Richard Risemberg

 
They went into the city in Terry’s old car. Terry was a careful driver, but she always looked nervous because she hunched over the steering wheel. The house wasn’t far from town: the curving streets and ivy-swaddled houses only seemed far away when you were in it. Bob could have walked downtown in less than an hour. Terry’s doctor was in a building near the train station. “There’s restaurants everywhere,” she said when they parked in an open space under the building. “There’s a new museum too.”

“Don’t worry,” Bob said. “Claude gave us his famous lists.”

Terry sighed. “He loves to find the little hidden places. I’ll be out in an hour. Where should I look for you if you’re not back?”

Bob looked at Kate. She said, “The museum, I guess. We’re not really hungry after that nice breakfast.” Nods  all around. Terry walked to the elevator. Bob and Kate walked out the driveway and into the rain. They brought their umbrellas, but it wasn’t really raining, only small random drops that kept the streets glistening. They could see the museum building from the corner; Terry had pointed it out as they drove by. “Well,” Bob said. “Did you get the impression that Claude wanted us the hell out of the house for a while?”

Kate quoted an old saying: “‘Guests and fish start to smell after three days.'”

“Something’s fishy all right,” Bob said.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“And what do you mean by that?”

“Same answer, I guess.”

Kate snorted, then took his hand. “Your friend,” she said, “is a bit of a boor, that’s all. Let’s go look at culture. Rainy climates are good for culture. There’s nothing else to do but get creative.”

“There are plenty of indoor games people play.”

Kate smiled at him. “We enjoy them ourselves, don’t we.”

“Yeah. But we agree on the rules.”

“I like our rules.” She squeezed his hand, and they went into the museum.

 

Terry found them at the museum, and insisted on stopping at one of the places on Claude’s list. “We really haven’t been gone all that long, and I could use some more coffee.” They found the address, a little wood-fronted cubbyhole with gleaming espresso machines and the smell of bread and muffins billowing invisibly from the door. The attendants were all young and shiny, and the rustic-looking tables flaunted antique stamped-tin buckets filled with napkins, knives, and forks. Terry seemed calmer after her visit to the doctor. “I guess Claude wants some quiet time,” she said. “He’s got a lot on his mind.” Theshiny young waitress brought a tray with their order and distributed mugs and pastries with a smile. Terry thanked her and buried her face in her coffee mug. The rain fell a little harder, and they watched it spatter on the people passing by with their umbrellas and hooded jackets. They could feel the cold seeping through the plate glass. The gray sky tumbled by slowly overhead.

Kate stirred herself to say, “Natasha seems a bit quiet. Is she all right?”

Terry shrugged with a feeble lift of her shoulders. “I don’t know. I just wish she’d call me ‘Mom.’ I’m too old to have kids of my own. At least Claude thinks so. But I’m only forty.” She stared past the rim of her coffee mug. “I guess Natasha’s been through a lot. She won’t talk about it. The agency told us nothing. Maybe they don’t know either.”

Kate said, “No one really knows what someone else is going through.”

Bob nodded gravely. It was true. But sometimes youcan guess pretty well.

They finished up and lingered for a while. Terry seemed to be waiting for some inner signal. Bob felt suddenly tired though they hadn’t donemuch of anything. Finally Terry said, “I guess we can go now.” They got up and went out into the rain to find her car.

 

There was no breakfast waiting when Bob and Kate went down the next morning. Claude scowled in his chair at the head of the table, Terry looked nervous, and her hands fidgeted as if they were looking for a coffee mug on their own. “Natasha’s missing,” Claude said. “Little bitch ran off in the night, or this morning. Must have been around three. Bob, help me look for her. Kate, take care of Terry, she’s a wreck.”

Terry shook her head and said, “I just need coffee.”

“No time,” Claude said. “Get some boots on, Bob. I already checked the house. Attic rooms and basement even. Some of her clothes are gone but not much. Stole some cash out of my wallet too. Dumb little bitch.” Claude jerked his head in the direction of the service porch. Bob noticed a scratch on his face. He followed him out, put on Claude’s old pair of boots and raincoat. It wasn’t raining but the sky was dark and turbulent, clouds rolling past overhead. Outside, the air smelled wet, fresh and earthy. Claude led him to the garages. The house had a four-car garage with little rooms on top. Claude had been refurbishing the rooms, which hadn’t been used in years before he and Terry bought the house. That was his number one project. He jangled some keys as they hurried to the garages and lumbered up the rickety outside stairs. “I don’t think there’s another key,” Claude said, “but you never know. Could’ve left them open too. She’s been a real distraction.” The Labrador galumphed up the stairs after them. There was nothing in the rooms but scraps of lumber, a table saw, tools, and a sack of plaster, unopened. “Didn’t think so,” Claude said.

“Why would she run away and only go fifty feet?” Bob asked.

“Where the hell is she going to? It’s a long walk to town. We don’t even have a bicycle here, and she doesn’t know how to drive. Check the woods. Look for small footprints.”

“Shouldn’t you call the agency?”

Claude shook his head vigorously. “They’ll take her away from me if they knew. You go that way; I’ll check the toolshed.”

Claude sent him to the river. There was a tiny boat shed by the little dock, though the boats were never in it. Natasha wasn’t in it either. But one of the rowboats was missing. Bob was debating whether to call to Claude when he came striding down the slope to the dock. He stood next to Bob and looked at the dock. “Well, I’ll be damned. And it’s downriver to the city. Wouldn’t even have to row much. Come on.” Claude hurried up to his car. Bob followed.

Claude wound the car along the little side roads closest to the river, but they couldn’t see much beyond the garden walls with ivy and rosebushes and dark dripping roofs. In this part of town the riverbank belonged to the houses. “Could’ve beached the boat anywhere. Might be hitchhiking. Or even just walking,” Claude said. “Keep your eyes open. When we get downtown, we’ll split up and check the places where the street kids hang out. She used to go there before they sent her to me. You’re not afraid of dark alleys, are you? It’s rougher back home, where we come from, than up here.”

Bob shook his head. “Just tell me where to go.” The car emerged from the riverside neighborhoods where the freeway swooped down along the riverbank through downtown. Warehouses and a railroad track appeared. Beat-up trucks huddled in the rain along chain-link fences. The rippling green-brown flow of the river was barely visible beyond the pillars of the freeway. Bob stopped the car in front of a warehouse with the words “Albertson Milling Co.” painted in faded blue on its cinderblock wall. “Start here,” Claude said. “I’ll start at the north end, near the docks. We’ll meet at Tinker’s Bar in the middle. If you find her and she won’t go with you, stay with her. I’ll find you.” Bob got out of the car and into a light drizzle. There weren’t many people about. He followed a curving railroad spur to the riverbank, which was more of a concrete flood wall. A small freighter, stained with grease and rust, rocked slightly as it pulled on its heavy mooring ropes. It looked like he could walk along under the freeway for nearly a mile towards downtown. There were no other ships in view until the freeway veered away from the river again in the rainy distance. He saw the dull flicker of an oil-drum fire with some people standing around it under the freeway. His legs started moving on their own, and his mind followed later. He hoped he wouldn’t find her.

There were only three old men warming themselves over the fire, hunched close to the flames in ragged army jackets. Bob nodded at them as he walked by. They didn’t nod back. It was dry under the freeway but even gloomier than out in the gray light of day. The underside of the freeway was streaked with calcite water stains where it wasn’t dark with soot. There were mooring rings set in the concrete that he had to step over regularly, but no more boats moored to them. Shabby broken stairs led down to the water, disappearing beneath the murky flow. Some of them were just metal ladders set in the vertical wall. He wondered how it would have looked to the runaway girl from a damp rowboat out on the river in the rain. It would not have been a glorious escape.

As he approached downtown he saw another oil-drum fire in the distance, under an interchange with its bridges and its jumble of concrete pillars. He walked on with his hands in his pockets. It looked like a bunch of teenagers gathered around the greasy flicker of the drum. As he came near he saw Natasha, sitting on the concrete bank with her legs dangling over. Her lank black hair was unmistakable. She was apart from the crowd, staring over the water.

As he came up to the group, a blond boy detached himself and came to stand in front of him. He was trying to look tough, jutting his jaw out. They both stood there, hands in pockets, looking unlovingly into each other’s eyes. The kid was smaller than Bob, but he had friends. “What ya want?” he said.

“Nothing.”

“Well, you found it. You walk like you’re looking for someone. They’re not here.”

“I decided that a long while back.”

“What do you mean by that?” The kid’s eyes looked puzzled under his flop of blond hair.

“I mean that I am looking for someone. But I don’t want her to be found.”

“The Russian kid?”

Bob nodded.

“You’re not a social worker. What the hell are you?”

“Nobody. It doesn’t matter. She’s probably better off here.” Bob stood up a little taller. He felt strong now. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Natasha turning occasionally in her heavy coat to sneak a glance at them. “If you all treat her right. You know what I mean.”

The blond kid looked irritated. “For fuck’s sake, she’s just a kid.”

“If the social workers come, let them talk to her.”

“They’re the ones gave her to—”

“I know. But if she can tell them what happens….”

“She wouldn’t even tell us.”

Bob nodded towards the girl sitting on the cold concrete river wall. “Ask her if she’ll let me talk to her. Tell her I won’t tell him where she is.”

The blond kid stared into his eyes for half a minute and then nodded. He walked over to Natasha and crouched down by her side, talking quietly. Natasha nodded. The blond kid gestured to Bob to come over, then stood back a few paces but kept watch on them.

Natashsa spoke to the broad river. “It’s true, you won’t tell him?” Natasha asked Bob.

“I won’t tell him.”

“Then you know—?”

“I don’t know anything. You should go to the cops, though.”

Natasha shivered. “They just give me to social workers. The same thing again.”

He sat on the concrete near her. They didn’t speak. Finally he took out his wallet and pulled all the cash he had in it. It wasn’t much. He folded his business card from work into it, he wasn’t sure why. “Don’t do anything stupid when you run out of money. You know what I mean.”

“That I would never do -. What you are thinking.” She glanced at him and took the money. “Thank you.”

“It’s all I can do. I should go now. I’ll tell him I didn’t see you.”

“I appreciate. Please hurry. In case he comes looking. Thank you.” She put the money in her coat pocket. Bob stood up and walked away. He nodded at the blond kid, who nodded back. The group around the fire had been watching them too. One of them, a slim blond girl in a big coat, lifted her hand in what seemed like a gesture of approval, reassurance, something, he could only hope. He could only hope.

As he walked on under the rumbling freeway, he saw the rowboat, half-swamped at the bottom of another stairway. It was jammed against the bottom steps by the current. He climbed down, rocked it loose, and watched it drift away downriver, towards the sea. But the sea was a long way off. He was sure that someone would rescue it before it got that far.

 

-30-

 

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