Red Man Down(63)

‘Beats anything I’ve ever seen,’ Chico said. ‘He always gets the interior looking like a pigsty. Everybody says, “Oh, he’s wrecked another one.” Yet he can keep one running almost forever. That car you see there had fifty-five thousand miles on it when he got it, and looked as good as new. It’s only a little over ninety thousand now, and it looks like it’s been through a war.’ Chico groped his way back to his hammock. ‘Oh, my,’ he said as he settled, ‘that’s better. Do you think you could slide my cooler over this way a little, Oscar? Good boy.’ He fished a beer out of the ice, held it up in mute invitation, and popped the top with a sigh as they all refused.

‘Memo predicted this when Joey begged for the car. Three years ago, Memo was still talking – isn’t that sad, that disease with the strange name?’

‘Alzheimer’s,’ Oscar said.

‘Yeah, that. No matter how many times I hear it I can’t remember it.’ He laughed. ‘Actually that’s funny, isn’t it?’ He giggled behind his cigarette smoke. ‘Can’t remember how to say Alzheimer’s, haha.’ All the detectives began rolling their eyes up, shaking their heads, while they waited for Chico to get over himself.

‘Memo didn’t always make sense, toward the end of his talking days, but he sure called it that time. He said Joey will just wreck it the way he did the one his mother got for him before. Kept saying, “This is a nice Toyota Camry, seven or eight years old but those cars are very well built. And Frank was always very careful with his vehicles.”’ Chico sighed. ‘Memo always had a keen eye for value, you know. He was a great loss to us.’

‘How come you all gave in though?’ Sarah asked him. ‘If you were all so sure Joey would trash the car?’

‘Well, Cecelia said, “You all have good cars now – do you really want to drive around in that seedy old Camry that Frank was sitting in when he killed himself?” Nobody had thought of it that way; we all said, “No, of course not.” But Luz said, “We could sell it and split the money.” And Cecelia said, “Sure, the market’s going to be brisk for an eight-year-old Toyota with blood on the seats. Who wants to be the seller?” So in the end everybody voted to let Joey have it, although it turned out the little screw-up didn’t even have a current driver’s license. Cecelia had to take him to the sheriff’s office to renew his license. She even paid the fee.’

‘Is she usually so generous?’

‘Not with anybody else, but sometimes she does favors for Joey. Then she tries to boss him around, which by now she should know is hopeless. He is slippery as an eel, that boy.’

‘But then why did you let him keep it in your yard?’

Chico’s face curled around his mustache in a rictus of conflict. ‘I didn’t want to! But he doesn’t really live anywhere. Cecelia kept saying, “He has no place else to put it, and you have room in your yard. Where’s your family solidarity?” I told you, she loves to tell everybody what’s right. I said, “Why don’t you try a little solidarity at your place?” But she said, “My tiny yard? I don’t have an inch anywhere.”

‘And to tell the truth it hasn’t been as much trouble as I expected. Joey’s cash flow is very uneven, so often he goes two or three weeks without using the car at all. But when he does take it out, man, sometimes he really puts some miles on it. He comes back and it looks like him and the car both been running on fumes. Then, every two or three months, he takes it to the shop to get it tuned up. Real regular – not like him at all.’

‘Where does he take it?’

‘Oh, he’s found some cheap-o place down below Valencia, an indy who charges much less than the dealers’ places. Probably doesn’t have all his papers in order, truth be known. But somehow he keeps the old crate running.’

‘Where does Joey go on these long journeys?’

‘He never wants to tell me that. Maybe you tough detectives will sweat it out of him, there in that big scary prison, huh?’

‘We don’t do that anymore,’ Jason said. ‘Lawmen got laws now too.’

‘Sure, sure,’ Chico said, winking. ‘Regular ladies’ aid society these days, I understand.’

Oscar stayed in Chico’s yard to talk about the farewell message some more. Sarah and Jason went back to the station to tell Leo about the worn-out Toyota Camry with four almost new tires that they had just sent to the city impound lot.

‘Alert detectives are beginning to wonder,’ Leo said, ‘what complex and difficult journeys are undertaken by the nogoodnik who can’t even do home invasions without getting caught?’