Canary (38 page)

“What do you mean, no police?”

“We can find Sarie on our own. If you call the cops it’ll go on her permanent record.”

“Marty, swear to God, you’d better tell me what you know …”

A few hours ago the tracer chip finally started working; there are multiple pings. God bless social media. Marty knows where his sister is! He has the chance to save the day! But he also knows he has to play this right, not tip his hand too much.

“Okay, I’m sorry, Dad, but Sarie swore me to secrecy. She went down to South Street tonight.” Because that’s where the tracer chip says her Honda Civic is parked: on Fourth, near South.

“Jesus fucking … Get your coat and gloves on. We’re going to get Sarie now. I’ll deal with you later.”

“What do you mean? How can we get Sarie? You don’t drive.”

Marty’s dad has never driven a car, not as long as he’s been alive, but tonight is apparently the exception. And George Ponus is drunk enough to agree to lend his buddy Kevin Holland (via his half-awake wife) the keys to a 2007 Chevy Cavalier, parked in the driveway next door. Mrs. Ponus isn’t as sure, but Kevin lays it on thick: I just need to pick up my daughter, thank you so much, we’ll have the car right back to you.

“Dad, you sure you can do this?”

“Are you buckled in?”

“Yes.”

The Cavalier rockets down their street. Marty checks his iPod. The tracer chip says that Sarie’s car is still on Fourth Street.

The ride downtown feels like forever, even with little traffic at this time of night. Kevin and his two children live so far away from the city’s center they’re practically tipping over into the next county. It’s a long slog all the way down Rhawn Street, followed by a trek down State Road—which has been a construction zone all year long. They keep rebuilding I-95, over and over and over again. Kevin swears it’s been at least three times in his lifetime. Lanes disappear. Off-and on-ramps change position. Familiar landmarks vanish. The highway continues on.

How many times has he done this? How many times has he driven down an ancient version of I-95, into the heart of Philadelphia, looking for trouble? So different now. Christ, what he put his parents through.

Marty spots the Civic first—on Fourth Street, half a block up from South. Seeing the cold and empty car parked there is a hard fucking jab straight to Kevin’s heart. This was confirmation; Sarie lied to him. What else has she been lying about? Kevin finds a spot across the street from the Civic. If Marty were older, Kevin would leave him in the Cavalier as a lookout, in case Sarie wandered back on her own. But smart as the boy is, he is in fact only twelve. No way is Kevin leaving his twelve-year-old son alone in a car a block away from the drunken chaos of South Street—he’s already fucking up enough as a parent, thank you very much.
Let me get this straight, Mr. Holland, your daughter went missing so you abandoned your kid in a freezing locked car while you prowled bars looking for her?
Kevin pulls on his gloves, then tells Marty to do the same and follow him.

Marty’s all wide-eyed. He’s only seen South Street during the day. Cheesesteak runs and such. At night, it’s another story. Somewhere out in the darkness a guy screams, then laughs. Somewhere else, a glass bottle explodes against a wall. Father Holland and son hurry down Fourth Street, their footsteps echoing off the storefronts. Kevin jerks his arm up, checks his watch; it’s five till two, the magic hour when all bars have to close up for the night. Fuck. They have a lot of ground to cover. The bars line the street from Front all the way to Ninth or Tenth. Sarie probably parked on Fourth because she was hitting a bar nearby.

“Where do you think she is, Dad?”

“Honestly, kid, I have no fucking clue.”

“Dad!”

Marty hates when his father curses. Kevin doesn’t even realize he’s doing it half the time.

“Sorry. C’mon, let’s head to the right. Stick close to me, okay?”

Kevin looks at the signs, the crowds, and the printed menus posted to the outside walls. So, Kevin Holland, what’s your daughter’s taste in bars?

A systematic search of a half-dozen of them yields nothing except stares and sidelong glances. A middle-aged guy, bald, with tattooed arms and his twelve-year-old kid tagging along? Sure, it’s going to look a little weird.

Kevin’s daughter is not hard to pick out of a crowd, being taller than most girls her age. Taller than most women, in fact. Her long, dark hair is frequently up, out of her face, held in place by her mother’s silver hairpin. Kevin scans the drunken masses in each bar, looking for tall, dark hair, silver hairpin. But tonight, having her big underage night out on the town, she might be wearing it down. So Kevin also listens for her voice, cutting through the din. Parents’ ears are forever tuned to their kids’ voices.

And now South Street is shutting its collective doors, having expelled all of the stragglers, drunks, and lonely guys still hoping, in vain, to hook up with some living being with a pulse. If his daughter was here, she’s since departed.

“Dad, why would Sarie come here?”

“Because that’s what college kids do. College kids about to be grounded until their senior year.”

“Maybe she went back to the car?”

At a loss for a better idea, Kevin nods. They double back, padding down the sidewalk, breathing frigid air, hoping for a piece of recognition. But the Civic is just as quiet and dead and cold as before. A PPA ticket flutters against the windshield as an icy wind blows in from the Delaware River just a few blocks away. So if she’s not in a bar, where is she? Does she have a friend from school who lives down here somewhere? If she does, maybe Tammy knows. Might be time to make that call, after all …

“It’s seriously freezing out here.”

“I know, I know. Hold on a minute.”

Kevin huffs, stamping his feet, trying to clear his head. Maybe it’s time to get back into the car, crank the heat. At least then the boy won’t freeze to death, and Kevin could drive around the neighborhood, hoping to spot Sarie. But on a cold night like this, why would she be wandering around outside? No. She’d be inside, where it was warm.

Maybe it
is
finally time to call Tammy. Fuck worrying about waking up the parents. They have it easy—their daughter is home safe with them. They can take his worried, paranoid call and go right back to sleep.

Kevin glances at the Civic across the street, stamps his feet again. Exhales cold air that looks like smoke.

“Uh, Dad? What are we doing?”

Kevin tosses Marty the keys. “Get inside, turn up the heat, and wait for me. Just want to check something out.”

Marty doesn’t need to be told twice. He’s practically shivering as he climbs into the front passenger seat, no doubt figuring Dad is too preoccupied to bother hassling him into the backseat. Kevin meanwhile walks across the street to the Civic, looking both ways up and down Fourth. He crouches down, peers inside the vehicle, looking for … clues. Something
off.
Whatever.

But the interior of the Civic is spotless and tidy, just like her mother used to keep it. He squints harder, trying like hell to get the hard-core analytical part of his brain to kick on. Come on …
nothing,
Sarie? No notes to yourself? Not even a paper bag from a store, so that I can have some clue where you might have been during the past twelve hours?

He unlocks the Civic with the spare key fob he brought with him (thank God he remembered that, otherwise he’d be considering breaking into his own daughter’s car) and sits behind the wheel. Kevin doesn’t even have to adjust the seat, because Sarie is almost as tall as him. A quick check of the little compartments and cubbies and glove box reveals nothing. In the backseat is a change of clothes in an overnight bag. Guess she wanted to look nice for her big night out. Where did she change? Probably that fucking kid’s place—Drew. Kevin glances over at Marty, who’s huddled in the passenger seat of the Cavalier, warming his hands in front of the vents. He should wrap this up, relock the car, then call Tammy. Kevin gives a halfhearted feel under the driver’s seat, and there it is.

A cell phone.

Thing is, it’s not Sarie’s cell phone. She received an iPhone for Christmas and adores the stupid thing—never lets it leave her side. So what is this? Kevin picks it up. It’s a simple flip phone. No fancy touch screen. Plastic, something you could pick up for twenty bucks at a convenience store.

So of course Kevin flips it open. No recent calls, and only one text exchange:

Let me know when you’re at the towers

And the response:

kk

And … nothing else. The rest of the phone had been cleared—or purchased just for that one exchange. What the fuck? Was this Sarie’s, or did it belong to some friend of hers who forgot it in her car?

Only one way to find out. Kevin texts back:

hey

Kevin waits.

No response.

He thumbs the keypad:

you there?

Kevin waits, thinking that the person at the other end of the message could be with Sarie
right fucking now,
and this mini-parental nightmare could be over in a few seconds. Just text back, whoever you are. Come on.

There’s no return text; this time the cell rings. Kevin fumbles it as he flips it open to answer.

“Hello? Who is this?”

There’s huffing at the other end of the phone, almost a sigh … then a staccato beep.

“Who the fuck is this?” Kevin shouts, even though the call is already disconnected. He feels the urge to lash out at something, his hands practically shaking. He settles on the Civic’s horn, pounding it with the flat of his fist.
BARRP!
Marty looks over from the Cavalier, a slightly panicked look on his face.

Wildey is on the fringes of the Badlands, driving in stone silence, when his phone receives a text. He checks the screen and can’t believe it. It’s from Honors Girl.

hey

He pulls his car over to the side of the street, scaring the shit out of some sleeping junkies. He’s about to respond when there’s another text:

you there?

Which gives him pause. That doesn’t sound like Honors Girl. That sounds like someone who has (found?) her burner phone and is throwing up a test balloon. So instead of sending a text, he dials the number. Wildey’s stomach sinks when a gruff male voice answers. “Hello. Who is this?” Shit. Wildey hits
END
.

All kinds of ruinous thoughts race through his head. Whoever grabbed Sarie took the burner. Maybe that same person (or people) are looking for him, too, and just tried to trick him into revealing his location. Shit, if Kaz
is
involved in the conspiracy, they would know he was headed home and could have people waiting for him.

Wildey sits in his car, listening to the El above him rumble down the tracks, wondering what he should do. Maybe Honors Girl is still out there, waiting for him to save her. Maybe there can be some kind of trade; his own life for the girl. He flips on the police radio again and instantly hears fevered chatter about a massacre down at the Melrose Diner—reports of two victims, one male, white, fifties, one female, eighteen or nineteen years old, Latino.

Forget amnesty. If Kevin finds the guy—and he just
knows
it’s some guy—on the other end of that line, he’s going to fucking annihilate him.

Sarie’s going to be in trouble, too.

Kevin returns to his own car, but not before leaving a handwritten note on the ticket on the windshield:

Sarie this is Dad. Call me the minute you see this
.

They drive around. There’s an active crime scene under the Ben Franklin Bridge. Flashing cherries outside the four-story building, tape strewn everywhere, TV news vans blocking the streets.

Don’t freak out. This is not her. This has nothing to do with her. Just because your daughter is missing and you see police lights doesn’t mean something’s happened to her …

There is nothing left to do but return home. They could drive up and down the streets all night, but the chances of spotting Sarie are pretty much nil. But he can’t just stake out her car all night, either. Maybe if Kevin was alone, but not with poor Marty out here in the cold. No, the best thing is to go back home, let Marty go to bed, and wait by two phones now—Kevin’s, and the cheap-ass one from Sarie’s car. Tonight, sleep will not be an option.

Christ, is Ringo glad he hid that snub-nose beneath the tracks.

Because while Sarie Canary there was twisting around and screaming her lungs out—always a good play—Ringo was pulling his trembling, leaking, fucked-up carcass along the tracks, feeling the blood spurting out of a few holes but not caring. Reaching that piece was all that mattered. That, and pulling it from its hiding place. Rolling over. Performing one sit-up, yeah, just like in the military days, and more or less aiming at anything over the two-feet mark. Bang bang bang bang. Bodies went twisting in the darkness, stumbling on the tracks. Ringo feels like he’s gonna puke from moving too much. The bodies drop. Bye-bye, Frankenstein. Good night, Lisa Lisa. The girl cries out in panic and horror one last time. Ringo’s torso drops back down to the tracks and he mutters “ah shit” before he passes out.

When he jolts awake a few minutes (hours? days? years?) later, the girl is kneeling next to him and crying. Holding her right arm, which is covered in blood. “Hey,” he tells her.