JM02 - Death's Little Helpers aka No Way Home (16 page)

Nina was at the drafting table, wearing jeans and a man’s blue shirt with the sleeves cut off. Her auburn hair was tied back. A new cigarette was dangling from her mouth and there was a glass tumbler full of red wine on the cart beside her. She was sketching furiously. I went to the little stereo and turned The Ramones down a few notches. Nina gave me a dirty look.

“Don’t fuck with my music.” She sounded like Billy when she said it. I ignored her.

“Have you given any more thought to the cops?” I asked. She shook her head.

“No time. Maybe you noticed: I have my hands full here.” She looked at me with narrowed eyes. “You have something to tell me?”

I nodded. “I spoke to Linda Sovitch this afternoon,” I said, and told her about my meeting at the Manifesto. When I was through, Nina Sachs pursed her lips and stared at her sketching.

“You think she’s going to put this on the news— about Greg?”

“I don’t think so— though I couldn’t tell you why not.”

She smiled a little. “It seems like Greg was having a bad fucking day, doesn’t it?” she said. It was the happiest she’d sounded since I came in.

“A bad day that got worse when he met with Turpin, later that afternoon. And Sovitch is just one more person— one more friend— who has no idea of where he’s gone. Are you worried yet?” Nina didn’t answer. We heard muffled voices, and Ines appeared in the doorway.

“I am going down to the gallery, and Guillermo is coming with me,” she told Nina.

Nina frowned and shook her head. “No, Nes, he has homework to finish, and I don’t want him bugging you.”

Ines held up a slender hand. “He is no trouble, and he will finish his schoolworks downstairs.” Ines looked at me and then at Nina. “And then perhaps you can get some work done here.” They stared at each other for a while without speaking. Finally, Nina shrugged. Ines turned and left, and in a little while we heard the door close. I looked at Nina.

“Are you worried yet?” I asked again.

She frowned at me and shook her head. “What is it with you? You think I’m some kind of … bitch? Well, fuck you, March. You don’t know me and you don’t know my dear ex-husband, either. You have no idea what a vengeful little prick he can be. And dragging the cops into his life is just the kind of thing that would set him off.”

“You’re sure that’s all that’s stopping you?”

Sachs sat up straight on her stool. She took a long drag on her cigarette and looked at me through the smoke. “There something on your mind?”

I took a deep breath, to dissipate the anger that had clotted in my throat. “Just a little something you neglected to mention, Nina— that your divorce action was reopened four months ago, after ten years. That Greg is fighting you for custody of Billy.”

Sachs screwed her face into an impatient grimace and waved her hand. “Yeah … and? What’s the big deal?” she said. “And what the fuck is it to you anyway? I hired you to look for Greg, not investigate me.” I took another deep breath and bit back my first response, which began with the words, Listen, you stupid shit. When I spoke, my voice was level and quiet.

“I am looking for him, Nina. One of the things you do in a missing persons case is look at any legal actions the missing person is involved in, the theory being that they might provide clues as to why the person disappeared— or why someone made him disappear.”

Nina laughed unpleasantly. “Is that what’s got you hot and bothered? You think I made Greg disappear?” She laughed some more. “And then what, I hired you to throw the cops off? Jesus, March, that’s some conspiracy theory you’ve got there.”

“What I’m saying— right now— is that you’ve withheld material information. Do I wonder why, and what else you might be holding back? Sure I do. And am I annoyed? More than a little. This stuff is hard enough without your games. But as far as conspiracy theories go, I haven’t gotten started yet. And rest assured, mine are nothing compared to what the cops will throw at you if you screw around with them this way. You can drop me a postcard and tell me all about it.”

Nina reached for the tumbler of wine and took a long swallow. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“That means I’m out of here, Nina— right now— unless you stop bullshitting me.”

We stared at each other, and neither one of us blinked. Finally, she shook her head.

“What do you want from me? I’ve got no big secret. I told you all I know about where Greg is. The other stuff … I didn’t think it was worth mentioning. Greg’s been pissing and moaning about custody on and off for years. The only thing that changed recently was his filing suit. But it’s not like that’s going anywhere. That’s just Greg, grandstanding. We were talking about it. We were going to agree to something … just like all the other times.”

“What other times?”

“The other times Greg’s had a hair up his ass about custody. The other times he’s gotten it in his head that he doesn’t like how the kid’s growing up or that he wants to play full-time dad. He gets himself twisted up, we yell at each other for a while, and we agree to something.” Nina pulled hard on her B&H. The ash glowed orange, and the cigarette shrank before my eyes.

“What didn’t he like about the way Billy was growing up?” I asked, after a while.

Nina made a wry face. “Figure it out, March. His only son and heir growing up with two dykes? And he’s always had it in for Nes. He’s convinced himself she was the reason our marriage ended, which is crap. Things had gone to hell for us long before I met Nes, and she and I were nothing more than friends when I split with Greg. But he never listens.” Nina took another drink, and I thought some more.

“And when it’s come up in the past, you’ve agreed— what?” Nina got up and walked to the little stereo in the corner. She squatted down and rifled through a stack of CDs on the floor and swapped The Ramones for something else. She turned up the volume: Bryan Ferry. She stood and turned back to me.

“We agreed that Greg could see more of him— at least while his interest lasted.”

“It didn’t, usually?”

“It didn’t ever. But what the hell. We agreed.”

“And what did you get out of it?” I asked. Nina Sachs frowned at me.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You just gave him more time with Billy out of the goodness of your heart?”

Sachs’s face got white and hard, and her mouth became a tight line. “You have no idea what it’s like raising a kid in this city, trying to make a living as a painter. Money gets tight, and if Greg bumps up the child support payments it helps. Am I supposed to be ashamed of that? Does that mean I’m holding him up? Or that I’m selling my kid, for chrissakes?” She took a hit off her cigarette and breathed out a boiling column of smoke. “You have a lot of fucking nerve, for the hired help.”

I nodded absently. “If this time was no different, what made Danes reopen the custody suit?”

“He was in a bad mood about everything, he was mad at the whole fucking world, and he was complaining about money.”

“So he’d rather spend it on a lawsuit?”

Sachs shrugged. “Go figure,” she said. She ran her fingers along the base of her neck. “Maybe he thinks he can’t do anything about his career being in the tank, but he can do something about Billy. Maybe he thinks this is a battle he can win.” She sighed heavily and shook her head. “How do I know what goes on in his mind?”

She sat at the drafting table, stubbed out her cigarette, and rubbed her eyes with the tips of her fingers. Then she picked up a pencil and started sketching. From the little stereo, Bryan Ferry crooned. I could feel at the time
There was no way of knowing …p>

I watched her and listened to the music and we sat that way for what seemed a long time.

“Did you hire me to find Danes, or to find dirt on him for this custody thing?” I asked finally.

Nina let out an exasperated breath. “I told you, I don’t give a shit about the custody case. There isn’t going to be a goddamn custody case.” She took a long drag on her cigarette and shook her head. “Look, the sad fact is Greg’s still my main source of income. If something has … if that’s going to change, I need to know. I hired you to find him; that’s it. Now, are you coming or going on this?”

“Will you call the cops?”

“Jesus, you don’t let up.” Nina sighed. “Is that a requirement for you to keep working?”

“The requirement is that you don’t lie to me, Nina, and that you don’t hold out. Calling the cops is just good advice.”

She looked down at her sketch and nodded. “I’m not lying to you, and I’ll think about the cops,” she said softly. She picked up a stick of charcoal and moved her arm in broad strokes.

I looked at the top of her auburn head. “Okay,” I said. I left her apartment and made for the street.

I went past the gallery, rounded the corner, and collided with Billy Danes. He was leaning against the building, smoking a cigarette. He staggered backward and embers went flying.

“Goddammit,” he whined, and turned his mother’s irritated look on his broken cigarette and then on me. I brushed ash off my sleeve and Billy recognized me. “Oh, shit,” he said.

“Hey, no need to apologize, Bill,” I said.

He snorted. “Apologize? You’re the one that crashed into me, in case you didn’t notice.”

I laughed. “And saved you from an early death by doing it.”

Billy rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right,” he said. He was wearing baggy fatigue pants and a baseball jersey with a mournful-looking manga character on it. He fished in his pants pockets for another smoke, found one, and looked up at me defiantly. “Got the lecture ready?” He looked maybe ten.

I shrugged. “Not me.” He snorted again, and lit the cigarette with a yellow plastic lighter. I gestured at his T-shirt. “Cowboy Bebop?” I asked.

He nodded, grudgingly. “So, what— you’re some kind of comic freak? Kind of old, aren’t you? What do you do, hang in the stores and check out the little boys?”

“Not exactly. How about you, do you collect?” Billy shrugged. “Anything in particular?” I asked.

He puffed on the cigarette, suppressed a cough, and shrugged again. “Horror, mostly— old school stuff. House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Dark Mansion— that kind of thing.”

I nodded. “How about The Unexpected or Vault of Evil?” I asked. Billy’s face lit for a second and then regained its indifferent façade.

“Yeah, like that,” he said, and coughed again.

He was staring out across the water and I stared with him.

“She take a chunk out of your ass too?” he asked after a while. His voice was softer and there was weary knowledge in with the levity.

“Just a small one— not so I can’t walk or anything,” I said.

Billy laughed. “Probably ’cause she’d already eaten,” he said.

I chuckled, and we both were quiet again.

“She’s not always this way,” he said.

“Uh-huh.”

“She’s got shit on her mind. A show coming up and … shit with my dad.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You looking for him?”

“I am.”

“You find him yet?”

“Not yet.” There were footsteps on the pavement. Ines Icasa came around the corner and stopped. She looked at Billy and he sent the cigarette arcing into the darkness with a practiced flick. He backed up a little.

“What are you doing, Guillermo?” she said. Her voice was tight with anger.

“Nothing— just talking to him.” The whine was back in his voice.

Ines shook her head. “Never mind. I know what you are doing, and we will talk about it later. Now get back inside and finish your schoolworks, please.” Billy started to speak, but Ines cut him off. Her voice was sharp. “Now, Guillermo.” Billy snorted and muttered and shuffled around the corner.

Ines looked at me. Her lithe body was tense, and her smooth face looked harder than stone. “What are you doing?” she asked. Her dark eyes were hot.

I felt like backing up too, but I didn’t. “We were talking,” I said, “mostly about comic books. I considered lecturing him on the evils of smoking, but I thought better of it.”

Ines looked at me for a while, and the tension seemed to drain from her face and her body. She sighed and leaned against the building. “I apologize, detective,” she said. She reached into a hip pocket and brought out a crumpled pack of Gitanes and a slim gold lighter. She inhaled deeply and breathed smoke into the sky. “I am a hypocrite, no?” The wind kicked up and she wrapped her arms across her chest. “It has been a trying evening.”

“So I gather. What was the fight about?”

Ines sighed, and ran the toe of her shoe across the uneven pavement. A gypsy cab passed. It dropped a loud group in front of the club on the next block. Ines watched it pull away.

“About his school,” she said. “He goes to a private school in the Heights, a very good one, but he is not happy there. It is difficult for him— not the schoolworks but socially. There are many gifted students there, but Guillermo is one of the youngest. He is young in many ways and … a little angry. He does not make friends easily.” She took another pull on the cigarette and exhaled with a quavering sigh.

“He thinks he would prefer a different school, perhaps a boarding school. Nina does not agree. She would like him to remain close to home. It is an old argument.”

“And what do you think?”

“I also would like him close to home. But I am not certain we can give him all that he needs. We try, but I think that Guillermo is looking for a life more … predictable than what he has. More conventional, perhaps.” Another puff, another sigh. “He is at an age where that has become important to him.”

“What does his father think?”

Ines stiffened beside me. “I would have no idea of that, detective,” she said. She stubbed her cigarette on the side of the building and walked around the corner.

Jane bought me dinner that night at Viva!, a high-end Mexican place in Chelsea with mango-colored walls and a pretty, peripatetic clientele. At nine-thirty it was filled with music and clatter and a thousand chirping conversations. We sat beneath a mural of grinning skulls and feathered snakes and ominous sunflowers and ate— salmon roasted with fennel for me and chicken mole for Jane. Ours was the quietest table in the place.

Jane was pale and there were shadows beneath her large black eyes. The little she said about her day and her deal was punctuated by pauses and yawns.