In Plain Sight (7 page)

In the dim light I could see another desk against the far wall. A stained mattress was perched on top of it. Someone had spray painted a giant anarchy sign on the wall. The other wall was riddled with bullet holes. Seeing them made me wonder about the wisdom of continuing on. I couldn't hear the girls anymore, and by now I'd made enough noise so they had to know I was in the building. This place was like a warren. If they wanted to hide, there was no way I could find them—especially since I didn't have a flashlight—and I didn't want to go tromping around and accidentally stumble on one of the building's residents. Call it brilliance, call it intuition, but something told me this would be a bad thing to do.

I cupped my hands. “Estrella!” I yelled, hoping I could say something that would make her come out. “Your aunt is frantic. She just wants to talk to you.” I waited for a response. There was none. I tried again. “She wants to make sure you're all right. Why don't you come talk to me? Maybe we can work something out.” Nothing. Not that I had really expected otherwise. Estrella didn't strike me as the kind of girl who put a lot of stock in conversation.

By now the Colony Plaza was beginning to get to me. It was too quiet, too big, too empty, and too dark. I decided to do one more room, then call it quits and go back to the store and phone Garriques. I had too many other things to do to spend the rest of the day playing hide-and-seek with a high school runaway.

The third room was even dimmer than the other two had been. I hesitated for a moment before I stepped inside. It was so dark the only thing I could see was a few blurry shapes along the wall. I reached in my pocket, took out my lighter, and flicked it on.

I gasped.

My heart began racing.

A man was standing over by the far wall.

Two seconds later I realized the man was a coat rack. I put my hand over my mouth to stifle my giggle. God, I was really losing it. When my heart rate returned to normal I took another step in, more to prove to myself that I could do it than for any other reason.

“Come on, Estrella,” I called. “I just want to talk to you. That's all. I promise.”

Silence.

By now the flame from my lighter was beginning to burn my fingers. I took my thumb off the lever. Even I had to admit this was dumb. This was more than dumb. Estrella obviously wasn't going to talk to me, and there was no way I was going to find her in this place. It was time to leave.

I was turning to go when I heard a noise to the left of me. A sharp pain knifed across the back of my skull. Lights exploded in front of my eyes and I caught a flash of white hair.

Oh shit, I thought as a black curtain descended, this really is turning out to be a lousy day.

T
he first thing I heard was the scurrying. I opened my left eye. All I saw were carpet fibers. Then a small, blurry shape came into view. When my vision cleared I realized it was a gray rat. He was sitting about a foot away cleaning his whiskers with his paws. I opened my right eye. The rat didn't move. Neither did I. Actually I wasn't sure if I could. For a while we just looked at each other. Then I got bored and tried lifting my head off the ground. Bad idea. Everything started swimming. I put it back down. Well, one thing was for sure, I thought as I closed my eyes again and waited for the dizziness to subside: Estrella definitely did not want to be found. I was wondering why when the blackness descended again.

The next time I opened my eyes two rats were staring at me. Jesus, I was probably the event of their week. Pretty soon they'd start selling tickets. A moment later another large rat joined them. Enough was enough. I yelled at them and they scampered underneath a large, white cardboard carton.

“And stay there,” I added as I lifted my hand and began gingerly exploring the back of my head.

I felt a lump, but nothing wet. That was good. At least Estrella hadn't split my skull open. I wouldn't need stitches. She'd probably just given me a concussion. Thank God for small mercies. I tried raising my head again. This time all I got for my troubles was a blinding pain behind my eyes. Things were improving. I slowly worked myself into a sitting position. Then I stood up. The room started spinning. I leaned against a wall while I waited for the spinning to stop and consoled myself by thinking about what I was going to do to Estrella.

The more I thought about what the kid had done, the more I couldn't understand why she'd done it. It didn't make sense. Why knock me out like this? It must have been obvious I couldn't get her if she didn't want me to. Then the pain came back and I couldn't think at all.

After a few minutes the throbbing subsided and I straightened up. Maybe I'd figure out why Estrella had done what she had later, maybe I wouldn't, but right now it was time to get out of here. I took a deep breath, said goodbye to the rats, and started walking. As long as I went slow and didn't move my head the throbbing wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. When I reached the window I'd climbed through I brought my watch up to my face and took a look. Eight o'clock. I'd left the shop a little before four. I'd told Tim I'd be back between five and six-thirty. He wasn't going to be pleased.

And he wasn't.

“It's about time,” Tim said as I walked through the door. “Cats N' Things has been calling all evening. There's a question about your order. I didn't know what to tell them. They'll be there till about eleven.”

“I'll call tomorrow,” I said as I headed toward the bathroom. By now I was feeling nauseous.

“What happened to you?” Tim asked as I got closer.

“It's a long story.” Zsa Zsa jumped up and licked my hand.

George walked out of the back room. “What's a long story?” he asked. He stopped when he saw me and whistled. “You don't look too good.”

“I know.”

I stumbled to the bathroom and promptly threw up. It didn't make me feel any better. I turned the cold water on and splashed some on my face. Then I turned it off and inspected myself in the mirror. I had a streak of some sort of black stuff running down my hair and a bump the size of a goose egg growing on my forehead. I guess I must have hit the floor forehead first when I went down.

“So what happened?” George asked me when I came back out. He was leaning against the wall opposite the bathroom.

I told him about Estrella.

George shook his head in disgust at my stupidity. “Come on,” he said. “I'm taking you to the hospital to get checked out. “

I didn't argue. I didn't have the strength.

After two hours in the ER I was advised I had a mild concussion and was told to go home and go to bed. No kidding. My head was still throbbing when I woke up the next day, but it didn't feel as bad as it had the night before. The resident who'd seen me in the ER had told me to stay in bed and rest for the next couple of days, but I got up anyway, took four aspirin, walked Zsa Zsa and went to work. Unless I'm really sick—as in dying—I don't enjoy lying around.

I opened the store, made myself some coffee, and fed Zsa Zsa and Pickles. Then around nine, after I'd disposed of Pickles's latest kill, I called Wellington and told Garriques what had happened. He was in the middle of a meeting so he couldn't really talk, but he made it clear from the few words he got out that he wasn't too happy. But whether he was unhappy with me or Estrella I couldn't tell, and frankly I was still feeling too lousy to care. I called Merlin next. He wasn't in so I left a message on his machine regarding the dogs. He never called back. After I attended Marsha's funeral I realized why.

 

 

The service took place the next day. I would have missed it if I hadn't seen the notice in the morning paper Tim brought in.

“That's interesting,” I mused as I read through Marsha's obit.

“What?” Tim looked up from the roll of nickels he was emptying into the cash drawer.

“That Marsha was Jewish.” I folded the paper and put it back down. Then I realized I should have known that. After all, her maiden name was Wise.

Tim didn't answer. He was too busy counting out the bills. Zsa Zsa came up and scratched at my leg with her front paws. I picked her up and rubbed her belly. She groaned in delight and licked the inside of my wrist. Then she spied Pickles coming around the corner, leapt out of my arms, and took off after the cat. I leaned against the counter and began constructing a rectangle with the day's mail.

“Still thinking about Marsha being Jewish?” Tim asked.

“No. I'm trying to decide whether or not I should go to the service.”

He closed the drawer. “I thought you didn't go to things like that.”

I picked up a circular and tapped my chin with it. “I don't,” I said slowly. “They upset me too much. But in this case I'm going to make an exception.”

“Why's that?”

“Because I want to talk to Merlin, and I think that this is going to be a good time to do it.”

 

 

The Gottlieb Funeral Home was one of two Jewish funeral homes in the city of Syracuse. Originally located on Ashworth, the owner had recently moved his establishment to a large Victorian house near Dewitt after a mourner had inadvertently interrupted a drug deal taking place on the pavement outside and gotten shot. Gottlieb, who also ran a meat packing business, had reasoned that this kind of activity was bad for business. As he said, he didn't need to make clients. He had enough of those already.

I looked at my watch as I pulled off of East Genesee and followed the blacktop driveway around to the back of the building. It was nine-forty-five. According to the announcement in the paper, the funeral was scheduled for ten o'clock. Good. I had fifteen minutes to spare. I'd been afraid I was going to be late because I'd had to drop off a fifty-pound bag of dog food on my way over. I stubbed out my cigarette, parked the cab, got out, and walked over to the entrance.

The door, all lead glass and wood, gave off an impression of substance; but when I pulled it open it felt light, and I decided it must be one of those new, cheap, hollow ones—the kind you get at a do-it-yourself store like Hechinger's. A draft of cold air hit me as I stepped inside. Even though it was warm outside it was frigid in here. I guess I should have worn a long-sleeved shirt.

I rubbed my arms as I looked around. The vestibule walls were paneled in oak and dotted with a few floral prints. A large dried flower arrangement sat in a porcelain vase. My feet sunk into the blue carpet. The pile on it was at least an inch thick if not more. I felt as if I'd just stepped into an exclusive men's club and was waiting for the maitre d' to seat me. Clearly this was no place for sobbing, maybe a single, tasteful tear rolling down the cheek but that was about it. The atmosphere in the place felt as phony as Marsha's suicide, and while I was thinking about why that was, a thin, pale-faced young man materialized at my elbow and guided me to the chapel.

The first eight rows in the plain white room were already filled. It looked as if Marsha had gotten a good turnout. People were chatting in the subdued way they often do when someone their own age dies. I immediately spotted Garriques sitting in the middle of the second row. I nodded to him as I walked by. He returned my gesture while continuing to talk to the woman sitting next to him. A few rows in back of Garriques I spied Brandon Funk, the school custodian I'd had the run-in with when I'd been looking for Marsha's papers. He looked ill at ease in his frayed gray suit and yellowed shirt, and I got the feeling he'd have been happier among his mops and pails. The only other person I recognized was an old neighbor of mine from the housing complex Marsha and I had lived in. Her name was Shirley Hinkel, and she'd been Marsha's best friend. I tried to catch her attention, but she was staring out the window and didn't turn around. As I slipped into the ninth row I made a note to talk to her after the service was over.

The man I was sitting next to looked familiar. A moment later I placed him. Don Eddison. He was a psychologist who ran Improvement Associates, one of those New Age centers that supposedly help you overcome your bad habits. There'd been an article about him in the local papers, and I'd briefly,
⁺
very briefly, considered going to him to stop smoking.

“It's a shame, isn't it?” Eddison said, pointing to the gleaming cherry casket in the front of the room. His receding hairline served to accentuate the vees his eyebrows formed.

“Yes it is,” I agreed.

He looked down at the prayer book he was holding. “I never thought she'd do anything like this,” he murmured to himself. “I really never did.”

I was just about to ask him why when Merlin came in and took his place in the first row. For all the expression his face contained he could have been wearing a latex mask. He was dressed in a cheap, ill-fitting navy blue suit and a white shirt with a too tight collar. His skin was even pastier than I remembered it being. He'd gotten fatter, too, and his jacket couldn't hide his bulging paunch. He was accompanied by a woman who looked as if she was his sister. There didn't seem to be anyone who came from Marsha's side of the family, but then I remembered her obituary had said she was an only child and that her father was deceased and her mother was ill. A moment later the Rabbi entered and the service began.

As he started reciting the prayers I found myself thinking back to Murphy's funeral, but all I could conjure up was a scene here and a face there. I couldn't remember most of the people who had attended or what they had said. My sharpest memory was of shaking a seemingly endless succession of hands. It had been warm in the building. Too warm. And there had been flowers everywhere, banks of them. Their smell had sucked the air out of the room. I'd thought I was going to faint. I rubbed my forehead and made myself listen to the Rabbi. By now he was halfway through his eulogy. He was talking about how much Marsha's husband would miss her and what a wonderful marriage they'd had. I was busy watching Merlin's face when Eddison snorted. I turned toward him.

“Obviously,” he whispered, “the Rabbi didn't know them very well.”

“Obviously,” I agreed, wondering how well Eddison did.

A couple of minutes later the service ended and we trooped outside and got into our cars. From there we followed the hearse to Hillcrest Cemetery. It was a flat, utilitarian place full of squared-off rows of tombstones and young trees struggling to provide a little shade. The service was brief. Merlin stood at the foot of the grave with his hands folded while he listened to the Rabbi recite the prayer for the dead. Again his face betrayed nothing. It probably wouldn't either, I decided as I studied the flowering crab on the other side of the macadam path. The tree's limbs were gravid with unopened pink blossoms.

A moment later I noticed a white Caddy Eldorado with tinted windows pulling up beneath it. The driver rolled down the window and looked at us. Merlin glanced up. The two men's eyes locked. The color drained out of Merlin's face leaving him as pale as his dead wife. The man behind the wheel curved his thin lips into a scimitar of a smile and wiggled his fingers in a parody of a wave. Then he rolled up the window and drove off.

Merlin's color returned, but he kept plucking at the edges of his shirt cuffs and shifting his weight from one foot to another as if he couldn't wait to get away. I spent the rest of the service watching Merlin, and the drive over to the house wondering who the man in the Eldorado was and why Merlin was so scared of him. I was still wondering as I parked the car on the corner of Reynolds Avenue and walked down the block to Marsha's house.

It was one of those standard, nondescript colonials, the kind builders had put up en masse in the fifties when it looked as if America would grow forever. A couple of low-growing yews served as foundation plantings. A line of white and yellow crocuses stood in front of them. The grass was full of last winter's debris and needed to be raked—as did mine, I reflected as I walked up the path to the house. The door was ajar and I pushed it open and went inside.

The living room and the entrance hall were packed with people. I shouldered my way through them and went looking for Merlin. But I couldn't find him. He wasn't in the dining room or the kitchen. I walked down the hall. The door on the left was open. I took two steps inside.

Then I stopped.