All the Old Bargains Read online

  “I think I’ll have the chowder, the soft shells, and a draft,” she announced.

  Our waitress returned and took our order.

  Samantha looked at me and said, “I’d like to play racquetball with you again. It was fun. I think we’re pretty evenly matched too.”

  I met her gaze. “Seemed like it. I enjoyed it too, but frankly my knees can’t take it.”

  She furrowed her brow. “Oh? What’s the matter with them?”

  “An old college injury.”

  “That’s too bad,” she said.

  “Maybe we’ll see each other in the weight room.” Believe it.

  Our dinners arrived, and she turned out to be as businesslike an eater as I am. Between mouthfuls we talked. Exchanging facts and figures, years and degrees, siblings and forebears, locations and durations. The outlines for a pair of lives. Details to follow. Perhaps. For now it was enough. I stretched back and watched her pick at the remains of a crab.

  “Shall we go?”

  She nodded and we got up, left a tip, and settled up on the way out.

  The drive back was silent, and I could feel tension spring up between us. “Where do you live?”

  “Alexandria. Beauregard and Duke.”

  We parked near the entrance to her building. I turned to look at her and found myself impaled between desire and deed. I searched her eyes. A silent signal passed between us. A widened iris perhaps. And that was that.

  I looked down at her. “Can I see you again?”

  “Sure. I had a nice time.” With that she slid out of the car, pirouetted and was gone into her building. I watched her all the way in and then turned on the engine. I whistled all the way home.

  When I arrived, I called my service. There was one message: A Mr. Benson called. Please call back ASAP. Fuck him. Not tonight.

  Chapter 3

  In the morning I got up and spent thirty minutes on my rowing machine. Then I showered and dressed. After I had eaten, I called my answering service. There was still only one message. A Mr. Benson had called and asked me to please call him back.

  I sat at my kitchen table and dialed his number.

  “Hello.”

  “Mr. Benson, this is Leo Haggerty returning your call.”

  “Yes, uh, I’ve reconsidered and, uh, we’d like to hire you.” Each word seemed to be dragged up out of his throat like coal from a played out mine and dumped a lump at a time into the phone.

  I wondered what had gone into his new decision? Had his wife upped the ante? Was he realizing he was in over his head? “All right. I’ll be out to see you in a half hour.” I was about to hang up the phone when Benson began again.

  “Uh, listen, I want you to work on this case on one condition. You’re to keep me informed of everything you find out. I don’t want you out there doing anything to endanger my baby. Do you understand? And there’s no need to involve my wife in this. She’s not well, and there’s no need to upset her any more than Randi already has.”

  What the hell is going on, I wondered. Not only does he want in, now he’s cut his wife out. Nobody wants me talking to the other one, that’s for sure. “Mr. Benson, like I said, I’ll see you in a half hour.”

  Round two at Belle Haven. I rang the door bell and admired the carvings on the door. Then it was yanked open and filled by Mr. Benson. We stared at each other for a moment. An undercurrent of dislike had drowned civility.

  “May I come in?”

  “Yeah—yes, I’m sorry. Come on in.”

  I headed back to the living room, wondering where Mrs. Benson was. Benson spoke to my back, inviting me to take a seat and asking me if I wanted a drink. I said no and sat on the sofa. He headed to the bar and made himself a drink. I decided to start from my end this time, not his.

  “Let’s get the ground rules clear. I charge two hundred and fifty dollars a day plus expenses; you get an itemized bill on completion. Routine items I expect carte blanche, extraordinary ones I’ll check with you first. If you want references I can give you the names of police officers, attorneys, or other clients. If you’re square with me up front I’ll do everything I can to help you, including telling you not to hire me. If you lie to me all bets are off. I also require the daily rate up front. Expenses I get at the end of a job. We sign a contract for X number of days on the job.” I sat back waiting to see what he’d do with all that.

  “All right, fine. I want you to find my daughter and return her to me. I want to be kept informed of your actions.” He hadn’t even taken a deep breath to think about my conditions. Either they didn’t bother him or he figured all along to break them, whatever they were going to be.

  “One more thing. On missing child cases, I work two ways. One, I do all the work. The other way, you take off some time and go with me to help find her. Sometimes it means something to the kids knowing that a parent went looking for them. They aren’t so eager to take off again. Also, I charge less that way.”

  Benson waved the offer away. “The money doesn’t mean anything to me. You do it.”

  “Okay. You’ll get a telephone report daily and a written one on completion.” I hesitated a second. “Why haven’t you called the police?”

  “The police! That’s a laugh. They couldn’t find their asses with both hands and a map. No, they’d just give her description to the scout cars and that’s it. They’d have to run her over to find her that way. Believe me, I’ve been looking. She’s gone to ground somewhere. I want a pro on the job and on this job only.” He bit off his sentence and dropped some ice cubes into his drink.

  When he returned I started up again. “How did you get my name?”

  He looked me straight in the face and sniggered. “I didn’t. My wife dug you up, remember.” I checked to see if I had fallen off the evolutionary ladder. “Where from I don’t know. When I decided to hire you I called my attorney. He said you were the one that popped the lid on the Saunders case. So I figured I’d give you a shot at this.”

  “I’ll need a current photo of your daughter, a list of her friends, and a letter introducing me as your agent. While you’re doing that I’d like to look in her room to get a feeling for what kind of kid she is. Which room is hers?”

  He pointed down the hall to the last door on the left and said he’d make up the list and the letter.

  I went down to the door and stopped a moment, trying to clear my head, to be fresh for my first encounter with Miranda Benson. Her room would tell me something of who she was and what kind of world she lived in. If my head was clear I might be able to see the strands of wish and need that would propel her. From those I might get an inkling of her route and destination.

  I took a deep breath, focused on the blank wall and stood there until my head was cleared. Then I entered her room.

  The curtains and covers were pink and frilly. There was a dainty girl’s desk and an ornate girl’s bed, but that was all stuff her parents probably bought. There were no personal touches or flourishes; no wall full of rock star posters, no bed full of stuffed toys. I hate tossing kid’s rooms. The secrets were always the same and I shouldn’t be the first to know them.

  I went to the desk and opened each drawer. The top one was full of school supplies. I leafed through some note pads full of geometric doodles. A series of ever darker rectangles, each getting smaller leading to a black center. A series of rectangles moving from black to yellow then back to a black center. Nothing else on the pages. The bottom two drawers were empty. I took out the drawers looking for any taped secrets; pictures, letters or a diary. I came up with nothing. I looked at her bookcase. A lot of old Newbery and Caldecott winners. I wondered who chose them. Lots of albums, alphabetically ordered and spanning the spectrum. I moved the bookcase away from the wall. Then I flipped through the most used books. Zippo. I moved the rug and the bed. I went to her dresser. The top drawers were full of rumpled jeans and tops. Some cotton shirts, long sleeve, and some similar denims. At the bottom was a black stretch tank top with EAT YOUR HEART OUT w
ritten across the bust in sequins. The next drawer was underwear, nightgowns, bras, a bikini, and tampons. The bottom drawer had some sweaters and a cheerleader’s outfit. They were all folded, crisp, clean and looked untouched. I took the drawers out. Nothing. I crossed to the closet. Dresses, skirts, cotton pants—also all folded, clean and untouched. Boots and heels on the far side. I bent down and touched them for dust and came up positive. On the near side well-worn Nikes and a pair of sandals. I sensed someone behind me and turned my head to see who it was. She had red toenails and dimpled knees. She was cute, wide-eyed, and serious. She was about seven.

  “Hello. What’s your name?”

  “Tammy.”

  “Well, my name’s Leo. Pleased to meet you.” I got up off my knees, dusted off my pants and held out my hand to her. She slipped her tiny hand into mine. I sat down on the bed to be more on her level.

  “You’re Randi’s sister, right?” She nodded yes.

  “Do you have any other brothers or sisters?” No. “Do you know where your sister is?”

  “She’s on a field trip. The other kids go on them sometimes at school.” I nodded understanding. A field trip for sure. Into the human zoo. A crazy place, only the predators are uncaged. I thought about how to ask her about her family.

  “Find anything?” Benson was in the doorway, holding some papers. Before I could answer he snapped at his daughter. “Tammy, why don’t you go out and play?” She winced briefly, said, “Okay, Daddy,” and slipped out of the room.

  I went back to searching the room. I threw off the covers and moved the mattress. Then the springs, then the frame. I replaced the set of headphones that were hooked up to her stereo. I moved the bed back and saw a night light sticking out of a socket by the bed. I sat back on the bed wondering at that.

  “No, nothing, just getting a sense of her. Has she changed her room in any way recently?”

  “Yeah, she gave away her toys. Took down her posters. She let it all go to pot, always a mess.”

  “How about her clothes?”

  “She stopped wearing the clothes we bought her. It was always painter’s pants and big work shirts. Christ, she looked like a boy, buried in all that stuff. Anyway, here’s the stuff you wanted. Last year’s picture, the last friends she told us anything about and the authorization letter.” He handed them to me.

  “Did she have a teacher or counselor she was close to or might have talked to?”

  “No,” he said, as he scanned an internal tape. “Well, maybe Miss Simpson; she was her phys ed teacher and cheerleader coach.”

  I added her name to the list and read the letter. “Who was her best friend, oldest and closest?”

  “The Bradley girl. They just live down the block.”

  I looked finally at the picture, a typical head and shoulders shot. She had blonde hair, layered short in front and long in back. Her eyebrows were darker, full and arched strongly across her face, emphasizing her pale blue eyes. Her nose was upturned and her full lower lip pouted out. Her chin was squared off, strong and dimpled. “How different does she look these days?”

  “Her hair is straight, long, over her shoulders. She doesn’t take care of it. She’s lost some weight, living on junk food. You can see it in her face. Her cheeks are hollowed out.”

  I looked at the picture and mentally modified it. I’d get a copy made and have an artist draw in the changes. “How big is she, and what was she wearing when she went to school Friday?”

  “She’s about five foot three and ninety-five to one hundred pounds. She was wearing what she always wears: white painter’s pants, a blue long-sleeve work shirt and her Nikes.”

  I pulled out a contract from my coat pocket and suggested to Mr. Benson we return to the living room. I wrote out the particulars and handed it to him. He skimmed it, signed it and went to another room. He returned with a check for seven hundred and fifty dollars. I pocketed it and told him he’d hear from me this evening. I was going to start with Becky Bradley today and try to get the teacher tomorrow at school. Benson was at the table staring into space when I let myself out. No one was home at the Bradley house when I stopped by. I decided to go over to the Route 1 corridor and grab a bite to eat.

  Fairfax County is one of the richest counties in America, and the Route 1 corridor is a ten-mile slash through it of fast food places, gas stations, trailer parks, and hot sheet motels. You can eat and go, gas and go, pick up your home and go, fuck and go. At the south end there’s a combat zone around Fort Belvoir of massage parlors, topless bars, and adult book stores.

  No one lives on Route 1. Everybody’s just passing through no matter how long they stay. Olde Towne or Belle Haven is where they want to be. Every day you can get up and watch your neighbors a half mile on either side of the corridor living out your dreams. Far too often down here that sight ends in the late night shattering of glass, the thunderclap of gunfire and a police siren’s whiny song.

  I pulled into the Dixie Pig’s lot, parked, and walked across to the front doors. The Dixie Pig is one of a handful of places on the corridor where they take more time to cook your food than you took to order it. It’s a landmark on Route 1, fifty years in one place. Entering it is like entering a time warp. The prices are from 1952 and so are the waitresses. In their beehive hairdos and starched whites, they call you honey and offer to sit on your lap as if they were eighteen and their daughters weren’t. The barbecue is hot, juicy, shredded pork on a homemade bun with tangy slaw. I ordered a sandwich and a beer. When the sandwich arrived I doused it with jalopeño vinegar. I ate and headed back to the Bradley house.

  Chapter 4

  The Bradleys were three houses down from the Bensons. I pulled into the driveway in front of a similar colonial mansion. I got out and went to the front door. There was a knocker shaped like an Aztec sun medallion. It boomed off the solid wood door. A petite oriental woman appeared. I took a stab, “Mrs. Bradley?”

  “Yes, I am Mrs. Bradley.”

  “My name is Leo Haggerty. I’m a private investigator looking for Miranda Benson. I understood your daughter had been a friend of hers. I’d like to speak to her if I could.”

  She began to pull back into the house. I withdrew my wallet, flipped open to my ID card and extended it to her. She took it and read it carefully, glancing up to match the photo to my face. She handed it back. As she did I handed her the letter of authorization from Benson. Reading that seemed to do it.

  “Becky is at the club right now. She has a swimming meet. I’m going over there now. You can follow me and talk to her there.” She turned away from the door and picked up a purse.

  I stepped away from her and followed her down to the driveway. She got into a powder-blue Mercedes. I got into my car and backed it out into the street. She followed suit and we headed down to Potomac Shores Country Club. We went up through the entrance gates around past the porte cochere to a lot just past the clubhouse. I followed her to the clubhouse, then through the lobby. She turned and motioned to a door and told me it was to the men’s locker room and that it was the shortest route to the pool. I went in, weaving through a slalom of towel clad men, talking about birdies and pars, knockers and jugs. I stepped outside and looked for Mrs. Bradley. She came up to me and pointed to her daughter.

  “That’s Becky. I’d appreciate it if you’d wait until after her race. She’s anxious enough about this as it is.”

  I nodded assent and looked at her daughter. Her mother’s almond eyes were set in a narrow face. She had straight black hair that she was wearing in a long braid. She coiled it on top of her head and pulled her cap on over it. In the battle between hydrodynamics and boy appeal, boy appeal was winning. She was all limbs and joints in her blue Speedo suit. Her race was called, girls thirteen to fifteen, fifty meters freestyle. She stepped up to the pool and ran a finger around the bottom of her suit, snapping it in place. She shook out her arms and legs the way a wet dog does, then went into her starting crouch.

  I looked back at her mother, who was l
eaning forward in her chair, mouth set, wound up with her daughter’s tension. The starting pistol cracked and six girls hit the water. Becky was quick off the mark and had a slight lead at fifteen meters. I wondered how her turn was. In a fifty it can make or break you, regardless of what you do before and after. She hit the wall a half body in front and came out well, a good push and just at the surface. In the far lane a big girl had been gaining on her for the last twenty meters. At forty, strength and stamina began to count. Becky was holding on but that was it—no kick. The girl in the far lane was attacking the water, pulling through it as if it were sand. At forty-five she caught Becky and at the wall she had her.

  Becky had her arms over the edge of the pool, sucking in wind. She looked up at the announcer for the results and set her face for an instant when she found out she was second. Her mother had relaxed and was breathing through her mouth. She looked at me and said, “Let me talk to her for a minute, then I’ll bring her over. Do you want to talk with her alone?”

  “Yes. I’d appreciate that very much.”

  She walked over and picked up a towel from a pool-side table and draped it over her daughter. They put their heads together and talked briefly. Becky turned and glanced at me then back at her mother. She huddled in the towel and dried herself off. She pulled off her cap and unwound her hair. She looked at me again for a moment and came my way.

  I stood up and motioned for her to sit. She did and looked at me intently. “My name is Leo Haggerty. I’m a private investigator and I’d like to talk to you about Miranda Benson. I understand you were friends.” I pulled out my wallet and held my ID out to her. She took it, matched face and photo and returned it.

  “Why do you want to talk to me? Why don’t you just ask Randi?”

  “I can’t. It appears Randi ran away from home and I’m trying to help her parents find her. Can you help me? I was told you and she were close for a while, then drifted apart. Can you tell me why?”