“You looking for something, jefe?” asked the taller boy. Markham smiled and gazed up at the streetlights. “If you’re looking for your boyfriend, you ain’t gonna find him up there. Unless he’s a bird.”
The younger boy laughed and Markham turned back to them—produced his cred case from underneath his Wind-breaker and flipped open his ID. He held it up by his face and smiled as wide as he could.
“Looks like you get to be my boyfriend today,” he said. “FBI. Came a long way to ask you out, Diego Rodriguez.”
The taller boy swallowed hard, took a final drag off his cigarette, and flicked it from the balcony. He disappeared inside. The younger boy followed, calling out to someone in Spanish.
Markham mounted the stairs and quickly reached the apartment door—was about to knock when he heard the security chain rattle inside and the dead bolt unlock. The door opened slightly, and a Hispanic woman squeezed her face through the crack.
“I’m sorry, sir,” she said in a thick accent. “My brother and my husband is working. Only me and the children right now.”
“I’m Special Agent Sam Markham,” he said, holding up his cred case. “FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit. Are you Mrs. Rodriguez?”
“No. She my brother’s wife. They all working now they live here.”
“I see,” Markham said. “I’d like to ask Diego a few questions.”
“He in trouble again?”
“No, ma’am. It’s about Jose.”
The woman hesitated, pulled back from the doorway, and whispered in Spanish to someone inside. “I’m not going to make trouble for you,” Markham said. “Just send Diego out, and I promise I won’t come in. I’ll wait over here.”
He crossed to the stairs, leaned against the railing, and slipped his hands in his pockets. The Hispanic woman watched him for a moment, then closed the door. Markham waited, and soon became uncomfortable as he felt the presence of people looking at him through the peepholes of the surrounding apartments.
Finally, Diego Rodriguez emerged from the apartment. He was dressed in an oversized black T-shirt and a black baseball cap—tags still on and cocked to the side. He eyed Markham up and down and shuffled over, postured himself against the opposite wall and hooked his thumbs in his pockets.
Markham glanced quickly at the boy’s fingernails; saw that they were cut neat and clean against his baggy knockoff jeans. Scared mama’s boy, he thought, and knew at once that Diego Rodriguez would turn out all right.
“What time’ll your parents be home?” Markham asked.
“They both working,” Diego mumbled. “Six, six-thirty. Maybe seven.”
“You know why I want to talk to you?”
Diego shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know how much TV you watch,” Markham said, “but your brother’s murder has been turned over to the FBI now. You know what that means?” Diego said nothing. “Means now we have more people trying to figure out who killed him. Means now I have to ask you some questions like the police did so I get my facts straight.”
“I didn’t talk to Jose that much, and I don’t know nothing more now than what I already told Five-O. Only interested in us again cuz of that lawyer that got smoked. They asked my father some questions about Colombians and gangs and drugs and shit. Shit is wack is what I’m saying. Me and Jose, we wasn’t down with that. I told y’all that from the beginning, but no one wants to listen cuz some fool says the pandilleros done it. I don’t know nothing ’bout that shit ’cept Jose was straight-up.”
“You have some of the same friends?” Markham asked, reaching inside his pocket. “Does this guy look familiar to you?”
Markham handed him a picture of Billy Canning. The boy scanned it quickly.
“No,” said Diego, handing back the paper. “Like I said, me and Jose wasn’t close.” There was a hint of regret in the kid’s voice—almost shame, Markham thought—and he folded Canning’s picture back into his pocket.
“You know where Jose might have gone on the night he disappeared?” he asked.
“If you think he went and seen that lawyer for something, you’s even more wack than the police. Cuz that’s the only reason we seeing y’all again. Cuz of that lawyer. They smoked that motherfucker the way they did Jose. That’s the only reason why y’all so worried about Jose again after almost two months of us seeing no one.”
“There’s been a development,” Markham said. “And I assure you I’m going to do my best to find your brother’s—
Markham noticed something catch Diego’s eye. He followed it and saw a little girl at the opposite stairwell. She cradled a cat in her arms.
“Go inside, Marla,” Diego said. The girl didn’t move. “You hear what I said? Or do you want me to give you another beating before Papa gets home?”
“Auntie said I could look for Paco, tú pendejo.”
Markham smiled in spite of himself. He knew from working in Tampa that pendejo meant dumb-ass.
Diego didn’t move—only looked back at Markham cynically and said: “May I go now, sir?”
“Yes. But tell your aunt that I’ll send your sister in after I talk to her, okay?”
Diego nodded and sulked into the apartment without looking back. Markham approached the little girl.
“That’s a pretty cat,” he said. “What’s his name?”
“Paco.”
“How old is he?”
“Papa says he’s about a year old, but nobody’s sure, really. He was a stray and was living here before we moved in. But he likes me best. You a policeman?”
“No, I’m with the FBI. You know what the FBI is?”
“I think so. It’s like a policeman only you work for the President.”
“That’s right,” Markham said, smiling.
“Is that black car over there yours or the President’s?”
“I wish it was mine, but the President just lets me borrow it.”
“Did Diego ask you to sit in it?”
“No. Why?”
“Cuz Diego keeps telling Hector he’s going to buy a Ford Explorer someday after he gets his license. The Ford Explorer looks kind of like your car. Diego says he’s going to get a black one like yours and give Hector a ride in it before anybody else. Hector is my cousin. He’s older than me.”
“That wasn’t very nice, you know, what you said to Diego.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but Diego let Paco out on purpose when it was raining just to be mean to me. The policemen, the ones who came after Jose died, they spoke Spanish and, well, you didn’t look like you knew how to speak Spanish.”
“I don’t. Just a few words. Your English is much better than my Spanish.”
“Papa doesn’t like us to speak Spanish too much. Only when he doesn’t understand us. He wants us to learn English so we can all go to college someday. Diego says he’s not going to college. Says he’s going to be rapper or a DJ, but even his English is better than Papa’s. You won’t tell Papa what I said to Diego, will you?”
“No. It’s a secret between us. Your name is Marla?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Sam Markham. Your first name and my last name sound a little alike, don’t you think? Marla and Markham?”
“Yes, they do.”
“Do you know why I’m here?”
“You brought back our computer?”
“Your computer?”
“Oh,” said the girl, deflating. “I guess you didn’t. I thought we were finally going to get our computer back. The policemen took it away when Jose died. Papa called about it a couple of weeks ago and they said they needed to keep it for evidence. Diego said they probably sold it and kept the money, but he doesn’t really care cuz Hector has a computer. I don’t get to use it very much cuz they’re always hogging it. Do you know if the police still have it, Mr. Markham?”