Oscar took a second look. Papers on the desk disheveled, letters and envelopes in disarray. Smudges on the polished ebony shelves. Someone had been in here.
Adams was in the corner, where a tall black safe stood sentry duty. He tugged on the L-shaped handle. “Safe’s locked up tight.”
Brody examined the top drawer of the desk. He ran his finger over a deep gouge, as if someone had used a sharp instrument to pry it open. He tugged and it slid open, the lock rattling brokenly. Inside was a stack of hundred-dollar bills. “Somebody was looking for something here.” Brody rubbed his chin. “And again, it wasn’t money.”
Oscar glanced at Adams, feeling a tiny thrill of vindication. Adams narrowed his eyes and glared.
Brody straightened up. “Mr. Dominguez, Señora Garcia. You have been a great help. Before you leave, give your particulars to Adams here in case we have more to talk about.”
Adams fished a notebook from his jacket pocket and licked the pointy end of a stubbed pencil. “Don’t suppose you have a telephone?” he asked after he took down Oscar’s address, his tone bordering on insult.
Oscar bit out the number for thesociedades. “They’ll get a message to me.”
Oscar gathered his few belongings from the room behind the kitchen and pushed out the back door. He felt watchful eyes burning the back of his neck as he passed by the greenhouse. What did Adams think, that the Mexican help was going to steal one of Roy Lester’s precious orchids? Those delicate flowers would be dead within days with no one to water them, not that he cared.Let them die and good riddance. Perhaps Adams worried that Oscar would get in Roy Lester’s Rolls-Royce and drive it away? Or take the buttercream Packard or the red Mercedes Gazelle? He needn’t worry. Oscar didn’t want anything from Lester but what was owed to him.
He inserted the crank in his old Ford and gave it a violent twist. Adams was suspicious and that scared him. Oscar hadn’t lied to Brody, not exactly. But he hadn’t told him everything. He could feel a trickle of sweat on his brow. He pulled out the throttle and cranked again.
Por favor.Start.
Adams was still watching him. Probably itching to pull out his handcuffs.
Oscar’s heart was pounding in his ears. Why hadn’t he come clean? He didn’t owe the woman in the green dress anything. The engine caught. Oscar stood and pulled out his handkerchief, wiping the sweat from his face before he got into the auto. He drove past the gatehouse and turned onto Canyon Road.
When he reached a wide spot, he pulled over and took the Ford out of gear, letting out a long breath. Guilt pricked him. Roy Lester had been murdered while Oscar had slept in the garden shed. Should he mourn the man? He couldn’t. Oscar had too many worries of his own to spare more on agringo.
He was out of a job. They couldn’t manage on what Roman and Angel made in the packing house and his mother’s laundry wages. The rent was due, and it didn’t look like Victoria Lester would be coming through with his wages. If he didn’t have the money by Monday, they’d be packing up by Monday night.
But the girl. His stomach twisted into a tight knot. Had the girl he picked up really killed Lester? She could have. She’d been shakenand pale. She’d been desperate. And he had helped her get away. What did they call that—aiding and abetting a fugitive?
He could go to prison.
Oscar groaned and laid his forehead on the steering wheel. What had he done?Estupido. But all he had thought of as Brody questioned him was that if the girl had killed Lester and the police found out that he’d helped her get away, he’d be arrested. Then, when he saw the bedroom... Something wasn’t right. And he wasn’t so sure she was guilty after all.
The girl he’d picked up on the road was a featherweight, but from the look of Roy Lester’s bedroom, there’d been a struggle worthy of Jack Dempsey. And the knife. Oscar was at least three inches taller than the girl he’d had in his automobile, and he would have had to stretch to reach the spot where that knife had hung. How would she have reached it?
Something smelled wrong.
Besides, what did it matter now if she was guilty or innocent anyway? He couldn’t turn her in. She’d point right back at him, and the police—Adams, most likely—wouldn’t think twice before arresting him. Then what would Mamá do? How would Roman and Angel manage? Oscar rubbed a hand over his forehead.Miércoles.Why hadn’t the girl listened to Max, who’d warned her not to get mixed up with Lester?
Max.
Oscar straightened up. Max had no love for Roy Lester. He’d made that clear to the girl last night. Could he have killed him? Would he have left the girl there alone? Max Perez wasn’t a murderer, but Max Clark was different. Max Clark brought trouble and left pain in his wake. He cared for no one but himself. Suspicion grew in Oscar’s mind. Oscar had vowed never to speak to Maxagain—not in this life or the next. But this was for Mamá and Roman and Angel. This was life or death. He put the auto into gear and threw gravel as he pulled back onto the road. He’d get answers from Max if he had to beat them out of him.
Max had taken enough from Oscar and his family. Oscar wouldn’t go to prison for him.
——————
Oscar’s heart hammered. A police automobile sat on the corner of Canyon and Sunset, waiting while he passed. It pulled out behind him. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and tried to stay steady. Two blocks later, the black auto with the white lettering turned onto Glendale. He took a breath like he’d been underwater and pushed his auto as fast as it could go without making smoke.
Sunset Boulevard was already crowded with Cadillacs and Packards, women in furs, men in suits that cost more than a year of his rent. Oscar’s stomach clenched tight. He’d heard Max was living in a ritzy place in the middle of Hollywood. The last time he saw his cousin—other than through the hedge at Roy’s—Oscar had beaten Max bloody. Max had never shown his face in thecoloniaagain.
There. He slowed the rattling automobile when he saw the sign for the Garden of Allah hotel and bungalows. He turned into a driveway guarded by palm trees and a pair of tall cedars. He followed the curved drive lined with sharp-leafed birds-of-paradise and passed a sprawling main house of whitewashed stucco flanked with calla lilies, marigolds, and zinnias. Max Perez had come a long way from thecolonia. And when he’d had the chance, he’d shed his people—his heritage—like a snake shedding its skin.
Oscar caught the sparkle of a kidney-shaped swimming pool,and a woman’s laughter floated across the manicured grass. Ahead, a line of matching bungalows alternated with overgrown hedges of rhododendrons. A yellow LaSalle roadster—Max’s, he knew fromcoloniagossip—was parked crookedly in front of a bungalow like an expensive toy abandoned by a child.
Anger burned like a well-stoked fire in his belly. While Oscar’s brothers worked fourteen-hour shifts and Mamá took in laundry, Max lived the high life with fast cars and swimming pools. Was there no justice in this world?
Max had abandoned them all. Mamá, who had treated him like her own son. Oscar, who had fought beside him—defended him—called him his brother when the other boys called him a bastard. Max was anamericanonow, someone Oscar didn’t even recognize and someone—Oscar had discovered the hard way, the tragic way—with no honor. Oscar would rather see his children grow up poor with honor than rich and turn out like Max.
