Same Difference, page 5
I had touched a nerve. Sometimes, as dentists will tell you, that’s when you get the real truth out of someone. ‘Eliza is missing,’ I said. ‘Any connection she has with friends, family, even acquaintances can be meaningful. Obviously Damien mentioned her to you. What did he say?’
‘I don’t see how that has anything to do with this,’ she said, advancing on me as if I didn’t have seven inches of height and approximately twice her upper body strength on my side. I braced with my right foot but Helena stopped five feet away. ‘I already told you they weren’t dating!’
‘I wasn’t suggesting they were,’ I answered, not yet relaxing my back leg.
‘Well, I don’t need to stand here and be insulted!’ Helena turned on her heel – no, really – and headed for the apartment door. It closed behind her, loudly.
‘I don’t know if anybody does,’ I said aloud.
Having accomplished my first task, which was getting Damien’s mother to leave so I could look around on my own, I turned my attention to the second, which was that looking around I just mentioned. Maybe Damien had indeed left something behind that could point me in a direction.
I didn’t find much in the living room. Living area, if I’m being accurate. This was an expensive apartment, but it was still a New York apartment and that meant space was at a premium. There was enough room here for two chairs that clearly used to be from someone’s dining room, a small coffee table and a wall-mounted flat-screen TV big enough to provide close-up views of all the sports a young man could want. Or was I stereotyping?
Even now I can’t imagine what it was I expected to find, but on my first tour of the living area I certainly didn’t find it. The kitchen, tiny and clearly underused, was no help either. That left the hallway, the bathroom and the bedroom.
I glanced fleetingly at the bathroom as I passed it. It was surprisingly clean but of no clear interest.
Damien’s bedroom was standard-issue college student chic. No posters on the walls, though. No anything on the walls. Damien had a few framed articles from a local newspaper or a website he’d printed out, featuring himself in association with some cross-country running event. With legs as long as Damien’s, it wasn’t a huge surprise that he could run long distances faster than most.
But it appeared that the only person he felt worth immortalizing for a place in his apartment was himself. I certainly hadn’t expected to find any pictures of Eliza, but someone other than Damien would have been refreshing in my view. Damien had, clearly, no such inclination.
The bed was rumpled, hardly a huge surprise. Damien hadn’t expected people – not even or perhaps especially not his mother – to be rooting around in his belongings when he’d left the place two or three days ago. I couldn’t point to a particular piece of evidence, but I had the feeling he hadn’t known he’d be gone this long. There was plenty of clothing in the closet and some in a chest of drawers in his bedroom. There was a hamper full of laundry ready for the washer, which was probably on the street below us or in a basement laundry room here in the building.
And then, as I returned to the living area, I came across that pile of clothing that had accumulated between rooms. Maybe there would be something in those.
Believe me, it wasn’t my first choice to look through every item of clothing Damien had left, presumably to be washed or at least folded, on the dusty floor of his expensive hallway. But like they tell you in detective school (there is no detective school), you have to follow every possible lead. And in this case, I truly had no other choice.
There were, as you might imagine, some pairs of jeans, crumpled and looking sad. In the pockets (don’t judge me; I’m a detective) were, in total, three face masks, one courtesy card for Dunkin’ Donuts, a packet of facial tissues, a pair of dice that were clearly for a game other than craps (I would guess Dungeons & Dragons, but that would seem to be contrary to Damien’s brand) and thirty-eight cents in change. No wallet, no mobile phone, no apartment key.
But there also were four small plastic packets with zipper seals, filled carefully with equal numbers of pills. I doubted they were to treat Damien’s hay fever. If he had hay fever.
SEVEN
‘What do you think they are?’ I asked Ken.
‘The pills?’ Sometimes my brother doesn’t pay the closest of attention to what I say. In this case, he was painstakingly dissecting an onion because he’d decided to cook dinner tonight. I wasn’t sure what he was preparing, but apparently it required a very carefully sliced onion.
‘No, the aliens who landed in Times Square. Yes, the pills. Should we assume that they’re not exactly legal drugs, and that Damien was, let’s say, supplying them for a small cadre of close friends?’
‘For a nominal handling fee, no doubt,’ Ken said. Green pepper had shown up on the cutting board next to the onion. I didn’t know what we were eating but it was certainly going to be precise. Ken can be a very good cook when he wants to be, which is approximately once every six weeks.
‘No doubt. What do you think?’ I asked. I was sitting in a chair at the kitchen table watching him cook. Things always go better with food preparation when I have as little to do with it as possible.
Ken looked thoughtful, which I could see because he had turned to face in my direction. ‘I think I need the lamb chops we bought.’ He was looking past me at the refrigerator.
‘They’re frozen,’ I reminded him.
My brother walked to the fridge and opened the freezer door, pulling out the plastic-wrapped package of what once had been a baby sheep. I chose not to think about that part. ‘That’s why the good lord invented the microwave oven,’ he said, heading for that very appliance.
‘The pills, Ken.’ Our parents had seen to it that our names were Fran and Ken, not Frances and Kenneth. That was, by all accounts, my father’s sense of humor at work. ‘What do you think the pills are?’
‘If we’re going to be trendy, they’re probably fentanyl,’ he answered. ‘That’s the big drug on the street these days. But for all you know this Damien was everybody’s favorite supplier of Tylenol. We need to get the pills analyzed.’
That meant involving the cops, and that meant involving Rich Mankiewicz. I moaned just a bit. ‘I suppose so,’ I said.
‘What’s the problem?’ The microwave beeped and Ken removed the package of meat – which he had not opened before defrosting it – and put it on the counter. ‘You never had trouble talking to the cops before. You kind of like it, don’t you?’
‘No. It’s fine. I can do it tomorrow.’ After all, Mank was the one who called me about Damien in the first place, and if Damien was dealing drugs that might explain a lot about what had happened to him and possibly to Eliza. Not that those possibilities were exactly pleasant.
Ken (finally) removed the lamb chops from the package and got a frying pan heating on the stove. He poured out just enough olive oil to make the pan slick but not to overwhelm the rest of the food. ‘You don’t want to talk to Mankiewicz, do you?’ he said.
‘I can do it,’ I said with a little more emphasis than I should have. ‘It’s not a big deal.’ I needed to change the subject quickly. ‘What did you find out about your pal at the World Health Organization?’
His mouth twitched a little. Ken hates not knowing stuff. ‘Not as much as I wanted to. From what I could get online and from public records, his name is Malcolm X. Mitchell and he holds a PhD in biology from, get ready, Rutgers University in New Jersey.’ Rutgers was where our mother was working when she married our father. We think.
‘Malcolm X?’ I said.
‘Apparently his parents were fans. And that assumes it’s his real name. This guy hung up on me awful quick when I tried to find out who he was and how to contact him.’
He turned the lamb chops, which were sliced thin, over, and applied a generous amount of black pepper to them. They smelled great.
‘Maybe now’s the time to check with Shelly Kroft. Maybe there’s some internal federal employee channels she can look at to find out more about our new pal.’ In the abstract, Malcolm X. Mitchell was an interesting puzzle. When I thought about him practically, I fought off a shiver. ‘What do you think we need to do to protect Mom and Dad?’ Ken has been the lead investigator in our attempts to locate our parents, which so far had been remarkably unsuccessful. They’d found us once, but then we’d barely moved since they took off on us decades earlier.
‘If we were in touch with them, we could warn them, but that’s not an option,’ Ken said. He removed the lamb chops from the pan and put them on a plate he’d taken from the cabinet over his head. ‘Is it?’
Ken didn’t know about my emails with our mother and even those had dried up over the past couple of months. When they had been active, I still hadn’t any idea where our parents were living or what they were doing. We’d heard some time back that they were teetering on the edge of a cure for all cancers and that some people in the pharmaceutical and hospital businesses were not pleased with the prospect. That meant the danger to Olivia and Brad was real and couldn’t be ignored.
What it meant for Ken and me was unclear. We’d had a crazy person track us down months ago but that seemed to be an isolated incident. We had opted not to pack up and move out of New York. With the rent we were paying in this rent-controlled apartment, we’d be fools to break the lease.
‘No, we don’t know where Mom and Dad are,’ I agreed. ‘Is there anything we can do from here?’
Ken opened the oven and took out two potatoes that had been baking there for about an hour. He put them on the plate with the lamb chops and gave me a look. ‘So. What are you having for dinner?’
I grabbed the plate out of his hand and put it on the kitchen table. ‘Lamb chops and baked potato,’ I said. ‘Unfortunately, the chef forgot to include a vegetable.’
‘Potatoes are vegetables.’
Potatoes are tubers, but there was no point in arguing that. I got forks and knives from the utensil drawer. Then I got butter and shredded cheddar cheese for the baked potatoes and we both sat down. ‘What can we do about Mom and Dad?’ I asked again.
Ken chewed and spoke at the same time. Considering how disgusting he is to eat with, it’s amazing he has ever had a girlfriend. And yet he seems to have one all the time. The current one’s name was Juliet and she was – you’ll be shocked – an aspiring model. ‘The only lead we have is Malcolm,’ he said. ‘We need to research back through him. I keep track of most of the major medical web resources and there hasn’t been anything about people working on a cure for cancer outside the normal areas. So they’re not sticking their heads out just yet. Malcolm is the only indication we have that anyone knows they’re out there. And how he got my number, especially since he didn’t have yours or the office’s, is a serious question.’
I waited until I could swallow (and the food was delicious) before speaking, proving that I am a civilized human being. Sort of. ‘Do you think you’re in danger?’ I asked.
‘I don’t think he’d call me up and alert me if he meant me harm,’ Ken said after taking a swig from a beer bottle. If I didn’t know for a fact that it wasn’t true, I’d have sworn he grew up in a frat house.
‘Maybe he was warning you about someone else,’ I suggested.
‘If he was, it was a lousy warning,’ my brother said. ‘He didn’t tell me to look out for anything, just asked if I knew anything about Brad and Livvie. I didn’t tell him anything and he hung up. That’s not exactly making me lose sleep about myself.’
I considered all the facts before I said anything else, which separates me from my brother. Don’t get me wrong; Ken is an intelligent, caring person. He’d just cringe if he knew I told you that.
‘Two things I’m going to do tonight,’ I said. ‘First, I’m going to call Shelly and ask her to look into our pal Malcolm X. Then I’m going to bite my tongue and get in touch with Mank to see if we can get some information about the pills I found, and why the cops who are supposedly investigating Damien’s disappearance didn’t find them. Have they been to his apartment? Are they even really looking for him?’
Ken, having devoured his dinner, sat back and out of courtesy to me refrained from belching, which I appreciated. He entwined his hands behind his head. ‘Well, I’m going over to Juliet’s place to watch a movie and chill,’ he said. ‘If you know what I mean.’
I knew exactly what he meant, but I prefer not to have certain mental images lurking so I washed the dishes while Ken changed his shoes or something and then I went into my bedroom to call Shelly.
To be honest, I really didn’t expect her to know much about Malcolm X. Mitchell, but it was an excuse to check in on my friend. I met Shelly when we were both studying for our master’s degrees in criminal justice on the way to what I thought was going to be a career in the NYPD (turned out they were thrilled to have me file reports) and she thought was going to lead to the FBI, something which I believe my friend still aspires to do. But right now she’s a US Marshal in Portland, Oregon. It’s a place in which Shelly fits perfectly well but won’t admit it because she grew up in New Jersey, and you can’t ever coax that out of a true native.
She answered on the second ring. ‘Fran Stein,’ she said. ‘How are things being the biggest girl in Manhattan?’ Shelly is nothing if not subtle.
‘How are things being the toughest girl in Portland?’ I countered. ‘You kick down the door on a grizzly bear lately?’
‘Touché,’ she said. ‘Tell me all about your life.’
Having already done that once sort of lately, I decided against complying. ‘You know how it is,’ I said. ‘You track down the odd parent or two, and some of them are very odd. You?’
‘I’m from the gov’ment,’ Shelly said. ‘I follow m’orders. I’d spit some tobacco juice now but you know I’m not into that.’
I’ll spare you the rest of our chitchat and get to the part where I told her that Ken had been contacted by someone who claimed to be from the WHO and was named Malcolm X. Mitchell. I asked Shelly if she’d ever heard that name.
‘Is he a US Marshal?’ she asked, full well knowing the answer.
‘No.’ I’ll supply it when necessary.
‘Then it’s unlikely our paths would have crossed. Do you think there’s some big database where all federal employees can find out every other federal employee’s shoe size or something?’
‘Sort of,’ I admitted.
‘Well, you’re right, but not very.’ I could hear Shelly tapping away at a keyboard. ‘There is a database of federal employees but it’s available to the public for the most part.’
‘For the most part?’
She paused. ‘You want anybody to be able to track down all CIA agents?’
‘Point taken. What can you find out about the current version of Malcolm X?’
More tapping. ‘Hang on. I’m zeroing in. What do you want to know?’
‘First of all, whether he actually works for the World Health Organization would be helpful.’
‘You’re aware that the WHO is run by the United Nations and not the American government, right?’ she asked.
To be fair, I had known that. ‘Yeah, but you guys are in contact, right?’
Shelly let out a sigh. ‘It’s a good thing I love you,’ she said.
‘You’re just trying to get on my good side. Is there a common ground you can look into? I just really need to know if this guy is what he says he is.’
She didn’t sigh but in not sighing she sighed. ‘I can ask around a little. Why do you care about this guy looking into these two scientists, anyway?’
I had been hoping Shelly wouldn’t ask that question because I hate lying to her, despite the fact that I’ve done it on countless occasions when anything approaching this subject would arise. ‘They appear to have had some connection to my parents,’ I said. That wasn’t lying, lying. I mean, my parents were connected to themselves, weren’t they?
‘OK, at least that makes sense,’ Shelly said, and I wondered how it did, but as long as she thought so I could go with it. ‘I don’t know if I can find out anything at all for you, but I know a guy who knows a guy who used to work at the UN. Maybe he’ll have a connection.’
I grinned. Shelly was still Shelly. ‘All you people from Jersey know a guy who knows a guy, don’t you?’
‘Yeah, but we can’t talk about it.’
After that we just caught up on our actual lives and gossiped about people we’d known in school, which in my case was pure speculation. I hadn’t kept in touch with anyone but Shelly.
EIGHT
Asking Mankiewicz for help was considerably more complicated.
I decided it was necessary to make this all play as professionally and dispassionately as possible. Whether or not I was up to the task was another question, and it was after nine in the evening, so I gave serious consideration to putting off the call until the next day.
But then I’d lie awake all night thinking about what I was going to say and dreading the whole thing and I thought it was best to get it out of the way now and not spend the next ten hours staring at my bedroom ceiling. I’d seen it before, and frankly it wasn’t that interesting.
Even if I had believed Mank’s story about losing his phone in the river – which, for the record, I did not – his mobile number would still be the same, and all I had to do was push the proper button on my iPhone to call him. That was easy, right?
So a little after ten I did just that, having had some warm milk and a cookie I’d stolen from Aunt Margie’s place. Because there’s nothing that says ‘professional and dispassionate’ like reverting to your own six-year-old behavior.
