came up from the basement and shrugged. “Big place you got here.” He said. “You rent?”
“Have a look around why don’t you.” Jessie said.
He walked past her into the living room. “No, just looking for the toilet.” He said. “Down the hall right?” Jessie and I trailed after him as he walked past the bathroom and into the bedroom. He opened our closet door, and then turned and shrugged again. “I must’ve passed it.” He walked back into the hall and stuck his head in the bathroom. “Funny.” He said, standing in our bathroom’s doorway. “I don’t have to go anymore.”
I finally found my voice. “He’s not here.” I said. “And I don’t know why in hell you’d think he was.”
“Because you didn’t tell us about your history with David.” He said.
“Yes I did.” I said. “I told you he was a friend of mine. I told you that.”
“You just forgot to mention that you used to be his partner in crime.”
“What?”
“You and David Telano were busted together for theft.” He said. “And neither one of you would say a word against the other.”
“We were just kids back then.” I answered. “It was a stupid shoplifting thing. We honestly haven’t been close for years. You know how it is with old friends. You lose touch after a while.”
“Well you can count on us keeping in touch.” He said. “And keeping our eye on you. You told us you didn’t know where he is and if we find out that wasn’t a true statement you’re looking at an obstruction charge, at the very least.” We followed him into the living room where Detective Reyes was looking through the papers Jessie had printed at the library. “Apparently this guy doesn’t know anything.” Borgano said to her. “I guess we should leave him alone.”
She smiled and dropped the papers back on the table. “Yeah.” She said. “Let’s go.” Jessie started walking toward them like she was going to tell them off, but I grabbed her hand and held her back. She looked at me and frowned. “We’ll be back with more questions at some point.” Reyes said. “I left my card on your table. Call me if you hear anything.”
I locked the door behind them and then sat on the couch and exhaled. Jessie was still standing there, shaking her head. “Those putrid little fucks!” She hissed. “Those assholes, who do they think they’re impressing with that shit? Can you believe that? To just come in here and go stomping around -this is supposed to be America. They can’t just do that shit, it’s unconstitutional.”
“They’re the cops, they can do whatever they want.” I said.
“Yeah, well.” She threw up her hands in exasperation. “You’d probably let them. You’re terrible with cops. What was all that shit about Baby Rico?”
“I don’t know, I was nervous.” I said.
She laughed a little and sat next to me. “I guess I don’t ever have to worry about you cheating on me.” She said. “You’re the worst liar I’ve ever seen in my life.”
EIGHT
I was driving a golf cart down Lakeshore Blvd when I saw Manny Ayles. I had been making my way to the meetinghouse to check the visitor passes on the cars in the parking lot when I spotted him sitting with Martin on a park bench. Manny was looking over the younger boy’s shoulder while he played a small hand held video game device. I turned toward the meetinghouse and was a block away before the idea came to me. I made a u-turn.
Manny was a fourteen-year-old redhead with acne. He was tall and slightly stooped and if you saw him standing on the street you couldn’t help but think he was lurking or skulking instead of just standing there. His hair hung down over his eyes and he rarely smiled. I pulled up to the curb and called his name. “What?” he asked, turning away from the pixilated violence.
“C’mere, I want to talk to you.” I said. I turned around in the golf cart’s seat and put my feet down.
He stood up and ambled in my general direction. “What do you want?” He asked, looking at me with a combination of fear and hatred. It was the same look I’d gotten every time I’d seen him since the day I caught him videotaping Sarah Underhill. He’d set a camera up in the tree across the street from her bedroom, and was up there retrieving it when I spotted him. I figured out what he was doing and told him that according to the Lakeview charter his family could be kicked out for his unethical behavior, and that the Underhills would have to be notified. He begged me not to tell, and swore that he’d never done it before and would never do it again. I made him stomp the videotape to bits, and told him he was lucky it was me that discovered his spy-cam operation. I said I wouldn’t tell but that he owed me now. I didn’t want to publicly humiliate the kid, but I also didn’t want him to think he’d gotten away clean.
“How about a little appreciation from you for not ruining your life first of all.” I said.
“Yeah, well I’ve been thinking, and there’s no way you could prove that I did anything.” He said. “I could go tell the police I saw you spying on Sarah, then if you said it was really me, you would look like you were lying.” He said.
I laughed. “Okay dummy. I was going to give you a chance to even-up, but if you want to play it like that, it’s fine with me.” I turned and put the cart in drive.
“Wait…” He said before I’d started moving. “Okay, yeah, what do you want?” I put the cart back in park.
“Smart move Manny. Now if I let you in on something, can you promise never to breathe a word of it to anyone? I’m serious. Can you keep a secret?”
He gave me a look of suspicious curiosity. “Yeah.” He said.
“No seriously.” I said. “Swear to me.”
“Okay I swear.” He said.
“I think Freddie Divos has something to do with what happened to Becky Pierson.” I said.
“Freddie Divos? The guy who runs the mobile park?”
“Yeah, the very one.” I said. “This guy who’s supposed to have done it, David Telano, the guy who was America’s Most Wanted -did you know that he’s Freddie Divos’s nephew?”
He gave me a meaningful look. “No.” He said.
“And did you know that on Tuesday, the day before Becky was shot, Freddie Divos had to go to the hospital to have his pinky finger reattached?”
“Oh yeah, I heard about that.” He said. “He was chopping carrots right?”
“I’m not so sure.” I said. “I mean, think about it. How would you cut your pinky finger off chopping a carrot?” I made chopping motions in the air. “If it had been his thumb I could buy it, but his pinky? How?”
“I don’t know.” He said. “I didn’t think of that.”
“Here’s the point,” I said, “Freddie Divos is involved in some way. I don’t know how, but it seems pretty likely given the circumstances.”
Manny was nodding with a look of concentration on his face. “Yeah.” He said finally. “I guess you could be right.”
“Well I want to know what the connection is.” I said. “That’s where you come in.”
“Me?”
“Yeah Manny, you. You seem to have a natural gift for surveillance. I mean just because this gift of yours first manifested itself as a pervy violation of Sarah Underhill’s privacy doesn’t mean it can’t be useful. I can’t watch Freddie all the time, I’ve got to work. And when I’m not working I’ve got no reason to be hanging around in Lakeview. So I need you to do it.”
“Spy on him?”
“Yeah.” I said. “Get me some video. I’m not asking you to film the guy taking a shit or anything, I just want to know about his comings and goings. I want to know who comes to visit him, when they leave, if they leave together, what time they get back, that sort of thing. Don’t worry about connecting the dots. I’ll do that. And Manny, if we come up with something, we can help the police out.” I said. “Think about it, John Walsh might even put us on TV. Sarah Underhill’s panties would come right off for you after that.”
“Would you please shut up about Sarah?” He said. “Seriously, it’s getting on my nerves.”
“Alright, relax.” I said. “Are you in?”
“Yeah.” He said. “I can do that.”
“Good.” I said. “And Manny listen. If anyone finds out about this or catches you, you thought of it all on your own okay? You’ll get a stern lecture, but I could lose my job or maybe even get arrested. I’m serious.”
“No way.” Manny said. “I don’t think so. You want to share the credit but not the risk, well that’s fucked up. No, we’re in it together or it’s no deal.”
“Okay Manny.” I said. “I guess we’re in it together then, just please don’t get caught.” He ran off like he was going to start immediately, and I wondered if I had just made a mistake.
I wrote a couple of parking tickets and then wound up back at the guardhouse. I sat around talking to James for an hour before I took my post at the side-gate, which had been hastily fortified with a wooden barrier so you couldn’t drive around it. I dozed in the uncomfortable chair and listened to a radio talk show about nutrition.
When I got home after three in the morning my living room was filled with stale pot smoke and there was a note on the table. Jessie had been at the library doing research all afternoon and had turned up ‘something big’. The note said to wake her when I got in, but she didn’t want to wake up. I shook her but she just groaned and rolled over, and eventually I quit trying and fell asleep beside her. Sometime later she was shaking me.
“Hey I told you to wake me up when you got in.” She said.
“Yeah,” I