“Filero versus a fusca. Bad odds for you,” Badger added.
I’d seen this movie once before and knew the flash of a gun wasn’t enough to scare Hector off. But to my surprise and great relief, the old magician slowly retreated and returned to his car. We watched him drive off down the road.
I had successfully averted one disaster but now had another on my hands. If an alleged murderer who just the other day wasn’t scared of three punks with knives and guns backed down from a fight with far better odds, what did that say about my private investigator?
I made a fourth mental note to terminate all relationships with Badger and his firm, effective immediately.
***
It was one of the few historic homes to survive the onslaught of 1950s two-story commercial real estate construction but it didn’t come out of that battle unscathed. The gabled front rising among the near-perfectly-leveled rooflines beside it seemed dangerously close to toppling over. Its porch was ripped away, exposing an underbelly not worthy of a street-facing view.
I parked in front of an agua fresca, a type of store that caters to the lasting mistrust of the newly arrived immigrants that anything that came out of a faucet was potable. The store was a maze of tanks and filters and tubes designed to make it look scientific when beneath all of the tubes and filters and tanks was the same source of water the customers were lining up to avoid in the first place. A worker out front hosed off the sidewalk, and I half-wanted to ask if he was using filtered water.
I checked the address of the dilapidated home across the street to the one I had written down from the text Jeanette had sent Morgan. In it, she was instructed to bring the money to this place. My mind ran through the possibilities of what I was going to find as I jaywalked across the street. The block was one of those shadowless streets where the summer sun and concrete had long ago vanquished any and all of its leafy companions. Waves of heat radiated up and softened my rubber soles to make it feel like I was wearing cushioned inserts.
I knocked on the metal-gated front door and got no response. I rattled the door long enough to call the attention of a woman inside. To say she was expressionless wasn’t fair to the millions of people who actually were. She almost had a negative energy, like a black hole that sucked emotion from anyone around her.
“Hi,” I said to the impassive face. She was Asian, somewhere in her fifties. It wasn’t clear if she even understood my first line. “I’m wondering if you can help me. I’m looking for a friend of mine. I think she might be here.”
I rambled on like that for a while when her face suddenly broke into a wide smile. I tried to think what it was I said that got the reaction but then realized it had nothing to do with me but with what was behind me. A small Asian family laden with balloons and trays of food and bags of presents approached. The parents were smiling. The children were glum. They looked like they were on their way to church.
The gatekeeper gently brushed me aside to allow room for the family to pass. They were warmly welcomed into the home in a language I didn’t understand. I tried to catch a glimpse of what was just beyond the door but it was too dark to see much of what was inside and the metal grate was quickly shut in my face. I tried knocking again but my attempt landed no results.
I returned to my car across the street.
“Crazy people,” commented the man watering the sidewalk. “You going to shut them down?”
“I might,” I said, not sure what specifically he wanted me to close but very curious to find out. “What’s the deal over there?”
“In and out, all day. They take up all the parking,” he said with annoyance, waving his hand, and the hose with it, at the surrounding street. I had to jump back lest I get splashed with the water.
“What business are they running out of there?”
“You from the city?” he asked, now unsure who I was. Alhambra may have gone Latino then Asian years ago, but the race of the elected officials had yet to catch up. White men in this town meant cops or city council.
“Sure,” I replied without a trace of conviction, “I’m from the city.” I even cinched up my pants in a futile attempt to convey a position of authority. The man watering the sidewalk didn’t buy it. He stared at me as precious gallons of water flowed into the storm drain. I gestured to the water. “Do you mind shutting that off so we can talk?”
He was polite enough to wait two seconds before simply turning his back on me to continue on with his business. It was then that I noticed the black sedan parked a ways down the street. I couldn’t see into the driver’s window because of the glare on the glass, but I knew the car and I knew the operator.
So Valenti’s driver was now tailing me around the city. Part of me wanted to confront him and end this dance once and for all. And then part of me wanted to leave Hector in that car as I pretended to paw around the neighborhood shops. It was nearing ninety-five degrees and with no shade, it felt even hotter. I wanted to sweat him out. I decided instead to lose him for good.
My home was to the north, but I didn’t want to lead Hector to it. So I went east on the 10 Freeway. I got off at a random exit and as I rolled down the off-ramp, I glanced in my mirror and saw the black sedan settling in a few cars behind me. I turned right onto the boulevard and went a few blocks before turning off onto one of the smaller streets. I led Hector on a series of alternating turns but I couldn’t seem to lose him. I pulled into a mini shopping mall and tried to shake him in an underground parking lot but there were too many cars. We ended up in an awkward moment of being bumper-to-bumper while a shopper took forever to back out of her parking space. I stared at Hector in the rearview mirror. His sunglassed face stared back. I gave him a quick wave.
Back on the boulevard, I decided I had had enough and with the light already yellow and my car a good fifteen feet from the intersection, I floored it and lurched out just as the light turned red. I looked back and saw Hector stopping behind the car that separated us, and a big smile crossed my lips at the pure satisfaction of having slipped his tail. This big, beautiful smile was later framed up nicely by the traffic camera that caught me running the red and mailed to me along with a three hundred dollar ticket.
I had dinner at a random taco stand and leisurely made my way using surface streets back to Eagle Rock. By the time I arrived in my neighborhood, the sun had slipped down below the horizon and ended yet another mercilessly hot day. I pulled onto my street off Colorado and as I approached my house I noticed the black sedan parked in front of it. The driver’s window was down. Hector had the seat titled back and dozed casually in the cooling evening air.
I leaned on the horn three seconds longer than necessary as I pulled into my garage and huffily made my way into the house. The place was stuffy and had a faint trace of grapefruit.
“You need central air,” a voice called out from the darkness.
NEW HIRE
Meredith Valenti sat on the leather sofa. Her overly-tanned legs showed little contrast to the chocolate-colored couch but the electric green dress certainly did. It was a halter top, single piece and represented the only splash of color in the room.
“I’m sticking,” she complained and stood up to a tearing sound as her skin pulled away from the leather. The dress, whose hemline was high on her thigh when seated, didn’t come down much now that she was standing. She looked about the sparsely-furnished room with casual interest.
“Do you have anything to drink?” she asked, more like she was addressing the maid than someone whose house she had broken into. I ignored her request and asked why she was there. She in turn ignored my question and asked me a new one.