Sisters of the Road (15 page)

“Wow, you’re some painter,” she said enthusiastically. “You’ve really caught, like, the
essence
of the city in that one. Those skyscrapers, they really show technology out of control—and then the
animal
quality of it all…”

I guessed she meant the dog muzzles.

“Go take a close look, Pam, I mean, that’s technique! Where did you study?”

Don’t lay it on too thick, Carole, I warned her silently. But I wandered over anyway. The half-opened suitcase was right underneath it, and there was still something about it that bothered me.

“You really like it?” Wayne sounded pleased.

“I
love
it. It’s so—primitive, but high-tech, know what I mean? You don’t usually see stuff like that in Seattle.”

He was warming to her by the minute and she was pouring on the sex appeal like crazy. “No really,” she said, “I think you’re
talented.
I’m sort of an artist myself,” she added modestly. “More the
plastic
arts though…they’re more
sensual
, you know.”

I was in front of the painting but looking down at the suitcase. Something caught my eye. Part of a laminated card with a photo. I glanced over at Wayne and Carole. He had his hand on her arm and was explaining that he’d been influenced by the East Village school, that he didn’t have time for the Seattle art scene, and Carole looked like she was eating it up. I bent over as if to tie my shoe, grabbed the card and shoved it in my pocket without looking at it. My heart was pounding as I strolled back to them.

Wayne looked over at me and something in my face must have showed, because he suddenly said, casually, but with a tightening of his mouth, “So where’d you say you met Trish? I forgot.”

“Hitchhiking,” I said brightly, but my mouth was dry. “Near the airport. My sister was going to Nicaragua. Boy, the airport was packed, I couldn’t believe it. But you must know that—you just came back from somewhere yourself, didn’t you? Where’d you say you’d been?”

“South,” he smiled, staring at me.

“Well, you got a great tan, wherever it was,” I laughed. My laugh sounded a little wild to me; it echoed slightly.

Wayne’s face came closer, a little too close. His blue eyes were strangely large. I jerked back. “Whoa,” I said, and laughed again, almost dementedly. Carole looked at me worriedly. I wasn’t sure if I were high, or just petrified.

“Not bad, huh?” said Wayne, and then, “I’m glad you stopped by again tonight. I thought the other day that maybe Trish had given you the wrong idea about me. She’s done so much dope that her thoughts tend to get a little screwed up.”

I could understand how that could happen—I could feel my own thoughts screwing up dangerously.

Wayne put his hand intimately on my arm. “Earth to Pam, hey, baby, you like it, you want to make a deal?”

I closed my eyes and opened them again. With an effort I said, “Okay.” I took out my wallet and handed over the bills, all of them. Carole had gone back to looking at the paintings.

“Listen Wayne,” I heard myself saying. “You know the Green River killer?”

“Personally?” He laughed and went over to the stereo so his back was towards me. He put on a record by the Talking Heads. “No, I don’t think I’ve ever met him. Why?”

“He kills young prostitutes, at least he used to… and there’s this girl, Rosalie…,” I stopped. Wayne didn’t seem to be listening. He was moving to a track with a hard rocking beat.

“I’m worried about Trish.” That wasn’t what I’d meant to say.

But he stopped dancing and looked concerned. “Why is that?”

“I think she’s in trouble.”

“Nah,” he said, coming back over to the table and wrapping up the coke. “Trish can take care of herself. What’s your interest in her anyway?”

I shook my muddled head. “She’s just a kid.”

“So?”

“We’ve got to look out for kids. The streets are dangerous.”

“No more dangerous than anyplace else,” he soothed me.

“I’d feel better if she had a place to go,” I mumbled. The coke was acting on me like a truth drug and I couldn’t help it. “Oh, there’s your suitcase still,” I said inanely.

“Yeah, I haven’t had a chance to unpack yet.”

“Well I think you’re really
talented
,” Carole broke in, coming over and putting sharp fingernails into my arm. “And I’m going to look for your stuff in the galleries. I mean, I think you could really make it. I’m
impressed
.” She started dragging me to the door.

I kept staring at the suitcase, and suddenly it struck me what was wrong. I should have seen it before. It didn’t have a baggage tag. It hadn’t had a tag last time either. And nobody who hadn’t had time to unpack would have removed the tag. Most people left them on until the next trip rolled around. Wayne hadn’t come through the airport. He’d been someplace closer. Overnight to Portland, Karl had said.

“Did you know Trish’s real father lives in Portland?” I asked out of nowhere.

Wayne gave a start—or was he just dancing around? No, he was shaken somehow. I started to say something else, but I felt Carole’s elbow in my side and knew that I had gone too far.

“Yeah, I think she’s mentioned him a couple of times… Well, enjoy your party. And you know where I am if you or your friends decide on a little more recreation. Nice meeting you, Carole.”

“This has been one of the great experiences of my life,” Carole assured him fervently. “When you’re famous I’ll be able to say I knew you when.”

But Wayne was dancing with his back to us and didn’t seem to notice as we stumbled out the door.

“Y
OU’RE A NEVER-ENDING SURPRISE
,” said Carole, when we were safely back in the street.

My high was failing me now and I felt a little foolish. In my mental script it had been Carole who was supposed to act the innocent kook, and me who was going to be cool and rational. “Well, at least I found out that Wayne has been in Portland, and that that’s probably where Trish is.”

“Yeah, you made it pretty clear that you made a connection, all right,” Carole said. “It freaked me out the way you kept staring at his suitcase. I thought he was going to notice that I’d been standing by it too.”

“I thought you were staring at his painting. I thought you liked his painting, for godssakes.”

“I hope he thought so too,” sighed Carole, twirling her blond lock worriedly. “You idiot! He’s no more an artist than I am. No, I saw something in the suitcase, something I thought you’d be interested in.”

My mind was cruising low to the ground now, ready to make a bumpy landing. “What do you mean?”

“I mean this,” she said, and pulled a half of a plastic laminated card out of her linen jacket. It was part of a Washington driver’s license and the name said Abby Simmons. Female, weight 125, height 5’5”.

I slowly took out my own little piece of card, the half with the photograph. The memory of a slack look under a black hat with blood running out from under it returned.

It was Rosalie.

“I think you should go to the police,” Carole said, as I numbly got behind the wheel of the Volvo. I was feeling sick to my stomach and I wasn’t sure why. This is evidence, Pam. You’ve got
evidence
.”

I nodded, but part of me still resisted it. “Rosalie is dead now,” I finally said. “It’s Trish I’m worried about. I’ve got to do something…” I was realizing now how stupid I’d acted, letting Wayne know I’d figured out he took her to Portland.

“What are you trying to do, protect him or something?” Carole bounced up and down in her seat. “Call the police, Pam!”

Okay.

We drove to a phone booth and I asked to speak to the detective who’d interviewed me at the hospital, Lieutenant Logan I thought his name was. Sorry, he wasn’t in. Did I want to leave a message?

“No,” I said. “I’ll call back later.”

I went back to the car, and Carole and I drove in silence. We were supposed to be eating dinner, but she didn’t mention it and I still felt sick to my stomach. I wasn’t sure if it was the cocaine or the weight of Carole’s—Carole of all people!—disapproval. I had handled myself badly with Wayne. I’d gotten high and said a lot of stupid things, and I might be putting Trish into an even worse situation than she was already.

And both Carole and I knew it.

Somehow we ended back up on Capitol Hill, in front of my apartment.

“Well, thanks for the date,” said Carole.

I was surprised. “Don’t you want to come up with me, hang out?” All of a sudden I couldn’t bear the thought of being alone.

“Not really,” she said. “I’ll be honest with you, Pam, this wasn’t fun. I thought it would be but it was just weird. And anyway, I think you need to do some serious thinking about what you’re involved with here. I mean, you’re not a detective and you just can’t go around acting like one. Really!”

She was more serious than I’d ever known her, but I didn’t want to acknowledge that she was right. All the same, the evening felt totally thrown off balance. If I hadn’t been so confused and depressed and lonely I don’t think I could have said what I did just then. “Carole,” I said. “I want to sleep with you. Don’t you want to sleep with me?”

She stiffened and her padded shoulders seemed to grow even larger; even her short blond hair appeared to bristle. “But Pam, we
work
together,” she finally managed. “What can you be
thinking
?”

“You bought some coke off Wayne?” asked Beth. “You gave him eighty dollars of your hard-earned money?” She rocked back in her chair, large and unbelieving. “And here I thought you were a pretty smart cookie.”

“Hardly,” I said. I’d come directly to the Rainbow Center after Carole had driven off in a huff. “I think it was cut with something,” I added. “My hands are shaking and I feel sick. But Beth, I think I’ve got an idea where Trish is, where she’s hiding or where she’s been taken. And I wouldn’t have found out if I hadn’t gone over there. I had to have some excuse.” My stomach heaved.

“Put your head between your knees. I’ll get you some tea and a cold cloth. The bathroom’s across the hall if you need to use it.”

I did. But when I finished retching, my head was finally clear. I returned to her office and gratefully accepted a cup of tea.

“Thanks, Beth. Sorry….”

“Don’t mention it. I see it every day.” She sighed and ran her fingers through her short strawberry hair. “So, you were saying?”

I told her what Karl had said about Wayne going to Portland and about the baggage tags and Wayne’s start of surprise when I mentioned Trish’s father. I told her about the two pieces of Rosalie’s fake ID, how Karl had known her as Abby and said she was a real bitch. I told her I’d tried to call the detective.

“You haven’t called him back?”

I shook my head. “I’m going to… but I’m more worried about Trish, afraid the police won’t find her, won’t even look for her. I want to go down to Portland, Beth.”

“I guess it’s worth a try,” she said. “There’s a lot of traffic between Seattle and Portland. Things get too hot for prostitutes down there, they come up here and vice versa.” She rummaged around on her crowded desk. “I know a lawyer down there if it’s any help to you. Janis Glover. You might be able to stay with her and I think she could help you. Here’s her number… she and I had an affair last fall. But we’re still talking.”

So she was a lesbian. Our eyes met and for a minute I forgot that I felt as emptied out and unlovely as a garbage can, that I’d just been very painfully rejected, and that my heart was eternally in Houston.

“I’ll call you when I get back,” I said.

“Pam?”

“Yes?”

“I’d get rid of that coke if I were you. Fast.”

“It went down the toilet with my stomach lining.”

“Good. I don’t like to see people messing with drugs, even in the line of duty.”

“Don’t worry, it’s not my style.” I paused ruefully. “I should have known that Wayne’s standards of purity were pretty goddamned low.”

D
EALING WITH THE POLICE
reminded me of going to the dentist. You knew you were supposed to, but that didn’t make it any more pleasant. Like dentists, detectives could make you feel small and guilty and unimportant, as if they knew what was best for you, and, most of all, as if they could solve your problems. When you went to the police it was all on their terms. You couldn’t tell them what to do. You just sat there and then went away feeling numb.

At least this is how I was thinking on the late morning train to Portland. I could have driven my newly cleaned car, but I didn’t think the engine would make it. And car problems in another city were something I could do without.

I had met with Lieutenant Detective Paul Logan that morning. He was the same man who had asked me questions at Harborview and he didn’t seem too happy to be up so early on a Sunday. I gave him Rosalie’s fake ID and told him where I got it. I told him that Wayne had been and was Trish’s pimp and possibly Rosalie’s and that Wayne was also a coke dealer. I had to tell Logan that I’d bought some coke, but I didn’t tell him that it had turned me into a total fool. I told him about Karl though, and my underlying suspicion that he was involved in some way, and that he had known Rosalie under the name of Abby. I gave him the address of Rosalie’s hotel and the addresses of Karl and Wayne.

I told Logan all this and he said, “Well, thanks for your help.”

“What are you going to do now?” I asked, a little too meekly. Remove all my teeth or just fill the cavity?

“We’ll be investigating,” he reassured me professionally. I’ll do the right thing for your mouth, Miss, and maybe we can stop this gum disease before it gets too far. Trust me.

“Well give the Portland police her description,” said Logan. Then he asked me, “Just what is your interest in this girl?”

I shook my head. I hadn’t told him about Trish’s diaries or the way she didn’t eat green vegetables or the way Ernesto had taken to her immediately. “I’m just concerned… Will you let me know what you find out?”

“Give me a call later. But I can’t promise anything.”

So much for the police. I supposed it was only on television that they rushed over and arrested people right away. As Logan had explained, they’d have to get a search warrant for Wayne’s studio, tell him his rights and allow him a lawyer. It was lucky Wayne was a dealer and not just a pimp. The police were definitely interested in drugs.