City of the Sun

EIGHT

Behr climbed into his Toronado and turned it over. The engine woke up hoarse then leveled. He drove away from the Gabriel house, surprised at himself for mentioning Tim to this couple he ’ d only known for a few minutes, his employers. He hadn ’ t gone into detail when they pursued it, but still, he had brought him up. And now, in the car, he found himself thinking about the events leading up to Tim ’ s death, trying for the thousandth time to untangle the knot they ’ d become.

Behr crossed County Line and made a left toward Donohue ’ s, where he figured on a skirt steak and a Beck ’ s Dark while he reviewed his new case notes. He hoped the noise and bustle of the low-lit, maroon-boothed, old place would block the path of his memories and focus him on the new task at hand.

Behr arrived at Donohue ’ s, which was just catching fire for the night, barely a step ahead of his recollections of Linda screaming in the halls of the hospital, of the horror of the funeral home. The casket, closed due to the damage. The empty, helpless silence that followed the funeral, which had strangled his heart and slowly killed everything decent in his life. He slid into the last available booth, the vinyl crunching quietly beneath him.

Arch Currey nodded over his white mustache from behind the bar. Behr waved back with a finger that sent Arch to the tap to draw the first Beck ’ s Dark. Behr had been a heavy drinker in the past and it had led to problems, especially around the time of Tim ’ s death, and he ’ d quit altogether for two years. He was a bit of an oddball now, an ex-abuser who could drink light when he wanted to. It was strange even to him, just another thing he couldn ’ t figure out about himself and the world.

Behr looked toward the corner booth that was Pal Murphy, the owner ’ s regular spot. He ’ d clocked Pal ’ s Lincoln out back and expected to see him there, thin as a rail, in a crisp white dress shirt and butter-soft leather jacket, tinted shades perched on his nose, hunched over a cup of coffee. But Pal must ’ ve been down in his office, as the booth was currently empty. Pal and Behr were something like friends. Pal ’ s age and bearing gave Behr a comfortable feeling, as if all problems and challenges were temporal, that one could ride it out, that time resolved all situations no matter how confusing. The bond had first been struck when Tim passed, and had deepened when things foundered between him and Linda.

Behr flipped open his notebook and began scanning his notes. The words blurred in front of his eyes for all their lack of information. He pulled out pictures of Jamie and studied them, noting the changes in the boy over time. He was a towhead when he was a toddler. Over the years his hair had darkened, but just a bit. Some freckling came up across the boy ’ s cheeks. His baby teeth fell out; his adult teeth gapped and finally filled in over the course of the photos. In the last shots Jamie seemed poised to grow like a reed. He was four foot ten and one hundred and five pounds at his disappearance.

“Family photos?” Kaitlin asked, placing his Beck ’ s Dark on a paper coaster. She stepped back and stood over him, order pad in hand. Behr slid the pictures under his notebook.

“Not exactly.”

“Regular A or B tonight, or do you want to hear specials?”

“Regular A,” Behr said, ordering his usual steak and baked. Regular B was his second-most usual meal — the broiled chicken and fries. “And keep these coming steady.” He raised the beer and knocked off half of it as Kaitlin walked toward the kitchen.

Donohue ’ s filled up around him. Behr glanced over to see Pal Murphy sliding into his regular spot. He used his hand to smooth the wispy rust-colored hair pasted across his scalp, then nodded to Behr. Pal was sitting with a younger man Behr didn ’ t know, which wasn ’ t a surprise. Ownership of the pub was only the beginning of Pal ’ s business ventures. Several other people Behr knew nodded to him from the bar; several he didn ’ t stared over at him, a lone big man taking a booth that seated four. None of them were going to complain though; Arch kept a shillelagh hanging behind the bar in full view and was willing to use it to keep order.

Behr knew how to cook. It was something he ’ d had to learn when things ended between him and Linda, but some nights he needed the hum and flurry of a place like Donohue ’ s. The fact was, he needed it more and more lately. Behr worked on his third beer and thought of her. Linda. He hadn ’ t spoken to her since January 6 three years back. She lived down in Vallonia now, near her folks. Behr had gotten out there several times a month for the first few years after they ’ d separated, but couldn ’ t win her back with anything he ’ d said or tried. Tim ’ s death was a chasm between them he couldn ’ t leap, no matter how much of a run-up he took. To do that, both of them needed to jump, to meet in the middle, in the dark space between. He knew that now. Knew it even though he ’ d failed and it was too late and he ’ d given up. She ’ d told him on that January 6 that she ’ d started seeing a man who owned a quick lube shop and a convenience store nearby. Behr had stopped going then, ceased trying. He ’ d heard they were living together now.

“He ’ s not a better man,” she ’ d told him. “He just doesn ’ t remind me of things.” This was intended as consolation, Behr supposed, but it felt like the opposite.

After he ’ d eaten, Behr drank three cups of coffee to blunt the beers ’ effect and began to outline a plan of action in his mind.

Step one. After Donohue ’ s, Behr rolled over to Market Square. He trolled through the darkened streets, coasting slowly in the Toronado like a fisherman trying to catch the big one on the first cast. He hoped to run across the boy on the streets, hungry but fine, ready to go home. He looked out his windows at the city that had been his home for two decades.

Indianapolis, the Circle City, was the twelfth largest in the nation. Because it had more interstates converging around it than anywhere else, it was known as the “Crossroads of America.” It was the Hoosier capital, host to the national track and field championships, home of the Indy 500 down at the Brickyard. Taxes were manageable, schools were good, real estate was valuable but still getable. Behr was aware of the Chamber of Commerce patter, and perhaps it had mattered to him twenty years earlier when he had just graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in criminology and had found openings on the Indianapolis police force down at the school ’ s placement office.

But as he drove, all that fell away and instead he began to see the predators, scumbags, and wasters who populated the city at night. Street cops, if they were going to last at all, quickly developed a sense of what is out there. Where regular people saw a guy in a tight leather jacket, a homeless man panhandling, a nervous woman, a cop saw a monster carrying a gun, a junkie ready to snap, a woman who ’ d just killed her husband. It was a skill you needed desperately at first, one that didn ’ t seem to come quickly enough. Thing was, Behr thought, you could never turn it off once it was there, no matter how much you wanted to.

He got into the streets named after states: Maryland, Washington, Georgia. He saw long-coated figures standing and talking, sitting in doorways, huddling, but no one whose age or size allowed them to be the boy he was looking for. He cruised past the Fieldhouse, dark and hulking, with no event tonight. He wound around Delaware and South, parked and walked through the Amtrak/Greyhound terminal and Union Station. The National Guardsmen were there, rifles slung, and some groups of older teenagers heading back to the suburbs. No kids. Behr showed the photos to some of the Reservists, who shook their heads.

He got back in his car and circled the RCA Dome before cutting across West Street. Like most times he ’ d been fishing, he ’ d come up empty. Tomorrow he ’ d have to start a real investigation. It was what the Gabriels were paying him for. It was what the kid deserved.