Part 2 (1/2)

”Maybe so. The point is, n.o.body was around us. 'Hi,' I said, 'are you waiting for me?' She just giggled and then she mumbled something.

”'Who? I said, and then she said, 'The man in the yellow jump suit.'

”'Oh, sure,' I said, 'he sent me to get you. My name's Hank-- what's yours?'

”'Hildy,' she said.

”'Right,' I said. 'You're the one, all right. I hope you don't mind magenta instead of yellow.'

”Then she asked me for some of my c.o.ke. She thought I had a c.o.ke because of the red paper cup, you see. So I gave her a drink from the cup and she made a face. Then she took my hand, just like I was her father or something, and I led her over to my car. It was dark as h.e.l.l in there, Larry, and I swear she looked older-- around seventeen, anyway.”

”That doesn't make any difference now,” I said.

”I guess not. I wish to h.e.l.l I had a drink.”

”We can get one in your apartment.”

The operation at Dade Towers worked as smoothly as if we had rehea.r.s.ed it. I parked at the corner, ten feet from the door. Hank wrapped a beach towel around Hildy, an old towel he kept in the back seat, and Eddie opened the car door. The fire door to the stairway, which was rarely used, only opened from the inside. Don held the door partly open for Hank and Eddie, and they had carried her inside and up the stairs before I drove across the street and into the parking lot. After parking in Hank's slot and locking the car, I shoved Hildy's handbag under my T-s.h.i.+rt.

I knocked softly at Hank's door when I got upstairs. Don opened it a crack to check me out before he let me in. Hildy was on her back on the couch, with the beach towel beneath her. She was only about four-eight, and the mounted sailfish on the wall above her looked almost twice as long as she did. The sail's name in yellow chalk, ”Hank's Folly,” somehow seemed appropriate. When I joined the group, Hank handed me a straight Scotch over ice cubes.

The four of us, in a semi-circle, stared down at the girl for a few moments. Her brown eyes were opened partially, and there were yellow ”sleepies” in the corners. There was a scattering of pimples on her forehead, and a few freckles on her nose and cheeks. There was a yellow hickey on the left corner of her mouth, and she didn't have any lipstick on her pale lips. Her skin, beneath the smudges of dirt, was so white it was almost transparent, and a dark blue vein beneath her right temple was clearly visible. She wasn't wearing a bra beneath her T-s.h.i.+rt with her adolescent chest b.u.mps, she didn't need one.

”She looks,” Eddie said, ”like a first-year Brownie.”

Don began to cry.

”For G.o.d's sake, Don--” Hank said.

”Leave him alone, Hank,” I said. ”I feel like crying myself.”

Don sat in the Danish chair across from the TV, took out his handkerchief, wiped his eyes, and then blew his nose.

I emptied the purse-- a blue-and-red patchwork leather bag, with a long braided leather shoulder strap-- onto the coffee table. There were two plastic vials containing pills. One of them was filled with the orange heart-shaped pills I recognized as Dexies. The other pills were round and white, but larger than aspirins, and stamped ”M.T.” There was a Mary Jane, a penny piece of candy wrapped in yellow paper, the kind kids buy at the 7/Eleven; a roll of bills held together by a rubber band; a used and wadded Kleenex; and a blunt, slightly bent aluminum comb.

As I started to count the money, 1 said to Eddie, ”Search her body, Ed.”

”No,” he said, shaking his head.

”Let me fix you another drink, Ed.” Hank took Eddie's gla.s.s, and they moved to the kitchenette table. Don, immobilized in the Danish chair, stared at the floor without blinking.

There were thirty-eight dollars in the roll; one was a five, the rest were ones. I emptied the girl's front pockets. This was hard to do because her jeans were so tight. There were two quarters and three pennies in the right pocket, and a slip of folded notebook paper in the left. It was a list of some kind, written with a blue felt pen. ”-30 ludes, 50 Bs, no gold-.” There was only one hip pocket, and it was a patch that had been sewn on in an amateurish manner. The patch, in red denim, with white letters, read, KISS MY PATCH. The pocket was empty.

”There's no I.D., Hank,” I said.

”So what do we do now,” Eddie said, ”call the cops?”

”What's your flying schedule?” I said.

”I go to New York Sat.u.r.day. Why?”

”How'd you like to be grounded, on suspension without pay for about three months? Pending an investigation into the dope fiend death of a teenaged girl?”

”We didn't do anything,” Eddie said.

”That's right,” I said. ”But that wouldn't keep your name out of the papers, or some pretty nasty interrogations at the station. And Hank's in a more sensitive position than you are with the airline, what with his access to drug samples and all. If-- or when--he's investigated, and his company's name gets into the papers, as soon as he's cleared, the best he can hope for is a transfer to Yuma, Arizona.”

Hank shuddered and sat down at the coffee table beside me in the straight-backed cane chair. He opened the vial holding the pills that were stamped ”M.T.”

”Methaqualone,” Hank said. ”But they're not from my company. We make them all right, but our brand's called 'Meltin.' There're twenty M-T's left in the vial, so she could've taken anywhere from one to a dozen--or more maybe. Four or five could suffocate and kill her.” Hank shrugged, and looked at the girl's body on the couch. ”The trouble is, these heads take mixtures sometimes of any and everything. She's about seventyfive pounds, I'd say, and if she was taking a combination of Dexies and M.T.'s, it's a miracle she was still on her feet when I picked her up.” He tugged on his lower lip. ”If any one of us guys took even three 'ludes, we'd sleep for at least ten hours straight. But if Hildy, here, was on the stuff for some time, she could've built up a tolerance, and--”

”Save it, Hank,” I said. ”The girl's dead, and we don't know who she is--that's what we need to know. The best thing for us to do, I think, is find the guy in the yellow jump suit and turn her over to him.”

”What guy in what yellow jump suit?” Eddie said.

Hank told them what the girl had said, that she was waiting for a man in a yellow jump suit.

”Do you think it was her father, maybe?” Don said.

”h.e.l.l, no,” I said, ”whoever he is, she's his baby, not ours.”

”How're we going to find him?” Eddie said.

”Back at the drive-in,” I said. ”I'm going to get my pistol from my apartment, and then we'll go back and look for him.”

”D'you want me to take my pistol too, Larry?” Eddie asked.

”You'd better not,” I said, ”I've got a license, and you haven't. You and I and Hank'll go back. You'd better stay here with the girl, Don.”

”I'd just as soon go along,” Don said.

”No,” I said. ”Somebody'd better stay here with the girl. We'll go in your car, Hank” I handed him his keys. ”I'll meet you guys down in the lot.”

I went to my apartment, and changed into slacks. I put my pistol, a Colt Cobra.38, with a two-inch barrel, into its clip holster, and shoved the holstered gun inside the waistband of my trousers. To conceal the handle of the weapon, I put on a sand-colored lightweight golf jacket, and zipped up the front. Hank and Eddie were both in the Galaxie, Eddie in the back seat, and Hank in the driver's, when I got to the parking lot. I slid in beside Hank.

On our way to the drive-in I told them how we would work the search party. Hank could start with the first row of cars, going from one to the next, and Eddie could start from the back row. I'd start at the snack bar, checking the men's room first, and then look into any of the cars that were parked close to the snack bar. I would also be on the lookout for any new cars coming in, and I would mark the position of new arrivals, if any, so we could check them out when we finished with those already there.

”One other thing,” I said. ”If you spot the guy, don't do anything. We'll all meet in the men's room, and then we'll take him together. There aren't that many cars, and we should finish the search in about five minutes.”

”What if he isn't there?” Eddie said.

”Then we wait. I think he'll show up, all right. My worry is, he might not be alone, which'll make it harder to pick him up. But there aren't that many guys wearing jump suits, especially yellow ones, so we should be able to spot him easily enough.”

”Not necessarily,” Hank said. ”He might be a hallucination, a part of the girl's trip. h.e.l.l, she came with me without any persuasion to speak of, and she would've gone with anybody. She was really out of it, Larry.”

”We don't have to look for the guy, Hank,” I said. ”If you think it's a waste of time let's go back and get the girl and dump her body in a ca.n.a.l some place.”

”Jesus, Larry,” Eddie said, ”could you do that?”

”What else do you suggest?”