T-shirt, boxer shorts, coat, cigarette, no shoes. Furious. A button winds down the driver’s-side window. “Francisco, you’ll catch your death, go back inside,” I say like a big sister.
He walks to the Range Rover. “I’m not cold. Where are you going?”
“That’s my business.”
He shakes his head. “No. It isn’t. It’s our business. We’re in this together.”
“Nicaraguan idiot. You’re out of your depth.”
“I think it’s you that’s out of your depth,” he says.
He reaches into the car and tries to grab the keys.
“Fuck off!” I tell him and push his hand away.
“Get out of the car!” he hisses.
“Who do you think you are?”
“I’m someone who doesn’t want to see you get killed. Get out of the car.”
“Why the hell should I?”
Paco thinks for a moment. “For one thing, you don’t know that Esteban’s changed his plans. He’s going to be back tomorrow morning by seven and he seems the type that’ll notice if his fucking car is missing. He’ll call the cops. How long were you planning on taking it?”
Two-hour drive to the lake. One-hour interrogation. Two hours back. Not enough time. On my return the police would be looking for a stolen car.
“Mierde,” I mutter.
Paco nods. “Let me get dressed. I’ll drive you to the house.”
“What good will that do?”
“You can steal Youkilis’s car,” Paco says with a wolfish grin.
He’s figured out everything.
I underestimated him. What else have I got wrong?
“Won’t someone report that his car has been stolen?” I ask.
“Who? Youkilis will be in the trunk, going wherever it is you’re taking him, and you can leave a note on the kitchen table that says, ‘Gone for drive, back at noon’ or something… Right?”
“Right.”
“Good, now wait there,” he says and runs upstairs to pull on his jeans and a sweater.
I shift to the passenger side.
Make a decision.
Whatever else he says, he’s not coming with me.
“You’re not coming with me,” I tell him when he returns.
“Why not?”
“This is personal. This is nothing to do with you. And… and I want to do it by myself.”
He doesn’t answer. “Did you hear what I said?” I ask him.
He turns to look at me. He nods, slowly. “I heard and I know why you said it,” he replies hesitantly.
“But what?” I ask.
“But I’m just not sure you can handle it. Kidnapping a man from his house, interrogating him. It’s not you.”
“I’m a cop. I’m in the Cuban PNR. A detective. I’ve done my fair share of shaking people down, bracing defendants. All the heavy play, all the games. I know what I’m doing.”
“A cop? You?”
“Me.”
He coughs to hide his skepticism. “Well, ok, but when I was a kid in Nicaragua-”
“Jesus, if I never hear that line again…”
“This is pertinent.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“Your loss. I am a fucking font of knowledge,” he says with a laugh.
“Come on, I don’t have time for this.”
Paco fakes a hurt look, nods, reverses the Range Rover out of the spot, and heads it up the mountain.
“How did you figure it was Youkilis?” he asks.
“I could ask you the same question.”
“The way you looked at him. It was the way you looked at those men in New Mexico.”
“I had him from the get-go. My brother, Ricky, ran the garages and found that only two cars had been brought in that weekend. An old lady called Mrs. Cooper whose story checks out and Jack Tyrone’s Bentley.”
“Tyrone.”
“Yeah, except that Jack was in L.A.”
“So you think Youkilis was driving Tyrone’s car?”
“That’s what I’m going to find out.”
Paco looks at me doubtfully, knitting the eyebrows of his kid’s face. “You’ve covered all the angles?”
“All the ones I need to cover.”
“Why was your father hiding under a Mexican passport?”
“I don’t know. He was paranoid. I guess he thought the DGI was going to kill him, which is just crazy-a million Cubans have defected and the DGI is going to go after him?”
But then those doubts again. The gun. Karen’s escape plan.
I hesitate and continue almost to myself, “Shit, Paco, maybe he wasn’t so paranoid, maybe they did come after him.”
“What do you mean by that?”
We stop at a traffic light. Paco repeats his question. The light goes green, snapping me out of it.
“Oh, I was just rambling, I don’t mean anything. The important thing is I’ve got what I need to go on.”
Paco nods again. “Well,” he says finally, “if you’re happy with what you’ve got then I’m happy.”
“It doesn’t matter two fucks whether you’re happy or not, Francisco,” I say with irritation. Stupid kid. I should never have told him anything, should never have brought him in.
We hit Pearl Street.
Everything’s closed, but the big plate-glass windows are still illuminated. I read off the names for the last time. Versace. Donna Karan. Armani. Ralph Lauren. Hermès. Harry Winston. De Beers. Starbucks. Peet’s Coffee and Tea. Another Starbucks. The mystery bookstore. The hand-woven yoga mat shop. The Tibetan shop. The organic food store. Power Yoga. Mystic Yoga. Dance Yoga. Namaste Yoga. The BMW dealership, the Mercedes dealership.
Not a cop anywhere. None necessary. No crime. Briggs runs a tight ship.
We drive through the last stoplight and finally get on the road to Malibu Mountain.
Paco slows at Jack Tyrone’s house and stops outside the ranch-style house next door. The lights are off. Youkilis is asleep.
“You’re sure about this?” Paco asks, his voice descending half an octave, an attempt to sound more mature. A punk kid, yes, and yet there’s something about him that isn’t young. “You know about the alarm systems and guard dogs and that kind of thing?” he says in a flat voice that has no hint of condescension about it, but still, it’s annoying. He’s second-guessing me. Hinting again that this is a man’s job.
“I’ve been in the house three times. I’ve scouted the alarms. I know where they are. I’ve got the fucking code. I know what I’m doing,” I say firmly.
“You think you know,” he says in an undertone.
“Thank you for driving me, but I want you to go now, Paco. I’ve prepped as best as I can. If it fucks up it’s my fault and I don’t want you or anyone else involved.”
“I don’t mind,” he says.
“Yeah, but I do.”
I unclick the seatbelt and grab the backpack. I put my hand on his leg. “Paco, when I get out of the car, I want you to drive back to the motel and go to bed. I don’t want you driving up and down this road haunting me. I want you out of the picture. I need this, Paco, I need you to promise me that you’ll do that.”
He shakes his head in the dark. “If that’s what you want…”
“It is what I want. This belongs to me.”
He hesitates. “Will you at least tell me your plan?” he asks reasonably.
“No. I don’t want you following me.”
Paco sighs, rubs his chin. “You don’t want any help from me at all?”
“It’s not like that. You would be a terrific help. But this is about me. Me and Ricky and Mom. That’s why I’m here. To get some of the answers, to get some part of the truth.”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to go back to sleep.”
“Try.”
“Tell me when you’re going to be back.”
“I, I don’t know. I suppose I’ll be back before noon.”
“And if you’re not?”
“It means I’m in jail or dead.”
“Mother of God,” he mutters.
“If they do arrest me or kill me, they might come to the motel asking questions.”
“Don’t worry about me, María. Worry about yourself.”