“Don’t do this to yourself,” she said. “I’ll be all right. I really will. You can’t protect me from everything in the world.”
“I don’t want to protect you from everything in the world. I only love you.”
“I know,” Carmencita said. “I love you too.”
Itzaak put his hands on the table. “This is not how I had imagined saying it to you for the first time. In a place like this. Worried sick that you are going to get yourself killed. I saw us in a restaurant with candles and a tablecloth.”
“I don’t need a restaurant with candles and a tablecloth.”
“I don’t know what you need,” Itzaak said. “Maybe this Mr. Demarkian will be the genius he is reported to be. Maybe this will all be cleared up in a few days and we can go on with things.”
“Maybe we ought to go on with things now.”
“Even if Mr. Demarkian is the greatest genius that ever lived, still I will not like it. That you have to do with people like this, who deal in illegalities.”
“I know.”
“I blame you for none of it. But Lotte Goldman is a rich and famous woman, with powerful friends. After we know who has done these terrible things to Max and Maria, you should go to talk to her. You should tell her everything. She may be able to help you.”
“If she can’t help me, I will have to go back.”
“If you have to go back, I will go with you. Here. You can’t go all day only on potato chips. Sit here and I will find you some food.”
“I can find food for myself.”
“No. Sit. There may not be much I can do for you, but I can at least do this. I will be right back, Carmencita. You take a rest.”
Carmencita didn’t want to take a rest, but it all seemed so important to him, and he seemed so sad and discouraged, she sat where she was and let him go. When he was gone, she opened the other bag of potato chips and began to nibble on them.
She had told him as much of the truth as she had dared, but she hadn’t told him the whole truth. She hadn’t wanted him to worry, and it wasn’t as if she had anything specific to hang her uneasiness on in the first place. It was just that so many things were…
Out of whack, that was the phrase she wanted. Good old American slang. There wasn’t anything really wrong. There wasn’t any big discrepancy she had to consider. It was just that there were a few things, about Max and the things that had happened to Max…
Carmencita would be much more relaxed once she had Alejandro’s faked green card and social security card and driver’s license tucked safely away at the back of her wallet. She would be much more relaxed once she was quit of this person and quit for good. This person gave her the creeps worse than the voodoo ladies ever had at home.
Once this way over, she would think of nothing at all except for the fact that Itzaak had told her he loved her. She would leave the detecting to the police and the investigating to Mr. Demarkian and the worrying over the morality of helping illegal aliens look legal to whoever it was that wanted it.
She could see both sides of the issue herself. She always ended up making up her mind on the basis of what she wanted and needed and hoped for herself, and she thought everybody else probably did that, too.
3
SHELLEY FELDSTEIN HAD EARNED a certain reputation for subtlety in her life, and a larger one for sophistication, but on this early afternoon she was employing her talent for neither. To get into Shelley Feldstein’s room, Sarah Meyer had sneaked and schemed and stolen a key. To get into Sarah Meyer’s room, Shelley Feldstein marched right up to the front desk, said her name was Sarah Meyer, and announced that she had lost her room key. The hotel staff couldn’t have been more helpful. They recognized her as a bona fide guest. They couldn’t see any reason why she’d be asking for the key to anybody’s room but her own. A nice young man in a crisp dark uniform got her a brand new key card and then came all the way upstairs to make sure the door opened with it. The door did and Shelley tipped him a dollar for his trouble. Then she closed the door behind her and got to work.
When Sarah Meyer had searched Shelley Feldstein’s room, she had been extremely careful to keep the place neat, to put things back where she’d found them, not to tip her hand. Shelley took no such precautions. Shelley didn’t give a hoot in hell if Sarah knew she’d been in here searching around. In fact, she intended to make a point of ensuring that Sarah knew just that. She didn’t give a hoot in hell if Sarah knew something was missing, either. Obviously, there was going to be something missing. The three letters Sarah had stolen from Shelley’s room were going to be missing, calf-love missives from an infatuated and sex-crazed Max. Shelley had half a mind to set fire to them right in the middle of Sarah Meyer’s floor.