What passed for a waiting room did double duty as a reception area, with barely enough space for either function. Myron Ballister’s staff consisted of a girl around twenty stationed behind a warped desk. Her hair was a whirl of wheat-colored dreadlocks. Two visible tattoos: Tinker Bell cavorting on her left forearm, Choose Your Weapon on her right. Her armaments were a two-line phone, a closed laptop, and an iPod playing Pink’s “Don’t Let Me Get Me.”
Milo’s badge elicited, “Cops? What’s up?”
“We’d like to talk to Mr. Ballister.”
“He’s at lunch.”
“Where?”
“El Padron.”
“Where’s that?”
“Up the block.” She pointed to the left. “Uh no, that way.” Aiming right.
“You been working here long?”
“He’s my cousin,” she said. “I’m filling in.”
“For his regular secretary?”
She giggled. “For him. He used to do everything himself, then I came down to go to school and he’s like help me look like a lawyer, Amanda, I’ll even pay you.” She shrugged. Dreads swayed, a ballet of chorizo. “I’m like, sure.”
“What’re you studying?”
“Aesthetic technology.”
“Beauty school?”
She pouted. “It’s a lot more. We learn the science of how skin works.” She peered up at his ravaged complexion.
He said, “Hopeless, huh?”
“I mean … there’s always help. You should do moisturizer — no, maybe something actually to dry it up.”
“Thanks for the advice, Amanda. What does Myron look like?”
“He’s got pretty good skin.”
“How old is he?”
“Like thirty.”
“What’s he wearing today?”
“Um um um um … black shirt … gray tie … he’s a little fat but don’t say I said that.”
El Padron turned out to be El Patron. Mock adobe, mock Spanish tile, mock leaded glass, mock wrought iron. The logo above the door was a spavined, serape-draped burro eyeing a droopy cactus. The cactus had a disturbingly human face — lewd, squinty-eyed, unctuously malevolent.
Milo said, “Fat, cute, black shirt,” and pushed his way in.
The dining room was commodious and dim, filled with blue vinyl chairs and booths and tables molded from the same polyvinyl as the door. Fuzzy-focus bullfight poster prints hung too close together. Mariachi heavy on off-key trombones comprised the soundtrack.
For all that, nice aromas prevailed: frijoles, corn, tomatillo. The beefy sizzle of carne asada.
The host booth was unoccupied. The reservation book was blank. As our eyes accommodated to the darkness, a waitress in an off-the-shoulder peasant dress circled into view. “Señors? Vaya con dios!”
Sixtyish, blond, she had an open face owing more to Ghent than Guadalajara.
Milo smiled but looked past her. Only three parties in the big room, all in booths ringing the west wall. Middle-management types drinking Dos Equis and Margaritas, an elderly couple ignoring each other as they shoveled food, a younger couple ignoring their food as they held hands and nose-nuzzled. The young man was fair-haired, wore a black shirt and a gray tie, the woman dark-haired and petite, had on a sleeveless white dress.
Milo told the waitress, “Our friends are over there.”
“Okay muy bueno. I’ll fetch you some menus and while you’re looking you want a couple Margaritas we got frozen strawberry on special today it’s fresh blended with real fruit?”
He read her name tag. “That’s awfully tempting, Louella, but we won’t be sticking around long enough.”
“You want nothing?”
“Not for now.”
We proceeded toward Ballister and his girlfriend. Her back was to us. Ballister’s wasn’t but he was wrapped up in her, paid no notice as we got close. His light hair was straight, waxy, longish, edging into blond at the tips. Styled for surfer, whether or not he’d ever stepped onto a board.
He had broad shoulders, a long face, big hands. No evidence of obesity.
He and the dark-haired woman continued to link fingers. He was grinning.
Milo stepped up to their booth, announced, “Sorry to intrude, kids,” with utter lack of sincerity.
Myron Ballister’s pale eyes widened. Up this close he remained lean, the only aspect of his appearance remotely suggesting spare adipose the beginning of a double chin.
“Pardon?” he said. Boyish voice. Smooth brow untrammeled by worry.
Milo said, “Myron Ballister?”
“Uh-huh—”
The woman in the white dress swung around and stared at me. “You? What the hell?”
Ballister said, “Honey, you know these—?”
Medea Wright jerked her small, manicured, bejeweled hand out of his. The other one had already formed a fist.
I made the introductions, explained Wright’s role in the Sykes case. Milo said, “So this is what, a legal conference?”
More likely the aftermath of the convention in Palm Springs. Continuing education, indeed.
Wright grimaced. “I demand an explanation—”
Milo said, “You two were on opposite sides, now you’re an item? Which came first, work or romance?”
Medea Wright’s perfect makeup couldn’t hide the color in her cheeks. “That’s your business? Who the hell are you, anyway?”
Milo handed her his card.
“Homicide? What the hell’s going on?”
“You don’t know.”
She drew herself up to the max but genetics limited the drama of the gesture. “If I knew would I ask you?”
Myron Ballister said, “Honey, this is getting weird—”
She showed him her palm. “Don’t say a word. Who the hell knows what they’re up to.”
Milo said, “What I’m up to is solving a murder, Ms. Wright. No curiosity as to who the victim is?”
Wright said, “Either way, you’re going to tell me.”
Singular tense; Ballister had become irrelevant.
He said, “Oh, man. Someone got killed?”
Without looking at him, Wright said, “That’s what murder usually means.”
Ballister’s face remained blandly surprised. No offense taken. He probably figured he was out of his league in the first place.
Medea Wright pointed at Milo. “Okay, go.”
When her gaze faltered, he said, “Your client, Constance Sykes.”
She shrieked, “What!” Her voice was talons ripping satin. The drinkers at the end of the dining room put their glasses down and stared. The elderly couple paused in their gorging.
Louella hurried over. “Everything okay?”
Medea Wright waved her away. “We’re having a discussion.”
Louella said, “Well, obviously,” and left.
Wright said, “Tell me exactly what happened.”
Milo said, “A couple of nights ago someone killed Dr. Sykes.”
“That’s insane.” Wright plucked a corn chip out of a lava-rock bowl, nibbled nonstop like a rabbit on meth. Swallowing hard, she pulverized two more chips with power-grinder jaws.
Ballister watched her with awe. Then he turned to us. “You’re actually saying—”
Wright cut him off. “That is totally totally insane.”
Ballister said, “Totally,” and reached for her hand. She drew away. “Who did it?”
Milo said, “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
She glared at me. “So why’s he here?”
“Dr. Delaware works with us from time to time.”
“Does he? Doing what?”
“Psychological consultations.”
“I know all about his consultations. He’s a courtroom regular.” She smirked. “You’re trying to tell me he just happened to be on call for the police department when a case he had prior involvement with turned … bad?”