Moot Read Free

a withering prison.
    “Could you write where you
think she’d go?”I put the notebook in its lap and worked a pencil into
its grasping fingers. It hurriedly began squiggling streaks of lead across, up,
and down the page, still moving after Miss Lopez gently pried the pencil away.
    I rubbed at my temples in
frustration. “Would anyone else know where Isabel went?”
    Its face went blank; then, yes . Cora started slowly flipping through the journal, scanning the
nonsense. We waited as it cautiously studied each page’s gibberish until it
grunted excitedly, stabbing a finger to the paper.
    In a space of lines thick
with ink, a tiny oasis of clarity.
    N E X
    “ Nex ,”
I said. “Does that mean anything to you, Miss Lopez?”
    “No. Cora, is this a
person?” Yes .
    “And this Nex knows where Isabel is?” Yes yes yes yes yes .
    “So what now?” asked Miss
Lopez.
    I took the journal from
the moot’s grip and ripped the page out, shoving it in my pocket. “Now I hit
the streets.” I stood to leave. “There’s a few snitches I know. I’ll let you
know if anything pans. Hopefully this isn’t just your moot sending me on a
snipe hunt.”
    #
    “Did you have to
keep calling her that?”
    Her voice quivered as she
walked me down the main hall to the drabness of the world beyond luxury. I
ignored the question.
    “ It . Your moot . Cora is not an it ,
Mr. Pasco.”
    I stopped at the door and
faced her. “Miss Lopez, I appreciate your courtesy on behalf of the help, but
Cora isn’t a who anymore. She and
I, we’re it s . And I was under the impression I had been hired for my detective
skills, not my manners.”
    I walked down the path,
turning back when I reached my car. She stood in the archway, in every way
perfect, and not for the first time I bemoaned my mootness. “You’re not doing
it any favours by keeping it around,” I yelled. “Take my advice, book a
crematorium. Cora will be much happier as a pile of ash.”
    She yelled something back
as I lurched into the driver’s seat. I turned the ignition, letting the engine
complain, pretending not to understand what I heard so clearly.
    I drove away, idly
fingering the scars on my wrists, mulling over her question.
    Why haven’t you, then?
    Excellent question.
    #
    Over the next while
I hit up my usual sources, trotting out Isabel’s smile in places a young woman should
never frequent, to faces a young woman should never meet. Getting nothing but
deadpan stares and obscene single- entendres , I
sprinkled the name Nex about, along with a few fins.
All I earned was a lighter wallet.
    I started hitting
airports, train and bus stations, taxi stands. Zip. Ditto hospitals and
morgues. If Isabel had left town, it wasn’t via public transport or pine box.
Reaching out to my last few friends on the police force was similarly
dispiriting. I started visiting churches, synagogues, arbitrary places of
worship. Isabel’s face brought me downturned mouths and Isn’t that a shame s,
but no results.
    My reports to Miss Lopez
were perfunctory. She told me Cora had slid further downhill. I think it was
keeping itself going by sheer will, hoping that someone would bring Isabel
back.
    I sat in my office and bit
my lip until it should have bled, walking though options. Isabel’s pic was
propped up next to the girls’. So, Jo, Isabel. My eye flickered over the trio.
    Three expressions of utter
guilelessness. Faces alit with heady expectancy. They could go anywhere, do
anything. They were hope. They were life.
    But they sat here, on my
desk, captured in moments of wonder. Frozen in possibility.
    These children did not
belong in my office. Their being here was a violation. They should never have
put their faith in me.
    I knew where I had to go.
I had always known – and had wasted days.
    I put my head down, hands
over face, resigned, loathing myself.
    I hate moots.
    #
    Every city has a Greytown . Ours is a northside slum once intended to quarter miscellaneous population detritus: