He picked up a stick. I thought it was a bad sign, despite its being a fairly small stick. But I was wrong. It was just a writing tool for him.
He proceeded to use it to draw me a map in the gravelly dirt.
When I’d parked again and walked to the big camp, I saw it was more of a sprawl. A miniature city. It had no makeshift walls like the last city. It just spread itself out from underneath the freeway, through the vacant lots that sloped down to the concrete bed of the river.
Here, it seemed everybody was awake.
An old man was hanging hand-washed clothes on a rope strung between two long sticks he’d managed to embed in the hard ground. A younger man had a fire going in a pit and looked as though he was trying to make coffee.
A woman walked across my path. Then she stopped suddenly. Her eyes flew wide at the sight of me, as if she had seen a ghost. But, if so, the ghost was me.
“Phyllis!” she shouted. As though calling to somebody. Not as though she thought that was my name.
Then she ran away.
A woman came rolling out of her tent, sighed, and struggled to her feet. She located me with a sweep of her eyes, then moved in my direction with slow but sure steps. She looked to be about sixty, or maybe in her fifties but worn down. She was wearing a sweat suit in an alarming shade of pink.
She walked right up to me. And I mean right up. Way into my personal space. I could smell her breath. When she opened her mouth to speak, I could see she was missing two front teeth. The rest, the ones she still had, didn’t look any too good.
“Cop?” she asked.
“No, ma’am,” I said.
Which was interesting. The “ma’am” part, I mean. She commanded respect. I gave it without thought or question.
“Reporter?”
“I’m getting asked that a lot today.”
“Which is a yes or a no?”
“No. Not a reporter.”
“Looking for somebody in particular?”
“Yeah. A girl named Molly.”
“She’s not here.”
Then she turned to walk away.
“Wait,” I called to her retreating back. “What if she was here? Would you tell me?”
She didn’t stop or turn. Just shot a single word back over her shoulder to me.
“No.”
Something broke in me. I shouted. Literally shouted. My frustration boiled over and everything just came flying out.
“Wait!”
She stopped. Turned to face me. She did not move closer. Just waited. Waited to see what else I was inclined to shout about, I suppose.
“I don’t understand this!” I called to her across the considerable distance. In my peripheral vision I saw at least two dozen people staring at me. “Why would you not help me? Why would anybody not tell me where Molly is if they know? I just want to help her. I’m just trying to help!”
Then I stood, silent. Feeling foolish. And she stood still, just waiting. Maybe waiting to be certain I had it all out of my system.
“Sure,” she said after a pause. “Everybody wants to help. People come down here from time to time, wanting to help. Problem is, they never do help. They’re just never any help. Look. Lady. When someone disappears into this city, they’re gone. If we wanted to find the people we left behind, we would. Give it up, okay?”
Then she turned away again. Marched back to her tent.
I got into my car and drove away.
I showed up at the police station at seven o’clock the following morning. I was hoping I could time my visit just so. I was hoping Grace Beatty would be just about to go off duty.
As I walked up to her desk, she was standing. Not on the phone. Not with anyone. Just standing there, looking down. Riffling through some paperwork. It did give the impression that she might have been on her way out.
She looked up at me, and her eyes changed. Reflected her recognition of me. And it was a good change. A good recognition. I breathed a sigh of relief. I hadn’t been sure. I might have been nothing but a thorn in her side all along. How was I to know?
“Hey, you,” she said.
I said, “Hi.”
But it felt weird. And difficult. I was suddenly overcome with emotion. Maybe it was being back there. Maybe I was reliving the worst night of my life just by stepping into that place. Or maybe I really did care about what I’d come to say.
“Where’s your little one?”
“I dropped her at day care. I didn’t want her to be here when I talked to you about Molly. She understands a lot. And she’s pretty upset about Molly being gone.”
Grace Beatty just stood a moment. Her eyes remained on my face, but not looking into my eyes directly. She seemed to be waiting. To see if I was done. It reminded me of Phyllis at the homeless camp. All these people just standing there. Staring at me. Waiting to see if I was done. I didn’t know exactly what it meant, but I took it as a comment on my current emotional state. A lot of explosive stuff seemed to need to get out of me. People seemed inclined to stay out of the way.
“Well,” she said, and paused. “I’m off shift now. Want to go get a bite?”
“Sure. But maybe not at that same place.”
We walked out the front door of the station together. Down the steps. Into the cool morning.
“Food not so good?” she asked as we walked.
“No, it’s not that. It was fine. Or . . . actually . . . I don’t really know how it was. I was so upset I couldn’t taste anything. It was probably fine. I’m just not doing well with all the memories from that twenty-four hours.”
“Got it,” she said.
We walked in silence for a time. Then she stopped in front of a little storefront tavern. Which, to my surprise, seemed
