The Four Corners of the Sky_ A Novel - Michael Malone [147]
“Why do all my friends keep telling me they need to go to sleep?”
Georgette yawned. “Human. Your friends are human.”
“Trevor is in bed by ten o’clock.”
“Bring him on,” said Georgette.
“Brad went to bed early too. What I need’s someone who can’t sleep.”
Georgette suggested that midnight might be a good time to go out looking for such a night owl. “Didn’t you say you were in a bar? Bars are full of insomniacs.”
Chapter 40
Moonstruck
At La Loca, Chamayra finally returned with Sergeant Hart’s home address, which proved to be only a few blocks away.
“Danny’s phone’s dead, so maybe go by the house.” The waitress added, “Don’t be causing trouble, okay? Raffy’s left me a message saying don’t talk to nobody about your dad. Where is he?”
“My dad? I hope he’s in Golden Days.”
“No, where’s Raffy? He’s suppose to be like here now and, hey, you see him?” She flung out her arms at the crowded room. “So now I’m gonna worry. You go check on Danny. I can’t leave. I can’t lose my job.” The short woman wiped sweat from her gleamy arms and face.
“I’m sorry I’m causing trouble.”
Chamayra pointed at the words “La Loca” on her turquoise shirt. “I been doing my nurse training a long time and waiting tables a lot longer. You ask me? Everybody’s like in the same crazy boat. Name of the boat? La Loca. Everybody’s like, you know, sailing off the edge of the world fast as they can get there. So I say, just whoa. Hang out the Love sign.” She leaned into the booth and shook the blue fish netting overhead, where the plastic G.I. Joes tangled with the Barbie dolls. “Raffy’s totally like got this thing how Dan’s gonna bust him big-time. No way.”
“No way?” Annie’s eyebrow went up. “Isn’t Hart trying to arrest Raffy? He sure looked like it yesterday at Golden Days when he chased him down Ficus Avenue.”
Upset, the waitress slapped her hands on her arms. “You kidding me? You saw him at Golden Days chasing Raffy?”
“Yes, yesterday.”
“Yesterday?! Why didn’t you tell me? Motherfucker, I got to get your dad out of that place pronto. Those two pingitas, Raffy and your dad, gonna get me fired! What is their problem?”
“It’s a cops and robbers sort of thing with them,” suggested Annie.
“Men, they’re so stupid. And me, I had to have boys. And you know what they’ll grow up to be?” Chamayra hoisted her tray of dirty dishes. “Men.”
“Probably.”
***
Driving along a moonlit street beside the midnight blue of the bay, Annie finally found Hart’s small bungalow (its curb number obscured by weeds). The sawed-up trunk of a large magnolia tree lay scattered about the front lawn in raw stacks. Mounds of chippings and sawdust matted the patchy grass and there were six piles of branches arranged in a tall circle as if in the morning the yard would be the setting for some horrific auto-da-fé. On a grass-choked driveway a blue pickup truck was parked with its doors flung open and with a windsurfer in the back. In the garage sat a vintage Thunderbird coupe, pale blue with a white hardtop and color-match rings on the whitewall tires and porthole windows.
The 1920s Spanish stucco house had its windows and metal screen door thrown wide open. Out of the windows she could hear Otis Redding sadly singing, “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now),” as if the house itself were in mourning. The only light was the blue wavering shimmer of a television screen. Chamayra had given her no idea whether Hart lived here alone or not. No one answered her repeated call through the opened door and finally she walked uninvited into the darkness.
Without the sound on, a baseball game in a half-empty stadium played on a flat screen television at the other end of the room.
“Sergeant Hart? It’s Annie Goode. Daniel Hart? Anybody home?” Turning from the small arched foyer into the first room, she tripped over something metallic and sharp that turned out to be a chainsaw. Rubbing her ankle, she felt for a light switch.
A recessed light revealed a living room in disarray. There