“Theo,” Auggie shouted from Cal’s bedroom.
Theo ignored him, pulling out breakfast cereals, toaster pastries, individual packets of oatmeal—the kind with the dinosaur eggs that ‘opened’ in hot water. He had the vague idea that he would pull everything out of the cabinets first and then search each box more carefully. At that particular moment, though, he was mostly focused on slamming each cabinet door as hard as he could.
“Theo!”
Then footsteps.
“Theo,” Auggie said. He and Orlando stood at the edge of the kitchen’s tile. Auggie was holding a shoebox. “I think we found something.”
“What?”
“Drugs.”
Theo dropped a box of Honey Smacks and went to look. In the shoebox, a small plastic bag held off-white powder.
“Is it cocaine?” Auggie asked. “I think it’s cocaine.”
Orlando was pale under his scruff, his dark eyes huge.
Using the hem of his shirt, Theo opened the bag.
“What are you doing?” Auggie said.
Theo stuck a finger in the powder, smelled it—no odor that Theo could detect—and rubbed it on his gums.
“What are you doing?” Auggie shouted.
“It’s cocaine,” Theo said. The rush was barely anything, but it was there.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Theo raised his eyebrows.
“What the actual, living fuck,” Auggie said, “is wrong with you?”
“Do you have a chem lab?” Theo said.
“Do you have any idea how stupid that was?”
“Or were you going to call the police and ask them to test it?”
“I cannot even believe what I just saw you do.”
“Because I thought I remembered Orlando telling us he didn’t want to take this to the police precisely because Cal had drug problems.”
“Are you kidding me right now? What is going on with you?”
“Auggie, it was a tiny amount that I dabbed.” Theo paused, hovered on the precipice, and then it was too late. “Grow up.”
Auggie looked like Theo had slapped him.
“So,” Orlando said, “you guys are shouting really, really loudly, and I think maybe we shouldn’t, you know, shout so much. Not right now.”
Auggie was still staring at Theo.
“I’m going to talk to the neighbors,” Theo said.
He didn’t look back as he left; he didn’t think he could stand it.
The neighbor in 3G didn’t answer, although the lights were on and Sam Smith was playing inside. The neighbor in 3E kept the door on the chain. She was thin, with stringy gray hair, and she could have been any age between forty and seventy. When Theo mentioned Cal’s name, she shut the door, and he heard the bolt go home.
The day was impossibly hot, and sweat made Theo’s shirt stick to his back. He walked to the end of the corridor and leaned on the railing. Below him, heat shimmered up from the asphalt. Sunlight ran across the cars, gleaming back from chrome trim, warping along glass. The hot tar smell still hung in the air. Theo clutched the rail with both hands, his knuckles white, his heartbeat pounding in his ears.
Then he went down to the second floor and tried 2F. The woman who opened it was in scrubs, and she was hopping on one foot as she pulled on a sneaker. She smiled when she asked if she could help him.
“This is kind of strange,” Theo said, “but I’m trying to help Wayne Reese track down his brother. Do you know them? They live above you.”
“I probably know them better than anybody else in the building,” the woman said as she switched feet. “Not that that’s saying much. Their arguments are my personal soundtrack at this point. Well, all the ones I’ve been home for. I work second shift at the hospital.”
“Do they argue a lot?”
Her smile got a little bigger. “You don’t know them very well, do you?”
“I guess not. Any chance you saw Cal last weekend?”
“A week ago? I can barely remember yesterday. And I’m going to be late, so I’ve really got to go. I’m sorry.”
“That’s ok. Thanks anyway.”
“I hope you find him. Is he ok?”
“We hope so.”
Theo moved down the hall, and behind him, he heard the woman’s keys as she locked the door. Then the woman said, “The fights get pretty bad, you know. I’ve had to call the police twice. Just noise complaints, but honestly, it’s because I’ve been scared.”
Turning back, Theo said, “Any idea what they fight about?”
She shook her head. “Money? Everything? I can’t hear clearly enough to make out the words, but it’s been worse lately.”
“Mind if I ask you one more question?” Theo said.
“Besides that one?”
Theo smiled. “Yeah, kind of a bonus. Memory is a funny thing, and sometimes one thing will help you remember another. Do you remember anything about last weekend? Anything at all? Did you have a visitor? Go clubbing? See a movie?”
“Clubbing?” She shook her head and laughed. “No, sorry. I’ve got a boring life. The big thing for me is when I order a pizza.” Then her mouth widened into an O. “Oh my God, you’re going to think I’m insane.”
“Nope,” Theo said. “I love pizza.”
“You’re right: I do remember something. It’s a tiny thing, but I remember it. I ordered a pizza on Friday; I was off work, so I was home that evening. I always get Gianino’s—”
“Because their crust is the best,” Theo said.
“Exactly. Only their delivery guy isn’t, well, the sharpest. More than once he’s taken it to 3F or 1F instead of 2F. So I poked my head out a couple times, hoping I could catch him. And I saw him.”
“The pizza guy?”
“No, Cal. He was hanging around on the stairs, and I waved at him.”
Theo waited.
“That’s it,” she said. “I mean, we didn’t talk or anything. But he looked like he was waiting too.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe just because I was waiting.”
“That’s fantastic,” Theo said. “Do you remember what time that was?”
“No,” she said with another laugh. “But my phone does.” She checked something and said, “I ordered the pizza at 6:07pm, and it usually takes them a solid half hour. So I was looking out my door around 6:30, 6:40.”
“Any chance you saw him after that? Saturday? Sunday?”
She shook her head. “Sorry.”
“Not at all; you’re amazing. Can I get your name and number in case I need to follow up?”
She laughed and blushed, but she gave him her name, Vicki Miller, and a phone number. She threw sidelong glances at him until they parted at the stairs, and she went down, and Theo went up.
He found Auggie and Orlando in Cal’s room, shoving clothes back into the drawers and straightening up as best they could. Auggie refused to look at Theo. Orlando gave him a single glance and then blushed and looked away.
“A neighbor saw Cal waiting outside around 6:30pm last Friday night,” Theo said.
Auggie nodded.
“She saw him on the stairs,” Theo said, “which makes me think he was nervous or anxious or excited. Otherwise, why wouldn’t he wait inside, where it’s cool? Combined with the drugs, it sounds like he was going to score.”
“Drugs on demand,” Auggie said as he stuffed a sweatshirt into the dresser. “Personal delivery. But why does he need to buy drugs when he’s got cocaine in a shoebox?”
“Maybe he didn’t want cocaine. Maybe he wanted something else.”
Auggie made a face; Theo refused to react to it.
“What do we do now?” Orlando said.
“Nothing. You guys are done.”
Auggie shook his head.
“Is there a problem?” Theo said.
Auggie said nothing.
“Then let’s go.”
They walked outside. Orlando locked the apartment and replaced the spare key under the doormat. Not a great hiding spot, Theo thought. Anybody could get inside. Anybody could get in while Cal was asleep. Or somebody might have thought both brothers were out of town. Somebody who knew they kept drugs and cash and valuable memorabilia in the apartment. Somebody who got frightened when he realized Cal was there, and then an accident happened. Lots of ways things could go bad.
As they went downstairs, the sound of chanting voices came from a distance. Theo could see a crowd moving up the street toward them.
“What’s that?” Auggie said.
“Another demonstration,” Orlando said.
“Demonstration for what?”
Theo and Orlando traded looks.
“What?” Auggie said.
“It must have happened before you got here,” Theo said. “A girl was shot.”
“Oh my God. But what are they demonstrating about? Gun control?”
“A black girl,” Theo said. “She was unarmed, walking alone. A police officer shot her. With everything going on in St. Louis, the Michael Brown shooting, it’s—well, it’s stirred up a lot of powerful feelings.”
“Oh my God. It wasn’t Cart, was it?”
Theo stopped.
“I’m just asking if he’s ok,” Auggie said.
“You’re unbelievable.”
“He’s the only cop I know. It just—I just thought of it. I wasn’t trying to say he’d actually do something like that—”
Theo headed for the sidewalk.
“Theo, come on. It’s a million degrees outside, and you’re going to hurt your knee. I’ll drive you home and I won’t say anything and I’ll apologize as many times as you want.”
Orlando said something Theo couldn’t hear.
“Theo,” Auggie called, “don’t be stupid.”
Theo shook his head and kept going, and after a while he couldn’t hear Auggie anymore. He ran into the crowd of demonstrators, standing to one side as they marched. Men and women, mostly black but with a sprinkling of people from other races. Their banner said JUSTICE FOR DEJA. When the crowd had moved on, Theo started limping toward home again.