Day of Wrath (3 page)

"She is very beautiful," I said,

"Oh, God!" Mildred cried. "I do love her, Mr. Stoner.
I do. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if anything happened to her."

"Nothing's going to happen to her," I said, even though
I knew that I shouldn't have said it. "She's probably in a shelter right
now."

"Do you think so?"

I nodded. "There are several dozen shelters and vicarages
around the city. I'll run the standard checks in the morning."

"Wouldn't they call me—if she was in a she1ter?"

"Not unless Bobbie wanted them to," I said.

Her face collapsed. "I see."

"Or she could be staying with a friend or relative."

"Oh, I think I would know by now if she were still in
the neighborhood. One of the parents would have called me. Even that dreadful
Caldwell man."

"Why do you say the Caldwells are 'dreadful'?"

"Because they're trash," she said severely. "Poor white
trash."

I started to chide her, but she held up a finger, as if
to say on this matter her prejudices could not be shaken.

"They are dreadful people, Mr. Stoner. Believe me. Their
house is a pigsty; they both dress like hobos; and they haven't a penny
to their name. The father lives off Welfare—some kind of mental problem
which he claims as a permanent disability?

I thought of the gold bracelet I'd found in Robbie's room,
with the initials "R.C." on the shank, and asked her what Caldwell's son,
Bobby, did for a living.

"Nothing. He's still in high school, I think. That is,
he is when he decides to go to school. From what I can tell, he spends
most of his time at home, working on his automobile or playing the guitar.
He's actually a good musician—or so Robbie tells me. I think that's the
only reason she likes him. They have nothing else in common."

"Does he play professionally?"

"I don't know," Mildred said. "I wouldn't think so, though.
He's only sixteen."

I stared at the photograph and said, "Is this a fair likeness
of Robbie?"

"Yes."

"
Do you know who took the picture?"

"
Oh,'yes," she said and her eyes brightened again.

"That was taken on a picnic with the Rostows. We all went
out to Kings Island for the day."

"What does Rostow do for a living?"

"
He's in antiques," she said, as if "antiques" were an
exclusive men's club.

"And how old is Sylvia?"

"Robbie's age, fourteen. She's such a nice girl," Mildred
said with that same fulsome warmth. "She and Robbie are very close. I've
done my best to encourage their friendship. Little girls need a confidante
of their own age, don't you think?"

I told her that she could fit all I knew about little
girls in a bug's ear.

"You have no children of your own?" she said with surprise,
as if, in Roselawn, children were one of the ten curses.

I shook my head. "Never been married. Although I've come
close a couple of times."

"What happened?"

"I don't know, Mildred," I said wearily. "I guess I'm
just not marriageable."

"
That's ridiculous," she said. "A good looking man like
you."

"Why don't we stick to Robbie?"

She flinched as if I'd slapped her. "I was being polite,"
she said in a wounded voice.

"I know you were, Mildred. That's just not one of my favorite
subjects."

"
Losing my only daughter is hardly one of mine, you know,"
she said, with some justice.

We were headed toward another argument. Deep down, in
spite of the charity I'd subscribed to a few minutes before, I knew that
she and I would always be headed in that direction. People like Mildred
were simply too easy to hurt. So I asked her for the addresses of the Caldwell
boy and the Rostow girl, copied them down in my notebook, got up, and walked
to the door.

"You will call me?" she said as she scurried up behind
me.

"I will when I've found something out."

"And you do think she's all right?"

"I told you I did."

"I just couldn't stand it if anything happened to her,"
she said again and twisted her hands to punctuate the thought.

I was tempted to tell her that what had happened to Robbie
had started a long time before she'd run away. But I checked myself. It
would have hurt Mildred too deeply. And besides, it was something that
she already knew.
 

IT WAS STILL DRIZZLING—A FINE GRAY MIST THAT WET my
face as soon as I stepped out the door. I didn't mind the damp. After the
hour I spent with Mildred in that dry, cramped house, the weather felt
good. I looked back over my shoulder when I got to the end of the walkway
and saw her peering anxiously out the front window—a dour, befuddled
woman waiting for her only child to return home. I hadn't told her that
there was a, slim chance that Robbie wouldn't be coming home, that her
daughter might have used the money she'd stolen from her mother's purse—plus
whatever else she'd been able to panhandle or steal—to buy a one-way
ticket away from that drab brick house on that drab brick street. That
it might be months or years before Mildred heard from her again—a tiny,
worn-out voice on the phone begging for money or a plane ticket home. And
what Mildred would be buying back would be a very different person than
the rebellious teenager who'd run away from Eastlawn Drive. What she'd
be buying back could have been so damaged and exploited that it might never
raise its head again. Or it might have turned so callous that it wouldn't
think twice of robbing the woman and bolting back into darkness. I hadn't
told Mildred that, for the obvious reasons and for some slightly better
ones.

What I'd found in that box in the girl's bedroom was one
reason. Robbie hadn't taken any of her valuables with her when she'd left.
None of the baggage she probably would have taken along, if she'd been
planning a long trip. Not that gold bracelet, which she could have pawned
for ready money when her own small cash supply ran out. Or the necklace
with the peace symbol, which, like a badge or a talisman, might have buoyed
her spirits on the long journey out. Or the snapshot I had in my coat pocket—an
image of herself she could have looked back on when times were hard. And
then there hadn't been any previous flights—none of those sprints into
the outside world that usually precede a long-distance run. In fact, the
circumstances suggested a sudden, relatively short excursion. Probably
to a place so close by that Robbie hadn't felt the need to arm herself
with money or with belongings. Probably to a place that was familiar and
hospitable—a place she might have dreamed of running to for a long time.
A place where all of those dreams she'd been collecting in her upstairs
room—that familiar adolescent mix of instinct and idealism—would come
to life.

Part of me wished her safe conduct. The part that Mildred
Segal had hired trudged on through the weather—past a hedge of rosebushes
spangled with raindrops and up an asphalt drive colored with the rainbow
hues of motor oil slicks—up to the Frederick Rostow Residence. That was
what it said on the lawn, on the chain sign that a plaster statue of a
Negro jockey was holding in its rain-soaked hand: Frederick Rostow Residence.

I stared at the plaster Negro and felt a little embarrassed
for Fred. Even in Cincinnati, that sort of thing had gone out with the
Civil Rights Act, although I'd have been willing to bet that there were
thirty thousand little Negro jockeys sitting in dark basement corners from
Delhi to Indian Hill, like a race of imprisoned elves, waiting to be returned
to daylight. And some day it could happen. Cincinnatians knew that. In
a way, that was the gist of their native wisdom—someday it could all
come back again. Racial prejudice didn't die in this city; it just got
stored in the basement with the rest of the supplies.

The Frederick Rostow Residence didn't quite live up to
its billing. It was another two-story, red brick house with colonial trim.
It did have a bay window in front and some fresh paint on the gutters.
Otherwise it was indistinguishable from the other houses on the street.
Same foursquare lawn. Same hedge. Same budding maple tree, its trunk blackened
in the rain. I walked up to the front door and knocked.

"
Just a second!" a cheerful male voice called out.

Someone laughed heartily, than the door opened and a short,
smiling man stepped out from behind it. Fred Rostow, if that was who the
man was, bore a disconcerting resemblance to Lee Harvey Oswald. A kind
of plump, prosperous, untroubled-looking Lee Harvey Oswald, dressed in
white leather shoes, gray checkered acrylic slacks, shiny white leather
belt, and light blue Izod shirt.

"
Howdy!" he said. "I'm Fred Rostow. And you must be the
detective Mildred hired."

I did a bit of a double take and said, "I guess I must
be."

"Oh, hell, don't take it like that. Mildred was just on
the phone with Madge, telling her all about you. And I want you to know
we'll be happy to cooperate? He passed his fingers through his short black
hair and laughed. "Geez, it's kind of exciting, isn't it?"

I shook my head and thought, Mildred. Just—Mildred.

"Bobbie Segal's disappeared, Mr. Rostow. Did Mildred tell
you that?"

"Oh, yeah," he said cheerfully. "I didn't mean to sound
like I was glad she'd run away or anything. I just meant . . . well, you
know, meeting a detective and all. You carry a gun?"

"Christ," I said under my breath.

"
I mean,. on TV, detectives usually carry guns."

"Hold it!" a woman called out from inside the house. And
a Magicube went off with a blinding Hash. I swiped at the spots before
my eyes and heard the woman say, "Just one more!" And there was another
flash. Then someone grabbed my hand and pulled me to a chair.

When my eyes cleared, they were both sitting across from
me—Fred and Madge—on a long, russet-colored sofa with teak trim. There
was a glass and chrome coffee table between us, with an open box of chocolates
in its center. A framed lithograph of Picasso's Dan Quixote was hung on
the far wall, above a huge TV. There were several other prints on the walls—Miros
and Klees, I thought, although I couldn't be sure with all those spots
still dancing before' my eyes.

"We like to take pictures," the woman said a bit apologetically.
"My mother always said she wished she'd had more pictures of us when we
were children."

I nodded politely.

"So she could look back on them, you see?" the man explained.

There was an embarrassed silence, in which the Rostows
took account of their lives since childhood and I sat there, on an Eames
chair with vinyl cushions, and  tried to keep a straight face. They
were a pair, all right.

The woman with taffy colored, permanently waved hair and
the sort of tall, doughy, nonplussed face you see on middle-aged suburban
children. And the man with his shaky, weasel's look and his golf club outfit.
The woman was wearing black wool slacks and a pearly white blouse. She
had an apron tied at her waist with "I hate housework" stitched across
it in red letters.

"You might think we're taking this lightly," the man said
after a time. "We're not."

The woman shook her head so violently that her eyes crossed.
"No, we're not."

"We just know Robbie so well."

"
Like our own daughter."

"And we know that she wouldn't . . ."

"
Get in any trouble," the woman said.

They were finishing each other's sentences. I didn't know
how long I could take it. As soon as they shut their mouths, I asked them
if I could talk to their daughter.

"Sure. Of course," they said.

The husband got up and walked out of the room, and the
woman fiddled with the tassels on her apron.

"I understand your husband is in the antique business,"
I said.

"Well, not exactly antiques. Near antiques."

Used furniture, I thought. It helped to explain the banality
of that room.

"'You don't think Robbie's in any real trouble, do you?"

Madge said with a look of concern that made her tall face
collapse.

The seriousness of the occasion was catching up with her,
after all the hi-jinks. "I don't know, Mrs. Rostow. You know the girl better
than I do."

"I just can't imagine Robbie getting into . . . I mean,
she's such a nice girl."

I laughed. I couldn't help it.

"Did I say something funny?" Madge Rostow said.

"
No," I said in a soothing voice. "You just reminded me
of someone else for a moment."

She nodded agreeably, but her brown eyes had grown hostile
and a little confused. Never laugh at a burgher, Harry, I said to myself,
they just don't know how to take a joke.

Madge Rostow clammed up after that. And we sat there quietly
until Fred came back into the room.