Promise Me (26 page)

He opened the door and swept his hand for Myron to go ahead. Myron stepped through it into a room with red walls. The walls were covered with pornographic pictures and XXX-rated movie posters. There was a black leather couch and two folding chairs and a lamp. And sitting on the couch, looking terrified but unharmed, was none other than Katie Rochester.

E
dna Skylar had been right, Myron thought. Katie Rochester looked older, more mature somehow. She twiddled a cigarette in her hand, but it remained unlit.

The dark-haired man stuck out his hand. “I’m Rufus.”

“Myron.”

They shook hands. Rufus sat down on the couch next to Katie. He took the cigarette from her hand.

“Can’t smoke in your condition, honey,” Rufus said. Then he put the cigarette between his lips, lit it up, threw his feet up on the coffee table, and let loose a long plume of smoke.

Myron stayed standing.

“How did you find me?” Katie Rochester asked.

“It’s not important.”

“That woman who spotted me in the subway. She said something, right?”

Myron did not reply.

“Damn.” Katie shook her head and put a hand on Rufus’s thigh. “We’re going to have to find a new place now.”

“What,” Myron said, pointing to a poster of a naked woman with her legs spread, “and leave all this behind?”

“That’s not funny,” Rufus said. “This is your fault, man.”

“I need to know where Aimee Biel is.”

“I told you on the phone,” she said. “I don’t know.”

“Are you aware that she disappeared too?”

“I didn’t disappear. I ran away. My choice.”

“You’re pregnant.”

“That’s right.”

“So is Aimee Biel.”

“So?”

“So you’re both pregnant, both from the same school, both ran away or disappeared—”

“A million pregnant girls run away every year.”

“Do they all use the same ATM machine?”

Katie Rochester sat up. “What?”

“Before you ran, you went to an ATM machine—”

“I went to a bunch of ATM machines,” she said. “I needed money to run away.”

“What, Rufus here couldn’t spot you?”

Rufus said, “Go to hell, man.”

“It was my money,” Katie said.

“How far along are you anyhow?”

“That’s none of your business. None of this is your business.”

“The last ATM machine you visited was at a Citibank on Fifty-second Street.”

“So?”

Katie Rochester sounded younger and more petulant with every response.

“So the last ATM machine Aimee Biel visited before she disappeared was at the same Citibank on Fifty-second Street.”

Now Katie looked genuinely puzzled. It wasn’t faked. She hadn’t known. She slowly swiveled her head toward Rufus. Her eyes narrowed.

“Hey,” Rufus said. “Don’t look at me.”

“Rufus, did you . . . ?”

“Did I what?” Rufus threw the cigarette to the ground and jumped to his feet. He raised his hand as if about to slap her backhand. Myron slid between them. Rufus stopped, smiled, raised his palms in mock surrender.

“It’s okay, baby.”

“What was she talking about?” Myron asked.

“Nothing, it’s over.” Rufus looked at her. “I’m sorry, baby. You know I’d never hit you, right?”

Katie said nothing. Myron tried to read her face. She wasn’t cowering, but there was something there, something he’d seen in her mother. Myron lowered himself to her level.

“Do you want me to get you out of here?” he asked.

“What?” Katie’s head shot up. “No, of course not. We love each other.”

Myron looked at her, again trying to read distress. He didn’t see any.

“We’re having a baby,” she said.

“Why did you look at Rufus like that? When I mentioned the ATM?”

“It was stupid. Forget it.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“I thought . . . but I was wrong.”

“You thought what?”

Rufus put his feet back on the coffee table, crossing them. “It’s okay, baby. Tell him.”

Katie Rochester kept her eyes down. “It was just, like, a reaction, you know?”

“Reaction to what?”

“Rufus was with me. That’s all. It was his idea to use that last ATM. He thought it being midtown and all, it would be hard to trace to any spot, especially down here.”

Rufus arched an eyebrow, proud of his ingenuity.

“But see, Rufus has lots of girls working for him. And if they have money I figure he takes them to an ATM and gets them to clear out the cash. He has one of the clubs in here. A place called Barely Legal. It’s for men who want girls that are—”

“I think I can put together what they want. Go on.”

“Legal,” Rufus said, raising a finger. “The name is Barely
Legal.
The key word is
legal.
All the girls are over eighteen.”

“I’m sure your mother must be the envy of her book group, Rufus.” Myron turned back to Katie. “So you thought . . . ?”

“I didn’t think. Like I said, I just reacted.”

Rufus put his feet down and sat forward. “She thought maybe this Aimee was one of my girls. She’s not. Look, that’s the lie I sell. People
think these girls run away from their farms or their homes in the burbs and come to the big city to become, I don’t know, actresses or dancers or whatever and when they fail, they end up turning tricks. I sell that fantasy. I want the guys to think they’re getting some farmer’s daughter, if that gets his rocks off. But the fact is, these are just street junkies. The luckier ones work the flicks”—he pointed to a movie poster—“and the uglier ones work the rooms. That simple.”

“So you don’t recruit at high schools?”

Rufus laughed. “I wish. You want to know where I recruit?”

Myron waited.

“At AA meetings. Or rehab centers. Those places are like casting couches, you know what I’m saying? I sit in the back and drink that badass coffee and listen. Then I talk them up during the breaks and give them a card and wait until they fall off the wagon. They always do. And there I am, ready to scoop them up.”

Myron looked at Katie. “Wow, he’s terrific.”

“You don’t know the real him,” she said.

“Yeah, I’m sure he’s deep.” Myron felt the itch in his fingers again, but he swallowed it down. “So how did you two meet?”

Rufus shook his head. “It ain’t like that.”

“We’re in love,” Katie said. “He knows my dad through business. He came to the house and once we saw each other . . .” She smiled and looked pretty and young and happy and dumb.

“Love at first sight,” Rufus said.

Myron just looked at him.

“What,” he said, “you don’t think it’s possible?”

“No, Rufus, you seem like quite the catch.”

Rufus shook his head. “This here, this is just a job for me. That’s all. Katie and that baby, they’re my life. You understand?”

Myron still said nothing. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the picture of Aimee Biel. “Take a look at this, Rufus.”

He did.

“Is she here?”

“Dude, I swear on my unborn child I’ve never seen this chick before and I don’t know where she is.”

“If you’re lying—”

“Enough with the threats, okay? What you got there is a missing girl, right? The police want her. Her parents want her. You think I want that trouble?”

“You have a missing girl right here,” Myron said. “Her father will move heaven and earth to find her. And the police are interested too.”

“But that’s different,” Rufus said, and his tone turned into a plea. “I love her. I’d walk through fire for Katie. Don’t you see? But this girl . . . she’d never be worth it. If I had her here, I’d give her back. I don’t need that kind of hassle.”

It made sad, pathetic sense.

“Aimee Biel used the same ATM,” Myron said again. “Do you have any explanation for that?”

They both shook their heads.

“Did you tell anyone?”

Katie said, “About the ATM machine?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think so.”

Myron kneeled down again. “Listen to me, Katie. I don’t believe in coincidences. There has to be a reason why Aimee Biel went to that ATM. There has to be a connection between you two.”

“I barely knew Aimee. I mean, yeah, we went to the same school, but we never hung out or anything. I’d see her at the mall sometimes, but we wouldn’t even say hello. At school she was always with her boyfriend.”

“Randy Wolf.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know him?”

“Sure. The school’s Golden Boy. Rich daddy who always got him out of trouble. Do you know Randy’s nickname?’

Myron remembered something from the school parking lot. “Farm-boy, something like that?”

“Pharm, not Farm Boy. It’s with a
PH
, not
F
. You know how he got it?”

“No.”

“It’s short for
Pharmacist.
Randy is the biggest dealer at Livingston High.” Katie smiled then. “Wait, you want to know my connection to
Aimee Biel? Here’s the only one I can come up with: Her boyfriend sold me nickel bags.”

“Hold up.” Myron felt the room begin to spin ever so slowly. “You said something about his father?”

“Big Jake Wolf. Town hotshot.”

Myron nodded, almost afraid to move now. “You said something about him getting Randy out of trouble.” His own voice suddenly sounded very far away.

“Just a rumor.”

“Tell me.”

“What do you think? A teacher caught Randy dealing on campus. Reported him to the cops. His dad paid them off, the teacher too, I think. They all chuckled about not wanting to ruin the star quarterback’s bright future.”

Myron kept nodding. “Who was the teacher?”

“Don’t know.”

“Heard any rumors?”

“No.”

But Myron thought that maybe he had an idea who it was.

He asked a few more questions. But there was nothing else here. Randy and Big Jake Wolf. It came back to them again. It came back to the teacher/guidance counselor Harry Davis and the musician/ teacher/lingerie buyer Drew Van Dyne. It came back to that town, Livingston, and how the young rebelled, and how much pressure there was on all those kids to succeed.

At the end, Myron looked at Rufus. “Leave us alone for a minute.”

“No way.”

But Katie had some of her poise back. “It’s okay, Rufus.”

He stood. “I’ll be right behind the door,” Rufus said to Myron, “with
my
associates. You got me?”

Myron bit back the rejoinder and waited until they were alone. He thought about Dominick Rochester, how he was trying to find his daughter, how maybe he knew that Katie was in a place like this with a man like Rufus and how maybe his overreaction—his desire to find his daughter—was suddenly understandable.

Myron bent close to her ear and whispered. “I can get you out of here.”

She leaned away and made a face. “What are you talking about?”

“I know you want to escape your father, but this guy isn’t the answer.”

“How do you know what the answer is for me?”

“He runs a brothel, for crying out loud. He almost hit you.”

“Rufus loves me.”

“I can get you out of here.”

“I wouldn’t go,” she said. “I’d rather die than live without Rufus. Is that clear enough for you?”

“Katie . . .”

“Get out.”

Myron rose.

“You know something,” she said. “Maybe Aimee is more like me than you think.”

“How’s that?”

“Maybe she doesn’t need rescuing either.”

Or, Myron thought, maybe you both do.

B
ig Cyndi stayed behind and flashed Aimee’s photograph around the neighborhood, just in case. Those employed in these illicit fields wouldn’t talk to cops or Myron, but they’d talk to Big Cyndi. She had her gifts.

Myron and Win headed back to their cars.

“Are you coming back to the apartment?” Win asked.

Myron shook his head. “I got more to do.”

“I’ll relieve Zorra.”

“Thanks.” Then looking back at the warehouse, Myron added: “I don’t like leaving her here.”

“Katie Rochester is an adult.”

“She’s eighteen.”

“Exactly.”

“So what are you saying? You turn eighteen, you’re on your own? We only rescue adults?”

“No,” Win said. “We rescue those we can. We rescue those in trouble. We rescue those who ask and need our help. We do not—repeat, not—rescue those who make choices we don’t agree with. Bad choices are a part of life.”

They kept walking. Myron said, “You know how I like to read the paper at Starbucks, right?”

Win nodded.

“Every teenager who hangs out there smokes. All of them. I sit there and watch them and when they light up, not even thinking about it, just as casual as you please, I think to myself, ‘Myron, you should say something.’ I think I should go up to them and excuse myself for interrupting and then beg them to stop smoking now because it’ll only
get harder. I want to shake them and make them understand how stupid they’re being. I want to tell them about all the people I know, people who were living wonderful, happy lives like, say, Peter Jennings, a great guy from all I’ve heard, and how he was living this amazing life and how he lost it because he started smoking young. I want to shout at them the full litany of health problems they will inevitably face because of what they’re so casually doing right now.”

Win said nothing. He looked ahead and kept pace.

“But then I think I should mind my own business. They don’t want to hear it. And who am I anyway? Just some guy. I’m not important enough to make them stop. They’d probably tell me to take a hike. So of course, I keep quiet. I look the other way and go back to my paper and coffee and meanwhile these kids are sitting near me, slowly killing themselves. And I let them.”

“We pick and choose our battles,” Win said. “That one would be a loser.”

“I know, but here’s the thing: If I said something to every kid, every time I saw them, maybe I’d perfect my antismoking pitch. And maybe I’d reach one. Maybe one would stop smoking. Maybe my prying would save just one life. And then I wonder if staying quiet is the right thing—or the easy thing.”

“And then what?” Win asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Are you going to hang out at McDonald’s and scold the people eating Big Macs? When you see a mother encouraging her overweight son to snarf down his second supersized order of fries, are you going to warn her about what the boy’s horrible future will be like?”

“No.”

Win shrugged.

“But okay, forget all that,” Myron said. “In this specific case, right now, a few yards away from us, there is a pregnant girl sitting in that whorehouse—”

“—who has made up her own, adult mind,” Win finished for him.

They kept walking.

“It’s like what that Dr. Skylar told me.”

“Who?” Win asked.

“The woman who spotted Katie near the subway. Edna Skylar. She talked about preferring the innocent patients. I mean, she took the Hippocratic oath and all and she follows it, but when push comes to shove, she’d rather work with someone more deserving.”

“Human nature,” Win said. “I assume you weren’t comfortable with that?”

“I’m not comfortable with any of it.”

“But it’s not just Dr. Skylar. You do it too, Myron. Put aside Claire’s guilt trip on you for a moment. Right now, you’re choosing to help Aimee because you perceive her as an innocent. If she were a teenage boy who had a history of drug problems, would you be so apt to find her? Of course not. We all pick and choose, like it or not.”

“It goes beyond that.”

“How so?”

“How important is what college you make?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“We were lucky,” Myron said. “We went to Duke.”

“And your point is?”

“I got Aimee in. I wrote a letter, I made a phone call. I doubt she would have been accepted if it wasn’t for me.”

“So?”

“So where do I get off? As Maxine Chang pointed out to me, when one kid makes it, another is denied.”

Win made a face. “Way of the world.”

“Doesn’t make it right.”

“Someone makes the choice based on a fairly subjective set of criteria.” Win shrugged. “Why shouldn’t it be you?”

Myron shook his head. “I can’t help but think that it’s connected to Aimee’s disappearance.”

“Her college acceptance?”

Myron nodded.

“How?”

“I don’t know yet.”

They separated. Myron got into his car and checked his cell phone. One new message. He listened to it.

“Myron? Gail Berruti here. That call you asked about, the one that
came to the residence of Erik Biel.” There was noise behind her. “What? Damn, hold on a second.”

Myron did. This was the call Claire had received from the robotic voice telling her that Aimee “is fine.” A few seconds later, Berruti was back.

“Sorry about that. Where was I? Right, okay, here it is. The call was placed from a pay phone in New York City. More specifically, from a bank of pay phones in the Twenty-third Street subways. Hope that helps.”

Click.

Myron thought about that. Right where Katie Rochester had been spotted. It made sense, he guessed. Or maybe, with what he’d just learned, it made no sense at all.

His cell phone buzzed again. It was Wheat Manson, calling back from Duke. He did not sound happy.

“What the hell is going on?” Wheat asked.

“What?”

“The ranking you gave me for that Chang kid. It matched.”

“Fourth in the class, and he didn’t get in?”

“Are we going there, Myron?”

“No, Wheat. We’re not. What about Aimee’s ranking?”

“There’s the problem.”

Myron asked a few follow-up questions before hanging up.

It was starting to fit.

Half an hour later Myron arrived at the home of Ali Wilder, the first woman in seven years he’d told that he loved. He parked and sat in the car for a moment. He looked out at the house. Too many thoughts ricocheted through his head. He wondered about her late husband, Kevin. This was the house they’d bought. Myron saw that day, Kevin and Ali coming here with a Realtor, both young, both choosing this vessel as the one where they would live their lives and raise their kids. Did they hold hands as they toured their future abode? What appealed to Kevin, or was it maybe his beloved’s enthusiasm that won him over? And why the hell was Myron thinking about such things?

He had told Ali that he loved her.

Would he have done so—said “I love you” like that—if Jessica hadn’t visited him last night?

Yes.

Are you sure about that, Myron?

His cell phone rang. “Hello?”

“Do you plan on sitting out in the car all night?”

He felt his heart soar at the sound of Ali’s voice. “Sorry, just thinking.”

“About me?”

“Yes.”

“About what you’d like to do to me?”

“Well, not exactly,” he said. “But I can start now, if you want.”

“Don’t bother. I got it all planned out already. You’ll only interfere with what I’ve come up with.”

“Do tell.”

“I’d rather show. Come to the door. Don’t knock. Don’t talk. Jack is asleep and Erin is upstairs on her computer.”

Myron hung up. He caught his reflection—the goofy smile—in the car’s rearview mirror. He tried not to sprint to the door, but he couldn’t help but do one of those run-walks. The front door opened as he approached. Ali had her hair down. Her blouse was clingy and red and shiny. It stretched at the top, just asking to be unbuttoned.

Ali put a finger to her lips. “Shh.”

She kissed him. She kissed him hard and deep. He felt it in his fingertips. His body sang. She whispered in his ear, “The kids are upstairs.”

“So you said.”

“I’m usually not much of a risk-taker,” she said. Then Ali licked his ear. Myron’s entire body jerked in pleasure. “But I really, really want you.”

Myron held back the quip. They kissed again. She took his hand, quickly leading him down the hall. She closed the kitchen door. They went through the family room. She closed another door.

“How’s the couch work for you?” she said.

“I don’t care if we do it on a bed of nails at half court at Madison Square Garden.”

They dropped to the couch. “Two closed doors,” Ali said, her breathing heavy. They kissed again. Their hands began to wander. “No one can sneak up on us.”

“My, haven’t we been planning,” Myron said.

“Pretty much all day.”

“Worth it,” he said.

She wiggled her eyebrows. “Oh, just you wait and see.”

They kept their clothes on. That was the most amazing thing. Sure, buttons were undone and zippers were lowered. But they’d kept their clothes on. And now, as they panted in each other’s arms, fully spent, Myron said the same thing that he said every time they finished.

“Wow.”

“You’ve got quite the vocabulary.”

“Never use a big word when a small one will suffice.”

“I could make a crack here, but I won’t.”

“Thank you,” he said. Then: “Can I ask you something?”

Ali snuggled closer. “Anything.”

“Are we exclusive?”

She looked at him. “For real?”

“I guess.”

“It sounds like you’re asking me to go steady.”

“What would you say if I did?”

“Asked me to go steady?”

“Sure, why not?”

“I’d exclaim, ‘Oh yes!’ Then I’d ask if I can doodle your name on my notebook and wear your varsity jacket.”

He smiled.

Ali said, “Does your asking have anything to do with our earlier exchange of I-love-yous?”

“I don’t think so.”

Silence.

“We’re adults, Myron. You can sleep with whomever you wish.”

“I don’t want to sleep with anyone else.”

“So why are you asking me this right now?”

“Because, well, before? I don’t, uh, think very clearly when I’m in a state of, you know . . .” He sort of gestured. Ali rolled her eyes.

“Men. No, I mean, why tonight. Why did you ask about exclusivity tonight?”

He debated what to say. He was all for honesty, but did he really want to get into Jessica’s visit? “Just clarifying where we stand.”

Footsteps suddenly began to pound down the stairs.

“Mom!”

It was Erin. A door—that first of two doors—banged open.

Myron and Ali moved with a speed that would intimidate NASCAR. Their clothes were on, but like a couple of teenagers, they made sure everything was fastened and tucked in by the time the second doorknob began to turn. Myron jumped to the other side of the couch as Erin threw open the door. They both tried to wipe the look of guilt off their faces with mixed results.

Erin burst into the room. She looked at Myron. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Ali finished adjusting her shirt. “What’s wrong, honey?”

“You better come quick,” Erin said.

“Why, what’s up?”

“I was on the computer, instant messaging with my friends. And just now—I mean, like thirty seconds ago—Aimee Biel signed on and said hello to me.”