35

Close up, I thought she might be even younger. Eleven. Scrawny. She didn’t question me when I had her lie on the floor of the cab while we made our way back over the causeway.

We hadn’t found Alonso.

He had no last name. Neither had “Pix”—a street name if I’d ever heard one. Short for Pixie, which would be an offhand reference to angel dust, or maybe she did pics, as in child porn, to earn her bread. She wasn’t parting with her straight name. I’d go through her backpack more carefully when I had time.

I parked the cab near my car, left the keys under the floor mat. I’d call the dispatcher later and apologize for the irregularity, but I couldn’t leave Pix alone and I didn’t want anyone to see her.

For now the stuff I wanted was spread on my dashboard. Manley’s wallet, loaded with cash and credit cards, removing casual robbery as a motive. Manley’s Coop book. Manley’s watch.

“You gonna call the cops?”

“I am the cops. Private.”

“Shit.” She made a move to unlock her door. I slammed one arm across her.

“No more running,” I said.

“Whatcha gonna do with me?”

“Good question.” It was one of a hundred rolling through my head.

“This is complicated,” I said. “I need to hear about you and Alonso. Like did he send you away tonight because he had to meet a guy?”

“I haven’t seen Alonso since Wednesday—”

“Sure.”

“You’re thinking drug deal?” she asked. “Forget it.”

“I’m just asking questions. I don’t have answers.”

She took her time thinking that over. “Alonso was takin’ care of me, like I said, up till a couple nights ago.” Her voice faltered.

“Something go wrong?” I asked.

“None of your fuckin’ business.”

“I can make it my business, Pix.”

She swallowed. “Look, he found another girl. ‘A real woman,’ is what he said, which, like, means she’s older than me. He was always on me about how young I am.”

“And how young is that?”

“None of your—Anyhow, before, when he was with me, I used up a lot of his bread, you know. So I thought I’d go out and earn a little back. Not trickin’. Boosting groceries and shit. I didn’t know where to find him so I thought I’d leave the stuff at the shack. I mean, I pay my fuckin’ debts, you know?”

I like stories backed by facts. The bananas on the beach were accounted for. Crime scene with bananas. It sounded like one of Roz’s paintings. What a mess for the local cops.

“Where did you meet Alonso? Did you go to school with him?”

“Harvard Square,” she said, drop dead cool. “School is for fish.”

“You know your way around Marblehead?”

“Nah. Alonso never was here before either, but like, he had friends.”

“Friends tell him about the shack?”

“I guess. He knew it was there. It was like a really neat squat. I mean, some cities have good squats, and I was in this decent place in Cambridge, but the landlord found out, and then it was DSS, and they totally stink, you know?”

Department of Social Services, and sad to say, they do stink. Underfunded. Overworked.

“Alonso didn’t tell you he had a meet with anyone?”

“Nope.” She squared her jaw and shut up. Like nobody ever believed her anyway.

I turned on the engine.

“Hey, where we goin’? I gotta find Alonso.”

“Things have taken a turn for the worse,” I said. “I think you’d better stick with me.”

“Oh no.”

“Pix, or whatever the hell your name is, you’ve got two choices. Me, or the cops. And DSS is better than the place they stick kids involved with murderers.”

“That guy was killed?”

Did she think Manley’d fallen on his head? In the sand?

“And your Alonso is prime suspect,” I said.

“No way.” Pure hollow braggadocio. True as a tin whistle.

“And you stole from a corpse. Not cool,” I said. It made me feel great to terrify an already terrified little girl.

“What are you going to do?”

I said, “Look for a gas station that’s closed. That’s our best bet.”

“Our best bet,” she echoed, looking at me for the first time like we might be a team, like I might be her guardian angel in disguise, her rescuer.

God, I try not to think about it: Where do all these throwaway kids come from with their made-up names and their made-up minds? Nothing’s going to get better. Live hard, die young. School is for fish.

“There,” she said. “Arco on the left.”

She had good eyes. I yanked the wheel. A phone. The number of pay phones I’d been using lately, I ought to get an award from NYNEX. I thought of dialing Vandenburg in Miami just for the hell of it. Instead I did the old 911, using a fold of my shirt to hold the receiver and my knuckles to punch buttons. Probably should have covered my knuckles. This DNA business is getting ridiculous, and I’m not in the forefront of forensic technology. Eventually the cops might trace the call to this phone. Somebody might say they saw us stop.

I glanced over to make sure that Pix was in the car, eating the sandwich I’d bought from the vending machine. She was. Feed her, she’s yours. Like a dog.

The phone rang and I thought of all the things I might tell the police. Body on Marblehead Neck behind 56 Ocean Avenue, the Cameron estate, is that of a white male, in his sixties. Name: Andrew Manley. Psychiatrist. Escort to Mrs. Tessa Cameron. Tessa’s lover.

Instead I tightened every muscle in my throat, muttered in a cranky crone’s voice, “Just ’cause them brats live on Ocean Ave., you never send anybody to shut ’em up! Noise! Drugs, I wouldn’t be surprised. You go on and get somebody down there or I’ll be writing to the papers, you see if I don’t!”

I didn’t wait for a reply.

It wouldn’t get the quick response a homicide report would bring. Give me a chance to get Pix out of town, talk to a cop who might know how to help.

I started driving too quickly, stomped the brake, cruising slowly and gulping air. In, out, in out. Count to ten. Count to twenty. What the hell did it help? What had I done since Andrew Manley had first stumbled into my life with his precious manuscript in his monogrammed briefcase? What was my role in this mess? Reporting kidnappings? Reporting murders?

If Pix hadn’t been watching, I might have tried to punch the safety glass out of the side window. I might have rested my head on the steering wheel and cried. I hadn’t found Thea, I hadn’t saved Manley.

At the end of the rainbow, a dead man with shattered bifocals. Not an ounce, not a speck of gold.