The Emerald Cat Killer (22 page)

“She'll be right here. Dr. Kyoko Takakura.”

Dr. Takakura was slim, looked forty, dressed casually. She shook hands all around. She said, “I hope one of my girls isn't in trouble again.”

Marvia Plum said, “I'm not certain. I'm afraid she is, but mainly we want to find her.”

Dr. Takakura said, “Name?”

“Rebi Horton.”

The sheriff's deputy passed the folder to Takakura. She opened the folder, looked at the photo, and scanned a few lines of data. “Oh, yes. Little Red.” She looked around and slipped into a chair. “She and I are getting to be old friends. What can I tell you about her?”

“Give me a breakdown: What's her situation? What can I expect? Where is she likely to turn up?”

Takakura shrugged and turned her hands up. “Mars? Los Angeles? Maybe—best we can hope for, I think—back here. And that wouldn't be good news. It would just be less bad than the alternatives.”

“What's her drug of choice?”

“Well, as a onetime musician client of mine used to say, Just tell her how to use it. Drink it, smoke it, shoot it, snort it, or shove it up her butt.”

“Oh, my God.”

“Well, except”—she studied the folder again, briefly—“it's been a while, I need to refresh my memory. Okay. She's mainly a pill freak. I see a note here in my own handwriting, she calls them jolts. Or jelly beans. Always wants another jelly bean. She'll take uppers or downers, but she prefers uppers. Apparently she never got into smoking crack, which is very good news, and she doesn't like needles so she doesn't shoot up, which is also good.”

“Anything she especially likes?”

“Well, there's a sort of gray market drug, the kids call it Zing. That's not the commercial name but that's their word. And, of course, good old crystal meth, she has been known to smoke that. Likes oxycontin, likes tramadol, likes vicodin. But, like I said, she likes uppers better than downers.”

Another glance at the file folder. How many cases did Takakura have to carry?

“You know about Adderall?” Takakura asked.

“That's a new one on me.”

Kyoko Takakura looked pained. “Trouble is, this one is a legitimate prescription drug. It's been approved for treatment of narcolepsy and attention deficit disorders in both children and adults. There have been some good results with school-age children. Our Miss Horton started using it at age eleven, courtesy of Mom and Dad. But she got to like it too much and started supplementing her dosage with her generous allowance.”

Marvia Plum said, “You'll have to fill me in.”

“All right. At the risk of TMI—too much information—this stuff is basically amphetamine plus dextroamphetamine, with a couple of other minor additives. It stimulates production of norepinephrine in the brain. Unfortunately it can have some nasty side effects. If you've been taking monoamine oxidase inhibitors like isocarboxazid or tranylcypromine the stuff will probably kill you. But those things are mainly used in Parkinson's patients, so Miss Horton has probably never even heard of them.”

She drew a breath.

“But Adderall itself can cause dizziness, insomnia, headaches, diminution of appetite, weight loss … and of course, the stuff is addictive in its own right. Some of the kids, like Rebi, call it ‘jolt.'”

Marvia Plum was taking that in. “When did you last see Rebi Horton?”

“Little over a year ago.”

“How about her family situation?”

“Rich mommy and daddy. Rebi's their only child. They try to give her everything. Tried. I think they mean well but they are totally, totally clueless.”

Marvia Plum and Celia Varela exchanged looks. Marvia asked if Takakura had any idea where Rebi might be now, and what she would be doing.

“If her parents haven't sent her off to a locked-ward so-called school in Utah or Switzerland or wherever,” she said, “and if she's still alive?”

“Yes.”

“Probably hooking.”

“But all that money … why would she need to hook for a living?”

Takakura smiled. “You're not going to catch me on that one, Lieutenant. You know better than that. This is a kid who's so full of rage, she would do anything to hurt her parents. She wanted to be a regular kid and they wanted her to be their special princess. You remember that Boulder case years ago, that six-year-old pageant queen who was murdered?”

“Of course.”

“Rebi Horton wasn't pushed and molded like that. What happened to that poor Ramsey girl was pure child abuse, long before whatever sick pervert killed her. But Rebi's parents just kept prodding their little girl to be what they wanted her to be, they didn't give a good goddamn what
she
wanted to be. This is the result.”

She raised her hands to her face, her thumbs at the corners of her mouth, and blew out a breath as if she was clearing herself of an evil spirit.

“If they get their hands back on her, I'll tell you right now, that child is doomed. I shouldn't say this, Lieutenant. This is off the record, but it's the truth. And if they don't get her back … well, there's maybe one chance in a hundred that she'll wake up one morning before it's too late, and look in the mirror, and see what she's made out of herself and ask for help.”

“One in a hundred?”

“I'm a hopeless optimist, Lieutenant Plum. Utterly hopeless.”

FIFTEEN

“Get dressed, stupid. If you want your jolt so bad, I'll get you a jolt. But you have to work for it. Come on.”

Bobby slipped into his jeans and shoes. He wore an Oakland Raiders T-shirt and a bright red American Red Cross baseball cap that must have blown off some chump's head during a storm and gone skittering along the sidewalk, straight to Bobby.

“We'll go up to El Cerrito and talk to Morty at the dog.”

“That's good, Bobby. Morty always has plenty of jelly beans. We can always sell his stuff at the schools.”

Bobby pulled on his shitkicker boots and grunted. He stood up and squeezed Red's elbow.

“But, Bobby,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“You told me that Morty only takes cash. We don't have any cash, do we?”

“Not yet.”

He opened the dresser drawer where Red knew he kept his Marine Hunter knife and his Beretta revolver. He stood over the dresser, studying the drawer. Finally he turned around.

“You ain't been poking in here, have you? I warned you, keep your mitts off this drawer and your nose out of here. I warned you, Red!”

He backhanded her, but only once, and only medium hard. She'd been hit much harder than that before. So she smiled at him. “Never.”

“You're a fuckin' liar.” He removed the knife and its sheath from the drawer and slipped them into his jeans pocket.

They caught a ride on University, down to the freeway and up the freeway to El Cerrito, then another up to San Pablo. Walked past a grocery store where they sampled a few grapes and cherries from open bins. In one corner of the store, a woman in a chef's hat was handing out free samples of beef stew and French bread that made a nice little meal along with free lemonade and coffee.

The customers, a mixture of yuppies and welfare mamas, gave them dirty looks and the chef handing out the free samples didn't seem any too pleased to see them, but nobody made an issue of their freeloading, and Bobby and Red left the store happy.

On the way out they passed the row of cashiers giving balloons to little kids riding in shopping baskets. Red asked Bobby if he thought she could get a balloon and he hustled her out of the store before they attracted any more attention than they already had.

A gas station. A sporting-goods store. A fuckin' animal hospital, where they treated animals better than they did human beings. Red stopped and watched people bringing their pets in and out of the establishment.

“I had a dog,” she told Bobby. He didn't answer. She said, “I could work in a place like that. I love animals. I could wash dogs. I could be a helper. Maybe someday I could—”

She stopped talking and started to cry. Right there, standing in the sunlight on the sidewalk in front of an animal hospital, bawling.

“Someday what?” Bobby said.

“I don't know.”

“You want to wash dogs for a living?”

“I don't know. They have schools. They teach you how to take care of animals. I could be an animal doctor. A veterinarian.” She pronounced the last word slowly, hitting every syllable with care.

“Yeah, someday. Let's go, it's hot in the sun.”

“I could use a jolt,” Red said.

“Walk.”

A paint store. A pizzeria.

“Bobby, I don't feel so good.”

“We're nearly there.”

The Ruby Red Pup was open. It opened early, catering to pensioners with nothing better to do than hang out, nursing their drinks, telling each other the same stories they'd been telling each other for the past decade.

The neon dog in the bar's window glowed darker than blood. The upper half of the Dutch door was open and a couple of grizzled customers were leaning out, smoking.

Bobby told Red to wait outside. He pushed the lower half of the Dutch door open wide enough to squeeze through. It was dark inside the Pup and the odor of stale tobacco smoke permeated the establishment, revenant of the days before the Health Gestapo had pushed through the indoor smoking ban for bars and restaurants.

Morty was behind the bar, red jacket matching the neon dog in the window, gray ponytail hanging over his collar. He was teaching a new relief man the layout. He looked up when Bobby came into the place. He frowned.

“What do you want, kid? You know you're not allowed in here. You want me to lose my license?”

“I gotta talk to you, Morty.”

“Why? You think I got time for every punk kid who wanders in here? You looking for a handout? Go try Jolly Mussolini's Pizza. They always have leftovers.”

“I gotta talk, Morty.”

Morty heaved a dramatic sigh. The new relief man was washing glasses. Morty tapped him on the shoulder. “Keep an eye on the customers. I'll be right back.” He signaled Bobby with a follow-me gesture and headed for the back room.

Bobby waited for Morty to shut the door and click the latch into place. “I need some merchandise, Morty.”

“Big surprise.”

“Any kind of jolts. Business is good these days. I guess it's the season.”

“You're right, fella. Only time of year they want junk is summer, winter, spring, or fall. How much do you need?”

“What can you give me?”

“What can you pay for?”

“I'll have plenty of money, Morty. You know that. One quick round of the schools and I'll pay you for everything and have money to buy more.”

“You mean you got no dough.”

“Did I say that?”

“Show me the money, Bobby. You know there's no credit in this business.”

Somebody knocked on the door and Morty's relief man said, “You better look at this, Mort.”

Morty unlatched the door and opened it about a foot. The relief man was standing there, still wearing his apron. A scrawny girl was struggling to get away from him. “Went for the Slim Jims, and when I grabbed her she came around the bar and headed for the register.”

The girl was kicking and screaming. Behind her the regulars were drifting toward the exit.

“Jesus Christ, let her in and go back and tell the customers everything is okay.”

The relief man said, “Okay,” and complied. He returned to his customers, closing the back-room door behind him.

Red collapsed on the floor. “Morty,” she sobbed.

He shook his head. “Bobby, how many times have I told you, keep this kid out of here? Bad enough if the state people or the local cops see you around here, but this piece of jailbait would be a complete train wreck.” He stood over Red. “Get up. Can you get up? Are you fucked up? Can you stand up?”

He leaned over to help Red to her feet. She took his arm, clutching his forearm through the red bartender's jacket with one hand, digging her fingernails into the back of his hand with the other. She made it halfway off the floor, tugged again, and lunged for his eyes with her fingernails.

At the same time Bobby let him have it on the back of the head with a bottle of Gilbey's Gin. Morty went down like a sack of sand. Bobby had his Marine Hunter knife out. He grabbed Morty by the ponytail and pulled him off Red and swiped the Marine Hunter across the front of Morty's throat.

Red rolled sideways, avoiding part of the gush of blood from Morty's jugular. She staggered to her feet and started to cry.

Bobby scrambled to the door and latched it to keep the relief man out. He turned and stood over Morty. Morty's blood had covered an area in the middle of the room, with Morty himself lying facedown in the middle of the dark red pond. Morty actually groaned once, blood bubbling from his throat, and twitched. His hands were stretched in front of him, and the fingers quivered a couple of times, and then he didn't do anything else.

Red was making weird squeaking noises and twitching movements, crossing and uncrossing her hands in front of her face.

Bobby told Red to shut up. There was a bathroom just off the bar's storage room with a sink and a toilet and a rusty shower that dripped steadily. He half dragged, half carried Red in there, pulled her clothes off, shoved her in the shower, and turned both knobs on full force. The drip turned to a lukewarm trickle. He scrubbed the blood off her with an old brush that he found. By the time she was as clean as she was going to be, he'd gotten the blood off himself as well. He found a stack of bar mops and dried her off the best he could and ordered her to crawl back into her clothes.

Biggest problem now was the chance that Morty had moved his stock of pills since last time Bobby was here. He hadn't, the stupid jerk. Bobby threw everything he could find, not just pills but other stuff, into a corrugated cardboard carton. He even took the bottle of Gilbey's. He grabbed Red by the wrist and dragged her out the back door, the cardboard carton under his other arm. They jumped off the wooden loading dock, scrambled past a couple of garbage bins, a rusting, overflowing Dumpster, and a pile of old tires, and started to run.