by Robert Crais
She stared at me as if she didn’t understand what I’d said.
“You’ve got five calls to Seattle here, three in the last month, two of them for a pretty long time.”
“My mom’s up there.”
“That’s where she’s buried?”
Nod.
“So your dad might have friends there.”
“I doubt it.” She adjusted her glasses. “We didn’t like it there. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t go back.”
“We’ll see.”
“I’m positive he wouldn’t.”
“Fine.” Like I shouldn’t even waste my time.
I tamped the phone bill pages together, folded them, then put them in my pocket. She didn’t like it when I did that either. I gave back the rest of her bills. “Okay, I’m going to try to find your father, but we have to have an understanding.”
She stared at me, watchful and suspicious.
“I will not notify the authorities that three minors are living here alone so long as the three of you appear safe and in good care. Maybe your father will come home today, but maybe not. Maybe I’ll find him fast, but maybe not. You’re doing okay right now, and that’s good, but if at any time I feel it’s in your best interest to notify the police, I will do so. Are we clear on that?”
She looked stubborn. “Will you tell me first?”
“I won’t tell you first if I think you’ll run.”
She liked that even less.
“I’m willing to let things stay as they are for now, but I won’t lie to you. That’s the way it has to be.”
She looked at me for a time, and then she looked at her papers. “Are you finished with these things?”
I nodded. She took the checkbook, secured it to the bank statements and canceled checks with the same paper clips, and returned it to the shoe box. She did the same with the utility bills and the little pack of cash receipts all written in her hand. Fifteen.
“How long have you been paying the bills?”
She knew exactly what I was saying. “My father is a good man. He loves us very much. He can’t help it that she died on him. He can’t help it that these things are hard for him.”
“Sure.”
“Someone has to take care of Charles and Winona. Someone has to clean the house.”
I nodded.
“Someone has to hold this family together.”
I thought there might be tears but her eyes were clear and sharp and hard behind the glasses. Determined. She put the remainder of her papers back into the box, put the top on the box, and again sealed it with the big rubber band. The matter-of-fact eyes came back to me and she dug out the wad of bills. “We never settled the amount of your fee.”
“Forget it.”
The eyes hardened. “How much?”
We sat like that, and then I sighed. “A hundred dollars should do it.”
The hard eyes narrowed. “In your office you said two thousand.”
“It’s not as big a job as I thought. A hundred now, a hundred when I find him.”
She peeled off two of the hundreds and gave me both. “Take it all now. I’d like a receipt.”
I gave her the receipt, and then I left to find her father.
4
I phoned information for Enright’s address, then left Teresa Haines alone with her coffee and laundry, and headed south along La Cienega toward Culver City. I wanted to tell her not to drive, and to be careful if she walked to the mall, but I didn’t. She had been living like this for quite a while, and I knew she would ignore me because I would be saying it more for me than for her. That’s the way adults often talk to children. You know they’re not going to listen, but you want to tell them anyway just so you know that you have.
Enright Quality Printing was located in a two-story industrial building just off Washington Boulevard three blocks from Sony Pictures. On the way down, I was thinking it would be a small copier place like a Kinko’s, but it wasn’t. Enright was a big commercial outfit with employees and overhead and presses that run twenty-four hours a day, the kind that does large-scale jobs on contract for businesses and government. The building occupied most of the block, and what wasn’t building was a neat, manicured parking lot for their corporate customers and a loading dock for the six-wheelers that delivered their products. The loading dock was busy.
I put the car in the parking lot, then went through the front entrance into a little waiting room. An industrial rack was built into one wall, filled with pamphlets and magazines and thick heavy manuals of the kind Enright produced. There were chairs for waiting and a counter with a young woman behind it. I showed her a card and said, “Is there someone in charge I might see?”
She looked at the card as if it were written in another language. “Sorry. We don’t do cards.”
I took back the card. “I don’t want cards. I’d like to speak with someone in authority.”
She squinted at me. “You mean Mr. Livermore?”
“Is he in charge?”
“Unh-hunh.”
“Then that’s who I’d like to see.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“Nope.”
“He might be busy.”
“Let’s give it a try.”
If we’re patient we’re often rewarded.
She said something into her phone and a few minutes later a short, thin man who was maybe a hundred years old came out of the offices and scowled at me. “You want something printed?”
“Nope. I want to ask you about a former employee.”
I gave him the card and he scowled harder. “This is shit work. Ya oughta get your money back.” He handed the card back and I put it away. Just the way you want to start an interview, getting crapped on by an expert. “You the cops?”
“Private. Like it says on the card.”
He made a brushing gesture. “I didn’t get that far. I see shit printing, I gotta look away.” This guy wouldn’t let up. He said, “Listen, you wanna talk, I’ll talk, but you gotta walk with me. I got some ass to kick.”
“No problem.”
I followed him along the hall and onto the floor of the printing plant, walking fast to keep up with him. I guess he was anxious to start kicking ass.
The plant itself was large and air-conditioned and brightly lit with fluorescent lights. It smelled of warm paper. Machines that looked like cold war—era computers bumped and clunked and whirred as men and women monitored the progress of paper and cardboard and bindings. The machines were loud, and most of the workers wore hearing protection but not all of them, and most of them smoked. A woman with a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth was wearing a T-shirt that said EAT SHIT AND HAVE A CRAPPY DAY. “I’m looking for an employee you let go three weeks ago, Clark Haines.”
Livermore made the brushing gesture again. “Got rid of’m.”
“I know. I’m wondering if you have any idea where he might be.”
“Try the morgue. All fuckin’ junkies end up in the morgue.”
I said, “Junkie?” I think my mouth was open.
Livermore stopped so suddenly that I almost walked into him. He glared at two guys who were standing together by a large offset press, then made a big deal out of tapping his watch. “What is this, vacationland? I ain’t payin’ you guys to flap gums! We got orders to fill!”
The two men turned back to their machines, Livermore set off again, and I chased after. So much ass to kick, so little time to kick it. I said, “Are you telling me that Clark Haines is a drug addict?”
“Guy was a mess since day one, always runnin’ to the john, always shakin’ with the sweats an’ callin’ in sick. I knew somethin’ wasn’t right, so I started keepin’ my eyes open, y’see?” He pulled the skin beneath his right eye and glared at me. Bloodshot. “Caught’m in one’a the vans, Haines and another guy.” He jabbed the air with a stiff finger. “Bammo, they’re outta here. I got zero tolerance for that crap.”
I didn’t know what to say. I
t didn’t seem to fit, but then it often doesn’t. “Have you heard from Clark since that day?”
“Nah. Why would I?”
“Job reference, maybe? He told his kids he was looking for work.”
“Hey, the guy’s a top printer, but what am I gonna say, hire a junkie, they give good value?”
Livermore beelined to a short Hispanic man feeding booklet pages into a binder. He grabbed a thick sheaf of the pages, flipped through them, then shook his head in disgust. “This looks like shit. Redo the whole fuckin’ order.”
I looked over his shoulder. The pages and the printing looked perfect. “Looks okay to me.”
He waved at the pages. “Jesus Christ, don’tcha see that mottle? The blacks’re uneven. Ya see how it’s lighter there?”
“No.”
He threw the pages into a large plastic trash drum, then scowled at the Hispanic man. “Reprint the whole goddamn run. Whadaya think we’re makin’ here, tortillas?”
I guess printing isn’t a politically correct occupation.
The Hispanic man shrugged like it was no skin off his nose, and began shutting down the binder.
Livermore was again stalking the aisles. I said, “Who was the man with Haines?”
“One of the drivers. Another fuckin’ junkie, but him I could figure. Him, he had asshole written all over’m.”
“What was his name?”
“Tre Michaels. I think Michaels was the dealer.”
“Did you call the police?”
“Nah. Hey, I thought about it, okay, but they put up such a fuss, whinin’ and cryin’ and all. Michaels is on parole, see? I coulda violated him easy, but I figured, what the hell, I just wanted him outta here.”
“Think I could have his address?”
Livermore made a little waving gesture and walked faster. “Go back up front, and ask Colleen. Tell’r I said it was okay to give you what you want.”
Colleen was only too happy to oblige.
Tre Michaels lived on the second floor of an apartment building just south of the Santa Monica Freeway in the Palms area, less than ten blocks from Culver City. It was just before eleven when I got there, but Michaels wasn’t home. I found the manager’s apartment on the ground level, told her that I needed to speak with Mr. Michaels about a loan he had applied for, and asked if she had any idea when he might be back. She didn’t, but she was only too happy to tell me that Michaels worked at the new Bestco Electronics that had just opened, and that maybe I could find him there. She smiled when she said it and I smiled back. We are nothing if not the finest in West Coast detection.
Five minutes later I turned off Overland into the Bestco’s lot, parked, and went inside. Bestco is one of those enormous discount electronics places, and as soon as I stepped through the doors three salesmen in sport coats and smiles surrounded me, anxious to meet or better any advertised price in town. I said, “I’m looking for Tre Michaels.”
Two of them didn’t know the name, but the third told me that Michaels worked in “big screens.” I walked back to “big screens.”
Tre Michaels was drinking black coffee from a Styrofoam cup as a gentleman of Middle Eastern descent argued with him about prices, surrounded by thirty large-format televisions displaying exactly the same image of Arnold Schwarzenegger throwing a guy through a window. I recognized Michaels because he wore a little plastic name tag that said TRE. The Middle Eastern guy was saying that he could get a better price elsewhere, but if Bestco matched that price, then gave him five percent for cash and threw in free delivery and a free two-year full-service warranty, he might be willing to deal. Michaels said that if the man could produce a published price he might be able to give him an extra two percent, but he didn’t seem in a hurry to do it. He seemed more interested in Arnold.
Michaels was an overweight guy in his early thirties with a wide butt and a hairline that hadn’t seen his eyebrows in years. He had pale skin and washed-away eyes and dry lips that he continuously licked. The lips made me think he was feeling short and thinking about his next fix, but that’s only because Livermore had said he was a junkie. Tre Michaels didn’t look like a junkie, but then I’ve never met a junkie in real life who looked like Johnny Rotten.
Michaels glanced over when he saw me, and I pointed at a fifty-two-inch Mitsubishi. “When you’ve got a moment, I’d like to buy this unit from you.”
He nodded.
“Full price.”
Michaels came over without a second glance at the Middle Eastern man and said, “Will that be cash or charge, sir?”
The Middle Eastern guy started making a big deal out of it, but another salesman drifted over and pretty soon they were gone. I said, “Do you have an office?”
Michaels smiled like the thought was silly. “We’ll just write you up over here by the register.”
I lowered my voice and went close to him. “You don’t need to write me up. I want to ask you about Clark Haines.”
Tre Michaels froze as if he was suddenly part of a great still photograph. He glanced at the blond sales-clerk. He twisted to look around at the other sales-people and customers, and then he wet his lips some more. He made what he hoped was an innocent smile. “I’m sorry. I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“C’mon, Tre. I’m not here to make trouble for you. I just want some information about Clark Haines.”
More licking. Around us, images of Arnold crashed up through a floor, spraying a hail of lead at faceless bad guys as the world exploded around him. I said, “That Arnold is something, isn’t he? Walks through a world of hurt and all of it slides right off.” I turned the smile back to Tre Michaels. “Too bad it doesn’t slide off the rest of us like that, isn’t it?”
Tre nodded, kind of stupid, like he wasn’t sure if he should talk to me or not, like he was scared to talk, but scared what I might do if he didn’t.
“I’m not the police, Tre. I’m looking for Clark, and I know that you know him. I know that you and Clark know each other from Enright. I know that you’re on parole for narcotics, and that you sold Clark drugs at least one time.” I spread my hands. “Talk to me about Clark and you’ll never see me again.”
“Sure.” He kept looking around. He kept licking his lips and looking at Arnold, but Arnold wasn’t coming to help.
“Clark’s missing and I’m trying to find him.”
“I don’t know where he is.”
“Don’t lie to me, Tre. I’m betting if I push down your socks or check your arms, I’ll find needle tracks. I’ll bet if I check your apartment, I’ll find dope. If I think you’re lying to me, I can call a couple of cops I know. Violation is only a phone call away.”
“I’m not lying. I swear to Christ I don’t know where he is.”
“He buy from you often?”
Head shaking. “A couple of times. Maybe three, four.”
“What did he buy?”
“Dime bags of heroin.” Jesus Christ.
“When’s the last time you saw him?”
He shook his head and made a kind of shrug, as if it was tough to remember. “A couple of weeks ago he calls me. He says he’s going away for a few days and he wants to buy enough to get’m through.”
“He say where he was going?”
Michaels shook his head again. An older guy I took to be the floor manager was watching us now. Michaels saw him and didn’t like it.
I said, “Think hard, Tre. Did Clark mention a name or a place? A girlfriend, maybe?”
More shaking. “Look, that was, what, two weeks ago? I haven’t heard from him since, okay? I swear to Christ I haven’t.”
The floor manager sidled closer, trying to listen. Michaels leaned toward me. “These guys beef me out of the job, it’s going to go like a bitch with my parole officer. Please.”
I left Tre Michaels in the sea of flickering Arnolds and slowly drove north to my office. The day was warm and clear, but the air felt dirty and the weight of the sun seemed heavy as if the light was a burden. I thought ab
out Teresa and Charles and Winona, and how the daddy I was trying to find wasn’t the same daddy that Teri was searching for, and I thought how sad it was that we often never really know the people around us, even the people we love.
5
It was after two that afternoon when I took the winding drive up Laurel Canyon to the A-frame I keep just off Woodrow Wilson Drive in the mountains above Hollywood. It’s a long drive up Laurel, but I’ve found that as you climb through the trees and cut rock to the top of the mountain and leave the city behind, you’re often able to leave the clutter and stress of modern life with it. Often, but not always. Less often still when you’re thinking about three kids with a missing father who turns out to be a drug addict.
I parked in the carport, turned off the alarm, and let myself in through the kitchen. The home was cool and still and smelled of Lucy’s presence, but I probably just imagined it. Wishful thinking. I said, “Anybody home?”
No answer.
I share the house with a large black cat who has shredded ears and a fine flat head that he carries cocked to the side from when he was shot with a twenty-two. I think it soured him. He is not the world’s friendliest cat, and he’d hissed twice when Lucy arrived, then scrambled through his cat door and disappeared. He had watched us drive away that morning, so I thought he’d be inside waiting for me by now, but there you go. He sulks.
I took an Evian from the fridge, had some, then put Clark Haines’s phone bills on my kitchen counter and looked at them. Tre Michaels had said that Clark was going on a trip, and the phone bills showed calls both to Tucson and Seattle, but the dope changed things. People died from drug overdoses, and people were often murdered when they were trying to buy drugs, so there was a very real possibility that the only trip Clark Haines had taken was to the morgue. I spent the next thirty-two minutes on the phone with hospital emergency rooms and the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office asking if anyone named Clark Haines or fitting his description had been admitted, living or dead, but no one had. Whew. Dodged that bullet.
