“That we should have come here first.”
I drove down a little farther and pulled in behind a pickup truck. “Come on.” I turned off the engine and pocketed my keys. “Let’s go.”
Manuel sat there stony-faced, fiddling with the zipper on his jacket, while the car wheezed and clanked, the way it always did when I shut it off.
I shook my head. I couldn’t figure the kid out. “I don’t understand you, Manuel. The way you’ve been bitching, I thought you’d be glad to get this over.”
Manuel scratched at his left sidebum. “You’re not calling the cops on my cousin if he’s up there, are you?”
“I think I’m going to have to,” I allowed. After all, Eli was wanted for questioning in Nestor’s death.
Manuel bit his lip while he thought about what I’d said for a moment before speaking. “Because if you are, give me a sign first so I can leave.”
“Leave?” My voice sounded unnaturally loud in the silence.
“Before you call them.” He clasped his hands together, laid them on his knees, and gazed at them as if they were a crystal ball and he could see his future in it, and he didn’t like what he was looking at. “I don’t want to have to tell my mother I let Eli get arrested. She’ll never forgive me.”
“I’ll touch the top button of my shirt if I’m going to. Will that do?”
Manuel looked doubtful.
“Come up with something else if you want,” I offered.
He shrugged dispiritedly. “I guess that should work.” He got out of the car and followed me down the block. He could have been going to his own execution the way he was walking. “Don’t expect me to help you,” he warned when we got to the bottom of the steps that led to Eli’s flat. “Because I won’t.”
“Fair enough.”
Eli was surprised to see us.
Very surprised.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” I told him after Manuel and I had burst through his door.
We’d tiptoed up the side of the steps, using the trees as cover. Then I’d knocked on the door. A moment later, Eli had asked who was there. I’d told him I needed to speak with him. It was urgent When he unlatched the door, I came through with Manuel following me inside. As I pointed Adelina’s automatic at Eli, I began to see why people liked guns. They reduced complex problems to simple ones. I have the gun, therefore you will do as I say. Although, judging from Eli’s complexion, dead white, and the beads of sweat on his lip, I wasn’t sure this was the best approach. The last thing I wanted to do was scare him into a heart attack.
“What are you doing here?” I repeated.
“I just had to get a few things,” he stuttered.
I was just going to ask him what, when Adelina came out of the bedroom. “Nice to see you again,” I commented.
She walked over to Eli, put her hand on his shoulder and gave it a supportive squeeze.
“Solidarity. I like that,” I said.
Adelina looked as if she wanted to spit in my face.
Eli took Adelina’s hand. “I hope it didn’t take you too long to find your car keys,” he said to me in a mock-hearty voice.
I motioned for him and Adelina to go into the living room.
“About ten minutes.”
“Good.” He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and licked his lips. “I was worried.”
“That was considerate of you.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw something moving on the floor. I looked down. A Madagascar tortoise lumbered by my feet with a large piece of lettuce clasped firmly in his beak. Its shell and body looked as if they’d been painted by someone with a sense of humor.
“I’m glad to see they survived their travels,” I noted.
“They’re really doing well,” Eli assured me. He gave me a bleak little smile. He looked paler. He had dark circles under his eyes. His face looked thinner. The last week hadn’t been kind to him. “They have remarkable powers of survival, but I guess that’s why they’re still around. They and the lizards ...”
I interrupted. Given the way my day had been going, I wasn’t in the mood to discuss animal taxonomy. “Have you been staying here all the time everyone’s been looking for you?”
Eli shook his head.
Adelina took a step toward me. “He’s been in my house. In the attic.” She looked as stressed as Eli, even more so, her blond hair and lipstickless mouth pulling all the color out of her face.
“So that story Eli told about your disappearing from home, that was a lie, too?”
Adelina allowed as how it was.
“What did you tell your mother?”
“I told her some bad people were trying to find me. That was enough. I knew she’d protect me from anything that came along. She’s better than a pit bull.”
“I’d say so,” I agreed.
“She got you good, didn’t she?” Adelina said, a slight, vengeful smile hovering on her lips.
I corrected her. “Actually, she got my car.”
“Lucky for you.”
“No. Lucky for you. Otherwise your mother would be in jail on assault charges. Who’d take care of your sisters and brother then?”
Adelina glowered at me. “I would. I do now anyway.”
While I thought about Donna chasing me with a bat and how lucky I was she hadn’t connected, a second tortoise came out of the kitchen and went by us. This one had a piece of apple in its mouth. It was, like the first one, a little larger than the palm of my hand. Manuel stuck his foot out in front of it. The tortoise stopped, considered its options, and went around.
“Neat,” Manuel said to no one in particular. Then he squatted down and watched the tortoise crawl away.
“Where are the rest of them?” I asked.
“Nestor’s room,” Eli said reluctantly.
“Let’s go take a look.”
“Why?” Eli said.
“Because I want to.” And I motioned for everyone to move. After all, it wasn’t as if I was going to ever see one of these animals again, outside of a zoo.
Eli and Adelina walked down the hallway and past Eli’s room slowly, as if they’d learned a new gait from their charges, with Manuel bringing up the rear.
They stepped inside Nestor’s room and stopped. I followed. The room had acquired a slight fishy smell.
“There they are,” Eli said, pointing.
From where I was standing I counted six tortoises. Two were eating out of a bowl filled with chopped fruits and vegetables, one was sitting in the water bowl, while the remaining three were basking under a heat lamp. It was hard to believe that these tortoises were worth over sixty thousand dollars. Back in Madagascar people ate them. They were stewpot favorites. An expensive meal.
It isn’t as if you couldn’t get them legally. You can. Zoos and a few private breeders have set up programs. The problem is, because the species is so endangered, you have to be willing to go through all the red tape that getting a CITES-listed animal into the country entails. And most people aren’t willing to do that. They’d rather spend the money. It’s simpler. And faster.
Poor tortoises. On top of everything else, their habitat is being destroyed, so even if people did stop eating them and other people did stop collecting them, they probably wouldn’t be around in the wild too much longer. They were doomed, like the tiger and the rhino, their world whittled down to smaller and smaller scale, until there was no room left for them at all.
“What’s the matter?” Manuel asked.
I realized I must have sighed out loud. “Nothing,” I said, thinking that soon the only things there’ll be room for on earth are computers and wires and things that don’t make a mess. “Where are the other tortoises?” I asked Eli, making myself get back to the business at hand.
He coughed. “What do you mean?”
“I count eight. There are supposed to be ten.”
“You’re wrong,” he countered, while his eyes blinked like a semaphore, signaling his lie. “Chapman gave me eight.”
I
raised my gun slightly. “Bad answer.”
“I’m not lying,” Eli protested. “I swear.”
“Don’t be a walking cliche on top of everything else.”
“Why should I lie?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care.” I glanced at my watch. This was taking way longer than I wanted it to. “Who’d you sell them to?”
Eli looked at Adelina pleadingly. She gave him a contemptuous glance. “Tell her,” she ordered.
Eli pulled at his fingers. “Sulfin has one.”
“Where’s he keeping it?”
“At his apartment.”
“And the other?” I prodded.
“I sold it to Littlebaum,” Adelina said. “So what? Is that a crime?”
“Yes. As it happens, it is,” I replied as I inwardly cursed myself.
I should have gone into Littlebaum’s house when I had the chance. He’d offered and I’d said no. Why? Because I’d wanted to believe him, so I’d given him the benefit of the doubt. Which made me a fool. Now I’d just have to go back there again. And this time would be harder. I’d exhausted my meager bag of tricks and there was no reason to think he’d let me in when I came knocking on his door, especially since I was taking back someone he wanted and had paid good money for.
“My sister needs an operation,” Adelina told me. “That money is for her.”
“I see. And which sister is this?”
“My younger one. There’s something wrong with her kidneys.”
“Right.” I took a last look at the tortoises, then told everyone to go out into the living room.
“Don’t you believe me?” Adelina said as we passed Eli’s room.
I thought about her sister. She looked pretty good for a kid with kidney problems. “No. I don’t.”
Adelina stopped walking and turned to face me. “You callin’ me a liar?” she demanded.
“Let’s just say, I think you have a flexible attitude toward the truth.” I raised the gun slightly. “Now get moving.” Not that it really mattered. Whether her sister did need surgery or didn’t need surgery was going to be a social services problem. I was still going to have to get the tortoise back.
Adelina stopped again. “I wouldn’t lie about something like that.”
“I wonder why. You’ll lie about everything else.”
Adelina flushed. Her mouth tightened at the corners. She touched one of her earrings, then put her hand down and began to peel her nails.
“I ...” she began, but I signaled for her to be quiet.
“Where’s the money?”
“It’s gone.” She widened her eyes. “I gave it to my mother.”
“And she spent it, right?”
Adelina’s tongue flicked out and moistened her lips. “She had to pay the utility bill and the doctor’s bills, and she sent the rest to our grandma, because she needed to get her roof repaired.”
By now we were in front of Eli’s room. “So if I went in there”—I indicated Eli’s room—“I wouldn’t find anything?”
“No,” she replied as her eyes involuntarily strayed to the cosmetics bag lying on Eli’s bed.
Keeping my gun pointed at her, I backed into the room, walked toward the bed, and picked up the case with my free hand.
“Don’t,” Adelina cried. “That’s mine.” And she took a step toward me.
“Stay where you are,” I ordered.
She stopped. Her eyes were riveted on my fingers as I pulled the zipper open. I quickly glanced inside. The case was filled with hundred-dollar bills.
“You can’t.” Adelina reached for it. “My sister is going to die without that.”
I raised the gun. She dropped her hand to her side.
“If your sister needs surgery, I’ll give it back,” I assured her as I tucked the cosmetic case into my jacket pocket.
Adelina whirled on Eli. “Do something,” she urged, a cut-rate Lady Macbeth trying to egg her man on.
Eli studied a stain on the wall. He looked close to crying. “What do you want me to do?”
“How should I know?” Adelina spat back. “Something. Anything. ”
“All right, children.” I raised my voice. “That’s enough. We’re going to start a new topic of conversation. March.”
Adelina closed her mouth. Her face turned sullen.
“Better,” I said when we hit the living room. “Now, then,” I asked Eli. “Were you at Adelina’s house when I went through the place?” It was a little detail, but it had been nagging at me.
He shook his head. “Adelina let me in after everyone was asleep. I’d tiptoe up to the attic, then leave in the afternoon before everyone came home.”
I lowered the gun slightly. “It’s amazing no one woke up.”
Adelina didn’t say anything.
I watched the second tortoise circle around one of the chair legs and move into the hall. He was moving at a good clip—for a tortoise, that is.
Eli rubbed his hands against his pants legs. His palms were probably sweating. I knew mine would be. “I went to the library in the late afternoons,” Eli said, continuing his recitation as if I was a schoolteacher who asked him to repeat yesterday’s lesson. “When that closed, I’d go to the mall and walk around or catch a movie. I think I’ve seen everything that’s playing.” He readjusted his glasses. “It’s amazing the junk that Hollywood puts out.”
“Well, at least that’s something we can both agree on.” And I told Eli and Adelina to sit down.
They settled themselves on the sofa, while Manuel took up a position against the wall off to one side of them. I carried a chair in from the dining room table and sat on that. It was uncomfortable, but I didn’t care. The day was catching up with me. I was too tired to stand.
“Would you like to tell me what’s been going on?” I asked.
Adelina and Eli looked at each other and swallowed.
I raised the automatic slightly. “I really, and I do mean really, would like to know.”
“You’re not going to like this,” Eli promised.
I told him to tell me anyway.
Chapter 26
Eli looked the picture of misery slumped on the sofa. “I never meant to hurt anyone,” he intoned. If everybody had a theme song, that would be his.
I bit at one of the cuticles on my free hand. “So you keep saying. Over and over and over again.”
He sat for a minute as if pondering where to begin. Finally he spoke. “I told you about how Chapman found me.”
“Several versions. Eli, get to the point.”
“I am. It just takes me a little while. You heard about the frogs?”
I nodded.
He looked mournful. “If I’d wetted them down better, they would have been all right. Frogs need to have their skin moist at all times.”
I interrupted. “Eli, I know about frogs.”
“I’m sorry. I know you do. I just didn’t realize they could dry out that fast. I thought I had more time. They were so pretty, too. I should have wrapped them in moist towels or washcloths and put them in Ziploc bags, with little holes punched in them for air. Then they would have been fine.”
“Eli,” I said warningly. “Stop crapping around.”
My store of patience had long since vanished. On the other hand, I couldn’t make Eli talk. The truth was, much as I wanted to, I wasn’t going to beat the story out of him, and I think he knew that. He wanted to tell me what happened. That was clear. But it was also clear that he was going to take as long as he felt like to do it in.
“Don’t rush me. I don’t like to be rushed,” he told me. He pulled the edge of his T-shirt down.
“No kidding.” I sat back a little in my seat and watched Manuel. He couldn’t contain himself. He was rolling his eyes and tapping his fingers against his thighs. I brought my gaze back to Eli.
Adelina leaned over and gave Eli another pat on the shoulder. She was treating him like her baby sister. “You want me to do this?” she murmured to him.
&nb
sp; “No. I will.” After another minute, Eli took up where he’d left off. “So, Chapman told me if I made this one run for him, he’d leave me alone. He said he had everything fixed up. He said the customs guys were all taken care of. It was going to be a walk-through. A piece of cake. He was even going to give me a thousand dollars for my trouble.”
I nodded encouragingly, waiting for him to tell me something I didn’t know.
“It just seemed easier to say yes. And anyway, I didn’t want to have to call and tell my mother I needed money for a lawyer. She wouldn’t understand. She and my dad are missionaries. Baptists.” Pride and embarrassment warred in his voice.
I raised an eyebrow.
“That’s why I have all those carvings and dolls and stuff in my room. Every time my mother goes somewhere she sends me something.”
I remembered the Japanese geisha doll on the top shelf. “Is that how you got the idea to smuggle the frogs into Japan?”
He nodded. “I lived there for a while when I was a kid. The Japanese like anything expensive and strange. At least, that’s what my mother used to say.”
“I’m sure she’d be delighted to know what her comment sparked,” I observed.
Dots of color appeared on Eli’s cheeks. “That wasn’t necessary,” he whispered, ducking his head and looking down at the floor.
One of the tortoises came crawling by. Eli picked it up and put it in the palm of his hand. The tortoise made a swimming motion with its hind legs. Eli hurriedly put it down and rubbed where the tortoise had scratched him.
“They have sharp nails,” I observed as it crawled away. “But then, you already know that, don’t you?”
Eli didn’t say anything.
“Did you set up the buy?” I asked.
“No. Chapman did that,” Eli mumbled. “I should never have brought them back to the apartment. If I hadn’t done that, everything would have been all right.” He said this earnestly, as if saying it would make it true. “Myra was here when I took them out of the suitcase. She’d come over to tell me how pissed she was about all the money she’d wasted on the frogs.” He took a deep breath. “I thought she believed me when I told her the tortoises were from the Southwest. I did,” he repeated as if I doubted his word. “I didn’t think she knew enough to know what they were.”
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