Big Red Tequila (Tres Navarre #1)(24)

Ralph spread his hands. "You think about your papa’s enemies—Mr. White’s familia, one; the whole city council, two; half the SAPD, three. Some paranoid people with things to lose, man. If you scared somebody bad enough—"

“How?" I interrupted, a little louder than I meant to. "I don’t have shit on anybody, Ralphas."

For a moment the talking at the counter died down. One of the waitresses glanced over, frowning. Ralph just sat back lazily and shrugged.

"Maybe somebody doesn’t see it that way, vato. The question is, what now? You play good boy? Wait around for orders?"

I wanted to hit something. Instead I just stared at Ralph’s black floating eyes.

"He was my father, Ralphas. What was I supposed to do?"

Ralph nodded. "Eh, vato, you don’t have to tell me—"

Then his voice trailed off.

An older Mexican man had come into the cafe and was walking toward our table. His balding forehead was shiny with sweat. He was a large man, probably used to people getting out of his way, but he shuffled toward Ralph like there was a heavy collar around his neck. Ralph didn’t offer him a chair. He just grinned. The man looked at me uncertainly; Ralph waved his hand in a dismissive gesture.

"Don’t worry about him," he told the man in Spanish, then to me: “Only speakie Inglés, eh, compadre?"

I shrugged my shoulders and tried to look lost. It wasn’t hard.

I half listened while the man told Ralph about his money problems. He needed to pay the mortgage; he’d been sick and unable to work. Ralph listened patiently, then pulled out a straight razor and set it on the  able. Almost absently, he unfolded the polished blade from its well-worn black leather sheath and stroked it with his little finger. Still in Spanish, he said, "She’s your wife. If I hear about you getting drunk again, or yelling, or threatening her boys, I will slice your fingers off and make you eat them." He said it calmly.

Then Ralph laid out ten fifty-dollar bills on the table next to the razor. The man tried to keep his hands from shaking as he scooped up the money. He didn’t succeed. When he’d left, Ralph looked at me.

“My newest stepfather." He smiled. "Like I was saying, you don’t have to tell me about dead fathers, vato. I been the man in my family since I was twelve."

Then he put away his razor.

As I left the Blanco Cafe, the whole West Side was coming to life. More working men poured in for migas and coffee. Old Mexican grandmothers, each one as large as my VW and twice as loud, lumbered down the street from market to market, haggling as they went. And Ralph sat at his table in the middle of it all, grinning.

"I got twelve pawnshops to check on before noon, vato," he called after me. "Not bad for a poor boy, eh?"

I drove away thinking about twelve-year-olds with razor blades, about white women alone on Zarzamora Street in the middle of the night, about a hole in a brown Stetson hat.

Conjunto music was crying on every car radio up and down Blanco.

17

After an hour of tai chi and a shower, my thoughts weren’t exactly clearer, but I’d regained my balance somewhat. Tai chi is good that way. It teaches you to yield before you advance. You let events push you around for a while, you keep your footing, then you push back. And I was pretty sure now where to start pushing.

By noon I was back in La Villita, standing on the porch of Hecho a Mano Gallery and trying to work my Discover card across the sidebolt. I’ve never been very good with the trick, but this time the old oak door gave up almost immediately. It swung open with the same relieved "Arrrr” that Robert Johnson makes in the sandbox.

I closed the door behind me. A sign had fallen off the windowsill that read: "Out to Lunch—B. "

Never a truer word, I thought.

The lights were off in the main room, but huge blocks of sun came in from the craftsman windows. It was enough to see that the place was a disaster. Podiums had been turned over. Skeleton statues lay in colorful pieces on the stone floor, hip bones not connected to the thigh bones. The drawers were upside down on top of Lillian’s big oak desk.

I checked the framing room and the rest room. Both trashed. A twenty-pound wooden milagro-studded cross from Guadalajara was sticking out of the shattered computer monitor. Photographic prints of cowboys had been ripped out of their frames. Even the toilet paper dispenser had been kicked open.

I picked up a black spiral binder from a mount of papers fluttering around under the ceiling fan. Lillian’s datebook. I moved into the shadows of the bathroom and started reading.

Inside, on the July page, one note indicated the day I was coming into town. It was starred and circled. Under Sunday night, the last time I’d seen her, Lillian had written "Dinner 8." Not surprisingly, there was no mention of a trip to Laredo for Monday morning. In fact, no other dates at all.

I flipped back over the last few months. March and April were full of “Dan” messages, especially around Fiesta Week. Then they stopped. Lillian’s last date with Dan, at least the last one she’d recorded, was for the River Parade in late April. My number in San Francisco was written a few spaces after that. Maybe I should’ve been flattered, but something about the timing bothered me.

I flipped ahead. Lillian had scribbled random phone numbers and reminders on the memoranda page at the back of last year, but that was it. None of the information jumped out at me. I ripped out the page anyway. I went back into the framing room and dug around in the ruined prints. Somebody had bashed open a locked storage closet in the corner and strewn its contents around. About the only thing interesting was a canvas portfolio, three by three, with the initials “B.K." on it. The laminated leaves were bent and torn. One had a rather large shoe print on it--no grooves, pointed toe, a boot.