Mission Road

Page 5

That’s when the gringo came in.
Conversation in the barroom died.
The newcomer looked even more out of place than she. He wore a beige Italian suit, a loosened silk tie, a felt hat cocked back on his forehead. A blond Sinatra, she thought—someone straight out of her parents’ record collection.
The regular cholos studied him apprehensively, then went back to their conversations. The way they turned from him, making an effort to pretend he was invisible, made her wonder if the gringo had been here before.
He walked to the bar, ignoring the uneasy stir he’d caused. Men moved out of his way.
He gave no indication of having seen her, but he slid onto a bar stool next to her, placed his hat on the counter. He shook loose a Pall Mall, offered her one.
“I don’t smoke,” she told him.
She did, of course. She wasn’t sure why she’d lied.
He lit his cigarette.
“You drink,” he noticed. Then to the bartender: “Jorge, dos cervezas, por favor.”
The bartender didn’t look surprised to be called by name. He dipped his head deferentially, brought out two ice-cold Lone Stars.
“No thanks,” she said.
The gringo finally looked at her, and she caught her breath. His eyes were startlingly blue, beautiful and distant like stained glass.
“Lady comes to a bar,” he said. “If she isn’t here to smoke or drink, there’s only one other possibility.”
She braced for the inevitable proposition, but he surprised her.
“You got a problem,” he said, “and you need somebody to talk to.”
She studied his face.
How old was he? Mid-thirties, at least. As old as her professor. But so different. He had an aura about him, as if he owned this bar and everyone in it. He was important. Powerful. No man in the bar dared look him in the eye.
He pulled a clip of money from his jacket pocket—a thick wad of twenties—peeled one off carelessly and tucked it under the beer glass.
She couldn’t help feeling impressed. She felt like she was caught in a riptide. An irresistible force was surging around her legs, pulling her toward deeper water.
“You want to tell me about it?” he asked.
“I don’t even know you.”
He grinned. “We can fix that.”
HIS CAR WAS A NEW MERCEDES 230SL, a hardtop two-seater gleaming white. Red leather interior, radio, air-conditioning. The dashboard glowed like hot caramel. She’d never seen a car like this, much less driven in one.
They glided along the dark streets, cutting through neighborhoods she knew well, but from inside the Mercedes everything looked different—insubstantial. She felt as if they could go anywhere. They could turn and drive straight through her old high school and they’d pass through it like a mirage. Nothing could stop them.
“Where are we going?” she asked him.
She tried to sound suspicious. She knew she shouldn’t have gotten into a stranger’s car any more than she should’ve gone to that bar. But something about this rich gringo . . . He treated her presence as a given. As if she deserved to be next to him. As if there were nothing strange about the two of them riding through the South Side in a car that cost more than the houses they were passing.
“You’re the boss,” he told her. “I don’t know this area. Show me around.”
That threw her off guard. She was the boss.
She guided him past the drugstore her grandfather had started in the thirties, the shack where Mrs. Longoria sold tortillas off the griddle, the homes of her childhood friends. She told him stories—her first broken arm from that tree, her first boyfriend lived there. They passed within a block of her house, but she didn’t show him where she lived. He didn’t ask.
“Where would you go for a quiet talk?” he asked.
Her heart trembled. This was dangerous. Her parents, her friends would not approve. They were always protecting her, reminding her how fragile she was, how unpractical her dreams were.
“I’ll show you,” she decided.
She directed him down South Alamo, then onto a stretch of dark rural road where her friends and she used to stargaze. It was a desolate spot—perfect for ghost stories and underage drinking. At night, the fields and woods were so black she always felt she was at the edge of an enormous sea.
The gringo pulled his Mercedes next to a stand of live oaks and cut the headlights.
“Perfect,” he said.
An orange November moon shone through the tree branches, making shadow scars across his face.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Guy. Guy White.”
He said it as if it were a private joke—as if, with his luminous car, his Nordic features, his milky clothes, he were the gringo. The essence of everything her life was not, would never be.
“They want me to become a secretary,” she told him, blurting it out.
“Who does?”
“My college advisor. He wouldn’t write a recommendation for UT. He said I should stick with typing. Stenography at best. Because I’m a woman.”
“You don’t like that.”
“I can do better. I want to study law.”
“A lawyer.” He smiled. “Perfect.”
His tone made her angry. He said it like he was watching the end of a movie—some momentary amusement that would mean nothing tomorrow.
“I can do anything,” she insisted.
“Can you?” He rested a hand on her shoulder.
Outside, the darkness seemed closer, thicker. Tangled in the live oak branches, the moon looked like a blind man’s eye, webbed with cataracts.
Why had she brought him here?
Even as a child, this road had scared her. Walking to church as a little girl, she’d imagined hearing whispers in the wind through the grass. Her father had kept his eyes on the ground, picking up grim pieces of history to show her—arrowheads a thousand years old, a lead musket ball from Santa Anna’s army, tiny flecks of stone her father said were fossilized scales of prehistoric fish, back when Texas was an ocean for dinosaurs. The place was layered with ghosts, yet it electrified her. It made her feel alive.
She brushed the gringo’s hand away. “Take me back, please.”
“I could help you,” he said. “I could do so much for you.”
He stroked a wisp of hair behind her ear, and she noticed the pale skin on his finger, where a ring would be worn.
“You’re married,” she said.
“Yes,” he agreed. “We’re expecting our first baby.”
“What are you doing here?” She scooted to the edge of the seat, pushed his hand away again. “I want to leave. Now.”
“You said you could do anything,” he chided. “Show me. What are you going to do about me?”
She yanked at the door handle. It was locked.
He slid next to her, blocking her fists as she tried to pummel him. The car was too cramped. She tried to kick him, but he pressed against her, a wave of cologne and muscle and white cloth, pushing her down, pinning her arms.
He was strong—much stronger than she’d realized. She screamed, but there was no one to hear. The car windows were well insulated. Nothing that happened in this expensive box of leather and glass would register in the outside world.
She struggled as he straddled her, pushed back her wrists.
“Do something,” White coaxed. “You won’t get anywhere if you can’t even fight me.”
Above her, the moon shone through the window. She wanted it to eclipse, to hide her in darkness, but it kept glowing through the car window, watching as she withered inside.
Chapter 3
MAIA LEE ARRIVED AT SAPD HOMICIDE SATURDAY MORNING, JUST IN time to watch two detectives and a uniformed cop subduing one of Santa’s elves.
“Serial murderer-rapist,” Lieutenant Hernandez explained, ushering her past. “Seven warrants in Missouri. Department store actually did a background check for once.”
The elf was doing pretty well for himself. His green felt sleeves were torn and his green tights were rolled up to his knees. A broken plastic handcuff dangled off one wrist. The uniformed cop had his legs and the detectives had his arms, but the elf was still managing to scream obscenities, spit, occasionally bite.
His mean little eyes locked onto Maia as she passed, but she’d been ogled by too many incarcerated sociopaths to feel bothered. She had worse problems.
She followed Hernandez through the cubicle jungle.
“Sergeant DeLeon’s office.” Hernandez pointed toward a glass door at the back of the room. “Quietest place to talk.”
Inside, a big Anglo detective was sitting at the desk, flipping through files.
Before Maia could go in, Hernandez caught her arm. “I won’t be going in, Miss Lee. But just so you know, I’ve already done as much for you as I can.”
Hernandez had aged in the last few years.
Maia had met him several times before, thanks to Tres’ incredible luck getting tangled in murder cases. She liked the lieutenant’s calm manner, his quiet professionalism. He was one of those men who had never been a father, but had clearly missed his calling.
He was still handsome, impeccably dressed, but his hair had turned the color of wet porcelain. He’d lost too much weight. The lines had deepened around his eyes.
People didn’t age incrementally, Maia decided. They went along fine for years, then hit some invisible dip and boom: a decade caught up with them overnight.
“I’m not asking for help,” she said. “Just an open mind until we locate Tres.”
“That may be difficult. Your boyfriend—”
“My client.”
“—your client made the wrong choice at exactly the wrong time. My best sergeant is in the hospital dying. The prime suspect is on the loose. Navarre is aiding and abetting.”
“Supposition. You never saw them together.”
A shout went up across the room. One of the detectives got a pointy-toed elf shoe in his face. His gun rattled loose in his shoulder holster.
“Miss Lee,” Hernandez continued, “you know Sam Barrera, the old man—”
“I know Sam.”
“He wasn’t easy to interview. Kept talking about a man with a bloody shirt in the kitchen. Kept asking if ‘the agent’ was okay. Finally we showed him some photographs. He ID’d Ralph Arguello.”
“You’re proceeding on the testimony of an Alzheimer’s sufferer?”
“It was enough for a warrant, Miss Lee. We searched your friend’s house, found a .357 and a bloody shirt stashed behind the laundry room wall. By lunchtime, forensics will have those items matched to Ralph Arguello.”
Maia bit back a curse. She wanted to strangle Tres, which in itself was not an unusual feeling, but damn it. Damn it.
She felt her blood pressure rising. A black oily ball started rolling around in her stomach.
Not now, she told herself.
The last few days, it had gotten worse. It struck at the most inconvenient times—left her curled on the bathroom floor or hunched over the steering wheel on the side of the highway. The doctors had promised her it would not get this bad so soon.
“Miss Lee?” Hernandez said.