Chapter Five
Unlike Steve, Jaime was able to walk away, back to a 'normal' life when the day was over. At 7pm, she joined Oscar and Russ in Oscar's office for a late supper/strategy session.
"How was your first day?" Russ asked, passing a container of Moo Shu Pork across the desk.
"It was so sad!" Jaime told them. "There were so many people at the Armory that we had to turn away. My 'supervisor' said there's no way to help everyone and we have to be happy with what we are able to do, but...there has to be a way to do more. There just has to!"
"Any leads on our John Does?" Oscar inquired.
"Not exactly. I had a woman report that her husband is missing, but his picture doesn't match any of the five -"
"Do you have a picture?" Oscar interrupted. "Or a name?"
"Actually, I have both." Jaime pulled the photo Sheila had given her from her purse. "His name is Roger Gravis," she said, handing it to Oscar.
"His name was Roger Gravis," Oscar told her quietly after looking at the picture. "Now, he's Number Six."
Steve (as instructed by Benny) staked his claim just after sundown, and as he spread his blanket atop a thick sheet of cardboard, he admired the stamina of the people who did this every single night. The ground, although softer in the midst of an L.A. summer, had never felt harder. He'd saved half of his sandwich from lunch and ate it now, along with a cup of Harley's coffee.
The men of the trestle were a varied bunch, ranging in age from their late teens to mid-seventies. There were nearly twenty men from all over the country who'd flocked here full of fresh hopes and dreams and found the camaraderie of this trestle community instead.
There was Freddy, age 33, who'd come all the way from Boston, working odd jobs as he crossed the country and sending every penny back home to his family. Bicycle Charlie had the distinction of being the oldest member of the group but got further each day on his two wheels than most did on two legs. Christopher was a young runaway from an upper-middle-class home who was still quite bewildered at the sudden U-turn his life had taken.
Some had been executives once and some had never held a job. Some had families they'd left behind and others were facing the world alone. Not completely alone, though; the one thing everyone in this varied and somewhat threadbare group had was...each other.
Steve made the rounds and joined several conversations but heard nothing about missing men, circuit pieces or government projects, so at 7:30 he headed over the hill to the public rest rooms then sprinted bionically to the nearest payphone.
After ascertaining that Steve was safe but had no new information yet, Oscar handed the phone to Jaime.
"Are you alright?" she asked immediately.
"Lumpy mattress," he quipped, "but otherwise ok. Listen, did you happen to ID the kid I was with at the Center today?"
"Yeah. Sarah said his name is Benny."
"Right," Steve confirmed. I don't have a last name yet, though."
"I do," Jaime told him. "Since he seemed to be joined to your hip, I wanted to have Russ check him out, so I wrestled through some stacks of files and finally found him. He's Benny Carson, age 26, and according to his file at the Center he's from Toledo, Ohio. Russ is running a check right now, if you wanna hang on."
"Actually, I'd better get back before they figure out I'm not in the bathroom."
"Please be careful, Steve," Jaime pleaded.
"You, too. I love you," Steve said softly. "And I'll probably see you at the Center tomorrow."
"Probably?"
"I'll be there," he promised.
"Ok. And...Steve? I love you, too." Jaime hung up the phone and grew very quiet, her eyes far away and her heart firmly with Steve. "I wish he didn't have to stay there..." she whispered.
"He'll be ok, Babe," Oscar told her soothingly, knowing it wasn't enough.
When Russ returned, nothing could calm Jaime's jangled nerves as he shared his news. "We've got a problem,"he announced. "I did statewide searches for Ohio and California and then a national search. No Benny, Ben or Benjamin Carter with that name and date of birth - anywhere. Steve's buddy named Benny...doesn't exist."
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