Peter Spiegelman - Death's little helpers

I started to speak, but my throat closed up and I couldn’t. I drank some coffee and took a shaky breath.

“Does she give Ines a hard time too?”

“It’s different with Nes. She knows a lot of stuff- about painting and art and business things- and my mom respects that. And she knows Nes does a ton of stuff for her- for both of us. And, you know, they’re… together.” Spots of color came up in Billy’s cheeks and he looked over my shoulder again. “Besides, Nes is patient. And she’s really good at the kung fu stuff.”

He looked around the room and then stared down at his silverware for a while. The waitress brought another can of soda and refilled my coffee and went away. Billy’s eyes came back to mine, and there was a trace of embarrassment in them.

“She’s really not so bad, you know- my mom, I mean. She’s really smart, and she’s a great painter. Everybody says so- magazines and newspapers and all those collectors and stuff. And she can be really funny too. She just… has a lot of shit on her mind sometimes.” He nodded as he spoke, and guilt and pleading were all mixed up in his voice. I swallowed hard and nodded back and he smiled at me, relieved. I drank some more coffee.

“When’s the last time you heard from your dad?” I asked.

“Last time I talked to him was weeks ago, right before he left. I was supposed to see him, and he called right before and canceled.”

“What did he say exactly?”

Billy shook his head. “Mom’s the one who really spoke to him. By the time I got on the phone he was mostly full of his sorry, sorry, sorry bullshit. He said something had come up and he was going away for a while, and he said he was bad company right then anyway. He said he’d pick me up when he got back, and that we’d be spending a lot more time together.” The waitress came by again and slid a plate of pancakes the size of steaks in front of Billy. She put a plate heaped with fries alongside.

“Did he say what it was that had come up?” Billy shook his head and ate a fry. “Any idea why he said he was bad company?”

“Who knows? He’s in a bad mood like ninety percent of the time.” He laid thick ribbons of syrup over his pancakes and started eating.

“That business about spending a lot more time together- what do you think he meant by that?”

Billy washed his pancakes down with cream soda and took a breath. “I thought he was talking about the whole custody thing,” he said.

I hadn’t realized Billy knew about the custody battle. “Did he talk a lot about that?”

Billy’s cheeks colored again. “He used to. He used to say all kinds of shit about my mom- and Nes- until he figured out it was just pissing me off.”

“What kinds of things did he say?”

He flushed more deeply and looked away. “Just some stupid shit about… I don’t know.”

I could guess about what, and I let it go. “Do you get a vote in the custody thing?”

“You mean about who to live with?” he said. I nodded. Billy shook a few cups of salt on his fries and glued them down with a quart of ketchup. He plucked some fries off the heap and ate them. “I guess so,” he answered.

“So, what is it?”

“My vote? I don’t know. I guess it might be okay to stay with my dad for a while, or at least it would be different, but… my mom and Nes would be all bent out of shape. They’d miss me and shit.”

He ate more fries and looked up.

“My dad was talking about boarding school, and I thought that might be cool… to go someplace else… to get away.” Billy shrugged. “I don’t know. Mostly I just wish they’d stop the fucking fights. Or leave me out of it, anyway.”

I nodded, and we sat in silence for a few minutes.

“That phone call- that was the last time you heard from him?”

Billy nodded. “Yeah. Besides the messages, that was it.”

I managed not to spit my coffee out. “What messages?”

Billy answered with a mouthful of pancake. “The messages he left on the machine- phone messages.”

“How many messages were there?”

“Just two.”

“Do you know when he left them?”

“The first one was like a week after he left town, and the second was a couple of days after that.”

“What did he say?”

“Not much. Just calling to say hi, or something like that.”

“But you didn’t actually speak to him?” Billy looked at me like I was stupid and shook his head. “Do you remember what time of day he called?”

“While I was at school, I guess. I played them when I came home.”

Billy carved his way through the pancakes and I was quiet, thinking about the messages.

“Did you tell your mom he called?”

Billy hesitated. “I… I guess not. He didn’t say anything really, and… sometimes it’s better if I don’t talk to her about him.”

The waitress came by and held up a coffeepot and raised an eyebrow. I shook my head and she walked away. I watched her go and looked at the back of her T-shirt, at the picture of a pit bull demolishing a wedding cake that was emblazoned there. A little plastic groom in a little plastic tux teetered precariously atop the cake, and it made me think of something. I looked at Billy.

“You remember that picture you showed me at dinner last week, of your dad and the bass player and that older guy, all of them in tuxedos?” Billy nodded. “You know who the old guy is?”

He nodded some more. “I don’t remember his name- Joe something, maybe. He’s a friend of my dad’s. He lives in the same building.”

“He a music fan like your dad?”

“I guess. I know they go hear stuff together.” That was all Billy could recall about the man, and I had no more questions. No more that Billy could answer, anyway. He finished his pancakes and the last of the fries and wiped his mouth on a napkin. He didn’t look like he was about to explode, which was baffling to me.

“I’ve got to get you home,” I said.

Billy winced. “I can go myself. I-”

“Don’t waste your breath,” I said. “I’m taking you.” He didn’t argue.

There was no answer at the Sachs apartment, but Billy gave me the gallery number and Ines Icasa was there. Her voice was taut with worry and she let out a long breath when I told her that I was bringing Billy home.

“Dios mAo,” she said softly. “Thank you, detective, I will be here.” She hung up and I pocketed my phone. I looked across at Billy.

“You want anything else?” I asked. He shook his head. “You ready to go?”

He rubbed the back of his neck and stared at me. His blue eyes were large in his narrow face. “Will you look for him anyway?” he asked.

“I’ll look for him,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.

It wasn’t quite noon when Billy and I walked into the I-2 Gallery. The shades were up on the windows and the place was flooded with light and empty except for Ines. There was a half-filled glass of red wine on the long counter and a scattering of papers. A cigarette smoldered in a metal ashtray. Ines’s pink shirt was clean and starched, and her hair was combed and shiny, but her coloring was still off and there were shadows under her eyes. Billy started to say something but she cut him off.

“Upstairs, Guillermo,” she said. Billy opened his mouth again, but Ines pointed at him before he could speak. “Now.” He glanced at me and shrugged and went. Ines sat on a stool behind the counter and sighed deeply. She reached for her cigarette and took a long drag. It smelled like a brush fire. Her elegant fingers slid aimlessly along the countertop.

“The school telephoned this morning,” she said, “to ask if he was ill. He has done this before- several times. But it is always very… worrying. He came to see you?” I nodded. “Why?”