I told her I wouldn’t. “My store doesn’t carry venomous stock. The liability would be too high.”
“You know,” Manuel chimed in, “my mom would kill me if I had stuff like that in the house with all my sisters and brothers running around.”
“Well, my dad doesn’t care,” Myra said. “Anyway, they’re not poisonous unless they’re angry.”
“How do you tell? I mean, do ya ask them?”
Myra gave him a withering look. Manuel was unimpressed.
“I wouldn’t want to live with them,” he went on, warming to the subject. “What happens if you forget to lock the room and one of them gets out and hops in your bed and you lie down on it? What then?”
“Then you’d be dead.” Myra picked up her fork and put it down again as the implications of what Manuel had just said hit her. “How do you know about the room?”
Manuel gave me a sheepish grin. “Sorry,” he said, and he went back to eating.
I made a mental note to have a chat with him later about the joys of silence as Myra turned to me.
“How do you know?” she demanded.
“I was there.” And I explained about Manuel’s phone call.
“You broke into my house?” Myra’s voice quavered with outrage.
“Report me to the police.”
She gave me a sullen look and collapsed into her seat.
“Where were you that night?”
She glared at me. “Why do you care?”
“Because I do.”
“I was stuck, just like everyone else.”
“Who were you stuck with?”
“A friend.”
“Does this friend have a name?”
Myra looked at her watch. “Listen. I have to go.”
I checked mine. “You still have some time left before you have to be back at the store,” I observed. She had about twenty minutes, to be accurate.
In a nervous tic of a gesture, she conveyed her quarter-eaten pizza slice to her mouth and brought it away untouched. “I don’t want to talk anymore,” she told me.
I crossed my arms over my chest and just looked at her. She was vibrating like a guitar string.
“I don’t have to say anything to you,” she insisted.
“You’re right. You don’t. You can say it to the police.”
She feigned puzzlement. “Why would they be interested in poison frogs?”
“They’re not. And you know it. They’re interested in Eli and Adelina.”
Myra tried to act cool. She didn’t succeed very well. I noticed her hands were trembling. She clasped her fingers together, brought her hands under the table, and rested them in her lap, the way good little girls are taught to do.
“Aren’t you going to ask me why the police are interested?” I continued. “Most people would. Aren’t you even the tiniest bit curious?”
Myra bit her lip.
“But you don’t really have to ask me, do you? Especially since you already know?” I leaned forward slightly. Then I planted my elbows on the table. It wobbled slightly, just like the story Myra was trying to tell me.
“Adelina told you about Nestor, didn’t she?”
“I haven’t seen Adelina in weeks,” Myra protested. Her voice had grown as thin as her body.
“That’s not what Sulfin says,” I replied. “He says you were with her yesterday.”
“He’s wrong,” Myra cried, half rising from her seat. “He hates Adelina. You can’t believe anything he says about her. Or Nestor. Adelina didn’t do anything to Nestor.”
“I didn’t suggest she had,” I said mildly. “You did.”
“That’s not true. You implied it. If anyone did anything to Nestor, it was Sulfin.”
“Really? You’re saying Sulfin killed Nestor?”
“No. I’m saying he could have. He’s never forgiven Nestor for taking Adelina away. He said he’d get him back if it was the last thing he ever did.” Two patches of color glistened on Myra’s cheeks. “Just leave Adelina alone, you hear me!”
Given Myra’s tone, it would have been hard not to.
A woman sitting a few seats down stopped eating and looked at us. I could tell from the expression on her face, she was an inch shy of coming over and asking if everything was all right. Which was the last thing I needed now.
“It’s okay,” I told her, beating her to it. “Just a family dispute.”
She gave me an understanding smile and went back to her taco. I put a hand on Myra’s arm and guided her back down to her seat She came reluctantly. “All right. What you’re saying may be true. I’m not saying it isn’t, but I still need to find Adelina.”
Myra straightened her back and stiffened her neck. She looked straight ahead. She was the warrior queen.
“Is she with Eli?”
Myra shrugged.
“Have they left the area?”
“I told you I don’t know.” This time Myra’s voice was flat and lifeless.
I tried again. “You may think you’re protecting your friend,” I told her, “but you’re not.”
“Really?” she sneered.
I explained about Chapman and the suitcase. “Look, in the end, either Chapman, myself, or the police are going to find Adelina. Who would you prefer? Think about it.”
She bit her lip.
“One person is dead. Do you want your friend to be next?”
The corners of her mouth began to droop.
“Think how you’d feel if Adelina dies and it’s your fault?”
Myra put her hand to her mouth.
“Is it worth the risk?”
I watched her fight with herself.
“Is it?” I insisted. “Do you want to go to her funeral? Be there when they lower her casket into the ground? Watch her mother crying, when all the time you know that this could have been prevented if you’d only ...”
“All right,” Myra finally said, her face going soft. “That’s enough.”
And she told me where Adelina was.
Chapter 22
The street Adelina lived on had settled down for the evening. Everyone was in for the night. Cars were tucked into their driveways. In the houses, lights were on and curtains were down. Scraps of canned TV laughter lingered in the air, remnants of programs that promise a world where no one is ever unhappy. I watched sleet falling under the streetlamps. It came down desultorily, as if it was too tired to make the effort. Across the way, a white cat crept under a porch.
Manuel and I were parked midway down Adelina’s block, watching her house. It was lit up like a Christmas tree. I could see the shadows of people walking back and forth through the curtains. We’d gotten here half an hour ago and had been arguing ever since about what we were going to do to get her outside, a fact that was not improving my mood, which was piss-poor to begin with.
“Why don’t you just walk up there and knock on her door?” Manuel suggested for what must have been the hundredth time.
“Why don’t you?” I replied, thinking of our last encounter.
“Are you afraid of her mother?” he taunted.
“Absolutely.” I turned on the wipers to clear the windshield. They made a squeaking sound as they went over the glass. “Aren’t you?”
Instead of answering, Manuel slouched down lower in the seat. “Well, we can’t stay here forever waiting for her to come out,” he groused.
“Detectives spend hours watching houses,” I felt the need to point out. I’m not sure why.
“Good for them.” Manuel flicked a piece of lint off his jacket.
“Sometimes eight hours at a stretch without leaving the car.”
“What do they do about peeing?”
“They use a bottle.”
Manuel made a face. “That’s disgusting.” He ran a finger down his jacket zipper. “Anyway, we don’t even know she’s in there.”
“Are you saying Myra lied to us?”
“No, I’m not saying that,” Manuel replied. “I’m just saying she coul
d have gone out again.”
“Let’s assume that she hasn’t.” That was a possibility I wasn’t prepared to entertain yet.
“Why should we assume that?”
“Because I say so.” And I picked up my backpack and began searching around in it for my pack of cigarettes.
“Good reason.” Manuel rolled his eyes, a gesture I particularly dislike. “Seriously, Robin,” he said, “how long are we going to sit here like this?”
“As long as we have to.” I kept on looking for my cigarettes. They weren’t there. Then I remembered I’d left them on the table at the food court.
“My knees are locking,” Manuel whined. “It’s hot in here.”
“Then roll down the window,” I snapped. “For heaven’s sake, we’ve only been here for half an hour.”
“It feels like three.”
“Too bad.” Now that I’d found Adelina, I was damned if I was going to move from this spot and take the chance of letting her get away from me again.
Unfortunately, Manuel was right. We couldn’t sit and wait. Time wasn’t on our side in this case. Aside from the fact that I needed to buy cigarettes, someone was sure to notice us and call the police. It’s hard to stay hidden for long when there isn’t any traffic and everyone knows everyone else’s car.
Manuel sighed loudly. He began tapping his fingers on the dashboard. “We could always call and tell Adelina’s mother there’s a gas leak and she has to get everyone outside.”
“Somehow I don’t think that would work.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’ll wonder where the trucks are.”
“We’ll tell her they’re on their way.”
I didn’t bother to reply. But Manuel’s suggestion had given me an idea. “Do you have your cell phone?” I asked him.
“Yeah.” He patted his parka pocket. “Right here.”
“Good. I want you to make a call for me.”
“To who?”
“To Adelina’s mother.”
He sat up straighter and smiled. “You go, girl. What am I going to say?”
“Tell her there’s been an emergency and she’s needed back at work right away.”
For once Manuel played it straight and did what I asked. Maybe it was the prospect of peeing in a bottle that did it. Fifteen minutes later, I watched the front door of Adelina’s house open. Her mother came out, got into her car, and drove away. I calculated it would take Donna fifteen minutes to get to the Jewish old age home, another fifteen minutes to drive back, and ten to check with the supervisor and realize she’d been had. Which meant we had forty minutes, at most, to do our business before she returned.
I nudged Manuel. “Let’s go.”
We walked to Adelina’s house. The snow, which had almost stopped, had left a glistening residue of water on the pavement. I stood off in the shadows as Manuel climbed the porch steps. When he got to the front door, he turned and looked at me. I gave a little nod and he rang the doorbell. A moment later, someone answered.
“Yes?” I heard a small girl’s voice say through the closed door.
“Can I speak to Adelina?” Manuel asked.
“She’s not home,” the little girl lisped.
Manuel resettled his baseball cap on his head. “This is very important.” He dropped his voice to a gentle semiwhisper. It always surprised me that Manuel was good with children, but it shouldn’t have. He had enough experience with his younger brothers and sisters. “Tell your sister, Eli’s cousin is outside. Tell her he has to speak to her about the suitcase.”
“She said not to tell anyone she’s here. She’ll be mad at me if I do that,” the little girl protested.
“No she won’t. I promise.”
“She will,” the little girl insisted.
Manuel spent another few minutes coaxing her. Finally I heard a tremulous okay.
I jammed my hands in my pockets and rocked back and forth on my heels, while Manuel stamped his feet and cracked his knuckles. A minute later, the overhead porch light flicked on, bathing everything in a dim light. The window curtain was drawn back a trifle. An older, harder voice took up where the little girl had left off.
“How did you know I was here?” Adelina asked.
“Myra told me.”
“Stupid bitch,” Adelina spat out. She said something in Spanish I couldn’t understand, then I heard, “What do you want?”
“I need to come in.”
“Why?”
Manuel recited the lines we’d agreed on. “Because I need to show you something Nestor left for you.”
“Like what?” Her tone was hard.
“You have to see.”
I held my breath. This was the moment I was waiting for. If Adelina didn’t open the door, I was out of luck.
“This had better be good,” she said.
I heard the chain rattle as Adelina took it off its catch. Then she opened the door a crack. “Show it to me,” she demanded.
“Here.” Manuel pretended to reach into his pocket as I scrambled onto the porch.
I hit the door with my shoulder. It flew open, smashing against the interior wall. Adelina fell back. The gun I hadn’t known she’d been holding clattered to the floor. She dove for it, but I got there first and picked it up. As I pointed it at her, I wondered if this was the gun that had shot Nestor.
“You okay?” Manuel asked me.
“Fine.” I motioned for him to close the door behind me.
“Interesting toy,” I said to Adelina when I got my breath back. “Who were you expecting? I mean, I heard this is a bad neighborhood. I didn’t know it was that bad.”
She scowled.
“Did you kill Nestor with this?” I lifted my hand with the 9mm up slightly.
“You’re an idiot,” she told me disdainfully.
I smiled equably. “So people keep telling me.”
“It’s true. You don’t know nothing.”
“I know enough to have found you,” I couldn’t resist pointing out.
Then, before I could say anything else, her sisters and brother came out from the kitchen to see what had happened. They moved slowly, the brother tightly holding the hand of his younger sister as they hugged the walls. I guessed from the furious expression on Adelina’s face when she caught sight of them that she’d told them to stay put, but they hadn’t been able to stand the wait anymore and disobeyed. Their eyes widened when they saw me. I lowered the automatic, ejected the clip, and slipped it into my jacket pocket. I didn’t want to take the chance of having an accident happen in here.
“Everything’s fine,” Adelina said, trying to assure them, and she smiled a tight little smile that faded on her lips as fast as it had come on.
The children didn’t look as if they believed her. The little girl certainly didn’t, because she ran over to me and began beating my legs with her fists.
“You leave my sister alone,” she cried.
I put out a hand to fend her off and accidentally pulled off one of the ribbons on her braids. “Stop that,” I ordered.
“No. I won’t.” She kept pounding on my leg even though her lower lip was trembling and her eyes were scrunched up. It was surprising how annoying it was. Finally I reached down and scooped her up. She burst into tears and began to wail.
Adelina’s eyes flared. “Give her to me,” she demanded, reaching out.
“With pleasure.” I handed the little girl over to her sister.
“Maria, it’s fine,” Adelina assured her, stroking her hair. “Don’t worry. I’m not mad at you.”
Maria kept crying.
“I just need to get something your sister has,” I found myself explaining to her. “That’s all. I promise.”
“It’s true, niña. ”And Adelina put her mouth to Maria’s ear and whispered something in it.
Maria’s face relaxed. She stopped crying. Adelina whispered something else to her and tickled her tummy. Maria laughed and buried her head in Adelina’s shoulder.
/> As I watched her, I reflected that George had been right about people’s appearances changing. Adelina didn’t look at all like her photograph. For openers, she’d lost weight, bleached her hair blond and cut it, but those weren’t the only things that accounted for the discrepancy. Her mouth seemed smaller, her eyes a little more closely set together, and she had a large scar on the side of her neck that the picture hadn’t shown. She was wearing a tight white sweater, tight black pants, and platform boots. Her jewelry, large gold hoop earrings, a wide gold herringbone chain and a matching gold bracelet, all looked real. She appeared old for her years. I was thinking about the fact that I would have pegged her for midthirties if I’d seen her in the street, when her brother tapped my arm. I looked over.
He pointed to the gun I was still holding in my hand. “Is that yours?” he asked.
“No,” I told him, ignoring Adelina’s glare. “It’s your sister’s.”
“Really.” He gave his sister an appraising look before turning back to me. “Can I see it?”
“No, you can’t,” Adelina and I both said at the same time.
He put his hands on his hips. “But the clip’s out.”
“No,” Adelina repeated.
“I’ve seen them before,” he protested.
“All the worse for you,” his sister answered.
“Then how come you have one?”
“She shouldn’t,” I replied, and put the gun in my pocket, thereby settling the argument. “No one should.”
“But everyone does.”
“That’s not the issue.”
He sighed a long sigh that bemoaned the idiocy of adults and walked into the living room. The older sister went with him. I nodded to Manuel and he followed. At least that way I didn’t have to worry about them getting on the phone.
Chapter 23
Adelina, walked into the kitchen carrying her baby sister on her hip. “What do you want?” she asked me as she took a glass out of the cabinet, filled it with water, and handed it to Maria. The little girl grasped it with both hands and gulped the liquid down.
“I want the suitcase.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Adelina replied, though the crack in her voice told a different story.
It was a lie I’d been hearing a lot lately and I was growing tired of it. “Then why did Chapman ask me to look for you?” I asked.
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