"I don't know. He said he had this person was going to be in town a little while, he needed an apartment. That's all I know.”
"You always rent that apartment to strangers?”
"It's not a stranger if a friend comes to me.”
"You keep that apartment occupied most of the time?”
"There's always people need an apartment, one reason or another. It's a business investment," Andros said, and shrugged.
"A good one, I'll bet.”
"I can't complain. There's no law against renting an apartment to somebody.”
"Does your lease allow you to sublet?”
"It does.”
"You're sure about that?”
"You want to see it?”
"We'll take your word for it.”
"Anyway, even if it doesn't, that's civil, not criminal.”
Much smarter than they thought.
"So what's your friend's name?" Carella asked casually.
"Why do we keep coming back to that?”
"We'd like to meet him. In case we need an apartment one day.”
Andros pulled a face.
"So what do you say?" Carella asked.
"I say there's no way you can force me to tell you anything I don't want to tell you.”
"That's true," Meyer said. "How old is the little girl in there?”
"Old enough.”
"You auditioning her, or what?”
"'Cause you'd be looking at a Class-C if she's under sixteen.”
"She's twenty-one.”
"Has she got a birth certificate with her?”
"A Class-C can gross you fifteen.”
"At your favorite hotel.”
"So let's talk to her, huh?”
"No, we don't have to talk to her," Andros said.
"Find out how old she is.”
"See how far we can go with this," Meyer said.
"So what's your friend's name?" Carella asked again, not so casually this time.
"Elena. And she's twenty-one, I told you.”
"Not that friend. The one who contacted you about Denker.”
"I forget his name.”
“Okay, let's talk to the girl," Carella said, and shouted, "Elena! Put on your clothes and come out here!”
"She's twenty-one," Andros insisted.
"She looks fifteen," Meyer said.
From the look on Andros's face, he'd hit it right on the head. "Let's go, Elena!" Carella yelled.
"Ramón?" she said from behind the door.
"Quieres que salga?”
"Espera un momento," Andros said.
"You bueno?" Carella asked.
"Su nombre es Gofredo Cabrera," Andros said.
His name is Gofredo Cabrera.
"Muchas gracias," Meyer said.
The social club was called Las Palmas, a name designed to evoke fond memories of palm trees and azure seas and whispering sands.
But this section of the city was called L'Infierno by its residents, and it was a brick-and-concrete hell far from any sands, whispering or not, festering with poverty and drugs.
In what had once been the apartment's bedroom, there was a small bar against one wall, with shelves behind it on which were some bottles of scotch and vodka, but mostly bottles of rum. And there was a microwave oven and a coffee maker on a small table, and there were several tables with chairs around them. Three men were sitting at one of the tables, playing cards and drinking wine.
This was now about three in the afternoon, there were no women in the club at this hour. The women would drop in sometime after dinner, to talk in Spanish with other neighborhood women, or to dance in the apartment's largest room, the living room, where there was now a record player and hardly any furniture. A blue curtain hanging in the doorway separated this room from the other one. This used to be the super's apartment when the building still had one. Now it was a social club, where people in the building came to laugh a little and drink a little and talk their native language.
The detectives were standing outside the front door, looking into the apartment. The man who'd opened the door for them had been sitting at the table when they knocked. His cards were still lying facedown on the table, in front of the chair he'd vacated. They had just identified themselves as policemen. The man wanted to know what they wanted.
"We're looking for someone named Gofredo Cabrera.”
"Not here," the man said.
Faint Spanish accent, pale complexion, lean, handsome looks, small mustache under an aquiline nose.
"We were told he'd be here," Carella said.
"No," the man said, and shook his head.
"Know where we can find him?”
"No," the man said again.
"He's not in any trouble," Meyer explained.
"Mm," the man said.
"We'd really like to talk to him," Carella said.
"I don't know where he is," the man said.
"What's your name?" Meyer asked.
The man hesitated.
I'll be damned, Meyer thought.
"Are you Cabrera?" he asked.
The man's eyes darted nervously.
"Why do you want him?" he said.
"We have some questions.”
"Just a minute," the man said.
He went back into the room, spoke softly in Spanish to the three men still sitting at the table, and then came back to the door and took a coat from the rack just inside it.
"Let's go downstairs," he said. "Get some air.”
The air downstairs was virtually crystalline.
Meyer and Carella fell in on either side of the man, flanking him, hands in their pockets. He walked with his shoulders hunched, the wind whipping his long black hair. He still hadn't told them who he was. There were names written on the brick walls everywhere around them, but they still didn't know his. If this were a movie, the graffiti-covered walls would have made a good backdrop for a location shot. The art director would have congratulated himself on having found something so riotously colorful against which to play a low-keyed scene, such contrast! So far, this real-life scene the detectives were playing was so low-key it was almost nonexistent. The man just kept walking along between them, hair blowing in the wind, shoulders hunched, lips sealed.
"In here," he said at last, and led them into a small cuchi frito joint with four red leatherette booths on the left and a green Formica-topped counter on the right. The place smelled of cooking fat. The man nodded to the short-order cook behind the counter, and then kept right on walking through the place, to a door at the back, and through the doorway into another room where a round wooden table sat under a hanging light bulb covered with a tasseled pinkish shade. "Have a seat," he said, and motioned to the chairs around the table.
The detectives sat.
"You want some coffee or something?”
"No, we want Cabrera," Meyer said.
"Why?”
"Routine investigation," Carella said.
"What's your name?" Meyer asked.
"José Altaba.”
"Why all the hocus-pocus, José?”
"I don't know what you mean.”
"He means why'd you lead us halfway across the city on a day you could freeze your ass off, is what he means," Meyer said.
"To the back room of a crummy little ...”
"I own this place," Altaba said, offended.
"Why couldn't we talk at Las Palmas?”
Carella asked.
"Ears," Altaba said.
"Ears," Carella repeated.
"Sí.”
"What is it you didn't want anyone to hear?”
"There is a man there who wishes only harm to Gofredo.”
It sounded like a direct translation from the Spanish.
"And this man was at Las Palmas, is that it?”
"Sí, that's it.”
"So you didn't want him to hear any of this.”
"Because he would twist it to his own use,”
Altaba said, and nodded. "Make it seem as if Gofredo was doing something wrong. Instead of being an honest businessman.”
"Uh-huh," Meyer said. "And what is this business of his?”