PART THREE b - Therapy

  "So. Off the record. Where would our girl probably go, to hang out with kids that smoke."

  "Art school? She could go off with any of them. Hell, I'm selling weed right now. You want to buy some?"

  "Seriously."

  "Why do you think I don't have a haircut and a fresh shave. I'm not trying to bust people for that. I'm trying to pop a guy on my radar. He likes to buy a bag, then rob the person selling it at gunpoint. Art students? The city? They all smoke pot. If more of them smoked pot, and none of them got on coke and meth and heroin? I'd have a lot less work to do. Your cop said, no hard candy for her."

  "Yeah. What would you try, if you were us. Its your beat."

  "Hmm. I'd hit all the junk shops. Those crappy little galleries? They all have one. Out of town, art girl? My first bet."

  "And then?"

  "Walk around. Take a nice hike of all the abandoned warehouses and little factories. You see empty beer cans? That's where the kids hang out and party. Now. If she has a few bucks on her?"

  "She could."

  "Flop houses all over. Most of them, unregistered. Room for rent signs in windows. I'd try there, if she was staying a week. Your buddy? He told me about the phone thing. I don't like that."

  "How hard for a girl from out of town, to get mugged?"

  "Not hard. She have anything of value, other than the cell?"

  "Not really, I don't think."

  "Walk around. Pawn shops. Used phone pces. If she got robbed, the phone gets wiped and ends up there. Now, you get that? You call me. That means, she's been here. She should be somewhere. I can get uniforms going around on a live lead then. You think you'd know her phone if you saw it?"

  "Honey? Your department."

  "Well, yeah. I know the case. And… nice scratch on the screen, I'd recognize that."

  "There you go. You so much as even think you find that? Call me. I'll get her phone company, check it. Your friend said, she doesn't let her cell report where she is. Because that? Would be too easy."

  "Yeah. Gotta make it fun somehow."

  "I'll be here, till the bars close. You decide you want a bag? Hit me up. I'm working, I'm trying to get robbed this week."

  "Its a living."

  "Yeah. I got a wife, and two kids. It pays the bills. How about you. Married?"

  He looked at me, and pointed.

  "When we're done with school. Yeah."

  "Good for you. I hope you find your friend. Good luck."

  "You get a lot of… robberies. Muggings, murders, missing girls?"

  "Its a city. Its the shitty end of it. We average so many robberies a day. We average so many robberies, no injuries. So many robberies, muggings? With injuries. I think were running, oh… city wide? Average, one murder a month. ODs are up this year, like a hot stock quote. We got hot heroin with Fentanyl going around. We got some pink meth going around? Has some chemical wasn't cleaned out right, kids end up in the emergency room. The locals mostly know what not to buy, its out of town people get the stuff. A couple armed robberies per week. And its a city. We got a small roster of missing girls. Rape is down this year. So that's looking up."

  "You make the job sound like so much fun, though. You're just a walking recruitment ad. Where do I sign up."

  You? Smart kid, GI bill. Finish school. Marry the pretty girl. Me? I was infantry. Deployed four years. So this? Is all I know. You got out of this, I wouldn't try to get you back into it. Takes the life out of you. I hope you find your friend. Told you the pces I'd look, and what I'd do. Call me or stop back if you run into anything. Call me if you have a problem. When we go back outside? I'm going to shake hands with you, and hold it a few seconds. Folded up business card. That's so it looks like you scored off me. I'm trying to blend, I'm trying to get robbed. Girls? Once again, don't split up if you're not from here. Best of luck, I hope your friend shows up at home when you get back."

  "Thanks."

  "Any of you kids smoke?"

  "One of us may have. Once. Why?"

  "If you run into a pack of art kids, hanging out, partying? Best way to blend in and get them talking. He looks like too much of a cop for talking to art students. It would make them all warm and fuzzy to talk to you more. He looks like a cop to them. He starts showing pictures of a missing girl? No one will want to talk about it, if they do recognize her. If you catch my drift here."

  "How much."

  "I got nice little dime bags. Free sample. My treat. You can get art kids all talkative. Don't mind me, they give it to me free. My job, till we catch this asshole? Is I'm trying to get robbed."

  "What's your perpetrator look like. If we see him, we'll call you."

  "You know what a Bushy Haired Stranger is?"

  "Yeah. I do."

  "That. Mirrored sungsses. Shaggy hair, medium length. Five o'clock shadow. Medium height, medium build. Small revolver. Probably waistband. Your typical asshole."

  "Great. Age?"

  "Early 20s."

  "Our girl? Probably fucking him. Sounds like her type. An asshole."

  "Good luck. Meet you out front. I want people to see me… working."

  We went out front, and he did the hand off, with an extended double hands handshake. He looked around a little, you know, to make it look like he was looking out. Making it seem obvious what he was supposed to be.

  We went and started looking. Junk shops for art galleries first. Light remarked on the whole thing.

  "Cops give out free dime bags here. That's a new one."

  "Welcome to the city, Light. Not a nice pce to visit, wouldn't want to live here."

  "Swellsville was no picnic, either."

  "Touche."

  A couple hours of walking and trying every junk shop, got us nowhere. We tried every pawn shop and a couple of used cellphone pces. We decided to try heading towards the abandoned pces. Hoping to find groups of art kids drinking and hanging out. Then, the st pawn shop we hit? I got excited. I thought maybe, that could possibly be her phone. Her case is pretty distinctive, but there was no case on it. It just looked right, but hey, a lot of phones look right. There was a little scratch in more or less the right pce, though. I didn't know I was going to have to take a pop quiz on identifying a scratch on a screen, like a forensic examination in a crime b. So, I can't be sure. Not at all. Something though.

  Wiz called his dime bag cop, and told him that maybe, I might have found a phone that might look a little like hers. He expined the distinctive case would be off it. Guy said you get rid of cases like that, or the used phone pce gets rid of it. Half the used phones are stolen or lost and found. You can get ten, twenty bucks out of a perfectly working 100 to 200 dolr phone? You get it.

  "Well. He said, he can't come. He's blending. That? Would ruin the blend. He's sending a uniform that's near. They're hanging out of sight, in case he gets lucky and meets his friend he's looking for."

  The uniformed cop showed, he knew what was going on. He pointed at the phone, and just held his hand out. The person behind the counter? Sighed loud, and spped it into his hand. He expined to us, that the phone gets wiped. Stolen, or lost and found, either one. But, there were serial numbers and that would trace it. The detective called him back and said if it came back live, he would call us, and he could put uniforms out since he had a live lead.

  Thin. But, thin is better than nothing. I couldn't be sure. There's any number of phones that look identical, and most have a scratch somewhere over time.

  "Now what."

  "Abandoned district."

  Light wondered aloud, that if she tried to sell weed, to finance her little trip… assuming that was her phone… wouldn't it be possible she got robbed by the asshole? Wiz quipped… that, or she's fucking him in some flop house. Its her type she likes. Any criminal in his 20s that isn't butt ugly will do.

  "Hmm. If that is her phone… this is looking like the st pce, on the way to the empty warehouses."

  "She got robbed?"

  "Just as likely she just loses her phone. Someone picks it up? This is the first pce to get ten twenty bucks out of it."

  "If that's even her phone."

  "We won't know for a while. Let's hike around."

  And? Hike we did. A couple hours, walking around. From abandoned warehouse, to abandoned factory, to abandoned… whatever the hell it had been. Wiz said one pce used to be a meat processing pce. They were all different, but all kind of the same, too. Empty cans around, empty bottles of cheap wine, cheap beer. Crushed packs of cigarettes around, cigarette butts everywhere. They all smelled like old piss. There were always corners which were clearly the urinals. We did run across some packs of artsy kids, but none of them recognized the photo much. A girl, nondescript with a streak of green in her hair? There was one girl with a green patch we were talking to.

  She looked one way, hanging around the sports people. A change of clothes, some mousse or gel in her hair, and a spray of color? She looked different. Kind of… bum-my. Going by looks only? Wiz had thought she looked pretty all right. And she has the legs, hell we all do. We py soccer for a living, go figure we all have legs a leg man might like if he likes fit girls. Once he saw what she looked like when not around sports people, and her general attitude? He went from mildly turned on, to mildly turned off. And it slowly went downhill over time. Little Miss Moody.

  Her team name? Sunshine. It was one of those reverse nicknames, like calling a fat guy "Slim".

  We kept looking, though. More litter, more piss. Little Lightning didn't mind it though. She liked abandoned pces. Lots of privacy. Lots of big cement and block walls. Lots of corners. Lots of old cans to aim at. Lots of little nooks and crannies to aim for. She showed her stuff, and seemed particurly proud to show her Wizzy. Teddy Ball hadn't been kicked in a long time, and he missed it. She showed us the corner pinball trick. No wonder she could one time a ball so well. Right foot, it shot into the corner, banked and came out. Then her left foot sent it back, and it really did pinball.

  She could automatically use her feet on a blur of motion. The ball looked more like an off white blurred line, than a ball at that speed. She had us pick a can, any can. She would bounce off a wall, and kick it out of the air, and generally hit the can or so near it, it was uncanny.

  The st pce we hit, she liked more. More of a piss smell, so we thought it was a popur party spot. Gobs of empty beer cans and bottles. Old cans of… whatever were everywhere. Old metal chairs and desks around. Did someone shit in here? Wiz said it smelled like a dead raccoon maybe. Charming pce to hang out in, I tell you.

  Lightning liked the walls. Lots of smaller cement walls, of smaller height. She could pinball more. She was having fun showing off. Teddy Ball liked it here, too.

  "Come on, Teddy. Help me find Moody…"

  Teddy Ball told her he would do his best to help her. He knew she needed her center. We decided, what the hell. Smoke a joint. The cop had given us a free dime bag after all. Lightning wanted to try "cop weed". Which was kind of funny, really. We didn't have any cigarette papers. We weren't bringing a bong to meet a cop in the city. Not like we knew we would meet a detective handing out free samples of his pot. We were figuring we would have to wait, and walk back to get papers. Then? We could just stand on the street and smoke it. Hell, you could shoot up and share needles with hookers, no one cared.

  Then, there was a fairly fresh empty beer can. Holes in it, crushed just the right way. We picked it up and passed it around. You could smell it. It had been used as a pot pipe. I made the crack that we were hot on her trail. Why, Wiz asked. First, her phone close by, maybe. Now? An empty beer can used as a pot pipe. She would do that at parties. She was one of those people that could make a pipe out of nearly anything. She made a one hitter out of the right kind of click pen. A piece of tin foil got wrapped around a pencil tight, then removed and bent just right. But, you have no trouble finding an empty beer can at any college party.

  You can poke a few holes with about anything pointy and get to it. Crush it up and discard it when you're done. The can is so easy to find, that its usually the poker you have a problem locating at first. Miss Moody was persistent, and usually came up with something pointy. An old nail, a screw. Pulling one of those out of where they belonged, or ying in a junk state. Paperclip, pin holding notes or posters. Even a pencil or a pen worked. I've seen her do it with a carefully chosen twig. The twig pokes too big of one big hole? But, not to be deterred she pokes the stick in the mouth hole, and closes the hole enough its like a little screen.

  So? We passed the beer can pipe around, and we had lungfuls, held it, and exhaled. We kicked the little dime baggie after a couple pipes of it, it was one of those tiny zip baggies. We put the pipe can back where we found it, where someone else might make use out of it next time.

  Lightning was showing off all the neat pinball action in here. There was a little metal door up on one wall, and when she did a particurly neat pinball followed by the obligatory one time shot, she could hit it and it made a little dull gong sound when she nailed her mark. Teddy Ball said he was still helping her look for Moody, so she wouldn't have to break a new center in. She told him he was the best.

  We walked around. Graffiti everywhere, and so naturally empty cans of cheap spray paint. Lightning liked to one time and hit them, because of the marbles rattling made a neat sound. Teddy Ball liked the different noises. She went back to her favorite though, the small thick metal door over the hole up the one cement wall. If it wasn't for the shit smell on top of the piss smell, or a dead raccoon like Wiz thought… it wasn't a half bad pce to hang out. If you were a kid drinking beer in the city, I suppose. We had woods and barns for that at home, these kids didn't.

  And Lightning and Teddy Ball were having a… well, a ball. If you pardon the pun. After walking around more and Lightning and Teddy were still showing her stuff off, I came back to what I jokingly called Little Miss Moody's pot pipe beer can. It had been near an old rusty metal chair. For shit like everything else in here, but the old kind of thing that would never fall apart. If no one carted it away? That thick metal chair would outlive all three of us and then some.

  I sat in the chair, and there was the beer can pipe. Where we put it back. Whoever had smoked it, had likely sat in this chair. Well, the chair had scrape marks, you could see where it had been dragged around. I idly followed the drag marks in the old dust and dirt, the sort of thing you do killing time after smoking some pot. That's when I saw it.

  "Wiz? Check this out."

  "What…"

  "See the chair?"

  "Yeah."

  "You would sit in the chair, and smoke."

  "Okay."

  "Then, you drag the chair. See the scrapes?"

  "Yeah. You drag a chair around. So?"

  "Well. Look…"

  Someone had done… well, it looked like finger painting. There were lots of cans of stuff around, and some of them were old paint cans. This looked like a kindergarten finger painting. Stick figures. Looked like mom and dad sticks. Mom had that patented triangle dress little kids use to indicate male from female. Dad’s stick arm was touching mom’s stick arm. Dad had short spikes for hair. Mom and dad had smiles. Another slightly shorter girl was touching mom's other stick arm. Mom and dad were both the same height. Big people, to a little kid. There was another girl in the triangle dress, too. All were smiling. Dad, mom, the other girl holding mom's other hand. The other girl, too. All bright colors, all smiling. There was another girl, too. She was all dark colors. Not like the yellow and orange everyone else was made out of. Ugly purple and off brown or bck. The dark girl, had a upside down smile. A little kid’s patented frown. The whole family was bright and happy, smiling. This dark girl was sad.

  "Lightning? Get over here."

  "What, mama bear."

  "Look. What does that look like, to you."

  "Some first grader's god awful finger painting."

  "Lightning? That cop weed must be half decent stuff."

  "Why?"

  "You gonna tell me, that this? Doesn't look like one of Little Miss Moody's stupid toe paintings she's always making?"

  "I guess it could be, but… you put a first grader's finger painting next to one of her toe paintings? Pretty much the same thing."

  "Yeah. Chair. Beer can pot pipe. See the drag marks? You drink some cheap beer. You smoke up. You drag the chair over to… this bench. All these old cans of paint and grease… and you sit in the chair. And… you make a toe painting. On the floor. Or, is this cop weed really that good…"

  Wiz shrugged.

  "Fuck it. Take a shit load of pictures. Make a little movie. Look around some more. You thought maybe you found her phone. Now? You think you maybe found her beer can pipe, and now one of her toe paints. We… could be hot on her goddamn trail for all we know."

  "Yeah. Or we found where little kids hang out, when the big kids aren't drinking beer and pissing everywhere. Fucking reeks in here. Come on Teddy. We're gonna keep you outta the piss, okay?"

  Lightning was doing her thing, and she hit the little thick metal hinged cover. The gong went off again. And Teddy ball had rocketed off of one of Lightning's golden feet, and knocked the hinged metal open. Teddy was holding the hinged metal pte open, then disappeared inside the little… whatever the hell the tiny storage room once was.

  "Teddy… you get out of there…"

  "Oh great. I think I found the shit-er. Urinals that corner. You take a shit in here. Aw man… Teddy! I hope you didn't get shit on you, poor guy."

  She came and got my disposable lighter. Dark cement storage. No windows. She kicked at the metal door to swing it open a tad. Rusty hinges groaned.

  "Aw. Its the shit-er, all right. I can hear the damn flies. Teddy! Please don't be in the shit…"

  Lightning squeezed through the metal door she kicked slightly open. She made some kind of… funny or strange noise. She has honestly the greatest bance and grace you can imagine a person having really. Dancer's grace and bance. So it was odd that she came out backwards, and fell over on her ass.