Little Mountain (38 page)

         We sat in her car in front of Dunkin’ Donuts drinking hot chocolate. Her overcoat betrayed a hint of cigarette smoke, but the car smelled like expensive perfume and leather upholstery. I felt like a dog that had rolled in the dirt and made
itself
comfortable on his master’s leather couch. Bonita seemed not to notice.

         “The black lieutenant at the station said maybe you can help,” she said. “My husband Lucky has been gone since last night, and I am so worried about him.” She blinked, and tears began to seep past her mascara. Her earrings looked like hammered gold. She had long, elegant fingers with luscious-looking rings, and nails with crimson polish. “Please. Please help me.”

         “Tell me when you last saw him,” I said.

         “About eleven o’clock last night. We talked about going back to Boston. I was going shopping, and he wanted to see an old friend today.”

         I scribbled notes. “Who’s the friend?”

         “An old drinking buddy was all he told me.”

         “Where are you folks staying?”

         She took a tissue from her purse and dabbed at her eyes.
“Downtown at the Mill City Grand.”

         “Describe your husband for me,” I said, and she did. Lucky was my age, 55; five-eight and 170 pounds, brown hair and brown eyes, dark-complected face, tan slacks, a blue windbreaker. She rummaged in her purse and handed me a photo of him. He was sitting poolside, with palm trees in the background. Lucky wore a bathing suit, wrap-around shades pushed up to his forehead, and a chest full of hair. In his left hand he held a cigar; his grin said that life was good and the world belonged to him. No wonder, being married to a woman like Mrs. Esquivez.

         “What do you think happened, Mrs. Esquivez?”

         “Call me Bonita, please. I’m worried maybe he is hurt.”

         “Why do you think he may be hurt, ma’am?” Maybe he just walked out of her life, but he’d left behind some nice wheels. “Could he have just
--
”

         “Left me? Lucky would never leave me.” These words sounded plausible but a little off, as though she could will them to be true.

         “You folks have any children?”

         “I have a daughter by, um, a previous marriage. Carmela is
on her own
now.”

         “That’s a nice name, Carmela. Where is she?”

         “It doesn’t matter. Leave her out of this.”

        
“Out of what?”

        
“Nothing.
I just don’t want to worry her.”

         “If she’s in town, maybe she’s heard from him.”

         She shook her head. “They don’t get along.”

         “Who do you folks know in Lowell?
Any friends here, any family?”

         I studied her eyes, and she shifted her glance to a young couple walking into the donut shop, their heads bent against the wind. “His cousin Carlos said maybe Lucky would like to live up here.”

         “Carlos Esquivez?”

         “No, his last name is Chávez.”

         “And what’s your opinion? Do
you
want to live here?”

         She made a sour face. “It ain’t Rio, honey.”

         And Rio wasn’t Lowell, but so what? She gave me Carlos’s address and then reached for her checkbook. “How much is your fee, Mister Webster?”

         Her check pictured a fishing boat and a leaping swordfish. I read the phone number and the fancy Miami address, though 2301 Camellia could have been on skid row; when you live in an old mill city, all Miami addresses seem fancy.
“Two hundred a day plus expenses.
But I’m not comfortable with an out-of-state check.”

         “I assume cash works.” She took a stack of bills from her purse and peeled off ten crisp hundreds, which barely shrunk the pile. My heart raced; every private investigator should have clients like this. “When can you start?”

        
“Right now.
When and where did you last see him?”

         “I was in bed watching television, and he said he was going out for a nightcap. He went out and didn’t come back.”

         “He went to the hotel bar? Why did he wear his windbreaker just to go downstairs?”

         “I didn’t think about that. I don’t know.”

         Lucky could have gone to another bar if he knew the city. Nothing else was within walking distance, though, and he’d apparently left the car behind. “What do you and your husband do for a living?”

         “He owns a mail-order business called Lucky’s, and I help him run it.” She paused for a moment. “We sell clothes, jewelry, nice things.”

         “And you have customers up here?”

         “We have customers everywhere.”

         “Is this your first time in Lowell?”

         “This is my first time north of Miami.”

         That sounded like a lie. She had jet-setter written all over her.

         “How about--is Lucky your husband’s nickname?”

         “Luis, that’s his given name. He travels. I don’t always know where.”

         “Forgive me for asking, but could Mister Esquivez have a girlfriend in the area?” Thinking maybe he knew the city well enough to lose Mrs. Esquivez. Maybe hoping to get lucky, or knowing he would.

         She wiped the corner of her eye and shrugged. It looked like a “yes” to me.

         The thousand dollars fit quite comfortably in my wallet. An alarm wailed in a dark recess of my brain like one of those irritating car alarms set off by the wind or an innocent passerby. “You’d better be careful about flashing those bills,” I said. “This isn’t Miami, you know.”

         She hesitated,
then
smiled. “That was a joke, wasn’t it?” She reached for a package of Kleenex in her purse and exposed a chrome-plated pistol underneath. Her eyes met mine, and she must have caught my look of concern. “I have a carry permit,” she said.
“Dade County.”

         “That’s no good here. Why do you need a pistol?”

         “You have to ask? It’s a dangerous world for a woman.” She seemed embarrassed at her oversight and promised to apply for a permit that afternoon. She dropped me off in Robby’s parking lot, and I hustled up the stairs to make phone calls and hook up the answering machine. Maybe she was right; a .32-caliber pistol made a fine deterrent to a potential rapist. At least I hoped so, but if the wacko grabbed the pistol away, then it became worse than nothing.

         As I opened the door to my office, I heard a rustling in the box on my desk. What could have attracted a rat’s interest so quickly? I banged on the side of the box, and a rat scurried out with a Tums clenched between its teeth.

         I threw the rest of the package at him. By the end of the day, he’d need them all.

         The first thing to do was call Lucky’s cousin. Maybe the two had hooked up already and Lucky hadn’t bothered to phone his wife. No one answered. A check of Saints Memorial and Lowell General Hospitals turned up no sign of Lucky. My stack of phone books covered a pair of area codes, including Boston. No obvious links to Lucky or Bonita Esquivez leaped off the pages, not that I was surprised. I thought of calling my choice list of no-tell trysting places outside the city, then decided to see them in person. Let them see the Polaroid so they could say, “Oh yeah, that’s Mister Smith. Checked in with Mrs. Smith at seven, checked out at eight.”

         When I called the Mill City Grand Hotel, my friend Elena Costanza told me that the bar opened at noon. I asked for the name and phone number of the bartender on duty last night. She asked me for a reason. I gave it and she graciously complied.

         Ask nicely, explain reasonably, and get results quickly. Would this become a pattern?

         Not likely.

         Outside, the wind screamed and rattled my office window. I left it open for a while to draw out the sundry odors. Why did Lucky and Bonita Esquivez stay overnight in Lowell?
No offense to my fair city, but the urban national park isn’t a big November draw.
Maybe Lucky had skipped town and left no forwarding address, just like the city’s economy.

By Bob Sanchez

Lowell, Massachusetts

The Big Belly Deli buzzed with the chatter of happy losers.

         “Who won the hundred million bucks last night?”

         “Not me!”

         “I wish!”

         “If only!”

         “I’ll win when pigs fly!”

         A dozen customers talked about striking it rich next time. Diet Cola looked over their heads as the TV news reporter interviewed the owner of the deli where the winning ticket had been sold. The skinny man looked into the camera and said he came from New Delhi.

         No, the owner said, the winner hadn’t come forward yet.

         The winning numbers were posted on a white board for everyone to see: 1-2-3-4-5-6. Diet Cola crumpled a fistful of losing tickets. What kind of lame numbers were those? He picked up a family-sized bag of Doritos, a package of Little Debbie snack cakes and a quart of half and half, which would have to get him through until lunchtime. He got in line.

         The bell over the front door jingled, and a white-haired couple walked in. The guy had a red bow tie and the broad had a straw hat with a flowing blue ribbon, straight out of a freak show if you asked Diet Cola. They stopped, looked at the board, and then traded puzzled expressions. The lady put on the glasses that dangled around her neck. The man, a tall dude, nodded as though analyzing each number in turn. Then he went back and did it again. Their faces brightened as though they’d gotten fixed up with new batteries.

         “My God, Carrick,” the woman said, “we w—”

         The guy put his fingers on her
lips,
old Carrick’s way of saying shut the hell up. The woman clutched her purse like it was a baby in a crowd of perverts. Without another word, they left the store.

         Diet Cola had to think faster than usual. In the afternoon he had to see his lawyer and arrange to turn himself in for some two-bit rap or other—dealing dope, shoplifting, punching a hole in a wall in the downtown Burger King—no, just possession, and Attorney Bernie promised six months max.

         He dropped his food on the floor and walked into the bright sunlight, spotting the couple arm in arm, half dancing across the parking lot.
They had his ticket!

         They jabbered on as he walked a few yards behind them. “We can’t tell anyone yet, Brodie. Let’s go home and take a deep breath.”

         “Can we set up a scholarship fund, Carrick? There are so many deserving children in the city.”

         “Anything you want. Of course we’ll share with our boys and their families. And we’ll go to Hawaii—I think I see
a lei
in my future.”

         She whacked his ass with her hat. “That would make three times this week. And it’s only Wednesday.”