Out on a Limb

by Joan Hess

  “Nor do I.” I went into the living room and squatted next to Skyler. “You got any ideas, kid?”

  When he failed to offer any, even after I’d tickled his toes, I continued to my room, changed into jeans and a black T-shirt, and emerged as Caron came out of her room. Her demeanor was that of a tropical storm soon to be upgraded to a hurricane, with torrential rain and winds strong enough to spew tornados at every trailer park within a hundred miles.

  “Did Inez Tell You?” she said.

  “She mentioned something about the paper on Macbeth:9

  “Like I should be worried about that old crap? I’ll get my GED and join the army. Khaki is not my color, but I can deal with it, and then I’ll be stationed in someplace like Azerbaijan. Or maybe I can join the Peace Corps and teach hygiene to primitive tribes in Zimbabwe. In any case, I am never setting foot in Farberville High School again. Never!"

  I dragged her to the sofa and forced her down. “Luanne and I are going to see if we can find Skyler’s father. He may be able to help.”

  “And ruin Rhonda’s lottery? According to Merissa, odds are three to two on Waylan Pulaski, this major geek who hangs out in the custodian’s closet sniffing cleaning compounds. I think I spoke to him all of twice last year.” She flopped against the cushions. “What have I done to deserve this? I brake for squirrels in the street, I put coins in the Salvation Army kettles at Christmas, I do my own laundry sometimes. But now I’m the gigglebutt of Farberville High School! Just one little blip on Rhonda’s radar screen and my life is ruined! It’s Just Not Fair!"

  “No, it isn’t,” I said, “but life’s not too rosy for Daphne Armstrong, nor for Skyler.”

  “I suppose not,” she agreed sullenly.

  “After Skyler’s been fed, why don’t you and Inez put him in the car seat and go for a drive? You’ve been cooped up stll day.”

  Inez came out of the kitchen. “My mother’s been trying to get me to go out to my aunt’s house in Hasty and pick up some old magazines. We could do that.”

  “Be still my heart,” Caron said. “I feel a myocardial infraction coming on any minute.”

  “I think it’s called a myocardial infarction,” Inez offered.

  Caron shuddered. “That is so gross. Do you remember when that sophomore boy with the dirty blond hair ripped one off in the cafeteria last Friday? I thought I was going to toss my burrito. Rhonda brayed, but she was looking a little green. Wouldn’t her pom-pom teammates have been amused if she’d barfed all over the table?”

  Opting not to delve into high school cafeteria decorum or medical terminology, I patted her knee. “And then you can have dinner at Inez’s before you come back and tackle your assignments. Inez, can you convince your mother that you’re baby-sitting for a friend of mine?”

  “Probably. She’s not as suspicious as you are, Ms. Malloy.”

  “I am not suspicious; I merely have a vigorous imagination,” I said coolly. “What’s on the menu, Inez?” “This tofu lasagna thing my mother makes when she’s mad at my father. It’s not as nauseating as it sounds.”

  “How could it be?” Caron said as she stood up. “Okay, we can go get the magazines, but I’m not eating any tofu lasagna in this lifetime. Let’s pack up Skyler and go somewhere. Anywhere.”

  I went into the bathroom and applied industrialstrength makeup, then used Caron’s mousse to slick down my curly hair. I contemplated drawing a tattoo with an eyeliner pencil, then discarded the idea. Since National Geographic had never done a feature on biker chicks, I could only wing it.

  When I returned to the living room, the girls and Skyler were gone and Luanne was sitting on the sofa. “What’s wrong with you?” she asked, her eyebrows raised indelicately. “You look as though you were mugged by a tar salesman.”

  “Shall we go?”

  Luanne was wearing leather boots, black jeans, and a hot pink shirt that barely covered her navel. I handed her the eyeliner as we went down to her car.

  “This is an undercover operation,” I said. “We have to blend in, ask seemingly innocuous questions, and find this guy.”

  “Aren’t we a tad old for this kind of thing—say, twenty years?”

  “Are you amenable to having Skyler every other weekend and six weeks in the summer, as well as baking cookies for Daphne and visiting her at the women’s prison? Or, worst case scenario, trying to figure out how to mail me a metal nail file so I can tunnel out of maximum security?”

  “Feel free to elaborate on what exactly we’re supposed to be doing,” Luanne said as she slathered on the eyeliner, handed it back to me, and started the car.

  Dante’s Lounge proved to be a minor eyesore, a brick building with a neon sign in front and a plethora of motorcycles and rust-tainted pickups parked around it. No yellow Trans Ams were among them.

  We were cut off at the door by a bearded man pushing a stroller. The child was clad in pink, suggesting a gender. Luanne and I made appropriate noises, then held open the door and followed them into a brightly lit room with pool tables, stools lining a bar, minimal smoke, and several other babies in strollers parked at the perimeter of the room. The jukebox was playing what might be described as elevator music.

  “Infant happy hour,” said the gray-haired bartender as we approached the bar. “Cal over there suggested it. We’re having a cookie exchange on Saturday if you ladies are interested.” He looked at us. “Or not.”

  I wished I could have licked my eyelids, but, unfortunately, I could not. “We’re looking for Joey. I think his last name is Guilerra.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  Luanne picked up a cue stick and gazed at the handful of patrons sitting at the bar and around Formica-topped tables. “Anybody want to play a little eight ball? Five bucks?”

  A chunky young man with a wisp of hair on his chin stood up. “Yeah, I’ll play. Who are you?”

  “Farberville Fats,” Luanne said as she racked the balls. “Are you the reigning champion of infant happy hour? Does the trophy have a nipple?”

  “You’re not fat.”

  “Too bad you can’t say the same about yourself.”

  She began to rack the balls. The young man was smirking, either at the wittiness of his retort or at the thought of tucking a five-dollar bill into his back pocket. His smirk would soon be fading; Luanne is a woman of many talents. Mansions in Connecticut have billiard rooms next to the libraries, only a floor or two above the wine cellars and family vaults.

  I took a stool at the bar and asked for a beer. As the bartender set down a mug, I said, “Joey, or maybe Jos6, has a yellow Trans Am with racing stripes. His girlfriend, Daphne, may have come here with him.”

  “Why are you looking for him?”

  “Daphne’s in a lot of trouble, and I think Joey might be able to help her.”

  He lowered his voice. “She the one who shot her father the other night?”

  “The police seem to think she did, but I’m not so sure. I’d like to ask Joey what she told him before she borrowed his car and went to her father’s house, or if she saw him afterward.”

  “You aiming to get him in trouble, too?”

  I was, but opted to shake my head. “Daphne won’t tell me why she went there or much about what happened. She may have told him. I just want to talk to him for no more than ten or fifteen minutes. Do you have any idea where I can find him?”

  I heard an explosive expletive behind me, indicative that the five-dollar bill had gone into Luanne’s pocket.

  The bartender raised his voice. “Leon, I told you not to use that kind of language when the babies are here! Now, you take your sorry self out of here and don’t come back for a week. I’m writing it down on the calendar, so don’t think you can come crawling in before then.” He looked at me. “Leon fancies himself to be a pool shark. He’s good, but not half as good as your friend over there. Think she’d like to play in one of our monthly tournaments? The winner gets a case of beer and a free tune-up.”

  “I’ll ask h
er,” I said. “What about Joey?”

  “Hang on.” He went along the bar, refilling mugs, fishing pickled eggs out of a gallon jar, and snapping cellophane packets of potato chips and beef jerky off metal racks. Once everyone was superficially content, he came back and put a slip of paper on the bar in front of me. “Like I said, I never heard of the guy.”

  I picked up the paper, nodded at him, and turned around to watch Luanne run the table while her next victim shifted from foot to foot. Once she’d finished, I motioned for her to retire her cue and leave with me.

  When we were in her car, I unfolded the slip of paper. On it was written “Pot O’ Gold trailer park.” Directions were not included.

  “Have you ever heard of it?” I asked.

  “I’ve seen it,” she said, frowning. “It’s in one of the little towns around here, the sort where the dogs are safe sleeping in the middle of the road. I can’t quite remember which one.”

  “Why were you in any of them?”

  “Back when I was involved with the virile young man with the impressive biceps, we’d go on picnics. Fried chicken, potato salad, and sex under the benevolent eyes of Mother Nature. It was always his idea, of course. My idea of roughing it consists of a hotel without room service.” She chewed on her lip for a moment. “I think I know where it is, but it’s at least twenty miles away and it’s possible Joey won’t be home.”

  “Let’s go see if we can find it,” I said. “If he’s not there, maybe one of the other residents can tell us something. At least I’ll know where it is in case I need to go back there on my own tomorrow.”

  Luanne pulled out of the parking lot. “This is a fool’s errand. You have no idea if he’ll agree to talk to you, or even if he happens to know anything. Which he may not. From what you’ve heard about him, he sounds like the type to open the door with a gun in his hand. Caron will be Very Deeply Annoyed if she has to go into an orphanage. She still has scars from reading Oliver Twist at an impressionable age.”

  “Just drive—okay?”

  “As madam wishes,” Luanne murmured as she turned on the radio.

  We arrived at the little town half an hour later. Luanne squinted at the various intersecting roads, then came to a decision and turned right at an unmarked corner. “This seems familiar,” she said, “but I could be wrong. It does happen every once in a while.”

  I pointed at a weathered wrought iron arch spanning an entrance. “There it is. Let’s drive around and see if his car is here. Do you know what a Trans Am looks like?”

  “Only if it’s yellow with racing stripes and has a vanity plate with the name Joey on it. If we actually spot this vehicle, what are we going to do?”

  “As you said, he’s probably not here, so we don’t have to do anything whatsoever. If he is, I’ll think of something.”

  “Oh, my gawd! There’s a cop car behind us. With your grotesque sense of fashion, you look like one of the usual suspects. The cop no doubt thinks we’re here for a drug deal. Now what?”

  My mouth went dry as I imagined myself in a cell in this forsaken town, beating off rats with my belt—if I was allowed to keep it. Caron would be more than Very Deeply Annoyed if I called and asked her to bring bail money.

  “Keep driving,” I said in a shaky voice, “and turn into the trailer park. We aren’t breaking any laws, you know. We’re merely looking for a friend of a friend. If the cop continues to follow us, don’t stop. We can come back later.”

  “I hope we’re allowed to share a cell, because I’m going to pass the time plucking out your gray hairs, one by one. After that, your eyelashes.” She drove under the arch and followed a dirt road that meandered between rows of trailers that were so battered and beaten that it looked as though the park was a primary target for hailstorms. “The cop car didn’t turn in after us,” she said. “Now all we have to worry about is being shot.”

  Frayed shirts and dingy bras hung from clotheslines. Ditches alongside the road were filled with sluggish brown water that would have appalled Walter Reed. Children dressed in ill-fitting clothes played in front of some trailers; in front of others, men in undershirts sat on aluminum patio chairs, drinking beer or undisclosed beverages in paper bags. No one waved, or even bothered to look at us. The few trees were stunted and diseased.

  “Can we go now?” Luanne said as she braked to allow a feral cat to dart across the road.

  “Okay, this is crazy,” I admitted. “Even if we saw the Trans Am—and there it is!"

  “Even if we saw it, we wouldn’t stop?”

  “Stop! We have to think.”

  Luanne obediently stopped. “Let’s think about picking up Chinese and going back to your apartment to make charts and maps and diagrams and time lines of everything we know thus far. This, in my humble opinion, might be a better plan than getting out of the car and approaching that trailer. If ever I saw a structure more likely to house the unindicted members of the Manson family…”

  I stared at the trailer with the bright yellow car parked beside it. Joey had to know something, and possibly what he could tell me might help Daphne. I wasn’t sure what I would tell him. I certainly did not want to consign Skyler to such an environment, should his mother be convicted of murder. If Joey wished, he would be in the strongest position to demand custody. And then Skyler, with his penetrating stares and fleeting smiles, would grow up with mangy dogs, potentially abusive adults, and very few chances. As much as I loathe the word destiny, this might be his.

  Luanne handed me a tissue. “Okay, I’ll be right behind you, Kimosabe. Don’t mention the baby.”

  I blew my nose, then opened the car door and approached the trailer. Before I reached the door, a woman with a simian forehead, thick lips, and brassy red hair came out and pointed at me.

  “If you’re from the collection agency, I already told you I mailed the check on Thursday.” She tossed her not insubstantial bosom, barely constrained by a halter. “What’s more, the roof leaks and the toilet keeps backing up. I should be suing you!"

  “I doubt that,” I said. “Is Joey here?”

  “You doubt that the check’s in the mail or that the roof leaks? You come any closer and you sure as hell won’t doubt the whole place stinks.”

  I gave her a steely look. “I doubt that I care about any of that, or about your threat to sue me. I shall repeat the question in case you weren’t listening: Is Joey here?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  Luanne nudged me aside. “It’s possible his probation officer does. Why don’t you go inside and let him know that we’re here?”

  “You don’t look like no probation officer.”

  “We’re undercover,” Luanne said, advancing. “If we find any illegal substances inside, both of you are likely to do hard time.”

  The woman made an obscene gesture, but then went back into the trailer.

  “Hard time?” I whispered, trying not to snicker in a manner ill-becoming of an undercover officer of the court. “Are we going to send them up the river, or up the creek, anyway?”

  Luanne pinched my arm. “This is your idea, not mine. I would much rather be eating egg rolls and watching the news, but—no, you wanted to come all the way out here in case Joey finds the need to fall to his knees and confess that he shot Anthony Armstrong and somehow framed Daphne. He will then meekly climb into the backseat so that we can deliver him to the Farberville authorities, with only a brief stop at the television station so that Jessica will have the scoop.”

  A young man, barrel-chested and adorned with multicolored tattoos down both arms, emerged from the trailer. His dusky face was round, almost cherubic, but his eyes were cold. “Who’re you?”

  “I’m a friend of Daphne,” I said.

  “She needs one,” he said. “I saw the news. So whatta you want from me? If you’re looking to raise bail money, I got about seventeen dollars.”

  I resisted the impulse to sputter an apology and retreat. “I know that Daphne was kicked out of her home after s
he told her father that she was pregnant with your baby. She lived with you for a while, then ended up homeless. After Skyler was born, she made an attempt to stay with her mother, but it was a disaster. You, she, and Skyler were living in your car a week ago. Now she’s in jail for murder. What I want to know is what really happened.”

  “So do I,” he said, then glanced over his shoulder. “Bocaraton’s having a bad hair day. You wanna buy me a beer?”

  Luanne glared as I gestured for him to get in the car, but said nothing and allowed him to give her directions to a painfully pink bar and grill. Once inside, we settled in a back booth and ordered a pitcher of beer from the proprietress, whose stare made it clear we’d be very sorry if we attempted a hold-up.

  I waited until a pitcher and three mugs were banged down in front of us, then said to Joey, “So how did you and Daphne meet?”

  “A party at some guy’s house out by the lake,” he said. “I don’t know how or why she was there. I could tell right off she was a little princess, but she was doing everything she could to prove something to somebody. I hauled her off before she got herself in real trouble. After that, well, she and I, you know, saw each other.”

  “And you got her pregnant,” I said flatly.

  Joey filled a mug. “Yeah, I suppose. She swore she hadn’t slept with anyone else. When she told me, I wasn’t real excited about getting married, but I told her I’d take care of her.” He took a gulp, wiped his lips, and tried to smile. “I guess I thought her parents would relent and take her in, or at least give her enough cash to get by on. Turned out her father was a tight-ass and her mother was—and still is—a friggin’ nutcase.”

  “So you abandoned her and the baby?” Luanne said in a disturbingly conversational tone.

  “I didn’t dump them,” Joey protested. “Once I got out, I couldn’t find a job. I heard about a garage up in Joplin, and decided to go see if they’d take me on. Daphne had me drop her and Skyler off on Thurber Street, saying she’d apply for a waitressing job and then stay with her mother until I got back. I told her nobody was gonna hire a girl hauling around a baby, but she wanted to try.”