Plaster City (A Jimmy Veeder Fiasco) by Shaw Johnny Read Free Book Online

guess. Maybe forty-five, maybe seventy-five. She dried her hands with a kitchen towel and looked at me with complete neutrality.
    “Hi,” I said with a smile so big my face hurt. “My name is James Veeder. This is Robert Maves. We’re looking for Robert’s daughter, Julie Espinosa. She’s missing. We were hoping to talk to Angel De La Cueva. He and Julie are friends. Is he in, by any chance?”
    “Qué?” the woman said.
    “Fucking hell,” Bobby said. “As sidekicks go, you suck.”
    “I’m used to being the hero. You’re usually the sidekick.”
    “Stop the stupid train,” Bobby said. “I have never been a sidekick in my life. I’m too awesome for sidekick status. I am the everyman hero of my awesome movie, a badass NC-17 action comedy with heart called Bobby Maves: The Art of Asskickery and Woman Conquesting . You, on the other hand, are the main character for some arty-farty Eurotrash indie flick, one of those three-hour borefests that you’re always making me watch with a lot of shots of rainy sidewalks and nothing happens, but at least there’s tits. Something called Leaves and Sorrow or some equally shitty title. If this is True Grit , you’re Glen Campbell.”
    “Qué?” the woman said again.
    Bobby handed me the Plan Bs. He pulled Julie’s school photo out of his back pocket and held it up for the woman. “Esto es mi hija. Es ida. Soy preocupado muy. No la podemos encontrar. Me puede ayudar? Debemos hablar con Angel . ”
    “Sí, sí, sí. Mi hijo está en la casa,” the woman said, waving us inside. We followed her into the house. Every few steps she turned and gave us a little wave, making sure we were behind her.
    The house needed some repairs, but it was impeccably clean. Cracks in the walls and some water stains on the ceiling, but no visible dust and a lemony smell. The home of someone who was doing their best despite what they had to work with. We walked through the living room where Miguel played a video game and down a short hall. The woman stopped in front of a closed door.
    “Aquí , ” she said. I reached for the knob, but the woman put a hand on my forearm, stopping me. She held out her other hand. I gave her a confused look, and then looked down at my hands, which held the two tape-wrapped fighting pipes.
    “Lo siento , ” I said, handing over the pipes. Bobby and I both looked appropriately embarrassed to have brought such vicious weapons into anyone’s home. She turned and walked down the hall. As she turned the corner, she gave one of the pipes a surprisingly lithe ninja swing and a high-pitched “Hi-yah!”
    “Am I getting my pipes back?” Bobby asked.
    “How the hell should I know?”
    “Anything else of mine you want to give away?”
    Bobby pushed me aside and opened the door without knocking. In the bedroom, a thirteen-year-old kid looked up from a drawing pad. He lay on the bed lit only by a desk lamp. He didn’t look scared. He looked like he was used to a lack of privacy.
    “Hi, Angel,” Bobby said, “I’m Julie Espinosa’s dad. You’re going to talk to me.”

    Angel didn’t stop drawing. From my angle, it looked like it was a grasshopper or maybe a praying mantis, something leggy with bulging eyes. Cute and fascinating from afar, but a monster up close.
    The room would probably be referred to as the master bedroom by a real estate agent. But with two beds pushed up against opposite walls and a folding table covered in engine parts taking up most of the central floor space, the room felt cramped. It smelled of grease and armpits.
    Unlike Julie, the kid didn’t hang his drawings on the wall. Only pages torn from lowrider and motorcycle magazines, featuring topless or bikini-clad chicas and white trash models pulled straight from their double-wides. Models in those magazines were like no other. There was something about the girls that was hard, surly, and working class. Girls that ate ribs, chewed tobacco, fought dirty, and had no idea what Pilates