Burning Midnight (16 page)

“I underestimate gringos. It's a failing.” He blew smoke at the wind, which took it and tore it to shreds. “It was a warning of some kind: If we can lift your lighter from under your nose and use it to destroy your business, we can destroy you as easily. This convinces me the Maldados were not involved in his murder. Why warn a dead man?”

“He ignored the warning.”

“The timeline was too tight. If they are in protection, they know these things need to sink in.”

“A rogue gang member, maybe. A lot of Mexicans are part Indian. The tribes elected their chiefs. They didn't coronate them. They went their own way when they didn't trust their counsel.”

“I think you've been reading Mari Sandoz too much. Most
mestizos
don't know her from Marie Osmond. But you're right in principle. There is no allowing for the actions of the individual. However, I think we can eliminate Guerrara as a prime mover in Zorborón's fate.”

“You can. I'm keeping my options open. What happened in the coop?”

“The boy says he sneaked past the two caretakers and went upstairs to wait for sundown before making his way home. He couldn't be sure he wasn't seen near the garage, or what he might have seen when he approached it. He had no idea when he'd find opportunity to leave. When the fire door was opened, he took advantage of the situation and slipped out—unobserved, so he thinks. He took cover behind some trash cans in the alley, and when the time seemed right he ran, straight to the overgrown lot where you found him. The arrival of the police kept him there until the coast cleared. That would be the moment you stumbled on him.”

“I stumble a lot.” I flicked ash into the wind. “There were no trash cans in that alley.”

He smoothed his moustache with a knuckle. “You're certain of this?”

“I looked out into it after I stumbled over Django and Berdoo.”

“These, I take it, were the two men you found dead. He said he knew nothing about that. He didn't even hear the shotgun blast. By then he might have been lying in that lot.” He frowned. “I wish I'd known about these phantom trash cans before I spoke with him.”

“I didn't know he'd say he hid behind them. I deliberately didn't grill him until I had the rule of law to stand in front of me.”

He smiled, showing that row of teeth like poured concrete around a reservoir. “You've an impressive knowledge of legal terminology for a layman.”

“I've got cable. Stop oiling me up. What's next?”

“It's early to speak of a defense strategy. Normally in cases such as this I explore the home environment, but I could not draw him out on that subject.”

“It's lousy, just like everyone else's.”

“Please do not presume to speak for me. I was the only surviving child in a devout Catholic household, and doted upon shamelessly. I had to learn humility the way a high school dropout acquires his GED.”

I figured he'd cheated on the final. Aloud I said, “The sister's indulgent and the brother-in-law—”

“Yes. I observed the brother-in-law.”

“I was going to say ‘doesn't have a clue.' Drinking's not his problem, apart from not knowing how to do it. His father took the other tack. That worked out about as well as you can imagine, so he's just sitting out the kid's puberty and waiting for Mr. Miyagi to come along and put him right.”

“He's a family friend, this
Señor
Miyagi?”

I couldn't tell when he was monkeying around, so I let that one swing. “What you do in court's your headache. I meant what do we do with Nesto? That father I mentioned is my client. He's also a cop. Guess which one kicks in when he finds out I found the boy and he was on the scene of a double homicide he happens to be investigating?”

“I should think it would be unpleasant.” He shook his head. “In matters such as these, a man who prides himself upon his professionalism would be inclined to treat the boy as he would any other subject. This in my opinion would be a mistake. He wouldn't last an hour in County.”

“He wouldn't last an hour in Beverly Hills once word gets out.”

“I can get him a room in the Boys Training School in Whitmore Lake. The young men there are more interested in getting out and getting back to their misdemeanors than shivving a fresh fish.”

“I told his sister and brother-in-law he'd be safe in County.”

“I wouldn't take the chance. Based on what you just told me, he knows more than he lets on, and it stands to reason someone out there knows it as well. The word, as you put it, is out already, or I do not know my neighborhood. What is one more jailhouse tragedy in our sad community?” He sighed smoke, crushed out his butt fastidiously on the glass table, and lit another off his pocket blowtorch. The tobacco, or whatever it was, burned as fast as dry straw. “You must not take this as legal advice. If you repeat it, I shall of course deny it. I have a license to preserve.”

“Me, too. People forget that. The advice,
Señor
Buho. I'm not paying you out of pocket to flap your arms.”

“This is a saying, yes?”

When I gave him the blank wall, he flushed under the brown and lapsed back into American. “Your client's a policeman. You'd be within bounds if you laid all this before him; let him make the decision.”

“That's a hell of a load to dump on a friend.”

“I wasn't aware you were friends.”

“It's complicated. What else you got?”

“Again, this isn't professional counsel. Do nothing.”

“I could come up with that myself for free.”

“I see I must be specific, at the risk of my livelihood.” The taste of what he was smoking had gotten to him. He pressed out the fresh one next to the old butt and committed his last drag to the wind. “You've fulfilled your mission, which was to return this boy to his guardians and convince him as to the toxic nature of gang activity. Recent events have seen to the last, or I'm no judge of human behavior. Your job is done. Walk away from it.”

I shook my head.

“I will not argue the point. I owe the success of my modest practice to human nature, after all.”

“I know your rates. What do you call substantial?”

“As I said, a difficult language.” He got up and tucked his briefcase under his arm. “I called the police.”

“I don't think I like that.”

“As an officer of the court I had no choice. I told them the boy knows nothing, but that he will be there bright and early tomorrow morning with me by his side.”

“I'd love to have been in on that call.”

“I've had unpleasant conversations before, and the boy needs rest. I said if they insisted on seeing him immediately, all they'd get would be silence on the advice of counsel. He is a minor, and entitled to certain protections under the law. I added that I've represented the ACLU and the Hispanic League, and that I have brought action before on behalf of my people. The police know me as a man of my word.”

“I bet that's just how they put it.” Nesto had good instincts, whatever other reasons he had for insisting on being defended by one of his own. The race card carried so much weight in Detroit it ought to be registered along with firearms and explosives. “Okay if I talk to him?”

“You don't need my permission. I'm not his attorney, although naturally I let the officer I spoke to assume what he wanted to. As yours, I'd advise against it. Anything you learn from the young man would not be protected. Wasn't that the reason you retained me in the first place?”

“I wanted a lawyer in the picture, not around my neck. I need to know what the boy knows or I can't go ahead.”

He grinned again, then returned to his look of innocence personified. “Here is my card. I think you have more need for me than he.”

I looked at it: They were printing them vertically now, to make room for landlines, cell phones, e-mail, and Web sites. Amazing how much information you can get onto a scrap of pasteboard without including anything you could use.

 

SIXTEEN

After Buho bowed and left, I said I wanted a few minutes with Nesto. His sister crossed her arms. “He's exhausted and filthy. Come back tomorrow when he's rested.”

I wanted him too tired to tell any more lies, but I came up with a reason that wouldn't get me thrown out of the house. “It's in his best interest to talk to me before he talks to the police. They won't care if his face is washed.”

“Isn't that why you got a lawyer?”

“Five minutes.”

She glanced at Jerry, who was sitting in that same splayed position on the sofa with his chin on his chest. No help there. “Five minutes. I'll fill the tub.”

He wouldn't be a teenager without a sign tacked to his door. This one was diamond-shaped yellow cardboard reading
CUIDADO
in black block letters. I knocked.

“Who is it?”

“Walker.”

“Go away.”

“Not an option.”

“Go away!”

I tried the knob. It was locked. “If we talk here, you won't have to tell the cops the same lies you told the lawyer. Ever try lying to a cop? I don't recommend it.”

After a long silence, bedsprings shifted. The lock clicked. He was sitting on the edge of the bed by the time I let myself in, wearing the black T-shirt he'd had on under the flannel shirt, dirty socks on his feet. He'd washed his face, but his eyes were red-rimmed and his mouth was sullen. The room was just big enough for the bed, a nightstand, and a student desk and chair. A lean, muscular Brazilian was kicking the stuffing out of a soccer ball on a poster taped to a wall. The look on his face said it was stuffed with rocks.

“Your sister only gave me five minutes,” I said. “I don't want to waste any of them listening to the same horseshit you fed Buho. You want to make up stories? Save them for your dentist. You can always buy false teeth.”

“I didn't lie.”

“He'd have gotten the truth out of you if he knew there weren't any trash cans for you to hide behind in that alley.”

He started. His face turned as red as his eyes. I wish all the liars I had to pry open had the decency to blush when they were caught out.

He looked away. “It might not have been trash cans. I didn't take notes.”

“Maybe it was that stack of boxes.”

“Yeah. Come to think of it.”

“You stink at this, you know it? And I'm playing on your team. Think what a tired sergeant with a heavy caseload could do with what you gave him. There were no boxes either. No trees, no window drapes, no Chinese screen, no cloak of invisibility. If you ducked behind anything, it was the truck they were loading with rooster cages.”

He jumped at that, too, but his lips formed the start of another lie. I cut him off. “Cops are simple organisms. If you don't give them the bird in the bush, they'll close their fists on the one in hand, that bird being you. Too metaphorical? How's ‘tried as an adult' sound?”

He bit his lip. He was acting now, but he knew I knew. A puff of air would blow him over.

I puffed. “You couldn't miss it. It had to be a big truck.”

“I saw a truck,” he said. “A big one.”

“Spoiler on the cab? Mud flaps with naked women on them?”

“I don't remember anything like that.”

I nodded. I was prepared to believe him now. A desperate liar will jump at almost any bait.

“The old guy in the building took the chain off the door. I came down from upstairs, he didn't see me pressed up against the end of one of the metal shelves. The other one, the Mexican, was watching the front. The old guy went out the alley door and I went out right behind him. He didn't turn around or he'd've seen me. The truck was just stopping. I don't think whoever was in the front looked in his mirrors. I don't know for sure, but when I slipped around behind the back and ran out of the alley, nobody yelled at me. I stood in a doorway for a while, but then I heard somebody unlocking it on the other side and I took off for the grass lot.

“It was too open. I didn't know who might see me, a cop or somebody, maybe one of the guys from the rooster place or the truck, so I hit the dirt. I thought I'd wait for dark, but it was a long time coming. I don't know how long I was there before I made up my mind to jump up and take my chances. I'm pretty good on my feet; I tried out for track, made the scrub team. But then I heard sirens and I figured somebody had spotted me and they were coming for me, so I stayed put, until—”

“I was there for the rest,” I said. “What else did you hear besides sirens?”

“I don't know, city noises. I didn't hear a gunshot, if that's what you're getting at. I didn't know about what happened in that place till you told me.”

I didn't know if I believed him, but our time was almost up. “What do you remember about the truck? I'm not asking about spoilers and mud flaps.”

“It was a truck. Big and square. Not a semi; the cab and the box were in one piece. It was old. There was rust on the fenders. I can't tell you what kind it was, the year it was made. I don't know much about cars and like that.”

“Any markings?”

“No. I mean, no words. Some scraps of paint still on the box. Some kind of picture. Balloons? Red and blue and yellow.”

“Sounds like a lot of truck just for balloons.”

“I'm telling you what I saw.”

“How many in the cab?”

“I don't know. I couldn't see on account of the angle.”

Someone knocked on the door. “You have to go, Mr. Walker.” It was Chata's voice. “He needs to clean up and rest. Mr. Buho's coming for him at seven
A.M.
”

I leaned in close and dropped my voice. “Tell it to the police the same way you told it to me. Don't embellish. If they think you lied about one thing they'll assume you lied about everything else. You may think you're pretty good about keeping things from your sister and your brother-in-law, but they want to believe you. Don't count on that with Jerry's father. Cops aren't related to anyone when they're on the job. They expect lies and they go after them like rat terriers.”