Alameda
Typical Bay Area weather, Garner thought irritably, as he locked up the house about ten-thirty in the morning, hunching his old brown leather jacket against the moist wind. He went hurriedly to the Econoline van – he'd traded in the Toyota for it, thinking he might need a free place to sleep when his money ran out. He sat behind the wheel, asking himself if there was anything else he should have packed. He kept himself busy that way, with details, so that he didn't think about Constance too much, because if he went crazy he could never hope to find her.
And it was all on him, finding her. It was obvious the police weren't going to be much help. Which was partly his fault: he hadn't written down the license number of that Porsche, when he had the chance. He thought he'd be able to confront the guy and take Constance back. It never occurred to him he'd be struck unconscious before he could utter a word; that Constance would be taken beyond his reach…
Stupid. He should have realized it might be abduction. He should have written the number down. You stupid son of a bitch, he told himself.
He leaned against the van, and took the post card out of his pocket. It was postmarked Fresno, the day before. A picture of the Sunken Gardens. Constance's handwriting on the other side. Dad I'm okay, don't worry and don't look for me. Am with friends. There was one line more that had been scribbled over. Then her signature. He had used a pen-eraser on the scribbled-over line. The result was hard to read, but after looking at it for a long time, he was pretty sure the line under the scribble had said, Please take care of my doggie. That was a code they'd set up when she'd been twelve and he'd got her fingerprints done and they'd talked about avoiding child-snatchers. She didn't have a dog. She didn't even like dogs. Whoever had her, had become suspicious, made her scribble out the signal line.
Of course, Garner had showed the cops the card, pointed out the message she'd tried to plant in it. The Oakland detective had squinted at it and made a wavering motion with his hand in the air. ''Maybe, maybe not. Hard to say what it says. Can't really make it out. You think it was the signal line but to me it looks just as much like Please take care of yourself."
"Why would she cross that out?"
"Who knows? Maybe she thought it would make you mad, like it was patronizing or something. This card seems to indicate to me that she left voluntarily…"
"Then why did they hit me on the head? My kid would never voluntarily leave me lying there on the ground…"
"Maybe she wasn't there, at that point. Maybe – and this is just as likely – you had the wrong room. And whoever it was, was getting loaded – that happens a lot in those motels – and they were tweaking out with crack paranoia and put out your lights because they thought you were busting in to rob them… We just don't have enough to assume she was kidnapped…"
He'd gone to the Alameda police, the Oakland police, and the FBI, and none of them seemed convinced it was definitely a case of abduction and not runaway. But they were "looking into it." Fuck.
And he'd gone to a couple of memorial societies for kidnapped youngsters. Her picture would appear on milk cartons. He'd stay in touch with them.
Now he was going to look for her himself and it was, maybe, as stupid as not writing down the Porsche's license number. It seemed likely they'd continue going south. The guy seemed less likely a drug-dealer, now. Drug dealers just don't up and leave their territory.
Garner looked up at the house. He had a kid from his therapy group house-sitting for him, an act of faith if ever there was one, and he had paid the rent for three months in advance out of the savings he had, and the rest he had with him in traveller's cheques…
Maybe she'd come back when he was gone. She'd need help and he wouldn't be here, he'd be out on some freeway with his face in a wild goose's ass.
James was going to be here. Give the kid some responsibility, taking care of the place, and he'd be here watching the house if she came back. Garner would call the house every day.
James. Garner hoped the little son of a bitch didn't try to fuck Constance if she came back.
He slammed the side door of the '77 van. The door didn't latch, slid open again. He got more of a running start on its rollers this time and slammed it so hard the whole van shook and it stayed shut. He walked around to the driver's side and got in. The van started on the first try and he put himself in the stream of traffic for the freeway. Got onto the 880 headed South to San Jose. First step on the trip to Los Angeles. The sky was clumped with low grey clouds. A faint drizzle slipped across the road from time to time; filmy membranes of dirty water. Precipitation would slow traffic, but he almost wished it would really pour down rain.
He tried listening to the radio but every damn song seemed to have some sinister meaning for him, seemed to mock him about Constance. He remembered having read about the two human monsters who'd kidnapped a number of twelve and thirteen year old girls, tortured them to death, raping them in the intervals, and videotaped the whole thing… One of them had gleefully told the cops in his confession about having put an electric drill into the girl's ear and how she flopped about like a fish on a hook as he pushed it in and…
The tears came painfully out of Garner, coming out so hard and thick they hurt.
The motherfucker could be doing anything to her!
Pray, Garner counselled the drug addicts and the alcoholics. Even if you don't believe, pray. Its called Fake It Till You Make It, Garner'd tell them. Just pray whether or not you believe in God. You'll reach Something. It'll help.
But those little girls in the hands of those total assholes, those human monsters… You knew they'd prayed for help. But had God helped them? Hell, no.
The tears, achingly, ran dry. His face was sticky and hot. He kept driving. Just to make him feel as if he was doing something for Constance…
He thought about Aleutia and the baby, dead on that table. Just two more casualties to tick off on the endless list, two more taps of the calculator button.
The traffic was heavy. Crenellated rows of condos and ranch homes crowded the hills around the freeway, some of the projects with only a thin fence and thirty feet of dirt separating them from the roar of the freeway; many of them only half constructed. He was stuck for a while behind a double trailer semitruck emblazoned Miracle Merchandizing. He knew what that was, he'd seen something about it on the Good Morning show. A business that specialized in lighting manufacture and overnight delivery of hot, media-merchandizing, goods. Big money in Bart Simpson dolls, Bart Simpson keychains. Before that, Garfield – some of the cars around him still had the stuffed cartoon cat stuck to their windows trying to claw its way out, very funny. And lately it was Chomper, the Simpsons' clone show which had the cartoon toddler, Chomper, who ate and drank everything in sight and once, isn't it funny, smoked a whole carton of his alcoholic Mom's cigarettes… Cut to a beer commercial.
And that semitruck trailer blocking his way was in all probability filled to the gills with Chomper dolls, Chomper keychains, Chomper posters, Chomper chewing gum.
Garner had to search for his little girl in this endless sea of irrelevancy and indifference and preoccupied people and deteriorating places. This is crazy, this is hopeless…
Not necessarily, Garner told himself He'd been on the streets himself for twelve years. A crank addict, then a downer addict and alcoholic. And there were ways to find people, down near the street level. If the guy was keeping Constance some kind of prisoner it might be that he'd have to hide himself and her in parts of town where he could get away with it easily. And if Garner was right, the son of a bitch would go to L. A…
Line up the ifs like toy soldiers, move them around the way you want, try to make yourself feel better. It's still just playing with ifs.