Red Man Down(17)

Tears welled in her eyes.

Sarah asked her for names and addresses of other members of the family. Cecelia wrote out a list, muttering to herself, ‘Let’s see, Luz, Guillermo – we call him Memo, Chico—’ she took a while to remember addresses, and had no phone numbers or email addresses. ‘We always just go see each other,’ she said.

As they were preparing to leave, putting coats on in the small foyer, Oscar said, ‘Are you going to tell us your idea about who got the money? Or must we dig that out of one of your sisters?’

‘No and no, Oscar.’ She looked deep into his eyes and the temperature in the foyer rose, Sarah thought, about two degrees. ‘Dig it out of Chico. Talk to the man of the family, for once. Give yourself a change of pace.’

‘Always a pleasure to talk to Francisco,’ Oscar said. ‘Does he still operate his fish taco stand near the ball field?’

‘No, no, darling, he sold that some time ago. Chico is retired on social security. Retirement is turning out to be Chico’s best thing. It suits him like nothing before in his life.’

‘Would he be likely to be at home now, at this address?’ He was looking at her list.

‘I should think so. It’s about Happy Hour, isn’t it? Not that Chico confines himself to one hour.’

‘Looking forward to finding him then,’ Oscar said, ‘though he’s not nearly as charming as his sisters.’

‘Get out of here, you rogue.’ She gave him a very small push.

‘Thanks for the wonderful coffee,’ Sarah said, feeling like the schoolmarm in the play. ‘And for talking to us. Here’s my card – all my numbers, my email. Call any time if you think of anything you want to add.’

‘How very kind,’ Cecelia said, patting Sarah on the shoulder like a sister.

But it was to Oscar that she tossed the final invitation. ‘Don’t be a stranger, primo.’

‘Primo means cousin, doesn’t it?’ Sarah asked him, when they were back outside by the car. ‘She doesn’t act like your cousin.’

‘Oh, we’re not, really. Except, you know, we both grew up down here in the south side of town. And people from the old neighborhoods – there’s a saying that if you go back far enough, we’re all related.’

‘But you don’t buy into the Old Pueblo stuff much, do you?’

‘Nope. I like to swim in the mainstream,’ Cifuentes said.

‘Except like today, when it works better to be Chicano.’

‘Well, sure. We all use what we’ve got to use, don’t we? At Cecelia’s house, you were using me, right?’

Sarah studied her shoes. ‘I suppose that’s true. How did you get hold of Frank’s note, by the way?’

‘Don’t worry, it’s not the original.’ Oscar winked at her. ‘OK, then.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We’ve still got an hour before we have to head in. You want to see if Chico’s home?’

‘Sure. Do you know how to get to that address?’

‘It’s in South Tucson,’ Oscar said. ‘Let me drive, it’s easier than telling you.’

He was right, so Sarah gave up the wheel, something she rarely did in her departmental car. She always said she wanted to be able to defend any dings it brought back. But mostly her attitude was left over from the beginning of her career, when the men all expressed their hostility to the presence of women investigators by criticizing their driving. Sarah, determined to be treated as an equal, decided she would drive, by God, when it was her turn, and they would ride with her and shut up about it.

‘I always thought the nickname for Francisco was Pancho,’ Sarah said, as they rolled along.

‘It is,’ Oscar said. ‘So’s Chico.’

‘So many things I don’t understand in this part of town.’

‘You should try making the trip in the other direction.’

Oscar made his way quickly through the narrow streets of the mile-square Hispanic municipality encapsulated in the middle of Tucson. Francisco García’s house was a small, tidy adobe next to a junkyard – zoning was somewhat casual in South Tucson.

‘Aren’t we going to knock?’ she said as they followed a brick path around the front of the house.

‘Let’s look in the backyard first.’

The backyard belonged to a whole different world than the front. It looked as if sections of the junkyard next door had tunneled under the fence and settled in here, where they lounged about, waiting to be useful. A long, ramshackle shed along the back fence held at least three old cars they briefly registered, one on blocks, and parts of several others. Piles of worn tires, two benches and an ancient rowboat with no motor filled the rest of the yard – there were paths through the jungles of equipment. Hammers, machetes, shovels and other tools hung from nails on every upright.