Thursday's Child (7 page)

Deniability was as important to these street kids as it was to the idiots in the White House. If you made sure not to know what was going on, how could you possibly be blamed for anything? The place to be these days was as far out of the loop as you could get.

Gar reached into another pocket, this time coming out with the photo that Mrs. McClure had given him. “Maybe if you look at this,” he suggested. “I heard that maybe she was turning tricks in this neighborhood recently.”

“I don't know anything about that.” The girl finished her hot dog before reaching out to take the photograph from him. At once, her face brightened. “Hey, you want to hear something really wild?”

Maybe his luck was turning. “What's that?”

“I had this same dress once,” she said in a dreamy voice. “The exactly same dress, except that mine was yellow, not pink.” She held the picture out at arm's length, tilting it, and pursing her lips critically. “It was much prettier in yellow.”

“You must have been a real knockout,” Gar said quietly.

“Yeah.” She gnawed at her upper lip for a moment and then tossed the photo down onto the counter. “I don't know the bitch.”

Gar quickly removed the picture from a puddle of some unknown liquid. The denial didn't ring true for some reason; or maybe he was just naturally suspicious. He took out a ten-spot and fingered it suggestively. “You absolutely sure about that, honey?”

She looked at the bill, then at the photo again. The instinctive desire not to get involved warred with her need for the money, and after a brief struggle, need won out, as it usually did. “Well, it
could
be I've seen her around. She sure doesn't look much like that anymore, though.”

Gar didn't bother to tell the girl that with her stringy, greasy hair, druggie's pallor, and hard eyes, she wasn't such a knockout anymore either. She probably already knew it. “Where have you maybe seen her around?”

“Here, like you said.” She wanted to take the money, but he moved it out of her reach.

“When was this that you might have seen her around here?”

“I don't know.” She sighed. “Not lately. I heard some talk that maybe she split. Went to Venice.”

“Venice? Why?”

She shrugged. “Don't ask me. Maybe she fell in love. How the fuck should I know why?”

“Okay. Thanks.” He moved the money closer.

She plucked the bill away and shoved it out of sight in a hurry, as if afraid he might change his mind. “When you find her …”

He gulped down the rest of his coffee, which wasn't improved much by the fact that it was now cold. Of course, on the upside, it wasn't much worse either. “When I find her what?”

“You going to take her back to her parents?”

“That's the idea, yeah.”

“What if she doesn't want to go?”

He crushed the empty Styrofoam cup. “Then she'll probably just take off again.”

She shook her head in apparent dismay. “People can be awful stupid sometimes, can't they?”

Gar was tired. He didn't want to look at her face again, to have to see the naked fear and hurt that he knew would be there. Instead, feeling like an asshole, he reached into his pocket one more time and brought out a quarter. He set the coin carefully onto the counter next to the soda can. “You might want to call home sometime,” he said. “Put this away and save it for then.”

She probably wouldn't do it, of course. But, then again, maybe she would. Maybe.

He gripped his cane and walked away without waiting for her to say anything else.

Sometimes after a day that dragged on much too long, his leg would rebel. That rebellion would come in the form of a throbbing pain, often becoming so intense that he would get nauseous. When things degenerated to that point, he would have no choice but to lean all two-hundred-plus pounds onto the cane and move with aggravating slowness. He would also quietly curse the inept second-story man with the nervous trigger finger, who had put three bullets into him on a rainy night four years earlier.

This was not exactly what Gareth Sinclair had expected to be doing in this, the forty-eighth year of his life. By now, he was supposed to be off the streets, firmly planted behind a desk someplace, elevated to a position within the ranks of the Los Angeles Police Department that would not require him to tramp up and down Hollywood Boulevard in the freaking middle of the night.

Of course, honesty forced him to recognize that when the opportunity for that desk job came along a few years earlier than expected—thanks to the intervention of one Jose Diego, nervous crook—Gar ran the other way as fast as he could. Quit the damned department. Threw it all away so that now, at his advanced age and state of physical deterioration, he was still playing the games that should have been left to a much younger man. One who was not, in the baby whore's word, a crip.

It had all been his choice, yeah, but on nights like this one, Gar sometimes thought that maybe he had made a very big mistake. The absolutely last thing he wanted to do now was drive to Venice and walk some more streets, talking to still more lost children. He was just damned worn out.

But even as he limped back to his car, stuck the cane between the seats and himself behind the steering wheel, Gar knew what he was going to do. It was hell to be conscientious, especially when you were sort of past your prime. Or maybe it wasn't so much that he was conscientious at all; maybe he was just trying to justify his existence.

Whatever.

First things first, though. He took out and swallowed a couple of the tiny pink pills that were supposed to ease the pain. Unfortunately, they didn't work all that well, probably because he never allowed himself to take more than two when he was on the job. They made him groggy and it was hard to work that way.

So, ungroggy and with a leg that still throbbed, he started his car and headed toward Venice.

2

It was late, but on a warm summer night like this one there was still plenty of activity on the boardwalk. Some of what was going on, Gar figured, might have been neither illegal nor immoral. Maybe. The nice thing about being his own boss was that he didn't have to concern himself with anything but the job he was on; it wasn't his responsibility anymore to look out for the whole damned society.

The beach was covered with tents; it wasn't a Boy Scout jamboree, however. This was the new Venice, uneasy refuge for the homeless. Gar thought it was too bad, but he was just a confused liberal Democrat who didn't know what to do anymore.

After walking for a while and talking to a few massively disinterested passersby, Gar bought himself a large lemonade and found an empty bench. Gratefully, he sat.

He hadn't been there long when a boy with a chartreuse Mohawk skated over and dropped heavily down next to him. “Hi,” the boy said. “Got any change you're not using?”

Gar handed him a dollar bill.

“All right,” the boy said appreciatively.

“Don't spend it on drugs.” Gar told all the kids the same thing, not that he imagined it really did any good. But it was something a confused liberal could do.

“Hey, no way. The body is, like, a temple, you know?” The boy grinned suddenly and even with the absurd hair, he managed to look remarkably Tom Sawyerish. “'Sides, what the hell could I get for a buck?”

Gar hid his own smile by taking a swallow of the tart lemonade.

The boy didn't leave with the dollar, but sat where he was, rolling the skates back and forth slowly, whistling a tune that Gar didn't recognize. It was nice that he didn't seem to mind being seen sitting with a gray-haired human being.

After a moment, figuring what the hell, Gar took the McClure photograph from his pocket one more time. “You strike me as a young man who gets around,” he said.

The kid liked that. “Yeah,” he said with a self-satisfied nod. “I keep on top of things all right.”

“So maybe you've seen this girl?”

“You a cop?”

“No.”

He seemed to accept that and took the picture. His fingers were slightly grimy and the nails were chewed down to the quick, but he held on to the picture with delicacy. “She does look familiar,” he said after a moment.

“Her name is Tammi,” Gar offered. “And probably she doesn't look so much like a prom queen anymore.”

The boy glanced slyly at Gar and smiled again. “Must be demon drugs, right?”

“Probably.”

He gave the photo one more long study, then nodded firmly. “Yeah, that's her. She hangs out.”

“Where, mostly?”

“House. A couple blocks that way. A few blocks.”

Gar had the feeling he always got when a search was about to yield results, a sort of tingle at the back of his neck. “Show me the house. There's another buck in it for you.”

The boy shrugged. “Sure.”

Gar finished the lemonade and threw the cup toward a trash can that was already overflowing. “Let's go.” He still wasn't moving very quickly, but the boy, who said his name was Perry, slowed his skating to Gar's pace. He also talked most of the way, apparently recounting the plot of a science fiction movie he'd recently seen. The details of the convoluted story escaped Gar completely.

Finally Perry stopped in front of a three-story gingerbread monster that was badly in need of a paint job, as well as a dozen or so new windows. “She lives here, I'm pretty sure.”

Gar handed him a five-spot. “Thanks.”

“Hey, thank
you.
” He grinned once more and held up one hand as if swearing an oath. “No drugs.” Then he whipped around and took off like a bullet.

Gar watched him go, then sighed and started toward the front door.

Tammi was not especially happy to be found.

She actually seemed to like living in a filthy room on the second floor of the run-down house in Venice. She shared the room with another hard-eyed young girl, who looked as if her grip on things was slipping even faster than Tammi's. But since Gar hadn't been hired to find
that
girl, he didn't pay much attention to her.

Tammi sat cross-legged on the bare mattress that was the only piece of furniture in the room. She had a can of beer between her knees and a joint in one hand. This particular evening, she wasn't wearing a party dress, either in pink or yellow, but only an old T-shirt with a picture of Tom Petty on the front. Gar wasn't altogether sure that she had anything on below the shirt, so he kept his gaze at eye level.

Her eyes were coldly amused as she studied him, head to toe, and then back again to his face. “You're the best they could do, huh?”

“I guess so,” Gar said with a shrug. “But I found you, right?”

She conceded that with a small grimace and then took a long swallow from the can of generic beer. “So what happens next?”

“I'd like to take you home.”

“Real fucking polite, aren't you?” Both girls snickered. “What if I prefer not to do that?”

“Well, I won't drag you.”

“Good.”

He smiled. “But I will have to tell the cops where you are and that you're only sixteen. No matter how much they don't care about one more runaway brat, once they've been officially notified about you, the law will have to step in. After all, your father is a pretty important man.”

“Right. Well, fuck you, mister.”

Gar dismissed that with another smile. “Everybody has to earn a living.”

She took a hit from the joint and then passed it over to her silent friend. “Yeah, man, that's just what I'm trying to do.”

“Hey, you're a former honor student, right? A smart girl like you should be able to make her way in life without spreading her legs for the tourists.”

She did not respond to that.

He glanced at his Timex. “Getting late, honey.”

“So what you're saying here is that I can choose you or the cops.”

“That's pretty much it, yeah.”

She chose him. Reluctantly, and with a lot of dirty words tossed in his direction.

Gar smoked a cigarette and waited as she gathered together a few things—a pair of jeans, some shorts that she pulled on much to his relief, and another T-shirt. A small leather beaded pouch that probably held her stash. And, with a glance his way, a foil packet of condoms.

At least she practiced safe sex.

Gar just looked bored as she displayed the rubbers, which seemed to disappoint her.

Neither of them spoke again until they were in his car and headed for Brentwood. She leaned against the passenger door and stared at him. “So this is how you earn your daily bread, huh?”

“This is pretty much it.”

“Why?”

He just shrugged.

“Doesn't it make you feel bad that everybody thinks you're a real prick?”

“I spent years working as a cop,” he replied. “I'm used to that.”

“I'll bet,” she muttered. “Don't you even care about why a person might have done what she did?”

“Run away, you mean?”

He sped through a yellow light. “I care. Sort of. But, see, I don't allow myself to get all tangled up in heavy philosophical issues like that.”

“Sure. You used to be a cop, right?”

He couldn't help smiling a little at that. Sometimes these kids surprised him with how smart they could be. Except, of course, when it came to their own lives. Then they got real dumb.

The conversation seemed to die off at that point, probably from a lack of motivation on either side.

The house in Brentwood was dark, of course. Apparently nobody was sitting up nights worrying about the girl. Gar parked in the circular driveway and they both got out. “This really sucks,” Tammi said as they walked to the door.

“I'm sorry,” Gar said. “But maybe it'll all work out better this time.” He pressed the doorbell.

She snorted in disbelief.

It took several minutes, but finally a light went on inside, and then the door opened. McClure himself stood there, tying a sash around his midnight-blue silk robe. “Oh, it's you,” he said to Gar. Then he spotted Tammi, who was hanging back. “You found her a lot quicker than anybody did before.”