The driver wasa man around Mendoza’s age, but a lot less good-looking, with a prominent nose and lank, brown hair that fell across his forehead.“Help you?”
Mendoza must have decided to let me handle it, because he didn’t get back out of the car.I turned to the man.He was looking me up and down in a rather unpleasant way, and then he addressed a comment, in a language I didn’t know, into the car.I guess he had a buddy in the passenger seat.While I couldn’t understand the words, the gist was crystal clear.It was a comment on some part of my anatomy, or maybe the overall package, and something about it seemed to amuse the gentlemen.If I can use the term loosely.
I ignored it.As one has to.“I’m looking for someone.”
He gestured to the building.“We’re closed.”
“I can see that.I’m looking for information about my son.He might have been here yesterday.Hold on.”
I fumbled my phone out of my purse and flicked through the photographs until I came to a selfie we had taken last week, on our first day in the office.Me in the middle holding the phone, with Rachel on one side of me, and Zachary on the other.I showed it to the man.“There he is.”
He looked at it.“Don’t know him.”
“Are you sure?Someone told me he might have come here last night.”
He didn’t answer, and I added, “Would you mind if I ask your friend?”
I didn’t wait for an answer, just took a step past him and leaned into the open doorway.The man in the passenger seat might have been the first guy’s brother, and maybe cousin.Same big nose, same deep-set eyes, same brown hair.
I shoved the phone in his face.“See?My son.With the red hair and freckles.”I was perhaps emphasizing the resemblance a little too much, since I was afraid there wasn’t enough of one.So I moved on quickly.“Have you seen him?Maybe yesterday?”
He shook his head.“No.”And pushed my hand back, and me out of the car.But not before I had seen three other people in the backseat.
Girls.Or young women.
It was just a quick impression, but they were all pretty and blond.And stewed together in the rear of the car like three herring in a can.Behind some sort of divider between the front and back seats.
I pretended I hadn’t noticed them, and straightened.“Are you sure you haven’t seen him?”I shoved the phone back at the first guy.He took a step back.
“Listen, lady…”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and tried my best to channel motherhood, “I’m just worried, you know?He didn’t come home last night.”
He said something else I didn’t understand—was it Russian?—but the gist of this, too, was all too obvious.Maybe he’d gone home with a girl, and what kind of mother was I, anyway, who didn’t let my little boy grow up and be a man?
“That reminds me,” I said.“Do you have a girl working here called Anastasia?”
He shook his head, but I think I saw something flicker in his eyes for a second.Although I admit it was hard to tell.They were dark and very deep-set, under prominent brows.
I wondered whether I should ask about Tatiana, but if she was one of the girls in the backseat, it might be better not to.
I dropped my phone back in my purse.“Thank you for your time.”
He grunted.
“I’ll get out of your way and let you open up your establishment.”
He didn’t say anything else.I moved past him toward Mendoza’s car.And I admit the back of my neck was crawling a little.The whole situation was creepy.The two men were creepy.The fact that they had three young women stuffed into their back seat was a bit creepy.And the fact that I believed Zachary had been here last night, and had gotten beat up for his trouble, made the whole thing more than creepy.
Until I was actually inside the car with the door closed, part of me was worried that they wouldn’t let me leave.
“Go,” I told Mendoza as soon as the door was shut behind me.
He went.“You OK?”
“More or less.”I watched in the mirror until we were out of sight of the nightclub, and told him, “Turn around.And go back the other way.”
He shot me a look.
