Am I Right or Am I Right? (13 page)

Chapter 22

Facing the demon

The phone book was no help, so I was forced to call. The first couple of times I tried I got an answering machine. It was third time lucky.

“Hello?”

“Is that Mr. Michael Collins?”

“Speaking. Who’s this?”

“I’m the assistant principal at Vanessa’s school. I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. Collins, but we are updating our database and don’t have an address for you. I’m sure you will want to receive copies of Vanessa’s reports at the end of the semester.”

“Oh…yeah. I guess. Well…okay. It’s unit five, thirty-seven Smith Street, in the city.”

“Thank you so much, Mr. Collins.”

“Who did you say you were again?”

“Ms. Pharcue, Mr. Collins. Pharcue.” I hung up.

With all this activity, I got little done at school that day. When the bell rang, I walked with Vanessa to the parking lot, but there was no sign of Jason or his car. Pity.

We walked home. Nessa was distracted, but she was always distracted—only the degree varied. She went into her house without saying a word; I wasn’t disappointed. I had a job to do and figured it was best to get it over and done with as soon as possible. Frankly, if I thought too long, I’d lose impetus. It’s all very well to plan, but I had reached the confrontation stage and it seemed much more difficult. So I strode home, trying not to think. I kept repeating to myself, “You’re mean, you’re tough, you’re streetwise. You’re mean, you’re tough…”

Calma Harrison threw herself into the battered chair and removed the bottle of Jack Daniel’s from the top drawer of her desk. Unscrewing the cap with her teeth, she took a slug and reached into her pocket for a cigar. This was going to be an ugly job, but she was used to ugly jobs. A match materialized between finger and thumb and she scratched it against her head.

Only when the cigar was lit did she lean forward, pick up the phone, and dial.

“Get over here now,” she growled into the mouthpiece. “I need wheels.”

Calma replaced the handset and looked out the window. The city, choked with smog, lay before her like a corpse in a smoke-filled strip joint. It crawled with low-life, sleazy scumbags, like fleas on a mangy cur. It was tough, like old leather, but Calma was a broad who was no stranger to toughness. Her head reflected the city lights, like an eight-ball in a laser factory. She sighed, like a stiff croaking its last breath, and stretched. Her muscles creaked like an overly elaborate simile.

Jason entered. He was looking sharp, as always. Calma glanced at him and wondered, not for the first time, whether he could be trusted. He was a wiseguy, a kid off the streets, a punk on the make, a player, a hood.

“Are you packing?” asked Calma.

“Is it vacation time, boss?” he asked.

“No. Are you packing a piece?”

“Of what?”

“A rod. Are you packing a rod?”

“Fishing?”

Calma sighed. Maybe he wasn’t such a wiseguy after all. Never mind. She had her own piece, a Glock snub-nosed automatic, in her garter belt. The squirrel she was after was a bad squirrel, a dangerous squirrel, a squirrel who wouldn’t give up his nuts without a fight.

“We’re going after a squirrel,” she said. “That’s why I need your ride. We’ll take him out in his own crib.” Jason took out his A-Z guide of tough street talk and thumbed through the pages. Calma groaned. He should have known this stuff by heart. If he failed his gumshoe exams at the end of the month, she wasn’t going to take responsibility. She wasn’t going to be the fall guy, the patsy…

The trouble was, I didn’t feel tough, despite the mantra. In fact, if I have to be honest, I was less private eye and more primary reader.

See Calma. See the car. Calma gets in the car. See Calma get in the car. Clever Calma.

Calma goes to the house. Calma knocks on the door. See Calma knock on the door.

Calma talks to the man. The man punches Calma. See the man punch Calma.

Calma is in big poo-poo. See Calma in poo-poo.

Run, Calma, run.

The Fridge wasn’t home, of course. There had been more recorded sightings of the yeti than there had been of her in the last decade. I was considering getting a life-sized cardboard cut-out of her to leave around the house.

The two hours home alone gave me the opportunity to think before Jason turned up at five-thirty. I tried to rehearse what I was going to say to Vanessa’s father, but it was no use. I mean, what can you do? Smile and say, “Excuse me, Mr. Collins. I’m sorry to bother you, but I have reason to believe you are abusing your daughter. Now, if it’s not a rude question, I wonder if you would mind stopping this forthwith. At your own convenience, naturally”?

Each scenario I acted out seemed impossible. So I decided to play it by ear. What if I was wrong, though? That bothered me as well. Vanessa hadn’t said anything. What if she had fallen down the stairs at home and I was going to accuse an entirely innocent man of an appalling crime? How could I look Vanessa in the face again? Where would that leave our relationship? Down the toilet, that’s where.

The more I thought, the more tempted I was to forget the whole thing. Inaction was such an alluring option. But what was it someone had once said? All that’s required for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing. Something like that. And I trusted my feelings. I
knew
Vanessa’s injuries couldn’t have been inflicted by accident. I
had
to do something.

I just wasn’t looking forward to it.

I also thought about the Fridge. My sneaking around had come up with absolutely nothing. Still,
she
knew that
I
knew she was keeping a secret. What’s more, she was going to tell me about it. I resolved to demand a full revelation the next time I saw her. I was tired of lies and half-truths.

Then there was my father. He wanted to tell me something too. It was ironic. I was desperate for information from the Fridge but she was saying nothing. I didn’t want information from my own father and he was desperate to give it. It’s a funny old world, isn’t it? I remembered the attempt he had made at the supermarket, just before the thieving, gun-toting runt had arrived on the scene. I remembered also my feelings after my father left Crazi-Cheep. That small, fleeting twinge of regret.

Maybe I had been too hard on him. After all, the nastiness was in the past. By spurning him so completely and ruthlessly now, I was giving the impression he still had the means to inflict suffering. If I treated him politely, as a stranger, then I would show him he no longer had that power. In fact, politeness would be more humiliating for him. And what if he
was
going to beg for forgiveness, try to worm his way back into our affections? That didn’t mean he would succeed. I could hear him out and then politely tell him to go forth and multiply. It was the mature way of proceeding.

That left Jason. I couldn’t tell him about Vanessa. I couldn’t tell anyone about Vanessa, let alone a guy I had known for about five minutes. Yet I wanted him to be there when I confronted her father. As moral and, maybe, physical support. Was that fair? Probably not, I thought. But perhaps it would be a test of his loyalty and good faith, to do something because I asked him, without reasons or explanations. Hmmm. I suspected I was rationalizing my own dubious behavior, but I couldn’t see a way round that either. I liked Jason. A lot. But I didn’t know him at all. I hoped I would get the opportunity when all this was done.

I tell you, with this degree of thinking going on, it was a muddle-headed Calma who opened the door to greet Jason when he turned up at five-thirty.

“Where do you want to go?” Jason asked, jingling the car keys in his hand and looking preternaturally spunky. “The world is our oyster. Provided we’re back by seven-thirty. There are highlights of the Premiership weekend fixtures and Liverpool kicked butt.”

“Two hours to explore the oyster of the world and then back to watch soccer? Boy, you’re a real smooth operator, Jason. You could charm the birds out of the trees, you know?”

His face fell.

“We don’t have to watch football,” he said earnestly. “Not if you don’t fancy it.”

I squeezed his arm.

“I’m kidding,” I said. “I’d love to watch soccer with you. There are some pressing questions you can answer about gonads, the offside trap, and the role of flying snot.”

Jason parked downtown and suggested we go to one of the cafés on the main strip. I suggested a walk. I had to get this done. I couldn’t sip hot chocolate and make small talk. My stomach was doing flips and they were getting worse the longer I delayed.

I led Jason up Smith Street, a road running parallel to the main street. It was a good neighborhood. Expensive condos, with balconies and views over the city and ocean. Carefully tended palms arched over us as we walked. There was a chatter of lorikeets in a nearby tree. It was peaceful.

Number thirty-seven was a block of apartments like the others, well-tended, with gleaming screen doors and taut awnings. I was dismayed to see the entrance to the apartments was through a locked gate—one that operated electronically, with an intercom. I didn’t want to buzz Mr. Collins. I wouldn’t know what to say.
Can you let me in so I can insult you?

As it turned out, my luck was in. Or out, depending on your viewpoint. A woman came down the steps of the apartment block and pointed a remote control at the gate, which slid noiselessly open on its tracks.

I grabbed Jason’s hand and we ran the last twenty yards before the gate closed. If I’d thought about it, I’d have worried that Jason would be getting seriously bothered by my habit of running for no discernible reason.

We managed to slip inside the gate with seconds to spare. Jason gave me an odd look. His cigarette had fallen out of his mouth and he glanced back at it, smoldering on the road, with longing and regret. I made a resolution that when this was done, I’d turn my attention to his unsavory addiction.

“What’s going on, Calma?” he said.

“Nothing,” I replied. “I just have to make a quick visit. Stand here. Don’t move. Watch me at all times.”

The door to apartment five was on the ground floor, facing the gate. Convenient. Jason was clearly puzzled, but I didn’t allow him the opportunity to give me the third degree. Firming up my resolution, I marched to the door and knocked loudly.

I am not ashamed to admit it. I was praying no one would be in.

The door opened almost immediately and a man filled the available space. I opened my mouth to speak but forgot how you go about it. Nerves, probably. All I could manage was a strangled grunt.

While I waited to see if my nervous system could resurrect the correct procedure for speech, I took the opportunity to examine him more closely. He was in his forties and his most distinguishable feature was long, wavy hair. It had probably been blond at some stage but now it was streaked with grey.

The word is
distinguished.
He had a Richard Gere look—that old actor who still manages to give women over the age of fifty palpitations. The Fridge would probably have been putty in his hands, but I thought he was in desperate need of a haircut. If I got the opportunity, I’d recommend Allessandro’s. Tearing my gaze from his hair, I met his eyes. They were blue and weak and sitting too close to his nose. Maybe it was my imagination, but I could see cruelty swimming just beneath the surface.

He was well dressed and had a fairly good physique. He gave the impression of having lifted weights, but in the past. Even so, he could probably blow me away with a sneeze. Suddenly, the presence of Jason behind me didn’t offer any comfort. It felt like I was confronting a charging rhinoceros with a koala for backup.

There was something familiar about him too. Maybe it was the family resemblance to Vanessa. There was something about the set of his eyes and the way his nose turned up slightly. Plus he had freckles.

All this observation took place in less than a second. I tried the mouth again and, to my surprise, it had finally reported for duty.

“Mr. Collins?” I said.

“Yes?”

This was my chance to say something like,
I was wondering if I could interest you in a time-share opportunity in a new building development on the Gaza Strip.
But I didn’t take it.

“I’m a friend of your daughter. Vanessa Aldrick.”

“She’s not here.”

“I know. It was you I wanted to see.”

“What for?”

“I wanted to tell you, Mr. Collins, that I know what you’ve been doing to Vanessa. And I’m telling you to stop it. She doesn’t know I’m here. She doesn’t even know I know about it. She kept it to herself. But I
do
know. And if you lay a finger on her ever again, then you will be sorry. Keep away from her, Mr. Collins.”

I didn’t have a clue what would happen next. To be honest, I was so glad to get the speech off my chest, even if it was a crappy, weak-kneed speech, that I didn’t care too much. If he punched me, so be it. At least I’d had my say.

He didn’t punch me, though. He stared at me. The feeling of familiarity grew. Something about his expression. He gave a tight smile. It was scarier than a punch.

“Tell me, Calma,” he said finally. “What makes you think you can come to my house and make wild, reckless accusations? What gives you the right?”

I straightened my back and kept my eyes fixed on his. I couldn’t let him see any weakness. Did he call me Calma?

“I will not hesitate to call the police, Mr. Collins. Even without Vanessa’s knowledge or permission, I
will
notify the authorities.”

The thin smile was still there, and when he spoke, it was with a terrifying softness.

“Well, that should be interesting. You see, I
am
the police, Miss Harrison. I’m surprised you don’t remember me.”

And that was the moment it all fell into place. The plainclothes officer in the interview room. The guy who was mentally undressing me while his colleague was off typing up my statement about the robbery at Crazi-Cheep. The realization clubbed me on the back of the head. It left me feeling sick, angry, and defeated. I stared blankly at him, only dimly aware of a woman’s voice coming from the depths of the apartment.