Endangered Species (18 page)

I
stopped at the garage on my way back to the store. Sam had the cab ready. I wanted to kiss him when I saw her.

“See,” he said, pointing to the side mirror. “It's not exactly the same, but I don't think anyone else could tell the difference.”

“It's fine.” I did kiss him. I hummed all the way to Noah's Ark.

Tim looked up as I walked in the door. “What's got into you?” he asked.

“I just picked up the cab.”

He went back to wiping the counter. “You and that cab. I could never figure it.”

Neither could most other people. But that was all right. I couldn't understand why they wanted to drive around in something like a Taurus. “It's a sentimental decision.” I told Tim about Chapman.

“Is that so?” And he reached under the counter for the baseball bat I've taken to keeping there and rested it on top of the counter. “I don't think I'll have a problem.”

“You're sure?”

“Believe me, I'm positive.”

We talked about it for a little bit longer and then I went in the back and called Joan and laid out my dog situation. Fortunately, this was her night to come in to Syracuse to do some shopping. We agreed that she'd drop by the store and pick Zsa Zsa up later in the afternoon. I spent the next half hour making up Zsa Zsa's “suitcase.” I packed her toys, her food, her bedding, a couple of my old shirts, and some treats for her and Joan's other dogs in a big blue laundry bag.

“My God,” Tim said as he watched me tuck another package of rawhide bones into it. “She's not going away for that long.”

“I know.” It didn't matter. I wanted her to be as comfortable as possible. I knelt in front of her.

Zsa Zsa came over and licked my chin.

“I love you,” I told her as Tim rolled his eyes.

She wagged her tail.

“And I'll come and get you as soon as I can.”

She wagged her tail again. I now knew how mothers felt when they had to leave their kids behind. I took one last look at her and walked out the door. As I got in the cab, it occurred to me that if Chapman touched her I would kill him. And then I thought how some people would say she was just a dog. But I didn't care.

It took me a little while to locate Manuel, but I finally ran him down at a friend's house over on West Street. He and a couple of his buddies were clustered around one of those “entertainment centers” in a living room so packed with plastic-covered sofas and chairs and wood-veneered pieces, it reminded me of a showroom in a cheap furniture store. The guys were all decked out in their parkas, jeans, and baseball hats, doing what they usually did: drinking cheap beer, eating pretzels, and watching a video on TV.

“At least wait till the good part is over,” Manuel pleaded with me when I told him why I was there.

“Which part is that?” As far as I was concerned, the movie he was watching, an old Godzilla movie from Japan, had no good parts.

“The part where Godzilla smashes in the apartment complex and tears a train in two.”

“Five minutes.” It's hard to argue with good taste. I maneuvered around a coffee table and leaned against the fake wood-paneled wall next to the sofa and waited. “You haven't seen Eli, have you?” I asked in a casual do-you-know-if-it's-raining-out kind of way.

“No.” Manuel kept his eyes glued to the TV. His friends didn't look up, either. I could have been the Invisible Man as far as they were concerned.

A cell phone started ringing. The guy sitting next to Manuel whipped one out of his pocket and briefly spoke into it. “Dynnel,” he said to everyone by way of explanation before he lapsed back into silence.

“You know, the police are looking for him,” I said to Manuel. “They want to question him in connection with Nestor's death.”

“That's a load of crap,” he shot back without looking at me. “He didn't have anything to do with it.”

No one else in the room showed a flicker of interest.

“You're sure?”

“Yeah, I'm sure.”

My eyes drifted over to the images on the screen. The movie was dubbed. The lips of the Japanese were out of sync with the American voices. As a child, I'd always wondered what the Japanese were really saying. No one else had cared. I'd entertained myself by making up imaginary dialogue, but after a while the novelty wore off and I stopped watching the movies.

“How'd you hear?” I inquired.

Manuel grunted. “Some kid. I forget who.”

“It would be better for all of us if he turned himself in.”

“If I knew something, I would tell you,” Manuel assured me.

“Of course you would,” I replied, sarcasm dripping from my voice. “You always do.”

Manuel held out his hand and put a finger up signaling for me to be quiet. “Come on, Robin. This is the scene I've been waiting for.” He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees, rapt with attention.

I went back to studying the picture on TV. The images were choppy, the faces elongated, the photography bad. It must be a guy thing, I decided, a teenage-guy thing, because the movie left me cold. I'd felt that way twenty years ago and I felt that way now. When the scene was over, I tapped Manuel on the shoulder and motioned for him to follow me.

“Now,” I said.

He picked a piece of lint off the front of his jacket as he reluctantly got up. “Why the rush?” he asked fretfully as he stopped in front of the hall mirror to adjust his baseball hat. He put it on and took it off three times, maneuvering the brim a slightly different way each time. When the fourth time came, I couldn't stand it anymore. I dragged him out of the house by his elbow.

“For God's sake, you're worse than my mother,” he protested, pulling his arm away from me. “Lighten up, Light.”

“Ha. Ha.” As I stepped around a crack vial lying on the pavement, I wondered exactly how cool he was going to be when I told him what Chapman said.

“So, this guy is gonna do what to me?” Manuel asked after I explained.

“I don't know. He might not do anything.” I brushed the snow off my hair.

“Damned right he won't.” Manuel adjusted his collar so it stood up fifties-style and put a roll in his walk. “I'm the man.”

“Or...” I continued.

“Or what?” Manuel demanded. “What's this punk gonna do?”

“Think of yourself as Tokyo and think of Chapman as Godzilla and you get the idea.”

Manuel muttered something.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.” He put his hands in his pocket, hunched his shoulders, and picked up his pace.

I matched it. “That's funny, because I distinctly heard you say ‘I'm going to kill that fat little prick.' ”

“No, what I said was Rick...”

“Please, Manuel. This is serious.”

“Everything with you always is. You ought to change your name to Dark.”

“Enough with the names.”

“Suits me.” He lowered his eyes as if he was searching for something he'd dropped. “Suits me just fine.”

“So, you have spoken to Eli?”

Manuel kept walking. We were almost at the cab before he looked up. “It won't do you any good, even if I have. I don't know where he is.”

“He didn't say where he was calling from?”

“I just toM you that.”

“What did he want?”

“To say hello. To ask how things are going. That's it.”

“The police are looking for him.”

“So you've said. Several times.” Manuel got in one side of the cab. I got in the other. He slammed the door. “That's not my problem.”

I started the car up and turned on the wipers. “It could be.”

“How's that?”

“Aiding and abetting,” I replied as I watched the powdery white flakes disappear off the glass. “Your probation officer might not like that.”

Manuel viciously attacked one of his cuticles. “No way. I'm the one that tried to keep his sorry ass out of trouble. This wasn't my idea. I'm not getting tagged for this.”

I turned the wipers off. “Then maybe you should tell me where he is.”

“I don't know.” Manuel exhaled. He was practically shaking with indignation. “Eli didn't consult with me before he did this. Whatever happens, happens. It ain't my fault.”

“You're right. It isn't.” If Manuel knew where Eli was, and despite his words I thought he might, he wasn't telling. I started the cab up. “So you really don't think Eli killed Nestor?”

Manuel gave a snort of disbelief. “Get real.”

“Who do you think did?”

“How the fuck should I know? You mind?” he asked, reaching to turn on the radio.

I shook my head. The sound of rap filled the cab.

“Where're we going?” Manuel asked as I pulled out into the street.

“Sulfin's.”

Manuel rolled his eyes. “Ratboy's. Terrific. I just bought these.” He indicated his shirt and jeans. “I ain't going up there and getting my clothes all smelly,” he told me. “His place stinks.”

“Fine. Stay downstairs.” It was probably better that way. Manuel had a tendency to mouth off when he shouldn't.

I didn't say anything else. Neither did Manuel. He turned the volume control on the radio up. I turned it back down. We drove over to Sulfin's apartment without exchanging another word.

Sulfin wasn't exactly happy to see me, but then, given the way we parted, there was no reason why he should be.

“Get out of here,” he said. He'd opened the door partway to see who it was. Now he was trying to close it again. “I don't want to speak to you.”

“Obviously.” I extracted five twenties from my wallet and waved them in his face. Sulfin fell back and I stepped inside.

“I just want to ask you a question.”

“About what?” His eyes flickered from the bills in my hand to my face and back again.

I shut the door behind me and walked into the living room. The squeaking of the rats and mice I'd been hearing in the entryway got louder. “How's business?”

“Fine. No thanks to you.”

“Why is that?”

“I almost lost the last batch. If you don't freeze ‘em as soon as you kill 'em, they're no good. You should know that.”

“I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were on such a stringent timetable.”

Sulfin ran his fingers through his white hair. “Well, I am. That's why my business is growing. Because I sell a good product. One hundred percent organic.”

Of course his rats were organic. What else would they be? Plastic? Crystalline? But I didn't say that. This wasn't the time for a minilesson in semantics. “That's what Tim told me,” I replied instead.

Sulfin's expression softened slightly. “It's true. I do. So what do you want to know?”

“I want to know where Adelina is.”

“Why should I know where that bitch is?” he asked sullenly.

“You know everything else.”

“Not this.”

I waved the hundred dollars in his face. “Are you sure?”

Sulfin reached for the money. I moved it away. “Not until I get some answers from you.”

“Is she in trouble?”

“Yes.”

“A lot?” he asked gleefully, his eyes glowing like two dark raisins in the doughy white of his face.

I told him it couldn't get much worse.

“Good.” He looked as pleased as the kid on Christmas morning who gets what he asked for.

I waited for him to say more. Instead, he extended his hand down, and a black rat that had been sitting on the arm of the sofa climbed onto his palm and scampered up his arm to his shoulder. “This is Barnaby,” he said, introducing him to me. Barnaby sniffed the air in front of me. Sulfin scratched his back with a finger. “Try Myra,” he finally said. “Last I heard, Adelina was staying with her.”

I thanked Sulfin and put the money in his hand. “My pleasure.” And he smiled and pocketed it.

When I left, he was feeding Barnaby crumbs of bread off the coffee table.

Manuel was still listening to the radio when I got back in the car. “Did you get what you needed?” he asked as he fiddled with the dial.

“I hope so.” I restarted the cab. “Sulfin doesn't like Adelina much, does he?”

Manuel stopped fiddling. “Why should he?”

“Meaning?”

“She used to be his girlfriend until Nestor came along. He stole her right out from under Sulfin. I heard he was promising he'd take her to Disneyland and shit like that.”

“Adelina used to be Sulfin's girlfriend?” I repeated, dumfounded.

Manuel gave me a sidelong glance. “That's what I just said, didn't I?”

I pictured Sulfin. “I can't believe he has a girlfriend.”

“Yeah.” Manuel grinned. “He's got lots of them. I don't know why he cared so much about Adelina. He's got a couple of others that moved in to fill the slot.”

“Are we talking about Sulfin?”

“Amazing, isn't it?”

“Yes.”

Manuel's grin grew wider. “Sulfin just goes to prove some things are more important than looks. It's because he's got this giant you-know-what. All the girls are crazy to try it out.”

I digested this news while we drove over to the mall to find Myra. I was still digesting it when we parked. I guess the old saw is true about no accounting for tastes.

I
t was still snowing out. The flakes were coming down a little heavier now. It looked as if someone was tossing handfuls of Ivory Flakes out of a box. But it wasn't sticking. It was too warm for that. The streets were wet. Tonight, if the temperature fell, they'd become icy, but they were fine for now. It had taken Manuel and me a little over fifteen minutes to drive over to the mall. I parked close to the entrance and we went inside.

I sent Manuel to get Myra while I waited in the bookstore, which was four stores up from the pet store. I was reading a remaindered book about the Masons when Manuel sauntered in.

“Where's Myra?” I asked.

He tugged his pants up. “She'll meet us in the food court in fifteen minutes, when she has her dinner break.”

I glanced at my watch. It was five minutes after five. “It's a little early for that, isn't it?”

Manuel shrugged as if to say that that was the joy of working retail.

I bought the book and Manuel and I meandered over there. It was a weekday night and except for the occasional harried-looking mother chasing down a child or a random clump of giggling preteens, the mall was almost empty. Through the windows I could see the store's sales staff standing behind the counter with plastered smiles on their faces and boredom in their eyes.

The food court didn't look any busier. The servers were either chatting with each other or leaning on the counter and daydreaming about what they were going to be doing when they got off. The food choices were the usual fast food American fare we'd given to the world. Fast, cheap, fatty, and tasteless. I don't think there's a stall that sells anything that's not bathed in fat. It's probably a law: no fat bath, no booth. Not that that doesn't earn points with me. The more highly processed what I eat is, the better I like it. Or at least I have until recently.

I ordered a couple of slices of pizza, while Manuel got a portion of bad Chinese food. As we ate, we watched the carousel go around, its horses riderless, its tinny music playing to an empty room. The carousel had been built for a bigger time and it seemed lost here, enclosed in four walls, reduced to a museum exhibition, unappreciated by children brought up on laser tag. I was once again contemplating why anyone would have thought it would be a good idea to bring something like that indoors when Myra materialized in front of me.

She was even thinner than I remembered her being. I wondered if Mr. and Mrs. Myers's baby girl was anorexic.

“What do you want?” she asked as she fiddled with a silver ring on her finger, turning it round and round. It was so loose it was a wonder she hadn't lost it already.

I told her to get something to eat before we talked. The last thing I needed was for her to pass out on me. She came back with a green salad with no dressing and a slice of pizza.

“I could get fired for speaking to you,” she declared as she folded herself into the chair across from me.

“Maybe it's time to get a new job,” I suggested. “I'm sure you could find a better place to work.”

Instead of answering, Myra devoted her attention to eating a few pieces of lettuce. She then proceeded to methodically remove all the cheese from the pizza, after which she put it in a napkin and dumped it in the garbage. “So I won't be tempted,” she explained. Then, while I watched, she blotted her slice with another napkin. To remove any additional fat, no doubt. She threw that away as well.

“Jesus,” Manuel muttered. “Give me a break. Do you think you can eat the crust, or does that have too many calories, too?”

Myra pretended she didn't hear him. “Now, what's this about?” Myra asked. “All Manuel would say is that you wanted to talk to me about something important.”

“That's right.”

“Like what?”

“I think you already knowwhy I'm here,” I parried, having decided to go on a fishing expedition.

“I don't,” Myra protested. She took another tiny bite of her slice. As I watched her wrinkle her nose in distaste and put the gnawed-on slice back on her plate, I couldn't help thinking that I was glad I wasn't her mother, because I'd kill her if I was. Of course, I still might.

“Then why are you so nervous?” I countered as she began making little tears in the edge of the pizza plate.

“I'm not,” she protested.

Manuel opened his mouth to say something and I silenced him with a look. He scowled and went back to shoveling forkfuls of lo mein into his mouth.

Myra took up her fork and ate another lettuce leaf. At the rate she was going, it would take her all night to finish her dinner. “It's about the frogs, isn't it?” she said finally.

“Among other things.”

“It was Eli's idea.”

“Breeding them?” I guessed, remembering the room in her house.

She nodded. “He said there was a really good market for them.” She speared a forkful of lettuce and crunched it down.

“Is there?”

“No.” Myra threw her fork down and began playing with her ring again. “I don't know why I listened to him. I should know better. He's such a loser.”

“Why is that?”

“Because he can't do anything right,” Myra told me, echoing Chapman's sentiments. “I went and spent all this money on setups and breeding pairs and I hardly got enough from him to break even. I would have made more money - if I'd worked at Burger King.”

“Where was he going to sell them?”

“Japan. Germany.” Myra's gaze was defiant. “He said there was a big market for that kind of stuff there.”

“How was he going to smuggle them in?”

“In a vest.”

“A vest?” I said, trying to picture it.

“One of those ones with all the pockets.” She shrugged. “I didn't ask for details. All I cared about was getting paid. He said I'd make a lot of money, enough so that I could quit my job and take off to California. What a crock.” Her mouth turned down. The lines between her nose and mouth sprang into view. For a few seconds, I caught a glimpse of the embittered old woman she might become. Myra snorted. “I can't even sell the ones I have. No one wants to buy them. There's a glut on the market. What the hell am I going to do with them?”

“Lower the price. Use them as costume jewelry.”

“Very funny.” She brightened. “I don't suppose you'd like them?”

I told her I wouldn't. “My store doesn't carry venomous stock. The liability would be too high.”

“You know,” Manuel chimed in, “my mom would kill me if I had stuff like that in the house with all my sisters and brothers running around.”

“Well, my dad doesn't care,” Myra said. “Anyway, they're not poisonous unless they're angry.”

“How do you tell? I mean, do ya ask them?”

Myra gave him a withering look. Manuel was unimpressed.

“I wouldn't want to live with them,” he went on, warming to the subject. “What happens if you forget to lock the room and one of them gets out and hops in your bed and you lie down on it? What then?”

“Then you'd be dead.” Myra picked up her fork and put it down again as the implications of what Manuel had just said hit her. “How do you know about the room?”

Manuel gave me a sheepish grin. “Sorry,” he said, and he went back to eating.

I made a mental note to have a chat with him later about the joys of silence as Myra turned to me.

“How do you know?” she demanded.

“I was there.” And I explained about Manuel's phone call.

“You broke into my house?” Myra's voice quavered with outrage.

“Report me to the police.”

She gave me a sullen look and collapsed into her seat.

“Where were you that night?”

She glared at me. “Why do you care?”

“Because I do.”

“I was stuck, just like everyone else.”

“Who were you stuck with?”

“A friend.”

“Does this friend have a name?”

Myra looked at her watch. “Listen. I have to go.”

I checked mine. “You still have some time left before you have to be back at the store,” I observed. She had about twenty minutes, to be accurate.

In a nervous tic of a gesture, she conveyed her quarter-eaten pizza slice to her mouth and brought it away untouched. “I don't want to talk anymore,” she told me.

I crossed my arms over my chest and just looked at her. She was vibrating like a guitar string.

“I don't have to say anything to you,” she insisted.

“You're right. You don't. You can say it to the police.”

She feigned puzzlement. “Why would they be interested in poison frogs?”

“They're not. And you know it. They're interested in Eli and Adelina.”

Myra tried to act cool. She didn't succeed very well. I noticed her hands were trembling. She clasped her fingers together, brought her hands under the table, and rested them in her lap, the way good little girls are taught to do.

“Aren't you going to ask me why the police are interested?” I continued. “Most people would. Aren't you even the tiniest bit curious?”

Myra bit her lip.

“But you don't really have to ask me, do you? Especially since you already know?” I leaned forward slightly. Then I planted my elbows on the table. It wobbled slightly, just like the story Myra was trying to tell me.

“Adelina told you about Nestor, didn't she?”

“I haven't seen Adelina in weeks,” Myra protested. Her voice had grown as thin as her body.

“That's not what Sulfin says,” I replied. “He says you were with her yesterday.”

“He's wrong,” Myra cried, half rising from her seat. “He hates Adelina. You can't believe anything he says about her. Or Nestor. Adelina didn't do anything to Nestor.”

“I didn't suggest she had,” I said mildly. “You did.”

“That's not true. You implied it. If anyone did anything to Nestor, it was Sulfin.”

“Really? You're saying Sulfin killed Nestor?”

“No. I'm saying he could have. He's never forgiven Nestor for taking Adelina away. He said he'd get him back if it was the last thing he ever did.” Two patches of color glistened on Myra's cheeks. “Just leave Adelina alone, you hear me!”

Given Myra's tone, it would have been hard not to.

A woman sitting a few seats down stopped eating and looked at us. I could tell from the expression on her face, she was an inch shy of coming over and asking if everything was all right. Which was the last thing I needed now.

“It's okay,” I told her, beating her to it. “Just a family dispute.”

She gave me an understanding smile and went back to her taco. I put a hand on Myra's arm and guided her back down to her seat She came reluctantly. “All right. What you're saying may be true. I'm not saying it isn't, but I still need to find Adelina.”

Myra straightened her back and stiffened her neck. She looked straight ahead. She was the warrior queen.

“Is she with Eli?”

Myra shrugged.

“Have they left the area?”

“I told you I don't know.” This time Myra's voice was flat and lifeless.

I tried again. “You may think you're protecting your friend,” I told her, “but you're not.”

“Really?” she sneered.

I explained about Chapman and the suitcase. “Look, in the end, either Chapman, myself, or the police are going to find Adelina. Who would you prefer? Think about it.”

She bit her lip.

“One person is dead. Do you want your friend to be next?”

The corners of her mouth began to droop.

“Think how you'd feel if Adelina dies and it's your fault?”

Myra put her hand to her mouth.

“Is it worth the risk?”

I watched her fight with herself.

“Is it?” I insisted. “Do you want to go to her funeral? Be there when they lower her casket into the ground? Watch her mother crying, when all the time you know that this could have been prevented if you'd only ...”

“All right,” Myra finally said, her face going soft. “That's enough.”

And she told me where Adelina was.