The Snake Tattoo (23 page)

I didn't have to ask if it had connected. Roz is fast.

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks. I'll take over now.”

“Sam still here?” she asked.

“Nope,” I said.

“Too bad.”

“Yeah.” My response was heartfelt.

“If you need me,” Roz said.

“Yeah,” I said again.

“Take care,” Roz said to the girl on the bed. Valerie snorted. Roz left.

“My name's Carlotta,” I said.

Nothing.

“Roz is gone. I'm here. The dame who runs faster than you.”

“Not if I have my shoes off,” she said. At least I think that's what she said. It was pillow-muffled.

“When did you take off again?”

She turned her face. Her mascara was all smeary. Cross off one pillow case.

“I don't know what you mean,” she said.

“Let's try this one,” I said. “Where's your diary?”

“Huh?” she said blankly. “What do you care? My diary?”

“The thing you kept for Reardon's class.”

“Oh.”

“Where is it?” I asked.

“How the hell should I know.”

“You turned it in to Reardon.”

“So what?” she said, elaborately unconcerned.

“Was there stuff in there about running away?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Is that why you went back to get it?” I asked.

“Huh?”

“Am I going to have to repeat everything I say?”

“Go back to the goddamn Emerson? I wouldn't go back there.”

“Not even the day Reardon died?”

She stared at me. Her mouth did something funny, then it turned up at the corners.

“Come on,” she said.

“What?”

“That's not funny,” she said. “Christ.”

“Didn't your father tell you?”

“My
father
? You don't make any sense at all.”

“Likewise,” I said.

“Are you going to tell my parents where I am?”

“I'll probably call,” I said cautiously. “Parents have a way of worrying. Did you just walk out this time, or did you leave a note?”

“Leave a note?” she said incredulously. “Why didn't you ask them that? You're working for them.”

“I haven't talked to them since Reardon died.”

“Stop saying that.”

“What?”

“Look, I've been gone more than two weeks, for Christ's sake. I was doing okay.”

“Back up,” I said. “You didn't go home?”

“I'm never going home. Except to get my sister. Once I get set up, once I get a place, I'm going to get Sherri.”

“You saw Geoff Reardon in the Combat Zone,” I said, backtracking. I wanted to see if she was lying for the hell of it.

“Yeah,” she said. “He read my stupid notebook and he wanted to talk. He's okay, you know, for a teacher. He's special. I mean, aside from being so gorgeous. He was gonna help me. He gave me some money. He said he was gonna come back and give me more, a lot more. A couple thousand, he said, but I don't know where he was gonna get it. I mean, teachers don't make much, do they? It would have been enough for bus tickets out west, and a security deposit on an apartment. You need two months' rent for a security deposit. It's a lot of dough.”

“Your father didn't see you this week?” I said.

“That jerk. No.”

“And you didn't see Reardon?”

“No.”

“And you don't know he's dead.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” she asked anxiously.

“It's true,” I said. “That's why.”

“Please,” she said.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“Dead,” she repeated.

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“He killed himself.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “That's dumb. He wouldn't.”

“The police say he did.”

“But—”

I shook my head and her face crumbled. She flung herself down on the pillow. Her shoulders shook, but she didn't make any noise. I went over and patted her on the back. At first she recoiled from my touch, then she lay still. I would have stayed with her except I heard Roz yell for help.

CHAPTER 30

Roz is not a screamer. I don't mean she's quiet. Particularly when using one of her tumbling mats for love-making, she can turn out the most incredible progression of provoking noises. But this was something different, and I was out of the bedroom before I thought about what the trouble might be.

She had tried the second-floor bathroom. I don't know if her lover, the tall, dumb plumber had told her it was safe in some fit of overconfidence, or her nonlover, in a corresponding fit of jealous rage, had told her the same, but Roz was stuck in the bathroom, staring transfixed at the geyser erupting from the ruptured faucet of the Day-Glo orange sink.

She was soaked, dripping, huddled on the window side of the bathroom. To get to the door she would have had to run under the fountain. Steam was rising.

“Shut-off valve!” I yelled.

“It's under the fucking sink,” she screamed. “Too hot.”

“Don't move,” I said.

“I'm going out the window,” she cried.

“Is it hitting you?”

“No, but the steam—”

“This is the second floor,” I shouted. “Stay there.”

“I can jump,” she said.

“There aren't any fucking tumbling mats. I'll get the shut-off in the basement.”

“Hurry,” she said.

I was already down the stairs. Every time I took a step I muttered something about the Twin Brothers. Stupid, shitty, dumb-ass, motherfucking Twin Brothers.

I had to find a flashlight, race down two flights of stairs, remember where the damn shut-off valve was, all the while hoping Roz didn't scald herself to death or crawl out the window and crash to the ground.

When I ran back up, the first words Roz screamed, peering over the landing, were, “Did you catch her?”

Valerie. She was goddamn gone.

CHAPTER 31

The bathroom was a disaster, a swamp of steamy water and warping chocolate tiles, like squares of Hershey left out in the sun. Water dripped from ceiling tiles that would never be the same color again. The battered faucet of the Day-Glo orange sink clogged its porcelain bowl.

Roz, now standing in the hallway hanging her head, had wisely closed the door when she ran out. I was sorry I'd reopened it.

“Shit,” I said, plunging my hand in the sink and yanking out the chunk of faucet. The water drained with a vengeful sucking noise. I went to dry off my hand but the towels were all soaked.

My hand may have been dripping hot water, but the rest of me was freezing. At Roz's shouted warning, I'd run out of the house without my coat, searching for Valerie. In the dark my neighborhood of close-together houses and hearty oaks could have hidden an army. “Valerie,” I shouted, imagining her silent, scornful laughter as she hid behind a bush or in the shadow of a nearby porch or tool shed.

“Goddammit.” I said, wiping my hand on my jeans.

Abandoning the bathroom, I ran to get my outdoor clothes, my shoulder bag, a strong flashlight. The girl couldn't have gotten far. With my car …

That's when I heard the motor start, and the character and direction of the noise made my heart stop. I stared at the front door and realized what I hadn't noticed before. Valerie had left the door swung wide on its hinges. I'd closed it on my first fruitless return. My keys, left in the lock, were gone. I ran to the front door fast enough to see my car, my dear red Toyota, my first and only car, drive away without me.

“Shit,” I said.

So I was wet, freezing, angry, and feeling pretty dumb to boot. I thought about calling the cops to report my stolen car but couldn't bear the monumental indifference with which the Cambridge Police would greet the news.

Car theft is a misdemeanor in this state unless the owner can prove that whoever stole the vehicle did so with intent to deprive said owner of use on a permanent basis. A kid taking a joyride isn't really a car thief under Massachusetts law.

I sent upward a brief but fervent prayer that Valerie, underage though she was, had some rudimentary knowledge of the driving process.

I grabbed my handbag to get the car registration. It felt unusually heavy, and I remembered Valerie's purse, her wallet-sized shoulder bag, stuffed deep into its nether regions.

I found it and tumbled its contents onto the kitchen table. Two lipsticks rolled to the floor. Subway tokens joined them. There was a package of condoms in among the wadded Kleenex, and a pack of cigarettes. Virginia Slims. Two matchbook folders, both from Zone bars. No address book. There were various keys, but none with an ID tag. I'd been hoping for a hotel key. A rich little bitch like her would have rented a room.

Folded up small was a piece of paper, lined notebook paper torn at the margin, a page filled with round childish writing. I read it. I sat down. I read it again.

The page had been ripped in two. The top half was lost so there was no lead-in to the meat of the paragraph.

… so I dream about running away. To places where they know what I am, where the girls are like me. Or I dream about telling Jerry. Or telling you. Telling everybody. Just walking to the front of the stage someday and saying in my quiet voice that I haven't ever been a virgin. I don't remember being a virgin because my father is my lover and he has always been since I can remember. And if I say no he says he will do it to Sherri and that I'm the oldest and I can take it best. And if I say I'll tell my mother he says it will kill her and if I tell anyone else he will kill them and if anyone finds out no boy will ever want to marry me and I care about that even though I don't know why because I don't want to marry anybody like my father ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever …

She'd written that one word over and over, maybe a hundred times. It took up a third of the page and ran over and filled up the back getting heavier and blacker. A cry even a self-centered man like Geoff Reardon couldn't ignore.

He hadn't ignored it. He'd sought out Valerie. He'd promised her money. Money from where? And he was going to stop teaching, maybe have the money to produce his play.…

I rubbed my hand across my dry lips and caught myself wondering if I'd shaken Prescott Haslam's hand, if I'd touched his hand with mine.

Valerie hadn't known about Reardon's death until I told her.

I reread the notebook page, found the fragment I remembered:

… if I tell anyone else he will kill them …

Valerie hadn't returned home the day of Reardon's death. Reardon had promised to help the girl financially.

And now Valerie had taken my car. Why? Here in Cambridge, she could catch any Red Line train back to the Zone.

“Roz,” I yelled.

Then I ran into the living room, unlocked my bottom desk drawer, and hurriedly unwrapped my gun. The sharp, oily smell hit me like icy water, and I hoped I was wrong about where Valerie was headed. I hollered for Roz again as I finished loading and tucked the .38 in the pocket of my coat.

I hadn't heard her come down the stairs. She was barefoot in a white terry robe, with a big maroon towel wound around her head.

“They're coming over,” she said defensively, before I had a chance to speak. “They're on their way. It won't be five minutes.”

“Who?” I said.

“The Brothers. They don't understand how it could have happened. They'll fix everything.”

“Sure they will,” I said.

I was pacing by the time the truck finally squealed to a halt in front of the house.

Roz convinced them to let me borrow it. After the fact, I just snatched their keys and took off.

CHAPTER 32

One-fifteen Lilac Palace Road, Lincoln.

I had a hell of a time finding it. No streetlamps, and if there'd been any, they wouldn't have helped much because few of the corners boasted street signs.

I had to keep pulling off to the side of the road, checking the Arrow Street guide for the Towns of Eastern Mass. that the Twin Brothers kept in their dash compartment.

That it came equipped with a street guide was the only good word about the Twin Brothers' truck. It didn't have a dome light, so I had to keep yanking out my flashlight to read the maps. Its less-than-luxurious interior and rotten smell aside, it couldn't corner worth a damn, and its steering made Gloria's orneriest cab seem like a Porsche 944. I nursed it up to forty-eighty m.p.h. on Route 2, and thought the shaking would knock out my filings. It was a good thing it couldn't go any faster because the brakes were minimal, which I discovered after inadvertently running a red. The Brothers could probably claim antique status for both the shocks and the muffler.

As I drove Valerie's words kept echoing.
I've never been a virgin. My father is my lover
. In their initial impact, I'd accepted them without question. Now I found myself doubting. Was Valerie telling the truth? She'd written the words for her drama teacher. Was her incest claim an attention-seeking ploy, a theatrical lie?

I pictured the man I'd met over Chinese food, the bespectacled stockbroker, Preston Haslam. I heard his cool voice on my answering machine, declaring his daughter safely home. I saw Valerie, eye makeup streaked, crying on my unmade bed. I believed the girl. Why? Because she'd run away after handing in her diary, unable to bear the thought that her teacher would know her shame. Because she'd fallen apart when Jerry Toland kissed her.

And most of all, because it explained Geoff Reardon's death, made it murder instead of unmotivated suicide. After reading Valerie's diary, Reardon had sought her out in the Zone. Promised her help. Money. Thousands of dollars, Valerie had claimed, even while she wondered where the teacher would get that kind of cash. Where else? He must have gone to Haslam, promised to tell his dirty secret unless the stockbroker came up with money—enough to help Valerie, enough to let Reardon retire from teaching. Haslam must have been the angel who was planning to invest in Reardon's screenplay.…