Thursday's Child (11 page)

Thorn shook his head, an act which disturbed not a single hair on his head. “Many of our students benefit from additional educational opportunities during the vacation period,” he said.

“Remedial classes, you mean?”

He admitted that with a reluctant nod. “Was Beau Epstein enrolled for the summer classes?”

“Yes. Although his grades were excellent for the short time he was here, his grandfather thought that he might best use the summer to improve his socialization skills.”

“What can you tell me about Beau?” Gar shifted his butt a little, so that everything wouldn't go absolutely numb.

Thorn frowned. “We do our best with all the students at Paynor,” he said. The words sounded as if they came from a canned speech. “Many of them live what might be termed stressful lives.”

Gar wasn't sure that “stressful” was the word he would use. Most of them were spoiled brats. But he also knew that it could be very hard having everything in the world except a pair of loving, attentive parents. He realized, maybe better than most, that a lot of these kids were orphans in all but actual fact. Beau, of course, was the real thing. “How did he fit in with the other students? Given his pretty unique background, I mean.”

“There were problems, naturally. He simply wasn't, how shall I say it,
accustomed
to the way of life here.”

Gar could only imagine. “Did he make any friends at all?” That was the one piece of information conspicuously missing from the notes Epstein had given him. Usually the parents of even the most wayward youth could provide at least a few names to be pursued. But not this time.

Thorn was looking increasingly uncomfortable. “Well, as to that,” he said, “unfortunately, I can help you very little.” He made a pyramid of his fingers on top of the desk. “Young people have their own fairly rigid social structure. An adult authority figure like myself has a very difficult time penetrating its walls.”

Gar thought it was pretty funny that Thorn seemed to think of himself seriously as having any real authority over the student body at Paynor. To the kids, he'd be willing to bet, this fool with his brass buttons was nothing more than a clown. A figure of ridicule, not authority. “Do I have your permission to speak to some of the students on campus?”

Thorn frowned again. “Well, ordinarily I wouldn't be terribly comfortable with that. But Mr. Epstein did ask us to give you our complete cooperation, and of course we want to accommodate him in every way possible.”

Of course. Epstein was a man everybody wanted to accommodate. Except, maybe, his own grandson.

Gar used his cane as a sort of lever to get himself up out of the damned chair. He promised Thorn that he wouldn't disrupt any classes and left the impressive authority figure sitting glumly behind his desk.

Apparently, summer classes at Paynor were pretty low-key. A number of students were scattered around the lawn, soaking up the sun, eating frozen yogurt, and listening to music from a variety of radios. Some of them were even looking at books. It was clear that “remedial,” at Paynor, did not have to mean dreary.

A young black man was selling the frozen yogurt from a small yellow truck parked in front of the school. Gar walked over and bought himself a cone of strawberry twirl. He licked it thoughtfully as he decided which students to approach. Three boys were sitting on the low stone wall that edged the lawn and none of them carried books. Gar went and sat on the wall near them.

One of the boys looked at him and Gar could see something like scorn reflected in the eyes. He could also see the effects of what was undoubtedly some recently smoked dope. “Hi, there,” he said cheerfully. “Mind if I ask you a few questions?”

None of them said anything.

“Don't worry,” Gar said. “I'm not a narc.”

That earned him a snort. “No kidding,” the kid with the stoned eyes said. “So you're not a narc. Gee, that's really interesting.”

Gar smiled. “I do have a lot of close friends on the force, though. And some of them even work in narcotics.”

“Big deal.”

He shrugged. “Right. Big deal. Who the hell cares?”

“Not me,” the boy said.

“Not me either.” Gar finished his yogurt. “You can fry your brains with anything you like; it's none of my fucking business.”

The boy grinned. “For an old crip, you have a pretty good attitude.”

Gar shook his head. “You don't understand,” he said. “The thing is, I don't have any attitude at all. I'm just here to do a job.”

“What job is that?”

“First of all, do you have a name?”

“Scott.”

“Okay, Scott. I'm trying to find a fellow student of yours.”

Scott didn't look surprised. “Somebody hit the road, did they? Hell, that happens all the time. Who split?”

“Beau Epstein.”

All three boys smirked.

“You know Beau, I guess.”

“Nature boy? Sure, we know him.”

“What do you think about him?”

Scott wrinkled his brow in a parody of thought; maybe that was all he was capable of. “Oh, Beau is pretty much of a complete dork,” he said finally. “He walks around here like he's better than the rest of us. Like he's morally superior or something.”

Gar wouldn't have thought that moral superiority was a subject that Scott would have been very concerned with. “Do you have any idea why he might have taken off?”

Scott shrugged. “Who knows?” Then he grinned unpleasantly, as if someone had just told a dirty joke. “Unless maybe it has something to do with Kimberly.” His tone matched the grin in nastiness.

Gar wanted to sigh, but he was damned if he'd give these boys the satisfaction. Instead, he just took out his notebook. “Kimberly?” he said.

“Yeah. Kimberly Wyndham. She goes to school here.”

“She and Beau friends, are they?”

Another snicker. “Well,” Scott said, “that sort of depends on what you call a
friend.
”

Gar wanted to ask him exactly what he meant, but then he decided it would be better to hear the details from Kimberly herself. “You know where I can find her?”

Scott reached into his pocket and came out with a small electronic contraption. He quickly punched something into it, then turned its face toward Gar. “Kimberly's address,” he said.

Gar read the digital readout and jotted it down. “There's nothing else you can tell me about Beau?”

Scott's momentary agreeability vanished. “You look in the jungle? Maybe he's back swinging through the trees.”

“You're pretty funny, Scott. For an asshole.”

Scott just grinned again and flipped him a finger.

Gar got up and walked away.

2

His daughter's name was Jessica.

One day when she was just past sixteen, Jessica Lynn Sinclair had walked out of the house to go, they thought, to school. But she didn't go there and she never came home again, either.

No evidence of foul play was ever found.

Inside her denim schoolbag, she had tucked her diary, her teddy bear, and two hundred dollars in baby-sitting earnings. It seemed as if she had intended to vanish.

Gar stirred the high-octane chili that Harry served at his hole-in-the-wall diner on Alvarado Street. It wasn't the most convenient place to come for lunch, but some days nothing would do but a healthy dose of the spicy concoction. Or maybe it wasn't so much the chili as it was the memories. On Saturdays, years ago, he would bring Jessica here. A father-and-daughter sort of day. Maybe they would catch the Dodger game. Or a museum. But whatever they did, it always started with chili at Harry's.

It was as if the earth had opened up and swallowed his daughter.

Gar washed chili down with cold beer.

The doctors never said for sure, but he was convinced that the reason his wife succumbed so quickly to the cancer was that she just didn't want to go on without her daughter. Gar wondered sometimes if the fact that he
did
go on, was even happy most days, meant that he had loved Jessie less. He didn't think so. Maybe he still nourished some hope that sooner or later he would find her.

But probably not today.

Yeah, Jessie was gone, but he felt that Beau Epstein was still within his reach. Beau could still be saved.

Kimberly Wyndham lived in a large white house in the sacred heart of Beverly Hills. A Mexican housekeeper opened the door and told Gar that Miss Kimberly was around back by the pool. He followed the path she pointed out.

Kimberly was there, all right.

The girl was wearing a white string bikini on a body that was a perfect shade of brown; skin cancer undoubtedly waited several decades down the road, but Kimberly probably figured that there would be a cure by then, at least for somebody who could afford it. She might well have been right.

“Excuse me, Kimberly,” Gar said. “Can we talk for a minute?”

She raised her head slowly and opened her eyes. “Who are you?”

He displayed his ID. “I wanted to talk to you about Beau Epstein.”

She sat up and tied the bikini top, while Gar averted his gaze. It seemed as if he was spending a lot of time lately not looking at young girls' bodies. Next to her chaise was a small table that held a tall glass of what looked like tonic. Maybe there was something else in it, too, he decided, seeing the gulp she took before speaking again. “Beau?” was all she said.

“He's missing.”

“Missing? What does that mean?”

How come this girl wasn't in one of those remedial classes at Paynor?

“I mean that his grandfather doesn't know where he is. I've been hired to find him.”

“Like Magnum?” she said brightly.

“Something like that, yes.”

She took another gulp; there was definitely something stronger than just tonic water in the glass. “How come you came here? I hardly know him at all.”

Gar dragged a wooden deck chair closer and sat down. “I'm here because some of the kids at school told me that you might have an idea about why he took off.”

She shook her head and reached for a bottle of coconut-scented tanning lotion. SPF 0.

Gar leaned forward. “Kimberly, maybe you don't know what it's like out there on the streets. It's very dangerous. A lot of very bad people. Beau might be in serious trouble.”

She was slowly massaging lotion into her taut belly. “I don't think it's fair to blame
me,
” she said, starting to pout. “It was only a joke.”

Gar could feel a headache building behind his eyes. “What was only a joke?” he asked.

She was, to her credit, more than a little embarrassed by the story of what had happened between herself and Beau. It came out slowly, as she fortified herself with frequent swallows of the drink. When she was finished, she picked up a pair of dark glasses and put them on. Refuge from his gaze.

Gar closed his notebook and put it away without writing anything down.

“Do you really think that's why he ran away?” she asked finally.

“Maybe.”

For almost ten seconds, it looked as if Kimberly Wyndham might actually be experiencing a crisis of conscience. Then she gave her head a toss. “Well, that's just dumb. Who would run away because of a little
sex?
Let me tell you, there are plenty of guys who would like to get lucky the way Beau did.”

He didn't doubt it for a minute.

“So if he ran away because of that, he's just stupid. And I can't be blamed for that, can I?” She gave him a bright and perfect smile.

10

1

The boy was still sleeping.

Robert pulled on a pair of old cutoffs and walked quietly though the living room, where Beau was sprawled half-on and half-off the couch, dead to the world. Robert paused to look at him for a moment, then went on into the kitchen.

Coffee seemed like a very good idea. A heavy dose of caffeine and sugar might wipe out the lingering headache caused by drinking too much beer during his bar-hopping hunt for Marnie Dowd the night before.

All that damned beer probably also helped to explain why he was suddenly playing kindly uncle or whatever the hell he was doing.

He plugged in the electric coffeepot. If he was going to be a good host, he probably better feed the kid some breakfast. A quick check of the refrigerator gave him eggs, bacon, bread. Some orange juice. Robert took everything out and set it on the counter.

Regular Betty Freaking Crocker, right?

It had been a long time since he'd made breakfast for anybody.

He was pouring his first cup of coffee when Beau appeared in the doorway. “Well, good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” Robert said.

“Hi.” Beau looked only half-awake and a little bewildered. “You're Robert, right?”

“Boy, you're sharp today. Yes, I'm Robert.”

“I was confused. Real life was getting all mixed up with the crazy dreams I kept having.” There was a bruise on one cheek and his left eye was swollen, but otherwise he seemed to have come through last night's beating relatively unscathed. He took a careful look around the kitchen. “This is your place, I guess?”

“Mine and the mortgage company's, yeah.” Robert took a frying pan out of the cupboard. “If you want to take a shower or something, the can is that way.”

“Okay.” Beau turned around, then stopped and glanced back at Robert. “Thanks.”

Robert shrugged. “You have any problem with scrambled eggs?” he said. “I don't feel like screwing around with them much.”

“Scrambled is fine. The thanks was for what you did last night.”

Robert frowned as he searched for a fork. “Yeah, all right.”

Beau headed for the bathroom.

Robert lined up strips of bacon in the frying pan and turned on the gas flame. He leaned against the counter and drank coffee slowly as the fat began to sizzle in the pan. The plan was simple. Let the boy clean up a little, feed him, give him some more cash, and then send him on his way. Simple. He didn't have the time—or the desire—to fool around with the troubles of some hard-luck juvenile delinquint.