I edged around her. “If you’ll let me explain.” But I might as well have been talking to a hurricane for all the effect my words had.
The little girl began to cry. Her mother ignored her.
“Get out!” she shrieked at me. “Get out of my house. Next time I see you, I tell my husband to shoot you.”
“I’m going.”
I stumbled over the children’s boots and toys and coats as I backed out of the living room and into the hallway. I wasn’t taking my eyes off this woman. Not even for a second. Donna followed me, screaming curses as she went.
I was a couple of feet from the front door when she bent down and picked up a baseball bat one of the kids had left lying on the floor. This was not good. I didn’t have anything on me that I could protect myself with.
“You don’t want to do that!” I cried.
“I show you.” Donna grasped the bat with both hands, and started swinging. I jumped back just in time. I could feel the wind from the bat whooshing by me. A second later and I would have been writhing on the floor. The bat hit the wall instead. A hole appeared in the wallboard.
“Hey, calm down.” I’d heard that Dominicans were hot-tempered, but this was ridiculous.
“I calm down all right.” Wham. She took another swing. Another hole in the wall.
I ran out the door, jumped down the steps, and bounded into my car. Donna was right behind me. Fortunately, I was faster. I had my car started up by the time she reached me. She raised the bat over her head and swung at my windshield. I yanked the wheel to the left, threw the car into reverse, put my foot down on the gas, and went up on the curb. I heard a crack as the bat came down on my sideview mirror. Donna raised the bat again. I shifted into forward. The car shuddered as she connected with the rear. I floored it. The car leaped ahead. I spun the wheel to avoid a tree. A man standing in his driveway stared at me openmouthed as I drove toward him on the sidewalk.
“Sorry!” I yelled as I went back on the pavement.
I checked my rearview mirror. Donna was still behind me. Who would have imagined someone that chunky could run that fast, I thought as I sped off. As I rounded the corner, I caught a final glimpse of Adelina’s mother. She was standing in the middle of the street shaking the bat at me. Her hair was plastered to her head. Her mouth was opened. She was screaming something at me. Fortunately, I couldn’t hear what it was.
I stopped at a convenience store half a mile away and got out to examine the damage. I ran my hand along the crumpled mess that had been my side mirror and over the dent near where the gas cap was and told my car everything was going to be all right. The dent wasn’t a big deal. Sam, the guy at the body shop, could bang that out, and he could probably scavenge a mirror, too, but I still felt a tug in the pit of my stomach.
I love my car, maybe because it reminds me of my youth. It’s an old, New York City yellow Checker taxicab. It has well over 150,000 miles on it and I’m hoping to get 300,000. When it goes, I won’t be able to replace it. Last I heard, there were only three or four left in the state. Of course, it is only a piece of machinery, we weren’t talking my firstborn here, and given the option of the cab being in the service station or me being in the hospital, the choice is obvious. Nevertheless, I was still really pissed.
I was impervious to the sleet as I walked to the convenience store. The icy rain numbed my fingers, worked its way down my back, caked my eyelashes, and clung to my hair, but I was too busy being angry at Eli to care. He should have warned me about Adelina. But as I bought a couple of Almond Joys I had to admit to myself that he had.
Eli had told me Adelina’s mother was nuts, he’d told me she’d run him and Manuel off, but I hadn’t asked for clarification, because I’d thought he was exaggerating. Obviously, he hadn’t been. I wondered if there were any other surprises in store for me as I unwrapped one of the Almond Joys and bit into it. If my next couple of stops were like this one, I was going to give Eli his money back. Twelve hundred dollars wasn’t enough to pay for a fractured skull. As it was, I figured Eli owed me the repair job on my cab. At the very least, which is why I stopped over at the garage next.
“Can you give me a rough estimate?” I asked Sam.
He looked at the cab with sorrowful brown eyes. He ran his hand over the damage gently and shook his head slowly. “You shouldn’t be driving it like this. The water is just going to make the problem worse.”
“I don’t have another ride.”
Sam gestured toward the parking lot in front of the garage where twenty used cars in varying states of decrepitude sat. “Take your pick.”
I chose a ’90 Honda and left the cab in Sam’s capable hands.
My second stop of my day was The Happy Trails Travel Agency. Hopefully, things would go more smoothly this time. The agency was located across the street from a car dealership in a small, run-down strip mall on Burnett Avenue. The shop was flanked by Henri’s, “all dog breeds welcomed,” and The Clip Joint “walk-ins accepted, manicurist on premises.” Very convenient. It was good to know that if an emergency struck, Zsa Zsa and I could get our hair done at the same time. A kitchen appliance store and a pizza place completed the line-up. At four o’clock in the afternoon, three cars were parked in the lot. Business wasn’t exactly booming here.
I ran into the pizza shop and ordered a soda and a meatball sub. While I ate, I noticed some snowflakes were mingling with the sleet. By the time I was through talking to the guy at Happy Trails I’d probably have to scrape the ice off my windshield. The thought did not cheer me. I finished the last of my food, paid, and went into the travel agency.
From what I could see from the doorway, Happy Trails was a strictly shoestring operation. The office had two standard-issue fake wood desks in it, a row of folding metal chairs along the far side wall, a couple of cheap plastic plants, and beige carpeting on the floor. The rest of the furnishings consisted of three large garishly colored travel posters of Disneyland, Hawaii, and Cancun tacked on the walls.
The store was empty except for a man behind the desk nearest to the door, eating a slice of pizza. When he saw me he took another couple of bites before he put the remainder down, and wiped his hands on a napkin.
“Can I help you?” he asked, his mouth full of food.
For some reason he looked familiar, although I couldn’t place him, but maybe that was because he appeared the same as a hundred other tired, rumpled-looking, middle-aged men. He had a round face, a bristly mustache decorating his upper lip, and a receding hairline. The plaid sports jacket he was wearing could have used a cleaning, as could his tie.
“I hope so.” I walked over to his desk. Its left side was stacked high with travel brochures. Looking at them made me want to whip out my credit card, book a trip to someplace like India, and take off.
“We have some nice trips to Mexico,” the man continued in a monotone that would have deadened the most enthusiastic traveler. “The fares are great. You’re not going to be able to do better. Or how about Miami?” He favored me with a wet smile. “Or the Virgin Islands? We have a fantastic weekend package. Two hundred bucks for three nights, everything included.”
“Sorry. Maybe another time.” I held out the envelope I’d found in Nestor’s room. “Is this yours?”
A flicker of concern crossed his face as he took the envelope. He studied it for a minute before handing it back. “That’s our name on the corner. Why? Is there a problem?”
I gave him my card.
He held it at arm’s length and squinted at it. “Inquiries? What kind of inquiries?”
“I was hoping you could help me out with some questions I have concerning a Nestor Chang.”
“Nestor Chang, hunh?” A cagey expression crossed his face. He tapped his fingers on the desk in an unconvincing parody of thought. “I’m not sure. Offhand, the name doesn’t ring a bell.”
Right. I wondered how much he’d want. Probably a double sawbuck, I decided as I sat down. It seemed to be the going rate these days.
>
I leaned over and read his name off the plate on his desk. “Mr. Landen, I got this envelope from his room. I’m hoping you can tell me where he went.”
He scratched behind his ear. “It’s hard to remember. I’d have to go through my files ...”
I managed to say, “I can see where in a booming business like this it would be hard to keep track of all your customers,” with a straight face. I took a twenty-dollar bill out of my wallet and laid it on the desk.
He looked at it regretfully, as if the sight of it pained him. “Ordinarily I wouldn’t ask this, but my time ...” He sighed and put the money in his wallet.
I finished the sentence for him. “Is in demand.”
“Exactly. Especially now that February break is coming up.” He stuck out his hand. We shook. “Call me Dale. Everyone does.”
“So, Dale. About Nestor Chang. Did he take one of your trips to Miami?”
“Let me check.” He rose, went over to a file cabinet sitting in the corner, rifled through it for a couple of seconds, and picked out a folder, which from where I was sitting looked as if it had never been used. “Here we are. My memory isn’t as good as it once was.”
Landen pretended to look through the folder before he returned it to the file cabinet and closed the drawer. He sat back down. “Mr. Chang was in here a month ago. He talked about going to Disney World. I mailed him some brochures, detailing a nice package, direct flight, four nights, three days, deluxe accommodations, I assume that’s what was in the envelope you found, but that’s the last I heard of him. He never called me back. As to his going someplace? Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Thanks.” I put the notebook and pen I’d taken out of my backpack away. A couple of years ago, paying twenty and getting nothing for it would have annoyed me, but I’ve become resigned. Sometimes you get taken, sometimes you don’t. That’s just the way it goes. And anyway, it wasn’t my money, it was Eli’s.
Landen leaned forward slightly. He licked his lips in anticipation. “What did this guy do anyhow?”
“Killed a travel agent,” I deadpanned.
Landen’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second. Then he got the joke and favored me with a wet smile. “Seriously.”
“Seriously, he stole some money.”
Landen’s smile turned rueful. “There seems to be a lot of that going around these days. If I think of anything, I’ll be sure and tell you. Here.” He handed me one of his cards. “Ring me up if you change your mind about that vacation. We really do have some good deals.”
“Thanks, but frankly the thought of going to Cancun doesn’t excite me.”
“Oh, we have trips all over the world. South America, Central America, Japan, Indonesia, Borneo. You name it. I can get you there.”
I made a noncommittal comment and walked out the door. The way my life was going these days I couldn’t afford to fly down to Newark, much less someplace like Japan.
I paused in front of the cage with the dead iguana. The two-foot lizard was lying on its back, its four claws pointed skyward. I bit my cuticle. Well, it was nice to know that things hadn’t changed at Animals Galore, the pet shop chain from hell. I’d reported them three times in the past couple of years to both the ASPCA and the State Police. The store had been fined each time for improper housing of livestock, specifically their dogs and cats, but it was cheaper for the shop to pay the fine than it was for them to clean up their act. The company that owned the chain had deep pockets. It would take a lot to get them into compliance.
I wondered if Jeff, the kid who had been in my store the other day, had been in here as well. I don’t know why PETA doesn’t demonstrate in front of them. I’d even join in. The place gives the rest of us a bad name. The shop sells puppy mill puppies. Their reptiles are so badly stressed, they usually die as soon as people get them home, if not before, and most of the fish they have swimming around have contracted ick from the crowded conditions and poor water filtration in which they’re forced to live.
My opinion of Nestor hadn’t gone up when Eli had told me this was the last place he worked. It also impacted, as they like to say in the corporate world, on my information-gathering ability. Especially since the manager of the store, a moron named Hal Salt, from whom I wouldn’t buy a can of tuna fish, had somehow or other found out that I was the one who’d issued the complaints. He hadn’t been pleased. I started on my next cuticle while I tried to remember what he’d said when he’d phoned to let me know how he’d felt. Something like: did I think I was goddamned Joan of fucking Ark? Or had it been fucking St. Francis of Assisi?
I wasn’t sure. It didn’t really matter. What mattered was that Hal Salt didn’t like me very much. Which is why I’d left Animals Galore until this time of the day. I’d been hoping he’d be on his dinner break and I’d get one of the clerks, but, of course, given the way my luck was running, that wasn’t how things turned out.
Salt must have been in the back, because I didn’t see him when I walked in. The store was empty, a fact that cheered my heart. I was standing by the reptiles looking around for someone to talk to when I heard a man say, “I thought I told you not to come in here anymore.”
I turned and there Salt was, a vision of beauty in his polyester pants and Izod shirt. I nodded toward the dead iguana. “Still maintaining your normal high standards of care, I see.”
Salt’s jaw muscles started working. “Get the hell out.”
I did my tough-guy imitation, not that anyone ever takes it seriously. “I will as soon as you tell me what you know about Nestor Chang.”
Salt threw back his head and let out a roar of laugher.
“I’m glad you think I’m funny.”
“I think you’re hilarious.” He mined his ear with his finger and wiped the wax off on the hem of his shirt. Watching him made me want to throw up. “In fact, I think you’re so funny,” he continued, “that I’m going to call security and have them arrest you.”
“On what charge?”
“Shoplifting. You took ...” He made a clicking noise with his teeth as he looked around. “One of those.” He pointed to a box containing a heat rock. “Not that I need a charge. The guys are my friends.”
“You have friends?”
Salt went over to the counter, picked up the phone, and began to dial. “Let’s see,” he said as he waited for someone on the other end to pick up.
I left before anyone did.
Maybe I should have stayed. Maybe he was just calling the local weather information line, but I didn’t want to take the chance. I had too much to do to play games with security right now. A session with them could eat up an hour. If they decided to call the cops and I got taken downtown, that would be another two right there. At the minimum.
Salt watched me go. He was grinning as I walked away. It took every ounce of self-control I possessed to refrain from turning around and belting him in the mouth. He and his store were like warts. You cut them out and they just came back. But then, maybe I just hadn’t found the right knife.
The store could afford the fines, but what about public opinion? I headed for the phones down by the door and called Calli, my friend who works on the Syracuse newspaper. She’d been out in California when I’d called the ASPCA last time, but she was back now. People may not care about dead lizards and fish, but they care about abused puppies. Let’s see what Salt would do in the face of an expose? Calli and I chatted for a little while and she promised she’d run my idea by her editor and get back to me.
I felt better after I hung up. The feeling lasted until I dug the list I’d asked Eli and Manuel to compile out of my backpack and looked at it. I still had five people to talk to. Something told me I wasn’t going to get any more out of them than I had out of the first three. I decided to take a breather and get a cup of coffee before I began.
I was sitting in Cup O Java—one of those mall-franchised coffee shops that sells black dishwater and calls it espresso—trying to decide whether adding a fourth packet
of sugar would help the taste of the swill I was drinking, when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned my head.
“Yes?” I said, glancing up.
A teenage girl was standing in back of me. She looked like a wraith. She was so thin, her thigh was probably as big as my wrist. Her eyes were two large dark black pools, her skin was dead white, and her hair resembled straw. The green T-shirt and the faded denim overalls she had on served to underscore her thinness and her youth. She looked like a street urchin in need of a hot meal.
“My name is Myra. I was in the back of the store when Salt was yelling at you,” she said.
I motioned for her to sit down. She slipped into the chair next to me.
“Can I get you anything?” I asked. “A piece of cake? A sandwich?” All the food in the store I wanted to add, but didn’t.
The girl shook her head. “I told Salt I was just getting a soda, so I can’t stay too long, but I have to know. Nestor is in trouble, isn’t he?”
“Yes, Myra.” I pushed my coffee away. It was undrinkable. “He stole something from someone and they hired me to find him and get it back.”
The girl wrinkled her nose. “He’s such a sleaze.” She ran her finger over the metal clasp on her overalls. “I’m amazed Hal waited as long as he did to fire him.” She stopped for a few seconds and then continued, the words tumbling out of her mouth in a rush. This wasn’t someone who needed any prompting. “He was always calling in sick and leaving me to close. According to him, he was dying. He always had something wrong with him. He had the flu or strep throat or he sprained his ankle or whatever. Not that it mattered when he was here. He never did anything except talk on the phone. If I were the manager, I would have run his ass out of here a long time ago.”
“Really?” I reached for a cigarette before I remembered I couldn’t smoke in the mall. Watching this girl, listening to the enmity in her voice, made me wonder what Nestor had done to her to make her dislike him so.
“Yes. Really.” She glanced behind her as if she was fearful of being seen talking to me. Given the way Salt felt about me, she probably was. “He was stealing stuff from the store and selling it himself.”
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