"Yes, but it is the least of my worries. I have also a running battle with the wholesale grocer in Starley City, who wants me to pay his bills with money I do not have." He sat down across from me and twirled the end of his mustache like a bandito. "You have questions, you said?"
"You were at the SuperSaver Monday evening, right?"
"I was. I asked the checker when the deli would open, but he claimed to have no knowledge of such things. I am curious how many tamales they think they will serve after what happened."
"They didn't look very appetizing on Saturday," I said with a wry smile. "You said you tasted one and spit it out. You're lucky, because they were laced with syrup of ipecac before they were served."
"Is this so?" he said. He pushed the paper cup in front of me and said, "But you are hot and thirsty, so please try the limeade and see if it is good. You are my son's baseball coach. It is the least I can do to offer you this small hospitality."
He was still playing with his mustache and smiling as I picked up the cup and took a drink. "It is very good," I said coolly, "and welcome on a hot day. When did you taste a piece of tamale at the grand opening?"
"A few minutes after they came from the kitchen. The fat girl put the tray down and left, and I pushed through the crowd to the table to try one. They tasted very bad, very sweet and oily."
"Who was in this crowd?"
"Gringos look alike," he said, shrugging. "The woman who has red hair like a fire hydrant and wanted Raimundo to play baseball was there. Ruby Bee, who owns the bar and is your mother-she was there, too. The short woman who sells vegetables. A woman with the mouth of someone who has eaten a green persimmon. Many men in denim pants and caps. Some children, all shoving and shrieking. A crowd is made of many people, is it not?"
That was pretty much what I'd heard from other witnesses. I took another sip of limeade while I considered my next brilliant ploy. "Okay, what about Monday evening when you went to the SuperSaver? Did you buy anything?"
"Bah! I will not give them my business. I will drive to Farberville before I will spend my money there."
"There's a display rack by one of the registers that was filled with cupcakes and sponge cakes," I said. "Did you notice anyone standing in front of it or handling the packages?"
"Or putting ipecac in them?" His laugh was brittle and unconvincing.
I wished there was one person in the whole town who wasn't as knowledgeable as I about the case. Just one who didn't receive hourly news bulletins from the grapevine. "How'd you hear about it?" I asked for form's sake.
"My wife went to the produce stand to buy a few things. While she was waiting for change, two other women came and were discussing the poisoning of another. My wife's English is not so good, but she is quick in the mind. So you have come to ask me if I am responsible, Chief of Police Hanks? Do you want to know if I put Ipecac in the tamales and in the cakes so that the SuperSaver would be closed?"
"Basically, yes."
"I did not, but if you find out who did, come by and have another limeade with me and tell me the name. I will send him a nice sack of genuine Mexican tamales."
"Duck," Estelle whispered, grabbing Ruby Bee's shoulder so violently that they both wobbled and sat down hard on the gravel. "Get around on this side of the dumpster, and hurry!"
Ruby Bee rubbed her rump. "What is wrong with you, Estelle Oppers? I'm going to have bruises all over me from being knocked over like a bowling pin. You had no call to-"
"Just get around on this side, and quick." Estelle scrabbled around the edge of the dumpster, and after a sniff, Ruby Bee followed her, even though certain parts of her anatomy were sure to be black and blue before morning.
"Now what?" she asked haughtily. "You want I should get inside and hunt up a nice picnic supper for us?"
"I saw a familiar car, that's what," Estelle retorted.
"Whose?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I swore on a stack of Bibles. Crawl around this way and take a gander for yourself "
Ruby Bee took a gander, and when she sat back down, she was having trouble with her eyeballs and her hands were fluttering like a pair of moths. "What on earth…?"
"Hush!" Estelle hissed, going so far as to clamp her hand over Ruby Bee's mouth because the footsteps were coming closer and closer. The two huddled down on the far side of the dumpster, both wondering how they were going to explain the situation should they be caught, because it wouldn't be easy. Something thudded inside the dumpster. The footsteps receded, and after another moment of pained suspense, a car door slammed and the engine started. They held their breaths until the tires crunched across the gravel lot and the sound of the engine was mingled with the stream of noise from the highway.
"Well, I never," Estelle gasped.
"I never, either," Ruby Bee said as she let out her breath and eased off her knees. She picked a piece of gravel off one kneecap, then looked at Estelle. "He threw something in the dumpster. I heard it."
"And I didn't?" Estelle said, picking at her own kneecap.
"Now what do we do?"
They both thought about the challenge of retrieving whatever it was that was somewhere in the foul confusion of the overflowing dumpster. Where there was rotting garbage, there were apt to be unspeakable things. From the scattered litter in the general vicinity, it was obvious the dumpster contained broken glass, razor-sharp lids, dirty diapers, oil, grease, and filth, all baked in the sunshine and thoroughly ripe.
"You said you needed a tetanus shot, anyway," Ruby Bee suggested with more decisiveness than she felt. "I'll give you a boost inside, and you can grab the evidence real quick."
"I beg your pardon," Estelle said, gazing down her nose like she fancied herself to be the Emily Post of Dumpsterdom. "For one, you're not tall enough to give me a boost. I, on the other hand, am tall enough to give you a leg up and help you when you're ready to climb back out."
The debate raged for a good fifteen minutes, but eventually Estelle won out, interlaced her fingers in a stirrup of sorts, and grunted softly as she hefted Ruby Bee over the edge of the sixfoot metal wall. The resultant remarks from the interior were about as graphic as she'd ever heard, but she didn't comment on them because she figured she'd be saying the same things and perhaps even more.
After a minute or two, Ruby Bee said, "I think I see something. It's not as…nasty as the other bags, and it's kind of on top of…other things. Let me see if I can get over there and-"
The next sound was a harrumph of sorts, but said with great unhappiness and accompanied by an explosive clatter and the tinkle of breaking glass. Estelle clutched her cheeks and said, "Are you all right?"
The door of the upstairs apartment they'd been watching opened and a figure in a white bathrobe and a terry-cloth turban yelled, "What the hell's going on down there?"
Estelle threw herself around the corner, praying she hadn't been spotted. From inside the dumpster, a low voice said, "Dandy. This is just dandy."
Another door opened. A wizened man dressed in baggy shorts and a baseball cap came out on the balcony. His chest was covered with matted black hair and his arms resembled rolls of barbed wire. He had a beer in one hand and a half-eaten sandwich in the other. "Damn rats back in the dumpster?" he asked his neighbor. "I saw one the other day big enough to tip the thing over and drag it away."