Rainy City (8 page)

I read snatches:

“Neither partner facing up to the responsibilities of their commitment. She maintains a tremendous emotional conflict with her father and father figures in general. Must resolve the paternal struggle, or her life will grind to a halt. Thought of father paralyzes her thinking and action. She must uncover the childhood trauma. Expose it to the light. Hypnosis? However, I find it difficult to believe someone could be married for forty-two months and only have had sexual relations three times. Are they fabricating?”

It took me a moment to realize I was being watched. Ms. Gunther and Kathy stood frozen in the doorway, staring at me. I slammed the folder shut and quickly arranged it back in the stack. What was going on? Things like that rarely happened to me. I never got caught.

“That’s Neil,” said Kathy, wincing. “I told ya about him. Anything for a good time.”

“Howdy, ma’am,” I said, in a slow drawl. “I don’t believe we’ve met”

Ms. Gunther glanced from Kathy to me, to the file folders, and then back to Kathy. I said, “We’re goin’ out dancing a little later. Care to boogy? I’m sure we can find a man for a cute little gal like you.”

Ms. Gunther blushed, then gathered up her reserves and said, “What were you doing? You were reading my reports.”

“No ma’am. Fact is, I can’t read a lick. Left school in second grade to work on my daddy’s horse ranch. Tell you the truth, I was looking for some snow. Know what I mean? I got the spoon but ain’t got no sugar.”

When she gave Kathy a quizzical look, Kathy nodded and smiled tightly. We were millimeters from being exposed. “I didn’t think he’d change on us. Usually it takes some outside thing, you know?”

“Fascinating,” said Ms. Gunther. “Why don’t you both sit down? I’ll get my tape recorder. We’ll put some of this on tape.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” I said, moving to the doorway where I took Kathy’s arm. “Me and this filly has got some mighty serious drinking and hoofing to do tonight. You care to come?” My eyebrows twittered and I gave her my best corn-pone leer.

After seriously considering the scientific aspects of such a liaison, the research grant, the article in Psychology Today, an appearance with Merv, maybe even one with Johnny, Ms. Gunther shook her head, churning her pageboy. “I want you both to come back. Do you understand? I want you both to come back!”

“If I can get him back,” said Kathy over her shoulder as I guided her down the dim corridor toward the front door. “The only time he does what I say is when he’s Joe Blooey.”

“Who the hell is this Joe Blooey you keep blabbing about?” I said loudly. “You been steppin’ out on me?” Ms. Gunther muttered, “Fascinating.”

Outside in the truck, Kathy got snippy, a reaction from the pressure and from being forced to lie. “You find out anything, Buster?”

“Not much. Maybe we should talk to Burton. I wonder where he could be.”

“Was I all right?” Kathy asked, her tone changing abruptly.

“Are you kidding me? You were fabulous. I’ve never seen anything like it. You’re a better liar than I am.” “Thanks,” she said. “I think.”

“You were great.”

“Now what? The Crowell place?”

“I don’t know what good it will do, but here we go.”

No matter how long I live in Seattle, I am constantly amazed at the variety of the city. The Crowells resided on the waterfront in West Seattle. It took five minutes and a good map to pinpoint the precise location. It took another twenty minutes of prowling around on pitch black, rain-spattered streets before we found it.

Melissa’s parents lived on a numbered street smack dab on the water. The road came down off a hill, dropping a good hundred and fifty feet in elevation as it approached the select community. We descended through three-quarters of a mile of virgin woods inside the city limits before we found it. The dead-end road was narrow and pitted, mired in spots, partially blocked by small mud slides, doubling back upon itself twice.

We discovered five houses on the beach. Guard dogs yapped at our headlights. One streetlight wobbled on a pole in the wind. None of the houses looked as if they could even be discussed for less than a million.

Angus Crowell’s place was a sprawling stucco ranch-style house, baroque iron grillwork barring all the street-side windows and doorways. What was he expecting? The Nez Perce had been peaceful for more than a century. The grillwork alone undoubtedly cost more than my entire house.

My best guess was that the nearest house, except for the four others on the beach, was about half a mile away, through the moss-covered trees and up the slimy hill.

The last storm off the sound had toppled a maple at the end of the block. Some industrious soul had chainsawed it into pieces and carted most of it away.

“Maybe I’ll just sit in the truck,” volunteered Kathy, peering out at the dark house as she listened to the throaty guard dogs up the street. “Besides, I look like a strumpet.”

“Yes,” I said. “But your heart is pure gold.”

I wheeled the truck around so that it was pointed toward civilization and parked it in front of a single-story garage sixty feet long. I could see the roofs of at least three autos inside. A Mercedes two-seater. The Cadillac we’d almost collided with on Sunday. A new Bronco.

“What do you want me to say to this bozo?”

“First of all, don’t call him a bozo,” warned Kathy. “Don’t antagonize the man. Remember, this is on behalf of Burton and Angel. We want them back together. Okay? Just ask him if he’ll return his granddaughter. And if he won’t, ask him under what circumstances he would.”

“Got it.”

Before I traipsed up to the front door, I went over to the windows in the long garage and peeked inside. Crowell had collected five cars, a lawn tractor, several bicycles, a row of motorcycles and a dune buggy. The man liked his toys. Through windows on the opposite side of the garage, I could see the marbled reflections from a lighted swimming pool.

At first, I took the stooped hag who swung open the door for a servant. It was only later that I realized it must have been Mrs. Crowell. In the army, they used to say shit rolls downhill. Mrs. Crowell was at the bottom of the hill and she knew it.

She said she would fetch her husband and then she shuffled through the living room and ragged at the little girl, warning her of the dire consequences should she happen to spill her milk. She bossed with the sad vengeance of one who is rarely allowed the privilege.

“Not again, Angie! You’ve made too many messes today. That’s my favorite flavor,” she added, as an afterthought, when she saw the scowl on my face.

I sidled around the corner and spotted Angel Nadisky sitting dejectedly at an ornate table in front of a coloring book and a tall glass of milk, too tall and bulky for her little hands. A bowl of butter brickle ice cream was melting in front of her. Any fool could see she was about as happy as a spider in a jar.

The house was dead silent. No music. No TV. Not even a parakeet I could teach a few quick curses to. Only one lonely little blonde Angel sitting at a table too tall for her and straining dutifully to crayon in a book she could barely reach.

I had to stifle an urge to run across the room and give her a hug. I could see it wasn’t the thing to do. She was terrified of me. She was terrified of everything. Her face was molded into a mask of fright. I began to scout around the living room. That was me. Snoopy.

“Ooooooh,” she said. “Ooooooooooooh.”

When I looked, she was staring somberly at the tipped milk glass, at the growing puddle of whiteness. “Ooooooh. I’m gonna get it. I’m gonna get it. Ooooooooooooh.”

I went over and said, “Tell you what, sweetheart. I’ll clean this up and nobody ever has to know it happened. How’s that?”

Angel shied away from me, evaluated the plan, both pudgy little hands on her cheeks, and then evaluated me. I found a towel inside the door of an ornate buffet and used it to mop up the spilled milk. I polished off the table top, righted the glass, and crammed the sopping towel into my flight jacket. Then I patted Angel on the head and winked. A tiny, cautious grin spread across her face.

I was entertaining the kid when Angus Crowell came in. He wore gym shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, a patina of sweat glistening on his brow. He had enough excess beef on him that a walk from the other end of the house would make him break into a sweat, though I sensed that he had been exercising.

“Do I know your he asked, in a voice that was gruff and authoritarian. A look of suspicion blackened his thick features. He brooked no guff. His broken, stooped wife bespoke that.

“My name is Black.”

“So?”

“I’m here to talk about your granddaughter.”

Without taking his hard brown eyes off me, Angus Crowell shouted for his wife. “Muriel! Get the hell in here!”

She came higgledy-piggledy, the original Edith Bunker, a damp dishrag dangling from her hands and a look of wrinkled concern on her face’. “Muriel, why the hell did you let this bum in here?”

Glancing at me in sudden coerced disapproval, she said. “He looked like a nice young man, dear.” She was past fifty, but her life was not her own. She wouldn’t start living until her husband’s body was under six feet of sod. I bet she was counting the days, scratching a wall somewhere with a rusty nail.

“Get Angie to her room! I’ve had enough of this shit!”

Angus was several inches taller than I was, outweighed my one-eighty by a good sixty or seventy pounds, and had the look of a man who had put in years of hard labor in his youth.

“I keep in shape,” he said. “Got my own handball court here. Unless you want to see what sort of shape, you better hustle your ass out that front door, Mr. Thomas Black.”

I hadn’t told him my first name. The gray and reddish hairs on his eyebrows formed an interesting weave, tufted like that of an aggressive baboon. He was in his mid-sixties, I would guess, and imbued with the kingly air of a monarch who held court daily. Behind him, Mrs. Crowell scurried away, pulling her granddaughter by her arm. The frightened tot cast a sidelong look at me and smiled conspiratorially. At least I thought it was a smile.

“I’m sure you realize that this whole deal is on shaky ground,” I said. “If the police or newspapers got ahold of this, you’d be forced to give up the child.”

A large, hirsute paw came up and pointed a thick finger, like a gun barrel, at my face. He sighted down it, aiming it at my nose. I noticed a series of ancient, thickened scars on his hand and remembered his sister in Bellingham saying something about a run-in he’d had with a dog in his youth.

“Somebody calls the newspapers on this and I’ll hold you personally responsible, Mr. Thomas Black. Got that?

He wouldn’t have gotten sore if I hadn’t struck a nerve.

A jagged scar ran down his left leg as if it had been spilled, as if one could spill hurt. Another series of smaller serrations criss crossed his skull near one temple. He was a man who lived life hard, and yet, he still bore that aura of a commander used to making people hop.

“You know as well as I do that the child belongs with her folks,” I said.

“What folks? Her father sits around on his butt a year at a time and writes poetry. You call that folks? Her mother’s a slut.”

For a moment, I was taken aback by his viciousness. I should have expected something along those lines, but it came as a shock.

“You know where your daughter is?”

“The bitch can be roasting in hell for all I care.”

I began moving slowly toward the front door. “We saw your ad in the Times. You want her back. I’m looking for her, too. Why don’t we get together? Pool our resources.”

“Don’t call me a liar,” he said, threateningly.

“I’m not calling anybody anything. You’re the one who’s putting a tag on it. I only want to find her.”

He guffawed. It was loud and brash and phoney as a three-dollar bill. It was a practiced laugh he probably used on somebody new each day.

“I traced the phone number in the ad to Taltro,” I said. “It’s your ad all right. A two-thousand-dollar reward.”

“Now I am getting mad! Who the hell do you think you are?”

“It must be lonely for a kid, raised down in this gully.” “What the hell you doin’, sneaking around my life, boy? You’re going to be sorrier’n a rat’s ass.”

I didn’t reply. Turning around, I shambled to the front door and opened it.

“Hell, boy. I could buy your life for the price of one of my wrist watches. You hear me? I’ve got sixteen watches. You listening careful, boy?”

“Stick it up your ass.”

Voice booming, he flailed his arms, jounced the fat on his huge torso in a mad dance and pretended to chase me out the front door. I proceeded at my own pace and noticed off-handedly that he did not catch me, though he easily could have. He slammed the door like a cannon shot, warning me I would never forget this night. No wonder Melissa was screwed up.

Damn, maybe I wouldn’t forget this night. When I climbed into the cab of the truck it was empty. Kathy had vanished. ?

PEERING DOWN THE DARK STREET THROUGH THE DRIZZLE, it took me a minute to spot her. She had been skulking in a flower bed alongside the Crowell house.

“Don’t ever do that again,” I said, as she scrambled into the moving truck.

She slammed the door. “You saw her? I looked through all the windows, but I couldn’t see anything.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in snooping.”

After making sure we weren’t being tailed, I dropped Kathy off at one of her friends’ for safekeeping and made her promise to dig up all the information on Angus Crowell that she could the next morning. I wanted to know why he had been so antagonistic toward me with so little provocation. I wanted to know how he knew my first name.

I wheeled the Ford back to Ballard and rapped on Burton Nadisky’s dark front door. No reply. Out of whimsy, I twisted the doorknob. The door popped open. I went in. Nothing much had changed in the dark house. It smelled like the inside of an old coffeepot.

Burton was in the back, in the kitchen, asleep face down on the table, a sheaf of papers splashed out in front of him. A rhyming dictionary was splayed open, its back broken. Groggy and disoriented, he woke up when he heard my footsteps on the crinkly linoleum.