Richard Price - The Whites

“I know.”

Milton checked the time, then took a sip of punch.

“He’s missing?” Maldonado said. “Like that’s a bad thing?”

“He ain’t like that no more,” the girlfriend said.

“He turned himself around,” her sister said.

“Like this?” Maldonado stood up, curled a hand over his head like an umbrella handle, and pirouetted.

“See, that’s why people hate on you around here.”

“Actually, they don’t,” Maldonado said, returning to his reports.

“You should ask harder about that.”

“In any event, it’s got to be forty-eight hours before someone can be considered missing.”

“That’s what it is, forty-eight hours,” the girlfriend said.

“You said yesterday,” he said.

“She meant the yesterday before yesterday,” her sister said. “That’s forty-eight hours.”

“Oh. OK.”

“Yeah, he was, we were fighting on the phone, then I heard some other guy say, ‘Hey Sweetpea, come over here.’”

“Oh yeah? Then what happened.”

“Sweetpea said, ‘Oh shit,’ and hung up.”

“This is getting to be a real mystery,” Maldonado said, again without looking at them. “Where was this?”

“I don’t know. Concord Avenue maybe?”

“Maybe?”

“I was on the phone, how do I know.”

“When.”

“Around three.”

“Last night?”

“Yeah.”

“Gotcha!” Maldonado lightly slapping his desk. “See? That’s not forty-eight hours.”

“Fuck him,” the girlfriend said. “Let’s go to Missing Persons direct.”

“They’ll tell you the same.”

As they turned to leave, raised middle fingers over their heads like pennants, Maldonado called out to them, the snapshot of Sweetpea Harris in his extended hand. “Keep it,” he said. “We already have one.”

Once the two women finally made it out the door, the desk sergeant looked over to Milton. “Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?”

Milton glanced at the wall clock again and drew a deep, shaky breath. “I got to be somewheres.”

He sat alongside her desk as she listened to his heart, a stray fingertip brushing his chest.

He thought just the boom of it would knock her off her chair.

All she had to do was recognize him and it was game over.

What could he possibly do after that?

“Turn, please?” The cold disk now pressing into his lower back.

“Sounds pretty clear,” she murmured, making a notation on his emergency room form.

“Maybe now they do.”

“Any history of bronchitis, asthma…”

“No.”

“Any recent injuries?”

“No.”

“Been under any stress?”

“Everybody’s under stress.”

“I’m asking about you,” finally looking up from her notes, her Pietà eyes blind in her head.

“Tell the truth, I’m feeling a little stressed right now.”

“Well sure, you’re in a hospital,” she said, looking over his shoulder to a small ruckus in the waiting room.

How about you on that front? Milton thought. Any stress on your end?

“How about allergies, any allergies?”

“Could be.”

“What’s ‘could be,’” looking at him again.

“I just got back from visiting my brother in Atlanta.” He almost said “my brother Rudy,” but that would make it too easy. “He bought his kid a cat since the last time and I got a little cloudy in the chest.”

“That’s no good,” writing again.

“You ever been to Atlanta?” he asked.

Since taking a seat next to her, the tension he felt had him speaking in a near mumble, and either she didn’t hear the question or she was just off somewhere in her head. Either way he didn’t want to ask again, didn’t want to lead her any more than that. It would be too much like begging.

Just recognize me. Stop me in my tracks by saying my name, then drop to your knees to ask my forgiveness and explain to me through your tears why you did it. Then maybe, just maybe, we can both survive this.

Last chance for us both.

When he next looked at her, she was staring back at him as if he had spoken aloud, her eyes fixed with a look of unguarded intensity.

His shortness-of-breath gambit was no longer a joke.

“Are you on the Job?” she finally said.

“I work for FedEx, it’s right on the form there.”

“Huh. My husband’s a cop and I could have sworn…”

“I get that a lot.”

Recognize me, just let me see you tremble with memory, I’ll settle for that…

But the moment passed. She went into her desk, brought out a blood pressure cuff, and gestured for his arm.

Seated as close as they were, he could reach out and grip her by the throat so fast she couldn’t make a sound, couldn’t signal or even move. He could choke the life out of her before anyone even knew what had happened.

“Your BP’s through the roof.”

“Must be the cats,” he said hoarsely, Milton near livid with despair.

When Billy got home the next morning, he was relieved to discover that Carmen was at work and the boys at school. He went directly to the refrigerator, made himself his double usual, and was asleep within the hour.

He awoke at three-thirty to find himself back-to-back in bed with his father, who was chatting up a storm with his dead wife. The boys were somewhere in the house killing each other.

Billy got out of bed, put on his bathrobe, and went back into the kitchen. As he shambled to the coffeemaker, he nearly tripped over Carlos’s camo jacket, which lay in a heap on the floor. When he picked it up, the jacket was tacky to the touch and smelled of paint. Holding it in front of himself by the epaulets, he discovered what he at first took to be a red five-pointed star, still in the process of drying, planted between the shoulders.

No, not a star. The bulk of the image was more fan-shaped than round, and the five points were actually all emanating in a curved line from the top of that fan, the thing now looking more like a handprint — was a handprint, a big one.

“Carlos!”

The kid came up from the basement wearing nothing but his underpants.

“What happened to your jacket?” Showing him the damage.

“I don’t know.”

The outline of the hand was crudely precise. Not casual. Not accidental.

“Did anyone touch you today?”

“Touch?”

“Put their hand on you.” Then: “A grown-up?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know,” Billy starting to pace a little. “How about did anybody talk to you today. Other than your teachers.”

“My friends?”

“Not your friends, grown-ups.”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t know.” Carlos shrugged, bored by the whole thing.

Billy took a breath; was he making something out of nothing?

As if reading his father’s mind, Carlos wheeled toward the basement, Billy half-relieved to see him go. But then he stopped at the head of the stairs and turned back around.

“Oh, wait. A man came up to me and said, ‘Say hello to your parents.’”

“What? Whoa, whoa…” Billy felt a sprung dampness on the back of his neck. “What man?”

“By my school, he came up to me.”

“And said what.”

“I said already.”

Once again, Carlos tried to make a run for the basement, this time Billy having to grab his arm.

“Carlos!” his older brother shouted from down in the dark.

“What do you mean ‘by’ the school,” Billy said. “In the school? Outside? Before school, after…”

“When I was going to the bus home, he came up to me and said say hello to your parents but I didn’t talk to him, I swear.”