Sammy Keyes and the Search for Snake Eyes (6 page)

I went right up to the courtesy phone, and ten rings later it was finally picked up inside. “Sergeant Nuñez here, how can I help you?”

“I'd like to speak with Officer Borsch, please.”

“He's out on rounds.”

“
What?
Already?” This was too much. “Is there something I can help you with?”

Pepe was starting to cry. “No. I need to talk to Officer Borsch. It's an emergency, okay? Not a nine-one-one emergency. Just a regular … emergency! Can you radio him to come back or something?”

“Well…”

Then something hit me. “Listen. Radio him and have him meet me in front of the mall, okay? The entrance by the arcade. Right across the street.”

“Miss, I don't understand why…”

Pepe was at full throttle now. “
Because
, okay? Would you just do that for me? Radio Officer Borsch. Tell him to meet Sammy over by the mall.”

“Sammy? Is that
your
name? Sammy?”

I crossed my eyes at the video camera and said, “It's short for Samantha. Now, would you mind? I'm out of formula, I'm out of diapers …I need to see Officer Borsch!” I slammed the phone down, whipped Pepe out the door, and jolted him down the station steps. Then I zoomed him across the street and through the parking structure with my eyes peeled. Maybe she
had
meant seven A.M. Maybe she'd show up and this whole nightmare would be over!

So I waited. And I waited. I could see the mall's tower clock through the glass doors. Finally it was seven, then seven-oh-five. No girl, no Officer Borsch. Seven-ten. No girl, and where was Officer Borsch? Had they even radioed him? And Pepe was letting the whole wide world know that he was not happy, sitting in a towel that he'd made way yellower than it was to begin with.

Then at seven-fifteen a homeless man scared me half to death, coming out from behind some bushes where he'd been sleeping. I almost apologized for Pepe's having woken him up, but he didn't even look at me. He just sat on a bench and lit a cigarette, staring off into the distance.

Then, just as I'm about to go back to the police station to find out why Officer Borsch hasn't shown up, a squad car comes putting along the mall road. And I know it's Officer Borsch, all right, because he's going all of two miles an hour, checking me out as I'm bouncing Pepe on my shoulder.

He pulls over but leaves the motor running as he gets out. And when he's finally done hiking up his gun belt
and twitching at the mouth, he moseys up and says, “Well. Don't you look like a wretched river rat.”

The homeless guy yells from his bench, “Hey, copper, I'll sue! You can't degrade me like that!”

“Take it easy, Teddy. I'm talking to this girl over here.”

The homeless guy eyes me and says, “Oh.” Then he takes a deep drag off his third cigarette and says, “Disturbin' the peace. Get her for that. That brat of hers is worse than your siren, man!”

Officer Borsch motions me aside and says, “I'm almost afraid to ask, you know.”

“I know and I'm sorry, but I don't know what else to do!”

He squints at Pepe. “And what
is
that he's wearing?”

I wrap the baby blanket back over his bottom. “I ran out of diapers, okay? And formula, too, which is why he's crying so hard.”

“What about a pacifier?”

“A pacifier?” “You know…a binky?”

Normally, I would've busted up. I mean, big ol' Officer Borsch saying the word
binky
? But I was too wiped out to laugh. So I tell him, “No. She didn't leave me one of those.”

“She,” he says. Just, She. Like I'm already irritating him. But then he sticks his arms out and says, “And here. You're doing that all wrong. He's going to need a chiropractor if you keep that up.”

I stopped bouncing and stared at him. I mean, I'd heard that sleep deprivation can cause hallucinations, but
this was beyond that. This was no hallucination, this was
impossible
.

I blinked. Probably fifty times. But he didn't go away, he just stood there with his arms out and a twinge of softness in his eyes.

So I passed that puppy over, boy. One wailing, flailing, soaking-wet kid shoved right into the Borschman's arms.

Now, Pepe knows something's going on, so he hushes up for a second while Officer Borsch cradles him in the crook of one arm. And where for me Pepe'd been like a sack of squirmy cement, in Officer Borsch's meaty arm he looks light. Like a fluffy little teddy bear. And where I've got bones sticking out, Officer Borsch, well, he's got
padding
. Nice, soft padding.

Officer Borsch touches Pepe's chin and smiles at him, saying, “Hey, little fella, what's your story, eh?” And then, when Pepe starts fussing again, Officer Borsch sticks the end of his little finger in his mouth and says, “Don't worry, champ. We'll get you some breakfast.”

Pepe grabs Officer Borsch's finger and starts sucking like he's actually going to
get
something out of it, and while he's busy with his little pinky pacifier, Officer Borsch looks me over with a sigh, then says, “I don't think I've ever seen you looking this …uh… desperate. So let's hear it. What's the story with this baby?”

So I tell him the whole thing, from the top. Well, except for the part about sneaking home and having to wait forever outside on account of Mrs. Wedgewood falling off the toilet. I mean, as far as Officer Borsch knows, I live with Marissa, so I couldn't very well go and tell him
about having to keep Pepe from making a peep all night or any of that.

“So your folks just dropped you off here at six this morning with no diapers and no formula, looking like
that
?”

“Uh, well, no. I …I walked.”

He frowns at me. “From East Jasmine.”

“It's not
that
far. And I …I didn't want to wake them up, you know?”

“Hmm” is all he says. Then he takes a deep breath and nods to himself a little. And I'm sweating it out because even to me, I sound like a liar. A big fat sneaky liar.

He lets it go, though, and asks, “You think you could ID this Snake Eyes guy?”

“You mean if I saw him again?”

“Or if you saw a picture of him?” “Yeah. Yeah, I do.” “Well, come on, then.” He opens the back door of his squad car and says, “We'll get someone from Child Protective Services to come get this baby, I'll get your statement, have you peruse a few mug books, and see what we can do.”

So I scoot into the backseat and he hands Pepe to me. And of course, right away Pepe starts wailing. He doesn't want anything to do with
my
finger, either. He just wails like a siren, no matter what I do.

Officer Borsch tisks and shakes his head at me in the mirror. “Sounds like you're torturing that baby!”

“He's torturing
me
. I've been nothing but nice to this kid!”

He shakes his head some more. “Well, take my advice—don't become a mother anytime soon.”

“You can count on that!”

We go inside and Officer Borsch takes my statement. He takes about two hours doing it, too. And somewhere in the middle of that, some very nice lady from Child Protective Services comes and rescues Pepe. Gives him a clean diaper on the spot, pops a bottle in that big ol' mouth of his, and tells me, “We've lined up a shelter-care home for him, so don't you worry. He'll be just fine.” She coos at him a minute, then looks my way. “They tell me your name's Sammy?”

I nod.

“And his is Pepe?”

“Oh, well, no. Probably not, anyway. That's just what I wound up calling him.”

One of her eyebrows arches up, but there's a little twinkle in her eye. “Well, then, Pepe it is. For now, anyway.” She nods at the stroller and Sears bag and says to Officer Borsch, “You'll be taking those into custody?”

Officer Borsch hesitates, then bobs his head. “S'pose we should.”

“Well, then,” she says as she stands, “we'll be off.” She takes one of Pepe's hands off the bottle and waves it at me. “Bye-bye, Sammy, thank you,” she says in a little-kid voice. Then suddenly she's gone.
He's
gone. Whoosh, out the door. Out of my life. And the funny thing is, it felt strange. Kind of, I don't know… uncomfortable.

'Course, I
was
in a room with Officer Borsch, so what was I expecting, right?

Officer Borsch gets back to quizzing me about every-thing that's happened, and even though I tried my best to tell him what Snake Eyes looked like, he didn't want to hear how he had hatred for eyes and steel for a mouth or about the way he walked. He just wanted to know the facts. Height, weight, color of hair, approximate age … that sort of stuff.

And he
was
real interested in the snake-eyed cobra, but then he starts asking me about the guy's clothes. Real detailed questions about his clothes. And that didn't make any sense to me because, what? The guy can't just go home and put on something else?

But he wanted to know the color of everything. And really, there wasn't much to say. No stand-out colors or flashy designs. Everything was either blue or black or white.

And then what's he start quizzing me on?

Shoelaces.

Shoe
laces.

So I had to break it to him that no, I hadn't noticed the guy's shoelaces; that I'd been too spooked by his
face
to look at his feet.

But then he starts on about what colors the
girl
was wearing, and was I
sure
she was wearing a gray sweater and tan pants, not blue and black, or blue and
purple
.

“I'm sure,” I told him. “Positive.”

“Well, what about her shoelaces? Did you get a look at those?”

“Officer Borsch, what is with the shoelaces?”

He just looks at me says, “Did you notice them?”

I close my eyes and think. “Yeah. They were white. She was wearing, you know, little white sneakers with little white shoelaces.”

He frowns, then takes a deep breath and lets it out as he shakes his head. “Okay, then. Anything else? Distinguishing features? Moles? Scars?”

“Oh, yeah! She had these weird slashes on the inside of her left arm. Scars. Like she'd gotten in a little saber duel with Zorro or something.”

“A saber duel with Zorro,” he says, like I'm giving him gas.

“Officer Borsch, I don't know how else to describe it. It wasn't a burn, and it wasn't, you know, a
scratch
. It was slashy. It went zig-zag-zig… zig-zag-zig-
zag
.” My finger zips through the air, drawing it for him, but he's still not getting my picture. “Here,” he says, shoving a piece of paper and a pencil my way.

So I close my eyes and try to picture it. Then I sketch it the best I can and pass it back to him.

He takes one look at it, and suddenly the slits he sports for eyes double in size. “Ah!”

“What?”

“Is this to scale?”

“Uh, I think the scar was even bigger than that. Maybe an inch and a half high and two inches wide.”

“And it was on the left side, you say?”

“Yeah, but —”

“Was it healed up? Any blood or redness?”

“No, it was just, you know, a scar.”

“But she wasn't wearing anything blue or black, or blue
and
black?”

“Officer Borsch! No! And what's that got to do with anything?”

He takes a deep breath, then leans forward across the table. “S,” he says as he traces my drawing with the tip of the pencil, “W.”

I just blink at him.

“S, W. South West.”

I keep right on blinking at him.

He leans back. “It's a street gang, Sammy. They claim Cook down to Morrison and basically out to Blosser. Their main rival, North West, claims everything on the west side, north of Donovan.”

“What do you mean, they claim it?”

He shrugs. “They say it's their territory. Their turf. Their hood. Don't tell me you haven't heard about any of this at school.”

“Well…
no
. Just that if there's gang graffiti, we should report it right away so they can paint it over.”

He scowls and mutters, “Your tax dollars, hard at work.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Listen. I'll bet this girl is in a gang. South West. She probably got that scar when she was jumped in.”

One look at me and he knows I'm not following. “You know, initiated? And the guy who was after her, he's got South West written all over him. Besides that snake
tattoo, he's probably also got South West or SW and his moniker tattooed on him somewhere.”

“His … moniker?”

“His street name. Like Ace or Stoney or Li'l Stinky.” “Little
Stinky
? Someone would tattoo
that
on themselves?”

“Oh, yeah. But the obvious thing—and the point I'm trying to make if you'd let me—is that this fella was also wearing South West colors.”

“Blue and … black?”

“That's right. And North West's colors are …” “Blue and purple?” “You're catching on. And you don't want to be caught wearing the wrong colors on the wrong turf. It can get you killed.”

I thought about this a minute and said, “But if Snake Eyes and Pepe's mom are both in the South West gang, then why was she so afraid of him?”

“Good question. And why wasn't she wearing colors? Maybe she's trying to get out. Maybe she's breaking it off with him. Hard to say. But the fact that she didn't want you to come here indicates to me that she's got something bigger than her gang affiliation to hide.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, being in a street gang is not in and of itself against the law. Committing misdemeanors and felonies is. Inevitably, one leads to the other.” He chews the inside of his mouth a minute, then says, “There may be a warrant out on her, I don't know. What I do know is if
that fella served time, we'll have a mug on him. You got time to look through a few books?”

I checked the wall clock and said, “Can I use the phone? I need to call home and … school. I don't want to get in trouble for ditching or anything.”

“You want to come back and do this after school?”

“Well, don't you think you ought to try and find the guy? I mean, what if he's hurt her or something? Besides, I can't come after. We've got practice.”

“Practice?”

“We're in the Junior Sluggers' Cup tournament this weekend, and it's like
death
if I miss practice.”