Round Robin (29 page)

Manfred pulled Bianca up onto his lap.

He asked, “Do you know what I was going to do before I heard that Horst had ... made sure that you never had to worry about that terrible man who frightened you?”

“What?” Bianca asked.

“I was going to go back to Germany to see him myself.”

“To kill him?”

“To make sure that he never frightened you, or any other child, ever again. To do that, I had to ask Robin if she would care for you while I was gone — just as she cared for you when you came to her door so sure that man was chasing you.”

Bianca beetled her brow and stared at the hands she folded on her lap. She didn’t want to look at her father.

“Do you think it is right that as soon as you are safe we should leave someone else who needs help?”

“No,” Bianca said in a tiny, grudging voice.

“Should we stay and help her?”

Bianca considered. Thoughts raced through her mind as she weighed not just what was right but what would be acceptable to her father and the others. Her expressions betrayed the great struggle being waged within. Finally, her face settled and she looked at Manfred.

“If we stay, will you bring me here whenever I want, so this can be my Magic Garden?”

Manfred nodded.

“Very well,” Bianca conceded. “We can stay. For a little while anyway.”

Manfred hugged his daughter. He kissed her cheek and whispered in her ear how proud he was of her. Then he looked at Nancy.

“It is time Robin confronted her monster, no?”

Nancy nodded. “Yes.”

“Dan?” Manfred asked.

“High time,” Dan Phinney said.

“Does my vote count?” David asked.

“Of course,” said Bianca.

“Then I say Robin will never be free until she does.”

“Very well then,” Manfred said. “I will find him.”

Chapter 27

“I’ve found something,” Aubrey Tannis said when he called Tone.

“For the money you’re charging me,” Tone told his high-rent gumshoe, “you better find the Titanic if that’s I want. So whattya got?”

“The Titanic has been found.”

“Hey,” Tone snapped into the phone. “I’m paying you to tell me I’m a dummy?”

“I doubt you’d need to pay anyone for that.”

Tone couldn’t believe it. Here he’d shafted Iggy Gross, just signed a three-year deal at a half-mil a year to be senior sports editor at a network affiliate, was even getting unexpected, and completely personalized, filthy French postcards from Montreal, and this dipstick was busting his chops?

He didn’t need it.

“You want to crack wise, send me a refund.”

Aubrey Tannis cleared his throat.

“What I’ve found is an anomaly.”

“A what? Is that like making it with animals or something?”

Sometimes Tone worried that he only seemed smart when he had Iggy Gross around to look completely stupid.

“An anomaly is something that’s out of the ordinary.”

Okay, so now Tone knew. And he liked the way the guy had been polite about explaining, not snotty. The creep remembered who held the whip hand.

“And that’s a big deal? That’s all you have to tell me?”

“I think it’s where I’ll find what you’re looking for. You see, the anomaly occurred when Ms. Phinney was nineteen and twenty years of age. Shortly before that time, she was described as a likable, conscientious college student. Afterwards, she began her present line of work, which, as you well know, calls for a considerably more abrasive personality.”

There was a little shot in there, but Tone let it slide.

“So what are you saying?” he asked.

“I’m saying that at a very volatile time of life Ms. Phinney seems to have been jolted off one track in life and onto another. I’ve narrowed down the time-period to perhaps six months. During that time, I think it’s safe to say, the event occurred that made her the woman she is today. Now, do you understand why I called you?”

“Okay, you’ve got a point.”

“Two, actually. That’s the first. The second, just as salient, is that the fee you’ve paid so far has been expended. If you wish me to continue, you’ll have to remit another check. Of course, if you find my services disagreeable, you can find someone new and start over.”

The SOB was hitting back, Tone knew, but at this point, so freaking what?

“We’re close, that’s what you’re saying, right?”

“We’re close,” Aubrey Tannis agreed.

“Okay, all right. No hard feelings then.”

“And the check?”

“Don’t worry. You’ll get your money.”

What the hell, Tone had plenty of dough now.

And he could practically taste it — he was going to give Robin a shafting she’d never turn around on him.

Maybe it was fear of Robin, or maybe he just had a cold in his nose, but something knocked Iggy Gross off the air that morning. Well, it knocked his live show off the air, anyway. In its place was a rerun of the program where Iggy had invited listeners over eighteen years of age to drop by the station, examine through his studio window the bare derrieres of three professional strippers and then comment on the relative merits of each and what made the perfect female backside. That particular show was a perennial favorite and always got good ratings.

Even so, the buzz around town was that Iggy was already running scared, especially since Robin had made it clear that the only venue for the contest would be Screaming Mimi’s, her home turf. By lunchtime, the media picked up a rumor that Iggy’d had a nervous breakdown. A reporter and photographer, looking for comments and art, arrived at Mimi’s just in time to see a group of regulars present Robin with a satin robe that bore the legend Heavyweight Champ.

Always knowing the value of psyching out the opposition, Robin even put the thing on for the photographer and held up her fists, although more in the fashion of John L. Sullivan than a modern-day pugilist.

All day long, the patrons and staff at Mimi’s complimented Robin, predicted a glorious victory, and expressed the fervent hope that somewhere they’d be able to find fools simple-minded enough to put their money on Iggy.

Being the object of public adoration was something completely unprecedented in Robin’s life ... but she thought she could get used to it.

The close of her day was also out of the ordinary. Her father didn’t come to pick her up, Nancy did.

“Where’s Dad?” Robin asked as Nancy drove her home.

“He said he was feeling a little tired today. He asked me to come get you. I’m glad, because I think I would have come anyway.”

“Why?”

Because Nancy didn’t believe in letting secrets clutter up her mind anymore that she believed in leaving dirty dishes in her sink. In either case, you left crap like that lying around, it started to stink.

Nancy glanced at Robin.

“Let me ask you straight out: How much does Manfred mean to you?”

Robin was glad that Nancy had put her eyes back on the road after she’d asked the question.

“You know how I feel,” Robin said.

“I’ve got an idea how you feel, but why don’t you tell me in your own words?”

“He means a lot to me.”

“You love him?”

Robin didn’t answer.

“Okay,” Nancy said, “let’s take small steps first. You want to keep him around?”

“Yes.”

“You know there’s a price for everything?”

“Better than most.”

“You know that I love you and want what’s best for you?”

“Yes.”

Robin meant it. Nancy did love her. Maybe even more than her dad, because Nancy had to take a lot of guff from Robin that her father never did, and she was still there every time Robin needed her.

Even so, that last question made Robin distinctly uneasy.

Nancy double-parked in front of Robin’s house and turned her emergency blinkers on.

She turned and looked directly at Robin.

“I told,” Nancy said.

“You told what? To who?”

“I told Manfred and Bianca that there had been someone in your life once who’d hurt you very badly. I called the guy a monster. I did it because Bianca wanted to leave your house, and Manfred was looking for any reason he could find to persuade her to stay. You might not know if you love him, but I can tell you for a fact he loves you.”

Robin’s face was as blank as a mannequin’s.

“Did you tell him everything?”

“No ... but you should.”

Robin popped her seatbelt off and pushed open the car door. She got out and looked like she was going to close the door, but she leaned back in the car.

“You had no right,” Robin said, her chin quivering with anger. “You had no right to say a single word!”

“Sometimes you do things anyway,” Nancy replied.

Robin had no way to respond to that except to slam the door on her sister.

Nancy lowered the window and called to Robin.

“There’s something else I have to tell you.”

But Robin didn’t turn back, she just kept walking and went into her house.

All right, Nancy thought, I tried.

When Manfred found Phil Leeds — the sonofabitch Robin had hated all these years — and dropped him into her lap she would just have to deal with it.

At school that day, Manfred shifted his schedule around so he could have the afternoon off, and he left Bianca in the care of Dan and Patty Phinney who would watch her until he came to pick her up. Freed from his other concerns, Manfred went hunting.

He’d been given two names by Nancy. Phil Leeds was the man he was looking for, and Jeri Whitman, a former friend of Robin’s, was a woman who might point him in the right direction. Nancy had also given Manfred a twenty-year-old phone number for Jeri Whitman’s parents, and that was where he started.

An elderly woman answered the phone.

“Is this Mrs. Whitman?” Manfred asked.

He tried as hard as possible to diminish his accent and sound harmless, thinking this was how a professional like Warner would do it.

“Yes.”

“Is Jeri at home, please?”

“She hasn’t been at home since I used to go out dancing on Saturday nights, and that was before I got arthritis in both my ankles and my husband died. Which was fifteen years ago. Which oughta give you some idea of how long it’s been since Jeri’s been at home.” After a pause, she added, “She still drops the baby off once in a while, though.”

“Would you know where I could reach her?”

“Why?”

“An old friend of hers asked me to look her up.”

“Not one of those bums who never gave her a penny of child support, I bet.”

Manfred instinctively felt the need to leaven his act with a grain of truth.

“The friend’s name is Robin Phinney.”

“Oh, sweet Jesus! Poor Robin. How is that girl?”

“She could be better.”

“I don’t doubt that, but I can’t imagine why she’d want to say one single word to Jeri — even after all these years.”

He sensed the old woman withdrawing from him. Whatever had happened to Robin had also caused Mrs. Whitman pain. He knew that if he lost her he would have a much harder time finding the woman’s daughter. He quickly thought of another approach, and tried to ignore the shame the idea made him feel.

“Mrs. Whitman? Perhaps I might make a small offering, to help the children you mentioned with some food or clothing.”

He could feel the mood of the conversation shift immediately.

“How small an offering?”

“Perhaps a hundred dollars.”

“How about two hundred?”

Manfred said he could come right over with the money, and while he was there perhaps she could give him Jeri’s current address.

For two hundred dollars, Mrs. Whitman gave Manfred detailed directions on how to reach her daughter.

Manfred drove out to a small blue-collar town south of the city, just across the Indiana line. The house he found turned out to be not much more than a run-down cottage at the back of a large unkempt lot. An old American car of a make unfamiliar to him sat parked on the sparse, frost-covered lawn directly in front of the cottage. He pulled his Mercedes up behind it.

As he stepped out of the car, a spotted mongrel came racing up at him from behind the house, barking for all it was worth. The dog came to an abrupt halt three feet from Manfred. Arching its neck, looking up at him, it seemed to realize that should it bite this stranger there might be a lot more to him than it could chew. It retreated a step, and then two more, but maintained its dignity by continuing to bark as it gave ground.

Manfred squatted and extended the back of his left hand for the dog to sniff. The mutt inched forward cautiously as if suspecting a trick. But it came close enough to sniff the stranger’s scent and when it seemed satisfied allowed itself to be scratched behind its ears.

“What do you want?”

Both Manfred and the dog looked up.

A doughy woman with graying blonde hair stood in the front door of the cottage. She wore only a thin housedress, and that was opened at the neck to allow the infant in her arms to suckle her exposed breast. Neither the mother nor child seemed to mind the January cold.

The dog had resumed barking, but this time it was strictly for show.

“Are you Jeri Whitman?” Manfred asked, standing up.

“I asked what you want.”

“I’ve come to talk about Robin Phinney.”

The woman drew her head back sharply, as if she’d just been slapped. The sudden motion or the continuing exposure to the sub-freezing temperature, made the baby pull away from her and begin to cry. The woman covered her breast and stroked the baby’s head while giving Manfred a long, hard look.