Speaking in Tongues

crew-cut boy with half-mast eyelids, wearing a perfectly pressed uniform, listened unemotionally to Tate’s story. He adjusted his glistening black billy club.
    “Don’t know your daughter.” He turned, called out, “Henry, you know a Megan McCall?”
    “Nope,” said his partner, who resembled him to an eerie degree. He stepped into the school proper and disappeared.
    “What we’re concerned about is this car. A man seemed to be following her.”
    “A car. Following her.” The young man was skeptical.
    Bett took over. “Around the school yard. This past week.”
    Tate: “We were wondering if anybody might’ve reported it.”
    The man’s face eased into that put-upon looksecurity guards are very good at. Maybe they’re resentful that they’re not full-fledged cops and could carry guns. And use them.
    “Are the police involved?” the man asked.
    “Somewhat.”
    “Hm.” Trying to figure that one out.
    “What happens if somebody sees something unusual? Is there any procedure for that?”
    “The Bust-er Book,” the guard said.
    Bett asked, “The . . . uh?”
    “Bust-er. He’s a dog. I mean, a cartoon dog. But it’s like ‘Bust’ as in get busted. Arrested. Then a dash, then e-r. If the kids see something suspicious they come tell us and we write it down in the Bust-er Book and then there’s a record of it for the police. If anything, you know, happens.”
    Tate recalled what Amy’d said. “It was on Tuesday. Out in the parking lot by the sports field. Could you take a look?”
    “Oh, we can’t let you see it,” the guard said.
    “I’m sorry?”
    “Parents don’t have, you know, access to it. Only the administration and police. That’s the rule.”
    “That’s it right there?”
    The guard turned around and glanced at the blue binder with the words “Bust-er” on the spine and a cartoon effigy of a dog wearing a Sherlock Holmes deerstalker hat. “Yes sir.”
    “If you don’t mind . . . See, our daughter’s missing. As I was saying. Could you take a look?”
    “Just have the police give us a call.”
    “Well, she’s not officially a missing person.”
    “I don’t have any leeway, sir. You understand.” The guard’s lean face crinkled. His still eyes looked Tate up and down and his muscular hand caressed his ebony billy club. He was everything Tate hated about northern Virginia. Snide and sullen, this young man would see nothing wrong with a tap on the wife’s chin or a belt on his kids’ butts to keep the family in line. He was master of the house; everyone did as he commanded. And never ask his opinion about the Mideastern and Asian immigrants settling in Fairfax because he’ll tell you in no uncertain terms.
    Tate looked at Bett. Her eyebrows were raised as if she were asking: Why was Tate hesitating? After all, he was the silver-tongued devil. He could talk anybody into anything. (“Resolved: The Watergate break-in was justifiable as a means to a valid end.” Lifelong Democrat, grandson of a lifelong Democrat, Tate had leapt at the chance to take the pro side of the debate and argue that irreverent position—for the pure joy of going up against overwhelming odds. He’d won, to the Judge’s shock and lasting amusement.)
    “Officer,” Tate began, thinking of the rhetorical tricks in his arsenal, the logic, the skills at persuasion. Ratiocination. He paused, then walked to the door and motioned the guard to follow.
    The lean man walked slowly enough to let Tate know that nobody on earth was going to make him do a single thing he didn’t want to do.
    Tate, standing in the doorway, looked out over the school yard. “What do you see there?”
    The guard hesitated uncertainly. He’d be thinking,What kinda question’s that? I see trees, I see cars, I see fences, I see clouds.
    Tate waited just the right amount of time and said, “I see a lot of young people.”
    “Um.” Well, what the hell else’re you gonna see on a school yard?
    “And those young people rely on us adults for everything. They rely on us for food, for shelter, for schooling, and you know what else?”
    Video games, running shoes, Legos? What’s this clown up to?
    “They rely on us for their safety. That’s what you’re doing here, right? It’s the reason they hired a big, strong guy like you. A man who’s got balls, who’s not afraid to mix it up with somebody.”
    “I dunno. I guess.”
    “Well, my daughter’s relying on me for her safety. She needs me to find out where