Death's Little Helpers

by Peter Spiegelman

  “It’s a nice day, Irene, you should go out and enjoy it.”

  “Yeah, okay,” she said, without conviction. “But you’ll call me if you find something out, or if your friends do?”

  “I’ll call even if I don’t, just to check in.”

  Pratt’s voice brightened fractionally. “Talk to you later, then,” she said, and hung up.

  I rummaged in my fridge and came out with a bottle of water and a container of yogurt. I took them to the table and switched on my laptop, and while I ate and drank I went over my final report to Nina Sachs. I read through it several times, and each time I did, the CONCLUSIONS section was stubbornly blank.

  21

  “You really thought you could get away with it?” It was six-fifteen on Monday morning, and Dennis Turpin’s New England accent was grating even through the telephone. “You didn’t think we’d know it was you?”

  I woke up enough to play along. “Who is this?”

  “Turpin, from Pace-Loyette, and you haven’t answered my questions, March. What did you think you were doing?”

  I sat up and rubbed my eyes. Jane was nowhere in sight. I went for confused and indignant. “I thought I was sleeping,” I said.

  Turpin let out a disgusted sigh. “Go ahead, play games if you want. I’m just calling to find out why I shouldn’t report you to the police and start proceedings to have your license yanked. You’re making the decision easy. If you want a chance to explain yourself, this is it. I’d take it if I were you.”

  I stifled a yawn and ran a hand through my hair. “You’re the one playing games, and it’s way too early in the morning. I have no idea what this is about, and I’m not going to guess.”

  Turpin’s laugh was harsh. “You expect me to buy that when I practically witnessed your first breakin attempt?”

  “Breakin attempt?” It was my turn to laugh. “That’s bullshit and you know it— and it’s old news besides. Why the hell are you calling about that now, at the crack of dawn, for chrissakes?”

  “You call it bullshit; I say all that stopped you before was our security. But we weren’t so lucky this time.”

  I gave him a dramatic pause. “What this time are you talking about?”

  “You’re right, March, it is too early for games. So instead of playing around with you, I’m going to hang up and pour myself another cup of coffee and call the police.” He went quiet, but he didn’t hang up.

  I sighed into the phone. “Let me go out on a limb here, Turpin, and guess that there was some kind of breakin at Pace and you think I had something to do with it.”

  Turpin snorted. “And I suppose you’re going to tell me that you didn’t, and that you can account for your time.”

  He was as subtle as a hand grenade, but I managed not to laugh. I worked something irate into my voice. “You’re damn right I had nothing to do with it. And what time am I supposed to account for, exactly?”

  Turpin huffed, but his confidence was fading. “Screw around, then, but when you hear a knock on the door, remember that you had your chance. And tell your client the police might want to talk to her too. There are conspiracy issues, if she put you up to this.”

  I sighed again, and this time I meant it. “For chrissakes, Turpin, give it a rest. I’m not the guy you want, and I think you know it. I’m still looking for Danes and I guess you are too, but we’re not the only ones. If you’d stop threatening me for five minutes, we might be able to figure out who else is working this.” Turpin thought about it for a while, but ultimately it was no sale.

  “You had your chance, March,” he said, and hung up.

  I put the phone down and pulled the covers up and tried to sleep and didn’t. After ten minutes I got into the shower.

  I took myself to breakfast at the Florida Room, an airy spot around the corner from my place, and called Irene Pratt while I drank my orange juice. She was whispering and nervous, but relaxed a little when I told her that my conversation with Turpin had been brief and predictable.

  “And he didn’t ask about me?”

  “He didn’t ask and I didn’t tell.”

  She sighed audibly. “Will he really call the police?”

  “I doubt it. I’m pretty sure that was mostly for my benefit. Any sign of the mustache man or his car this morning?”

  “Not that I saw. Have you heard anything from those friends of yours, the ones giving you a hand?”

  “Nothing yet,” I said. I promised, again, to keep in touch and rang off.

  I took a slow walk home, and the whole way I fought the urge to check my back. I was a couple of paces off the corner when I saw him. He was at my building, at the top of the short flight of iron steps that leads to the front door. He was smoking a cigarette and looking at his feet and swinging his backpack absently against the iron railing. His jeans were black and baggy, and his gray T-shirt bore a picture of a robot monkey wearing a gi and swinging a pair of nunchakus. Billy.

  “School holiday?” I asked. He looked up and took a long drag on his cigarette.

  “No,” he said. He made it sound like a challenge. His narrow face was stiff and his cheeks were red. He took another drag and flicked the butt down the stairs. It landed at my feet and dribbled smoke.

  “Something the matter?” I asked. I flattened the cigarette with the toe of my shoe.

  He snorted. “Yeah, something’s the matter— with you. It turns out you’ve got a terminal case of asshole.”

  “Sounds painful.”

  Billy made a mocking smile. “I hope so.”

  “Billy, what the hell is this about?” Billy dug in his back pocket and came up with a crumpled pack of Marlboros and a yellow plastic lighter. He pulled out a bent cigarette and lit it.

  “I told you, it’s about you being an asshole. It’s about you saying you were going to find my fucking father and then up and quitting on us.” He blew a stream of smoke down at me and looked much like his mother as he did it. “That’s what it’s fucking about, asshole.”

  I took a deep breath. “Who told you I quit?”

  Billy scowled and nodded and blew more smoke in my direction. “My mom, asshole. My mom told me.”

  Shit. I shook my head. “You had breakfast yet?” I asked.

  Billy flicked a hand at me, as if he were brushing off a fly. “Don’t give me the fucking big brother act, okay? No more comic book talk, no more music, no more buds and pals, all right? Just keep that crap to yourself.”

  I looked at Billy and he looked back, angry and a little scared. “I didn’t quit this, Billy.”

  “Don’t bullshit—”

  “That’s enough,” I said. My voice was low and tight, and it brought Billy up short. A quiver rippled through his lower lip and his eyes looked wet, but he didn’t look away. “I didn’t quit,” I said, more softly. “Last Thursday night, your mom told me she’d decided she didn’t want to go on with this. You’ll have to ask her what her reasons were and decide for yourself if they were good ones. But they were her reasons, Billy, not mine. I didn’t quit.”

  Billy let out a long breath and ran the back of his hand over his eyes and forehead. “You’re so full of it,” he said softly.

  “I’m not, Billy.”

  He looked down and his voice got softer still. “Don’t bullshit me about this,” he said.

  “I’m not.”

  He shook his head. “Fuckin’ A,” he said. His voice quavered and his nose began to run. “Fuckin’ A.” He dragged on his cigarette and coughed and spluttered.

  “Throw that thing out,” I said. “I’ll buy you breakfast.”

  We went back to the Florida Room and sat in a booth. Billy ordered pancakes and French fries and a cream soda. I had coffee. He pulled a pile of paper napkins from the dispenser and blew his nose and wiped his eyes. There were big fans revolving on the ceiling. Billy tilted his head back on the banquette and watched the slow blades turn.

  “She fucking lied to me,” he said, and managed a rueful laugh. “She fucking li
ed to me again.” The waitress brought my coffee and a can of cream soda and a glass full of ice.

  “Does that happen often?” I asked.

  Billy shrugged. “Sometimes … when it’s easier for her.”

  “Easier than what?”

  “Easier than explaining something or having an argument. Easier than the truth.” He poured a little soda into his glass and watched it insinuate itself between the ice cubes.

  “What was easier about this?”

  “It was easier than telling me why she doesn’t give a shit about finding him, I guess.” He filled his soda glass and drank some off and filled it again. He did this over and over, until the can was empty.

  “Did you talk to Ines about it?” I asked. Billy shook his head. “Maybe you should. Is she usually straight with you?”

  Billy spoke carefully. “Nes is no bullshitter.”

  I nodded and his face relaxed. “You’ve known her a long time,” I said.

  “My whole life, basically.”

  “She does a lot for you guys.”

  Billy made a wry smile. “My mom can find her smokes by herself, and her studio. For anything else she needs Nes.”

  “Does Ines take care of things for you too?”

  His smile warmed. “All the school stuff, and soccer, and when I go to the comics conventions— she does all that. Nes does pretty much everything that takes a grown-up.” Billy crunched on an ice cube and watched a very tall woman in a very small dress walk by our table. When she was out of sight he turned back to me.

  “My mom gave you a hard time?” he asked.

  “Pretty much,” I said, smiling.

  “It’s like her best thing.”

  “Is she that way a lot?”

  Billy shrugged. “I guess.”

  “With everyone?”

  “Everybody’s eligible.”

  “Including you?”

  He shrugged again and gazed someplace over my shoulder. “Nes says it’s because she’s afraid of stuff, and that she needs to control things or something— I don’t know if I get it all. But Nes says when you fight back it just makes her more scared and she gets more pissed off and it all just gets worse. She says when my mom gets going like that you have to be sort of a chameleon; you have to blend in and fade away and not give her anything to hit at. Nes says it’s like mental kung fu.” He looked into his soda glass and blinked hard. “I’m not much good at it, though. I don’t see it coming a lot of the time, and mostly I fight back.”

  I started to speak, but my throat closed up and I couldn’t. I drank some coffee and took a shaky breath.

  “Does she give Ines a hard time too?”

  “It’s different with Nes. She knows a lot of stuff— about painting and art and business things— and my mom respects that. And she knows Nes does a ton of stuff for her— for both of us. And, you know, they’re … together.” Spots of color came up in Billy’s cheeks and he looked over my shoulder again. “Besides, Nes is patient. And she’s really good at the kung fu stuff.”

  He looked around the room and then stared down at his silverware for a while. The waitress brought another can of soda and refilled my coffee and went away. Billy’s eyes came back to mine, and there was a trace of embarrassment in them.

  “She’s really not so bad, you know— my mom, I mean. She’s really smart, and she’s a great painter. Everybody says so— magazines and newspapers and all those collectors and stuff. And she can be really funny too. She just … has a lot of shit on her mind sometimes.” He nodded as he spoke, and guilt and pleading were all mixed up in his voice. I swallowed hard and nodded back and he smiled at me, relieved. I drank some more coffee.

  “When’s the last time you heard from your dad?” I asked.

  “Last time I talked to him was weeks ago, right before he left. I was supposed to see him, and he called right before and canceled.”

  “What did he say exactly?”

  Billy shook his head. “Mom’s the one who really spoke to him. By the time I got on the phone he was mostly full of his sorry, sorry, sorry bullshit. He said something had come up and he was going away for a while, and he said he was bad company right then anyway. He said he’d pick me up when he got back, and that we’d be spending a lot more time together.” The waitress came by again and slid a plate of pancakes the size of steaks in front of Billy. She put a plate heaped with fries alongside.

  “Did he say what it was that had come up?” Billy shook his head and ate a fry. “Any idea why he said he was bad company?”

  “Who knows? He’s in a bad mood like ninety percent of the time.” He laid thick ribbons of syrup over his pancakes and started eating.

  “That business about spending a lot more time together— what do you think he meant by that?”

  Billy washed his pancakes down with cream soda and took a breath. “I thought he was talking about the whole custody thing,” he said.

  I hadn’t realized Billy knew about the custody battle. “Did he talk a lot about that?”

  Billy’s cheeks colored again. “He used to. He used to say all kinds of shit about my mom— and Nes— until he figured out it was just pissing me off.”

  “What kinds of things did he say?”

  He flushed more deeply and looked away. “Just some stupid shit about … I don’t know.”

  I could guess about what, and I let it go. “Do you get a vote in the custody thing?”

  “You mean about who to live with?” he said. I nodded. Billy shook a few cups of salt on his fries and glued them down with a quart of ketchup. He plucked some fries off the heap and ate them. “I guess so,” he answered.

  “So, what is it?”

  “My vote? I don’t know. I guess it might be okay to stay with my dad for a while, or at least it would be different, but … my mom and Nes would be all bent out of shape. They’d miss me and shit.”

  He ate more fries and looked up.

  “My dad was talking about boarding school, and I thought that might be cool … to go someplace else … to get away.” Billy shrugged. “I don’t know. Mostly I just wish they’d stop the fucking fights. Or leave me out of it, anyway.”

  I nodded, and we sat in silence for a few minutes.

  “That phone call— that was the last time you heard from him?”

  Billy nodded. “Yeah. Besides the messages, that was it.”

  I managed not to spit my coffee out. “What messages?”

  Billy answered with a mouthful of pancake. “The messages he left on the machine— phone messages.”

  “How many messages were there?”

  “Just two.”

  “Do you know when he left them?”

  “The first one was like a week after he left town, and the second was a couple of days after that.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Not much. Just calling to say hi, or something like that.”

  “But you didn’t actually speak to him?” Billy looked at me like I was stupid and shook his head. “Do you remember what time of day he called?”

  “While I was at school, I guess. I played them when I came home.”

  Billy carved his way through the pancakes and I was quiet, thinking about the messages.

  “Did you tell your mom he called?”

  Billy hesitated. “I … I guess not. He didn’t say anything really, and … sometimes it’s better if I don’t talk to her about him.”

  The waitress came by and held up a coffeepot and raised an eyebrow. I shook my head and she walked away. I watched her go and looked at the back of her T-shirt, at the picture of a pit bull demolishing a wedding cake that was emblazoned there. A little plastic groom in a little plastic tux teetered precariously atop the cake, and it made me think of something. I looked at Billy.

  “You remember that picture you showed me at dinner last week, of your dad and the bass player and that older guy, all of them in tuxedos?” Billy nodded. “You know who the old guy is?”

  He nodded some more. �
��I don’t remember his name— Joe something, maybe. He’s a friend of my dad’s. He lives in the same building.”

  “He a music fan like your dad?”

  “I guess. I know they go hear stuff together.” That was all Billy could recall about the man, and I had no more questions. No more that Billy could answer, anyway. He finished his pancakes and the last of the fries and wiped his mouth on a napkin. He didn’t look like he was about to explode, which was baffling to me.

  “I’ve got to get you home,” I said.

  Billy winced. “I can go myself. I—”

  “Don’t waste your breath,” I said. “I’m taking you.” He didn’t argue.

  There was no answer at the Sachs apartment, but Billy gave me the gallery number and Ines Icasa was there. Her voice was taut with worry and she let out a long breath when I told her that I was bringing Billy home.

  “Dios mÃo,” she said softly. “Thank you, detective, I will be here.” She hung up and I pocketed my phone. I looked across at Billy.

  “You want anything else?” I asked. He shook his head. “You ready to go?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck and stared at me. His blue eyes were large in his narrow face. “Will you look for him anyway?” he asked.

  “I’ll look for him,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.

  It wasn’t quite noon when Billy and I walked into the I-2 Gallery. The shades were up on the windows and the place was flooded with light and empty except for Ines. There was a half-filled glass of red wine on the long counter and a scattering of papers. A cigarette smoldered in a metal ashtray. Ines’s pink shirt was clean and starched, and her hair was combed and shiny, but her coloring was still off and there were shadows under her eyes. Billy started to say something but she cut him off.

  “Upstairs, Guillermo,” she said. Billy opened his mouth again, but Ines pointed at him before he could speak. “Now.” He glanced at me and shrugged and went. Ines sat on a stool behind the counter and sighed deeply. She reached for her cigarette and took a long drag. It smelled like a brush fire. Her elegant fingers slid aimlessly along the countertop.

  “The school telephoned this morning,” she said, “to ask if he was ill. He has done this before— several times. But it is always very … worrying. He came to see you?” I nodded. “Why?”