J. Robb - Big Jack

“You can probably guess that’s mine,” she said, pointing at her vehicle. “What you might not be able to guess is that if anybody messes with it, I’ll hunt you down and pop your eyes out with my thumbs.”

“Hey.” A guy wearing a dingy muscle shirt and a gleaming silver earring flipped her the bird. “Fuck you.”

“No, thanks, but it’s sweet of you to ask. I’m looking for Tina Cobb.”

There were whistles, catcalls, kissy noises. “That’s one fiiine piece of ass.”

“I’m sure she’s delighted you think so. Is she around?”

Muscle Shirt stood up. He poked out his chest and jabbed a finger at Eve’s. Fortunately for him, he stopped short of actual contact. “What you want to hassle Tina for? She don’t do nothing. Girl works hard, minds her own.”

“Who said I was going to hassle her? She might be in trouble. If you’re a friend of hers, you’ll want to help.”

“Didn’t say I was a friend. Just said she minds her own. So do I. Whyn’t you?”

“Because I get paid to mind other people’s own, and you’re starting to make me wonder why you can’t answer a simple question. In a minute, I’m going to start minding yours instead of Tina Cobb’s.”

“Cops is all shit.”

She bared her teeth in a glittering grin. “Want to test that theory?”

He snorted, shot a glance over his shoulder at his companions as if to let them see he wasn’t worried about it. “Too hot to bother,” he said, and shrugged his skinny shoulders. “Ain’t seen Tina for a couple of days anyway. Don’t run a tab on her, do I? Her sister works across the street at the bodega. Whyn’t you ask her?”

“I’ll do that. Mitts off the car, boys. Pitiful as it is, it’s mine.”

They walked across the street. Eve assumed the kissing noises and invitations for sexual adventure that came from the stoop were now aimed at her and Peabody. But she let it go. The skinny asshole was right about one thing. It was too hot to bother.

Inside, she noted the girl manning the checkout counter. Short, thin, olive complexion, an odd updo of hair with purple fringes over the ink black.

“I could get us something,” Peabody offered. “Something to do with food.”

“Go ahead.” Eve walked to the counter, waited while the customer in front of her paid for a pack of milk powder and a minuscule box of sugar substitute.

“Help you?” the woman said, without much interest.

“I’m looking for Tina Cobb. You’re her sister?”

The dark eyes widened. “What do you want with Tina?”

“I want to talk to her.” Eve slipped out her badge.

“I don’t know where she is, okay? She wants to take off for a couple days, it’s nobody’s sweat, is it?”

“Shouldn’t be.” Eve had run Tina Cobb in the car and knew the sister’s name was Essie. “Essie, why don’t you take a break?”

“I can’t, okay. I can’t. I’m working alone today.”

“And nobody’s in here right now. Did she tell you where she was going?”

“No. Shit.” Essie sat down on a high stool. “Oh shit. She’s never been in trouble in her life. She spends all the time cleaning up after rich people. Maybe she just wanted some time off.” There was fear lurking behind the eyes now. “She maybe went on a trip.”

“Was she planning a trip?”

“She’s always planning. When she had enough saved she was going to do this, and that, and six million other things. Only she never saved enough for any of it. I don’t know where she is. I don’t know what to do.”

“How long’s she been gone?”

“Since Saturday. Saturday night she goes out, doesn’t come back since. Sometimes she doesn’t come home at night. Sometimes I don’t. You get a guy, you want to stay out, you stay, right?”

“Sure. So she’s been gone since Saturday?”

“Yeah. She’s got Sundays off, so what the hell, you know? But she’s never been gone like this without letting me know. I called her work today and asked for her, and they said she didn’t show. I probably got her in trouble. I shouldn’ta called her work.”

“You haven’t reported her missing?”

“Shit, you don’t report somebody missing ’cause they don’t come home a couple nights. You don’t go to the cops for every damn thing. Around here, you don’t go to them for nothing.”

“She take any of her things?”

“I dunno. Her maid suit’s still there, but her red shirt and her black jeans aren’t. Her new airsandals neither.”

“I want to go inside the apartment, look around.”

“She’s gonna be pissed at me.” Essie scooped up the soft tacos and Pepsis Peabody laid on the counter, did the transaction. “What the hell. She shouldn’ta gone off without saying. I wouldn’t do it to her. I gotta close up. I can’t take more than fifteen, or I’ll get in real trouble.”

“That’s fine.”

It was two tiny rooms with a bump on the living area that served as the kitchen. The sink was about the width and depth of a man’s cupped palm. In lieu of the pricier privacy screens, there were manual shades at the windows that did absolutely nothing to cut the street or sky noise.

Eve thought it was like living in a transpo station.

There was a two-seater couch Eve imagined converted to a bed, an ancient and clunky entertainment screen and a single lamp in the shape of a cartoon mouse she suspected one of them had saved from childhood.

Despite its size and sparseness, the apartment was pin neat. And, oddly enough to her mind, smelled as female as the girl-powered travel agency had.

“Bedroom’s through there.” Essie pointed at the doorway. “Tina won the toss when we moved in, so she has the bedroom and I sleep out here. But it’s still pretty tight, you know? So that’s why if one of us has a guy, we usually go to his place.”

“She have a guy?” Eve asked as Peabody walked toward the bedroom.

“She’s been seeing somebody a couple of weeks. His name’s Bobby.”

“Bobby got a last name?”

“Probably.” Essie shrugged. “I don’t know it. She’s with him, probably. Tina’s got this real romantic heart. She falls for a guy, she falls hard.”

Eve scanned the bedroom. One narrow bed, neatly made, one child-sized dresser, likely brought from home. There was a pretty little decorative box on it and a cheap vase with fake roses. Eve lifted the top of the box, heard the tinkling tune it played and saw a few pieces of inexpensive jewelry inside.

“We share the closet,” Essie said as Peabody poked inside the tiny closet.

“Where’d she meet this Bobby?” Peabody asked her, and moved from the closet into the bathroom.

“I don’t know. We live in this box together, but we try to stay out of each other’s faces, you know? She just says she met this guy, and he’s really cute and sweet and smart. Said he knew all about books and art and shit. She goes for that. She went out to meet him like at an art gallery or something one night.”

“You never met him?” Eve asked.

“No. She was always meeting him somewhere. We don’t bring guys here much. Jeez, look at this place.” She looked around it with the forlorn and resigned expression of a woman who knew it was the best she was going to do. “She was going out to meet him Saturday night, after work and shit. To a play or something. When she didn’t come home, I figured she’d stayed at his place. No big. But she doesn’t miss work, and she hasn’t ever stayed out of touch this long, so I’m starting to worry, you know?”

“Why don’t we file a report?” Peabody stepped back out of the bath. “A missing person’s report.”

“Oh man, you think?” Essie scratched at her bicolored hair. “She comes waltzing in here and finds out I did that, she’ll be on my case for a month. We don’t have to tell my parents, do we? They’ll get all twisted inside out and come running over here hysterical and whatever.”