November 19 — 8:30 am

Follow the Babysitter

Myra’s car was a beat-to-fuck Eldorado built before Big Ed grew his first pube. The interior reeked of cigarettes. The radio was AM/FM-only, with twist knobs for Christ’s sake. Myra carped about his driving, but Ed had no intention of sitting in the passenger seat while a keyed-up tweaker navigated Portland streets. Even if she managed to keep the car between the lines, any cop worth his salt would pull her over at a glance. He didn’t need that shit.

“How long have you known that guy?”

“What guy?” Myra smoked as he drove, burning a quarter of her cigarette with each frantic drag. Big Ed opened his window, but that did little to clear the air.

“The insect.”

“He doesn’t like being called an insect.”

“But he is okay with being called the Flea.”

“That’s different.”

“I am wondering why Hiram was so quick to trust him.”

“He’s cool. Don’t sweat it.” She smirked through smoke. “Robot man.”

The Caddy wanted to pull left; he decided to stop talking and put both hands on the wheel. He took the most direct route he knew back to the girl’s place, retracing his path east on Burnside, then 60th south alongside the park. He intended to drive right into the neighborhood. They had no time to dick around. Big Ed didn’t know kids, but he figured if it was old enough to talk, it was old enough to know what its house looked like. Neighbors might recognize the little bastard, or at least realize a piss dribbler that age had no business roaming the streets alone. Fact was, the kid could end up back home again any minute.

Right before the big park reservoir, traffic came to a dead halt. Big Ed saw a helicopter hovering low enough to make out the NewsChannel 8 logo. He tried skirting the jam by turning down some nameless side street, hit another backup within a couple of blocks. But he was close now. His fingers drummed the steering wheel as the cars crept forward, enough to allow him to turn onto the Bronstein’s narrow street. He made it a couple more blocks and managed to get across Hawthorne before everything stopped for good. Ahead, a crowd had gathered. Dressed in everything from winter parkas to bathrobes, they stood indiscriminately in the street, on the sidewalks, on lawns below the chopper.

Big Ed killed the engine. Myra sat up and tossed her butt out the window. “Christ, there’s cops everywhere.”

Shit. He only mouthed the word, larynx still in his pouch. He palmed the keys and got out.

“Where the hell you going?”

Last thing he needed was a load of freak-out from Myra, but as he absorbed the scene before him he realized he could use her help. He leaned against the hood of the car and pressed the larynx to his throat. “We have to learn what is going on.”

She popped open her door and stuck her head up, one foot on pavement, one inside the car. “Are you fucking crazy? No way we get the brat away from all those cops.”

He closed his eyes and breathed. “They do not have him.”

“What are you talking about? Of course they got him.”

“No.” He moved away from the car. “They do not.”

She slammed her door and slinked after him. Alarm twisted her bony, acned face. He’d seen his share of tweaker paranoia, and he had no patience for it right now.

“I need you to pull your shit together.”

“My shit is fine. You’re the idiot about to walk into a jail cell.”

“Myra—”

“How could they not have him?” She waved wildly down the street. “Cops are fucking everywhere—”

“If they had him, the street would be quiet.”

She opened her mouth, but the retort died on her lips. She surveyed the street before them, the traffic, the gathered onlookers, the patrol cars. Slowly, understanding seeped into the desiccated meatloaf she used for a brain. “Oh.”

“Yes. Oh.”

“So where is he?”

“I do not know yet.”

“What fucking good does that do us—”

“Myra, calm the fuck down.”

“I’m fine.”

“Good. Now I need you to go find out what is going on.”

Now she shrank away from him. “I ain’t going up there.” Her hands slapped an arrhythmic beat against her thighs.

“It has to be you. You can blend in.” Of that, he was uncertain, but he knew he would stand out like spotlight in a mine shaft. “I cannot.” People always noticed the man who talked with a machine.

“I ain’t talking to no police.”

Big Ed massaged the bridge of his nose, larynx tucked in his palm. He wondered where Hiram was, if George the Flea was taking care of him or robbing him blind and leaving his body in a Dumpster. “Of course you will not speak to the police.” Even a probie would recognize a raging meth addict. “Just join the crowd up there. There will be talk, and lots of rumors. I need you to listen.”

“I don’t know ...”

“Myra, it has to be you. Walk up there and see what you can find out. You may not have to even talk to anyone if you keep your ears open.”

“What are you gonna do?”

“Wait for you, and try to figure out how we find the boy.”

Her lips pulled back from her yellow teeth and she folded her arms across her chest. He could tell she was retreating into herself. No idea how long it had been since she last used, but he could see the incipient signs of withdrawal. Her eyes darted from side to side from inside deep hollows, evidence of an oncoming crash if she didn’t get fixed soon. The paranoia was a bonus.

“Myra. Think of the money. You can swim in crystal once we are finished.”

She threw him a dark look and pulled her tatty quilted coat tight around herself, moved hesitantly up the street. Big Ed watched until she neared the crowd. Then he got back into the car. People would be less likely to give him a second look if he was just a guy stuck in the traffic jam, same as anyone else.

More police arrived on the scene. He had to start the car and edge to the side to allow a couple of patrol cars past. Cops set up barricades, pushed onlookers back. Suits gathered in clusters, uniformed brass in the mix. All very stern. Something big was going on, something that wasn’t a missing boy. He found himself entertaining his own paranoid uncertainty. What if it wasn’t about the kid? What if it was about a pair of pre-dawn home invaders? If so, sitting landlocked in a Caddy a block or two away from the crime scene was the last place he wanted to be.

But that didn’t fit. It had been a long time since he’d served, and even longer since Hiram put him through the state police academy at Monmouth. He’d forgotten more than he could remember, and hadn’t been a strong student to begin with. Still, he knew you didn’t stage a manhunt in a residential neighborhood by throwing up barricades at a half-block radius and then sitting tight.

He fidgeted. The crowd never stopped moving, interrupting his line-of-sight again and again. Myra could be anywhere. Mighta given up on the whole endeavor and ran off. Or, hell, she could even be in custody. He ran his hands over his head, flexed his fists. Breathed through his mouth to minimize the effect of Myra’s stench on his sinuses. It was a mistake, he decided, to send her. As the minutes ticked by, he grew increasingly convinced he should have scouted himself, taken a chance on making an impression. Hiram wondered aloud more than once why he wouldn’t at least give a goddamn turtleneck a try. Sure as hell woulda come in handy now. Even without something to cover his neck, if he didn’t try to speak to anyone, all he’d be was a guy with some scars on his neck. With everything else going on, no one would pay attention to him. But it was too late. Myra was up there, doing who knew the fuck what. To distract himself, he flipped on the radio and spun the tuner until he found a local talk station.

Caught a news report in progress.

Police in a stand-off near Mount Tabor ... a man holed up in his house with one or more guns ... Portland Police SERT team is at the scene ... negotiators attempting to defuse a tense situation.

He stared at the radio, willing it to give up more information. The man’s name, was it Bronstein maybe?

“Police haven’t released the name or names of persons involved.”

Christ. Had to be them.

He leaned forward, rested his forehead against the steering wheel. Myra’s speakers were shot. The news sounded like it was being broadcast from the distant past. He heard sudden pops and crackles, or was that from outside? He couldn’t tell.

Onlookers gathered behind the barricades ... command unit established at the scene. They broke away for weather and traffic, commercials, then back again. Some indication the negotiator is making progress. When he looked up again, Myra was returning, strolling casually down the middle of the street.

He jumped out of the car. “What the hell did you find out?”

“Lookie who’s got his panties in a bunch.”

“Just tell me.”

Her grin revealed missing molars on both sides of her mouth.

“Myra, damn it—”

“Fine, fine.” She laughed and pointed up the street. “See that guy talking to the woman cop?”

“Lower your arm.”

“Jesus.” She snapped her hand back to her side. “Do you see him or not?”

Big Ed looked. An older man stood talking to a female officer, a woman of rank if the silver on her collar was any indication. The man had grey, uncombed hair, wore jeans and a sweatshirt. Unremarkable at this distance, though Ed thought there was something about his neck, a bruise perhaps. He stroked his own scar tissue. He felt himself calming down again.

“What about him?”

“He’s the kid’s babysitter.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you know what a babysitter is? Christ, Ed.”

“I know what a babysitter is. I just—”

“Yeah, it is weird. Some random old puke in charge of a little kid.” Myra licked her lips, didn’t seem to care for the taste. “I guess he’s the neighbor across the street. Someone was saying he watches the kid a lot.”

“Did they say where the boy is?”

“With Grandpa.” Myra laughed, gleeful. “You hear that? With fucking Grandpa.”

“Interesting.”

“Your robot tube took the word right outa my mouth.”

Ed nodded, indifferent to her swipe. If they were saying the boy was with his grandfather, it meant they didn’t know Hiram no longer had the boy. It also meant they weren’t sending up an alarm. The Bronsteins wanted to keep the morning’s events quiet, whatever was going on now. That could work in his favor, if he could only find the boy before the cops did.

“What about the man in the house? The one in the standoff. Is it Bronstein?”

“Fuck if I know. They shot him, whoever it was.” She pulled out her smokes, lipped one from the pack. “I thought you only cared about the kid.”

He rolled his eyes, but he knew he should be grateful for whatever he got out of Myra. And if they did shoot Bronstein, that could only help the plan. “You’re right. The boy is the focus.”

“So you got a plan, or what?”

He gazed at the grey-haired man. “We need to get out of this traffic.”

“Okay. We get outa traffic. Then what?”

The woman cop moved away, leaving the old guy alone in the street. Big Ed watched as he thrust his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched. The man was anxious. And able to get the ear of a senior officer in the middle of a crisis. Ex-cop, Big Ed was betting. A man who knew how to look for what was lost.

“Ed? A plan?”

“We follow the babysitter.”