House of Blues

round, white, and
surrounded by black hair; the voice was female. "No, uh—uh.
Just the upstairs tenant. I'm gettin' a little worried. I thought
maybe you were a relative or something."
    " I wonder if I could come in for a minute? My
company's offering free gifts for the first thirty-five—"
    "Sorry. I've got to get back to work."
    The face disappeared.
    The building was a four-plex. Evie was in Apartment
One, and this was the one above—Three, probably.
    Suratt.
    She rang Suratt's bell.
    The face came back.
    "Could I talk to you a minute?" Skip held
up her badge, not wanting to shout her identity.
    "Hey, what's that? Are you a—"
    Skip nodded and held a finger to her lips, holding
virtually no hope it would work. But Suratt nodded and disappeared
from the window.
    She appeared downstairs breathing hard.
    She was about a hundred pounds overweight, with quite
a lot of curly hair and the pretty face with which every fat girl is
supposed to be blessed. She wore leggings, an oversized T-shirt, and
sandals. She looked intelligent, and there was something else about 
her, a kind of joie de vivre.
    " Diane Suratt," she said. "Could I see
that again?"
    Skip displayed the badge and introduced herself. "I
wonder if we could talk inside?"
    "Sure."
    Diane led her into an airy apartment with very little
furniture, mostly thrift—store stuff to which she'd applied various
exotic paint jobs. Below the window she'd shouted from was a large
white worktable covered with tiny fruits, airplanes, cars, flowers,
birds, cats, fish, trees, cups, saucers—anything you could
name—some painted, some awaiting paint.
    On another table were pairs and pairs of earrings
attached to little paper cards. All were large, dramatic, exuberantly
painted, and made of the tiny objects. She'd seen them many times
around town, both in stores and on ears. In fact, Dee-Dee had given
her some, which were amusing but which she couldn't bring herself to
wear.
    She said, "You're the Slutsky lady. I've got a
pair of your earrings with little revolvers and knives on them."
    " I made those for Halloween one year." She
frowned. "They didn't sell, though."
    For a moment Skip didn't speak. She was trying to
take it in—this woman's apparent poverty and the popularity of her
work. Finally she said, "Do you have anyone helping you?"
    A shadow passed over Diane's face. "I can't
really afford it right now. But I might get a contract for a
department store chain .... "
    She crossed her fingers. "Then I could get a
couple of people. Evie never seemed to have any money; I always
wanted to hire her. But lately she's been screwing up pretty bad."
    " How's that?"
    "Drinking too much. Maybe doing drugs, I don't
know. And a horrible boyfriend. Manny.
    "God! Rides a motorcycle, looks like a thug, and
hollers at her all the time. Did I mention his tattoos?
    " I~Ie hasn't been around lately, though. For
about a month, I guess. In fact, things have been so quiet over there
I thought maybe she'd gone back to AA—she used to be sober, did I
say that? Nice girl when she's not loaded. But I don't know about her
and men. That Manny was abusive as hell."
    "How long has she been missing?"
    Diane looked uncomfortable. "About a week, I
think. I'm not sure when I first noticed she wasn't there. Tuesday or
Wednesday, maybe.
    "Her newspapers started piling up. I've been
removing them so the neighborhood hooligans don't get the idea they
can make off with the Picassos."
    " Picassos?"
    "Kidding. So far as I know, Evie hasn't got a
dime. Supports herself with crummy little modeling jobs."
    "Has she gone missing before?"
    "When she was seeing Manny, she'd be gone a
couple of days sometimes. But what's funny—she'd usually ask me to
get her mail for her. And this time she didn't. Why are you here, by
the way? Did someone report her missing?"
    "Something like that."
    " I don't even know where she's from. Must be
Louisiana though; with a name like Hebert."
    Skip asked if the building
manager lived on the premises. "There isn't one," said
Diane, "but I can give you the owner's number. You can call her
from here if you like."
    * * *
    She called Cappello first, to report that she was
still in one piece. The owner sounded young, as if she'd inherited
the building but wasn't ready for the responsibility. When Skip told
her the situation, her voice turned high and tense.
    "Do you think we should go in and look? Is it
legal?"
    "It's legal in an emergency, and frankly, I
think we've got one here. But