More Than an Echo (Echo Branson Series) (29 page)

Finn nodded. “Can I see it?”

She looked at it carefully. “Pretty good. Have you found any connections other than they’re all homeless men, they drink and some, not all, are vets?”

I shook my head. “No one has found their bodies. There’s been no blood found.”

Walking over to a bench, we sat down and she held the list up for us both to see. “Let’s see what the two of us can do with this list.”

I sat next to her and studied it, my chin on her shoulder, scooting closer to her and she threaded her fingers through mine. I really liked having Marist Finn in my corner. I wondered how much longer it would be before I found her in my bed.

I waited until after ten in the morning before calling Danica.

“Hey, Clark. How’s Metropolis’s greatest reporter?”

“Good. Any plans for tonight?”

“Why? Are we supersleuthing again? You know how I love sneaking around in the dark and spying on people.”

“The sad thing is I know you really dig sneaking around in the dark, but what about sneaking around in the dark Tenderloin?”

“Oh, heart be still. Not another lovely junket into the sleazy underbelly of the city. Damn, are you getting any of this down? I say some pretty quotable lines, you know?”

“Aren’t you in a mood? What happened?”

“We sold the boys’ newest computer game to Epic Studios for a buttload of money and a movie option. Can you say cha-ching.”

“They option computer games for movies now?”

“Oh, Clark, you are a technological throwback. You really need to get out more. Of course they option games. Haven’t you ever heard of Lara Croft?”

“Lara who?”

“Never mind. Geez, you are out of the pop culture loop. Do you ever go to the movies?”

“Yes, but not to watch movies twelve-year-old boys watch.”

“Then you’re missing out, Clark. Those twelve-to twenty-five-year-old boys make Momma money. I’ll not have you denigrating my customer base.”

“Fine. Congratulations on another success...Momma.”

She chuckled. “They’re already talking about a spin-off from the original game and everything. We are going to make a bundle. But you want to know the best part? They’re willing to package our educational CD with it.”

“Excellent.”

“Yeah, it’s a good start for a great product and a new market. Carl has got a great series for new readers that he’s working on. Blows
Hooked on Phonic
s to pieces. It’s exciting. Anyway, back to you. Do you need some muscle for the trip into the dark expanse of—”

“Please...no more quotable lines. Yes, I need backup. We need to find out more about these missing guys. Find the tie that binds. There’s something I am missing.”

“Sounds like this could take all night. I’ll wear my high-tops and bring plenty of mace. Should I bring energy food in case we need it?”

I laughed. It was always about food with her. “Sure. Bring sweets too. Only
you
could make a picnic out of a job. Meet me at my place around ten.”

“You’ll know it’s me. I’ll be wearing all black and smelling of Coco Chanel.”

“Nerd.” I hung up, smiling. As I was feeding Tripod, the phone rang.

“Hey Echo, it’s Darryl Jardine. You got a minute?”

“For you, I have ten.”

“Thanks. Look, I was just thinking about what you said about nobody listening to you and I wondered if you’ve tried going to the mayor about this.”

“The mayor.”

“Well, he’s looking at reelection and like it or not he has a homeless population that needs tending to. Who knows? You might just give him a cause to hang his hat on.”

“Have you ever met him?”

“Of course. He is a regular guy and he truly cares about this city of ours. The brass really likes him. The guy is full of integrity, he backs up the cops, and he gets high marks on his stance on crime.”

I hadn’t thought about the mayor, except to cover his ass where Carter was concerned, but maybe he would find my information interesting enough to get the police department off
its
ass.

Packing up my gear and my notes, I threw a can of tuna at the cat, who acted like I hadn’t fed him in a month. I was almost in Ladybug when I saw a white dog running toward me. I knelt down and patted Cotton.

“Lost another one last night. I thought you’d want to know,” Shirley said, hobbling toward me.

“Who?”

“Name was Stinky Pete. Real sweetheart. Other than his stench, he is a wonderful young man. Well-liked.”

“What happened?”

She shrugged. “No witnesses. Stinky does the same routine night after night. When he didn’t show up to drink and play cards with his buddies, they went looking for him. Nothing.” Shirley shook her head. “Vanished like a ghost. Poof.”

“Anyone know his real name?”

“You got me, sweetie. About all I can tell you is that he’s an old, smelly, white guy with a beard down to here. Wears this smelly peacoat, hence his name. I came as soon as I could.”

“Thank you.” I pulled out my list and added Stinky Pete to it. “Can I drop you off somewhere?”

“I would rather you find who’s doing this. People are getting nervous, starting to carry knives and pipes and stuff. The Tenderloin isn’t a safe place, at the best of times. Don’t turn your back on anyone, not even me. Where there’s fear, there’s danger, and the community is very afraid.”

I shared her cautions with Danica that evening.

“I got all the protection we’re going to need right here,” Danica said, pointing to the gun she had placed in the small of her back. True to her word, she had arrived at my house wearing a Donna Karan black turtleneck, a black leather jacket from Polo, Hilfiger black jeans and her black high-tops with silver studs from Nordstrom. The only thing missing was a black ski mask, and I had no doubt she could produce one if necessary.

She looked at my attire and asked, “Are you wearing
that
?”

I looked at my clothes. I was wearing blue jeans, tennis shoes and a denim blazer. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

“We’re going to a pretty gross place in the middle of the night and you’re dressed like Mary Poppins. Come on, Clark. Get in character!”

Once I was dressed in the appropriate black attire we opted for the Tenderloin first, and after nearly an hour we had managed to find only one person who had anything of value.

“Look, Clark, nobody down here can help you if you don’t have people’s real names. Without real names, we got nothing. Have you tried the police department?”

I looked at her as if she were stupid. “Duh, I’m practically dating one of them.”

“I didn’t ask you about your boring and pathetic love life. I was wondering if you had anyone
look
at the mug shots.”

“The mug...” I threw my arms around her and hugged her tightly. “Oh my God, you really are a genius!”

“It just makes sense that most of your homeless people have been arrested for either drunk and disorderly or under the influence of something. All you need is someone who can recognize their faces and then we can put real names to them.”

Ten minutes later we found Shirley giving a Tarot reading near the park. She was more than happy to go down to the station and claim she had been mugged by another homeless person, and she wanted to look at the books. It was a brilliant idea, really, and I was a little bummed out I hadn’t thought of it.

I watched as Shirley flipped through page after page of mug shots, nodding and pointing whenever she saw a picture that registered to her powers. About an hour into it, we had eight names. Eight real names. Shirley surprised me by being far more lucid and far more powerful with her visions than I initially gauged.

We dropped Shirley off at the park. She turned to me and put her hand on my arm. “I can tell you this much, sweetie. They’re all still alive. For how much longer, I don’t know. Not one of them is dead. Not one. You need to find them, Echo. You need to find them and quickly. Time is of the essence.”

Danica and I drove away in silence, both of us nursing our own thoughts and fears.

It was Danica who broke the silence first. “If they’re still alive then where the hell are they? Who has them? And why? Why would anyone want over a dozen homeless guys?”

I started toward the office with the same questions beating at my brain. “I haven’t a clue, but at least now that we have the names of some of the missing...”

“My guys are all over it.” Danica pulled out the list and started text messaging on what looked like a compact computer. “They’ll be all over it by the morning. They eat research for you with a spoon the size of a shovel. I think it breaks the monotony of being so creative all the time.” She texted all nine names before asking me, “So what do we know?”

“Well, color or ethnicity isn’t an issue. Four whites, three blacks, a Hispanic, and a possible Asian pretty much rules that out.”

“How about ages?”

“Danny Boy is in his late teens, and Stinky Pete is in his late fifties, so age doesn’t seem to be a consistent factor.”

“Okay, what about military service?”

“Two Vietnam vets, one Gulf War vet, other than that, nothing else. Their jail time wasn’t enough to merit a look. Most of them were let go after less than twenty-four hours.”

“All are men. I find that interesting. That probably rules out sexual assault as a motive.”

“True.” I sighed. We still couldn’t find a connection. “It seems the more we know the less we know.”

“Hang in there, Clark. We’ll get some answers.”

My next stop was the office, where Danica and I pored over microfilm and had three computers going at once. None of their names produced anything online. That didn’t mean they weren’t  out there in cyberspace, it just meant that I wasn’t going to find information on them that easily. Since we knew we could leave cyberspace to the boys, we concentrated on microfilm.

Three hours and two pairs of blurry eyes later, we were still empty-handed. About the only thing I got was a headache. By the time I got home, I was exhausted and felt like I wasn’t any closer to finding Bob than when I woke up this morning.

Time was of the essence, and it was running out.

I woke up four hours later to the ringing of my phone. I had to reach over my drugged cat to get to it. I looked at the clock. It was 6:37.

“It’s String Bean. I was checking my e-mail this morning and we got a hit on the drawing with the bike.”

I was a wide awake now and sitting up in bed.

“A buddy of mine is pretty sure it’s a liquor store on Hyde called Fast Freddy’s. He recognized the damn fire hydrant.”

I was out of the bed. “Way to go!”

“I told you photographers are the best eyes in the city. I also got some really great shots of your street people for the story. I’ll leave copies on your desk this morning.”

“Thank you so much. Be sure to thank your buddies.”

“The photos I took of Cotton and Midnight are awesome. I see a separate story built around those photos. Echo, if you want people to care, those two animals would make even the hardest heart melt. People can watch the
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
without batting an eye, but watch a pet bunny stuffed into a pot of boiling water, and they go apeshit.”

I nodded, thinking about his
Basic Instincts
reference. “True.”

“Well, think about it.”

“I don’t have to think about it, Jeff. It’s a great idea.”

“Well, let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”

I got dressed, checked to make sure Tripod hadn’t overdosed on catnip and then headed for Fast Freddy’s. When I pulled around the corner and saw the green awning, I actually gasped. There it was. And there, chained to a post just like Shirley had said, was Smiley’s bike. I pulled Ladybug into the red zone next to the bike. As I searched the bike, my heart beat an extra beat when I realized what it was Shirley thought she saw. She thought he had been working on the bike, but that wasn’t what Smiley had been doing. Taped to the underside of the crossbar was a sheet of paper the size of a stick of gum. Only the ends were taped to the bike, and the rest of it had writing scribbled all over it. Thank God it hadn’t rained.

Carefully peeling the paper off of the bike, I rose and leaned against Ladybug’s bumper. I don’t know what I was expecting... a note that read
Here’s who’s taking our people
? This wasn’t even close. What I got was some sort of bizarre encryption. On the paper was a weird list of numbers: 3, 9,    7, 30,    24, 93,   34, 62,   26, 86,  26, 22{B}.

“What in the hell?” In the car, I sat and stared at the numbers. It would have taken divine intervention to figure out what these numbers stood for. Taking my lump of coal with me, I headed to the office.

When String Bean said his photos were good, he wasn’t kidding. They were incredible; made even more so by the use of black-and-white film. Jeff had the touch of a master. One photo had Cotton and Midnight touching noses as if they were communicating with each other. Another had Midnight sitting in between Cotton’s paws and both were looking in opposite directions. I must have been engrossed in my conversation with Shirley because I don’t remember him taking these photos.