Read JM01 - Black Maps for Free Online Page A

Combs and painkillers, condoms and CDs, lighter fluid and vitamins and an endless supply of batteries were crowded in dense but orderly displays around the register. His morning rush was over, and for the moment we were alone in the store.
    “Look, you’re not the police. I don’t have to talk to you. Besides, who ever got into a hassle because they didn’t talk to somebody?” I could think of a few people, but I didn’t comment. He came around the counter and headed briskly down one of the narrow aisles. I followed, sure that I’d be swallowed in an avalanche of tampons and breakfast cereals.
    “And besides, you know how many people come in here every day to make calls or send faxes?” Actually, I had no idea, but I suspected he’d tell me. For someone with nothing to say, he liked to talk. “I get sixty, seventy people in here some weeks, some weeks more. They got no phones, so they come in here and buy cards and make calls. They send faxes, and get them here too. That’s a lot of business. How am I supposed to know anything?” I could appreciate the sentiment.
    I followed him down more aisles to the back of the store, where his copier, phone, and fax were, in a little kiosk near the refrigerator section. There was a swinging door to a back room beside it. He pushed it open and reached in and rolled out a metal bucket and a mop. He started mopping the floor.
    “I’m not interested in all the business you do in a week,” I said. “I’m interested in somebody who sent a fax from here eight days ago. It was a twelve-page fax, to a local number. Is that longer than what your customers usually send? Do a lot of them send faxes locally? Do you remember who sent faxes eight days ago? Do you keep any records?” He stopped mopping and looked at me for the first time since I’d walked in.
    “You’re not a cop,” he said, as if he hadn’t already said it a half-dozen times.
    “I’m not,” I affirmed yet again. He mopped in silence for a while, and then stopped.
    “Pay me,” he said.
    “Why should I pay you? You keep telling me you don’t know anything,” I pointed out. He chuckled a little at that.
    “Yeah, yeah, but since you’re not a cop, you can charge in some expenses, so you can pay me. Besides, maybe I know something.” He went back to his mopping.
    “Tell me something, and I’ll pay you what it’s worth,” I suggested. I was smiling too.
    “Okay, okay,” he said, laughing, “but no less than a hundred.”
    “No less than fifty,” I offered. He stopped working and leaned on the mop.
    “Okay. First off, you’d be surprised what people send from here. Long letters, big documents, local numbers, long distance. They do all kinds of things. I don’t keep records. But I remember about a week ago . . . maybe the day you’re interested in . . . this bag lady comes in. She stinks to high heaven, got maybe fifty sweaters on, and these high-top sneakers that are five sizes too big. I’m thinking, she wants to sell me cans or something, and I’m about to ask her to leave. But she didn’t have cans. She had a long fax to send. I’m pretty sure it was to a local number. See, that’s different. I don’t usually get street people in here sending faxes.”
    “You know who she is?” I asked. He wrinkled his brow elaborately, like I was crazy.
    “You ever see her before? In the neighborhood?” I asked.
    He thought about this. “Maybe yes,” he said. “Maybe in the park, across from the hospital, over by the playground. I walk by there most every day. I could’ve seen her around there, or maybe it was a different bag lady.”
    “Besides the sweaters and the sneakers, what did she look like?”
    He thought some more. “She was white. She was old. I mean, they all look old, but she really was old. Maybe sixty, older maybe. With a lot of frizzy gray hair sticking out.” He gestured with his hands out by the sides of his head. “She was pretty short, five foot one or two, but round. I