Stephen White - Missing Persons

“You take care of her?”

“I watch out for her. Difference. Nobody can protect her from being crazy. I learned that lesson as a kid. Paranoid schizes have the kind of crazy that comes from someplace else. Someplace where the tiniest wires are jumbled, someplace you and I don’t ever get to visit. All I do-all I can do-is I protect her from people who prey. That’s all. I let them know if they fuck with her, they have to fuck with me. People in town have learned to leave well enough alone; people new to town need lessons. It’s what I wished I could have done for my mother.”

Raoul lost the visual connection in the pane of glass as Canada shifted the range of focus from Raoul’s eyes to the infinity of the desert night. From inside to out.

“That’s generous of you,” Raoul said, already wondering whether his empathy was being misapplied.

“Is it?”

Raoul didn’t want to argue the point. A linguistic chameleon, he adopted his host’s vernacular. “Has someone fucked with her lately?”

“People have been coming in from out of town. It’s not been welcome. We’ve had to deal with it.”

Raoul felt the reverberation: Diane had come in from out of town. He put his cards on the table. “My wife flew to Las Vegas looking for Rachel. She had some questions about her daughter-Rachel’s missing daughter. I’m sure you know that. Before she was able to meet with Rachel, Diane disappeared off the casino floor at the Venetian. That was Monday night. I’m worried about her, very worried. I’d like to know where she is. I’m happy to tell you what I know.”

With just the slightest spice of menace added to his tone-a verbal dash of cayenne-North said, “Doesn’t make any difference to me whether or not you’re happy. But you will tell me what you know. One thing, though, Raoul. May I call you Raoul?”

“Of course. What’s that?”

“It’s not all about your wife.”

Raoul felt some intimidation then. He shrank a little at the words, had to remind himself not to cower, and had to remind himself that Canada held all the good cards. “Okay,” he said.

“Now, like I said, I can’t find her-Rachel. You feel the echo there? Yes, me, too.” He exhaled through pursed lips. “I’m not happy I can’t find her. Are we in the same boat, Raoul? You and me? The not-happy-I-can’t-find-her boat?”

“Are we?” Raoul asked.

“I think so. I think we are.”

Raoul dove so far into his host’s eyes that he was almost submerged. Sensing something there, he took a last look at his cards and went all-in. “Diane was led out of the Venetian casino on Monday evening by two men. They weren’t yours?” He pulled the grainy screen shot that Marlina had given him from his pocket, unfolded it, and handed it to Canada.

“You think they were mine?” Canada asked after a quick glance at the photograph of three people walking through the casino at the Venetian.

Totally cognizant of how provocative his words were, Raoul said, “I did.”

“If they were mine, you’d be a dead man. You feel like a dead man?”

“I admit I’ve felt better.”

Canada laughed. A stretch of silence consumed half a minute before he added, “They’re not mine.” He raised the photograph, grasping it between his thumb and index finger, and rotated it so that it faced Raoul. “You don’t recognize the tall guy? I’m surprised; you seem like an observant man.”

Raoul leaned over and squinted at the taller of the two men. “Should I?”

“I hear you call him ‘Reverend Howie.’ ”

“What? Mierda. His hair…”

“That’s not his hair. Probably won it in a poker game.”

Raoul had participated in a thousand negotiations, some of them involving tens of millions of dollars. In every deal, instinct was his guide. He relied on that intuition and felt around in the dark for whatever direction he was going to get. “Howie didn’t take Diane for you?”

Canada hesitated before he shook his head.

“Do you recognize the other man?” Raoul asked.

Canada took another fleeting glance at the paper. “If I admit I do, what happens then?”

Raoul jumped at the bait. “If Diane’s okay, I swear I’ll-”

Canada held his left hand out. A stop sign. “No, my friend. No… No. The ifs are all mine. You don’t get any ifs. These two people weren’t working for me. I don’t know what they’ve done, or to whom. That means there are no ifs left over for you. We clear?”

No, Raoul thought. He said, “Yes.”

“Good. I repeat, if I admit I do recognize him, what happens then?”

“I will be grateful for your assistance,” Raoul said.

“How grateful?”

Raoul wondered momentarily if Canada was trying to extort some money. He recalled Tico’s admonition in the car- Everything’s temporary but people. That’s what he says, says it all the time- and decided that it wasn’t likely that Canada was squeezing a reward from him. Raoul said, “I will be completely grateful. So grateful you won’t be playing any echoes about this.”

“Ever?”

“Ever.”

“And if you happen to run across Rachel?”

“Goes without saying. You’ll know first.”

Canada poked at the photograph. “This guy? The one with Howard? Showed up in town a day or so before your wife, went to Rachel’s apartment looking for her, failed, then started asking around about how to find her. Howard alerted us that the guy came to the chapel. Howard, it now appears, was playing both ends against the middle. Well, that’s a tougher game than Hold ’Em-and soon enough, if he isn’t already, Howard will regret he anteed in. We started keeping an eye on the new man. Lost him for a while. Found him again. Eventually he had a traffic accident. Sad thing.”

“Serious accident?” Raoul asked.

Canada feigned a sympathetic face. “Misjudged a curve in the mountains. His car had Colorado plates. Tico?” he called.

Tico hustled in carrying a half-eaten piece of cold pizza. His mouth was full. Canada pointed at the photo. “You know where?”

Tico glanced at the picture, then at Raoul, swallowed, and said, “I could probably find it.”

“Show our friend.”

“Not sure I can do it in the dark, Boss. You tell me to try, though, I will.”

Canada tapped his manicured fingernails on the arm of the chair. “Find Raoul a bed for the night, some clean towels, and offer him some food. You can take him out in the morning. And Raoul?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t mind that I hold on to this?” He lifted the photograph. “I’d like to show it to Howard.”

I was wide-eyed and body-weary long before Sam’s arrival for our Saturday run, but the winter sky was too black for daybreak and the bedroom too cold to consider popping right out of bed. I waited for the growl of the paper guy’s Power Wagon to come and go and for the first unmistakable illuminations of dawn before I rolled reluctantly into the day.

Even the dogs thought I was crazy. Emily sighed at me, but she didn’t bother to get up to see what I had planned. Anvil, whose ears were beginning to fail him, didn’t acknowledge that I’d moved.

I forced myself to drink some water and I downed a banana after mindlessly trying to peel a plantain that Lauren or Viv had stuck in the fruit bowl. The plantain wasn’t ripe and wasn’t at all eager to be peeled. I totally mangled the thing before I figured out that I wasn’t wrestling with a mutant Chiquita.

New errand: Replace the damn plantain.

I thought I heard a car on the lane and peeked out the front door at 7:25. No Sam. I was hoping he’d spaced out the run or that he’d overslept. Jogging on a fifteen-degree morning didn’t sound any more appetizing to me than had eating an under-ripe plantain.