Greywalker

Chapter 12

His name was Steve, and he was sitting on a stool just inside the door to Dominic's. He looked at the photo, then raised his eyes to scan for obnoxious drunks and underage partyers. "Yeah. I think I've seen this kid. Not in a while, though. Came in a couple-few times." "When was this?"

Steve shrugged. "January, February, like." "You card him?"

"Musta done. He don't look legal." "He wasn't. Birthday was March seventh."

"Damn it, don't tell me that. My boss'll kill me. Card said he was good. He was good. OK?"

My turn to shrug. "Why do you remember him if it was so long ago?" I asked.

"Patterns. That's what you look for. You know—certain panhandlers always always hang on the same corners, certain guys always get real quiet just before they try to bust somebody in the chops. Can't watch everybody in a crowd like this, so you get to know the signs, look for the disruption in the patterns. This kid, he was a pattern breaker. Didn't fit. Slow time of year—shoulda known he was a freakin' minor. Showed up, like, two or three nights a week. Come in right after dark, stay a while waiting for some people, then leave, usually alone. Then he stopped coming around. Haven't seen him in a while."

"Who were the people he waited for?"

"Harder to say. They were more like a type. Not so much regulars as clubbers—you know, the ones who hit the circuit every night or every Friday and make the rounds. Not really anybody's regulars and not really anybody's friends, but they're there all the time and you sort of know who they are."

"Be more specific—what type?"

"Uh-huh—hey, you! ID, please." He broke off to block a young guy and his twitchy date at the door. He stuck out his hand, snapping his fingers and giving the "come on" wave.

Nervous, the guy handed the bouncer his driver's license.

Steve glared at it. "According to this, you won't be legal until after midnight."

The kid shifted and whined. "Aw, come on, man. It's my birthday! Show some class."

"Hey, you're still underage until twelve-oh-one a.m., man. So why don't you show a little class and take this pretty lady out to a nice dinner and come back after midnight?"

The birthday boy slumped and led his date away.

The bouncer turned back to me. "What type, huh? Gothies. The black hair and white makeup crowd. But there's a couple of 'em always scare the crap out of me—though, you say so and I'll deny it. You know, kind of guys look at you like they're looking through you, but not like they're ignoring you. Like you're nothing but meat to them. Be just as glad to hack you up." He gave a hard nod. "That kind."

A shiver rushed over me. "Any names you could give me?"

He shrugged. "Don't know any of 'em personally. Don't want to either, you know? But I'll keep my eyes peeled and my ears open. Give you a call if I find out anything, OK?"

I handed him my card. "Good enough."

I hit several more places before calling it a night. My feet were complaining, and I wanted a drink myself, but I headed back toward my office instead, too tired to worry about anyone who might be trailing me. But I stuck to well-lit streets, rather than crossing through the alleys.

The ghosts were thick around the Square, and being tired and distracted, I had a hard time remembering to dodge only the normal traffic. Pushing the Grey edge away constantly was exhausting, and I wasn't very good at, anyway. I almost got hit by a car while trying to avoid a sudden ghostly gap in the sidewalk. I paused under the pergola on the Square to read my watch. It was 11:22. I knew I'd missed some places, but at that point, I didn't care.

"Hi, Harper. You out partying, or working?"

I glanced up and around. Quinton was standing beneath the next iron arch, grinning at me from under a much-battered drover's hat.

"I was working, but I'm quitting for the night. What about you?"

"Just goofing off. Can I buy you a drink?"

"If you know someplace quiet where no one will complain if I take my shoes off," I replied.

"You bet I do. Come with me, fair maiden," he added, motioning me along.

Quinton struck off east, then turned and led me into a saloon along the angled block of rather disreputable buildings on Second Avenue Extension. The name of the place seemed to be some kind of double entendre that I was too tired to puzzle out.

From the outside, I expected low, dim, and smoky, but it wasn't. Broad, deep, and high-ceilinged, the original carved turn-of-the-century backbar and brass-railed front bar still dominated the room. The place was pretty empty. Of the three men at the bar, one was the bartender. A couple sat at a front table and conversed with the guys at the bar. Across the room, another couple shot pool, observed by two single men seated on high stools, bantering and kibitzing. The place hadn't changed since it was built.Quinton noticed my assessment. "It's a dive, all right, but it's quiet, decent and the owner" — he pointed to the bartender—"doesn't care if you take your shoes off, so long as you keep your socks on. What would you like to drink?"

"Whatever you're having. Oh, and ask the owner if he's ever seen this guy," I added, shoving a copy of Cameron's picture into his hands.

Quinton returned with two large glasses of beer. He handed me the photo. "He said he doesn't recognize him."

"Thanks. Hey, you never left me your bill," I reminded him.

"Haven't gotten around to writing it up yet. I'll drop it off Monday. In the meantime, I got my own pager, so if you need me, you can page me." He handed me a card with his first name and number printed on it. "Do you shoot pool?"

I blinked at the non sequitur and shook my head. "Never learned how."

"Come on, I'll show you."

He wasn't a great teacher, but I wasn't a great student, so we had fun making mistakes and sending pool balls everywhere but where intended. I was a little tired and a little lit. I giggled a lot and forgot to worry about ghoulies and ghosties, and they seemed to forget about me.

I lined up a doomed shot. "What do you do, Quinton? I mean besides rescuing damsels in distress?"

He watched me miss completely. "I pretty much do whatever comes up. Jack of all trades and master of none, and all that crud. Got an electronics degree once, hung around college, did some programming, worked on cars, did a little wiring and construction, whatever was available."

"So, no steady job?"

"Nah. Steady jobs are for slaves. You just trade hours for dollars. I don't like that. So I don't do it." He bent over the table and muffed a long shot. "There's always someone around who just needs something quick and dirty and I'm the quick-and-dirty expert."

I sank the wrong ball. "Sounds criminal."

"Heck, no. All aboveboard and honest, I swear. Sometimes I get a bit of contract work, sometimes things come up that are a little longer term, but I never let myself become a cog, you know?"

I sat down and drank beer and watched him make a run of three balls.

"Freelance troubleshooter?"

He tipped his head and smiled thoughtfully. "Pretty much. Got a lot of esoteric information stuffed in my head, so I'm often a better guy for a small but complex problem than a guy with a specialized degree and a ton of specialized experience. Flexible. That's the best thing to be."

"Yeah," I agreed. "Flexible is good."

"Yep. Rigidity is death. Hey, you doing OK? You look about to fall over."

"I'm getting drunk, I think. And I'm tired. I'd better quit and head for home."

"All right." He took the cues and put them away in the wall rack. "Want an escort back to your car?"

"Sure."

I was grateful for the company. I was so wiped out I could hardly tell normal from paranormal, but walking with Quinton to blaze the trail, I just let it wash over me.

We stopped at the Rover. "Are you sure you're OK to drive home?"

"Yeah. I'm just tired, so I'd better get going before I get worse. This was nice. Thanks. Do you need a lift?" No, I just live a few blocks away." For a second he seemed poised something, then settled back. "I'll see you Monday, all right?"

"OK," I agreed, wondering what he'd almost said or done.

He watched me drive out of the parking lot, waving before he turned and walked off.

It seemed like a very long drive home.

I woke up in a mean mood. The bells of the Catholic church next door were bunging away like Quasimodo was having a heart attack.

Down the road, the Baptist and Lutheran electronic pseudo-carillons were giving forth with Protestant zeal. Most Sundays I find the sounds pleasant. This morning I was ready to hunt down the men in charge and tie them beneath their own thunderous devices.

I did the morning thing with bad grace and grumbling and let the ferret out to play while my hair dried. There was only one name left on Colleen Shadley's list, and it had no phone number. I'd be making another drive to the Eastside.

I felt a little guilty for having left Chaos in the cage all day, so I packed up the ferret's traveling kit and took her along for the ride to Bellevue.

There was a mild, intermittent drizzle as we crossed the lake, but traffic was light, so we made good time to the 405. I had to consult a map to locate the address Colleen had provided for her daughter. It was not far from the mall, located in an unexpected fold of land that cut the area off from the business and light-industrial development nearby. The houses were mostly from the early 1950s: small bricks, wide cedar-stained clapboards, and crank-out windows. Sarah's had a small, weedy yard in front. I transferred the sleeping ferret into my purse and started to pick my way up the driveway, around scattered parts of a dismembered motorcycle, to the front door. I heard distant music. I knocked.

Steps sounded inside and the peephole darkened. The door opened to the depth of the safety chain.

"What do you want?" Her voice was bland, wafting to me on the supporting strains of classical music. She didn't show her face in the gap.

"I'm looking for Cameron Shadley."

She scoffed. "He doesn't live here. Who sent you?"

"I know he doesn't live here. I want to talk to his sister. Are you Sarah Shadley?" I asked.

The door closed and the chain rattled against it. Then the door opened again. A thin slice of a thin face peered around the edge. "Why do you want to talk to me? Is Cam in trouble?"

"Cam is missing. Are you Sarah?" I repeated.

She opened the door all the way and stared at me. She could have been a Charles Addams sketch. A little shorter than me, she was skeleton thin. Her dyed-black hair was lank and faded below two inches of blond roots. Even without makeup, her face was glow-in-the-dark white with lavender circles of sleeplessness deepening her eye sockets into pits. But her eyes, unlike her brothers and mother's, were hazel green. She wore a black-and-white-striped tunic over black leggings and bare feet.

She mulled her answer. "I'm Sarah. Who are you?"

"My name is Harper Blaine. I'm a private investigator, and your mother hired me to find your brother. He's been missing for about six weeks. I thought you might be able to help me. May I come inside?"

She stood aside and I walked in. She closed and locked the door behind me and led the way into the kitchen, then pointed to the tiny drop-down table mounted to the wall opposite the fridge. The dried-blood red varnish on her short nails was chipped and bitten. I headed for one of the two chairs by the table and settled myself with my bag in my lap.

She looked at me a moment, gnawing her lower lip, then said, "I was making coffee. You want some?" She went to the sink, pulled the plug and water gurgled away down the drain. The garbage disposal growled, cutting off my reply. She glanced over her shoulder at me, drying her hands on a cotton dish towel.

"Sure. Thanks," I replied.

She reached across the sink and pushed a button on the small stereo on the counter; Vivaldi's Gloria swelled. In a minute, she came back with a small, painted tin tray and dipped like a cocktail waitress to unload it. A garish picture of the Space Needle from 1962 was painted on the inside. Sarah returned the tray to the counter before she sat down across from me. She wouldn't meet my eyes. She took a book off her half of the table and placed it on the floor; then she pushed a mug of coffee in front of me and arranged a neat little barrier of milk jug and sugar bowl between us. She dawdled over mixing her coffee, keeping her head down.

I sipped my coffee black. It tasted like brackish water run through oil-soaked sawdust.

Sarah swished her spoon around in her cup. "So, you wanted to talk to me…?"

"Your mother hired me to find Cameron. I've got some ideas about where he might be, but not why. I was hoping you could help me out with that."

She raised her head and glared at me. "Oh, so 'Mummy' thinks that if something bad has happened it must be Sarah's fault, huh?"

I stared back in silence until she blushed and lowered her eyes. "No. Cam's roommate mentioned that you called a few times and that you two seemed to be close." I let that hang.

She poked at her mug.

"When was the last time you talked to him?"

She heaved her skinny shoulders, defensive and sullen. "I don't know. Sometime in March, I guess. Haven't seen him or talked to him since, so I don't know where he is."

"In March, did you see him in person, or talk on the phone?"

"In person."

"Where did you see him?"

"In a bar."

"Where?"

"Pioneer."

"Pioneer Square?" I clarified.

"Yeah."

"Which bar?"

"Don't remember."

I sighed and sat back in my chair. I drank my bad coffee, then put it down on the table. "This would be a lot easier if I didn't have to play Twenty Questions with you."

Again the glare.

My purse shuddered and Chaos exploded from it, scratching and scrambling to look over the table edge. Sarah started and stared at the furry apparition hoisting itself onto the table.

The ferret poked her nose into my coffee mug and I scooped her up. "Chaos! No."

She sneezed and shook her head in annoyance just as Sarah lit up and reached for her, too.

"Sweet!" Sarah cried. She offered a finger for sniffing. Chaos licked the fingertip after a careful snuffle. "Does it bite?" "No."

Sarah stroked the ferret's head as I put her down again. Then Chaos skipped off to investigate Sarah's coffee mug.

"Don't let her into the sugar," I warned.

"Can it—she—have some milk? Is that OK?"

"Only a little," I allowed.

Sarah dipped her pinky into the milk jug and offered it to Chaos, who licked up the milk with a rapid tongue.

The girl beamed at me. "May I pick her up?" "Uh, sure."

Sarah lifted the ferret with care and brought her up to her shoulder, cuddling the animal against her neck. "What a sweetie!" Chaos nuzzled her jaw.

Sarah exclaimed over the wonderfulness of my pet for five minutes while Chaos endeared herself, trotting along Sarah's shoulders and offering whiskery, tickling kisses—the attention hound.

Brimming over with the joy of mustelid nuzzling, Sarah began pouring out a story. "I don't know if this is related to Cam going missing, but I suppose it could be. He helped me out of a bad situation back… in February, I guess it was. I was really stupid to get into it in the first place, but I was mad, you know?"

I prompted her. "What happened?"

"Well, first you gotta know the family thing. Cam's not the oldest. I am. But because he's a boy—a male—everything is for him." Bitterness crept into her tone. "The car, the trust fund, the education… everything. I only get an allowance out of it until I get married. If I never get married and never have any kids, I'll get an allowance for the rest of my life. It's like being on some kind of parental welfare! When I asked my mother why I didn't get a trust fund for college, you know what she said?" "Tell me."

Her voice swooped and rattled in fury. "She said that she and Daddy didn't want some man to marry me for my money! How antediluvian! Mom is always on about all that upper-middle-class-masquerade crap! It is so Mrs. Robinson. And you know, I tried it. I really did. But it's not what I want. So I decided that if I couldn't do what I wanted, I wasn't going to take her money."

She sneered. "You can probably imagine how well Mummy liked that! And she had a lot of ways of letting me know just how much she disapproved. So I got mad. I started doing things I knew would piss her off, just to irritate the hell out of her. Cam tried to give me money so I wouldn't have to work, but there was no way I was going to take it."

She waved her hands to indicate her hair and body. "So I did all of this. The whole Gothic-dead thing. I pierced my nose, my eyebrow… and a lot of other parts, too. I talked about getting a tattoo, but really, the idea kind of squicked me—and branding is right out! I even had a pair of red contact lenses I used to wear." She cackled. "They really weirded Mom out. I started hanging out with some rough guys, playing the slut, taking drugs—all that teenage rebellion crap. Except I didn't get around to doing it until I was twenty-one, so it's not like drinking was going to be a big deal. I had to be totally vile. And manage to keep just inside Mom's tolerance level, because, if she threw me out, how could I keep on making her life as miserable as mine was?"

Her voice began to slow and she caught the ferret, petting her with repetitive strokes. "But right after Christmas I finally broke the camel and Mom threw me out. I bummed around and slept on friends' couches and all that. And then I met this guy…"