Mother May I(67)

“Yeah?” Hesitant but truthful. He wasn’t acting like a man protecting someone inside. Lexie wasn’t here. Still, due diligence.

“So let’s assume you just hid a gun,” Marshall said. Toby started to protest, but Marshall talked over him. “And I smell pot. I could call Stewart, wait here, get you violated six ways from Sunday. Or you could answer a question.”

“Okay. Sure. Fine, what?” Toby was even more nerved up now.

“Where can I find Lexie Pine?” Marshall asked.

Toby looked relieved. A flash of true emotion, and Marshall’s heart sank. The guy didn’t know.

“I ain’t seen Lexie in almost half a year.”

“Can I come in?” Marshall said.

“What for?” Toby asked, bristling, that feral dog’s smile back.

“I want you to tell me about the last time you saw her. I want some good guesses about where she might be now.”

Instead Toby stepped out onto the porch. His feet were bare and bony, pale against the old, gray wood.

“Yeah. Okay. What’s in it for me?” Toby asked.

Marshall had a fifty ready, clipped between two fingers. He waved it. Toby licked at his lips, eyes kindling.

Marshall had more cash. Quite a bit more. He’d pulled it out of his safe when he got the guns. But this guy was ready to sell Lexie out at the first offer. He was excited to do it, and why not? He had in the past sold Lexie herself. He’d turned her body over to multiple men, strangers, to feed his own hungers. Marshall had to work to keep his upper lip from curling in answer.

He told Marshall his story, darting little glances at the money.

They’d been living here since he got out, the two of them, renting the third bedroom as a crash pad when they could. That room had been empty the night Lexie’s mother showed up. Very late. He and Lexie were dead asleep on the living-room floor in front of the TV.

“The front door banged open, I mean, BAM, like a thumper,” Toby told him, his pink-rimmed eyes wide. “We’d forgot to lock it, I guess, but anyway, we hadn’t heard no knocking. So I sit bolt upright, and there’s this figure in the doorway. At first I didn’t realize it was a person. I thought it was some kind of mummy or a witch, ropy silver hair lit up from that streetlight, and I couldn’t hardly make out her face much except to tell she looked a thousand years old. I let out a holler, and I reached for—” Toby stopped, licked his lips. Gun, Marshall thought. Toby didn’t want to say that part to a guy he assumed was a cop. “Anyway, Lex sat up yelling stuff, like, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ The woman ran right at her and grabbed her by one elbow and hauled her up onto her feet. By then I’d realized it was some little old frail lady, and I was like, ‘Bitch, you better step out.’

“But Lexie said, ‘It’s my mother, asshole,’ and at the same time that old woman fixed me with the meanest eye I ever saw. She said, ‘Look to your business, young man.’ I’d been woke from a dead sleep, and I was jacked up mad as hell, but when she said it that way, it kinda stopped me. Dead in my tracks. Like, I don’t want to say I was scared of some old granny, but Jesus.

“I was all like, ‘Whoa, okay, now, Mawmaw, what’d’ya think you’re doing?’ and she fixed me with those big old spooky eyes and stepped right to me and said, ‘Dying, son. I’m dying.’ She said it all serious. I caught the stink of it on her breath. I don’t know if you’ve ever smelled cancer, but it took my own ma. She had breath like that at the end. Death in it. I could smell it on that old lady so damn strong it kinda froze me. Then Lexie said, ‘Mama,’ all quavery and started crying.”

He was so into the story that he’d even stopped glancing at the bill in Marshall’s hand. High as he was, he’d almost forgotten who Marshall was.

Marshall asked, “So what did you do?”

“I did what any man would when his lady friend starts in with the serious waterworks. I got the hell out. Went and shot pool with my buddy Harv, and when I got back, Lex was gone.”

“That’s it?” Marshall said. He acted like he might put the fifty away.

“Hey, now, man, that’s what happened!” Indignant. Eyes back on the bill.

“And you have no idea where she might be now,” Marshall said. Not a question. A statement, flat and thick with disbelief.

Toby licked his lips. “While I was getting my stuff together, putting on some jeans and shoes and such, they was talking. She had a place for Lex all set up, she said. Rehab. Paid for and everything. It had one of those dumb-ass names, like a nature-camp name. Shady Oaks or Oaky Shades or some shit.”

Marshall retracted the bill another inch, and Toby stepped in closer, saying, “And I remember one more thing, though. It was in Tucker. Oak something, for sure in Tucker, Georgia. That woman, her mom, she told Lexie, ‘Before I die, all I want in this whole world is to see you clean.’ When I left, Lexie was promising all kinds of things, but shit. I didn’t think it meant nothing. Lexie been through the state program twice, and before that her mom put her through another place, plus she went to NA four times a week in prison.”

“Her mother was never dying before,” Marshall said. Mostly to himself.

“Yeah, well, that’s all I got for you, man, swear. I will say this, though. She ain’t come back. She went off with her ma like poof. I figured in a week or so she’d peace out on rehab and come tap-tap-tapping at my window. Or I’d see her at any of our hangouts and we’d drift back together-like, the way we always done. But damned if I have.” Toby shook his head and made a spitting gesture. “Shit, maybe she did get clean. For now. But I know that girl. You want to find her, wait for her mom to kick it. She’ll be back with me before the body hits the ground.” He shrugged.