The next morning Isidro said, “An idea came to me. I believe I can talk to him and make him see he needs me.” His wife didn’t say anything. But as he drove away in his black Chevrolet taxi that had traveled 170,000 miles and always returned to this home, he saw her standing in the doorway with their four children, watching him leave. Something she had never done before.
* * *
Here was the plan. Pick up the tourist’s prints at the Fast Foto place, deliver them to him and refuse to accept payment. A risk, but look at it as an investment. No, please, it’s my gift for the pleasure of driving you and for your generosity. Something like that. Then . . . It’s too bad you haven’t been out on the island, have the pleasure of the drive to Luquillo. Or . . . Oh, what a fine day to go to El Yunque, the rain forest. Or Utuado to see the pottery.
The goddamn prints cost him more than twenty-seven dollars.
He sat in his taxi outside the Fast Foto, still thinking, getting the words in his mind. He opened one of the envelopes of prints, not curious, but to be doing something. They were pictures the tourist had taken of the beach during the past three days. Twenty-four prints—Isidro began to go through them—all in beautiful color.
Less than halfway through he stopped and started over, already feeling an excitement. He looked at the first prints again quickly before continuing on, wanting to be sure the subject of nearly all these pictures was the same and not there by accident. Isidro felt himself becoming inspired but nervous and laughed out loud. He became calm again looking at pictures from the second envelope, taken in the Old City. Fortaleza, Casa del Callejón, those places . . .
But in the third envelope he was back at the beach of Escambron. Here was an ice-cream vendor, here was a man displaying jewelry on a straw mat. Girls, yes, pictures of girls and a number of shots that were so bright they showed almost nothing. But of the forty-two prints in the two envelopes of beach pictures—count them—twenty were of Iris Ruiz. It seemed more than that, one after another, so many views of her in different poses. Wherever the tourist went on that beach he must have been watching Iris, taking pictures of her through his long lens.
Iris talking to the man with the cane, Vincent. Gesturing, posing. Iris lying next to him on a towel. Standing behind him, her hands in his hair as he tried to read his book. Kissing him. Walking with him . . .
Oh, man. Isidro saw those pictures and had the best idea of his life. He drove to Iris Ruiz’s house on Calle del Parque and knocked on the door to her upstairs flat.
She was dressed to leave, white purse under her arm, a scowl on her face. He believed at first she scowled because she didn’t recognize him and was annoyed, but soon found it was her nature to scowl. When he explained who he was and reminded her of a few things she shook her head and said in English, “I think you have the wrong person.”
Isidro said, “It’s okay with me,” following her down the stairs. “But let me tell you about this guy who’s too good to be true. One in at least a million . . . Listen, where you going? Come on, I drive you, free.” Like that, getting her in the taxi, the steps of his plan falling into place. Until he handed her the pictures—letting her open the envelope herself, curious now, sure—because everyone liked to look at pictures. She looked at five or six of them, scowling again, said in English, “Why you showing me these? I never want to see him again!” And threw the pictures at the windshield.
Isidro had to stop the taxi, reach down to gather some that were on the floor, wipe them on his leg, look to see if any were damaged. He could scowl too, saying, “What’s wrong with you? I’m not showing you him, your frien’, whoever he is—”
“He’s not my frien’ no more.”
“That’s okay—who cares who he is? I’m showing you pictures of you.” He made his voice soft, with an effort, and said in English, “Every one of them, you look good enough to eat.” Offering her the prints again. “This guy I mention, Teddy, I never saw a guy with the look he has in his eyes. I think he adores you.”
“Yeah?”
“Listen, he’s my prize. He’s polite. He smells good. He cleans his fingernails. I believe he’ll take you to Howard Johnson for dinner.”
“I’m going to the States pretty soon. Couple of days.”
“He keeps his hundred-dollar bills in a money belt, under his shirt.”
Iris said, “Oh? Where’s he stay?”
At the DuPont Plaza. But he wasn’t there. The doorman said oh, that guy, he went out with his camera. For the next minute Isidro crept his taxi along Ashford Avenue, suffering anxiety, trying to concentrate on the tourists, Iris scowling, telling him she was late for her appointment . . . And there he was, the flowered shirt, the camera bag—thank you, Jesus—coming out of Walgreen’s. Look what a nice guy he was.
Iris said, “He looks like the kind who’s afraid of the dark.”
Isidro said, “You’ll love him, as I do.”
“You believe it?” Isidro said to Teddy. “She saw you at the beach and would like to meet you.” The two of them standing in front of Walgreen’s, tourists walking past them, Isidro’s own tourist adjusting his sunglasses as he glanced at the taxi, shy.
“How’d you run into her?”
“At the Foto place. It was lucky, uh? She recognize me because of you. I tole her, sure, I know him. I think he would like to meet you also.”
“What’d she say exactly?”
“Ask me if I drive for the photographer. I say, sure. Maybe he like to take your picture.” Isidro took a chance, a liberty, and winked at the tourist. “She’s a very nice girl. She has an appointment in Isla Verde, but I think she can be free this evening.”
Like that, getting him in the taxi.
What was disappointing—Iris remained in front, to show she was a nice girl, and didn’t turn all the way around, rest her chin on the back of the seat and give the tourist the business with her eyes and her tongue. Isidro hoped she knew what she was doing. They were so polite he couldn’t believe it.
Are you enjoying your vacation? Very much. Do you like Puerto Rico? Yeah, it’s really nice. Is a nice climate, uh? Perfect.
Jesus Christ. Isidro wanted to say to the rearview mirror, You got twenty pictures of this whore. You desire her or not? But he kept quiet. At least the tourist was in his taxi again. Now she was telling him she was going to the States pretty soon. Atlantic City. “I have a position offered me with the company I’m going to see.”
And she knows all the positions, Isidro was thinking—when the tourist surprised him.
He said, “Yeah? I’m from right near there. Born in Camden, New Jersey. My mom lives in Margate now, that’s practically right next door to Atlantic City. You ever been there?”
Iris said no, but she had been to Miami once and didn’t like it very much.
The tourist said, “You walk down the Boardwalk from Atlantic City you come to Ventnor and then Margate, but it’s like all one. You know what I mean? One city. I lived in Miami a while, I didn’t like it either.”
“I was going to live in Miami Beach,” Iris said, “but I change my mind. I prefer Atlantic City.”
“There’s way more to do there,” the tourist said.
Tell her what you want to do to her, Isidro said to the mirror.
“They want me to work as a hostess for the company,” Iris said. “They have many social functions.”
“A hostess,” the tourist said. “They got a few of those in Atlantic City, all right.”
“The position was offer to me by the boss himself, Mr. Tommy Donovan. He owns the big hotel in Isla Verde I’m going to. He’s crazy for me to work for him. He tole me that.”
Hurry, Isidro thought, someone. He was helpless.
They turned off the highway and soon came to the beach, to the casino hotel that resembled a mosque among palm trees. Part of it did. Three stories of arched Moorish Modern topped with a dome the shape of a spade, an inverted heart pointing to heaven. Signs in all sizes, everywhere, said Spade’s Isla Verde Re
sort. The tourist said, “Jeez, what a place, ‘ey?” The hotel, tan cement and dark glass, rose fifteen stories above the east end of the casino complex.
Iris said, “Is nothing compare to the much bigger hotel in Atlantic City, where I’m going to be a hostess.” Telling the tourist she was too good for him. She left the taxi, not even saying thank you.
“I can tell you where she lives,” Isidro said. “Number five two Calle del Parque. Close by your hotel.”
The tourist watched her go inside the casino before he moved into the front seat. He opened one of the envelopes, looked at the prints for a moment and said, “Let’s go for a ride.”
Isidro had his tourist again and felt so good that he could admit, “I pick up the pictures to give you so I could speak to you again and hope to be of service.” The tourist seemed content, gazing out at the countryside from the highway as they drove toward Carolina. “There is so much to see out on the island,” Isidro said. “All this use to be sugar cane here. Now, look, use car places. Way over there, apartment buildings.”
The tourist would look out his side window, turn his head slowly and Isidro would see his sunglasses, his serious expression. Interested, but not amazed at anything today. Not asking what’s that? . . . what’s that? Instead he said:
“Why’d you think I wanted to meet her?”
“Well, she’s a nice girl, very nice looking, I believe educated . . . We can go north to Loiza, my home where I was born. If you like to buy a famous vejigante mask, for your mother.” The tourist didn’t say anything. “Or we can go to El Yunque. You hear of it? The rain forest on the mountain, very beautiful . . .”
“Let’s go up there,” the tourist said, and Isidro relaxed; he had his tourist for at least the rest of the day and could show him the sights, show him some excitement on the way up there, some expert driving.
Blowing his horn, leaning on it through blind mountain curves, climbing through dark caverns of tabonuco trees a thousand years old, gunning it past the diesel noise of tour buses—everybody going to El Yunque, the showplace of the island. Look, what forests were like before men were born. Where frogs live in trees and flower plants grow on the branches. The tourist didn’t raise his camera.
“You don’t want pictures?”
“I can get postcards of this.”
Not in a good mood. He didn’t want to go in the Rain Forest Restaurant, he wasn’t hungry today. At the Visitor Center he said, “Let’s get away from these goddamn buses.” Isidro removed a barrier where the road was closed because of a landslide. It was slippery in places but no trouble to get through. Nobody working to clear the mud. This was more like it, not running into people everywhere. A jungle in the clouds. The tourist said, “Let’s get out and walk.” Okay—once Isidro found a place to put the taxi, off the road deep into a side trail, in case a park service guy came along. Park service guys liked to be important, Isidro said, yell at drivers.
The tourist led them along a footpath, following a sign that said El Yunque Trail. They left it behind, following side trails, and came to an open place that ended, fell away hundreds of feet to a sight of clouds like fog over the treetops below. Beautiful. It gave Isidro the feeling he could dive off and land down there in that soft green sponge. Now he saw the tourist bring his camera case in front of him and open it, take out the camera and hang it from his neck. The tourist looked out at the view, then at Isidro, then stepped away from the edge, raising his camera.
“Smile.”
Isidro posed, nothing behind him but clouds, trying hard to smile. He believed it was the first picture the tourist had taken of him.
“You want me to take one of you?”
“No, stay there.” The tourist snapped another picture and said, “Tell me what you’re up to.”
Isidro said, “Please?”
Something was wrong. It was in the tourist’s expression. Not a serious one but not a nice one either. He wasn’t happy, he wasn’t angry, he wasn’t anything. The tourist took off his sunglasses and slipped them into his shirt pocket as he said, “They ask you a lot of questions about me?”
It was as though a disguise was removed and Isidro was seeing him for the first time, seeing the man’s eyes as tiny nail points holding him, telling him he had made a mistake, failed to observe something. For a moment his wife was in his mind, his wife speaking to him with the sound of the washing machine and the television. He was confused and it made him angry.
“Who? Nobody ask me anything.”
“No? They didn’t pay you?”
“Mister, I don’t know what you talking about.” The only thing he knew for sure, the man was no longer his prize.
“Tell me the truth. Say the girl approached you?”
“Yes, she want to meet you.”
“Go on.”
“I said okay. See, I thought you like her, a lot.”
“You did, ‘ey? Why?”
“Man, all the pictures you took of her.” He watched the tourist stare at him, then begin to smile, then shake his head back and forth and heard the tourist say:
“Oh, shit. You looked at the prints you picked up this morning. Didn’t you?”
Isidro nodded. Why not? The tourist didn’t seem angry now. “But I didn’ hurt them, I jus’ look at them.”
The tourist said, “Jesus, you thought I liked Iris, so you were gonna fix me up. All this was your idea.”
Isidro said, “Is up to you. It doesn’ matter.”
The tourist was still smiling, just a little. He said, “You dumb fuck, I wasn’t taking pictures of her.”
Isidro saw the tourist’s hand go into the camera case and come out holding a gun, an automatic pistol, a big heavy one. The tourist—what was this?—he would have film and suntan lotion in there, not a pistol. If there was something wrong with him, if he was abnormal—it was okay to be abnormal, sure, act crazy for fun, wear masks . . . when it made sense to act crazy, want to scare people. This trying to scare him made no sense . . .
And he yelled at the tourist, “But she’s in the pictures!”
The tourist said, “So’s the guy with her.”
Isidro paused, still not understanding, then saw it, what was going to happen, and yelled out again, “Momento!”
The tourist shot him in the head, almost between the eyes. He listened to the echo and shot him again, on the ground, before rolling him over the edge of the mud bluff, into the clouds.
Teddy had a frosted Rain Forest Julep at the restaurant. It wasn’t bad. He bought a handicraft hand-painted parrot for his mom, wandered out to a Gray Line charter bus with a bunch of sightseers and was back in San Juan by six o’clock: in time for the evening traffic on Ashford Avenue. Jesus, but PRs liked to play their radios loud. This day had been a kick in the ass. It woke him up, told him to quit creeping around acting like a fool. Get it done and get out.
3
* * *
THE RESTAURANT CALLED EL CIDREÑO offered Creole cooking and was popular with the Criminal Affairs investigators who worked out of Puerto Rico Police headquarters on Roosevelt Avenue, Hato Rey.
They would come in here or look over from their tables and see the bearded guy with Lorendo Paz and make the guy as an informer. Look at him. The hair, the work shirt they gave him in Bayamón. Caught in a drug bust and fell out a window—the reason for the cane—and after a month in the hole willing to make a plea deal. Except that Lorendo Paz, always properly attired, wearing the cream-colored suit today, would touch his napkin to his trimmed mustache, take the napkin away and be smiling, talking to the guy like they were good friends. So then the cops who came in El Cidreño or looked over from their tables would think, sure, the guy was a narc, DEA, and had to dress like that, the junkie shirt with the jeans and rubber sandals . . . But if he was undercover or he was an informer, what was he doing out in the open talking to a Criminal Affairs investigator? Finally a cop known for his determination got up from his chicken and plantains, went over to the table where Lorendo sat with
the bearded guy and said, “Lorendo, I need to talk to you later today.” Lorendo said, “Of course,” and then said, “Oh, I want you to meet Vincent Mora. With the Miami Beach Police, Detective Bureau. We know each other a long time, since the FBI school. Yes, Vincent has been here, almost two months, on a medical leave. A robber shot him in the hip.”
Oh.
After that the investigators would look over and wonder if the bearded guy, Vincent, was any good. A robber had shot him, uh? What happened to the robber? If they say he got away maybe it wasn’t a robber who shot him but a woman’s husband. The investigators, eating their black beans and rice, their fried pork and bananas, enjoyed that idea and suggested different ways the shooting might have occurred. Their favorite one was Vincent going out the window naked—bam.
Vincent Mora. The guy didn’t look Puerto Rican, though his name could be. All the money that cops in the States got paid—why didn’t he buy some sharp clothes with style? What was he talking about to Lorendo so intently?
* * *
He was talking about Iris Ruiz.
Lorendo made his face look tired, without effort, and told Vincent he was making a career of Iris Ruiz because he needed something to do that was important to him and concerned a person’s life, not because Iris was a special case. There were a thousand Iris Ruizes in San Juan.
Vincent narrowed his eyes at him.
And Lorendo raised Iris’s rating. All right, there was no one like her. Okay? Fantastic girl. Her looks could stop your breathing. She had style, class, personality and she made sure a doctor looked up her every week without fail.
Vincent shook his head.
And Lorendo said, “What you’re doing we’ve both seen, how many times? The cop who has a feeling for a whore. He wants to be her savior, change her, make her like she used to be, uh? Before she found out that little fuzzy thing she sits on can make her money.”
“That’s not nice,” Vincent said.
“Oh, is that so? What is it attracts you to her, her mind? Her intelligence?”
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