by Tim O'Mara
“Mee lah grows,” Gracie sang as the swing slowed down. “Mee lah grows.”
“How often is your husband down in Brooklyn?”
“Every week,” she said. “He—we—have an apartment down there.”
“And you?”
“I haven’t been down since Christmas.”
“Ball!” Gracie yelled, leaning forward as the swing started to slow down. “Baaallllll.”
“Okay, okay,” her mother said, just barely getting her arm around the girl before she jumped off the swing. “¡Cuidado!”
Gracie jumped down, sprinted after the ball, and kicked it into the corner of the yard.
“She’s got quite a lot of energy,” I said.
“Yes,” Anita said, placing her hand on her pregnant stomach.
“Is she growing up bilingual?”
“No,” Anita said, realizing it had come out a bit harsh. She allowed herself a long breath. “It’s getting very warm, and we only have a little more time to play outside. If that is all…”
“When are you due?” I asked, to keep her talking.
“Two months.”
End of July, I thought, and again looked up at the workerless scaffolding. They were cutting it close with all the work that needed to be finished before the new baby.
“Gets hot up here over the summer,” I said. “Can you run the air conditioner with all that open space on the top floor?”
“We’ll go up north for a while,” she answered. “John’s parents own a house in Maine.”
“Nice.”
The soccer ball came rolling to a stop at my feet and Gracie came over. She eyed me cautiously and watched as I maneuvered my foot under the ball and lifted it over her head toward some bushes. She gave me a smile and ran after it.
“Yes,” Anita said, watching her daughter pull the ball out of the bushes. “I don’t remember you showing me any identification, Detective.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your identification. A badge. Detectives do carry badges, don’t they?”
“Of course,” I said. “But I’ve taken up enough of—”
“MUN NEE!” Gracie yelled from the bushes. We both looked over as the little girl sang out again. “MUN NEE!”
She came running over to us, waving what looked like a dollar bill. She handed it to her mother, who looked at it and said, “¡Ay dios mio!”
“Problem?” I asked.
She held out the bill for me to see. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was not a dollar bill. It was a hundred. Ay dios mio, indeed.
I held out my hand and she gave me the bill. I then did what most people do when holding a bill of that denomination: I took it by the edges and pulled. It was real. I turned it over and saw that it had Anita’s address written on the back. There were also some numbers: 710 and 410 and the letters “PA.”
“This is Frankie’s handwriting,” I said to Anita.
“How can you be sure of that?” she asked.
“I recognize it from class,” I said before realizing my mistake. “From some classwork of his I’ve seen.”
Anita Roberts squinted at me, studying my face.
“Gracie,” she said. “Come here.”
Her daughter did as she was told, reacting more to the tone of her mother’s voice than to the actual words. The two of them stood there as one, holding hands, looking at the stranger who had invaded their privacy.
“Who are you?” Anita asked.
“I told you,” I said. “I’m looking for Frankie and Milagros.”
“Who are you?” she repeated, taking a step back toward the door she had come running out of a short while ago.
“Frankie’s teacher.”
A few seconds went by as my words sunk in. Anita said, “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“No, ma’am, I’m not.”
“Why did you tell me that you were a detective?”
“I never told you that,” I said. “You assumed, and I didn’t correct you.”
Anita looked at me and gave me something close to a smile. “You talk like a cop.” The smile disappeared. “Why are you here?”
“Because I knew the cops wouldn’t make the trip, and I wanted to speak to you and your husband about Frankie.”
“To see if we knew more than we told the other—Detective Royce.”
“Something like that.” I held up the bill. “This proves they were here, Mrs. Roberts. This is Frankie’s handwriting. Are you telling me that he came all the way up here and you didn’t know about it?”
“That,” she pointed to the bill, “proves nothing. And I’m not telling you anything. Please leave, mister…”
“Donne.”
“Oh, so that much is true? Good-bye, Mister Donne.”
She turned to take her daughter back into the house. When she got to the side door, I said, “Frankie and Milagros are still missing, Mrs. Roberts. That doesn’t bother you?”
She looked over her shoulder and gave me a look that could have boiled water. She opened the side door. “Go inside, Gracie. Mommy will be right in.”
“Mee lah grows?” the girl asked.
“Inside,” her mother repeated and gave Gracie a light tap on her butt. Gracie gave me a little wave and went into the house. When the door shut, Anita turned back to me. “Do not dare take that tone of voice with me in front of my daughter, Mr. Donne. And do not dare presume to know what bothers me and what does not.”
“There it is,” I said.
“What?”
“The accent. I picked it up before when Gracie almost fell off the swing and now again when you slipped back into that tough chica from Clemente.”
“You want me to sound like Clemente?” She looked at the door to make sure it was shut. “Get the fuck off my property or this tough chica is going to have you arrested for trespassing.”
“Then you can explain to the police how this”—I raised the hundred-dollar bill again—“ended up on your property.” She thought that over. “They were here, Anita. Why would they come all this way just to disappear again? Did something happen to them up here?”
“I DON’T KNOW!” she screamed. Again, she looked to the door her daughter had gone through. After a few seconds, she calmed down. “I don’t know. Please”—her eyes were filling up with tears now—“show that to whoever you want, just leave us alone.”
Anita Roberts ended our conversation by walking into her house and making sure the door did not slam behind her. I slipped the bill into my pocket and went back to the car with one thought: Frankie and Milagros got out of their father’s apartment and made it all the way up here.
*
The tank was a little too close to E, so I pulled into a service station just past the entrance to the thruway. I filled up, ran a squeegee over the front and back windows, and went inside to pay and pick up another jolt of caffeine for the ride home. A Trailways bus rumbled by as I opened the door.
The ruddy-faced kid behind the register looked up from his wrestling magazine long enough to give me change. “How far into town is the bus station?” I asked.
He looked at me as if I’d asked him the average surface temperature of Jupiter. He rubbed his chin and said, “Never really thought about it before. Half mile or something?”
“Thanks.”
I got back in the car and headed a half mile or something into town and pulled into the Trailways station. Outside on the wall, the schedule was posted, and I followed along with my finger and found the two buses that left from New York City: 7:10 A.M. and 4:10 P.M., from Port Authority. I took the hundred from my pocket and checked out what Frankie had written: 710 and 410 and “PA.” He and Milagros got up here by bus. Then what? Walked the five miles to Anita’s? I looked across the street and saw another service station: Downey’s Taxi.
Inside the office, a very fat man sat in a recliner reading a newspaper. A floor fan was oscillating in the corner, moving the air-conditioned air around. He looked up and waited for me to
speak.
“I was wondering if you could help me,” I said.
“If ya need a ride or gas, I can,” he said.
“Actually, I was hoping you could give me some information.”
He pointed out the window. “Go back up another two blocks and make a left. College is three blocks in on your right. They got lots of information there and get paid to give it out. Me? I sell gas and drive people places. See the difference?”
Okay. I gave him my best Parent/Teacher Night smile and tried again.
“It’s about some customers of yours,” I said. “A couple of kids.”
“Get lots of kids, mister. It’s a college town.”
“No, these two were—are—fourteen and eight. Boy and girl. They would have been going over to Highland. Bevier Court, within the past few days.”
He looked at me and then down at his paper again. With a great deal of effort, he lifted himself out of his chair. He took five steps toward me and reached under the counter. He came up with a large binder notebook.
“Let’s see what we got here,” he said. “What day ya thinking of?”
“I’m not sure. Within the last couple, though.”
“The last couple,” he repeated, making sure I could hear how ridiculous my request was. “I don’t know…”
I reached into my pocket, pulled out my last twenty, and placed it on the counter. “Could you just look, please? Twenty bucks for two minutes.”
He tried to lean forward. “You a private eye or something?”
“Or something.”
He scooped up the twenty like it was a doughnut and slipped it into his shirt pocket. He began flipping through the pages.
“Coupla runaways?” he asked. When I didn’t respond, he said, “Oh, yeah. I bet you’re not at liberty to discuss that.” He gave me a wink and went back to the book. “Highland, Highland. Would help if I knew what time of day you were thinking of.”
I thought back to the bus schedule and said, “About ten in the morning or seven at night. Just after the bus gets in from the city. My guess would be night.”
“Let’s try night then.” He moved the big book to the side, reached under the counter again, and pulled out a single-subject notebook, the kind my kids used. “That’d be Jimmy’s shift, and he likes to keep his own ledger,” the big man explained. “College kid. Don’t usually hire ’em ’cause they’re quick to leave when they get another job or graduate. After all the training I give ’em.” He opened up the notebook and found what he was looking for. “Monday … nope. Tuesday … nope. Wednesday … bingo! Two to Highland. Seven forty-five. Bev Court.”
“That’s it,” I said. “Is it possible to talk to Jimmy?”
“You’re asking a lot for twenty dollars, mister.”
“It’s all I have,” I said. “Honest.”
He looked me over to see if he believed me. I guess he did, because after a while, he picked up the phone and dialed. After another thirty seconds, he said, “Jimmy. Downey. No, no, we’re fine. Got a question for ya, about a fare ya took over to Highland on Wednesday.” He listened. “Seven forty-five? Two kids.” Another pause. “Fifty? Shit. Got a guy here wants to talk to ya.” He handed me the phone.
“Jimmy,” I said. “My name’s Raymond Donne.”
“You a PI?” he asked. He sounded like his mouth was full of food.
“Those two kids you took over to Highland, how’d they look?”
I waited while he thought about that. Or maybe swallowed.
“Tired,” he said. “Especially the girl. Boy seemed real nervous. Kept looking out the back window, telling the girl to keep it down. Like I cared what they were saying.”
“What were they saying?”
“No idea. Had my mind on other things, and they mostly spoke in Spanish.”
“You dropped them off on Bevier?”
“At the corner.”
“Was there anyone there to meet them?”
“Said they’d walk the rest of the way. Kid seemed to know where he was going, so…”
These were two kids, I thought. Alone, in the early evening. Far from home. I wanted to reach through the phone and rip this guy a new one, but I needed a little more info.
“So you saw no one else?”
“Nope.” He chewed a little more. “Kid asked for a card, though. Figured he wanted to have a number to call for a return ride.”
“You figured that, huh?”
“Yeah. Hey, if you see them two?”
“Yeah?”
“Tell them I said thanks for the tip.”
“Tip?”
“Gave me fifty. Kid said, ‘Keep the change.’ Like a real big shot.”
It took all the control I could summon not to slam the phone into the counter.
“You didn’t think,” I asked, “to question that? Two kids giving you a fifty dollar bill?”
“Hey, man. I’m a grad student. Someone throws me a fifty, I ain’t asking for ID. That’s half a textbook.” He took a sip of something. “Tell Downey I’ll see him tomorrow at five.”
After listening to the dial tone for a bit, I handed the phone back to Downey. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” Downey said. “Those kids gonna be okay?”
Good question. “I don’t know.”
The fat man studied me for a little while. “You ain’t a private detective, are you, mister?”
“No,” I said. “I’m just a schoolteacher.”
He laughed. “Schoolteacher. Thought you were at least a cop. Here,” he said, pulling out the twenty I had given him. “You need this more’n I do.”
“Keep it,” I said. “You earned it.”
He pushed the bill at me. “Use it to pay for the gas home. Better yet, charge them kids for the trip. They seem to have some cash on hand.”
“Yeah,” I said, taking the money. “That they do. Thanks, Downey.”
“You take care, mister.”
I got back in the car and, five minutes later, I was on the thruway heading back to Brooklyn with some answers, but more questions than I had started with.
*
I pulled into the last service station on the thruway to stretch my legs and use the men’s room. On my way out, I passed a bank of pay phones and had an idea. It took me three calls to reach Uncle Ray. His personal cell phone instructed me to leave a message. His wife, Reeny—“Why haven’t we seen you for so long?”—gave me his work cell, which was answered by someone who introduced himself as Officer Jackson. Jackson told me my uncle was in Manhattan at the Chelsea Piers driving range hitting golf balls at New Jersey. When I told Jackson I would be there in an hour, he assured me that they would still be there.
When I was a kid, Uncle Ray would tell me, “You need directions, ask a map. You need help, ask a cop.” I needed real help and I was going to ask the biggest cop I knew.
Chapter 11
I FOUND MY UNCLE ON THE GROUND level of the multitiered driving range. He’d never fool around with the upper levels; they didn’t give an accurate account of how you were swinging. Uncle Ray was dressed in a short-sleeved golf shirt, blue uniform pants, and a baseball cap with the words “City Island Yacht Club” written in bright, yellow letters. The sweat marks on his shirt reached just above his belt. A young black uniformed cop was off to the side by a cooler. I watched as the automatic tee repeatedly disappeared below the artificial grass and resurfaced with a fresh golf ball. My uncle would then drive it into the early evening sky. He did this about a half dozen times before he acknowledged my presence.
“Officer Jackson,” he said without looking back. “This is my nephew, Raymond Donne.”
Jackson came over and offered me his hand. “Mr. Donne, sir. A pleasure.”
“Ray,” I said. “And the only ‘sir’ around here is my uncle.”
He gave me a smile and a nod as my uncle said, “Have Jackson make you a drink, Nephew. He puts together a fine Diet Coke and Jack.”
“No, thanks,” I said. “I haven
’t had dinner yet.”
“Jeez,” Uncle Ray said, bending down and picking up a plastic cup. “This is my dinner.” He drained the remainder of his drink in one long sip. “Another please, Jackson.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jackson went back to the cooler, the latest rookie to be “adopted” by my uncle straight from the academy. He’d serve for six months as personal secretary, chauffeur, caddy, and bartender. The hours were long, the days many, and just about everything about the position was against PBA rules. But no one complained about it because, if you lasted the half year, you were well on your way to a detective’s shield. If you were one of “Donne’s Boys,” you were golden.
Jackson finished making the drink and brought it over to my uncle, who turned to face me for the first time. When I was a kid, Uncle Ray was the biggest man in my world. He had about six inches on my father, and my memory of him coming over to our house was him ducking as he came through the door. He removed his cap and ran his fingers over his sweaty gray hair. He took a long sip and said, “To what do I owe the pleasure, Raymond?”
“What?” I said. “I can’t just drop by and visit my uncle?”
“Sure you can. You never do. Now, what is it that you want?”
I thought about it for a moment and decided the best approach would just be to dive right in. My uncle’s tolerance for bullshit was lower than my own.
“I wanted to talk to you about a…” Jesus, Ray. Slow down. “One of my students is in trouble. Missing, actually. His sister, too. Their dad was killed over on the Southside last week.”
“Rivas,” he said.
“How did you know that?”
“Your name—shit, my name—shows up as a wit on a murder scene report, and you don’t think it’s gonna make its way to me? What the hell were you doing over there, Raymond?”
“Looking for my student.”
“God,” he said. “Is that what they got you doing now? Truancy shit?”
“I was there on my own, Uncle Ray. I swung by Clemente first to check with the grandmother. The kid hadn’t been in for a—”
“It was a murder scene, Raymond.”
