Т Паркер - The Last Good Guy

By the time we got back to my truck I’d told Lark almost everything I knew about Paradise Date Farm. I could see the concentration on his face as he tried to collate the strange intelligence.

“Can you feed that video live to me?” he asked.

“Can you give me what you have on Atlas?”

“FBI property is...”

“And call me immediately if Daley Rideout pops onto your radar?”

Mike frowned, following a squad of pelicans as they V -ed through the sky. “Joan said you always tried to get more than you gave.”

“I’m a sole proprietor.”

Lark considered me for a beat, then nodded. “Deal.”

“Thank you. I miss her.”

Lark inhaled deeply, looked toward the diminishing pelicans, then to me. Again, that moment we’d shared once before, at Joan Taucher’s funeral. He didn’t have to say the words for me to hear them: You were with her and I wasn’t and she didn’t make it but you did.

“I do, too, Roland,” he said. “I hope you find the girl. And I hope you get some payback from those guys who dinged you up like this.”

Nodded and smiled my anguishing little stitch-lipped smile. “Me too,” I said.

I sat in my truck and checked messages. Watched Lark pick his way out of the crowded parking lot in his assigned Bureau take-home, an unmarked white Chrysler with a not-quite-hidden light package built into the roof. Younger agents get the hand-me-downs. He stopped for a family of four scuttling from the lot toward the sand, bristling with beach chairs, towels, and toys.

Then a buzz of phone, and Penelope Rideout’s name on the screen.

“I found something of Daley’s that might help us,” she said. “When can you be here?”

She opened the door before I could knock, let me in with an appraiser’s squint and an air of conspiracy.

Her living room floor was strewn with school papers and art projects, girls’ clothes and toys and precarious stacks of CDs. Plastic horses. A plastic castle. The ceiling fan jostled papers and doll hair.

Two open toy chests — a pink Cinderella and a yellow Beauty and the Beast — sat on the coffee table in front of the plaid couch, some of their treasures relocated to the floor.

The boom box was now on the half-wall that separated the small living room from the kitchen. Penelope nodded me to the couch, sat in one of the director’s chairs, and aimed a remote at the player.

I sat as a young girl’s whisper came from the speakers:

This is a very dangerous thing to do. Penny is the world’s greatest sister, but she wants to know everything I do and say and even think. I need something that is just mine. She would totally destroy this CD if she found it. Penny’s always afraid. Of, like, everything, but especially men. I wish I had a mom and a dad. Alive, I mean. But I have only my sister. She loves me, but she smothercates me. I think she misses Mom and Dad more than I do because she was older. I was four. I remember the police and the woman coming to our door. It was raining.

Penny totally shut down my Twitter and Facebook. Which means I have to, like, make new accounts, but then she’ll sneak in and shut me down. Again. I tried to get my own credit card a bunch of times, but I always make a mistake and get busted. I should not have said I was a neurosurgeon, probably.

This CD is like an old-fashioned diary, but I talk it instead of write it. My teachers all say I’m a very good writer for my age, but talking is faster and I can hide a CD easier than a notebook. I can even make a copy in case Penny finds the original. Hide the copy in the attic where Penny hates to go. Because of mice.

I’m outta here.

After a few seconds’ pause, the recording clicked off.

Then on again. A shuffle of what sounded like papers, a quick patch of static, then Daley Rideout’s clear, articulate voice again:

I’m back!

So, the reason I’m making this CD is because I don’t have anyone to talk to about certain. Very. Personal. Subjects.

I mean, Bellamy and I are best friends forever, but I’ve moved a lot so I know that forever isn’t long since Penny keeps blocking my social media. And there are some things I don’t want Bellamy to know. We are, like, the two different sides of one coin. She can be very judgmental, especially about boys.

For example? James, who I want to talk to but he’s always got other girls with him. He’s older. I don’t know why I like some boys, but I do. Not all. But the ones I like, they make me feel happy when they’re around. Powerful, too. One thing that I know about boys? They’re faster and stronger than girls, but inside they’re weak. So, when I look at James, I like him even more. Today? I pulled a small leaf out of his hair. His hair is brown, and wavy. I didn’t actually touch him — I did not — only his hair. But it made me feel good and, like, fizzy, and this is an example of why I can’t tell Bellamy, who is against boys. Or my sister, who is afraid of everything. So I will tell my secrets only to you, my little CD. My compact diary.

I’m outta here.

Penelope stopped the player with the remote and looked at me. Hair back in a clip, a black tank top and capris, bare feet.

“First of all, Roland,” she said. “You can believe what you want about me. But the facts will always be facts and your beliefs don’t change them. I’m a fact.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re a hard and immovable man.”

“But upgraded from ox.”

“That didn’t really bother you. Did it?”

“It was funny.”

“You win, Roland. I’m done apologizing.”

I looked at her with all the impartiality I could muster. I earnestly tried to view her as she was. Only as she was. A subject to be identified. All fact; no fiction. Get to the truth of her.

“Where did you find this CD?” I asked.

“I was going through her room, looking for some clue, anything that might lead me to her. I flipped through her music, thought I’d like to hear the Jewel album I gave her. No Jewel in that jewel case, though — just sixty minutes of Daley. I opened every last case and found another disk she’d made. Recent. From last year, when she was thirteen.”

“Have you contacted Bellamy?” I asked.

“Yes. She hasn’t communicated with Daley since the move. Since just after that recording was made.”

“Why did you leave Phoenix?”

“Pastor Atlas had found us again,” said Penelope. “He drove past our house. I saw him five times. Once in his bus, the fancy big one. The Silver Eagle. The other times in one of his cars. He loves cars.”

I thought again of Penelope’s story about Reggie Atlas. Its plausible and implausible horrors. I thought again of the preacher’s story about Penelope Rideout. And I recalled the cliché about clashing stories: her version, his version, and the truth.

And of course I thought of Daley’s secret sharer, courtesy of Carrie Calhoun and Alanis Tervalua.

A man old enough to be Daley’s grandfather, to whom she felt a spiritual connection. Who had told her that they were like ghosts flying through each other.

Whom Daley had known for years, “off and on.”

And with whom Daley had started to talk in earnest a few months ago.

I thought of Daley feeling like a puppet in the rain.

And how talking to her secret man was like turning off the rain so she could turn into a woman.

I remembered what Penelope had said about Atlas, her alleged tormentor: “He’s more evil than you understand.”

“Here she is again,” said Penelope. “Age twelve.”

She pointed the remote control at the boom box. Stood and began circling her way around the toys and CDs and clutter as Daley’s voice took over.