Everything but the Squeal sg-2

by Timothy Hallinan

  “No,” I said. I looked for someplace to sit. Precise as an atomic clock, Yoshino pressed a chair against the backs of my knees and I folded into it. Big black butterflies performed a mating dance in front of my eyes, and my pulse threatened to burst out of my wrists. I thought I was going to black out.

  “You know her?” Bruner asked. He was bending over me. Over his shoulder, Hammond looked concerned.

  “Junko,” I said through lips that felt as dry and parched as the pages of a Gutenberg Bible. I knew I shouldn't start to cry, but I wasn't sure I could avoid it.

  “Furuta,” Bruner said. “Junko Furuta. Sixteen. From Gardena. Middle-class parents, father an executive with an automobile dealership. She was a methadone junkie. On the street about a year.”

  She'd been on the street about a month, I thought. I shook my head, not to disagree with Bruner, but to deny that she was dead. After all, I was the reason she was dead.

  “You okay, Simeon?” Hammond asked.

  I ignored him. Probably I couldn't have responded if I'd wanted to. I was trying to find another reason for her to be dead. I couldn't. She'd been killed because her pimp was afraid that I'd get to her and that she'd talk to me.

  “I don't give a fuck if he's okay,” Bruner said. “What I want to know is what he knows about it.” His stomach emitted a painful little growl.

  “Max,” Hammond said, “ease up.”

  I looked up at Hammond. Was he playing good-cop, bad-cop? Or was he on my side? He caught my eye and stared at his feet. He was playing good-cop, bad-cop.

  “I want to look at her,” I said. I didn't, but I had to.

  I got up, shaking off Yoshino's attempt to place a steadying hand under my elbow, and walked very slowly to the drawer. Junko's hair hung over her shoulders, limp and wet as seaweed. Her eyes were wide open. They didn't make her look alive. They had the same expression of dusty surprise you see in the eyes of stuffed fish. I could see the glistening white of her sternum, dead cartilage peeping through the top of the long gash that ended just above her pubic hair. I noted with something like dispassion that the gash divided her scarred navel, turning it into a pair of surprised-looking parentheses.

  “This one really could be my daughter,” Yoshino said.

  “She's Okinawan,” I said. I was startled by the sound of my voice. It sounded like a gravel avalanche. “You're not Okinawan.”

  “How do you know that?” Bruner demanded.

  “Yoshino's Japanese,” I said. “There's a difference.”

  “How do you know that this one is Okinawan?” Bruner's eyes narrowed. “I didn't know that.”

  I leaned against the drawer, defeating an urge to reach out and close Junko's eyes. After all, what did it matter to her? I fought off a surge of weariness. “That's the trouble with L.A. cops,” I said. “They're racists. Can't tell the difference between a Japanese and an Okinawan.”

  “Simeon,” Hammond said, “this isn't the way to go.”

  I lifted the tag on Junko's toe. It said Junko Furuta. “You knew she was on the street,” I said to Bruner. “What else did you know?”

  “Lockup,” Bruner said. “I know you're going to the lockup.”

  “Great,” I said. “That'll do her a lot of good. Do you a lot of good too. Do you know who her pimp was?”

  “Marco,” he said. “Some crustacean named Marco.”

  “But you're not interested in that,” I said to Bruner. I had to blink to fight down tears. “Well, fuck off.”

  “I'm interested,” Bruner said. He looked down at Junko and then up at me and held up one hand, palm outward. It was meant to be a placating gesture, but it just made him look like a Teutonic Smoky the Bear. “There's a lot of kids out there. She's already dead. I have to be interested in the rest of them. Which means that I'm interested in you.”

  “So put me in the lockup.”

  “There's room to negotiate here,” Bruner said, backing off. He reached out and pushed the drawer shut. Junko rolled into the dark. “You know Marco's name, you know Junko's name. Question is, what else do you know? Hammond says you're all right.”

  Hammond muttered something.

  “So,” Bruner continued, “what else do you know? That can help us, I mean.”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Wrong answer,” Bruner said tightly.

  “Max, if it hasn't gotten to you yet, I told you a while ago to fuck off.”

  Bruner smoothed a hand down the seam of his four-hundred-dollar jacket. Then he lifted his wrist and checked his watch. When he looked back up to me, his face was open and guileless. “Let's be specific,” he said.

  “Be as specific as you like,” I said, reseating myself in the chair.

  “You'll answer my questions?”

  “As long as they're specific.”

  “How do you know about Junko?”

  “I was looking for Aimee Sorrell. I was hired by her parents to find her. They thought she was in Los Angeles.”

  He nodded as though I were a slow pupil who had just gotten his first right answer. “Did you find her?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “No.”

  “Have you got any idea who's got her?”

  That was the big one. “No,” I said. “In fact, last night I got fired.”

  “What's the connection between her and Junko?”

  “Oh, come on. The belly button,” I said. I wasn't telling Bruner anything new.

  “Why did you ask Yoshino to call you if anyone else came in with a scarred belly button?”

  “Max,” I said, “you saw the picture of Aimee. After I saw the picture, I told Hammond to call me if a little girl came in with a burned belly button. He did. It was the wrong girl. I asked Yoshino to call me if another one came in.” He kept staring at me. “In case it was Aimee,” I said.

  “You're not trying to figure out who's burning all these little girls.”

  “I'm looking for Aimee. If figuring that out would help me, I’d try to figure that out. Same as you would.”

  “That's very specific,” he said.

  “I'm a very specific kind of guy.”

  “And why do you know Junko's name?”

  “Are you looking for the pimp?”

  Bruner made a sound that was a lot like spitting.

  “He's not on the street,” Hammond said. Bruner gave him an angry glance.

  “So where is he?”

  “You,” Bruner said to Yoshino. “Go do something.”

  “Well,” she said, “there's the records.” She shuffled off toward the door. Her heels clacked indignantly on the concrete floor.

  “Gosh, you dress nice, Max,” I said.

  Bruner pulled up another chair and straddled it, facing me. “We can lift your license, you know,” he said. He pried some Maalox loose from his back teeth with his tongue and chewed it.

  “No shit,” I said, looking around wildly. “Stop the car.”

  Bruner slowly leaned forward until his head was resting on the back of the chair. His acidic stomach rumbled. He had a bald spot the size of a mature tarantula that I hadn't noticed before.

  “I know Junko's name,” I said, “because I spent more than a week on the street. I know Marco because I know Junko. You can learn a lot sitting around in the wrong restaurants. You should try it sometime.”

  “I'm not allowed to work the street anymore,” Bruner said without lifting his head. “We're looking for the pimp. Who else should we be looking for?”

  I took it as a rhetorical question and didn't bother to answer. “What do we do now?” I asked.

  “I don't know,” Bruner said, lifting his head. His face was wan and sour and exhausted. “Listen,” he said, “I spent years of my life out there, whether you like my clothes or not. You've been there for a week, and it's practically killing you. I saw you when you looked at her.” He jerked his chin in the direction of Junko's drawer. “Do you know how many I've seen come and go? Do you kno
w how many greasy little perps I've questioned? How many corpses I've had to look at? Most of them babies. Have you got any idea what a shitty job this is?”

  “I think I do,” I said. “So, to get back to business, what do we do now?”

  Bruner looked at Hammond, and Hammond nodded.

  “You don't do anything,” Bruner said. “But if anything happens, anything at all, you'll give me a call, right?”

  “Max,” I said, “you have my personal word of honor.” I may have laid it on a little thick, because he gave me a mean little squint, but then he got up.

  They followed me to the parking lot, both of them, but they let me go. As Alice chugged dutifully up the ramp and into the drizzle, I asked myself whether I'd just eliminated my main source of information. I knew Hammond was okay, but could I or couldn't I trust Bruner? I couldn't answer the question, so I just kept driving. When in doubt, I'd learned at a relatively early age, just keep doing what you're already doing. If you do, at least you're doing something. To this rule I'd long ago added a codicil: don't change your mind before sundown.

  Sundown had long come and gone by the time I reached home again. According to my answering machine, Wyatt and Annie had called three more times about Jessica.

  “She's not here,” I said, calling back. I'd run out of sympathy.

  “Do you know what this is doing to Annie?” Wyatt demanded. “She's been in bed with a sick headache since three.”

  “Wyatt,” I said, “it'll be okay.”

  “Where is she? I should go get her.”

  “So go get her,” I said unkindly. I hung up. Then I popped open a bottle of Singha and drank it in one long chug. I drank seven more before I finally passed out, trying to wash the image of Junko Furuta from my memory.

  20

  Cracking the Code

  The telephone clanged and whirred like a chain saw poised above my forehead. I opened my eyes, saw four of everything, and closed them again. When I reopened them they had uncrossed, and the phone was still ringing.

  No wonder it had sounded like it was poised above my forehead. It was. I was flat on my back on the living-room floor, looking up at the rickety wooden orange crate that supported the answering machine and the phone. I used an arm that seemed to outweigh the rest of my body to reach up and grab the receiver.

  “Unghh,” I said, registering that my tongue didn't work.

  “Mr. Grist?” said a voice that could have belonged only to Yma Sumac in her top register or to Morris Gurstein. Since Yma Sumac didn't have my phone number, I said, “Hlo, Mrrs.” My voice was furrier than Tammy's chinchilla.

  “I've got it,” he squeaked. “It's very interesting.”

  “What is?” I asked, trying without success to sit up.

  “This code. I've never seen anything like it before.”

  “Morris,” I said, managing it better this time. “What's on the disks?”

  “Data base, like you said.” He sounded less excited. “Maybe some kind of bulletin board. Bunch of junk, if you ask me.”

  “Where are you?”

  “What do you mean, where am I? I'm a kid. I'm at home.”

  “Yeah, right.” An alien was trying to chew its way into the world via a route that led through the center of my forehead. “I'll be right over.” I was straining my back to get the receiver anchored again when a shrill sound told me that he was still talking.

  “What is it?” I said, slamming the receiver painfully against my right ear.

  “Bring Jessica,” he said.

  “Morris,” I said through clenched teeth as my ear throbbed, “don't be coy.”

  I took a hot shower, a cold shower, and a second hot shower while the coffee brewed. I drank two cups as quickly as I could pour them, standing stark naked and dripping wet at the kitchen counter, and then took another cold shower. Then, still wet, I took four aspirin. When I climbed into Alice, a third cup of cooling coffee quaking in my hand, it was about eight a.m. outside, and grayer than the Confederate army.

  Elise Gurstein, in a flowing housecoat, handed me yet another cup of coffee as I came through the door. She seemed always to be handing me things. “I didn't know,” she said apologetically. “I had no idea. I never go into Morris’ part of the house.”

  “Skip it,” I said around gulps. “Kids are smarter than we are. Just give me a refill.” She did, splashing some hot coffee on my wrist, and I descended into Morris’ lair, rubbing alternately at my sore ear and my wrist. I took some encouragement from the fact that my head remained on my shoulders all the way down the stairs. I still had it on when I used what seemed like somebody else's hand to open Morris’ door.

  “What took you so long?” Morris demanded. The computer screens were on and glowing, and Jessica peered at me over Morris’ shoulder. She gave me an excited grin.

  “Tell you in a second,” I said, reaching over his shoulder and slapping Jessica on the cheek. I hit her harder than I'd intended to, and she toppled to the left and landed on Morris’ rumpled bed, on top of a heap of school books that I recognized as hers. Somebody else's hand tingled from the force of the blow.

  “Hey,” Morris said protectively, assuming the half-assed karate stance of wimps the world over. Jessica looked at me in sheer disbelief, then looked at Morris, and started to bawl. I brushed aside Morris, who was trying to figure out which fist should point palm-up, and stood over her.

  “You self-centered little shit,” I snarled. My forehead was wet and aching and probably green with sweat. “I saw a dead girl last night. That was my second in a few days. Another one is still missing, and maybe she's dead too. How do you think their parents feel? You've had enough to do with this that you should know better. Annie and Wyatt are my friends, and they're your friends too, even if you're too dumb to know it. How dare you do this to them?”

  “We didn't do anything,” she sniffled. “I slept in Morris’ data room.”

  “She did,” Morris said, abandoning his lethal pose after one last futile pass at getting it right.

  “Shut up, Morris.” I wiped my forehead with the hand that had the coffee in it and poured some on my nose. “I don't care if you slept on a bed of nails,” I said to Jessica. “Your parents didn't know where you were.”

  “They hit me.”

  “My golly, my gosh. The brutes. Well, now I've hit you too. Maybe we know something you don't.”

  She turned over on her stomach and cried into Morris’ pillow, abandoning logic in favor of something that usually worked. I wiped the coffee off my nose, gave her rear a thwack with the back of my hand, and turned to Morris.

  “You're a jerk too,” I said. “What did you think you were doing, guarding the ideal of justice?” He gave me a startled look that told me that that was exactly what he'd thought he'd been doing. “Listen,” I said, trying for a tone of sanity and taking one of his hands in mine as I sat on the bed next to Jessica's heaving back. I balanced the coffee against her thigh. “I'm here this morning because there are people in the world who think that kids like you and Jessica are merchandise. Some of the kids they sell are dead. Some of the others probably wish they were. Your parents, hers and yours, Morris, aren't monsters. They're trying to help you get to the point where you can tell the monsters from the human beings. That's all. They know they can't make you happy for your whole lives. They know you're going to fuck up and make mistakes.”

  Morris made a dismissive gesture with his free hand, and I caught it. Now I had both of them, and he looked faintly uneasy. “You're going to marry some twit who beats you or cheats on you or takes everything you've earned,” I said. “You're going to vote for the wrong presidential candidate and go to work at some job that grinds your soul to dust. You're going to wake up some morning when you're forty-five and look around you and realize that you're living someone else's life by mistake and that it's too late to change your mind. Those are things they can't do anything about. But they can protect you from monsters while you're still too young and dumb to see them fo
r yourselves, and you have to let them do it. Hell,” I said, “give them a break, okay? It's not like they think they're going to get anything out of it. They do it, even though they'll probably fail, because they love you.”

  Morris looked down at Jessica on the bed. He looked like a man watching a sparrow fall. She'd given up on crying. I let go of his hands.

  “I told her she should go home,” he said to her back.

  “You've got to take love where you find it,” I said to Jessica. “There's not so much of it in the world that you can turn your nose up at it.”

  “They hit me,” she said again, her face buried in the pillow.

  “You're breaking my heart,” I said.

  “Well,” she said, rolling onto her back and wiping her eyes on her sleeve, “they shouldn't have.” The coffee cup tilted over and made a brown stain on Morris’ bed. There were a lot of stains on Morris’ bed, so I gave up on it.

  “You're going home with me. Your home, not mine.”

  She looked at Morris, who immediately focused on one of the computer screens. She swallowed and then nodded. “But you can't let them hit me.”

  “I'll see to it.” I looked up at Morris, hovering over us. “And you,” I said, “you have to promise not to kill me with a flying fist when my back is turned.”

  He considered it in all seriousness. “Okay,” he said.

  “Good,” I said. “Let's look at the disks.”

  As Morris busied himself with the computers, Jessica pulled herself up to a sitting position, took one last wipe at her face, wiped the coffee off her jeans, and tucked her knees under her arms. “Do you know what's on these?” I asked.

  “I've seen them,” she said. “I don't have any idea what they mean.”

  “I figured it out about six,” Morris said, doing something esoteric to a keyboard. “I woke her up and we looked at it, and then we called you.”

  “Six? You mean, in the morning? What time did you get up?”

  “He didn't,” Jessica said with a note of concealed pride. “He got me started on my math at about ten last night and then came in here. The next thing I knew, he woke me up to tell me that he'd busted it.”