Missing Persons

by Stephen White

  “Yes?” I said.

  Bill turned his whole body on the seat, locking his eyes on mine. His parka erupted in fresh crackles and I concluded that the fabric wasn’t Gore-Tex. It would be quieter. He said, “In Las Vegas? Where Rachel is? There’s this guy named Canada.”

  Holy moly, I thought. Holy moly.

  56

  I had no way knowing it, of course, and wouldn’t learn about it until much later when he told me the story, but at that moment Raoul was in circumstances similar to my own.

  Similar, not identical.

  The weather, he told me, was warm in Las Vegas, the air in Nevada’s southern desert hovering in the low seventies. Needless to say, no one was wearing a ski parka or a wool cap. And no one in his right mind was flicking on an electric seat heater.

  But, like me, Raoul was thinking about Canada.

  The man sitting in the driver’s seat of the car in which Raoul was a passenger was wearing a cap, but Raoul wasn’t totally certain what the cap was made of. Not wool. The stuff seemed to be part of the stretchy family of fabrics ideally suited to follow the curves dictated by women’s swimwear. The cap hugged the contours of the man’s shaved skull and was a dark enough charcoal to be mistaken for black. His shirt wasn’t Gore-Tex; it was a sleeveless, well-ventilated version of the kind of shell that boogie boarders use to retard board rash. Raoul thought the random vertical ventilation slits in the garment had been fashioned with a razor blade. All the man had on his feet were fluorescent orange flip-flops with rubber soles that had been worn almost all the way through at the heels.

  “You carrying?” he asked Raoul. “I’m gonna be checking later. Tell me now be better.”

  Raoul said, “No, nothing.”

  “Cell phone?”

  “The cabbie who dropped me off took it. I’d love to have it back.”

  “I’ll look into it,” he said. They pulled to a stop at a red light. “U.P. doesn’t fuck around. You have to know that. Just go back home wherever that is, you don’t know that. Don’t even.”

  The car was an old VW bug, similar to the first car Raoul purchased in America decades earlier after ignoring the expiration of his student visa. From dashboard clues Raoul guessed that it was a late ’60s vintage, one of the models that came just before what Raoul considered to be the particularly ill-advised bumper design change in ’68. The Beetle still had the original beige paint, and the original radio. From the scratchy sound of the hip-hop that was playing, the car had its original speaker, too.

  Raoul liked the car. It brought back memories of uncomplicated times.

  The man’s ethnic background and racial makeup were a puzzle, even to Raoul, who prided himself on his ability to distinguish a Montenegran from a Serb or an Egyptian from an Iraqi across a crowded café. The driver definitely had some Asian blood-Raoul was guessing Tibet-and some African American blood as well, but something else was mixed into his DNA cocktail, too, something Raoul couldn’t quite put his finger on.

  “U.P. is Canada? Just want to be clear,” he asked.

  The man nodded. “Don’t go talking to him that way. People call him that, but people don’t call him that. You dig?” He shifted through the car’s four gears as though it were as natural as breathing, moving the stick with the middle finger of his right hand or with the webbing at the base of his thumb, never allowing the engine’s RPMs to climb into the whining range.

  “Thank you for that advice,” Raoul said. “How would you suggest I address him?”

  The man seemed honestly perplexed by the question.

  “What do you call him?” Raoul asked.

  “Boss.”

  “That doesn’t sound appropriate. How about Mr. North?”

  He thought for a moment. “That’ll work.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Tico.”

  “Thank you, Tico.”

  “Hey.”

  After a few days tracking his wife, Raoul knew enough about Las Vegas to know that the VW was traveling away from whatever version of civilization the Strip represented on the other side of downtown. He also knew he’d never been in that particular neighborhood before. Literally, or figuratively.

  After Raoul had called Norm Clarke late on Thursday to ask him to warn Canada that the Vegas cops were going to start seriously looking for Diane, Raoul had spent some restless hours waiting to hear back. Norm had finally called Raoul and told him that another meeting was arranged with Canada, and that he should wait in a specific spot outside the meeting-room entrance of the Venetian at 11:30 that night. The man who picked him up had been an old blond guy driving a Vegas cab that was even crappier than the typically crappy Vegas cab. The driver had what appeared to be corn silk growing out of his ears, and he smoked like a crematorium during the Plague. For the short drive down the Strip the taxi was thick with a fetid Marlboro cloud.

  Raoul spent much of the next twenty or so hours in a vintage-as in “old,” not in “classic”-sixteen-foot Airstream that had been left forlorn in one of the trailer-park slums that stain the arid fields on Tropicana Boulevard just a few blocks from the faux munificence of the Strip. The not-so-mobile villages-anachronistic oases of transiency, poverty, and despair-consumed conspicuously undesirable real estate within spitting distance of the end of the runways at McCarran International. Raoul’s Airstream hovel appeared to have been in the same spot in that park so long that it looked like the rest of the place was choreographed around it.

  Raoul had been alone in the trailer since he’d been dropped off. He’d killed off the long hours counting takeoffs and landings, studying a couple of blackjack manuals printed in the late ’60s, and watching local Vegas news for nuggets about his wife. The TV was a tiny black-and-white with rabbit ears that reached all the way to the concave ceiling of the Airstream. The view out the filthy awning window at the rear of the trailer was of the blunt end of an old Winnebago. The plates on the RV were long gone, the aluminum skin pitted, the paint faded to nothing, and the bumper stickers so sun-bleached that Raoul could only make out the one that was once a lure for Crater Lake. Raoul tried to get lost in imagining cool, deep water and high country air. Couldn’t.

  He was trying hard not to think about whatever was happening with Diane. Couldn’t do that, either.

  Before he’d assured Raoul that someone would come soon to pick him up and take him to see Canada, the cabbie had instructed him not to wander outside the trailer.

  “What about food?” Raoul asked.

  “Help yourself to whatever’s there,” the guy had said.

  The only food in the Airstream cupboards, it turned out, was a yellow box of cornstarch, a rusty can without a label, and an old margarine tub that was half full of something that resembled ground chilis.

  The water from the faucet smelled like a rat had peed in it.

  Raoul had decided it was a good day to start a cleansing fast.

  Despite his hunger and his impatience and a lot of apprehension, Raoul eventually got it. The last piece of Tico’s heritage puzzle?

  Pacific islands. Maybe even Hawaii. Raoul smiled to himself, momentarily savoring the unknowable hows and the whys of the lives that had intersected and the passions that had collided and ultimately melded together in the startling mitotic process that had eventually created this Tibetan/Pacific Islander/African American who was driving a classic old German car out into the scruffy desert beyond the urban boundaries of Las Vegas, Nevada.

  But, right then, in Tico’s VW bug, Raoul was-like me-thinking mostly about Diane, and about Canada.

  Canada was never far from his mind.

  57

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying, Bill.”

  I’d actually already made a guess. Bill was continuing the conversation we’d had earlier that day in my office, the one about all he did to support Rachel in her home away from home in Nevada.

  “The caretaker for Rachel in Vegas? It’s a guy. Canada’s a guy. Canada-it’s his name. Street name, I
don’t know. He’s, um, kind of adopted Rachel. He looks after her. Keeps her safe. I owe him a lot for what he’s done over the years. I’m… grateful to him.”

  Kind of adopted? What does that mean?

  Bill’s sentences came out in a series of discrete bursts. Each succeeding sentence was tagged on as though it were a complete afterthought to what had come before. The choppy cadence was something I’d never heard before from him, which told me that he was feeling something right then that he hadn’t felt before in my presence. What was that? What was he feeling?

  Anxious was the best descriptor I could conjure. As an explanation though, it felt insufficient.

  I said, “Okay.” I didn’t feel anything remotely resembling okay, but that’s what I said.

  “You know about him already?” he asked me.

  “About who?” I stammered.

  “Canada?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  It was a lie. Was it a smooth lie? Probably not. I lie like I ski. Not as well as most people I know, and my form tends to leave a lot to be desired.

  “Canada’s help doesn’t come cheap. These things are expensive.”

  These things? Was Bill telling me that he had financial issues about Rachel’s care after all? I had the good sense to stay quiet while I waited to find out.

  But he changed gears. He said, “We’ve been together, what, three times? You haven’t asked me a thing about Mallory. Do you know how weird that is after what I’ve been through for the last few weeks?”

  I thought: Well, Bill, we’ve been together, what, three times? You haven’t really mentioned a thing about Mallory, either. Do you know how weird that is after what you’ve been through the last few weeks?

  I didn’t say that. I said something else that was just as true, though not quite as honest. “It’s not my call. I thought you would get there when you were ready.”

  “Ready? What the hell does that mean? Ready? You’ve got to be kidding. Hell, what’s wrong with you?”

  He grew quiet again. I decided to try being a therapist. I said, “You mentioned a man-Canada?-someone you said looks after your wife. And then you obliquely referred to your daughter’s situation. Is it possible that there might be a connection of some kind between the two?” I feared that I’d been way too obvious with my question.

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m not saying anything. My job as a therapist is to follow closely behind you, see where you’re going, look over your shoulder. Hopefully, I can point out things that you don’t see or aren’t prepared to see.”

  “And that’s what exactly? What are you implying I’m not prepared to see?”

  Bill wasn’t curious to hear my response, not in any sincere way. He was challenging me, provoking me, poking a finger into my chest, trying to get me to back off of… something.

  “You also mentioned money,” I added. I added it because I guessed that money was what Bill didn’t want to talk about.

  “No, you’re the one who mentioned money.”

  “This afternoon, I did. Tonight, you did.”

  “All I said is that it’s expensive.”

  I was too tired for verbal sparring. I wanted to go home, hug my wife, hold my daughter, play with my dogs. Eat something hot. Drink something with alcohol in it. I wanted to spend a couple of hours without anyone doing any inferring or any implying or any alluding. My impulse to flee felt selfish and cowardly, at least partly because I was certain that I was missing something that a more contemplative person would see, but I tried for an out anyway. “Bill, these are important things for you, obviously. But I don’t see any reason that they can’t wait until our scheduled appointment time.”

  Something about my suggestion seemed to shake him free, allow him to change tracks again. Not exactly what I had hoped for, but at least momentarily I felt the air between us settle.

  “What was going on next door?” he asked. “Why all the cops? Nobody will talk to me. I can’t reach my lawyer.”

  “I can’t say. The police asked for my help with something.”

  “Is it about my daughter?”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve promised them that I wouldn’t discuss it.”

  “Is it?”

  “Bill, I’m sorry. I can’t say what it is. I can’t say what it’s not. I’ve been told not to discuss it.”

  “Doyle gave them permission to go into his house?”

  Doyle’s dead, Bill. His giving-permission days are behind him, I thought as I replayed Bill’s question in my head, tasting for disingenuousness. I was wondering if Bill already knew that Doyle was dead.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “This is bullshit.” Bill’s voice suddenly became a hoarse whisper and the anger in it was unmistakable. “If this is the way it’s going to be, I’m not sure I can continue seeing you.”

  If that was a threat, it was lame, like holding a rubber knife to my throat. “That’s certainly your choice, Bill. I’ll be happy to make a referral, if you would like.”

  “Yeah,” he scoffed. “That worked out well last time.”

  And what does that mean? Mary Black bent over backward to help Rachel.

  “Mallory saw a therapist. Did you know that?” he asked.

  I was startled. I managed a flustered, “What?”

  “The woman who died. Mallory went to see her a couple of weeks before Christmas. She didn’t tell me; she left a note about it in her journal.”

  I had a thousand questions. One of them was: Have you told the police about that journal? I chose a different one: “Why did she see a therapist?”

  “I don’t know that exactly.”

  “Do the police know? The therapist may have left some… records behind.”

  He didn’t answer my question. He cracked open the door of the car and prepared to climb out, but stopped. “Do you know anything about her? Are you keeping something from me? You wouldn’t do that, would you?”

  Now those were tough questions. I didn’t have an immediate answer for any of them.

  “I’m talking father to father right now, Alan. Father to father.”

  “I wish I knew something that could help you find your daughter. I’d tell you if I did.”

  He considered my words, tasting them for the sweetness of truth. “You’re a father. You have a daughter, too. Imagine losing her. You have to understand the vulnerability I’m feeling.”

  I swallowed. I didn’t want to be reminded of that vulnerability.

  Bill went on. “A father would do anything to protect his family. Anything. You know that. The things that can happen to kids? Daughters. You wouldn’t wish that on me, would you? I wouldn’t wish it on you.”

  I immediately began pondering the question of how truthful my answer had been. Surprisingly, I decided that, other than the existence of the tunnel, and the fact that I knew she’d seen Hannah for a single therapy session, I didn’t actually know anything substantive about Mallory. I really didn’t. How odd.

  “You wouldn’t divulge our conversations to the police, would you?”

  “Of course not,” I said. I wondered how much Bill really knew about Mallory’s situation. “What do you think happened to Mallory? Did she run? Was she abducted?”

  “Those are the only options?” he said.

  What? Was he taunting me? “I’m not sure what you’re saying.”

  “Why would she run?” Bill asked.

  “Kids aren’t always rational, Bill. Especially when they’re distraught.”

  “She was distraught. Christmas was always hard for her,” Bill said. “Always. But I thought we were doing okay this year.”

  That’s what Bob had said, too-that Christmas was hard for Mallory. Huh. I reminded myself that Rachel had deserted her family during the holidays years before, and that it wouldn’t be surprising that Mallory was suffering an anniversary reaction.

  “You were doing okay, you and she?” I asked.

  “What are you asking
?”

  “Nothing. I’m fishing.”

  “Fishing?”

  Bill hovered, half-in, half-out of my car for a long three-count before he stood. I sat frozen in place, still troubled by Bill’s admission that he possessed a diary from his daughter that he hadn’t shared with the police. “Let’s do this in the morning, Bill. At my office. Is ten okay?”

  He held up his gloved right hand and extended two fingers. “Can’t do ten. I’ll be there at two,” he said before he slammed the door.

  The bitter air had frosted the hairs inside my nose.

  But I did notice that my ass was nice and warm.

  58

  The same night, at almost the same time, Raoul was still thinking about Diane and Canada.

  He told me later that he was surprised to see how Las Vegas bleeds out into the northern desert. There is no natural demarcation, no river, no ridge, no rail at the craps table. There is no single line in the dirt and sand where a visitor would say, well, this here is Las Vegas, and that there isn’t. At some point you know you’ve left town, but even if someone offered you to-die-for odds, you couldn’t go back and find the precise spot where it happened.

  Raoul looked back over his shoulder at the profile of the distant Strip that stained the near horizon with artificial vertical interruptions and radiating flashes of neon. He guessed that he and Tico were about five miles outside of town. It could have been seven, could have been three, but he was guessing five.

  Tico had yanked the VW through a lot of turns to get where they were, many more than Raoul thought should be necessary to get from point A to point B across a landscape of flat, mostly barren land. But the turns had accomplished what Tico had intended: Other than being some number of miles out in the desert north of Las Vegas, Raoul didn’t know where he was.

  Wide expanses of scruffy land separated the houses. In some other place, somewhere where the soil was arable, such distances between homes might make sense, but in the desert outside Vegas it seemed to Raoul that people lived as far apart as possible simply so that they could feel some separation. In Colorado’s mountains, a ridge or an outcropping of rock or a thick stand of lodgepole pine was enough to leave neighbors feeling distinct from one another. Out in this endless desert, though, the geography made no natural allowances for privacy, and separation apparently meant space.