by Dan Glover
So yeah. He still had all the old case files. Not that they'd do anyone any good. It'd be a favor. And in his line of work one never could be owed too many favors. One of these days he'd be calling Liza McNairy up and asking for payment in kind and she knew it. Hell, who could tell? They might actually find something. And if so, maybe they'd be good enough to include his name. But probably not.
Chapter 5—Mother Moo
(And Daddy Doo)
1
It wasn’t easy coming of age inside that crazy house on the beach. Especially after Eduardo vanished. Mother had gone from being overly protective to manic about controlling things. Wouldn’t let Elena out of her sight. Even tried to make her wear a dog leash when they went out in public, like she was a choice pig or something. A chia pet, maybe. Seventeen years old and chained up like an animal.
Her brother's disappearance had colored her entire young adulthood a somber shade of melancholied madness that still persisted even until today. Ran into her own doings as a mother and a wife. After all, her own mother had died never knowing what became of her one and only son and Elena had no intentions of allowing anything like that to happen to her boys. Unfortunately her ex of a husband didn’t share those emotions. Johnny divorced her, gained custody of the boys, and moved back to the States... back to some semblance of sanity.
Hell, she couldn’t fault the man for it. She'd put him and the children through a gamut of misery and tears. Run around on him with any dufus that happened to look her way. Mostly waiters and bus boys who worked at the resort in the seaside village where she'd grown up. Where Johnny worked as CEO. Call me John in front of the staff, Elena. Or better yet, Mr. Stamper. Yep. It sure enough put a bad spin on things what with his wife screwing all the hired help. Finally the man had enough, packed up the kids, and moved back to Boston where he had family and a fortune and a loving momma waiting for him.
She supposed she could blame her sexual addictions and preternatural appetites on her childhood. Take advantage of the hand dealt to her at a young and impressionable age. Wasn’t that the fashion these days? Cast blame on the older generation? Or maybe it had more to do with the disappearance of her younger brother so long ago. Guilt. Yeah, she had her share of it. She was ten years older than he was and supposed to be in charge. He'd turned seven years old the day he vanished.
Eduardo had never been an overly bright kid, at least not that she could recall. Had a stutter... or was that her? Sometimes it was hard to remember. Either way, what if her brother was still alive? It was possible. So when she saw that pair of detectives parading around on the Oprah Show and telling everyone who'd listen for half a minute how great they were at finding lost things like bodies and people who went missing, Elena wondered if she might have finally found a solution to the problem that vexed her for what seemed an eternity. When a phone number came up at the end of the show, she wrote it down.
She'd prepared herself to talk to a machine or in the least to a secretary. Weren’t most famous people too busy to answer a phone? Especially if they'd been on the Oprah Show? Of course they were. They must be getting a million calls every minute. Who'd have the time to talk to that many people? No one. And so yes, she was momentarily disconcerted when Liza McNairy—the great woman herself—answered her call with a simple hello. She froze up. Started stuttering all over again. Made a fool of herself. Not that that was anything new, mind you. She'd been doing that just about every day of her life.
"My name is Elena Stamper. My brother vanished fifteen years ago, Ms. McNairy. He'd be twenty two now if he's still alive. I saw you and your partner on Oprah. I see what you do. Can you help me find Eduardo?"
"We'll need to know all the circumstances surrounding his disappearance, Ms. Stamper. Can we meet for lunch?"
2
And now here they were, still television cool, sitting right in front of her sipping coffee and eating pastries and asking questions. She seemed young. Too young. Liza McNairy had to be the same age as her. How could anyone like that hope to find a boy who simply evaporated without a trace? She couldn’t. She'd need help. That's where the guy came in. Danners Forthright. He looked gay. All his mannerisms pointed to it. His dress. Pink shirt, leather vest with fringe, beige corduroy pants. Limp wrists. And who the hell wore corduroy in southern California during the summer?
He was older too. Ancient. Sixty, at least. Closer to sixty five, certainly. But the man had an air about him. Like he knew things other people couldn’t see. Maybe too many things. Probably had nightmares from it all. May they all be sweet. The circles under his eyes told a story... he didn’t sleep much. The vacant stare told a story too, like he'd suffered. Elena knew all about those circles, those eyes, that stare. She'd lived with all of it ever since that day Eduardo didn’t come home from school like he was supposed to do.
"I thought he'd gone to the beach. Eduardo liked to look for seashells after the tide had gone out. And that day low tide was right at three o'clock. Just when school was dismissed. I even walked along the sand searching for him. To make him come home and change clothes. Before... before mother found out."
"So you didn’t call anyone right away, Ms. Stamper?"
"Why, no, Ms. McNairy. I just thought... well... that I'd find him. Every once in a while I'd see a kid that I thought was Eduardo and I'd run after him but it never was. And pretty soon I was a good five kilometers from home. And it was getting dark. And on my way home I looked everywhere for my brother... all his friends' houses... all the places he liked to go. But he wasn’t there. After a while I got frightened. Somehow I knew I'd never see him again. And my mother would be angry. With me. For not watching him like I promised."
"None of that was your fault, Ms. Stamper. We understand that."
Thank you, Mr. Forthright. Thank you for telling me the same fucking thing everyone else has told me over the years. Like I'll ever believe it. Of course it was my fault. I was his sister. His older sister. I was supposed to be there for him when he got off the bus. But I fell asleep after faking an illness, skipping school, and sucking my boyfriend's dick all morning and fucking him half the afternoon. I didn’t wake up until nearly dinnertime. And Eduardo wasn’t there. Hell, he wasn’t anywhere. And yes. It was my fault. All of it.
"You don’t have to placate me... I've heard it all, Mr. Forthright. I can't help feeling guilty, though."
What was that look in McNairy's eyes? Commiseration? No. It was more like empathy. As if she knew. Like she'd lost someone too. Someone close. She carried that same sense of guilt. Always would. Elena's eyes automatically went to McNairy's arms, searching for those familiar track marks. The ones she knew so much about. Always wore long sleeves even in the hot Mexican summers. What was it about addicts being able to sniff each other out? She didn’t know. She only sensed that McNairy shared the same love for smack that she did.
"Do you have anything that belonged to Eduardo, Ms. Stamper? A favorite toy? Something he liked to sleep with?"
"I think so. What good will that do, Mr. Forthright?"
"I sometimes get impressions from objects that were in close contact with people I'm attempting to locate. That's how I do what I do."
"I packed away all his things after mom died. She kept it all, just in case he came back home. I have the stuff stored in the attic. I remember how he always loved playing with his marbles. There's a bag full of them. Would that be something you could use, Mr. Forthright? I'd hate to lose them, though."
"It'd be perfect, Ms. Stamper. I promise to get the bag and marbles back to you when the case is over."
3
"Agreed. Now... do you have any idea how much is this going to cost me, Ms. McNairy?"
"Our fee runs two thousand dollars a day, Ms. Stamper, plus any expenses incurred. Normally our clients load money cards for a two week period at a time. Thirty thousand dollars. If we solve the case before the two weeks are up, we reserve the right to keep any unused monies."
"So much... you say you need the money up
front?"
"Yes, I'm afraid so."
"Can you give me some time? I might be able to borrow the money."
Johnny wouldn’t let her have thirty thousand dollars. Christ, he'd fought her over the paltry alimony settlement she'd finally won, and the only way she'd gotten that was to agree to relinquish custody of the kids... to allow him to take them back to Boston.
At the same time, though, she knew certain things that Johnny might not be comfortable with her sharing. Mother Moo was a well known Bostonian philanthropist and Daddy Doo, well, he liked his new daughter in law just a little bit too much. She had the pictures to prove it too. Newspapers ate that sort of shit for breakfast. Sometimes lunch. Of course, it could be said how she led the old Doo on, but how was she supposed to understand the family dynamics before she married into them? The next thing she knew Johnny was standing over the bed watching old Doo plow his new wife with a look on his face that said he was liking it.
"Don't ever say what happened here tonight to mother... understand, Elena?"
"Of course, Johnny... you know I would never. What kind of girl do you take me for?"
Mother Moo, the docile cow always standing in the corner chewing her ever-present cud. Or was that a wad of tobacco? Who could say? But yeah, the old girl might get a thrill out of seeing that picture of her former daughter in law and Daddy Doo doing it in the matrimonial bed and inside the hot tub too. Or not. Elena's money was riding on not.
Chapter 6—Highs
(And Lows)
1
"Think she'll come up with the money, Danners?"
"No... I get the distinct impression Elena Stamper doesn’t have two five dollar bills inside her wallet to make ten, much less thirty thousand. No... unless I'm drastically mistaken we'll have to do this one on our own, Liza."
"Which means you're picking up the tab, aren't you, honey boo. Did I ever tell you how much I love you, Danners?"
"Maybe a time or two. I wouldn’t mind hearing it again, though. You know... little Eduardo could well've been me, Liza. He could've been anyone. That kind of shit makes me puke."
The case file from Hank on the disappearance of Eduardo Ramirez was woefully thin. No witnesses. No suspects. No one coming forward claiming to have seen a strange vehicle in the vicinity of the boy's last known whereabouts. The bus driver had dropped him at the usual spot along with two other children, both who made it home just fine.
The biggest problem was the length of time it took to sound the alarm on the disappearance of little Eduardo. Elena the sister hadn’t reported him missing until nine o'clock at night, a full six hours after he disembarked from the school bus. That he did so was confirmed by not only the bus driver but also six children still on the bus and two others who disembarked along with him.
"Those two kids who got off with Eduardo... what are their names, Danners? I'm not seeing anything about that."
"Oh I have it right here, honeybeer. Emilio and Eugenio Juarez. Twin brothers. They lived just a block from Eduardo and Elena. Says here the police interviewed them both but they saw nothing. They remember Eduardo getting off the bus and starting towards his house. They lived the opposite direction. So far as anyone knows, they were the last ones to see the boy."
"I want to talk to them, Danners. Can you dig up an address?"
"I'll see what I can find, lover mine. It's a place to start."
The shakes were setting in. When she picked up another page out of the file to study it she could hear the rustling, a tiny rattler burrowing just under her skin. Of course Danners noticed it too but he said nothing. Maybe that's what she loved most about the man... his propensity to afford her all the privacy she craved. They were a lot alike in that regard.
"I'm going to have to take a break, Danners. Have a bath. Maybe lie down for a bit. Wake me in a few hours?"
"You know I will. Be careful, sweetie. You know I'd die without you."
And he would. Of that she was certain. He could no more live without her than she could without him. They were deeper in love than any husband and wife that she knew. Closer than sisters, even. Yet as long as they'd been together neither had broached the subject of furthering their relationship. It was as if they both knew if they took that step and it failed, everything they had would vanish. And so they played around the edges with innuendo and allegory. Teasing one another with make believe and pretense.
She undressed, started the water running, and pulled out her bundle spreading the contents onto the tray she used when she planned on lying in the tub a while. She liked the water hot, so hot it turned her skin red and filled the room with steamy tendrils of fog. Stepping into the water and slowly immersing her body as she lay back allowing her self to acclimatize to the heat she unwrapped the treasure contained inside the white cloth rolled up so tenderly and with such love.
She enjoyed the ritual
2
Associated with the act almost as much as the high shortly forthcoming. Opening the baggie in which she kept her stash so it stayed dry. Unfolding the square of white paper... a little lick of the fingertip just to numb the tongue... the hefting of the off-white powder into that special silver spoon... the flick of the flame, and the sweet almost noxious odor of the melt... vinegar and chips. She loved everything about it. And yet she hated it too. The knowledge of what she was about to do ran counter to everything she believed in, everything she was, and everything she would ever be.
Lying back, raising her pelvis out of the water, spreading her legs, finding just the right spot, right where her inner thigh ran into with her torso, positioning the syringe, timing the moment when the needle plunged into the tender flesh... all of it was an art in itself. A carefully measured and choreographed dance that went on and on. Not too deep but deep enough. Took her years to perfect the stabbing motion. Lying back down she noted just a tinge of red coloring the bathwater.
Oh yes. That little sting—and then the rush. The ah. That surge of oh my fucking God coursing through her veins. Dilating her eyes. Loosening all her inhibitions. Making it all okay. The sense of floating on a bed of freshly plucked cotton with just a hint of an unscratchable itch—somewhere, but where?—not exactly worth the bother but annoying nonetheless... all of it combined to render her impotent to its grasp, to the love she felt. Deeper than any man she'd ever known, save one. And yet she refused to quit even for him.
The wretched and the meek, turning tricks and feeling sleek... that's what her whole life amounted to. One long wait for this moment of pleasure that never rendered onto her the promise that her expectations nevertheless held. Twins. Damn them anyway. They'd have to be twins. Couldn’t just be brothers. Oh no. Twins. Emilio and Eugenio... why did parents forever name their twins with matching first letters in their names? Alliterative assholes anyway. She'd seen it time and again. Lissi and Lizzi. And dressing them alike was even worse. Didn’t they understand that even twins were individuals?
At the mere mention of the word—thoughts of her own long lost sister, always just a blink away, the separation of an instant—would somehow break through the surface of yesterday, especially at times like this. What should be a supremely happy moment. Make her want to cry. Nobody even spoke of Lissi any longer. Not family, not friends. Like she never even lived. Had she? Or was it all simply a heroin induced mirage? Who could tell? And in the end, what difference did it make?
Mother used to bake separate yet matching birthday cakes for the two of them, even after Lissi died. Liza couldn’t eat a piece of either of them. Just the thought of having a birthday without Lissi made her physically ill. Maybe mother felt the same way. The two cakes just sat there untouched on the kitchen table getting older by the day until finally they vanished, whisked away, never to be seen again. Sort of like Lissi.
"A thousand kisses deep, Lissi."
3
A thousand kisses deep, sissy Lizzi.
It was a game they played... no, that she alone played. The long conversations she had with Lissi—the com
fort she found in hearing her sister's voice again—somehow kept her going when all she wanted to do was quit. Even if the voice was only in her head made no real difference. After all, wasn’t everything she knew simply in her head too? Sure it was. Same for everyone.
Still, when Danners caught her nattering on with Lissi, she invariably copped a plea. Oh, I'm just talking to myself, DanMan. You know how I am. Who on earth talks to their dead sister? No one... not even if they were your twin. Hell, they lock people up for that shit. Better to keep it quiet... don’t even mention those kinds of things... especially not to your best of friends.
The water was cold. How long had she been lying here? She simultaneously pulled the plug and turned on the hot water. Heat things up again. Over the burble she could hear the sound of the television in the living room but not the words. Where was Danners? Had he fallen asleep? Usually when she spent this long in the bathroom he came calling, just to make sure she hadn’t overdosed. His greatest fear. But only recovering addicts bothered with that nonsense. The relapse is what got 'em. Every fucking time.
She'd never quit. Oh, that wasn’t quite right. She'd undoubtedly stop the horse one fine day... when that train came along called it's all said and done. The one everyone would board one day. Yeah. But until then, she'd keep on shooting. As if on cue, a knock sounded at the door.
"Liza... can I come in? I have to take a wicked piss."
"Door's open, DanDan."
