Looking for Heather Sampson

The opening notes of Billy Idol's "White Wedding" filled the room while Stuart laid his money on the bar and picked up his drink. It was horrible. The whole place was horrible. He looked around the Big River Tavern and said a silent prayer that no one he knew would walk in and see him drinking in a tourist trap, a place where families from Idaho and frat boys from Alabama came to get giant daiquiris and T Shirts that said "New Orleans Drinking Team." It wasn't the sort of place he would normally have been, but he couldn't find anywhere else within easy walking distance of the theater. The movie was starting in half an hour, just enough time for a drink. A quick one, he thought. Something to pass the time.

Stuart flinched when he heard a familiar voice call his name. He looked around the bar and spotted Paula, the last person on Earth who should have been there, sitting by herself at a corner table. He hadn't seen Paula for weeks, not since the day they had gone to the race track together. They had finished a bottle of Jack Daniels before the third race and had been kicked out for fighting with one of the ushers by the fifth. Then they fought with each other in the parking lot when they couldn't find the car. The fight had ended when Stuart's nose began to bleed and they had both started laughing hysterically. It had hurt like hell, but Stuart couldn't help himself.

Stuart walked over to the table where Paula was sitting. She was alone, with a row of three empty beer bottles lined up meticulously in front of her. She looked up at him and smiled.

"How's the nose, Stuart?"

"The nose is fine." He looked around the room, checking to make sure that no one else was watching him. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm looking for Heather Sampson."

"Heather Sampson? The girl from the news?"

"Of course. I'm so worried about her."

Stuart let out a small, stifled laugh. Paula had said it all with a straight face, so he decided to play along. He cast a slow, meaningful glance around the bar, then looked back at Paula and whispered, "I don't see her."

"Not now," said Paula. "But you never know. She might come in."

Stuart felt a little guilty for making jokes about this. He had seen Heather Sampson on the news the night before; in fact she had been on most nights for the past week. She was an adorable little girl - blonde pigtails, pink sweater, the whole bit - who lived uptown and went to one of the expensive private schools. She had left for school a few days ago but, somewhere in the half mile between her house and the school, she had disappeared. They found her backpack in the bushes a few blocks away.

"You know, it's really not funny," he said. "I'm very scared for that girl."

Paula looked at him as if he had said the most obvious, ridiculous thing imaginable, like pointing out that the sky sure was blue or gravity certainly seemed to be working that day. "Well, yeah." She said back. "I mean, what the hell do you think I'm doing here?"

"Paula, you're in a bar. Not just in a bar, you're sitting in a goddamn tourist trap. The... what is this, the River Tavern?"

"Big River Tavern," she corrected him.

"Yeah, OK, the Big River Tavern. Do you really think that whoever took that girl is going to come in here?"

"Maybe not here," she said. "But there are a lot of other places. I've got a whole list, lots to cover. I already went to every bar in my neighborhood."

"You went to every... OK, wait. Your plan, then, is to just wander around town going to every bar you can find looking for this girl."

Paula nodded her head vigorously and said "That's right."

"But the girl was kidnapped. Or, probably kidnapped anyway. She's probably tied up in some creepy guy's shed. Or else her body is decomposing in a swamp somewhere."

"Maybe," said Paula. "But we need to keep looking for her. I'm very worried."

"I'm worried too but, come on. Look where you're sitting. Look around you! Do you really think that whoever took Heather Sampson is just going to walk in here and order a couple of daqueris and a plate of deep-fried jalapenos."

"He might."

Stuart slapped his hands down on the table and stared into Paula's face. He made an effort to hold her gaze a couple of beats longer than was strictly necessary.

"Look, Paula. The police are after her, her picture is on the news, and I'm sure there's some kind of hot line or something that you can call if you really want to help out. The odds of you finding a missing nine-year-old in a tourist bar across the street from the movie theater are about a billion to one."

Paula nodded patiently, giving the impression of someone listening to a speech she had heard many times before. She took a short breath and stared squarely at Stuart.

"Look Stuart, here's how this works. Of course the cops are out dragging the swamps and looking in crack houses or wherever. And yeah, there's a good chance that she's in one of those places. But I don't know anything about swamps or crack houses. The way I see it, I need to cover the territory that I do know. And I know a lot of bars. I know about bars that nobody else knows about, especially in my neighborhood. So I'm going to go to all of them. It seems like the right thing to do. I mean, like, if all the chefs go to all the restaurants and all the plumbers go to all the plumbing supply places and all the gardeners go to the parks, and ... well, you see what I mean? Pretty soon, it's all covered. So I'm just doing my own part."

Stuart was dumbfounded. Paula was actually serious. She was going to stumble around town, going to every bar she knew, until she either found the kidnapped girl or ended up blind drunk and passed out on someone's lawn. He eyed her suspiciously once more, but he couldn't see any cracks in the armor. Stuart shook his head, sighed, and said the only thing he could think of.

"I'm really worried about that little girl."

"Yeah," said Paula. "Me too."

Stuart looked down at his watch. The movie was starting in a few minutes, but he wasn't sure he still wanted to see it.

"Look," he said. "I think you've got things pretty well covered here so, um, I think I'm just going to cross the street and check the movie theater."

"Good idea," said Paula. "Let me know if you find her."