She answered, “He thinks he can talk you into paying for cooking school next year. He’s praying. He’s hoping.”
The older man, scrawny, small, no more than five feet five inches tall, nodded. “He’s been cooking since he had to stand on a stool.”
She pointed toward Ray. “These people want to talk to you.”
Pablo removed his bib, folded it, and placed it on the counter next to the woman. “Find a place for that, will you, querida?”
She stuffed the dirty napkin under the counter, turned away from them, and began watching a miniature television, with a serious expression.
“Hi,” Kat said, letting Pablo look them over. He leaned against the ice-cream cooler, the picture of a well-fed man. He must be past seventy, with large scarred hands and cords standing out in his neck.
“We’re looking for someone.” Ray pulled a picture of Leigh out of his coat pocket and handed it to Pablo.
Pablo held the picture of Leigh in his hands. “Long time since I saw this lady.” He had a deep, distant voice, like he was channeling it from somewhere else.
“Old man,” the woman at the counter said, “your memory needs tweaking.”
“Months,” he said stubbornly, and gave her a look. “Don’t pay any attention to her,” he said. “She just likes to talk.”
“Leigh is my wife,” Ray said. “She’s missing. If you saw her, we really need to know. We are afraid something has happened to her.”
“I remember a long time ago when I saw her, she mentioned you,” the man said. Kat couldn’t see his eyes under the hat. “I was asking why she came out here alone. She said she had a wonderful husband. A wonderful husband, but he didn’t have time for deserts and mountains.”
“She meant me, all right,” Ray said. He didn’t blink.
“She makes wonderful furniture. She made a table for me last year.”
“She did?”
“She’s a real artist.”
Ray looked away. Kat wondered what he was thinking. She said, “When you saw her, was she on her way somewhere?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“She didn’t say anything about her plans?” Kat broke in.
“Who are you?” the man said, his gaze moving back and forth between her and Ray.
“I understand why you wouldn’t be sure about trusting us. But this is urgent. She has disappeared. We have to find her.”
“Who are you?”
“Her best friend.”
“She didn’t mention you.”
“Nevertheless, here I am,” Kat said.
“If you know anything, anything at all-” Ray said.
“Sometimes people want to disappear for a while.”
“Is that what she told you? She came through here last weekend, didn’t she?” Kat said, the words rushing out.
The man squeezed his lips so tightly together they disappeared, and Kat was reminded again about guarding the mouth. She turned to the woman at the counter and said, “Please.”
“It’s up to him,” the woman said, jerking her head toward Pablo.
“You want the police here?”
“My cousin’s the deputy on duty here. I’m not afraid of him, or you two. You better go now.”
23
T hey’re lying,” Kat said, as they got back in the car and pulled back into the road.
“I agree.”
“He saw her. Or he knew something about her. He knew something!”
“Could be.”
“You think he’d act like that if he knew nothing?”
“I think,” Ray said, steering the Porsche west as they turned back onto the highway, “we have to go back to L.A. ”
“Did he see her or not? It’s a simple enough question.”
“He said she wanted to disappear,” Ray said. His jaw clenched. “As if he knows she’s alive.”
“Not exactly. Maybe we should keep going until we find her.”
“Where should we go?” Ray said. “ Palm Springs? Vegas? Salt Lake City? Albuquerque? St. Louis? Cleveland? Owego, New York? We have to go back now, Kat.”
“I’m angry at that old man,” Kat said. “He could have helped us.”
“Don’t think about him. Get mad at Leigh,” Ray said. “I know I wasn’t a great husband to her. But here I am, ready to change, and she’s not here to see it. And she wasn’t a great wife to me. I knew she was still sad about your brother. But years passed and she stayed just as sad. I wonder if she ever loved me. Maybe I was just the guy between Tom and Martin.”
“She loves you,” Kat said. “I read the poems.”
For a long time into the night, heading up toward the stars that shone so brightly, they drove in silence. The desert, yellow, gold, ochre, mustard, whipped by.
Ray drove too fast for another couple of minutes, then asked, “What was he like?”
“Who?”
“Tom.”
“You never asked her?”
“Why would I? I’d only start comparing myself to him. But it doesn’t matter now, I suppose.”
She found herself telling him about Tom. She told him about how he was the glue that kept their family together, how he kept them laughing, how he didn’t have an enemy in the world. Surprisingly, she didn’t get choked up like usual. To be able to talk about Tom without descending into utter grief was a new thing for her.
Ray listened intently, while dodging the semis and the road hogs trying to make it to their destinations before dark.
“She still loves him,” he said finally.
“She had broken up with him before he died. She left him for you, Ray! Why are you so stupid! Of course she loved-loves you!”
“You don’t understand. She-” He fell silent.
“Look, what she did with your partner-I don’t excuse that,” Kat said. “I can’t explain it, and I doubt she can explain it. Let’s find her. That’s all I know.”
“I don’t know where else to look,” Ray said.
“She took out some cash. We’ll find her.”
“Someone used her card. Not necessarily her. Like you said before.”
“Was Leigh’s PIN hard to guess?”
“No idea.” They talked about that. Leigh had apparently never told Ray her PIN or for that matter any of her computer IDs, facts Kat found telling. Now she was glancing at him again.
The shirt in the back was like a funereal shroud and they were just a couple of hearse-drivers. Her mind was like a Ping-Pong match. It was too late. No, it wasn’t. Yes, it was.
No, it wasn’t! “The police have to get right on this!” Kat cried.
“As soon as we get back, I’ll go straight to Rappaport. No more phone calls. I just hope they don’t clap me in jail when I do.”
Kat rifled through her purse for a brush. She knew how bad she looked from the tiny mirror under the sunshade in the car that revealed all in the unforgiving glare of the map light. She pulled a brush through her hair and discreetly tossed loose spikes out of the car window when she thought Ray wasn’t looking. Let the birds make nests.
She vowed to take more vitamins, meditate properly, love the people in her life, because you never knew how long they might be there. She considered calling Jacki. Checking her watch, she saw that it was late and decided to wait. Jacki and Raoul, and with luck, the babe, would be snoring away.
They had dropped into the L.A. Basin into light traffic. Thank God for Sunday, the one day you could still drive here. Full dark had come on. Sandwiched between sound walls on this strip of blacktop, they could be anywhere.
Kat, looking out the window at nothing, realized that she was very low, so low she could feel tears coming on. Every once in a while she needed to have a long talk with Tommy, and it felt like tonight would be another one of those nights. Where was Leigh? She just wanted to be in bed now, safe, even if she couldn’t sleep, even if she’d spend the night thinking about the losses and the pain…
But then she bit her lip and smiled to herself. Her sister had a new baby. Good things did happen. There was a chance for all of them still.