“If it was an automobile accident,” I suggested, “maybe it’s one of God’s little ironies. The man came down here to fake a death and was killed in a freak accident before he could do it.”
“I know,” Leon said, as the waiter distributed menus. “I’ve thought of that.” After the waiter left, Leon added, “I almost believe that could be the truth, but I just have a feeling about this one.”
“Leon and his feelings,” Fernando said, with comradely pride. “He’s almost never wrong.”
“Oh, I could be wrong,” Leon said. “But, Keith, you know the one thing that keeps me going on this one?”
“What?” I asked, and I was honestly interested in the answer.
“It’s too perfect,” he said. “A restaurant full of eyewitnesses. Videotape of the funeral. It’s as though these people said to themselves, ‘What will the insurance company look for? What flaws can we cover?’ And they covered every last one. I can’t prove it yet, Keith, but the reason I’m here is I believe they polished the apple just a little too much.”
Fernando said, “Leon’s a true bulldog when he puts his mind to something.”
“I can see that,” I said.
Dulce smiled at me. “Didn’t I tell you it would be interesting?”
“And you were right,” I told her. “You were definitely right.”
33
The real bombshell came over coffee and dessert. I followed my half-eaten green salad and my picked-over sole meunière with orange sherbet and decaf espresso, tasting nothing, having trouble maintaining my part of the conversation, thinking about that damned Ifigenia. I’d never heard her name until this week, although I’d always known she existed, in some shadowy other part of Arturo’s life. And now, with her letter, she’d maybe undone us all.
Why couldn’t she have kept out of it? Or, alternatively, if she absolutely had to poke her oar in my eye — I know, but that’s what it felt like — why couldn’t the damn post office get the letter to the cops before we pulled the scam? Come warn us, you know what we’re up to, and we’ll give it up, no problem; we’ll think of something else. But no.
Conversation had been general through the meal, mostly Fernando telling college anecdotes from the good old days in Boston with Leon, but then, just as I was taking my first cold mouthful of orange sherbet, Dulce said, “Leon, could I ask you a question about that case you were talking about?”
“Of course,” he said.
“You said people have ways to get new identification for themselves,” she said. “Do you mean forged? But isn’t there a big risk in that?”
“Sure, there’s a risk,” he said. “And that’s where we catch a lot of them. But there’s other ways, better ways.”
Fernando said, “Like what?”
“Well, take this fellow,” Leon said. “His wife is Guerreran, from a pretty large family. Now, the odds are good, you know, that somebody in that family, some cousin, maybe even a brother, was born around the same time our man was born, and died young. So there’s no records on him except his birth certificate and his death certificate.”
“I see,” Fernando said, in the tone of someone who suddenly grasps the entire scheme.
Dulce said, “Do you mean he’ll pretend to be this other person?”
“More than pretend,” Leon told her. “The first thing he’ll do, he’ll get that other person’s birth certificate.”
I pushed away my uneaten sherbet.
“Then,” Leon went on, “he’ll use that identification to get whatever else he needs. A driver’s license, maybe even a passport.”
I pushed away my undrunk espresso.
Dulce said, “So he can pretend to be that other person here. But what if he wants to go back north?”
“Why not?” Leon said. “He has ID.”
Dulce shook her head. “It’s hard to believe such people exist,” she said.
“Oh, they exist,” Leon assured her. “The statistics are amazing. In New York State alone, the fraud division of the state Department of Insurance handles twenty to thirty of these cases a year. In your state of California,” he told me, “it’s more like fifty a year.”
“Wow,” I said.
Fernando said, “So you think that’s what happened this time. He’s borrowing one of his wife’s relatives.”
“Exactly.”
Dulce said, “Is there any way to check?”
“Absolutely,” Leon said. “I have an appointment at the Hall of Records Friday morning. I intend to spend the day there.”
“Doing what?” I tried to say, but my throat clogged. I cleared it and tried again. “Doing what?”
“Our man is thirty-five,” he told me. “I’m going to check every death certificate from his wife’s family from around thirty years ago. Any time I find somebody in the right age range I’ll check the birth certificates to see if there’s been a request for a copy recently.”
“That’s brilliant!” Fernando said.
“Just legwork,” Leon said modestly. To me, he said, “You aren’t eating, Keith.”
“I may have caught a bug,” I said. “I’m sorry, I wish I was better company.”
No, no, they assured me, I’d been fine company. And so had they, I assured them, and I’d very much enjoyed the conversation, but I thought maybe the best thing for me right now was early to bed; thank you very much, yes, I’m sure I’ll be fine in the morning; don’t let me break up the party, you go on; I’ll just go up to my room; good night, good night.
And phone. Mamá said, “Artie’s out.”
“Tell him it’s Keith Emory,” I said. “Can you tell him that?”
“Sure. I thought your voice — I thought you was somebody else.”
“Keith Emory,” I repeated. “I’m at Casa Montana Mojoca, and I want to do that tour we talked about, Arturo and me. I want him to pick me up at the hotel at nine tomorrow morning.”
“That’s kinda early,” she said, sounding doubtful.
“In fact, it’s late,” I told her. “You tell him. Keith Emory. Nine in the morning.”
34
“Good morning, Mr. Emory.”
“Right on time.”
Arturo held the door for me and I slid into the Impala’s backseat. He got behind the wheel, looked at me in his mirror, and put the car in gear. As we drove out from under the porte cochere and around the curving drive away from the grand hotel, he said, “You look like you got something on your mind.”
“Ifigenia,” I said.
This time the look he gave me was puzzled. “My Ifigenia?”
“I’d hate to think there was more than one of them.”
“Why? What’s up?”
“You told her about this scam we’re doing. You told her a while ago.”
“Sure, man,” he said. “I tell Ifigenia everything.”
“And she tells the cops.”
His frown now crumpled his face into a mountain range. “Ifigenia?”
“She didn’t want you involved with me, and she told you so.”
“Sure,” he said. We were driving now through the manicured forest, neither of us paying any attention to the scenery. Arturo said, “Ifigenia never likes nothing I’m gonna do. She bitches at me all the time.”
“A month ago,” I told him, “more than a month ago, she wrote a letter to the police, telling them what I was going to do and how you were gonna help, and asking the police to come tell us they know what we’re up to so we won’t do it.”
“No!” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Ifigenia sent that letter?”