9
TAMARA
Here she was, back for another fun evening in San Leandro. All set to rock ‘n’ roll.
Yeah. Right.
All set to abuse her tailbone again.
Nobody home at 1122 Willard.
Nobody home at 1109 Willard, either.
Almost eight o’clock and both houses were dark, driveways empty, no cars parked in front of either one. Sure, somebody might be in a lighted room at the back that she couldn’t see from here. Or how about sitting in the dark like a humongous spider? There goes that imagination again, girl. Keep it up and you’ll start scaring yourself, be rolling your eyes and shaking your booty like Mantan Moreland in one of those crappy Charlie Chan flicks. Feets, do your stuff.
Well? Gonna just sit here or gonna move?
She got out of the Toyota-parked in the same puddle of tree-dark as last night, her own little reserved space-and locked the door and crossed the street to 1122. Through the gate, up on the porch, ring the bell, wait, ring the bell again, wait some more-just like last night, deja vu all over again. DeBrissac wasn’t home. Wasn’t answering the farty doorbell, anyway. Dag. Wasn’t anything worked out easy for her these days, seemed like.
Go round the side and up the driveway, look for a light at the rear? Not much point. She retreated to the sidewalk instead. The dark brick face of 1109 drew her gaze, held it and held her still for a few seconds. Front yard still empty, shades still pulled down tight over the front windows. So what? So nothing. Then how come the slithery sensation on her neck, like some bug had crawled under the collar of her blouse?
Back across the street again. Neighborhood seemed quieter than it had last night. Distant hum of traffic, salsa music pulsing a long ways off, no sounds close by. Lights, people in most houses on the block, all kinds of things going on behind closed doors, and yet those two dark houses somehow made it seem empty, lifeless. No, just that brick job there-1109. Kept messing with her mind, kept bringing back what she’d seen last night, the SUV with tinted windows and the big furtive dude and whatever it was kicking and struggling inside that blanket.
A gust of wind put a shiver on her as she unlocked the car. Inside, with the doors locked again, she pressed her cold hands between her thighs. And kept right on looking at 1109. Couldn’t seem to stop looking at it or thinking about it.
Robert Lemoyne. Name of the registered owner of a 2002 Ford Explorer with the license plate 1MQD689; name of the man who’d leased 1109 Willard from Avenex Realty in Union City nine years ago. A half-and-half- African-American father and white mother. Age: forty-seven. Born in Stockton, lived there until high school graduation. No additional education. Carpenter and construction worker-three years, East Valley Construction, Turlock; twelve years, Hollenbeck amp; Son, El Cerrito; eight years, High Country Construction Co., Grass Valley; six years, Brinson Builders, Fremont. Married twice. First, to Dinah Elvers of Oakland, 1977; lasted ten years, divorce obtained by the wife on grounds of irreconcilable differences, no children. Second, to Mia Canfield of Rough and Ready, 1994; lasted seven years, divorce obtained by the wife on same standard no-fault grounds. One child, a daughter, Angela, born in 1995; sole custody awarded to the mother. Financial status: debts like everybody else, but kept most of them current. One felony arrest, in 1986 on a charge of reckless endangerment. No big deal, because the charge had been reduced to leaving the scene of an accident, a misdemeanor. No other brushes with the law, not even an unpaid parking ticket. And no record of nonpayment of child support.
Didn’t seem to be much in any of that. Unless sole custody of the daughter awarded to Mia Canfield Lemoyne meant something.
One other thing that might mean something: Robert Lemoyne apparently lived alone now, all alone in that big house there.
Whatever’d been in that blanket last night was alive, no doubt about that. Animal? If he had a dog, it didn’t bark or make any other noise when he came home at night. And he hadn’t bothered to license it with the city of San Leandro.
Child?
Well, could be he didn’t live alone, was shacking with some single woman that had a son or daughter. Possible. But then where was she last night? Didn’t come home with him, wasn’t in the house before he got there unless she was waiting for him in the dark. Wasn’t there now, either.
Besides… why bundle up a girlfriend’s kid and bring it home stuffed in the back of an SUV? Why do that to anybody’s kid?
One reason. One big ugly word that explained the SUV and the blanket and the struggles and the furtive looks and the run to the house.
Kidnapping.
Crazy. No damn basis for that kind of speculation. Except that kind of thing happened, more and more often these days. Kids snatched off the streets on their way to or from school, off playgrounds, in malls, from dozens of other places. Kids taken for ransom, for even more inhuman crimes. Kids that disappeared and were found dead or never found at all; faces on police reports and posters and milk cartons. And the sick fucks that preyed on them came in all shapes and sizes and races, from all kinds of backgrounds, and held all kinds of jobs and lived in all kinds neighborhoods including quiet ones just like this.
It was possible. Anything was possible. Working for Bill the past five years had taught her that.
Bill. She wished she’d talked to him about what she’d seen. Started to this afternoon and then both of them got distracted. Too much for her, trying to handle this kind of thing all by herself-she just didn’t have enough experience. But he’d know what to do. Call him right now? Better do it. He Her cell went off.
The sudden rackety noise startled her enough so she banged her knee on the bottom of the steering wheel. Another ring. She must’ve forgotten to switch it off. What if it’d cut loose while she was out on the street, or wandering around the property at 1122? Stupid, Tamara. Got to be more careful.
She fumbled her purse open, rummaged around, came up with the phone in the middle of a fourth ring. “Yeah, hello?”
“… Tam? Is that you?”
Oh, great. Vonda. “Who else’d be answering my cell?”
“You sound funny. Out of breath.”
“What you want?”
“Well, you don’t have to jump down my throat.”
“I can’t talk now. I’m on a job here.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but I really need to talk to you. I just saw Ben, and he-”
“Who? Oh, your white horndog. Listen, Vonda-”
“He’s not a horndog. And he’s not gonna be anybody’s white man if he doesn’t pay attention. Got it in his head he wants to meet my folks, tell them about us. I told him what they’re like, the black-white thing, but he thinks he can handle it, he says-”
“Black, white… mercy! Got a half-and-half I’m trying to deal with here myself, all right?”
“What? You met someone?”
“No, and I hope I don’t meet him.”
“Huh?”
“What I’m saying, race doesn’t always have to be an issue. Knamean?”
“It does in my family, you know how they are-”
“Later, okay? Are you home? I’ll call you later.”
“I’m home, but-”
Tamara’s thumb came down hard on the disconnect button. And then just as hard on the off button.
Lord! Of all the damn times!
She jammed the cell back into her purse. Thirty seconds of back-and-forth babbling… Vonda probably thought she was stoned or something. Never mind, explain it to her later. Right now she was so creeped out, so twitched she couldn’t sit still, thoughts running around inside her head bumping into each other like when you were on a speed rush. Don’t keep trying to think it out, do something. Yeah, but what? Call the boss man, call Jake Runyon…
