It startled me for an instant, seeing her there unexpectedly. I must have jumped. “Whoa!”
“Did I scare you?” she asked in a slow, emotionless monotone.
“Startled me for a second, that’s all. What’s your name?”
The girl was kind of spooky, but she had pretty features-sapphire blue eyes and pure white skin that contrasted with her coal-black hair. She could have been Snow White.
“My name is Jane. Do you like me?”
Uh-oh. With all the problems swirling around me, I didn’t need some mixed-up adolescent coming on to me. “Look, Jane, I’m kinda in a hurry.”
She turned and faced the dark inner recesses of the hotel. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so abrupt. “Look, Jane, I like you. But I’m old enough to be your father.” I wasn’t that old, but it was a good line.
She spun around. Her soft demeanor was gone, replaced by wrath. “He’s dead!” she screamed.
“Who’s dead?”
“My father.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” I said with as much tenderness as I could muster. “What about your mother? Do you live with her?”
“He killed her.”
“Who killed her?”
“He did. Then he killed himself.”
“Oh, my God! You poor girl. I had no idea.” I stood there not knowing what to say. I just stared into the deep blue eyes of this disturbed young woman, a child, really.
“That’s when they took me here…” Her voice trailed off and she stood still, almost as if in a daze. But her eyes were focused intently on me.
“To Barstow? You live here with a relative, an aunt, or someone?”
“No, they took me to the base. I work in the kitchen. They send me to work here at the cafe, too.” She said no more than that, but I knew there was more she wanted to tell me. She took a step forward.
“They took you to the base?” I felt my throat tighten. If I handle this right, she’d take me there. “The base is the teen center?”
“Yes, that’s what they call it. I was small when they took me away. There was nothing I could do.”
“Did you do drugs? I mean, after your folks died, is that why they sent you out here to the center? Drugs?”
“No! No drugs. My body is a temple, belongs to the Lord.” She quickly looked away and just as quickly turned back to me.
I had so many questions for the girl, but also a strong sense that at any moment she would leave. I knew I had to tread lightly.
“Why did you ask me to meet you here? Is there something you wanted to tell me about the center?” I asked with trepidation.
“It has to be closed.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s evil,” she said calmly, as if she were telling me the time of day, but her eyes held a burning intensity and remained fixed on my face. “I’m scared to be here,” she added. “They will give me a beating.”
In spite of the chill in the air, I started to sweat. “Jane, why? Why would anyone beat you? Who would give you a beating?”
“The old man you were talking to. He will tell them to beat me.”
“Ben Moran? The guy at the cafe? He has something to do with the center?”
Before she could answer, a black-and-white squad car rounded the corner of the Harvey House.
I shifted my gaze away from the girl for a moment and took a quick look at the cop car. A uniformed officer was starting to climb out.
I glanced back at the arch. The girl had vanished.
“Oh, Christ,” I said.
The tall cop came closer, his polished boots crunching on the trash and twigs. His right hand rested on his holstered gun.
“Your name O’Brien?” he asked.
I wondered how he knew that. “Yeah, why?”
“Let’s see some ID.” The cop wiggled his fingers in a gimme manner. “That your Vette out there in front? Registered to one James O’Brien. Is that you?”
I handed over my license. “Yeah. What’s the problem?”
He pulled a flashlight from his hip pocket, flicked the light on my face for a couple of seconds then shined the beam on my license. “Suppose you tell me what you’re doing back here.”
No way I would tell him that I was here meeting a teenage girl. And with the reaction I was getting every time I mentioned the drug center, I felt it best to keep my mouth shut about that as well. “Just looking the old place over,” I said.
“Yeah, why? This is private property.”
“Thinking about buying it. Turning it into a museum. Did you know the old movie, The Harvey Girls, was shot here?”
The cop said nothing. Did he see through my story? I wasn’t that good of an actor.
“No kidding, a movie. Hmm,” he said at last. “I didn’t know that.” He handed over my license. “It’s getting dark. Maybe you’d better come back tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I was just leaving.”
The cop lumbered off and I started walking back to my Vette. When I turned the corner of the building, the cop stood at his black-and-white with the door open. He started to climb in, but suddenly stopped. He shouted, “Hey, O’Brien, hold it.”
I froze. “What?”
“One more question.”
Oh, Christ, what now? “Yeah?”
“What was the name of that movie?”
My breathing resumed. “Harvey Girls, you know, like the building.”
He nodded, climbed into the car and took off.
My hunch was stronger than ever that the drug center was tied into Robbie’s escape, and now I felt that the blind guy’s story about the black van whisking him away could be true, which meant Robbie’s mental condition had to be an act. It was plainly a diversion designed to relax the security surrounding him, and I fell for it.
It was after eight p.m. when I finally got back on Interstate 15 driving to Downey. I’d spent two hours cruising around the town on the off-chance that I might spot Jane. No luck there. I also had no luck driving the outskirts, back streets, and side roads of Barstow looking for anything that might appear to house a drug center. I stopped at the payphone in the Standard Oil Station lot and phoned Sol’s office. He had left for the day. I tried his home number: no answer.
I’d also looked in the Yellow Pages and found a listing for a teen center, but not a teen drug center. I had nothing to lose, so I called the number and was connected with the local Catholic Church’s parish facility where teenagers could hang out and have fun. I asked if they knew anything about a drug center in the area. They said no, but invited me over to their place to say the rosary. I politely declined.
After ten, I pulled into my apartment. I figured I’d sleep on the floor until I got around to fixing the damage caused by the police. When I opened the door, I was stunned. The place had been straightened, organized, the bed made, and on my pillow was a note from Rita: “Mabel loaned me your spare key. So Hector, my cousin, and I stopped by and sorta fixed up the place. Thanks for giving me the chance to work on your case. Sol could have gotten you some big time guy, someone like Zuckerman, but you chose me. Wow!!! Sleep well, Jimmy.”
I glanced at the answering machine sitting next to my phone. The red light was blinking furiously. Five messages, three from Sol’s secretary, Joyce. She asked me to phone him as soon as I walked in the door, but then there was a message from Sol himself.
“Call me in the morning. I tried to tell you when you phoned earlier, but somehow we got disconnected. Webster, the D.A., turned all the files he had on you over to the sheriff’s department, to Detective Hammer. He gave the homicide cop the file containing his investigation of the Section 32 charge, aiding and abetting, and everything else he had. Jimmy, my boy, maybe we should do something. As you know, you’re being investigated for the murder of Hazel Farris. But you’re the only suspect. If they find anything new, they’re gonna come and take you away.”
The fifth message was from George Biddle, my insurance guy. My car insurance was overdue. I put down the receiver.