Cool Cache (18 page)

At two, I headed for East L.A. The neighborhood looked less intimidating in the daylight. The man and his pit bull were nowhere in sight. I parked in the driveway behind the Toyota. It looked dusty, as if it hadn’t been moved since the last time I’d been there.

Lupe Ortiz’s cousin was a barrel-chested woman named Connie. She had pencil legs and straight black hair that lay blunt and boxy on her shoulders. Though her telephone manner had been open and friendly, in person she seemed guarded. Behind her, Lupe’s two preschool boys sat on the floor in the living room, watching cartoons on the television set.

To my right was a kitchen barely large enough for a small square table and four chairs. The counters were covered with cereal boxes, a cookie jar, and a variety of small appliances, but no evidence of Nectar’s signature gold boxes. If Lupe had been stealing chocolates from the store, it seemed as though I’d see some evidence of the theft in her house.

Angelica was hunched over a book at the kitchen table. She had heavy black braids that dangled in front of her as she swung her legs back and forth, slowing the pace periodically to write something on a tablet with a yellow pencil.

Connie invited me inside the house and gestured for me to sit on the couch. She told me Lupe had worked for ten years for a company called Jay-Cee Janitorial Services. I asked her about Roberto’s drug use and the argument he’d had with his mother the night she was killed. She answered in a hushed tone, as if she didn’t want the children to hear negative talk about their brother, athough I didn’t know how they could hear anything over the noise of the television.

“Roberto has many problems, but he didn’t kill Lupe.”

“How can you be so sure?”

She stood. “Wait here. I’ll show you.”

She disappeared down the hallway, returning a moment later with a leather purse, hand-tooled in an intricate pattern.

“Roberto made this for her. It took him months. A boy who would do this for his mother would never kill her.”

I studied the purse. Connie was right. It was beautiful and obviously made with loving care, but Roberto was a tweeker and drugs changed everything. I doubted he’d ever sit around hand-tooling leather purses again, except in an occupational therapy class in state prison.

“A quetzal feather was found near Lupe’s body,” I said. “The police think it belongs to Roberto.”

Her eyes darted away from me, down the hallway. “Why would he have something like that?”

“Because he’s a member of the MayaBoyz.”

She shrugged. “Quetzals are everywhere in this neighborhood. It’s no big deal. Even Lupe has a necklace with a bird on it.”

“Where did she get it?”

“Her husband bought it to remind her of home.”

“And where’s home?”

“Xecoxol. It’s a village near Guatemala City. She was fifteen when she came here with her mother. Back in the seventies. The family had a bad time during the war. Two of our cousins were killed. Lupe’s brother, too. And her father. All disappeared.”

“After Lupe’s death,” I said, “were you contacted by any newspaper reporters?”

“Sure, lots of them. From TV, too.”

“Did somebody by the name of Bix Waverly ever call? He may have told you he was from the
New York Times
.”

“He called yesterday. I remember him because of the funny name.”

I was relieved to learn Eugene was okay, but annoyed with him for keeping me in the dark about his whereabouts. He had to realize how worried I’d be and what a dangerous game he was playing.

“What kind of questions did he ask you?”

“All sorts. He wanted to know about that pot, just like you. I told him I didn’t know where it came from.”

“Did you tell him about Lupe’s family being killed in the war?”

Connie stood as if she’d grown weary of my questions. “Maybe I did. It’s no secret.” She moved toward the kitchen table. The two young boys glanced at her as she passed by, and then went back to watching TV.

“Angelica,” she said, “this lady wants to ask you some questions about a chocolate pot.”

The girl didn’t look at me. She just kept swinging those legs, reading the book, and crushing the pencil in her pudgy hand.

“Angel, be good. She wants to know where Lupe got it. Tell her.”

Angelica held the pencil like a dagger over the tablet. In large angry letters that tore through the paper she wrote
NO
. Connie reached toward the pencil as if she was going to take it away. I stopped her with my hand.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Let me try.”

The cousin looked puzzled, as if she couldn’t understand why I wanted her to give up so easily. I didn’t know if I could pull Angelica out of the safe haven where she’d gone to nurse her pain. Maybe it wasn’t even fair to try.

I knelt on the floor next to her. The book on the table was
The Secret Garden
by Frances Hodgson Burnett, a classic children’s story about a young girl dealing with the death of her parents. It seemed particularly revealing that Angelica was reading it now.

“I’m sorry about your mother,” I said. “If there was anything I could do to bring her back, I would.”

My attempt at empathy was met with silence.

“My best friend is missing, and I’m worried. I need to know who gave your mother the spouted chocolate pot. Will you help me?”

She hesitated for what seemed like a long time. “I don’t know her name. You have to ask Roberto.”

I tilted my head back and stared at the ceiling. This was getting me nowhere. “Unfortunately, Roberto’s not here—”

The smaller of the two boys jumped up from the floor. He clapped his hands, seemed proud of himself for what he was about to say. “He’s in the bathroom.”

Connie shouted at him in Spanish. His chin began to quiver. Tears formed in her eyes. A door slammed. I heard footsteps running down the hall. The two boys scattered. A moment later, Roberto Ortiz appeared in front of me, holding a baseball bat above his head. He looked poised to hit a home run.

For a moment, time seemed to stop. My heart was pounding. My breathing felt labored. Every possible action seemed wrong and dangerous. I held up my hands in surrender.

“I’m not here to cause problems,” I said. “I just want to find my friend.”

The muscles in his arms were taut. “I didn’t kill my mother.”

“I believe you.”

He sneered and poised the bat as if he was going to swing it at my head. “You lie.”

I wasn’t sure if he was high on drugs or going through withdrawal. Whatever the case, it wasn’t good news for me.

“Okay, so I don’t believe you,” I said. “Not yet. But I want to. That’s why I need your help. Your mother gave Helen Taggart a Mayan spouted chocolate pot. I have to find out where she got it.”

“Why should I tell you?”

“Because I think the pot is connected to your mother’s death. If I can prove it, I might be able to prove you didn’t kill her.”

“How do I know I can trust you?”

“You don’t. All I can give you is my word.”

Roberto gave me the mad-dog evil eye, as if he was testing my resolve. I held his gaze until he lowered the bat to the floor. A moment later, he walked to the edge of the kitchen window and aimed a furtive look toward the street. I wasn’t sure who he was looking for. The police? Fellow gang members? Angelica hadn’t moved from the table, but she looked up periodically from her book, as though assessing her brother’s mood.

“My mom found the pot in the trash at work one Saturday. She said the lady who owned the business found it when she was cleaning out her storage shed. She thought it was junk and threw it away.”

“So your mom kept the pot.”

Roberto pointed the bat at me. “The lady said it was okay.”

“When did your mom give it to Helen?”

“The next Monday. My mom never kept anything for herself.”

“Did the customer ever ask her to return the pot?”

Roberto glanced out the window again. “Not her. Her old man called a week ago. Said his wife gave away the pot by mistake. My mom told him she didn’t have it anymore and couldn’t ask for it back. That wouldn’t be right. He kept calling and calling until she wouldn’t answer her cell phone anymore.”

“You think this guy killed your mom to get the chocolate pot back?”

Roberto looked as if somebody was running a scalpel over a raw nerve. “If he did, I’ll take care of him myself.”

“Look, you’re in enough trouble. Tell me the guy’s name. I’ll report him to the police.”

From out on the street I heard the sound of loud music. Roberto heard it, too. He dropped the bat and sprinted toward the back door. A moment later, I heard an explosion. For a moment, I thought it was sound from the television set. Then glass shattered. I heard screams. I turned toward the kitchen window, where Roberto had just been standing, and saw a hole in the glass surrounded by a spider’s web of cracks.

I sank to the floor, so scared I could hardly breathe. Lupe’s cousin cowered in the living room with the two young boys in her arms. Angelica lay trembling on the kitchen floor among shards of glass from the broken cookie jar. I crawled over, reached out to touch her, afraid of the blood I might see, afraid of the help I might not be able to give. I rolled her into my arms as if she was fragile parchment. She was bleeding, but only from cuts made by the broken glass. I held her to my chest, rocking her and speaking in soft, low tones.

I heard three more shots. I carried Angelica to her cousin, staying low, not wanting to become a target. Then I crawled to the living room window and parted the bedsheet curtain, unable to process the scene unfolding before my eyes. At the edge of the lawn was the body of Roberto Ortiz. He was lying on his side, facing the house. His white T-shirt and baggy jeans were black with blood. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the back of an Oldsmobile racing down the street.

It was dark by the time the police allowed me to leave East L.A. I willed myself to perform the routine things I had to do to get home. Find the freeway on-ramp. Turn into my driveway. Find my house keys. What I couldn’t do was come to terms with the shattered lives of Lupe Ortiz’s children and the violent and capricious world we lived in. I stayed awake most of the night, hoping tragedy would take a holiday at least until daybreak.

Regardless of my fractured emotional state in the aftermath of Roberto’s death, I couldn’t stop searching for Eugene. In the morning, I planned to visit Jay-Cee Janitorial Services to get a list of the customers Lupe serviced on Saturdays. I hoped it would lead me one step closer to finding the owner of the spouted chocolate pot.

Chapter 22

On Thursday morning, I set out to visit Jay-Cee Janitorial Services, with two goals: to get a list of Lupe’s Saturday clients, and to find out if any customers had accused her of theft. Helen didn’t think Lupe was responsible for the missing chocolates, but I had to be sure. If she wasn’t the culprit, somebody else was, and they had to be found. Helen couldn’t afford any more losses.

Jay-Cee Janitorial Services was located just south of downtown L.A. in a gritty, light-industrial area on Soto Street, underneath the massive concrete pilings of the 10 Freeway. The neighborhood was between Boyle Heights and Vernon and featured stubby buildings, small factories, and a crisscross maze of parked cars. There weren’t many people on the street, just freeway noise and dust.

The only vehicle access to the store was through a narrow alley behind the building. I parked in a small lot next to a fleet of Jay-Cee vans and made my way through the back entrance to the front of the store. On the left side of the lobby was a tiered metal shelf, lined with waxes, polishes, abrasives, and various cleaning utensils, including mops, sponges, and squeegees. On the right side were three vending machines loaded with soft drinks, coffee, and junk food.

A young Latina was hunched over a ledger at her desk. One finger was sliding down a line of figures. The other was working the keys of a calculator. A narrow hallway led away from the lobby to a cavern of offices where, I presumed, the big guns worked.

“Be right with you,” the woman said without looking up. “I just gotta finish adding this up.”

While I waited for her to calculate, I glanced at the counter, looking for a promotional brochure. All I found was a scratch pad with Jay-Cee’s logo on it and a slightly chewed pencil.

A moment later, the woman threw her hands up. She ripped a long section of paper tape from the spool and tossed it in the wastebasket.

“Stupid machine comes up with a different answer every time.” She stood and walked toward me. “Sorry you had to wait. Can I help you?”

I wasn’t sure if the woman would release client information to me, so I made up a pretext.

“I’m looking for a service to clean my office,” I said. “Your company came highly recommended.”

Her wide smile exposed even white teeth. “Thank you. How did you find us? People usually don’t come here. We send our reps out to you.”

“I was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d stop by.”

“Okay. No problem. We’re glad you came.” She reached under the counter and handed me a brochure. “This tells you all about us. I’d have you talk to Mr. Rocha, but he’s not here right now.”

I scanned the brochure, and was disappointed it didn’t include a list of clients.

“Actually, I’d prefer talking to you.”

She blushed. “I’ll try to help the best I can.”

“I’m interested in a Saturday cleaning. Do you have a list of customers you service on that day so I can call for references?”

She looked puzzled by my question. “I don’t know. Our reps usually handle that. I guess it depends on what kind of place you have. I mean, does it get real dirty?” She blushed again. “Sorry. That didn’t come out so good. What I meant was, do you work with chemicals or grease or anything like that?”

“You mean like a restaurant?”