The guitarist wasn’t at the next spot—it was occupied by a blond man with a small piano on wheels. He played a jazzy, upbeat tune, keeping his head tucked down a little as if concentrating on the keyboard and avoiding the eyes of the crowd. He was good and a shallow basket of CDs sat on the top of his instrument with the obligatory price sign—this one, however, not claiming any special reason for the offering. I waited for him to finish his piece, but he wasn’t any more help than the drummers had been. He knew Jordan by name, knew about the injury and that he had been in the hospital for a while, but he didn’t know where he’d been moved, only that he was gone. Once again I paid for the information by purchasing a CD and moved on before I took up too much of his time.
I walked toward the next spot, fighting my way once more through ghosts and tourists, and found the guitarist again, playing in front of the original Starbucks shop with its brown sign and two-tailed mermaid. Same song, different crowd. I leaned against the wall, letting Chaos crawl out of my bag and up to my shoulder as I waited for a pause in the performance. I figured that anyone as pissed off as this guy had been about the badge transfer probably knew Delamar.
He noticed me at once when I stepped up on the next break. “You again?”
I nodded and Chaos rumpled around under my hair, making me restrain a twitch. “Yes. I didn’t get to finish our conversation earlier. Do you know Jordan Delamar—the guy who was injured?”
He gave me a wary look, his eyes shifting from my face to the ferret, no doubt thinking I was a bit weird and possibly dangerous. “Who wants to know?”
“I’m a private investigator. I’m working for another patient.”
“I didn’t hear that anyone else had been hurt. . . .”
I just gave him a thin smile and repeated myself. “Do you know Delamar?”
He heaved a sigh. “Yeah. I know Jordy. Look, I don’t have time to chat. I need to make some money here.”
“Understood. Can I meet you later? I can pay for your time.” Chaos stuck her nose out from under my collar and wiggled her whiskers at him.
His expression brightened. “Oh. Well, then yeah. Um . . . I’m going to work my way around to Lowell’s in a couple of hours. See you up in the loft? Noon?”
I agreed and moved on. As I passed near the slabs, I looked across the street for Twitcher, but I didn’t see him this time, so I crossed the road and asked a few of the guys hanging out near the memorial if they knew him. None of them did and none of them recalled seeing him in the area. I’d have to go down to Pioneer Square later and find out what he’d been doing up here the day before.
I continued to ask around, killing a couple of hours with the same questions, but I didn’t have a lot more luck. But then I got one more “meet me at Lowell’s” offer from a woman in a ridiculously large hat whose act involved a talking parrot and a stuffed cat. Chaos had been very interested in the parrot, which had forced me to cut the interview short even though the woman seemed to know something.
“I’ll see you at Lowell’s,” I said, backing away.
“I’ll be there when I’m done here,” she replied, tossing the stuffed cat into the air.
I hadn’t realized how quickly time had passed—it was nearly eleven thirty already. I worked my way through the crowd to a washroom to clean up and then onward through the lunch crush to the restaurant inside the main market arcade. They’d filmed some scenes for
I smuggled the ferret into the upper dining room at Lowell’s and found the woman with the stuffed cat—but no sign of the parrot this time—sitting with a cup of tea at a table near the windows with a vertigo-inducing view of Elliott Bay and the waterfront. I could see the Great Wheel—a giant Ferris wheel similar in design to the London Eye, but about half the size—revolving slowly at the end of Pier 57 and the aquarium’s roofs just across the road from the Hill Climb immediately below us. I couldn’t see down to the tunnel construction, but I knew it was there, just beyond the edges of the window. I wondered if Julianne Goss had turned to admire the same view on the day a mosquito had bitten her and wished I could figure out the connection between the three patients who might be running out of time as I sat and drank coffee with buskers and fabric cats.
I took a seat on the other side of the table from the woman and was about to say hello again when two more people approached us, carrying trays of food from downstairs. “Hey, Mindy! Can we sit with you?” the male of the pair asked.
The Cat Lady waved graciously for them to join us and then reached up to remove her hat, which she put down with care so it stood flat against the wall. Her revealed hair was faded strawberry blond and she appeared older without the shade of the hat brim on her face.
She looked at me and started to speak but was cut off one more time by the arrival of the guitar player I’d met in Post Alley. “Hey, make some room for me, too,” he said, pulling a chair over from another table and wedging himself between the unnamed lady and myself. I scooted my chair next to Mindy to make room for him.
Mindy rolled her eyes. “Sure thing, Fuso. Don’t mind us.”
“Ah, don’t be such a bitch, Mindy. I need to talk to the Private Eye, too.”
The couple to whom I’d not been introduced yet gave me a startled look and seemed about to pack up and leave, but Mindy patted the man’s nearest hand and they settled back into their seats.
“I thought your name was Dylan,” I said to the guitar player.
He shrugged. “Nah, they were just making remarks.”
“As is only fitting, considering how often you do the same,” Mindy said.
Fuso blew a raspberry.
I leaned forward and said, “I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but I did promise to meet . . . umm . . . Fuso here, too.”
“That’s all right,” Mindy said. Chaos stuck her head out of my bag and sniffed at the odors of food. Mindy noticed her and smiled. “Better keep that under the table, just in case,” she suggested. “I leave Beaker with the folks who run the bird store on Western. They spoil him, of course.” Then she looked at the couple who had joined us. “Are you two comfortable? You don’t mind . . . ?”
“No problem,” the woman of the couple said. “Fuso’s always a rude pain in the ass.” Then she stuck her tongue out at the man named when he looked as if he would object.
Mindy looked around the table while I closed the zipper on my bag to keep the ferret from running amok in the restaurant.
Mindy waited until I was done, glancing at me one more time before saying, “Well, I’m Mindy Canter. Fuso you know—Ansel Fuso. And these are Nightingale and Whim Sonder.”
The male Sonder reached across the table and put out his hand to shake mine. “William, really, but it’s Whim to most.”
I had seen their names on flyers around town—Whim and Nightingale created children’s shows with all sorts of puppets, mimes, musicians, and wild costumes. “I thought you two were big-time producers,” I said.
Nightingale pulled a rueful face. “Unfortunately, puppetry is not the easiest gig to make a living at if you’re not willing to travel. Whim is utterly terrified of planes.”
“Not terrified, just not convinced they’re going to stay aloft,” Whim said. “And we can only afford to mount one show a year—the Christmas show at the Children’s Theatre.” He glanced away. “Our son would have been six this year. . . .”
I looked at Nightingale, who bit her lip as tears welled in her eyes. She met my gaze and shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about it. Silvery faces boiled around her in the Grey, one in particular whispering something I couldn’t catch.
Into the awkward silence, Fuso blurted, “But you want to know about the Banjo Guy, not Whim and Nightie’s kid.”
Mindy gave him a cold glare. “Yes, she wants to talk about Jordy, Fuso. You could be a little more sensitive.”
“Me? I’m the most sensitive guy in the world. Didn’t I give those two guys who snaffled Banjo Guy’s badge the rush?
