Jan Burke - Remember Me, Irene

Watching her, I felt a sense of relief. She knew exactly what she was doing. Once again, I was struck by her ability to appear in command of any situation. Part of it was her height, her athletic build. Most of it was something in her attitude. I stepped out of the warm car into weather cold enough to chill my breath. As I closed the car door, the men watched me with open curiosity.

“It’s okay,” Rachel said easily. “She’s a friend of mine.”

The man dressed in blue stepped forward again. “Squeaky send you down here, Rachel?”

“Not today, Blue. And you know Ms. Wentworth doesn’t like to be called Squeaky.”

I had to stifle laughter. Given her high-pitched voice, “Squeaky” was the perfect nickname for Wentworth, one of the public defenders Rachel worked for.

He shrugged. “She ain’t here, so she can’t take no offense. Ain’t here and never will be. She wouldn’t want to soil her little self, right, boys?”

The others nodded.

“Give her a break,” Rachel said. “County isn’t exactly heaven on earth. She’s too busy keeping you guys out of jail to come down here and socialize.”

“This cold, she mightn’t be doin’ anybody a favor,” Blue said. He looked over at me. “Who’s this lady with the great peepers?”

“This is Irene. Irene, meet Blue. No need to tell you why he likes the color of your eyes.”

I extended a hand. He nodded, stayed where he was, but said, “Pleased to make your ’quaintance.”

The others hooted at him.

“You boys got no manners,” he said stiffly. He gestured to the other men. “This here’s Decker,” he said, pointing to a man with fists like hams. Then, as he pointed to a skinny fellow, a short, gray-haired man in a fatigue jacket, and a heavyset man, “Beans, Corky, and Rooster. Not their right names, of course, but they earned them. You want to know how?”

“Sure,” I said, causing Rachel to mutter something under her breath in Italian.

Blue grinned. “Decker ’cause he can flatten anybody, Beans ’cause he smells like that’s all he eats, Corky ’cause-I dunno, he’s always been called Corky, and-” He paused and grinned, waiting.

Before I could ask, Rachel said, “And Rooster, because he can’t keep his pants up. No need to demonstrate, Rooster, I don’t like to laugh too much before noon.”

The men hooted again, Rooster included. “You come up into my coop sometime, Rachel,” he said, hitching up his belt. “I’ll show you that I got something to crow about.”

“That’s all right, Chicken Little.”

“Oooh, she got you good,” Blue said, laughing.

“Give it up, Rooster,” the man in a fatigue jacket said. “The Amazon just might send you on a ride.”

“Amazon, huh?” Rachel said. “Well, you aren’t the first one to think that one up. No, I’m not in the mood to put anyone in an ambulance today. I’m really much daintier than I look.”

This brought another round of laughter.

“You’re Corky?” she asked the man in fatigues.

He nodded.

“Irene is trying to find one of her friends,” Rachel said. “We thought you might know him.”

No laughter. They all looked away from me then.

“Come on, now,” Rachel said. “Nobody is trying to get anybody into trouble. She really is just looking for someone she knows.”

“You know how it is, Rachel,” Blue said. “Somebody don’t want to be found, we ain’t gonna find ’im. It’s the way of things.”

The others all murmured their agreement. Following Rachel’s lead, I let the silence stretch. Corky nudged Blue and whispered something to him.

“Well, Corky, that’s a good point. Corky was saying there was no harm in listening to you say who you was lookin’ for, but-well, first off, you wouldn’t happen to have another one of them cigarettes, would you, Rachel?”

“Sure I do,” Rachel said, but didn’t reach inside her jacket for the pack.

Blue narrowed his eyes. “You don’t smoke, do you?”

“No, I carry them just in case I meet somebody who might like one.”

“Tradin’ on our bad habits, you mean,” Beans said.

“Tell her what she wants to know,” Corky said crankily. “You all knew she was a snoop before she drove up.”

“I’m looking for a man named Lucas Monroe,” I said.

They looked at one another blankly, all except Corky. He was studying us.

“You might know him as the Professor,” I added.

“The Prof,” Corky said.

“The Prof?” Blue said. “You looking for a black dude?”

I nodded. The cigarettes came out of Rachel’s pocket, but she didn’t extend the pack.

“Corky knows the Prof real well,” Blue added.

The pack made the rounds again.

“Now Rachel, don’t get mad at me,” Corky said. “This is the God’s truth. The Prof isn’t around much anymore. He got religion or something. He’s living at that new shelter, going to AA and the whole bit.”

“Hell, Corky, you haven’t told me a thing I didn’t already know,” she said.

“How could I know what you do and don’t know already? What am I, woman, a mind reader?”

She gave him a look that made him bundle up tighter in his worn fatigue jacket.

“He hasn’t been to the shelter for a few days,” I said. “He missed his curfew on Thursday night, and hasn’t been back since. Have you seen him in the last three or four days?”

Corky shook his head. “Any of you seen him?” he asked the others.

Solemn head shaking.

“Before he cleaned up,” I asked, “where did he sleep?”

“Buses, mostly,” Corky said. “Sometimes he stayed in one of the old hotels.”

“Which hotels?” Rachel asked.

“The Hyatt and the Hilton.” It brought out a round of laughter from the others.

When Rachel and I didn’t join in on the joke, he scowled. “How do you know the Prof?” he asked me.

“I was his student once.”

“The Prof was a real prof?” Blue asked.

“He taught at Las Piernas College,” I said. “I ran into him at a bus stop one day. A friend at the shelter told me he might be looking for me.”

“Wait a minute,” Corky said. “You the reporter?”

“Yes.”

The others stepped back again.

“Aw, relax,” Corky told them. He turned back to me. “You’re not here to do a story on any of us, right?”

“Right. Just want to find Lucas-the Prof. Did he mention me to you?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Saw you when he was sleeping one off on a bus bench. That was before he went on the wagon.” He paused, a distant look coming over his face for a moment. “Twenty.”

“Give me a break,” Rachel said. “I could start an auction right here among your pals and do better than that.”

After some arguing with the others, Corky said, “If you fellows don’t learn to stand your ground, others will continue to take advantage of your misfortune.”

“Cork it, Corky,” Blue said, then turned to Rachel. “The minute he starts talking like that, he knows he’s beat. He’ll tell you for fifteen.”

Rachel looked to Corky, who scowled, then reached out a filthy hand.

“Oh no, let’s hear it first.”

“Prof said he knew some reporter on the Express. Said one day he was going to go see her, tell her his story. Said it would be big news.”

“That’s worth zero to me,” Rachel said, “unless you know what this big story was.”

Corky got a speculative look in his eye.

“Don’t even bother making something up,” Rachel said.

Corky looked resigned. “Nah, he didn’t give away a lot, even when he’d been drinking. Christ, Rachel, give a man a break.”

“We’ve been talking to people all day. They tell us you’re his buddy, the one he hangs out with.”