Richard Aleas - Little Girl Lost

“Don’t worry about it,” I said again.

“Police said,” Susan whispered, then she had to stop and take another breath. It hurt to see her strain. “… Miranda got away.”

“She didn’t,” I said.

I was exhausted, but still couldn’t close my eyes without seeing Miranda. I didn’t want to face her in my dreams. I’d have to eventually, but any excuse to put it off was welcome.

I called Daniel Mastaduno. He’d already heard from the police, but he still took it badly. What did I expect? It was his daughter, whom he loved, and no matter what he’d said, he’d never given up hope. Well, he could give up now.

I told him to call me later if he wanted to talk about it any more, ask any questions. He said, “No. Thank you, Mr. Blake. I don’t want to know any more. I wish I didn’t know this much. We were happy when we thought she was out there somewhere, living her life, and just didn’t want to talk to us. We didn’t know it, but we were.”

The terrible thing was, I knew he was right. I’d set out to do some good, for him, for Jocelyn, for Miranda, and I’d brought nothing but pain to everyone. Susan was hooked up to tubes and could hardly speak. I was still aching and bruised. The only person I’d actually helped was Murco Khachadurian.

Well, it wasn’t too late for one last attempt. I called Bill Battles, at home.

“John! Am I your one phone call?”

“I’m not in jail,” I said.

“I thought I heard they were holding you.”

“They were. They let me go.”

“You didn’t give them our file, did you?”

“It wasn’t mine to give.”

“Good, good. They’ll probably subpoena it, but that’s fine. We’ll give it to them when we see a court order saying we have to.”

“There’s nothing in it, Bill. What difference does it make?”

“Matter of principle,” he said. “You can’t start caving in every time NYPD asks for something. They’ll think they can walk all over you.”

“Listen, Bill,” I said, “you know how you’re always saying you’re looking for good people?”

“Sure – but John, I don’t know, you’re a little hot right now for a firm like ours… “

“Not me,” I said. “There’s a woman I used on this case. She’s new to the business, but she’s damn good at it. A real natural. She broke the case for me in three days, just working the phone. I was thinking Serner would be a great place for her to learn the ropes. Just phone work, though – not out on the street.”

“Why don’t you want her yourself?”

“A little firm like ours? You think Leo can afford another head?”

“What’s her name?”

“Susan Feuer.” I heard the scratch of a pencil against paper. “She got hurt on the case. She’s in the hospital now, recovering. But when she gets out-”

“I’ll talk to her,” he said. “No promises.”

“Of course. I’m just telling you, she’s great.”

“We can always use someone great,” he said. “When things quiet down, maybe we can even talk about you. Just not now, you understand.”

“I don’t want a new job, Bill,” I said. “I’m not sure I even want the one I have.”

Sleep came quickly, and at first it was the blank, dreamless sleep of the bone-tired. But somewhere along the way I had the impression of waking up. Only I wasn’t in my apartment any more – I was in Miranda’s, and not the one on Avenue D or the one on Fifteenth Street, but the one from our childhood. We were in bed together, side by side, and we were both young and hopeful and unscarred. But her hair smelled the way it had on Avenue D, and she felt in my arms as she had the last time I’d held her.

She unfolded a Rianon brochure, held it up so I could see the green lawns and pueblo-style buildings, and she pointed to a photo of the medical school campus. “I’m going to go the pre-med program for ophthalmology,” she said, “but just for a couple of years. Then I’m going to drop out and drive across the country, working as a stripper with a girlfriend. She’ll betray me, eventually, and I’ll kill her, but not because of what she’s done to me, just because she’s handy. I’m pretty sure that’s what I’m going to do. What about you?”

What about me.

“I’ll hunt you down,” I said, “not even knowing that’s what I’m doing, and then when I find out, I’ll hand you over to the man who kills you.”

She snuggled closer. “At least tell me it’ll be painless, sweetie.”

“No,” I said, “it will be horrible. For both of us.”

“Why, John? Why do we have to end up that way?”

“We don’t have to,” I said. “But we will.”

“And it’s too late for us to change?” she said.

“For you it is,” I said.

I spread the paper out on the table, flattened it down with both hands, and we stared at the photos. They’d run the same shot of Miranda, only now a photo of Susan was next to it, and next to that, one of me. I’d ended up in the paper after all.

It was a longer story this time and got more prominent placement, filling page three and continuing on page seven. The headline said, “New Attack Leads to Breakthrough In Stripper Murder.” I left my mother to read the rest of the article.

“I had no idea,” she said when she finished. “Rachel seemed like such a nice girl. Susan, I suppose I should say.”

“She is a nice girl,” I said. “She just had a lousy job.”

“And Miranda, too. How do these girls end up doing something like that?”

“How did I end up doing what I do?”

“That’s completely different. You help people.”

“That’s what I used to think,” I said.

“Do you really mean to give it up?”

I drank some more of her hazelnut coffee and thought about how much can change in a week. I nodded.

“Leo will be awfully disappointed.”

I thought about it. He would be. I remembered him warning me to be careful when this whole thing started. I’m too old to start again with some other kid. And he was. But I just couldn’t do it any more.

“He’ll manage,” I said.

“Well, you have to decide what’s best for you, John. I just don’t know, going back to school at your age… “

“I’m twenty-nine,” I said. “I think I’ve got a few years left in me.”

“What are you going to study? Poetry again?”

“I don’t know yet. I just need to do something other than what I’ve been doing.”

“Have you told Leo yet?” she asked

I shook my head. “You’re the first.”

Was it a good decision? I thought about it as I rode down in the elevator. Maybe not. I wasn’t sure what I’d study, or what I’d do afterwards. In spite of what Miranda had said, I didn’t see myself as a professor, and God knows I didn’t have the stomach for politics. But there would be something for me, and whatever it was, it would more or less have to be a step up.

It was a sunny morning, but a cold one, the kind where the wind rushes through you, burning every pore. Outside my mother’s building, a week’s worth of accumulated trash was stacked for pick-up at the curb, most of it in heavy black plastic bags cinched with wire, but some of it just lying out in the open. There was an upended mattress and next to it a narrow bookcase. There were a few stacks of paperback books that looked like they’d been rummaged through. I saw the cardboard hatboxes from Mrs. Knechtel’s apartment and one of the framed posters, and that’s when I realized what I was looking at. They must have finished cleaning her apartment out over the weekend. This was the accumulated stuff of a life, left out for any scavenger who saw something he liked and for the garbage trucks that would cart away the rest.