“Okay.”
“He drives an airtram, and Ma works at my school. I’m in second grade.”
“Good for you.” Eve looked to Roarke for help, but he just smiled at her.
“Are you gonna arrest a robber?”
“Know any?”
“My friend Everet stoled a candy bar from the store, but his ma found out and made him go pay for it out of his ’lowance, and he couldn’t have candy or
He pointed, cheerfully ratting out his pal.
“It sounds like he’s paid his debt to society.”
Jesus—jeez it—where was the kid’s mother?
“Talk to him,” Eve suggested, desperately sacrificing Roarke.
“Okay. Are you the police, too?”
“Absolutely not.”
“You talk different,” Chip commented. “Are you from French? The lady at the market is, and she don’t talk like us either. I know a word.”
“What word?”
“Bunjore. It means hello.”
“I know a word.”
Chip’s grin widened. “What word?”
“
“Deea-gwit,” Chip repeated, mangling it a bit.
“Well done.”
“Chip, stop pestering the police and go play.”
Becky Robbins had taken time to tame back her hair. She hurried now, her flip-flops flapping as she reached out to tuck an arm around her son’s shoulders. After a quick hug, she made a shooing motion.
“Okay. Bye!” He raced off, and was immediately absorbed into the running and shouting.
“What’s going on?” Becky demanded. “A couple of the neighbors said the FBI was here before when we were out. Now the police.”
“Do you know a woman calling herself Sarajo Whitehead?”
“Yeah, the neighbors said the FBI asked about her. She used to live here. Second floor. She moved out a while back. Eight, ten months, maybe. Why? She did something, didn’t she?” Becky continued before Eve could speak. “The FBI people didn’t really say, but Earleen—my neighbor—she could tell. And now you’re here, too. I never liked that woman—Sarajo, I mean, not Earleen.”
Chip came by his talkative nature honestly, Eve decided. “Why is that?”
“She could barely be bothered to say a friendly hello. I know she worked nights, mostly, but I don’t appreciate anybody yelling at my kid—all the kids.”
Becky put her hands on her hips as she looked over the racing, shouting kids with the mother’s version of the beady eye.
“They got a right to play out here in good weather, and in broad daylight for heaven’s sake. Told her that myself, after she yelled and used swears at those kids one too many times. Told her she ought to get herself some earplugs or whatever.”
Becky looked back at Eve. “What did she do?”
“We’ll know more about that when we locate her. Did she have any visitors?”
“The only person I ever saw go in or out of there except her was another woman. Young, pretty.”
“This woman?” Eve showed her Melinda’s photo.
“Yeah, that’s the one. She’s not in trouble with the police, is she? She seemed so nice.”
“No, she’s not. You don’t remember seeing anyone else?”
“Well, yeah, a man came once. A really fat man. Said she worked for him, and he was looking for her. But she’d already gone by then. Just left one day. Left the furniture, too. Turned out it was rented. She paid it up-to- date though, rent, too. The landlady told me. Anyway, I wasn’t sorry to see her gone.”
Eve waited a moment. “There’s something else.”
Becky glanced around, shifted. “It’s just something I think. I can’t swear to it.”
“Anything you know, think, saw, heard. It’s all helpful.”
“I don’t like accusing anybody—even her—of something, but the FBI, for heaven’s sake. Now the police. Well . . . I think she was on something. At least sometimes.”
“Illegals.”
“Yeah. I think. I had a cousin who got sucked into that scene, so I know the signs. Her eyes, the jittery moves. I know I smelled zoner on her, more than once. When we got into it about the kids, I said she oughta take a little more of whatever she was popping or smoking so she’d pass out and wouldn’t hear them. I shouldn’t have said it, but I was riled up.
“She gave me such a look. I have to say, it scared me some. She shut the door in my face, and I went home. The next morning, I go out to my car to go to work. My husband’s rig’s parked next to me. Every one of his tires is slashed. I know she did it. I know I’m accusing her again, but I just know it. But how’re you going to prove that? Besides I’m the one had words with her, not Jake. He doesn’t get riled up like I do. If she’d slashed my tires maybe I could’ve gotten the cops on her.
“Jake, he needs that rig to get to work. He lost a whole day getting new tires.”
“Did you report it?”
“Sure. You’ve got to for the insurance, though it didn’t cover it all. Jake didn’t want me to say anything about her, so I didn’t. She’d have denied it anyway, and maybe done something worse. I stayed clear of her the best I could after that. So I wasn’t sorry when she took off.”
Eve talked to a few more neighbors, but she had everything she needed from Becky Robbins.
“The ball’s still rolling,” she said to Roarke as they headed back to the hotel. “She could pull off the hardworking, no-trouble-here woman at work. But at home, well, that’s home.”
“Where you want to relax,” he commented. “And be more yourself.”
“Yeah. You’re entitled to some of your illegals of choice in your own home, entitled to some quiet when you want it, entitled to have your bitch of a neighbor leave you the hell alone. And when she gets in your face, you’re entitled to payback. You know how to get it, too. The best way. Go after the primary breadwinner’s ride to work. Fuck with that, fuck with the whole family where it hurts. In the money bag.”
“She has a temper,” Roarke added, “and a mean streak. No fondness for children, I’d say, and saw no need to foster any sort of relationship with the other people in the building.”
“She didn’t need them. But she’s also smart enough not to skip out on the bills. No point in having anybody looking for Sarajo, even when she stops being Sarajo.”
“You’ve confirmed she didn’t, while here, have personal transpo. So she walked or took public. No one visited but Melinda. No one came looking for her but her former employer.”
He latched on, Eve thought. She never had to refine the lines for Roarke. “So, whoever her dealer is, he or she didn’t do business at the apartment. No men—and one of the neighbors would’ve seen or heard—so she’s being true to McQueen. At least at home. Some dealers will trade junk for sex. But that’s business,” Eve mused. “That wouldn’t be cheating. Sex is business.”
“Well then, I love doing business with you.”
She leaned back. “And still . . . I didn’t get to strong-arm or flex the muscles with anybody. They’re all so damn cooperative. They just talk, talk, talk—especially that kid. It’s like being in a foreign country.”
“Like going to French?”
That got a laugh. “Maybe there’s something in the water down here. Maybe we shouldn’t drink the water, or we could start talking to everybody, telling complete strangers more than they could possibly want to know.”
“There’s water in coffee.”
“Yeah, but it’s, like, boiled, right? That kills the microbes that trigger all this cooperation and chattiness. It has to. It’s getting dark. I know we’re making progress, but it’s getting dark. He’s had her for more than twenty hours now.”
