He spent a certain amount of time talking to her assistant, a man named Phil Van Zandt . . . not a name you’d soon forget. From Van Zandt’s voice, Manfred believed he was talking to a man in his early twenties like Manfred himself, a man who was not from “these parts.”
“Could you be here tomorrow at four, Mr. Bernardo?” Van Zandt asked, in the abstracted tone of someone looking at a schedule book and a computer screen. “She should be out of court by then.”
“Phil, here’s my situation. I live in Midnight, and I’ve got reporters camped outside my door. I can’t get out of my house without running the gauntlet. If I have to, I have to, but I really don’t want to do that. Is there any way Ms. Powell can come to my place?”
“I can just catch her. Hold on.” There was an electronic buzz. Then some music kicked on. It didn’t suck.
Phil was back in less than two minutes. “She can come to you on Monday at eleven,” he said. “Before you get all excited, let me tell you her fee.”
After a very practical discussion, finally Manfred understood his compulsion to work hard and save money, a compulsion that had driven him for the past few months.
It was so he could pay Magdalena Orta Powell.
7
Olivia needed to get groceries. She didn’t do a lot of cooking in her little apartment—microwaving was more her speed—but she was out of Windex and close to being out of toilet paper, and she’d gotten up with a hankering for a sliced apple and vanilla fruit dip. With no idea that anything odd was going on, she stepped out the side door of the pawnshop to get in her car, only to see a small crowd hovering outside Manfred’s place. The sheriff’s car was there, too.
She ducked right back inside. She stood fuming for a moment. Then she swiveled on her heel and went through the pawnshop door. Bobo was reading in his favorite chair, a veritable poor man’s throne upholstered in velvet. He was using his e-reader today, so she knew he was following his current program of reading one hundred great mystery and suspense novels. Olivia did not know who had created the list and how the selections had been picked, but she did admire Bobo’s faithfulness to his agenda.
“What’s going on out there?” she asked, jerking her thumb toward the rental house.
“Good morning to you,” Bobo said, putting his e-reader down reluctantly. “I’m on number twenty-seven, which happens to be Dorothy L. Sayers’s The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club.”
Olivia was not in the mood for Bobo’s cleverness. “What. Is. Going. On?” she demanded.
“Yes,” said Joe, coming in the front door just in time to hear her question. “What?”
“I stood out there and listened for a minute. Manfred’s been accused of being a jewel thief, and it’s been hinted that he killed the old lady,” Bobo said. “You should know more about it than I do, since I hear you were on the spot.” He gave Olivia a very level look.
“I had nothing to do with Manfred’s situation,” she said immediately. “Who’s accused him? Of stealing what?”
Bobo said, “I only know what I overheard the reporters saying when I put my trash can out at the curb. And I’ve told you that.”
Joe said, “I don’t believe it for a second. Manfred? Nahhh.”
Olivia fumed, though she kept it under a tight lid. She was smart enough about herself to know that she felt strongest and most effective in situations in which she could take control and take action. Not always the same thing . . . but often enough. “He didn’t do it,” she said.
“I agree with both of you,” Bobo said. “He’s an honest man in a charlatan’s job. I don’t think he had any more to do with that than he did the murder/suicide the same weekend. In the same hotel.”
There was a substantial silence.
Olivia scowled. She did not exactly feel guilty. But she didn’t feel happy, either. And she hated the proximity of the newspeople. The new proprietors of the hotel were bad enough. One reason she’d settled in Midnight was to avoid scrutiny . . . and because the place felt right. “I want this to go away,” she said, and she thought, I miss Lem.
Bobo nodded. “Sure,” he said. “I do, too.”
Olivia threw herself into a chair, a violently flowered padded rocker. Furniture that landed in the pawnshop tended to stay there. “So you’re seriously worried that he might be arrested?”
“Yeah, I am,” he said. “I don’t think he’s guilty of anything, but the appearance of . . . well, being a psychic, that looks fraudulent. No matter what the truth is about that, it’s not right for him to be accused by the son of this woman he was trying to help. For another thing, the reporters are going to be coming in and out of town as long as there’s a story, and now they even have a place to stay right here in town, if the story gains traction. And they’ll be dragging up Aubrey’s murder and the Lovells’ disappearance.” The Lovell family had run Gas N Go prior to their sudden departure from Midnight. Aubrey Hamilton, Bobo’s former girlfriend, had been found dead in a riverbed north of town.
Olivia thought about the situation for a few minutes. Her eyes went from Joe’s face to Bobo’s. Bobo was good about letting people think, one of his many fine qualities. Before she’d gotten to know Lemuel, Olivia had wondered why she didn’t feel any particular appreciation for Bobo as a man. He’s too much rose, not enough thorn, she concluded, as she pondered ways of getting the reporters out of Midnight.
Joe said, “A few minutes ago one of the reporters came to get her nails done. She asked Chuy to hurry in case something broke in the story, but she was tired of standing outside Manfred’s door. So maybe they’ll just get bored and leave.”
“Fat fucking chance,” Olivia said, and Bobo nodded. They were far more media savvy than Joe. The tinkle of the bell over the door made them all turn in that direction.
To Olivia’s utter amazement (and from their faces, Bobo’s and Joe’s as well), the Rev walked into Midnight Pawn. And he was holding the hand of a little boy.
Olivia could count on the fingers of one hand the times she’d seen the Rev in the pawnshop. The Rev’s orbit, besides a very rare shopping trip, included his home, the Wedding Chapel and Pet Cemetery, Home Cookin Restaurant . . . and nothing else, unless there was an extreme emergency.
Therefore, this was such an emergency.
And right after the door swung shut on the Rev and the little boy, it opened again to admit Fiji, who had a basket on her arm.
“Following the Yellow Brick Road, Feej?” Bobo asked. “Hi, Rev. Hi, young man.” He walked over to squat down in front of the boy.
Of course, Olivia thought, half-exasperated. He would love kids. “Rev,” she said. “What can we do for you?” She watched Fiji flow around the Rev and come to a stop close to the boy, look at him intently. She opened the basket and out jumped Mr. Snuggly.
Mr. Snuggly immediately went to the boy and stood at his feet, looking up. The boy had dark brown hair, long and tangled. He wore denim shorts and a Walking Dead T-shirt, which was an unusual choice for a child his apparent age. But what was that?
“Hail, little brother,” said Mr. Snuggly in his small shrill voice. With a movement too quick to track, the boy was on his knees in front of the cat, peering into his face. Suddenly, the boy smiled. It was bewitching. He looked up at Fiji, and Olivia could see that his eyes were pansy purple.
“Okay, I’m in love,” Fiji said cheerfully. “Hey, kid. I’m Fiji. This is Mr. Snuggly.”
“I’m Diederik,” the boy said.
“I’m Bobo.” Bobo extended his hand to the boy, who took it uncertainly. They shook, in an awkward way. Shaking didn’t seem to be a custom with which the boy was familiar. To Olivia’s surprise, Joe opened his arms and the boy stepped into them without hesitation. They hugged briefly, and the boy moved away.
“And I’m Olivia,” she said, taking a step forward.
He looked up at her, and Olivia had the sensation tha
t she was being weighed and measured. He did not extend his hand, but he gave her a respectful nod. Olivia was quite content with that, even flattered. Then something happened to the boy’s face. His turned it up and rotated it as if he were following a scent.
“What’s that smell?” he asked the Rev.
The Rev bent over and whispered in the boy’s ear.
“Ahhhhh,” the boy said, as if a suspicion had been confirmed.
The Rev straightened and looked at all of them, in turn. “Diederik’s going to be staying with me for a while. His daddy’s got to do a few things.”
Olivia could think of at least five questions she wanted to ask, but this was the Reverend Emilio Sheehan, and he had many secrets. She knew she had better not ask any questions. It would be taken amiss. You didn’t want to be on the wrong side of the Rev.
“We’re glad to have you, young man,” Bobo said. “You’re welcome to come hang out with me here at the store any time, if the Rev has other stuff to do.”
“Or with me, at the Inquiring Mind,” Fiji said, as warm as melting butter.
“I can take you bow hunting,” Olivia offered stiffly. She liked the way the boy had known right away she deserved respect. Or at least I could comb your hair, she thought. Grooming was something else Olivia understood.
“Thanks,” the boy said, to all of them, and he seemed pleased, though his tone was noncommittal.
“In the meantime,” the Rev said, obviously coming to his main point, “what are all these people doing in town? The hotel was bad enough.” He’d taken off his dusty hat, and his thinning black hair was combed across his skull, damp with sweat.
“Sit down,” Bobo suggested. “I’ll tell you.” They all sat, except the boy, who didn’t seem much interested in what the adults were saying. He roamed around the shop making scarcely a sound, his big purple eyes taking in all the oddities and peculiarities around him, his mouth slightly open in wonder. Olivia remembered the first time she’d been in Midnight Pawn, and she could understand his fascination.
Four years ago. She’d been on her way to Dallas to get a flight to—where? Somewhere east. She’d completed a job east of Marthasville, an old rancher who wouldn’t sell his land to a man with a lot of money. She almost never left from the same airport she’d flown into, and never under the same name. That day, for the first time, she’d seen the exit for Midnight and Davy on the highway.
A town called Midnight. The name had caught her fancy.
She’d been in no hurry, so she’d taken the exit. And she’d seen the closed storefronts, but the pawnshop . . . stuck at a crossroad in what seemed like to her the middle of nowhere . . . had been fascinating.
She’d had to go in.
And she’d been captivated by the cases full of old things, mysterious things. The shelves had seemed crowded with objects she had to handle. She’d looked for a long time. When Bobo, the new proprietor, had told her gently that he needed to close for an hour to get his supper, she’d driven up to eat in Davy (not trusting the Home Cookin Restaurant, wisely, because then it had been run by an old couple who had never been able to cook as well as Madonna Reed). But after a hasty hamburger and tonic water in Davy, she’d found herself going back to the pawnshop, which was so much larger inside than it appeared to be on the outside. Since it was dark by then, she’d met Lemuel.
She had never met anyone like him before. She didn’t know how he’d felt about her that night, but she’d been drawn to him, powerfully. Olivia had been in the presence of hundreds of men who were better looking and richer and more powerful in a worldly way. And she’d known Lemuel for what he was immediately. But Lemuel . . . something in the age of him, the strength of him, the ruthlessness of him, drew her in.
That night, the little sign behind the cash register, which she hadn’t noticed at all during her earlier visit, suddenly seemed to leap out at her. APARTMENT DOWNSTAIRS FOR RENT, with no other information. “It was waiting for the right person to read it,” Lemuel had said afterward, and Olivia believed that was so.
They hadn’t become lovers right away. They were both cautious people, even when biology and inclination were herding them in the same direction. It was like they took their honeymoon first, their time of learning each other, in a bubble large enough only for two.
Lost in remembering something rare, Olivia only came back to the pawnshop and the little boy when the Rev said, “When is Lem coming back, Olivia?” That was very direct, for the Rev.
Olivia said, “He’s taken those books and gone to consult friends of his. Right now he’s in New York.” She didn’t spell it out; the magic books, the ones Lemuel had been searching for in the pawnshop all those years, had been found by Bobo by sheer accident, and Lemuel was having a wonderful time looking through them. But some had been in a language so ancient Lemuel didn’t have a clue as to how to translate the text, so off he’d gone, the first time he’d left Midnight for any length of time in over a hundred years.
She hadn’t offered to go with him. He’d have asked her to go if he’d wanted her to, and though she’d hoped, and mentally shifted her obligations around just in case, he hadn’t mentioned it.
The Rev waited, expectant.
“I don’t know when he’ll return,” she said calmly. “When he’s done what he set out to do, I suppose.”
“Can you call him?”
“I can, but I won’t,” she said. “He’s having a great time, and he deserves it.”
She did not know that at all. She had heard from Lem only twice since his departure: once after he’d found no help in Atlanta, and again when he’d tracked down a possible translator in Minnesota, who’d not been able to help but had referred him to a vampire in New York.
She had told herself that to Lemuel, a week was like a moment. To her, it was like a week. Or two. And she had reminded herself that he did not like the telephone, though he knew how to use it. Lemuel had a cell phone, and from it he had texted her briefly at each stop. Nothing else.
The Rev looked grave, as if he could read her thoughts. But he didn’t say anything more about Lemuel. Instead, he said, “We have to get all those people out of Midnight.” He jerked his head to his right, to indicate Manfred’s house. The boy had his back to the Rev. He’d wandered to the first set of shelves to stare inside a glass case at a ukulele. It appeared to be older than any of the people in the room.
“We all want that,” Bobo said, between sideways looks at Diederik. Olivia knew they were all trying to figure out what made Diederik so special. “But I don’t think there’s a short-term way to make that happen.”
Fiji was fidgeting, and finally she said, “Bobo, do you have a brush or comb handy?”
“There’s one under the counter,” he said, and after a moment’s search she came up with a small hairbrush. She looked at it dubiously, but she took a deep breath and advanced on Diederik with a determined look.
“Come on, young man,” she said. “You and this so-called brush need to meet each other.” Diederik looked alarmed, but he reacted to the authority in Fiji’s voice and came over to stand in front of her. She turned him around so his back was to her, and then she went to work on his dark hair. Seeing how gentle Fiji’s hands were, Olivia turned a little away so she wouldn’t have to watch.
The boy did look less like a feral child when Fiji had finished.
“While you’re fiddling with the boy, we need to talk about the situation,” the Rev said. “Olivia!”
“Yes?” Olivia straightened and looked at the older man. His clothes might be ancient, his hair thinning, and his body small, but when the Rev spoke, you listened, and you listened good.
“You have to find this missing jewelry so they know Manfred doesn’t have it. Then they will leave.”
“Why me?” she said angrily.
“Because you’re a thief,” the Rev said, and there was no judgment in hi
s voice. “You can figure out where a thief would hide such a thing.”
He could have said worse things, and they would have been true, so Olivia felt a moment of relief. But she wasn’t pleased with the way everyone was carefully avoiding her eyes, and she felt the cold feeling creeping across her, the feeling she got when everyone’s hand was against her.
“Why should I help Manfred?” she asked. “I hardly know him.”
“Olivia,” the Rev said. One word. But it was enough.
“I’ll do my best,” she said. “But I’d better be able to count on any help I call on the rest of you to give.”
“I’ll help,” Fiji said instantly. Despite the fact that her attention was apparently focused on Diederik, she’d been listening. Now she pulled an elastic band from the pocket of her skirt.
Of course she’d have one, Olivia thought. Of course she’d be ready to help. But there was no sting to these thoughts. Olivia had finally accepted the fact that Fiji was simply that kind of person.
“I’ll help however you ask me,” Bobo said.
Joe hesitated for a moment. “Chuy and I will do what we can,” he said cautiously. “And, of course, Rasta is always ready to help,” Joe added, and everyone laughed except the Rev and the boy.
Olivia nodded to show she’d registered their offers.
Fiji had put Diederik’s hair back in a neat ponytail. He looked like a different kid. He looked older.
“Rev, Diederik here needs to take a bath,” Olivia said, so Fiji wouldn’t have all the grooming to herself. “And he needs clean clothes.”
The Rev looked at the boy as if he were seeing him for the first time. “If you say so,” he said. “Diederik, I have to take care of you right. I promised your father.” He turned to look at the rest of them. “The chapel will be empty for a while. Keep an eye on it. I have a funeral today at four. A cat named Meatball.”
Mr. Snuggly froze in the act of licking his paw. He made a sound that was close to that of coughing. Olivia realized that the cat was laughing.
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