The Snake Tattoo (4 page)

“There's a station,” I said. “Maybe you should tell the cops about your wallet.”

I started driving toward New Sudbury Street. It was a hell of a lot closer than Lincoln.

The kid spoke when we were almost there. “Do you think the police could help if it's, uh, personal? Like somebody I need to find, somebody missing, a friend …”

“A friend stole your wallet?”

“I think I, uh, I must have dropped it or something,” he said. “Yeah, while I was standing on the corner, it must have just dropped out of …”

While he babbled, I took a card from my purse and stuck it in the tray in the dividing shield. I had to tap on the shield to get him to pick it up. He was still patting at his clothes in disbelief.

“What's this?” he said when he'd read the card at least twice. I could see his eyes move in the mirror.

“What it says. I'm an investigator. If the police can't find your friend, maybe I can. The cops have lots of missing people to look for. I specialize.”

He studied the card and me. I tried to look sober and responsible.

I stopped in front of the police station. “Ask for Detective Royce,” I said. “And if they don't turn up anything, my number's on the card.”

He sat there shivering for a while, then he said he was sorry he couldn't pay me. He asked what the fare was. I read him the meter, and he said he would mail me the $3.55, plus tip. He opened the door.

“Do you have a dime so you can call home?” I asked. “Get somebody to pick you up?”

He just sat there with the door open. Red-eyed. He reminded me of a boy I'd had a crush on in the tenth grade. What was his name? Doug somebody?

I reached in my purse and pulled out a five, passed it through the hatch.

“Hey,” he said.

“Add it to what you already owe me,” I said. “They've got a sandwich machine.”

“I'm hungry,” he said like he'd just realized it. He held the bill up and smiled, a flash of nice white teeth. Even teeth, like you get from wearing braces for years. “Thanks a lot.”

“Don't drink the coffee and you'll be fine,” I said.

Then he disappeared in the gloom.

CHAPTER 3

I wasted another two hours in the Zone—watching Renney's place, cruising the bus station, checking Renney's flat again—without catching so much as a glimpse of Janine. Any one of twenty shivering streetwalkers, high-booted against the cold, could have sported a python underneath her opaque pantyhose. So I quit, returned the cab, hurried home, brushed my teeth, slid between the sheets, and discovered I wasn't sleepy after all.

I have periodic bouts of insomnia. It's not fatal and that's the best I can say for it. I used to lie there and curse, but I've learned to cope. Now I get out of bed, pretend it's morning, and do something I enjoy, like fooling with my old National Steel guitar.

I tried a Blind Lemon Jefferson tune in E, one from the first Biograph album. I can still finger some pretty decent blues riffs, but I don't practice like I used to, so I don't sound the way I should. I had to repeat the bridge three times till I got the timing right.

I like to hear a harmonica in the background, or maybe a thumping bass line. My ex-husband played bass, and guitar, mandolin, fiddle, banjo—anything with strings. I miss the harmonies, but I've just about stopped missing him. I imagine the harmony, or sometimes I play along with my tape deck. I don't do much modern stuff. No love songs. Just old-time done-me-wrong blues.

My fingers found a melody. I remembered the words:

Cocaine's for horses, not for men,

Doctor said it'd kill me, but he didn't say when.

Cocaine, running 'round my brain.

That was one of my ex's favorites, the way Chris Smither used to do it, fine and loose and lazy. Cal used to sing it doped to the gills, like a lung cancer patient gulping cigarette smoke.

I sang it through, tried a key change.

My voice is not great, but it's true, a gift of perfect pitch. With all the windows in my cab shut, I wail and shout along with the radio—whenever I don't have a fare. At home I really pull out the volume stops. I used to worry about Roz, but so far I haven't discovered a noise loud enough to wake her. Mainly she disturbs me.

See, Roz makes noise when Roz makes love, and even over my guitar, I could hear her scream and moan. I admit to my share of curiosity, so when I heard the steps creak about four-thirty, I stuck my head out to investigate.

It was the taller of the Twin Brothers, sneaking down the stairs, zipping his jeans. At that moment I gave up all hope for my bathroom.

CHAPTER 4

I must have just nodded off when the doorbell chimed. My subconscious knocked the phone off the hook, but the damn thing kept ringing and pretty soon I figured it was probably the door. It could have been three rings for Roz, but I hadn't been counting and I knew she'd never hear it anyway, so I grabbed my bathrobe and pelted downstairs barefoot.

If it was one of the Twin Brothers, I was planning to strangle him.

As a courtesy to the burglars I always keep my porch light burning. With my right eye pressed against the peephole, I could make out a figure on the front stoop. While I groped for the dangling ends of my bathrobe belt, found them, and tied them tightly around my waist, the thin shape turned to face the door. It was the kid I'd dropped off at the police station.

I'd told him to mail me the fare, not special-deliver it in the middle of the night.

“I'm sorry,” he said as soon as I yanked open the door, before I could get in a word. It takes the wind out of my sails when somebody apologizes before I get a chance to blow up.

He winced as he spoke, and lifted a hand to his face. A thin trickle of blood oozed from the corner of his mouth. His lips were puffy; a dark seam split the lower one.

“You ought to put an ice cube on that,” I said.

“I'm sorry, really.” He took a long look at my robe, and gave his head a quick shake as if he were waking from a trance. “What time is it? Oh geez, oh shit, you were sleeping. I didn't know what time it was.… I wanted to hire you. I mean, I didn't just come because somebody—” He lifted his hand to his mouth. “Because of this.”

“You better come in,” I said, hoping to shut the door before the wind blew open my robe. The kid seemed frozen on the front porch. I practically had to pry his hand off the storm door and tug him into the kitchen. I put some ice cubes in a dish towel, gave him the resulting ice pack, and sat him down in a chair.

The cat strolled in, wide awake, and nuzzled the kid's ankles. T.C., a large black cat with a white forepaw, usually competes with other males, of any species. Perhaps he considered this one too young. Out of combat, so to speak.

The kid was incredibly polite. He kept telling me not to bother while I hauled out the iodine. He “pleased” and “thank-you'd” and patted the cat, who proceeded to make an exhibition of himself. You know, the whole nobody-in-this-house-ever-petted-me-before routine. Rolling over. Purring shamelessly. The kid asked if he should be quiet so as not to wake anybody else, with a kind of speculative air that wondered if I were married, sleeping alone, or what. Maybe he wasn't that young. I thought about Roz and the Twin Brother who'd exited at four-thirty. I told him not to worry about the noise.

“I'd like to hire you,” the kid said, his words blurred through towel and ice. “To investigate. Like on the card. You do that, right?”

I sank into one of my mismatched kitchen chairs, the one with the split vinyl seat, and made a reassuring noise to contrast with my appearance. My bathrobe is not recommended interviewing-a-prospective-client-wear; it looks like a bright red chenille bedspread, stitched together on the sides. I love red, but I don't usually wear it in public because it clashes with my hair.

Under the robe I was wearing a white singlet T-shirt, which is my favorite nightwear because it's soft and doesn't scratch. I got in the habit of wearing my husband's T-shirts to bed when I was married. No matter what alluring nightie I started out in, by the middle of the night I'd give up and go back to the old reliables. Lace itches. When we split up he left me a drawerful. I threw them out and bought replacements. It didn't seem right to get rid of Cal and keep his shirts.

I adjusted the robe over my crossed knees. Usually when I'm interviewing a client, I dress okay, nothing fancy, but okay. There I sat, 5:22
A.M.,
in my beat-up bathrobe, feeling like the “before” illustration in a “Dress for Success” manual.

On the other hand, the kid's appearance made his plea for help seem urgent. His jeans were muddy, his shirt torn. He said “excuse me” before he headed to the tiny half-bath to tend his lip in privacy. When he returned his face was pale but his hair was neatly combed. He'd probably been careful not to bleed in the sink.

It didn't seem right to tell him to come back at nine just so I could dress up.

“Look,” he said, “I need to find this girl, Valerie Haslam.” That much came out clear and strong. Then his voice started to falter, and he sat down and addressed the tabletop. “She's, she's this girl I know. We go to the same school. She's, like, lived across the street from me forever … and we're, like, friends, you know.”

“Maybe you should tell me your name,” I said, handing him a flesh ice cube.

“Shit, I mean, excuse me, I forgot. I'm Jeremy, Jerry, I mean, Jeremy's a dumb name. My friends call me Jerry. Jerry Toland.” He stuck out the hand that had been holding the ice pack. I almost screamed when I shook it, it was so cold.

“Valerie isn't, like, the kind of girl who runs away, I mean who just takes off and doesn't say anything. I mean, she'd have said good-bye or something. But everybody says she hasn't been gone long, and maybe she just left on her own, and girls that age are more mature, and maybe she went to New York for the week. I mean, they don't seem all that interested, you know, like she's one more missing piece of luggage. Her mom's not home, and the guidance counselor says it's none of my business. I guess I could have gone to the Lincoln Police, but she's not in Lincoln anymore, and I can't see those guys doing anything real, you know, about getting her back.”

“How old are you, Jerry?” I said.

He bristled. “What's that got to do with it?”

“How old?”

“Look, do me a favor. Don't tell me how it will be all better when I'm older and that shit. I mean you can't be that much older than I am, so don't bother telling me that shit.”

Every time the kid swore, he looked at me to see if I was going to faint. When he said
shit
it came out like it had quotation marks around it. Maybe he'd decided to swear as proof of his advanced age. He should hear the ten-year-olds at Paolina's housing project.

“It's about contracts, Jerry,” I said. “I do what I do for a living, to pay my bills.”

“Well, don't worry about that,” he said. “I've got money. I mean, I couldn't pay my cab fare but that's because my wallet—” He swallowed. “Because I lost my wallet. I've got a goddamned bank account, stocks, bonds, Christ, you name it. Money's what I've got.”

“How old are you?”

“Why?”

“We could do this all night.”

“I'm seventeen,” he said bitterly. His tone surprised me. I guess I think when you're seventeen you should be pleased to admit it. I guess I hope when I'm seventy-nine, I'll be pleased to admit it.

I said, “In this state any contract you sign is not binding. You can pull out any time and there I am, looking for Valerie.”

He offered his hand again, the cold one, and looked me defiantly in the eye. “My name is Jerry Toland. I live at 112 Lilac Palace Drive, Lincoln. I want to hire you. I'm not going to back out of this, and if you won't do it, tell me the name of somebody who will.”

I liked the way he said it, but I didn't let on. I said, “And you'll wake him up, too?”

“Shit. I am sorry about that, really I am. I mean, I apologize and everything.”

“How's your mouth?”

“It's okay. The ice helps.”

“How'd it happen?”

“I was stupid.”

I liked that, too. No excuses. No complaints. So I said, “My office is in the living room. My desk, anyhow. Why don't you come in there and we'll talk about it.”

“Even if I'm only seventeen?” he said.

“Even if you're only sixteen, which I suspect.”

“Sixteen and seven months.” He tried out a grin but his lip wouldn't cooperate.

I went back into the living room for the second time in twenty-four hours, which probably broke some kind of record. Usually I only go in there to feed Fluffy—I mean, Red Emma—and I only keep her out of respect for my Aunt Bea. The bird cage used to have pride of place in front of the bay window. I moved it to one side so it doesn't block the view of the magnolia tree on the tiny pocket of front lawn.

I've never redecorated the living room, so it still looks the way it did when Aunt Bea died. Well, almost. Aunt Bea used to work up a real shine on the mahogany. Roz flicks a dust cloth at it when the spirit moves her, which is my kind of cleaning. I suppose I ought to take better care of things, but I still have trouble believing the house is mine. I pay my real estate taxes monthly, into an escrow account. That way it feels like rent, and believe me, the rent's getting steeper all the time.

I do most of my work at the kitchen table because I like the view of the refrigerator. But clients seem to prefer Aunt Bea's decor.

I led Jerry into the living room and turned on the desk lamp, one of the few not connected to the electric timer. He took one look at the oriental rug and protested that he'd drip on it. Someone had brought the kid up right. It made me think, and after I fetched a dry towel I asked him if he wanted to call his folks. Or somebody. To tell them he was okay.