In Plain Sight (17 page)

B
randon. Funk's mother turned out to be a small, weak-chinned woman tucked up in a salmon-colored chenille bathrobe.

“What do you want?” she snapped.

“I think your son needs your help.” I told her what was happening.

She crossed herself and hurried over to his house. I followed behind.

Brandon's wailing marked our path.

When we reached the doorway his mother gave me a furious glance and stepped inside. “I'll take it from here,” she spat out. “You've done enough damage.” She slammed the door in my face.

I stayed outside for a minute listening to Brandon's moans and his mother's urgent voice rising and falling, strands intertwined in some symphony I couldn't understand or participate in. Finally when the sounds abated somewhat I left.

Zsa Zsa was scratching on the window with her front paws as I walked up to the cab. I let her out and we went for a walk. For the next two blocks I did nothing but think about Brandon. I wondered what sort of bad things he had done in the past, and then I wondered how mad he'd gotten at Marsha when he found out she owed all that money, because no matter what he said I couldn't believe that he didn't know. It seemed to me he'd be very mad indeed. The question was, what would he do? I thought about it some more as Zsa Zsa raced ahead of me, dodging in and out of the laurel hedges as she chased the shadows the nearby trees were casting.

Brandon had kept on insisting everything was his fault. What was everything? The affair? The murder? After a few more minutes of turning the problem over in my mind I decided that like Zsa Zsa I was chasing shadows. I didn't know Brandon well enough to be able to answer the question. Then I wondered what Shirley would say and whether or not Brandon was right about her feelings toward Marsha. Brandon and Shirley. Marsha and Merlin. Two swinging couples. No reason everyone shouldn't be happy. Only they didn't swing and they weren't happy. I whistled for Zsa Zsa and turned around and started back toward the car. On the way a few rain drops fell on my cheek.

By the time I got back to the car the rain was falling in earnest. I was just getting in the car when the door to Brandon's house opened. His mother stood there framed in the light. Then she closed the door and headed back to her house. As she walked I suddenly knew who she had reminded me of—Enid. And then I remembered what Ana Torres had said about not liking to clean house for Enid's crazy brother, the one with all the dead animals in his house. Oh, my God. I put my hand to my mouth. Enid and Brandon were brother and sister. Amazing. For a moment I just stood there thinking about how I hadn't realized that they were and wondering about what else I didn't know. Then Zsa Zsa barked and I became aware that we were both standing out in the rain. I opened the cab door. Zsa Zsa jumped in and I followed. As I drove away I couldn't help contemplating what a small town Syracuse really is and how everyone is always related to everyone else in unexpected ways.

Zsa Zsa rested her head in my lap as I drove us home. She didn't like this weather and neither did I. It was raining so hard I was having difficulty making out the turns in the road. Then to make matters worse as I turned onto Comstock a car began tailgating me. He was so close his headlights were reflecting in my rearview mirror, making it even more difficult to see. I cursed and sped up and he did the same. Finally I pulled over to the side of the road to let him go. He waved as he went by. I gave him the finger and pulled out after him. For the next block I took a great deal of pleasure in making him as uncomfortable as he had made me. Then I turned onto Colvin and drove home.

It was a little after eleven when I walked into my house. James was waiting for me. The fur on his back was slick with rainwater, and his tail twitched impatiently as I opened the door. I let everyone in, fed the cat, dried off Zsa Zsa, and made myself a hot milk and Scotch and honey. Then I settled down in front of the TV. Of course, there was nothing I wanted to see. I ended up surfing the channels with the remote and thinking about Brandon. I couldn't keep myself from wondering how bad the things he used to do really were and whether or not he'd ever been arrested, when the phone rang. For a moment I thought about letting the answering machine get it, but curiosity won out and I got up and answered it. George was on the other end.

“I was just wondering if you were okay,” he said.

“Why shouldn't I be?”

“You left Pete's kind of quickly.”

“I had things to do.”

“I see.” George paused for a minute. “Are you mad at me?”

“No. Why should I be?” I mean, what was I going to say: I was upset because he'd been talking to another woman?

“Because you sound that way.”

“I'm just preoccupied.”

“With what?”

Grateful for a chance to change the subject, I told him about where I'd been and what I'd found out.

“This guy Brandon Funk sounds a little off center,” George observed when I was through.

“I know.” I reached over for the chocolate bar sitting on the kitchen counter and broke off a piece. “I was wondering if you could find out how off center?”

“And how would I do that?”

I put the piece in my mouth and let it dissolve on my tongue. “See if he has a record.”

“In case you forgot I'm not on the force anymore,” he reminded me. “I don't have access to that kind of information.”

“I know, but you have friends that do.” I ate another piece of chocolate. “All I'm asking is for someone to get on the computer and see if this guy has any priors. It'll take all of two seconds.”

“I know how long it will take,” George told me.

“So will you?”

“What's in it for me?”

“I'll help you with your paper.”

George snorted. “Jesus, you just don't take no for an answer, do you?”

“Not if I can help it.” I hung up before George could change his mind. Then I had another Scotch and milk and went to bed. Maybe it was the combination, but I had a bad night. I kept waking up thinking I was hearing things, then drifting back off to sleep to dream of invisible bats twisting themselves up in my hair. Every time I got them out they came right back. No matter how I tried I couldn't get rid of them. Finally at five o'clock I went downstairs, stretched out on the sofa and read yesterday's paper. It wasn't very interesting.

Zsa Zsa woke me up at eight o'clock to let me know she needed to go out. I got to the store at nine to find a Mrs. Sullivan anxiously waiting for me by the front door. Her hair was barely combed and she didn't have any makeup on. She started telling me her story while I still had the key in the lock. It seemed that this morning she'd gone down to the basement to do a load of laundry, and as she was leaning over the washing machine a bat popped out.

“I tell you I almost fainted on the spot.” She crossed her hands and placed them on her chest to show how upset she'd been.

When I asked her why she was telling me this she uncrossed her hands, dug a flier out of her jacket pocket and waved it in my face. It was from M & M Exterminators.

“I called them and they said I had a colony living in my house.”

“That's very possible,” I replied cautiously.

“They said they'd get rid of all of them for two thousand dollars.” It looked as if Merlin had raised his price. “I don't have two thousand dollars,” Mrs. Sullivan wailed. She began cracking her knuckles. “I didn't know what to do. Then I called one of my neighbors and she said to call you.” She peered at me through thick-lensed glasses. “Do you think you could help?”

I suppressed a sigh, took her phone number and address and told her either Tim or I would be there before twelve. When I went inside, I called the Better Business Bureau to lodge a complaint against Merlin, after which I called George. He informed me his friend was on the one o'clock shift and he'd get back to me later in the day.

“When do you want to start on your paper?” I asked.

“I don't want to discuss it,” George replied and hung up.

“Asshole,” I said to the telephone.

“Who's an asshole?” Tim asked as he opened a container of yogurt and started eating his breakfast.

“George.”

“What else is new?”

Pickles jumped up on the counter, and Tim spooned some of his yogurt onto the container's lid and pushed it toward the cat. She sat down and began lapping it up.

“So what's on the agenda for today?” Tim asked when he was done eating.

I told him about Mrs. Sullivan.

“Who goes?” Tim asked. “I have a lot of stuff to do.”

“So do I.”

We flipped for it. I lost. Cursing under my breath I picked up my gloves, my net, and a bath towel and headed out to the cab. It took me five minutes to get to the house. Since I'd last seen her, Mrs. Sullivan had put on some lipstick, blusher, and eyeliner. She said hello, then hustled me through a spotless kitchen to a gleaming back hall.

“It's down there,” she said, pointing to the door that led to the basement.

It took me a while to find the bat. He'd gone to sleep in a crevice in the wall behind the dryer. He'd probably come out for a drink of water. Bats tend to get thirsty this time of year. They get dehydrated when they hibernate.

“You know,” I told Mrs. Sullivan as I released him outside, “M & M Exterminators were right about one thing. Most bats live in colonies. This one might have brothers and sisters hibernating between the inner and outer walls.”

Mrs. Sullivan clicked her tongue. “I don't see how. My brother-in-law insulated last year. He caulked everything up good and tight. Then he put on aluminum siding.”

“Let's check the attic anyway,” I suggested. As long as I was here it seemed silly not to finish the job.

Amazingly the only thing up there were four cartons of clothes.

“I try to get rid of things as I go,” Mrs. Sullivan explained. “I don't like to leave messes sitting around.”

I checked the cardboard boxes just to make sure. Nothing. “The bat had to come from somewhere,” I said as we went down the stairs.

“But where?” Mrs. Sullivan asked.

I couldn't answer because I didn't know. As a last resort I suggested we walk around the house and see if we could spot anything. Sometimes you can see where bats have come and gone by their collection of droppings. We didn't see any of those, but we did find something else—a broken basement window in the rear of the house.

I knelt down to study it, then straightened up. “I bet that's how the bat got in.”

Mrs. Sullivan looked perplexed. “Now, how did that happen? That wasn't there yesterday.”

“Probably some kid with a baseball,” I suggested, even though I could come up with another explanation with no trouble at all.

“Maybe.”

I left her standing in her backyard wondering who the guilty party had been. Actually I had a pretty good idea, but I didn't say anything because I couldn't prove it.

I spent the rest of the day waiting on customers, housing a shipment of hissing cockroaches that I picked up out at the airport, and negotiating with the telephone company about partial payment of my current bill. I was not in a good mood when Tim left the store at eight-thirty. I locked the door at nine and settled in to do my bookkeeping—a depressing operation these days—but around nine-fifteen my stomach started hurting, and I decided I'd better put something in it.

I told Zsa Zsa to guard the store and ran out to get a hamburger at McDonald's. The street was quiet when I stepped out. A cat meowed from somewhere nearby. It had started to drizzle again—but I didn't pay much attention. I was too busy thinking about other things, such as whether I should get two orders of fries or one order of fries and an apple pie, when someone grabbed me from behind and began dragging me to the curb.

I
t all happened so fast I didn't have time to react, let alone to think. Before I knew it a man had thrown me in the back of a car and climbed in after me.

“That's for giving me a hard time the other night,” he informed me as he clipped me in the jaw.

“Lay off,” the guy in front told him.

“I just wanna teach her a little respect,” the man who'd hit me whined. “She shouldn't have rode on my ass like that.”

“Do what I say,” the driver snapped.

“Who appointed you God?” the other man snarled.

I made for the door, but before I even got my hand on the handle the guy beside me grabbed my hair and yanked me back. He smelled of sweat and licorice. “Where the hell do you think you're going?”

“Nowhere now.”

“You're goddamned right you're not.”

“Do you mind if I ask what's going on?” I said as the car pulled away from the curb. I moved my jaw from side to side. Nothing seemed broken.

“Shut the fuck up,” the guy sitting next to me ordered. “You'll find out soon enough.” He opened his jacket, took a .357 out of a shoulder holster, and pointed it in my direction.

“Fine.” I certainly wasn't going to argue with that. I sank back in the maroon upholstered seat and studied the guy with the gun. He had watery eyes, a receding hairline he'd compensated for with a ponytail, and teeth that hadn't seen a dentist in a number of years.

“What are you staring at?” he demanded.

“Nothing.” I turned my gaze to the Baby On Board sign tacked to my window and tried to figure out who these lowlifes were and what they wanted from me. Obviously they didn't want to rob me. Obviously this operation had been planned. But by whom?

Suddenly I thought of Merlin and the dogs and the scene in the store with his gun, and things began to make more sense. While I was trying to put it all together the man with the gun leaned forward and nudged the driver with his elbow.

“What do you think?” he asked. “You wanna stop for a little something extra?”

“We're too late,” he answered. “Maybe on the way back.” He turned and grinned at me in case I hadn't gotten the message.

It was the guy who'd come into the store a couple of days ago.

“You!” I cried.

“I told you to be careful.” He smirked before turning his attention back to the road.

I wanted to kick myself. I was still berating myself when a police car sped by us.

“Don't even think about doing anything,” the guy next to me warned before I could move. And he jammed the muzzle of his gun into my ribs.

“I got the message,” I said and looked out the window.

We were passing Forman Avenue. Then we took a right on Waters. No one was on either street. No one would be on the surrounding blocks either. This was a business district. Everyone had gone home for the night. If I made a break for it, the guy with the gun would be able to pick me off with no trouble at all. Maybe they were going to do that anyway. Then I thought, No, even Merlin wouldn't go that far. What they were going to do was take me somewhere and beat the shit out of me. That thought didn't make me any happier than the first one had. The more I considered the possibilities, the more it seemed as if I didn't have much to lose by trying to escape. I sat back and waited for an opportunity to jump.

It came when we hit DePew. We were slowing down for a stop sign. I glanced at the guy beside me. He was busy studying a mole on his wrist.

“The doctor said I should have this taken off,” he was telling the driver. “What do you think?” he asked him as I took a deep breath, said a silent prayer, and jumped.

I landed on my feet, fell, scrambled up again and started running.

Brakes squealed behind me.

Then I heard someone screaming, “You dumb fuck, she's getting away.”

I didn't turn around. I just kept going.

I heard a pop to my right. Shit. They were shooting at me. I veered left and picked up my pace. Then I saw an alley and ducked into it. There was a Dumpster halfway down. I skirted the piles of debris and headed for it. It was small but big enough for me to hide in. Or it would have been if it hadn't been padlocked. I cursed and looked around for something to smash the lock with. I'd just picked up a brick when I heard a car approaching.

“There she is,” the driver yelled.

The guy with the gun got out. He was about thirty pounds overweight and probably hadn't seen the inside of a gym in years, but with the gun he was carrying he didn't have to. I took off again. When I came to the end of the alley I made a left and went down Orange Avenue. I heard the man's footsteps pounding after me. They formed a counterbeat to my own. I had to get off the street and I had to get off now. But there was nowhere to hide. All the buildings on either side were shut tight, locked up for the night.

And then I thought about the Colony.

It was three blocks away. If I could make it there, I'd be okay. The operative word was if.

I kept going down the street, cut across a vacant parking lot, and went up the next block. By now I had a stitch in my side and my lungs were starting to ache. A garbage can to the right of me pinged as another bullet tore into it. Thank God the guy chasing me was a lousy shot. I put on a last burst of speed and tore down the pavement. Then I rounded the corner. The Colony was right there. As I made for the broken window I could hear the car coming up behind me. Dear God, let me do this, I prayed as I summoned up every last bit of reserve that I had and jumped through the window the police had taped up. I bumped into a chair and fell over. I kept going. I was in the third room by the time the two men came in. My heart was pounding; my side hurt so bad it had made me forget about my jaw. I couldn't move if I wanted to. I just leaned against the wall sucking air and listening to their voices floating in the dark.

“I'm gonna kill her,” the man who had been chasing me gasped out.

“You know, you look like a tub of lard when you run,” the driver said. “You should go to the gym and lose that gut.”

“Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” the man with the gun screamed.

“Hey, lighten up. I was only kidding.” There was a brief pause. Then the driver said, “Jesus, will you look at this dump. They ought to knock it down.” His partner said something, but I couldn't hear what. “Come on,” the driver went on, “let's find the bitch and get out of here. I don't want to be any later than I have to.”

The papers and boxes and pills on the floor crackled and crunched as the men walked through the first room into the second. I crept into the fourth room as quietly as possible. I was halfway through it when I tripped over something.

“She's up ahead,” the guy with the gun cried.

I ran into the next room. By now my eyes were beginning to get accustomed to the dark and I was able to make out shapes. If I remembered correctly, there were three or four more interconnecting rooms before there was an open door out into the hall. The suite must have been a doctor's office, a doctor's office with a big practice, I thought irrelevantly.

“Come out, come out wherever you are,” the man with the gun sang.

“Maybe we should call the boss,” the driver said.

“Let him wait. It'll do him good.”

“No. He'll be pissed. You call and tell him we got held up, then come back here.”

“Whatever you say.” I could hear the guy start to walk away.

“Hey, Tony, leave the .357 with me.” There was a pause, and then the driver said, “And see if we got a flashlight or something in the car. I don't wanna be here all night.”

“You got it,” Tony replied.

“And hurry up.”

His footsteps moved away. A little later I heard a scream.

“Jesus, what's happening?” the driver cried.

“A rat bit me. A goddamned rat came up and bit my ankle. Just like that,” Tony cried. I began to feel more warmly toward the rodent population. “I gotta get to a hospital and get a rabies shot.”

“You're gonna get to a hospital if you don't do what I tell you to,” the driver growled, and I heard the unmistakable click of a gun being cocked.

I guess Tony heard it, too, because he started back toward the window. A moment later the footsteps fell silent. Tony must have climbed out.

I stood there scarcely breathing, wondering what I should do. My heart was hammering in my chest so loudly it was amazing the driver didn't hear it. The building creaked in the wind. Spots of color danced in front of my eyes. I closed them. A picture of Estrella sprawled out on the third-floor landing rose unbidden. I tried pushing it away, but it didn't want to go. I kept seeing her vacant eyes staring into the blackness. A chill worked its way up my spine. If I wasn't careful I'd end up that way, too. Only there'd be no one to find me. Except for the rats. I had to get out of here. I had to get out of here now. I took a step and tripped over a chair.

“You're mine,” the driver cried from what sounded like two rooms away. Then he started toward me.

Not if I can help it, I thought as my hand closed on the leg of the chair I'd just fallen over. I could hear him coming as I yanked on the chair leg. It gave slightly. I yanked some more. It began wobbling. Thank God the chair wasn't well made. The leg came free just as the driver crashed through the doorway of the room I was in. I scrambled up and hit him with it. He went down on his knees, and I turned and groped my way out the door. I was three rooms down when I heard Tony climbing back in.

“Hey, Richie,” he yelled. “I called Angie. He's coming right over. He's gonna bring us some flashlights. The batteries in the ones in your car are dead.”

Richie groaned.

“What's the matter?” Tony demanded. “Why aren't you answering me?”

Richie groaned again. “The bitch hit me in the gut.”

I cursed silently. I should have hit him in the head. Now I was boxed in. I couldn't go forward and I couldn't go back.

“Be careful,” Richie went on between moans. “I think she doubled back. She's in one of these rooms.”

“Don't worry,” Tony yelled. “I'll get her.”

“No,” Richie ordered. “Wait for Angie.” He started to retch.

“I got the SIG,” Tony said, and I heard the sound of a clip being shoved into the nine millimeter. “She's mine.” He started my way.

I could hear desks and chairs being kicked aside as he came through the rooms.

I got behind the door and waited. For some reason I'd grown very calm. My mind was detached, floating free. I was aware of every sound.

Tony was in the second room.

Then he was in the third.

We were playing Blind Man's Bluff for keeps.

He halted in front of the fourth room. I could hear him breathing. I could smell the licorice.

Finally he came inside.

He'd taken two step when I hit him with the chair leg. He went sideways. I swung again. This time I got the side of his jaw. The gun went flying. He staggered and fell. I threw the chair leg down and ran like hell. I bumped into chairs and desks and boxes in my flight toward the window. Then suddenly it was there—my portal to freedom. I clambered through. I was three-quarters of the way out when I felt something hard and cold in the small of my back.

“You really are a pain in the ass,” a man's voice said.

I remembered George had just said something similar to me.

Then everything went black.