Border Field Blues
Page 23
As if summoned by Rolly’s thoughts, Eddie Sanchez appeared in the hallway.
“Who’s there?” he said, walking out into the living room. “Oh. It’s you.”
“What are you doing here?” Rolly asked.
“Is the police detective with you?”
“She’ll be here soon,” Rolly said, lying.
“I will tell her all that I know. All that has happened since you came to my church.”
“You can tell me.”
“I have done nothing improper.”
“Where’s Tangerine?”
“She is gone. Her soul has departed.”
“She’s dead?”
“I have performed the last rites.”
Rolly glanced over at Sayer and Rio. Neither of them responded to the information. Perhaps they both knew. Or they didn’t care.
“What happened to her?”
“She went to sleep. Like the other girls.”
“You know about them?”
“I do now,” Sanchez replied. He looked over at Sayer. “He has told me.”
“I played the game with him,” said Rolly.
“Then you know too.”
“It’s not a game, though. They’re really dead. Bonnie showed me the pictures.”
“Yes.”
“The doctor’s dead, too.”
“The man in your photographs?”
“Yes. And Jimmy. He’s dead. El Gordo.”
“That man was real too?”
“Yes.”
“I did not know them. Only Tangerine. And Jaime. And the boy.”
“He’s the one who gave you the records?”
“I did not recognize him. I had not seen him for fifteen years.”
The realization hit Rolly like a power chord to the brain.
“He’s Tangerine’s son, isn’t he, the one you and your wife adopted?”
Sanchez nodded.
“Yes.”
“Has he always been like this?”
“He has never been good with expressing himself. I think it is worse now.”
“It’s like he doesn’t have any emotions. Not in the real world.”
“His life has been very complicated. My wife took him to many doctors. They gave him medicines.”
“Did it help?”
“A little. The money is his now to do what he wants. He does not always take the medicines.”
“What money?”
“From the trust fund, the one the lawyers set up. From that record.”
“He’ll inherit it from Tangerine?”
“It has always been his money. He was a minor, so others could access it. His guardians.”
“Like you and your wife?”
“Yes, my wife continued to receive the money while he stayed in her care. Until the time of his eighteenth birthday. Then the money became his, to control, to do what he wished. That is when his mother revealed herself to him. She convinced him to leave and move out on his own.”
“He’d never met her before?”
“Yes. Many times. But not as his mother.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She pretended to be my wife’s sister.”
“Aunt Tangie.”
“Yes. My wife made a devil’s bargain. She gave Tangerine money. To keep her quiet. So that she would not reveal herself to the boy.”
“She paid her off?”
Sanchez nodded.
“I did not know about this until yesterday. After your visit, I spoke to my former wife. I called her soon after you left, when I realized who the boy was. She too had received some of the records. She did not know of their value.”
“Why is he passing out these records?”
“I believe it is some kind of penitence. He cannot express himself as most people do. It is part of the game.”
“You think he feels guilty?”
“In his way, yes.”
“Did he kill those girls?”
“You have played the game. What do you think?”
“I think he tried to save them.”
“Yes.”
“It seems like he’s working something out, a puzzle or something. That’s why he’s playing the game.”
“He does not know God’s way.”
“It’s like he’s trying to be God, to control things. That’s what it looks like to me.”
“Yes. It is something like that.”
“What about that black shroud thing? The Ancestor? Who is that supposed to be?”
“It is a man he never knew. It is his real father.”
“One of those guys in the band?”
“You have not understood.”
“Didn’t you tell us Tangerine got pregnant while she was hanging out with the band? That she’d slept with all of them, that’s why their lawyers set up the trust fund?”
“This is true. But the serpent had come to her before.”
“You mean that story about the man who came to her out by the pool?”
“Yes.”
“So you think it was true?”
“I know it was true.”
“Was it you?”
“No. I did not have carnal knowledge of her until later.”
“Jaime, then?”
“No. There was only one man it could be, Mr. Waters, don’t you see?”
“No. I guess not.”
“Truly?”
“Well, from everything I’ve heard, her father had her locked up pretty tight. I don’t see...”
Rolly stopped. He turned to look at Sayer Burdon. He saw it now. He understood. Some families were even more complicated than his.
El Cumpleaños
(The Birthday)
Rolly sat on a stool in the backyard of his father’s house, strumming his guitar under the shade of the awning while the caterers laid out food for the birthday party. One of the caterers walked over to him.
“Hey, amigo,” said Hector, “I like that multicolor look you got going.”
“Nice, huh?” said Rolly. “Looks like you got some left over too.”
“Yeah. Vera says it looks like I got a rash.”
“She knows it’s paint, right?”
“Oh, yeah, she knows about that. She won’t let me out of the kitchen, though. Thinks I’ll freak out the customers.”
“At least yours is a semi-natural color.”
“Yeah, that blue splat you got does look kind of peculiar. Roberto says it’ll be gone completely in another week.”
“It’s faded some already.”
“That was some crazy shit that went down.”
“Yeah.”
“I told Vera I’m gonna take it easy for awhile. I gotta rethink my priorities. I never seen guys killed like that.”
“Me neither.”
“Did they ever find that girl?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You never heard from her?”
“Did you?”
“Nah. She was a tough little girl though, una niña dura. I hope she’s okay.”
“She’ll be all right.”
“Yeah. I wish we could’ve nailed those AFA guys, though.”
“You’re not going to sue them?”
“Can’t without her.”
“How about for yourself?”
“You mean ‘cause of this?” Hector said, pointing at the paint stain on his face.
Rolly nodded.
“Roberto says it’d be hard, ‘cause of the general confusion. Too much conflicting testimony. Don’t forget my homies were in there swinging, too. Roberto heard there might be criminal charges.”
“Against you?”
“Against the AFA guys. He said we should wait on that before we moved ahead with anything.”
“I think it’s just one of them.”
“Oh, well you probably know more than I do.”
“I’ll tell you about it some time.”
“Why don’t you come down to the restaurant tomorrow? Lunch is on me. Vera�
�ll want to hear about it too.”
“Thanks,” said Rolly.
“That lady, Alicia, she’s your mom?”
“Stepmom.”
“Oh, I was gonna say, I didn’t think you had any Mexican in you.”
“My mom’s Dutch and Norwegian.”
“You got the cold blood.”
“Yeah, I guess. My dad’s Irish.”
“I didn’t meet him yet.”
“He’s out with his buddies. It’s a surprise.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right. I better get back to business. Good to see you, amigo. Drop by sometime.”
“I will.”
Hector walked back to the tables. Rolly checked the tuning on his guitar one last time, and placed it in the stand next to his seat. Some early guests had arrived. He waved at one of his father’s old navy buddies whose name he couldn’t remember, then escaped through the backyard gate and walked out to the concrete path that wandered along the bay. He pulled out his phone, checked the time. Fifteen minutes until party time, ten minutes to chill.
It was a clear day. A massive cargo ship cut through the water, on its way to National City to deliver a load of Korean automobiles. It passed under the soaring blue bridge that connected Coronado to the city, second only to the Golden Gate as the most popular suicide bridge in the country. Bonnie had told him that. Police departments kept track of those things. Between the concrete towers of the bridge, far in the distance, he could see the blurry outline of the Tijuana hills. Below the hills, at the bottom of Smuggler’s Canyon, stood a house with a pool in the back and spiked iron fence around it. The house was empty now, cleared out by the police.
They found the doctor’s operating room in the basement, originally designed as a storage shelter for waiting out the apocalypse. Very little was known to the police on either side of the border about Dr. Zildjian Ramoñes. He’d done a stretch at the Tijuana prison once, in his youth. When presented with his photograph by a reporter from ZETA, the front staff at the Chinese Embassy in Tijuana at first claimed to recognize him. Upon further consultation with higher-ups, the same front staff decided they were mistaken, and the reporter’s trail ran into a wall of diplomatic immunity, although the paper did note the unexpected departure of two members of the embassy staff on a connecting flight from San Francisco to Beijing shortly after the inquiry.
No one knew what to do about Sayer Burdon. The police had little evidence against him, except for the video game. But the game didn’t prove anything. Neither did the half-empty boxes of old shrink-wrapped records found in the house. There’d been no witnesses to the deaths of the four young girls with the Virgo mark whose bodies had been found across a wide swath of the river valley the last six months. The most likely perpetrators were dead, leaving behind an idiot savant who could only communicate in monotone riddles. Two psychiatrists were called in, but they couldn’t state for sure how Burdon had been involved, if he’d killed the girls, or just disposed of them, or simply absorbed the events around him, transmuting the ugliness into his video game. For now, Burdon had been released to the custody of Father Sanchez, who offered his services to the court on behalf of the young man.
As to the Friday night when someone had driven through the least tern preserve, Nuge, under duress, had provided details on his contribution to the misadventure, how he had come upon Jimmy and the hearse at Border Field Park. In Nuge’s version of the story, the hearse had already been abandoned inside the least tern preserve and his only crime had been towing it out, which he’d done to help Jimmy, not wanting a fellow AFA member to provide the court system with any further reason to restrict their activities. He denied using his radio to mislead the Border Patrol. No one believed him, but no one could prove otherwise.
There was only one person still alive who knew what had happened that night, but the police couldn’t find her. Some thought the girl had crossed back into Mexico, slipping through the border gate with the other pedestrians to escape the police.
Something no one had noticed, on the night after the riot, was the light that went on inside Norwood’s Mostly Music, long after business hours. Soon after the light went on, a battered green pickup truck pulled in and parked nearby. Two figures climbed out of the truck and walked into the music shop, carrying something. They exited soon after, climbed into the truck and drove to the bus station. The driver pulled into the loading zone and the passenger got out of the truck. She was a pretty young woman, with long black hair, wearing a daisy-embroidered blouse. The woman walked into the bus station and purchased a ticket to Los Angeles. The man in the truck drove to the Rite Aid store in Hillcrest, left the truck in the parking lot and walked home, carrying a nylon-stringed Cordoba guitar. Two days later, if anyone noticed, a listing went up on eBay, advertising five copies of the original banned edition of Jungle Love by Serpent that were now available from a collectibles dealer in San Diego.
The cargo ship passed under the bridge. Rolly checked his phone again. It was time to go back to the party. He walked back to his father’s house, let himself in through the back gate. More guests had arrived. With some horror, he realized his mother had decided to join the festivities. And she’d brought Max. He wondered if Alicia had any idea what she might have got herself into. He hoped his father wasn’t too drunk when he arrived.
“He’s here!” someone whispered.
Rolly took a seat and picked up his guitar. He looked for Alicia, who was supposed to give him his cue. His father appeared around the back corner of the house. Alicia nodded at Rolly. He strummed the first chord, sang the first line of the birthday song. The crowd joined in.
His father looked less drunk than usual. The usual disasters might be avoided. He hoped his mother would leave early.
After the song ended, the guests crowded in around his father, offering their personal condolences, approbations and jokes. Rolly stuck to his post. It was a paying gig, after all, and he was a professional. He’d have plenty of time to face up to his paterfamilias.
Max broke away from the crowd and walked up to Rolly.
“That’s where the guy shot you, huh?” he said, pointing at Rolly’s blue splotches.
“That’s it,” Rolly said. He’d talked to Max on the telephone, but this was the first time he’d seen him since the previous Sunday. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
“Your mom didn’t tell you?” said Max.
Rolly shook his head.
“Sorry,” said Max.
“I didn’t know she was coming at all.”
“I guess it was kind of last minute thing.”
“I expect it was.”
“You doing okay?” said Max.
Rolly looked down at the nylon-stringed Cordoba resting on his thigh, then looked back at Max.
“I got my guitar back,” he said.
###
Acknowledgements
A bouquet of thanks to my wife, Maria, for her willingness to read and critique poorly formed chapters until they got better and became a book, and for being a damn fine partner in life.
Cover photographs by Bruce Fayman
Cover photographs by Robert Drake
About the Author
Corey Lynn Fayman spent many years as a musician, songwriter, and sound designer, but still refuses to apologize for it. He lives with his wife in San Diego, where he teaches web programming, typography and user experience design.
Email: clf@coreylynnfayman.com
Website: www.coreylynnfayman.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/coreylynnfayman
Twitter: @CLFayman
An extended, interactive version of Border Field Blues is available for iPad. Check the iTunes store for availability.
If you enjoyed this book, you may also want to read the first Rolly Waters mystery, Black’s Beach Shuffle.
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