“Let’s go outside.”
“Yeah,” he said, “get it over with.”
By Mission Street standards, the sidewalks were un-crowded today; so were the bus-stop and rest benches, which were usually the domain of drunks, homeless citizens, and little old ladies when they could squeeze out a seat. Paco and I found an empty bench and sat down.
I said, “How’s your father?”
“He’ll live, so they tell me. But he won’t use his right arm again.” Paco’s face betrayed no emotion of any kind. “You have anything to do with putting him in the hospital?”
“Would it matter if I did?”
“Not to me.”
“You don’t care that he’s badly hurt?”
“No.”
“No feelings for him at all?”
“Not in a long time, man. My mother’s hurt bad too”- Paco tapped his head-“up here. He don’t care about her, why should I care about him? Be better for everybody if he’d died out on that beach.”
“You feel that way about Coleman Lujack too?”
“What way?”
“Better for everybody that he’s dead.”
“He’s a pig. I don’t think about pigs.”
“You help butcher them, though, don’t you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Come on, Paco. Somebody killed him last night. Why not you?”
He looked startled; and the startlement seemed genuine. “The hell,” he said. “How’d he get killed?”
“You don’t know, huh? It was in this morning’s paper.”
“You think I read the damn paper these days?”
“If the cops haven’t been around to see you yet, they will. Any time now.”
“Jesus Christ, you and the cops think I did it, you all been smoking angel dust. Why would I kill thatmarrano?”
“Revenge. He’s the main reason your father’s in the hospital and in big trouble with the law.”
“Bullshit,” Paco said. “I wouldn’t kill nobody for my old man. I wouldn’t kill a mad dog that was biting his leg.”
“No? You own a handgun?”
“Not me, man. Guns aren’t my thing.”
“But you’d know where to get one if you wanted it.”
“Sure. Lots of guns on the streets. But I told you, I didn’t kill Coleman Lujack. You want proof? What time’d he get wasted?”
“Around six thirty.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Six thirty last night, I was at Mission Dolores with my mother. Six o’clock Mass-she was praying for my old man’s soul. Ask the padre, ask fifty other people, maybe that’ll satisfy you.”
“I’m already satisfied,” I said. And I was. I’d started being satisfied as soon as I found out Paco worked as a volunteer for La Raza.
He wasn’t the shooter either.
* * * *
Eberhardt was home when I stopped by his Noe Valley house at one thirty. In a snarly mood and none too happy to see me. He started an up-tempo harangue as soon as I walked in, and if Bobbie Jean hadn’t been there, we’d have got into a hell of a row; my mood wasn’t much better than his. But Bobbie Jean is the unflappable sort of Southerner and exerts a calming influence on Eb, and she got him settled to the point where he could speak to me without yelling and calling me “a stubborn goddamn wop” at the end of every third sentence. He didn’t stop glaring at me though. He would probably go on glaring at me for days.
Bobbie Jean made us some coffee, and while we drank it we managed to discuss things in a more or less rational manner. When I got done telling him why I had pretty much scratched Teresa Melendez and Paco Vega off my list, he said, “All right, smart guy. If neither of them shot Coleman, then who did? Thomas’s widow?”
“I doubt it.”
“Pendarves?”
“Maybe, if he’s still alive.”
“And if he isn’t?”
“I don’t know. Somebody who’s mixed up in the coyote business, maybe some friend of Vega’s.”
“But you don’t have any idea who it might be.”
“No.”
“So you’re going to drop it, right? Let the police and the feds do their jobs and haul your ass out of it, right?”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Maybe? Chrissake, maybe?”
“I want to talk to Antonio Rivas.”
“What the hell for? You thinkhe shot Coleman?”
“No.”
“Well? He doesn’t know anything about Pendarves. I already told you that.”
“I still want to have a talk with him.”
“You don’t trust my judgment, is that it? You stubborn goddamn wop …” And he was off again.
Bobbie Jean stepped in to do another calming job, but I’d had enough. It was about time for me to go meet Kerry anyway. I said as much, thanked Bobbie Jean, gave her a peck on the cheek, and then asked her glowering fiance if he minded coming to the door with me.
“What for?”
“Humor me, all right?”
He went along, grumbling. “So?” he said when he’d finished yanking the door open.
In lowered tones I asked, “Everything okay with you?”
“Huh?”
“You know, physically.”
“I’m fine. Why?”
“I worry about you, Eb. I know you spent the night with Bobbie Jean, and I know how clumsy you can be sometimes.”
“What the hell’re you talking about?”
“Well, I’m just wondering about your rotten disposition today,” I said. “You didn’t have one of those freak accidents last night, did you? Miss the target and ram your dingus into the mattress?”
For the second time that day I got a door slammed in my face. This time I didn’t mind a bit.
* * * *
Chapter 21
Kerry was waiting when I arrived at my flat, even though it was still fifteen minutes shy of three o’clock. A different Kerry than the last few times I’d seen her-not quite her old self, but with some of the old optimism and assurance. A good part of the strain had been eased. Whatever she’d done on Friday, it had had a profound effect on her.
She said after she kissed me, “My appointment didn’t take as long as I expected. I’ve been here half an hour.” She gave me a long appraising look. “You look tired, my love.”
“Not much sleep lately. I’ll be okay.”
“I wish I could help you sleep.” Gently she rubbed my cheek with her fingertips. “I’m better than calcium lactate.”
“You’re telling me? Right now, though, we need to talk. And before we talk, I need a beer.”
“I helped myself to the wine,” she said. “You mind?”
“Nope.”
“Good. I was afraid you might go all grumpy and mother-hennish on me. You do that sometimes, you know, when you’re under stress or in a bad mood.”
“I’m not in a bad mood today. Not anymore.”
She kissed me again. “Go get your beer.”
I went and got my beer. When I came back into the living room, she was sitting on the couch with her shoes off, her skirt hiked up on her thighs, and her bare feet tucked under her. She has terrific legs, long and slender, with very small and well-formed feet. Dirty old man that I am, I find her feet as erotic as the rest of her. Sometimes just thinking about them gives me urges. But not right now. Right now I was much more interested in what had brought about the change in her.
I said as I sat down, “You first. Tell me about Cybil. I can use some good news. It is good, isn’t it?”
“Well, positive. Very positive.”
“You went to see somebody?”
“Yes, and I wish I’d done it a lot sooner.”
“Geriatric doctor?”
“No. A support group,” she said.
“What kind of support group?”
“It’s called Children of Grieving Parents. One of B. and C.‘s clients told me about it. A couple of dozen people like me who have or had parents, usually elderly, that reacted to losing a spouse the way Cybil has. They’ve found ways to cope themselves, and ways to help the parents learn to cope.”
“What do they advise? In the long run, I mean.”
“Getting Cybil into a care facility.”
“But how, with her fear of being put in a home-*?”
“Not that kind of care facility. Not a nursing home.”