The Missing Pocketbook

The Missing Pocketbook

W.B. Preston

Today of a dream, I forgot to see you, in your sun tinted dress fit snugly atop your waist, I wondered, did you call? But I was in a mad rush to the hospice, for Bunnie forgot her pocketbook in a drawer on the third floor of room seven. You know me, rushing about downtown, eyes fixed on cement and street signs, the cross street was eighth. I knew the hotel clerk would be trouble, peering at me from behind rimless spectacles, he huffed at my suggestion. I simply needed to get into the room and search the drawer, but he was stubborn this one, insisted on a few coins for his trouble, which I would not have begrudged him had he not been so unseemly about the entire affair. I washed my hand when I got up to the room. The window was open, yet the room lay shadowed for it was a quarter past noon, I must have missed the bells of St. Thomas as I scurried through the alleys to O st. A bark from below the window caught my ear, the dampness of the bathroom someone had recently showered, though Bunnie had told me she was alone here, and she had checked out this morning , by eight. The clerk would have mentioned if someone else had rented the room, I doubt it, the bed sheets were strewn about, no one had even remade the room. Had Bunnie been here with someone else, I wondered and lurched for the drawer, nearly pulling it from its bedside night table. A bible but no pocketbook.

This must be when you rang me, you had been waiting twenty minutes for our lunch date that would never come to pass. You must understand that Bunnie needed that white pocketbook, and she had sent me to gather it,I had no choice. If I had been in a better state of mind, I'd have called you from the room, but the barking dog and the missing pocketbook, the knock at the door snapped my neck around. I cracked it open slowly and peeked through the doors edged. The large nose of the clerk shone red in the dim hallway light and he huffed at me again. It seems five minutes was too long to be searching for a small pocketbook, yet I was desperate to find it. I know what you would say but I only had to please her, I could not stand the judgment of her eyes, pure and gray.

Quickly I rampaged the other drawers while the clerk, arms folded watched, though I knew I would not find the pocketbook, for she had told me which drawer to check. I was about give up, hang my head out the door and be on my way when I spotted the shoe behind the bathroom door, just beside the wastebasket. Dull yellow heel with white lining, I recognized it from the night before, it was Bonnie's friend Grace, she was drunk before I had a chance to take a sip. However, twirling the shoe in my hand as I rode in the back of a cab to Llobo's, I recalled that Grace had been driven home by quite the sober man with the thick mustache poorly trimmed that it gave him half a smirk, though I'd forgotten his name, he seemed unimportant at the time.

Llobo ran the bike kitchen on fifty-first, as you'll recall, his hands always greasy, he rubbed them in a towel and watched me as I made the walk towards the garage. I could tell he'd be no help at all, though he did remind me of my lunch date with you. I rushed into his office and rang your mother, but she said you'd been gone all afternoon, to meet with me. I dream of those thin sandwiches with the avocado, and the crème sodas to go with them, I half missed the lunch more than you. Llabo handed me a beer in the garage, and we leaned back against the workbench and sipped from the bottle under the shade of the garage a little after one. Llabo talked about some latina he picked up across town, a kid fiddled with the spokes on a bike, and from time to time Llabo would jump up, mad as hell and slam his beer on the bench, kicking over to where the boy worked, he berated the poor chap about proper manufacturing technique, something about the price value, though I didn't blame him, this was his livelihood for christssake, though the boy probably was only paid a few coin. I sort of admired old Llabo, the way he brought in the street boys and put them to work, taught them a trade, they could make good money fixing bikes, everybody rides in this part of town.

Llabo went on and on about his Latina from the night prior, though I didn't listen much, I really just needed to know about what happened when he ran into Bunnie. Turns out he didn't so much run into her, as run over her. After listening to his story for thirty minutes in that steamy garage, often interrupted by the poor workmanship of the street boy, he finally gets around to telling me that he nearly ran over Bunnie, Grace and the mustachioed man with the smirk, while riding with the Latina on his bicycle handles. The whole thing sounds like some kind of farce, but it's true, every word, he described the smirk to a tee. He said Bunnie had the white pocketbook then, cause he saw her take it out and give Grace a cigarette. Llabo said she was so drunk she nearly burned herself with the cigarette tilted from her lips. Poor Gracie, she'll never stop, they say it's to do with all that business with her brother, from a few years ago, I don't know why Bunnie doesn't take Grace to see her analyst, I bet it'd do wonders for the confused girl. Llabo said that Bunnie told him they were going to the smirk's hospice, so I was back at square one, although I had a few more pertinent clues.

The first was that Bunnie was a liar, the second was that the room was made out to the smirk, not to Bunnie. So back I went to the hospice looking for the Smirk's real name. The clerk huffed before I could get my second foot in the door. Donald Meede, it turns out, though I still don't know if that's his real name. I remembered he called himself Donnie, he let the name slink from beneath that mustache. Now I hadn't spoken to Bunnie since this morning, and it was nearly three by the time I had gotten all this information and spun around the city twice, I needed to talk to the girl, and get some answers straight. So I rang her studio, and to further my anger I was met by the voice of a man.

“What do ya want?” What do I want? Shut up and put Bunnie on the phone! Is what I wanted to say but I’ve never been one for confrontations, I politely requested Bunnie. “She's dead!” He barked and hung up the phone.