Blues for Zoey (16 page)

48

My Piece of
the Puzzle

Late the following afternoon, both Mom and Nomi were back at home. Mom zoned out in front of the TV and Nomi curled up beside her. It was hard to believe Zoey had been here the night before. I could still feel the leanness of her body, her warm skin pressed against my back.

I thought about what A-Man told me in his room at the Emerson Center, about pinions and loose gears, all spinning around in an endless machine. After eve
rything that had happened—Dad dying; us moving to this crappy corner of Evandale; Mom getting sick; Mr. Rodolfo giving me a job—after all that,
you had to wonder if I was
meant
to be
here. If any of those things hadn't
happened, I would never have met Zoey. M
aybe the two of us were cogs that fit. That
was certainly how it felt.

It was nice to think about, but unfortunately, the idea kept getting crowded out by thoughts of B-Man.

Proof
. Zoey said I needed proof.
She seemed to know what she was talking about. If I was brave enough, I could snoop around the
laundromat. When I came out of my room, Mom was the
re in the hall.

“You okay?” I asked.

“I'm fine.” She pointed to the bathroom. “I've been drinking a lot of water.”

“A
re we going to Beauhaven?”

“I'm not really feeling up to it quite yet.”

She wasn'
t kidding. She looked even worse than after the last attack.

“It's okay,” she said with
a weak smile. “In a few days,
we'll drive up. I'll get some t
reatment, and who knows? This could be the last one I have for a while. Maybe the last one, period.”

“
Maybe.” It occurred to me that this
was the first attack she'd had at the library. “Are you going back to work?”

“
Of course.” She said it a little too quickly to be believed. “First, I'll need a little time off.”

“How much?”

She
took a step into the bathroom. “Why don
't you go spend some time with Nomi. I'm
not sure if you've noticed, but she might be the one who needs some attention. Not me.”

Nomi was in the living room, sucked in by the latest episode of
Big Daddy
.

“Didn't I tell you not to watch that?”

She ignored me.

“Hey, I just thought of something. Maybe I could teach you some stuff. We could get out the old Casio.”

Nomi was so shocked to hear this, she actually deigned to mute the television. Then she turned to me with this weirdly mature, weirdly apologetic face. “That's nice,” she said, “but you don't have to.”

“What?”

“I changed my mind.”

“You did? When?”

“Remember Jennifer?”

“Um, y
eah.” I couldn't see what this had to
do with Nomi changing her mind about the piano.

“Well, guess what?” she said.

“What?”

“Jenny says she's gonna teach me
the violin
!”

49

Snooping Around the Sit 'n' Spin, Par
t 1

Mr. Rodolfo didn't say a word to me when I went down to wor
k. That was fine by me. To be honest, I
wasn't sure what to say to him. If I could avoid him, I thought, I could also avoid all
the speculations in my head about mobsters and money and mur
der.

After he left, I started a methodical search of the entire laundromat. I pretended to clean everything, but in realit
y, I was examining it. One by one, I poked my
head into every washer and dryer in the place. Finally, I took a paper towel, closed my e
yes, and wiped around Ol' Betty's innards.

“Hey!” someone yelled at me. “You lose something d
own there?”

I flinched so hard my knees gave
out and I bashed them on the washer. Up
near the windows, a fat guy in a wife-beater
was sitting on the benches, waiting for a load to finish.

“No,” I said to him. “Just cleaning!” To prove it, I held up the perfectly pristine, perfectly dry paper towel in my hand.
Dry and pristine
. (If Ol' Betty had been force-fed B-Man's blood, she hadn't got any of it stuck in her teeth.)

“Just cleaning, huh?” asked the fat guy.

“Yep.”

“You're pretty thorough.”

It sounded like he was making
fun of me, so I didn't answer him.
I took a peek into the back alley
.
The
wooden stairs that led up to our kitchen looked the same
as ever. The pavement that had been moist with the Brothers' mop water was bone dry
.

M
y phone buzzed. I hoped it was Zoey.
Maybe her dad was away, maybe she wanted to hook up again, but no, it was only a text from Calen. The subject line said: AWESOME NEWS!!

50

Calen's Welcome
(but Not Quite
as Sexy) News

Calen:
DUDE!! guess who got 3 tix to WBB
@ Foo Bar 2nite?

Me:
WBB??

Calen:
WILD BLUE BOUNCE! U, me, Alana.

Me:
Uh … how much for tickets?

Calen:
FREE! My bro cant go, so I got em.

Me:
Can we get 4?

Calen:
3's all I got. totly sold out.

M
e:
K, cool

Calen:
What's the earliest I can pick u up?

51

Snooping Around the
Sit 'n' Spin, Part 2

Just before closing, the Sit 'n' Spin was nearly empt
y. Once it was just me and a bored-looking DIYer
waiting for his dryer to stop tumbling, I cr
ept downstairs. This time, I moved slowly, ca
refully searching every inch of the place. All I found were some old crates, some old shelves, boxes of supplies and tools, decrepit br
ooms and mops, and the big pressboard poker table surrounded by its crappy metal chairs. There
was nothing incriminating at all, nothing to imply Mr. Rodolfo and his Brothers had recently murdered a homeless man.

At that point, I was r
eady to give up. I would try to forget about B-Man (something I already did most of the time). There was no real proof something had happened to him, and A-Man kne
w his friend better than anyone. If he said B-Man was off on one of his jaunts,
he probably was. If it got to be the end of summer and he still hadn'
t shown up, then I could tell someone about what I'd seen. By that time, I would have saved enough money and
it wouldn't matter. That's what I
told myself, at least.

I was just about to climb back up the
stairs when my hand, almost with a mind of its own,
reached out for the doorknob to Mr. Rodolfo's office. I expected to hear the same sound I hea
rd last time, the stubborn
chk-chk
of the lock, but instead the doorknob turned. His office was open.

I had never seen the inside, not even when Mr. Rodolfo had intervi
ewed me for the job; he had asked his
questions over the counter upstairs.

I found a light switch, and
a pair of fluorescent tubes buzzed to
life. The office wasn't much bigger
than my bedroom. There was a dark-g
reen metal desk, a coffee table, and a couple plastic chairs stacked
against the cement wall. The surface
of the desk was scattered with papers and sev
eral tin cans that bristled with pens. Against one wall was a
beige bookcase. Nearly every shelf was piled with wir
es, outdated stereo equipment, and crappy speakers. The top
shelf was home to a handful of
mystery novels and men's magazines, ones with
articles on how to get the most out of a sit-u
p. In the corner was a metal filing cabinet with an old
TV perched on top. On th
e floor beside the cabinet was a set o
f barbells. They were unused, all fou
r of them hairy with dust.

I searched the various shelves and drawers but I didn't find anything. Just the usual stuff—papers, files, office supplies. In the bottom of the filing cabinet, I found several boxes of playing cards and a case of poker chips.

Between the
cabinet and the desk was another door. When I tried to open it, it was locked; it gave off the
chk-chk
noise I had expected to hear a moment ago. I put
my ear to the wood. I didn't hear anything. V
ery gently, I knocked. There was no answer
, but then—

“
Hello
?
Anybody here?
” someone shouted.

I nearly shit myself. But then I realized the voice hadn't come from the other side of the door. It had come from upstairs.

52

Gi
gabot Productions

The guy at the counter was tall, middle-aged, and handsome in a daytime soap opera kind of way. On his face, he wore a thick brown goatee and glasses with rims to match (thick and brown). The sleeves of his shiny gray suit were rolled up, showing off forearms roped with muscle. He was using his fingers to drum a beat on the edge of the counter, upon which was lumped a pile of clothes. All suits.

“Can I help you?”

His bright blue eyes flashed toward the entrance. “Says there you're still open. Are you?”

“We close at ten.”

“You do dry cleaning, yeah?”

“What do you need?”

He separated the pile on the counter. “These are all suits, tops and bottoms. I need them dry cleaned and pressed.” His
voice was light and smooth and calm, but confident. Y
ou could tell he was used to getting what he wanted.
“No huge rush, but I need them by Thursday morning. Got it?”

I told him it wouldn't be a problem.

“Great, we're shooting all day Friday and then over the weekend.”

“Shooting?”

“Just a pilot.”

“
Pilot?
Like a TV show?”

He wrinkled his nose like somebody farted. “We have
n't been picked up yet, but it seems like w
e got legs. The thing could really run.”

“Cool.” No wonder he was so confident, so out of place next to
the usual people who came into the Sit 'n' Spin.
“So are you, like, an actor?”

He chuckled and shook his head. “Producer. I'm the guy who signs the checks. And occasionally dr
ops off the dry cleaning, apparently.” He sighed and patted the heap of suits.

I asked him if he was shooting around here, in Evandale. He explained that his cr
ew had rented one of the old houses down at the bottom of Emerson and
they were using it as the set.

“This neighborhood has a nice feel to it. Urban, gritty, right?
Everybody's looking for that, so it's good when you find it. My second unit DOP says the light's good, too, 'specially
round sunset.” He smiled. “I wouldn't know.”

I smiled back, mostly because his grin was contagious, not because I understood what he was talking about.
Second unit DOP
meant nothing to me.

“It's a great neighborhood,” he went on, gazing out the window. “And
cheap
. If we get picked up, we'll definitely shoot a few episodes around here.”

I felt a little stab of jealousy. How nice would it be if the only reason you came to Evandale was to make a TV sh
ow?

“The next couple of days, it's just
pickups and cutaways. All second unit stuff, but I like to be here to get the details right. Sets the mood. Principle photography won't start for another
week, but there's still a shitload to do. Pardon my French.”

“Who's in it?” I asked. “Anybody famous?”

“Sorry, kid, that's classified. But stick around. I might let something slip.” He smiled again, this time with a mischievous glint.

I liked the way his eyes were so bright and self-assured. I liked the way he called me “kid,” like I was his sidekick.

“Wait,” I said, just as he turned to leave. Then I realized I didn't have anything to say. “Uh ... you want us to call you if we get the suits done early?”

“Doubt I'll have time to come get 'em. Too busy with prep.”

“Oh, sure,” I said, like I knew everything in the world about preparing to shoot a pilot.

“But you never know.” He reached into his pocket and took out a silver card case. “You can get me here.”

His business card featured a block
y, crayon doodle of a robot—square head, metallic pincers, light bulbs for ears. It said:

A
nd
r
ew
M
y
ers
G
igabot
P
r
oductions

After that, he jogged across the street to where he'd parked, right in front of M
izra's Fire & Ice. His car was a glittering red conver
tible. In a neighborhood like Evandale, a ride like that was even more conspicuous than one of Da
ve Mizra's suits.