Rubbed Out (12 page)

T
he kid and I stared at each other. His nose was red from the cold. So were his hands. He was still wearing the same cheap jacket he'd had on when he came to see me in the store. It was probably the only one he had.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded when he saw me. He looked confused.

“I could ask the same of you.” I turned to Calli.

“This is the kid that was in the house where we found Tiger Lily.”

I looked at her biting her lip and knew that she knew.

“But I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, am I?”

The kid indicated me with his chin. “Calli, she a friend of yours?”

Calli didn't answer him. She looked away. As if she hadn't heard. As if he didn't exist.

“Yes, I am,” I told him. “I guess she didn't tell you that.”

He scuffed his feet on the carpet. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Sure you don't.”

Calli coughed. “Dirk says the whole thing was a mistake,” she said to me.

Lily whimpered softly. The tension in the room disturbed her. I put out my hand and petted her.

“What do you mean, mistake?” I asked Calli.

“A misunderstanding.”

“I see.”

Calli got busy taking more of Lily's hairs off her sweater.

“Who paid the kid's bail?” I asked her.

“Hey, I got a name,” the kid protested.

We both went on with our conversation as if he wasn't there.

“I did,” Calli admitted.

“You weren't going to tell me, were you?” I asked her.

Two spots of color grew on her cheeks. “Only because I know how you get.”

“How I get?”

“Yes. You're always so self-righteous about everything.”

“You don't think being lied to should upset me?”

“What I told you wasn't a lie. Tiger Lily got out of my yard.”

“I thought you said she was stolen.”

Calli held up her hands and let them drop back into her lap. “I thought she was. But stolen or lost, what difference does it make? She was gone. I had to get her back.”

“It makes a big difference”

“The result was the same. She was missing.”

“Don't play those semantic games with me.”

Calli glared at me.

I glared back.

I pointed to the kid. “Did he tell you where Lily was? Is that how you knew?”

Lily gave a tentative thump of her tail at the mention of her name and licked my hand. I gave her a quick hug.

“Well, is it?” I asked Calli.

Calli studied the wall, while the kid looked at both of us—not quite sure what to do. I almost felt sorry for him. He was in way over his head.

I went on. “So what was this whole business with stealing her back? Why not just go up to the front door and knock?”

Calli nodded her head in the kid's direction. “Because he didn't want Myra to know.”

“The woman who came to the door?”

“Yes,” Calli whispered.

“Who cares what he wanted?”

“Hey,” the kid said. “That isn't nice.”

“I'm not in a nice mood.”

I pushed myself up and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Calli asked.

“Out of here.” And I walked into the hallway.

“Robin, please,” Calli called as she came after me. She put her hand on my shoulder. I spun around. “Robin, he was trying to help.”

I gestured to the kid, who was standing close to Calli with his hands jammed in his pockets. “I bet.”

Calli put her hand on my arm. “Robin,” she said. “He found Lily at Myra's house. He told me where she was.”

I turned toward the kid. “And I'm supposed to believe that?”

“It's true,” he insisted. “Myra found her wandering the streets. She was gonna sell her,” he mumbled.

“Why'd you come to the store?”

He shrugged. “I told you. I thought I could do something to help Myra out.”

“You're just an all-around great guy, aren't you?”

The kid didn't say anything. I looked at Calli.

“You should have told me.”

She picked up her hands and let them fall.

I started for the stairs. “Myra is Dirk's second wife. I was embarrassed,” Calli called after me.

“Friends trust each other.”

Maybe I should have been more understanding. Maybe I should have gone back up. But I didn't. I was so hurt and angry that I couldn't think of anything else to say. Instead I whistled for Zsa Zsa, walked out the door, got in my car, and drove home.

It was extremely cold out, and the weatherman said it would get even colder tomorrow. Nothing was moving outside. Everyone was inside keeping warm. Bethany and Manuel were cuddling on the sofa watching television when I walked in the door. The air smelled of popcorn.

“You want some?” Bethany asked. “I just made it.”

“Thanks, but no thanks.” I hung my jacket up and went straight to the liquor.

“Are you sure?” Bethany said.

“Positive.”

“The lawyer said Bethany could become an emancipated minor if she wanted to.”

“Great”

“He said to think it over.”

“Good idea.”

“Well,” Manuel said as I unscrewed the top of the bottle. “Is Calli going to let us have a puppy?”

“I wouldn't count on it if I were you.” I poured myself a triple.

“Why not?”

I took a sip. Then I took another. I could feel the knot in my chest loosening. It occurred to me as I took my fourth sip that my drinking was moving from the “like to” to the “need to” category.

“Why?” Manuel repeated.

“I'll tell you later.” And I took my drink and went upstairs. I could hear Zsa Zsa's nails on the risers as she followed me.

I wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone at the moment.

M
aybe I wouldn't have dreamt about George if he hadn't called me just as I was falling asleep.

“Don't hang up,” he said when I picked up.

“Did you call me before at the store?”

“No. Why?”

“Because I could hear someone breathing on the line. Then they hung up. I thought it might be you.”

“I wouldn't do something like that.”

I didn't say anything.

“Robin, are you still there?”

I pushed Zsa Zsa off my pillow and rested my head on it. “I'm here.”

“What are you thinking?”

“That talking to you is incredibly painful.”

“I'm sorry. I just called to find out how you are.”

“Why?”

“Because I care about you. I always will. Don't you know that?”

“You have a funny way of showing it. Why shouldn't I be fine?”

“They mentioned your name on the eleven o'clock news.”

“Great. What did the story say?”

“Not too much. Just that you had discovered Wilcox's body.”

“Nothing else?”

“It was, and I'm quoting, a brutal murder.”

“That's a fairly accurate assessment.”

“What happened?”

I couldn't help myself. I told him.

“Jeez,” George said when I was through. “What the hell did Paul get you mixed up in?”

“I'm not mixed up in anything. It's over.”

“I hope so.”

“And anyway, I don't think Paul knows any more about what happened than I do.”

George's laugh was humorless. “He always knows. Is there anything that I can do for you? Anything that you need?”

I wanted to say, yes, there is. I need you to make things the way they were before.

“Not that I can think of,” I told him instead. “Paul's taking care of the legal side of things.”

“He should.” George hesitated. Then he said, “All right. I suppose it's good night.”

“So how's Natalie?” I asked.

“Natalie's fine.”

“Good.”

I couldn't bring myself to ask about the baby.

“Can we have dinner one night?” George asked.

“No, we can't.”

“Robin, I'm so sorry.”

“I wish you'd stop saying that. It doesn't help.”

“I don't know what else to do.”

“You've already done it.”

I pressed the off button on my phone. I punched my pillow up and turned onto my side. Zsa Zsa turned over on her back and made the low-pitched growling noises she does when she wants me to rub her belly.

“How would you like a puppy?” I asked as I complied.

She growled some more.

“Okay. Okay.”

Still. A little golden puppy would be nice. I could bring it to the store. I wondered how badly Zsa Zsa would take it. Eventually she'd get used to the idea. She might even like it. It would give her someone to play with. And it would make me feel less guilty about leaving her. There are perks to not being an “only.” Eventually, I fell asleep to the accompaniment of the wind moaning through the trees.

In the dream I had, George and I were wandering through a long, narrow room that seemed to go on forever.

“I have to go now,” he told me.

“Wait. I have to give you your clippers.”

He didn't say anything. Suddenly I noticed that the walls of the room were full of doors. Some had mirrors. Some were painted red; others were painted gold and purple. Somehow I hadn't seen that before. When I looked back, George was gone. My heart started beating faster. I knew something terrible was going to happen if I didn't find him. I went over and opened the door on my left. A black wind whooshed out and threatened to suck me in. I just barely managed to close it and turned to the door on my right.

“No, no, no,” a voice from somewhere said.

But I knew I had to. I had no choice. I grasped the clear glass handle and turned. The door slowly swung open. I looked down. Blood was running out of it. It trickled around my bare feet and began to grow. There was more and more.

First the blood was around my ankles; then it came up to my calves and my knees. I tried to close the door, but now I couldn't reach the knob. It was an inch too far away. I tried to move, but I couldn't take a step. I woke up when the blood was reaching my mouth.

I bolted upright and turned on the lamp. My heart was beating so hard, I was having trouble catching my breath. It was as quiet as death in my bedroom. Zsa Zsa licked my hand. I gave her an automatic pat, put on a T-shirt and a pair of flannel pajama bottoms, and went downstairs.

The television was still playing. Manuel must have forgotten to turn it off when he and Bethany went upstairs. I poured myself a small Scotch, lay down on the sofa, got the remote, and clicked on to the Weather Channel and watched pictures of the clouds floating overhead in the sky with the sound off and read the little white letters that came across the screen. In Cairo it was in the 80s. In Syracuse it was fourteen degrees with a wind chill factor of five below zero. Snow storms and squalls were predicted for Onondaga County through tomorrow night. Why I lived here I didn't know.

At some point I must have fallen asleep again because I woke up to Manuel standing over me.

“Have a bad night?” he asked.

“Nightmare.”

“Bummer. Are you opening this morning? Because I got some errands I have to do.”

“No problem.” I sat up and put my head in my hands. My back hurt from sleeping on the sofa, and my eyes itched from lack of sleep.

“You shouldn't do this kind of stuff anymore,” Manuel observed.

“Look for people?”

He nodded.

“It usually doesn't turn out this way.”

“Seeing something like that. Once would be too much for me.”

“I think it might be too much for me too.”

“People who do things like that . . .” Manuel hesitated a second while he searched for the right phrase. “You don't want to get in their line of sight.”

“You don't want to get within a hundred miles of them.”

I thought about what George had said about Paul as I got up and peered through the living room blinds. It was snowing again. It was the kind of day that made you want to stay in bed curled up with a good book.

Did Paul have a handle on what was going on? I really wanted to believe George was wrong.

“You think the cops are going to get whoever did Wilcox?” asked Manuel, interrupting my thoughts.

I watched my neighbor come out and start up his car. He was bundled up so that only his nose showed.

“I certainly hope so.”

And I dropped the slat down and got ready to go to work.

A
side from a couple of calls from a reporter on the local paper, to whom I refused to speak, and a visit from the detective, the rest of the day went by uneventfully. I'd made three sales, one of them a big one, repaired a water filter, cleaned out the gerbil and hamster cages, swept out the bird room, fed the reptiles, and had almost figured out why the crickets kept escaping when Manuel walked through the door at one-thirty in the afternoon.

I pointed to the fifty-gallon aquarium sitting on the floor next to the counter.

“A woman named Mrs. Brown is going to come by and pick this up in about an hour.”

Manuel nodded. “Where are you going to be?”

“I thought I'd go down to Paul's office and finish things up.”

“Good idea.”

I had to give him my bill, plus refund the expense money I was carrying around. I was afraid that if I kept it any longer, I'd spend it.

“The roads are bad,” Manuel cautioned as he went into the back. “Be careful driving.”

“What are you, my mother?”

“You need one. How about the puppies?”

“Calli and I had an argument.”

“So?”

“So we're not talking to each other.”

“That's means I can't get a puppy?”

“You can get one from someplace else. I'm not asking her.”

“Maybe I will.”

“Go ahead.”

Manuel muttered something under his breath and went to check on the boas.

 

 

The snow on the streets was greasy, and I slid all the way down to the State Tower Building. This time I put my car in the garage attached to the building. I figured it was easier to pay the four bucks than to have to clean my car off when I came back outside.

Paul glanced up from his computer screen when I came through the door of his office. Today the place smelled of cheap Chinese food. I noticed the plant was gone.

“First step in redecorating,” I said, pointing to where it had been.

“Call me Miss Stewart. I was just trying to phone you,” he said, clicking the computer off.

“And here I am.”

“You're not answering your cell.”

“That's because I left it at home.”

“What's the point of having it if you don't carry it with you?”

I shrugged. “Sometimes, I'm just not in the mood to be reached. Like you weren't when I was down in the City,” I added pointedly.

“I already explained I had a medical emergency.” And he gave me his tough-guy frown.

“I didn't think tough guys got kidney stones.”

“Well, I'll tell you one thing. You're not tough when you get 'em.”

I crossed over to his desk and handed him an envelope.

“Here's my bill and the expense money I didn't use.” Despite Calli's suggestion, I was giving it all back.

Paul waved his hand. “Keep it. There's something else I want you to do.”

I carefully placed the envelope on top of a pile of manila folders. Paul pretended not to see it.

“Thanks for the offer, but I think I'm done playing Nancy Drew, girl detective, for a while.”

Paul indicated the chair by the side of the desk. “Sit down.”

“Another time. I told Manuel I'd be right back.”

“Fuck Manuel.”

“You can try, but I don't think he'd agree. You're not his type.”

“I'll try not to be hurt”

“I always thought you went for the tall blondes anyway.”

Paul drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “We need to talk.”

“You may need to, but I don't.”

He spun his chair around to face me. “Robin, for God's sake. For once, can you not play games?”

“I could, but why wouldn't I want to? Or have you considered the possibility that I don't want to hear what you have to say?”

“You don't know what I have to say,” Paul said.

“And I'd like to keep it that way,” I replied.

“Why?”

“Because I've had enough. I'm on overload.”

“Aren't we all.”

Paul sat up straight, opened the bottom drawer of his desk, got out the bottle of Scotch and two glasses, and poured each of us a shot.

“It's a little early,” he said. “But what the hell.”

“What the hell indeed.”

I pulled up a chair and sat down in it. Something on Paul's face told me this wasn't going to be good.

“Aren't you going to take off your jacket?”

“No. I won't be staying that long.”

“Suit yourself.”

Paul handed me my glass. I noticed that his hand shook slightly when he did. I took a sip of Scotch and watched the snowflakes swirling past the window. In the outside corridor, a woman wearing heels tapped her way by. I wondered if I could still walk in them without breaking my ankle as I waited for Paul to speak.

Finally I said, “I'm listening.”

Paul took a swallow from his glass, grimaced slightly, and rolled it between the palms of his hands.

“What I want you to do will be a piece of cake,” he said. “You've done most of the work already.”

“The only thing I've been working on is Wilcox, and Wilcox is, as you very well know, dead.”

Paul finished his drink, put the glass down, and poured himself another shot.

“But his wife isn't. I want you to find her.”

“Haven't you heard what I've been saying to you?”

Evidently he hadn't, because Paul went on as if I hadn't spoken. “She's changed residences. The police haven't been able to locate her.”

“Well, that's their problem, not mine.”

“Robin, listen . . .”

I held up my hand. “Forget it.”

“Robin . . .”

“You want to find her, you go. Or get someone else.”

“Listen . . .”

“No way. No how.” I drained my glass. “Thanks for the drink, but I'm out of here.”

I was starting to stand up when Paul slammed his hand down on his desk. The thud resonated in the silence of the office.

“Will you please do me the favor of shutting up . . .”

The edge of fear in his voice made me sit back down. I don't think I ever heard him scared before. The radiator clanked as I leaned forward in my chair and studied Paul's face.

“This isn't about Janet Wilcox, is it? It's about you.”

He turned away and got busy studying the view out the window, not that there was much to study. We weren't talking tropical island here.

“How bad is it? How bad?” I repeated when he didn't answer.