ain’t… isn’t. It’s not all that new. He got it used. Looks good. He keeps it clean. Tilly is not a big-money dealer on the North Trail, if you know what I mean.”
“He and your father get along?” I asked, working on my chowder.
“I guess,” she said. “You know something? I don’t feel much like talking or thinking.”
I nodded in understanding and said,
“Then you can listen. I just called Sally Porovsky.”
Adele took on the look of a trapped cat. Her hands were on the table. She was ready to get up and run, but since she was smart, she knew better under the circumstances.
“I told her I found you,” I said. “She knows about your father, about Pirannes. I didn’t tell her about the dead man, Spiltz. I don’t want to put her on the spot. If you want to tell her, fine.”
“My mother’s really dead?” she said, trying to think something through.
“Yes,” I said.
“Then I don’t have to go away. I can live with my father.”
“Adele,” I said. “Your father is a violent, abusive child molester. He abused you. He beat me up. He sold you to a pimp and he probably killed your mother.”
“You don’t mean ‘abused,’” she said. “You mean he screwed me.”
“Did he?”
The wary cat looked at me and Ames.
“No way,” she said, shaking her head. “He’s good to me.”
“He sold you,” I repeated as the waitress reappeared and said, “Anything else?”
“Pie,” said Ames. “Apple if it’s fresh. Nothing if it’s not.”
Adele and I were eye to eye. The waitress didn’t know what was going on and didn’t much care. She moved away from the booth.
“I didn’t say he did,” Adele said, playing who-blinks-first.
“Tilly says he did,” I said.
She shook her head.
“You figure Tilly’s going to tell that to a cop or a judge or a social worker? You think anyone would believe him?”
There was no reason to go on with this. I would leave that to Sally. Back in Chicago, I was on a case in which a dying black drug dealer, a kid a few years older than Adele, had been stabbed six times in the stomach. He was in a hospital emergency room when I saw him. He was dying and he knew it. The cop I was with asked the kid who had knifed him. He said it was his best friend, his street partner, but he wouldn’t give a statement against him.
“Him and me,” he said. “We was always tight. He was good to me, like, you know, a brother. He was real good to me till he killed me.”
The waitress came back with Ames’s apple pie.
“Fresh enough?” she asked.
“It’ll do,” he said, reaching for the fork.
“I’m real happy to hear that,” said the waitress, putting our check on the table and moving away.
Adele started to eat again, her eyes down. She was either thinking hard or working hard at not thinking.
Ames nudged me. I looked at him and he nodded toward the window.
The door of the Buick was opening.
A man I recognized stepped out. It was my guardian angel, the short, tough-looking bulky little man with less hair than I had, the one who had saved me from a hospital-size beating, or worse.
He didn’t look in our direction and Ames and I looked away before he caught me.
“What’re you two doing?” Adele asked, looking out the window.
“Ever see that man before?” I asked, still working on my chowder. “Man closing the door on that blue Buick?”
“No,” said Adele. “Wait. Is he coming in here to get me or something?”
“No,” I said. “I’m just being careful.”
“Fucking paranoid,” she said.
“I’d appreciate your watching your language when you’re in my presence,” Ames said.
“Who the…?” Adele began and then found Ames looking at her, fork holding a piece of pie.
Adele shrugged and pushed her plate away. Ames finished his pie. The bulky short man came into Denny’s and headed for the men’s room without glancing our way. He almost waddled.
I considered following him into the men’s room, asking him what was going on, what did he want, who did he know, but I dropped the idea. He wouldn’t tell me and I owed him one. There was also no long-term point in getting out and running while he was occupied. He knew where to find me. There was, however, a short-term reason for losing him: Adele.
“Let’s go,” I said. “Now, fast.”
I dropped a twenty on the table, a too-generous tip.
Ames put down his fork and Adele slid slowly out of her side of the booth.
“The guy in the Buick,” she said.
I didn’t answer. We moved toward the door.
“He’s after me,” she said, looking toward the men’s room.
Ames touched her arm, guided her quickly toward the door. Adele was shaking again. When we got in the car, Ames sat in the back with Adele while I drove. “I didn’t believe you,” she said.
“About what?”
“About my mother being dead. You were just trying to get me to say something bad about Dwight.”
“No, little lady,” said Ames. “Your mom’s dead.”
In the rearview mirror I could see Adele looking up at him and seeing the truth. Her mouth was open. The first cry was more of a scream, and then the tears came. Ames put his arms around her. She leaned against his chest, her fists clenched. Her right hand went up and for a second it looked as if her thumb was searching for her mouth. It stopped short and her fist rubbed against her cheek.
She didn’t stop crying until we pulled up in front of Sally’s office building.
Sally was waiting downstairs in front of the glass doors. Her arms were folded across her chest. She was wearing a very businesslike black skirt and a matching black jacket over a white blouse.
“I’m not telling her,” Adele said as I pulled up in front of Sally. “About the dead guy.”
“Up to you,” I said, getting out of the car.
Adele got out too, but Ames stayed where he was. Before she moved toward Sally, Adele looked at Ames. He looked back at her. There was something going on, some understanding, maybe some respect on her part.
“Adele,” Sally said, stepping forward, her arms now at her side.
“Sally,” Adele said cautiously.
“I can use a small hug,” Sally said, looking at me. “Or a big one.”
Adele moved to Sally and put her arms around her.
“I’ve got to go,” I said.
Sally nodded and met my eyes.
“I’ll call you later.”
“Do that,” she said, one arm now around Adele, who was crying again.
As she led the girl through the glass door and into the building, I got back in the car.
“She’ll run,” said Ames. “If they don’t lock her up, she’ll run to him.”
“I know,” I said, driving forward.
“What if he wasn’t there to run to?” asked Ames.
“That’s what I was thinking,” I said. “He killed Beryl. He has a record.”
“I was thinkin’ somethin’ faster, surer,” he said as we drove north on Tuttle.
“You can think it,” I said, “but don’t do anything more than think it. You know where I’m going now?”
“Yes,” he said.
“If you come with me, we do it my way,” I said.
