Shamus In The Green Room (28 page)

“Is there a problem, miss?” She turned on the hot water and

lathered up. “Because if not, when I’m through here, I’d like to

get back to my shift.”

I smiled sheepishly. “Just wanted a recommendation on

the pie.”

“Anything but the coconut cream. Nice dress.”

“Nice mules.” I pointed to the sink. “I’ll be washing my

hands then.”

“Pardon me,” she said, passing somebody on her way out.

I looked up into the mirror.

It was the woman in the red poncho. And she wasn’t

empty-handed. She was carrying a gun. Which seemed to be

pointing at me.

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“Hello,” I said in a small voice.

With her free hand, she reached around behind her and

locked the bathroom door. “Don’t turn around.”

“Okay.”

“I know that Julio sent you,” she said, “and I’m not afraid

of you or of him. Not anymore.”

“Julio? I don’t think—” was as far as I got.

“Yeah, it’s better when you don’t think, isn’t it? He hits you

when you think too much,” she said, looking at my bandage.

“You don’t—”

“I’m glad you’re here, actually, because you can give him a

message for me.” Her mouth was quavering now. “You can tell

him to go fuck himself.”

“Please, stop for a minute,” I said, starting to turn around.

“Excuse me?” she asked sharply. “Did you not hear me? I’m

thinking you did not hear me.”

“Sorry.” I looked at her face in the mirror. “If you’ll just lis-

ten to me, I can explain.” She wasn’t listening, but I kept talk-

ing. “Julio Gonzalez didn’t send me. You’re totally off the

mark. I’ve never even laid eyes on Julio Gonzalez.”

“Don’t lie to me. Why else were you following me?”

I started to get a very bad feeling.

“Answer me!”

When I didn’t, she asked, “Are you sleeping with Julio? Be-

cause, take it from me, that’s a very bad idea.”

“Why, are you sleeping with Gambino?” I was taking a

chance, going on the offensive. But the defensive was working

so poorly.

“Detective Gambino?”

“That’s right.”

“Detective Peter Gambino?”

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“That’s him.”

All the fight went out of her. Her shoulders fell, everything

fell. “You know him?”

“I’m his fiancée,” I said. “I think we’ve spoken on the

phone.”

“You’re Cece?” she asked incredulously.

“Yes.”

She buried her face in her hands and started to weep. This

was now officially surreal. “Can I please turn around?”

She nodded and put the gun back in her purse.

“You’re going to keep that in there, right?”

She nodded again, wiping her eyes on her sleeve.

“So who exactly are you?” I asked.

“Tina Aguilar.”

I handed her a paper towel.

“Julio’s girlfriend,” she continued. “Ex-girlfriend, I should

say. Your fiancé saved my life. And now I’m fucking up his.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m taking care of that all by myself.”

She burst out laughing, then resumed crying.

Half an hour and two slices of boysenberry pie later, it

started to make sense.

Gambino and Tico had been trying to nail Julio Gonzalez

for years. It wasn’t happening. He was too connected, had eyes

and ears everywhere. Tina had been trying to run away from

him for years, too, but he’d always bring her back and make

her pay the price for crossing him.

They realized there might be a way they could help each

other.

On May 17, at eight o’clock in the morning, Julio dropped

his shorts to the floor and stepped into the shower. Every single

morning he took a long shower—sometimes he’d stay in there

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an entire hour. But Tina knew, even if he didn’t, that you can’t

wash away that much dirt.

That was when Gambino and Tico arrived. Tina was ex-

pecting them. They banged on the door, just like the three of

them had planned, loud enough for the neighbors to hear, but

not so loud that Julio could hear over the running water. Tina

stood to the side as they broke down the door, and when they

came in, she made her move. She escaped, safe in the knowl-

edge that—at least for a while—Julio Gonzalez would be un-

able to get to her.

They’d planned it for weeks. She’d lie low while he was in

custody, hanging around long enough to make sure the charges

were going to stick. And then she’d leave. Then everybody

would have what they needed and she could go home to Jalisco.

But there were complications.

Gonzalez’s brother had his suspicions about the arrest, in

particular Tina’s role in it. He’d already contacted Tina’s

mother, telling her in very graphic terms exactly what he

was going to do to her daughter when she showed up at her

mother’s house.

“Detective Gambino has been great,” Tina said. “He’s a

wonderful person. You’re really lucky. But this is getting out of

hand. I don’t know how much more I can ask of him.”

“What about the witness-protection program?” I asked.

She shook her head. “That isn’t an option for me. I’m not

testifying, remember? That was something Detective Gambino

and I agreed on from the beginning. He tried to talk me into it,

but you don’t testify against Julio Gonzalez and live to tell

about it. Nobody in your family lives to tell about it. I won’t do

that to my mother.”

“Come on,” I said. “That can’t be true.”

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She fiddled in her bag and pulled out a packet of ciga-

rettes, then remembered you couldn’t smoke in the House of

Pies. Her cold coffee was meager compensation, but she

sucked it down anyway. “Ask Peter. He’ll tell you about Julio.

Things you’ll wish you didn’t know. He killed his own cousin.

He looked the other way when his sister was raped because it

was good for business. That’s the kind of man he is. He

trusted me, and I betrayed him. How do you think he’s going

to repay me?”

“So how come you’re walking around like this, out in the

open? Shouldn’t you be hiding somewhere?”

“I’m sick of hiding. I’ve been afraid for too long. I’m done

with that.” She glanced down at her purse. “If that man or

anybody he knows comes near me—”

“Tina, please. Stop talking that way. You’re going to get

yourself in trouble.”

“I’m already in trouble.”

“Worse trouble.”

“What else do you suggest?” she asked. “I don’t have a

whole lot of choices. My mother and I, we’re stuck. What we

need to do is disappear. We need to start over somewhere else.

But I don’t see how it’s possible. Not if I won’t testify. Detec-

tive Gambino can only do so much.”

Something clicked. I pulled my cell phone out of my purse

and dialed a number in San Pedro.

“Hi, it’s Cece Caruso. How’ve you been?” We exchanged

pleasantries for a minute. “Listen, I don’t have a lot of time

right now. Is she in?”

She was. I explained the situation, and she was full of ex-

cellent ideas, as always.

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I put my hand over the receiver. “I hate to be vulgar, but do

you have any money?”

Tina nodded. “That’s not a problem.”

I passed the phone over to her. “Then say hello to the

Mayor. Trust me on this one. She’s going to fix you up. You

and your mother both.”

CHAPTER

THIRTY-FOUR

At eleven-thirty, I heard Gambino’s key in the lock.

I greeted him au naturel, with a strawberry cream

pie in my hands.

At one o’clock, I put his strawberry-smeared shirt in the

washing machine, so he’d have it in the morning.

At two o’clock, I bolted upright. I couldn’t sleep. I felt

guilty. I hadn’t told Gambino about Rafe and the gun. Nor

about my little visit to the Villa Gina. I’d do it over breakfast, I

thought sleepily, laying my head back down on the pillow.

Breakfast is a good time for true confessions. I turned the pil-

low over to the cool side.

At four-thirty, Gambino woke me up, not that I’m com-

plaining.

At five-thirty, he said “Eggs Benedict” as he was falling back

asleep.

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At six, the delivery guy whacked the papers against the

front door. Good thing I hadn’t reported him to his superior.

I glanced over at Gambino. Still sleeping. Buster, however, was

wide awake and wanted to be let out. I opened the French

doors for him, then went into the kitchen to put on a pot of

coffee.

The bread box creaked, like everything else in this creaky

house. No English muffins. Can you make eggs Benedict on

wheat toast? I didn’t see why not. I peeled back the plastic and

squeezed the remains of the loaf. Still soft, after more than a

week. I didn’t want to think about the chemicals that made that

possible. For hollandaise, you beat egg yolks and stir in melted

butter. I had eggs and butter in the fridge. I needed a lemon.

I went out the side door and plucked a nice fat one from the

neighbor’s tree, which spread over the wooden fence, spilling

complimentary fruit into my yard. We had an arrangement.

I took a deep breath. It was so clear this morning. What a

relief after all that rain.

Rain made me think of water; water reminded me of the

ocean; the ocean reminded me of May Madden.

I brought my lemon inside and looked over at the clock.

Six-twenty, which meant nine-twenty in Washington, D.C.

I went out to my office to try the Oceans Conservancy again.

One of these days I had to really clean the place up. You

could no longer see the desk, which had been buried under an

avalanche of papers. No one but me even knew the desk was

Lucite. Luckily, the May Madden pile was still near the top,

just beneath an empty green file folder I’d labeled “Critical

Responses to The Dain Curse,” which didn’t mean there were

no critical responses to The Dain Curse, but that I’d most

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likely filed them in a folder labeled “Critical Responses to Red

Harvest.”

Good thing that book was done.

I found the number on the glossy back cover of the latest

annual report.

No one there.

I left a message asking for a specific description of May’s re-

search area.

Then I called Woods Hole and got the intern again, who

had nothing for me, unfortunately.

I pulled together the Oceans Conservancy papers to take

them back into the house.

As I shuffled them into a pile, something slipped to the

floor.

Curious, I bent down to pick it up.

It was a Polaroid of two people in bed.

What was this doing in May’s things?

I brought the photograph up close to my face so I could see

the two people more clearly.

A young blonde in sexy lingerie, with an hourglass tattoo

on her shoulder.

A man with a prominent nose, bushy eyebrows, and a mus-

tache to match.

Maren Levander and Owen Madden.

May’s father and May’s baby-sitter. Jesus. Were they lovers?

I looked at the picture again. They were leaning against the

headboard, their bodies entangled in a blue blanket. You could

see their bare arms touching, but still, they seemed less like

lovers than strangers.

Owen was sad. You could see it in his eyes.

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And Maren? No, Maren wasn’t sad.

Maren was laughing.

Beams falling, over and over again.

t

I g o t d r e s s e d q u i e t l y , s o a s n o t t o w a k e Gambino.

I threw the whole wheat bread away. I needed English

muffins. That’s what I told myself, anyway. I was just taking a

slight detour, then it was straight to Gelson’s.

There was nobody on the road all the way to Palos Verdes.

Diana was sitting on her porch when I got there. She was

wearing her flannel shirt and looking up at the sky. “Sun’s up

so early this time of year. Makes the days too long, don’t you

think?”

“You don’t seem surprised to see me,” I said.

“What happened?” she asked, looking at my bandage.

“I walked into a door. I’m fine.” Though I’d been feeling

kind of dizzy the whole drive down. I needed more Advil.

“Good.” She took a sip of coffee, then got up, pulling a red

chenille blanket off her lap. “Mine’s cold. I’m going in for a

fresh one. Can I get you anything?”

I shook my head. “No, thanks.” While she was gone, I sat

down and glanced at the crumpled newspaper on the table.

Sports pages. Browns sign star to 5-year, $11M deal; Vikings

DE braves shoulder surgery. I looked at the date. Three

months old.

Diana came back out with two mugs, the steam hovering

over them like storm clouds. She set one down in front of me

and held the other between her small, gnarled hands. “Can’t

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seem to get going in the morning without drinking the whole

damn pot. Good thing I don’t have to rush off anywhere. I’ve

got all the time in the world, which is too much time, if you

ask me.”

“You still haven’t answered my question,” I said gently.

“You know the answer.”

“You’ve been waiting for me.”