Huge (2 page)

Now she laid her bag on her lap, stooped over it, thrust both hands inside, and began clawing and sifting its contents like a miner panning for gold. I scooted my butt to the edge of the bed, eager for her to cut to the chase. That smile of hers had tipped me off. I’d seen it more times than you could count on an abacus, and it always meant the same thing: she had an idea, something sneaky or secret; she was up to something, and any second I’d be up to something right along with her. That’s how she’d always been with me. She knew I got into
trouble more often than most people got out of bed, and she usually took a minute or two to remind me all about it when we were alone. But that never stopped her from egging me on, coming up with pranks or stunts I could pull just for the hell of it, convincing me to do them. She told me boys had to have some mischief in them or they might as well wear dresses and party socks and play with dolls, and just because I’d taken a running leap way over the line in fifth grade, it didn’t mean I’d lost the right to mix it up and have some fun. Yeah, I guess that’s why I liked her so much. Even at her age, she was still a bit crafty, a bit sly, and it made me think she must have been a handful when she was young and pretty and had all her marbles.

But she was taking forever. My elbows fidgeted, my knees bounced, and my impatience finally got the better of me. Then again, it never took much. I sighed far too loudly and said, “If you haven’t found it by now, doll face, chances are you won’t. Just what are you looking for anyway?” It all came out too harshly, but at least I didn’t curse.

She looked up and pursed her lips. “Oh, now, how does that go again?” She paused, rubbing the tip of her chin. “‘A man who is not himself mean, who is neither…’ ah, this memory of mine.” She winced and tapped her forehead. “What’s the rest?”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I could’ve sworn I heard a whip crack. But I knew the rest of the quote, so I said, “‘A man who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.’”

“That’s it. You’re so smart, Genie.”

My heart surged. It was a line from an essay by this guy named Chandler, the guy who wrote the Marlowe books. The part I’d recited was where Chandler describes what a detective’s supposed to be like, and if anybody knew what a detective was supposed to be like, Chandler sure as hell did. I’d chanced upon the essay in a pile of bound periodicals at the public library about six months ago, coughed up the fifty cents to Xerox it, stapled it in the corner, and given it to her as a present. You know, a little tit for tat, a token of
gratitude to butter her up and keep myself in her good graces, just in case I needed them somewhere down the road, like I usually did. Anyway, cheap and crappy as it was, she was knocked silly by the gesture and gushed over my “resourcefulness.” She either couldn’t remember the essay all that well or pretended not to (sometimes it was hard to tell with her, like the way she insisted on having a wheelchair when she could walk just fine), but we’d read it and talked about it so many times that I knew most of the damn thing by heart without wanting to or trying.

Sure, I realized I didn’t exactly fit the bill, because most people around here would tell you that I was meaner than a short-order cook and more tarnished than all the girls in Catholic school. So I had two strikes against me from the jump. But I had one thing in my favor: I wasn’t afraid of a goddamn thing. More than that, I knew how her mind worked, so I knew what she was getting at. She was looking for a detective, and that meant me.

“Aha, here it is,” she said, straightening the crumpled ten-dollar bill she’d pulled from her purse.

Pay dirt! “What’s that?” I asked, leaning forward, showing some teeth.

“This is to retain your services. I’d like to hire you to find out what happened to our sign and give me a full report.”

I’d never considered how much I’d charge for my fee, but ten dollars wasn’t anything to sniff at, so I gladly reached for the cash.

“Ah,” she said, pulling it back, “but you have to promise to control yourself. No tantrums, no fighting, and if you find out who did it, you are to do nothing more than tell me, and I’ll handle it from there. I mean, don’t let anybody push you around, but you understand, don’t you?”

I leaned back on the bed. I wasn’t supposed to fight
or
get pushed around. Yeah, I understood, because I understood a contradiction when I heard one, just like everybody else.

“Stop frowning, Genie, it makes you look simple.” She was serious
again. “You’re going to have to learn to control yourself sometime or another, and I’m giving you a reason to try. You’re always telling me how much you want to be a detective—well, here’s your chance to get started.”

A classic example of pot and kettle—she talked about it just as much as I did, if not more. Shit, it was practically
her
idea.

“Of course,” she said shrugging her shoulders, “if you can’t give me your word that you’ll act like a professional and conduct yourself like a gentleman, then maybe you’re not ready yet.”

I was ready all right. Ready to act like a professional, to be a gentleman, ready to hop up and down on one foot, to sit, heel, roll over, shake hands, play dead—whatever it took to keep her from putting the cash away, because that’s what she was doing. Just before she did, I said, “Okay, Toots, you got yourself a deal. I’m on it.”

She yanked the bill backward again. “Promise—”

“Christ, lady, you win, I promise.” I removed the loot from her fingers. “But let’s get one thing straight: the name’s Huge.”

She started to laugh but covered her mouth. “I beg your pardon, Huge. As for our arrangement, can I trust you to carry it out in the strictest confidence?”

She knew she could, because that was like a law all detectives obeyed—never rat out your clients—and since I had a client now, I’d have to obey it, too. But I didn’t want her to think that she could give me the business without getting some back. I tucked the ten in my pocket and said, “You got no choice but to trust me—you already paid.”

I guess you could say we talked awhile longer, but her mind had wandered off, and no matter how hard I tried to follow her, nothing she said made any sense. She swung back and forth like that, sometimes there, sometimes not, and when she’d first started doing it a couple of years ago, I couldn’t stand it, couldn’t even look at her, and had to get away from her fast. Since then I’d learned to ride it out, because she’d usually come back sooner or later, and because if you
had enough time you could get used to anything. Right now, though, I wanted to get started on the case. Thrash looked antsy to leave, too.

I leaned over and stroked the back of her hand until her eyes locked on mine. “I’m gonna get going. I have things to take care of.”

“Oh, so soon?” She was back, just like that, and she let a nice block of silence settle in, hurt. “Well, I guess you don’t have to visit me three times a week when you should be out having fun. That’s what being young is for. But do me a tiny favor before you leave.”

“What?” I asked, although I knew what it was, always the same routine.

“Give an old woman a thrill and tell your grandmother that you love her.”

I did and was gone.

Kathy was a
tall, stacked blonde who studied physical therapy at the local community college and adorned the front desk of the retirement home. As the receptionist, it was her job to sit at the desk, greet people, answer calls, take messages, and crap like that, but she spent most of her time roaming the hallways, pushing people in their chairs, helping them with their walkers, stopping in their rooms to visit, bringing them extra blankets, fluffing pillows, or changing the channels in the TV room. She had a warm, easy smile, was kind and cheerful, and brought lots of life to a place that never seemed to have enough to go around. Even the cranks and fusspots constantly sought her out for updates of all the new complaints and gossip they’d dreamed up in their spare time. And they had a lot of spare time. So if anyone had heard what the people who lived or worked in the home knew about the sign, Kathy would have.

I walked up to the front desk to ask her a few questions and was treated to the side view of her bent over the desktop in all her summer finery: open-toed sandals; firm, sun-kissed legs that came up to my chest; short-shorts; tight waist; two skimpy tank tops with thin
shoulder straps that warped and curved around her breasts like they were reflected in a fun-house mirror; narrow shoulders; and poufy bangs. Damn, Kathy was so fine it actually hurt—just a single glimpse of her could break a full-grown man down to weeping or despair. I didn’t know how they let her dress for work like that with all the old-timers around, or how come more didn’t drop dead because of it. But at least you’d go with a smile on your face.

She was a sweetheart, too, as if she had no clue how scorching she was, which only made it worse. When she’d started working at the home last fall, it was like trying to watch an eclipse—I
wanted
to see it, but knew it was too dangerous to gaze directly. Once I’d realized that I wouldn’t melt down to a puddle just from looking at her, though, it’d gotten easier to stutter something back when she said hello. No, I’d never been much of a talker to begin with, and even less of one with the ladies, but Kathy was such a total honey that you felt ashamed not to try. So I did, and after I got the hang of it, I started using our chats to polish up my game, to get myself ready for the chicks I might actually have a chance with.

Kathy saw us and waved. I straightened up as tall as I could, smiled, and played it extra smooth.

“Hey, cutie,” she said. “Hey, Thrash.”

“Hey,” I said. Thrash just looked at her. “You go to the beach this weekend?”

“Yeah. Why? Am I tan?”

“Totally.”

“Well,” she led me, “how do I look?” She stepped back from the desk and spun in a circle with her arms outstretched.

I gulped back a groan just in time. “Like butterscotch with blue eyes,” I said.

“Aw, you’re sooo sweet!”

“Melt in your mouth.”

She laughed. “You’re totally funny. If you were ten years older I’d marry you.”

Yeah, and if I had ten minutes alone with her, there’d be no telling what I’d do. But I didn’t say that. I said, “Wait for me, then.”

“Okay, but hurry up.” She looked at her watch and winked. Kathy was a great flirt, the best.

“Kath.”

“Yeah, honey?”

“Did you see what they did to the sign?”

“Yeah,” she sighed, and shook her head. “It’s like so mean, isn’t it?”

“When did it happen?”

“Late Saturday, I think. Irma said she saw it on Sunday morning when she came in, but Bryan said everything was fine when he left on Saturday night.”

“Old Pencil Neck, eh?”

“You shouldn’t call him that,” Kathy giggled and whispered at the same time, moving her eyes from side to side. “Bryan can be really sweet, you just need to know him better.”

No, I didn’t. Bryan was the manager of the home, and I knew firsthand how he treated the captives, so I knew what a fucking creep he was. But Kathy was too good-hearted to see through his act—the way he was always sucking up to her, flattering her, tailing her like a duckling, begging her to go out on a date—or she was just too nice to tell him to screw off, or maybe afraid to because he was her boss. Whatever. That worm was slithering up on her almost every time I came around, and I hated to see it because I knew she’d probably cave in at some point, if only to keep from hurting his feelings. Then Bryan, this pasty noodle of a guy with a pencil neck, gold chains, and spiked hair, would be out with Kathy, who was so far out of his league they were playing different sports. He’d pick her up in that massive IROC Z-28 of his, with him so tiny behind the wheel that it looked like someone dropped a GI Joe action figure in the middle of the driver’s seat, and she’d get in anyway and then he’d drive her around, park somewhere, climb a stepladder into her lap, and try to feel her up or something, taking advantage, milking it for
all it was worth, until he got what he wanted. Nah, I didn’t want to know any of that.

“I’m just jealous,” I said.

“Don’t be, honey. He’s not my boyfriend or anything.”

Maybe there was hope after all. But Thrash was getting bored by all the small talk, so I had to get to the point. “Hey, Kath?”

“Yeah, honey?”

“About the sign. Anybody see anything?”

“No, hon, nobody saw anything. Not even Cuth.”

Cuthbert Stansted—ninety-three, former accountant, always dressed in a black wool three-piece suit and tie, smaller and grayer than an eighteen-year-old Scotch terrier, insomniac, and the home’s self-appointed night watchman.

“Not even Cuth?” I asked.

“Is that my grandchild?” came a shaky voice from my right. She was hunched, with badly balding silver hair, limp spotty arms dangling out of what looked like a green burlap sack with a neck and armholes cut into it, and one hand against the cinder-block wall to steady herself.

“No, Livia,” Kathy answered. “This isn’t your granddaughter, this is Toots’s grandson.”

“Oh,” Livia said, frowning. “But you’ll call me the second they get here … uh—”

“Yes, sweetie. Kathy will call you as soon as they get here.”

Livia smiled, the most hopeful smile I’d ever seen, and then inched along on her way, as if the laces of her shoes were tied to each other.

Kathy dropped her eyes and sighed. “Poor thing, her family moved to Maryland nine months ago and we haven’t heard from them since.”

And some stupid fuck thought Livia deserved to be called
retarted
because of that. Sure, I already knew the world was sick, but now it was my job to cure it.

“Kath, you guys call the police?”

“Yeah, hon.”

“And?”

“Nothing, so far.”

“Think they’ll catch who did it?”

“They’re probably not even looking, sweetie. It’s like if nobody saw anything—and nobody did, not here anyway—then what do they have to go on? Besides, you know the police around here …” She trailed off, leaning over the desk with her head down to look at some papers.