“Somebody inside the store, though?”
“We’ve given up on that. These things are pretty slick. Pick up on it right away, probably. Keep him at arm’s length.”
“Okay.”
“You’ll be talking pretty regularly to one of us, probably Ben. If you think you want to do something like a snitch inside, don’t do it without permission from him.”
“Sure. Okay. Yes, sir. Got it.”
He shook his head ruefully.
Two figures came around the corner at the far end of the block. Even at that distance, and with his naked eye, George could discern that one was pushing a bicycle and the other was carrying a load of some sort.
Louise put the binoculars to her eyes, and said, “It’s him. It’s Ernesto.” She paused, and then said, “And some girl. She’s a treat. Black hair with a purple streak. Tacky blue jeans with fake wear holes. Stupid black tennis shoes. Emo look, if I ever saw it. Art student, I’ll bet.”
“Let me see,” said George.
She handed him the binoculars. He looked closely. The “man” looked to be somewhere between thirty and forty, moustache, about six feet tall, with close-cropped dark hair. He, too, was wearing faded blue jeans but without the holes, tennis shoes, and a light blue, sleeveless hooded sweatshirt. “Yeah, it’s our target.” He shifted his gaze. The girl was slender, long-legged, with black and purple hair, just as Louise had described. A good five eight, she had rather dark eyes, and for a moment he thought she was wearing sunglasses. It must have been makeup, he thought. She was carrying quite a bit of stuff over her shoulder and under her left arm. A big, flat, thin, white object, which he thought might be a canvas; a backpack with one strap over her shoulder; and a contraption made of tubular steel. “Walking his bike, the girl’s carrying the load. A tripod?”
“The chrome legs, right?”
“Yep,” he said, passing the binoculars back.
“Easel, I’d think.” Louise peered through the binoculars again. As the couple got closer, she said, “Oh, no way . . . she’s carrying groceries, too. Oh, cute. Two piercings in her lower lip. Snakebites. What a slut.”
“Don’t judge,” said George, startled at the intensity of her remark.
“Don’t mind me,” said Louise, as she continued to watch. “I just get tired of bailing those idiots out when they get in trouble.”
The couple stopped in front of Ernesto’s house. “Oh no, shit,” said Louise, as the pair started up the front steps. “She’s going in with him. Easel, sketch pad and shoulder bag and all. Yep. See him let her go up the steps first? What a freaking gentleman; he’s just checking out her butt. And she knows it, I can tell you that. Shit.”
“How old you think she is?” asked George.
“Under twenty. There they go, right on in, honey. Just put your stuff down, and take off your clothes. I’ll be right with you. . . .” She looked at George as the door closed behind Ernesto and his girl. “He’s gonna do her. I can tell just by the way she went up the steps, she’s good to go.”
“You can?” That, he couldn’t help thinking, would be a very useful talent. “Maybe just, you know, she’s there for supper or something?”
“Yeah, right.”
“Tell ya what,” he said. “Let’s stick for a little while, okay? See if she comes out anytime soon.”
“Hell, let’s just kick the door in and bust his ass,” said Louise ruefully. “Just kidding. Hey, I’m sorry I got so worked up. Won’t happen again.”
“No problem,” said George, and he meant it.
They waited. From their vantage point, they had a fair view into the house through what seemed to be a large bay window in a living room, and a well-glazed area they took to be a porch or dining room. They were unable to see much in either room because the ambient light was still much brighter than the interior of the house.
“Maybe,” said Louise, “we could just call, and ask them to turn on a light?”
“Give ’em time.”
About thirty minutes later, a light came on in what they had taken for a dining room, and they saw that it was actually the kitchen.
“Great kitchen,” said George.
“Yeah.” Louise had grabbed the binoculars again. “He apparently cooks with his shirt off,” she said.
“Saves on laundry, I guess.”
“Oh, for shit’s sake,” she said. “She cooks topless, too! That asshole!”
“Can I see? Just for verification.”
She handed over the binoculars. He looked, and handed them back. “Nice.”
She grabbed the binoculars, and as she brought them to her eyes, she said, “Nice what?”
“Oh, just nice,” said George. “Like they say, wouldn’t toss her out of bed for eating crackers.”
“Yeah, right . . .”
“Check out the tattoos,” he said. “Anything you recognize?”
“On her?”
“Yeah, didn’t see any on him.”
“Just a sec . . . just a floral thing on her right arm, upper. Oh, sure. Sure. Wouldn’t you just fuckin’ know, she’s got a red rose on her left boob. How daringly unique.”
“Well, speaking personally,” said George, “I haven’t encountered all that many. . . .”
“Oh, it’s that phony art-student look. They all do stuff like that. Especially the young ones. Nobody understands them. They’re just having such deep emotions. They’re going to be different, just like all the other girls with dyed hair, and snakebites, and rose tatts on their boobs. Different just like everybody else who’s unique and misunderstood, and oh so very creative. Give me a break.”
“I take it you don’t have any tattoos,” said George.
Louise put down the binoculars, took a deep breath, and handed them to him. “Just my badge number on my ass,” she said, with a laugh. “Sorry about the rant. You just gotta work in a university town for a few years, you get that way, that’s all. Same crap, always new to them.”
George thought she’d recovered rather nicely. He put the binoculars to his eyes. “What’re they having for supper?”
“Men.” She looked around her, deliberately avoiding Ernesto’s house. She reached out and he gave her the binoculars. “Hey . . . there’s a guy over here, in this house, and he’s got binoculars, too! He’s lookin’ right into the kitchen from his second floor. . . .”
“Let me see,” said George. He looked, and then said, “Well, roses and boobs seem to attract an audience.” He grinned and handed the binoculars back to Louise.
“Disgusting,” she said, and didn’t look back at the man in the house again.
The light was fading fast. “What say we head back to Des Moines?”
Louise nodded. “Sure.”
They pulled slowly away from Ernesto’s, and as soon as they had turned the corner, George said, “Not quite hungry yet. You?”
“We just ate,” she said, deep in thought. After a moment, she asked a question.
“I’m supposed to work this alone, right?”
“For now. Low-key,” he said. “You need any assistance, you can call the task force member nearest you, and they’ll help out.”
“What if I need help in a hurry?”
“Make sure you don’t,” he said. “You’re just gathering information. But you need help really fast, call anybody you can. We can clean up the details later, if necessary. Don’t endanger yourself over this. Okay?”
She nodded, and neither of them spoke for at least ten miles.
“I better call my buds,” she said, “and tell them I’ll be late.” She pulled her cell phone from the front pocket of her blue jeans.
George glanced over while she dialed, and noticed how the blue light from the phone made her look quite young.
