OUT ON A LIMB (13 page)

“No last name?” she asked with such sympathy that I refused to imagine what she was thinking. “Cute guy, huh?”

“I’ve never met him,” I said evenly. “I’m trying to help a friend locate him.”

“Of course you are. I wish I could tell you something, but nobody named Joey has worked here for the last fifteen years. A few years back there was a guy named Joseph, a real hell-raiser with the ladies, but he was in his sixties and wasn’t what you’d call attractive unless you were blind in one eye, which he happened to be, too. He left town after he was caught peeping in sorority house windows—and some fraternity houses as well. The city prosecutor personally drove him to the bus station and bought him a one-way ticket to Alabama… or was it Mississippi?”

“Thanks, anyway,” I said as I stood up.

She gnawed on her lower lip. “There was a fellow out at Cannelletti’s earlier this spring, name of Jose. That’s kinda like Joey, ain’t it? I heard he got into some trouble with the police. You want I should call out there and ask?”

“Out toward Farmington, you said? No, please don’t bother to call. I’ll go by and see if they might have any information.”

“Are you a lawyer, honey? You got that look about you.”

I’d forgotten that I was still wearing my navy suit. “No,” I said, “I’m not a lawyer. Just helping a friend, that’s all.”

“Right,” she said. “Well, I hope you find this fellow. You sound kinda desperate.”

I could see that she wanted me to drop back onto the chair, burst into tears, and tell her the wretched truth about my lust for a muscular young mechanic who’d rotated my tires more than once.

I “left her to her fantasies and once again went out to my car. The afternoon was dwindling, as was Sally’s goodwill. But I finally had a lead, or at least an intimation of one. Someone named Jose could certainly have Americanized his name. Or not, I thought glumly as I drove past the stadium and out toward Farmington, keeping an eye out for a garage named Cannelletti’s.

A sloppy pyramid of tires almost obscured the faded sign in the window of the squat, concrete-block building. Several cars beyond redemption in anyone’s lifetime (including Mort’s) were parked in the weeds on either side. I would not have been surprised to see buzzards circling overhead.

I parked and went into the office. A bald man with a bristly gray mustache was glaring at an invoice and mumbling under his breath. It was just as well that I couldn’t understand his words.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m hoping you can help me.”

“I wish I could say the same.”

“Are you Mr. Cannelletti?”

“Are you mistaking me for the pope?” he said as he put down the paper and stared at me. “Do you think I got a flock of cardinals out there doing lube jobs?”

“The thought never crossed my mind.” I sat down on a stool across the counter from him. “I’m trying to find someone who may have been working here up until six months ago.”

“The warranty’s only good for thirty days.’!

“Oh, nothing like that,” I said, doing my best to envelop him in a warm glow of camaraderie. “It’s a personal thing.”

“What those jerks do on their own time is none of my business. I make it clear when I hire them that there’s no point in calling me for bail. Better they should call the archbishop. Same fat chance.”

There was a hint of amusement in his eyes, however, so I persevered. “I’m looking for a man named Joey, or perhaps Jos6 when he worked for you. All I know is that he’s about twenty-seven years old and was sent to the county jail six months ago. He was released a week ago.”

“Calling himself Joey, is he?”

I leaned forward. “So you know him? Do you have any idea where I can find him?”

“You his probation officer?”

It occurred to me that the day might have gone more smoothly had I changed into jeans and a T-shirt, rather than running around dressed like little Miss Perry Mason. “No, I own a bookstore in Farberville. It’s important that I find Joey. Can you help me?”

Mr. Cannelletti studied me for a long moment. “The best way I can help you is to not help you. He’s bad news, this Joey. What with the way he used to do drugs, I was always worried that he’d cause an accident out in the bays. I was about to fire him when he took care of the problem himself.”

“But you know where I can find him, don’t you?”

“He came here last week, looking for a job. I told him I couldn’t take him back on account of having hired somebody else. The truth is I’m shorthanded and he probably knew it, but he just shrugged and drove off.”

“You didn’t answer my question, Mr. Cannelletti.”

“I don’t guess I did. Okay, you look old enough to know your own mind. There’s a bar in Waverly, just past the first stoplight. That’s where he used to hang out, and where he got himself arrested. Mostly punks, bikers, and prostitutes. It’s no place for a lady, especially an unescorted one. I’d go with you, but Mrs. Cannelletti would get all kinds of ideas and I’d be sleeping in the hammock until the first freeze. I’ll tell you the name of it if you promise you won’t go there by yourself.”

He was a rather sweet old man, and I felt a twinge of guilt as I showed him my palm and said, “I promise.”

“You’d lie to Saint Peter, wouldn’t you?” he said, sighing. “You’d better be real careful, lady. The name of the bar is Dante’s. Joey, or Jos6 Guilerra, as he used to call himself, drives an‘89 Trans Am, bright yellow with black racing stripes. He seemed sober enough when he was here last, but I wouldn’t count on it if you chase him down. What’s more, you walk in that place dressed like you are right now, they’re all likely to think you’re from the INS and all hell’s gonna break loose. Green cards are scarce in there.”

I got off the stool. “Thanks, Mr. Cannelletti. You’ve been a great help.”

“I just hope you heard what I said. Joey was a fairly good mechanic, but he’s real tightly wound. I can’t imagine why you’re looking for him, but the best advice I can give you is to forget about it.”

“I wish I could,” I said truthfully. “Did he ever bring a girl named Daphne out here?”

“That pathetic little thing. Sometimes she’d come along while he was working and offer to clean the restrooms or make coffee. She was real eager to talk to someone, even if just about the weather. A couple of times my wife took her around to yard sales to buy clothes. Joey didn’t much like it and stopped bringing her. Is she doing okay?”

“Not exactly,” I said, then left before I blurted out the truth. After all, he might as well see it on KFAR at five o’clock, or at ten.

So Joey hung out at a bar named Dante’s, which was not a comforting name in that the volume of the trilogy we are all most familiar with included the word
inferno.
And what I expected to say to him if and when I found him was not glaringly obvious. Asking him if Daphne had borrowed his car to drive to Oakland Heights and shoot her father might not prove to be an interesting hypothetical, especially for someone who used drugs and had been described as “tightly wound.” I doubted six months in jail had mellowed him.

But, I thought as I drove in the direction of the Book Depot, he was the only lead I had. Daphne had offered nothing more than a hackneyed plot seen on TV dramas weekly, if not daily. Daphne’s mother had told me nothing whatsoever. Peter would not be enlightening me any time soon. Adrienne would be buffered by her family and her lawyer. Unlike Miss Marple, I could not stop by the vicarage for cucumber sandwiches and village gossip.

I parked behind the bookstore and went inside. Sally was reasonably civil as I thanked her for minding the store and assured her that I felt well enough to handle the infrequent customer who might wander in. Although I could see she was salivating for details of my delicate condition, I shooed her out, stuck the flyspecked Closed sign in the window, and called Luanne.

“Hey, biker chick,” I drawled, “wanna go for a pitcher of beer?”

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

“Would it be your first pitcher of beer today?” asked Luanne, not altogether facetiously. “Sally called earlier. She wants to organize a baby shower. Gurgles from a baby are charming, but gurgles from someone with Sally’s girth are—”

“It’s complicated,” I said, “but I need your help.”

“To browse outlet furniture stores for matching bassinets?”

“I had to tell her something,” I muttered, then added, “Will you meet me at my place in half an hour? Wear something … well, casual.”

“Pink or blue?”

“Damn it, Luanne! I have a lead on Joey. If I don’t find him, you may find yourself feeding strained beets and spinach to Skyler until he graduates to pizza. Caron will drop out of school and join a punk band crisscrossing the country in an old school bus adorned with satanic images. In the meantime, I’ll be at the women’s prison chopping cotton—or, if I’m lucky, working in the laundry room. Sweat will be streaming down my face and Big Bertha will be ogling my comely backside. Sooner or later she’ll pull a shiv on—” “A what?”

I realized I was getting carried away and tried to temper my tone. “A weapon made from a spoon or, in this case, maybe a barrette.”

“Big Bertha’s going to pull a barrette on you?”

“And it won’t be pretty,” I said. “Now, are you coming with me or not?”

Luanne was silent for a moment. “Dressed as a biker chick?”

“If I knew what biker chicks wear, I’d tell you,” I said testily. “Come by in half an hour.”

“And then we steal Harleys? Do you know how to operate one?”

I replaced the receiver and went home to rid myself of my prim suit. I was not surprised to find Inez in the kitchen, heating a bottle in a saucepan of water.

“How’s Caron doing?” I asked as I peeled off my jacket and hung it on a chair.

“Fine, I think.”

“You brought her assignments?”

“Oh, yes, Ms. Malloy. All of her teachers were really nice about it. Mrs. McLair said Caron doesn’t even have to write the paper on
Macbeth
that’s due on Monday. We read the first act today. I suppose it’s all really symbolic and deep and stuff, but I thought it was creepy.”

“It is, Inez. Where are Caron and Skyler?”

She lowered her voice. “Skyler’s in the living room. Caron’s in her room, talking on the phone to Merissa. Rhonda the Rottweiler just won’t let go of this. This morning she was conducting a lottery on who everybody thought was the father. Tickets cost a dollar.”

I shuddered. “And you told Caron?”

Inez took the bottle out of the pan and squirted a few drops of formula on her wrist. “I didn’t, but you can be sure Merissa has by now. I wish there was something I could do, Ms. Malloy, but I don’t know what it is.”

“Nor do I.” I went into the living room and squatted next to Skyler. “You got any ideas, kid?”

When he failed to offer any, even after I’d tickled his toes, I continued to my room, changed into jeans and a black T-shirt, and emerged as Caron came out of her room. Her demeanor was that of a tropical storm soon to be upgraded to a hurricane, with torrential rain and winds strong enough to spew tornados at every trailer park within a hundred miles.

“Did Inez Tell You?” she said.

“She mentioned something about the paper on
Macbeth:9

“Like I should be worried about that old crap? I’ll get my GED and join the army. Khaki is not my color, but I can deal with it, and then I’ll be stationed in someplace like Azerbaijan. Or maybe I can join the Peace Corps and teach hygiene to primitive tribes in Zimbabwe. In any case, I am never setting foot in Farberville High School again. Never!"

I dragged her to the sofa and forced her down. “Luanne and I are going to see if we can find Skyler’s father. He may be able to help.”

“And ruin Rhonda’s lottery? According to Merissa, odds are three to two on Waylan Pulaski, this major geek who hangs out in the custodian’s closet sniffing cleaning compounds. I think I spoke to him all of twice last year.” She flopped against the cushions. “What have I done to deserve this? I brake for squirrels in the street, I put coins in the Salvation Army kettles at Christmas, I do my own laundry sometimes. But now I’m the gigglebutt of Farberville High School! Just one little blip on Rhonda’s radar screen and my life is ruined! It’s Just Not Fair!"

“No, it isn’t,” I said, “but life’s not too rosy for Daphne Armstrong, nor for Skyler.”

“I suppose not,” she agreed sullenly.

“After Skyler’s been fed, why don’t you and Inez put him in the car seat and go for a drive? You’ve been cooped up stll day.”

Inez came out of the kitchen. “My mother’s been trying to get me to go out to my aunt’s house in Hasty and pick up some old magazines. We could do that.”

“Be still my heart,” Caron said. “I feel a myocardial infraction coming on any minute.”

“I think it’s called a myocardial infarction,” Inez offered.

Caron shuddered. “That is so gross. Do you remember when that sophomore boy with the dirty blond hair ripped one off in the cafeteria last Friday? I thought I was going to toss my burrito. Rhonda brayed, but she was looking a little green. Wouldn’t her pom-pom teammates have been amused if she’d barfed all over the table?”

Opting not to delve into high school cafeteria decorum or medical terminology, I patted her knee. “And then you can have dinner at Inez’s before you come back and tackle your assignments. Inez, can you convince your mother that you’re baby-sitting for a friend of mine?”

“Probably. She’s not as suspicious as you are, Ms. Malloy.”

“I am not suspicious; I merely have a vigorous imagination,” I said coolly. “What’s on the menu, Inez?” “This tofu lasagna thing my mother makes when she’s mad at my father. It’s not as nauseating as it sounds.”

“How could it be?” Caron said as she stood up. “Okay, we can go get the magazines, but I’m not eating any tofu lasagna in this lifetime. Let’s pack up Skyler and go somewhere. Anywhere.”

I went into the bathroom and applied industrialstrength makeup, then used Caron’s mousse to slick down my curly hair. I contemplated drawing a tattoo with an eyeliner pencil, then discarded the idea. Since
National Geographic
had never done a feature on biker chicks, I could only wing it.