Mystic River / Таинственная река. Деннис Лихэйн

no problem, man,” Jimmy put a false brightness into his tone. “I'll find her.”

      “She's seeing anyone, maybe?”

      “Nineteen-year-old girl? Who knows?”

      Jimmy hung up and looked down at the cash register as if it could tell him something. This wasn't the first time Katie had stayed out all night. And it wasn't even the first time she hadn't showed up at work, but she usually called.

      The bell hanging at the top of the door rang, and Jimmy looked up to see Brendan Harris and his little brother, Silent Ray, walk past the counter and head for the aisles where the breads and cookies and teas were. Jimmy noticed Brendan looking at the cash registers like he was hoping to see someone. Who was he looking for? Could he be stupid enough to be thinking about robbing the store? Jimmy had known Brendan's father, Just Ray Harris, so he knew that some dumb ran in the genes, but no one was so dumb as to try to rob a store with his thirteen-year-old mute brother. Plus, if anyone got some brains in the family, Jimmy thought, it was Brendan. A shy kid, but good-looking, and Jimmy had long ago learned the difference between someone who was quiet because he didn't know anything and someone who just stayed inside himself, watching, listening, taking it all in. Brendan had that quality.

      He turned toward Jimmy and their eyes met, and the kid gave Jimmy a nervous, friendly smile.

      Jimmy said, “Help you, Brendan?”

      “Uh, no, Mr. Marcus, just picking up some, uh, some tea my mom likes.”

      Jimmy watched Brendan and Silent Ray communicate in sign language, standing in the middle of the center aisle. The hands went flying, the two of them going so fast it would have been hard for Jimmy to keep up even if they were making sounds. Silent Ray had always been a strange little kid, in Jimmy's opinion, more like the mother than the father.

      Brendan and Silent Ray had reached the counter and Jimmy saw something in Brendan's face.

      “So, uh, I thought Katie worked Sundays,” Brendan said as he handed the money.

      Pete, standing nearby, raised his eyebrows and asked, “You're interested in my man's daughter, Brendan?”

      Brendan wouldn't look at Jimmy. “No, no, no.” He laughed, and it died as soon as it left his mouth. “I was just wondering, you know, because usually I see her here.”

      “Her little sister's having her First Communion today,” Jimmy said.

      “Oh, Nadine?” Brendan looked at Jimmy, eyes too wide, smile too big.

      “Nadine,” Jimmy said, curious as to how the name had come to Brendan so fast. “Yeah.”

      “Well, tell her congrats from me and Ray.”

      “Sure, Brendan.”

      Ray hadn't been looking at his brother when he spoke, but he moved anyway, and Jimmy remembered once again the thing that people usually forgot about Ray: he wasn't deaf, just mute.

      “Hey, Jimmy,” Pete said when the brothers had gone, “Can I ask you something?”

      “Yeah.”

      “Why do you hate that kid so much?”

      Jimmy shrugged. “I don't know if it's hate, man. It's just.

      That mute is just a little spooky.”

      “Oh, him?” Pete said. “Yeah. He's weird, always staring like he sees something in your face. You know? But I wasn't talking about him. I was talking about Brendan. I mean, the kid seems nice. Shy but nice, you know? You notice how he uses sign language with his brother even though he doesn't have to? Like he just wants the kid to feel he isn't alone. It's nice.”

      6

      Brendan Harris looked at the phone. He looked at his watch. Two hours late. Not a surprise, since Katie was often late, but today of all days? Brendan just wanted to go. And where was she, if she wasn't at work? The plan had been that she'd call Brendan from the store, go to her half sister's First Communion, and then meet him afterward. But she hadn't gone to work. And she hadn't called.

      He couldn't call her. Katie was usually at one of three places – at Bobby O'Donnell's place, in the apartment with her father, stepmother, and two half sisters, or in the apartment above, where her crazy uncles, Nick and Val, lived. Her father, Jimmy Marcus, hated Brendan for no logical reason. It made no sense. Brendan had never done anything to Mr. Marcus. Over the years Katie's father had told her to stay away from the Harrises.

      “So how did it happen then – you and me?” Brendan once asked Katie.

      She smiled sadly at him. “You don't know?”

      “No, I don't know.” Frankly, Brendan didn't have any idea. Katie was everything. A Goddess. But Brendan was just, well, Brendan.

      “You're kind. I see you with Ray or your mother and even everyday people on the street, and you're just so kind, Brendan.”

      And Brendan, thinking about it, had to admit that his whole life he'd never met anyone who didn't like him. He'd never had enemies, hadn't been in a fight since school, and couldn't remember the last time he'd heard a harsh word. Maybe it was because he was kind. And maybe that was rare. Or maybe he just wasn't the type of guy who made people mad. Well, except for Katie's father.

      Just half an hour ago, Brendan had felt it in Mr. Marcus's corner store – that quiet hatred. He'd stammered because of it. He couldn't look at Ray the whole way home because of how that hatred had made him feel – dirty.

      Brendan couldn't call Katie at one of her two numbers and risk somebody wondering what the hated Brendan Harris was doing, calling their Katie. He'd almost done it a million times, but just the thought of Mr. Marcus or Bobby O'Donnell or one of those psycho Savage brothers answering the phone always stopped him.

      He looked at the phone again. Call, please. Call.

* * *

      A couple of kids found her car. They called 911.

      “There's like this car with blood in it and, uh, the door's open, and, uh.”

      The 911 operator asked, “What's the location of the car?”

      “In the Flats,” the kid said. “By Pen Park. Me and my friend found it.”

      “Is there a street address?”

      “Sydney Street,” the kid said into the phone. “There's blood in there and the door's open.”

      “What's your name, son?”

      “He wants to know her name,” the kid said to his friend.

      “Son?” the operator said. “I said your name. What's your name?”

      “We're out of here[26], man,” the kid said. “Good luck.”

      The kid hung up and the operator saw on his computer screen that the call had come from a pay phone on the street corner about half a mile from the Sydney Street entrance to Penitentiary Park. He forwarded the information to send a unit out.

      One of the patrolmen called back and requested more units, a Crime Scene tech or two, and a couple of Homicides.

      “Have you found a body?”

      “Uh, negative.”

      “Why the request for Homicide if there's no body?”

      “This car… I feel like we're going to find one around here sooner or later.”

* * *

      Sean Devine's Sunday started when he was woken up from a dream by the alarm clock.

      His wife, Lauren, had been in that dream. Nowadays, she was often in his dreams.

      When did that start happening?he wondered. That's all he wanted to know, really. He closed his eyes. When Lauren left him. That's when it started.

      Sean began his first day at work by parking his car and walking to the corner of Sydney Street. The car, as he understood it, had been found on Sydney Street, but the blood

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