Burning Midnight (24 page)

“Vea.”
Increasing his grip, holding the bird immobile now, he touched its beak with an elegant forefinger. “This groove, it has been placed there with a thin file. A very faint depression. One must know what to look for to see it.”

The
mestizo
asked “what” again. It might have been the only word he knew in any language, but the tone had changed slightly. He was deliberately not understanding now. Anyone could see where Zorborón was pointing.

“As I am sure you are aware, it is standard practice at the beginning of a fight for the owner of each bird to hold its head down to oblige the opposing bird to peck its head, precipitating the aggressiveness required for a satisfactory fight. Roosters are smarter than people and will not harm each other without sound reason.”

The other man chuckled uncertainly. The lift in Zorborón's tone and then the pause in conversation seemed to invite something of the kind. I wondered why he insisted on continuing in English.

“I am equally sure you do
not
know, being an honest man and unschooled in the ways of the wicked world, that there are some unscrupulous individuals who will attempt to increase the odds in their favor by introducing a drop of poison into grooves such as this. During the belligerent opening ceremony, that poison enters the opponent's blood stream, causing the bird to drop dead in the course of combat. The effect is delayed, you see; and who after all conducts postmortem on a dumb brute?

“I know you are unaware of this,” he continued tonelessly, “and that some
bastardo
has taken advantage of your honorable nature and sold you a tainted bird.
Entiende?
”

“Sí, mí jefe.”
And I knew then the man had followed every word.

Zorborón sat back, drawing the rooster onto his lap and stroking its feathers as if it were a cherished pet. The bird made a cooing sort of noise and fixed me with a glitter in its eye I could have sworn was intended for me alone. I felt a vague sense of pity.

He smoothed its ruff. “Arrogant, foolish creature; he thinks he brings the dawn with his crowing. There is a word for this, yes?” He looked at me.

“Vainglorious.” I was sorry I'd spoken. I didn't want to be drawn in.

“Of course. English is rarely so poetically precise. If I were a rich man,” said The Tiger, “I would yield to my charitable instincts and take this damaged creature off your hands for the price you bought it for—not, I need hardly add, the price you are asking—and see to its destruction, that it will never have the opportunity to bring disgrace to the sport we both love. However, I am not so wealthy. Nolo?”

Nolo Suiz, who had been hovering in a corner the way he hung in the shadows of
La Riata
surveying his customers and staff, stepped forward and took the rooster from his cousin's hands. The bird, disturbed from its cozy perch, flapped its wings once before Suiz wrung its neck with one swift motion of his steel-strung fists. The bird made a short, surprised squawk and hung limply in his grasp.

Zorborón shook his head, sad as Job. “Such beautiful promise. Such profanity. I shall dispose of this worthless pound of poultry at my own expense. Take this gift I offer and do not enter my presence again.”

The owner of the dead bird withdrew, his hands still at last.

*   *   *

“You could have put him out to stud,” I'd said.

The lord of Mexicantown shook his head again and brushed feathers off his lap. We were alone, Suiz having left with the dead rooster dangling by its legs from his fist. “Someone would see it in my possession and leap to an unfortunate conclusion. People are always prepared to think the worst.”

“I wouldn't have bet you cared what people think.”

“
Pero sí.
My reputation does not belong to me alone. I have responsibilities to my neighbors that require trust. In any case, the bird would serve as a constant reminder of the existence of
puercos
like that fellow who just left. When I was younger, I would have had his neck wrung as well.”

He smiled his sad, carefully trimmed smile. “I am not the cynic you might think, who stews in his own bitterness to the point of inaction. My business will not allow it. Now, what can I do for you, my friend?”

“You can tell me that poison-toting chicken won't wind up in the
pollo
pasta in Nolo's restaurant.”

*   *   *

Such beautiful promise. Such profanity.
It meant something, if only I could raise the aristocratic son of a bitch from his grave and ask him. I fell back to sleep with that thought and woke up with it when the alarm went off. Latins are long on romance and short on exposition.

 

TWENTY-FOUR

There was just enough coffee left in the can to make a cup, if I dumped it into the filter and used a Dustbuster to collect the rest. I was plucking lint off the surface of the brew when the telephone pulled me into the living room. It was Chata Pasada. I'd almost forgotten about her, about her brother Nesto, and about her husband Gerald, who hadn't spoken to his father the police inspector in years. That soap opera had long since turned into an action melodrama.

“Can you come out?” she asked. “Ernesto has something to tell you.”

“I'm guessing it's something he can't say over the phone.”

“I'd prefer it that way.”

I said I'd be there in a half hour and drained my cup, lint and all.

The drive took a little longer. Snow was falling in big floppy flakes that clung to the windshield like sodden doilies until the wipers slung them aside; they turned the streets to grease and the traffic reports on the radio into breathless commentary on piled-up cars and jackknifed semis. I kept off the expressways, but the plows and salt trucks were out and I poked along behind every last one of them.

Alderdyce's son, Jerry, answered the door. He wore a blue denim shirt and scuffed jeans over his athletic frame. I felt overdressed in my second-best suit; but you never know where the day will take you, into a glass palace in West Bloomfield or a restaurant with a dress code. If your subject ducks out all of a sudden, ditching the rented jacket and tie slows you up that much more. You don't read these things in
The Dangerous Boys' Book of Private Investigation
.

“Working at home?” I asked.

“I'm taking some personal days,” he said. “I can't put in eight hours and then come home to this.”

We were seated in the bright living room with Jesus on the wall. He was holding a narrow glass with what looked like orange juice in it. When he drank from it I caught a whiff of pure grain alcohol. Whoever invented the screwdriver understood the need for an excuse to drink away the morning.

I said, “Your father says Nesto passed the lie detector test. The murder part.”

“I think it's the other part he wants to talk to you about. That Chata wants him to talk to you about. I'm not sure. They don't let me in on everything. These old Spanish families lock up their secrets and don't let any extra keys float around.”

“You don't have to be Spanish for that.”

He gave me one of his father's looks, up from under the granite outcrop of his brow. “You think I should talk to my father, clear the air, that it?”

“Did I say that? I must not have been listening to myself.”

“Maybe he should be the one to make the first move.”

“I thought I was here to talk to Nesto.”

He didn't hear me. “You don't know what it's like being John Alderdyce's son. There's no one else I can share that experience with.”

“No one except your brother.”

“Him less than anyone. They always got along. I might've been dumped here from a spaceship for all we have in common. Maybe there's something in that.”

“Probably not. What would be the point of a black alien?”

He raised his glass, looked down inside it. “I'm becoming a lush. You think that'll give us a stronger bond?”

“I've never seen your father drunk.”

“You didn't live with him, see how he was after a tough tour. He never abused us, drunk or sober, I didn't mean it was anything like that. In fact, I think he was tougher on me when he wasn't drinking. I just wasn't used to seeing him not in control. Anyway I hear he doesn't hit the stuff hard anymore. Mom said.”

“Maybe you should go out and get drunk together.”

“That might make it easier.”

I got irritated. “I was kidding. Am I wearing a collar? Talk to your wife's priest.”

“I'm not Catholic.”

“Then find a friendly bartender. On this job alone I've been threatened, pricked with a knife, disarmed twice, and set on fire. I've stubbed my toe on four corpses, and that's not even the record. Every place I go smells like chickens. Maybe I look wise because of all this valuable experience, but I don't feel wise. I know less than I knew when I started.”

“Hey, sorr-ee. I never wanted you around to begin with.”

“You should have been more forceful about it. What's holding up Nesto?”

When he lifted his brows he looked less like Alderdyce and more like Jerry. He stared at me for a fat second, then got up. “I'll see what's keeping them. Thanks for the ear.”

“Don't mention it. I'm just a big old golden retriever you can lay your head on anytime.”

In a little while Chata came in with her brother at her side. She was still plump and pretty in a yellow V-neck sweater that showed off the curve of her breasts and ivory-colored slacks with a knife crease. Her toes in her sandals wore clear polish and her blue-black hair was caught with combs at her temples and spilling down her back. Nesto looked fresh and a little pale in a sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off at the shoulders, showing developing biceps, drooping cargo pants, and dirty sneakers. He'd brushed his hair, but curls were starting to work loose like bedsprings.

I started to rise, but the sister motioned for me to stay put on the sofa. She lowered herself into a chair and Nesto flopped down onto the opposite end of the sofa, dragged a pillow in a bright slip from behind his back and plunked it onto his lap, crossing his arms on it and holding it in place like a shield.

“Ernesto,” she said.

He nodded, then rearranged himself so that he was sitting cross-legged with the pillow still in his lap. “I set the fire at the garage.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It was
El Hermano
's idea; to test my loyalty, he said. Then he told me to go to
El Tigre
and give him the lighter I used. He said a true Maldado had to be prepared to not only take action, but to claim responsibility for it.”

“Uh-huh,” I said again.

A crease between his eyes drew them close together. “Think I'm lying?”

“I think you're not as stupid as you want everyone to think you are.”

“Who says I'm stupid?”

“Not me. That's the point. Did you figure that would be the end of it? Pass the initiation, learn the password and the secret handshake, and tell ghost stories around the candle in the treehouse?”

“Of course not! I—”

“You never thought he sent you into that garage to stand for Zorborón's murder?”

He opened his mouth again, but nothing came out. Progress.

“A crock like delivering that lighter, his own lighter, would fall apart half an hour into a police interrogation. Cops got a lot on their plate and only thirty minutes for lunch. They don't grill a suspect hoping to find an excuse to let him go. Once they get something the prosecutor can work with, they stop looking. You were set up.”

“I didn't know. I never—”

“That's why it's called being set up. Guerrera won't bail you out. Even if he wanted to, he'll never get the chance now. He's wanted for killing Domingo Siete and trying to cover it up with the same kind of firebomb that destroyed Sister Delia's storefront. Wherever he lands, the cops will charge in with the heavy artillery. There's hardly ever a best-case scenario in that situation. Once he's on a slab downtown they'll trim the rough edges off the Zorborón case by sweeping you up and tying it in with Guerrera's plot to take out all the obstacles in Mexicantown and set himself up as
El Jefe,
the man to see in the neighborhood when you want a favor and don't mind giving one up to get it.”

“They know I didn't kill Zorborón. The lie detector test proved that.”

“Not admissible in court. If you think John Alderdyce can help you, you don't know how the department works. The chief will say he's not objective because your sister's married to his son.”

Chata said, “They can't do that. We have Rafael Buho.”

“Buho doesn't work pro bono. He'll insist you put up your house as collateral, and whatever you can get from everything you own. If this thing drags out—and ‘speedy and public trial' can mean anything from three months to five years—you'll never dig out from under, and Nesto will still be in prison. I don't have to tell you what happens there, you've been to the movies, seen cable. He's not important enough to keep away from the general population.”

“Are you trying to scare us?” she said.

“I hope to hell I'm doing more than trying.”

Nesto tossed the pillow on the floor and unwound his legs. “I'll run.”

“You ran before. I've got a generation on you and a game leg, and I caught up to you in one day. Cops have to stay in shape to keep their job. When they drag you in, the prosecutor will use the fact you ran to prove you're guilty. It's a cockfight and you're a capon.”

Chata looked down at her hands twisted together in her lap. “What do you suggest?”

“Stay put for now, and keep an eye on Nesto. I don't think I got through to him,” I said, looking right through him, through his hot eyes and narrow chest filling and emptying. “It happens I'm working an angle that if it isn't all hooey will blow apart the case the cops have been building. If that happens, your brother will be the least of their worries. He'd just complicate things if they tried to snag him.”