It was light out by the time Teddy got home. He waved to the unmarked light-tan Fairmont pulling away. Assholes. His mom was still up, waiting to tell him about the hippy and the huge colored man who’d been here while he was gone. Sure, Mom. What’d they take, the refrigerator or just the TV? She said they didn’t take nothing; this was a very nice colored man, a great big one, his head almost touched the ceiling. Teddy said that’s how they grew them these days; the big ones played basketball and the skinny ones became millionaires selling you paper towels in the men’s rooms. Teddy’s mom kept going on about the colored man, how he was polite and clean. Sure, Mom. Her old arteries controlling her mind. Weird. A lack of blood in her head bringing colored guys into the house to steal things.
“They must a taken something.”
“Well, they didn’t. Police don’t rob you. Don’t you know nothing?”
“You’re saying they’re cops?” This was a new one. “They show you their I.D.?”
“They said you’d be home soon, the others just wanted to talk to you.”
“Get my opinion on world affairs. They look around the house?”
His mom said she kept an eye on the colored man because you never know. But they were both polite. Even the hippy one with the beard, “He asked could he use the bathroom and said please.”
Teddy said, “Je-sus Christ,” and ran into his bedroom.
His gun was still in the camera case. Whew, that was a relief. He’d better either hide it good or get rid of it. Then thought, why? He’d shot at the cop with it, but so what? He’d only actually killed one person with it and they couldn’t do nothing about that here. Except cops were sneaky and he could get two years just for having the thing in his possession. Teddy looked in his drawers; his clothes seemed in order. He went over to the desk. If the one with the beard was the cop Vincent, who was the big jig his mom thought was so polite? Man, they were sneaky.
He had marked the print envelopes and put them in numerical order in the drawer to trap his mom, be able to tell if she looked through his things.
Well, they weren’t in order now. He began to feel a little tense looking through the Escambron beach shots. They seemed all here. Then counted the ones of the cop and Iris. He believed there were twenty of them… But there weren’t. He counted them twice and got nineteen each time. Well, nineteen or twenty, he’d better get rid of them-anything that linked him to Iris-just to be on the safe side. Teddy went through the rest of the envelopes looking at his postcard shots of sunny Puerto Rico… There was the liquor store in the Carmen Apartments. That couldn’t screw him up, could it? Naw. What else. More postcard stuff… Wait a minute. He went through every print in one of the envelopes, expecting the shot he was looking for to come up next. Two, there were two he was looking for. He went through all the envelopes, just to make sure. But the two prints were missing. Both of them. Jesus Christ. Unless he had thrown them away himself. Now he couldn’t remember; it seemed so long ago he was down there.
But those pictures wouldn’t mean anything to the cop. How could they?
At 8 A.M. Vincent called the Bureau of Criminal Affairs in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico, asked for Lorendo Paz and waited, hearing voices in Spanish.
Linda was in bed. DeLeon had left with LaDonna rubbing her eyes, to take her home, get in a few hours sleep and come back. Vincent waited with a silver coffee pot and two photographs on the desk next to him, sunlight in the window, the remains of drinks the morning after on the glass table. He stubbed out the cigarette he had lit as he placed the call. He’d quit again, soon. He needed to sit in the sun and read. He would like to sit in the sun with Linda and read, but that was a hard one to picture, Linda on Condado Beach doing nothing…
Lorendo said, “Vincent!” and began asking questions about Iris. Vincent told him to wait, he wasn’t asking the right ones.
“You had an investigation going,” Vincent said, “the body you found in the rain forest, El Yunque…”
“Yes, the taxi driver, Isidro Manosduros. The man left a family.”
“How’re you doing?”
“We identified him, that’s all. Four days we believe he drove the same man around, an American. But we don’t know his name, who he is. Isidro was an independent, he didn’t keep a record.”
“You know what he looks like, the American?”
“Only what Isidro’s wife told us. A rich one, of course. They’re all rich to some people. Not young, but not an old man. Staying in a hotel, but she doesn’t remember which one. Isidro told her this guy was a prize, very generous, bought presents for his mother. But he was strange, too. She said she told Isidro to be careful of him.”
“She did? Why?”
“Who knows? She’s from Loíza. One thing, yes, Isidro told her the American has a tattoo on his arm, up by the shoulder.”
“Does it say Mr. Magic?”
There was a silence before Lorendo said with awe, “Oh, Vincent, I don’t believe it. How do you know this? Please, tell me.”
“Wait. What’s Isidro look like? Is he dark?”
“Very dark, black. Thin, medium size, heavy bones. Not very good teeth. A little gray in his hair. Vincent-”
“I’ve got a picture of him,” Vincent said, “taken up in the rain forest, I think right above where you found him. He’s standing at the edge of a cliff, where you look out at the view.”
“On El Yunque, you’re sure.”
“Positive.”
“You visit there, you know the place.”
“No, I didn’t make it. I told you, I don’t know if you remember, I wanted to see Roosevelt Roads, where my dad was stationed during the war…”
“Yes, I remember.”
“And I wanted to see El Yunque. My dad had his picture taken there, a long time ago.”
“Vincent-”
“Wait. I don’t have the picture with me but I can see it, almost every detail. I used to study it when I was little. This was my dad and I’d never really met him. Salty young guy in a sailor suit, up on the mountain. You see the ground, some trees but there’s hardly anything behind him but clouds. Mountains way off.”
“Yes, rain clouds. It rains every day there.”
“The picture I have of a Puerto Rican with very dark skin, smiling but not really smiling, was taken in exactly the same place.”
“Send it to me, quick as you can.”
“It’s Isidro,” Vincent said. “There’s not a doubt in my mind.”
“Okay, now the guy that took the picture-”
“Teddy Magyk. He lives about five miles from here.”
“Ahhh, Magic. It’s his name.”
“You don’t remember him.”
“No. I should?”
“We had him,” Vincent said. “The ex-con I wanted to scare and you said take him out on the Loíza ferry.”
“Yes, yes, Teddy. I remember, sure.”
“I might not’ve mentioned his last name. At the time it didn’t mean anything.”
“Okay, listen,” Lorendo said. “I have to do something about him quickly… Wait. How did you get the picture of Isidro?”
“I stole it.”
“Oh, I believe that, Vincent. Listen, I want to hear it, but don’t tell me now. I have to get the machinery moving. First, I have to request Atlantic City to pick him up as a fleeing felon. What do you think? Do it that way, uh? Before he leaves and we can’t find him. Then I get the extradition performed and I come and get him.”
“That could take you a couple of weeks,” Vincent said, “if you’re lucky. Get the court down there and the one up here to agree. Meanwhile he’s got a lawyer dragging his feet. It’ll take you months. Even then you won’t be sure of getting him.”
“I don’t know-but send me the picture, all right?”
“I’ve got an idea might be better,” Vincent said. “Why don’t I fly down with the picture?”
“Yes, wonderful.”
“And bring Teddy along with it.”