I SAT IN THE CAR, parked out front of the adult entertainment store, XXX Delights, which had a florist shop on one side and the clock repair place on the other. The windows were opaque to protect passersby from having to see any of the merchandise. But the words painted on the glass in foot-high letters left no doubt as to what was being offered. “XXX” and “ADULT” and “EROTICA” and “MOVIES” and “TOYS.”
Nothing from Fisher-Price, I was guessing.
I watched men heading in and out. Clutching items in brown paper bags as they scurried back to their cars. Was there really a need for any of this these days? Couldn’t this all be had online? Did these guys have to skulk about with their collars turned up, baseball hats pulled down, cheap sunglasses hiding their eyes? For crying out loud, go home and make out with your laptops.
I was about to go in when a heavyset, balding man strode past the florist and turned into XXX Delights.
“Shit,” I said.
It was Bert, who worked in the service department at Riverside Honda. Married, so far as I knew, with kids now in their twenties. I wasn’t going in while he was there. I didn’t want to have to explain what I was doing there, and I didn’t want him to have to explain what he was doing there.
Five minutes later he emerged with his purchase, got into an old Accord, and drove off.
I was actually grateful for the delay. I’d been steeling myself to enter the place, not because of the kind of business it was, but because I couldn’t imagine Sydney having a connection to it.
“This is a waste of time,” I said under my breath as I got out of the car, crossed the lot, and went inside.
The place was brilliantly lit with hundreds of overhead fluorescent tubes, making it easy to see the covers of the hundreds of DVDs displayed on racks throughout the store. A quick glance indicated that no niche market, no remotely obscure predilection, had been ignored. In addition to movies and magazines, the store carried a wide assortment of paraphernalia, from fur-lined handcuffs to life-size—if not entirely lifelike—female dolls. They were slightly more realistic than the blow-up variety, but still not take-home-to-meet-the-folks quality. Only a few steps from the entrance, surveying the empire from a raised platform like a pharmacist at the back of a drugstore, was the proprietor, an overweight woman with stringy hair reading a tattered paperback copy of Atlas Shrugged.
I stopped in front of her, looked up, cleared my throat, and said, “Excuse me.”
She laid the book down and said, “Yeah.”
“I wonder if you could help me,” I said.
“Sure,” she said. When I didn’t speak up right away, she said, “Go ahead, tell me what you’re looking for, I’ve heard everything and I don’t give a shit.”
I handed her a picture of Sydney. “You ever seen this girl?”
She took the photo, glanced at it, handed it back. “If you know her name, I can put it into the computer and see what movies she’s been in.”
“Not in a movie. Have you ever seen her here, in this store, or even in the area? Going back about three weeks?”
“We don’t have a lot of girl customers,” she said flatly.
“I know, I’m probably wasting my time—”
“And mine,” she said, her hand on the book.
“But if you wouldn’t mind taking another look.”
She sighed, lifted her hand off the book, and took the picture a second time. “So who is she?”
“Sydney Blake,” I said. “She’s my daughter.”
“And you think she might have been hanging around here?”
“No,” I said. “But if I only look in the places where I think she might have been, I might not ever find her.”
She studied the picture for two seconds and handed it back. “Sorry.”
“You’re sure?”
She looked exasperated. “You need help with anything else?”
“No,” I said. “Thanks anyway.” I let her get back to Ayn Rand.
As I stepped out, a thin, white-haired woman was locking up the flower shop. A young man, mid-twenties, was obediently standing by her, like a dog waiting to be told what to do. The woman looked my way briefly but turned her head before we could make eye contact. You didn’t want to be making eye contact with men coming out of XXX Delights.
“So we’ll see you in the morning,” the woman said to the man.
“Yup,” he said.
I’d talked to this woman before, shown her Syd’s picture, maybe a week ago. She’d actually taken the time to study the photo, and seemed genuinely sorry when she wasn’t able to help me.
“Hello,” I said.
She didn’t turn my way, although I was sure she heard me. “Hello,” I said again. “We spoke last week?” I didn’t have to struggle hard for a name. The sign in the window said Shaw Flowers. I said, “Mrs. Shaw?”
I took a couple of steps toward her and she turned warily. But when she saw in my hand the photo the woman in the porn shop had returned to me, she seemed to relax.
“Oh, I remember you,” Mrs. Shaw said.
I nodded my head toward the store I’d just come from. “Still asking around.”
“Oh my,” she said. “You didn’t find your daughter there, did you?”
“No,” I said.
“Well, that’s good,” Mrs. Shaw said.
Like finding Syd there would be worse than never finding her at all.