10 Tahoe Trap (14 page)

“He wants to sell Cassie’s Amazements.”

“Does he just want to sell them, or does he want the rights to her creation?”

“I don’t know. The rights, I think,” Paco said.

“This guy say his name or company?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“He say anything else you can remember?”

“No.”

I looked around at the hothouse. “You can grow all of these so late in the season?” I asked.

“We harvest until Thanksgiving. After that it’s too cold and too dark.”

“Even though you’ve got the furnace and the grow lights.”

Paco nodded. He walked over to a shelf on which sat an old computer. He wiggled the mouse, and the old screen gradually came to life, making little static clicks. Paco clicked on an icon, and up came the National Weather Service website. Paco typed in his zip code and brought up the forecast. He hit print and took the sheet of paper as it came out of an old printer.

Paco looked at it for a bit, then carried it over to an electrical box on the wall. The box was up high, and Paco had to step up on a stool to reach it. He unlatched the cover door and swung it open.

Inside the box was a thin, red, metal wheel. On its outer rim were two little knurled knobs around the perimeter of the wheel. I watched as Paco consulted the paper with the forecast and then unscrewed one of the knobs to loosen it. He slid the knob a tiny bit, then tightened it. He looked again at the forecast, then moved the other knob.

“What’s that do?” I asked.

“Changes the times the grow lights go on and off.”

“Why do you change it?”

“’Cause the fruit needs more light when it’s cloudy,” he said. “We use the lights less on sunny days to save money on electricity.”

“Sophisticated,” I said.

“What’s that mean?”

“Refined,” I said. “Advanced.”

He shook his head. “Cassie says it’s stupid. She says she’s going to get a professional system like the drip irrigation. It will be automatic.”

“Based on her secret formulas, huh?” I said.

He nodded. “But it’s expensive. She needs more money, first.”

“How do you control the irrigation?” I asked.

Paco pointed to another box, this one modern and made of plastic. He pulled on the catch, and the lid snapped open. Inside was a digital readout and a keypad below it.

Paco shut the box, then walked down one of the aisles, squeezing a few of the reddest tomatoes.

“These will be ready to pick in two days,” he said.

I didn’t respond. I had no idea where Paco would be in a couple of days. If Cassie didn’t miraculously reappear unharmed, the tomatoes would probably go to waste.

FIFTEEN

We got back in the Jeep.

“Sorry about that little disagreement with the landlord,” I said.

“We are quick to flare up, we races of men on the earth,” Paco said.

“What is that?” I asked, shocked at such words from Paco.

“Something Cassie always says.”

“When did she say it?”

“When, like, people get mad at each other.”

“Do you know where she heard it?”

Paco shook his head. “She gets books from the library. Maybe she read it in a book.”

We drove to McDonald’s. Paco got two cheeseburgers along with his large fries and Coke and chocolate shake. We sat at one of the outdoor tables, under the hot midday sun of a Central Valley November, one of the amazing things about California weather.

“When you were in the house,” I said, “the landlord got bit by a bunch of little ants. Have you seen that before?”

Paco nodded as he chewed, his mouth as full as a mouth can get. If he stuffed in any more food, his cheeks would rip.

Eventually, he swallowed and said, “Fire ants. They don’t bite, they sting.”

“I thought fire ants were just in Central America or something,” I said. “You have them in the Central Valley? Are they all over?”

“I don’t think so. All I know is we have them.” He stuffed fries into his mouth.

“Awful lot of them in the driveway,” I said. “They were driving the landlord crazy.”

“That’s nothing. There’s a real big nest at the corner behind the hothouse. Cassie says if you tripped and fell on it, you could die from the stings.”

“Ouch,” I said.

Paco kept eating like a starving prisoner let out to visit an all-you-can-eat buffet.

“Principal Sagan said you are smart,” I said. “She said you’ll be reading in no time.”

Paco’s mouth was stuffed full, chewing. He said nothing.

“You said that you didn’t know computers, but you used that one in the hothouse,” I said.

Paco drank Coke, then sucked on the straw in his shake.

“She doesn’t like me,” he said.

“Why do you think that?”

“’Cause I hurt her friend’s kid.”

“What do you mean?”

“Her friend is Mrs. Burns. Bobby Burns is a bully. He called me a wetback and jumped on me from behind. I fell down. But I turned and he hit first.”

“How bad did he get hurt?”

“His head hit the ground, and his ear got split. It made a lot of blood. He started screaming about how I’d attacked him.”

“But you didn’t? He came after you first?” Paco had already stated that, but I wanted to press the point.

“He jumped me.”

“Did Bobby Burns end up okay?” I asked.

“He had to go to the clinic to have stitches. But it all healed. Now you can’t even see where his ear split.”

“Did you get in trouble for this so-called attack on Bobby Burns?”

“Yeah. I had to go to the cop station.”

“Why did that happen?”

“The teacher looked in my pack and found my harvesting knife, and she called the cops.”

“What do you use the knife for?”

“For cutting the stems on tomatoes and peppers. Cassie got it for me.”

“Why did you keep it in your pack?”

“I keep all my harvest tools in my pack with my school stuff.”

“What are your other tools?”

I could see Paco visualizing as he spoke. “My work gloves and my garden belt with my trowel, my knife, my snips, my wire roll, my wire cutter, and my pliers.”

“Why do you bring this pack to school? Is it the only pack you have?”

“Yeah. I keep my tools with me because sometimes when I come home, Cassie is on the phone, and she doesn’t like me to come in and make noise. She says I have to be quiet when she’s calling a client. So I go straight to the hothouse to do my chores.”

“Why not just leave your pack in the hothouse?”

“I used to. But it got stolen. Cassie said I lost a hundred dollars worth of tools and two hundred dollars worth of time ’cause we had to drive to two different farm stores to get new tools.”

“So you bring your pack to school.”

“It keeps my stuff safe,” Paco said.

“Where’s the pack now?”

“In the van.”

“What happened at the cops?”

“They fingerprinted me and took my picture and locked me in a cell. Cassie had to come and let me out.”

“Did they charge you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did they accuse you of a crime?”

“They said I brought weapons to school. I had to go to court. I wanted to tell about how Bobby jumped me. But the judge said I couldn’t tell about that. He told me that if I ever brought weapons to school again, I would be taken out of school and sent to a place.” Paco stopped, looked up, frowned. “I can’t remember what he called it. Cassie said it was a boy’s prison. She said that after the boy’s prison, I would be sent to Mexico.”

 Paco drank the last of his shake. “Then Cassie had to go to court,” he added.

“Why?”

“She said she got suited.”

“You mean, sued?”

“I guess.”

“Was it Bobby’s parents who sued Cassie?”

Paco nodded. “They said I caused pain and suffering, and Cassie had to pay them a lot of money.”

“Didn’t her insurance cover it?”

“I don’t know.”

I drank my coffee. The lawsuit must have been the big expense that Cassie referred to in her note.

“Is Bobby Burns okay, now?” I asked.

Paco nodded as he stuffed more fries into his mouth. “He hasn’t jumped me again.”

“Do you like school at all?” I asked. “Is there anything about it that’s fun?”

He chewed the last of his fries, and swallowed.

“Going to school is like putting on gray clothes,” he said. “There’s nothing exciting about it.”

After lunch, we were walking out of the restaurant toward the Jeep when Paco spoke.

“Will you buy me something?”

“Depends on what it is,” I said.

Paco glanced up toward the sun, his eyes squinting. “My sunglasses are in the van.”

“You want new sunglasses,” I said.

He nodded.

There was a gas station and food mart next door. It had two rotating racks of sunglasses, one by the magazine rack, and one behind the counter, safe from the customers. Even from a distance I could tell that they were the expensive ones.

Paco tried on every pair in the first rack, then looked at the rack behind the counter. The clerk said he could come under the flip gate and look.

Paco tried on every pair in the expensive rack. He finally chose a pair of gold reflective Oakleys.

“But these are fifty dollars,” I said.

Paco gave me a serious look. “They’ll protect my eyes.”

As I paid for the glasses, I was pretty sure that I had never paid more than $20 for my own sunglasses.

Paco asked the clerk to cut off the little nylon cord. Then he went back to the mirror on the stand and slipped the sunglasses up on top of his head, the lenses nestling in his bristle-brush black hair. He angled them just so until he looked very cool, and we went back out to the car.

“I thought the glasses were to protect your eyes,” I said.

“They are,” he said.

We drove off.

Paco stared out the window. A very young kid was riding a bicycle on a side road. He wore a green helmet and matching green bicycle clothes, skin tight, like a famous racer. His mother rode behind him.

“Do you have kids?” Paco asked.

“No.”

“Why not?” he said.

I wasn’t sure how to answer him.

“Why not?” he said again.

“Never thought I was dad material,” I said.

Paco’s frown intensified.

I drove back to the school.

“Stay in the Jeep with Spot?” I said.

Paco nodded.

I went back in to talk with Pam Sagan.

“How come you didn’t tell me that your friend’s son got in a fight with Paco?”

Her face colored.

“I didn’t see that it was germane to our conversation,” she said.

“With somebody after Paco, anything that suggests animosity for Paco is germane.” I watched her. She didn’t react. “Did you talk to Cassie about it?” I asked.

“Yes. It was a painful subject around here.”

“Paco said that Bobby Burns jumped him first,” I said.

“That’s what he said. Robert says otherwise.”

“And you believe your friend’s son.”

“I didn’t put stock in either boy’s story. I just wanted to make it so our students get along.”

“Did Cassie react?”

“Not in any significant way.”

“You remained cordial,” I said.

She nodded. “I appreciate that about Cassie. She always keeps a broad perspective. Neither of us would want to let our students’ disagreements poison our relationship.”

I nodded. Sagan’s words sounded sincere, but her face revealed little.

“Tell me about when the cops took Paco in.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. McKenna. I can hear the judgment in your tone. Like all schools, we have a zero-tolerance policy with weapons. If a student brings weapons to school, we must call the authorities. They took him down to the county office and held him until Cassie came to get him out. Later, he made an appearance at court.”

“Paco said that they were harvest tools,” I said. “And they were in his pack, not in his hands.”

“I’m sorry, but it doesn’t matter. In the eyes of the police, a knife is a knife.”

“What was the court’s decision?”

“I don’t know the details. I think the judge sounded very stern to Paco, trying to scare him. But he let him go without any punishment as long as Paco didn’t get into any further trouble. As I said earlier, our community has tried hard to keep Paco here, safe and out of trouble.”

“The Burns’ family’s lawsuit punished Cassie,” I said.