NanoWrimo
As you can see, I've not been doing great, but I am doing better than last year, and that is the continuing goal. If anyone is interested, behind the cut is the rough first chapter. Would be happy to hear opinions or comments.
Her hands slammed down on the Sergeant's desk in frustration as he turned his back on her, yet again, to answer another phone call. Adrian allowed gaze to burn into the uncaring police offer's back for another few minutes, knowing the futility of the action, and then swept the rest of the squad room for what seemed like the fifteenth time. She had been here for almost an hour at this point and was quickly becoming very familiar with the room.
The large room was crowded and loud. Sixteen large desks, evenly spaced filled the room. At roughly half the desks a officer sat, either working on a computer or discussing quietly with a man or woman seated in a nearby chair. Her deep green eyes settled on a relatively non-descript woman who was slowly approaching the sergeant's desk. The woman was bowed with grief, and had mascara runs down both cheeks. She had been crying the entire time she had been talking to the young officer with the platinum blonde hair.
Adrian had always been drawn to the sound of tears. That was one of the main reasons she had been drawn to social work. She seemed to always been drawn to the downtrodden and depressed, and now she got paid to try to get them better. That was the reason she was here tonight. Several of her cases had recently disappeared, and since they were homeless the cops really didn't seem to give a shit. As she began to turn away from her scan of the desk room, she saw an older officer, fat and balding, lean out to the woman and whisper something to her.
Adrian's eyebrow peaked in surprise as saw the older cop slip something small, a folded note or business card perhaps. The young woman paused and looked back at the officer. She seemed to stare at him, almost as if she were trying to memorize his features. Finally, she nodded and said, "Thank you." Her voice was rough from crying, but still had a pleasant timbre. Adrian imagined that she must have a fine singing voice.
Something came over her at that point, and overwhelming urge to know what the young woman had been handed. She waited as the woman walked past and began down the stairs that lead out of the police station. The woman was in her mid to late twenties, with long dark brown hair that came down the just above her waist. She was fashionably dressed, nice but not over the top. Her makeup had, at one point, been very carefully and expertly applied, but what had not been wiped off on the white handkerchief that she clutched in her right hand was smeared haphazardly across her pale skin.
Almost as if she was tethered to her, Adrian trailed the young lady out of the station and onto Union Street. They walked through the darkness for three blocks to the west before the woman spun suddenly, a small red canister appearing in her hands like magic. "Who the fuck are you?" she said through gritted teeth, the words puffing out in the rapidly chilling night air. Adrian noticed that she had begun to cry again, the slow tears glistening on her cheeks in the orange glow of a streetlight. She held up her hands, long thin fingers spread and said, "Sorry! I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to startle you."
"How the hell are you expecting to not startle me? You've been following me for at least two and half blocks now." Her hand shook around the canister of mace as she began to slowly move away from Adrian. "Stay away from me!"
Adrian held her ground and let her arms slowly begin to descend. "Actually," she began, "I saw you at the police station." She winced as she realized how that sounded. "You- you've lost someone haven't you?" She clasped her hands together. "I only ask because I have too. Several someones actually, but I can't even get a cop to speak to me.” she stammered slightly, a sudden chill making her teeth chatter. She wrapped her arms around herself and said, “Look. My name is Adrian Buteyka, and I work for the Department of Homeless Services. Can I buy you a cup of coffee or something and we talk?”
The woman waited a moment, her blue eyes locked on Adrian’s face, trying to read her expression. Finally she slid the mace canister back into her coat pocket and held out her hand. “Julie Barnes,” she said, “There’s a diner over there.”
They had wandered into the Queens Chinatown, and their eyes were both drawn to the only non-Chinese restaurant in the area. The diner was small and even from across the street, it was apparent that it was empty of other customers. They crossed the road and passed under the yellow canopy of Lou Wong’s Diner.
They settled into a booth, and an ancient waitress wandered over to them and took their order. After the waitress slowly shuffled away, Julie set down her menu and looked Adrian in the eye. “You are right. I have lost someone.”
A look of sympathy crept down Adrian’s features. Julie’s eyes hardened and she grimaced. “I don’t need pity. I’ve had plenty of that. I need someone who can get some results. My girlfriend has been missing for a week, and no one has been able to tell me anything.” As she spoke she dug through her purse, finally extracting a couple of wet-naps. She also pulled out a small compact mirror and set about cleaning the makeup from her face. “Pamela is a photographer. She likes to walk around the city, taking pictures of old buildings and odd things. Six days ago, she went out and said she would be back in a couple of hours. That was the last time anyone has seen her.” She made a couple more wipes to remove the last of her smeared mascara and lipstick as the waitress set their coffee on the table. Even without makeup, Julie had a natural beauty to her.
Adrian mixed in sugar and creamer to her coffee and slowly stirred it. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she murmured, “I haven’t lost anyone that close. Several of the homeless people I’ve been working with the last several months have suddenly disappeared over the last several weeks. I’m not even sure why I followed you out of the station,honestly.”
They both quietly sat and drank their coffee for a few moments, Julie drinking it black. Finally, she set down her cup and said, “You asked what that cop gave me.” Adrian nodded in agreement. Julie pulled the bent card from her coat pocket and set it down on the table, facing up. Adrian looked at it, taking in the concise information quickly. It was the business card of a Detective Dexter Burke. A phone and fax number, as well as an obviously personal email address. Julie drained her cup before continuing, “He suggested that I give this guy a call. That he might be able to help, but it would probably cost.”
She slid the card back into her pocket. “I don’t know how much he will charge, but if it’s anything substantial, I doubt I will be able to afford it. I’m a freelance writer, and we don’t have much saved up,” she said, shaking her head.
Adrian sat back, thinking, while Julie waved at their waitress for a refill. “What area do you think Pamela might have been in? I would think the cops would have done something in the last week.”
“Oh, they talked to some people, and I suppose they’ve looked at streetlight cameras and the like.” She smiled weakly up at the old waitress who returned with two more cups of coffee. “Thank you.”
The old lady smiled back at her, revealing a mouth full of small black and gray nubs of rotten teeth. “Oh, thank you, dearie. Can I get either of you anything else?” Julie had to suppress a shudder at the sudden exposure of the woman’s teeth, but she managed to give a small, tight smile in return and mutter, “No thanks.”
Adrian, much more familiar with the dental disasters, hardly even noticed. "I'm fine, thanks," she added, mixing sugar and creamer into the new cup. Julie took a drink and continued, "So I know that she was down near the water off of College Point, but I don't know exactly where. She had gone out walking during that first light snow we had. She always said that the combination of the snow and the streetlights after dark added a degree of pathos to the old buildings that wasn't always there." A small smile curled her lip as she raised the coffee cop for another drink. "I told her she was crazy, but her pictures sell, so I can only argue so much right?"
Nodding, Adrian said, "Yeah, I suppose. So she was walking by the water? That area is a pretty popular hangout for some of my guys I'm missing as well." She pulled out her phone and pulled up an areal map of the area. Taking a drink with one hand, she slid the phone across the table so Julie could see it. "You think she was north of Northern maybe? How far does she normally wander?"
Julie shrugged as she looked down at the map. "I don't know really. I prefer the gym for my exercise, but Pam always loved the city and would just walk for hours and hours, looking at buildings and landscapes. The few times I had walked with her, I always was the first to talk about heading home." She smiled again, although Adrian felt that this one was tinted with a little sadness. "She had actually asked me to go with her that night, wanted me to meet her after she finished with her day job, but I begged off." She sniffed and absently wiped another tear from her eye, "I was working on a piece and didn't want to step away. I didn't think. And now she's gone."
Adrian reached across the table and gently squeezed Julie's shoulder. "It will be ok. Why don't we team up? We are both looking for people that are missing from the same general area, maybe they are connected. Hell, it can't hurt to share information right? Maybe between the two of us we can afford whatever rate this guy is going to charge." This last she said with flick of her hand towards Julie's pocket. "Why don't you call him and setup an appointment. It can't hurt to talk to him. I'm going to run to the restroom and I'll be right back."
She stood and walked to the back of the diner vanishing the door underneath the neon restrooms sign on the wall, while Julie extracted her phone from her coat. Hesitantly she began dialing the number on the crumpled business card. She still wasn't sure what she was expecting out of this guy that the regular police had been unable to provide. Just before she hit the call button, the ancient waitress returned, the bill slip in her hand. Julie looked up and nodded to her as the paper was set on the table, and the old woman seemed to catch her eyes and hold them.
Julie hadn't looked closely at the lady before, other than noting the faded and worn yellow dress that she wore under the apron emblazoned with the diner's logo. The grease splattered name tag read "Vera", and Julie could see now that her eyes were heavily bloodshot and the faded green of old money. Vera smiled down at her again, giving another flash those ruined teeth. Her face seemed oddly slack, and was heavily lined with age and work. Their eyes still locked, Vera leaned down and whispered to Julie, "When things have gone missing, sometimes it's best not to go hunting for them.”
Julie blinked in surprise as the waitress straightened and strode quickly into the kitchen and out of site. “What the hell?” she thought to herself. Hesitantly she stood and took a couple steps towards the kitchen, her phone held forgotten in her hand.
“What’s going on?” Adrian asked, returning to the table. “Did you call the guy?”
“You wouldn’t believe what the waitress just said to me,” Julie replied in a low tone, her eyes still riveted to the kitchen door.
Adrian followed her gaze and asked, “Well? What was it?”
Repeating what the waitress had said, Julie moved decisively to the door and pushed it open. The kitchen was far from pristine, and the air was redolent with the smell of old grease, cold bacon, and burnt coffee. Two doors lead out of the kitchen, one with a OSHA poster about work regulations posted to was closed, and the other looked to be braced open to the cool night air with a wooden stool that had seen better days. With a short glance back to Adrian, Julie boldly strode through the kitchen.
She glossed over most of the details, her focus on the open door, but a flicker of motion caught her eye near the sinks. She turned and was confronted with the slowly whirling antennae of a large cockroach. For some reason the intent that the roach seemed to focus on her brought her up short. Julie stared at the large black and red bug that perched on the curved stainless steel lip of the three basin sink, and it seemed to stare right back at her.
She jumped as the bug was suddenly pulped by rolled up magazine clutched in Adrian’s hand. Her focus had been so intent on the creature that she hadn’t even heard the social worker coming up behind her. Adrian tried to look into Julie’s eyes. “Are you sure you are alright?”
Julie shook herself visibly and said, “Yeah, sorry. Don’t know what happened there.” She looked around the kitchen for a moment, seemingly lost and slipped her phone back into her coat pocket. Her gaze fell back on open back door and her original purpose reasserted itself. “I just want to see what the hell is that woman’s game.” She nodded once, as if agreeing with herself that this was the best course of action and finished the short walk to the open door. Adrian stayed close behind her.
They both emerged from the back of the diner into a narrow alley, the brick facade of a four story apartment building forming the far wall. Several dumpsters stood against the near wall, reeking of the refuse of the greasy spoon, and the rest of the space in the alley was full of loose trash and odd smells of waste and decay. To their left the alley opened onto a sparsely populated parking lot, and to the right it dead ended in a heavily graffettied wall. They spotted the waitress seated on wooden box, leaning against the wall. In the dim light that bounced into the alley from the open door, it was impossible to tell much detail, but Julie recognized her form immediately.
As they began to approach, the old woman leaned forward and expelled a roiling cloud a odorless smoke at them. Adrian whispered to Julie, “Be careful. It looks like she is doing meth. She may not even remember talking to you.” Undeterred, Julie advanced to within a couple feet of the waitress, who took the time to light the small glass pipe she held in her hand and draw on it deeply.
The waitress glared up at her, bloodshot eyes flashing in the dim light. Julie’s voice was as stiff and cold as the freezing air around them when she asked, “What did you say to me in there? What did you mean by that?”
The old woman continued to stare for another minute before blowing a large cloud of smoke up towards the cloudy sky overhead. She shrugged and said in a hoarse voice, “Dearie, I don’t know what you mean. The threads of things are arranged just so, complete with spiders who walk along them. If something goes missing as it sounds like you were speaking, then it is probably meant to be so.” Julie’s eyes narrowed as she tried to understand the woman’s babbling. Adrian gently grabbed her elbow and said, “Julie, she is stoned and just overheard us talking about looking for something, that’s all. Forget about it.”
“Maybe,” Julie responded, her gaze not leaving the old woman whose own gaze had drifted to the narrow band of dark clouds visible overhead. After a moment she turned back to Adrian. “You're probably right. Let’s go back inside and I’ll make that call.
They had just stepped back into the kitchen when the other door opened, revealing a small office area and a short oriental man in a cook’s apron. He glared at them and said in an aggressive and surprisingly deep voice with a thick Boston accent, “You’re not supposed to be back here. You need to get out.” Julie chided herself at her surprise that the man didn't sound like Charlie Chan. She didn't consider herself racist, but she was both surprised and disappointed regardless.
Adrian smiled at him and nodded, “We were just trying to find our waitress. We were already headed that way.” The cook said something under his breath in Chinese and asked, “She’s out there smoking again isn’t she?” Julie nodded and he rushed to the door as they stepped back into the dining area. The sound of his raised voice in the alley was cut off as the kitchen door closed behind them.
Adrian and Julie shared a small snicker as they returned to their table. Julie picked up the business card and looked to Adrian, “So you deal with addicts like that a lot?” Adrian nodded. “Unfortunately, a lot of my cases are involved with at least a couple drugs or booze or something. When I was in college, I liked hanging out with stoned people because they were fun to mess with, but the polish comes off that little gem pretty quick when you see how bad it can get.”
They both slid back into their seats and Julie pulled out her phone again. “Do you think it's too late to call him? It is almost eleven o'clock,” She asked. Adrian shook her head and said, “No. The cop who gave it too you must have know that you would call as soon as you could. That was only an hour ago or so.” Julie shrugged and redialed the number and pressed the call button. It rang twice before a deep male voice answered. “Hello,” the voice said, “Can I help you?”
Julie explained how she had gotten the number and that she was looking for help in finding several people who had gone missing recently. The voice was silent as she went through the story, and remained so for a few moments after she finished. Finally he responded, “I might be able to help you. Can you meet me tomorrow? There is a Starbucks on the corner of 14th and 35th that would be good. Say around 5 pm.?”
Julie relayed the time and location to Adrian and with a nod from her, confirmed that that would work. “Fine,” the man confirmed, “I’ll see you both then.” As she dropped the phone into her pocket, she saw the chinese cook and the old waitress emerged from the kitchen. Vera dropped bonelessly onto the table bench closest to the door. She hummed tunelessly, her hands waving randomly in the air above her.
The cook approached their table and spoke, his voice still catching Julie off guard, “Please excuse my mother-in-law. She's been having a rough time lately, and isn't handling it well. I hope she didn't disturb you or anything.” The two women shook their heads. “Not at all,” Julie said, “other than an odd comment, she's been perfect.”
“An odd comment,” the man asked hesitantly. “I hope she didn't offend you or anything.”
“Well, it did kind of piss me off at first, but it was more unsettling than anything. I just lost someone, and out of the blue she says that missing things should stay missing and walks away. I upset me a bit, but I realize that it's not really her fault.”
The short man nodded and said, “Since just a week or two ago, she has gotten so much worse. She had actually been clean and sober before then.” From her bench, Vera stopped humming and start to softly sing to herself. “Itsy bitsy spider, climbed up the water spout.” He looked at her for a moment before turning back to the women in the booth. “Well, I apologize anyway, especially for have to see her in the alley like that. I'm Lou, and please consider tonight on me. Can I get you anything else?”
They both shook their heads again. “It's actually getting late, so I think I'm going to head home,” Adrian said as she slid of the booth and stood, pulling her coat on. She smiled down at Julie and
added, “You want to meet at the Starbuck's a little early?”
Julie nodded and said, “I'll see you tomorrow.” She stood and held her hand out to Adrian. “It was nice to meet you. I hope this all works out.” Adrian nodded as she took Julie's hand and shook it slowly. Releasing her grip has also extended her hand to Lou. “It was nice to meet you too Lou. Thanks for the coffee and I hope your mom gets thing under control. If you would like I know some specialists that could try to help you.” She popped open the latch on her purse and deftly extracted a business card from the stack of them wedged into a side pocket. With a look of surprise Lou took the proffered card and read it over. A thoughtful look stole across his features and a large genuine smile that seemed to knock ten years from his features split his lips. “Thank you, ma'am,” he said, shaking her hand enthusiastically, “Maybe they can.”
As they pushed open the door and a wave of freezing air washed over them, Julie looked to the back booth where Vera had pulled herself upright, and continued singing “Itsy Bitsy Spider” to herself. As she sang, she rotated her hands, thumb to forefinger. She paused, almost as if she could feel Julie's eyes on her, and she slowly looked up. Her bloodshot eyes stared at Julie from under scrunched brows, and she smiled, her rotten teeth turning the grin into more of a grimace. Julie shuddered and quickly stepped outside.
Julie noticed that Adrian had already started to head off, coincidentally in the same direction that she needed to go. She quickened her pace to catch up and the two women walked together for another block before Julie stopped and said, “Well, I guess I will see you tomorrow. Be careful, Adrian.”
Adrian smiled and said, “You too.” She extended her right hand, a business card held between two fingers. “Give me a call whenever you want to meet. I should be free any time after two.”
Julie pocketed the card and nodded. “I'll call.” With a final smile they separated, one headed north, the other south, and both looking for a cab to flag down this late.