Mr. Mercedes (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #1)(43)

Jerome clicks away from Under Debbie’s Blue Umbrella and back to Hodges’s screensaver, which happens to be a picture of Allie, back when she was five and still thought her old man was God.

“But since you’re worried, I’ll take precautions. I’ve got an old iMac in my closet with nothing on it but Atari Arcade and a few other moldy oldies. I’ll use that one to check out the site.”

“Good idea.”

“Anything else I can do for you today?”

Hodges starts to say no, but Mrs. T.’s stolen Mercedes is still bugging him. There is something very wrong there. He felt it then and feels it more strongly now—so strongly he almost sees it. But almost never won a kewpie doll at the county fair. The wrongness is a ball he wants to hit, and have someone hit back to him.

“You could listen to a story,” he says. In his mind he’s already making up a piece of fiction that will touch on all the salient points. Who knows, maybe Jerome’s fresh eye will spot something he himself has missed. Unlikely, but not impossible. “Would you be willing to do that?”

“Sure.”

“Then clip Odell on his leash. We’ll walk down to Big Licks. I’ve got my face fixed for a strawberry cone.”

“Maybe we’ll see the Mr. Tastey truck before we get there,” Jerome says. “That guy’s been in the neighborhood all week, and he’s got some awesome goodies.”

“So much the better,” Hodges says, getting up. “Let’s go.”





12


They walk down the hill to the little shopping center at the intersection of Harper Road and Hanover Street with Odell padding between them on the slack leash. They can see the buildings of downtown two miles distant, City Center and the Midwest Culture and Arts Complex dominating the cluster of skyscrapers. The MAC is not one of I. M. Pei’s finer creations, in Hodges’s opinion. Not that his opinion has ever been solicited on the matter.

“So what’s the story, morning glory?” Jerome asks.

“Well,” Hodges says, “let’s say there’s this guy with a long-term lady friend who lives downtown. He himself lives in Parsonville.” This is a municipality just beyond Sugar Heights, not as lux but far from shabby.

“Some of my friends call Parsonville Whiteyville,” Jerome says. “I heard my father say it once, and my mother told him to shut up with the racist talk.”

“Uh-huh.” Jerome’s friends, the black ones, probably call Sugar Heights Whiteyville, too, which makes Hodges think he’s doing okay so far.

Odell has stopped to check out Mrs. Melbourne’s flowers. Jerome pulls him away before he can leave a doggy memo there.

“So anyway,” Hodges resumes, “the long-term lady friend has a condo apartment in the Branson Park area—Wieland Avenue, Branson Street, Lake Avenue, that part of town.”

“Also nice.”

“Yeah. He goes to see her three or four times a week. One or two nights a week he takes her to dinner or a movie and stays over. When he does that, he parks his car—a nice one, a Beemer—on the street, because it’s a good area, well policed, plenty of those high-intensity arc-sodiums. Also, the parking’s free from seven P.M. to eight A.M.”

“I had a Beemer, I’d put it in one of the garages down there and never mind the free parking,” Jerome says, and tugs the leash again. “Stop it, Odell, nice dogs don’t eat out of the gutter.”

Odell looks over his shoulder and rolls an eye as if to say You don’t know what nice dogs do.

“Well, rich people have some funny ideas about economy,” Hodges says, thinking of Mrs. T.’s explanation for doing the same thing.

“If you say so.” They have almost reached the shopping center. On the way down the hill they’ve heard the jingling tune of the ice cream truck, once quite close, but it fades again as the Mr. Tastey guy heads for the housing developments north of Harper Road.

“So one Thursday night this guy goes to visit his lady as usual. He parks as usual—all kinds of empty spaces down there once the business day is over—and locks up his car as usual. He and his lady take a walk to a nearby restaurant, have a nice meal, then walk back. His car’s right there, he sees it before they go in. He spends the night with his lady, and when he leaves the building in the morning—”

“His Beemer’s gone bye-bye.” They are now standing outside the ice cream shop. There’s a bicycle rack nearby. Jerome fastens Odell’s leash to it. The dog lies down and puts his muzzle on one paw.

“No,” Hodges says, “it’s there.” He is thinking that this is a damned good variation on what actually happened. He almost believes it himself. “But it’s facing the other way, because it’s parked on the other side of the street.”

Jerome raises his eyebrows.

“Yeah, I know. Weird, right? So the guy goes across to it. Car looks okay, it’s locked up tight just the way he left it, it’s just in a new place. So the first thing he does is check for his key, and yep, it’s still in his pocket. So what the hell happened, Jerome?”

“I don’t know, Mr. H. It’s like a Sherlock Holmes story, isn’t it? A real three-pipe problem.” There’s a little smile on Jerome’s face that Hodges can’t quite parse and isn’t sure he likes. It’s a knowing smile.