The next morning I awoke to my phone ringing instead of my alarm. “Axton?” I asked, after fumbling with the receiver.
“It’s Ray. You’re late. You sick?” My boss’s gruff voice got me up in a hurry.
I looked around the room, my gaze finally landing on the clock. Six-fifteen. “Damn.” I hauled ass out of bed. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
He grunted in reply and hung up.
After throwing on a pair of semi-clean jeans, a bra and a wrinkled, long sleeved t-shirt, I brushed my teeth and pulled my hair into a sloppy ponytail. Then I grabbed my bag and made it to work in ten minutes.
“Sorry I’m late,” I yelled through the kitchen door. The smell of fried eggs and cinnamon French toast made my stomach growl. Tying a blue and white gingham apron around my waist, I got to work. I wanted to make sure Axton’s backpack was still safely hidden away in the syrup box, but there wasn’t time. The early crowd was in full swing.
Ma’s Diner was a hole in wall. A little brick building with no sign, a place you’d drive past and never notice. Ma’s served breakfast. Period. If you wanted a sandwich, it better be an egg sandwich or you were out of luck. We were open seven days a week, excluding Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, from six to one. And if you came in at twelve fifty-five, you took it to go.
Ma’s hadn’t changed much since it opened in 1956—I’d seen the pictures to prove it. Wallpaper patterned with big baskets of fruit was now yellowed and dingy. Ten rectangular tables topped with pink Formica speckled with little pieces of gold glitter were scattered throughout the room, and none of the chairs matched.
Ma came in five times a week. At almost eighty, she still waited tables like a pro. Her real name was Marty, but I’d never heard anyone call her that. She was a favorite with the customers, especially older ones who liked to sit back and shoot the shit. Ma would talk to them about the good old days when her husband, Frank, was alive. But what she loved to do most was drink black coffee and complain to her son, Ray, that he never did anything right.
Lucky for me, Ma had come in that morning, as evidenced by Neil Diamond’s greatest hits playing over the speakers.
When we hit a lull around ten o’clock, I poured myself a cup of coffee and leaned my elbows on the counter in front of Ma. Sitting on one of the four counter stools, a food service order form in front of her, she sported a red sweatshirt with a yellow rhinestone cat on the front. Spikes of white hair stood out at odd angles on her head and large-framed trifocals were perched on the bridge of her nose. She tilted her head up with her eyes cast down to the paper in front of her.
“So, why were you late, toots?” she asked.
“Sorry about that. Forgot to set my alarm.”
“Late night studying?” She put down her pen and took a sip of coffee.
“I should have been, but I was out looking for Ax. He’s in trouble, Ma.” I updated her on all things Axton. “I’m really worried about him.”
Roxy poured herself a cup of coffee and stood next to me. “What’s the big deal? This is Ax we’re talking about. I mean, where would he run off to?”
“It is a big deal, Rox. Giving me his backpack? A strange man lurking in the woods leaving cryptic messages? Something is off.”
As I spoke, Ray carried two plates out of the kitchen. He set a ham and cheese omelet in front of me and a cinnamon roll in front of Roxy.
“Thanks, Ray,” I said over my shoulder.
“Uhm.”
“You put too much pepper in the gravy this morning, son,” Ma said to his retreating back. “Boy always uses too much damn pepper. Anyway, call Axton’s office and see if he came in this morning.”
“I figured I would. I’ll call his brother, too.”
Roxy polished off the last of her cinnamon roll and stared at her empty plate. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“What do you mean, hon?” Ma asked.
“I want a cigarette. What do you people do after you finish eating? What is there to do besides smoke?”
Ma peered at her. “Your job?”
Scowling, Roxy picked up a rag and began wiping down tables.
I finished eating and went back to work. We had a steady flow of customers until one o’clock when Ma flipped the closed sign.
As soon as my last customer was out the door, I hustled to the pantry. I pulled the syrup box off the shelf and hauled out Ax’s backpack. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, I started with the outer pocket and found a disposable lighter and a small package of tissues. I shoved them back and unzipped the main compartment, drawing out each item and inspecting it thoroughly. Nothing had suddenly appeared overnight. It was still just ordinary Axton stuff.
I set the laptop on the floor and booted it up, but without his password, I didn’t get very far. I tried his birthday (January 13th), his favorite movie (Avatar), his favorite comic book series (X-men), characters from his favorite book (Lord of the Rings), and even “George Lucas is a god.” Nothing.
Frustrated, I stuck everything back in the bag, placed the bag back in the syrup box, then put the box back up on the shelf. There must be something on the laptop. But since I couldn’t even log on, that was a bit of a problem.
I walked to the dining room where Ma scrubbed down the counter and Roxy swept the floor. “I just checked Ax’s backpack again.”
Ma raised her penciled brows and Roxy stopped smacking her gum.
“Nothing. And I don’t know the password for his computer.”
“Bummer.” Roxy resumed her chomping.
“Go ahead and call his office, toots.”
Since my phone had limited minutes, I used the wall phone next to the kitchen and called Ax’s cell number first. His voicemail was full, so I tried his office number. It rang six times before someone answered. When I asked for Ax, I got a ‘No, he didn’t bother showing up today’ before the phone slammed down.
I dug under the counter for the phone book to find Packard Graystone’s number. Axton and Packard — okay seriously, what had their parents been thinking with those names? — were estranged. But I still wanted to talk to him in case he’d heard from Ax.
Packard’s home number wasn’t listed in the white pages, but his office was listed in the yellow ones. Pack was a dermatologist and the receptionist wouldn’t let me talk to him unless I made an appointment. I might have raised my voice when I told her Pack’s brother was missing, but she didn’t seem to care. I grrred at the receiver.
I finished helping Ma and Roxy with cleanup, then drove to Axton’s house to check in with Joe. Because he spent most of his life buzzed or better, I thought talking to Joe in person, rather than over the phone, would be the way to go. And maybe I could press him about that exclusive club Axton talked about.
Without bothering to knock, I opened the front door and found Joe sitting on the sofa watching an episode of Bewitched with a bag of potato chips on his chest. A glass bong sat on the scarred coffee table along with an empty pizza box. Crushed beer cans littered the carpet. Joe wore the same clothes from the night before: a t-shirt with a picture of the St. Louis Arch and ripped jeans. And his purple tuque, of course.
“Hey, Rose.” He shifted his eyes from Elizabeth Montgomery to me and back again. “You ever wonder how Samantha does that nose twitch thing? I’ve tried to do it, but I can’t.” He demonstrated his attempt at the nose twitch thing. He looked like a rabbit with a cocaine habit.
“Have you heard from Axton?”
“Um, negative.” He stared at the TV, bringing a chip from the bag to his mouth without sparing me a glance.
I reached over, grabbed the remote control from his lap, and turned off the television.
He gazed at me, his brow furrowed. “What’d you do that for?”
“Axton hasn’t shown up for work, he hasn’t been home, and he left the house last night without taking his car. I’m worried about him.”
He reached for the remote control, but I tossed it over my shoulder and heard it thunk against the wall. “Joe…Axton is missing.”
“Dude, that was so uncool.”
“Focus. Where did Ax go the other night? The club, where was it?”
“Um, can I have the remote back, please? I need to see if Samantha’s mom turns Darren back into a dude.”
I leaned down, my face inches from Joe’s. “She does.”
He blew out a breath and I winced. “Man, I hate spoilers. You are seriously harshing me.”
Straightening up, I closed my eyes for a second. I obviously needed to go about this in a different way. I settled myself on the edge of the sofa and patted his shoulder. “Joe, we need to find Axton. I’m afraid he’s in trouble.”
He nodded, seeming to understand. Okay, we were making progress.
“Did he tell you anything about the club? Anything at all?”
With his mouth hanging open, he lowered his brows and rolled his eyes upward. Awww, he was trying to think. Mostly though it looked like he was trying to poop. “I know he said something about an invitation.”
“Right,” I nodded. “Do you know where he was going?”
“Um…some club? It sounded kind of boring.”
“Where was the club, Joe? Think really hard, because this is important.”
He scrunched up his face and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he looked like a sad puppy that had peed on the carpet. “I don’t know.”
“What about last night? What did Axton say when he got home?”
“He told me to save him a piece of pizza.” He gestured toward the empty box. “And like, I totally would have if he hadn’t skipped out.”
I sighed. “Where did he go last night, before he came home, I mean?”
He shrugged his bony shoulders. “Sorry, Rose. Can I have my remote back? I Dream of Jeannie is on next. I love her, man.”
I rubbed my temple. I was starting to get a headache to go along with the pain in my ass named Joe. “Sure. I’m going to check out Axton’s room, okay?” Not waiting for his reply, I walked down the hall.
After climbing through the window last night, I’d unlocked Ax’s door. I hadn’t wanted to search his room then, because it seemed like such an invasion of his privacy. Today it seemed like a good idea.
It was even more of a wreck in the daylight and the sour, musty smell hit me hard, just like it had the night before. The bed was unmade and I had trouble telling whether the sheets had once been white or if they had always been that shade of gray. Little mountains of clothes were piled up across the floor.
I surveyed the room and tried to figure out where to start. The desk was as good a place as any.
It was one of those discount store models you put together yourself. The top was cluttered with jewel cases filled with burned CDs and gaming magazines. I looked in the cubbyholes and found a bag of pot — no surprise there — and not much else. I flipped through the gaming magazines to make sure there were no loose papers between the pages.
Glancing around the rest of the room, I realized was going to have to touch that bed. My whole body shivered and I took a deep breath, wishing like crazy I had thought to bring gloves.
Under the bed were dust balls and spank mags, featuring women with novelty breasts the size of beach balls. I did the same thing and shook them to be sure there were no loose papers inside. Some of the pages were stuck together. I gagged a little. I lifted the twin mattress and found bubkes, as Ma would say.
Next I carefully made my way to the small bookcase where books had been haphazardly shoved on the shelves. All science fiction — natch — and as I thumbed my way through the pages, I noticed a theme. Most of the covers depicted large breasted women in skimpy outfits. Some wielded swords, some stood tall, their legs in a wide stance, their ginormous breasts thrust out. Axton really liked the boobies.
The closet yielded nothing but a few faded t-shirts, one pair of khakis, and a dirty pair of tennis shoes on the floor. A cardboard chest of drawers held his socks and a lone pair of underwear.
I glanced around the room one more time, trying to take in anything that might hold a clue, and spied two pairs of jeans tossed in the corner. I picked my way through the dirty boxer bombs to get to them. Holding up the first pair with two fingers, I felt around in the pockets. Nothing. But in the front left pocket of the second pair, I found a folded yellow Post-it with the words NorthStar Inc. written in Axton’s blocky handwriting.
I smiled. I didn’t know if this was a clue, but I felt kind of excited.
With the paper tucked in my pocket, I scooped up all the burned CDs from the desk and slipped them into my purse. I doubted they contained any clues to Ax’s whereabouts, but I wanted to be sure. I left the bedroom and went into the living room for one last attempt at Joe.
“Joe?”
“Mmm?” he didn’t look away from the TV.
“Joe?” I said, louder this time.
His glassy gaze drifted my way. “Hey, Rose, you still here?”
“What did Axton wear to the club?”
He blinked, and seemed sharper, more alert for a moment. He grinned and snapped his fingers. “He had on this jacket, like you wear to funerals and stuff.”
“A suit jacket?”
“Yeah, and pants.”
“Slacks?” In all the years I’d known Ax, I’d never seen him in a suit. I didn’t even know he owned one.
“Yeah, not like jeans or anything.” He stared at the wall next to my head, the glazed look back in his eyes. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Kind of like the dude who dropped by earlier.”
“What?” My heart hammered in my chest. “What dude?”
“Some tall dude who looked in Ax’s room.”
I stomped over to the TV and shut it off, then blocked it with my body. “What tall dude?”
“I don’t know, man. A guy showed up and asked for Ax…,” he looked up at the ceiling, “this morning?”
I buried my face in my hands. So help me God, I was going to strangle this moron with his own hat strings. I took a deep breath. “Joe. Start at the beginning. A dude came to the house. What did he look like?”
He scratched the top of his head. “Like a funeral guy, I told you.”
“What did he say? Tell me exactly.”
His stomach rumbled and he looked up at me. “Huh, did you hear that?”
“What did he say?” My jaw was clenched so tight, I could barely move my lips.
“Man, chill. He said Ax had something important and he needed to search the Axman’s room. Like you did.”
I stepped closer to Joe. “Did he find anything? Please Joe, please focus.”
“No…” he tilted his head to the side and closed his eyes for so long I thought he’d fallen asleep. Then they popped open. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Are you sure?”
“Ah man, I don’t know.”
I could tell I wasn’t going to get any more out of him, no matter how much I pushed. “Joe,” I said slowly, “I want you to call me if the man comes back.”
“Sure.” He dug into the chip bag and brought out a handful of crumbs. Half made it into his mouth and the other half landed on his shirt. “No problem.”
I stared at him in frustration. I had no doubt Joe would completely forget our conversation, let alone his promise to call, if this guy showed up again.
As I left the house and made my way to the car, I dug in my purse for hand sanitizer, pouring half the bottle into my palm. The bright blue October sky was completely at odds with my dark mood. There was just a little breeze, a nip of fall in the air. Still, I was freezing.
I now knew Axton wore a suit to a club, had the name of a company that may or may not, in any way, be related to Axton’s disappearance, and knew a man had searched Ax’s room before I got there. It had to be the same mystery man I’d met in the woods. What was this guy looking for? And what would happen if he found Ax before I did?