Mission Road (Tres Navarre #6)(24)

“Let’s play it organic,” I said.

“Organic.”

“Yeah. You know. ‘How ’bout them Spurs? Nice weather. Wanna help us find Frankie’s killer?’ ”

“We’re so-o dead.”

THE VAN BUMPED UP THE DRIVEWAY.

I looked at Ralph and tried to gauge how he was doing.

Before we hooked up with his cousin, Ralph had called his sister and asked about the baby. His sister was worried out of her mind, frantic about Ana, furious with Ralph for running, but the baby was fine. She told Ralph all this, then demanded to speak to me.

“Stop him,” she told me. “He’s gonna get himself killed. You gotta stop him, bring him back to his daughter.”

I could hear Lucia Jr. in the background, banging on a pot and saying, Ab, ab, ab. I said, “I’ll do my best.”

“You’ll do it,” the sister insisted. “No accident Ralph came to you. You’re the one he respects the most. He’s told me that a million times. You gotta keep him from going over the edge.”

I didn’t bother protesting that we’d grown pretty far apart. I just promised again to do everything I could.

“You know why he got involved with the Whites, don’t you? You understand why he had to help Frankie?”

Before I could ask what she meant, the police came on the line and tried to negotiate with me. I hung up.

The call energized Ralph. He didn’t seem as depressed. He talked more. But there was also a new restlessness in his manner—a three-espresso buzz. I recognized it, unfortunately. It was the way Ralph acted when he was anticipating a fight.

He looked at me like he was following my thoughts. “My sister wanted you to hold my leash?”

“I guess.”

“She never figured I’d be the one with the wife and kid. She always figured I’d live that shit through you. You know?”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

The tamale truck slowed.

I hazarded a look out the front windshield, but Ralph’s cousin immediately hissed, “Get down!”

My brief glimpse was enough to show me why.

Ahead of us, where the driveway divided, an angry-looking blond woman and an Anglo man in a brown leather jacket stood waiting for us with all the seriousness of Nazis at a checkpoint.

“YOU’RE NEW,” THE WOMAN SNAPPED.

“Y-yes, ma’am.” Ralph’s cousin’s voice wobbled.

Withering silence.

I made myself small behind a column of tamale canisters.

“Deliveries don’t come through the front,” the woman said. “Why do you look so nervous?”

Her voice didn’t match the glimpse I’d gotten of her.

She’d looked young, like a pissed-off sorority girl, but she sounded like my third-grade teacher Mrs. Ziegler, with the steel-gray beehive and the paddle hanging from the chalkboard.

“S-sorry, ma’am,” Ralph’s cousin said. “I just don’t want to mess up this job.”

Footsteps crunched in the gravel—the leather jacket goon, making his way around to the back of the van.

I got my spiel ready, should he open the doors. I hoped I’d have time to smile and say “Would you like a free sample?” before he shot us.

Finally, the woman’s voice: “Around to the right. The kitchen entrance is marked. You can read?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ralph’s cousin exhaled. “Thank you.”

We lurched into drive.

I tried not to worry about the woman’s tone—suspicious, almost taunting. Why had she let us go so easily?

Ralph’s cousin rolled up his window.

“Good job, ese,” Ralph told him.

“Shit, man.” His cousin was sweating as much as we were. “Did you see that lady’s eyes? I think she was going to gut me.”

“She couldn’t be older than college age,” I said.

The cousin glanced back at me. “College for what? Ax murderers?”

The back lawn was the size of a football field and just about as busy. Workers were draping garlands on the bandstand gazebo, erecting a large white tent pavilion next to the swimming pool, setting up buffet tables and covering them in plastic to protect against the weather. At the far edge of the property, where the ground sloped down to a stand of live oaks along the banks of Olmos Creek, electricians were stringing the entire forest with Christmas lights.

“Intimate party tonight,” Ralph guessed.

“For a thousand friends,” I agreed.

The cousin parked the van. Seconds later, he opened our doors.

“Clear,” he reported unconvincingly.

Ralph and I climbed out, half baked in grease. Ralph’s jacket steamed in the cold air.

“Two cans of pork.” The cousin shoved canisters at me. “Ralph, you take the two venison. I’m gone. Don’t tell me how your visit turns out.”

“Thanks, ese,” Ralph said.

“Relatives,” the cousin grumbled.

By the time we’d lugged our tamales to the service entrance, the cousin’s van had disappeared around the drive.

Inside, Guy White’s kitchen was a cavern of white marble and chrome, bigger than any apartment I’d ever lived in. The counters overflowed with gourmet food, catering trays, grocery bags, vases of flowers. I was too busy getting the crap burned out of my hands to notice much else about my surroundings until I found a free space to park my tamales.