The Last Detective (3 page)

2
            

time missing: 00 hours, 21 minutes

T
he sun was dropping. Shadows pooled in the deep cuts between the ridges as if the canyon was filling with ink. I left a note in the middle of the kitchen floor: STAY HERE—I'M LOOKING FOR U, then drove down through the canyon, trying to find him.

If Ben had sprained an ankle or twisted a knee, he might have hobbled downhill instead of making the steep climb back to my house; he might have knocked on someone's door for help; he might be limping home on his own. I told myself, sure, that had to be it. Ten-year-old boys don't simply vanish.

When I reached the street that follows the drainage below my house, I parked and got out. The light was fading faster and the murk made it difficult to see. I called for him.

“Ben?”

If Ben had come downhill, he would have passed beside one of three houses. No one was home at the first two, but a housekeeper answered at the third. She let me look in their backyard, but watched me from the windows as if I might steal the pool toys. Nothing. I boosted myself to see over a cinder-block wall into the neighboring yards, but he wasn't there, either. I called him again.

“Ben!”

I went back to my car. It was all too easy and way too likely that we would miss each other; as I drove along one street, Ben might turn down another. By the time I was on that street, he could reappear behind me, but I didn't know what else to do.

Twice I waved down passing security patrols to ask if they had seen a boy matching Ben's description. Neither had, but they took my name and number, and offered to call if they found him.

I drove faster, trying to cover as much ground as possible before the sun set. I crossed and recrossed the same streets, winding through the canyon as if it was me who was lost and not Ben. The streets were brighter the higher I climbed, but a chill haunted the shadows. Ben was wearing a sweatshirt over jeans. It didn't seem enough.

When I reached home, I called out again as I let myself in, but still got no answer. The note that I left was untouched, and the message counter read zero.

I phoned the dispatch offices of the private security firms that service the canyon, including the company that owned the two cars I had already spoken to. Their cars prowled the canyons every day around the clock, and the companies' signs were posted as a warning to burglars in front of almost every house. Welcome to life in the city. I explained that a child was missing in the area and gave them Ben's description. Even though I wasn't a subscriber, they were happy to help.

When I put down the phone, I heard the front door open and felt a spike of relief so sharp that it was painful.

“Ben!”

“It's me.”

Lucy came into the living room. She was wearing a black business suit over a cream top, but she was carrying the suit jacket; her pants were wrinkled from so long in the car. She was clearly tired, but she made a weak smile.

“Hey. I don't smell hamburgers.”

It was two minutes after six. Ben had been missing for exactly one hundred minutes. It had taken Lucy exactly one hundred minutes to get home after we last spoke. It had taken me one hundred minutes to lose her son.

Lucy saw the fear in my face. Her smile dropped.

“What's wrong?”

“Ben's missing.”

She glanced around as if Ben might be hiding behind the couch, giggling at the joke. She knew it wasn't a joke. She could see that I was serious.

“What do you mean, missing?”

Explaining felt lame, as if I was making excuses.

“He went outside around the time you called, and now I can't find him. I called, but he didn't answer. I drove all over the canyon, looking for him, but I didn't see him. He isn't next door. I don't where he is.”

She shook her head as if I had made a frustrating mistake, and was getting the story wrong.

“He just
left
?”

I showed her the Game Freak as if it was evidence.

“I don't know. He was playing with this when he went out. I found it on the slope.”

Lucy stalked past me and went outside onto the deck.

“Ben! Benjamin, you answer me!
Ben
!”

“Luce, I've been calling him.”

She stalked back into the house and disappeared down the hall.

“Ben!”

“He's not here. I called the security patrols. I was just going to call the police.”

She came back and went right back onto the deck.

“Damnit, Ben, you'd better answer me!”

I stepped out behind her and took her arms. She was shaking. She turned into me, and we held each other. Her voice was small and guilty against my chest.

“Do you think he ran away?”

“No. No, he was fine, Luce. He was okay after we talked. He was laughing at this stupid game.”

I told her that I thought he had probably hurt himself when he was playing on the slope, then gotten lost trying to find his way back.

“Those streets are confusing down there, the way they snake and twist. He probably just got turned around, and now he's too scared to ask someone for help; he's been warned about strangers enough. If he got on the wrong street and kept walking, he probably got farther away, and more lost. He's probably so scared right now that he hides whenever a car passes, but we'll find him. We should call the police.”

Lucy nodded against me, wanting to believe, and then she looked at the canyon. Lights from the houses were beginning to sparkle.

She said, “It's getting dark.”

That single word: Dark. It summoned every parent's greatest dread.

I said, “Let's call. The cops will light up every house in the canyon until we find him.”

As Lucy and I stepped back into the house, the phone rang. Lucy jumped even more than me.

“That's Ben.”

I answered the phone, but the voice on the other end didn't belong to Ben or Grace Gonzalez or the security patrols.

A man said, “Is this Elvis Cole?”

“Yes. Who's this?”

The voice was cold and low.

He said, “Five-two.”

“Who is this?”

“Five-two, motherfucker. You remember five-two?”

Lucy plucked my arm, hoping that it was about Ben. I shook my head, telling her I didn't understand, but the sharp fear of bad memories was already cutting deep.

I gripped the phone with both hands. I needed both to hang on.

“Who is this? What are you talking about?”

“This is payback, you bastard. This is for what you did.”

I held the phone even tighter, and heard myself shout.

“What did I do?
What are you talking about?
”

“You know what you did. I have the boy.”

The line went dead.

Lucy plucked harder.

“Who was it? What did they say?”

I didn't feel her. I barely heard her. I was caught in a yellowed photo album from my own past, flipping through bright green pictures of another me, a much different me, and of young men with painted faces, hollow eyes, and the damp sour smell of fear.

Lucy pulled harder.

“Stop it! You're scaring me.”

“It was a man, I don't know who. He says he took Ben.”

Lucy grabbed my arm with both hands.

“Ben was
stolen
? He was
kidnapped
? What did the man say? What does he
want
?”

My mouth was dry. My neck cramped with painful knots.

“He wants to punish me. For something that happened a long time ago.”

Boys Being Boys

O
n the second day of his five-day visit, Ben waited until Elvis Cole was washing his car before sneaking upstairs. Ben had been planning his assault on Elvis Cole's personal belongings for many weeks. Elvis was a private investigator, which was a pretty cool thing to be, and he also had some pretty neat stuff: He had a great videotape and DVD collection of old science fiction and horror movies that Ben could watch any time he wanted and about a hundred superhero magnets stuck all over his refrigerator and a bullet-proof vest hanging in his front entry closet. You didn't see
that
every day. Elvis even had business cards saying he was “the biggest dick in the business.” Ben showed one to his friends at school and everyone had laughed.

Ben was convinced—profoundly supremely
certain
—that Elvis Cole had a treasure of other cool stuff stashed in his upstairs closet. Ben knew, for instance, that Elvis kept guns up there, but he also knew that the guns and ammunition were locked in a special safe that Ben could not open. Ben didn't know what he would find, but he thought he might luck out with a couple of issues of
Playboy
or some neat police stuff like handcuffs or a blackjack (what, to his mom's horror, his Uncle René down in St. Charles Parish called a “nigger-knocker.”)

So when Elvis went outside to wash his car that morning, Ben peeked out the window. When he saw Elvis filling a bucket with soapy water, Ben raced through the house to the stairs.

Elvis Cole and his cat slept upstairs in an open loft that looked down over the living room. The cat didn't like Ben or his mom, but Ben tried not to take it personally. This cat didn't like anyone except for Elvis and his partner, Joe Pike. Every time Ben walked into a room with that cat, the cat would lower its ears and growl. This cat wouldn't run if you tried to shoo it, either; it would creep toward you sideways with its hair standing up. Ben was scared of it.

Ben worked his way to the head of the stairs, then peered over the top riser to make sure the cat wasn't sleeping on the bed.

The coast was clear.

No cat.

The water still ran.

Ben ran to the closet. He had already been in Elvis's closet a couple of times when Elvis showed his mom the gun safe, so he knew that the little room contained boxes on high shelves, Tupperware containers filled with mysterious shadows that might be pictures, stacks of old magazines, and other potentially cool stuff. Ben riffled through the magazines first, hoping for hot porn like his friend Billy Toman brought to school, but was disappointed by their content: mostly boring issues of
Newsweek
and the
Los Angeles Times Magazine
. Ben hoisted himself up to see what was on top of the gun safe, a huge steel box as tall as Ben that filled the end of the closet, but all he found were a few old baseball caps, a clock where time had stopped, a framed color picture of an old woman standing on a porch, and a second framed picture of Elvis and Ben's mom sitting in a restaurant. No handcuffs or nigger-knockers.

A high shelf stretched across the closet. The shelf was beyond Ben's reach, but he saw boots, some boxes, a sleeping bag, what looked like a shoe shine kit, and a black nylon gym bag. Ben thought that the gym bag might be worth checking out, but he would need to grow a couple of feet to reach it. Ben considered the safe. If he pushed himself up, then sat on the safe, he could probably reach the gym bag. He carefully placed his hands on top of the safe, heaved himself straight up, then hooked a knee on top and pushed himself up. He was crushing some of the hats and had knocked over the picture of the old lady, but so far so good. He reached for the gym bag, stretching as far as he could, but couldn't quite reach it. He leaned farther, holding onto the shelf with one hand and reaching for the gym bag with the other, and that's when he lost his balance. Ben tried to catch himself, but it was too late: He tumbled sideways and pulled the gym bag with him. He hit the floor with a rain of shirts and pants.

“Crap!”

When Ben scooped up the clothes, he found the cigar box. It must have been sitting on top of the gym bag, and had fallen when he pulled the bag down. A few faded snapshots, some colorful cloth patches, and five blue plastic cases had spilled from the cigar box. Ben stared. He knew that the blue cases were special. They
looked
special. Each case was about seven inches long with a gold band running vertically down the left side and raised gold letters in the lower right corner that read UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Ben pushed the clothes aside and sat cross-legged to examine his discovery.

The pictures showed soldiers in Army uniforms and helicopters. Some guy sat on a bunk, laughing, with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. A word was tattooed high on his left arm. Ben had to look close to read it because the photograph was blurry: RANGER. Ben figured it was the man's name. Another picture showed five soldiers standing in front of a helicopter. They looked like hardcore badass dudes: Their faces were painted green and black; they were loaded with rucksacks, ammo packs, hand grenades, and black rifles. The second soldier from the left was holding a little sign with numbers on it. Their features were hard to see because of the paint, but the soldier on the far right looked like Elvis Cole. Wow.

Ben put down the pictures and opened a blue case. A red, white, and blue ribbon about an inch and a half long was pinned to gray felt. Beneath it was a red, white, and blue pin like a smaller version of the ribbon, and below that was a medal. The medallion was a gold five-pointed star hanging from another ribbon, and covered by a clear plastic bubble. In the center of the gold star was a tiny silver star. Ben closed the case, then opened the others. Each of the cases contained another medal.

He put the medals aside, then looked through the rest of the pictures: One showed a bunch of guys in black T-shirts standing around outside of a tent, drinking beer; another showed Elvis Cole sitting on sandbags with a rifle across his knees (he was shirtless and he looked
really
skinny!); the next picture showed a man with a painted face, a floppy hat, and a gun, standing in leaves so thick it looked like he was stepping out of a green wall. Ben had hit the mother lode! This was
exactly
the kind of cool stuff he had hoped to find! He concentrated so hard on the pictures that he never heard Elvis approach.