“What about your other roommate?”
“George?” He shrugged. “His shit’s still here, so I guess he’s at work. He’s a carpenter on that TV show.”
“
“Naw, the other one.”
“
“Yeah, that’s it.”
They put out a BOLO for one Sidney Kyle Armstrong, driving a red Geo Metro, and drove out to the sprawling Screen Gems complex on North 23rd Street. At the gate, they were directed to the
“They’re shooting on location today,” a passing technician told them. “Taking advantage of the rainy day.”
“We’re looking for a George Smith.”
He pointed them to a door that led outside to a picnic table and benches under a metal roof. Three young men sheltered there out of the rain to smoke their cigarettes. As always, Gary Edwards found himself half envying them. He had been quit for eight months, three days, and sixteen hours and he still missed the way that first drag hit his lungs with its jolt of fresh nicotine.
He correctly assumed the smoker with the leather tool belt was George Smith. As soon as Andy Wall flashed his badge, the other two men ditched their cigarettes and went back inside.
“Kyle’s split?” Smith asked. “You sure about that?”
“That’s what your other roommate says.”
“Ronnie’s back?”
For a moment Edwards wondered if there was something besides tobacco in that cigarette. “Don’t you guys talk to each other?”
Smith shrugged. “It’s not like we’re best friends. I’m usually in bed by the time Kyle gets home and I’m gone in the morning before he wakes up. My name’s the one on the lease and I need two roommates to split the rent. Ronnie’s gone so much it doesn’t bother him to share the second bedroom and Kyle’s saving his money to get a nose job. He thinks that’s why he can’t land a role. Like a new nose is gonna put his name in lights.”
“He say anything to you about the judge that was murdered Saturday night?”
“Nope.” Smith took a final drag on his cigarette and ground it out in a can of sand that sat on the table. “I think the last time we even saw each other might’ve been last week sometime. He didn’t say anything about moving out. You sure he’s gone?”
“That’s what your friend Ronnie said. Took all his clothes and his bicycle.”
“Well, hell. Now I’ve gotta find another guy to move in.”
They left him lighting up another cigarette.
CHAPTER
20
At our mid-morning break, I decided it’d be quicker to run up to my room than wait in line to use the ladies’ room. Out in the main lobby, the SandCastle’s child-friendly policy was getting a full test as rain continued to fall. There was an arts-and-crafts playroom downstairs on the ground level next to the exercise room, but judging from the grumbling I heard in the elevator, both were filled to capacity.
When I came back downstairs, a staff member had been stationed next to the touching tank to keep bored preteens from getting too rough with the sand dollars and starfish, while another tried to keep toddlers from banging their action figures on the glass aquarium that lined the hall to the restaurant. At the concierge’s desk, discount vouchers were being offered to beleaguered parents to tempt them to try some off-premise attractions.
I saw Bernie Rawlings’s pudgy daughter being hauled out through the revolving door by Bernie’s equally pudgy wife. Both were red-faced and angry and I heard the child shriek, “But I don’t wanna go on a stupid trolley ride! I wanna watch
There was one oasis of quiet in the lobby, though. Rosemary Emerson sat on a couch with four or five small children clustered around. They leaned against her or perched on the arms and back of the couch to hear her read
She glanced up from the book to smile at me as I passed and she looked rested and ready to cope with anything.
No way could I be that cool if Dwight dumped me.
The buffet table had been cleared away from the lobby outside our meeting room and the food replaced with tubs of iced drinks and urns for coffee or hot tea. The area was crowded elbow to elbow and I was working my way down for a final cup of coffee when someone from the next district stopped me. She’d heard about my marriage for the first time that morning and wanted to give good wishes. “And he comes with a little boy?”
I smiled and nodded. “He turned nine last month.”
“Good luck,” she said. “My husband brought a twelve-year-old daughter to our marriage.”
