St. Louis Noir Page 12

  When she turned around, Betts caught an icy charge from her look and her whole life played out like a movie before his eyes. He saw the tired old woman in her teenaged eyes, the fierce young survivor she’d already become and the scared little girl she’d been last year. Born, forgotten, dead. Roll credits. “Don’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  Her tone said that it should be obvious. “There’s a reason he left.”

  The last corner tore free and the girl grabbed the picture and ran out the back way without another word.

  Betts went over to the wall and examined the posters again. He searched until he found a photo with the same eyes and gapped teeth he’d just been talking to. Number at the bottom. “I’m sure your momma’d want to know too.”

  * * *

  The body is no longer a person and fits neatly into the Ladue Pipes & Paints van between the pipe snakes, generator, wrench sets, ladders, odd bits of PVC tubing, drop cloths, and plastic tarps. It’s cold outside, good as a refrigerator. Betts gets in, pops the cap on a small bottle of Pepto, and points the clandestine hearse north on Lindbergh.

  The Pepto isn’t cutting it tonight.

  He gets onto 40 and heads east as he fumbles through his pocket for his crumbling talisman. The photo is fading. The flimsiness of the product testament to the sense of futility in the printing. A half-full gesture. An atheist’s prayer. In the picture she’s maybe fourteen, awkward, not quite grown into those teeth and posed with her head tilted at the unnatural angle of a glossy old movie-star headshot that only highlights her vulnerability preserved in amber for maximum impact. Betts worries the torn edges as if he could smooth away the holes and watermarks, maybe restore a little dignity to the kid who’d had her freshman-year photo posted in a couple hundred supermarkets, bars, and convenience stores usually ten feet from the public toilet.

  The number is not programmed into his phone. He never uses his personal phone when he calls. Always a disposable. But tonight caught him off guard and he needs to talk. Damn the consequences. He’ll get a new phone tomorrow. He dials from memory.

  It rings and rings, and for the first time is not answered.

  * * *

  The second time he’d called the number was two years later, after he’d removed a junkie’s remains from the basement of the apartment building in Soulard. Kinds had pulled him off the main site and sent him to the location where the body’d been found by a city cop who’d chased some rip-and-run artists to their nest. He knew the smell as soon as he was inside, and when he found the vagrant’s remains, he’d kicked it up to somebody who knew what to do. An hour later, Betts had been taken through the protocol. Clean the place out. Make sure the body is found. Somewhere else.

  Inside he used a flashlight though it was barely past noon and sunny outside. The windows were boarded up and there was no illumination other than the odd patch of daylight visible through weather-worn spots in the plywood-covered windows. The place smelled like a pack of transients had lived the entire brutal summer there. He spent the rest of the day clearing out trash and loading up the old fourteen-foot U-Haul he’d bought off his wife’s cousin when his second FedEx route had dried up in ’09.

  The cousin had bought the thing, an old U-Haul truck with no personality, off the Internet when he’d expanded his business and taken on the extra route. First he’d hired Betts on as an assistant for the holiday season in ’06. When his bid for the second route had been accepted, he’d bought the truck and turned the old route over to Betts. Three years later the route dried up, but Betts kept the truck and paid it off working odd haul jobs. He strung together a mostly legit livelihood hauling junk or carrying bricks torn off abandoned North City buildings to West County construction sites. He filed as a private contractor and dealt mostly in cash and favors. That day he filled it with broken glass, waterlogged chunks of ceiling, chipped kitchen tiles, the odd Venetian blinds hiding behind a door, half a possum, and a couple of mildewed twin mattresses surrounded by needles, condoms, and skin magazines. It was near dark when he carried the body—a kid judging by the weight, dead from drugs or pneumonia or whatever the fuck, wrapped up in a single plastic sheet—out the door, easy-peasy into the truck, and it was only ten o’clock when he dropped him across the river. Betts placed an anonymous 911 call from a burner from the parking lot of PT’s in Sauget.

  After the vagrant, Kinds started giving him more sensitive jobs. Mostly cleaning up properties Citizen Number One wanted to sell or the odd midnight transport of office equipment from one anonymous white-collar location to another strip mall in the green, sunny suburbs, usually between real estate brokers and financial services offices. Betts never asked questions and he kept getting work.

  After he saw the news the next day about the junkie being found, when a name had been applied to him and a family had been alerted, and with the image of his body lying in a heap on the dirty floor unclaimed and anonymous burning into his retinas, Betts reached for his cell.

  The girl’s words come back to him. There’s a reason he left.

  “Hello?”

  “Yeah, I’m calling about the girl in the poster?”

  “I’m sorry, what? Are you calling about Teresa?”

  “Is that . . . is she your daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought you might want to know . . . I saw her. She was . . . I think she’s all right.”

  “When did you see her?”

  “I think she’s living with a group of kids. They’re all runaways, but they seem okay.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I think they take care of each other. I . . . um, I just thought you’d like to know.”

  “Please tell me. There’s a reward if she’s found.”

  Betts hung up.

  * * *

  The next time Betts called the number was after Citizen Number One killed a waitress he’d picked up at a sports bar. Crushed his car like an aluminum can on a lonely lamppost on the way to one of his South County fuck-pads. He had a concussion and a driver’s-side airbag. She’d gone through the windshield and sheared off half her face. First responders found her in a roadside ditch twenty feet from the vehicle, the snow already erasing her.

  Asshole had known enough not to use his own cell phone and grabbed the clean one he kept in his pocket. There was no hiding the car or the body, but Betts got a call to pick him up and spirit his drunk ass all the way home where, the newsprint story would read, he’d stumbled in a daze and crawled into his bed until the police showed up the next morning to question him. He’d claimed amnesia. No memory of the girl or the event. He’d given blood and urine samples which were quickly misplaced in a simple bureaucratic chain-of-custody cock-up and that was that. Not enough evidence for charges.

  The waitress’s family tried to sue for wrongful death, but nothing doing. Three semesters at Meramec, two abortions, and a service job don’t beat five generations of local industry and philanthropy. Not in any game. Her divorced parents split a quiet payout that no doubt covered a few years’ rent and a couple of sporty vehicles, but was missed by Citizen Number One about as much as last season’s wardrobe. A signature, a bonus collected by his attorney, and all was forgotten. As if the amnesia had been real and catching.

  Betts’s stomach was in ribbons. He saw the waitress in his dreams, head turned all the way around, the left side of her skull scraped clean, and her right arm planed from shoulder to elbow. Twenty-six years of not trying too hard adding up to a stain in the snow. And the prick in the papers expressing his condolences to her family, saying he didn’t know their daughter before the night in question, and though he claimed no responsibility, he would be donating to D.A.R.E. and M.A.D.D. and setting up a scholarship for girls from her hometown of Rolla.

  As Betts watched the guy on TV, he remembered driving away from the dead waitress in the ditch. Citizen Number One had sat beside him in the front seat of the truck talking to his lawyer on the disposable phone. He’d talked to his c
ounsel all the way home, alternately berating and imploring the man on the other end, occasionally threatening to fire him or bury him in a deep dark hole. He’d cried a little bit, nearly puked once, but mostly Betts had felt anger radiating from him. The anger had made him seem buffoonish and pathetic. Betts had felt contempt for the man screaming into the phone. But on TV, cleaned up, sincere and sober and magnanimous—he scared the hell out of Betts.

  Six weeks later, baseball had started again, another celebrity scandal was taking all the headlines, and nobody remembered poor old whatsername.

  Except Betts. And his ulcer.

  “Hello?”

  “Can you tell me about Teresa?”

  A pause to collect herself, then, “Do you have information about her?”

  “I saw her once. She seemed . . .”

  “You’ve called before.”

  He coughed into his sleeve, sending Alka-Seltzer through his nose. “Have you heard from her?”

  “No.”

  There’s a rustling sound of the phone being roughly transferred from one person to another and a gruff, male voice speaks to Betts: “Hey, you see that little bitch, you tell her she can stay gone. Ain’t no money here for her. Alls our money is for our own house. She don’t wanna live with us, fine, but she ain’t getting no more handouts. Keep sellin’ ass if she need money, and leave us alone. Don’t call here no more.”

  * * *

  Twelve-year-old Betts had seen them coming when he rounded the corner. Four eighth graders, among them Lil’ Trey who, rumor had it, was the one who’d killed the math teacher Mrs. Tompkins’s dog. They said he’d snatched the mutt from her backyard, taken it to the empty gas station, used to be a Sinclair on Olive, and beat it to death with a bicycle chain, then dropped it over the fence into her yard again. Betts didn’t know what was going on, but by the way they’d got him surrounded, it was clear it was not going to go well.

  “Yo, faggot, suck my dick.”

  Shoved from the front. Betts backpedaled into another kid who propelled him forward to Trey again.

  “C’mon, faggot, I know you like to. Do it.”

  Betts tried to run, but was tripped up and kicked in the guts before he could get back up.

  “Get him on his knees.”

  Rough hands hoisted him up and he tried to kick at them, but only exposed himself to worse. Melvin, the smallest and quickest of this crew, kicked him in the balls and all the fight left him. Betts squeezed both hands between his thighs and let the boys hold him upright on his knees. Trey yanked the hair on the back of his head. “You a little bitch like your brother, ain’t you? C’mon, now, you like to suck my dick. I let you.”

  He didn’t cry on the way home, but he let go into a pillow as soon as he’d closed the door to his bedroom. Blood and snot and tears ruining the sheets. It was anger, yeah, but mostly it was shame that he was screaming out. He couldn’t say how long they taunted him or how many times he was hit and kicked, but his clothes were torn, his nose broken, and his left eye was swollen shut. When he didn’t come down to dinner, nobody got too upset, but the next morning, when he didn’t come out of his room, his mom raised hell.

  Pretty soon his dad was threatening to break down the door and Betts knew better than to let that happen. “Goddamn, boy. Happened to you?”

  By then Betts’s soft core had hardened and he mumbled, “Nothin’.”

  The family was crowded into the hallway around him, including his older brother Tommy Jr. Mom fussing, Dad fuming, and TJ just knowing.

  “Don’t give me that. You tell me who did this to you and why so I know whose ass to go beat.”

  Betts shook his head. “I don’t know them,” he lied.

  “Why they do it?”

  Betts shrugged and got slapped on top of the head for it. “Speak up, now. Why they hit you?”

  “I wouldn’t suck a dick.”

  Mom gasped, Dad said, “Uh-huh,” and Betts betrayed his only brother with a cold look. In TJ’s eyes he saw fear and shame and sorrow, and his father continued, “That’s right, no, you won’t. I hope you gave something back, boy, did you? I din’t raise no faggot, did I?” He was bluffing a hardy smile, but his dad caught the end of the look Betts and TJ were sharing, throwing a dissonant note into their chord, and Betts knew immediately that it was a moment of significance. He didn’t understand it completely. Not right away. But that was the moment that things changed in the house.

  A month later, Dad burst into TJ’s room and whupped him good. Said TJ wasn’t any son of his, and that he was going to take his name back. “Thomas Betts” wasn’t a faggot name and TJ didn’t get to keep it. Mom shrieked and cried for help, and things got wilder. TJ hit back, but he was only fourteen and it just made Dad angrier. Mom’s crying eventually brought Mr. Jenkins and his boy from next door, and between the two of them they finally pulled Dad off TJ, who was already packing his life into a bag.

  When he passed his brother in the hallway on his way out the door for the last time, TJ was sobbing and Betts didn’t have anything to say.

  * * *

  The phone rings and rings. He’s been calling all night, but not leaving a message. He’s parked across the street from the dumpsite going through a whole roll of Rolaids waiting for the right opportunity. Plan is to place her in the alley behind the club where she’s been seen buying drugs before. He’s about to press Redial for the tenth time when he receives a call from Kinds.

  “Yeah.”

  “How we look?”

  “We’re good. You might want to go over the room.”

  “Redecorating Monday morning. Got a crew coming to repaint, new carpet, everything. So we should be all good.”

  “Hey?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What about her kid?”

  “That’s not your problem. Concentrate on your end.”

  “I know, it’s just, I know she’s got a kid.”

  “Kid’s with his dad this week.”

  “Oh.”

  “Get your head straight.”

  “It is. Just . . .”

  “What.”

  “Gonna be a shitty week for the kid.”

  “Gonna be a shitty week for all of us. So do your part to keep it from being a real shitty year, huh?”

  Twenty minutes later, he senses his moment’s arrival, starts the van, and gets to the end of the block. He’s about to turn right onto Washington when his phone rings again. He looks at the number, but it’s not anybody he’s expecting.

  “Hello.”

  No answer.

  “Hello?” He stops the engine and turns off the lights. “Have you heard from Teresa?” He can hear the change in the atmosphere, but nothing is said. “Listen . . . she seemed like a good kid. Smart. She seemed tough, I think she’s okay.”

  When the other end speaks to him, it’s barely louder than a whisper. “Fuck you.”

  Betts switches the phone to the other side of his head. “Excuse me?”

  “Teresa’s dead.”

  It’s Betts’s turn to be silent.

  “She’s been dead for a year now and you need to stop calling here.”

  Something hot slides between his ribs, and lets all the air out of his lungs. Betts barely manages to be audible. “How did she die?”

  This time it’s a well-considered and dispassionate, “Fuck you.”

  “I’m sorry, I—”

  “No.” There’s authority in the voice and Betts listens. “You don’t get to say anything else. You had your chance . . . now . . .”

  “Listen, I—”

  “No, you listen. Don’t call here anymore.”

  * * *

  Dad died three years ago. TJ’s name hadn’t been spoken since he’d left that night and they’d never heard from him again. Not even after Thomas Sr. died. Betts saw his mom after the funeral. He’d helped her clean the gutters, paint the house, finally cut down the tree always threatening to fall on her bedroom, before they put it on the market and moved her into h
er sister’s home. He’d meant to talk with her about TJ then, but the look in her eyes had brought him up short. What good could come from it now?

  * * *

  The guard buzzed him through the gate when he’d explained the situation—he needed to treat the carpet with a special solvent before the painting crew arrived in the morning. The guard called to get him clearance.

  Betts got a call from Kinds while he worked.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, figured I’d go over the spot extra good, since there’ll be more eyes on it tomorrow.”

  “Fine. Just run it by me first next time.”

  “No problem.”

  * * *

  Monday morning Betts places a 911 call to the Frontenac Police Department, and he watches the confusion at the gates through binoculars from the top of the hill on the eastern side. He waits for the call from Kinds, which comes five minutes later.

  He doesn’t give Kinds time to speak, but answers the phone with, “I quit,” before smashing it on the street. He crushes what’s left with the heel of his boot and looks at the wreck of plastic on the concrete. “Good luck buying your way out of this one.”

  * * *

  Tuesday Betts answers his door to two plainclothes detectives.

  “I’m prepared to cooperate, but I want a lawyer.”

  Cop Number One says, “He’s already in the car.”

  * * *

  Wednesday afternoon the story of a mysterious tragedy at the home of Citizen Number One breaks. Police had responded to an anonymous call about the body of a young woman that was found inside the master bedroom. Citizen Number One had been out of town for a stockholders’ meeting in Florida at the estimated time of death.

  In a statement to the press, the family attorney expressed deep sadness on behalf of Citizen Number One and said he was perplexed over the situation. He stated that the woman was a friend who was visiting the home at the time, but added that while the cause of death was unclear, there was absolutely nothing suspicious about her death.

  Autopsy results were expected in four to six weeks.

  * * *

  Four weeks later the autopsy results came back “inconclusive.”