“Chapman?” she said, widening her eyes to play the innocent, but all the gesture did was draw attention to the large quantity of eye liner she was using.
“Oh, please.” I made a rude noise.
She gave me a defiant stare. “Well, the name isn’t familiar.”
“He’s the man whose property Nestor stole. He really isn’t very nice. But then, you know that, don’t you?” I watched Adelina’s face as I was talking. She was trying to make it a blank slate, but she wasn’t succeeding very well. She looked scared. A vein under her eye was twitching. “I’d hate to think of him coming to your house,” I continued. “I’m positive he wouldn’t be nearly as nice to your sisters and brother as I am. Did you know he’s a Federal agent?”
Adelina absentmindedly took the glass Maria was holding out and put it in the sink.
I moved a pile of papers off a kitchen chair onto the table and sat down. “He really wants that suitcase very badly. Nestor made a big mistake. He should have stolen from someone else.”
“He didn’t know,” Adelina whispered. For a second she looked on the verge of tears. “He never would have done it if he had known.” She put Maria down. The little girl clasped her arms around her sister’s legs and lifted her face toward her sister. “Pick me up,” she piped.
Adelina smoothed her sister’s hair down. “In a minute, querida.”
“The best thing for you to do would be to give it to me so I can give it to Chapman.”
Adelina bit her lip. “But I don’t have it. I think Eli does.”
I riffled through the pile of papers I’d moved from the chair to the table. On top was a brochure for Disneyland and another one for Universal Studios. I picked them up.
“Going somewhere?” I asked.
“We were.” Adelina gave me a reproachful glance and patted her sister on the head.
I put them down and studied the drawing that had been under them. It was a crayon drawing by Maria, the kind that mothers tack on their refrigerators. It showed a pink house with four windows, each one in a different color, and green smoke curling out of the chimney. Someone, I presume a teacher, had printed “Maria’s house” underneath in big bold letters.
I held up the drawing. “If you don’t give the suitcase to me, Maria may not have her house much longer.”
“Stop it,” Adelina cried. “Just stop it.” The corners of her mouth quivered. She sniffed. “I’m telling the truth about Eli. He has to have the suitcase. Nestor left with it. He told me to call Eli and tell him to meet him there.”
I stopped looking at the drawing. At least that part of Adelina’s story checked out. Eli had told me the same thing.
“So why did Nestor do that? Why go to all that trouble for nothing?”
“Because he was getting scared.” Adelina took out the other ribbon in Maria’s hair and draped it around her neck. “I told him we should go away.”
“To Disneyland?” I ran my finger around the rim of a pink plastic mug decorated with little hearts.
“Yes.”
“Were you taking the suitcase with you? Or were you going to sell the tortoises here?”
“We weren’t going to do either. I told him we should give them back, because if we didn’t, we’d always be worrying about Chapman.”
“What did Nestor say?”
“He said it was a good idea.” Adelina swallowed.
Maria was jumping up and down now in a frenzy of impatience. Adelina told her to stop. She didn’t listen.
“He was willing to give up all that money?” I asked Adelina over Maria’s wailed, “you promised.”
“There are some things that are more important.”
“True.” I looked at the gold she was wearing. “That’s what some people say.” The problem was, I didn’t know if Adelina was one of those people.
She opened her mouth to say something, changed her mind, and closed it again. I went on.
“Only now Nestor’s dead and the suitcase is missing.”
“Sulfin.” Adelina reached down and picked Maria up and sat her on the counter.
“Pardon?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard Adelina correctly.
“You should talk to Sulfin. He was always carrying on about how he was going to kill Nestor for taking me away from him.” Her voice had grown more decisive.
I got up. “It must be nice to be the object of such affection.”
Adelina threw me a nasty look.
“Really,” I said. “I’m not kidding. Where’d you get the gun?”
“A friend gave it to me.”
“How convenient.” It appeared as if everyone had friends. Manuel. Myra. Adelina. Of course none of those friends had names. But that would have been expecting too much.
I found myself chewing on the inside of my cheek. My gut told me Adelina was lying. One hundred thousand dollars was a lot of money to someone like her, enough to take a considerable risk for, but, if I was reading her correctly, not enough to put her family in danger. After speaking to her, I was almost positive she still had the suitcase. I was equally positive that it wasn’t here. I asked if I could look around anyway. Just to be on the safe side.
“Go ahead,” Adelina replied.
She and Maria trailed behind me as I went through the attic and the basement and opened closet doors and looked under beds and in bathrooms.
“Satisfied?” she said when I was done. She had her sister clasped to her breast like a shield. Her look dared me to do anything to make her cry.
“Yes. I guess I was wrong.” I walked into the living room. Manuel and Adelina’s brother and sister were sitting on the sofa. They all looked up.
“We’re going,” I announced to Manuel.
He put the bowl of popcorn he was holding down on the coffee table. “Did you find it?”
“No. I made a mistake.”
“A mistake?” His voice rose. “Gee. Thanks a lot. You made me miss the end of Godzilla for this?”
“I’ll rent it for you.”
“Now?” He stood up. “A two-day rental?”
I nodded. We went outside. As we walked down the porch steps, I heard Adelina locking the door behind us. The snow had almost stopped. The wind had blown most of the clouds away. The sky was dearer now. I stopped and studied the thin sliver of the new moon hanging in the sky.
“Let’s go.” Manuel nodded toward the cab. “I want to get to the video store before it closes.”
“You’ll have to take a rain check.”
“What do you mean?” Manuel yelped. “You just promised.”
“And I’ll do it. I’m just not doing it now. We’re going back to the car and wait.”
“Why?”
“Because I think Adelina still has the suitcase. I think she’s hidden it someplace and I think she’s rattled enough now so that she’s going to get it when her mother comes back.”
“How do you know?” he demanded.
“Gut feeling.” I almost tripped on a crack in the sidewalk where the pavement had heaved up.
“Gut feeling. Great.” Manuel rolled his eyes again. “I’m supposed to freeze my ass off because you have a gut feeling.”
“Exactly.” We got to the cab.
“Have you considered that maybe you’re wrong? That maybe she sold it already?”
“I don’t think she’d be here if she had, but if I’m wrong we’re out of luck.” I opened the cab door and got in. “We’ll know soon enough,” I told Manuel after he closed the door on his side. I consulted my watch. “Her mother is going to be back in another ten minutes at the latest.”
“I hope so.” And Manuel crossed his arms over his chest, leaned back in the seat, and sulked.
While he did that, I sat and brooded about Zsa Zsa. The more I thought about her, the more nervous I got. Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore.
I turned to Manuel. “Give me your cell phone.”
“Why?”
“Because I need it.”
He handed it over relucta
ntly. “You make any long distance calls, you pay for them,” he said.
I shushed him, while I powered up and dialed the store’s number. I wanted to make sure Joan had picked up Zsa Zsa. She had.
“Was she okay with her?” I asked Tim.
“Why shouldn’t she be?”
“I just expected ...”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Reluctance,” Tim asked.
“Maybe a little,” I admitted, feeling like a fool. I hung up and called George.
“I found out where Chapman lives,” George said without waiting to be asked. “He’s renting an apartment over at the Hilton on Genesee Street.” The rme was full of static and it was hard to hear him. His voice kept fading in and out. “I’m losing my touch. When I was on the Force I would have had that figured out.”
I didn’t say anything, but George was right. It was the logical place for Chapman to be staying. The Hilton had two parts. It had its regular hotel rooms and it had its furnished apartments that the management rented out by the week or month. I’d been in one of them once. The walls in the hallway had been a drab ochre, the floor had been tiled, and the apartment looked as if it hadn’t been touched since the forties.
“Mike just looked it up for me. He’s made himself known around the building and I don’t mean in a favorable way.”
“Didn’t Mike want to know why you were asking?”
“I told Mike I had to speak to him about you. I think he figured I was going to tell him to back off. Which, I also think, he would be happy to have happen.”
“He doesn’t like him very much, I gather.”
“The general consensus is, the man’s an asshole.” George’s voice dissolved in a burst of static then came back. “That no one will be sorry to see him rolling around on the floor with the pigs.”
“That’s good for us.” There was another burst of static.
“Well, let’s just say that no one’s going to go out of their way for him. Also, he’s gone out to the casino a couple of times. Mike thinks he didn’t do too well out there.” George’s voice faded out.
“I can’t hear you!” I yelled.
“I know.” George sounded as if he was calling from New Zealand. “I’ll call later.” He hung up.
I powered down and tossed the cell phone back to Manuel.
“What was that all about?”
“Nothing.” I started biting my cuticles.
“Why do you want to know where Chapman lives?”
“I’m not sure yet. I just do.”
Manuel’s face lit up. “Are you going to surprise him and beat the shit out of him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it wouldn’t be a smart thing to do.”
“Who gives a fuck?”
“I do. The guy is a Federal agent, even if he is Fish and Wildlife. You don’t beat people like that up. The courts tend to frown on that type of behavior. Unless, of course, you like the idea of spending many years in jail.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” I was rubbing my eyes when Manuel tapped me on the shoulder and pointed. Adelina’s mother was pulling into the driveway.
“Now we’re going to see,” he muttered.
I held my breath. A few minutes later, the door opened again and Adelina came out, jumped into the car, and started it up.
“I was right,” I crowed at Manuel. “Now we can wrap this up and go home.”
And I took off after her.
Chapter 24
Despite what Manuel says, what happened next wasn’t my fault. It was the fault of the Onondaga Sheriff’s Department. Things were going along just fine. I was keeping Adelina’s Taurus in view. I was half a street length behind, which, given the time of night, was the perfect distance—not so close that she could see me and not so far away that I’d lose her.
Adelina was driving much faster than the speed limit allowed. She went down Oak and through Willow at a brisk forty-five miles an hour. Then she took a right onto Ash, drove five blocks, and came to a rolling stop at the four-way intersection of Ash and Crescent before speeding through it.
“Where the hell is she going?” Manuel muttered as I pressed down on the accelerator.
“I don’t have a clue,” I replied.
And I didn’t.
I’d expected her to go toward Littlebaum’s house, which was in the opposite direction.
I was speeding up because the intersection she’d gone through was a big one, big enough so that there were cars going through it at any time of the day or night, and I wanted to make absolutely sure I didn’t lose her. Because all my attention was focused in front of me, I wasn’t checking the rearview mirror. Which was too bad. Otherwise, I might have spotted the sheriff’s car behind me and come to a full stop at the four-way.
Unfortunately I didn’t do either.
The next thing I knew, I saw the lights flashing in the mirror. I cursed and pulled over to the side.
“Good move,” Manuel volunteered. “Very smart.”
“Be quiet,” I hissed as I rolled down my window and waited for the deputy to approach me.
“If the wheels don’t rock, you ain’t stopped,” he told me as I handed him my license and my registration. Terrific. A poet. Maybe he’d write me a haiku instead of a ticket. Or a sonnet. That wouldn’t be bad, either.
He looked older than the normal run of guys in that line of work. Most deputies I see are in their midtwenties to thirties. By their forties they’re usually sitting behind a desk or collecting their pension and doing something else. This guy looked to be about fifty. Or maybe he was younger and was just having a hard life. “You should slow down,” he added as he took in my tapping fingers on the steering wheel. “Speed kills.”
I forced a smile. “Yes, you’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful in the future, Officer.”
But I was so jazzed by the pursuit, I was practically bouncing up and down in my seat.
His eyes narrowed. “Anything wrong?” he asked. His eyes swept the inside of the cab and lingered on Manuel.
I made myself sit still. “Just anxious to get home.”
“You’re sure? What about him?” he asked, indicating Manuel.
“He’s coming home with me. He’s my nephew,” I added, hoping he wouldn’t make us get out of the cab.
He gave Manuel a long, speculative look, then somewhat reluctantly, he took my papers back to his squad car.
“Shithead,” Manuel spat out when the deputy was out of earshot. “He thinks I was carjacking you.”
“Probably.”
He pushed up his sleeve and pointed to his wrist. “He wouldn’t have said that if my skin was white like yours.”
“You’re right, he wouldn’t have,” I agreed.
“I’m gonna ...”
“All right, Manuel.” I rubbed my forehead. I was tired. I was irritable. I was stressed. I wasn’t in the mood to listen to one of Manuel’s rants about racial inequality tonight, even if it was true. “That’s enough.”
“Don’t you ‘all right’ me.” His voice warbled with indignation at my lack of empathy. “You wouldn’t be liking it if it happened to you.”
“You’re right. I wouldn’t. I apologize,” I said to keep the peace. The last thing I needed now was Manuel mouthing off to the officer. Then we’d never get out of here.
“Okay.” Manuel slumped down in his seat and began fiddling with the zipper of his jacket. “I still say that’s why he stopped us,” he repeated.
“And I told you I agreed.”
“I should report that prick.”
“Go ahead. Just do it tomorrow.”
“Maybe I will.”
“You should,” I said, even though I knew he wouldn’t. Doing something like that took the kind of effort Manuel wasn’t prepared to make. Instead, he’d mutter and complain until something else came up.
The computer must have b
een down, because it took the deputy fifteen minutes before he came back, though it felt longer than that. I kept checking my watch every two minutes or so. The hands moved at a glacial pace.
“Now what?” Manuel asked as I shoved the ticket in my backpack.
“Now we’re going to Parker Littlebaum’s house.”
“Why?”
“Because I think Adelina might be there.” Even though she hadn’t been heading in that direction, Littlebaum’s was her logical destination.
“And if she isn’t?” Manuel said. “What then?”
“We’ll check every other place I can think of.”
Manuel groaned. “I was going to a party tonight.”
“Not anymore.” I pulled out, hooked a left, and drove over to Littlebaum’s.
It took me more time to get there than it usually would. I had to drive slowly because the sheriff stayed on my ass for a good quarter of the way. Maybe Manuel was right about him suspecting Manuel of carjacking, or maybe he just figured I’d speed up again.
And he was correct. I did. I went into warp speed as soon as he was gone. We arrived at Littlebaum’s house ten minutes later. I parked on the road’s shoulder, ten feet away from the house, underneath a large oak, and turned the motor off. The house looked as if Littlebaum had turned in for the night. The lights were out on the first floor, although two rooms were lit up on the second story.
“Maybe Adelina’s up there,” I said to Manuel, indicating the windows on the left-hand side of the structure.
He threw me a disgusted look. “And maybe Littlebaum can’t sleep. Maybe he’s watching TV.” He gestured to the house. “I mean, I don’t see her car around here anywhere. I don’t see anyone through the window walkin’ around up there.”
I’d noticed that, too. “The Taurus could be in the garage. I’m going to check.”
“You don’t mind if I stay here, do you?”
“No.”
“Good. ‘Cause it’s freezing out there. And I ain’t fixin’ to get my clothes dirty tramping around outside.” He pulled out his cell phone.
“Who are you calling?”
“A friend. I got to do something while I’m waiting. Hey!” he yelled as I took the keys out of the ignition. “Leave those in there. It’s cold.”
Endangered Species Page 21
