Hard Rain (14 page)

The phone was ringing. Jessie answered.

“Ms. Shapiro?” a man said.

“Yes?”

“Jessie Shapiro?”

“That's right.”

“Are you the one who put up the poster? ‘Have You Seen This Girl?'”

“Yes, what is it?”

“I may have some information for you.”

“Are you calling from Vermont?”

“Vermont?”

“I—where are you calling from?”

“Los Angeles. Why did you think I was calling from Vermont?”

“I don't know why I said that. What sort of information do you have? Is it about my daughter?”

“I'd prefer not to discuss it over the phone.”

“But—have you seen her?”

“Perhaps we could meet somewhere tonight.”

Did she hear a slight accent in his voice? Jessie wasn't sure. “Tonight's not—can't you just tell me if you've seen her?”

“Is tomorrow evening better?”

“No. I—why can't you discuss it over the phone?”

“How about the Santa Monica Pier? At eight.”

Jessie had a thought. “Has Pat asked you to call? Are you a friend of his?”

“I'll explain everything tonight.”

“What's your name?”

“Mickey.”

“Is that your first name?”

“My first name?”

“Or last?”

“Oh,” said the man. “Mr. Mickey. Call me Mr. Mickey.”

It was a name Pat had never mentioned. That left other possibilities. “Is it money you want?” Jessie said slowly. No reply. “Is that it?”

“We can discuss that tonight.”

An icy current raced through Jessie's veins. “Have you got Kate? Is this some kind of ransom demand?”

The man laughed, or rather, Jessie sensed, made patronizing sounds in the guise of laughter. “Of course not,” he said. “I have information I think you shall want, that's all. But for reasons that will become perfectly clear, I should make it known to you in person. Okay?”

Jessie didn't know the answer. What sort of information could he have? Kate was in Vermont, but he hadn't appeared to know that. “I don't really know,” she said. “Is Kate safe? Is Pat still with her? Was he in an accident?”

The man sighed. “Let me put it this way, Ms. Shapiro. I'm a private detective, working on another matter. I happened to stumble on something I think you'll want to know.”

“Are you selling it or giving it?”

“I already suggested we discuss that at the proper time, Ms. Shapiro. See you at eight.” Click.

Jessie slowly replaced the phone. Stapling notices around town was an invitation to crank callers. The man hadn't offered one fact that couldn't have been taken from the notice itself; he hadn't offered any facts at all. On the other hand, he could have been much more insistent about the meeting, and he hadn't sounded like a crank. He'd sounded like a Swedish art historian she'd met at Philip's.

Jessie looked under detective agencies in the L.A. yellow pages. There was no listing between Michaelson and Mitchum. She tried Santa Monica, West L.A. and Valley listings. No Mr. Mickey. That didn't mean he wasn't who he said he was. DeMarco might know. Jessie looked up his number, and dialed it. Someone picked up the phone at the other end. Children were crying. A woman screamed, “You've ruined my life.” A man yelled back, raw and uncontrolled, but it was DeMarco. The woman said, “Hello?”

Jessie hung up.

At 7:45 Jessie picked up her suitcase. On her way out of the house, she passed the “My Mom” poem on the fridge door. She took it off, folded it carefully and slipped it in the pocket of her jeans. Then she put the suitcase in the trunk of the car and drove down to the pier, parking on a side street. The sun had set; the sodium moon had risen, but fog was rolling in, dulling its glow and spreading an orange sfumato through the night, reminding her of “Valley Nocturne.” A strange light, and not much of it, but enough to see Mr. Mickey. What could be lost by having a look at him, hearing what he had to say, before she drove to the airport? It might make her better equipped to deal with Pat.

Jessie walked down the pier. On a summer evening, and maybe even a few hours earlier, it would have been crowded with tourists, high school kids, beachers, dope smokers, beer drinkers. Now all the concessions were closed—the hot dog stand, the T-shirt place, the bumper cars, the merry-go-round—and everyone gone. Only smells remained: grease, onion, motor oil, urine, and, from below, the sea.

Jessie came to the end of the pier. She almost missed the man sitting there, his feet dangling in the air, his back to a trash can. He wore a straw hat with a frayed brim and held a fishing rod loosely in his hands. “Mr. Mickey?” Jessie said.

“No hablo inglés.” The man didn't look up.

She walked back. The thickening fog closed around her, damp and cold. A foghorn sounded, somewhere at sea. Up the coast, another answered. Jessie began to worry about whether planes would be flying. She quickened her stride.

As she passed the merry-go-round, a shadow separated itself from the other shadows. “Ms. Shapiro?” a man said.

“Oh. You scared me. Mr. Mickey?”

“I'm forever doing so.” Up close the man still spoke with the very faint accent she couldn't place.

Mr. Mickey came a little closer. Jessie saw he was taller than he had seemed; his perfect proportions disguised his height. He was huge. She fought an urge to back away.

“What do you know about my daughter?”

“I am not at liberty to discuss this matter myself.”

Jessie backed away. “What does that mean?”

“I have a … supervisor. He will answer your questions.”

Jessie looked around and saw nothing but the carousel, shrouded in fog.

“I'm here to take you to him,” Mr. Mickey said. “But first there are a few preliminaries.”

“Preliminaries?”

“Formalities.” The man held out his hand. “Your ID, please.”

“What for?”

“Procedure.”

“You already know who I am. You called me by name.”

“We need proof.”

“Who else would I be, for Christ's sake.”

He withdrew his hand. “Very well, then. I'm afraid there's no more to say.”

Jessie stood where she was. The man's face, in the dim orange light, remained indistinct; she had an impression of high cheekbones, fair skin, fair hair, but no impression at all of what was on his mind. “How do I know you have anything to tell me about Kate? Everything I do know makes it seem unlikely.”

“How is that?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what is it you know that makes our knowing unlikely?”

Without understanding exactly why—maybe it was his size, or the smell of the sea from below, or just the fog—Jessie avoided his question. Perhaps it was its very precision that scared her off. “You're supposed to be the one with the information,” she said.

Orange light glinted off the man's teeth. Was he smiling? “I find your attitude very strange,” he said. “We are trying to help you.”

“Why?”

“Isn't that what you expected people would do when you put up the posters?”

“I don't know.”

“Perhaps that's true. Nevertheless, it's happened. We have information concerning the whereabouts of your daughter. You, on the other hand, may have information, unsuspected I'm sure, about a case we're working on. We propose a simple exchange.”

“Then you know where Kate is.”

“That is for my supervisor to say.”

“Why this secrecy?”

“It has nothing to do with you. The other matter is rather delicate.”

“But I don't know what it could be. What kind of information do you want?”

The man held out his hand again. “First, please,” he said, “your ID.”

“Is it a drug case? Is Pat in some kind of trouble?”

Mr. Mickey sighed. “Do you want your daughter back, Ms. Shapiro?”

Jessie took out her wallet and handed him her driver's license.

Mr. Mickey shone a pencil flashlight on it. Jessie got a good look at him. He had high cheekbones, all right; they threw shadows almost into his eyes, but not quite. The eyes were clear blue, pale as the farthest sky in a Venetian painting; the hair platinum blond, lit with orange from the fog. He combined all the colors of “Valley Nocturne” and added the extra something that would have made the painting disquieting.

“Thank you.” He gave back her license and switched off the light. His features slipped back into the fog.

“I looked you up in the yellow pages,” Jessie said. “You're not there.”

“The agency is not in my name.”

“What name is it in?”

“My supervisor prefers to make his own introductions.” Mr. Mickey took out a notebook.

“Are you from Scandinavia?”

“No,” he said; annoyance edged into his tone. “Hermosa Beach.” He flipped through the pages. “I must clarify a few details before we proceed. First: did you see anything unusual when you were in Pat Rodney's house, subsequent to the disappearance?”

“What makes you think I've been in the house?” The image of the real estate man standing outside Pat's house flashed through her mind. “This isn't all part of some real estate deal, is it?”

Mr. Mickey laughed. “That's very funny. But please, Ms. Shapiro, don't play at detective. That's our job. Just answer the question.”

“But I have a right—”

“Ms. Shapiro.” Mr. Mickey's voice rose a little; his accent thickened. “You act as if there were lots of time for talk. Let me inform you that in disappearance cases, time is the crucial factor. Try to understand that a crime has been committed, a crime, not directed at you or your daughter, but which has affected you all the same. I believe that my supervisor is prepared to put you in possession of the facts, if only you will cooperate in this simple interview.”

“Was this crime directed at Pat? Or by him?”

“Neither. We're not interested in him. We're interested in recovering a sum of money. That's all. There. You have it. Now you know all.”

Jessie let out her breath. “Okay,” she said. “There was strange writing on the blackboard in Pat's kitchen. Is that what you're after?”

“Strange?”

“Foreign. It had been erased, but I was able to restore it, enough to read, anyway.”

“What did it say?”

“I haven't been able to translate it. The words were ‘Toi giet la toi.' We thought it was French, at first, but it's not.”

“We?”

“Me and some friends.”

“Who were they?”

“Does it matter?”

Mr. Mickey was silent. The sea made sucking sounds round the pilings below. “I suppose not,” Mr. Mickey said at last, “given the nature of the message.”

“Why? Do you know what it means?”

“Yes. It's a saying. Freely translated, it means something like ‘Make hay while the sun shines.'”

“In what language?”

“Arabic. It's a common saying in the Arab world.”

“But it wasn't written in Arabic.”

“It's the phonetic equivalent,” Mr. Mickey said impatiently. “Does Pat Rodney have any Arab friends?”

“Not that I know of. Why do you know Arabic?”

“What an American question,” Mr. Mickey replied. “I've worked in the oil business. There's an American answer.” He turned a page in his notebook. Jessie wondered why Mr. Mickey had needed a light to read her license but wasn't using it now and why anyone would write “Make hay while the sun shines” on Pat's blackboard. Mr. Mickey looked up. “Did you see anything else unusual in the house?”

“Not exactly. But I heard a portion of a message on his answering machine. Later, when I went to listen again, the tape had been wiped.”

“Do you remember what it said?”

“It was a woman. She seemed to be warning Pat of some danger, telling him to get away.”

“Away where?”

“She didn't say.”

“Would you recognize her voice if you heard it again?”

“I don't know.”

Mr. Mickey closed the notebook and put it in his pocket. “I think we're ready for my supervisor.”

“Where is he?”

“This way.” Mr. Mickey led her off the pier, but instead of heading toward the street, he turned down the staircase that led to the beach.

“Where are we going?” Jessie asked.

“To see him.”

But Jessie saw no one on the beach. That didn't mean there was nothing to see: a dark shape bobbed on the water, a few yards offshore. Mr. Mickey blinked his flash at it. Jessie heard an engine, muffled by the fog; the dark shape edged closer to the beach. “Is he on the boat?” Jessie asked.

“No, But we'll get to him faster this way.” He didn't repeat that time was the crucial factor in disappearance cases. He'd made the point.

The sand slid under a ruffle of foam. Cold seawater lapped at Jessie's feet. From where she stood, she could see that the boat was a large cabin cruiser; a dark figure stood high above on the tuna tower, hands on the controls.

“I haven't got much time,” Jessie said.

“No? We're ten minutes away.” Mr. Mickey waded in. It was worth ten minutes. Jessie followed.

Mr. Mickey turned to her. “Here,” he said.

“No.”

But he picked her up anyway, as easily as a sack of laundry, and lifted her onto the deck. Maybe he thought he was being gallant; maybe he was just demonstating their relative strength. Jessie hated it.

Mr. Mickey climbed in after her. He glanced up at the figure on the tuna tower, a man, Jessie now saw, wearing a straw hat with a torn brim. Had the boat been tied under the end of the pier? She was still scanning her memory when Mr. Mickey said, “Andale.” The word stiffened on his tongue.

The bow swung slowly around. Then the boat surged forward with a roar of power. Jessie was knocked down. She lost her breath. Lying on the deck she felt the strength of the engines. It scared her.