Everything but the Squeal

“Well,” she said, “there's the records.” She shuffled off toward the door. Her heels clacked indignantly on the concrete floor.

“Gosh, you dress nice, Max,” I said.

Bruner pulled up another chair and straddled it, facing me. “We can lift your license, you know,” he said. He pried some Maalox loose from his back teeth with his tongue and chewed it.

“No shit,” I said, looking around wildly. “Stop the car.”

Bruner slowly leaned forward until his head was resting on the back of the chair. His acidic stomach rumbled. He had a bald spot the size of a mature tarantula that I hadn't noticed before.

“I know Junko's name,” I said, “because I spent more than a week on the street. I know Marco because I know Junko. You can learn a lot sitting around in the wrong restaurants. You should try it sometime.”

“I'm not allowed to work the street anymore,” Bruner said without lifting his head. “We're looking for the pimp. Who else should we be looking for?”

I took it as a rhetorical question and didn't bother to answer. “What do we do now?” I asked.

“I don't know,” Bruner said, lifting his head. His face was wan and sour and exhausted. “Listen,” he said, “I spent years of my life out there, whether you like my clothes or not. You've been there for a week, and it's practically killing you. I saw you when you looked at her.” He jerked his chin in the direction of Junko's drawer. “Do you know how many I've seen come and go? Do you know how many greasy little perps I've questioned? How many corpses I've had to look at? Most of them babies. Have you got any idea what a shitty job this is?”

“I think I do,” I said. “So, to get back to business, what do we do now?”

Bruner looked at Hammond, and Hammond nodded.

“You don't do anything,” Bruner said. “But if anything happens, anything at all, you'll give me a call, right?”

“Max,” I said, “you have my personal word of honor.” I may have laid it on a little thick, because he gave me a mean little squint, but then he got up.

They followed me to the parking lot, both of them, but they let me go. As Alice chugged dutifully up the ramp and into the drizzle, I asked myself whether I'd just eliminated my main source of information. I knew Hammond was okay, but could I or couldn't I trust Bruner? I couldn't answer the question, so I just kept driving. When in doubt, I'd learned at a relatively early age, just keep doing what you're already doing. If you do, at least you're doing something. To this rule I'd long ago added a codicil: don't change your mind before sundown.

Sundown had long come and gone by the time I reached home again. According to my answering machine, Wyatt and Annie had called three more times about Jessica.

“She's not here,” I said, calling back. I'd run out of sympathy.

“Do you know what this is doing to Annie?” Wyatt demanded. “She's been in bed with a sick headache since three.”

“Wyatt,” I said, “it'll be okay.”

“Where is she? I should go get her.”

“So go get her,” I said unkindly. I hung up. Then I popped open a bottle of Singha and drank it in one long chug. I drank seven more before I finally passed out, trying to wash the image of Junko Furuta from my memory.

20

Cracking the Code

The telephone clanged and whirred like a chain saw poised above my forehead. I opened my eyes, saw four of everything, and closed them again. When I reopened them they had uncrossed, and the phone was still ringing.

No wonder it had sounded like it was poised above my forehead. It was. I was flat on my back on the living- room floor, looking up at the rickety wooden orange crate that supported the answering machine and the phone. I used an arm that seemed to outweigh the rest of my body to reach up and grab the receiver.

“Unghh,” I said, registering that my tongue didn't work.

“Mr. Grist?” said a voice that could have belonged only to Yma Sumac in her top register or to Morris Gurstein. Since Yma Sumac didn't have my phone number, I said, “Hlo, Mrrs.” My voice was furrier than Tammy's chinchilla.

“I've got it,” he squeaked. “It's very interesting.”

“What is?” I asked, trying without success to sit up.

“This code. I've never seen anything like it before.”

“Morris,” I said, managing it better this time. “What's on the disks?”

“Data base, like you said.” He sounded less excited. “Maybe some kind of bulletin board. Bunch of junk, if you ask me.”

“Where are you?”

“What do you mean, where am I? I'm a kid. I'm at home.”

“Yeah, right.” An alien was trying to chew its way into the world via a route that led through the center of my forehead. “I'll be right over.” I was straining my back to get the receiver anchored again when a shrill sound told me that he was still talking.

“What is it?” I said, slamming the receiver painfully against my right ear.

“Bring Jessica,” he said.

“Morris,” I said through clenched teeth as my ear throbbed, “don't be coy.”

I took a hot shower, a cold shower, and a second hot shower while the coffee brewed. I drank two cups as quickly as I could pour them, standing stark naked and dripping wet at the kitchen counter, and then took another cold shower. Then, still wet, I took four aspirin. When I climbed into Alice, a third cup of cooling coffee quaking in my hand, it was about eight a.m. outside, and grayer than the Confederate army.

Elise Gurstein, in a flowing housecoat, handed me yet another cup of coffee as I came through the door. She seemed always to be handing me things. “I didn't know,” she said apologetically. “I had no idea. I never go into Morris’ part of the house.”

“Skip it,” I said around gulps. “Kids are smarter than we are. Just give me a refill.” She did, splashing some hot coffee on my wrist, and I descended into Morris’ lair, rubbing alternately at my sore ear and my wrist. I took some encouragement from the fact that my head remained on my shoulders all the way down the stairs. I still had it on when I used what seemed like somebody else's hand to open Morris’ door.

“What took you so long?” Morris demanded. The computer screens were on and glowing, and Jessica peered at me over Morris’ shoulder. She gave me an excited grin.

“Tell you in a second,” I said, reaching over his shoulder and slapping Jessica on the cheek. I hit her harder than I'd intended to, and she toppled to the left and landed on Morris’ rumpled bed, on top of a heap of school books that I recognized as hers. Somebody else's hand tingled from the force of the blow.

“Hey,” Morris said protectively, assuming the half-assed karate stance of wimps the world over. Jessica looked at me in sheer disbelief, then looked at Morris, and started to bawl. I brushed aside Morris, who was trying to figure out which fist should point palm-up, and stood over her.

“You self-centered little shit,” I snarled. My forehead was wet and aching and probably green with sweat. “I saw a dead girl last night. That was my second in a few days. Another one is still missing, and maybe she's dead too. How do you think their parents feel? You've had enough to do with this that you should know better. Annie and Wyatt are my friends, and they're your friends too, even if you're too dumb to know it. How dare you do this to them?”

“We didn't do anything,” she sniffled. “I slept in Morris’ data room.”

“She did,” Morris said, abandoning his lethal pose after one last futile pass at getting it right.

“Shut up, Morris.” I wiped my forehead with the hand that had the coffee in it and poured some on my nose. “I don't care if you slept on a bed of nails,” I said to Jessica. “Your parents didn't know where you were.”