All the Old Bargains Read online

  Josh’s place was a half hour away. I rapped on the door and heard him cross the room. He let me enter, bowing with his arm sweeping an arc before him. “Enter, O hunter of men and slayer of fierce dragons.” Josh had been gargling with eighty-six proof mouth wash and so his every word was served with a dollop of bitterness about being five feet three inches tall and having a harelip and carrot hair. It took me a long time to understand that Josh’s dearest possessions were his stature, his harelip and his hair. They weren’t his curses but his ticket of admission to the human circus. He felt like a sideshow performer and yearned for the big top. But he was still a performer, somehow unique, not just one of the faceless crowd. Until he could get something better in exchange for them, he’d be damned if he’d give them up. I walked past him to where I knew the prints would be. The bill said if I’d bring him the girl, he’d forget the bill. I gave him ten bucks a print, our going rate. Josh was lurching toward me. I put the prints behind my back. “She’s in trouble. I know it,” he slurred.

  “She’ll be okay, Josh. I’ll find her.” I wanted out and I wanted Josh to be okay. He jabbed a freckled finger at me. “Oh yeah, the tough guy. Where’s your charger, Galahad?” I knew he’d take a poke at me. I wondered whether he’d rather I take him seriously and deck him or humor him and put him in the bed he’d so obviously missed the night before. He came windmilling toward me. I ducked the blows, grabbed Josh around the waist, hoisted him over my shoulders and tossed him on the sofa.

  The charade over, he looked at me. “You know how much I hate you sometimes?”

  “Yeah, I know, Josh—as much as you hate yourself, so I’m in good company. Get some sleep and thanks.” He waved me off and began to snore sibilantly. I picked up the folder and locked the door behind me.

  I wanted a quiet place to study the prints, eat some lunch and maybe call Samantha. I cranked the car over and thought I’d go up to a nearby steakhouse. The place was dark, the tables well separated, the service unobtrusive. I hoped to beat the lunch crowd and did. A young girl in a long gown showed me to a table, took my drink order and left. When she returned with my drink I fished a print out of the folder. Josh was right. What he’d created out of my description and his own loneliness was haunting. A face of ravaged sparkle. Energy still danced in the eyes, but only there. That energy seemed to feed off her face, drawing it back into herself and then out through her eyes. She was thirteen and thirty, at the beginning and the end of her youth.

  Over my steak I sorted out the pieces of the puzzle of Miranda Benson. In the past year she’d alienated her parents, stopped pursuing former interests and activities, abandoned or rejected old friends, given away things of her childhood and changed her appearance. If it had only been her parents reporting the changes, I’d have discounted part of it as ubiquitous parental dismay as their children grow up and away from them. But she seemed to be intent on shucking her previous existence, and this caterpillar was turning into a moth not a butterfly.

  Becky said Randi was involved with Angie Martindale these days and Angie Martindale sounded like a veteran mall rat. She’d be there for the starting gun. By one I figured it was time to go. I wanted to be totally familiar with the shopping center and its rhythms by the time the kids started pouring in from school. The drive over was stifling, the dry heat baking me in my car. Meat loaf under steel, the special of the day.

  Chapter 8

  It was after three when I pulled into the shopping center lot and locked the car. An overturned oil tanker on the beltway had backed traffic up for miles. I felt like a pilgrim heading to a modern cathedral, one dedicated to the banishment of boredom. Three million square feet of neon lit, color-coordinated anesthetic of every shape and size. If you just keep buying things that make you happier, sexier, richer, prettier, more desirable, then the roaring, whistling emptiness that gnaws at you will go away. Right? Wrong. It’s just another addiction. When you turn off the lights, the emptiness comes back. If you sit and explore your emptiness long enough you will find a handhold on your core. If you don’t want to do that you get a lifetime pass to the shopping center.

  I went through the doors and pulled my shirt away from my body as the first blast of air conditioning hit me. I decided to walk the length of the center’s two levels and see where the kids would be likely to congregate. The first place was the Family Video Center, a cavern of pinball and electronic video games. I walked past the arcade and down the other side of the mall. The next outpost was a sporting goods store. The kids who were hanging out tended to be in the common space, not in the stores. It was either lack of money or because the real commodity on sale was a return to a giant, bright buzzing hive. Lots of other people to make contact with, to rub antennas with. I went past the shoe store to my next oases of children: the ice cream store and the puppy shop. I went down the stairs and began to stroll back down the avenue. The area outside the pizza shop was starting to attract a few kids as was a clothes boutique and the record store. I went to a drink stand, got a large 7-Up and sat down on a bench. I took out the picture and committed it to memory. I wished I had a half dozen operatives. Then I could plant one at each oasis and watch and wait. I sipped my drink and pocketed the picture. It was almost 3:30, time to hunt in earnest.

  As I began my first lap I had the horrendous thought of them arriving and leaving between a circuit and my never knowing it and spending a happy day in fantasyland. I pushed the thought away and began to make my way among the crowds, comparing and discarding faces like bad draws to a poker hand. An hour and a half and four laps later, I was having a crisis of faith. I could see myself being scraped up off a bench in about six months, gibbering incoherently. All the kids were being reduced to one big, jeaned, sneakered, hairy clone and I hated them all. I closed my eyes and contemplated calling Arnie over to spell me for a while when I saw her. It was the Martindale girl. She was talking with another girl—not Cindy Fosburg—and two boys. They looked older, maybe seventeen or so. They wore sleeveless vests, homegrown tattoos and the omnipresent bulletproof wallet affixed to their belts by silver chains. One boy carried a buck knife in a clasped case on his right side. They both had spiky Mohawk haircuts and the one with the knife an attempted goatee. It was the current grits look, a hybrid produced by mating a Hell’s Angel with a Punk. Its evolutionary potential was doubtful. I settled into a holding pattern on a bench on the opposite side of the corridor and hoped to intercept the girls alone. After a few minutes of giggles and nervous movements the girls moved off toward the record store. Maybe I was in luck. The store had a step-down enclosed area of benches that would afford some privacy if I could convince the girls to talk with me. I decided not to address Angie by name, as her natural suspiciousness would be heightened even more by a stranger who somehow knew her name. The girls entered the store and apparently were browsing. I stationed myself on a bench where I could see the door and hoped that all they picked up was round and vinyl. After about fifteen minutes they came out and stood in the doorway, glancing up and down, deciding which way to go. I climbed up off the bench and went toward them.

  “Excuse me. May I talk with you a moment?”

  The girls heads snapped around and I could see them running me through their computer systems: truant officer, cop, store detective. They were sure some past transgression was being called due. I’ve learned that there just isn’t enough time to prove yourself trustworthy to these kids when you need information in a hurry and this may be the only time you ever pass through their lives. You can either play it straight with them and hope they’ll talk to you or try to intimidate them and let the next guy attempt to pick up the pieces.

  “It’s about Randi Benson. I’m hoping you can help me. It’ll only take a couple of minutes of your time.” Now that I had become a threat once removed I could sense the tension in their bodies slacken a bit. Angie Martindale looked a lot like her picture. She still had a little baby fat on her belly and no subtlety in her clothes. Everything was tight and her sincere brea
sts strained her blouse with sincerity. The other girl was a washed-out brunette, whose chief distinguishing feature was two front teeth that leaned outward like a pair of tired tombstones.

  “Whadaya want?” Angie whined, burdened by my request.

  “I’d like to know where she is. I’d like to talk to her.”

  “What for? Who are you anyway?” She put her hands on her hips and turned a foot outward, a ballet of the streets.

  “I’m a private detective and her parents asked me to try to find Randi.” I didn’t want to say they wanted me to return her if the girls had feelings on the matter.

  “Right. I’ll bet. Listen, with what her folks are like she’s better off wherever she is.”

  “What are her folks like? I don’t know them very well.”

  “They’re just into keeping her a little girl, you know. Her father’s all over her case, you know—about where she can go, you know, and like what she does, you know.” The girl was at a loss to describe her world. She was relying on the telepathic powers of “you know” to transport her mind to mine.

  “That doesn’t quite sound like child abuse to me. They may not be the best parents around, or even just good enough, but why are you so sure she’s better off wherever she is? There are lots of very ugly places where people can get lost.” I listened to myself. Who was I kidding? This kid didn’t grow up in Disneyland.

  Her friend was chewing on a cuticle, worrying it like it was all she was going to get to eat.

  “Look, if you know where she is and she is in such great shape, take me to her, let me see for myself. Even if I took her home, what are they going to do—chain her to the bed?” Something flicked across her eyes, not quite a flinch. I was sorry I said it. “She can always run away again.” I thought to myself, if she does it often enough by the time she’s sixteen nobody’ll give a shit where she goes or how she gets there. “If you’re not so certain she’s in a great place, wouldn’t you want somebody to check up on her? Wouldn’t you want somebody to check up on you in a bad scene?”

  She started chewing on her own nails, her eyes growing unfocused with concentration. “She left here on Friday with a guy. I don’t know who he was, but he had a great car.”

  “Do you remember anything else about him? A name, a description, a license? How did they meet?”

  “He was just hanging around and seemed to like Randi and he just came on to her, you know, talking and everything and they left together.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “He was cute, kinda tall.”

  “As tall as me?”

  “Yeah, but not as heavy. Kind of skinny but he had good shoulders.”

  Yeah. I’ll bet the kind you can cry on.

  “He had black hair, right, Nicky?” Her friend nodded in goggle-eyed agreement. “It was long and kind of wild. He parted it in the middle. Oh yeah, he had a gold earring in his, um, right ear. It was a little gold lion head hanging from a star in his ear.”

  Great, I thought. He’s probably with some religious group, the Mahatma Wing Dang Doo. “What about his face? Any scars? Anything unusual—braces, glasses, a patch, you know?” God, there I go. I’m doing it. Maybe we’ll just end up communicating by touching fingertips.

  “No, no scars or nothing. His eyes were dark. Just real cute, you know.”

  “What was he wearing?” I looked around for a place to sit and motioned to a bench. They stood.

  “A black muscle shirt and jeans and boots.”

  “Did he have any tattoos?” Like one with his name and address on it.

  “Yeah, it was …” She giggled and snorted into her hands and doubled over. I waited it out and considered giving her a shot of estrogen to get her through this age. “It was a girl on his bicep and when he flexed, her tummy moved like she was dancing.” This guy would be a snap to find if the circus was in town.

  “What did he talk about? Did he mention any names?” I reminded myself to get a description of his car.

  “We just talked about things, music. He was really into heavy metal.” Great, the next oppressed minority. Transvestite sadomasochists unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains.

  “And things, you know …” She broke from my gaze and stared at the floor.

  “Like where to score some good dope, huh?”

  “Yeah, just weed, you know. Nothing heavy.”

  Right he’s a social worker and saving souls. “Did he talk about anything else? Any places, names?” Keep on dreaming.

  “No.”

  “Tell me about the car. How did that come up?”

  “Well, me and Nicky were leaving then too, to go to a party, and we saw this guy and Randi get into his car. It was a dark blue car, you know, with those engine things coming through the hood and all the way up in the air in the back.”

  “Did it have any stickers on it on the bumper?”

  “Yeah, unh, one of the clubs on Route 1, Dixie’s Pride, I think.”

  “Can you tell me anything else about it, license tag or decals?”

  “No.”

  “Listen, you’ve been very helpful. Thanks very much.” I reached into my wallet and came out with two of my cards. “If you think of anything else at all, I can be reached at that number at anytime. If I’m not in just leave a message.” I started to walk away and then turned back. “I’ll let you know if she’s okay.”

  Unless Dixie’s Pride required tattoos and earrings of everyone I was in pretty good shape. I got into my car, turned it over and pushed a tape into the player. Bruce Springsteen. The Boss. He had words for every form of exile I’d ever known.

  I pulled out of the lot and headed up to the beltway. I punched the accelerator and began to climb up the ramp. I opened my window and turned up the volume. With a piano tinkling behind him, Bruce filled the evening.

  I wondered what my shopping center mystery boy promised Randi Benson. Whatever it was he probably said “you know” for everything he didn’t.

  Chapter 9

  In twenty minutes I was back on the corridor. It was almost six o’clock. Work was over and so the regulars at Dixie’s Pride would be showing up soon. I pulled my car into the lot across the street and looked the place over. Whatever Dixie’s Pride was, it wasn’t fit for pubic viewing. Like a lot of other bars on Route 1, it was an ugly pillbox, squat, flat roofed, windowless—just a brick box with a door and a name over it. A pleasure bunker. I got out of my car, locked it, took a deep breath and crossed the street. I’d spent too much time in places like this to be too thrilled with a return engagement. I opened the outer door and let it close. In the darkness I reached for the inner door and entered Dixie’s Pride. My brief attempt at accommodating my vision didn’t really help and I groped around the tables for a second, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the inky darkness. I found a table off to the left. It was centrally located where I could watch the door and also get a sense of the layout of the place.

  The walls were covered with swirling stucco. I felt like I was sitting in the middle of a giant callus. There were mirrors imbedded in all the walls. The bar took up two-thirds of the right wall. Past that was the entrance to the kitchen where Quasimodo the chef was flipping his ashes into the soup. Virginia has a bizarre rule that you have to be a restaurant to serve alcohol. The only exception to this is a half dozen bars outside the Portsmouth Naval Yard that cater to crazed seamen. The result of this rule is that some of the worst food in the universe is served in Virginia taverns. They have to maintain a ratio of receipts for food and booze, so they have to move the slop. But what goes on in the kitchens is incredible. There are sixty-five bars on the strip of Route 1 that cuts through Fairfax County and plenty of them wouldn’t pass an inspection by Mr. Magoo, so somebody’s getting greased somewhere. I make it a cardinal rule never to eat in a Virginia roadhouse. It is to this I attribute my old age. Past the kitchen was the fire exit and the bathrooms, I guessed. Around the tables were the first round of regulars. Mostly construction workers by their
dress, but a few of the white collar boys were present. I looked around for the front man who ran this place. He was sitting at a table in the left rear corner. He had wavy blonde hair combed straight back. Empty eyes, hook nose the size of an umbrella and a cigarette that hid under it. He was going to fat and his beginning beer paunch had forced him to keep his shirt buttoned higher than was stylish down here. He had a gold necklace on that either had his name on it in case he lost himself or some drivel like peace or love. He finished off with corded slacks and patent leather shoes. He didn’t look bad enough to be doubling as the muscle, so my guess was there was some monstrosity out back washing the dishes or eating them that they called on to arbitrate outbreaks of contentiousness.