“Same ones exactly Donna called. If he’s got relatives they’re someplace else.” Richie closed the book.
He watched the Bird going through mail these people had saved. Now he was looking through a note pad that had loose sheets folded and stuck in it. Something in there seemed to interest him and he took it over to the window by the sink to see the writing better.
Richie looked around. “They got the fridge turned off, nothing in it. That must’ve broke your heart.” It didn’t get a rise. Richie thought of something else.
“Bird?”
“What?”
“You gonna kill Donna?”
That got him to look up.
“Why?”
“I just wondered.”
“You worried about her?”
“I told you, not as long as she trusts me.”
“That don’t make sense.”
“You don’t know her like I do. I’m her boy.”
The Bird looked at the note pad for a moment, Richie waiting for him. The Bird looked up and said, “What does that make me, her man?”
“I don’t know,” Richie said. “I get what I want, I don’t have to look at her Elvis pictures. I don’t even have to listen to her if I don’t want to.”
Richie felt good, giving the Bird little jabs, playing with him. Then felt himself jump and said, “Jesus Christ!”
The phone was ringing.
Loud and close to them in that little kitchen on the wall behind the Bird, Richie seeing the Bird looking back at him. Richie jumped but the Bird didn’t. He didn’t move, not even his eyes under that dumb hunting cap, while the phone rang seven times before it stopped.
It seemed quieter than before.
The Bird said, “ ’Ey, was that the phone?”
The son of a bitch, giving it back to him now because he had seen him jump. Richie thought fast and said, “Well, why in the hell didn’t you answer it? You want to talk to somebody knows them— why didn’t you pick up the goddamn phone?”
“Anybody that calls, if they don’t know they’re gone,” the Bird said, “they don’t know where they went. That’s why. But how about somebody that moves and they don’t have the phone disconnected?”
“What’ve I been trying to tell you?” Richie said. “All the furniture, for Christ sake, the clothes upstairs.”
The Bird wasn’t listening to him. “They put that sign up, we suppose to think they moved. They didn’t move, they coming back.”
“You finally figured that out? Christ, look at all the stuff right here they left.”
The Bird still wasn’t listening, he was studying that note pad again, looking at some of the loose pages that had been stuck inside.
“There some phone numbers here they wrote down, but no names or anything.”
“Then what good are they?”
“Like you look up a number and write it down. Or somebody gives you a number over the phone, it isn’t in the book, so you make a note of it.”
“Bird, they’re coming back. We know that.”
“I’m tired waiting.”
“It can’t be too long, all their stuff here.”
“And I’m tired hearing you talk,” the Bird said, not sounding mad or with any effort, the same way he had said last night to shut up. He turned to the wall phone with the note pad and began punching numbers. Each time he got an answer the Bird would listen and then push the button to disconnect, not saying a word.
After watching him do this a few times Richie had to ask him, “Who was that?”
“Plumbing and heating company.”
After each call then Richie asked him who it was and the Bird told him, That was the Amoco station. That was a Chinese restaurant. That was a number no longer in service. That was a place does hair. Now the Bird was looking at a note, holding it up to the window. “Here’s one that says ‘New,’ underlined three times and the number.”
“You aren’t doing nothing but wasting our time,” Richie said. “We’re gonna have to wait, that’s all. You don’t like it, go back to Canada. I don’t give a shit.”
The Bird was holding up his hand, listening to a phone ring, then shaking his head, about to hang up the receiver, when a woman’s voice came on even Richie could hear, ten feet away.
“Who is this?”
“Yeah, I’m looking for Wayne Colson,” the Bird said.
There was a pause.
“He isn’t here.”
Both Richie and the Bird straightened and didn’t move.
“You know where he is?”
“Who gave you my number?”
Richie could hear her voice clearly. She sounded like a mean old broad. The Bird was already stumbling, not knowing how to talk to women of any age, telling her, “I have it written down here.” Yeah, where? What did she care it was written down someplace. The Bird telling her, “See, I’m looking for Wayne Colson.” Dumb fucking Indian. Richie walked over holding out his hand. The Bird let him take the phone, no problem, relieved.
The woman was saying, “Who is this?”
“Ma’am? Excuse me,” Richie said, getting a little smile on his face. “That was a fella works here was just on I asked to call you. See, we been trying to get hold of Wayne. ... He gave us this number before he left—”
“He gave you my number?”
“Well, actually he gave it to the boss and the boss gave it to me, only he’s not here now. He said you’d know where he was, Wayne.”
“I don’t understand this at all.”
She sounded like an older woman. Richie took a shot and said, “Ma’am, you aren’t by any chance Wayne’s mom, are you?”
“No, I’m not.” The woman hesitated. “I’m Carmen’s mother. But I don’t know where they are, outside of she said they were driving to Florida.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Wayne said something about going down there. You don’t happen to have a number where I can reach him, do you?”
There was a silence on the line. Richie looked at the Bird’s serious face, waiting.
“See, I have this check I want to send him.”
“Oh, you’re from work?”
“Yes, ma’am. I guess he was in a hurry to take off.” Richie paused to see if that would get him anything. It didn’t, so he said, “The boss told me, see, if I could get this check to him. I imagine him and your daughter would like to have it, down in Florida on a vacation.”
Richie and the Bird waited, staring at each other.
“You don’t have an address, huh?”
“No, she hasn’t given it to me.”
“I was thinking, if you’ve talked to them . . .”
He waited and there was a silence. He waited a little more and said, “Hey, I got an idea. How about if you give me your address? I can mail you the check or drop it off. See, then when you find out where they’re at you can send it.” Richie paused again, giving her a little time. “I know if it was my check I’d want to have it.”
Carmen’s mom said, “Well, I guess that would be all right. I live on Gratiot Beach, if you know where that is. You have a pencil?”
16
CARMEN HAD LOCKED the bathroom door. She stood under the shower facing the spray, eyes closed, trying not to think. She had read somewhere that enlightenment through meditation only worked if you could clear your mind of pictures and things swarming around in it and concentrate on nothing. Which seemed impossible to do, things just came. So she tried concentrating on the water, feeling it, saying to herself, “Mmmmmmmm,” and thought of Jack Nicholson about to take a shower telling the black guy who worked in the hotel there wasn’t any soap and the black guy saying yes, or that was true.