“What has she liked most so far?”
“Shopping in Boston.”
“What about you, Kath? How are you?”
“I’ve been better. Maria is in looking at the library, then we’re going to get lunch in town.”
“And then north to Colby?”
He’d memorized their circuit, or thought he had.
“South.” There was too long a pause before Katherine said, “We’re headed to Vassar.”
“I don’t remember Vassar on the list.”
“It wasn’t, but now that she’s told me what she told you a month ago we’re abbreviating the trip.” This was the quiet moment where he knew he was supposed to explain, but his heart wasn’t in it. “You don’t have to explain,” Katherine said. “I know she asked you not to say anything, so I understand.”
“But your feelings are hurt.”
“Wouldn’t yours be?”
He looked at the dark almost black line of Mount Diablo and the high concrete curve of the Antioch Bridge, the three-bladed white windmills with the dark blue sky beyond them. His feelings probably would be hurt, but it was still Maria’s to explain, not his. He’d respected her wish not to say anything, and Maria had procrastinated. You kept your word to Maria, he thought. Let her take her own heat; she’s old enough.
“Oh, she’s told me some things,” Katherine said. “Like she’s not going to college next year and we’re wasting our time on this trip. She wants to live with her two friends in the city, keep working at Presto, and go clubbing every night. How much trigonometry do you think she’ll remember after a year of clubbing, excuse me, after taking a year off to recover from the rigors of high school? I raised a kid who is so selfish she thinks she’s doing me a favor to come back here. I would have given anything to have what I can give her. Why did she wait to tell me?”
“I don’t think she knows her own mind yet, Kath.”
“Well, she’s not going to spend next year screwing around in San Francisco. What’s life going to do to her if she can’t handle high school and needs a break to recover? I need you to help me bring her around, and I don’t understand why you’re defending this idea of hers.”
“I’m not defending anything, but Maria is seventeen going on eighteen, and the days when we can tell her what to do are almost over.”
“So is she going to start paying her way?”
“You can’t make her want to go to college.”
“No, I really can’t, and now I’m wondering if she even sent all her applications. I didn’t read her essays. Did you?”
“If she said she sent them in, she did.”
“Here she comes. I’ll call you later.”
She hung up, and he drove, thinking about how he might help close the rift between Kath and Maria. He had interrupted several of the fights and tried to mediate and had heard about the worst ones when he wasn’t there. Maria was as stubborn as her mother, and each time she got punished she came back harder, and yet she continued working for Katherine at Presto on Union, rather than try to find a different job.
When he hung up with Katherine he returned a call from Ruax, and she was cheerful this morning.
“I’ve got a fish for you,” she said. “You’re becoming quite the dealer.”
“Any roe?”
“I can’t promise roe.”
“It’s got to be fresh or I won’t take it.”
She chuckled, and they picked a spot to transfer the sturgeon to his truck later that morning. He called Richie Crey.
“Do you want it? It’s just out of the water.”
“Okay, guy, let’s give it a go. Let me tell you where to take it. Guys that work for me will be at the house when you get there. It’s not far from my shop. You take it there. They’ll know what to do.”
Marquez picked up the fish from Ruax and drove over the bridge to Rio Vista. He planned to cut through these two front men and sell directly to Crey. In their remaining three weeks they were going after Crey, Ludovna, and August, and they’d need to deal face-to-face with Crey to generate enough evidence to build a case the DA would accept. Now he circled the block once. He parked and knocked twice before a man opened the door.
“I’m looking for Lou Perry.”
“That’s me. Are you the guy with the fish eggs?”
Marquez nodded and saw a second man on the sofa watching TV. Stale air flowed from inside, bad breath, dust, the sweet smell of dope.
“What’s your name, Mr. Fish Eggs?”
“John. What’s yours, sport?”
“Lou.”
Marquez smiled as though the name Lou was funny sounding. He wanted to make it clear early on that they weren’t going to be friends.
“Okay, where are the eggs?”
“They’re in my truck with the fish. They come as a package.”
The guy didn’t get it, took it as a straight line, said, “Back into the garage.”
A beat-up gold-colored Le Mans sat out in front of the house. It was rusted down along the base of the doors, and the ass end was humped from a rear-ender and sloppily sprayed with primer. It looked more like it had been tagged than painted. Someone had also done a hand job painting black stripes on the hood, and Marquez figured it could be either of the two men inside.
After the garage door went up, the second man drifted in, and Marquez got his name. Liam Torp. He offered his hand for Marquez to shake. Everybody was a businessman this morning. This was the business of trying to get a sturgeon deal done without missing too much of the show on TV that Torp had been watching.
“Is it worth the hassle, man?” Perry asked, face serious, doing his own risk/reward analysis.
“Is what worth the hassle?”
“Dealing sturgeon and fish eggs.”
“Sometimes it’s worth it.”
“Yeah? What kind of money can you make? Maybe I’ll get into it.”
“It’s messy. You deal with a lot of fish guts, and you’ve got to watch out for the Gamers all the time.”
“Richie says there aren’t that many of them.”
“Well, he ought to know. He’s your boss, right?”
Marquez had the cooler top taped down with duct tape. He peeled that off and showed them the eggs. Explained how to make caviar and answered more questions. It was like conducting a seminar. He looked at Perry, deciding that insulting him might be the easiest way to get rid of him.
“We’ll trade you some weed for your eggs,” Perry said.
“No, you won’t.”
“You don’t have to smoke it, man. You sell the weed, you’ll make more than you’d make the other way. Want to take a look at it? You’re welcome to a hit.” He turned to Torp. “Where’s that stub you had earlier?”
“Look, I just want to get paid and take off.”
“At least take a look.”
“What’s up with you guys? Does Crey know you’re offering this trade?”
Perry had a red birthmark along the back of his neck. His wiry friend, Torp, needed a change of clothes and had a way about him that bothered Marquez. In fact, they both annoyed him. Now, after standing around watching and saying nothing, Torp suddenly felt like he had to lower the garage door. Shauf and Roberts had been videotaping, and the lowering ended that.
“What are you doing, I’ve got to get my truck out. Open the door again.”
“Chill, man,” Perry said. “We just want to show you the weed. Wait here a minute.” He came back with a bag of weed. “Put your nose to it. If you don’t like what you smell we’ll shut up.”
“Then I don’t like it.”
“Smell it.”
“I’m not interested.”
“You’ll make more money selling the weed.”
“You’re the dope dealers; I sell fish.” Marquez figured that either they were comfortable enough with Crey to screw around with his deal or Crey said check him out, push him a little, see what happens. “How about you call Crey and tell him we’re done and I’m ready to get paid?”
Perry got a hold of Crey on his cell, cradling the cell with his chin, a couple of days’ growth of whiskers holding the phone in place. He described the eggs, tasted them when Crey told him to. When he hung up he said, “He’ll pay you when he sees you.”