“This is where Melanie was last seen,” Boom said to Colleen. “Two nights ago.”
They were standing in the alley behind The Pitt, Colleen and Boom, the roadie with the band with no name. He was a big, imposing black guy in his mid-twenties with a leveled haircut and dark-framed glasses and a well-worn camouflage military jacket.
A kid in a hoodie and high tops was leaning up against a dumpster that reeked of garbage, his head back, mouth open, about to lose balance. In the shadows, a couple of longhairs were making some sort of trade. Two youngsters in a lovers’ clinch held up a brick wall, barely lit by the streetlight that drifted down the alley.
“Melanie had gone to the restroom when you lost her?” Colleen asked.
Boom’s eyes blinked behind the lenses of his glasses. “The place was packed, crazy, people everywhere. A fight had just broken out. I told Melanie we were going across the street for pizza to wait until the show was over. She said she had to go to the bathroom first. I said it could wait until we got to the pizza place, but she said it couldn’t. ‘Not after five gallons of Coke,’ she said.” Boom shook his head sadly. “I went to tell Steve we were leaving but he was onstage in the middle of a number. When I got back to the restroom, no Melanie. I waited a minute. A woman came out, and I asked her if she had seen anyone like her. She said yes, she had just left. Someone else said they had seen Melanie come out here.” Meaning the alley. “I freaked, came out. It was packed out here, too. So busy no one really saw her, except one guy. Who was loaded. But he said he thought he saw her.”
“Did he see anyone with her?”
“He said ‘no.’” Boom grimaced, shook his head. “But, like I say, he was out of his head.”
Maybe that’s why Steve had thought Melanie might have taken off on her own.
“What’s your honest opinion of Melanie Cook, Boom?”
Boom took a deep breath, looked away.
“Confidentially,” Colleen said.
“In a word,” Boom said, “difficult. In two words: extremely difficult.”
Colleen gave Boom a business card. “If you think of anything else, please call.”
Boom took the card, slipped it in the pocket of his jacket. “Two tours of Nam and this is where I fuck up. I never should have let her out of my sight. I should have just dragged her out of there, kicking and screaming.”
“I’m not sure it would have made a difference,” Colleen said.
“Why do you say that?”
“It seems she was intent on getting away from you.”
Back in the bar the band with no name pounded out more tunes. Lynda never showed. Colleen had Lynda’s number and she called it from a pay phone down the street where she wouldn’t have to shout over the band. No answer. She had Lynda’s address but wouldn’t be going over there tonight. Lynda wouldn’t exactly welcome her with open arms, she’d been told, and Colleen had done enough nosing around for one night. She wanted to check in with Steve anyway. She didn’t have all the info, but she could tell he was telling the truth about the kidnapping. What he knew of it.
But something wasn’t right.