Endangered Species (6 page)

She furrowed her brow as she read. Her mouth silently formed each word. When she was done, she handed my card back to me. “We don't have any pets here.”

“You have children, don't you?”

She crossed her arms over her chest and stood square in the doorway, a stone blocking my path. “Yes.”

“Young ones?”

She nodded again. The sleet was blowing across the porch, wetting and darkening the floorboards.

“You should consider buying them something. Animals provide wonderful educational opportunities for children. Even something as inexpensive as a hermit crab or a hamster can give them a window into a new world.”

Adelina's mother stifled a cough. “This isn't a good time. You wanna talk, come back later.” Her voice was flat and impatient. It held faint traces of a Spanish accent.

“I understand your eldest daughter is an animal lover. Maybe you can put her in charge.”

The woman's breath caught in her throat. “How you know about my daughter?” she demanded.

“Adelina came into my store,” I lied. “She told me you wanted to buy something for your children. You just didn't know what.”

Uncertainty danced in the woman's eyes. “Well, she's not here now.”

“Really? Where'd she go? Is she off on a trip somewhere?”

The woman brushed a tendril of hair away from her eyes and frowned. “Yes, She's traveling.” She nodded toward the inside of her house. “I got her brothers and sisters to take care of.” She began to close the door.

“Please.” I put my hand on the door and leaned against it to keep it open. “Five minutes. That's all I'm asking. Just five minutes.”

She kept pushing. “I got laundry to do. I got dinner to make.”

“If you don't let me in,” I blustered, “I'm going to be back here with the police.”

The door stopped moving. “You ain't got no right ...” she protested.

“I got all the right in the world,” I informed her. “Your daughter is involved in the theft of a large amount of money.” Not that eight thousand dollars was a large amount these days, but it was still a felony. “Now,” I continued, “my client doesn't want to involve the police.”

“Elazaro.” The woman spat out Eli's name. “You work for that
hijo de
puta. He should be ashamed.”

“Of what?”

“Of causing all this trouble.”

“That's an interesting point of view, blaming the victim for the crime.”

Her eyes flashed. “He said bad things.”

I didn't ask what. “That's why I'm here,” I lied again. “He sent me to apologize.”

The woman opened her mouth and closed it again.

“I didn't tell you the truth at first because I didn't think you'd listen to me.” I slid my foot in the doorway, hoping she wasn't going to slam it shut. “All Eli wants is what's rightfully his back. He doesn't care about anything else.”

The woman tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I got to unpack the groceries,” she said, and she flung the door open and beckoned for me to follow her.

The heat embraced me as I walked inside the small entrance hall. I unbuttoned my jacket and stepped over and around the coats, boots, hats, gloves, scarves, and book bags strewn on the floor. The living room was on my right. I glanced in. The walls were painted a light green. White curtains hung from the windows. A sofa and a love seat, both in a matching checked print, were arranged around a large, square, wood coffee table that was covered with books, papers, crayons, and toys. Two end tables held lamps and a number of pictures. Three children, two boys and a girl, ranging in ages from four to twelve, were sitting cross-legged on the carpet in front of the television set squabbling with each other while they passed a big bag of tortilla chips back and forth between them.

The woman paused by the doorway. “I don't want no crumbs on the floor,” she said.

The kids nodded. Their eyes never left the TV screen. They were watching the cartoon channel. A show I'd never seen was on.

“I mean it.” The woman's voice rose slightly, the way it always does when someone isn't paying attention to you.

The youngest child, a girl, replied, “We won't, Mommy.”

The woman snorted and continued on into the kitchen. It was a small, bright room. The plants spilling over the window ledges and the children's drawings and paintings on the walls contributed to its cheerful appearance. A round table over in the corner was piled with brown paper bags full of groceries.

The woman unbuttoned her coat and slung it over the back of one of the chairs. I wanted to do the same, but something told me I wasn't going to be here that long. I read her name off the tag pinned on her uniform.

“Where do you work, Donna?”

She started putting groceries away. “At the Jewish old age home. I'm an orderly there. I got the early shift.” She whirled around as a thought occurred to her. “Why you wanna know? You gonna come out there and make trouble? Make me lose my job?”

“No. Of course not.” Her reaction made me wonder if she had a green card. I reached into one of the bags and handed her ajar of peanut butter. She took it reluctantly, as if doing so would compromise her in some way. “I just want to know about your daughter.”

Donna put the peanut butter away. Then she opened the refrigerator and carefully placed two gallons of milk and a half-gallon of orange juice on the top shelf. “I haven't heard from my daughter since she walked out of this house.”

“Aren't you worried?”

The woman shrugged. “It's not the first time she's left home like this.” She stowed three boxes of macaroni and cheese in the bottom shelf of the kitchen cabinet by the refrigerator.

I leaned against the back of one of the chairs. “You don't strike me as the kind of mother who loses contact with her daughter,” I observed.

Donna took two rolls of paper towels out of the bag. “My daughter and I didn't get along so good.” Her tone was unconvincing.

“What are you afraid of?”

She looked off to one side. “I'm not afraid.”

“I don't believe you. Your daughter could be in a great deal of trouble from a man called Chapman.”

“Chapman?” The woman went over to the table and folded up one of the brown paper grocery bags. She ran her fingers over the creases, making sure that folds in the paper were sharp. Then she started on the second one. “Who is this man Chapman?” Her air of studied innocence was about as convincing as a hooker playing a schoolgirl.

“The suitcase that your daughter's boyfriend stole. It's his property.”

Donna straightened up and folded her hands across her chest. “She has nothing to do with any of this.”

“Possibly.” I sighed. “But she has to do with Nestor, and Nestor is in big trouble.”

Donna's jaw muscles tightened at Nestor's name. She didn't like him much. I asked her why, hoping her answer might give me a way in.

She turned and began stowing cans of tomatoes in one of the upper kitchen cabinets. “It's not me. It's my husband. He doesn't like that he is Chinese.”

Somehow I'd expected a different answer. “What's wrong with the Chinese?”

“My husband says they eat cats and rats. He says they are dirty.”

“You believe that?” It amazes me how frequently I hear comments like that, often from people who should know better.

She shrugged again.

“What do you think of Nestor?”

“I think he thinks he is smarter than anyone else.”

“Did you tell your daughter that?”

Donna slammed the cabinet door shut. “She won't listen to anything I have to say about him.”

My way in was turning into a dead end. I gave it one last shot. “You want your daughter to go to jail for him?” I asked, adding to the sum of lies already told.

Donna favored me with an impassive look.

I put one of my cards on the table next to the remaining bag of groceries. “Could you at least tell her to call me?”

“How can I tell her, if I don't know where she is?”

I took Donna's hand in mine. “Do her a favor and do what I ask.”

“Favor?” Donna removed her hand. “That's funny. Why should I? You get money for finding her, yes?”

“Yes,” I agreed reluctantly.

“So you are just like everyone else.”

“No, I'm not. Believe me, Adelina will be a lot better off with me than with Chapman. Or the police.”

Donna snorted derisively. “I have nothing more to say to you.”

Strike three.

The phone started ringing. She walked over and picked it up. I left while she was talking about what she should bring for Teacher's Appreciation Day at one of her children's schools. There didn't seem to be much point in staying. On the way out, on impulse, I stopped in the living room. The kids were still watching TV. I stepped in front of it.

“Hey,” the oldest one, a boy, yelped.

“I'll move in a second,” I assured him, taking care to speak in a low voice. Their mother would kill me if she knew I was talking to them. Of that, I had no doubt. “Any of you heard from your sister?” I asked.

Okay. I knew it was a tacky thing to do. I'm in a tacky business.

“My mommy said she went to visit someone,” the youngest of the three volunteered. She had chubby cheeks. Her long black hair was braided into two pigtails. Two large red bows covered the rubber bands. Like her sister and brother, she was wearing a parochial school uniform.

I felt like a creep for using her. I knelt next to her anyway. I heard crackling. I looked down and saw I'd knelt on the tortilla chips. The little girl covered her mouth with her hand and giggled.

“Did your mommy say who?” I asked as I moved the bag to one side.

The little girl shook her head and popped one of her fingers in her mouth.

“My mom didn't tell us,” the oldest boy said. “We don't know.”

“That's right,” the older girl agreed. She had her mother's eyes, but they were still soft. She hadn't inherited their suspicion yet.

“Addie used to read me stories,” the little girl said wistfully. “All the time. Sometimes she even let me sleep in her bed with her.”

“Is your father around?” I asked.

The boy shook his head. “He's back in DR. The Dominican Republic,” he added when he noticed the blank look on my face. “Visiting our
abuelita.
Now you going to let us see our show or what?”

I got up. This wasn't going to get me anyplace. It was time to go. The kids went back to watching TV. On the way out, a grouping of pictures on a table over by the far end of the sofa caught my eye. I walked over and studied them. They were family photos. Mother and father at the beach with baby. Mother and father in front of a palm tree with two babies. Mother and grandmother with three children. I picked up the most recent photograph.

It showed the three youngest children, plus a girl that I took to be Adelina, standing in front of the house I was now in. Adelina's resemblance to her mother was unmistakable. She had the same long black hair, dark eyes, and perfectly oval-shaped face, but she looked confident, ready to take on whatever was going to come. She hadn't been beaten down by life yet, a fact her clothes, a black leather jacket, a tight sweater, and jeans that she must have needed Vaseline to get into, proclaimed.

I glanced at the children. For all the attention they were paying to me I could have been invisible. I slipped the photograph, frame and all, in my jacket pocket and turned to go.

Donna was standing in the doorway, watching me.

The bright red patches on her cheeks and the way her hands were balled up into fists told me she'd seen what I'd done.

I tried to think of some way I could talk my way out of the mess I'd just made for myself.

I couldn't.

There didn't seem to be any way around it.

“Here,” I said, holding the picture out.

T
he kids took one look at their mother and scattered. Donna didn't notice. All her attention was focused on me.

“You ...” Donna spluttered. “You ...” Her English failed her and she lapsed into a string of Spanish curses as she barreled toward me.

Half of what she was saying I understood and half I didn't. Judging by the half I did understand, I didn't want a translation of the rest.

Before I had a chance to do or say anything, Donna ripped the picture of her daughter out of my hand and slapped me across the face. The blow stung. For a little lady she packed a lot of force.

I edged around her. “If you'll let me explain.” But I might as well have been talking to a hurricane for all the effect my words had.

The little girl began to cry. Her mother ignored her.

“Get out!” she shrieked at me. “Get out of my house. Next time I see you, I tell my husband to shoot you.”

“I'm going.”

I stumbled over the children's boots and toys and coats as I backed out of the living room and into the hallway. I wasn't taking my eyes off this woman. Not even for a second. Donna followed me, screaming curses as she went.

I was a couple of feet from the front door when she bent down and picked up a baseball bat one of the kids had left lying on the floor. This was not good. I didn't have anything on me that I could protect myself with.

“You don't want to do that!” I cried.

“I show you.” Donna grasped the bat with both hands, and started swinging. I jumped back just in time. I could feel the wind from the bat whooshing by me. A second later and I would have been writhing on the floor. The bat hit the wall instead. A hole appeared in the wallboard.

“Hey, calm down.” I'd heard that Dominicans were hot-tempered, but this was ridiculous.

“I calm down all right.” Wham. She took another swing. Another hole in the wall.

I ran out the door, jumped down the steps, and bounded into my car. Donna was right behind me. Fortunately, I was faster. I had my car started up by the time she reached me. She raised the bat over her head and swung at my windshield. I yanked the wheel to the left, threw the car into reverse, put my foot down on the gas, and went up on the curb. I heard a crack as the bat came down on my sideview mirror. Donna raised the bat again. I shifted into forward. The car shuddered as she connected with the rear. I floored it. The car leaped ahead. I spun the wheel to avoid a tree. A man standing in his driveway stared at me openmouthed as I drove toward him on the sidewalk.

“Sorry!” I yelled as I went back on the pavement.

I checked my rearview mirror. Donna was still behind me. Who would have imagined someone that chunky could run that fast, I thought as I sped off. As I rounded the corner, I caught a final glimpse of Adelina's mother. She was standing in the middle of the street shaking the bat at me. Her hair was plastered to her head. Her mouth was opened. She was screaming something at me. Fortunately, I couldn't hear what it was.

I stopped at a convenience store half a mile away and got out to examine the damage. I ran my hand along the crumpled mess that had been my side mirror and over the dent near where the gas cap was and told my car everything was going to be all right. The dent wasn't a big deal. Sam, the guy at the body shop, could bang that out, and he could probably scavenge a mirror, too, but I still felt a tug in the pit of my stomach.

I love my car, maybe because it reminds me of my youth. It's an old, New York City yellow Checker taxicab. It has well over 150,000 miles on it and I'm hoping to get 300,000. When it goes, I won't be able to replace it. Last I heard, there were only three or four left in the state. Of course, it is only a piece of machinery, we weren't talking my firstborn here, and given the option of the cab being in the service station or me being in the hospital, the choice is obvious. Nevertheless, I was still really pissed.

I was impervious to the sleet as I walked to the convenience store. The icy rain numbed my fingers, worked its way down my back, caked my eyelashes, and clung to my hair, but I was too busy being angry at Eli to care. He should have warned me about Adelina. But as I bought a couple of Almond Joys I had to admit to myself that he had.

Eli had told me Adelina's mother was nuts, he'd told me she'd run him and Manuel off, but I hadn't asked for clarification, because I'd thought he was exaggerating. Obviously, he hadn't been. I wondered if there were any other surprises in store for me as I unwrapped one of the Almond Joys and bit into it. If my next couple of stops were like this one, I was going to give Eli his money back. Twelve hundred dollars wasn't enough to pay for a fractured skull. As it was, I figured Eli owed me the repair job on my cab. At the very least, which is why I stopped over at the garage next.

“Can you give me a rough estimate?” I asked Sam.

He looked at the cab with sorrowful brown eyes. He ran his hand over the damage gently and shook his head slowly. “You shouldn't be driving it like this. The water is just going to make the problem worse.”

“I don't have another ride.”

Sam gestured toward the parking lot in front of the garage where twenty used cars in varying states of decrepitude sat. “Take your pick.”

I chose a '90 Honda and left the cab in Sam's capable hands.

 

 

My second stop of my day was The Happy Trails Travel Agency. Hopefully, things would go more smoothly this time. The agency was located across the street from a car dealership in a small, run-down strip mall on Burnett Avenue. The shop was flanked by Henri's, “all dog breeds welcomed,” and The Clip Joint “walk-ins accepted, manicurist on premises.” Very convenient. It was good to know that if an emergency struck, Zsa Zsa and I could get our hair done at the same time. A kitchen appliance store and a pizza place completed the line-up. At four o'clock in the afternoon, three cars were parked in the lot. Business wasn't exactly booming here.

I ran into the pizza shop and ordered a soda and a meatball sub. While I ate, I noticed some snowflakes were mingling with the sleet. By the time I was through talking to the guy at Happy Trails I'd probably have to scrape the ice off my windshield. The thought did not cheer me. I finished the last of my food, paid, and went into the travel agency.

From what I could see from the doorway, Happy Trails was a strictly shoestring operation. The office had two standard-issue fake wood desks in it, a row of folding metal chairs along the far side wall, a couple of cheap plastic plants, and beige carpeting on the floor. The rest of the furnishings consisted of three large garishly colored travel posters of Disneyland, Hawaii, and Cancun tacked on the walls.

The store was empty except for a man behind the desk nearest to the door, eating a slice of pizza. When he saw me he took another couple of bites before he put the remainder down, and wiped his hands on a napkin.

“Can I help you?” he asked, his mouth full of food.

For some reason he looked familiar, although I couldn't place him, but maybe that was because he appeared the same as a hundred other tired, rumpled-looking, middle-aged men. He had a round face, a bristly mustache decorating his upper lip, and a receding hairline. The plaid sports jacket he was wearing could have used a cleaning, as could his tie.

“I hope so.” I walked over to his desk. Its left side was stacked high with travel brochures. Looking at them made me want to whip out my credit card, book a trip to someplace like India, and take off.

“We have some nice trips to Mexico,” the man continued in a monotone that would have deadened the most enthusiastic traveler. “The fares are great. You're not going to be able to do better. Or how about Miami?” He favored me with a wet smile. “Or the Virgin Islands? We have a fantastic weekend package. Two hundred bucks for three nights, everything included.”

“Sorry. Maybe another time.” I held out the envelope I'd found in Nestor's room. “Is this yours?”

A flicker of concern crossed his face as he took the envelope. He studied it for a minute before handing it back. “That's our name on the corner. Why? Is there a problem?”

I gave him my card.

He held it at arm's length and squinted at it. “Inquiries? What kind of inquiries?”

“I was hoping you could help me out with some questions I have concerning a Nestor Chang.”

“Nestor Chang, hunh?” A cagey expression crossed his face. He tapped his fingers on the desk in an unconvincing parody of thought. “I'm not sure. Offhand, the name doesn't ring a bell.”

Right. I wondered how much he'd want. Probably a double sawbuck, I decided as I sat down. It seemed to be the going rate these days.

I leaned over and read his name off the plate on his desk. “Mr. Landen, I got this envelope from his room. I'm hoping you can tell me where he went.”

He scratched behind his ear. “It's hard to remember. I'd have to go through my files ...”

I managed to say, “I can see where in a booming business like this it would be hard to keep track of all your customers,” with a straight face. I took a twenty-dollar bill out of my wallet and laid it on the desk.

He looked at it regretfully, as if the sight of it pained him. “Ordinarily I wouldn't ask this, but my time ...” He sighed and put the money in his wallet.

I finished the sentence for him. “Is in demand.”

“Exactly. Especially now that February break is coming up.” He stuck out his hand. We shook. “Call me Dale. Everyone does.”

“So, Dale. About Nestor Chang. Did he take one of your trips to Miami?”

“Let me check.” He rose, went over to a file cabinet sitting in the corner, rifled through it for a couple of seconds, and picked out a folder, which from where I was sitting looked as if it had never been used. “Here we are. My memory isn't as good as it once was.”

Landen pretended to look through the folder before he returned it to the file cabinet and closed the drawer. He sat back down. “Mr. Chang was in here a month ago. He talked about going to Disney World. I mailed him some brochures, detailing a nice package, direct flight, four nights, three days, deluxe accommodations, I assume that's what was in the envelope you found, but that's the last I heard of him. He never called me back. As to his going someplace? Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Thanks.” I put the notebook and pen I'd taken out of my backpack away. A couple of years ago, paying twenty and getting nothing for it would have annoyed me, but I've become resigned. Sometimes you get taken, sometimes you don't. That's just the way it goes. And anyway, it wasn't my money, it was Eli's.

Landen leaned forward slightly. He licked his lips in anticipation. “What did this guy do anyhow?”

“Killed a travel agent,” I deadpanned.

Landen's eyes widened for a fraction of a second. Then he got the joke and favored me with a wet smile. “Seriously.”

“Seriously, he stole some money.”

Landen's smile turned rueful. “There seems to be a lot of that going around these days. If I think of anything, I'll be sure and tell you. Here.” He handed me one of his cards. “Ring me up if you change your mind about that vacation. We really do have some good deals.”

“Thanks, but frankly the thought of going to Cancun doesn't excite me.”

“Oh, we have trips all over the world. South America, Central America, Japan, Indonesia, Borneo. You name it. I can get you there.”

I made a noncommittal comment and walked out the door. The way my life was going these days I couldn't afford to fly down to Newark, much less someplace like Japan.

 

 

I paused in front of the cage with the dead iguana. The two-foot lizard was lying on its back, its four claws pointed skyward. I bit my cuticle. Well, it was nice to know that things hadn't changed at Animals Galore, the pet shop chain from hell. I'd reported them three times in the past couple of years to both the ASPCA and the State Police. The store had been fined each time for improper housing of livestock, specifically their dogs and cats, but it was cheaper for the shop to pay the fine than it was for them to clean up their act. The company that owned the chain had deep pockets. It would take a lot to get them into compliance.

I wondered if Jeff, the kid who had been in my store the other day, had been in here as well. I don't know why PETA doesn't demonstrate in front of them. I'd even join in. The place gives the rest of us a bad name. The shop sells puppy mill puppies. Their reptiles are so badly stressed, they usually die as soon as people get them home, if not before, and most of the fish they have swimming around have contracted ick from the crowded conditions and poor water filtration in which they're forced to live.

My opinion of Nestor hadn't gone up when Eli had told me this was the last place he worked. It also impacted, as they like to say in the corporate world, on my information-gathering ability. Especially since the manager of the store, a moron named Hal Salt, from whom I wouldn't buy a can of tuna fish, had somehow or other found out that I was the one who'd issued the complaints. He hadn't been pleased. I started on my next cuticle while I tried to remember what he'd said when he'd phoned to let me know how he'd felt. Something like: did I think I was goddamned Joan of fucking Ark? Or had it been fucking St. Francis of Assisi?

I wasn't sure. It didn't really matter. What mattered was that Hal Salt didn't like me very much. Which is why I'd left Animals Galore until this time of the day. I'd been hoping he'd be on his dinner break and I'd get one of the clerks, but, of course, given the way my luck was running, that wasn't how things turned out.