'Well, maybe if you called and asked for your mother,' I said.
'What if he answers?' Paul said.
The waitress came past with coffee and refilled my cup. I rewarded her with a dazzling smile. She didn't notice.
'Say who you are. Ask for your mother.'
'And if he hangs up?'
'We hotfoot it over there and try to get them before they leave.'
'And if I get her?' Paul said.
'Tell her the deal,' I said. 'You're worried about her. You want to see her.'
'And what if she hides under the bed?'
'I don't know what to do about that,' I said.
'Why not get the police to help?'
I shook my head.
'Too delicate,' I said. 'The Lenox cops may be the ultimate police machine for all I know. But small-town police forces often aren't, and I'm afraid if they start looking for Richie and your mother that they'll spook them for sure.' I put a second spoonful of sugar in my coffee. 'Besides,' I said, 'they haven't done anything illegal that we know, but, if the cops get in it, and they have…'
'Yes,' Paul said. 'I understand. We've got to protect my mother in this.'
I finished my sandwich, and ate the chips that came with it, and the sour pickle. I drank some coffee. The pickle made the coffee taste metallic.
'What if they are registered under another name?' Paul said.
'That's harder than everyone thinks it is,' I said. 'Unless you've got a lot of cash so that you needn't use a credit card, and you register someplace that doesn't require an identification. Most places do. Of course
Beaumont may have credit cards and ID in another name. He sounds like the kind of guy that might.'
'And if he does, and they use another name?'
'Then we won't find them this way,' I said. 'We'll find them another way.'
'Well,' Paul said, and his face seemed tight, and colorless, 'it's not much of a plan but it's better than any that I've got.'
I nodded. The waitress brought the check. I paid. We got up and went out to the car where I gave Pearl the plain turkey sandwich, and when she was through eating it I got some bottled water and a plastic dish out of the trunk and gave her a drink. Then Paul and I walked her on the leash around
Lenox for about a half hour until she'd accomplished everything one would hope for, then we got back in the car and began looking for a motel that took dogs.
CHAPTER 19
THE Motel Thirty in Lee had no objection to Pearl. They also would have had no objection to the Creature From the Black Lagoon-or Madonna. We sat in a room with pink wallpaper on beds that had pink chenille bedspreads. Each of the beds would vibrate for five minutes if you put two quarters in a slot.
Pearl circled the room carefully, went into the bathroom, drank noisily from the toilet bowl, came back out, selected one of the beds, hopped up, turned around three times, and lay down on it. Paul started calling.
It took three hours to call everyone on the list. No one had anyone namedRich Beaumont or Patty Giacomin registered. After the last call, Paul hung up the phone very carefully, and got up and walked to the window and looked out at the blacktop parking lot. He was perfectly still. His shoulders were hunched in angular pain, and for a moment I saw the fifteen-year-old kid I'd originally met, deadened with defeat, paralyzed with desperation.
'We'll find her,' I said.
Paul nodded, and continued to stare down at the parking lot.
Pearl was quiet on the bed. Her head resting on her forepaws, her eyes on me, moving as I moved. She always watched me.
'When I was small,' Paul said, 'and my father was at work, and there was just me and her in the house, I remember I used to scheme to get her atten tion, not just to be nice, but to be responsible. I wanted her to be a mother. I'd be in my room and I'd spill something and I'd think, `Okay, now she'll have to come in here and do something.''
'Like an adult,' I said.
Paul's back still had a quality of asymmetric tension to it as he spoke.
'Yeah.'
'An adult could be trusted,' I said.
'Yeah.'
'An adult wouldn't leave you.'
Without turning, Paul nodded. He put his hands in his pants pockets and leaned his forehead against the windowpane.
'Like she has again,' I said.
