Half In Love With Death (9 page)

I sighed. If he only knew.

“Come on. Get in. I'll drive you home. It's too hot to walk.” His eyes were swimming with sympathy. I climbed in the back. He went on, “I was driving Debbie to work when we saw you and I says, ‘Isn't that Caroline?' And she says, ‘Doesn't she look unhappy?' So I says, ‘We better give her a ride.'” He grinned.

“You musta been dying out there. It's hotter than a firecracker lit at both ends,” Debbie said.

Dying? I've been half in love with easeful Death, I thought. I glanced at the blue fuzzy dice dangling from the rearview mirror. There was a plastic figurine of Wile E. Coyote on the dash, and a gold bangle that didn't belong to Jess on the floor. I squirmed, the hot vinyl seat sticking to my thighs.

Tony said, “So tell me, why do you look so unhappy?”

My nerves raced. “It's nothing.”

Tony shook his head. “You miss your sister?”

“Yeah, but . . . .”

“Something else?” He raised an eyebrow.

I stared into the black mirrors of my shoes. “I thought Billy liked me, but apparently he's back with May.” It was stupid to be upset about such a small thing when Jess was missing, but it felt good to tell him.

Tony cast a quick glance at me. “Sorry to hear that darlin', but you can do better.”

“Love stinks, and don't I know it,” Debbie said. She turned to Tony. “You better step on it. My boss will kill me if I'm late.”

“Don't worry, you'll make it.” Tony pulled another screeching U-turn that made me nearly fall off the seat. “You don't mind if I drop Deb off first, do you? Can't have Snow White getting fired from the Frosty Queen.” He turned and winked at me.

“That's okay.” I gripped the edge of the seat.

She gazed into her compact mirror, more like the wicked queen than Snow White. Mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all? Definitely not Debbie Frank. She lit a cigarette, turned round, and casually blew smoke in my face. “So?” she asked.

Her chin was propped on the back of the seat, cigarette dangling from her fingertips. I could see her white lipstick and the little red velvet bow she always wore in her hair, like it lived there.

“I was talking to your lover-boy in school today,” she said.

I caught my breath. “Billy?”

“He's in my math class. He's only a sophomore, so he must be real smart.”

“Or you're real dumb,” Tony said.

She glared at him and turned back to me. “I hardly know him, but he starts asking me about Jess—when I saw her last, if she was mad at Tony. Like he was a cop or something. Strange, huh?”

I cleared my throat. “That is strange.”

“I thought so, too. I mean, why is
he
so interested?”

I tried to appear calm, though my heart was skittering. I couldn't believe Billy had actually started investigating. “I asked him to help me find Jess.”

Tony smacked the steering wheel. “Just what I need, another private dick.” He laughed. “Lately I can't even take a piss in private.” My cheeks reddened. He flashed his blue eyes at me. “Sorry, forgot there was a lady present.”

Debbie said, “She doesn't look like a lady to me. She looks like a little girl.”

I frowned. “So what did you tell Billy?”

“Jesus,” Debbie said. “What is this, the third degree?”

I swallowed hard. “I just want to find my sister.”

Tony turned to her. “Cool it, Deb. She wants to find Jess as much as I do.”

Debbie gave him an incredulous look. “No offense, Caroline, but your sister could be a real bitch. I'm surprised you miss her so much. You shoulda heard some of the things she said about you. You're probably the last thing on her mind while she's having a great time in California.”

“I don't care. I just want to find her.” I hated the way Debbie acted, as if she knew Jess better than I did.

Tony gave her a sidelong glance. “Just answer her, Deb.”

“All right.” She pouted. “I'll tell you exactly what I told Billy. The last time I saw Jess was at that party at the wash in the desert. She got mad at Tony for flirting with Edie.” She glanced at Tony. “It's not like this is news to anyone.”

“Who's Edie?” I asked.

“Just some girl,” he said.

She glanced at him again. “She worships the ground Tony walks on.”

I wondered if Edie could be what had gone wrong between Tony and Jess. This was all happening so fast, I'd forgotten to write it down. I pulled a notebook from my stack of books.

As I frantically scribbled notes, Debbie looked at me and said, “Are you kidding?”

“Caroline's a smart girl. Smart people take notes,” Tony said.

Debbie took another puff of her cigarette. “All right, smarty, write this in your little book. Jess was out of control that night. I mean vicious, like she was on something.” I winced. She continued, “I thought she was going to kill Tony when he tried to calm her down, but then this guy with a red car, who I've never seen before, said he'd drive her to California, and poof, she was gone.” She snapped her fingers to illustrate.

Tony grunted. “She wasn't going to kill me.”

“It's a figure of speech,” Debbie said. “Smart people use figures of speech.”

We were silent for a moment. Debbie was wrong. Jess wasn't vicious, but sometimes she did get out of control. At home, all of us except Dad knew that when this happened, yelling didn't do any good, and neither did reasoning. You had to let her go off until she came back. She always came back. I caught my breath. I couldn't let the conversation die just when I was learning something about what happened. “You sure you'd never seen the guy in the red car before?”

Debbie leaned so far over the back of the seat I worried she was going to come get me. “If I say I never seen him before, I never seen him before.” She glared at me with her small mirror-mirror eyes. “I've already told the police all this. So you and lover-boy need to back off, okay?”

“Okay.” I figured I'd asked enough for one day, and didn't say anything else as Tony drove like a maniac to get Debbie to work on time.

When we were almost at the ice cream place, Debbie turned around to me and said, “I'm sorry for saying those things about Jess.” I sat up straighter. “I know you miss her. I do, too.” She wiped some lipstick from the edge of her mouth. “And now that I think of it, I remember a little more about the guy who took her to California. He was tall, with light hair and acne scars on his face. He had some tattoos too; the kind guys get in prison. You might want to write that down in your little book.”

I shuddered. It was completely unlike Jess to hang out with someone with bad skin.

Tony cast an anxious glance at me. “I pray to God he's taking care of your sister.”

“Me too.” Debbie watched as I wrote this down, Tony's words making me sick with worry. “Don't forget the part about the tattoo,” she said. “You also might want to check out known criminals.” She rolled her eyes. I bit my pencil.

We were in front of the Frosty Queen. After Debbie hopped out and disappeared inside, Tony said, “Don't mind her. Sometimes she can be a little frosty.” He nodded toward the giant plastic head of a woman with sparkling snowflake eyes, looking down on us from the roof. I wiped my sweaty palms on my thighs and got in front.

He said, “Why don't we get an ice cream, and then I'll take you home.” I nodded and he got out of the car, leaving it running, and called out, “Just drive it up the block if anyone gives you crap.”

I gasped. I didn't know how to drive. I slumped down in the seat, remembering all those times when I was in back, Jess and Tony in the front, either lost in each other or fighting. Just a few weeks ago when Tony got us burgers, Jess's had mayonnaise though she hadn't asked for it. She said it was his fault, that he couldn't do anything right. He punched the steering wheel so hard there was blood on his knuckles. Then he stopped short, horns shrieking behind us, and told her to eat it or get out and walk. When she started to open the door, he yanked her back in. Her dark mood filled the car. Tony wouldn't even look at her. I knew better than to say a word. She sulked for the rest of the ride.

I glanced down the street, dreading that someone would pull up behind me and make me move the car. I was relieved when Tony finally returned, an ice cream in each hand. He passed me a soft-serve vanilla. “Your favorite, right?”

“How'd you know that?”

“I know everything about you.”

I remembered that when we came here with Jess, I always got vanilla. “Vanilla for the girl who's afraid of her own shadow,” Jess had said once, and I'd been angry that she thought she understood me, and more angry that it was true. Now I swirled my tongue around my ice cream, but not fast enough to prevent a drip from running down my hand.

Tony licked his chocolate cone rapidly around and around. As the scoop got smaller, I realized I was staring at his tongue. For a moment it was just the two of us sitting in the hot car, licking, like two cats with bowls of milk. When Tony was through, he tossed the tip of his sugar cone out the window, started to back up, and stopped.

“Caroline, I gotta tell you.” I tensed. “Edie doesn't mean anything to me. I tried to explain that to Jess, but she didn't get it. Anytime a girl would look at me she'd flip out, but I put up with it because I didn't want to lose her.” He gave me a quick glance. His downward-tilting eyes, dark lashes, and small mouth reminded me of a sad French clown doll, called a Pierrot, I'd gotten for Christmas years ago.

I wanted to ask him more, but being so close to him made my words dry up. I opened my notebook, doodled a flower, and forced myself to say, “Do you have any idea who the blond man who drove Jess could have been?”

“I told you I didn't know.” He pulled out onto Speedway.

I sighed. “Is there anything else you remember about that night I should know?”

“You think I'm just gonna tell you everything?”

I blushed. “No, but you want to find Jess. I know you do.”

“I do, but I've got to trust you first.”

I looked out the window. “You can trust me.”

On the radio someone sang about being oh so lonely. He reached over and touched my hand. “I'll tell you the real reason she was mad at me. How about that?”

“Okay.” I slid my hand out from under his.

“We didn't go to the drive-in that night.” I caught my breath as he went on, “Jess had her heart set on going dancing.” He gave me a sad glance. The memory must have been difficult for him. “I told her I didn't want to go 'cause there was a party in the desert. She didn't want to hear that. You know how she is?”

I nodded.

Tony sighed. “When we got to the party and she saw Edie, Jess decided she was the reason I wouldn't go dancing. She said a few things she shouldn't have said.” He glanced my way. “Your sister has a knack for saying things that set people off.” His hands tightened around the steering wheel. “And I said a few things I shouldn't have said, too. Then she left with that guy. I'm real sorry. So there it is. Hope it helps.”

I wanted to write it down, but it seemed wrong at a moment like this. “It does,” I said quietly.

He checked his side mirror. “Good, 'cause now I have a question for you.”

I stiffened.

“She was supposed to bring you with her that night, right?” I nodded and he added, “Why do you think she didn't?”

“All she said was something important was going on, something she couldn't talk about.”

He scratched his head. “Strange. Don't know what she could have been referring to. Did she mention going dancing?”

“No.”

“You sure?” He turned and stared at me so hard it made me flinch. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a car heading directly for us and screamed. He grabbed the wheel with both hands and veered away, sending us skidding into some scrub. Without even blinking, he brought the car back on the road.

“Jesus H. Christ,” he said. “Some people really don't know how to drive.”

“That was a close call,” I said. My whole body was shaking.

“No, it wasn't.” He turned to me for a second. “I don't have close calls.” He roared past the truck in front of us.

I worried that he was mad at me, but he said, “I've been trying to come up with a plan for finding Jess, like I said I would. I think sharing what we know about her is the way to begin.”

“I agree. That whole night was strange. I've tried over and over, but I can't figure it out.”

“And I can't, either.” He paused. “But I bet we can figure it out together. That's what you want, right?”

“Yes.” It was what I had to say, but I couldn't believe I'd said it.

“Great. Then we're a team.” A team. I smiled. We were almost at my house. Tony pulled up to the curb. We sat there a moment in silence.

“Remember when I told you that you were as pretty as May?” he finally said. “The only thing she has over you is her hair.” He leaned close. “I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. If you dye yours blonde, you'll get Billy back.” He pushed a strand out of my face.

I looked up at him. “My mom would kill me if I dyed my hair.”

“Did she kill Jess when she dyed her hair?” I shook my head. “So why should you be any different?”

“She lets Jess do all kinds of things she won't let me do.”

He put his hand on mine. “Maybe it's time to change that.” His palm was rough and warm. He went on, “I can dye it for you, if you want. If you don't like the way it looks, I'll dye it back. What do you say?”

“I don't know.” Out the window, the green fronds of the palm trees were raised as if in a prayer to the sky. “Can you dye it Ivory Chiffon?”

He gave my hand a squeeze. “Of course. I'll pick you up tomorrow and take you to my house and do it there. I know how. I do it for all the beautiful girls.” I shifted in my seat, still unsure. “Come on, it will make me happy.” He turned my face to his. “And maybe I'll have more to tell you about your sister.”