked the radio off. Nothing like stating the obvious I always say.

Of course I didn't have my boots on. My gloves were at home. I didn't even have a shovel in the trunk, let alone kitty litter, boards, or flares. That was me—always prepared for all contingencies. If I got stuck, it was going to be a long, cold wait. It was nights like these I regretted not replacing the cell phone I'd lost. Not that calling the AAA would help much. In a storm such as this, it would be three or four hours until they could get to me. Why couldn't Manuel have had an emergency on a good night? We hadn't had more than a dusting of snow all winter and he had to pick the night we had a blizzard to need to be rescued.

It was beautiful out, though. I'd.give the storm that. I'd just rather be admiring the landscape through the window of my house, sipping a Scotch, and feeding logs to the fire. Snow shrouded rooftops, cars, and lawns. It dripped from the telephone wires, capped utility poles, and wrapped up trees. I was in a more philosophical frame of mind by the time I arrived at 1078 Sullivan Street. Then I noticed the driveway was empty and my mood changed again.

I parked in the driveway, because leaving the car in the street was out of the question, opened the glove compartment, and took out the knife Manuel had given me as a birthday present last year. Mostly I keep it in there to appease him, but occasionally, as now, I feel the need to take it with me. As I've said,
emergency
in Manuel's vocabulary is a very flexible term.

I'm always surprised at how heavy the knife feels in the palm of my hand. A butterfly knife. The object's name, the pairing of the word butterfly and knife, has always struck me as willfully odd. The handle is dull metal. It has a series of small holes down the hasp. The blade is seven inches. It's illegal, but not as illegal as an unregistered handgun. On a scale of one to ten, it probably rates a three, if I was going to quantify that sort of thing. What the knife does do is give me a slight edge. It makes me feel a little more secure, but not so secure I get stupid. Plus, there is the fact that I couldn't get a conceal and carry permit for a handgun anyway. In Onondaga County, they're hard to come by, which is, I think, a very good thing.

As I slipped my knife into my jacket pocket, I realized the lights in the house were on. So maybe someone was home, after all. Of course, it could also mean the people who lived there had just forgotten to turn off the lights when they left, but I didn't want to think about that yet.

By the time I slogged my way through the snow to the front door, my shoes were sodden and my jeans were soaked up to the knees. I thought of what I'd like to do to Manuel as I rang the doorbell. While I waited for someone to answer, I glanced down at the mailbox. The name on it read Myers. Okay, Mr. and Mrs. Myers, where are you? Who are you? And what the hell is going on? Out of force of habit, I lifted the lid. Nothing except for a couple of circulars for a pizza shop.

I could hear the bell echoing inside the house, but that was all. No footsteps coming toward the door. No one yelling, “just a minute.” No music on the stereo. No voices from the television. This was not good. I put my finger on the bell and kept it there, while I did a little jig to keep the circulation in my feet going. As the seconds mounted and no one came, I couldn't decide whether I was furious or worried. Something might be really wrong. Or Manuel could have gotten tired of waiting for me and left. Since I couldn't call him, I didn't know which one it was. What I did know was that standing out here was not doing me any good.

I took a look around. The houses on the block had all been built close together. If I were measuring, I'd guess they were no more than fifteen feet apart. There was just enough room between them for a driveway and a few shrubs. Most of them were lit up. People were home, all of which added up to a situation that was not conducive to breaking in. All someone would have to do was lift their blinds and they'd see me clambering in and I'd be down at the police station. I didn't need that kind of aggravation for twelve hundred dollars.

But then I decided that, given the weather, answering a call for a B&E was probably low on the police's priority list at that moment. The Syracuse police and the sheriff's department were too busy doing other things—such as unsnarling traffic and pulling motorists out of ditches. On the other hand, there was no point in pushing it. I decided to look for a less conspicuous way in.

I rubbed my hands together and blew on them as I trudged to the back of the house. From now on in, I vowed I was going to keep an extra pair of gloves in the car. I skirted a couple of garbage cans, then paused as I reached the backyard. It looked as if I was in luck. The Myers had ringed it in with a hurricane fence. I thanked them for making my job easier. Measuring over six feet in length, the wooden slats butted up against each other, blocking any view a neighbor may have had.

I turned and studied the house. Unequal piles of snow building up on the lower peaks of the roof gave it a lopsided appearance. The most obvious points of entry were the two windows on the first floor. Fair-sized, they led, I suspected, into the kitchen. I slogged over to the nearest one and, standing on tiptoe, reached up and gave its sash an experimental push. I cursed as a patch of snow fell on my face. The sash didn't move. I brushed the snow out of my eyes and tried again. It stayed where it was. I looked closer. It had a lock on it. I moved on to the next one. It had a lock, too. Mr. and Mrs. Myers were obviously careful people. I'd have to break the glass to get in, something I was loath to do if I didn't have to—the way my day was going, I'd probably accidentally slit a wrist and bleed out. I decided to check out the basement windows first.