In Plain Sight (6 page)

“W
hat the hell are you doing?” he demanded, shifting the the you the mop and pail he was holding from one hand to the other.

“People ask me that a lot,” I cracked, doing funny.

He didn't laugh. Obviously he didn't think I was very amusing. But then I've been told lots of people don't.

“I asked what you're doing here?” the man repeated doggedly. “I'm the custodian and I have the right to know.”

No kidding. I didn't think I was dealing with the head of the English Department here. But I didn't say that. Instead I explained as I studied him that I was looking for some papers that Mrs. Pennington had said she was leaving for me. He looked as if he was in his early forties. He was balding and pasty skinned with a broken nose that had never healed properly and the look of an ex-high school football player whose athletic career now consisted of watching the games with a remote in one hand and a bag of chips in the other.

“You're too late,” he informed me when I was done. His voice was deep and he had a slight lisp. The combination was somehow disconcerting.

“Why's that?” I asked, even though I had a pretty good idea what the answer was going to be.

“Because her husband came and took her belongings home a while ago,” the custodian replied impatiently. He rattled his pail as a sign I was keeping him from his work.

I sighed. “Are you sure?” I guess I was hoping he'd say no, even though I knew he was going to say yes.

“ 'Course I'm sure. I was here. He got a carton and threw everything inside and left.” Even though he hadn't said it, the tone of the custodian's voice gave the impression that he found something wrong with Merlin's actions. “You know you ain't supposed to be in the building without a pass,” he told me, working his mouth into a moue of distaste at my offense. “You're supposed to sign in at the office. It says so by the main entrance.”

“There was no one in the office.”

“Then you shouldn't have come in. Rules is rules,” he continued. “The problem these days is that nobody thinks they apply to them.”

If this man ever killed someone, I decided he'd do it by boring them to death. I rose. It was definitely time to go. “That's why we got those signs posted,” the custodian added as I went by him just in case I hadn't gotten the message the first three times around.

I glanced at the laminated ID clipped to the neck band of his T-shirt as I passed. Brandon Funk. Maybe that explained everything. I mean with a name like that you didn't even have a fighting chance. For a while as I walked down the hall I could hear the swish of his mop behind me; then I turned the corner and the sound was gone. I passed the posters and the trophy case and was almost at the door when someone called my name. I turned. It was Garriques. He smiled and came toward me.

“I thought you were gone,” I said.

“I wish. No, I'm always here late. Just ask Enid. She'll tell you. At length.”

“Because I knocked on the office.” I pointed down the hall. “But no one answered.”

“That's Attendance. I'm around the corner. In fact,” he continued, “I just got off the phone with Tim. I left a message for you about Estrella. You could have saved yourself a trip.”

I didn't bother correcting his misconception. “What about Estrella?” I said instead.

“I think I might know where she is. One of my afternoon school kids just told me he saw her at a house on Deal this morning.” Deal was a not very good street on the outskirts of downtown. “I thought maybe you could run down and see if she's living there. I'd go myself, but I have a math committee meeting in about twenty minutes.”

“I guess I can manage that,” I said with more enthusiasm than I felt. “Do you have the number?”

“No. But it's a green house in the middle of the block. It shouldn't be too hard to find. I really appreciate this.” He turned to go.

“No problem. I was wondering if you could answer a quick question for me.”

Garriques turned back. “Of course.”

I explained about the papers.

He shook his head. “Sorry. Her husband came and got all her things on Friday. I probably shouldn't say this,” Garriques said slowly, “but Marshawas right. There really is something sleazy about him.” He shook his head. “If I'd known she was that depressed... “

“You thought she was depressed?”

“Upset would be a better word.”

Neither of us spoke for a moment.

“It's tough on the kids when something like this happens,” Garriques continued. He loosened his tie. “We make counseling services available. I don't know how much it helps, but at least it gives me the illusion that we're doing something. God, this has been a long day.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose as if he could rub away his fatigue. “It makes me feel as if I'm back on the force. “

“Tell me,” I asked, thinking of George, “was it hard for you to give up being a cop?”

Garriques gave a short bark of laughter. “Hell no. It was one of the easiest things I've ever done.” He nodded toward the school hallway and made a sweeping gesture with his arm. “At least here I feel I'm doing something positive. Out on the street I used to feel like I wasn't doing anything at all. You see stuff, lots of bad stuff. The pictures stay in your mind, and you feel like crap because you know the same things are going to happen tomorrow and the day after and the day after that and there's not a goddamned thing you can do about it. I knew I had to get out before I lost control and hurt someone.”

He gave an embarrassed shake of his head. “Sorry. I didn't mean to run on like that.” He looked at his watch. “God, I've got to get ready for my meeting.” But he didn't leave. “Did you know,” he continued, “that thirty percent of our ninth graders failed their Course One Regents last year. Thirty percent!”

“That's high.”

“You're damn right it is and I want to find out why.”

“I'm sure you will.”

“You can bet on it.” He slapped the small table next to him for emphasis. Then he turned and marched back down the corridor.

I sure as hell wouldn't want to be one of the teachers he was about to meet with, I decided as I watched him turn the corner. He didn't look like he was a whole lot of fun to be around when he got annoyed.

 

 

All the kids, jocks and punks alike, had left by the time I stepped out of the school. They'd probably gone home to dinner. It had gotten colder since I'd been inside and the wind had picked up. The magnolia tree in front of the school was raining petals down on the grass below. A couple of robins and a sparrow or two were pecking around the tree's base looking for worms while a crow sat on one of the higher branches. The weatherman on the radio had been predicting snow showers for tonight. It looked as if he might be right. Spring in Syracuse was definitely a sometimes thing.

As I walked toward the parking lot I started thinking about how fast Merlin had been to claim Marsha's things. But maybe Merlin was just one of those efficient types, the kind that likes to tie up all the loose ends quickly. Not that he'd ever impressed me that way when I'd been living next to him. Then he couldn't even be bothered to take his garbage can back in from one week to the next. But hey! Maybe the man had changed. I'm told that people do. Sometimes I even believe it.

I opened the cab door, slid inside, and rested my head against the back of the seat. Suddenly I felt very tired. I sat there feeling sorry for Marsha and sorry for myself, and then I pulled myself together and drove over to Deal.

I found the house I was looking for quick enough. It was the most rundown on the block, the kind that gets visits from police and social services on a regular basis. I knocked. A moment later a skinny, drugged-up white kid with dreds answered. His face fell when he saw me. Clearly he'd been expecting someone else.

“What you want?” he demanded.

I had to strain to understand him because he was slurring his words so badly. In another situation he might have turned hostile, but now he was too blitzed to do anything but take sips from his Forty and cling to the door frame for support.

“I'd like to speak to Estrella,” I told him.

“She's not here.” He swayed slightly. Then he turned to go. Clearly all he wanted to do was go back inside and sit down.

“Do you know when she's planning to return?” I asked quickly.

He just stared at me. I wondered if he understood what I was saying.

“Do you know when she's planning to return?” I repeated.

“You wouldn't happen to have a fiver, would you?” he mumbled. “I'm flat broke.”

I sighed and gave him my pocket change, two dollars and fifty cents. I know lots of people would disapprove. They would call giving money to someone like this “enabling,” and maybe it is; but I always figure there but for the grace of God, etc. etc. etc.

“Thanks,” he muttered.

“Anytime.” And he reached over and closed the door.

I didn't knock again. There didn't seem much point in it. I'd try again after work. Maybe I'd have better luck then.

I got back in the cab and drove off. Two blocks later I was lighting a cigarette and thinking about the rough time I'd given my mother when I spotted two girls walking on the other side of the street. I slowed down to get a better look. From what I could see the girls looked as if they were the right age and size to be Estrella. Unfortunately both of them were platinum blondes. Not that that meant anything. Hair color is one of the easiest things a person can change.

I rolled down the window and stuck my head out. “Hey, Estrella,” I yelled.

The shorter of the two girls glanced at me, then quickly turned away. I repeated her name.

She faced me again. Her lower lip was quivering. “You got the wrong person. “

“I don't think so.” Despite the bleached hair, the face was the same one that had stared out at me from the yearbook.

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Your aunt is very worried.”

Estrella increased her pace.

“So is the school.”

It was the wrong thing to say. The kid was gone before I got the last word out of my mouth.

I cursed and pulled the cab over to the side and went after her. “I'm not a truant officer,” I yelled at her back.

But she and her friend were halfway across the vacant lot by that time, and I don't think she heard. One thing I did know. For a chubby girl she sure moved fast. Of course, having all those burn scars on my legs didn't exactly help my speed either. When I got to the other side I saw the girls were already climbing through a broken window on the ground floor of the Colony Center. I groaned.

The Colony Center is a five-story deserted office building on the outskirts of what is referred to as downtown Syracuse. A white elephant, complete with graffiti, peeling paint, and smashed windows, the place has now been empty for at least ten years and stands there only because it is cheaper to leave it than to tear it down. Over time the police have boarded up the windows in an attempt to keep people out, but they keep getting in anyway. Witness Estrella and her friend.

As I hopped through the window they'd just gone through, I was betting that the girls didn't think I'd follow them in there, but they were wrong. When someone runs away from me, I have a tendency to go after them—especially when I'm in a pissy mood to begin with. For a moment I just stood there listening for footsteps, letting my eyes grow accustomed to the gloom and studying the room I'd entered.

Shafts of light from the broken window formed jagged patterns on the wall and floor. A desk not unlike the one I'd seen in Marsha's classroom sat across the far wall, only this one was covered with graffiti. A chair with its bottom ripped out stood nearby. The carpet on the floor was littered with torn papers, broken telephones, unraveled typewriter ribbons, and beer and soda cans. Near me lay a handful of pretty-colored pills.

I bent down and picked them up and thought about when I'd been taking stuff like this. What had Murphy called them? Candy for the mind. The capsules felt smooth. I let them run through my fingers. They plinked as they rained on the cardboard box below my hand. “Try this,” he'd urge, and I'd take whatever he offered. In those days I'd wanted to share everything with him. Sometimes we'd take 'ludes, other times we'd take uppers, lid poppers we used to call them. Murphy knew a Hell's Angel out in Yonkers who mixed the stuff up in his kitchen. Once a month we'd hop onto Murphy's Harley and go out and buy some. I liked the rush. As an added benefit for the next three or four days my apartment would be spotless. Mostly, though, Murphy and I stuck to the basics—grass and hash. We'd smoked before we ate, before we went out, before we went to bed together. We'd had some good times. It was when I decided we should go respectable that I think our troubles began. I'd started losing control and that scared me. I figured I'd taken the drug thing as far as it could go. It was time to move on. Too bad Murphy hadn't agreed. I sighed and took a deep breath.

The smell of mildew and trash filled my nostrils. I banished the past from my mind and concentrated on the present. It was so quiet that I could hear myself exhaling. I leaned forward and listened. For about thirty seconds I heard nothing; then I heard footsteps up ahead of me. A muffled giggle. And another one. It didn't sound as if Estrella and her friend were that far away.

I tiptoed toward the sounds trying to avoid the garbage on the floor, but it was impossible. There was too much of it. Styrofoam and newspaper crackled and rustled underneath my feet. I cursed and continued on. The entrance to the next room was partially blocked by a table. I slipped between it and the door frame and went inside. It was darker than the room I'd been in, and I realized that the farther I went into the building, the darker it was going to get since there weren't any windows and the electricity had been shut off years ago.