In Plain Sight (18 page)

I
didn't know where I was when I came to.

At first I just lay on my side listening to someone moaning and wishing they'd shut the hell up.

Then I realized that someone was me.

A little while later the pain arrived, waves of it radiating from the back of my skull to my temples.

It pulled me back from the brink of unconsciousness. I opened my eyes. All I saw was blackness. My heart began to pound. I put my hands up and touched something hard a couple of inches away from my face. I kept going. Whatever I was feeling was all around me. And then it hit me.

Oh, my God, I thought. I'm in a coffin.

I've been buried alive.

A scream started building in my throat. It had just reached my mouth when I felt a lurch and smelled a whiff of gasoline. I giggled. Talk about losing it. Jesus. I was locked in the trunk of a car. Not that that was great, but it was a damned sight better than being six feet under. I sighed in relief and did a quick personal inventory. I ran my tongue over my teeth. They were all there. I moved my arms and legs and wiggled my fingers and toes. Aside from the throbbing in my head everything seemed to be in working order.

I groaned again as the car went around a turn and tried to figure out what had happened. Someone—probably the guy called Angie—must have been waiting for me. When I appeared he'd knocked me over the head and thrown me in here. What I wanted to know was how he'd gotten to the Colony as fast as he had. Who was this guy anyway? Batman? When the next spasm of pain passed I put my hands up and pushed on the trunk lid. It didn't budge. I pushed harder. Nothing. I began pounding on it. Then, despite my resolution not to, I began yelling. Nobody came. Finally I put my head back down and closed my eyes. I was too exhausted to do anything else. The next thing I knew someone was shaking me.

“Get out,” a deep, raspy voice ordered.

A shaft of pain shot through my skull. I gritted my teeth to keep from crying out.

Someone shook me again. I wanted to tell him to leave me alone, but my lips didn't want to form the words. When he shook me for the third time I tried moving my legs, but I couldn't. They'd stiffened up. Then I felt someone tugging at me. A moment later I was standing. Everything started to spin. My legs buckled, and I stumbled onto my hands and knees, and threw up.

“Jesus,” the raspy voice cried. “She almost got my new shoes.”

“I told you you shouldn't have hit her so hard,” another voice said.

I looked up. Two men were standing over me. I didn't recognize either one.

“That's the trouble with you,” the man near me snapped. “You're always big on advice and short on action.”

“Don't start with me,” the other man warned.

The two men glared at each other. For the moment they'd forgotten about me. If I felt better, it would have been the perfect time to make a break for it; but I couldn't even walk much less run, and somehow I didn't think that crawling was going to get me too far.

“Come on,” the first guy finally said to the second, “let's get going. We're late enough as it is.”

“Yeah.” With that the second man grabbed me by my collar and yanked me up. I had trouble standing. My knees started buckling again. “No you don't,” the man said and he pulled me back up.

We got to a door and stopped. Strains of Metallica came pouring out from the bar next to it. Every beat reverberated through my head. I groaned as one of the men opened the door and pushed me through.

“Shut up and climb,” he ordered.

I looked up. It was one flight. It could have been Mount Everest. “I don't think I can make it,” I told him.

“You'll make it if I have to pull you up by your hair.” He gave me a push.

Something told me he was telling the truth. I stumbled over the first step and righted myself. He shoved me again. The climb took forever. I tried to distract myself from the pounding in my head by counting the eyelets in my sneakers and the paint chips on the risers. It didn't work. When we got to the top the man in front of me opened another door and we went through. The hallway we walked into was covered with cut red velvet wallpaper. It was hot and stuffy. The air smelled of floor wax, onions, Mr. Clean, and something vaguely medicinal that I couldn't identify. The man standing next to me was just opening his mouth to say something when a small, prune-faced woman dressed in black came bustling out. She took one look at me and whirled on the two men.

“Look at her,” she cried. “She can't come in here. She's filthy. She smells.”

“Eddie wants to see her,” the one who was holding me up replied. His voice disclaimed all responsibility for what he had in his hand.

Eddie. The name sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it. The pain in my head made it hard to think. Then I heard Connie's voice. I saw her leaning over the bar. I heard her telling me about Marsha and the money she owed, and all of a sudden I knew where I was. I was at Fast Eddie Marino's. God. Why? What could he possibly want with me? But I decided not to waste time worrying about it. I had an idea I was going to find out soon enough.

The woman glared at us. “I don't care what Eddie wants. This is my house and you don't bring nobody who looks like that up here.”

One of the men groaned. “Come on, Ma, give us a break. It's been a rough night.”

The woman folded her arms across her chest and stuck out her chin. The gesture made me aware of the fact that it receded slightly, and I felt the urge to giggle. Then I realized there was something familiar about her face. She reminded me of someone. The name was on the tip of my tongue, but then she spoke and the thought vanished.

“Before she takes one more step in my house she gets washed and changes her clothes,” she told the two men. “I'm not having my floors and my furniture messed up by the likes of her.” She turned and shook a finger at me. “What did you do? Drink too much? A woman your age. You should be ashamed.”

“I'm not drunk,” I protested, feeling some unfathomable urge to set the record straight. “These two guys hit me over the head and dumped me in the trunk of the car.”

The woman turned a basilisk stare on the two men. “Which car?” she demanded.

“The Acura,” one of them mumbled, looking down at the floor.

“Vinnie, you took Teresa's car?”

Vinnie muttered something I couldn't catch.

The woman poked a finger in his chest. “You better make sure you clean it good, you understand. I don't want nothing stinking in there.”

“Yes,” he muttered.

“What did you say?” she demanded.

“I said I understand,” he repeated in a loud voice.

“Ma, who is it?” a wheezie voice called from inside one of the rooms.

“Angie and Vinnie. They got a woman with them.”

“Robin Light?”

“Yeah,” Angie answered.

“It's about time. Bring her in.”

“She's gotta get washed first,” the mother called out. “And I'm gonna give her some clothes to change into. I don't want her tracking her filth all over the house.”

“Whatever you say.” He sounded as if he didn't have enough energy to argue—but then neither did I.

“How's he doing?” Vinnie mouthed.

The woman shook her head. “He's having a bad night,” she whispered. “He's gotta sit straight up all the time or he can't breathe. That's why we're going to Arizona in a couple of weeks. I hear the air is better down there. At least that's what my cousins tell me. They've been down there for ten years.” Then she turned and left. A moment later she was back with a towel and some neatly folded clothes. “Here,” she said, thrusting everything in my face. “Take them and go get washed.” And she pushed me in the direction of the bathroom. I felt as if I were five again.

Once she closed the bathroom door I sat down on the toilet seat and rested my forehead on the edge of the sink. It was an old-fashioned washbasin with a wide rim. The porcelain felt cool against my skin.

Someone pounded on the door. “Hurry up,” he yelled. “We ain't gonna wait for you all night.”

“Fuck you,” I mouthed. Then I straightened up and glanced at myself in the mirror.

I looked even worse than I felt. My skin was dead white, my eyes looked as if they'd sunk back in my head, and I had a yellowish purple bruise on the right side of my jaw from where Richie had punched me. It was a good thing I wasn't going out on a date this weekend, I decided as I rinsed my mouth out and patted water on my face and neck. I was studying the bruise on my jaw when the pounding on the door started again.

“You got thirty more seconds,” Angie yelled.

“Hold it.” I took off my jeans and T-shirt and slipped on the dress Fast Eddie's mother had given me. It was a red-and-yellow-checked, long-sleeved smock and could easily have accommodated at least two of me, maybe even three.

A moment later the door flew open. “Let's go,” Vinnie said and motioned for me to step outside.

“Jesus, is that Teresa's dress?” Angie asked Fast Eddie's mother as I stumbled out into the hall. “She's going to be pissed.”

“What do you care?” Fast Eddie's mother snapped, and Angie shut up. She put her hands on her hips, clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, and shook her head as she surveyed me. “Come on,” she said and pushed me toward the door. “You think my son has nothing better to do than wait for you?” Her fingers were bony and they hurt as she prodded me in the ribs to keep me moving.

Fast Eddie was sitting in a wheelchair in the second room. It was all dark wood and velvet furniture and yellowing prints. An oxygen tank was strapped to the wheelchair's side. A thin plastic tube ran from the cylinder to Fast Eddie's nose. The sound of his breathing filled the air. His head was small but his body was big. His stomach bulged out from underneath the flowered Hawaiian shirt he was wearing. No wonder the police didn't want to arrest him, I thought, remembering George's story. If he wouldn't walk, they'd get a hernia carrying him down the stairs. As he motioned for me to come in I noticed that he was wearing five gold chains around his neck. The bright metal highlighted his skin's pallor.

“You have to come closer,” he whispered. “It's hard for me to talk. I'm having a bad day.”

When I didn't move fast enough Angie and Vinnie pushed me over. Despite his mother's cleaning efforts—the room gleamed—the smell of sick bodies permeated the air.

“So what happened to Tony and Richie?” he demanded of the two men ignoring me for the moment.

“Tony called and asked me for help,” Angie said. “When I got over to the Colony she”—Angie pointed to me—“was climbing out the window. I just hit her one in the back of the head, threw her in the trunk, and came on over.”

“You didn't look for Tony and Richie?”

Angie shrugged. “I figured you'd want me to bring her over ASAP. I figured those two clowns would be right out.” Fast Eddie didn't say anything. “You want, I'll go back to the Colony and get them,” Angie offered.

Fast Eddie shook his head. “Don't bother.” He turned to me. His eyes were blue and watery and gave the appearance of protruding from their sockets. “What happened?”

I gave him a detailed rundown of the evening's events. Vinnie and Angie snickered throughout my recitation.

“They were supposed to ask you to come talk to me,” Fast Eddie said when I was through. He sounded peeved. “That was all they were supposed to do.”

“Well, they did a good deal more than that.”

Fast Eddie threw an angry glance at his mother.

“Sssh.” His mother made a quieting motion with her hands. “Don't get upset. It's bad for you.”

“I'm not upset,” he said, though his expression indicated otherwise. He began to cough, a deep rumble that came from inside his chest and went on and on. By the time he stopped his face was red and he was panting for air. His mother ran over with a glass of water. He took a few sips and waved her away. “So,” he said to me when he could talk again, “I hear you've been asking around about Marsha Pennington. Why are you interested in her?”

“She was a friend of mine.” I wondered how he'd heard, but I didn't have the nerve to ask.

“So?”

“I'm trying to find out what happened to her.”

Fast Eddie leaned forward. “Then you're not looking for the money?”

“What money?”

His eyes widened. The angry look came back on his face. His mother made a nervous little noise. He glanced at her and she shut up. “My money,” he said. “She had thirty thousand dollars of mine. It's disappeared and I want it back.”

I
stared at Fast Eddie. Except for his wheezing and the drumming of the rain on the windowpanes the room was silent. Fast Eddie's face had become more animated. Talking about the loss of his money had energized him. He made small circles with the oxygen tube while he spoke.

“She was supposed to show up here with my thirty grand the day she killed herself. But she never made it. Neither did the money.”

“Maybe she didn't have it,” I suggested, thinking of the way Marsha had looked when she'd been in the store. “Maybe she was lying to you.”

Fast Eddie frowned. “Oh, she had it all right. She called me up the week before she died and said she'd be coming into some money, that she'd have it on Monday, and that she wanted to pay me off. She said she didn't want to pay by the week no more.” Fast Eddie took a pull of oxygen and continued talking. “Why should she call if she didn't have the money?” He stared at me, waiting for my answer.

“No reason,” I agreed, sorry that I'd started the conversation in the first place.

“That's right.” Fast Eddie nodded, and his double chin briefly turned into a triple. “Like I said, she was supposed to show up here Monday evening, but she never did. Then two days later I read the cops fished her out of the LeMoyne Reservoir. As for my thirty grand—nobody knows anything and believe me I asked, I asked plenty.”

I thought of how pale Merlin had turned when he saw the limo at the cemetery.

“Then I hear you're asking questions. Naturally I'm curious.”

“Naturally,” I murmured, thinking that thirty grand was a good reason to murder someone.

Fast Eddie leaned forward. “Satisfy my curiosity.”

Scheherazade I'm not, but I did the best I could. Under the circumstance I didn't feel as if I had much of a choice.

“You think she was killed,” Fast Eddie said when I was done.

I nodded.

He sat back in his chair and made a steeple with his fingers. “That's what I've been thinking, too,” he allowed. “I've also been thinking that whoever killed her has my money.”

It was the obvious conclusion, but I didn't say that.

“And you don't know anything else?”

“No,” I replied.

“And you'd tell me if you did.”

“Yes.”

He leaned forward for the second time. “You're sure?” he asked, staring at me.

“I'm sure.” I stared back at him. I was not going to let him know how much he intimidated me.

Fast Eddie smiled. “I think you would, too. I don't think you're stupid enough not to.” He started making loops with the oxygen tubing again. “Which is why Vinnie is going to give you a card with my number. Which is why you're going to call if you hear of anything, anything at all, concerning my money.”

“All right.” Then I asked Fast Eddie the self-evident question. “How do you know one of your guys didn't take it?”

“Hey,” Vinnie squawked. He took a step toward me. “Exactly what are you saying?” he demanded.

Fast Eddie silenced him with a look. “The reason I know is because I was the only one Marsha spoke to and I didn't tell anyone else. Any other questions?”

“Not at the moment,” I said, even though I knew there were things I should be asking. I was just too foggy to figure out what they were.

“Good.” Fast Eddie made a few more loops with his oxygen tube. He seemed lost in thought. Then he straightened up and concentrated his attention on me. “I told you what I want. Now here's what I don't want.” He paused for a second to listen to the rain rattling against the windowpanes. The storm was increasing in intensity. “I don't want you making the kind of mess that comes to the police's attention. Right now the cops and I, we have an understanding. I keep things low key and they leave me alone. But if they hear that Marsha owed me thirty grand, they're gonna want to talk to me and,” he paused for dramatic impact, “I will be very unhappy if that occurs. Very, very unhappy because I do not want to become involved in a murder investigation. The case has been closed and I want to leave it that way.”

“I understand.”

He smiled. “I thought you would.” He turned to Vinnie. “Give her my card.”

Vinnie walked over and handed me a white card embossed with blue letters. I glanced at it. “Santorelli Electronics?”

Fast Eddie shrugged. “My brother-in-law sells the stuff. He's into real estate, too. You ever need a new TV or a VCR or want to sell your house come to me. I can get you a good deal.”

I slipped the card in my pocket.

“So you'll call, right?”

“Right.” And I meant it. This was one man I didn't want to cross if I didn't have to.

“Good.” He told Vinnie to take me home.

On the way out Eddie's mother handed me my clothes. “You can keep that rag you're wearing, too,” she said, pointing to the smock I had on.

God. And I thought my mother was bad.

It was pouring when we stepped outside. Even though the car was parked just a few feet away, I was soaked by the time I reached it. But I didn't mind. After having been stuffed in the trunk of a car and cooped up in Fast Eddie's flat, I wasn't going to complain about getting wet. I was happy to be breathing fresh air. I asked Vinnie to drop me at the store; then I leaned back and closed my eyes and listened to the swish swish of the wipers and the tapping of the rain on the windshield.

“You better pay attention to what Fast Eddie says,” Vinnie told me as we drove along. “He ain't kidding.”

“I didn't think he was,” I murmured. I was trying to keep my head perfectly still because every time I moved it I saw spots of light dancing in front of my eyes. After a while I began admiring the patterns they made.

“We're here,” Vinnie announced some time later.

I opened my eyes. We were parked in front of Noah's Ark. I started to get out of the car, then stopped. “Listen, I have a question for you.”

“Yeah?” Vinnie unwrapped a stick of gum and put it in his mouth. “What?”

“How did you get to the Colony so quickly?”

Vinnie laughed. “I was eating at Aunt Patsy's.” He took in my blank look and explained. “The new place down at Armory Square. Ever hear of cellular phones?”

Duh. Feeling like a total idiot I got out of the car. Vinnie roared off. I looked at my watch. Richie had grabbed me three hours ago. It felt as if I'd been away from the store for four days. When I unlocked the door Zsa Zsa and Pickles came running out to greet me. I wanted to bend down to pet them, but I was afraid that if I did I'd pass out. Instead I carefully walked into the office and lowered myself onto the sofa. Zsa Zsa jumped up and licked my face while Pickles twined herself around my feet. I closed my eyes again. I could barely keep them open. I knew I should go to the hospital, but first I had to take a nap.

My dreams were all swirling colors and shapes and ants and bats crawling over me. No matter where I went they always found me. Then the ringing started. I wanted it to stop, but it kept going. Finally I realized it was the telephone. I opened my eyes, got up, stumbled over to it, and fumbled around for the receiver.

“Yes?” I mumbled.

“Robin?” George asked. “Is that you?”

“More or less.” Mostly less I decided.

“Are you okay? You sound awful.”

“I feel awful.” The room started swaying. I hung up and lurched back to the sofa. I managed to sit down before I threw up. This time I brought up yellow-green bile. I closed my eyes and lay down. The next thing I knew someone was standing over me. I opened one eye. It was George. I felt bad enough to be relieved. I closed the eye and dozed off again. The next time I woke up I was being lifted into an ambulance.

Oh, God, not again, I thought as the paramedic closed the doors.