Little Girl Gone (17 page)

The key was in the ignition where his mother always left it, and all Django had to do was open the garage door, turn the key, and drive out the gate and over to the 495, left on Highway 101, and then straight up the map to San Jose and then Los Gatos. It had been his mother’s favorite car trip, and they made it almost every spring when everything was green. There were special places along the way where they always stopped for great hamburgers or to look at a spectacular view. Once she made Jacky detour into Morro Bay so they could look at the house on Estero Street where she had grown up. It was hard to imagine his mother living in such a plain little house, she who loved things beautiful and extraordinary.

The problem was, he didn’t know how to drive.

F
oo woke Madora in the middle of the night, rattling the back door with his nose and whimpering. The warm wind blew up swirls of gritty dust that raked the side of the house and rattled the roof, putting the dog’s nerves on edge, and hers as well. She let him in and together they snuggled under a comforter on the couch. Foo slept immediately but the noise in Madora’s head kept her awake. Thinking back, she could not remember when she last enjoyed a good night’s sleep.

During the months of Linda’s pregnancy, as Madora fed and cared for her, she had made a fragile peace with her conscience by believing what Willis told her, that they were doing good. As Willis had once saved her, he wanted to do the same for Linda, and there was something almost holy in that. But now that it was time for Linda to start a new life, he resisted letting her go. Did he intend to keep her in the trailer for months longer or even years? It would mean that Madora and Willis would never leave Red Rock
Road; there would be no medical school, no marriage, no family.

As soon as she got back from the diner the day before, she had taken food to Linda, who had responded by making her mess in the middle of the little square of carpet beside her bed. Madora, her nerves already frayed from the rush to get home before Willis, stood in the door of the trailer and screamed at her until she wore herself out. And last night she had been so afraid Willis would find some clue that she had been away from the house, she had barely been able to talk sensibly.

Why had she ever thought he would let her work again?

One hundred questions and problems and doubts flew through her mind like the termites she saw swarming every spring. First one, then another and another and then a cloud of them. They chewed at the uprights that supported the roof of the carport. This year or next the carport would collapse, and the damage spread to the timbers of the old house, and it too would begin to crumble.

She listened to the wind and the scratch of grit on the window glass, and gradually, perhaps from exhaustion, the confusion began to clear. She saw not just the present but into the future as well. Even if there were a safe way to set Linda free, other girls would follow her, and probably they too would be pregnant. Recalling the night of the baby’s birth, she remembered Willis’s high color and excitement. He had been radiant with power that night. To feel that way again he would continue to imprison girls, calling it
rescue, calling it a second chance, his mission. There were a thousand ways to hide the truth.

Willis said Linda would never go to the police because it was her nature to reject authority; but if he really believed this, why not set her free? Even if he was right and Linda never said a word, there would be no assurance that they could trust the other girls, the strays Madora was sure would follow Linda. One of them would tell her story to others like herself: girls and boys she met on the street, drunks and addicts and homeless. The story of her captivity would begin to move about like a living thing, gaining in detail and intensity. Inevitably, Willis would be found out and sent to prison. And what would happen to her?

Foo growled in his sleep, and his little tail wagged against Madora’s thigh.

She did not want to go to prison.

“So,” Willis said the next morning, “you’ve been after me to go to town. How ’bout this morning? Would you like that, Madora?”

“I guess.” She moved slowly about the kitchen, groggy from lack of sleep. If Vik was in town, or Connie, they would want to talk about her visit to the diner. In town she might see Walt, and if he spoke to her there would be no way, afterwards, to explain the circumstances to Willis.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“I didn’t sleep much.”

“You slept with the dog. On the couch. What do you expect?”

Willis had not taken Madora into town for months. She had lost count of the time. Of course she wanted to go with him. He seemed to have forgotten that Linda had not had breakfast, and Madora did not remind him.

“If you don’t want to go—”

“No, I do, really. Can we stop at that bookstore where they have magazines? They’re real cheap there, Willis.”

He shook his head. “You’ll want to stay all day, and I don’t have time. I’ve got an appointment, plus we can’t leave Linda alone for long. And the longer you put off cleaning up her mess, the tougher it’ll be.”

Madora wasn’t going to do it. She wasn’t even going to think about it.

“What kind of appointment? Is it about medical school?”

“What’re you talking about?”

“You said you have an appointment.”

He looked at her and slowly shook his head. “You ought to think about what you say, Madora. You really ought to try connecting your mouth to your brain for once.”

“I didn’t know—”

“You didn’t know what? That when a man’s got things on his mind, a good woman doesn’t hammer him with questions?”

“I wasn’t hammering.”

He let out a long groan and rested his forehead on the tabletop. “You are so stupid, Madora.”

She had no education, but that did not mean she was stupid. Willis was restless and discontented, mad at the world and taking it out on her. She tried to be understanding, but it was hard when she had her own reasons to grumble.

“I’m lonely,” she said.

“Yeah?” He raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. “So’s everyone else, Madora. There’s nothing special about you.”

By the time Willis parked the Tahoe in the lot behind the supermarket in Arroyo, he was in a playful mood. He pushed the shopping cart up and down the aisles of food, lobbing boxes of cereal and loaves of bread into the cart as if money was of no importance. He grabbed a giant-sized yellow packet of M&M’S off the shelf and tossed it at Madora like a beanbag. Luckily, she caught it. Twenty minutes later, standing in line for the only open cash register, she kept thinking what would have happened if she had missed it. She saw the package bursting and the candy-coated peanuts rolling underfoot. For half a minute she wondered if Willis might have thrown the bag at her in the expectation that she
would
miss the catch. To humiliate her. It was an odd thought and she was instantly ashamed of thinking it. Still, when she looked at the yellow bag on the conveyor belt, she did not want the candy.

Willis said something to the checker. The girl blinked and blushed and put her hand up to cover her mouth.

There will always be girls,
Madora thought.

As they were putting the bags of groceries into the Tahoe’s way-back, a woman called out from a few parking spaces away.

Beside Madora, Willis stiffened. “Hey, Ms. Howard, what’s up?”

“Same as you, I guess. We got back from LA yesterday and there’s nothing in the house to eat.” She smiled at Madora like a woman in a magazine ad selling lipstick or toothpaste. Madora wanted to be introduced, but at the same time she longed to vanish from the scene. She felt conspicuous, as notorious as a woman with her face on a poster in the post office.

“I tried to call you, Willis, but the number you put on your application—”

“I know, I know. I thought about it after I left your house. I gave you an old one.” Willis hit his palm against his head as if to knock some sense into it. “Most of the time, I forget I even own a cell phone. But it doesn’t matter. I called your mother and I’m seeing her today.”

This was the appointment Willis had spoken of at breakfast.

“That’s great,” Ms. Howard said. “And you’ll give her the number where she can reach you?”

“Oh, sure.”

He was lying, and so smoothly, without pausing or blinking. Madora knew he had no intention of giving anyone his phone number. Years ago, he had told her that
knowing how to lie was a necessary skill, that people who couldn’t lie convincingly were as handicapped as if they could not run.

“Honestly, Willis, if it were up to me, I’d hire you in a minute, but since you’ll be working for her—”

“Not a problem. I’m going over to her place at two. I’m looking forward to the job.”

Not a problem.
Willis sounded different when he talked to this woman, casual and cheerful, as if nothing in the world mattered much. They were saying good-bye when a boy got out of the car. Django.

Ms. Howard said to Willis, “You remember my nephew, Django Jones?”

“I do. He made quite an impression.”

Django looked at Madora, then at Willis. Willis stuck out his hand and Django shook it.

“How’s your dog?”

“Healthy,” Willis said.

Ms. Howard looked at Madora apologetically. “I’m afraid I can’t introduce you. I don’t know your name.”

“Madora,” she said softly.

“What a beautiful name.”

Of all the things Robin Howard might have said, this was the least expected. Madora had never been spoken to so graciously by anyone that she could remember, and of course she was tongue-tied, couldn’t think of anything to say. The glib, talkative girl she had been in the diner seemed like a mistake.

“It’s a Greek name,” Django said. “It means loving and levelheaded.”

“Does it?” Ms. Howard looked at him, obviously surprised. “How do you know that?”

He shrugged. “I just do.” Adding after an awkward moment, “I look stuff up. Online.”

“Did you know that, Madora?” Ms. Howard asked.

She shook her head and tried to smile.

“Well, I’m sure the name suits you.”

A few minutes later as they drove out of the parking lot, Willis said, “It was weird the way he knew that stuff about your name. A geeky kid like that? What’re the odds, huh? You ever seen him before?”

“No,” she said without blinking.

“And what was his name? Jangle?”

Madora could have told Willis that Django Reinhardt was the name of a Hungarian gypsy, a famous guitarist, and that Ms. Howard’s nephew had been named for him.

“Maybe,” she said. “Jangle. That sounds right.”

M
adora put away groceries while Willis showered and changed ahead of his appointment with Ms. Howard’s mother. She thought through the short conversation in the parking lot, going over it from every angle until she had exhausted all her impressions. It had been months since she had spoken even a few words to a female other than Linda and Connie. It was as if there were two planes of existence: the circumscribed one in which she lived and the wide world that belonged to everyone else. Her mother up in Sacramento lived in this greater world.

She wondered if her mother knew that her name meant loving and levelheaded.

Willis left for his appointment, and with her mind still hop-skipping, Madora went back to the trailer. She put a bucket of water, a bit of shingle, and a pile of rags next to the mess on the rug.

She told Linda, “You haven’t eaten since yesterday. If you want food, you have to clean up after yourself.”

“Fuck you, Madora.”

“You can cuss all you want; I’m not going to do it.”

“Willis’ll make you.”

“Why do you think I didn’t bring you any breakfast? He said I didn’t have to. Willis knows what you did and he thinks you’re disgusting. But if you clean that up I’ll fix you something good. This morning we went to the market and got lots of good stuff. No more bologna for a while.”

“How do I know you’re not trying to starve me to death?”

“Figure it out, Linda.” She climbed out of the trailer. Looking back in, she said, “You’ve got fifteen minutes or no lunch.”

She was trembling with nerves inside, her stomach flip-flopping fifteen minutes later when she went back to see if Linda had done the job. If the mess was still there, Madora did not know what she would do. If food wasn’t enough to make her clean up, nothing else would work any better. Madora would not back down from her threat, though. She opened the curbside door and looked in. Linda had made an effort. Not much of one, but it was better.

“Okay,” Madora said and dragged the rug toward the door. “I’ll put this in the sun to dry, and then you’ll get your lunch.”

When she returned, Linda lay on the bed and Madora knew right away that she was more than usually upset. She lay facing the back of the trailer. In a skimpy tank top, her narrow, knobbed back filled Madora with sudden pity and a desire to make her happy.

“Come on and eat, Linda. I made you tuna fish with chopped onions and celery. A ton of mayonnaise.” Silence. “And some cookies.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“But you need your strength.” Rachel had said this to Madora when she kept her home from school with the flu. “My mom used to say food was like putting gas in the engine. Car can’t go without gas, can it?”

She wanted to remember the sound of Rachel’s voice, but it was like trying to capture a floating feather. Just when she thought she had it, it slipped away. Cautiously, she touched Linda’s back. “Please. Sit up and eat. You’ll never get to go home if you don’t get strong.”

At this, Linda turned over. Her small, teary eyes burned with a cold flame. “That’s a load of shit and you know it. Stop lyin’ to yourself. Just say it like it is. He’s going to kill me, dump me in the desert. And you’re going to help him.”

Madora slapped her hands over her mouth.

“You’ll do anything he asks, and don’t pretend you won’t.” Linda swung her legs off the bed and stood up, holding a chair back to steady herself. “Killing me’s the only thing he can do. And he’s planning it. I know because I see it in his eyes when he looks at me. He knows I’ll go to the police first thing I get free.”