More Than an Echo (Echo Branson Series) (19 page)

Bob and I had been in the same foster home in the seventh grade; he was a year older than me, but had missed a lot of school because of his foster care hopping. Like me, Bob had been in and out of foster home after foster home. Unlike me, he struggled in school and those struggles led to some behavioral issues that made him hard to deal with.

I helped him as much as I could, but poor Bob could barely sit still. Our foster parents didn’t believe in medicating children, so they refused any sort of help for his hyperactivity. So he continued acting out in class, getting multiple detentions and usually failing every single class. Bob wasn’t stupid. He just needed help that wasn’t going to come.

Eventually, our foster parents sent Bob back. He was just too much for them to handle. I didn’t see him again until I moved into the city. The first time I took Luigi’s day olds to the Mission District, I ran into Bob. Quite literally. I was fighting with this enormous bag of pumpkin bagels that hadn’t gone over very well when I nearly knocked him over with the bag. He immediately recognized me, but I have to admit, it took me a couple of moments to see through the long hair and ratty beard. He was too thin and had aged terribly. Bob had opted to live on the streets rather than endure another failure in a foster home. In a way, I couldn’t blame him. A kid can only take so many rejections and beatings.

Bob became one of the many nameless faces we all walk by every day, hoping that they don’t speak to us or ask us for money. It was almost too hard to believe that someone I had grown up with would rather be homeless and alone than be forced to live in a family that didn’t want him.

At that time, I didn’t have much money on me, but the ten dollars I offered him wasn’t accepted. Bobby didn’t want my money, but he
did
want my bag of bagels. I’ve been delivering Luigi’s day-old bagels to him ever since.

“Hey, Jane, you’re late.” Bob waved at me as I handed him the plastic bag.

“Haven’t you heard? Beggars can’t be choosers.”

Bob tossed his head back and guffawed. “You slay me, Jane.” Bob peered in the bag as he always did. “Damn. Raisins. You like raisins, Jane?”

I shook my head. “I don’t.”

“In the day olds, raisins are like little stones.” Bob closed the bag and smiled at me. “But don’t worry, this beggar likes gift horses. Thank you. You have no idea how much the guys ’preciate these. It’s something we look forward to.”

Bob was a little like the Pied Piper of the panhandlers. His constituents loved him. The business owners liked him. He may have been a drunk, but he wasn’t a nutcase and he didn’t steal. He was just a good guy who had gotten lost in the shuffle as a kid and never found his way out.

“How are you doing today, Bob?”

Bob looked down the street both ways before pulling me into the nearest alley. He had never done this before, so it took me by surprise.

“A friend of mine’s missing,” he said so softly I almost didn’t hear him.

“Missing? What do you mean
, missing
?”

“His name is Rusty and he plays chess at the park every day. Every single day. But he hasn’t shown up in the last two days and we’re worried. All of us.”

Leveling my gaze at Bob, I lowered my shield to read more of him. He was neither drunk nor crazy; just really scared. I didn’t need to lower my shield to see that. It was etched all over his face. “Nobody has seen him?”

Bob shook his head. “Not a soul. The last person to see him was Oreo, and that was at the liquor store two days ago. As long as I’ve known him, Jane, he has never missed a day of chess.”

“You don’t think he’s just sleeping off a drunk?”

Bob shook his head. “Rusty drinks before he sleeps, but never during the day. He takes his chess seriously and alcohol clouds his thinking.”

“What do you think has happened to him?”

“I don’t know what to think. I just know he’s missing and I don’t know where else to turn. Can you check with the hospitals in the area? Maybe he got rolled.”

“I can do that. I’ll check with the SFPD as well.” I handed my card to Bob and patted his back. “Be sure to call me if he shows up. I’ve got this new job and I’m really busy running around trying to impress people.”

“Oh yeah? What’s the gig?”

“I’m training to be an investigative reporter. It’s going to take a lot of time to get where I want to be in my career, but this is my first real break.”

Bob’s face lit up. “Oh wow. Good for you, Jane. You deserve it. Nobody I’ve ever met works harder than you.” When we were kids, he used to laugh and say that I would always be his plain Jane. “Then I really appreciate you taking the time to look. I know you’re real busy.”

“If I find anything out, I’ll come down here. I’ll get on it this evening and see what I can see.”

“I really ’preciate it. Nobody’s saying anything, but we’re all getting a little jumpy down here. I don’t know. I’ve been sleeping with one eye open because something don’t feel right. Everyone feels it, too.”

Touching his shoulder, I said, “You stay safe, okay? I’ll see what I can find out. Do you have a last name for him? Maybe a description?”

“We don’t really do last names, but he has long red hair, freckles and wears his ’Nam dog tags.”

“Clothing?”

He shrugged. “The usual. Army jacket. Boots. Torn jeans. That’s all I know.”

I jotted this information down. “Got it. If you remember anything else, call me.”

We said our goodbyes and when I returned to Ladybug, I had to shake off Bob’s jumpy nature; Rusty’s disappearance had really spooked a guy who didn’t spook easily.

With a couple of hours to kill before my dinner with Danica, I decided to return to the office to make the calls to the hospitals in the area. When I arrived at our floor, I received a very unpleasant surprise. I had just walked in on the end of one of Carter’s stories starring none other than me.

“Can you even believe that? She thinks she can just waltz out there and be an investigative reporter! Shit, old man Bentley’s paired me up with Inspector Clouseau! Or is it Inspector Clue
less
?”

The three lackeys listening to his story laughed as if they were watching the Comedy Channel. Then, one of them saw me and his eyes grew so wide that the others, including Carter, turned to see what he was staring at.

“Go on, Carter,” I said, folding my arms. “Go ahead and finish your character assassination.”

The three now very uncomfortable audience members bowed their heads and slunk away with their tails between their legs. Served them right.

“Oh come on, Branson. Have a sense of humor. You have to admit—”

“You. Are. An. Asshole.” I said, stepping up to him. The room became still and thick with tension. “Is this how big people with tiny minds spend their time?”

Carter pulled himself up to his full height, hoping to intimidate me into silence. No such luck. I hadn’t been this pissed off in a long time. “I believe you would do well to note the manner in which you speak to me, Branson. After all, I am a man of—”

“Little integrity? No class? Big mouth? Stop me when I hit a wrong answer.”

Carter looked over my shoulder at the people who were watching our show. I was pretty sure that he wasn’t used to anyone taking him on face-to-face. What he needed to know was that I wasn’t just anyone.

“You have to admit, Branson, you’re only here because Old Man Bentley likes you.”

Glaring at him, I did something I never do. “I’m willing to put
my
money where
your
mouth is. I’ll bet you my car that I can come up with a bigger story than you.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

I inhaled deeply and took the plunge. “I’m so confident, I’ll put up my ‘sixty-five bug.”

“Against my Lexus? That’s not even close.”

“It’s collector’s car. It’s a classic. It’s a—”

“Volkswagen!”

Shrugging, I pushed past him. “Coward.”

“Fine. You can put up your
classi
c bug for my
expensive
Lexus, but you’ll have to do better than that. You want to go up against me, you’re gonna have to play hardball.”

I looked at him. I’d played hardball on the hard streets in Oakland. This white man wasn’t in the same league as any of the guys I’d played ball with. “Bring it.”

His upper lip curled into a snarl he wasn’t feigning. “Fine. Here’s the deal. You come up with a better story to follow or I get your red car
and
your pink slip.”

Now
that
was unexpected. “You want my...resignation?”

Folding his arms across his chest triumphantly, he nodded. “Absolutely. You are nothing more than a thorn in my side who doesn’t know shit about journalism. If you can’t produce the goods, I want you out of here. Go make someone else’s life miserable.”

Well, I’d pretty much asked for that hadn’t I? What could I do? Back out and apologize? Pretend like I never said it? No, I knew I had the chops for this job. All I had to do was prove it.

Pushing my hand out at him I nodded. “You’re on.”

“I can’t believe you painted yourself into such a damn tight corner.” Danica pushed her salad around on her plate until she found the croutons she was looking for. “What in the hell were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t. I was just so ticked off he was making fun of me in front of everyone, I just popped off without thinking.”

“And now you’ve got to put up or shut up. I cannot believe you bet Ladybug. You love that car.” Crunching  on the crouton, she made a face. Danica had more food issues than there was food.

“I’d love to keep my job even more.” Shaking my head, I sighed. “He is just such an ass.”

Returning her gaze to me, her light green eyes were intense. She could go from comic to philosopher in a heartbeat. A chameleon didn’t stand a chance against her. “Be that as it may, you’ve really done yourself in this time. Were the boys able to get you any usable information?”

“I’ve gone through about half of it. There’s a helluva lot of creepy shit going on out there. I’m sure I’ll find something.”

“No kidding. Any story or cold case strike your fancy?”

“Well, I did call the police department and spoke with a Sergeant Finn about possible cases to look into when I called about Rusty.”

Danica ran her hand through her close-cropped blond hair that drew both men and women alike to her. “Rusty? Who in the hell is Rusty?”

“He’s one of Bob’s homeless buddies. Bob is worried because Rusty is missing. I told Bob I would check out the hospitals and see if the cops knew anything.”

“And do they?”

I shook my head. “No on both counts. Without a last name, no one was very cooperative. No one remembered a long-haired, redheaded guy with dog tags from Vietnam.”

“Kinda hard to locate a missing person who has probably been missing for over ten years, don’t you think?” She glanced over at a man who had been staring our way since we sat down. “Needle in the haystack, Clark, even for the boys.”

 “I know, but I couldn’t say no to Bob. He had a real hinky feeling going on about him that I haven’t been able to shake. He is really scared.”

When she looked back at me, her gaze melted from the cold stare at the probing eyes into one light and airy. “Hinky? One day as an investigative reporter and already you’ve got a whole new lingo? You’ve known me for how many years, and I can’t even get one
girl fren
’ out of you?” Danica laughed before finishing the rest of the croutons in her salad. “So, maybe this is  your story.”

I looked at her. “A missing homeless guy is so not a story.”

Shrugging, she shooed the waiter away who was delivering a drink to the table. “Mayoral reelections are coming up, Clark, and what to do with the city’s homeless is one of the items on the docket.”

“The mayor is Carter’s baby. I need to stay far away from that story.”

“So...how are you going to keep your car and your job?”

Shrugging, I bit into my sandwich. “I need a real story; something to shut Carter’s mouth up for good. Something that will impress Wes Bentley.”

“Impress your audience first, Clark, the rest will follow. Or have you forgotten everything Prof. Rosenberg taught you in journalism one oh one?”

She had a point, as she always did.

“Well, the boys are at your disposal if you need anything. If there’s any story in or out of cyberspace, they
can
and
will
find it for you. Just consider them your own personal research team. You know how they love working for you.”

“Thanks.”

We ate our dinner and chatted more about our lives. We’d sworn off talking about Tip, so we discussed her sex life instead. Danica was a power dater. She only dated powerful men and even then, the rule was they couldn’t stay the night. Ever. We weren’t sure whether or not she had commitment issues, but no one man had ever managed to be enough for Danica Johnson. If a man lasted to the fourth date, he had overstayed his welcome.

I, on the other hand, had a handful of failed relationships to my credit. I had yet to find a woman I trusted enough with my secret, which made a real relationship almost impossible to pull off. Even with my guards and shields up, I knew when a woman just wasn’t my emotional match. There’s no getting around that fact when you’re an empath. It was a little like having X-ray vision; sometimes you saw things you just didn’t want to see even when you weren’t looking.