Drawing Dead (25 page)

Best-Bilt Homes? he asked.

I don’t know. Probably.

It’s off the road a bit. I’ll show you.

He drew me a map on a napkin. It was only five miles away. But the last two were on a pretty bad dirt road, he warned me.

Okay, I said. I think I can handle it.

You look like the kind of guy can handle it, he said.

Thanks. I’ll try not to misplace your confidence.

Front pocket, he said.

What?

Put it in your front pocket. Less likely to lose it.

T
HE TRAILER WAS ONE OF THOSE LOW-SLUNG NONDESCRIPT
things. Someone had taken the trouble to plant a tiny lawn in front. On second look, someone had taken the trouble to plant some grass-colored gravel out front. There was a Buick Electra parked there. I tried to remember when was the last year Buick made an Electra. Somewhere around the Crimean War, I was guessing. I eased the Mini Cooper into the drive. The front door was painted orange. Someone’s idea of distinctive, out here in the land of indistinction. I pressed the buzzer. Chimes inside. Tasteful.

I waited a minute. Pressed again.

No answer.

I walked around the side of the trailer. I wanted to be discreet, but the random cacti and scrub offered no cover. I didn’t think crawling
would work, and anyway, I wasn’t about to sacrifice my two-hundred-dollar custom-tailored one hundred percent cotton shirt—a remnant of the big-shot lawyer days—to just any saguaro. No, I’d just have to take my chances on Mrs. Widow-Next-Door-Without-A-Life calling the cops. If she did, I’d just have to feel good about providing her day, her month, her life, a welcome frisson.

The trailers were close together. A dog barking, somewhere. Small and insistent. Otherwise, not a sound. A fence between the trailers, towards the back. Another sign these mobile homes hadn’t been mobile for a while.

The fence had a gate. It wasn’t locked. I reached over and lifted the latch. Swung it open.

I was sweating like a hog in the insistent sun.

In the backyard was a pool, small but real, scary blue and shimmering. It took up most of the yard. It was a very small yard.

Reclining on a plastic lounge chair was a woman.

I walked over.

She was wearing enormous reflective sunglasses. A floppy cotton hat. And a raincoat.

It looked like a nice raincoat. Long. Down to her ankles. Double-breasted. A nice teal color. Wide collars. Slightly retro. Way too classy, in fact, for the surroundings.

Speaking of the surroundings, she was wearing a raincoat. In the desert.

I stood over her. She didn’t move. I couldn’t tell, behind the shades, whether she was awake. Hell, I couldn’t tell if she was alive.

The coat was buttoned. Her feet were bare. Tanning the feet, I guessed.

I cleared my throat.

Her head lifted an inch.

Excuse me, I said.

Who are you? she asked in a low voice, slurred with recent sleep, or possibly barbiturates. She was strangely calm. As if accustomed to unknown men showing up poolside unannounced. Which contributed to the barbiturate hypothesis.

Rick Redman, I said. I’m an investigator.

I see, she said, shifting herself up another inch.

The raincoat appeared to be sticking to the lawn chair. She tugged at it. The lapels fell open. The view was promising. Pale, freckled skin.
Enough to make me wonder. Whether she had anything on underneath. No evidence of it. Which could be good. Or bad. There was only one way to find out. And this was not the moment to try it.

I averted my eyes. A little late, but I hoped the gesture would curry me favor.

Ms. Eloise, or whoever she was, gazed at me through the shades. Or at least I assumed she was gazing at me through the shades. Hard to tell. Through the shades.

I thought about that expression. Curry favor. What did Indian food have to do with goodwill? I made a note to look it up.

There was something floating in the pool. It looked like a dead rodent. I wasn’t sure. The sun was too bright. It kept flickering in the blue, appearing and vanishing. Maybe it was a live rodent.

Maybe it wasn’t there at all.

And what, she said at last, might you be investigating?

Well, I said, you, actually.

She gave a short laugh. It seemed to exhaust her last reserves. Her head plummeted back into the comfort of the slatted plastic chair.

Me? she said.

She fished in the pocket of her raincoat. Pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Pulled one out. Lit it with a Zippo.

Mind if I cadge one of those? I asked.

Sharing vices is good for establishing rapport with the subject. It’s in the manual.

She tugged her coat around, searched the other pocket. Pulled out a pack of Gitanes, tossed it to me.

You can have these, she said. I don’t smoke them.

I got a friend who does, I said, putting the pack in my shirt pocket. Meanwhile, do you mind if I have one of those?

You’re a pushy bastard, Mr. Investigator, she said, flinging a Benson & Hedges at me. I’ll give you that.

Thank you, I said. I lit the smoke. Took a haul. I almost gagged. They were full strength. No ultralights for this lady. Ah, I said to myself. Instant black lung.

Anyway, I said, once we were each ensconced in our respective cloud of haze, yes, you. If you’re who I think you are. And I think you are. Your sister asked me to find you.

Louise? she said, still languorous. You’re kidding, right?

Why would I be kidding? I asked.

Listen, Richard—

Rick, I interrupted.

Rick. Ricky. Dick. Listen, you just appeared uninvited in my backyard. You claim you’ve been hired to find me. You found me. I gave you a cigarette. Now get the fuck out of here. Okay?

This seemed uncalled-for. But she’d said it in the same calm, slow monotone, and something about the contrast between the words and the voice gave it a gravity hard to resist.

Nevertheless, I gathered up my gumption. Prepared to protest.

Can I just ask you one thing? I said.

She turned her head. I could see in her shades the sharp elliptical reflection of my face. Hey, I thought. Not that bad. Could pass for a pretty handsome guy. If the world were convex.

She nodded. Almost imperceptibly.

Do you mind if I tell your sister where you are? I continued. She seems genuinely concerned.

I got the short sharp laugh again.

I took it as a yes.

So, I said. I can tell her you’re all right? Everything’s okay?

You can tell her anything you like.

Okay. All right. I guess I’ve done my job. Is this your place?

She said nothing.

You live here? I insisted.

More silence.

You know, I said, we couldn’t find any records of you anywhere. Made it kind of hard to track you down. If you don’t mind my asking, did you change your name?

Silence.

Do you have something you need to hide from?

She didn’t move an eyelash. Or at least, that was my impression. I couldn’t see her eyelashes. Behind the shades.

Uh, I guess that might be kind of personal, I said. I’m sorry. But do you mind if I ask you one last question? Then I’ll leave. Promise.

She raised her sunglasses. Turned her gimlet eye to mine. It was more than a little disconcerting. I mean, I love a green-eyed girl. I really do. Add some copper-colored hair, and I’m in instant love. But this eye. This was a splintered eye. It was mostly green, but there was
a sliver, a narrow wedge, of red in it. Like a splinter. A splintered eye.

For some reason it scared the hell out of me.

Um, I said, please tell me if I’m being intrusive. Again. But I was wondering. Well, I was wondering about, I was wondering, why the raincoat? In the desert. I mean, the shades, of course, make perfect sense. It’s the desert. But a raincoat?

She raised that eye again. Her disinterest was growing more palpable by the second.

Have you ever heard of lupus? she asked.

Right, I thought. Allergic to the sun, Louise had said. I’d meant to do some research.

No, I lied.

She lowered the shades.

Well, I hope you’re doing well, I said. Your health, I mean. Your sister will want to know.

I’m fine, she said.

Another long silence ensued.

I wasn’t going to get anything else out of her. Hey, I’d been paid to find her. I’d found her. What else did I have to do? I wasn’t being paid to take on the Cyclops, after all. Or was it the Sphinx? The one with the riddles.

While I was thusly ruminating, Ms. Chandler or some other name, possibly of Russian origin, pulled her raincoat tightly around her promising self, slipped on a pair of brightly colored and clearly designer-designed sandals, and walked languidly to the back door of the trailer she, to all appearances, called home. She turned. Gave me a Look. The Look said: Go away.

I followed the instruction. As I turned the corner, I glanced back.

She hadn’t moved an inch.

In the car, I reflected on what I’d seen. Not much, given the costume. Kind of odd, that. I mean, if you’re allergic to the sun, or whatever it was, why be in the sun at all?

And how far she’d fallen, it seemed. That fancy house in Henderson, to this? There surely was a story to tell.

It was her, though. I didn’t have a doubt. The chin. The mouth. The manner. The calves. It was all Louise.

So I’d done it. Found the sister.

Life wasn’t all that bad after all, it seemed.

O
N THE WAY BACK TO TOWN
, I called Louise Chandler. Told her I had some news. We should meet, I said. She suggested a baroque little faux bistro on some street I’d never heard of. It was becoming clear that she knew Vegas better than I did. I wasn’t sure that this was a good sign.

She was late. I wasn’t surprised. I took a stool at the bar and spent the time downing a few glasses of fairly potable wine.

After a suitable half-hour interval, she made her entrance.

She was wearing a black silk dress with a keyhole neckline, the aperture just big enough to allow me to confirm it again: She had curve. She took the stool to my right. I liked that she wasn’t averse to sitting at the bar.

After the usual informalities, I came to the point.

I found her, I said.

Yes?

She seemed almost disappointed.

I did.

Where?

Out in the sticks somewhere. North of Red Rock, like I said. A trailer park. Crappy Desert Homes. Bacon in the Sun. Something like that.

Are you serious, Mr. Redman? You don’t remember the name of the place?

It’ll come back to me. Don’t worry. And anyway, I have it written down somewhere.

Somewhere?

Sure. Somewhere. And anyway, I know how to get there.

Mr. Redman, I’m not finding this very reassuring. How many drinks have you had?

Please, call me Rick. And I’m only drinking wine. Better for the digestion.

Is that your first bottle? she asked, nodding towards the half-empty vessel at my left elbow.

I guess it’s the second, I said, unwilling, for once, to tell an unnecessary lie. You were late.

Half an hour, she said.

Forty minutes, I cleverly retorted. And anyway, the first one’s just a warm-up. Gets me normal.

She looked at me for a while. Thinking, she seemed to be.

I see, she said slowly.

I tried to read her. Couldn’t do it. Inscrutable, she was. Hard to scrute.

I was just beginning to wonder why my drinking habits seemed to be of more interest to her than her long-lost sister, when she got back to the topic.

How was she? she asked.

That’s hard to say.

What do you mean?

I told her the tale. The pool chair. The hat. The shades. The raincoat.

That seems a bit strange, she said.

A bit, I replied. Yes. Eccentric, at least.

She always liked to be different.

She seems to be succeeding.

Was her … friend there?

If he was, she wasn’t letting on.

She sank into thought. I sank into my Chardonnay. The waitress came by and lit the little candle in the glass. Once she’d left, Louise bent over and blew it out.

Not in a mood for atmosphere? I asked.

She ignored me. Or didn’t hear. She was looking at the bottles neatly tiered behind the bar. Lost in a thought. Or many.

I watched an old couple at the next table. Neither of them had said a word to the other. The old man was folding his napkin into what looked like an origami moose. The lady was staring into her drink.

So, I said to Ms. Chandler after a while. Job over?

I suspect not, she said. I need to think about it.

Ah, thinking, I said. I used to have that luxury.

Sometimes, Mr. Redman, it is appropriate to have feelings.

I’m not sure I follow you. And it’s Rick. Please.

Mr. Redman, we may not have been close, Eloise and I. We may be estranged, or whatever is the proper term. But she is my sister. She is family. And what you are telling me causes me concern. There is something wrong. It is obvious, is it not?

Well, I don’t know. But I apologize if I seem too frivolous. It’s just my way. I understand your concern.

Apology accepted.

And anyway, it depends on what you mean by wrong. She’s alive, it appears. She isn’t chained in some basement being tortured by a sadistic clown. Or at least she wasn’t this afternoon.

Mr. Redman, she said sharply. Please.

Anyway, the place for sure didn’t have a basement.

That’s enough.

Sorry. Can’t help myself. Sorry.

It is all right, Mr. Redman. I’m getting used to your ways.

She said it with a small smile.

I appreciate that, I said. But anyway, I can see what you mean. She’s gone from that nice house to a trailer park. Not normally a sign of—what’s the word? Progress.

The smile was gone as fast as it had appeared. I wondered whether I had imagined it.

We need to have a plan, she said.

A plan?

Yes. A plan.

How about you plan to go out there and talk to your sister? Ask her if everything’s okay. Kiss and make up.