Pain Management Page 18

  “Michael . . .” his father muttered, moving his arm to the side to show me where he wanted me to go.

  We all sat down. “We’re not a family with secrets,” the man said. “But that doesn’t mean we’re a family without privacy. Do you understand?”

  “I . . . think so. Whatever I say to Jennifer, it’s between her and me?”

  “Up to a point,” he warned. “I promise you, Jenn’s a very smart young woman. She doesn’t have to tell me anything, but she’s free to, got it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’ll get her,” he said, getting up.

  “You play ball?” I asked the son, looking for an opening.

  “You mean like football?”

  “No. I mean . . . you look like an athlete to me; I was just making conversation.”

  “You didn’t come here to talk to me.”

  “Not specifically. But you seem to have some . . . negative feelings about me. And I thought, if we talked, maybe I could find out why.”

  “So why didn’t you just ask me, straight out?”

  “Because I’m an idiot,” I told him. “I should have seen you’re the kind of man that appreciates a direct approach.”

  A grin flashed across his face. “My dad’s an athlete,” he said. “He was a wrestler.”

  “He looks it.”

  “Yeah. Now he plays basketball to keep in shape. From what the guys he plays with say, though, he’s still a wrestler.”

  I chuckled at that, envious of the man who had such a son.

  “Michael mention soccer to you?” his father said, coming back into the room.

  “Not a word. You play that, too?”

  “Me? Huh! Michael’s all-state. Striker. Tournament MVP in the—”

  “Pop!” the kid protested.

  “He’s got about a hundred scholarship offers,” his sister added, beaming at him.

  “Aaargh!” the kid grunted, his face flaming.

  Father and daughter sat down together. My envy went up another notch.

  “Dad says you want to talk to me?” Jennifer said.

  “That, and to return the book you lent me.”

  “Thank you,” she said, taking the book I handed her. “Well?”

  “I thought you’d rather . . .”

  “I want my father to be here, this time,” she said firmly.

  Michael shifted his stance, making it clear I’d have to deal with all of them.

  “Sure,” I said. “Jennifer, I’m trying to figure this out. Rosa left her home for some reason. Some good reason, I’m thinking. She didn’t go far. She’s close by. And in touch, too.”

  Two spots of color appeared in Jennifer’s cheeks.

  “I don’t think you know all the answers,” I went on smoothly, “but I think you know some of them.”

  “Let’s say I do,” she said, her mouth a straight line. “Why would I trust you with such . . . information?”

  “That’s why I’m here,” I told her. “To try and convince you. I think I already did . . . a little bit anyway . . . or you would never have lent me that book.”

  “I . . .”

  “Or was it a test? To see if I could make anything out of it?”

  “Not a . . . test. But I did want to see if you were really interested.”

  “In finding Rosa?”

  “No. In Rosa. In Rosa herself. As a person. Not just a job her . . . father gave you.”

  “You don’t trust her father?”

  She was silent for a few seconds. Then her brother came out with, “That’s right, we don’t.”

  I watched a look pass between the two of them, tapped into the current, saw it for what it was. The kid didn’t give a rat’s ass about Rosebud’s father and knew even less—he was just backing up his sister.

  “You think because her father is paying me—”

  “Would you be looking for her if he wasn’t?” Jenn asked, rhetorically.

  “No. I wouldn’t have known anything about any of this,” I said. “But now, after all this poking around, now I would, yes. And I meant what I said, Jennifer. I’m not dragging her back home, period. I just want to talk to her, listen to what she has to say. If she doesn’t want to go back, I’m not going to make her.”

  The girl turned, looked at her father, said, “Dad?” He took the handoff as smooth as if they’d practiced the trick for years.

  “If Rose’s father’s intentions are so legitimate, why go to a man like you?”

  “Like me?”

  “What word didn’t you understand, Mr. . . . Hazard? There are plenty of PIs in this town.”

  “I’m employed by his lawyer, Toby—”

  “Right. I’m not saying what you’re doing is illegal. But why would Kevin go off the books?”

  “He tried a PI firm. They didn’t get anywhere.”

  “Maybe because of what they weren’t willing to do.”

  “Maybe,” I said, shrugging. “Who’s your problem with, here?”

  “You,” Michael threw in, his face tightening like he was going to make a move. “You’re bothering my sister, and—”

  “And we’re dealing with it, Michael,” his father said, gently. “Nobody is going to bother Jenn, okay?”

  The kid nodded, not entirely convinced.

  “Here’s the problem,” the father said. “I don’t know you. I doubt Kevin knows you.”

  “He doesn’t,” I said. Thinking this guy wouldn’t make the same mistakes an amateur like Kevin would, judge by appearances. I knew a guy in prison once. Ferret-faced, with a weak, trembly chin, and watery, frightened eyes. He was a stone life-taker. And I had the strong sense that Joel knew the same truths I did.

  “So . . . what’s your word worth?” he asked. “That’s what it comes down to, you understand that?”

  “I do.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “I haven’t got any references. None that would mean anything to you.”

  “Try me.”

  “I can’t do that, either.”

  His pale eyes took my pulse. “Tell us what you can,” he finally said.

  “I’ve been to prison,” I said. “But I always went in alone. Where I live, your word is your life. Good or bad. If you promise to do something . . . anything . . . you have to do it. Otherwise, your protection’s gone.”

  “I don’t understand that,” the girl said.

  “He means if you threaten someone you have to make good on the threat,” her father said.

  I nodded to show he had it right. “That’s one side of it, sure. Not the only one. But . . . all right, here it is. I’ve done all kinds of things in my life. Some I think you’d approve of, others I know you wouldn’t. That’s okay, I don’t expect you to be my friends. Here’s what I never did: I never went out to hurt a kid. Or use one. Or turn one up for people who wanted to do any of that.”

  “Is that because—?” Jenn started to say.

  “Yes,” I cut her off. I didn’t want the empathetic pain that had suddenly flashed in her deep, dark eyes. “I was a runaway myself when I was a kid. Much younger than Rosa is now. More than once. And I would have rather died than go back to where I ran from. I give you my word that I will never bring her back if she doesn’t want to go.”

  “I don’t know how to tell,” Jennifer said, honesty and fear mingling in her voice.

  “I do,” her father said. “But I also believe in insurance. And I think it’s time to take you up on your earlier offer, Mr. . . . Hazard.” He turned to his son, “Michael, would you get me that little hand mirror your mother has on her dresser, please?”

  After I’d rolled my thumbprint onto the freshly Windexed mirror, the father said, “Ask your questions.”

  I nodded my agreement to the deal we’d never spoken out loud—he wasn’t going to show the thumbprint to anyone in law enforcement unless I broke my word. Turning to Jennifer, I asked, “Which one are you, Maida or Zia?”

  “Oh!” Her blush turned her beautiful face into
a work of art.

  I waited, patiently, deliberately not pinning her with my eyes.

  “Zia,” she finally said. “I thought you’d think . . .”

  “That it was she and Daisy, yes?”

  “Yes. They’re so close, those two. But . . . I should have known. Daisy is very . . . grown-up for her age, I think. But Rosa’s her big sister, you know?”

  “Yes.”

  “I knew she was going to run,” Jennifer admitted.

  I stole a glance at her father. If he was surprised at the revelation, I wouldn’t want to play poker with him.

  “And it’s you who plants the letters for Daisy?” I asked her.

  “Yes. But Rosa plants them for me.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “I don’t see Rosa. She calls, she tells me where there’s a letter. I pick it up, and I leave it for Daisy.”

  “You haven’t seen Rosa since she split?”

  “No.”

  “Did she tell you why she left, Jennifer?”

  “Do you know about Borderland?”

  “Just what I read.”

  “That’s all any of us know.”

  “So the note, the one Rosa left, it was legitimate?”

  “I don’t know about any—”

  “It said she was going to find the Borderlands.”

  “Oh. Yes, that was what she said to me, too.”

  “Jennifer, do you have any way to leave a note for her?”

  “No. No, I don’t. I asked her . . . but she said it was too risky.”

  “But she does call you, right?”

  “Yes. When she wants me to—”

  “Okay. I’ve got an idea,” I said. “Something that could work, and ease your own minds about me. How about if you ask her to meet with me, wherever she wants, but you and your father come along?”

  “What about me?” Michael said, belligerence all over his voice.

  “Oh, Michael, she doesn’t know you,” Jennifer told him.

  “Not for her,” the kid explained patiently. “For him,” he said, pointing a finger at me.

  “We’re not there yet,” his father cautioned.

  “I’m . . . scared for Rosa,” Jennifer said.

  “Because . . . ?” I tried to lead her.

  “Because this wasn’t supposed to last so long. If you know about . . . Borderland, you know it isn’t an actual place. It’s more like a . . .” She groped with it for a few seconds, then said, “. . . collective state of mind.”

  Her father beamed at her.

  “That means more than one person, right, Jennifer?”

  “I’m not sure I understand. . . .”

  “A collective state of mind. Rosa, she’d have to find others who felt the same way she did, to make that work.”

  “Yes,” the girl said, more confident now. “She said she knew they were out there. I think she had an idea where she’d be going. Not to any one place, exactly. Or even with particular people. But . . . kind of where she’d find them, do you see?”

  “I think so,” I told her. “You said this was making you scared . . . ?”

  “Rosa wasn’t looking for a place. Or even for people. She was looking for some answers.”

  “To what?”

  “I don’t know,” the girl said, her voice too full of truth to doubt. “She would never talk about it. But it was something big. Something very important.”

  “She wasn’t . . . pregnant, maybe?” I asked, taking a stab.

  “No,” she said, almost snorting the word.

  “You’d know?” I probed gently.

  “Yes. I would know. Maida and Zia, just like you said. She told me everything. Except . . .”

  Another hour’s conversation didn’t get me any closer. The father walked me out to my car. “What’s your take on Kevin?” he asked me, way too casual.

  “I don’t know the words you do,” I said, stalling.

  “I get the impression that you do. But say it however you want.”

  “He’s a wrong number. A fucking three-dollar bill.”

  “What makes you—?”

  “Just instinct.”

  He gave me a long, slow look. “I don’t think so,” he said.

  I shrugged.

  He shifted his weight, rolled his shoulders slightly, like he was getting ready to try a standing takedown. But he didn’t say anything.

  My move. “If you didn’t think so, you wouldn’t let your daughter talk to me,” I told him.

  Then it was his turn to shrug. After a few seconds, a grin popped out on his face. “Jenn knows what she’s doing.”

  “And she doesn’t trust—”

  “Don’t go there,” he warned. “You’ve got your reasons. I’ve got mine. I’d like to protect Rose, but my own is where I draw the line, you with me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let’s be sure,” he said, softly. “I like Rose. I really do. But I’d cut her loose in a second if I thought she was going to cause harm to Jenn.”

  “I get it.”

  “And you,” he said, moving very close to me, “if I thought you were going to hurt my child . . .”

  I had a little information, a few possible promises . . . and not much else. My watch said it wasn’t even eleven. I didn’t want to go back to Gem’s. Didn’t feel like patrolling, either. Wherever Rosebud was, she wasn’t on the street—by then, I was pretty sure of that.

  I decided to go see if Hong was at the joint where he hung out. Maybe he knew something about Ann he hadn’t told me.

  Gem had pointed out Hong’s car the first time we’d met: a candy-apple Acura, slammed, with big tires and checkerboard graphics along the flanks. It was sitting in the parking lot.

  I went through the door, poked my nose around the corner, spotted him in his booth. A girl was with him. They were sitting close together, side by side. Gem.

  “You were asleep when I got in last night,” Gem said the next morning. “I was surprised—usually you are out so late. I did not want to wake you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “We must go away again. Soon.”

  I knew she didn’t mean me. Gem, Flacco, and Gordo, they were professional border-crossers. I don’t know what they ran, but I know they were good at it. I met them through Mama. She didn’t know them personally, but an old friend, a Cambodian woman who ran a network similar to hers, had vouched heavy, her own rep on the line.

  “All right,” is all I said.

  “Before we leave, I will try to get you the information you want.”

  “About Rosebud?” I asked her, surprised.

  “No. But the . . . person who gave you the equipment to get into her father’s computer, he should have results for me soon.”

  “Ah.”

  “You do not sound enthusiastic, Burke.”

  “It was a long shot.”

  “What is not?” she said, sadness in her voice.

  I did the math. The kind you do all the time in prison. Not counting the days—that’s okay for a county-time slap, but it’ll make you crazy if you’ve got years to go on a felony bit. The balancing math. Like when you’re short—getting out soon. What you want to do is stay down, out of the way, not do anything that would mess up your go-home. But word gets around the tier like flash fire. And some guys who wouldn’t have tried you when you still had heavy time to serve suddenly get brave. So you have to dance. Stay hard enough to keep the wolves off you, but not do the same kinds of things you did to send that message when you first came in.

  Inside, if you’re with people, everything’s easier. Same out here. That was part of the math. I didn’t have people in Portland. Flacco and Gordo were good hands, but they were pros; bringing them into anything without money at the end wasn’t something you could do. Besides, they were with Gem, not with me.

  I missed my own.

  Ann’s whole ante was promises. Sure, she’d made the Borderland connect for me, but I would have stumbled across it anyway, sooner or later. Espec
ially with . . .

  Yeah, I had a lot more cards in my hand. Higher ones, too. Jennifer would help, now that her father had okayed it. She was the lifeline between Rosebud and Daisy, and the older sister wasn’t going to walk away from that. Maybe I couldn’t get inside Rosebud’s head, but I knew her well enough to put my chips on that number.

  I had other things working. Bobby Ray. Clipper and Big A. Maybe even Madison. To some extent, I think they all bought it that I wasn’t Rosebud’s enemy. If they crossed paths with her, I was pretty sure they’d at least tell her how to find me.

  I had money working for me, too. Talked to a lot of people like Odom, made it clear there was a bounty. Any of them stumbled over her, they’d call, quick.

  As I learned Portland, the town got smaller. Maybe I was years away from the web of contacts and connections Ann had put together, and maybe I’d never have the credibility her mission brought her, but all that added up to was . . . she might have a chance to find the girl. And she wanted a lot in return.

  I totaled it up. Not worth the risk.

  I was in an upscale poolroom, watching Big A work a sucker. The kid was using a custom cue this time, but handling it like it was a status symbol, not a tool. Beautiful.

  Clipper was giving me a rundown on the game when the phone in my jacket vibrated. I stepped off a few paces, opened it up, said, “Hazard.”

  “It’s me.” Ann’s voice, some undercurrent to it I couldn’t catch.

  I held back—no point telling her I wasn’t going for her deal if she was about to give me a locate. Said, “So?”

  “Just tell me where you are now. I’ll come there.”

  Not on the phone? Maybe she had . . . I told her the name of the poolroom. I was in the middle of giving her the address when the connection went dead.

  She didn’t need anyone to announce her; the change in audio-pitch and the craned necks took care of that. She was wearing a black skirt about the size of a big handkerchief, and a red tank top that didn’t even make a pretense of containing her breasts. Red spike heels with little black anklets. And a flowing mass of blond curls. By the time she’d reached where I was standing, she’d paralyzed every man in the joint.

  “Hi, cutie,” she said to Big A, giving him a little kiss on the cheek. The kid’s face flamed from the effort of trying to be cool about it.

  “Hey, Ann,” Clipper greeted her.