Carthage had a bigger drug epidemic than I ever knew: The cops had been here just yesterday, and already the druggies had resettled, like determined flies. As we made our way through the piles of humans, an obese woman shushed up to us on an electric scooter. Her face was pimply and wet with sweat, her teeth catlike.
“You buying or leaving, because this ain’t a show-and-tell,” she said.
Stucks shone a flashlight on her face.
“Get that fucking thing off me.” He did.
“I’m looking for my wife,” I began. “Amy Dunne. She’s been missing since Thursday.”
“She’ll show up. She’ll wake up, drag herself home.”
“We’re not worried about drugs,” I said. “We’re more concerned about some of the men here. We’ve heard rumors.”
“It’s okay, Melanie,” a voice called. At the edge of the juniors section, a rangy man leaned against a naked mannequin torso, watching us, a sideways grin on his face.
Melanie shrugged, bored, annoyed, and motored away.
The man kept his eyes on us but called toward the back of the juniors section, where four sets of feet poked out from the dressing rooms, men camped out in their individual cubicles.
“Hey, Lonnie! Hey, all! The assholes are back. Five of ’em,” the man said. He kicked an empty beer can toward us. Behind him, three sets of feet began moving, men pulling themselves up. One set remained still, their owner asleep or passed out.
“Yeah, fuckos, we’re back,” Mikey Hillsam said. He held his bat like a pool cue and punched the mannequin torso between the breasts. She tottered toward the ground, the Blue Book guy removing his arm gracefully as she fell, as if it were all part of a rehearsed act. “We want some information on a missing girl.”
The three men from the dressing rooms joined their friends. They all wore Greek-party T-shirts: Pi Phi Tie-Dye and Fiji Island. Local Goodwills got inundated with these come summer—university graduates shedding their old souvenirs.
The men were all wiry-strong, muscular arms rivered with popping blue veins. Behind them, a guy with a long, drooping mustache and hair in a ponytail—Lonnie—came out of the largest corner dressing room, dragging a long length of pipe, wearing a Gamma Phi T-shirt. We were looking at mall security.
“What’s up?” Lonnie called.
We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground … the kids were reciting in a pitch that was close to screaming.
“We’re looking for Amy Dunne, you probably seen her on the news, missing since Thursday,” Joe Hillsam said. “Nice, pretty, sweet lady, stolen from her own home.”
“I heard about it. So?” said Lonnie.
“She’s my wife,” I said.
“We know what you guys’ve been getting into out here,” Joe continued, addressing only Lonnie, who was tossing his ponytail behind him, squaring his jaw. Faded green tattoos covered his fingers. “We know about the gang rape.”
I glanced at Rand to see if he was all right; he was staring at the naked mannequin on the floor.
“Gang rape,” Lonnie said, jerking his head back. “The fuck you talking about a gang rape.”
“You guys,” Joe said. “You Blue Book Boys—”
“Blue Book Boys, like we’re some kind of crew.” Lonnie sniffed. “We’re not animals, asshole. We don’t steal women. People want to feel okay for not helping us. See, they don’t deserve it, they’re a bunch of rapists. Well, bullshit. I’d get the fuck out of this town if the plant would give me my back pay. But I got nothing. None of us got nothing. So here we are.”
“We’ll give you money, good money, if you can tell us anything about Amy’s disappearance,” I said. “You guys know a lot of people, maybe you heard something.”
I pulled out her photo. The Hillsams and Stucks looked surprised, and I realized—of course—this was only a macho diversion for them. I pushed the photo in Lonnie’s face, expecting him to barely glance. Instead, he leaned in closer.
“Oh, shit,” he said. “Her?”
“You recognize her?”
He actually looked stricken. “She wanted to buy a gun.”
AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE
OCTOBER 16, 2010
DIARY ENTRY
Happy anniversary to me! One full month as a Missouri resident, and I am on my way to becoming a good midwesterner. Yep, I have gone cold turkey off all things East Coast and I have earned my thirty-day chip (here it would be a potato chip). I am taking notes, I am honoring traditions. I am the Margaret Mead of the goddamn Mississip.
Let’s see, what’s new? Nick and I are currently embroiled in what I have taken to calling (to myself) the Cuckoo Clock Conundrum. My parents’ cherished heirloom looks ridiculous in the new house. But then all our New York stuff does. Our dignified elephant of a chesterfield with its matching baby ottoman sits in the living room looking stunned, as if it got sleep-darted in its natural environment and woke up in this strange new captivity, surrounded by faux-posh carpet and synthetic wood and unveined walls. I do miss our old place—all the bumps and ridges and hairline fractures left by the decades. (Pause for attitude adjustment.) But new is nice too! Just different. The clock would disagree. The cuckoo is also having a tough time adjusting to its new space: The little bird lurches out drunkenly at ten minutes after the hour; seventeen minutes before; forty-one past. It emits a dying wail—coo-crrrrww—that every time brings Bleecker trotting in from some hideaway, eyes wild, all business, his tail a bottle-brush as he tilts his head toward the feathers and mewls.