Timothy Hallinan - Everything but the Squeal

“They can't work at McDonald's,” he continued. “They can't even sell their blood. So they wind up with their thumbs out on Santa Monica or Sunset, trying to make enough money to buy some anesthetic.”

“Are most of them abused?” I asked, thinking of the knots of muscle at the corners of Daddy Sorrell’s jaws.

“You mean sexually? Physically? It depends on what you mean by being abused. They almost all come from strict homes. Spare-the-rod-and-spoil-the-child stuff. This will hurt me more than it does you. Their parents say they love them, and they express their love by whaling the tar out of the kid every time the kid does something that isn't covered by the Ten Commandments. When we talk to them, they deny that they ever beat the kid. Just disciplined him for his own good. ‘We spanked him, but we didn't beat him.’ ”

Hammond returned and sat down. He looked around the room. “Sure an exciting bunch of people,” he said.

“You spank someone with your hands,” Bruner said. “You beat someone with an object. Lamp cord, coat hanger, wooden spoon. Baseball bat.”

I pushed the little picture of Aimee across at Bruner. “Aimee Sorrell,” I said. “From Kansas City. Will you have your guys keep their eyes open?”

Bruner looked at the photo and chewed at the inside of his mouth. “Sure,” he said, “but you want my guess? If she hasn't showed up at the Oki-Burger, the place she landed first, she's either left L.A. or she's dead.”

“What do you know about this?” I handed him the Polaroid.

He studied it for a moment and then looked up at me, his eyes wearier than Ashley Wilkes's ever had been.

“I think she's dead,” he said.

Easter Sunday was ninety minutes away as I lurched through the front door of the Red Dog into the drizzle and aimed myself unsteadily east, looking for Alice. As far as Hollywood Boulevard was concerned, it was just another Saturday night.

The Boulevard was bumper-to-bumper, and the sidewalks were packed wall-to-curb. Neon made little zetz sounds overhead. Drum machines accompanied amplified grunts from the rolled-down windows of wet cars jammed full of kids. The street and the sidewalk were slick with mist. A cop's blue and red lights flashed ahead of me and two patrolmen, one of them a patrolwoman, braced a couple of sagging Mexicans against the side of their dented Toyota. This was what we'd come to: a female patrolman under artificial daylight frisking a stoned Mexican against a Japanese car to the beat of synthesized music. The future had arrived while I wasn't looking.

My head was turned back, my eyes on Jack's, when I stepped up onto the curb and bumped into somebody who was very hard. “Excuse me,” I said to whoever it was, and faced front to find myself looking at a phone kiosk. A skinny girl about Aimee Sorrell's age giggled wisely and said to her friend, “Scope him out. Talking to a pay phone.”

“That's what they're for,” I said with great precision. “They're less interesting than talking to you, but that's what they're for.” The girls looked at each other uncertainly. I attempted courtliness. “Does either of you have a breathalyzer?”

“No,” the friend said. “We don't.” She said it very slowly, as though she were talking to a tourist from very far away, someone with several heads and suction cups at the tips of his fingers. She wore a fringed buckskin jacket that had probably been her father's pride and joy in the heyday of the Buffalo Springfield.

“Pity,” I said. “But you may go.” Congratulating myself on my gallantry, I picked up the phone and fumbled around in my pocket for a quarter. “Hello, pay phone,” I said.

Something touched the center of my back, and I snapped around. The skinny one had stepped back but the fresh-faced friend in the buckskin jacket stood her ground, looking up at me with clear, brave eyes. “Um,” she said, “you okay?”

To my bewilderment, my eyes filled with tears. “I'm fine,” I said. “What the hell are you doing on this street?”

“Nothing,” the friend said. “You know, just messing around. What's the matter with you?”

“The human condition,” I said, for want of anything else.

“Well,” the girl in the buckskin said, “as long as it's nothing serious.” She took her friend's arm and led her away from me.

“He talks to phones ,” the skinny one hissed. “Leave him alone.”

“Chill out, Tabitha,” the friend said, “relax, would you?”

“Tabitha’s right,” I called after them. “Leave me alone. And get off the street. Here there be monsters.”

“You're the one who's monstered,” Tabitha said. Having gotten in the last word, something she probably never did at home, she led her friend away. The friend turned back to look at me once and then both of them floated into the crowd.

Since I had a phone in my hand, I dropped the quarter and called my number. The machine happily played back two hang-ups while I rested my forehead against the cold metal of the kiosk. The third call wasn't a hang-up.

“Damn you,” a girl's voice said. “Don't you ever go home? Get over here right now, my mother's acting crazy and I don't blame her, considering what I found in her purse. Oh, yeah, this is Aurora Sorrell, and you know where I am.”

When I stepped out of the kiosk the drizzle hit me in the face, but I didn't need it. I was as sober as Walter Cronkite. I sprinted for Alice, and people looked after me, hoping I might be something they'd see tomorrow on the news.

“Well, what a treat,” Aurora said as she opened the door to the bungalow. “So glad you could find the time.” Her mother was nowhere in sight.

“Where is she?” I said.

“Asleep. And it took long enough for you to get here.”

“Honey,” I said, “I've been working.” She started to bridle, and I said, “Sorry, sorry, not ‘honey.’ Aurora. Miss Sorrell, if you like. I've been looking for Aimee.”

“I've been calling you for hours.” She stepped back to let me in. She was wearing a long white shirt that looked like it belonged to her father, and her legs were bare, as they'd been created to be. There were weepy little smudges under her eyes.

“What's happened? Can she get up to talk to me?”

“She took a sleeper,” Aurora said. “She never takes a sleeper. She doesn't even take an aspirin . This is a woman who gets her teeth drilled without getting put out. It was one of my father's. He never packs right, you know what I mean? He left his whole overnight case here, razor and everything. I don't know how he stays in business.” She turned her back to me and walked to the couch. Her shoulders were as straight as a T square and she moved as though she would break if she bumped into anything. When she sat down she crossed her long brown legs and said, “I hope you're good.”

“I'm as good as I can be,” I said, following. “What's happened?”

She pulled out the crumpled pack of Marlboro Lights and lit one, avoiding my eyes. “We've heard from Aimee,” she said, fanning the smoke away with one hand. She made a sound that was midway between a sneeze and a laugh. ” ‘Heard’ is the word, all right. My, oh my, have we heard from Aimee.”

“What are we talking about?” I said. “What do you mean, you've heard from Aimee?”

“I didn't believe it,” she said, drawing on the cigarette. “I didn't believe anything was wrong. They always worried more about Aimee than they did about me. Aimee's the baby. Aimee's the last thing left between my mother and menopause. Aimee's the pot of gold at the end of the hairbow. Sibling rivalry and then some.”

“Stop acting like Tallulah Bankhead and tell me what happened.”