Sara Paretsky - A Woman’s Eye

She and the two precinct officers Russo had commandeered examined the truck. It was locked up tight, but that didn’t mean much, given its condition. As one of the cops said, it was hard to tell what breed it was. They could see the skeleton of a stage set on a platform that probably rolled out onto the tailgate. There was a trunk marked COSTUMES and some painted scenery scaled to the stage. But no puppets.

Very soon a little man with a wisp of a moustache, hollow cheeks, and great melancholy eyes, came up lugging a duffel bag. He showed the cops his receipt from the city. “I had to hock my puppets. They’re my kids! My goddam living.”

“I’ll help you if you can help me,” Julie said. She didn’t look as though she had much to help with, in sneakers and raincoat. But as soon as she started to describe Juanita she was in charge. She soon had the puppeteer wagging his head. He remembered the girl, all right. “She kept asking me questions-did I make the puppets myself, did I make them out of old dolls. Could she make them. She wanted to know where I was going next. ‘Florida,’ I says. ‘I don’t want them to catch cold.’ When she saw I was putting her on-the saddest look I ever saw.” Then he was jolted aware. “She’s come up missing?”

“Since five o’clock last night.”

“I was there on the street till ten. But listen: there was this woman I thought at first was the kid’s mother. She was telling her about puppets. I was changing the act, see. I got three different acts…”

Julie waited out his setting the scene. One of the cops activated a pocket recorder.

“Somewhere in there I got the idea this dame was a con artist. I don’t mean I thought it exactly. It just crossed my mind. She was like playing to me too. That’s what kept the youngster interested. She watched to see if I was interested. That kid’s no fool. The redhead was telling about this old theater she was renovating and how she was collecting puppets that could make like singers…”

“Where? Did she say where it was?”

“No, ma’am. Not to me, she didn’t, and I’ll tell you this, she knew about as much about puppets as I know about King Tut. But that’s where I lost touch. I got a hand puppet that’s my buddy. Whenever we get enough people around, Andy and I pass the hat. It’s a living. I guess you could call it a living.”

“What else about Juanita?”

He shrugged. “One minute they were there, gone the next. That’s how it is when you’re playing the street.”

The police pressed him for a description of the redheaded woman. Then Julie asked him if he thought the theater she spoke about might be a real place.

“Could be.”

“Nearby?”

Again he shrugged. Then: “I don’t think that kid would go with her anyplace she couldn’t walk to.”

A buzzer signaled Danny’s return. While the elevator groaned its way up, Juanita glanced toward the heavily draped window at the front of the loft. Dee clamped her fingers around the girl’s wrist. “Don’t you even think of it! Do you want to get killed?”

Juanita, still in the silken robe, gathered it tighter in front of her. It didn’t have any buttons. She tried not to see herself in the mirror because it wasn’t really her. Dee had made her up to look oriental. But she watched in the mirror for the elevator’s arrival. When it stopped, Dee had to unlock the door to let Danny in. He took the key from her and locked it again.

“So?” Dee wanted to know.

He didn’t answer. He came near and stared at Juanita in the mirror. He made a face like he was going to throw up. “What’ve you done to her? And what in hell is she doing out of the studio?”

“We needed a bath.”

“Then we need another bath. She looks like a midget’s whore.”

“Fun-nee. Did you get what you went for?”

“No. The answer is no. Dee, she’s supposed to look like an angel. That’s why you fell in love with her.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“I got a contact. That’s all I got and I’m going to go see him as soon as you and I straighten some things out.”

“Danny, how much time do you think we have?”

“Maybe we don’t have any. This town ought to be the best. But it’s the worst yet. Get her inside there so we can talk.”

Confined again in the studio, Juanita put her ear to the frame of the door, then to the keyhole. Then she lay down on the floor and tried to hear from under the door, but only the sound of their voices reached her, going away as though to the front of the building. A new sound startled her until she realized it was her stomach growling. She’d promised Dee she would eat. She knew Dee liked her. That’s what made Danny mad. But there wasn’t any food. Dee looked in the cupboards and the fridge. How could they live someplace with no food in the house? They didn’t live here. It was like a hotel, only it was a loft they rented. Their suitcases were on the floor, open, with clothes falling out of them. They’d rented from an artist, which was why Danny wasn’t supposed to touch anything in the studio.

She sat on the edge of a chair and wound her feet around its legs. The dressing gown smelled of perfume and sweat. She wished they’d start fighting again so she could hear them. If they didn’t have any time, would they go away and leave her locked in this room with the bucket and the big bed? She hated beds more than most things. Her mother and father fought a lot about beds, and her mother had boyfriends she didn’t think Juanita or Papa knew about. Papa didn’t. She did. She knew that was why her mother let her go when she said she was going to Elena’s. She had a date with a boyfriend. Juanita thought of the kids getting on her about the flyers-“What’s pornography, Juanita? how come you know so much about it?” She knew it was dirty pictures, but she wasn’t going to say it to them. She felt herself going sick again, scared. She tried to think of Julie. Julie would really try to find her. Maybe she’d find the puppet man. He could tell her about Dee. But what else? She hadn’t seen Danny before she walked into the old building with the hand-painted sign on the door: PUPPET SHOW INSIDE. Julie walked a lot and she might find it.

Juanita began to walk then, too. Round and round the room she went, barefoot, the silk gown dragging the floor. Finally she entered the alcove where the statues stood around like people at a funeral. There were other things, half-finished bodies, heads. She recognized the smell of clay. Tools and brushes and tubes of paint lay on a table. There was a painting on a three-legged stand, and other paintings were stacked in racks. This was where Danny wasn’t supposed to touch anything. She came on several camera cases then, and something rolled up with metal legs sticking out. There were two flat boxes with straps that were marked FILM. These things belonged to Danny, she felt sure, not to the artist. Danny said the light wasn’t any good. He was going to take her picture, and he wanted her to look like an angel. That didn’t sound like Danny. She’d have thought he would want her to look like a whore.

Julie was in luck when she reached the Actors Forum. A session had just ended. Nobody there knew much about pup-pets, but when she’d given the actors and apprentices the story, most of them volunteered to organize a street-by-street search of old West Side buildings in which a puppet theater might now be playing or where appropriate renovation might be under way. They would all go first to precinct headquarters and coordinate with the police. “Mind you,” Julie cautioned, “the real puppeteer said the woman didn’t know anything about puppets. It was probably a story made up to lure the youngster. She’s eleven years old and she’s pretty. What else can I tell you?”